The Dragon Griaule

by Lucius Shepard

  She took a backward step and said soberly, ‘I’m not sure we’re going to have a relationship. You’re an attractive man, but I think it’ll just be sex with us.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Enough crazy talk. I’ll catch you later.’

  She gave me a pouty look. ‘Don’t you want to see where I live?’

  ‘Why should I? What do you have in mind?’

  ‘Americans are so paranoid,’ she said. ‘I guess you’ve a right to be. There’s a lot of anti-American feeling down here. A girl might invite you to dinner just so she can chop off your head.’

  ‘Damn straight.’

  ‘You could take preventive measures,’ she said. ‘Notify a policeman. Give him your name and destination. That way if you go missing they’d come after me. I’d be forced to control my murderous impulses.’

  ‘Now I really want to go with you,’ I said. ‘Because you saying that, wow, it makes clear what a paranoid asshole I am for thinking your invitation is suspicious.’

  Four boys wearing designer jeans and polo shirts, expensive watches on their wrists, rich kids just into their teens, came pounding into the entranceway of the electronics store from the street, laughing and breathless, as if they had just played a prank on someone and made a narrow escape. One of them noticed Yara and said something about whores. For some reason, this infuriated me. I told him to fuck off. The boys’ faces grew stony, all the same face, the same soulless, zombie stare, and I had a shocking sense of the seven-billion-headed monster of which they constituted a four-headed expression. I spat on the sidewalk at their feet and took a step toward them. They cursed us and scooted off into the crowd, re-absorbed into the body of the beast.

  Amused, Yara said, ‘You were really angry with those kids. You hated them.’

  I became aware of the street sounds once more – radio music, car horns, the gabble of shouts and laughter – as if the curtain had been raised on a noisier production.

  ‘What’s not to hate?’ I said. ‘They’ll grow up to be fascist dicks just like their daddies.’

  She seemed to be measuring me. ‘I think you’re a nihilist.’

  I laughed. ‘That’s way too formal a term for what I am.’

  She didn’t reply and I said, ‘You have a thing for nihilists, do you?’

  ‘You should come with me. Seriously.’

  ‘Give me a reason.’

  ‘You’ll like what I’ve got to show you. If that’s not enough of a reason . . .’ She shrugged. ‘You’ll miss out on the fun.’

  ‘What kind of fun are we talking about?’

  ‘The usual. Maybe more.’

  Yara leaned against me, her breast nudging my elbow, and, though I remained paranoid, my resistance weakened.

  ‘Come with me, man,’ she said. ‘If you die, I promise you’ll die happy.’

  We took a taxi to the rain forest. If we walked, Yara explained, if we went down through Barrio Zanja, we would have to traverse almost two miles of jungle terrain – this way we would only have to walk for fifteen or twenty minutes. The taxi whipped us around Plaza Obelisco, past the unsightly concrete monument to Temalaguan independence, some despot’s idea of a joke, and past the Flame of Liberty, which had been installed to memorialize the overthrow of the very same despot, and before long we were bouncing along over a dirt road that grew ever more narrow and dead-ended in the isolated village of Chajul on the verge of the jungle, set beneath towering aguacate trees. Yara gave the driver the bills she’d received from the electronics store clerk. I asked if the money had been a pay-off and she said, ‘They’re contributions. Funding.’

  ‘Funding for what?’

  ‘I’m not certain,’ she said.

  Away from the city I could see the stars and the glow of a moon on the rise behind hills to the east, but once we entered the jungle it was pitch-dark. Yara shined a flashlight ahead and held my hand, warning me against obstructions. Insects chirred; frogs bleeped and tweedled. Rustlings issued from every quarter. Smells of sweet rot and rank decay. Mosquitoes whined in my hair. It felt hotter than it had in the city and I broke a sweat. Shuffling along in the dark, passing among unseen things, twigs and leaves poking, brushing my skin – I imagined vines forming into nooses over my head, spiders scurrying up my trouser legs, vipers uncoiling from branches above, pointing their shovel-shaped heads and darting their tongues. Yara may have sensed my apprehension because she told me we’d be there soon, but I didn’t buy it, I knew she was leading me into a trap. I gave thought to taking her hostage in order to forestall an attack by whoever was lying in wait, but I glimpsed a ruddy glow through the leaves and caught a strong fecal odor and shortly thereafter we emerged into a clearing the approximate length of a soccer pitch, though narrower, overspread by a dense canopy and bounded by walls of vegetation – you could have fit the upside-down hull of a mighty ark into the space described by those walls and that canopy. Among tree stumps and patchy underbrush lay a jungle squat that spread out across the clearing, a settlement combining the harsh realities of Stone Age life with those of brutal urban poverty. Lean-tos, tents, thatched huts, and a handful of shacks with rusting tin roofs. Campfires generated a smoky haze and as we passed through the settlement I saw shadowy people stirring, all moving about with what struck me as an excess of caution. Some acknowledged Yara with a wave, but no one called out her name. I estimated that several hundred souls lived in the squat and would have expected to hear a conversational murmur, the odd laugh or shout, music and such, yet the place was as hushed as a church and there was a corresponding air of pious oppression, one comprehensible when you considered the enormous reptilian skull, yellowed with age, illuminated by torches, that occupied the entire far end of the clearing, looming high into the canopy.

  I had left the States five years previously, discouraged by the quality of my life, bored by the drabness of the American tragedy, with the consumerist mentality and the market forces that bred it, with celebrity scandals orchestrated to distract from more significant trouble, with every element of that carnival of lies – I had hoped a more vivid landscape would serve to pare away the rind that had accumulated over my brain, yet everywhere I went it seemed I brought drabness and boredom with me, and my life remained tedious and uninvolved. The skull was the first thing I had seen to put a crack in my worldview. Its size and uncanny aspect, the barbarous embellishments added by man and nature over the centuries, scribblings of moss and fungus, inlays of milky jade and black onyx, the fangs coated in verdigris, the snout covered by painted designs, much faded, that had been applied by some long-vanished tribe, all of it visible in the erratic light . . . at one second it seemed a clownish, grotesque fake, a gigantic papier mâché Mardi Gras mask, and the next I grew terrified that it would return to life and roar. Vegetation hid the greater part of the sloping brow and a thick matte of vines obscured one of its eye sockets, but apart from a few clusters of epiphytes the snout was unencumbered, reaching a height of forty feet above the jungle floor. Propped against the side of the jaw, its topmost section resting against a portion of bone adjacent to a fang, was a telescoping aluminum ladder. When I realized we were heading toward the ladder my anxiety peaked – I was insecure with the idea of climbing into the mouth, but Yara displayed no sign of trepidation and I kept my worries to myself. A disquieting atmosphere of the sort that gathers about ancient ruins enveloped the skull, an absence of vibration that causes you to listen closely, to attune yourself to the possibility of vibration, so that you may feel something where, perhaps, there is nothing to feel . . . except this particular vacancy had an inimical quality, as if it retained a residue of its former contents, like a glass that once held poison.

  Yara scurried up the ladder with the quickness and confidence of someone accustomed to the ascent, whereas I, less certain of my footing, lagged behind, pausing to steady myself and to rethink the wisdom of this excursion. But on reaching the top, standing beside the wicked bronze-green curve of the fang and gazing down at the squat, I had an unwa
rranted sense of power. It was as though I’d scaled some hithertofore unscalable peak and was for that moment master of all I surveyed. Yara took my hand and her touch boosted the sensation. I felt heroin high, the way it is after your rush has dissipated and you seem in complete harmony with every part of your body, the slightest movement (the twitch of a finger, the curling of a toe) signaling a joyful competence. She led me deep into the skull, past volutes and voluptuous turns of bone, then upward along a narrow channel into the cavity that once had housed the monster’s brain, the far end of which was brightly lit by groups of candles and furnished with a much-patched waterbed, a desk, a table and three wooden chairs, and an antique steamer trunk that served as both filing cabinet and chest of drawers – the rest was empty, pale curves of bone lost in dimness. Seeing this collection of thrift shop artifacts crammed into a corner of a cavernous skull sponsored the thought that I had stumbled into a child’s bedtime story about a lost girl who dwelled in an abandoned palace of bone. I noticed that the candles had not burned down very far and asked who had lit them.

  ‘The adherents.’ She opened the bottom drawer of the trunk and removed a couple of towels. ‘They always seem to know when I’m going to return.’

  ‘You mean the people down below?’

  ‘Yes. They take care of me.’

  ‘Why would they do that?’

  ‘They’re extremely nurturing.’

  ‘Yeah? You must do something for them.’

  ‘I perform an equivalent service.’ She tossed me a towel. ‘They’ll be bringing food soon. We’d better hurry if we want to wash up before dinner.’

  Behind the skull, at the entrance to the gateway of splintered bone that had once sheathed part of the spinal chord, with thick tree trunks, leaf clusters, and ferns crowding near, stood a wooden tub, large enough in which to host a modest pool party and filled with water. A dripping pipe depended from the darkness overhead and, since there were no leaves adrift on the surface, I assumed the adherents had drawn Yara’s bath a short time before. She lit torches mounted beside the tub, igniting reflections in the water, and proceeded to strip off her clothes. Her body was perfectly proportioned, her pubic hair trimmed into a neat landing strip. I had presumed her to be heavily tattooed, but she sported only two: a tiny soaring bird of blurry blue ink above her right breast, not the work of a professional, and a diamond-shaped pattern of dark green scales positioned like a tramp stamp on the small of her back. These were of recent vintage and marvelously detailed. I joined her in the tub and watched her scrub away make-up (she had previously removed some of it with tissues) and city grime, revealing prominent cheekbones that added exotic planes to her face. After she finished scrubbing she sank down so that only her eyes and nose were visible. Serpentine tendrils of hair floating on the water were lent the impression of undulant movement by the flickering reflections with which they merged, making it appear that fiery snakes were swimming toward her, joining their substance with hers.

  The jungle pressed close around and the chorusing of frogs was loud, which might have explained the absence of insect – yet I could recall no insects inside the skull. I mentioned the fact and she made a so-what face, watching me with eyes aglint with torchlight.

  ‘Do you want insects?’ she asked.

  ‘Can you arrange for some?’

  ‘I can try.’

  I moved my hands in semicircles, sending ripples toward her. ‘Did you bring me out here just to take a bath?’

  ‘I’m a creature of impulse.’

  ‘Why won’t you tell me what’s going on?’

  She rested her arms on the edge of the tub, facing me, and let her feet float up. ‘I’d prefer you reach your own conclusions. That way you won’t be able to accuse me of manipulating you.’

  ‘Is my opinion that important?’

  ‘It’s difficult to say.’

  ‘This woman-of-mystery shit,’ I said. ‘It’s not working for me.’

  ‘You’re not giving it a chance.’

  Torchlight lapped at the trees, quick tides of orange radiance illuminating leaf sprays and sections of trunks, and flared along bone interiors. From above came the long, stuttering trill of a bird chortling over its live supper. National Geographic Primitive, I told myself, trying to blunt my reaction to the place. But the presence of the skull overwhelmed me once again and I had an apprehension of danger.

  ‘Know what I think?’ I said. ‘I think you must be running some sort of game on those people back there. The adherents.’

  ‘You’re not the first to say that.’

  ‘Well, are you?’

  ‘Sometimes I wonder.’

  ‘This kind of answer, it’s all you’re going to give me?’

  ‘For now.’

  The tops of her breasts showing above the surface distracted me – whenever she stirred her nipples bobbled up into view, pastel pink, an after-dinner mint color, centering perfect circles of slightly paler, delicately pebbled skin. I speculated on how it would be, screwing in her bone bedchamber, and compared her physicality to Ex’s heavy-breasted, thick-waisted body, her areolae large and oblate to the point of appearing misshapen. Though Ex had thrown me out, though we both slept with other people, I trusted that we would get back together. The relationship was too comfortable for either of us to discard. I had a trickle of guilt because Yara was prettier than she, yet guilt was not strong enough to prevent me from swimming over and putting an arm beneath her thighs to support her legs. Heat streamed off her. With my free hand I cleared strands of damp hair away from her face and started to move in for a kiss, but she held me off and leaned back further, as if hoping for a better perspective.

  ‘I want to be lucky for you,’ she said.

  I mustered a glib response, something about getting lucky, but kept it to myself – there was nothing playful in her face, no indication of banter in her delivery and, with desire thickening my voice, I told her I could use a little luck.

  While our supper (chicken and saffron rice) grew cold, we went at it hard on the waterbed. Yara was energetic and inventive, alternately demanding and giving, but the sex was merely good, merely proficient, and not great. As sometimes happens there was an element of performance art to our little exercise that diminished its other qualities and hampered emotional involvement. Her moans and cries were sweet to hear, but I recognized that she was in part emoting. Not faking it, exactly. Just throwing in a few extras to make sure I knew that she was having a grand time, and my execution was the masculine equivalent of hers. What surprised me was that instead of the usual pillow talk we discussed this afterward, analyzing our lovemaking in terms of its authenticity.

  ‘When attractive people hook up,’ Yara said, ‘narcissism sometimes gets in the way of things.’

  ‘I don’t consider myself a narcissist,’ I said.

  ‘Be honest!’

  ‘Actually I’m more of a self-hater.’

  She blew air through her lips, a disparaging puff. ‘You don’t think it’s possible to be a self-hating narcissist?’

  ‘I guess you could say self-hatred is an extreme form of narcissism.’

  ‘It’s the soul of narcissism. Self-love and self-hatred aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, one’s a precursor to the other.’

  I clasped my hands behind my head – the play of light across the ceiling gave the bone a creamy, cheese-like appearance.

  ‘How old are you?’ I asked.

  ‘Seventeen. Did you think I was older?’

  ‘I didn’t think much about it, but yeah, maybe a couple of years.’

  ‘And now you think I’m too young for you? Is that it? I should hope not, because I’ve been with guys older than you. A lot older!’

  It was a peculiar conversation and her part in it seemed sophisticated for someone so young, but this digression made me aware that her personality was mostly posture and an occasional blurt of teenage defensiveness. I told her age didn’t matter to me and that mollified her.

  ‘It�
�s strange,’ she said, returning to the topic at hand. ‘I think self-love is decaying into self-hate in your case. Usually it’s the other way around.’

  ‘I don’t know if that’s true. I’ve been afflicted with a mixture of the two ever since I was fifteen.’

  ‘Since the girls got interested, eh?’

  ‘Nah, it was when I began using them to get at their mommies . . . that’s when the self-hate kicked in.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘The girls I knew had some hot moms.’

  ‘You had sex with them?’

  ‘A few. Rene . . . my first mom. She came on to me while her daughter was out running errands. It made me a big deal in high school.’

  ‘You told your friends about it? What an asshole!’

  ‘I was fifteen, an idiot. And Rene told her friends. She even set me up with one of them. No one got hurt and I learned a few things.’

  ‘About sex?’

  ‘Sex . . . and women.’

  Yara sighed – a sigh of forbearance, I figured. ‘The moms must have been bored with their husbands.’

  ‘I didn’t think about them. They were targets to me. I suppose they were bored. With their husbands, and themselves. But I don’t believe that’s what motivated them. It was the idea they were corrupting me that got them off. They needed that kind of excess in their lives. So I played the innocent and let myself be corrupted. It got to be a thing with me, bagging mothers and their daughters. When the moms found out their little Madisons and Brooks were fucking me, too, they were deeply pissed. But after they cooled down, a couple of them suggested threesomes.’

  ‘You must have thought you were a wicked boy.’

  ‘I was wicked.’

  ‘In an innocent way, maybe.’

  Channeled through some complexity of bone, a warm breeze penetrated the chamber, producing a mournful whistle.

  Yara turned onto her side, facing me. ‘I wasn’t interested in sex until last year.’

  ‘You got a late start, huh?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve had my share of experiences, but they were unpleasant. Most of them, anyway. I quit having sex when I moved out here. Then about a year ago I took a lover, but we didn’t communicate well in bed. We had chemistry, but it never came to much.’ She did a finger-walk across my stomach, coming to rest on my hip. ‘But you and I communicated very well. We understood each other’s signals.’