Mandragon Read online

  Minus the finale, so I’m missing some details. Will I do an energetic dance? Will my gawps and twitches be properly comic? Will they last long enough to satisfy my public? Will the tongue poke from the left or right side of the mouth? No answers to such questions for a few hours, and I’ll probably be too occupied to note them. I don’t feel deprived, though. The gross outline’s sufficient: strung up and strangled. I’d just as soon not know the fine points, and in any case, once the feet leave the ground, events are commonplace.

  Miracles were once commonplace for Mandragon. Man dragon sweated marvels and crapped wonders. Mandragon pissed amazements. Then my powers left me, and the commonplace closed in. No miracles tomorrow morning. Mandragon’s powers are gone, my gifts have left me.

  3

  Semireclined on a sea-green chaise longue, manacled hands clasped at my navel. Studying the far corner of the ceiling to give the closed-circuit cameras a three-quarter shot and a profile. Or insect-flipping over with my manacled hands crossed at my chest, fetusing my head in and my knees up to give the cameras blue cotton prison shirt and trousers, woolly crown, but of Mandragon’s flesh only pink foot soles. I’ve had my trial, such as it was, and heard my sentence. I’ve had my supper, the little of it I touched. Nothing left except the hours until morning, fetusing my head in and my knees up, then flipping back over, semireclined.

  They’ve put me in the prison V.I.P. suite, two rooms with bath, once the prison commandant’s quarters, refurbished hastily eight years ago for Elena Delfi. A clique of Civil Guard majors deposed Alejo Sancudo a week after he took office, and arrested everybody, even his movie star daughter-in-law. Brought her up here and looted the stores for furnishings. Drapes to cover the barred windows. Queen-sized double bed and this chaise longue. Ornate armoire, possibly antique. Dressing table cretonned in pink toile, with stool upholstered in pink velvet. Two glossily lacquered Hong Kong night tables, red with black-and-gold dragons, and in the sitting room a blue silk brocade sofa, a bulbous imitation leather chair, and a teak table carved with Hindu gods. The only unifying theme is vulgarity, and when they released her and gave her passage to Miami, La Delfi accused the Guardia of torture by interior decoration. But questions of taste aside, these have to be the most luxurious prison accommodations in the hemisphere. Excessively air-conditioned. TV cameras mounted near the ceiling. Lights on day and night. And my hands are cuffed. But, on the whole, very soft confinement for Mandragon.

  At Angela’s suggestion, I assume—or at least that’s how I had it in the daydream I invented yesterday. I’ve lost my gifts for managing the world, so now I daydream, like everybody else.

  In its final, polished version my daydream opened with a fumbling of keys outside the door. Then two sharp raps, and it’s flung open. Her military aide, a handsome captain whose wavy hair has been reprieved from clipping, takes one step in, clicks boot heels, and salutes.

  “La Excelentísima Señora,” etc., etc.

  Angela swishes by him, flicks him out.

  After much experimental modeling I have dressed her in a dark jersey pants suit and gold sandals. Tinkle of gold bracelets on her left wrist; dime-sized gold hoop earrings; yellow hair bunned. Looks like the pampered second wife of a French doctor (or Swiss investment banker, or Swedish industrialist) arrived at a young actor’s (or poet’s, or radical agitator’s) furnished room for a quick poke—the sort who’d say, “No, darling, I’ll be on top this afternoon or I’ll muss my hair.” Imperious enough but much too glamorous for head of state in a republic. Impossible to believe she’s the age she is. I know, but when I see her, even in daydream, I can’t believe it, unless I look only at her pale-grey eyes.

  She motions me not to get up and gives the following little speech:

  “I’m sorry, darling, but I’ve signed the order. And I’m to give the signal. You mustn’t take it personally. It hasn’t anything to do with me. The colonels want you hanged, and they’re in charge.

  “Oh, they’re letting me stay on, but only if I do what they tell me. If I refused, they’d simply toss me out and find somebody else. It wouldn’t save you, and empty gestures are so immature. No use our both being ruined, is there? And as presidenta I can help a little.” She waves her hand to indicate my lodgings. “This is so much nicer than a cell downstairs.”

  That’s as far as I went with it. I didn’t even do her exit. I’d spent a lot of time revising, and doing speeches of my own—all of which, in the end, I edited out—and when I’d got the polished work up to the part about her helping me, I stopped composing and amused myself reacting to her visit, as if it had actually taken place. Signed the order, but it wasn’t personal! Doing what she can! Lucky Mandragon! So coddled, thanks to her, I’ll scarcely feel the cable bite my throat!

  But why assume that she’s concerned at all, or that they put me here on her suggestion? Why flatter myself that much? And why be angry? Assume she sold me. Assume that she’s gone over to the colonels. Assume, in short, that she looks after Angela—adroit and perfectly timed leaps to whoever’s strongest, which she makes so gracefully (out of great talent and long practice) that it’s absurd to let anger cloud their elegance. Enjoy the spectacle, join the applause. Always performs with verve, and so assume she demanded her presidential rights:

  “I’ll sign the order, thank you! And I’ll give the signal!”

  No need to make her change for that scene. The outfit I gave her yesterday will do smartly. Angela and Guadaña at the palace, in her state office. Sits on the high-backed, intricately carved, Spanish colonial chair that (for its thronishness) she ordered brought up from the dining room when she took office. Left hand in her lap; right thumb and index finger at her chin; legs crossed neatly, right leg over her left knee. Her right foot nods slowly, pretty toes peeking out from lamé sandal. Otherwise immobile. French window behind her. Afternoon sun flows in to bathe her hair.

  Colonel Guadaña, whom she has not asked to take a chair, stands opposite her. In khakis, short-sleeved shirt and twill trousers—the uniform he will still be wearing eight hours later at Mandragon’s trial. He has removed neither his cap nor thuggish sneer. His rooster chest is thrust for ward arrogantly. His pockmarked checks are thinly glazed with sweat. His pupils float in semen-white puddles of lust.

  “We’ve decided to execute your friend Mandragon.” Angela shrugs.

  “In public. To put a stop to all this superstition.”

  “Probably the wisest course for you. But why tell me about it?’

  “Well, you’re the constitutional president.”

  “And you’re not up to abolishing the constitution, not just now. You’d rather observe the forms, isn’t that so?”

  Guadaña nods. “It’s easier that way.”

  “Then, Colonel, take your little hat off, use correct ad dress, and pretend you have some class!”

  Starts angrily, then smiles and nods. Takes cap from pigbristly pate and, holding it tucked between his forearm and his flank, comes to an easy posture of attention. “At your orders, Excellency.”

  “Thank you. Now, what about this execution?”

  “By hanging. Day after tomorrow in the park out front. The trial will take place sometime tonight, but I’ve already signed the order.”

  “I’ll sign the order, thank you! And I’ll give the signal!”

  “Perfect! I mean, uh, very well, Your Excellency.” Guadaña’s smile is at once conspiratorial and lecherous. “We’re treating Mandragon well, by the way.”

  “That’s your affair.”

  “Well, we’re going to do it in public. We want the prisoner fresh.”

  Right! Right! Going to trot me through town, so I’d best be fresh! Going to hang me without a drop, and if I’m fresh I’ll kick longer! Who’ll watch the TV reruns if Mandragon simply droops there like a rag?

  Oh, yes! Mandragon’s going to do a lovely dance! They’re keeping me fresh for it! Plenty of kicking! I can prophesy that much, though I’ve lost the gift of futuretouring, though it
wasn’t included in the vision I had last year!

  4

  I was living in New York, in a loft on Prince Street, with five white Anglo girls. I had renamed them Nightandmist, Todo Confort Moderno, Princess Paloma, Apple, and Full Moons. My tribe.

  I let Nightandmist keep her job in a Park Avenue cosmetics salon, but as she was excessively vain of her clear skin and cameo features, had her mask her face each night with ashes from the potbellied stove. Made up this way, and with her boyish breasts (of which she was excessively ashamed) exposed, she also acolyted in the preparations for my journeys of descent.

  Todo Confort was the daughter of a Cleveland surgeon. She wasn’t ugly, just plain and plump and careless of her grooming. She wasn’t spoiled, just self-indulgent and accustomed to material abundance I took her out of college and sent her to work in a massage parlor, one of the plush kind that have their cubicles done up in fancy decor. The job paid no salary, but gave a girl many chances to earn tips. It pared the baby fat from Confort’s spirit. It enabled her to contribute to the tribe’s support.

  Todo Confort was never to use money, not even for sub way fare. She was never to question a client’s request, or hesitate in the slightest to fulfill it, or quibble at the sum he offered her. She was not to think of herself as an employee, but as a slave on loan to each successive client. Not even as a slave, but as a docile beast. Not even as a beast, but as an instrument of physical convenience. She was not to feel pleasure or disgust. She was not to prefer one client to another. She was required, before leaving the loft, to pass inspection on her personal appearance. Upon returning, she was required to make a full confession of all her acts and sentiments while at work. Mandragon would assign her proper penance.

  One night, while I was hearing Todo Confort’s confession, a trance came on me. I saw a girl about fifteen walking in Bleecker Street. Barefoot. Wearing a raincoat, with nothing on underneath. She had been beaten, but she was singing. It lasted only a few seconds.

  I interrupted Todo Confort in midsentence and sent her out. She returned in about ten minutes with the girl I’d seen, a soft girl, dovishly shy, gigglishly feebleminded from repeated beatings on the head. Her face was welted, and her hair matted in blood. I bathed her wounds and healed them with touches of my fingertips. I told her she was Princess Paloma, Eagle-King’s youngest, dearest daughter. Hawk-Devil had stolen her in childhood, but now she was safe. I told my tribe to love her and protect her.

  Princess Paloma had no duties, except to let herself be loved, and to accompany me on journeys of ascent.

  Mandragon puts on a cap covered in black feathers. Struts about. Short and slight, yet muscular and agile. Piercing black eyes and skin the color and apparent texture of a highly polished black-walnut panel. Body suggestive of ferocity—a jungle cat, a leopard or tigrillo. Physically imposing beyond its size.

  Mandragon hops onto the windowsill and perches. Blinking. Face jerking left and right.

  The girls heat water on the stove. They bathe Princess Paloma in the large, gryphon-footed tub that stands, naked of plumbing, at the low end of the sloping plank floor. They brush her hair and plait it. They suck her breasts. They lave her thighs and stomach with their tongues.

  Princess Paloma stands tranced in regal calm.

  The girls dress Princess Paloma in a white brocade robe.

  They lead her to the center of the loft, under the skylight.

  They sit down about her in a circle.

  Mandragon leaps from the windowsill into the circle. Dances about Paloma. Croaks and caws, flaps arms and hops in air. Paloma’s eyes roll upward till only the whites show. Her head lolls to one side, she starts to fall. Mandragon’s arms sweep upward, and as Paloma collapses backward, her legs rise. She floats in air, back arched and arms flung outward, as though floating in calm water. She rises slowly until her waist is level with Mandragon’s head.

  The tempo of Mandragon’s dance increases. No longer hops but makes great leaps in air. With each leap rises higher, from each descends more slowly to the floor. Mandragon hangs in air, arms flapping slowly. Floats upward with Princess Paloma.

  Mandragon stands in air below the skylight, face raised and arms extended. Paloma lies in air nearby. The top of the loft fills up with orange light. The girls lower their heads and shield their eyes.

  Princess Paloma, wearing a prison smock, crouches on the floor of a Guardia Civil police wagon. Her face is pressed against the wire caging. Her hands, stretched high above her head, clutch at the caging. She stares out without blinking.

  “We would go up into the sky,” says Paloma softly. “There was a waterfall of light that we would dive through. There was a lake of light where we would float.” She giggles. “Mandragon’s spirit would make love to me.”

  Apple. She kneels beside Paloma, clutching the wire on either side of her face. She is weeping.

  “I wanted to go too. We all wanted to be taken to the sky. We’ll never go now. Never, never, never.”

  Apple was the eldest, twenty-four. She worked as a legal secretary. She came to Mandragon’s tribe like this:

  One evening, after she’d been working late, two men pulled Apple from a subway train into the station men’s room. They raped her. They smeared her with filth. They kicked her unconscious.

  Apple’s boyfriend visited her in the hospital. He stood at the foot of her bed and pumped her for details of her ordeal. He visited only once. When she returned home, he didn’t call.

  Apple’s mother worried that she’d been given a disease and nagged her to repeated examinations. Her father tried to be comforting but couldn’t look her in the face. Apple felt permanently soiled.

  Apple ate little, neglected her appearance, scarcely spoke. She went to and from her job by taxi, and made certain to be home well before sundown. Otherwise she stayed in. Once, when a young lawyer invited her to dinner, she slapped his face and then burst into tears.

  Mandragon saw it all. Mandragon chose her.

  One afternoon Apple found herself alone on an elevator with Mandragon. I got on at the floor beneath hers, I let the doors close behind me but stayed the car from moving. Apple and I stood face to face in the elevator, about three feet apart. I grinned at her.

  Mandragon’s teeth are small, sharp, very white. I have sixty-four teeth, arranged in double rows. The inner rows protrude slightly less than the outer. Extra teeth or bones are an unmistakable sign.

  Apple began to tremble. She reached toward the control panel. I shook my head, and her arm froze. She thought: I’m going to be raped! I nodded. I held my palms forward toward her. I pressed them slowly down. Apple collapsed to the floor of the elevator.

  Apple lies on the floor of the elevator, one arm flung out, the other resting limply on her breast; one knee drawn up; thighs parted. Breathes heavily through parted lips. Gazes up at Mandragon.

  A deep glow flames about my head and shoulders. Mandragon’s eyes glow darkly.

  Apple sighs, turns her face away, closes her eyes.

  Apple felt Mandragon enter her. Warm light flowed in through all the openings of her body, soft light, soothingly warm. Brilliant light poured into her, swelled scalding in her till she cried out. Incandescent breakers tumbled through Apple, flared in her till she cried out again, till her limbs twitched and her shoulders writhed and her back teeth ground together. A globe of white light exploded in her like the sun and gushed out through her mouth in pulsing screams. Then the light grew soft and tepid and drained slowly from her. Apple felt perfectly new and clean.

  I felt her feelings as I stood above her.

  Apple opened her eyes. I held my hands out, palms up, and lifted them. Apple got to her feet. I let the elevator resume its descent but had it drop directly to the lobby. I kept my eyes on her flushed face and fluttering lids, but when the doors opened, turned and strode away. Apple hurried after me.

  Mandragon was with her. Mandragon read her thoughts and felt what she was feeling.

  She followed me for two h
ours. I glided along crowded streets so that she had to trot to keep me in sight, then when her side ached and she felt she could go on no longer, I’d dawdle till she caught her breath. I’d turn a corner and then disappear, leaving her glancing frantically left and right; then I’d appear beside her, smirk, and take off in a new direction. I led her along garbage-strewn side streets, past wholesale markets where truck drivers leered at her. I doubled back, then doubled back again until she lost all sense of where she was. Then I drew her down into the same subway station where they’d raped her, into the men’s room, though people on the platform gaped to see her follow me in there. And when the door swung shut behind her, Mandragon turned and smiled, a smile immensely tender, loving, gay.

  Apple was astonished. She felt no terror of the place, no self-disgust. Then she understood: she was a new person.

  Apple returned my smile. Her eyes teared in gratitude. Mandragon stuck his tongue out at her and darted past her out the door.

  Apple fled after me, back along the platform, up the steps and through the streets again. I walked faster and faster. I loped along. Apple’s side ached. Her feet were swollen in her high-heeled shoes. Mandragon gave her no chance now to catch her breath. Nightfall had come, and she was terrified she’d lose me in the shadows. She hurried on, weeping in anticipated loss.

  Mandragon slips into the doorway of a dilapidated building. Apple follows. The hall is lit only by the glow of a streetlamp shining dimly through a window over the door. There is a long staircase, mounting to gloom. Mandragon bounds up it, taking six or eight steps at each bound. Apple watches, panting. Mandragon disappears. She follows.

  The building is dark. Apple feels her way along. She tries the doors on each floor, but all are locked. She beats her fists against the doors and listens: scuttling of rats.

  Apple feels her way up the stairs. Above the fifth floor a rotten step gives way beneath her and she wrenches her ankle. After that, she goes crawling.