Years ago, after I had urged him to tell me a ghost story, he said, in a somber tone, looking away from me, "It is not good to talk too much about ghosts," then he resumed eating a slice of water pear.
Disappointed, I decided to ask a practical question, for we were sitting in the kitchen, in which he liked to talk. There he was The Storyteller. One had only to say, "Abuelo, tell us about construction days"--a favorite topic with him--and one was guaranteed two hours, at least, of stories, some of which he ended by saying, "This is true, you know. True, true."
I said, "What's the best way to beat an evil spirit?"
"Suppose you see an evil spirit," he said, "singing a song, or you hear him beating a drum, or you hear him walking, you can scare him away."
I asked him what he meant and he explained that one had to throw a fireball--a sort of firecracker--in the spirit's path. The spirit would vanish.
"Not prayers at all times drive the spirit. You have to know the ENTERITY of a spirit. Especially when it's guarding a fortune."
"Enterity?" I had never heard the word before.
Grandfather seemed unwilling to explain further except to nod and say, "Yes. When they're guarding a fortune, it's more difficult. Some spirits drink a lot of liquor. Some don't drink at all. The spirits that drink, you can move away. . . ."
I then asked him whether he had met any ghosts in Panama, face to face. He answered, quite casually, that he had met with several, one of which held him in a vise until a woman in a pale gown intervened by restraining the First Ghost.
"Who was the woman-ghost?" I said.
He said, "Her name was Encarnacion Escobar.--
A woman I knew before I met your grandmother.--That woman loved me, and she died. And one night I was at a certain place and a voice said, 'Luke More, come and kiss me,' and I said, 'All right,' and I crossed and kissed her." He sighed deeply. "And that was the same woman that saved me. That was a good woman."
--From Chapter 1
by YOLANDA A. REID
