The Dragon Griaule (48 page)

He thought she must have told him and searched his memory, wanting to remind her of the occasion.

‘I’m not sure why I’ve been so reticent. I think I know why, but . . .’ She pretended to punch the side of her head. ‘Sometimes things get all screwed up in here. Anyway, it must be obvious.’

‘What’s obvious?’

‘That I love you.’

Her voice carried no conviction. She had draped a blue scarf over the lampshade, dimming the light, making it difficult to read her expression.

‘I don’t mean to sound tentative,’ she said. ‘I had to decide about Jefe first and then I wondered whether you really wanted me. And there were other considerations, other pressures. I do love you, but saying it has just seemed awkward.’

He sat down on the bed. ‘I know you have trust issues.’

‘It’s not that. You’ve changed so much from how . . .’

‘I haven’t changed. Basically I’m the same post-hippie I’ve always been.’

She chewed that over. ‘Have I changed? Aside from physically?’

‘Yeah. You’re more worldly now, more in control. Less moody.’

‘That’s what being a murderer does for you – it either derails you or works wonders for your poise.’

‘I don’t think that’s to blame. You’d already killed someone when I met you.’

She looked at him in surprise.

‘The Austrian guy,’ he said. ‘The child molester.’

‘How do you know about that? I didn’t tell you, did I?’

‘Guillermo told me.’

After a few beats she said, ‘I don’t recall killing Scheve. I remember him bleeding, but I’m not certain it’s a real memory.
I was always stoned when I was a kid and a lot of things happened that I’m not too clear about. Anyway . . .’ She dismissed the subject of her childhood with a flip of her fingers. ‘In my head I feel more-or-less the same as I did when we met, and yet you say I’ve changed. And I bet it’s like that for you. So if I’ve changed, you have to admit to the possibility that you have, too.’

‘I suppose.’

She lay without speaking for several seconds. ‘I forget what I was going to say. You made me lose track with that talk about Scheve.’

‘Sorry.’

‘It’ll come back, maybe.’ She pressed her fists to her temples. ‘Even if I can’t remember how I wanted to link things up, I do remember the point I was going to make. We’re both of us pretty fucked-up.’

Snow chuckled. ‘You think?’

‘Listen! What I’m saying isn’t funny.’

‘All right. I’m listening.’

‘We’re fucked-up people. Me, because my life was a mess from day one. And you because . . .’

‘Being fucked-up was kind of my ambition,’ he said, but she acted as though she hadn’t heard.

‘. . . because the world disappointed you in some way I don’t understand. Whatever.

‘When we were together back then we never used the word “love” much. I don’t know if we ever used it, but we both knew there was something there. Something strong. But we didn’t deal with it, we skated around it. The night you got here, when you said you loved me, I knew it wasn’t totally sincere . . . but it wasn’t totally insincere, either. It was the most you ever gave to me. I felt that, and that’s why I responded.’

Her words had come in a rush, but now she faltered. ‘And . . . it got better after that.

‘Every night it’s better . . .’ She stared at him helplessly. ‘I wish you hadn’t mentioned Scheve. Now I’ve got these images in my head. I can’t think.’

He lay down beside her and she turned to face him – he kissed her forehead and felt her relax.

‘I’ll just make my point,’ she said. ‘We could be dead in a couple of days, maybe as soon as tomorrow. There’s no way to avoid what’s going to happen, but there’s an opportunity here. If we can get through this, if we stand up for one another and do what has to be done, we have a chance to turn all our fuckeduppedness, all our imperfections into strengths. That’s little enough to hope for considering everything that’s happened, the terrible mistakes I’ve made, and your mistakes . . . but if we can salvage that much, the relationship, love, potential, whatever you want to call it, maybe it’s something we can build on.’

Her pause lasted no longer than a hiccup.

‘God, that sounds lame,’ she said. ‘I had it worked out, exactly what I wanted to say, but then you brought up Scheve and . . . poof ! It’s out of my head.’

Snow told her to take her time and she closed her eyes for a minute.

‘I remember bits and pieces of it,’ she said. ‘How if we can kill Jefe, we have an obligation to the people we’ve destroyed to take advantage of the opportunity. And how if we do kill him, it’ll change us. It’ll be our alchemy. But without logic behind it, you know . . . without the proper order, the way I planned to say it . . . it sounds like straight bullshit.’

Her inability to remember was persuasive in its authenticity and Snow felt guilty for having doubted her.

‘It’s strange how just mentioning that bastard’s name can screw me up,’ she said. ‘I don’t recall many details. About being with him, you know. Just this sick, detached feeling, like it was in a dream. Like that movie you took me to in Antigua, remember, where I freaked out? His face was all blurry and distorted, moving in and out of frame, very close, like the guy in that movie. And that’s it. That’s all I remember about him. But if you say “Scheve” I start to fall apart.’

‘I’m sorry I brought it up.’ He kissed her again. ‘Are you going to be all right?’

‘I’m just mad at myself. I’ll be okay.’

‘Then I guess I should go.’

She traced the veins on the back of his hand, studying them
as if they were a puzzle she needed to solve, and then said, ‘No, really. You shouldn’t.’

Whenever Jefe came within earshot they would resurrect their argument, debating conflicting styles of governance, and Snow, perhaps due to his dependency on Yara, the sense of helplessness it engendered, derived a trivial satisfaction from his ability to argue the right-wing point-of-view, one with which he did not agree in spirit, yet had to admit was the more pragmatic of the two political stances. He derided as a ‘leftist fairy tale’ Yara’s insistence that firmness tempered with altruism would bring about a peaceful and prosperous Temalagua, and suggested that it was odd to hear such drivel issue from the mouth of someone associated with the PVO since its inception.

‘What she’s saying is great for kids to hear,’ he said. ‘That is, if you want your kids to grow up without a spine. It’s moral pablum that weakens them, programs them to cling to their mothers’ skirts. A leader, a man who would rule, he has to rid himself of such naivete. He has a country to think of – every day he’ll have to resolve issues that will cause pain and anger whichever way he decides them. He has to see beyond that sort of morality, a morality whose function is solely to curb one’s instincts, to limit one’s behavior. His role demands he be capable of wider judgments.’

Jefe no longer seemed distressed by their contentiousness. In fact, he acted as if he relished these exchanges and would signify hs approval whenever Yara or (more frequently) Snow said something with which he agreed. Then at breakfast one morning, the fifth day following the incident with Chuy, he invited them to watch him fly. His manner was casual, genial, as if he were asking them to join him at a movie. Snow was unable to conceal his dismay.

Jefe clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Man, come on! I promise you’ll enjoy this.’

Yara picked up the machete from beside her chair and he told her to leave it, saying with heavy sarcasm that he doubted she would find any chickens upstairs.

A diversion from their plan so early in the game did not augur
well, yet as they mounted the steps, though Snow knew the fearful incredulity of a condemned man going to the gallows, he nevertheless felt a corresponding sense of relief, one springing from the knowledge that they would soon have a resolution. Jefe stripped off his outerwear and stood before them clad only in black tights, his chest and arms plated with unusually smooth muscle, only the balance muscles in his back and those protecting his joints exceptionally defined. He opened a panel in the wall camouflaged by a section of indigo cloud and punched in a number on the keypad, initiating the grinding nose and starting the chains to slither up and down, to and fro in their tracks, some rapidly, some slowly, the light rivering along their silver links. He then pulled on a pair of thin black gloves and caught hold of a chain that carried him aloft.

Yara squeezed Snow’s hand and shouted into his ear: ‘Once you get back down to the floor, run and get the machete!’

When Jefe reached a height of around twenty feet he launched himself into the air, catching another chain, then whipped himself about, swinging higher, and caught yet another chain and swung again, repeating this process, going higher and higher until all Snow could see of him was a minute figure hurtling through a moving forest of silver chains and against a cinematic backdrop of brassy light and clouds like battle smoke. He descended in like fashion, performing a sequence of loops and somersaults, sudden shifts and reversals of direction that brought him, after several minutes, to within a few feet above them, whereupon he ascended again rapidly, arrowing from chain to chain, crossing spaces of forty feet and more before redirecting his course, throwing in spins and tumbling maneuvers and other elaborate stunts. Yara applauded wildly and shouted her praise, despite having scant hope of being heard. She elbowed Snow, enjoining him to do the same and, though he was not so inclined, he followed suit and was partly sincere in his applause, for he had never witnessed such a display of stamina and strength and coordination. He lost sight of Jefe among the chains and clouds, and inquired of Yara where he had gone – she pointed to a speck superimposed against a spray of golden light, perched on an invisible ledge. And then he was off again,
soaring amongst the chains, not appearing to utilize their stability and momentum to alter his course, but scarcely touching them, as if gliding on updrafts, diving and banking, aerials too fluid and graceful to be other than flight.

How long Jefe flew, Snow could not have said. An hour, surely. Long enough so that his motivation for clapping and cheering waned and he stood silent and motionless until Jefe descended to the floor of the shaft and walked over to them, a light sheen of sweat the only register of his exertion. Yara congratulated him, patting his shoulder and smiling, but Snow, incapable of participating in this charade any further, looked off as if distracted, fighting panic, going over the list of things he needed to focus upon. Jefe smirked, stepping to him with a swaggering walk, rolling his shoulders, and gave him a push, moving him toward the wall covered with smoky clouds. Snow scuttled away and Jefe gave him a harder push that sent him reeling backward. As Snow toppled, windmilling his arms, Jefe sprang after him, snagging his belt, and lugged him toward the wall, kicking and twisting like a living satchel. He seized a chain, wrapping it once around his arm, and let it bear them upward.

Watching the floor shrink beneath him, Snow ceased his struggles and shut his eyes, clinging to Jefe’s leg, dizzy and sick with fright. After an interminable time he felt himself lifted. He screamed, convinced that this was the moment he had dreaded, but instead of plummeting downward he found himself pressed back against the wall, held there by Jefe’s hand at his throat and by something solid underfoot. A ledge. He slid his left shoe forward, feeling for the edge, and found it after two or three inches.

‘Don’t worry,’ Jefe said in his ear. ‘I’m not going to harm you.’

Snow squinted at Jefe, who stood beside him, facing the wall, and then glanced down at the floor of the shaft. Their elevation was so great he could not be certain he saw the floor, only a chaos of glittering, slithering chains, bright clouds on the wall opposite, and, as his eyes rolled up, the autumnal blue of the ceiling near to hand. His stomach flip-flopped, his knees
buckled, and if Jefe had not tightened his grip, half-throttling him, he would have fallen.

Jefe gave him a gentle shake. ‘Didn’t you hear me?’

Mind trash erupted from a shadowy place in Snow’s consciousness, like a gusher from a vent in the sea bottom, resolving into a silt of childlike prayers and wishes.

‘Calm yourself, my friend! It’s okay!’

If you fell far enough, Snow had heard, you would lose consciousness before the impact.

‘I know you don’t like it up here,’ said Jefe. ‘But I’ve got you, see? Try to relax.’

Jefe’s face was too close to read, only an ear and part of his cheek and neck visible. He had an arid scent, slightly acidic – like the smell of an alkali desert. Snow released breath with a shudder and closed his eyes again. The grinding of the chains gnawed at the outskirts of his reason.

‘Your advice strengthens me,’ said Jefe. ‘I value it greatly. I want you with me. This is a joke. A little joke I’m playing on Yara. Nothing more. Do you understand?’

Snow did not understand.

‘She deserves it, don’t you think? You were right about her.’

There were voices in the grinding noise, like those you hear in the humming of tires while resting your head against the window glass of a fast-moving car – hypnotic, hyper-resonant, trebly voices eerily reminiscent of Alvin and the Chipmunks, voices at once sinister and cheerful that sang a simple song advising him go with the flow, go with the flow, go with . . .

‘Look at me!’ said Jefe.

He pulled back, permitting Snow to see his entire face, a face composed so as to illustrate the quality of assurance, and then came close again. ‘Everything’s going to be fine. You’ve won.’

Snow couldn’t think of anything to say – he essayed a grin, but wasn’t sure he had pulled it off.

‘We haven’t had much chance to talk,’ said Jefe. ‘That’s my fault. I apologize. When I found you in the village I assumed you were a spy. I very nearly killed you the first night. But over the past days I’ve come to appreciate your insights into my situation. Others might say fate brought you to me, but someone
like myself shapes his own fate. I must have sensed you and called you to my side, so you could give voice to what I know in my heart.’