Life During Wartime (56 page)

‘No,’ said Mingolla, and started to make him drowsy. Izaguirre half-stood, then dropped back into the chair. He tried to rouse himself, shaking his head and gripping the edge of the desk. A look of panic crossed his face. He sagged in the chair. His eyes widened, focused on Mingolla. ‘Please.’ The word came thickly like a final drop squeezed from him, and his head lolled back. His chest rose and fell in the rhythms of sleep, and his eyelids twitched.

Everything in the room – the whine of the air-conditioning, the gleams on the antique furniture, the false night of the rug – seemed to have grown sharper, as if Izaguirre’s wakefulness had been a dulling agent. The hard clarity of the moment made Mingolla uneasy, and he spun around, certain that some trap had been sprung behind him. But there was only the closed door, the silence. He turned back to Izaguirre. The old man struck him now as a kind of monument, a sad misguided monster trapped in a tar pit, a repository of history, and he realized how little he knew about the families, that most of his knowledge was factual, fleshed out by sketchy impressions. He perched on the desk, engaged Izaguirre’s sleeping mind, and went flowing down the ornate corridors of the blood past the memories of his life and into the memories of other lives, the years igniting and fading like quick candles, and he was the boy Damaso Andrade de Sotomayor on the day of his majority, standing in the gloomy main hall of the old house in Panama. All the family was there, silent in their ebony chairs, the arms carved into serpent’s heads, letting their
thoughts blend in the dream, and he could feel the drug in his belly, a distant ache, and he knew the dream as voices, thousands of them speaking at once, not in words but in a wordless whisper that was the soul of the passion. The pale figures of his parents and cousins and uncle and aunts began to flicker like white flames in cups of black wood, and he, too, was flickering, his flesh becoming insubstantial, and the dream firing his thoughts with the joy of vengeance and power. And when the dreaming was done, when he was strong and steeped in the passion, it was his time to travel the path of truth, and without a word he went down the stairs into the labyrinth beneath the house, into the lightless corridors that led to the seven windows, toward the one window that would show him his place in the pattern. He walked for hours, afraid that he would never find his window, that he would be lost forever in the chill, clammy depths. But the stones of the wall, mossy and rough, were friends, and touching them he felt the energies of the past guiding him into the future, which was only the pattern of the blood extending forever. They were ancestral stones, as much of his blood as his family, and their domed shapes had the familiar textures of the Sotomayor skulls in his father’s library, and from them he derived a sense of direction and grew able to choose turnings that had the feel of the blood knot. And when he came at last to his window, he did not see it but apprehended it as a tingling on his skin. He thought this strange. Shouldn’t a window admit light … and then he saw light. Two crimson ovals like pupilless eyes that burned brighter and brighter as he approached. The window, he realized, was made of smoked glass, the sections fitted together with lead mullions into the image of a coal-black man wearing a crown of thorns, the eyes left vacant so as to allow the light of the setting sun to penetrate. The image frightened him, but he was drawn to it, and he pressed against the glass, fitting his eyes to those empty ovals, and across the valley he saw the blocky stone house of the Madradonas, looking monstrous in the sanguine light, appearing to be crouched, preparing to spring. He had seen the house many times, but this view affected him as had none other. Rage choked him, and he came to feel at one with the black burning-eyed figure against which he stood. The network of lead mullions
seemed to correspond to the weavings of his nerves, to channel the bloody color of the west along them, filling him with a fierce intent, sealing the image of the ebony Christ inside him, and he knew that of all the children of his generation, he had been chosen to lead the rest against the Madradonas, that he was the arrow notched to the family bow, and that his entire life would be a flight toward the heart of that dark beast hunched and brooding on the far hill.

Mingolla broke contact and got up from the desk, went to the window. Pressed his forehead against the pane. The glass was cool and transmitted the vibration of the air-conditioner. He looked off at the distant city lights, thinking about the Christian girl, the holograph of Jesus walking around on her hand. It had always seemed that beyond that moment lay a beginning, but he had never been able to know it, to make it clear. Probably, he thought, it was just another glimmer of hope. Izaguirre stirred in his chair, and Mingolla realized he was delaying the inevitable. It wasn’t that he was troubled by what he had to do; he was simply weary of the procedure, of exposing himself over and over to the bad news about the human condition implicit in the fact that you could strip the mind to zero. He’d wait a few minutes more, he decided. A few minutes wouldn’t hurt. He pushed Izaguirre’s chair to the side and began emptying the desk drawers, wondering where the old man kept his drugs …

The swimming pool, blank and gleaming, with wavelets tapping the sides. Mingolla sat bolt upright, looked around, certain someone was sneaking up on him. But nobody was in sight. Voices from one of the rooms. A radio playing violin music. Gilbey and Jack still sleeping. He leaned back, stretching his legs, arranging his three visions of the future in chronological order. First the diner, the chat with the waitress; then the confrontation with Izaguirre, and then Love City. The aftermath of a hollow victory. He couldn’t understand how the picture drawn by the visions was compatible with the peace. Maybe they weren’t accurate. But he couldn’t bring himself to accept that. They felt real.

Gilbey shook himself, came to his knees, and, grateful for the interruption, Mingolla said, How ya doing?’

‘I was dreamin’,’ said Gilbey. ‘Dreamin’ ’bout the Farm.’

‘What ’bout it?’

‘Nothin’, just dreamin’.’ Gilbey sat cross-legged, stared at the rippling pod. ‘Y’know, it wasn’t so bad there … the Farm, I mean.’

‘It was a different bad than here.’

‘Yeah, I guess.’ Gilbey mumbled something else.

‘What’d you say?’

‘Didn’t say nothin’. I was gonna, but …’

‘You forgot, huh?’

‘Naw, I didn’t forget.’ Gilbey’s stare tracked around the courtyard, then settled on Jack. He bowed his head, rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I got it all right here to say … it’s all right here. But it just don’t fit into words.’

The emptiness of the palace’s main hall was scarcely compromised by the long tables that had been set up along the walls, bearing punchbowls and trays of sandwiches and pastries. Harsh white lights shone from the ceiling, giving the plastic the look of sweating blue flesh. Several hundred people were milling around, and the storytelling robot trundled back and forth, its Victorian drag striking an odd note among the celebrants, who were for the most part drably clothed. Speeches were given, proclaiming all present to be members of a single family dedicated to the principles invoked by the Peace of Panama … this a phrase much used during the evening. Piped-in music began to play, and Mingolla was persuaded to dance by a dwarfish Madradona woman, who smiled up at him with pointy-looking teeth, and whose torpedo-shaped breasts – confined by a tight red blouse – bumped against his belt buckle.

‘I’ve been dying to meet you,’ she said.

‘Looks like you made it just in time,’ he said.

She acted confused, then her smile returned. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you about our genetics program. Are you familiar with it?’

‘Nope.’ He maneuvered Dwarf Woman between couples. Clutzy dancers, all. Considering the significance of the party, it was – he thought – pretty fucking déclassé. Kind of a cross between a prom and a country club mixer.

‘Well …’ Dwarf Woman frowned at a Sotomayor man who had backed into her. ‘We’ve been hoping you’ll donate.’

‘Donate?’

‘You know … genetic material.’ Dwarf Woman put a girlish emphasis on the last words and tittered. ‘I apologize for being blunt, but I’m so excited by the prospect of blending the lines.’

‘Blending the lines, huh?’ The image of himself fathering generations of Mingolla-Madradonas and Mingolla-Sotomayors touched off a wave of giddy good humor in Mingolla. Tell you what,’ he said, laughing. ‘Why don’t you and me slip out back, and I’ll jerk off on ya. Maybe you can bottle it ’fore it dries.’

He’d expected an offended reaction, but Dwarf Woman dug her stubby fingers into his waist and kept smiling. It was an eerie screw-loose smile, and for a second he thought she might accept his proposition.

‘I’ve been warned about your iconoclastic tendencies.’ She said this in a dire tone as if warning him that she knew his secret. This is no joking matter.’

‘I can see that,’ he said. ‘I mean just from looking round the room, I can tell you people are in need of new blood. Especially you Madradonas. I never seen such twinky little fuckers. You could use a few height genes, right?’ He gave her a lascivious thrust of the hips. Yeah, sure. I can put a little length in your whatsitz.’

Dwarf Woman struggled to free herself, but Mingolla held her in a death grip, whirling her around. Crudity is hardly responsive,’ she said.

‘That’s me … hardly responsive.’ He bounced Dwarf Woman into a Madradona man who was dancing with a Sotomayor woman. ‘Oops,’ he said, and grinned.

‘Let me go!’ said Dwarf Woman.

‘Never,’ said Mingolla. ‘It’s just you and me from now on, shorty.’ He slung her into yet another couple and apologized, saying, Sorry, she stepped on my foot.’

‘I’m not going to forget this,’ she said venomously.

‘Me neither. God, what a night we’re gonna have! Somehow we’ll overcome the difference in height. Ever done it with ropes and pulleys?’ He hugged her even tighter. ‘Aw, babe! I can hardly wait till your teeny belly starts poppin’ out.’

Dwarf Woman writhed, wriggled, straining to get loose.

‘Jesus, that feels good!’ he said. ‘Do it again … a little lower.’

‘Let me …!’

He muffled her words by pulling her head into his chest. ‘On the first date?’ he said, lifting his voice so all could hear. ‘Well, if you’re game, I’ll give ’er a try.’

Suddenly weary of this, he turned her loose and performed a mock bow. ‘Thanks for the struggle,’ he said.

She stood fuming, sputtering.

‘You motherfuckers oughta be in cages,’ he said by way of farewell.

He walked over to the nearest table, swilled down a cupful of punch. Farther along the table, Tully, Corazon, and Debora were talking with several Madradonas. The Madradonas, it appeared, were busy consolidating their role as Masters of Efficiency. Marina Estil, all dolled up in a white silk dress and jade beads, disengaged from another group and came toward him. She was flushed, excited, and in her eyes, her smile, was an intensity that seemed a product of more than natural well-being. He wondered if she had taken something.

‘How are you?’ she asked. ‘I’ve been so busy, I haven’t been able to get back to you about our little problem.’

‘Everything’s fine,’ he said.

‘I knew it would be.’ She called a hello to a passing Sotomayor, then turned back to Mingolla. ‘Are you having a good time?’

‘Marvelous,’ he said. ‘I’m in a transport of delight.’ He noticed Ruy sidling up to Debora.

‘Marina followed his gaze. ‘Don’t worry, David. He told me he was planning to apologize tonight. That’s all that’s happening. So’ – she sipped punch, looking at him over the rim of the glass – have you been meeting people?’

‘Oh, yeah! Lots.’ He told her about the Madradona woman.

She giggled. ‘They’re so officious, aren’t they? Sweet in their own way, of course.’

‘Of course.’

‘You’re in a strange mood,’ she said.

‘I might say the same about you.’

‘Oh, I’m just exhilarated. You see, everything’s coming together tonight.’

Her words were oddly weighted, but he chalked that up to chemicals: he was now certain that she was stoned. ‘Everything?’ he said.

She stroked his arm, a seductive move. ‘Yes, and you’re responsible for a great deal of it.’

‘Is that right?’

‘I’ll tell you about it sometime,’ she said. ‘But not now.’ She pointed at the storytelling robot; it had rolled up to the table beside them a few feet away. ‘It’s time for the entertainment.’

‘Gather ’round, gather ’round!’ called the robot, and the crowd formed a semicircle about the table, chattering and laughing. From their ranks came one of the Sotomayor men leading a pale thin girl dressed in a white jumpsuit. She had a withdrawn, blank look, and Mingolla felt that this blankness was a sign of retardation. She stood half-hidden behind the robot’s skirts, nervous, twisting her fingers together.

‘Music, maestra!’ cried the robot, clapping its pink plastic hands.

The girl jumped, ducked her eyes.

‘Please,
chiquita!’
The robot gave her a tickle, and she squirmed away. ‘Just a little music to make us all happy.’

The girl smiled wanly, and a moment later bell-like tones began to resound inside Mingolla’s head, tones of such purity that he was stunned by their beauty and failed to notice at first the simplicity and awkwardness of the tune they played. A nursery school tune. Played badly, the timing all wrong. Mingolla realized the girl was in essence a music box whose lid had been opened, a toy with faulty springs. The tune continued for far too long, and the crowd’s applause was polite but unenthusiastic. The girl was led off, and a young man with a similar blankness of expression was presented to the crowd. His eyes were deep-set, dark; he had a pinched, bony face, and his scalp showed through his crewcut. After being prodded by the robot, he stared at a point in midair, and a color materialized before Mingolla’s mind’s eye, a shade of blue so deep and rich that it seemed an emotion, embodying a sense of absolute tranquility. Other emotions were projected, each
of them powerful in the extreme, and the crowd applauded each one wildly.