Where the Bird Sings Best by Alejandro Jodorowsky Page B

could be baptized Salvador according to custom, but two years later another girl was born. She was named Sara Luz, a combination of her luminous gaze with the name of Luna’s deceased mother. Now, she was a saint who one day suffered an attack of fervor and devoured a complete volume of the Talmud. Unfortunately, she was incapable of digesting the thick sheets of parchment and died with the swollen stomach of a pregnant woman.
    The first girl was given Abravanel’s red shoes as a talisman and the second, the violet leather bag containing the Tarot. Thirteen years went by. The two little women, despite the difference in their age, had their periods on the same day, at the same hour. Luna woke them at midnight and led them out of the house while Salvador pretended to be asleep. A group of ladies was waiting for them. Their mother ordered her daughters to remove their nightgowns, and then she undressed as well. Other women who were also menstruating joined them. They began to dance among the recently made furrows in the fields so their blood would flow down their legs and make a good crop of wheat grow.
    They were having the time of their lives, beating drums and singing, when they saw in the distance a group of husbands waving torches. They quickly put their clothes back on and anxiously waited. Until then that feminine ceremony had never been interrupted by men.
    Pale, Salvador spoke to the women: “We’re very sorry, but you have to return to the village immediately. There’s been a fresh outbreak of anti-Semitism. Over in the next village, they first raped Rabbi Scholomo’s widow, then cut her into pieces and burned down her shack.”
    As they all ran to lock themselves inside their houses, Felicidad said to her mother, “Papa should take up a collection so we can buy weapons!”
    “Weapons? How can a daughter of mine talk like that? God will punish you! If we deserve to be defended, He will do it. The sacred commandments forbid Jews to spill human blood.”
    That night they had trouble falling asleep. The moon tinged the sky with red. The dogs never stopped barking. Sara Luz got out her Tarot, shuffled the deck, and picked three with her eyes closed. When she opened them, she screamed. She refused to say what she saw. The hours passed. Just before dawn, concealing themselves in the noise of a heavy rain, ten black shadows opened the door of the school with professional skill.
    On the second floor, they found three families who shared the farm work with the Arcavis. In minute they bound and gagged the men, who made not the slightest gesture to defend themselves. They stripped the women—three adults and four children—bare and locked them in the bathroom. They then went out only to return, following, making great signs of respect, a corpulent man wearing a leather mask and a bearskin coat.
    In despotic fashion he stretched out his enormous hand, and a shadow, saluting the whole time, handed him a well-sharpened kitchen knife. The masked man took off his overcoat and revealed his erect phallus, itself of extraordinary size. His servants, kicking her and dragging her by the hair, pulled a woman out of the bathroom. As soon as she saw the monster, she ran for the door, went out into the rain, and began to shriek. The aggressor caught her there, and with one blow cut off her head. He took hold of her body and drank the steaming spurts of blood from her arteries. Then he threw himself on the headless corpse to penetrate her while he grunted with pleasure. Staggering like a drunk, he went back into the school. Making brutal gestures, he shook the knife. They let loose a little girl. He chased and cornered her. The child fell to her knees and showed her face bathed in tears. The first thrust of the knife hit her in the eye. Ninety-nine more followed.
    Upstairs, on the third floor, Salvador, Luna, and their two little girls heard everything: the cries of the women, their bare feet scrambling over the cold floor, the deep