Coincidentally, there were moments during the ensuing week when Snow saw himself as a master of calculation and guile. Because he was consumed by the prospect of death, these moments were fleeting, and yet they seemed of critical importance, crucial to his self-awareness, his self-worth, his entire sense of self inclusive of his will to survive. Each night, a male Sheherazade, he visited Yara in her room and made love to her, each night extracting information from her (a tip, a tendency, an allusion) that would enable him to prolong his life. Afterward he would have a flash of satisfaction, a not-quite gloating appreciation of his canniness. Yet at the same time his emotional connection with her deepened, as did his desire to please her, to ease her burdens – it injured him to watch her move about the complex, she was so frail and had so little stamina. These two strains of behavior appeared intertwined like the coils of a double helix, neither of them having primacy over nor predating the other, neither seeming more authentic, but he felt certain that one of them concealed a fathering principle. He sought to sneak up on himself, to catch himself unawares and snatch a glimpse of the bottom of his soul, hoping to discern whether selflessness or self-interest was the ground from which all else sprouted, or if they were an embodiment of an essential duality, two sides of the same coin. He failed to reach a conclusion, of course, and it seemed to him that his fear of death was not much greater than the fear that he might never acquire the slightest knowledge of his own heart.
One night toward the end of the week, Yara came astride Snow, allowing him to penetrate her. Her movements were rickety and it was apparent some pain was involved, but she went past the pain and seemed to lose herself in the act. Snow held her by the hips, guiding her, helping her move, yet he wasn’t as active as he would ordinarily have been, not wishing to hurt her. The striping on her body generated a fantasy that he had been transported to a cell in a Tibetan temple lit with the glow from a butter lamp, and she was a woman sprung from one of the legends illustrated by the tapestries that hung about the place, the handmaiden of an obscure god or herself the female incarnation of an elusive archetype, her ritual markings symbols in a perfected language known only to nine bodhisattvas that pointed up rather than detracted from her beauty. She flowed like honey around him and he, too, lost himself in the moment, in the old confusions of their relationship and the new. Yet once they were spent, as they lay quietly together, his mind began to run its usual circuits and he asked why she had chosen this night to make love to him.
‘“Make love,”’ she said teasingly. ‘You never said that when we were first together. It was always, “Let’s fuck.” You’ve become so gentlemanly.’
Impatient with her, he said, ‘Okay. Why did you fuck me?’
‘I couldn’t bear not to any longer.’
‘It wasn’t like a pity fuck? You weren’t saying goodbye?’
He expected a denial, but she said, ‘I don’t know.’
‘What’s that mean?’
‘It means I don’t know!’
He waited for an explanation.
‘In the morning Jefe may invite you to watch him fly,’ she said. ‘He’ll . . .’
‘I should say, “No,” right? Pretend to be sick or something.’
‘No. You have to accept. And you have to flatter him constantly while he’s flying. I’ll come with you if I can, but he may send me away. If that happens, you have to cheer and applaud . . . applaud fervently no matter how long he flies. Be prepared for him to fly a long time. Several hours.’
Half-formed thoughts crowded one another aside in Snow’s head – a cold spot bloomed beneath his breastbone.
‘I have to do something,’ he said.
Yara pressed herself against him.
‘I can’t just sit around here waiting to be executed.’
She flung an arm across his stomach, resting her head on his chest so he could see nothing of her face.
‘Yara?’
‘I’m here,’ she said.
*
Every morning at ten a.m. Jefe ate his single meal of the day, consisting of four roast chickens. He would sit at the head of the dining room table, tearing off strips of meat, chewing methodically, gnawing clean the bones, reducing the birds to skeletal remains while Yara and Snow observed from their chairs. At Yara’s prompting Snow would offer absurdly fawning statements such as ‘You’re looking fit today’ and ‘I wish I had your appetite,’ and Jefe would cut his eyes toward him, grunt, and then cast his gaze toward another portion of the room, as if he found there something of greater interest. From time to time he would address himself to Yara, reminding her of some obligation, but otherwise he ignored her presence. On this particular morning, however, his eyes never wavered from Snow, transmitting a steely neutrality. As the number of chickens dwindled, believing his life could be measured in bites, he experienced a predictable cycling of conflicting emotions (fear, love for Yara, regret, anger at Yara for being complicit in his decision to stay, self-recrimination over that anger, fear . . . etc.) and at length decided that he’d had enough and would do or say something to bring matters to a head. The question of whether he would have acted on his decision was rendered moot by a loud buzzing that issued from the TV. A grainy picture appeared on the screen showing three men beside the pink house, at the entrance to the complex, one a boy of college age with a stubbly scalp, wearing a shiny rayon jacket embellished by the signature NY of the New York Yankees, and two fleshy, prosperous-looking types in their forties, also wearing jackets, but of leather. Jefe’s aloof manner did not change, but anger streamed off him. He walked over to the TV, half a chicken in his hand, and continued to eat, watching the men shift about.
The largest of the three spoke into the box mounted beside the door. ‘Jefe! We need to talk with you!’
Without turning from the screen, Jefe waggled a hand at Yara – she made her way haltingly toward the intercom, keyed the speaker, and said, ‘What do you want? You know he doesn’t like surprise visits.’
‘We have an urgent matter to discuss,’ said the man. ‘We called, but there was no signal.’
Jefe put his finger on the screen, touching the young man’s image.
‘Who’s the kid?’ Yara asked.
‘Chuy Velasquez. He’s one of us,’ said the other man. ‘We had car trouble and he volunteered to drive us.’
‘It’s an honor . . .’ Chuy began, but the big man shushed him.
Yara asked Jefe if she should have Chuy wait outside. Jefe bit off another mouthful of chicken.
The intercom squawked. ‘Yara?’
‘He’s thinking it over,’ she said to the men outside.
‘This is intolerable,’ Jefe said without emotion, as if the intolerable were merely a fact of his existence. ‘Ask them what they wish to discuss.’
Yara did as instructed and the big man said, ‘We’re having difficulty with Ortega. We could use force, and we will should it become necessary, but that will complicate our future dealings with him. The shipment is due in tomorrow and I didn’t want to move without consulting you.’
Jefe made a hissing nose and pointed at the door leading to the stairs. ‘Wait for me there.’
‘Both of us?’ Yara asked.
‘Just him.’ He glanced over his shoulder at Snow. ‘You don’t mind, do you? Private business.’
The stairwell was unheated and, after hovering for ten or fifteen minutes, unable to hear what was going on in the dining room, feeling the bite of the chill, Snow ascended the stairs. His spirits had been lifted by his banishment – it stood to reason that since Jefe did not want him to hear private matters discussed, this could be interpreted as a sign that Snow’s survival was guaranteed. For a while, anyway. If Jefe wasn’t merely being cautious. If his actions were governed by a logical scheme approximating reason, which of course they were not. By the time Snow had climbed four flights of stairs, his natural pessimism had been restored. Preoccupied with worry, he pushed through the door at the top of the stairway and went several paces
onward before he understood that he had penetrated to the heart of Jefe’s complex and perhaps to the essence of his dragon-soul.
He stood in the depths of an enormous, well-lit shaft, one wide enough to encompass three or four good-sized barns, a structure whose terminus, he realized, had to be the white, windowless building surmounting the hill. The top of the shaft, five or six hundred feet above, was the blue of a deep autumn sky and spread across the walls were photomurals of the four framed prints in the dining room: cloudy, pristine Himalayas pierced by diamond rays of sun; tiers of parchment-colored, painterly clouds edged with peach and golden-white, complexities of dust and light that called to mind an elaborate music; a Turner-esque chaos of smoky stuff drenched in red and gold, yielding a brassy radiance redolent of a war in heaven; pale billows of cloud shading to indigo, some of them resembling figures and faces that were nearly recognizable, like the ghosts of Great Identities dissolving into dusk. Hundreds, maybe thousands of fine-linked silver chains strung ten feet apart were suspended from the ceiling, stretched taut, running the length of the shaft and vanishing into curved tracks on the concrete floor. Snow made to slide one of the chains along its track, but it wouldn’t budge. He thought there must be some controlling mechanism and, as he searched for it, he spotted a discoloration on the floor out among the chains. On closer inspection it appeared to be a dried-up pool of blood. Feeling like a child alone in a forest of skinny silver trees that offered neither shade nor protection, he hurried back down the stairs and sat on the bottom step, trying to equate the grandeur and strangeness of the shaft with the vicious killer in the next room, imagining that if a dragon-become-a-man had the slightest refinement it would have something to do with the sky . . . and yet it was difficult to believe a minimal creature such as Jefe deriving pleasure from anything apart from the exercise of power. Worn down by stress, he gave up analyzing the situation and rested his head on his forearms, his mind drumming with a single dread thought.
A half-hour later, more or less, Yara invited him back into the dining room. Flanked by his two friends, the big man stood partway out the tunnel door – he had a thick, glossy head of hair and a mustache trimmed to a straight line above an arrogant mouth. Belly flab overlapped his belt. His image on the TV had been too grainy to identify, but Snow knew him now: Enrique Bazan. He’d run into him once or twice at the school. Hoping that Bazan would not remember those meetings, Snow took a seat next to Yara and gave no sign of recognition, but Bazan said in a demanding tone, ‘What’s this prick doing here?’
‘Mister Snow is a guest.’ Standing between the table and Bazan, Jefe glanced back and forth between the two men, his face sharp with interest. ‘Do you know each other?’
With bad grace, Bazan said, ‘He’s my son’s teacher.’
Jefe’s eyes swerved to Snow. ‘Small world, eh?’
‘I used to be your son’s teacher,’ said Snow. ‘I resigned from the school some time ago.’
‘Is that so?’ Bazan’s voice surged in volume. ‘Then why does Luisa talk about you all the time? Tell me that!’
Yara said, ‘Don’t you have business elsewhere, Enrique?’
‘Indeed,’ said Jefe. ‘I suggest we leave this for another day.’
Bazan’s face grew flushed. ‘Fuck that! I want to ask him some questions.’
The elder of his companions, a man cut from similar cloth, same mustache, same belly flab, but shorter and with a receding hairline, moved in front of Bazan, or else he might have come at Snow.
‘The son-of-a-bitch has been fucking my wife!’ Bazan tried to throw the smaller man aside, but Chuy helped restrain him.
‘Is this true?’ Jefe’s enjoyment of the moment was evident in his tone of prim amusement. ‘Have you been trifling with Luisa’s affections?’
‘Hell, no!’ Snow made as if to stand, willing to let his anger rip after so long an enforced repression, but Yara dug her nails into his arm.
Bazan shook his head furiously, like a bull swarmed by bees. ‘What the fuck is he doing here?’
‘I was hiking in the hills,’ said Snow. ‘Jefe asked me to stay. As for your wife, I’ve never had so much as a cup of coffee with her.’
‘Calm yourself, Enrique.’ Jefe joined the two men who had Bazan backed against the wall. ‘Whoever’s been at your wife, I’m certain you’ll get to the bottom of it.’
‘It’s him! I can tell by the way she talks about him!’
‘That’s your proof ? Luisa talks about him? It’s hardly convincing.’
‘Man, I’ve been married to her fat ass for eleven years! I know the signs!’
‘It doesn’t matter who’s been staining your bed sheets,’ Jefe said. ‘The real crime has nothing to do with your wife. Right, Chuy?’
Jefe patted Chuy on the back, shifted a hand to the nape of his neck, and Chuy, responding to this amiable gesture, looked to him over his shoulder, a smile aborning on his face . . . and then the smile, before it had fully established itself, dissolved into an expression of befuddlement, and thereafter into one of shock and pain. His right leg began to shake. Spittle flew from his lips.
‘The real crime is you bringing someone here who wasn’t invited,’ Jefe said to Bazan. ‘Someone I don’t know.’
Chuy clawed feebly at Jefe’s hand and loosed a warbling note that thinned into a keening. His shoes were not planted on the floor, but drifted across the carpet, their toes grazing the burgundy nap.
‘Jefe, don’t do this.’ Bazan eased away from him. ‘He’s a good kid.’
Chuy’s shoulders hitched violently, his arms went rigid, held out to the sides like a marionette whose elbow-strings had been yanked.
Yara heaved up from her chair. ‘The boy’s done nothing. Let him go!’
Startled, Jefe turned on her, rag-dolling Chuy.
‘No one’s harmed you.’ She pried at Jefe’s fingers, trying to loosen his grip. ‘He did you a favor by driving them. Or would you prefer to have been kept in the dark about Ortega? Let him go. Let Enrique get on with his business.’
‘Keep out of this!’ Jefe said.
‘This is how leaders treat their friends.’ She pried at his fingers again. ‘Presidents, generals, kings. Whatever title they give themselves, they’re pigs. Villains. You have to be better than that.’
So much fury was concentrated in Jefe’s face, Snow thought it might explode.
Yara’s words took on a blathering tone, as if she were counseling a disobedient child while straightening his collar. ‘You swore you’d pay attention to my advice. Well, I’m advising you now. You mustn’t lash out every time someone does something that doesn’t please you. You have to use some discretion.’
Jefe backhanded her, striking her side, releasing Chuy at the same moment. She reeled back against the table, shrieked and clutched her hip, and sagged to the floor. Yet after the briefest of intervals she sat up and continued her scolding, as though the shove had been but a trivial interruption. Jefe went toward her and Snow, thinking he was going to hit her again, came out of his chair and said, ‘Well done! A man has to maintain order in his house.’
Jefe’s head snapped toward him.
‘Without discipline at home,’ said Snow, ‘you can have no discipline. Who are these people to think they can rule you while you rule their country? It’s absurd!’
‘You should act from the standpoint of reason, not emotion.’ Yara managed to get to her knees. ‘You can’t simply react to events.’
Jefe turned back to her.
‘Reason, yes. But you can’t tolerate an insult to your authority.’ Snow began to understand where this byplay might lead. ‘There has to be a price.’
Helped by his friend, Bazan hauled the semi-conscious Chuy erect – his feet scrabbled for purchase on the carpet and he groaned. Hearing the commotion, Jefe whirled about, but was distracted once again by the dialogue between Yara and Snow.
Yara: ‘It’s important you keep things in balance . . .’
Snow: ‘Showing you have a
temper has a certain value.’
Yara: ‘. . . or else you’ll lose control of the situation.’
Snow: ‘You can’t govern effectively unless people are afraid of you.’
An indecisive expression stole over Jefe’s face as they continued in this vein, and he became agitated when Bazan asked for permission to leave.
‘First and foremost, you have to learn self-control,’ said Yara. ‘You can’t expect people to respect someone who constantly yields to impulse.’
‘Chuy needs a doctor,’ said Bazan.
The Dragon Griaule Page 44
