Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer

“How about one of your good treatments before you go?” he asked,
placing his hand on the small of his back. He climbed on the bed and
stripped down to the muslin shorts that Chinda had made for him.
I rubbed his back and neck with Wintergreen oil until his tired,
overworked muscles began to relax under my kneading fingers. Panti
moaned, “Que rico,” how exquisite, as I stretched and pulled his flesh. He
had been suffering from rheumatism since the days when he had lived
outside in the chiclero camps.
“You can do this to me anytime,” he chirped. “Are you coming back
next week?”
“I’ll be here neither more nor less than you see now,” I joked, giving
him back one of his favorite lines.
In the fading daylight, he stood by his hut door, waving good-bye with a
broad smile on his face. His cheeks had a pink glow that they hadn’t had
earlier.
But as I tromped past the sign for San Antonio on my way home, I
knew he was sitting alone in his slanted-back chair, looking at the hen
roosting in the cold stove where Chinda had once made her fresh tortillas
and cheerfully listened to his stories.