Satanás Himself
The story of how my grandmother exposed the Devil
Just a hundred years ago, the land of Ecuador was magical and occupied a space between the light and the dark. Just as holy miracles were real, so were the demons and dead that walked among us. It was about a hundred years ago that little Maria Torres, in the coastal town of La Libertad, Ecuador, met Satan himself.
Maria’s parents, Amada and Pedro, dressed up in their Sunday best, perfumed up, and left their daughter with strict instructions on how to take care of the little ones. Before leaving the front door, they turned to Maria and made the sign of the cross on her forehead, her dark curls getting in the way. Blessings were part of the culture, but this child seemed to need it more than most.
The child, just eight years old, left to care for three younger siblings, was mature enough to get them to bed and curious enough to want to see what happened out there at night. She warmed the milk for the baby, told her sisters scary stories about the demon Tintin, and tucked everyone in bed. She climbed into the thin, spring bed with her sisters but left the blankets untucked on her side for an easier escape. She stared out the cinder block window imagining the wonders the adults escaped to on weekends like this.
When the siblings’ breathing became heavy, Maria slipped out of bed, still in her daytime dress, put on her sandals made of thin leather, and stepped out of the kitchen door. The chickens were asleep and the dogs, slightly perturbed at the movement, assumed the little girl was going to the outhouse and lowered their heads back to the mud ground. The girl quietly stepped onto the dirt street and looked down the road. Empty. The stories her mother told of spirits and headless horsemen flashing through her mind, she made her way quickly down the street and up the hill to the restaurant that served as a dancehall in the evenings. She just wanted a peek.
The walk to Sabor was three times longer in the darkness than in the daylight. Maria’s legs spun, as did her head, but the restaurant couldn’t get close fast enough. Watching from behind a lamppost as the adults greeted one another at the door and walked into the glowing dining room, she planned her entrance. When the next set of unrecognizable faces walked in, she’d slink among them and hide under a table.
In the daytime, Sabor had simple wooden tables, but at night the owner would drape the tables with hand-sewn tablecloths to give the place a more classy feel. Little Maria slipped in with a group of six people, walking right up behind them and close enough that the people inside wouldn’t see her. As the unsuspecting adults took a seat at a table, Maria slipped under the empty one just next to it.
Maria didn’t know there would be tablecloths protecting her; she giggled at her luck. She watched as the adults ate and drank at their tables. She watched as they hopped and shuffled on the makeshift dance floor. She watched as the small band played music she could only hear in other people’s houses. She had got her fill and was ready to head back home when the man walked in.
The man, as an older Maria would recount, was white, tall, blonde, and had a front tooth of gold. He walked in wearing a full white suit, fedora, and bejeweled cane. The moment he walked in, the women of the place became fixated on the man and the temperature of the room went up. Coastal Ecuador is a warm, humid place; this was more bonfire warm. Intrigued by the way the man carried himself, Maria stayed put.
The man walked over to the table where Maria was hidden and leaned his cane on the table. He immediately made eye contact with a young woman of about twenty sitting across the room with her family and invited her with his hand to the dance floor. She immediately complied and the two were soon slowly swaying to a bolero, her hands and body softening to his touch, and his gold tooth gleaming from his half-smile.
Maria was too scared to move now. With the cane so close, she worried she might disturb it and make it fall. The wood facing Maria made her shiver — something about the grain’s intense pattern gave the cane its own soul. Maria watched from between folds in the cloth as the man danced from one partner to another. At times it seemed the wives of some men were willingly the man’s dance partner, at other times, it seemed the husbands were offering him their wives. Once they touched the man, their bodies melted like the candles at church.
The blonde man’s eyes would squint when he smiled but he didn’t seem to blink, at least not as Maria saw. She looked for her parents in the restaurant but gladly didn’t see Pedro offer Amada to this strange man. Getting sleepy, Maria started turning to find her way to the front door when a pair of white pant legs took a seat in the chair next to the cane.
Maria froze. Suddenly, thoughts of her siblings alone in the house flooded her senses. Her breathing shortened. Sweat beads grew on her forehead. She grew increasingly aware of the trouble she found herself in with her parents just a few meters away. When Maria turned to look at her captor, she saw that the cloth of the pant leg was made of a fine linen and his shoes were so shiny she could see her reflection, even in the dark. But then, something flicked.
The sudden movement distracted her from the skinny, hairy legs that bridged the pant legs to the shoes. Her eyes, now wide with terror, focused on the tail shaking excitedly just at the opening of the pants. The tail was long, brown, and furry, with an end like that of a donkey, darker in color and almost spear-shaped at the point.
The little girl, fixated by the appendage, did what any kid would do when faced with the tail of a farm animal so close to their face. Not out of malice but out of curiosity. She reached for it and gave it a pull.
As the crooner wailed about why he both hated and loved some poor woman, the man with the golden tooth leaped and let out a growl so deep it vibrated the cracked wood floorboards of the restaurant. The musicians screeched to a halt. The entire restaurant turned as the man’s hat fell back and unveiled, between his locks of hair, two thumb-lengthed horns, the color of blackened toenails. Maria could hear the blink of an older gentleman two tables away.
“Satanás,” a woman screamed. The man, showing more gold in his teeth, highlighted by a deep red, forked tongue that reached down to his chin, grabbed his jeweled cane, picked up the hat, and walked briskly, and confidently, out the front door. Maria ran outside with a few other brave souls, and saw as the man, no longer wearing his suit, galloped off on legs like that of a goat, howling intermittently at the moon as he ran down the dirt street.
Sensing her parents would soon discover her, Maria ran off in the opposite direction, towards home, her chanclas barely holding on. She ran through the kitchen door, changed into the pajamas she had ready on a chair, and climbed into bed next to her sister, who barely shifted in her deadened sleep. While she worked to control her breath, she closed her eyes as tightly as she could and prayed the rosary as best she could remember. By the time her parents arrived a few minutes later, speaking loudly of the evil they witnessed, her breathing was controlled but her heart was not.
Maria listened as they prepared coffee over a fire stove; there would be no sleep for the adults tonight. She could hear her parents arguing over the details of their night.
He was a gringo.
No, he was from la sierra.
I knew he was up to no good.
No, you wanted to dance with him. I could see it in your flirtatious eyes.
Maria smiled from just one thin-walled room over, lucky to have not been caught. She sighed. The smile vanished when she heard her father crack, “I know one thing: it had to take a devil to out the Devil himself.”
If the Devil was real, so were miracles. Maria squeezed her eyes tight and returned to her Hail Marys.
The story you’ve just read was told many times over the lifetime of Maria Amada Torres, my maternal grandmother. Each child and grandchild will tell the story differently and each will attest that the story is true. Magical realism, where we come from, is simply real.
Follow me on Twitter: @MrCLedesma
Want to keep reading? Use my affiliate link to become a Medium member today.
