Silver Nitrate(64)

“No, of course not.”

“My aunt was, as I said, an avid fan of the tarot, astrology, the Ouija board. All those activities. She met Ewers at some party or another. He was an aspiring actor and part-time fortune teller. He’d read palms at the gatherings of socialites. She quickly took a shine to him.”

“He wanted to act?” Montserrat asked.

“Very much so. She thought he had something, and tried to show him a few tricks. How to pose, how to speak. He was a performer back then, but not a very good one. Not yet,” Marisa said, and she gestured to a heavy green glass ashtray. Tristán handed it to her with a polite tilt of the head.

“But he never got into movies. Except for Beyond the Yellow Door and his bit role there. Three scenes,” Montserrat said.

“Did Abel tell you about the book?”

“The House of Infinite Wisdom. He let us read it.”

“Then you know about Ewers’s magic system,” Marisa said. “An eclectic mix of occult learning, with digressions into the nature of the elements, and a theory about the importance of sound, film, and spectacle. I said he wanted to act, not that he wanted to be a movie star. The ‘act’ was the magic.”

The smoke rose from Marisa’s parted lips, shrouding her face for a second before she waved the thin veil away and smiled.

“My aunt paid for several…I suppose you’d call them ‘screen tests,’ except Ewers wasn’t trying out for a part. He was attempting to find the right combination of film, light, sound, movements, voice, that would allow him to cast spells. He thought cultures of old strengthened their magic with pyramids, even embedding spells into the stones that served as foundations for these buildings. He thought you could do the same with film. It’s all there, in that book, if you read it carefully. Of course, that’s what my aunt said. I never saw a copy of it. She got rid of his possessions ages ago.”

“She financed a whole film for him. One would have thought she would have wanted to keep a few of his things, seeing as she loved him that much. Why did she confiscate the film rolls and destroy them?” Montserrat asked.

“There was no point in finishing the film, not when he was dead.”

“Even though it was practically finished?”

“It was not practically finished.”

“Abel believed everyone connected to the movie suffered from bad luck because it was not concluded. When your aunt called him, she wanted a bit of film that he had kept. She told him he’d be sorry if he didn’t comply with her request. I think she was worried about the magic Ewers embedded in the film, like those pyramids you mentioned.”

Marisa raised her glass, holding it at eye level and looking at Montserrat above the rim, frowning.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Not if you’ve read his book. Which I have. Why did your aunt destroy that film?”

Marisa’s eyes narrowed sharply, she pursed her lips.

“He started a cult, recruited followers. She loved it, at first. He did his magic tricks, and they seemed to yield results. And she’d always had a hankering for that sort of game. She believed in magic, in a special power controlling the universe. Besides, he was handsome. Charming.”

“What happened?”

“He wasn’t quite as charming anymore.”

“He had a new girlfriend, was that it?”

Marisa stubbed her cigarette in the ashtray. Her manicured hands now toyed with the glass, which was practically empty.

“He wanted power, that’s what my aunt said. No, I don’t know the specifics of what that means, but I do know his cult and his spells were making her nervous. Ewers was becoming reckless. It’s one thing to cut off a rooster’s head, and another to steal a corpse from a cemetery.

“He was always trying to perfect his magic. When he died, my aunt destroyed his things because some of the people in that cult were crazy. True fanatics who would have done God knows what with his possessions. She thought he’d died, and that magic nonsense should die with him. Abel passed away, right? Well, you should ask Clarimonde Bauer and José López about that, they were his most beloved disciples and they both are practicing magicians to this very day.”

“You’re kidding,” Tristán said. “What, they’re still following his teachings?”

“Clarimonde Bauer kept reprinting his works for years and years. She only stopped with the book because she fell into financial duress. José López still goes around with a flask of graveyard dirt under his shirt and a chicken foot to cast hexes. And if you look around the city, you’ll see Ewers’s runes pop up here and there, among the graffiti.”

“His runes,” Montserrat said. “You mean his cult is still active?”

“My aunt doesn’t only spend time in Acapulco because of the weather. A few years ago, when she had that stroke, she felt it was related to Ewers. That someone or some people were casting spells using his magic system. She saw runes on an abandoned building, not far from here, and recognized them. Since then, she tries to stay away from Mexico City as much as she can. There is still magic in these streets, magic Ewers once wielded. His congregation may not be as numerous as it was when he was alive, and Clarimonde’s money does not stretch as far as it once did. But there are always true believers who recall the good old days.”