The Valkyries

going on!”
    “What’s happening?”
    “You know, Paulo! Explain it to me, for God’s sake!”
    He hung up before he heard something he didn’t want to hear. It wasn’t a delayed drug effect. It wasn’t a symptom of insanity. It wasn’t a heart attack. It was real. Argelia had participated in the rituals, and “that” was happening to her, too.
    He panicked. He sat there without thinking for a few minutes, and the darkness began to take him over, coming closer and closer, causing him to step to the edge of the lake of death.
    He was going to die—for everything he had done without believing, for the many people he had involved without knowing it, for so much evil spread about in the name of what was good. He would die, and the Darkness would go on, because it was manifesting itself now, before his very eyes, demonstrating that things really worked, collecting what was owed for the time in which it had been used, and he had to pay—because he didn’t want to know what the price was before, thought it was for free, that everything was a lie or just suggestion!
    His years in the Jesuit school came back to him, and he prayed for the strength needed to get back to a church,
ask forgiveness, pray that at least God would save his soul. He had to be able to do it. He found that as long as he could keep his mind busy, he was able to dominate the dizziness, at least partly. He needed time to get to the church … What a ridiculous idea!
    He looked at the bookcase, and resolved that he would calculate how many records he owned—after all, he had always put that task off! Yes, it was important to know the exact number of records, and he began to count: one, two, three … he did it! He was able to overcome the dizziness, the black hole that was pulling him in. He counted all of the records—and then counted them again, to make certain he was correct. Now the books. He had to count in order to know how many books he had. Did he have more books than records? He began to count. The dizziness halted, and he had so many books. And magazines. And alternative newspapers. He would count everything, write it down, really know how many things he owned. It was so important.
    He was counting the silverware when he heard the key turn in the lock. She was here, finally. But he couldn’t allow himself to be distracted—he couldn’t even talk about what was happening; any moment now, it was all going to stop. He was certain of it.
    She went straight to the kitchen, and hugged him, crying.
    “Help me! Something strange is happening. You know what it is, help me!”
    He didn’t want to lose his count of the silverware—that was his salvation. Keep the mind busy. Better if she hadn’t arrived—it didn’t help. And she thought the same as Argelia—that he knew everything, that he knew how to stop it.
    “Keep your mind busy!” he shouted, as if he were possessed. “Count how many records you have! And how many books!”
    She looked at him without understanding what he was talking about. Like a robot, she walked to the bookcase.
    But she didn’t get there. She suddenly threw herself to the floor.
    “I want my mother…” she said, over and over. “I want my mother…”
    He did too. He wanted to phone his parents, ask for help—his parents whom he never saw, who belonged to a middle-class world he had abandoned long ago. He tried to go on with the silverware count, but she was there, crying like a child, pulling at her hair.
    That was too much. He was responsible for what was happening, because he loved her, and had taught her the rituals, guaranteed that she could get what she wanted, that things were improving day by day (although he
never for a moment believed what he was saying!). Now she was there, begging for help, trusting in him—and he had no idea what to do.
    For a moment, he thought of issuing an order, but he had already lost his silverware count, and the black hole came back suddenly with even greater strength.
    “You help me,” he said. “I don’t know what to do.”
    And he began to cry.
    He was crying out of fear, as when he was a child. He wanted his parents, as she did. He was bathed in a cold sweat, and was certain he would die. He seized her hand, and her hands were cold, too, even though her clothing was soaked in perspiration. He went to the bathroom to wash his face—as he used to do when the effects of the drugs were really strong. Maybe it would work with regard to “that,” too. The