The Unction

We carry out the unction for our aging father on the dining room table, anointing him with a variety of substances: stale lake water, ripe oil that dripped down the jagged walls of caves back home, that spiced, buttery potion that our mother makes just like her own mother did, brewed on the stove for an hour with cumin and coriander, turmeric and cardamom pods, entire cinnamon sticks, three drops of blood.

Rubbing that old magic, that oily-shine, all over his limbs.

He slaps our hands away but remains flat on the table. A stained undershirt hangs loosely around his soft, pale brown shoulders. He falls asleep several times, snoring like a low fog horn, awakening to our glistening hands on his legs, his dry feet.

I’m not dead yet, he screams. Repeats it in our language. I’m not your plaything, your wedding goat, your serpent, your village child, your white devil.

It’s the third equinox of his illness. The magic is failing him, his mind is going, and he is a long way away from home. We, his children, have only known these East Coast American winters of bitter snows and purple-hued skies. We have come to spend time with our father. Trying to learn the old magic again, trying to see through the dark weave of his curse. There is nothing to be done, says our Aunt. We ignore her. We discuss a trip back to the homeland, to the daughter of the old witch doctor in the old village. He is too frail to travel. We repeat after our mother, chanting the old prayers to the gods, for the first time in years. Our mother takes over, reciting the spells she learned from her mother and her mother’s mother and that we can no longer follow. We turn to our father, half-asleep in his chair. We chant before each meal. We eat rice and chicken, sour flatbread, and ripe cherries. Then we push our father onto the table, roll up his sleeves and his pants legs. Unbutton his shirt. Rub the hallowed oil into his skin. Lay the amulets on his chest.

This unction is not a Catholic or Orthodox sacrament but a sacred rite untouched by Jesus or modernity or civil wars. It is the same words spoken thousands of years ago, words that hold magic from our ancient, fragrant hills—anointment of ‘abo. We are trying to heal him. Dad keeps forgetting why we are anointing him, starts crying as he hears the sacred words, keeps forgetting the day, the hour, though not yet forgetting our names. Sometimes, he remembers it all so clearly that we realize we are the ones who have forgotten the truth; he is our father, we are the children. Sometimes, he falls asleep and wakes up confused, thinking he is back home, tracing divination signs in the air. We tell him we have to continue, for his own health, to consecrate him, to summon lost spirits, to save him, to save us. Death and time whisper in our ears; we see all the magic we have forgotten, that we never knew. We see our father in a new light.

He is angrier and softer than he has ever been. Where have you been? he barks. New York. Denver. Minneapolis. A few months finding myself in Chile, Cuba. What? He barks. Cubans still remember their old magic. Santería… He loses track of himself.

  Later, we find black and white pictures of him in his twenties. White-robed, black bodies around a fire. It looks like back home. Our father shifts, the hard wood of the table pressing into his spine. We believed in something.

Did they really do this for their elders back home? We ask. Oh yes, our mother says from the other room, sleepy. In stone houses and courtyards with lean chickens and bright burgundy flowers, when fathers would return, we would do the rites before we ate. Pour the lake water over their heads, wash their hands in the limestone oil of our caves. Read from the scrolls. On holy days, as they lay down to rest, we would rub their hands with that venerated, amber substance. Only the most respectful, the most faithful of children would do this. You are not those things. Keep trying, though.

Dad says he doesn’t like this frankincense stink, that it reminds him of when he was first learning the rituals, afraid of the dark, afraid of cold stone and dark-eyed wizards. Still, he was obedient, a brave boy. Once, he learned the spells, but he left the magic behind a long time ago. Left the spirits behind with a lifetime of loss. We want to learn the witch-magic. The spells are tradition. They are a procedure, we explain, with clinical purposes. He nods. Now you care. Belief is a long way away, but his love for order remains; it contained him before, and it can contain him again.

He’s telling us old stories, suddenly complacent as a lamb. Tales and incantations pour out of his mouth. His eyelids grow heavy. He coughs, and oil drips out of the side of his mouth. We have built him up again, in our fear, in our confusion. We forget the wounds, the resentments, the unheard spirits, the unvoiced truths like unbloomed seeds. It all fades. Things are simplified. Oil paintings of anger, regret, and yearning, rendered in crayon. He glistens, slick skin, blessed shine. Turning over, he spits up the oil and butter. Lifts his hand in the air, waving to an invisible crowd, but he has a grimace on his face, solemn as a saint. Hello my children, he chokes, thank you. He gives up on talking as the aromatic oils coat his tongue. Stares off into distance towards a path we cannot follow. Our compass is shattered; it reads strange directions.