Swallow, Starving Faithful | ONC 2020

5. VAN A EMPEZAR A VOLVER A ESTE MUNDO.

I had no idea there was a basement. With a stolen key, Valentina leads us into the deserted gymnasium, that multipurpose structure I had never seen in near darkness. There is moonlight streaming through those innocent jalousie windows, sweeping over the stacked chairs and overturned table and other deconstructed components of our morning service. There's a basement stairwell we all stream down. It leads to a spacious room full of stacked hay bales and wooden crates. 

With a jump, I notice a black hen pecking at the concrete floor. This is an absurd, barn-like place beneath the gymnasium, and somehow, I knew it existed. It looks halfway between a farm and some old wine cellar; I get the feeling it has been used for many things along the years, wedged within the wet earth long before its mother building was revamped into Lo Vásquez Retiro. 

Some girls carry oil lamps. They light the room enough to see two large pots brewing away. Both pots smell horrid, like some witches' brew. I wonder if I'm about to witness black magic, and if this broth will be used to poison me. There are two more girls hunched over these pots; Valentina walks over to them, gestures for a wooden bowl. I realise: Oh, this is where the bowls have gone, this is why I must eat porridge on a plastic plate, because these girls have taken the bowls. Valentina runs her bowl through the left pot, fills it to the brim with that eerie liquid, and raises it to her lips. She drinks. 

After a moment, she says yes, our chicha is good. Chicha de coyol. It's no witches concoction—it's homemade alcohol. I assume it is some type of illegal mixture they fashion in the gipsy hills.
Some girls flop down on haybales and crates while others go to serve themselves the chicha. This is no ghastly ritual—this is a fiesta! I linger awkwardly in the middle of it all, keeping as close to Bernadette as possible. She has the quality of being visible anywhere in this chaotic setting. I need only to skim my eyes around and wait till they hitch on a void-like gash. 

After a few minutes, I ask Bernadette what chicha really is. "Eh, I mean," she tilts that sack of a head to the side, taking a sip from her own bowl. "No fucking clue. This isn't chicha, really, it's not. They just call it that because they made authentic chicha way back. This uses fermented apples, rice and who knows what else. Look, they're making more in the other pot."

I gaze into the other pot and wish I hadn't. Flaky, colourless apples are willowing around in a murky mildew. Each one is a maimed planet in orbit, swirling around to eventually convert into a very drinkable poison. These are my misdoings in a melting pot, this is forbidden fruit and I'm being pressured to drink it. This is the pot of first, fermented sin. No, thank you. 

"Is it safe?"

"Could be."

"I think I'll leave. Sorry. I can't stomach even the sight of it."

"Don't. You're here now."

"Bernadette, where did you learn to speak good English?"

"Eh?"

"I just wanted something to distract me from this... dangerous, homemade moonshine..."
Bernadette laughs, causing that dishevelled facial fabric to stretch and shrink. Numerous heads turn and the fiesta dampens; they really are afraid of her. "Girl, all moonshine is like that. That's what makes it moonshine."

"Really?"

"Yeah. But, if I have to answer your question, my parents were English teachers, I think. That's why I'm Americanised. Well, could be."

"If you'll let me ask, I'd—" 

"Enough of this asking, girl. Drink it."

She passes me her bowl of chicha, which I very reluctantly hold in my hands. Lord, do not let this pool, do not tempt me, Lord.