Mandragon Read online

  Not once, many times. In Ticamala then, in Otán later, in other spots at other times. I melded them as one and made them one with power, gave them the experiences they required. They were to be the salvaged remnant.

  Gone now. Dispersed. Fragmented in the wind. Mandragon betrayed them, forgot them and myself. Some jailed and some deported. Some murdered. Some will be in the streets at sunup when I trot by, jeering and throwing garbage. Why blame them? The news was true, but not the messenger.

  I didn’t know then I’d forget myself, my mission, and my fate. Then I was filled with light. Mandragon paused seven days, then led my tribe into Tinieblas.

  Which was then in the last stages of dismantlement. Inhuman nature had about finished the job begun by foolish men. For miles, nearing the border, we moved through intermittent showers of blood-red soil, thirst-tortured to disintegration, raised and blown north and corpuscled in the warm rain. We moved too into a field of radiated suffering—a kind of deepening gloom or rising murmur of confusion, though not, of course, perceived via eye or ear—that even some of my tribe became vaguely aware of. Mandragon picked it up clearly. Mandragon raveled out its diverse strains: frustration of earth denied maternity; bewilderment of vegetation, for which the fire of the sun had now become a murderous instead of quickening element; the shame of shriveled rivers, the thirst and hunger pangs of beasts, the terror and despair of human beings. And, specially, their anguished loneliness, for drought had about finished the job (begun by dictatorship) of snapping all the jesses of community, so that the binding energy, chaotically released, carried each person whirling off along a solitary, wild trajectory. Ties between the classes had gone first, then ties of class and station, of friendship and neighborhood. Now even ties of blood were giving way. Parents couldn’t afford to love bloat-bellied kids they couldn’t feed. Brothers couldn’t afford to feel sorry for bankrupt brothers they couldn’t help. Each person hoarded what he had for his own use, including his reserves of sympathy. Each was a separate unstable system turning crazily around himself. Everyone was getting more and more like Genghis.

  Whose pain I picked up too, but barely—as a kind of acid stench (though not, of course, perceived via the nose) discernible by noisomeness not strength. It flowed in the general wave, very much mingled, though to his view he was the only person suffering in the whole country, in the whole world.

  We drove deeper into this belt of broadcast misery to the Agrio, to the Ticamalan frontier station, which was about sixty yards from the river but out of sight of it because the road curved and the land around was lushly overgrown with palm and bougainvillea and wild plantain: a zebra-striped barrier that closed the right-hand lane and a wooden booth set back from the right shoulder, with an identical arrangement farther on across the road for arriving travelers. There I did my stunt with the officials, had them take whatever my tribe showed them for valid documents. Pancake box tops, labels off tin cans. Newspapers, Kleenex, comic books. Became passports and tourist cards and auto titles. I loitered a respectful distance off under a tree, one arm on Snowman’s giggle-convulsed shoulder, tinkering in the border officers’ brains, rigging temporary circuits, rerouting signals—and also watching and enjoying the result.

  The inspector, a round-faced little fellow, quite fair-skinned, sat primly on a stool behind the counter, his country’s honor, post’s importance, and personal dignity affirmed in that soggy heat by mohair jacket, long-sleeved shirt, and tightly knotted necktie. He treated each paper bag and flap of cardboard with solemnity: refused to touch it till it was on the counter; held it like a breviary in both hands; submitted it to reverent poring. Date of issue, date of expiration. Issuing authority, raised seal. Stamps and frankings—all the pompous bumf he loved and lived for. I made him fantasy that stuff and find it there, let him examine it to his content. Next, his regard fastened gravely on the traveler opposite, then yo-yoed slowly down and up, checking imaginary photo against face, dreamed data against protoplasm. Till, finally, a pursing of the lips; a series of slow nods; a careful placing of the papers on the counter. Then he slid them on to his assistant.

  Now and then I hit him with a jolt. Made him see the square of toilet paper Argo Who put down before him first as a tourist card, then as a filthy picture—lewd cavortings between vulture-faced men and swine-haunched women! lesbian sphinxes and gay minotaurs! in motion and color! with a sound track of squeals and slurps!—then as a tourist card again, over and over. I turned Sunlight’s paperback I Ching into the grandfather of all passports with visas for every country in the UN, but kept altering its nationality and photograph. Each time he looked down, it was all changed; each time he looked up, so was Sunlight: now black, now white, now brown, now male, now female; now a statuesque Svenska with long, straw-colored braids; now one of those diminutive Japanese salesmen that scurry about all over Latin America, dark suits and plastic attaché cases, peddling everything from cameras to steel mills. But through it all he kept his reserved, proper-state-functionary demeanor.

  The assistant was a swart, slovenly lout in a damp sport shirt, fingers all blue from fondling his ink pad, who lounged, tipped backward on his stool, against one of the posts that held up the tile roof, festered with boredom and sneering covertly at his chief’s conscientiousness. But let a piece of paper slide his way! Then he roused, stretched like a cat, and pounced: swung forward, braking his fall with his right hand and, with his left, capturing the document—what I made him take for a document anyway, postcard or candy wrapper, magazine. Held it down with the heel of his hand, caressed it with his fingers. Took up his rubber stamp and inked it, thus: seven or eight affectionate light pats on the frayed pad. Raised the stamp, sat up, prepared to strike. Hovered it teasingly above the paper, prolonging anticipation, retarding release. Sly glance at the tourist, who had, as it were, surprised him in flagrante. Conspiratorial grin, display of teeth. Joyous nod, all the while keeping his victim pinned to the counter. Then he swung the stamp up behind his right ear and flung it down, FWAPP! onto the paper, with a violence that jostled the roof tiles and brought startled looks from everyone around—everyone except the inspector, who blinked and winced but pretended not to notice. And then his shoulders slumped, his mouth went slack. He sighed and flipped the stamp back toward the ink pad. Unpinned the ravished paper, left it sprawled there; half-closed his eyes, tipped back against the post.

  Mandragon could have put them both to sleep, along with the soldiers slouching by the barrier. I could have made my caravan invisible to them, and lifted the counterweighted plank with a thought. But the inspector loved to scan documents. His assistant lusted to stamp them. My tribe enjoyed the break. I was in no hurry. We spent three hours there—a little longer than was necessary, but some wanted to go by the booth again, with plantain leaves or strips of palm frond. While others picked bougainvillea blossoms for their shirts or hair, splashed in the puddle potholes of the road. Like kids. Mandragon had returned them all to childhood. That was one of the best parts of joining me.

  Every ten or fifteen minutes the sky opened and dropped cascades of rain. It swayed the trees and spouted from the booth tiles. It soaked my people’s clothes and splatted ruddy on their upturned faces. Then the tap closed and sun burned through to steam up wraiths of mist, at the same time triggering a burst of plant growth that I felt like a commotion all around me, the bustle of a million small factories. Then clouds, the plants shut down, another torrent. Falling, rising, falling; round and round; ferris-wheeling into afternoon. At last, when everyone was satisfied, we crossed. Officials surfeited with scanning and stamping, my children eased from the long road-bound cooping-up, and we got in, turned motors over, rolled away. Past the raised barrier, along a corridor of rain-stooped palms. Around the elbow bend, onto the bridge. Out through the liquid veil that hung at midspan.

  Into dry heat, and swirling dust, and ocher glare. On the right a sun-scorched barren field stretched back from the steep bank; bill-boarded in it the barren brow and wideset, frogg
ish eyes of Genghis Manduco. On the left, just even with the first girders of the bridge, stood the three big elms that gave the place its name—still more or less alive because they pushed roots down into the Agrio, but badly withered, giving little shade. Beyond the trees, the whitewashed stucco guard booths, each with a pole beside it on which a bleached Tinieblan tricolor jerked nervously in the uncertain wind. Beyond the booths, the town; beyond the town, the shit-brown barren bills.

  A stout chain hung between the booths, closing the road. As the bus rolled off the bridge, double-clanking loudly, Sublieutenant Evaristo Tranca, chief of the Tres Olmos border station, stepped out into the road and put his slickly polished right boot up on the chain, placed right hand on raised knee and left hand on right wrist, peered bridge-ward from under the cloth bill of his green kepi. Mandragon smiled at him, and the chain shivered. Every link broke at once, split in half-ovals which fell into the road. Sublieutenant Tranca lurched forward to hands and knees, sprawled on the blacktop, but then flew up and back and sideways to the shoulder, where he braced woodenly, his chin raised toward the left-hand booth, his right arm jerking stiffly up and down, a hundred salutes as Mandragon and tribe rolled by.

  Perfume River first, my outrider, black face guard snouted out before pink holes, white wings feathered back across his helmet, stumps poked from shirt and shorts, plastic limbs glistening, and then the bus, with smiling faces at the lowered windows, and Earthly Delights’ camper and Gashmaster’s van and the grey Mastodon dump truck Porkospine hung behind me at a crossroads in Appalouri, with Nineveh beside him in the cab and in the bin (rainsopping, flower-spangled, baby-grinned) Albondiga and Rancio and Chancaca Segundo, deported fruit-pickers I took just after I crossed into Mexico, and twelve-year-old Sin Tetas I pulled from a whore-crib in Chiquimula, and Neverthink and Song and Spider Wantly, and then Koolisimo in his Scrambler pickup and the others—all gone now, all but five, my remnant scattered, but joined then at Mandragon’s coming.

  We rolled at moderate speed over the broken links of chain, past Sublieutenant Tranca and the guard booths, past the Hirudo service station with its spitting-snake sign, past the town and on between parched fields.

  A cloud of red dust followed us into the hills.

  25

  Patter of drops on the protruding cover of the air conditioner. Street seal-black-shiny in the glow of the café’s fluorescent tubes. Small rain in the high hours of early morning, but dawn will be clear.

  In two hours, maybe less, no way to tell. They’ll come for me, an officer, two men. And walk me out, a fist gripping each elbow. Along the corridor and down the steps, into the yard. For a brief ceremony, salutes and exchange of cuff key, before the sergeant hooks me to the truck. Down there, below this window, among kidney-shaped puddles. In the cool time before sunup. In the still-misty dew-fresh tropic dawn, but Mandragon will be sweating.

  Crowd-snarls beyond the wall. Sputter and vroom of motorcycle engines, patrol truck farting fumes past my right shin. They’ll slide the steel door back, they’ll trot me out. To howls of happy hatred. Through town for a mechanized AANGH! for some cablebite OUGHH! For the dreamterror helplessness AAGHH! going to …

  Bathroom partially refurbished for Miss Delfi. Contoured pink plastic seat. Pert-cherubed pink plastic curtain for the shower. Camera installed later on though, I suppose: isn’t the sort of set she’d care to perform on. Squints down at me from a mounting over the doorway, and I trust whoever’s viewing approved my adroitness. In hitting the bowl with my supper, not splashing the seat. In getting trousers untied with manacled hands. Under harsh time pressure, in a state of profound distraction. Of gut-tossing, sphincter-dissolving fear to be exact: sick at both ends. My fingers beat my bowels in a photo finish, and I must ask leave for a squirt when they come to get me. Can assume, in fact, they’ll allow that: in my vision my trousers were unsoiled.

  Ungainly to wipe with your wrists cuffed. Hope it made good TV for whoever’s on duty, and I’ll tie these things loosely, don’t want to get caught again.

  Patter of drops. Snug sound it’s nice to fall asleep to. Be nice to put the light out and spiral away. As at La Negra’s before weed humanity sprouted, chained safely to the bedstead with Vilma beside me, and the small rain platting slow on the zinc roof. Or curled in Rebozo’s Knauser before power chose me, my whimpers melding with the rain taps and his sighs. Or in the palace when I’d forgotten who I was: Angela asleep in my male arms, and plump drops slapping the balcony. Be nice to slide off into sleep for these two hours. Or spin off and not return, beat dawn to extinction. Or wake back in one of those havens and find this a dream.

  Or wake up somewhere else, some other person. An ordinary person, properly sexed one way or the other, properly gifted with a filter on my consciousness for keeping miracles and monsters safely out. Except when dreaming, and I’ll have dreamed all this, Mandragon and Tinieblas. Then wake and wonder for a moment at my dream while I slough sleep away, get up and go about some ordinary business and forget it.

  Or someone whose work it is to package strangeness for the public’s use, safe doses of the extraordinary so that ordinary lives needn’t be too dull. A painter, say, doing big panels swarmed with miracles and monsters, an exotic landscape where outlandish fantasies take form and an emblematic figure who unites opposites. All made up, of course, but while composing I’ll have gone off to that imaginary world, resided there till it seemed real. Then wake from that sort of dream and stand and wonder for a moment at my work; shrug and turn and leave it till tomorrow; go off to my husband or my wife, to my good dinner. Be nice.

  But I know who I am. I know how power filled me once, where I am now, what’s on my plate for later on this morning. No waking from this dream for a while yet. No placid drift into extinction. Not for Mandragon. For me a cable and a pulley and a winch, and, in the meantime, eyelid-twitching, stomach-twisting fear.

  Of the same sort poor Genghis suffered. Fear and loneliness, self-pity and despair. He’d given up and yet wasn’t resigned. In those days he flew out and back between his compound and the different regions of the country like a rubber paddle ball on no elastic string. Supposedly to inspect the drought’s ravages but actually because he couldn’t bear to be immobile. His thoughts were never at rest. His thoughts could never settle anywhere. Whatever they lighted on recalled his loneliness and fear, excited his despair and his self-pity, sent his thoughts flitting off at once, and so his body had to be in motion too. Like someone who knows what’s destined but has unlearned how to accept it, who paces nervously around the room (bare feet taking no joy in the rich carpet), who lies uneasy on a silk chaise longue, flipping over and flipping back.

  Poor Genghis couldn’t bear to be immobile, not while his thoughts kept mouthing here and there. And had the means at hand to rapid motion. So scarcely would he order a state meeting, scarcely had the thing got under way, when he’d leap up and go out to the pad and clatter off—to nowhere in particular, along whatever heading struck his whim first—with aides and officers strapped into jump seats, and the conference proceeding over the intercom, and his froggish gaze poked out the doorway, sweeping the defoliated landscape. Rapid motion soothed his fear a little. Distracted him from it, just as aides and officers somewhat calmed his loneliness. But scarcely would the pilot get on course when Genghis would order up another heading, scarcely had the conference got back on track when Genghis would interrupt it and order a radio hookup with the compound and demand a report from someone he’d left on the ground, and scarcely was that officer warmed up when Genghis would sign off and tell the pilot to set down. There! over there! beside that village! because although he’d given up, he wasn’t resigned; although he despaired, he nourished crazy hopes; although he oozed self-pity from every pore, he was tormented by the fantasy that somewhere—sitting in a thatch hut mashing yucca meal with a smooth stone on a board table, or climbing up an arroyo from a shriveled river with a cracker tin of water on her head—there was a woman (girl or wife or cron
e) who could cure his dryness. Maybe she was down there in that village. So before the gear had settled he’d jump out, jocking his brick-hard gonads in both hands, and waddle off, with aides and officers in tow like ducklings, but scarcely had he entered the village, scarcely had he begun talking (about the drought, of course) with the men who stood around him holding their hats in both hands over their chests, scarcely had his frog gaze touched the women who peered at him from shadowy doorways, when he’d realize that his fantasy was barren—as barren as the condemned’s fantasy of waking from the nightmare in a moment—and turn and waddle off and flap away. Back to his compound and throw himself down among his whores, but scarcely had he begun humping and pumping when he’d despair of it and roll off and soak in self-pity, when his stomach would twist in fear and his eyelid start twitching, his spirit implode in loneliness and shrink to a pinhead that weighed a billion tons, and he’d leap up and pull his clothes on and waddle out. Back to his conference room or (to save time) straight to his chopper, and rattle off into the sky again. So that his pilot found it simpler to keep engines running, so that his rotors never stopped spiraling round and round.

  In those days he clutched at straws, then drew his hand away before he grasped them. He had brother Timur’s couriers pouch him stacks of sex sheets and porno tabloids, all hot from New York—not for the pictures or the stories, for the ads. The little oblong quack ads in the back, and kept a Cuban whore from Miami to translate them to him, and fell for every one that promised, however remotely, to ease his plight. Sent off for pills, pomades and powders, for vibrators and vitamins, for hand-powered pumps and electric orgasmatrizers, for furred rubber contrivances to be strapped to the backs of chairs and then assaulted, for modified milking machines and facsimile joints. He ordered a dozen robot concubines from Mandeville Biosynthetics, each in the likeness of a famous gringa sex bomb—Gloria Monday, Carrie Ellison—that smiled and sobbed and sighed and squealed and sniggered, that murmured endearments and obscenities in any language one wished, that went into climax at the touch of a butt button and stayed there (unless switched off) till their batteries drained—and maybe if he’d had one in Angela’s likeness he’d have been cured without Mandragon’s intercession, but no robot Angela was on the market: only one was created, and it was on board Scorpion with Dred. Genghis answered the ads and waited in impatience for his merchandise, but scarcely had it arrived, scarcely had he got it unwrappered, when he’d despair of it and push it aside. Poured the potions down the toilet. Garbaged the contraptions. Gave the robot sex bombs to his guards. Nothing was going to work till the drought was broken. No spritzing till it rained, and so why bother?