The Orchids

THROUGH THE WHITE HEAT of midday I see General Gomez’s jeep bounce up the pocked and gullied road toward the compound. Even in the distance, the gilded falcon that adorns the hood looks massive.

I rise from my chair, steadying myself in the thick, pulsating heat.

The jeep glides to a halt below me, sending a cloud of dust tumbling before it. The General leaps jauntily from his seat and points toward the thick jungle across the river. The gunner in the back of the jeep immediately shifts around, training the sights of his turret machine gun in the direction the General has indicated.

The General stares up toward the verandah, shielding his eyes against the raging sun. “Buenos días, Don Pedro,” he calls to me.

I lift my hand in greeting. “Buenos días, General Gomez.”

General Gomez smiles and trots up the stairs, taking them two at a time. He thrusts out his hand. “So good to see you, Don Pedro.”

I take his hand and shake it gently. “And good to see you, General.” I nod toward the chair. “Won’t you be seated?”

The General draws his pants up by gripping the wide belt of his uniform and tugging upward. Then he sits down. “The road to El Caliz is in disrepair,” he says.

“They are not well tended,” I tell him, “and the rains are very damaging.”

The General smiles broadly and folds his hands across his belly. “So, I understand that El Presidente is to visit you the day after tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

“You must be filled with anticipation,” the General adds. He is a short, muscular man with a broad, black mustache and small, gleaming eyes.

“Indeed,” I tell him.

The General watches me for a moment, then shifts slightly in his seat, raising one leg over the other. Several years ago he determined that the parrots were warning the guerrillas of the approach of his troops. He ordered their annihilation, and for weeks squadrons of helicopters combed the jungles of the northern provinces firing at anything brightly colored.

“Would you like some refreshment, General?” I ask.

“No, thank you, Don Pedro,” the General replies. “I’m afraid that I have only a little time to spend with you.”

“Regrettable.”

“Yes,” General Gomez says wearily. He is busy with the greatest task of his life, securing the northern provinces. He has ravaged the coffee fields and trampled the sugar cane. I see the fires of burning villages still leaping in his eyes.

“What brings you so far to the south?” I ask.

The General leans forward conspiratorially. “Don Camillo has no doubt mentioned the trouble in the north?”

“Yes,” I tell him, “but that is in the north, far away.”

The General closes his eyes languidly, the military martyr. “Unfortunately, no.”

“But surely we have nothing to fear as far south as El Caliz,” I insist.

The General runs his index finger over his mustache. “Rebellion is not a wave, Don Pedro,” he informs me, “it is a serpent. It may slither into any crevice.”

Over the General’s shoulder I see Tomás emerge from the surrounding jungle. Instantly he spots the army jeep and retreats back into the brush. He is now old enough to be inducted into the General’s army. Such an eventuality would deny him his trips to the whorehouses downriver. That much he is not willing to sacrifice for the glory of the Republic.

“Like a serpent, yes,” General Gomez continues. It is one of his habits to extend a simile beyond its immediate effectiveness. “As a serpent may creep and crawl and invade the deepest brush, the dankest cavern, so a rebel may invade any area of the Republic.”

“Well spoken, General,” I tell him.

The General smiles happily. He has written a great deal of egregious poetry for the army newspaper, and it is said that he sometimes reads his latest literary creations to whole regiments assembled for that purpose.

“Like a serpent, the rebel forces often go forth under cover of darkness,” the General continues.

In my mind I see the soldiers under his command as they stand, withering in the sun, the General’s absurd warrior poetry sweeping over them like a noxious gas. Their eyelids grow weighty in the liquid heat. The straps of their packs eat into their shoulders. Later they will take out their unbearable anger and discomfort on the peasants to the north.

The General’s eyes lift toward the sky, his shimmering muse. “Like serpents, the rebels coil in their holes and prepare to strike in one sudden thrust.”

I clear my throat loudly, interrupting the General in his poetic flight. “Are you saying that we are in danger here in El Caliz?” I ask.

The General blinks his eyes. “From what?”

“The serpents you mentioned in that memorable image.”

The General nods. “I attempt precision in my images.”

“And always attain it,” I tell him.

“You perceive my meaning, then?” the General asks.

“I presume you fear a rebel contingent may lurk in the vicinity of El Caliz?”

“Precisely, yes.”

I nod thoughtfully, as if considering his remarks. “May I ask what purpose they would have in coming here? El Caliz is very remote, as you know.”

The smile that adorns General Gomez’s face looks as if it has been painted there. “Purpose? You do not understand these rebels, Don Pedro. They need no purpose. They have no purpose.” His eyes close sadly, then slowly open again. “It is part of the nature of human history that men of purpose must continually do battle with those who have no purpose whatsoever. Is that not so, Don Pedro?”

“Precisely,” I tell him. Far to the right, through a clearing in the trees, I see Esperanza pulling a wooden lorry piled high with dried palmetto leaves. Tomás is buried underneath them, picking worms from his arms, his eyes searching the dusty mass for the curled tail of the scorpion.

“The rebels will not fight like true soldiers,” General Gomez continues. He pulls an amber cigarette holder from his uniform pocket, places a cigarette in it, then brings it to his lips. “They fight like the vicious serpents they are. They lie in wait and attack without warning. They are cowards, Don Pedro. They are unworthy of being considered citizens of the Republic.”

The sun shines radiantly through the amber holder. Within its rich glow I can see the scarlet macaw and the hawk-headed caique and the Patagonian conure as they tumble to the jungle floor, feathers flying, while the helicopters bank left and right, raking the trees with their fire.

General Gomez shakes his head despairingly. “The rebels cannot be considered real men, Don Pedro. They live and fight like animals.”

It is a curious etiquette that the General employs. In the Camp I once saw a man shot because he had been caught gnawing on the fingers of a dead body that lay beside him in the bunk, a bestiality the Special Section, in its purity, would not permit.

“When you live like a beast, you must be treated like a beast,” General Gomez concludes.

“Certainly,” I tell him. “But do you think the rebels actually intend to attack El Caliz?”

“Attack?” the General says loudly. His eyes narrow. “These rebels do not know the meaning of the word attack. They are not warriors.”

One cannot speak to General Gomez without first understanding the categories that define his intellect and the language that conveys them. I rephrase the question. “Do you think the rebels intend to sneak into El Caliz and carry out some sort of vicious assault?”

“Possibly,” the General replies. He lights his cigarette. “With those animals, anything is possible.” He watches me closely. “Tell me, Don Pedro, have you seen any suspicious activity around the compound of late?”

“Suspicious activity?”

“Movements? Strangers? Anything like that?”

“No.”

General Gomez allows his eyes to drift out over the verandah. “From this height,” he says, “you can see a great deal, can you not?”

“A great deal, yes.”

The General snaps his eyes back toward me. “I am told you spend much time on the verandah.”

“I am too old to move about the compound, General.”

“And yet you have seen nothing, Don Pedro?” the General asks doubtfully.

“I have noticed that from time to time the monkeys are disturbed,” I tell him.

General Gomez slaps his knee delightedly. “You see, that’s what I mean,” he says excitedly. “Something is disturbing them, yes?”

“No doubt.” Soon, perhaps, the helicopters will dive from the upper air and devastate the monkeys.

“Rebels skulking beneath the trees, I think,” the General says. “They disturb the monkeys.” He glances back toward the river. “I knew it. I told El Presidente that the rebels might try to take advantage of his visit here.”

“But he will be well protected, will he not, General Gomez?” I ask.

The General turns his eyes to me. “Of course, Don Pedro.”

“Then we have nothing to fear.”

General Gomez returns his gaze to the jungle depths. “We need more powerful defoliants,” he says quietly, almost to himself. He turns back to me and smiles. “In certain areas of the northern provinces, we have entirely denuded the earth,” he says boastfully. “Even the scorpions cannot find shade.”

I have seen photographs of his enterprise. They portray vast stretches of barren ground, the scorched trees rising from the cracked and gutted earth like twisted wire.

General Gomez leans across the table toward me, the cigarette holder embedded in his smile. “Tell me, Don Pedro, do you retire early to your bed?”

“No.”

“You sit out on the verandah until late in the night, then?”

“Yes.”

General Gomez nods. “Very good. And do you ever see fires across the river? Campfires, I mean?”

I shake my head. “I’m afraid not, General.”

General Gomez leans back in his seat as if to seek a better vantage point for staring into my mind. “You’re quite sure of this?”

“Quite sure.”

The General pulls the cigarette from his lips and looks admiringly at the amber holder. “A gift from El Presidente,” he tells me.

“Most elegant, General.”

General Gomez moves his fingers up and down the holder, caressing it lovingly. “Imported. From Paris.”

“I should have known. It is very European in its delicacy.”

General Gomez extracts the cigarette butt from the holder and drops it over the railing of the verandah. It appears to fall in slow motion through the waxy heat.

“I think El Presidente will be safe here,” I say.

The General turns his eyes toward me. They look like two small gun barrels trained on my face. “Why is that, Don Pedro?”

“We are very far from the northern provinces,” I explain.

General Gomez pulls a crimson silk handkerchief from his uniform pocket and wipes the sweat from his brow. “Never underestimate a serpent, Don Pedro,” he warns.

I nod. “Are there any special precautions we should take for El Presidente’s safety?”

General Gomez smiles at me indulgently. “Don’t trouble yourself, Don Pedro. El Presidente’s safety is in my hands.”

“Very good, then, General.”

The General peers into my office, scanning the shelves of books. “You are a reader, I see.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me, do you receive the newspaper that the army publishes, Don Pedro?”

“I’m afraid not.”

The General looks disappointed. “It’s quite a fine paper,” he says. He pauses. “Are you by an chance a reader of poetry?”

“No.”

The General’s face seems to tighten. “Really? I had thought you might be, Don Pedro. A man of learning, I am told. Don Camillo has been much impressed by your intelligence.”

I smile. “Perhaps my tastes are not as catholic as they should be, General.”

General Gomez glances wearily at his hands. “Perhaps someday I will retire. My first love is literature.”

“A worthy vocation,” I tell him.

The General frowns. “The Republic has no poets of any note whatsoever. It is most unfortunate.”

“Here in the Republic we are much oppressed,” I tell him.

The General’s eyes snap to attention. He looks at me suspiciously. “Oppressed?”

“By labor,” I add quickly.

The General nods slowly. “Ah, yes, quite true. I am often very tired.” He rises slowly and thrusts out his hand. “Thank you for your help, Don Pedro.”

I take his hand in mine. “I am always your obedient servant, General Gomez.”

The General turns and moves down the stairs to his jeep. His high black boots thud heavily against the clay. He pulls himself in beside the driver and looks back up toward the verandah. “Vaya con Dios, Don Pedro,” he calls.