My Encounter with a Gypsy
By Pedro Pablo Morejon
HAVANA TIMES – I’ve never believed in palmistry or reading cards, or snails or any kind of fortune-telling, not even in mediums or babalawos. An adult wasting their time on such matters seems trivial to me.
It’s not that I’m a great materialist, this couldn’t be further from the truth, in fact, when I was a very young man, I embraced Faith in Christ for five years and was about to become an evangelical priest, but the body is weak, and I followed my desires. Over time, I later learned that Christianism – just like any other belief system in a stated God – is another form of slavery and I’ve always liked to be free.
In reality, I’m quite metaphysical, I can’t accept that we are just made of dust and that our existence ends with our physical death. I’m the kind of person that believes in the immortal soul, like most Greek philosophers and even Jose Marti himself did.
Although it’s never crossed my mind to impose a belief in something that can’t be proven with Science, on anyone. It’s very personal and belongs to the field of Faith.
But I’ve always had my reserves about fortune-telling and esotericism. Especially because my grandmother, the poor woman, was a fan of those absurd prophesies and passed away without ever seeing them come to life.
Personally-speaking, I’ve had second-hand experience with such tall tales. A long time ago, I was with a woman who, before meeting me, had seen a fortune-teller who told her she’d meet a grey-haired man, with light-colored eyes who would come into her life with a lot of love and that we’d even have a beautiful child together.
I met the description. Sometime later, the fortune-teller gave her some other prophesies, which were all very nice, which I listened to on her cellphone, and then months later, she left me for another guy, who had the economic resources I couldn’t give her, in addition to light eyes.
I had another hilarious experience with quite a pretty girl. She told me that her babalawo had prophesized, years ago, that she’d meet me. From what she told me, the santero gave her my name and described my physical characteristics astonishingly to a T, and so she knew I was the love of her life from the moment she met me. A week later, she “ghosted” me, that is to say, she disappeared like a ghost, without any explanation. Luckily, I hadn’t taken it to heart and that never really affected me.
Well, anyway, I’m telling you this because on Saturday, I went to visit my daughter in Consolacion del Sur, like I normally do. I got onto a horse-drawn cart because there’s no other way to get about, and there was a 50-something-year-old woman sitting opposite me, with a long nose, olive-skin and looking like a gypsy. Her dress was very long, saturated with flowers and colors, and she was wearing countless necklaces and bracelets.
I didn’t look anymore because I’m worried, thinking about the fact my daughter will turn 15 years old in just over two years, and I also have to fix the roof of my house. I’ve already invested on materials and I don’t have enough money.
When I lift my gaze, the “gypsy woman” smiles at me, she stares fixedly at my face. I don’t hold her stare surprisingly, I don’t know whether it’s because I’m taken aback by her self-confidence because I never avoid a staring contest with someone.
We reach our destination, I get off and automatically hold out my arm to help an old woman down the cart stairs. She’s followed by the “gitana” and I help her too. Off the cart, she talks to me about my “aura”.
According to her, I have a red aura which indicates that I’m strong but passionate at the same time, and this can be good sometimes, and not-so-good other times. She said she couldn’t stop looking at me on the cart because my aura is really bright.
It turned out she was heading to the apartment buildings, near my daughter, and that she is from Artemisa and is here visiting. She offers to read my hand for free, as an order received from the Universe when we were on the cart. I get a call, it’s my daughter who is waiting for me, but the curiosity of that reading fascinated me and I accepted, it’ll only be a few minutes. “What does the crazy woman want?”
We stop under a shadow, it’s nice to feel her fingers gently caress the palm of my hand and she immediately strips me naked with every word about my life, and the most shocking thing, my thoughts and most sincere desires come to light, as if she were God racking my brains.
She foresees a beautiful future in another country and there are books published that have paid handsomely. She sees me in a square signing autographs and then I write at almost nightfall, in a room with a glass window in the back that you can see snow in the patio from, and trees lit up because it’s Christmas.
When we bid our farewells, I feel dazed and it takes me a minute to come back to reality. With my daughter, I try and forget the incident, but it comes back even stronger.
On my way home, logic settles in again, and once again, so do the blackouts, shortages, lack of freedoms, the sad reality of living in a country with no future, in a country completely ruined, which I hate now… And do you want to know something? I don’t believe in anything the “gitana” told me.