The Almanac of the Dead

BOOK ONE. MOUNTAINS ANGELITA, AKA LA ESCAPÍA, THE MEAT HOOK

EL FEO HAD NEVER TOLD ANYONE how he had felt the first time he had walked into the downtown hotel where the negotiations were being held. The strobe flashes and videocam lights were blinding as he entered the lobby. The other Indian leaders were more well-known and had aides along to carry their briefcases. El Feo had been lucky to borrow a pair of new shoes from the village mayor; no one in their village, not even the mayor, owned a briefcase. Later El Feo and the other Indian leaders had been driven in buses to the university campus to meet with student leaders. In those days, La Escapía had gone by her Christian name, Angelita. She had been baiting university students the first time El Feo ever saw her. Angelita had been drunk on politics; a raving orator who might someday gather together hundreds and hundreds of fighters for El Feo’s army. Then suddenly Angelita’s attention had turned to El Feo; he could feel her eyes on him. Angelita had started laughing at him — squinting in the bright lights and pointing a finger at El Feo. El Feo disliked her instantly; she knew nothing about him. He had purposely not brought a briefcase or notebook. He wanted to make it clear he was not interested in white men’s pieces of paper; El Feo had simply come for his people’s ancestral lands.

El Feo had heard stories about Angelita. She was dangerous. She laughed and made fun of everything. She got the people laughing when the meeting or topics were serious — Angelita even made jokes about uprisings. She was dangerous. Nothing tiny or angel like about this woman, El Feo had decided, not unless you were thinking of an angel from hell. El Feo felt his throat get dry and his feet and hands tingle. He could feel beads of sweat on his scalp. Great dark angel from the thirteen nights of the old gods — here was the angel El Feo had been searching for all his life.

Until El Feo had met Angelita, he had felt passion only for retaking stolen tribal land; big brown women with big breasts and big bellies interested him for only fifteen or twenty minutes at a time. Market days in the mountain villages found the women gossiping, whispering, and giggling behind their shawls about one so handsome his mother had to call him El Feo to protect him. His mother got him at birth from a coastal village. At one time the people had all lived closer together; at one time life had been a great deal different down in the low valleys that ran to the turquoise sea. He had come from a village close to the turquoise sea. He had been sent as an infant to the mountains so the coastal clans and the mountain clans did not forget they were one family; and because he had had a twin brother. Later as El Feo and his mother had traveled to the coastal village where he had met his other mother and father, and his twin brother, Tacho, nicknamed Wacah because he tamed big wacahs or macaws. The people on the coast had all the fish they could eat; otherwise they were poor. Tribal land the people had cleared for farming had later been claimed by the federal government; then the land had been resold to German coffeer planters.

Angelita had questioned El Feo about certain rumors going around; they said El Feo was already married — married to the earth. They claimed El Feo had sexual intercourse four times a day with holes dug in damp river clay. El Feo had laughed and shook his head. He said he did not discuss his religion with anyone, not even with warrior angels. Later the village gossips claimed El Feo had been seduced by Angelita La Escapía, the crazy woman from the coast.

El Feo used to watch her face and watch the faces of people in market crowds who listened to her.

“A great ‘change’ is approaching; soon the signs of the change will appear on the horizon.” Angelita’s words filled El Feo with rapture. The earth, the earth, together they would serve Earth and her sister spirits.

El Feo had been content to watch from a distance. Men probably watched to see her big breasts heave and jiggle. But the women listened because they had never heard a woman like her before.

TWIN BOYS

EL FEO AND HIS TWIN had been separated because twins often attracted dangers from envious sorcerers; later there might be accusations of sorcery made against the twins together. El Feo had been initiated by the elder men in the ancient fashion, while Tacho had only the small ceremony the coastal village people still practiced. They both had been confirmed in the Church by the same traveling bishop on the same day. The elders had remarked that the twins had been reared in different villages to prevent just such coincidences as that.

Then one day Tacho had appeared in the mountain village. Tacho had worn his driving uniform, although he had hired an old taxi to drive him. The taxi had been full of gifts for all of them. Tacho had spent all his wages for the first month on the taxi ride, goat, and black piglets. Tacho had butchered the goat himself, but had left the task of dividing the meat to El Feo’s “mother.” Tacho’s parents had sent the goat; but Tacho himself had chosen the black pigs for his brothers. Clanspeople broke out the home brew, and the village celebrated the visit from their dear brother Tacho.

Long into the night Tacho and El Feo drank with the other men around the glowing coals. They had talked about the black pigs and the wild-boar spirit the coastal people fed parched corn. Before dawn El Feo had looked at the piglets and at Tacho; El Feo had looked around at the figures squatting in their blankets, many of them dozing.

“The black pigs will feed an army,” El Feo said softly.

“Four of them?” Tacho had his eyes closed, but he was listening.

“Of course four of them. Four is a good number. One boar, three sows. They will combine themselves over and over.”

In the mountains the rich farmers hired armed patrols to watch for Indian squatters in the coffee plantations, and to shoot the wild pigs. Pigs rooted out the coffee seedlings and stripped off bark from mature trees.

“On the coast, people say the black boar and his kind have helped the people’s uprisings more than once. The black boar and his troops stampede through thick undergrowth and trees. The stupid army chases the pigs deeper and deeper where the paths sink into moss. The black boar leads them into the swamp where hundreds of soldiers can easily be picked off by a few snipers,” Tacho said.

El Feo took the pigs to his campsite in the hills above the village because pork was a great temptation even for El Feo. When the pigs were large enough to fight off wild dogs, El Feo would let the black pigs run wild. El Feo had explained to Tacho only one thing mattered: the stolen land; someday wild black pigs would help feed the people’s army as the people took back their land.

MORE FRIENDS OF THE INDIANS

TACHO WAS CAREFUL not to raise suspicion with El Feo’s visits. Tacho made a point of having El Feo help him wash and wax the black Mercedes. The boss and the new wife had been quite nervous lately; rich white people needed reassurance because of the political unrest. White people can see the tribes in Africa have retaken all their ancestral lands, blood-soaked though they were.

Tacho entertained El Feo with stories about the “old wife” and the young mistress from Mexico City. El Feo had especially liked the old wife’s tumble down the marble stairs, but that had been everyone’s favorite story, from the housemaids to the rich society matrons. The boss would not mind if El Feo spent the night in Tacho’s space at the front of the garage. El Feo had wanted to sleep one night in the backseat of the Mercedes, but Tacho had refused. “The boss doesn’t sleep so good at night. He might surprise you.”

El Feo liked the woman on top so he could look over her shoulder at the faint glow of tiny human souls awaiting conception in the ceiling rafters overhead. Souls of children who died before their second year remained nearby, hovering in cracks of the ceiling; homes of sorcerers were barren. Sorcerers captured only the souls of adults or children over two. El Feo and Angelita don’t talk. They have food and sex together twice a day, that’s all. She does the talking. El Feo had given up on talk years ago. He had thought he was through with fucking too, but sometimes El Feo was wrong in his predictions. This woman had chosen him. He had not done the choosing. All his life El Feo had been the one chosen.

The one chosen would be asked to do special favors for the whole group; late at night, at the end of the party, the ones who had been chosen would be asked to carry back gifts for others or to take special messages.

El Feo left the fund-raising and the gifts from all “the friends of the Indians” to Angelita, who did not mind the politics or politicians. Tribal leaders as far away as Nicaragua had heard of that woman who knew how to get the goods for the Indians. All sources of “direct” and “humanitarian” aid were known to Angelita; one week she would be gone, and the next week she would return, with little Korean vans to transport the village “baseball teams.” Her secret had been simple: the world over — from foreign governments to multinational corporations — they all wanted to be called “friends of the Indians.” They had just witnessed the bloody end of European control in South Africa. They had watched the tribes of Africa retake the land from Europeans; in the Americas they might have another fifty years or even one hundred, but time was running out. The Indians had risen up in Peru with the Shining Path. Everyone wanted to be “friends of the Indians”—the Japanese and Koreans as well as the Germans and Dutch. There were “friends of the Indians” all around the Persian Gulf.

Angelita had sent El Feo down into Tuxtla to get reports from Tacho. Tacho was ears and eyes for them. They kept track of General J. and the “security forces,” as well as the police chief and the others in El Grupo.

WACAH THE SPIRIT MACAW INTERPRETS DREAMS

TACHO HAD WORKED A LONG TIME to gain the boss man’s trust; he had spent months pretending to be interested in Menardo’s endless dreams; Tacho had not told Menardo the truth about the dreams and had instead substituted lucky numbers. Tacho had himself dreamed on the same night. Menardo’s dreams had been full of numbers, but all of them had added up to less than zero. Tacho did not care if he had given away lucky numbers he might have sold or bet himself. Guacamaya, the Blue Macaw, who had taught humans to talk, had taught Tacho the use of luck with numbers. Oh, gamblers might rush out and bet lucky numbers from dreams, but they paid a price; there was always a trade-off. Gamblers who got lucky numbers lived short lives. Tacho had been taught by the macaw spirits to look for numbers that kept bullets from their mark or numbers that kept disease or sorcery from one’s bed.

The boss’s dreams had been the worst dreams; even the slow-witted boss had understood that his days were numbered. Tacho traced Menardo’s decline to the visit by the norteamericano who had given the boss the bulletproof vest. Tacho had watched the boss’s wife as she studied the norteamericano talking with her husband beside the pool. Tacho had seen her look at the boss with the same attention the last year the “old Señora” was alive; now that Alegría had the boss, she was already looking for another man. Tacho had to be careful because the boss’s new wife was quick to detect spies; Alegría was far more clever than the first Señora had been.

Tacho had guessed from the start the house the boss had been building was for this Alegría, not for the barren wife. Now Menardo had his mansion of white marble and his pool of water lily blossoms; on the ironed linens of his king-size bed, Menardo, the mestizo, savored the luscious fruit of a skinny white woman. Menardo had General J. for a business partner and the former ambassador and the governor for country club pals. But Menardo’s dreams were the dreams of a man soon to die; in Menardo’s nightmare, the white lines of the highway suddenly became a giant snake that exploded into bloody flesh beneath the wheels of the speeding car. Menardo had awakened from the dream screaming, soaked in cold sweat. He had changed his pajamas, but the lining of the bulletproof vest had remained damp.

Menardo had discovered then, he could not fall asleep unless he wore the bulletproof vest. Even the strongest sleeping pills failed Menardo after a few hours, leaving him groggy and sick with anxiety until he put on the vest.

Tacho had been amused by Menardo’s pathetic attempts to interpret the nightmare as a “good luck” sign from the Blessed Virgin, sometimes shown crushing the head of Satan, the serpent. Menardo worries the dream may be the Blessed Virgin’s warning about assassins throwing bombs under the wheels of the car. For an instant Menardo catches Tacho’s eye in the rearview mirror and Tacho sees Menardo’s fear: “I still feel its flesh under the car — the tires sinking into slime.” Menardo opened the tiny liquor cabinet in the backseat, poured himself a glass of brandy, and said nothing more.

Dream of the cuckolded husband; dream of the double-cuckolded husband; besides Bartolomeo, the communist, Tacho knew the norteamericano had fucked the boss’s new wife too. Tacho had lied and made up winning numbers for Menardo at the horse races. He never gave any client the numbers to win all the races; word got out and they started to follow you, or worse, other gamblers tried to kill you. Tacho gave Menardo some winning numbers to fool him; Tacho wanted Menardo to keep dreaming nightmares and to keep telling Tacho his dreams.

Next Menardo had dreamed of sea turtles torn loose from their broken shells, bloody and dying; later the same night, Menardo had dreamed of two men who stood on a bridge and dropped a pistol into the brownish water. Tacho had been delighted with the information he obtained from Menardo’s dreams; Menardo had been talking to the norteamericano without General J.’s permission; Menardo feared the general would have him murdered. Menardo had seen the general’s notorious videotapes of intelligence interrogations; the turtle shells peeled bloody from live flesh were a reference to the torturers who removed fingernails and toenails.

SWARMS OF SQUATTERS

EL FEO AND ANGELITA had organized their village defense units along the same order as the village baseball teams. Priests and other missionaries had been fooled by the devotion and enthusiasm the Indians showed for baseball; what the outsiders did not realize was each baseball team was composed of males of the same clans. Thus the priests and government authorities had failed to realize that baseball practices and baseball games were opportunities for more than mere sport and amusement. Tacho had listened to his brother and the woman relate the long, complicated stories, the alibis and excuses necessary to persuade foreign governments to send Indian villages direct aid of baseball uniforms and cases of dynamite. The dynamite, they lied, was for clearing land for new baseball diamonds. Tacho had told El Feo and the wild woman Angelita what he thought: if even the lowest police louse got wind that baseball teams were secret guerrilla units, then all of them were going to be ground into bloody pulp by the federal police and the military.

Tacho had gathered the information they had requested because he liked the tingle in his balls when he lifted the telephone receivers to hear the boss talk to the police chief or the general. He could hear them discuss the “solutions.” Universal Insurance’s clients were urged to telephone the boss at the first sign of worker unrest. With Tacho’s information, El Feo and Angelita had been able to deduce weak links and spies within the villages. Tacho had listened as the boss ordered Universal Insurance Company’s security forces to coffee plantations to sweep the surrounding hills of Indian squatters, their shanties, and their gardens. Over and over it happened; the squatters dragged together debris for shacks and scratched out small garden plots. Then armed “security guards” trampled the gardens and burned the shacks. The strategy of the squatters was simple: make a thing unprofitable and watch the white man leave. Over and over; again and again the squatters had reappeared in other locations. The land was theirs and they knew it. Tacho had listened as businessmen whined to Menardo about expenses, and costs. The Indians were worse than insects; it cost the squatters nothing to breed and to swarm over the land, while a unit of five security specialists with weapons and one vehicle cost hundreds per day. For swarms of squatters, Indians thicker than weeds, Menardo had developed more economical methods: Universal Insurance sent a crop-dusting plane to dump insecticide and herbicide on the squatters. Luckily crop-dusting planes flew low and were easy for snipers to shoot down. Tacho wasn’t interested in being squashed like a flea with the others; Tacho was happy to leave the teams and units and chains of command to El Feo and Angelita. Himself, Tacho was at work on the boss man’s dreams. Tacho’s strategy was to let the dogs turn on one another. Tacho was learning patience; the macaws did not always speak clearly to him. The macaws said the battle would be won or lost in the realms of dreams, not with airplanes or weapons.

In the old days the Twin Brothers had answered the people’s cry for help when terrible forces or great monsters threatened the people. The people had always feared the Destroyers, humans who were attracted to and excited by death and the sight of blood and suffering. The Destroyers secretly prayed and waited for disaster or destruction. Secretly they were thrilled by the spectacle of death. The European invaders had brought their Jesus hanging bloody and dead from the cross; later they ate his flesh and blood again and again at the “miraculous eternal supper” or Mass. Typical of sorcerers or Destroyers, the Christians had denied they were cannibals and sacrificers. Tacho had watched enough television and movies to realize those who secretly loved destruction and death ranged all over the earth.

The old parrot priests used to tell stories about a time of turmoil hundreds of years before the Europeans came, a time when communities had split into factions over sacrifices and the sight and smell of fresh blood. The people who went away had fled north, and behind them dynasties of sorcerer-sacrificers had gradually taken over the towns and cities of the South. In fact, it had been these sorcerer-sacrificers who had “called down” the alien invaders, sorcerer-cannibals from Europe, magically sent to hurry the destruction and slaughter already begun by the Destroyers’ secret clan.

Tacho himself had tried to avoid the spirits. He had heard others complain the spirits demanded too much, cost too much, because nowadays people did not bother to look after the departed souls of their own family and relatives. Younger people refused, saying they didn’t want to take money or the time away from their jobs in the fields. But one day two big blue macaws had appeared in the tree by his door, and it was too late; the macaw spirits had chosen Tacho as their servant. What did the spirits expect? What did they want from people who were working all day and part of the night and still they were starving? The duties of the macaw servant were innumerable; all requests, warnings, and orders from the macaws had to be obeyed, no matter what was asked. Tacho had to guard the macaws from parrot traders and common thieves, who might shoot them for their feathers. Fortunately, the birds had a big tree by the garage where no parrot traders or thieves could get near thanks to the latest in security forces and technology.

When the spirits called, Tacho had to go to them; their name for him was Wacah. Tacho had to sit for hours on end under the big tree, or sometimes he parked the Mercedes there while he polished it so he could listen to the birds. The macaws had come with a message for humans, but it would take a while for Tacho to understand. The macaws had been sent because this was a time of great change and danger. The macaw spirits had a great many grievances with humans, but said humans were already being punished and would be punished much more for their stupid human behavior. He no longer thought about anyone — not his parents or his twin, El Feo. He had not thought about the village. Tacho had cleared his mind and his heart of all others so he could understand what was going to happen next.

VILLAGE OF SORCERERS AND CANNIBALS

TACHO HAD BEGUN to see changes all around Tuxtla. The government was uneasy about the relentless stream of refugees from the wars in El Salvador and Guatemala. Maybe the white men had counted themselves, then counted the Indians. What Tacho saw as the refugees increased was white men would soon be outnumbered by Indians throughout Mexico. Police patrols had been increased, sweeps were made twice a day through the market for refugees to drag away for “interrogation,” and if they survived, to refugee camps miles away from the border. Tacho had watched the patrols arrest three Peruvians who were not refugees, but merchants accustomed to travel who carried all the necessary papers. But papers made no difference to police since infiltrators and spies always carried the “correct” papers. The police patrol had seized the bundles of dried plant stalks and leaves, the odd roots and envelopes of seeds and dried leaves the Peruvians had displayed on their blankets. After the police had left with the Peruvians, Tacho had joined the others on the spot where the Peruvians had spread their blankets. No one said anything. The children poked around in the dirt looking for coins that might have been lost in the confusion. In the weeds and debris where the police van had been parked, Tacho looked down and saw a bundle wrapped in newspaper. Tacho moved away from the bundle casually and waited until the crowd had scattered.

Tacho had tried to slow his heart’s pounding by staring up at the sun in the sky; somehow he had known the packet would be lying there. Tacho stood a distance away. The bundle was waiting for him to pick it up; Tacho could feel this more strongly than he had ever felt anything before. Tacho felt an urgency as if a beloved or person of great importance were waiting for him, expecting a welcome, expecting hospitality.

“Sorcerers work in cities,” people say; maybe the Peruvians had been “witches.” But he wasn’t afraid; he did not feel his guts churn or cold sweat on his feet as sorcery victims usually reported.

A life might be short or a life might be long; duration mattered little. What did matter was how one lived until one died. Tacho examined his conscience carefully; he must not go to the bundle if his motives were selfish; he must not pick up the bundle if he wanted riches or a long life or an easy life. For riches and a long life Tacho knew all he had to do was continue to serve Menardo; the boss was more superstitious than ever; he had even split the winnings 80–20 the last time Tacho had correctly “read the numbers.”

Tacho placed the bundle inside the cigar box where he kept his other valuables. He did not open the bundle until El Feo was with him. Luckily the wild woman had not come with El Feo. Tacho was not sure if Angelita should see the bundle. She believed in diesel generators, minivans, and dynamite; she had gone to Mexico City with the Cuban, Bartolomeo, to ask for more “direct aid” from their “foreign friends.” Angelita said this was because an Indian woman on television made white men feel less afraid than if they saw a handsome devil such as El Feo. If that was what white men thought, then whites were fools; because a woman such as Angelita was more deadly and fierce in battle than many men.

El Feo did not speak for a long time after Tacho told him about the bundle. With El Feo present, Tacho had been aware of the bundle again as a presence; with El Feo there, the bundle wanted to be opened.

“Well, well,” El Feo said as he carefully unwrapped the bundle. Inside was an opal the size of a macaw egg. The stone had been “dressed,” wrapped in red wool string and downy, white feathers. Twelve big coca leaves and a pinch of cornmeal had been packed with the opal to feed it. El Feo touched the opal cautiously. “You don’t know anymore with these Peruvians and Bolivians all crawling out of the hills to sell ‘Inca long-life capsules.’ ” The twelve perfect coca leaves were religious objects too.

Tacho shook his head. He thought 95 percent of supposed witchcraft and sorcery was superstition and puffed-up talk. But 5 percent… “Only five percent?” El Feo had laughed loudly and shook his head at Tacho. For twins, they did not look much alike. When they were arguing, Tacho got stiff and did not say much, while El Feo thought everything was funny. Someplaces there were entire villages populated by sorcerers, all living together by mutual pledge to prey only on outsiders. Their pledges were frequently broken, and they turned upon one another in the most bloodthirsty manner; brother killed brother, sister devoured sister. This destruction, this sorcery, this witchcraft, occured among all human beings. The killing and devouring occurred behind bedroom doors, inflicted by parents and relatives, and the village of sorcerers continues generation after generation without interruption.

El Feo had had actual experience himself with a village of witches. El Feo’s baseball team had attended national playoffs one year in Veracruz and had had to play the baseball team sent to represent a village of witches. The village of witches was wealthy because they had tapped into the great inter-American market for “Inca secrets” and “Aztec magic”. European descendants on American soil anxiously purchased indigenous cures for their dark nights of the soul on the continents where Christianity had repeatedly violated its own canons, and only the Indians could still see the Blessed Virgin among the December roses, her skin color and clothing Native American, not European.

The village of sorcerers had got rich making up and selling various odd sorts of alleged “tribal healing magics” and assorted elixirs, teas, balms, waters, crystals, and capsules to the city people, mostly whites. But more and more mestizos too had secretly begun to consult the Indians. They all wanted to keep the consultations secret to avoid embarrassment or possible excommunication from the Church. The sorcerers listened to the ailments and complaints of the city patients to gain knowledge of the patients’ lives; the cures the sorcerers had then sold their “patients” had cost hundreds, but consisted mostly of floor sweepings containing rodent dung and cotton lint. A piece of paper had been packed with each talisman, amulet, charm, or medicine the village salesmen sold. It was called a simple remedy for all illness and evil; it had been written in crude Spanish and copies had been made with faded-purple mimeograph ink.

Ritual of the Four World Quarters

Jesus, Mary, St. Joseph! Holy Trinity!

All the saints, and all the souls of the living and the dead!

The Heart of Heaven who is called Huracan is the long flash of lightnings

The green flash of lightning

And the deafening crash of lightning.

Grandmother of the Dawn

Grandmother of the Day!

They looked like humans

They talked like humans

They populated the earth

They existed and multiplied

They had daughters and they had sons.

These wooden figures had no minds or souls.

They did not remember their Creator.

They walked on all fours aimlessly.

They no longer remembered the Heart of Heaven and so

They fell from grace.

They were merely the first attempt at human beings.

At first they spoke but their faces were blank.

Their hands and feet had no strength

They had no blood, no substance no moisture, no flesh.

Their cheeks were dry, their hands and feet dry and their skin was yellow.

Burning pine-pitch rains from the sky.

Death Macaw gouges their eyes

Death Jaguar devours their flesh

Death Crocodile breaks and mangles their nerves and bones and crumbles them to dust.

THE OPAL

THE OPAL DID NOT appear to be a fake, wrapped up to fool rich society women. They both knew the danger of looking at the opal unless they were prepared; the eye of the opal might show them anything; the “eye” might take them anywhere. El Feo had glanced down for only an instant, but he had seen the Cuban, Bartolomeo, his hairy bare bottom bouncing on top of Angelita in Mexico City. That hadn’t been news to El Feo, but all the same, the opal might show anything, even the most trivial or embarrassing. El Feo said that was another reason Tacho should keep the bundle; the opal might show too much; a man might see the struggle and suffering to come and lose heart. Angelita with the Cuban wasn’t pretty, but it was necessary: to get back the land was everything.

After El Feo had gone back to the mountains, Tacho had not been able to resist; the bundle was inviting him to take a look. All he had to do was to ask, and the eye would show him everything everywhere — all that had been, all that would be. All El Feo had done was glance down and he had seen more than he had bargained for; Tacho took the stone in the palm of his hand, and with his eyes closed he had exhaled to feed the opal’s spirit his own breath. When Tacho had opened his eyes, the unpolished surface of the opal appeared as thick layers of clouds high over the earth. Tacho peered down through the clouds and could see glittering sapphire blues and emerald greens of the Pacific Ocean, and the long coastline, longer than Tacho had ever imagined, the coastline of the Pacific all the way from Chile to Alaska. Then the clouds seemed to darken and thicken and there was fire; Tacho watched great cities burn; torches of ruby and garnet mushroomed hundreds of feet into the sky. Tacho had strained to see landmarks more clearly, but one city was larger than any Tacho had ever seen. Then he knew: he was watching Mexico City burn again, but this time the sacred macaws had watched as cages full of human cannibal-sorcerers went up in smoke.

Before Tacho returned the bundle to its box, he tried to ask the opal to show him his own life, but all Tacho had been able to see was the unpolished gray surface of the stone. Carefully he rewrapped the opal and returned it to its box. The eye had closed for now.

RIOTS WORLDWIDE

MENARDO HAD WATCHED satellite television until dawn. Menardo sipped hot brandy and chocolate to soothe his nerves. At dawn a strange fatigue and sleepiness would overcome him; then Menardo would be able to sleep without dreams for a few hours. Recently though, Menardo had found the satellite television news irritating, even upsetting; images of the hordes of dirty rabble — the mobs shrieking and stampeding in front of police armored cars or military tanks did not calm his ragged nerves. All over the world, everywhere, the TV cameras showed civil wars. The video images brought back the university riots many years before in Mexico City. Menardo had had heavily insured businessmen in the Federal District, and he watched himself age ten years in one week as the rioting began to spread to involve other sectors of Mexico City. If the riots had not been stopped, Menardo’s losses might have run to billions of pesos, and Universal Insurance would have been ruined.

For years Menardo had not had to worry about the “civil strife, strike, or insurrection” clause of his insurance policies. The long-haired, filthy communists had disappeared from television screens, and Menardo believed the days of mobs and riots had truly passed. Then suddenly one night Menardo had awakened to a loud buzzing sound. The screen of his television had been filled with what appeared to be larvae or insects swarming. When Menardo had raised the volume and looked closely, he saw the swarms were mobs of angry brown people swarming like bees from horizon to horizon. At first Menardo had thought he was seeing a rerun of videotapes taken at the Mexico City riots years before; then, looking more closely, he had seen the city was Miami, and the mobs, American. All over the world money was the glue that held societies together. Without money or jobs even the U.S. was suffering crippling strikes as well as riots and looting. Cities such as Philadelphia that were bankrupt had to appeal for the National Guard, but riots in Detroit, Washington, and New York City had also required federal troops. Menardo shook his head. He didn’t like the look of things in the United States. What a shame such a power as the U.S. had gone the same direction as England and Russia. Almost overnight, the people had discovered all their national treasuries were empty, and now everywhere there were riots.

Menardo dozed off, only to suffer a bad dream. In the dream, Menardo had been running to find his security units in armored trucks; but when he reached the village square, the trucks were there, but his men were not. With the crowd advancing toward him, Menardo had frantically tried to fire upon the mob from a truck, but the mechanism in the machine gun had malfunctioned, and instead of exploding shells, all Menardo had heard was click-click, click-click. Then the armored truck with Menardo inside had been engulfed by the mob, who rolled the vehicle down the street ahead of them. The mob pushed the vehicle into the sea. As the dark, cold water had closed around Menardo to suffocate and crush him, he awoke sweating and panting with the bed sheet twisted partially around his neck. All the other bedding had been kicked on the floor.

Menardo asked Tacho what the meaning of such a dream might be. Menardo had lied and said the dream was not his, but belonged “to a friend.” Tacho had asked if the “friend” was a white man or an Indian, but Menardo refused to say. Why should the meaning change for an Indian? Menardo had demanded to know. Tacho had only smiled faintly and did not answer.

“If your friend is a white man, the dream is about his fear of being born. But if your friend is an Indian, the dream is about a sacrifice for close family members.” Tacho had watched Menardo’s expression in the rearview mirror. “Oh, oh, I see.” Menardo began nodding his head; he didn’t really “see” at all, but he was hoping the Indian would let it go at that because he had drunk too much brandy getting back to sleep after the nightmare.

Menardo blamed television. Monkey see, monkey do. There was nothing wrong with television for entertainment, but the broadcasting of mobs and riots was precisely what the terrorists had wanted. All anyone had to do was look around. At the market, rival food vendors had rigged tiny Korean televisions with wires to car batteries to lure customers, who ate friend dough or tripe while their eyes never left the TV screen. Television showed everything — it showed too much. Menardo had to shudder whenever he recalled the videotapes the police chief had showed him and the others in their shooting club. Still the use of video to control criminals and terrorists was entirely a different matter.

Menardo blamed television commercials designed to seduce and bewitch viewers who would never get any closer to the objects of desire than the television screen, or store windows, which looters smashed with bricks. That was the trouble! Television spoiled secrecy. What common people did not see, they did not covet. If you had a little money set aside, you had to hide it or your relatives and in-laws would borrow and steal you blind. How could storekeepers fill their shop windows with televisions and not expect the ignorant rabble to steal them? The ignorant rabble did not understand the struggles of the small businessman; even Menardo, as successful as he had been, had to face competition from giant insurance companies with multinational holdings to cushion their losses. Looters saw window displays of tape and CD players, and to them, the merchant who owned the store appeared to be a millionaire. What did ignorant Indians know about conducting a successful business? All they wanted to do was waste money and time on village feast days, special “remembrances” for beloved relatives, and ailing clanspeople. Menardo could have been like the others — like his cousins who stayed up all night listening to old men talk about devils and ghosts. Menardo could have taken the easy way out like the others and lain back in a dirt-wall house playing with the babies and the children while his Indian wife supported them from sales of eggs and poultry at the market. In cities, the Indians behaved no differently. The men did nothing. Menardo hated to see them smoking and talking in twos and threes on street corners. Not only did the Indians not make anything of themselves, they had tried to unmake any of their own people who tried to succeed. Menardo had seen Tacho’s brother and the other village louts slinking in and out of Tacho’s quarters, no doubt to beg money or to sleep. Ordinarily, Menardo would have forbidden the visits, but Tacho was different from other Indians Menardo had employed; Tacho had special abilities to interpret dreams.

SONNY BLUE AND ALEGRÍA

JUST AS HIS FRIEND Sonny Blue had said, the world wasn’t such a pretty place these days. That had been the reason for the special gift of the vest. Menardo had examined the vest again and again, running his fingers along the reinforced nylon stitching that secured the “wonder fiber” panels in the vest. A modern miracle of high technology, the wonder fiber was neither bulky nor heavy but possessed a unique density that stopped knives and bullets, including.357-magnum slugs, the brochure said. The brochure also included color diagrams, and a number of actual photographs of test models who had been shot and stabbed in laboratory tests. The miracle fiber made the vest comfortable and inconspicuous.

Menardo had adopted a policy of strict secrecy about the vest. He warned Alegría not to mention a word, nothing about body armor, without secrecy what good were the precautions? He had even asked Alegría to wash the vest by hand in the bathroom sink because Menardo did not trust the maids. No one but the two of them, and of course Sonny Blue, must know about the vest. Menardo had not told General J. or the police chief, though he had been tempted because he knew they would be envious. But since the flood of refugees from the South and the strikes and demonstrations in the northern cities of Guadalajara and Juárez, Menardo had noticed a change in his two friends.

The chief usually laughed and talked when others were firing; but last week he had appeared startled when the governor took his turn on the firing range. The former ambassador, the doctor, and the others had joined in making a big joke out of the jumpy police chief. “An angry wife, a neglected mistress, a scolding father-in-law?” the former ambassador quipped. But Menardo had seen General J. was not laughing. The general had been traveling a great deal lately, and although Menardo believed in secrecy, he felt a seed of concern taking root in his lower intestines. After all, he and General J. were partners; in the years they had done business together, they had become more than partners, and yet the general had told Menardo nothing about these trips. Now the police chief’s edgy behavior had added to the tension.

EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN AND CHARLOTTE

ALEGRÍA HAD NOT had sex with Menardo since Sonny Blue brought the bulletproof vest, but the ugly surprise of Bartolomeo had made her worry about the spy, Tacho. She knew how much Menardo relied upon Tacho’s “dream-reading”; it would not be easy to get rid of the Indian. She might have to settle for Tacho’s “promotion,” perhaps to caretaker at the beach house. Sex with Menardo used to get Alegría almost anything, but she could hardly remember it seemed so long ago that Menardo had been her lover in the Rose Suite of the Royal Hotel. To endure sex with Menardo, Alegría had imagined she was making love with Sonny Blue in the honeymoon suite of a faraway hotel, perhaps in Singapore. One glimpse of Menardo cinched with the white webbing of the vest had been enough to fill her with loathing. The bulletproof vest felt unyielding, but this had aroused Alegría as long as she imagined Sonny Blue wore the vest, and not Menardo. Menardo had snorted and huffed away on top of Alegría, who had orgasm after orgasm, one wave following another in a great warm ocean. Once Bartolomeo had accused Alegría of engaging in mutual masturbation because she had admitted to him that fantasies were necessary to her pleasure. Menardo had labored a long time before he had finally come, and Alegría could feel what feeble, dry ejaculations they were. His University of Arizona fraternity brothers had taught Sonny Blue to be proud of the quantity of his ejaculation; he had even cautioned Alegría about the mess on the sheets. Whispering his confession seemed to excite Sonny even more.

Sonny had asked Alegría why she stayed with Menardo, but she had refused to discuss her marriage. Sonny had heard rumors about the “other wife” and her strange accident on the marble stairs.

“You don’t love him,” Sonny had said, trying to push her. “Why him?” But Alegría had just shaken her head. She did not want to talk or think about Menardo; she wanted to think about Sonny Blue and to imagine herself as the love of his life, pampered and protected. Sonny Blue had asked more questions about Menardo than he had asked about her; the whole time Sonny had been talking he had been stroking her breasts and flicking her nipples.

Alegría had to talk fast before Menardo rolled over and fell asleep with his arms wrapped around himself and his vest. “I’m worried about the beach house, Menardo. The federal police are worse thieves than the Indians.”

“Don’t worry now! Don’t worry at a time like this!” Menardo laughed wickedly, as if his sexual performance had been so astounding it had left Alegría panting for more.

“We could send Tacho down to watch the house.”

“I need Tacho here. The others can’t drive like he does. I’ll send security patrolmen.” Menardo’s breathing was slowing, and Alegría could feel his fingers gradually loosen from her breast as he drifted to sleep.

“I don’t trust Tacho,” Alegría said, raising her voice slightly. “You worry,” she said, tugging at the edge of the bulletproof vest that pressed into Menardo’s soft flesh at the belly button. “You worry about assassin squads—”

“I worry about sleep. Tacho isn’t one of them. Go to sleep.”

Alegría had never liked the Indian chauffeur, but from the start Menardo had been stubborn about getting rid of Tacho. Alegría knew Tacho had got a hold over Menardo with all the baloney about dreams and numbers. “Menardo, listen to me. I lived in Mexico City. I know.”

“Know what?” Menardo had almost dropped off to sleep.

Alegría said nothing. She waited until Menardo began to snore, then she got out of bed and walked to the French doors that opened to the balcony.

There was no moon and the jungle foliage seemed to absorb all light from the stars and even reflected light from the town. Alegría stared at the garage where the chauffeur slept; sometimes she was not able to sleep and had walked downstairs in the night only to see lights on in the garage, and sometimes a figure or figures moving past the small window. Alegría left Menardo’s room, but did not feel sleepy. She could feel the adrenaline pulse in her veins, left over from Bartolomeo’s visit. Something did not add up: Bartolomeo had been able to find her and her store too easily. Bartolomeo had been talking to his Indians — his puppets, his toys; he had got the information from them. Tacho was the link. Alegría had walked slowly down the polished marble stairs, aware of the gridwork of grooves that had been chiseled the length of each stair after Iliana’s tragic fall. Alegría seldom thought about Iliana, but she thought a great deal about the house. Alegría went to the lights and the switches of the alarm system to flick them off so she could walk outside to the pool.

After the house air-conditioning, the night air felt steamy; the night cries of birds and small animals in the jungle were interrupted by the barking of dogs, big Alsatian shepherds that guarded a coffee-grower’s estate nearby. Universal Insurance had, of course, provided the coffee-grower’s security system. How would it look if the president of Universal Insurance and Security or his next-door neighbors were attacked by thieves or terrorists?

The house, the gardens, and the pool had all been designed by Alegría, yet she felt indifferent about them the way she had felt indifferent about her apartment in Mexico City. Alegría blamed her father’s diplomatic corps assignments because they had always kept moving — Lisbon, Madrid, Mexico City, and finally, Caracas. Her father had transferred them deliberately so she might become a citizen of the world, not just Mexico. Sometimes her indifference frightened her, and she willed herself to feel something, even hatred. She had been attracted to Bartolomeo and other leftists because she could feel the hatred they had. She was fascinated by the intensity of their hatred; otherwise politics bored her.

Her father claimed his family had descended from royalty — Emperor Maximilian’s cousins. On her fifteenth birthday, her father had presented her with “a history of the family,” a book about Emperor Maximilian and the empress, Charlotte. Her mother had disapproved of the book for a young girl; this opposition had made the book irresistible. In the evenings Alegría’s father had called her into his study and closed the door; but before her father quizzed her about the pages she had read, he would launch into his speech about diplomacy. The art of diplomacy. The Empress Charlotte had been lacking in the art.

Her father had endlessly meditated on Maximilian’s fall; but for the fall, their family might have reigned as monarchs in Mexico; territories in the North would never have been lost to the gringos. Patiently her father had explained that when noble individuals fell from high positions, the correct term, the only word adequate, was tragedy. When he talked about what might have been, Alegría saw tears in his eyes. The sight of his tears had been strangely exhilarating. Alegría never forgot the story. Her father had researched and read obsessively about Maximilian’s fall. Heartless and craven, the European nations had turned their backs on one of their “own” while the wolves closed in on the palace.

The European powers had sent young Maximilian and his wife, Charlotte, to reign as emperor and empress of Mexico. Maximilian became impotent on the voyage to Mexico. Maximilian regained his potency only in the dark flesh of Indian women. Charlotte wrote to her mother of her disappointment; she was twenty-five years old and her time for love and lovemaking were over. Charlotte traveled to Yucatan, and at the ancient ruins of Uxmal she had paused before a carved stone, undecipherable and erect. Although it was late December, the empress was suddenly overcome by the tropical heat. Charlotte returned from Yucatan anxious and depressed, although she did not understand why. Rumors in the palace named the toloache, a toxic plant, possibly sacred datura, which in small doses is known to disturb the mind.

Charlotte became hysterical as new clutches of spiders’ eggs were discovered on the red damask sofa. She gave strict orders the entire castle at Chapultepec be fumigated. She accused Maximilian of carelessly allowing his live specimens to escape from their jars and crawl downstairs from the attic laboratory. Charlotte’s nightmares were of insects and vermin in the Montezuma Castle. The emperor began to sleep on the billiard table.

Maximilian had been stunned by the expense of fielding troops to fight the Indian Juárez and his partisan army. The Imperial Treasury of Mexico was dangerously overdrawn. Maximilian’s scheme for raising money called for the colonization of Mexico by Confederate refugees from the American Civil War. A commander from Texas named McGruder administered the Land Office for Confederate Colonies across northeastern Mexico. Juárez and his army of partisans were joined by Indians dispossessed by the Confederate settlers.

Charlotte was no longer able to sleep at night and roamed in her carriage to revisit sites of past banquets and balls. The European powers did not respond to Maximilian’s pleas for money; Charlotte traveled to Paris to beg help from her sister, Eugénie, wife of Emperor Napoleon.

At Acalcingo, Juáristas stole the six white mules that pulled Maximilian’s carriage. Meanwhile, at St.-Nazaire, nothing had been prepared for Charlotte’s reception. Prussia had invaded Bohemia, and the European powers had forgotten about the empire in Mexico. The Empress Eugénie assured her sister privately, but the European powers had written off Mexico as lost.

Charlotte’s mental confusion increased during her private audience with Pope Pius IX, and she insisted she must drink the Pope’s hot chocolate because all her food was poisoned.

Maximilian’s secret messengers were betrayed, one after the other. Their corpses were hung from poles in Liberal trenches with signs from their necks that read “Imperial Courier.”

Charlotte’s madness in no way diminished her physical health. She was more beautiful than before, shut away with her servants in a wing of the palace at Tervueren.

Maximilian died before a firing squad. Juáristas refused to deliver his corpse to sympathizers. The embalmers failed at their first attempt and there was a threat of international protest. Maximilian’s corpse had to be rewashed in arsenic solution and wrapped in bandages followed by a coat of varnish. The corpse was then suspended by ropes from the hospital ceiling to allow the varnish to dry. Juárez and his personal physician visited the hospital secretly in the middle of the night. All others were barred until the varnish dried. Juárez remarked the smell was not so bad after all.

Alegría knew the story by heart; it had been Bartolomeo’s favorite story. He was dead now. How he had enjoyed tormenting Alegría about her butchered faux royal ancestors.

Alegría had been thinking about the future, her future. She had to get out of Mexico. Bartolomeo might not get to first base with his accusations against her, but his sudden appearance was an ominous sign about local politics and the mood of the Indians in the mountains. The least connection with Bartolomeo would be enough for General J. and the police chief to make a stink to Menardo. All over Mexico, local skirmishes between rival political parties had convinced both General J. and the police chief that communist agents were everywhere spreading their cancer of communism among ignorant, lazy Indians and half-breeds who would like nothing better than to see communism feed them while they idled away the day.

Bartolomeo spelled blackmail. Next he would be asking Alegría for little favors, not just sex. Next Bartolomeo would ask Alegría to hide caches of ammunition or even weapons in her store warehouse. Back upstairs in her own bedroom, Alegría took stock of her jewelry and the cash in the closet floor vault. Bartolomeo might not be able to convince General J. or the police chief about Alegría’s leftist “flirtations,” but their wives and others in Tuxtla society would persuade them. Alegría had already provided Tuxtla society with sensational gossip, which had climaxed with the death of Iliana, whom they had all secretly hated. Yet they expected Alegría to give them more sensational gossip, and Bartolomeo was liable to deliver what they had been waiting for.

Alegría remained calm. She was thinking about Sonny Blue in Tucson. She wasn’t worried. She had a plan, and if it failed, then she would find Sonny Blue. She had been thinking about the bomb accident in Mexico City; funny thing how Bartolomeo always escaped while the others died. There was always the spy, Tacho. Maybe Tacho could be of some use to her; maybe he would obligingly carry back certain misinformation about Comrade Bartolomeo.

As for Menardo, he had become a virtual basket case, obsessed with assassins since he had got the bulletproof vest. Menardo had begun to spend hours driving around Tuxtla making notes on intersections and possible ambush sites for terrorist kidnappers. Menardo had insisted that Alegría be accompanied at all times by her own bodyguard, though so far Alegría had refused. She said she did not want to call attention to herself, but Alegría had a great deal she wished to conceal.

How would it look to the world if the wife of the president of Universal Insurance and Security had been kidnapped by terrorist kidnappers? Alegría had only shrugged her shoulders at Menardo. Did he really care about her or was she merely a prized possession? Menardo apologized desperately: Alegría could have anything she wanted and she would have nothing she did not desire; that included bodyguards. She no longer had to ride with Tacho if she felt taxis were safer.

UNEASE AND SUSPICION

MENARDO HAD TRIED months before to stop Alegría from going to her interior-decorator shop every day. He feared she would make an easy target for leftists at her shop. He wanted her to remain safely occupied with the other wives, who shopped together, then played canasta until seven at the country club. Why didn’t Alegría make things easier for him? Menardo had been disappointed to wake up alone in his bed. Alegría hated the vest and had returned to her own bed sometime after he was asleep. Iliana had been barren, and Menardo wanted children; but Alegría did not stay in bed long enough for him even to start a baby. Only the year before, they had been newlyweds, and Alegría had wrapped her naked body around his and begged for more, more, more!

Menardo had not seen it coming, whatever it was that overshadowed him now. He could feel a presence that had gradually occupied his consciousness, an intuition that very soon this world would become fragmented and scatter apart. His partnership with General J. and the “silent partners” had begun to suck Menardo into the dark undertow of politics. Bombings by terrorists had been stepped up in Guadalajara and Mexico City; huge power-transmission-line towers had been dynamited outside both cities. In the darkness, looting started; then police and soldiers arrived and opened fire. The looters became rioters, and soldiers and rioters had been killed.

Like satellite TV, everywhere available to everyone, dynamite in Mexico was also everywhere available, sold too cheaply and in great volume to foreign mining companies who wanted to blow up all of Mexico looking for gold or uranium. Meanwhile the dynamite was being stolen by the ton, and leftists were trying to outblast the mining companies. Menardo hated bombs; only bullets were precise and just. Bombs too easily killed innocent people. After the bombing in Tuxtla, Menardo had given Tacho strict orders. Three times a day like clockwork Tacho had removed his chauffeur’s coat and slipped clean overalls over his uniform trousers and shirt. Then Tacho had groomed the undercarriage, frame, and motor of the Mercedes, combing it from front to rear as he lay on his back, scooting along on a piece of cardboard on the lookout for bombs.

The others at the shooting range had not seemed to notice, but Menardo began to wonder if they had only been pretending. Others less acute might not have noticed, but the general had no longer looked directly at Menardo. If Menardo tried to lower his eyes or in any way catch the general’s eye, the general had avoided his gaze. The general had been so casual the others had not noticed, and when Menardo had asked if something was wrong, the general had smiled broadly and laughed, saying, of course not, how ridiculous, as he gazed at the wall behind Menardo’s head.

Menardo began to regret he had brought Sonny Blue to Tuxtla when they could as easily have met in Mexico city. He regretted the secrecy, which had really been unnecessary, and might now have undermined the general’s trust in Menardo. Menardo blamed the political upheaval in the South. He had begun to receive emergency calls from clients in Guatemala, San Salvador, and Honduras — day and night — with claims for warehouses and property gutted by fires set by Indian guerrilla units. Menardo had stepped up security patrols for all industrial and commercial clients, marking their locations on a wall map with colored plastic pins. Red pins were units of five men; blue pins were units of ten men. The black pins marked the scenes of labor-union disputes, riots, or demonstrations, which were strictly the domain of General J. because federal troops were sent out in those cases, at no charge to Universal. Because what was good for businessmen and industrialists was good for Mexico.

The refugee situation had suddenly filled the town with foreigners and suspicious-looking Mexican tourists from the capital, who were undercover agents for internal security. The police chief had pointed out the secret agents to Menardo and the other members of their private shooting club. Later Menardo had noticed the police chief sneaking glances at him, and one evening at dinner at the country club Menardo had noticed General J. staring at him from across the club’s main dining room. But when Menardo had crossed the room to greet General J., he pretended he had not noticed Menardo.

Menardo knew the general had been flying to Honduras and Costa Rica for a series of meetings with certain Americans. The general had called the meetings “strictly military”—but Menardo could feel tension in their phone conversations. The general had been uncharacteristically gracious and reassuring about the gringos. It was not a question of losing something but of both Menardo and their company gaining a great deal.

The general reminded Menardo about the video cameras the Americans had given the police chief; these were good examples of the usefulness of gifts from the United States government. Security had been too strict to allow Menardo to meet the Americans until later. Menardo felt uneasy, but security was the domain of the general, just as the accounts, policies, and premium payments were the domain of Menardo. General J. seldom had questions about auditor’s reports, so he did not expect questions from Menardo about security matters.

Menardo did not feel better after General J. went on to explain the U.S. government had new military field equipment they needed to test under actual combat conditions. Test equipment given away by gringos was equipment the police and the army did not have to buy from Menardo. In the years they had done business together, they had become more than partners. They had been like brothers who looked out for one another. The general had also been fortunate to marry into a prominent family from Tuxtla. They used to get drunk together regularly in the early years to talk business and to make future plans. They had both faced the opposition from the families of their wives, but what sweet satisfaction, what revenge, Menardo and the general had had! What mattered nowadays was money, and even though the “high society” of Tuxtla might groan or grit their teeth, their sisters and daughters had gone to the highest bidders as they always had. The difference now was men such as Menardo and the general had more wealth than the “blue bloods,” who had squandered billions since the Second World War. The general had always gone further to insult the manhood of the upper classes, saying there were no virile blue bloods, and that the aristocratic class owed its continuance to the secret liaisons between their women and real men such as himself and Menardo.

Menardo had tried to telephone his friend the general twice earlier in the week, but each time the secretary had said the general was out of the office. After his last round of secret meetings with the U.S. military, General J. had promised a full report to Menardo. Fortunately there was always Friday afternoon at the shooting range. Menardo could take his partner aside and they could arrange to have dinner later. Menardo had not felt such uneasiness since his childhood, when the others had made jokes and kept secrets from him.

Even Alegría had noticed Menardo’s nervousness on Wednesday. At first Menardo had tried to deny anything was bothering him, but Alegría had been strangely insistent; she wanted to know what was wrong. Alegría had even guessed it was something to do with the general. She got quite excited and demanded to know what was wrong between him and the general. “Wrong? What could be wrong?” Menardo had raised his voice indignantly; he did not see how Alegría could jump to the conclusion something was wrong. Women did not understand the friendship men shared, otherwise Alegría would have known that everything was fine, everything was going great and was about to get even better. Let the general do the talking. These United States “businessmen” wanted to remain behind the scenes; they needed reliable local “partners.” Wednesday evening at dinner Alegría had mentioned the women’s club was only meeting twice a month now. Alegría said she did not care since she had wanted to take some business trips to the United States later anyway.

Changes were all around. The phrase repeated over and over inside Menardo’s brain. The old man had always put the phrase at the beginning of the story about Prince Seven Macaws, who had been undone by two sorcerer brothers. Menardo had no control over his thoughts lately because of the worry. Somehow the worry had mobilized Menardo’s earliest memories, and he remembered the voice of the old man, his grandfather, acting out stories and changing his voice for different characters.

Changes were everywhere. Aircraft and helicopters supplied by the United States government were on patrol for groups of illegal refugees, who anyone could see were leftist strike units disguised as Salvadorean or Guatemalan refugees. Menardo had agreed with the police chief and the general: only blood spoke loudly enough; “shoot to kill” was the only answer, but the politicians and diplomats weren’t buying. Satellite television was to blame. Blood spoke too loudly for television. International outcry followed. That had been the reason the police chief had “secret units,” and the military had always had “counterintelligence units.”

ILLEGAL REFUGEES

AT THE CLUB on Friday, Menardo intended to talk with the police chief, and then to the general, each separately. Menardo sensed a growing conflict between the military and the police. The police chief supported the capture and incarceration of illegal refugees by the State Police, who had always attended to matters of internal state security. But the general argued the military must be called in. The police chief did not deny the refugees might be secret enemy agents — saboteurs and provocateurs sent north to wreak havoc on Mexico City. The chief favored refugee prison camps where the refugees could do field work at nearby plantations during the day. The plan called for hiring hundreds of new police officers and would cost millions. General J. opposed any more refugee prison camps. He advocated harsher measures.

Menardo agreed with General J. that the bands of illegal refugees trying to make a run for it should be gunned down from the air like coyotes or wolves. A little blood here and there was better than big pools of blood flashed across the globe by satellite TV. Mass the refugees in camps and sooner or later, as their numbers grew, so would their unrest and boldness until a bloodbath occurred.

Menardo agreed with the general the best policy was to kill them as you found them. Otherwise, you ran into all the logistical problems the Germans had encountered with disposing of the Jews. General J. thought Hitler had underestimated the German people. The Jews could have been killed by mobs and death squads without the cumbersome and incriminating death factories. Fifty here, a hundred there — the numbers added up over weeks and months at a steady rate; this was why “disappearances” and death squads were superior to Hitler’s death factories.

General J. prided himself on his knowledge of military history. If Hitler had not been crazy, he might have realized it was not necessary to kill all the Jews. The general himself would have killed only key figures, and the remaining Jews would have been demoralized and docile the way the remaining Indians were. But the Jews would have made far superior slaves than Indians ever had; Hitler had wasted great potential. German factories might have hummed night and day powered with Jews, and the Germans might have been the first nation to enjoy complete leisure and wealth in the industrial age.

Indians however were the worst workers — slow, sloppy, and destructive of tools and machinery. Indians were a waste of time and money. No refugee camps for them — the best policy was quick annihilation on the spot, far, far from satellite TV cameras. The general and Menardo had agreed on that. Menardo and his friend had agreed on nearly all things.

Thursday evening Menardo had quarreled with Alegría at the dinner table, and she had left the room in tears. She had been asking question after question about the general, about the governor, about the chief of police. She kept coming back to the police chief until finally Menardo had lost his temper. Alegría was not just another wife — he knew that. Other women did not bother about their husbands’ colleagues.

Later Menardo had knocked softly on Alegría’s bedroom door and had held his breath so he could hear if she replied. Menardo wanted to explain himself. He wanted to explain the entire situation; he had never told her about “the concerns” his partner and others in his club had expressed when he had announced his marriage with her. Menardo thought Alegría should be alerted about some of the people she had associated with at the university. Subversives and radicals were thick — communists were everywhere, so Menardo could hardly blame Alegría. She had told him about the classes she had taught at the university, and of course it wasn’t her fault if communists had enrolled.

Alegría did not answer his knocks, so Menardo had poured himself a big brandy to carry to bed. With the brandy he could gradually put distance between himself and the worries that lined themselves in rows like soldiers. Riots and looting had resulted in heavy casualty losses, millions and millions in claims that Universal Insurance had to pay. Menardo felt the brandy begin to ease the tension he felt in his stomach. He sat in bed watching satellite television with the sound off — an international beauty pageant on a beach somewhere. Innocent enough, but sometimes lately, a word or even a phrase was enough to set off a tight, panicky feeling in his chest. The hot vapors of the brandy rolled down his throat and pushed aside all effects of the words. Words, only words. Rifle, revolver, return.

Menardo had dozed off for only an instant because when he awoke, again the bathing suit contest was still on the TV screen. But in the instant Menardo had fallen asleep, he had begun to dream. He was a tiny child in the village again, carried in the old man’s arms; Indians from nearby villages had joined the others in long lines to greet Menardo in his grandpa’s arms. The faces Menardo saw in the dream he recognized as all the old people who had passed on; they called him storekeeper and asked him to sell them food on credit. Although only an infant in the dream, Menardo had been able to talk, but only Spanish, which none of the old ones seemed to understand. He felt the greatest anxiety trying to make himself understood by the Indians, who could be seen in the distance joining the line of people already waiting to speak to Menardo. Return. We return. He was trying to explain to them he did not have enough to feed everyone, not enough to go around, but they understood no Spanish, only Indian, which Menardo had refused to learn.

The dream did not frighten him, but he was puzzled because he had not dreamed about the village or the old people there since his youth. Then suddenly they had all been lined up — probably because the TV beauty-pageant contestants had all been lined up. Menardo poured himself more brandy. The liquor created an invisible, warm wing that lifted him up, out of the reach of the words, where he floated more powerful than any of them — the general, the governor, or the police chief. He finished the brandy and closed his eyes to enjoy the sensation. He rubbed his fingers lightly over the left front panel of the vest inside his pajama top. The triumph of modern science — man-made fiber, rayon, nylon, and now the deceptively thin and soft fibers of “wonder fabric” that stopped all bullets and knife blades.

The beauty pageant was no longer as soothing to watch because the young, ripe beauties who had just been eliminated were huddled together bewildered, while ten smiling finalists stood front stage in the spotlight. Menardo frowned. He did not like to see weeping women, not even when they were beauties in bikinis. What did they expect? They could not all be chosen. Menardo had never been chosen for school teams — soccer or baseball — because he had been too fat. Menardo snapped off the television and reached for the information booklet about the vest. He was familiar with the diagrams and the cross-section drawings illustrating how bullets became enmeshed in the wonder fibers that saved your life. He did not like to admit this to himself, but he had begun to enjoy the nightly ritual of the brandy, then looking at himself in the mirror wearing the vest and pajama bottoms. The vest was bright white against his skin. He appreciated the low cut in the front and back, which protected his genitals and lower spine. It was perfect. Lightweight and whisper soft; only your wife knew you were wearing body armor. Secrecy was essential; otherwise assassins aimed for the head. The brochure on the vest always made good bedtime reading because the technical details gradually put one to sleep. The photographs of actual tests filled Menardo with confidence. All of it was a matter of trust — trust of the high technology that had woven the vest fibers, and trust in those most intimate with you. Trust. Menardo had repeated the word over and over until he was asleep.

THE TEST

MENARDO HAD AWAKENED Friday morning feeling well rested and happier than he had felt in months. He had not awakened sweating and moaning in one of his nightmares. The day was sunny, and a mild breeze smelled of Alegría’s roses and mock orange blossoms in the garden. Menardo felt happy and confident about his meeting later that day with his friend the general. Alone together, just the two of them, they could iron out any misunderstandings that might have sprung up if the general had learned about Sonny Blue’s visit. Conducting business with the U.S. government or its citizens had always aroused some nervousness and wariness even between friends and partners. Menardo expected General J. would have a good deal to report to him too, although he understood some of it was top secret between the U.S. and the Mexican military commanders.

Menardo had not felt so happy at breakfast with Alegría since the wedding. He had skipped his newspapers and looked across the table at her while he drank his coffee. He had felt love shining in his eyes, but Alegría apparently had not because she had demanded to know what was wrong, why was he staring at her? Was he trying to drive her crazy? Menardo did not get angry, but got up from his chair to hug her and soothe her. Couldn’t she tell? His worries had gone, they had disappeared suddenly during the night. All his little insecurities about his friend the general — all the little fears that his partner would throw him over for a deal with the U.S. military.

By the end of breakfast, Alegría had seemed more relaxed. She was talking about a business trip to Phoenix and L.A. Alegría said she wanted to see what interior designers in the United States were doing; too much of the French or even the Italians was boring; Alegría wanted what was fresh and exciting. “I feel fresh and exciting,” Menardo had said to Alegría as he rang Tacho to bring the car. But Alegría had been too intent on her travel plans to notice his wit. He kissed her on the cheek when he heard the car pull up. Before he stepped out the door, Menardo straightened his tie and collar, then patted down his suit coat, smoothing the fabric to better conceal the outline of his vest. He wanted the vest correctly in place when he stepped outside.

Tacho did not speak unless spoken to. Menardo waited until they were out of the driveway before he began telling Tacho his dreams. These were good-luck dreams — Menardo was certain because suddenly everything had seemed hopeful: his wife was happily planning business trips; Universal Insurance was about to close a deal with the U.S. government and his friend the general would fill him in on details in a matter of hours. Menardo gazed back over his shoulder at the shining white palace that was his home: how silly his lapses of confidence had been! All was safely protected, securely guarded, and shielded; each detail, each element, each person, in his life was secure. No one and nothing could touch him!

His dream the night before was proof of that. No one could lay a hand on him. Menardo had dreamed he was in a village of stone walls. Inside an abandoned room, a skeleton had been unearthed. “You dug this up?” Tacho asked.

“No!” Menardo answered quickly, shaking his head. “Not me! The skeleton had already been disturbed by someone else. Not me!”

Tacho glanced into the rearview mirror where he caught Menardo’s eyes for an instant. Menardo nodded. “The skeleton wore a necklace of green stone beads. But it wasn’t like a nightmare. I wasn’t afraid of it!”

“Because it had no feet or hands?” Tacho said.

Menardo had felt a chill excitement. “How did you know?”

Tacho had smiled broadly and tilted his head back so Menardo could see him in the rearview mirror. Menardo had forgotten how arrogant Indians could be. “Some say don’t leave the dead feet or hands to chase you and grab you.” Tacho seldom volunteered so much information. Stupid superstitions. Whenever Menardo had observed Tacho or other ignorant Indians from his home village, Menardo found it difficult to believe his own family had ever been connected with such ignorance and superstition. Menardo’s ancestors had adopted European dress — brocades and silks as befit royalty. They had worn the old feather capes on ceremonial occasions, and to satisfy the rabble when they paid their taxes once a year.

Menardo did not see what difference hands or feet made if you were dreaming about a skeleton. In dreams, anything could happen anyway — feet or no feet. He was tired of Tacho’s superstition. “I was not afraid because I was wearing body armor.”

“Armor? In your dream?” Tacho’s eyes were shining in the rearview mirror; Tacho had started laughing as if Menardo had made a joke. Menardo could not endure Tacho’s ignorance. Indians such as Tacho stayed poor because they feared progress and modern technology.

Menardo had not intended to reveal the secret to Tacho, but suddenly it had happened: Menardo realized what he had wanted to do from the beginning, after Sonny Blue had first given him the vest. Menardo had wanted to see a live bullet hit the vest. He wanted to witness the superiority of man-made fibers that stopped bullets and steel and cheated death.

The armed escort cars remained at the main gate to bolster country club security. They feared car bombs crashing through. Universal Security provided armed patrols outside and inside the country club. Leftist rabble were all terrorists, and terrorists might try anything. Last Friday the police chief had killed a stray dog that had wandered too close; they had feared terrorists had strapped explosives to the dog for use with a remote-control security device. They had found nothing on the dead dog except fleas.

The waiters had been putting up the blue-and-white-striped awnings that completed the tent where their shooting club relaxed in the shade with cuba libres and margaritas while bets were made and members took turns firing. Menardo glanced at his wristwatch. There was enough time before the other shooting-club members would arrive. Menardo directed Tacho to park the Mercedes behind the tent for privacy. Without speaking, Menardo had first removed his coat and tie, laying them carefully on the backseat so they did not wrinkle. Tacho had watched intently in the rearview mirror. Menardo thought he even saw a ripple of amazement cross the Indian’s big face as he had unbuttoned his shirt to reveal the bulletproof vest. Tacho had been embarrassed and reluctant as Menardo removed the vest and handed it to him. “See that? Feel it!” Menardo could hardly contain his excitement. He did not need their brochure of pictures; he would prove it to himself. Tacho was still examining the nylon straps of the vest when Menardo thrust the information brochure into Tacho’s lap. Menardo took the vest and slipped it back on. He leaned over the driver’s seat and looked over Tacho’s shoulder at the color photographs of police and others whose lives had been saved by the vest. Menardo was not sure Tacho could read, so he had read aloud the caption of each of the photographs. Menardo savored Tacho’s amazement that soft, man-made fibers with no steel or metal at all could stop a bullet. Menardo had not felt so happy in years — not since he had first made love with Alegría. They could not lay a hand on him, that was the meaning of his dream. He did not need an Indian such as Tacho to tell him that. What a lovely spring day it was! The breeze was dry and cool, and Menardo felt as if suddenly a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders. The general might have secret meetings in Honduras or Costa Rica, and the police chief might get video cameras from mysterious U.S. agents, but Menardo has his connections too: with Sonny Blue, who represented certain U.S. businessmen with trade proposals.

All his nightmares, his premonitions, about assassins’ ambushes — gunmen on motorcycles and exploding bombs — had meant nothing more than too much rich food before bed. Menardo felt lighthearted. The general would never deceive or betray him. They were closer than brothers — he and the general. The general did not know how to talk to those rural merchants. Certain rivalries between rural families and clans had made security policies easy for Menardo to sell. Menardo sighed with satisfaction. Changes all around only made the insurance and security business better. The sky was the limit, even the general knew that. Menardo opened his pistol case on the backseat and laid out the Ruger, Colt, and Smith & Wesson — all of them bought from Greenlee in Tucson. “You want to see how the body armor works?” Menardo had to repeat himself twice because Tacho did not seem to understand Menardo’s plan. Tacho was still staring down at the color brochure of huge purple bruises on hairy white chests where wonder fiber had stopped the bullets before penetration.

Menardo felt the breeze cool his arms and shoulders as he got out of the car. He knew he looked ridiculous wearing only the vest and trousers and shoes, but he saw no reason to spoil a shirt and sport coat. The color brochure had not done any good with Tacho, who seemed stupefied and unable to understand Menardo’s most simple commands. “I will stand here. You will stand over there…. Yes, there. Right on that spot. Whatever you do, don’t step over that line…. No.” Tacho’s smile wasn’t so arrogant now. He had Tacho scared. “I want you to see this, Tacho, so you understand.” Menardo had brought the 9mm Smith & Wesson to Tacho, who seemed rooted to the ground where Menardo had ordered him to stand.

Menardo’s heart was pounding with excitement. He could hardly believe what fun he was having with the bulletproof vest. Later, after the others had arrived, Menardo would ask one of the waiters for a carving knife, and they would witness still another amazing escape from death. He glanced down at his watch and realized he was impatient for the others to arrive. Because he wanted to stun and dazzle them. He imagined how dramatic it would be for the others — the governor, former ambassador, the judge and the doctor. Because the general and the police chief would surely guess the vest’s secret, but to the others it would appear as if Menardo faced certain death.

WORK OF THE SPIRITS

TACHO HAD KNOWN all along about the vest. What Tacho did not see or overhear was reported to him by the maid and the cook’s helper. The household staff felt betrayed by the loss of their prestigious lady, Iliana. She alone had been respectable. Tacho had mentioned the vest to El Feo and the woman called Angelita La Escapía. The wild woman had known immediately about this “body armor,” a miracle fiber that stopped bullets. Angelita talked too much, but she knew interesting facts. Politicians and the rich. Police, politicians, and the very rich wore body armor under their clothes whenever they went out in public. Bulletproof wigs for men and women were available to prime ministers and presidents, who wore bulletproof glasses with the wigs for optimum protection. “Nothing is foolproof,” Angelita said. “Professionals aim for the mouth or the ear.”

The fetish suffered night sweats, and one morning Tacho had found a puddle of urine at the foot of the bedroll. Tacho had been afraid to disturb the bundle since then. He was not sure if the opal or the coca leaves had been responsible for the night sweat and urine. Tacho worried the police had killed the bundle’s Peruvian caretakers and the bundle had been angered and desired revenge. The twelve coca leaves belonged to a powerful spirit.

In the South, there were thousands who worshiped Mama Coca, because she had loved and cared for the people for thousands of years. Mama Coca had taken away the pain, she had numbed the hunger, and she had given tired travelers a last push over the mountain. Mama Coca had sustained them all along, and now Mama Coca was going to help them take back the lands that were theirs. That was why the white men feared the coca bushes and poisoned and firebombed them. Coca leaves gave the Indians too much power, dangerous power; not just the power money buys, but spiritual power to destroy all but the strong. All things weak, all things European, would shrivel, then blow away. Nothing would stop their passing; all their apprentices and toadies whatever their ancestry, would disappear too.

Tacho tried to pretend he did not understand what Menardo wanted done with the pistol. The upstairs maid had told Tacho about Menardo’s wearing the vest to bed; she often found the color brochure about the vest in the bedcovers, evidence Menardo fell asleep reading about the vest. But Menardo was crazier than Tacho had thought. Menardo was babbling about playing a joke on the others. He would make fools of them!

Still, nothing had prepared Tacho for Menardo’s request to shoot him in the chest with the 9mm Smith & Wesson. Tacho’s hesitation had only excited Menardo more. At the end of the country club driveway limousines and escort cars could be seen passing the main-gate guardhouse as if traveling in a convoy.

Menardo wanted perfect timing — he wanted Tacho to wait until the cars had pulled up, then he would greet his fellow shooting-club members, then Tacho must shoot. Snap! Snap! Snap! One two three! Before the others could even open their mouths! What an exhibition they would see! Here was a man to be reckoned with — a man invincible with the magic of high technology.

As the convoy of Mercedeses and escorting Blazers slowed to a halt, Menardo had gestured extravagantly with both arms like a windmill above his head; then he had pointed at both front panels of the vest, then at Tacho, who was holding the pistol at his side. The heads inside the cars stared dumbly at Menardo until he yelled at Tacho to point the gun; as soon as Tacho had raised the automatic, all eyes had been on Tacho. Menardo shouted at his fellow club members, “Watch this! Watch this!” Tacho looked at the stupefied faces of the general and the police chief; he wanted to be sure they did not order their bodyguards to shoot. They seemed to realize Menardo was giving the orders. “Go on! Now! Do it! Fire!” Menardo’s voice had been shrill with frenzy as he slapped the left panel of the vest; right over his heart. “Here! Here!” he urged Tacho. Before General J. or the police chief or any of the others could leap from their cars, Tacho had fired the 9mm automatic once, striking Menardo in the chest.

The fall surprised Menardo, and somehow he had no air in his lungs to speak to the general and the others who knelt over him. Tacho had stood looking down at him, still holding the 9mm in his hand. The police chief and General J. fumbled with the nylon webbing and zipper of the vest, and Menardo could feel himself sinking into their arms. What was the general saying? Had Tacho fired the pistol? Why had he fallen? Menardo could not remember. He felt a warm puddle under himself. Why had the waiters poured soup over him? What were they looking at? They could examine the vest later for damage, but right now he needed help to stand up. He was getting too wet and cold lying there.

THE HEAT IS ON

ALEGRÍA HAD BEGUN to feel uneasy when Bartolomeo showed up in Tuxtla. She did not like how easily Bartolomeo had located her at the shop. He claimed he was working with Indians in the mountains; some “internal committee” in Havana wanted him to investigate the Indians. They could not be certain any longer which groups of Indians were true Marxists, and which tribes were puppets for the U.S. military, or worse, tribes which were corrupted by nationalism and tribal superstition.

“They know all about your husband in Mexico City,” Bartolomeo had continued with his familiar smile. Alegría knew his tricks. She laughed. She would tell Bartolomeo herself.

“He wears a bulletproof vest to bed. The Mercedes is armored. Two cars — bodyguards — one goes before, one goes behind.”

“Oh, not that!” Bartolomeo said with a wave of his hand. “We are talking about a business relationship—the general—”

“You Cubans! You’re crazy! Of course, there’s a business relationship! That’s public knowledge!” Alegría had sent the sales clerks home early when she saw Bartolomeo walk through the door; her excuse had been the inventory report.

Alegría and Bartolomeo wandered through the brass lamps, leather armchairs, massive sofas, and rolls of expensive wool carpeting imported from all over the world. As Bartolomeo gazed at her interior-decorator’s shop, she could see his upper lip slowly begin to curl into a sneer. “Haute bourgeois!” Bartolomeo said, pronouncing the last word slowly as he looked her in the eye.

“What do you want?” Alegría said in a hard, low voice; she was beginning to hate this man.

“What do you have?” Bartolomeo was always smiling, always cocksure.

“I’m locking up now. I’m expected at home.”

“ ‘Expected at home.’ How nice. How respectable.”

Alegría could feel her heart pounding. She had never felt hatred so purely before. If she had had a gun close by, she would have killed him on the spot. Her anger had always aroused Bartolomeo. She could see his face change, his eyes glisten as he moved toward her. “Too bad you didn’t explode with the others — it’s funny how they died but you didn’t! I hope they kill you here!” she hissed. But Bartolomeo was unconcerned with insults or accusations. He was the first to admit he had saved his own hide and the others were expendable. Bartolomeo merely shrugged his shoulders and smiled. “To have you, my plum, this instant, I would gladly die later!” Alegría saw he was scheming to get her near one of the beds. “Go stick it in an Indian!” Alegría hissed through her teeth. She was thinking too bad she couldn’t alert the police chief and the general about Bartolomeo’s presence because she could imagine how much they would enjoy interrogating this communist. Too bad, but she was not well liked in Tuxtla; the authorities would likely take the Cuban’s word over hers; too bad, but Bartolomeo could link her to the Mexico City group.

After Bartolomeo left the store, Alegría had been too shaky to dial the phone for a cab. She poured herself straight shots of rum from a bottle she kept at the store for her nerves. Menardo got on her nerves. The Indian chauffeur, Tacho, got on her nerves. Menardo was obsessed with the bulletproof vest. He wore it to bed; for all she knew, he wore it in the bath and shower. Alegría had heard the general’s wife whisper to the police chief’s wife about Menardo. The whole town had begun to suspect one another. Menardo had had visitors from the United States. The former ambassador had also had visitors from the United States. The police chief not only had had visitors, he had got himself video cameras and equipment with promises of more to follow.

This town got on her nerves. Alegría found she had been thinking more and more about Sonny Blue in Tucson. Menardo kept safety deposit boxes full of gold and U.S. cash in Tucson. She did not like the way Tacho watched her and everything that went on. Alegría was sure he was a spy.

Alegría more and more appreciated how much better the rum made her feel. Alcohol was important medicine for her. Tacho suspected her and Sonny Blue. Tacho might “interpret” one of Menardo’s dreams in such a way that Menardo would catch wind of the affair. Or Tacho might try blackmail.

Alegría no longer slept in Menardo’s bed. All night Menardo tossed and turned, jumping out of bed or sitting up in bed, muttering in his sleep. His nightmares were always about bombs exploding under the Mercedes, or masked assassins stepping through the bedroom door.

Security no longer permitted dinner and dancing parties at private homes. Social functions and entertaining were conducted at the country club, surrounded by walls and electric fences and helicopter surveillance. Alegría continued to play cards with the other wives three times a week at the club. Some weeks there had not been enough players for five tables because the husbands of some of the women no longer felt their wives were safe driving to the country club. Years before, of course, the women had only met one another in their homes. Iliana’s had been the first generation of women to realize the advantages of luncheon and cards at the country club where the women could drink cocktails, smoke cigarettes, and gossip about in-laws uninhibitedly.

Alegría did not have any illusions. A number of Tuxtla’s best addressees were off-limits for Alegría; and while the wives of the governor and former ambassador might play bridge or canasta with Alegría at the country club, this did not mean she would ever be invited to their homes. At the club, rumors provided the only entertainment. If Alegría missed a Tuesday or a Thursday, she was aware of the former ambassador’s wife and the governor’s wife whispering behind their hands as they watched her. All the talk is about the gringos: U.S. dollars and U.S. equipment are up for grabs. Menardo, the general, and the police chief — they had all had visitors from the United States recently. The former ambassador’s U.S.-born wife watches their three wives suspiciously.

Rumors say United States troops will soon occupy Mexico to help protect U.S.-owned factories in Northern Mexico as well as the rich Mexico City politicians on the CIA payroll since prep school. There are shortages of cornmeal and rioting spreads. Rumors say the richest families have already opened bank accounts and purchased homes “in the North,” which is understood to be San Antonio, San Diego, Tucson, or Los Angeles. Rumors say the refugees fleeing from the South have greatly increased in number as civil wars ignite in Costa Rica and Honduras. Alegría imagined a map of the world suspended in darkness until suddenly a tiny flame blazed up, followed by others, to form a burning necklace of revolution across two American continents. That was another reason Alegría preferred taxis. Alegría expected the riots eventually to reach Tuxtla, and she preferred to meet rioters in a taxi, and not a Mercedes.

MIRACLE OF HIGH TECHNOLOGY

ALEGRÍA HAD BEEN PACKING her bags for a vacation at their beach house at Playa Azul. Menardo had planned to drive her himself to make a second honeymoon before he returned to Tuxtla. Perhaps she might start her painting again if she spent time alone in their lovely beach house above the shimmering Pacific. It would be a paradise where Alegría could take a serious look at herself and her life to assess the threat Bartolomeo may have posed. She daydreamed and ached for the hard thrusts of Sonny Blue; but she knew Sonny would not have built the beach house as she had designed it, the way Menardo had. No costs were too great; Menardo had sent out rush orders to Mexico City for the steel and glass to build her dream hideaway at Playa Azul.

Alegría had wanted to meet Sonny Blue at the beach house, but he had refused despite Alegría’s assurance that Menardo would not suddenly appear and surprise them. The elaborate electronic security alarms would not have permitted such a surprise. Still, Sonny Blue had not wanted to jeopardize business with Menardo or to end up shot dead by the jealous husband either. Alegría realized no man would ever love her or spend his money as freely on her as Menardo had. No matter how lifeless or sexless the marriage was, Alegría knew she was well-off; look at the silks and linens. She felt a great deal of tenderness for Menardo as she packed her new bathing suits and beach caftans with leather sandals to match.

The sound of tires on gravel in the driveway was unfamiliar — too loud, too sudden — as if the car were speeding to a stop. Alegría heard a second car pull up. Her heart began pounding; she glanced at the clock: three-fifteen, Friday afternoon, and something terrible had happened. Alegría felt a strange numbness and tingling in the tips of her fingers and toes; when the downstairs maid knocked and called out at her door, Alegría knew they had killed Menardo.

The general and the police chief had come for her immediately; they had not yet removed the body from the scene, but they had brought the vest, heavy, and still wet with Menardo’s blood. Alegría saw how much they hated her — the general, police chief, and the others. They probably knew about her affair with Sonny Blue. They blamed her for Iliana’s death, and now for Menardo’s. They wanted to rub her face in the blood; she could feel the police chief struggle to control himself. Alegría had burst into tears when she saw the ridiculous vest; it looked too small now for a man such as Menardo. They called it an accident; they had witnessed everything.

Alegría had moved toward the front door, tears running down her cheeks; she fumbled with her purse to find a handkerchief. Her hands were shaking. She wanted to take a gun and kill the Indian before more damage was done. She was furious at Menardo. How many times had she warned him about Tacho? She had never liked Tacho’s Indian friends who came at all hours of the night carrying strange packs and bundles. Bartolomeo had dropped hints about “your husband’s Indian” as he called Tacho; Tacho had a twin brother in the mountains who led Indian guerrilla units. Alegría usually did not trust anything Bartolomeo said, but in the case of Tacho, she had already suspected the truth. Alegría had seen the hatred in Tacho’s eyes; he hated Europeans, pure and simple.

Alegría asked to be driven to the scene to stall for time, and to give the appearance of the grieving widow, though she knew she would fool no one. Tacho was sitting in the Mercedes as if nothing had happened; eyewitnesses, including the general and the police chief, had heard Menardo give Tacho the command to fire. Menardo was lying on his back covered now with his own shirt and suit coat. Alegría approached slowly. Poor silly man! From the moment Menardo had seen the vest, he had been enraptured. But instead of crying, Alegría wanted to laugh. She had sunk to her knees on the ground next to his body and buried her face in both hands, and she had laughed until tears ran down her face; and then she had cried because she knew this was it, this was the end. The general and the police chief would make a complete investigation. She wept for herself, not the fool Menardo. Menardo had been worth much more to her alive than dead; she did not trust the general or the police chief. The general would want to take control of the company and cheat her out of everything.

Alone in her bedroom, Alegría had called the mortuary, where she was told all arrangements had been made by “friends of the family.” One by one they had come — the former ambassador and the governor, the judge and the doctor, the police chief and the general — the men from the club had paid their respects, but the wives had made excuses, citing security, because they knew it was all over for Alegría in Tuxtla. One by one, the men had clasped her hands between their sweaty palms, and staring into her eyes, each had whispered they were “there for her”—anything she might need. A freak accident! How tragic! Microscopic imperfections in the fabric’s quilting; a bare millimeter’s difference and the bullet would safely have been stopped. The judge and the former ambassador had both suggested filing lawsuits against the vest’s U.S. manufacturer; naturally they wanted to assist her. The police chief had asked what she knew about Tacho. The general had asked if she had trusted Tacho. Alegría lied and told them Tacho was utterly loyal and trustworthy. She needed time, and she did not want the general or the police chief to suspect Tacho and begin a new investigation; she no longer had Menardo to intercept and censor or destroy damaging reports about her past political affiliations. Bless him, Menardo had believed her when she called politics her “ignorant youth”; but the others would never believe her.

HOW CAPITALISTS DIE

BUT IN THE END it had been Bartolomeo who had hated Alegría most — more than the country club wives and Menardo’s business associates. Alegría’s heart had skipped a beat when she saw the driveway littered with handbills. Bartolomeo had lost no time. The handbills had been copied from the front page of the newspaper with the photograph of Menardo’s body inside a dark circle of his own blood. This Is How Capitalists Die, the handbill read.

Alegría felt a strange tingling all over her body; she thought she might faint; her mouth had gone dry and her palms were cold and wet. That bastard Bartolomeo had betrayed all of them; he wanted to destroy her and the Indians in the mountains as well. Alegría had not felt hatred so violently, with such purity, before. Maybe the despised Cuban worked for the CIA after all. Alegría wanted to kill him slowly, to feel him dying under her hands, his flesh quivering and clammy; she would breathe deeply, breathe exultantly, the stench of his blood and shit, the sweet aroma of his terror. That was how liars such as Bartolomeo died.

The handbills had been scattered all over Tuxtla; the police chief and General J. had returned and began asking Alegría questions. They searched the garage where Tacho had slept but found nothing. The Indian had removed all his things and swept the floor clean. Alegría searched the high limbs of the big tree, but saw no scarlet macaws. The Indian and his blue and yellow wacahs were gone.

Tacho had been stunned by Menardo’s death; he felt embarrassed too. Because Tacho realized he had actually believed in the bulletproof vest too, maybe not as much as Menardo had, but still this made Tacho a fool with the rest of them. Tacho had not wanted to take the pistol from Menardo’s hand, vest or no vest; he had been afraid he might not hit the vest, but miss and shoot the boss in the face or in the knee. That had been the reason Tacho had stepped closer, over the line Menardo had marked in the dirt with the heel of his shoe. Tacho had been concerned about accuracy even if Menardo had been too dumb to see the dangers. As Menardo had eagerly watched the approach of his fellow shooting-club members, Tacho had moved closer. The cars and escort vehicles had formed a small procession. They were afraid and believed strength lay in numbers.

Tacho had not wanted to fire because he knew white men did not like to see an Indian shoot a mestizo unless they had given the order; otherwise Indians might get ideas and move from mestizos to shoot at whites. Tacho had sat patiently behind the wheel in the Mercedes while ambulance attendants and more police and curious golfers crowded around Menardo’s body. Tacho felt relaxed and calm; how odd when he had just killed his longtime employer. Menardo had requested that Tacho shoot him; that was the testimony Tacho had given the police. All eyewitnesses agreed; Menardo had commanded the chauffeur more than once to fire.

Later, after the police had completed their investigation, Tacho took the long route home in the Mercedes, just as he and the boss had planned earlier that morning; now the boss was dead; they had planned safe routes downtown for the last time. For the last time, the boss had kissed his treacherous wife good-bye and pulled the front door shut on his mansion. One last time Menardo had looked up at the sky, just as he died.

For the last time, Tacho drove the Mercedes slowly past the obscure alleys and downtown street corners Menardo had seen in his nightmares, which had alternated jeep loads of assassins sent by the general with truckloads of assassins sent by the police chief or leftist terrorists. Tacho had to laugh. Menardo had not been able to trust any of them, and he should never have trusted his new wife. Tacho thought it really was funny: he, Tacho, had been in his way the most loyal, and yet, look what had happened. Nothing could have saved Menardo.

Tacho recalled the arguments people in villages had had over the eventual disappearance of the white man. Old prophets were adamant; the disappearance would not be caused by military action, necessarily, or by military action alone. The white man would someday disappear all by himself. The disappearance had already begun at the spiritual level.

The forces were harsh. A great many people would suffer and die. All ideas and beliefs of the Europeans would gradually wither and drop away. A great many fools like Menardo would die pretending they were white men; only the strongest would survive. The rest would die by the thousands along with the others; the disappearance would take place over hundreds of years and would include massive human migrations from continent to continent.

Tacho had parked the Mercedes in the driveway and left the keys with the cook; he told her he was leaving. He did not bother to warn her about talking to the police because they would torture her if she refused. Tacho packed his clothes. As he prepared the canvas for the bedroll on the floor, he knelt in something wet and cool on the floor. Blood was oozing from the center of his bedroll where he kept the spirit bundle. Tacho felt he might lose consciousness, but outside the door hanging in the tree upside down, the big macaws were shrieking. The he-macaw told Tacho certain wild forces controlled all the Americas, and the saints and spirits and the gods of the Europeans were powerless on American soil.

Tacho had been chosen by the macaws’ and the opal’s spirits; for better or for worse, he had to take the spirits with him, like wives. Tacho had soaked up some of the blood with a handkerchief to show his brother. In the mountains, El Feo or some of the others initiated by the old priests might know more about a bundle such as this. All the spirits ate blood that was offered to them. But where had the blood that leaked from the bundle come from?

The unborn baby drank the mother’s blood; unborn chicks grew from delicate halos of blood inside the egg. The spirits of the mountains had to have their share; if people did not sacrifice to the mountains willingly, then the mountains trembled and shook with hurt and anger. The dead bodies strewn across winding mountain roads after head-on collisions provided blood to calm angry mountain spirits. Particular curves on the mountain roads not only had shrines and altars, but special feast days to pacify the spirits who inhabited the curves or crossroads.

Blood: even the bulletproof vest wanted a little blood. Knives, guns, even automobiles, possessed “energies” that craved blood from time to time. Tacho had heard dozens of stories that good Christians were not supposed to believe. Stories about people beaten, sometimes even killed, by their own brooms or pots and pans. Wise homemakers “fed” goat or pig blood to knives, scissors, and other sharp or dangerous household objects. Even fire had to be fed the first bit of dough or fat; otherwise, sooner or later, the fire would burn the cook or flare up and catch the kitchen on fire. Airplanes, jets, and rockets were already malfunctioning, crashing and exploding. Electricity no longer obeyed the white man. The macaw spirits said the great serpent was in charge of electricity. The macaws were in charge of fire.

THIS CUBAN SHOULD RETURN TO CUBA

EL FEO AND ANGELITA had moved permanently from the village to El Feo’s camp high in the mountains, out of the reach of federal police and army patrols for illegal refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala and points south. The Mexican president had declared a state of emergency as thousands and thousands of war refugees from the South were spilling over Mexico’s southern boundaries. The United States demanded that Mexico stop the refugees. Rumors circulated about desert-camouflaged U.S. tanks deployed along the entire U.S. border; other rumors accused the Mexican president and his cabinet of being U.S. CIA agents since kindergarten. The fair-haired sons of Mexico’s elite had been given Ivy League educations in the U.S. to prepare the puppets for their jobs. The rumors spread unrest like wind spread wildfire. The U.S. president would offer the Mexican president military aid when rioters shot police protecting U.S.-owned factories in Juárez and Tijuana. The Mexican president would not accept U.S. military aid until the rebels had dynamited high-voltage lines, blacking out all of Guadalajara, and much of the Federal District.

El Feo laughed whenever he saw newspapers or satellite television because the government thought the saboteurs, rioters, and looters were part of a single group or organization. The government wanted groups because they hoped for leaders to crush or to buy off. But this time the story was going to be different because the people no longer believed in leaders. People had begun to gather spontaneously and moved as a mob or swarm follows instinct, then suddenly disperses. The masses of people in Asia and in Africa, and the Americas too, no longer believed in so-called “elected” leaders; they were listening to strange voices inside themselves. Although few would admit this, the voices they heard were voices out of the past, voices of their earliest memories, voices of nightmares and voices of sweet dreams, voices of the ancestors.

All across earth there were those listening and waiting, isolated and lonely, despised outcasts of the earth. First the lights would go out — dynamite or earthquake, it did not matter. All sources of electrical power generation would be destroyed. Darkness was the ally of the poor. One uprising would spark another and another. El Feo did not believe in political parties, ideology, or rules. El Feo believed in the land. With the return of Indian land would come the return of justice, followed by peace. El Feo left the politics to Angelita, who enjoyed the intrigues and rivalries between their so-called friends. All that mattered was obtaining the weapons and supplies the people needed to retake the land; so Angelita had lied to all of them — the U.S., Cuba, Germany, and Japan. But to their African friends they were truthful. They didn’t lie because Africans were tribal people who had taken back a continent from the Europeans. Always they were poor, struggling Indians fighting for their way of life. If Angelita was talking to the Germans or Hollywood activists, she said the Indians were fighting multinational corporations who killed rain forests; if she was talking to the Japanese or U.S. military, then the Indians were fighting communism. Whatever their “friends” needed to hear, that was their motto. The Indians’ worst enemies were missionaries, who sent Bibles instead of guns and who preached blessed are the meek. Missionaries were stooges and spies for the government. Missionaries warned the village people against the evils of revolution and communism. They warned the people not to talk or to listen to spirit beings.

Bartolomeo had complained about the absence of study groups and evening classes for adult instruction. Bartolomeo had a number of complaints that he termed “serious.” Beside their failure to organize Marxist instruction and study sessions, there were more disturbing issues. Bartolomeo had been doing his own investigating throughout the entire region. He had talked to some good Indians for a change, not to treacherous tribalists. Angelita pretended not to notice his choice of words. Bartolomeo had been snooping through their files and logbooks since his arrival earlier in the week. He had insisted on following El Feo on his rounds in the remote villages. When Bartolomeo and El Feo had returned from the trips, Angelita sensed trouble from El Feo’s stiff posture. El Feo refused even to look at Bartolomeo. El Feo was furious. Whatever had happened, Bartolomeo was involved.

Bartolomeo considered himself a policy expert now. One more big ideological victory here, and Bartolomeo was certain the central committee in Havana would reward him with promotions and a post in Mexico City. Bartolomeo was tired of the remote Indian camps; he was even more sick of bourgeois Tuxtla, of the phony rich bitches who sat on their bony butts — such as Alegría, that great whore! Bartolomeo knew he was destined for higher positions; Bartolomeo was nearly ready for his triumphant return to the capital.

Bartolomeo bossed everyone who came within range of his loud, Cuban mouth. Orders! Orders! But these village people had gathered because they were finished with big bosses and orders. Bartolomeo had never understood Indians. A squad of village women had told Commander Bartolomeo to shove his orders up his ass. Bartolomeo had then called in the disciplinary committee to punish the offenders.

Punish these warrior women? Angelita laughed. This Cuban should return to Cuba; from there, Europeans should return to the lands of their ancestors.

“This army belongs to the people, remember?” she said to Bartolomeo; she enjoyed watching Bartolomeo’s temper heat up. Bartolomeo motioned for her and El Feo to follow him inside the tent that served as their office. Inside, El Feo handed Angelita a pink handbill he had pulled from inside his T-shirt.

“These were scattered all over Tuxtla last night.” The handbill was a dark, smeared copy of the newspaper photograph of Menardo’s corpse.

“You know what this does to Tacho,” Angelita said in a low, angry whisper.

Bartolomeo waved his hand as if to brush aside her words. They had already ruled Menardo’s death accidental. “Tacho needed to get out anyway. He was about to lose his cover.”

“How do you know? Who told you?” El Feo was furious. Bartolomeo did not bother to look up; he had been leafing through a stack of blank squad reports that squad leaders El Feo and Angelita had refused to complete.

Bartolomeo droned on and on. The committee in Mexico City had sent warnings before. Blah, blah, blah! Unless Angelita and El Feo and the others completed reports on their activities, Bartolomeo would have no choice but to report them again. Other tribes obeyed committee directives concerning reports. Another negative report would cause an automatic cutoff of valuable Cuban aid; worse yet, the word would get around to all the other “friends of Indians” and they’d halt support. “I have suspected something all along,” Bartolomeo continued. Angelita thought to herself, “This is it. Adiós, Bartolomeo, you are one dead Cuban,” and while he blabbered on, Angelita made plans. Bartolomeo would be tried before a people’s assembly for crimes against the revolution, specifically for crimes against Native American history; the crimes were the denial and attempted annihilation of tribal histories. Bartolomeo continued with his recitation of suspicions and accusations. The Cubans had received unconfirmed reports that these mountain villages were hotbeds of tribalism and native religion. Marxism did not tolerate these primitive bugaboos!

“Us? Not us! Their spies are liars! We are internationalists! We are not just tribal!” Angelita argued vehemently. She was thinking about all the “friends of the Indians” who had sent them aid from all over the world. Millions had come from a crackpot German industrialist who wanted to see the tribal people of the Americas retake their land. Millions came each year from Japanese businessmen who wanted to avenge Hiroshima and Nagasaki any way possible. They were internationalists all right! Tribal internationalists! They wanted to keep the Cubans in the dark about their true objectives for as long as possible. They wanted to keep aid flowing to the people’s army. “Arrest this man!” Angelita had called out in tribal dialect so Bartolomeo would not try to escape. He had still been frowning over the stack of uncompleted forms and reports when the warriors seized him by both arms.

Representatives and people from the mountain villages had been invited for Chinese orange soda and parched corn compliments of the People’s Revolution in Cuba. Meetings of the villages had traditionally cleared the air during local disputes and prevented bloody feuds. The meeting had been called to update the people on the most recent developments. Luckily some days would pass before police authorities would react to the pink handbills and reopen investigations into Menardo’s accident.

Bartolomeo begged for his life; the handbills were trivial, he said, the handbills claimed no responsibility for Menardo’s death, which authorities had ruled accidental. Bartolomeo denied he was a double agent. Bartolomeo denied he was CIA. The handbills could not be traced to the villages. The handbills had merely been part of the people’s “reeducation.” El Feo shook his head and left the tent to call the meeting to order. “There is a more serious charge,” Angelita said. “You are guilty of crimes against history, specifically, crimes against certain tribal histories.”

“You can’t do this! You’re crazy! The committee—!”

“The committee? Why do you think they sent you here?” Angelita smiled. The charges against Bartolomeo made her feel nostalgic. She remembered the first time she had seen Bartolomeo, so handsome with his brown eyes and light brown hair; in the bedroom his body had looked just as good. What a pity! Comrade Bartolomeo had outlived his usefulness. There wouldn’t be any more free Chinese soda pop or Russian anti-tank missiles from Cuba; but foreign aid from the Marxists had been drying up anyway. Angelita looked out at the people who had come to the meeting for free popcorn and soda pop; what would they think? Most of the village meetings had included discussions about obtaining more “gifts” from “friends of the Indians.” El Feo and the others were still plugging the speakers into truck batteries, while latecomers got in line for soda or wandered through the market where business was brisk.

ANGELITA LA ESCAPÍA EXPLAINS ENGELS AND MARX

COMRADE ANGELITA stepped up to the microphone and announced she was not afraid to talk about anything the people wanted to know. She had no secrets and nothing to hide, so there was nothing to be nervous about; there was nothing they couldn’t talk about. Was Comrade Angelita trying to get the villages to join up with the Cubans? How much were the Cubans paying her? Had they promised her Japanese motorcycles? What about chain saws? Wasn’t communism godless? Then how could history, so alive with spirits, exist without gods? What about her and that white man, Bartolomeo? To questions about her private life Angelita was quick to snap back, “What about it?” with her jaw set so hard, the questioner was afraid to open his or her mouth again. Comrade Bartolomeo, she explained, was under arrest, about to be court-martialed for betraying the revolution with capital crimes against history.

“More about the traitor Bartolomeo afterwards, but first…” Angelita launched into a lecture.

“Questions have been asked about who this Marx is. Questions have been asked about the meaning of words like communism and history. Today I am going to tell you what use this white man Marx is to us here in our mountain villages!”

But right from the beginning, Angelita explained, she wanted no misunderstanding; nothing mattered but taking back tribal land. Angelita paused to sip orange soda and scanned the crowd for her “elder sisters.” The “elder sisters” had complained that Angelita was hardly different from a missionary herself, always talking on and on about white man’s political mumbo jumbo but never bothering to explain.

“Are we supposed to take what you say on faith?” the elder sisters had teased Angelita.

“Is this Marx another Jesus?” Jokes had circulated about Angelita’s love affair — not with Bartolomeo or El Feo but with Marx, a billy-goat-bearded, old white man. The elder sisters laughed; here was the danger of staring at a photograph. A glint of the man’s soul had been captured there, in the eyes of Marx’s image on the page. The elder sisters said Angelita should have been more careful. Everyone had heard stories about victims bewitched by photographs of strangers long dead, long gone from the world except for a trace of the spirit’s light that remained in the photograph.

It was time to clear the air, especially now that Bartolomeo was about to be court-martialed by the people. Angelita set down the empty soda bottle near her feet and pulled the microphone stand closer. She glanced at the elder sisters standing at the back of the crowd; they nodded at her, and Angelita took a deep breath and began:

“I know there is gossip, talking and speculation about me. I have nothing to say except every breath, my every heartbeat, is for the return of the land.” The teenage troops yell and whistle, girls and boys alike; the dogs bark and the crowd applauds.

If they could agree on nothing else, they could all agree the land was theirs. Tribal rivalries and even intervillage boundary disputes often focused on land lost to the European invaders. When they had taken back all the lands of the indigenous people of the Americas, there would be plenty of space, plenty of pasture and farmland and water for everyone who promised to respect all beings and do no harm. “We are the army to retake tribal land. Our army is only one of many all over the earth quietly preparing. The ancestors’ spirits speak in dreams. We wait. We simply wait for the earth’s natural forces already set loose, the exploding, fierce energy of all the dead slaves and dead ancestors haunting the Americas. We prepare, and we wait for the tidal wave of history to sweep us along. People have been asking questions about ideology. Are we this or are we that? Do we follow Marx? The answer is no! No white man politics! No white man Marx! No white man religion, no nothing until we retake this land! We must protect Mother Earth from destruction.” The teenage army cheered and even the older people had been clapping their hands.

“Now I want to tell you something about myself because so many rumors are circulating. Rumors about myself and Marxism. Rumors about myself and the ghost of Karl Marx!” There had been laughter and applause, but Angelita did not pause. “I will tell you what I know about Marx. His followers and all the rest I don’t know about. This is personal, but people want to know what I think; they want to know if I’m Marxist.” Angelita shook her head.

“Marxists don’t want to give Indian land back. We say to hell with all Marxists who oppose the return of tribal land!” Market transactions had slowed as Angelita warmed up; and the people listened more attentively. Angelita could see El Feo and the others working their way through the crowd, recruiting people’s volunteers to feed or hide their people’s army regulars. “To hell with the Marxists! To hell with the capitalists! To hell with the white man! We want our mother the land!”

Cursing the white man along with free soda pop put the people in a festive mood; they were accustomed to listening to village political discussions that continued for days on end. “Marxism is one thing! Marx the man is another,” Angelita had said as she began her defense of Marx. So-called disciples of Marx had often disgraced his name, the way Jesus was disgraced by crimes of his alleged “followers,” the popes of the Catholic Church.

Angelita announced she would begin with her early years at the mission school on the coast where she had first heard the name. The old Castilian nuns at the mission school had called Marx the Devil. The nuns had trotted out the bogeyman Marx to scare the students if the older students refused after-school work assignments, free labor for the Catholic Church. Avowed enemy of the priests and nuns, of the Baptists and Latter-day Saints — enemy of all missionaries, this Marx had to be Angelita’s ally! She had understood instinctively, the way she knew the old nuns had got the story of benevolent, gentle Quetzalcoatl all wrong too. The nuns had taught the children that the Morning Star, Quetzalcoatl, was really Lucifer, the Devil God had thrown out of heaven. The nuns had terrified the children with the story of the snake in the Garden of Eden to end devotion to Quetzalcoatl.

Angelita paused to scan the crowd for reactions. Spies for the federal police or the army would use up the batteries of their little hidden voice recorders before she was finished. The people’s army units could have vacated the village within a few minutes anyway. Screw the Christians! Screw the police and army! Angelita didn’t care. They would not take her alive. Before she died, she must explain to the village people about Marx, who was unlike any white man since Jesus. For now — screw Cuban Marxists and their European totalitarianism!

Marx had been inspired by reading about certain Native American communal societies, though naturally as a European he had misunderstood a great deal. Marx had learned about societies in which everyone ate or everyone starved together, and no one being stood above another — all stood side by side — rock, insect, human being, river, or flower. Each depended upon the other; the destruction of one harmed all others.

Marx understood what tribal people had always known: the maker of a thing pressed part of herself or himself into each object made. Some spark of life or energy went from the maker into even the most ordinary objects. Marx had understood the value of anything came from the hands of the maker. Marx of the Jews, tribal people of the desert, Marx the tribal man understood that nothing personal or individual mattered because no individual survived without others. Generation after generation, individuals were born, then after eighty years, disappeared into dust, but in the stories, the people lived on in the imaginations and hearts of their descendants. Wherever their stories were told, the spirits of the ancestors were present and their power was alive.

Marx, tribal man and storyteller; Marx with his primitive devotion to the workers’ stories. No wonder the Europeans hated him! Marx had gathered official government reports of the suffering of English factory workers the way a tribal shaman might have, feverishly working to bring together a powerful, even magical, assembly of stories. In the repetition of the workers’ stories lay great power; workers must never forget the stories of other workers. The people did not struggle alone. Marx, more tribal Jew than European, instinctively knew the stories, or “history,” accumulated momentum and power. No factory inspector’s “official report” could whitewash the tears, blood, and sweat that glistened from the simple words of the narratives.

Marx had understood stories are alive with the energy words generate. Word by word, the stories of suffering, injury, and death had transformed the present moment, seizing listeners’ or readers’ imaginations so that for an instant, they were present and felt the suffering of sisters and brothers long past. The words of the stories filled rooms with an immense energy that aroused the living with fierce passion and determination for justice. Marx wrote about babies dosed with opium while mothers labored sixteen hours in silk factories; Marx wrote with the secret anguish of a father unable to provide enough food or medicine. When Marx wrote about the little children working under huge spinning machines that regularly mangled and killed them, Marx had already seen Death prowling outside his door, hungry for his own three children. In his feverish work with the stories of shrunken, yellowed infants, and the mangled limbs of children, Marx had been working desperately to seize the story of each child-victim and to turn the story away from the brutal endings the coroners and factory inspectors used to write for the children of the poor. His own children were slowly dying from cold, lack of food, and medicine; yet day after day, Marx had returned to official reports in the British Museum. Wage-earning might have saved Marx’s children, but tribal man and storyteller, Marx had sacrificed the lives of his own beloved children to gather the stories of all the children starved and mangled. He had sensed the great power these stories had — power to move millions of people. Poor Marx did not understand the power of the stories belonged to the spirits of the dead.

The crowd had listened patiently because there was plenty of orange soda, and because rumor had it that Cuban “advisors” such as Bartolomeo were soon to become part of history too. But certainly the most exciting topic for the people had been the handbills showing Menardo Flat-Nose Pansón shot dead with his own pistol. People had questions about the handbills. What was truth? The man lying shown on the handbills had been killed accidentally; Menardo had been shot at his own request. Angelita waved a stack of the handbills in front of her; she tore them to pieces dramatically and threw them high over her head like confetti. The handbills were the work of an enemy who had slandered the good name of all tribal people in the mountains.

El Feo left the politics to Angelita, who got intoxicated on the subject of Marx even as she denied being a missionary for Marx. El Feo had confronted Angelita with his suspicions: somehow Angelita had been bewitched by the photographs and writings of Engels and Marx. El Feo had listened to Angelita go on and on about Marx and Engels. Angelita told El Feo about Engels’s hearty sexual appetite.

They had already made love a number of times when El Feo had teased Angelita about her two other lovers, Engels and Marx. At first El Feo feared he had gone too far because Angelita’s jaws had clenched and she had frowned. But El Feo had grinned and chuckled to keep the mood light, and Angelita had calmed down. She was no Marxist; she had her own ideas about political systems, and they had nothing to do with white men in Europe. But after Angelita had defended herself, she had showed El Feo photographs of Marx and Engels in books. She had remained quiet for a long time staring at the photographs. El Feo had settled back in the hammock to smoke a cigarette and watch the wild woman. Finally after a long time, Angelita had told El Feo the truth; the first time she had opened a volume of Das Kapital, she had been amazed at the blazing darkness of Marx’s eyes. The photograph had been made when Marx was a young man. She confessed to El Feo she had never entirely believed what the old-time people said about photography until she had seen the photograph of Marx. A flicker of energy belonging to Marx and Marx alone still resided within the blazing eyes of the image; emanations of this energy had reached out to Angelita from the page. But it was only after she had heard his stories that she had fallen in love with Karl Marx. Both El Feo and Angelita had laughed and shaken their heads. Angelita warned El Feo never to repeat their conversation; enough rumors went through the villages about Angelita’s lovers. They didn’t need speculation about ghosts or spirits. They didn’t need, and their army didn’t need, any rumors about sorcery. The village committees had to caution the people: generous financial aid would keep rolling in so long as all the “friends of the Indians” remained confident. Witchcraft rumors upset white people. That was a fact they had to live with.

SEXUAL RIVALS

EL FEO HAD NEVER had sex with such a delicious woman as Angelita. It was because she was so powerful that she excited him so much. He had got aroused just listening to her reasons for secrecy about Engels and Marx. El Feo had pulled Angelita on top of himself on their bedrolls in the bushes where they retreated for “classified activities.”

“Ah! Talking about your sexual rivals, Engels and Marx, has excited you,” Angelita said. El Feo was only able to nod before he buried his face between Angelita’s heavy brown breasts. He imagined the warmth of the darkest, deepest forest in an early-summer rain; he imagined he was burying himself deeper and deeper into the core of the earth until he lost himself in eternity where wide rivers ran to a gentle ocean that included all beings, even Engels and Marx. El Feo felt how greedy this wild woman Angelita was, her eyes closed tight, lost in the imaginary embraces of fierce Marx, or the gentle caresses of the lesser presence Engels. Luckily El Feo had never been jealous. That had been one of the worst aspects of the Cuban, who thought women were private property once they had been his sex partners.

Bartolomeo was a complete failure in El Feo’s view because communal living meant share and share alike. Bartolomeo had never lost his taste for bourgeois women. Bartolomeo was responsible for the handbills of Menardo’s corpse and the Marxist slogan. Bartolomeo had printed the handbills because Menardo had fucked Alegría while Bartolomeo was fucking her. Bartolomeo had had her first, not her “husband.” Bartolomeo was always thinking with his dick, and Cuban aid or no Cuban aid, the people’s army had enough trouble without dick brains such as Bartolomeo. El Feo knew better than to press his luck with such a woman as Angelita; he wanted to, but dared not ask what exactly she imagined Engels and Marx were doing.

Politics didn’t add up. In the end only the Earth remained, and they’d all return to her as dust. El Feo left books and politics to Angelita, who was strong enough to stomach the poison about taxes, authorities, and the existence of states. El Feo himself did not worry. History was unstoppable. The days, years, and centuries were spirit beings who traveled the universe, returning endlessly. The Spirits of the Night and the Spirits of the Day would take care of the people.

The United States allowed huge stores of grain and cheese to rot; El Feo had watched on television: the waste, great hills of discarded lumber and wire, and his heart had beat faster because he had realized someday the United States would spend all its money and sell off and strip everything they could take from the land. Finally, the United States would be poor and broke, and all the water would be gone; then the people would see European descendants scurrying back across the ocean back to the lands of their forefathers.

El Feo focused all his energy into one desire: to retake the land. El Feo’s work was to remind Angelita and the others not to lose sight of their task. There had been too many masks and disguises already, too many times government police had posed as rebel guerrillas to slaughter poor villagers in the mountains, while rebel guerrillas dressed as government police to rob motorists.

El Feo had seen enough of television and its effect on people to know the citizens could never trust what they were seeing or hearing from television, newspapers, or radio. Because the politicians now were trained actors, and on television, actors dressed as undercover police in beards, dirty hair, and beggar’s clothes. Ordinary citizens would never again be certain who was who or what was what; no matter whether they were peasants or workers, video images and sounds were not to be trusted. Not even Angelita or El Feo himself could be trusted speaking from a television screen because electronic images were easily tampered with.

El Feo had devised a simple and clear test to reveal whether so-called “leaders of the people” were true or only impostors sent by the vampires and werewolves of greed. The test was easy: true leaders of the people made return of the land the first priority. No excuses, no postponements, not even for one day, must be tolerated by the people. Even before the burial of the dead, who did not mind waiting because they had died fighting for the return of the lands. Before bridges, roads, electricity, or phone lines were restored, the land must be returned to the people whose ancestors had lived on the land for twenty thousand years continuously. Big talk and promises of free gasoline, free generators, free chain saws and motorcycles — all of this was the wool the false leaders pulled over the eyes of unwary citizens. First the land. Without the land there was no need for chain saws or motorcycles; without the land, there was no place to set the generator or TV.

El Feo understood he had been chosen for one task: to remind the people never to lose sight of their precious land. He had listened to Angelita describe early betrayals of Marx, and the revolutions in France and later in Russia. True leaders of the revolution would deed back thousands of millions of acres of land. Even city people might identify the true leaders because true leaders would immediately seize all vacant apartments and houses to provide shelter for all the homeless.

El Feo warned the people to beware of the talkers and the foot-draggers; land first, talk and ideology later. Those were the rules. Leaders caught stalling or lying would be shot. The rules were simple. To any whiners or grumblers in his teenage army, El Feo said, “Shut up! Quit sniveling! We’ve been sent to take back the land. You can get ‘rich’ afterwards, if you have to.”

ON TRIAL FOR CRIMES AGAINST TRIBAL HISTORIES

BARTOLOMEO HAD BEEN incredulous. He refused to believe he was about to be tried before the people’s committee assembled in the plaza sipping orange soda he had provided for them. He, Bartolomeo, had been generous enough to obtain the arms and other supplies they had requested; he, Bartolomeo, had many times argued on their behalf when Cuban officials had wanted to cut off aid to these mountain villages. Bartolomeo had looked intently at Angelita as if to remind her of those long sweaty afternoons in bed together; Angelita smiled and shook her head. It was time to get on with the people’s case against Bartolomeo. “Unbelievable!” Bartolomeo said. “You Indians are serious!”

All the people present in the village plaza would constitute the people’s committee; the verdict would be reached by a count of hands. Angelita would interpret the people’s discussion for Bartolomeo in Spanish.

Bartolomeo’s first offense concerned the picture of the dead capitalist on pamphlets that falsely discredited and endangered the people’s army for the sake of cheap Marxist propaganda. The second charge against Bartolomeo was for crimes against the people’s history.

“What history?” Bartolomeo had fired back in a sneering tone. “Jungle monkeys and savages have no history!” Bartolomeo had gone on to make scornful remarks about “dumb and gullible squaws” who had confused themselves reading too many books with ideas that were over their heads — like water too deep. “How deep?” Angelita asked, and imagined Bartolomeo on the morning they would lead him to the new pine two-by-fours nailed into a gallows; not as deep as Bartolomeo was going to dive that morning from the new pine lumber.

Bartolomeo had been clever enough to attempt to mobilize village jealousies and gossip aimed at Angelita and her wild ideas and the Devil’s books she read. Here Angelita pointed out Bartolomeo’s attempt to use that worn European ploy: set one faction of Indians against another. But Bartolomeo had not known when to stop his attacks on Angelita. He had demanded to take the stand to testify on his own behalf. Angelita knew it was better if Bartolomeo did talk, otherwise people might begin to feel sorry for him standing mute as they might before a village council or before the soldiers or police. On the stand, Bartolomeo had harangued everyone — all of them — unit leaders, village council members, even idle spectators. It had been as if he, Bartolomeo, were not on trial but they were.

Bartolomeo had continued sarcastically about their “primitive animalistic tribalism,” which was “the whore of nationalism and the dupe of capitalism.” Nationalism such as theirs, he said, “had to be cut out and burned like a tumor.” Even while Bartolomeo had been speaking, the people who had crowded under the long tin drying shed where the trial was being held had whispered and joked with one another. The people had thought it amusing and typical of a white man to make a fool of himself in court. The people themselves had had hundreds of years of the white men’s courts, and they knew the one on trial was not supposed to argue and talk back the way the Cuban had.

But Bartolomeo had wanted to argue. He seemed to relish his role as defense attorney for himself. Bartolomeo seemed unable to comprehend who was on trial. What right did they, ignorant Indians, have to put educated Cuban citizens on trial? “You set foot in our sovereign jurisdiction. That is where we get the ‘right,’ Comrade Bartolomeo,” Angelita had answered. If he kept talking that way, everyone would raise a hand and vote the death penalty. But Comrade Bartolomeo had not finished. His handsome face was pinched with intensity. This was not an official, authorized court. This was not fair. Angelita nodded. At least Bartolomeo had understood one thing: the trial wasn’t really a personal matter or about personal dislike of Bartolomeo. The Committee for Justice and Land Redistribution had no time for mere personal matters. This was a trial of all Europeans. More than five hundred years of white men in Indian jurisdiction were on trial with Bartolomeo.

Angelita might have translated Bartolomeo’s ridicule and scorn differently for the people’s committee, who didn’t understand much Spanish. She might have tipped off Bartolomeo to say nothing — certainly not to argue. Angelita might have got Bartolomeo a commuted sentence if she had wished. But that afternoon in the plaza, Angelita had watched Bartolomeo, so handsome, so presumptuous, so ignorant, and she knew he finally had to go. Oh, well, who was Bartolomeo anyway? What did he matter? Who would remember him?

Angelita announced to the Committee and the people assembled in the village plaza she would read a list that was only a small sample of the great mass of Native American history that Bartolomeo and the other white men, so-called Marxists, had tried to omit and destroy. The list would be in Spanish to prove Bartolomeo had no excuse for his ignorance. Native uprisings and rebellions in the Americas had been exhaustively reported by the Church clergy, and colonial flunkies who had sent frantic dispatches to the Spanish throne from the New World pleading for more weapons and soldiers. Indigenous American uprisings had been far more extensive than any Europeans wanted to admit, not even the Marxists, who were jealous of African and Native American slave workers who had risen up successfully against colonial masters without the leadership of a white man.

“Here, listen to this,” Angelita said. “Here’s what the Europeans don’t want us to know or remember,” and Angelita had begun reading the dates, names, and places rapidly in Spanish for Bartolomeo to hear, since he was the perpetrator of crimes against history. “Each day since the arrival of the Europeans, somewhere in the vastness of the Americas the sun rises on Native American resistance and revolution. Listen to the history that Europeans, even Marxists, hope we Native Americans will forget! These are only a few of the big uprisings and revolutions. These don’t include all the rebellions, all the mysterious fires, all the lost horses and other acts of resistance. She began to read:

1510—Cuba — Hateuy leads the first Native American revolt against European slave hunters.

1521—Colombia — Colonial slave hunters outrage coastal Indians, who destroy Dominican convent at Chiribichi, killing two priests.

1526—U.S.A. — Pee Dee River, South Carolina; Indian and Negro slaves rise up.

1536—Peru — Incas rise up against Pizarro and lay siege to Cuzco and set it afire. Rebellion spreads down Rimac Valley where Incas lay siege to Lima.

1538—U.S.A. — Zuni Pueblo Indians kill the Moor, Esteban, sent by Spanish to scout the Grand Chichimecas for cities of gold.

1540—U.S.A. — Zuni Pueblo Indians fight Coronado to prevent starving Spanish expedition from entering village.

1540—U.S.A. — Hopi Pueblo Indians fight and repel de Tovar and his men.

1540—Mexico — Alvarado argues that two kings of the Cakchiquel Quiche must hang, otherwise they will incite revolt.

1540-41—Mexico — Great Mixton War led by Tenamaztle and others against de Guzmán.

1541—Mexico—July: Alvarado dies in freak accident impaled on his own spear. August: Colonial capital of Guatemala is flooded by volcanic crater lake; Alvarado’s wife drowns.

1542—Mexico — Indian rebellion at Mixton is put down, and all the rebels are branded and sold into slavery. In Jalisco, 4,650 women and children are branded on grounds of rebellion.

1545—Mexico — Two hundred thousand Indians die of flu around Mexico City and Chiapas.

1590-94—Mexico — Nacabeba leads rebellion of Indians at Deboropa; Catholic priest, Father Tapia, is killed.

1598—U.S.A. — Acoma Pueblo people fight Onate’s troops and kill assistant commander Zaldivan.

1600—Mexico — Revolt by mountain tribes, Chicoratos and Cavametos. Churches are burned. Revolt by Toroacas Indians on San Ignacio Island.

1610—Mexico — Two Mayas declare themselves “pope” and “bishop” in revolt against the Europeans’ exclusive control of the sacred.

1616—Mexico — Great Tepehuan Rebellion at San Pablo, northwest of Durango, led by “Cobameai” on the feast of the Virgin; three hundred Europeans die.

1617—Mexico — Yaqui warriors defeat Spaniards; Captain Hurtado and men narrowly escape death.

1622—U.S.A. — Indian uprising at James River, 347 Europeans dead.

1624—Mexico — Rebellion at the royal mines of San Andres led by Nebomes.

1633—Mexico — Pimas revolt at Nuri, east of the Yaqui River.

1648—Mexico — Tarahumara Rebellion at Fariagic, southwest of Parral. Priest is hanged from an arm of a cross in front of the church. Tarahumaras say church bells attract the plague.

1680—U.S.A. — Great Pueblo Indian Revolt. Pueblo tribes join Apache and Navajo tribes to drive Europeans south across the Rio Grande at El Paso. Three hundred ten Europeans dead.

1690—Mexico — Quaualatas of the Tarahumaras leads the Tepehuan Revolt in northwestern Mexico. Four hundred Spaniards killed, including four priests. Quaualatas promised any Indian who died fighting would be resurrected.

1712—Mexico — Tzeltal Maya revolt in Chiapas, take control of the Church and sacraments.

1720—Paraguay — Successful Indian revolt.

1760—Jamaica — The Great Jamaican Rebellion led by Koromantin, a Gold Coast Negro, oracle who promises magical preparations to ward off bullets.

1761—Mexico — Caste war and revolt led by Jacinto Canek and Mayas who sought to purge themselves of all things European. Canek is a half-breed educated by the priests.

1762—U.S.A. — Pontiac, of the Algonquin Confederation, warns all tribes to rid the continent of white people.

1766—Mexico — Lower Pimas rebel and in 1768 are joined in the revolt by the Seri Indians from the shore of the Sea of Cortés.

1778—U.S.A. — Taos, New Mexico, hosts annual “trade fairs” where Indians are bought and sold by whites.

1781—Mexico — Yumas kill Franciscan father Garcia near the Gila River junction with the Colorado River.

1781—Peru — Half-breed who calls himself Condorcanqui proclaims himself the long-lost Tupac Amaru, the Child of the Sun. Spaniards execute him.

1791—Haiti — The first successful slave rebellion in the New World. In 1801, slaves and the first “black Indians” hold off Napoleon’s brother-in-law and twenty-five thousand French troops.

1805—Simón Bolívar visits European courts and salons. He refuses to kiss the Pope’s slipper, and the Pope says, “Let the young Indian do as he pleases.” Bolívar has not one drop of Indian blood, but Europeans believe any babies conceived in the Americas undergo changes in skin, hair, and eyes; in other words, colonials are believed to be slightly tainted.

1807—U.S.A. — “The Meteor” or “the Shooting Star,” Tecumtha, notifies the governor of Ohio that all former treaties are invalid: “These lands are ours. No one has a right to remove us, because we are the first owners.”

1812—U.S.A. — Red Eagle leads the Creek tribe to resist the Europeans. “Red Sticks” reject all things European.

1819—Florida — Spanish territory is “annexed” by the U.S.A. to wipe out nests of hostile Indians and runaway slaves who use Florida as a base camp for guerrilla raids on plantations across the border.

1825—Mexico — The Yaqui whose Spanish name is Bandera leads a rebellion in which the Yaquis declare themselves a sovereign nation not liable for taxes to Mexico; a Catholic priest is killed at Torim.

1910—Mexico — Eight hundred Mayo Indians rise up and take over three thousand federal troops at garrison at Navajoa.

1911—Mexico — Zapata leads the Indians, who demand “land and liberty.”

1915—Mexico — Although promised land after the revolution, the Mayo Indians get none. So Bachomo leads a guerrilla band in the Fuerte River valley.

1923—Peru — Mariatequi founds Sendero Luminoso.

1945—Bolivia — Indians form National Federation of Peasants to restore Indians’ rights.

Angelita skipped from the dates to the tables of facts and read the figures for the Native American holocaust:

1500—72 million people lived in North, Central, and South America.

1600—10 million people live in North, Central, and South America.

1500—25 million people live in Mexico.

1600—1 million people live in Mexico.

The village people murmured over the figures; the people were not in the habit of looking at the “bigger picture,” as Angelita liked to call it. Of course the white man had never wanted Native Americans to contemplate confederacies between the tribes of the Americas; that would mean the end of European domination.

Angelita had to take a break. Rattling off all the names and dates had left her mouth dry. But the people in the crowd had begun clapping and cheering when she paused; the names and dates had touched off a great deal of excitement among the people, who immediately added dozens of other uprisings and rebellions that had occurred in that region alone. Angelita stepped away from the microphones to watch the people. Voices buzzed with enthusiasm and she realized that for a moment the crowd had forgotten the Cuban on trial as people began to recall stories of the old days, not just stories of armed rebellions and uprisings, but stories of colonials sunk into deepest depravity — Europeans who went mad while their Indian slaves looked on.

El Feo pointed at the sun. Time to get on with the trial; they didn’t have all week; help could always arrive for Bartolomeo in the minivan of radical Catholic Church people or a surprise visit from Bartolomeo’s superiors in Mexico City might interrupt.

Angelita returned to the microphone, and applause and shouts for “land” and “justice” and more “land” rang out, mostly from the young soldiers of the people’s defense units. But others in the crowd had also cheered, and drunks made jokes and called out, “Beer! Television!” Angelita detected a change; she felt strange energy in the air — something generated by the people themselves in their anticipation and excitement. It was as if the recitation of rebellions and rebel leaders had radiated energy to the people gathered in the plaza.

“All this is only a short list. A beginning. But Comrade Bartolomeo here has no use for indigenous history. Comrade Bartolomeo denies the holocaust of indigenous Americans! Seventy-two million people in 1500 reduced to ten million people by 1600! Comrade Bartolomeo is guilty! Guilty of crimes against history!”

The people cheered and clapped, but Angelita could see they were tiring; small children had begun whining, and the old men who weren’t asleep coughed, spat, and raised their straw hats to scratch.

The crowd had shifted toward the small speaker’s platform with two PA speakers nailed at each corner. Behind them, the new gallows was leaning slightly in the direction of the wind. The workmen had not wanted to bother with much bracing since the scaffold would only be used once.

People were not sure about killing an outsider such as the Cuban, crime against history or no crime against history. First there were the questions concerning the white man’s spirit or ghost, and where it would go after they hanged him.

El Feo shook his head slowly. The gallows should never have been built. It looked oddly like an elevated outdoor privy without its walls, with only a simple hole in the boards for the shit to drop through. El Feo sighed. Someone would have to think of something better to do with traitors like Bartolomeo. Once the people got their land back the killing would be stopped.

The execution took place as the sun was getting low in the west. Bartolomeo wet his pants and had to be carried and dragged up the gallows steps to the noose.

“Next time don’t lie about our history!” shouted an old woman standing near the gallows as Bartolomeo fell through the hole and dangled.

“So, sadly, they have been forced to terminate their relationship with dear comrade Bartolomeo,” as a wisecracker at the graveyard had put it.

Angelita, El Feo, and the others with their volunteer units scattered in all directions from the village. Because this time, the people had really done it and there was no turning back. Sure, there was going to be a lot of shooting all right. Angelita was realistic about that, because after all, this was war, the war to retake the Americas and to free all the people still enslaved. You did not fight a war for such a big change without the loss of blood.

Angelita felt inspired. She talked to the people again. Change was on the horizon all over the world. The dispossessed people of the earth would rise up and take back lands that had been their birthright, and these lands would never again be held as private property, but as lands belonging to the people forever to protect. The old people had said over and over again, “Remember, tell your children so they will remember; never forget the identities of the days or the years because they shall all return to bring bitterness and regret to those who do not recognize the dangerous days or the murderous epochs.”

If the Cubans or government authorities started asking questions, all they had to say was Comrade Bartolomeo had tried to involve them in the cocaine smuggling business.

Angelita told the people not to worry. Both governments wanted Bartolomeo dead anyway. He had outlived his usefulness.

BOOK TWO. RIVERS MR. FISH, THE CANNIBAL

EVEN AS A CHILD, Beaufrey had realized he was different from the other children. He had always loved himself, only himself. He could remember lying in a crib sucking on his own hand, perfectly content, even blissful, when he was all alone. He disliked noise and disruptions in his perfect, drowsy pleasure and daydreams. He felt indifferent toward his mother and father, and the kindest nannies. Beaufrey understood their acts signified care and love from them, but he felt only indifference toward them. They did not matter, therefore their feelings, love, or concern did not matter either.

His selfishness gave him great satisfaction. He never altered his behavior for others; others did not fully exist — they were only ideas that flitted across his consciousness then disappeared. For as long as he could remember, Beaufrey had existed more completely than any other human being he had ever met. That was why the most bloody spectacles of torture did not upset him; because he could not be seriously touched by the contortions and screams of imperfectly drawn cartoon victims. Beaufrey knew only he could truly feel or truly suffer. The others had nervous systems like earthworms, and the torture that gave so much pleasure to audiences scarcely raised Beaufrey’s blood pressure. The cries and the cringing always seemed excessive and self-indulgent; sometimes even manipulative and false. The photograph or diagram of a tortured human body had more impact for Beaufrey than film or video of the victim moaning in handcuffs and leg irons.

Beaufrey had taught himself to read by the age of three. By the time he had turned eight his parents were taking him for psychiatry twice a week because his indifference had frightened them. Dr. VM had been a stupid hack, a parasite associated with wealthy families stricken with depression, mania, or psychosis. Beaufrey had talked circles around the psychiatrist. Beaufrey at age eight had set up the shrink. Beaufrey had insisted he wanted to talk about the books he had read. Yes, Dr. VM could not disagree with this. The child was quite precocious. Which books were his favorites? Those about crimes, and those with pictures.

Crimes? Ah, the picture books. Picture storybooks?

“No,” Beaufrey said rudely, “not storybook pictures! Crime pictures! Ones that show dead faces. And blood.”

“And the books you read? Which one is your favorite? I don’t mean picture books now.”

Beaufrey had loathed the psychiatrist’s air of condescension. “Stories about crimes. Famous crimes,” Beaufrey had said in a bored tone of voice, watching Dr. VM scribble rapidly on a stenographer’s tablet. Beaufrey’s favorite book had been about the Long Island cannibal, Albert Fish.

Dr. VM had wanted to know what in particular he found interesting about the cannibal. The Fish family had been blue bloods directly off the Mayflower. The Fish family had been politically prominent. Dr. VM did not look up from his notes. “And?” the old quack tried to push him. “And nothing!” Beaufrey said, excited by the frown on the old doctor’s face. “Mother says there are no aristocrats in America.”

Albert Fish had been a cannibal and a child molester. He peeled carrots and potatoes to cook with roasts of leg or arm. Mr. Fish had been quite particular about the age and size because they affect flavor and tenderness. Mr. Fish had explained his recipes to police after they had arrested him. Dr. VM had scribbled notes furiously and leaned forward in his chair. Why did Mr. Fish kill the children? So he could eat them. Why did Mr. Fish eat the children? Because he was hungry for the taste of human flesh. Psychiatry’s questions were useless and stupid.

The English called it blue blood; on the endless plains of Colombia, they called it sangre limpia or sangre pura. Albert Fish had belonged to a wealthy family. His craving for the flavor of roasted human meat had got the best of Mr. Fish, and the police had captured him carrying a human arm roast in his shopping bag.

As a child, Beaufrey’s intuition and imagination had been strangely acute. He had felt Albert Fish and he were kindred spirits because they shared not only social rank, but complete indifference about the life or death of other human beings. As Beaufrey had read European history in college, he had realized there had always been a connection between human cannibals and the aristocracy. Members of European aristocracy were simply more inclined to hunger and crave human flesh and blood because centuries of le droit du seigneur had corrupted them absolutely. Beaufrey was bored by anything less than the absolute; of course “blue bloods” such as himself were different. Bluebeard in his castle hung “his” wives from meat hooks in the tower; the “wives” had been the brides of serfs raped by the master on the evening of their wedding night.

In the beginning, European aristocracy had risen above the common soil; the royalty had been superior beings who had survived the test of combat’s fire and steel. But two world wars had consumed Europe’s best blood; after the First World War, true aristocracy had virtually been annihilated. Beaufrey’s mother had talked about nothing else while she had searched in vain for a young woman of a lineage as august as theirs.

So much for blue blood. Those with sangre pura were entirely different beings, on a far higher plane, inconceivable to commoners. They might crave roasted human flesh. What of it? There was nothing in the world that money could not buy. Beaufrey was especially interested in things, places, or beings that were not for sale; he got a thrill out of what was unavailable or forbidden.

The words unavailable and forbidden did not apply to aristocrats. Laws in England and the United States traced their origins to the “courts” of feudal lords who had listened to complaints and testimony and then passed judgment on the serfs.

SANGRE PURA

THE FINCA BELONGS to Serlo; he is the only genuine blue blood. Beaufrey likes to make this point to David; that Serlo is a blue blood, but all David’s got is bloody hands. The change of locations is deliberate. There had been hundreds of telephone calls for David after the show had sold out; “Too much publicity, Davey,” Beaufrey had told him. But then there had been the mess with the bitch over the child. David still believed the bitch was hiding the baby somewhere with her prostitute friends, maybe in Tucson, and had made up the kidnapping story. The grassy plains of Colombia were the ideal location to weather political and legal storms.

David had loved his baby son. Beaufrey enjoyed watching David’s dumb pain over the disappearance of the child. Fathers who gushed over sons made Beaufrey want to smash in their faces. He despised public sentimentality over infants and small children. In private, these same infants had their heads smashed or vaginas ripped; after all, they were the private property of their fathers. The poor might be excused for their sentimentality since their offspring were all that would ever be theirs, however briefly the infant survived. Breeding was for animals; Beaufrey himself had been a byproduct of his mother’s last menopausal fling in Paris. She had never wanted children because of the nuisance and the damage they did to the figure. But bless her, his mother had feared abortion more than she had feared a baby at forty-six.

Beaufrey had underestimated David’s need to see himself reproduced, to see his own flesh live on; it was a common hang-up Beaufrey had seen in gay men, especially the men who called themselves “straight” because they wanted to see their face reproduced on a tiny, shitting, screaming baby. Humans were like monkeys delighted with the little mirror images, until they realized any likeness was only illusion. Children, in fact, grew into total strangers. Beaufrey and his parents had loathed one another.

Beaufrey had taken David’s girlfriend, Seese, to the abortionist once before, but that had been when she and David had first been lovers, before Seese and Beaufrey had begun to hate one another.

At first David had not spent much time at the apartment Beaufrey had rented for Seese and the baby. They could not live in the penthouse with a baby screaming day and night. But later, David had begun to bring the baby up to the penthouse where he spent entire afternoons photographing the infant posed on white rabbit fur. Beaufrey had been strangely intrigued by David’s obsession with the infant’s supposed resemblance to himself. David had shot dozens of rolls of color film of the baby sleeping, close-up studies of the baby’s face.

The change in David’s attitude had been obvious. David wanted the child. He did not want that cunt to have that essence of himself, his child. Seese was nothing but an addict and a drunk; at her best, she was a whore. As David talked, he got more excited. He had a plan. David wanted to take the child and leave the United States. David had overheard Beaufrey and Luis talk about the ranch or finca in Colombia. Colombia seemed far enough away from the U.S. courts.

David was almost delectable when he was serious and his nostrils had a slight flare. Beaufrey had to smile. Here was one of life’s little mysteries: aristocratic bloodlines seemed genetically incompatible with physical beauty. Beaufrey would be the first to admit the rich were ugly; only great fortunes had made it possible for ugly blue bloods to continue reproducing themselves. Beaufrey knew that David, Eric, and all the other “rough trade” only stayed as long as there was dope and money. Street punks looked blank if they heard the term blue blood; occasionally one might confuse the word with blue ball or scrotal congestion. Still, life’s mystery was that the loveliest, most tender pieces of beauty were “rough trade”—the boys of the street dripping their pearls in the soot.

The idea of the game was to permit gorgeous young men such as David to misunderstand their importance in the world. The objective was to fool the young men before they could fool Beaufrey. Artists were the most fascinating to Beaufrey because they were often shattered and easily manipulated emotionally. Artists were quite exciting to destroy. Because they participated so freely. Eric had made his suicide a sort of visual event or installation, which Eric had somehow known would be irresistible to a visual artist such as David.

Beaufrey loved the theater. Players such as Eric or David and the cunt were a dime a dozen; Beaufrey was the director and author; he was the producer. One act followed another; Eric had performed the last act of his life farce perfectly; uncanny how Eric’s blood and flesh had become a medium consumed by a single performance.

David had been triumphant after he had snatched Monte from his playpen. Beaufrey had made all the arrangements, including the purchase of passports and papers for the infant. They had left the same afternoon for Cartagena by chartered jet. They could count on Seese to stay drunk and coked up for hours before she got desperate enough to contact the police.

The first week in Cartagena it had seemed possible to endure David’s child’s remaining with them. The child seldom cried for its mother and slept long intervals in the afternoon when Beaufrey preferred sex. But at the beginning of the second week, the child had begun crying and rocking its crib against a wall while they were having sex. Beaufrey had been furious about the interruption, but pretended he did not mind David’s fussing with the child. Beaufrey had cut more lines of cocaine on the mirror and filled both glasses with champagne. David must have no suspicion. Later Beaufrey discussed the schedule: they could not fly out to the finca until the end of the week.

The baby seemed to sense David’s rising frustration and had cried for hours despite the best efforts of the night nurse, a chubby, young Colombian woman with three children of her own at home. Beaufrey had rented another suite for himself and Serlo on another floor because the baby’s crying had annoyed him so much. David had pretended he did not mind being left behind in the hotel suite with a crying baby and its nurse; but David had always been jealous of Serlo. Only a few nights before, David had demanded Beaufrey tell him everything he and Serlo did in bed together.

Beaufrey marveled at the odd chemistry. David pretended he was not jealous. But he had started fucking the chubby night nurse, who taught him to mix paregoric in the baby’s formula. Before the end of the week, David had begun leaving the baby with the nurse in the suite to join Beaufrey and Serlo upstairs in the penthouse for drinks and dinner followed by cocaine and videos of police torture, autopsies, or other new acquisitions. Beaufrey claimed he wanted David to see what others had done with “still-life studies” such as Eric, but Beaufrey had enjoyed watching the expressions on David’s face as the torture had progressed conveniently into the “autopsy” of the victim.

David had enjoyed watching torture and killing videos before; most men did. Beaufrey divided the world into those who admitted the truth and those who lied. But that night David denied the videos gave him pleasure. David had been sullen throughout cocktails and the lovely dinner Beaufrey had ordered in their suite. That night, David had leapt up from his chair the instant he saw the surgery paraphernalia appear on the video screen. David had left the hotel without stopping to check with the nurse about the baby. Beaufrey had to smile to himself. David’s reaction was too powerful to overlook; David was afraid to feel how much he enjoyed the scalpel sinking through skin and flesh.

Beaufrey always relied on intuition to know when a situation or a sucker was ripe. Beaufrey had been intrigued by the process of deterioration in Eric; now in David, he was beginning to detect a similar pattern. Separate David from G. and the gallery with all the ass lickers, adulation and hoopla, and David would diminish a little more each day until there was nothing. No David. He would no longer exist except when he stared into the face of a baby. But soon David had not even looked at his baby.

David’s reaction had been typical of U.S. citizens too long insulated from foreigners and strange climates. At first, David had been exhilarated by the novelty. Cartagena had soon drained David, and he had lost a certain edge as the days passed and the hotel switchboard seemed unable to connect him with his gallery more than twice a week. Finally David had become depressed and weepy over imagined infidelities between Beaufrey and Serlo.

David was ripe. Beaufrey could feel his excitement rising as the final moves of the game were being made and it was clear his prey could not escape. Beaufrey had purposely waited three weeks in Cartagena to make the kidnapping seem more plausible. Seese would need time for everything to sink in; that Monte had been taken, that David was responsible, that her only hope was to hire someone to find them. Seese had old connections in Tucson who could track Beaufrey; that had been another reason Beaufrey was ready to make his new headquarters on the remote Colombian plains. Or at least these were the stories Beaufrey had already fed to David, who wasn’t completely stupid. The plan required enough time so retaliation by Seese was possible.

The flight to the finca had been scheduled for early the next morning. David had gone out with Serlo to buy darkroom equipment and supplies he would need at the ranch. Beaufrey had arranged for the four gunmen to enter David’s hotel suite and to leave the nurse unharmed, locked in a closet. The nurse had identified the gunmen as foreigners, Mexicans she thought. Beaufrey had specified Mexicans to further implicate the connections Seese had in Tucson.

The shock of seeing police, hotel staff, even journalists, crowded around his door had left David pale and withdrawn. Beaufrey had shown David to the red leather armchair and asked Serlo to bring them some brandy. Beaufrey did all the talking because his friend did not speak Spanish fluently. As soon as the police and other authorities had grasped the possibility the child’s mother from the U.S. had taken the baby, the excitement immediately subsided. Oh! Oh! That was a different matter! Very soon the hall outside the suite had been cleared of all but a few police inspectors who were required to complete reports.

Beaufrey had coaxed David to drink the brandy and to snort some cocaine to settle his nerves. Beaufrey wanted David to know he was prepared to charter a return flight to the United States. Nothing was more important to Beaufrey than for David to find his infant son.

David had snorted a line of cocaine and settled back on the sofa with his eyes closed, pinching his nostrils shut with one hand. Beaufrey especially enjoyed watching David when David was angry or upset. David’s pouting mouth aroused Beaufrey. He had the urge to cross the room and lick the traces of cocaine powder from David’s nostrils. Dull or ordinary people were so much more interesting when you and they were drunk and high on coke, just as the most ordinary street boys became special after their nipples sported diamond or gold studs. Nothing stimulated the cerebral cortex like cocaine unless it was coffee. “The deadly ‘C’ plants from South America,” he said, giggling. Beaufrey was drunk. He was high. He must not giggle again because David’s baby had been stolen only hours earlier. He snorted more coke. A great tingling rush came over Beaufrey’s entire body all at once. Bliss! Bliss! Nothing matters but bliss! Beaufrey and David stayed in the hotel suite for two days while Serlo took all telephone calls from local authorities and police, who wished to contact the United States to locate the missing child’s mother. But after numerous assurances from Serlo that the infant’s mother had kidnapped it, police authorities marked the case file “inactive.”

Beaufrey persuaded David to fly with him and Serlo to the finca. David seemed to have forgotten he had kidnapped Monte in the first place, and that the police in San Diego might be looking for David. Or they might not be looking for him, since Monte was David’s own son and the child’s mother was an addict and a whore.

At the finca, David had regained much of his former vigor. He wasn’t going to let Seese keep the child. The child was his. Beaufrey had nodded and pretended to agree with everything David said. The first few days at the ranch had been a replay of the last days in the hotel in Cartagena, where Serlo had been relegated to the role of receptionist while Beaufrey and David had lain naked in the king-size bed snorting gram after gram of cocaine watching torture videos or soccer games on big-screen satellite TV.

ALTERNATIVE EARTH UNITS

SERLO HAD REMAINED perfectly calm. Only he, of all the others, had the rare gift of perfect calm. Serlo was there to keep watch; in all directions, farther than the eye could see, the infinite blue sky enclosed the plain. Serlo was sangre pura; years before they had all the mestizos and Indians relocated to work on their ranching operations in Argentina. The finca was to become a stronghold for those of sangre pura as unrest and revolutions continued to sweep through.

Serlo preferred that Beaufrey be dominant; danger was exciting. Their most engaging conversations together had concerned the importance of lineage. The United States had vulgarized wealth by allowing the lowest levels of humanity to worm their way into political power in a so-called democracy. Beaufrey and Serlo both agreed lineage was all that mattered. Those of highest lineage had never lost their great wealth; lesser lines of nobility had found themselves with lineages but no money.

Serlo had dedicated himself to a cause. Really it wasn’t as quixotic as all that; other great leaders and thinkers had shared Serlo’s concern. He believed the human race would die out without a proper genetic balance. All along the droit du seigneur had been aimed at constant infusion of superior aristocratic blood into the peasant stock, just as Serlo had heard his uncles laugh about the rubber plantations years before where they had raped six or seven young Indian women, not because they had been lustful men, they were not, but because they believed it was their God-given duty to “upgrade” mestizo and Indian bloodstock.

Serlo was the first to concede that a great deal of weak genetic material in the human population was Caucasian, the results of improper mixing of bloodlines. For example, the matings of Polish and Irish resulted in hybrid individuals worse than either of the parents. Serlo had studied at the private institutes for eugenics research, which even he had felt were questionable because researchers had refused to consider the factor of the mother. Serlo had studied a large body of psychological and psychiatric writings that clearly demonstrated that even the most perfect genetic specimen could be ruined, absolutely destroyed, by the defects of the child’s mother. Serlo believed the problems that Freud had identified need not occur if a child’s “parents” were both male. The nature of the female was to engulf what was outside her body, to never let the umbilical cord be severed; gradually the mother became a vampire.

Serlo did not mind Beaufrey’s cheap street boys, or the gringos, not even Eric; how could Serlo have possibly felt anything at all about them? Jealousy was out of the question. Serlo had sangre pura; “blue blood” deserved “blue blood.” In the end there could be nothing better. The finca would become his research center. An institute also. They would be able to conduct research in complete seclusion. While Beaufrey was not interested in the scholarly details, still he understood simple political realities. Riches meant little if the cities were burning and anarchy reigned.

At the finca they would have everything; the underground vaults and storage units had been built to accommodate the bales of U.S. dollars, deutsche marks, and other currency put in storage by certain of Beaufrey’s clients. Other underground units contained giant, sealed tanks of water and barrels of wine. Other units contained immense stores of dehydrated foods. But Serlo had not stopped here; he had made a generous research grant to a young scientist from Geneva, who had traveled to Colombia and lived on the finca for a year as he designed and supervised the construction of an underground chamber or “Alternative Earth” unit. Once sealed, the Alternative Earth unit contained the plants, animals, and water necessary to continue independently as long as electricity was generated by the new “peanut-size” atomic reactors.

But Serlo’s interest in Alternative Earth module research extended far beyond mere survival or self-defense from anarchy with underground caches of supplies and weapons. In the end, the earth would be uninhabitable. The Alternative Earth modules would be loaded with the last of the earth’s uncontaminated soil, water, and oxygen and would be launched by immense rockets into high orbits around the earth where sunlight would sustain plants to supply oxygen, as well as food. Alternative Earth modules would orbit together in colonies, and the select few would continue as they always had, gliding in luxury and ease across polished decks of steel and glass islands where they looked down on earth as they had once gazed down at Rome or Mexico City from luxury penthouses, still sipping cocktails.

The colonies in earth’s orbit would periodically be recharged with water and oxygen from earth, but the Alternative Earth modules had been designed to be self-sufficient, closed systems, capable of remaining cut off from earth for years if necessary while the upheaval and violence threatened those of superior lineage.

DAVID’S INFANT SON

SERLO HAD ALMOST persuaded Beaufrey to forget the one-man theater experiments with Eric in San Diego when David had appeared on the scene with the woman not far behind. Serlo had never cared for beauty or virginity since neither were as lasting as one’s lineage, which not even death could diminish. Serlo never failed to take new visitors, such as David, down the long hall to see the portraits. Those along the north wall had been his mother’s lineage; these along the south wall were his father’s lineage, which was perhaps somewhat less distinguished.

Serlo had been interested in Beaufrey’s preoccupation with David’s girlfriend and David’s child. Serlo knew Beaufrey wanted Seese dead. He was curious to know what Beaufrey would do with the infant. If Beaufrey did not have the infant killed, Serlo wanted it raised by two men in what would be his institute’s first important experiment. The child was of common blood, but one did not waste aristocratic blood unnecessarily. Serlo did not bother with questions; whatever Beaufrey had done with the infant would undoubtedly be recorded on videotape or with photographs anyway.

Serlo had been watching David’s attentions toward him; odd how David had ignored Serlo until he saw the landing strip and the ranch buildings of the finca. David was street trash; street boys were the same the world over, whether they were from the U.S. or from downtown Bogotá. Serlo liked a good dog; a good dog wagged its tail when it sniffed fresh meat. Serlo was amused at U.S. street boys who called themselves “musicians” or “painters,” but not “prostitutes.” David had misunderstood his status entirely after the success of his one-man show. Of course Beaufrey used to play along to set them up. Beaufrey loved to see their faces fall and their eyes brim with tears, these street boys who had thought they were his “equals.” Suddenly one day Beaufrey would put them in their place.

SECRET AGENDA

DAVID HATED SEESE so much he had failed to recognize how unlikely it would have been for Seese to stay off vodka and cocaine long enough to arrange to have them tracked to Cartagena. All David understood was his baby son, Monte, had been taken by kidnappers hired by that cunt Seese. David had even returned to San Diego once from the finca because the whore had insisted she did not have the baby. Beaufrey had stayed up all night with David, snorting cocaine and arguing about having the woman killed. If Seese were dead, they might find who was hiding the baby for her. But David had feared they might never find his baby with Seese dead.

Serlo hoped to wean Beaufrey gradually from street boys and psychodramas because they would spend most of the year living on the remote finca. Serlo had calculated David’s departure for later in the year. Although Beaufrey would deny it, Serlo knows Beaufrey is obsessed with David. Beaufrey confided he had felt strangely excited that he had stolen David’s son but David had no inkling, no suspicion. How Beaufrey relished the deceit. Beaufrey does not want to lose his plaything; otherwise, why bother to fabricate the kidnapping at the hotel, why let the child’s mother live any longer?

At the finca, Serlo and Beaufrey allowed nothing to interfere with horseback riding. Serlo and Beaufrey each had competed at the international level for equestrian teams — Serlo riding for Colombia and Beaufrey for Argentina. At first David had gone to his new darkroom, equipped with computerized color enlargers and color-processing systems, while Serlo and Beaufrey rode the practice course on their dressage horses. But after a few weeks, David could not bear to listen to the dinnertime conversations about their horseback rides together. Serlo secretly savored David’s feeling of isolation and purposely had launched dinner-table conversations about the Polish royal cavalries and the origins of dressage in the military use of horses.

Serlo had talked coyly about the “incomparable exhilaration” one experienced as one’s slightest touch commanded instant response from the powerful volatile animal quivering under one’s own body. David was determined not to be left out. Darkroom work bored him. Taking the photographs was more exciting. He wanted to ride horseback too, he had announced. The big Dutch dressage horses were too ugly and clumsy for David’s taste. In the pasture with the polo ponies David had noticed a small chestnut mare with four white feet; that was the horse he wanted. Serlo had watched David struggle to mount the small, nervous mare; no reasonable man would ever have chosen the crazy-eyed mare.

David did not ride gracefully, but he did not fall off either. David had chosen the worst horse on the finca. The undersized Thoroughbred mare had been too high-strung to use for polo. The open space and unfenced distances of plains to all horizons affected the mare strangely, and the grooms speculated the mare had been born and reared in box stalls then ridden indoors inside equestrian arenas until the mare had been sold to the finca. Once out of the box stalls and away from the confines of paddocks and fences and buildings, the mare had become increasingly excited. The grooms called the affliction “rapture of the plain” or “rapture of the wide-open spaces”; local people reported similar strange afflictions in dogs brought from the city accustomed only to enclosures. Unkenneled for the first time on the vast plain, the dogs bolted away, to run and run past exhaustion to death.

David had been able to hold the mare in check at a walk inside the exercise paddocks; but when he had allowed the horse more rein, she had taken both bits in her teeth and head high, she had bolted. Serlo thought David would fall, but the mare had not bucked, and David had clung to the mare as she raced around the paddock. Serlo had to check his horse sharply as it pulled at the bit to follow the mare. Beaufrey’s mount was well seasoned, and Beaufrey’s confidence soothed the horse. But Serlo was riding a less-finished horse, a recent purchase. Serlo had been buying different breeding stock so the finca would be self-sufficient, with different horses for different purposes. Serlo believed the day would come when the world was overrun with swarms of brown and yellow human larvae called natives. Serlo carefully planned and prepared for the days of chaos about to arrive. But Beaufrey himself was not so sure. Beaufrey had never voiced his doubts to Serlo, of course. Serlo was extremely sensitive about his global theories. He was a charter member of a secret multinational organization with a “secret agenda” for the entire world.

There was little use in bringing a genetically superior man into a world crowded and polluted by the degenerate masses. The history of the secret agenda had begun with the German Third Reich, but it had not ended with Hitler’s death. The group’s secret agenda had been right on schedule actually because European Jewry had been destroyed. Jewish holocaust survivors were too few and too haunted to reproduce themselves effectively in Europe any longer. For all practical purposes Jews were extinct in Poland. But the most persuasive evidence of the Third Reich’s success could be seen in Israel, where Palestinians kept in prison camps were tortured and killed by descendants of Jewish holocaust survivors. The Jews might have escaped the Third Reich, but now they had been possessed by the urge to inflict suffering and death. Hitler had triumphed.

If the Israelis wished to incite the Moslems in order to justify a war to wipe them off the face of the earth, then all the better for the hidden agenda. Yellows, browns, and blacks, let them slaughter one another. The agenda was concerned with survival, not justice. The old man had taught Serlo years before that to kill a man was unjust in the first place, so why bother about rules of “fair play”? A bullet in the ear or a bomb under the front car seat was not fair, but it was final.

BIOLOGICAL WARFARE

THE OLD MAN did not attempt to hide the nature of his relationship with Serlo. His parents were divorced and neither had wanted him. The old man did not consider massaging the boy’s arms and legs at night homosexuality. Homosexuality involved others, other men who attempted to penetrate or who wanted to be penetrated. Serlo had learned sexual penetration was silly, unnecessary, and rotten with disease.

One night when Serlo was thirteen, the old man coughed three times then lost control of his bladder and died. Serlo had not allowed another human being to touch him in a sexual way since his grandfather’s death. Serlo had battled constantly to protect his cleanliness and health. Beaufrey had first sought Serlo in Paris because rumors claimed Serlo was the last and oldest boy virgin on the Continent. Serlo had been ahead of his time with his fetishes of purity and cleanliness; there were insinuations his sex organ touched only sterile, prewarmed stainless steel cylinders used for the artificial insemination of cattle. Tantalizing gossip had circulated throughout the long Mediterranean coast about Serlo, the pale eyes and milky skin, the pride of European nobility reared on the remote plains of Colombia.

Ordinarily Beaufrey had not sought out “celebrities” of sexual kinks, but he found the stories about Serlo irresistible.

Serlo’s grandfather had been a science enthusiast. The old man had ordered artificial insemination implemented for the cattle herds on all his vast fincas. The old man had practiced only masturbation into steel cylinders where his semen was frozen for future use. His grandfather had influenced him, Serlo admitted. The old man had dreamed that someday nobility and monarchy would be restored in Europe. The old man had left behind his seed of noble blood so the masses of Europe might someday be upgraded through the use of artificial insemination. The old man had looked far into the future and had seen that reproduction needn’t involve the repulsive touch and stink of sex with a woman.

Beaufrey and Serlo had argued over tactics; the group that Serlo met with had wanted to focus upon “positive” action — research laboratories and sperm banks where a superior human being would be developed. The group had obtained reports from research scientists working to develop an artificial uterus because women were often not reliable or responsible enough to give the “superfetuses” their best chance at developing into superbabies. Yes, Serlo admitted, he was saving all his sperm in a freezer for use in future generations. Nothing was impossible, Europe was full of living monarchs; Serlo had loved to rattle off the list — all of them his distant cousins: Michael in Romania, Otto in Austria, Niko in Montenegro, Simeon in Bulgaria, and of course dear Constantine in Greece. Serlo was anxious to get his institute under way and to obtain sperm contributions from European males of noble birth lest rare and distinguished lineages disappear without issue.

Although they required time, biological and chemical agents were far superior to bullets and bombs because they worked silently and anonymously. No one could prove a thing. The AIDS virus, HIV, had not been detected for years, and by then the targeted groups had been thoroughly infected. Beaufrey had claimed the U.S. CIA developed HIV, but Serlo knew that was a lie. Years of research into rare cancers, rare viruses, and hepatitis had been required; followed by radical experiments in cloning bacteria and viruses. Researchers in Johannesburg had experimented with monkey viruses. The great biological bomb that had exploded was the result of international collaboration. It had been determined the first biological bomb should be detonated in Africa where researchers hoped malnutrition would enhance the virus’s power. Hepatitis B had been the model they had followed to plot the spread of the immune-deficiency virus. In Africa they had simply contaminated whole blood and blood plasma supplies to be sent to remote hospitals where patients were primarily women who had just given birth. Thus husbands and subsequent newborns were infected. They had modeled their immune-deficiency virus on hepatitis B because the targeted groups had already proven their susceptibility to hepatitis B.

Serlo had learned a great deal about virology and molecular biology from attending the group’s meetings. Serlo was able to appreciate the beauty of HIV in a way that Beaufrey could not understand. Hepatitis B was a disease of the poor, the nonwhite, the addicted, and the homosexual, but hepatitis B was curable. HIV had no cure. Members of the research team bragged that they had created the first “designer virus” specifically for targeted groups. The filthy would die. The clean would live. “Think of the greatest army on earth!” one of the researchers had exclaimed. “Imagine an army of billions and billions of deadly troops! What do we have? Yes, gentlemen! We have the virus army! Deadly and silent!” Of course Serlo and his associates had always been acutely aware secrecy was the group’s cornerstone, but at their core lay the conviction that an endangered species fought for survival with no holds barred. HIV was the perfect weapon for those who found themselves vastly outnumbered in a final battle for survival.

Beaufrey was always bragging about the work of his friends in the U.S. CIA. Beaufrey claimed the abundance of cocaine in the United States had been planned by U.S. strategists who were concerned that heroin users in ghettos would not spread the HIV infection fast enough. Beaufrey always had to have the last word. Serlo had heard the stories about the U.S. CIA, but he doubted very much the U.S. CIA had been so well coordinated. It had only been a lucky coincidence that cheap, abundant cocaine had appeared when HIV did. Running cocaine against heroin had been a long shot, but the U.S. CIA had had little choice. The CIA’s Company had lost billions of dollars in opium revenue after Saigon fell. The cocaine had been part of a deliberate plan to finance CIA operations in Mexico and Central America with the proceeds from cocaine sales in the United States. Without cocaine, the millions of young black and Hispanic men and women confined to ghettos in U.S. cities would riot. Without a cheap, abundant supply of cocaine, it would be “Burn, baby, burn!” all over again as it had been in New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Detroit, and Miami. Secretly, Beaufrey did not believe the rioting natives of the earth would have enough energy or ambition to overrun it. Uprisings and revolts always petered out after the revolutionists and their followers started watching television and had a little more to eat.

To call England or the United States a “democracy” was a big joke because in neither country did the citizens bother any longer to vote. What did it matter? Both governments had secret agendas and employed “private contractors” such as Beaufrey, while their stupid citizens muddled along in terror of new taxes. Monarchy had many advantages over corrupt elected officials; in noble family lineages, accountability extended even to the monarch. No lineage dare allow even their monarch to abuse his divine office, otherwise they might all be ruined by popular unrest, even civil war. The masses, the common folk, desperately wanted a monarch; one had only to look at the United States, where presidents and their families were embraced by the citizens as quasi-royalty. The lowly gray masses of England had paid and paid billions over the years to retain their beloved royal family. There was a strict biological order to the natural world; in this natural order, only sangre pura sufficed to command instinctive obedience from the masses.

BABY PICTURES

IN ORDER TO CONTROL the mare it was necessary to pull her head sharply to one side, pulling her into a tight circle that gradually slowed the mare to a walk again. David found the speed and danger exhilarating. He refused to try another horse and was bored at the slow pace Beaufrey and Serlo kept on their huge Dutch geldings. Serlo and Beaufrey sometimes performed dressage exercises as they rode along to illustrate obscure refinements. Absolute obedience, and absolute control. David could not resist making tasteless remarks about man and horses “becoming one” and other stupid sexual innuendos. The mare sensed David’s impatience with the slow pace, and she had begun to prance nervously and toss her head, rattling the bits against her teeth. The clatter of the steel against her teeth set Serlo’s nerves on edge.

Beaufrey could see Serlo was offended by everything David did or said. David was a darling in that regard. David was entirely predictable. Beaufrey had even guessed which horse David would choose. Beaufrey enjoyed riding between Serlo and David to feel the tension as it grew and grew until the little mare was prancing and even the Dutch gelding Beaufrey rode became restless and steadily more agitated by the antics of David’s mare. But before long David got tired of fighting to rein in the mare; and abruptly, without a word, David had let the reins go slack. The mare half-reared and took off with David like a rocket, leaving Serlo and Beaufrey behind in a cloud of dust.

Serlo thought it was really quite funny. He liked to look at David and smile because David would misread everything, blinded by egotism. David was expecting Serlo to make a big play for his body soon. They were sitting on a long dark leather couch in the sala, which opened into a center ballroom with a thirty-foot ceiling. With David, perhaps Serlo could teach Beaufrey a lesson about the common street trade. David’s photographs were not art, they were disgusting pornography no different from Beaufrey’s loathsome videotapes. Maybe all gringos were as dull witted as David. Sometimes Serlo wondered. The Texas boy Eric, he had been the same. Toys, little trifles, those boys had been punks. David never even suspected Beaufrey had arranged the kidnapping. Serlo had not asked Beaufrey about the child. He had perfected indifference to Beaufrey’s weird fixations. Serlo was not curious about the fate of insignificant beings; he had not felt the thrill Beaufrey felt watching Eric, David, and Seese waltz one another closer to suicide.

The rooms were full of a rich, diffuse light from the tall windows. Long porches shaded the rooms from the bright burning sun. Beyond the yellow-blossoming trees, the plains flattened away in every direction until the light blue of the sky folded over them. There were no other tall trees in sight on the llano, only shrubs. Bees and large black flies browsed in the trees’ blossoms. Huge black flies clung to the window screens and did not move even when the wind caused the screen to flex in and out. Serlo spoke softly.

“Down here, the hottest months are July and August. You look out these windows, and the heat is so thick it quivers—” David had a lens brush and was making delicate sweeps across the face of the telephoto lens. David did not respond. Serlo was forced to finish: “Like quicksand.” David smiled because he had forced those last words from Serlo.

“Quicksand?” David wondered. David did not think of heat as quicksand, but he knew there were people who were like quicksand. David was not as sure about Beaufrey now; he took trips alone to Bogotá and refused to allow David to accompany him. David had intended to fly to San Diego, to stay there until he located where Seese had hidden Monte. But Beaufrey’s unexpected trips to Bogotá had worried David. David did not believe Beaufrey’s story that Serlo was asexual, and he did not believe Beaufrey was flying to Bogotá to sell videos either. Beaufrey’s eye had strayed from Eric to David; David was determined not to let anyone or anything come between himself and Beaufrey. All of his life David had imagined an older man like Beaufrey — rich, aristocratic, and ruthless; someone who would be his patron, so that David would be invited to shows all across Europe.

Eric had accused David of being heartless like Beaufrey. At the time, David had said nothing, but he had been pleased with the comparison. Eric had cried too often, and the dampness on his cheeks and the down-turned corners of his mouth had nearly driven David insane with the compulsion to smash the crybaby’s face to bloody pulp. The dampness and moisture of Seese after the baby was born had also disgusted David. The morning David had left Seese, the last morning they had been together, David had pulled the sheets off the bed, screaming at Seese — not even words, only sounds — screaming his rage, rage over the stickiness of the bed sheets from the humidity, rage at the odor and pale-yellow stains of milk that leaked at night from her nipples while she nursed the infant in bed with her.

Even after David had taken Monte away to Cartagena, David had felt revulsion when the baby had spit up on the edge of the blanket as he held him. The nannies had been instructed to dress the baby freshly before they brought him to his father. At first David had taken many rolls of film of the baby for comparison with David’s own baby pictures, which his mother had mounted in the blue leather baby books she had kept for him. David still got tears in his eyes when he thought about his mother dying. If his mother had been alive, she would have been delighted to see how much the baby looked like him. David had spent a great deal of time alone with his mother because his sister and brother had already been in school when David was born. His father had been an accountant who used to leave for his office then vanished on a three-day drunk.

David had been careful to keep all his mother’s family albums; she had taught him to look at photographs of all the family branches and to identify certain family characteristics in the eyes, cheekbones, or postures. David remembered his father as a silent, angry man whose thinning gray hair stood on end when he was drunk. David had been happiest as a child on the nights when the old man did not come home. The photographs in the albums had been their favorite pastime to share — far from phone calls from police who had found his father passed out in his car. After David’s sister and brother graduated and left home, the albums of photographs had been the best and most real part of his mother’s life, except for David. David was her very soul, she said; without him she would simply have died. She had her gin and tonic in the morning after David went to school.

LAWSUITS

DAVID HAD WANTED Serlo to notice him; David enjoyed the charged atmosphere of sexual tension that had developed between the three of them. Beaufrey claimed Serlo was asexual; who could blame Serlo when Beaufrey refused to uncover his body? Beaufrey always had sex in silk pajamas or the clothes he was wearing. Beaufrey did not allow himself to be seen or embraced or touched. He ignored his partners. “On rainy days we wear our raincoats” had been Beaufrey’s standard line about condoms. He had such potent sensitivity he was able to wear one over another for added safety. Beaufrey said he knew too much about secret biological research and the use of sexual transmission. HIV had only been the beginning.

David had been prepared to return to San Diego to make things happen, to have the bitch beaten until she revealed where Monte was hidden, when G. had called; new lawsuits over the photographs of Eric’s suicide had been filed against G., the gallery, and of course David. Fortunately David and the negatives and the color transparencies were not in the United States. G. reminded David he had warned him about the risk of a lawsuit involved with the Eric photography series; but at the time, David had been confident Eric’s family wanted no further publicity or embarrassment. The lawsuit, filed by Eric’s parents, asked millions of dollars in punitive damages. Of course G. could no longer sell David’s prints in the United States, but G. had already made arrangements with a gallery in Munich.

G. kept telling David not to worry, not to worry, the publicity was worth millions and millions. G. was handling everything. David need not worry. But David had been angry about the attorney’s fees. G. was charging David’s account thousands per month for attorneys. Prints of Eric’s suicide were selling briskly, but David’s share had been consumed by payments to lawyers. David was furious. He had waited years and years for this success to come; Eric’s family and their lawsuits had ruined everything. G. said not to worry, but that was because G. knew there was little chance of losing David to a rival gallery after controversy and lawsuits. Of course the “Eric series” would still be sold abroad and to private collectors, but naturally lawsuits cast shadows over anticipated profits. G. was optimistic about David’s next show; how was the new series progressing? “Great,” David had lied. There was no new series. Why should there be? David had just created a brilliant series. The Eric series was his masterpiece, and the show had been a huge success until the shitbag lawyer’s bills came in the mail. David blamed G. for mishandling the entire situation. He did not trust G. or G.’s bookkeeper either; just like that $100,000 was gone. Now G. had condescended to lend David $5,000, but he wanted more prints from the Eric series sent air express before G. would wire the cash.

David slammed down the telephone receiver. He felt tears in his eyes. G. had mismanaged the show and sale of his best new work. Hysteria and prejudice had turned the art critics against David. None of them understood how important the Eric series was; none of them realized David’s work was about to redefine the terms portrait and still life. G. had been too anxious to sell sets of the Eric series before further lawsuits were filed by Eric’s family. G.’s attorneys were his old school chums as well, and they had backed down in the face of a team of top-rate lawyers the Texans had hired. Suddenly it was as if all the work David had done to create the Eric series had been destroyed, because all the sets of limited-edition prints had been sold and less than $10,000 remained after the lawyers had been paid. G. talked vaguely about a gallery abroad where the effects of the U.S. lawsuits would not interfere. After that, what was the point of work?

Serlo rode horseback early in the morning when Beaufrey was away. He had not invited David to ride with him, but David did not care; he invited himself. He spoke no Spanish and the hired help spoke no English. Serlo had been as deliberate and dull as a nun riding horseback. Poor horsemanship appalled Serlo, so he said little to David while they were riding. David did not care how he looked in the saddle; all he cared about was hanging on at a dead run because he felt transformed into the pure sensation of the horse pounding across the earth devouring space and distance.

David already knew Serlo found him attractive; Beaufrey had confided Serlo was aroused by watching men ride horses. The horseman was potent and virile. David knew how much the danger aroused Beaufrey. Serlo undoubtedly had similar attractions; otherwise, Serlo would not have ridden a horse at all. Horses were dangerously strong. David had met Serlo-types before: pale, aristocratic, and passionless.

With Beaufrey gone most of the week, David had become bored with satellite TV. He had begun grooming and feeding the chestnut mare himself. The mare learned to whinny when David came to the stables. The ranch hands made jokes among themselves about the stable boy. David didn’t care. Sangre pura was bullshit. David was from the United States, and he knew only money mattered.

Serlo did not vary his route on the rides. Beside the dressage and jumping courses, there was an indoor course for bad weather. Serlo preferred to ride only the roads and paths because the llano grass often concealed hazards, treacherous rodent holes and narrow, deep gullies. Here the llanos were not as flat. There were gently rolling hills covered with grass and shrubs, and far far in the distance mountains stood so blue and so tall they were lost in clouds and sky. No sensation ever equaled the absolute thrill David had felt on the back of a racehorse. David had raced motorcycles and cars, but they were not alive; they did not risk shattered bones.

All had seemed so near, almost within David’s grasp, until the injunctions and lawsuits. He knew his Eric series was sheer genius. The Eric series should have launched his career. But it had all turned out wrong, as wrong as the pathologist’s report when his mother had first got sick. Some things were never meant to be, such as his own birth after his father was too old and too drunk. In the beginning David had expected Beaufrey to defend his Eric series, to hire additional lawyers to help G.’s lawyer bring out the big guns, because Beaufrey loved art, especially David’s art, and of course, because Beaufrey loved David, or at least he loved David the artist. But Beaufrey had been strangely complacent about the attacks on David’s work; Beaufrey’s response was that G. and the gallery should handle the matter entirely. “Survival of the fittest, dear David,” had been Beaufrey’s only comment.

GAMES

AFTER THE NIGHT rain, a blue mist rose above the rolling green llanos from dawn until noon. A hundred miles in the distance, the high mountains were still hidden in clouds, and it had been easy for David to imagine he was Adam in the Garden. For as far as he could see to the south and the west, there were no jet vapor trails, no engine sounds, no glitter of metal or glass, no dogs barking, no human voice; only the insects whirring and the calls of birds. There were no sounds of cattle or horses and none in sight; he might have been the last man on earth. No wonder Serlo had all those bizarre ideas; Serlo had been too long on the llano.

Except for ancestral portraits hung along the halls, the only art in the ranch house had been nineteenth-century landscapes of the Spanish countryside with winding roads and neatly kept olive groves behind ancient stone walls. The landscape paintings were some of the most stupid David had ever seen. He found conventional landscapes completely boring. All that mattered in the landscape was the human form, the human face, which was our original “landscape” as infants. So-called still lifes and landscapes were only analogues for the artist’s perceptions and emotions. Eric’s body had become a new landscape, and his colors had been scattered all over the bedspread, ceiling, walls, and floor.

The midday heat after the night rain had left David exhausted, but the air-conditioning in his room was in poor repair and he had been unable to sleep. Beaufrey was still in Bogotá on business. Serlo spoke with Beaufrey almost daily. Serlo had no answer when David asked what business had suddenly required so much of Beaufrey’s attention. Serlo promised to have the ranch foreman fix the air-conditioning unit in his room and suggested David might sleep more comfortably on the screened porch. The heat had produced a strange fatigue during the day; David lay on his bed but could not sleep. Although he knew it was quite impossible, fantasies about Beaufrey’s suddenly taking charge still flashed through David’s head. He imagined Beaufrey’s handsome, cruel face as he announced his lawyers in Bogotá had taken care of everything for David. David daydreamed that Beaufrey had arranged secret meetings with European gallery owners to plan a stunning international debut for David and the Eric series. All it took was money. Beaufrey had the money.

David had known men like Beaufrey before. They betrayed no feelings; their eyes were expressionless. They claimed to have no attachments. They gave no gifts or money, but paid all travel, hotels, meals, whiskey, and cocaine. Beaufrey had even let David keep Seese, the way he had let Eric stay on too. Beaufrey had only been curious, not generous. Beaufrey was attracted to artists because he was easily bored.

Throughout dinner Serlo watched David eat and chatter about riding racehorses. To Serlo, English sounded like parrot chatter anyway, and he had paid little attention. What he was interested in were David’s presumptions and delusions. David had been trying to interest Serlo in a race horse; Serlo did not bother to explain to David the vulgarity of competition, especially horse racing. David’s ignorance was of course part of his attraction for Beaufrey. Serlo had to admit he was interested too. Serlo had never seen such arrogance coupled with such ignorance, but Beaufrey had assured him all men in the United States were like David. Beaufrey had deliberately left Serlo alone at the finca with David. “The next move is yours,” was all Beaufrey had said.

Beaufrey’s games. Serlo was tired of games; he had the institute to work for now. For years, Beaufrey had tried to seduce Serlo with luscious young men procured all over the world. Serlo had enjoyed them — pretty blonds hung like donkeys and willing to do anything, anything Serlo might want. He had enjoyed their confusion and shame when he’d revealed he wanted nothing to do with them or any filth.

David, of course was unique, a special case; Beaufrey’s game had abruptly turned to obsession, and Serlo wanted to end the game. David was only incidental now; Beaufrey was obsessed with David’s child. The instant the child had been conceived, Beaufrey despised it, even more than he had hated the first fetus Seese had aborted. Serlo had been shocked at Beaufrey’s behavior. Serlo had known even then, the time had come. Those of sangre pura must stop playing games and take action before the world was lost.

BAD NEWS

THE SORREL MARE’S presence was soothing, and David hoped to meet Serlo in the stable area. At the dinner table the night before, Serlo had smiled at David and had asked if David would be joining him for a ride in the morning. David had not felt so much energy or excitement since Beaufrey left; the prospect of fucking Serlo was the source of his new enthusiasm. He would fuck Serlo and see what that did for Beaufrey. David would show Beaufrey.

All his childhood, David had wanted a pony or horse to ride far away from the houses and schools and people. Now the sorrel mare was David’s childhood dream come true. David knew he could always remain on the finca even if Beaufrey no longer wanted him, because of Serlo. Serlo wanted David; David felt certain. There was no mistake when a man as remote as Serlo began to smile over the dinner rolls and inquired about morning horseback rides.

The little mare had gone lame after the ride, and David had been racked with guilt. The swelling of the mare’s knee and foreleg had reminded David of his mother’s cancer. Both Beaufrey and Serlo had warned David before about speed on the mare.

Serlo had said nothing as the grooms had mixed medicinal plasters to bandage around the mare’s knee. David had not meant to let the mare run until she injured herself, but the sensation of speed over the endless rolling plain had been irresistible. Distances fell away, and the earth was a blur; the little mare had wanted to race beyond all barriers and restraints, and David had not wanted to stop; he had wanted the horse to run the plain forever.

David had remained in the box stall with the lame mare after Serlo and the grooms had left. He had brushed her, then wiped her with a damp chamois, repeating her name softly over and over: “Roja, Roja, Roja.” David felt great sadness rise from his chest into his throat. It was no use. Nothing mattered. Everything he had tried, everything he had done, had turned out wrong.

The injury to the little mare had abruptly ended the horseback riding and Serlo’s smiles across the dinner table. David had spent most of his days in the box stall stroking or grooming the horse. Serlo had made it quite clear he thought David was a vulgarian and a fool for riding so recklessly. The mare whinnied when David entered the stable; hers had been the only greeting David had got. Serlo had only stared at him silently when David spoke. The ranch hands and grooms suddenly were mute.

David had lost interest in photography; he hated the tedium of the darkroom and the odor of chemicals. David had given them his best work and they had watched as the exhibit had been ruined. G. was crazy if he thought David was going to complete a new series or make any more Eric prints either. David was finished with the art racket; galleries were as sleazy as casinos. There was no big money in art unless you were a dealer or a dead artist.

David massaged the mare’s knee and took her on daily walks to rebuild muscle tone and strength in the foreleg. The mare had quickly recovered, and David was triumphant, leading the horse past the grooms and stable hands. David hardly cared whether Serlo had noticed that David no longer ate at the long dining table with him. He preferred to take meals alone in his room because Serlo had made unforgivable remarks to David when the horse had been injured. Serlo had called him “mongrel,” “misfit,” and “pervert.” Serlo jerked off to fill his private sperm bank yet called himself heterosexual; David had never known such a queer before.

David had made a special effort to keep the little mare on short rein and at a walk to prevent reinjury. He wanted the mare sound when Beaufrey returned. David had practiced with the mare on the dressage course, and she seemed to relax and work on a looser rein. Alone, David had ridden farther and farther from the ranch house, deeper into the grassy, gently rolling llanos. All the emptiness, all the space, the green of the land and the purity of the blue sky, were lovely but also unearthly. He could understand how Serlo might dream of space colonies orbiting earth, because across the endless plains, the ranch buildings had appeared to be tiny satellites in the vast space of the plains.

So ten days had become ten weeks in Bogotá for Beaufrey. He had returned one Monday afternoon and offered no explanations and made no comments about his business in Bogotá. Beaufrey had asked David no questions, and he didn’t expect any questions from David. David had lost his temper. Beaufrey didn’t have to ask any questions because Serlo watched and reported everything David did anyway. David knew Beaufrey and Serlo had no secrets; he knew Beaufrey had described every detail of every sex act with David to Serlo — wasn’t that part of their game? David knew all about the mind-fuck games. Beaufrey had left David for ten weeks in the middle of nowhere, ten weeks in which the only English David had heard had been over the telephone or off satellite TV.

Beaufrey had burst out laughing when David had complained about hearing English only on TV. Poor thing! Foreign languages in foreign countries! Beaufrey’s laughter had infuriated David. Serlo had smiled faintly. David was sick of their secrets. He demanded to know everything. Beaufrey seemed amused by David’s outburst. He had been unpacking the new handguns and carbines he had brought back for the finca’s arsenal. Serlo called it “the gun collection.” David had seen the underground arsenal once; all the walls had been lined solidly with rifles and carbines; dozens of glass cases had been filled with revolvers, automatics, derringers — every kind of handgun.

Some things it was better not to know. Beaufrey looked at Serlo. Didn’t Serlo agree? Look at these 9mm pistols. David might enjoy the Glock. With the unrest and guerilla activity so widespread, no Caucasian should be without a handgun on his person.

“Don’t change the subject,” David said. He picked up the gun, and Beaufrey handed him the empty clip. In another minute Beaufrey would bring out the cocaine as he usually did after they had quarreled. Beaufrey’s eyes were expressionless; his lips did not move. Serlo kept wiping the barrel of a.45 automatic; he didn’t look up. “I want to know all of it — everything.” Beaufrey and Serlo exchanged brief glances. “Everything?” Beaufrey repeated, smiling cruelly. “You want to know everything?” The long dining table was covered with packing debris, shipping boxes, and fifteen or twenty revolvers and automatic pistols. The giant grandfather clock ticked loudly down the hall.

“It was all bad news, I’m afraid.” Beaufrey’s eyes had been gleaming again, and David felt hopeful they would still be lovers. He did not understand Beaufrey: What bad news? “It all required more time than I had anticipated,” Beaufrey continued, watching David’s face closely.

“The galleries in Europe…?” David felt his heart leap.

The room was quiet again, except for the hall clock, and the sound of Serlo slitting open the cardboard packing around the guns. “I said ‘bad news,’ nothing about art.” Both Beaufrey and Serlo watched David closely. David’s mouth hung open stupidly as he began to understand. “The baby,” David said in a flat voice, “you mean the baby.” Beaufrey nodded; he was wiping shipping grease off the cylinder of a brand-new Colt.357 magnum.

“I really am sorry, David, but with that woman, what could you do?” Beaufrey had never spoken to David so sincerely. David experienced a flood of feelings, a great expansion in his chest from his beating heart. “With a creature like that you expect the offspring to be lost. Isn’t that true, Serlo? You see that here all the time with horses and cattle, don’t you?” Serlo had been cataloging the serial numbers of the new handguns in a huge old ledger bound in brass and leather. Everything that had ever been purchased for the finca was described in the ledger. Serlo nodded yes to Beaufrey’s comparison of the woman with a cow, but did not lift his head. He was sick of David’s stupid, pouting mouth and Beaufrey’s reptilian gaze each time the lovers’ eyes locked on one another. Serlo had watched Beaufrey before. Beaufrey became aroused watching the young men break down. When the young men bored Beaufrey, they angered him; and quite unintentionally Beaufrey was compelled to break them down. Serlo wondered what the American would do or say if he was told the truth about the child. David would shit his pants. Or maybe David would be so stupid that even if he was told the truth, he would not believe it. Serlo decided to tell the gringo, “Some are only fit as organ donors. That is the only useful function left for common rabble.” Of course David did not understand Spanish or Serlo’s meaning, except to know it was derogatory.

Beaufrey had looked at Serlo sharply, but Serlo had been refilling the fountain pen and pretended not to see. Serlo didn’t care if David found out; the David game was about played out. Serlo was sick of Beaufrey’s pretending to console David. Beaufrey brought out more cocaine and offered it first to David before he passed it to Serlo.

RAPTURE OF THE PLAIN

DAVID HAD BEEN pleased at how sharp Beaufrey’s glance at Serlo had been. The excitement of having so much of Beaufrey’s attention and concern had made even the painful loss of the infant recede naturally into the distance. With Beaufrey in love with him, even that loss seemed bearable. David had been surprised at Beaufrey’s sudden change of heart just when David had feared everything might be over between them. He did not want to upset Beaufrey any further. He did not press Beaufrey for details. Beaufrey said only the child had died in Tucson of natural causes. Whores such as Seese produced defective offspring; nature’s way was best; only the fittest survived. David felt strangely relieved now that Beaufrey had confirmed the worst. There was nothing more David could do for the dead child. If he ever saw Seese again, David vowed to kill her.

Beaufrey’s games ended when he wanted them to, and not until then. Serlo refused to be suckered into a shouting match by Beaufrey. They fucked while Serlo rode horseback alone. They rode horseback for hours together while Serlo supervised the ground-breaking for the institute facilities. Serlo had spoken to Beaufrey once, even twice, each day by phone while Beaufrey had been in Bogotá; now they slept under the same roof but did not speak to one another, sometimes for days. Beaufrey was soft, Beaufrey was a slave to urges and desires of the flesh. Beaufrey confided that the secret had greatly increased his sexual desire for David. Beaufrey really got hot because David had never even suspected what had happened to the infant: something terrible. Nothing got Beaufrey hotter than pumping away at an unsuspecting asshole such as David; ignorant of everything.

Time was getting short; unrest was spreading across the Americas; Serlo and Beaufrey had both lost ancestors to the guillotine. Epidemics, accompanied by famine, had triggered unrest. Mass migrations to the North, to the U.S. border, by starving Indians had already begun in Mexico. Serlo and the others with the “hidden agenda” had only a few more years to prepare before the world was lost to chaos. Brown people would inherit the earth like the cockroaches unless Serlo and the others were successful at the institute. Dedicated to the preservation of the purity of noble blood, the facilities would provide genetically superior semen.

Serlo blamed the United States for the crisis in the hemisphere because the U.S. CIA had encouraged government authorities, the worst criminals, to smuggle cocaine for them. Very soon the others had learned the fabulous profits that could be made, and the U.S. CIA had fierce competition in the cocaine trade from mestizos and Indians. Serlo had seen the black men and the brown men with semiautomatic carbines they had bought with the profits of the trade. Serlo had seen a message in the eyes of these people: guns make us equal, white motherfucker.

Enemies of the United States had actually tried to cut off the supply of heroin to the United States near the end of the Vietnam War. During the summer of the disruption of heroin supplies, dozens of U.S. cities had burned night after night. Without cocaine and heroin, the U.S. faced a nightmare as young black and brown people took to the streets to light up white neighborhoods, not crack pipes. Secret U.S. policy was to protect the supply of cocaine. Without cocaine, the U.S. would face riots, looting, even civil war. The downfall of the United States had been those civil rights laws passed after the Korean War.

Serlo seldom joined them horseback riding since Beaufrey had returned from Bogotá. David spotted Serlo approaching rapidly on his black hunter-jumper across a grassy, dry lake-bed; he had not seen Serlo ride a horse so fast before. Beaufrey had reined in his horse when he saw Serlo. David was intrigued because Beaufrey acted genuinely surprised, as if he had not expected to see Serlo. Beaufrey had always denied Serlo was jealous, but David knew better.

The sorrel mare tossed her head and opened her mouth wide to escape the bit. Beaufrey was critical of David’s lack of control of the mare. Whenever Beaufrey felt out of sorts, he liked to criticize David’s “seat,” and the atrocious position of the reins in his hands. This bitching at David was meant to cheer up Serlo. David dug his heels into the mare’s ribs and pulled her around sharply as she leaped into a gallop in a tight, clockwise circle around them. Beaufrey was worried about David’s control; well, let him watch this! Serlo saw David’s horse break away from Beaufrey’s mount, but instead of riding in the direction Beaufrey had gone, Serlo had turned his horse to follow David.

David had turned hard in the saddle to try to see Beaufrey’s reaction, but the little mare seemed to accelerate even as David struggled to rein her into a circle. Then he could see Beaufrey was galloping after Serlo. David felt a big smile on his face. How romantic and dramatic! The thrill of the chase across the grass and through the scrubby trees across dry lakes had overcome David. He could feel the little Thoroughbred did not want to stop; the farther she ran, the faster she ran. The speed whipped tears in his eyes as he fought to pull the mare’s head around; he would let her run in a big circle until she was exhausted. To otherwise stop or control the horse was hopeless. Serlo had kept shouting at David, but the excitement of a chase was too keen to halt. David glanced over his shoulder and saw Beaufrey’s horse stumble and nearly go down. Neither Beaufrey nor Serlo dared race as fast as David had over the grassy plain.

The sorrel mare had gradually slowed as she tired; David pulled her to a stop. Sweat dripped from her neck and legs. David had dismounted and was walking the horse when Serlo rode up. David heard Serlo’s words, but had difficulty making any sense of what Serlo said. David had stopped to allow the mare to rub her sweaty head and ears against David’s shoulder. He looked up at Serlo on the lathered hunter-jumper. What was Serlo’s news that simply could not wait?

But Serlo had said nothing; instead he had handed David an eight-by-ten manila envelope. To see was to believe. David stared at proof sheets of 35mm color negative strips; most of the proof images had been almost too small to see without a magnifying lens, but a cold chill and then sweat had made the hairs on David’s neck stand up. Beaufrey rode up while David was still holding the proof sheets in both hands helplessly. Beaufrey did not answer when David asked him if what Serlo had said was true. David kept his eyes on Beaufrey’s eyes as he deliberately trampled the proof sheets under his boots, then remounted the mare.

David refused to let Serlo or Beaufrey, but especially Serlo, play any more mind-fuck games with him. Serlo had tried all along to drive David away from Beaufrey. David did not doubt that Beaufrey had videotapes and enlarged color photographs of autopsies and organ harvests of Caucasian infants. David simply refused to believe the tiny cadaver in the images was that of his infant son, Monte. That simply was not possible because the cadaver had been considerably larger than his baby.

Beaufrey hated surprises such as the one Serlo had just sprung. Beaufrey had been furious, but he pretended the photographs were only Serlo’s sick joke. Of course the photographs were off the black market; it had been a bad joke. Beaufrey’s lips gradually drew back in a sly smile; he winked at David and shrugged his shoulders. Serlo was Serlo. Only the greatest passions drove men to deeds such as these. Serlo had only pretended cool detachment. Serlo was a man of great passion. But David would not be outdone. The sorrel mare’s coat was still damp from the previous run, and she trembled with anticipation; David held the reins tight and the horse stepped backward nervously. David had not ridden so far onto the llano before; off in the distance, a great open plain dropped away from the scrubby trees and ran forever to the horizon. A light breeze swept across the llano.

David wanted to reassure Beaufrey that he did not believe the lies Serlo had told. Serlo must have lost his mind completely to accuse Beaufrey of something so gruesome. David blamed the stupid institute for Serlo’s delusions and accusations. Nazi-thinking caused mental illness. David did not care if Serlo heard what he said to Beaufrey. David had never trusted Serlo. Beaufrey should be careful. Serlo considered himself heterosexual; he might turn against his friends and lovers any day. Beaufrey should remember Hitler’s solution for homosexuals.

David guided the little mare into a slow canter, keeping the mare’s head tucked under the arch of her neck. For weeks David had ridden the mare to practice control. He had practiced to please Beaufrey, but also to prove to himself he could control the mare. Sports and games were always about control; control was everything. One person wanted to control the other. Dope or sex, it was all about control, and the slave, the one who served and obeyed. Seese had taught David that; she had asked David to fuck her while he was shooting her up. He had hated her for wanting that, and he had wanted to hurt her, to miss the vein. But his cock had got hard and curved up to his belly just as he got the needle in the vein; warm and white he fed it to her in steady streams and spurts.

The sorrel mare heard the hoofbeats of Serlo’s and Beaufrey’s horses behind and raced faster over the plain until the scrubby trees and yellowing grass were blurred from the mare’s speed. His arms ached from fighting the mare. He hated the fever of the mare’s need to run. He hated Beaufrey’s gibe that the rider must “husband” his horse. As the ranch hands said, the mare suffered from the rapture of the llano, the rapture of space and endless horizons.

David had tried. What more could a man do? He rejected that responsibility bullshit. If the horse wanted to run, let it run. The little Thoroughbred had fought to break loose for miles, and David was beginning to tire. If the horse wanted to run, let it run. Serlo and Beaufrey were far behind. The mare would slow as she began to tire.

David felt a great sense of relief and freedom as he let the reins go slack. He crouched low over the neck and clutched mane and reins in both hands. For an instant the little Thoroughbred hesitated, then she bolted forward, hooves scarcely touching the earth, her sinew and muscle cracking as she raced over the plain toward the horizon’s pale blue. “You want to run? Then run! Run goddamn you! Run!” David had screamed, but the speed of the mare swept the words from his mouth almost before he could make their sounds. Let Beaufrey try to forget this! Truly he had the sensation he was flying. The faster the horse ran, the smoother the ride. He wanted Beaufrey to see how fast the little sorrel could run so Beaufrey would agree to sponsor the horse next season in Caracas. None were as surefooted as this mare! None had her guts, her heart! She leaped the grass clumps, brush, and gullies of the llanos like a deer; she never missed a beat across rocky terrain. The mare’s balance and surefootedness were phenomenal. David had left Beaufrey and Serlo miles behind on their thick, slow dressage horses.

When the ranch hands came, one of the grooms examined the tracks and the position of the fallen horse. The sorrel mare had run until her heart stopped in midstride and she had dropped like a rock. David had not been thrown free, but had become entangled with the falling horse so that Beaufrey and Serlo had had to drag the dead horse by the tail and bridle reins to roll it over to free David’s battered corpse. Serlo watched Beaufrey’s face for signs of regret, but Beaufrey was grinning. He had sent a ranch hand to bring his camera. They rode a short distance to some scrubby trees to escape the flies that swarmed over David’s corpse and the horse carcass. The late-afternoon light gave the entire llano a violet-blue-green color. A refreshing breeze stirred while they waited for the camera.

David was worth more dead than he had been worth alive. The Eric series would appreciate in value, and even pictures of David’s corpse would bring good prices. Beaufrey knew Serlo disapproved of selling these photographs; but here was what gave free-world trade the edge over all other systems: no sentimentality. Every ounce of value, everything worth anything, was stripped away for sale, regardless; no mercy. Serlo and his associates feared the rabble were about to seize control of the world, but Beaufrey knew the masses in the United States and England were too stupid to turn on their masters; all slaves dreamed of becoming masters more cruel than their own masters. Serlo and the others had to realize the best policy was to allow the rabble their parliaments, congresses, and assemblies; because the masses were soothed and reassured by these simulations of “democracy.” Meanwhile, governments followed secret agendas unhindered by citizens.

Serlo and the others were alarmists. Socialism would never be a threat because it was too soft on the weak and unproductive. Capitalism stayed ahead because it was ruthless, Beaufrey said after he had finished the roll of film. They left the ranch hands to bury David. Carrion birds were welcome to the horse.