The Finger Bowl

by Matias Travieso-Diaz

I had taken two finger-bowls of champagne, and the scene had changed before my eyes into something significant, elemental and profound.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“The first rule is,” declared Aunt Gladys sternly, “don’t ever drink from this finger bowl,” holding the liquid-filled vessel out of the teenager’s reach. “You should always drop things into the bowl or take them out of it, but never consume the liquid in the bowl, which should remain untouched except to empty it.”

“I don’t understand,” replied Eva, trying to reach for the crystal basin. “I don’t think I would ever want to drink anything out of this pot, but why couldn’t I do it, if I had a mind to?”

The crone did not respond directly. Instead, she ran a finger across the rim of the crystal vessel, eliciting a faint swish. “Hear this?” she asked and continued without waiting for an answer: “The hiss is a warning to let us know the bowl is loaded.”

“Loaded with what?” challenged the girl. “I see nothing inside.”

“I’ll show you” was the answer. “Give me your hand,” commanded the old woman, setting the bowl on the table.

Eva extended her left hand, and her aunt pulled a pin out of her hat and quickly pricked Eva’s index finger. “Aww” complained the girl, trying to withdraw the wounded hand, but the hag held it firmly with one of her bony hands and, with the other, squeezed the injured finger until a drop of blood appeared on its surface. Then, she rapidly shook the hand over the bowl until more drops of blood fell onto the surface of the liquid. Instantly, the blood expanded and contracted as if battling with the liquid, until it finally coalesced into a small dark blob that floated on the surface.

“Now, grab that nodule, pull it out carefully, and let’s look at it.”

Eva inserted two fingers in the bowl and carefully extracted a button of congealed blood, somewhat irregular in shape and magenta in color. “What is this?” she asked, an undertone of disgust in her voice.

“Your blood, shed into this vessel, has been turned into a stone. It’s like a jewel, except that it is worthless because it lacks any of the qualities that would make it valuable.”

“Qualities?” asked Eva blankly.

“The coating I’ve placed on the inner surface of this bowl will interact with any blood that is shed into it and convert it into a cabochon, a small medallion of stone. The blood carries substances that add a distinctive appearance to it depending on the circumstances under which it is shed. A drop of blood shed in anger will yield a stone different from blood accompanying sorrow, regret, guilt or other emotions. Your blood here conveyed only a bit of physical pain, so the medallion it created was just a piece of colored glass, worth nothing. Had you been in the throes of great turmoil, who knows what the results would have been.”

“What good does all that do for me?” retorted Eva mulishly.

“You are being ungrateful,” chided the old woman. “You came to me for help, having run away from home. You were hungry and destitute and expected that, just because I am an aunt of your mother, I would give you food and shelter. I am offering you far more than a bed and a loaf of bread. This bowl could turn your suffering into wealth. But you must learn how to use it.”

“Do you mean like pretend I am suffering and drop some blood into that bowl and have it turn into a jewel?”

“Not pretend. You can’t fool the enchantment I have placed on the bowl’s coating. False suffering will yield cheap glass. Now, take it or leave it; I have better things to do.”

“Are you throwing me away just like that?”

“I’m a businesswoman and you are a spoiled brat who is running away from home for no good reason. Be thankful that I’m too busy to contact your family. Now, be gone.”

“Will the coating wear off if I empty the bowl?”

“No, just dump the water in the sink and refill the bowl when you want to use it. The coating is invisible but permanent.”

Eva emptied the water into the sink on the back of the shop and took her leave carrying the bowl under one arm. She stood for a moment outside, glancing sullenly at the sign in front of her great-aunt’s home: “SPIRITUAL ADVISOR” followed below, in slightly smaller capitals, by “PSYCHIC READINGS.” She had expected her old aunt to be a little weird, but not ungenerous like this. She turned back onto the highway, now in search of a shelter for runaways like herself.

* * *

With the help of the local police department, Eva was placed in an emergency home for young people in crisis. She was enrolled in a structured program that included intensive individual and group counseling while efforts were being made to reunite her with her family. After three days, she ran away, carrying the finger bowl among the meager possessions she took with her.

Months of misery followed. Eva experienced hunger, abuse and degradation, but was a stubborn child who refused to go back to her family with her tail behind her legs. She finally found a job as a clerk in a dry-cleaning business, a cheap room in the poor section of town and barely enough food to eat. She took up with an older boy who bought her liquor, cigarettes and drugs, and sexually used her until he got tired of her and went away in search of fresh pursuits.

Two years after her escape from home, Eva had reached the lower depths of despair and decided to put an end to everything: she would commit suicide at the turn of the year. She gathered her few possessions and put them in a large plastic bag, intending to leave them by her bed after she had consumed a bottle of sleeping pills.

In the process of emptying her chest of drawers, she found a forgotten souvenir from the early days of her escape: a cheap crystal finger bowl collected during her visit with an elderly relative. Remembering the encounter, she wondered what would happen if she bled into the bowl in her current condition.

She had nothing left to lose and felt a faint touch of curiosity in the midst of her depression. She filled the bowl with water from the bathroom sink, placed the bowl on her night table, seized the switchblade that was the only gift her boyfriend had left behind and ran it over the palm of her hand, drawing a thin line of blood from the base of the middle finger to the wrist. Immediately, a trickle of blood emanated from the wound and dripped into the bowl. She realized she might have gone too far with the cutting, but she shrugged off the concern: what difference did it make whether she poisoned herself or bled to death?

Eva’s blood, which had drained in a continuous line, immediately collected into a semicircle and then became an oval that filled a good portion of the surface of the water in the bowl. As it reshaped itself, it changed color from a pallid blush to a dark red with orange flashes and began glittering as if it had an inner light source.

Eva was mesmerized by the transformation and watched with rapt attention as the blood she had shed became a slightly irregular disk a little bigger than an old silver dollar. Trembling, Eva retrieved the object from the bowl’s water and held it before her eyes: it was not quite flat but more like a squat diamond and shone with a red luminosity that cast strange shadows on her face and hands. Her blood had become a thing of beauty, at the same time beckoning and forbidding, not at all like the chip of glass that she vaguely remembered from her visit with Aunt Gladys.

Thoughts of suicide drifted away as Eva’s attention focused on the mystery posed by her congealed blood. Could it be worth something? She knew nothing about jewelry, but her recollection from elementary school days was that stones like that were called rubies and could be valuable. Maybe she should investigate; but she had to make sure first that the change, however it had happened, was not a temporary aberration. She took the stone to the bathroom and ran it under cold, lukewarm and even scalding hot water. Nothing happened. The wet stone lost a bit of its luster, but regained it once dried. The change seemed permanent.

* * *

Eva took the stone, wrapped in a handkerchief, to the first of three pawnshops that preyed on the derelicts in her neighborhood. She explained to the surly man behind the counter that she had found this stone among her recently deceased aunt’s possessions and would like to pawn it, provided she could get some decent money for it.

The man took out his 10x jeweler’s loupe and, holding the stone, examined it for inclusions, that is, internal flaws such as “silk,” which tend to validate the legitimacy of a precious stone, since glass or synthetic stones do not have it. This stone showed almost invisible strands of silk.

He then went to the back of the shop and returned with a UV lamp. He shone the lamp on the stone, which emitted an intense shaft of blood red light, which ceased as the lamp was turned off. “Hrrmmp,” voiced the man. “Did you say you got this stone from your aunt?”

“Yes,” replied Eva, a bit tentatively.

“But this large piece has not been worked on to make it into a jewel. How come you have it in this form?” he pressed.

“I dunno,” answered Eva.

The man looked askance at Eva and handed the stone back to her. “Your story is quite suspicious. I would not be surprised if the police paid me a visit, looking for this thing. I don’t want to take a chance with it.”

“Do you mean it is a fake piece of jewelry?” asked Eva, disconsolate.

“Not really,” replied the man and, without further explanation, ushered Eva out of the store.

* * *

Eva’s experience at the second pawn shop was similar to the first one, except that the person at the counter was an intimidatingly large woman who took a close look at the stone and dismissed Eva with a curt warning: “We don’t deal in contraband here. Be careful where you show this!”

Eva realized there was something quite unusual about the stone that had been fashioned from her blood and opted for visiting a specialty shop, one of the best jewelry stores in the city. She was almost chased out of the establishment on account of her slovenly appearance, but the manager took the red stone off her hands and disappeared into the back of the shop. He was gone for a long time and, upon returning, asked a single question: “How much do you want for this trinket?”

Eva was speechless for a moment, but then replied: “I just want a fair price. I’m relying on your honesty.”

The manager replied slowly, laying emphasis on every word. “It is an unusual stone that could be turned into an attractive piece. I will give you one thousand dollars for it, on one condition.”

Eva gasped and replied, “What condition?”

“That you agree in writing never to reveal or discuss with anyone any details of this transaction.”

Eva gasped again. “That would be fine.”

The man returned to the back of the store and stayed away for a long time. He returned with two typewritten pages. “These two copies are identical. I have signed both copies. You do the same, keep one and hand me the other.”

As Eva was doing that, the man mused: “I think I have enough cash in the safe.” He disappeared into the back of the store and emerged a few minutes later holding a sack. “Sorry for the bulk. All I had were tens, twenties and a couple of fifties. Count it if you wish.”

Eva looked inside the bag and noticed a large number of bills. Not believing her luck, she replied: “No, that’s fine. I trust you.” She grasped the bag in her trembling hands, turned around and quickly walked away.

* * *

Eva used the proceeds from the sale of her blood to finance her return home, where she reconciled with her family and was able to enlist in a community college, earn an associate degree in cosmetology and open a moderately successful beauty salon. She married a school sweetheart and helped him set up a landscaping business. They raised two children and led a quiet, uneventful life through their working years and their retirement.

A couple of times — when they encountered a business slump, or when they needed to raise money for their children’s education — Eva bled herself into the finger bowl, but the stones she drew were thin and pallid and had no commercial value. She eventually realized that valuable jewels could only be grown out of great suffering or distress and gave up on her attempts, concluding that the prize would not be worth the cost of attaining it.

Eva never learned that the stone she had traded to the dishonest jeweler for a pittance had later been turned into an enormous, richly colored ruby of exceptional transparency and retailed for over five million dollars. It had ended in the vault of a banker until it was stolen during a heist in which its owner was slain, and then the gem had disappeared from sight. Perhaps, if a peerless ruby was distilled from the suffering of a human being, it would be, itself, destined to carry the haunt of misfortune with it.