The Orchids

IT WAS on a morning brilliant as this one that I arrived at El Caliz. The sun was rising over the ridge like a burning eye. But more than anything else, I remember the burro. I remember the way it staggered forward under my weight, its ears pinned back with the strain. It was very hot, hotter than people in temperate climates can imagine, a heat that sank into the body like a boiling liquid poured through bread. The burro must have felt this heat as I did, but it was not deterred. I had paid for it with a diamond that glinted exotically in the merchant’s hand. He, the merchant, was round-faced with oily black hair and skin the color of scorched wood. He looked at the diamond and asked me what it was. When I told him, he laughed. I assured him that it was real, but he only grinned at me and said that it was pretty anyway, no matter what it really was, and that perhaps his wife might be charmed by it. And so he sold me a wheezing old burro for a jewel he thought counterfeit. The burro was gray with spots of black around the neck and down the legs. It had the face of a sad old man.

I took the reins, which dropped from the bit in the burro’s mouth, and walked away. I had a small, tattered map to lead me to the property I had purchased in the capital from the dissolute and debt-ridden son of a dead patron. I had paid for it with diamonds. Diamonds and stars, the twin themes of my romance.

Not long after I arrived at El Caliz, the burro fell into decline. It coughed and wheezed, spitting up large gobs of yellow mucus. I gave it various injections, but it was hopeless. The burro was rotting from within. And so late one afternoon I lifted my pistol to its head and shot it between the eyes. It shuddered as if the world had moved beneath it, then the front legs collapsed and it dropped to the ground, blood streaming from its black nostrils. I told Juan and a few other servants to throw it into the river. They dragged it to the river bank and hoisted it into the water. I stood and watched it float away. The head and hindquarters were covered by water, so that all I could see was one swollen side bobbing slightly like a hairy gray ball. I started to turn away, but suddenly the body began to jerk and tremble. Waves of blood spread out from around the carcass, and I could see water splashing with thousands of piranha. For the one and only time in my life, I utterly lost control. I ran after the burro, ran into the water after it, firing wildly and sending up sprays of tiny, glistening fish. Waist deep in the river, I continued to fire, emptying clip after clip. The surface of the river was split by sprays of bullets, but the piranha continued at their work until the burro turned over, slowly like a sleeping man, revealing the white bones of its stripped side. My hand jerked up and I could feel the barrel of the pistol cool against my temple. At that moment, Juan leaped into the river after me and grabbed my wrist in a tight, unflinching grip. His voice seemed to come to me from down a long tunnel. “No, Don Pedro. No.”

Of all our words, perhaps the most beautiful, and difficult, is no.

“Surely you cannot say no” was what Dr. Ludtz said to me that September day in my laboratory at the Institute of Hygiene. He looked oddly handsome in his uniform, its sleek cut concealing the somewhat portly body beneath.

Langhof did not look up from his desk. “Why not?”

“It isn’t done.”

“I have no wish to be reassigned, Dr. Ludtz,” Langhof said. “I’m busy here. How do I know what kind of laboratory or staff I can expect somewhere else?”

“Forgive me, Dr. Langhof,” Ludtz said, “but I don’t think it’s exclusively a matter of what you want. These are orders, don’t forget.”

Langhof smiled and looked up at him. “Orders? When the Leader speaks, that is perhaps an order. But when some low-level functionary speaks, that is a request.”

Dr. Ludtz shook his head. “I don’t understand you, Doctor. These reassignments are necessary. You should be honored to receive one. It means you have been singled out for some special mission. Besides — and one should not forget this — reassignments always mean promotion.”

“I’ve had my fill of promotions. All I want is to do my work and be left alone.”

Dr. Ludtz looked mildly offended. “In times like these, more is expected of us than that.”

“Save your speeches for Special Section rallies, Dr. Ludtz. They have no effect on me.”

Dr. Ludtz stood rigidly in place, staring down at Langhof.

“Please, Doctor,” Langhof said, “I’m busy. Don’t you have a new shipment of heads to deal with?”

Dr. Ludtz stiffened. “These jokes are beginning to wear thin, Dr. Langhof.”

Langhof stood up. “I have been in the Institute of Hygiene for three years, and I have yet to be given a piece of significant research. Instead, I get this racial mumbo jumbo or some absurd form of skeletal cataloging.”

Dr. Ludtz glanced fearfully over his shoulder. “Please, Dr. Langhof. Watch yourself.”

“Forgive me. It’s just that I am less interested in this sort of research. It may be very important. I don’t know. But for me, it’s the wrong thing.”

“Then all the more reason to take a new assignment, Dr. Langhof. Don’t you see that?”

Langhof sighed like a teenager weary of life’s complexity. “Perhaps.”

“No matter what the new assignment is, it couldn’t be worse than this. At least, not for you. Don’t you see my point? It would be a chance to start over in a new location with a new laboratory and staff, everything new.”

And so the ambitious scientist — who at this time knew nothing of tropical heat or the infirmities of burros — slumped over his desk and considered the possibilities. He sat at his desk, sat quietly at his desk, while Ludtz stood over him, waiting for an answer. He could feel the dread coming upon him, like a pool of black, contaminated water sloshing over his ankles. What might it be, this new assignment? He knew — he would never deny that he knew — of certain improprieties in the east. But he did not know their precise nature. And yet there was this undeniable sense of dread, which was itself a kind of knowledge.

“What do you say, Langhof?” Dr. Ludtz asked. “Will you accept this reassignment? Surely you would be happier in another post.”

Langhof thought for a moment and then allowed his desire to overwhelm his suspicion. Could anything be more dreadful, he thought, than this ridiculous Institute, this parody of science?

“Well?” Ludtz asked.

“All right. All right,” Langhof said. And thus, another step, taken anxiously and with some trepidation. Another step on the route that would lead him through the trails of night, the ruins of snow, and then, later, to that place where an old burro rolled in a pool of swirling blood.