At the finca, Serlo and Beaufrey allowed nothing to interfere with horseback riding. Serlo and Beaufrey each had competed at the international level for equestrian teams—Serlo riding for Colombia and Beaufrey for Argentina. At first David had gone to his new darkroom, equipped with computerized color enlargers and color-processing systems, while Serlo and Beaufrey rode the practice course on their dressage horses. But after a few weeks, David could not bear to listen to the dinnertime conversations about their horseback rides together. Serlo secretly savored David’s feeling of isolation and purposely had launched dinner-table conversations about the Polish royal cavalries and the origins of dressage in the military use of horses.
Serlo had talked coyly about the “incomparable exhilaration” one experienced as one’s slightest touch commanded instant response from the powerful volatile animal quivering under one’s own body. David was determined not to be left out. Darkroom work bored him. Taking the photographs was more exciting. He wanted to ride horseback too, he had announced. The big Dutch dressage horses were too ugly and clumsy for David’s taste. In the pasture with the polo ponies David had noticed a small chestnut mare with four white feet; that was the horse he wanted. Serlo had watched David struggle to mount the small, nervous mare; no reasonable man would ever have chosen the crazy-eyed mare.
David did not ride gracefully, but he did not fall off either. David had chosen the worst horse on the finca. The undersized Thoroughbred mare had been too high-strung to use for polo. The open space and unfenced distances of plains to all horizons affected the mare strangely, and the grooms speculated the mare had been born and reared in box stalls then ridden indoors inside equestrian arenas until the mare had been sold to the finca. Once out of the box stalls and away from the confines of paddocks and fences and buildings, the mare had become increasingly excited. The grooms called the affliction “rapture of the plain” or “rapture of the wide-open spaces”; local people reported similar strange afflictions in dogs brought from the city accustomed only to enclosures. Unkenneled for the first time on the vast plain, the dogs bolted away, to run and run past exhaustion to death.
David had been able to hold the mare in check at a walk inside the exercise paddocks; but when he had allowed the horse more rein, she had taken both bits in her teeth and head high, she had bolted. Serlo thought David would fall, but the mare had not bucked, and David had clung to the mare as she raced around the paddock. Serlo had to check his horse sharply as it pulled at the bit to follow the mare. Beaufrey’s mount was well seasoned, and Beaufrey’s confidence soothed the horse. But Serlo was riding a less-finished horse, a recent purchase. Serlo had been buying different breeding stock so the finca would be self-sufficient, with different horses for different purposes. Serlo believed the day would come when the world was overrun with swarms of brown and yellow human larvae called natives. Serlo carefully planned and prepared for the days of chaos about to arrive. But Beaufrey himself was not so sure. Beaufrey had never voiced his doubts to Serlo, of course. Serlo was extremely sensitive about his global theories. He was a charter member of a secret multinational organization with a “secret agenda” for the entire world.
There was little use in bringing a genetically superior man into a world crowded and polluted by the degenerate masses. The history of the secret agenda had begun with the German Third Reich, but it had not ended with Hitler’s death. The group’s secret agenda had been right on schedule actually because European Jewry had been destroyed. Jewish holocaust survivors were too few and too haunted to reproduce themselves effectively in Europe any longer. For all practical purposes Jews were extinct in Poland. But the most persuasive evidence of the Third Reich’s success could be seen in Israel, where Palestinians kept in prison camps were tortured and killed by descendants of Jewish holocaust survivors. The Jews might have escaped the Third Reich, but now they had been possessed by the urge to inflict suffering and death. Hitler had triumphed.
If the Israelis wished to incite the Moslems in order to justify a war to wipe them off the face of the earth, then all the better for the hidden agenda. Yellows, browns, and blacks, let them slaughter one another. The agenda was concerned with survival, not justice. The old man had taught Serlo years before that to kill a man was unjust in the first place, so why bother about rules of “fair play”? A bullet in the ear or a bomb under the front car seat was not fair, but it was final.
BIOLOGICAL WARFARE
THE OLD MAN did not attempt to hide the nature of his relationship with Serlo. His parents were divorced and neither had wanted him. The old man did not consider massaging the boy’s arms and legs at night homosexuality. Homosexuality involved others, other men who attempted to penetrate or who wanted to be penetrated. Serlo had learned sexual penetration was silly, unnecessary, and rotten with disease.
One night when Serlo was thirteen, the old man coughed three times then lost control of his bladder and died. Serlo had not allowed another human being to touch him in a sexual way since his grandfather’s death. Serlo had battled constantly to protect his cleanliness and health. Beaufrey had first sought Serlo in Paris because rumors claimed Serlo was the last and oldest boy virgin on the Continent. Serlo had been ahead of his time with his fetishes of purity and cleanliness; there were insinuations his sex organ touched only sterile, prewarmed stainless steel cylinders used for the artificial insemination of cattle. Tantalizing gossip had circulated throughout the long Mediterranean coast about Serlo, the pale eyes and milky skin, the pride of European nobility reared on the remote plains of Colombia.
Ordinarily Beaufrey had not sought out “celebrities” of sexual kinks, but he found the stories about Serlo irresistible.
Serlo’s grandfather had been a science enthusiast. The old man had ordered artificial insemination implemented for the cattle herds on all his vast fincas. The old man had practiced only masturbation into steel cylinders where his semen was frozen for future use. His grandfather had influenced him, Serlo admitted. The old man had dreamed that someday nobility and monarchy would be restored in Europe. The old man had left behind his seed of noble blood so the masses of Europe might someday be upgraded through the use of artificial insemination. The old man had looked far into the future and had seen that reproduction needn’t involve the repulsive touch and stink of sex with a woman.
Beaufrey and Serlo had argued over tactics; the group that Serlo met with had wanted to focus upon “positive” action—research laboratories and sperm banks where a superior human being would be developed. The group had obtained reports from research scientists working to develop an artificial uterus because women were often not reliable or responsible enough to give the “superfetuses” their best chance at developing into superbabies. Yes, Serlo admitted, he was saving all his sperm in a freezer for use in future generations. Nothing was impossible, Europe was full of living monarchs; Serlo had loved to rattle off the list—all of them his distant cousins: Michael in Romania, Otto in Austria, Niko in Montenegro, Simeon in Bulgaria, and of course dear Constantine in Greece. Serlo was anxious to get his institute under way and to obtain sperm contributions from European males of noble birth lest rare and distinguished lineages disappear without issue.
Although they required time, biological and chemical agents were far superior to bullets and bombs because they worked silently and anonymously. No one could prove a thing. The AIDS virus, HIV, had not been detected for years, and by then the targeted groups had been thoroughly infected. Beaufrey had claimed the U.S. CIA developed HIV, but Serlo knew that was a lie. Years of research into rare cancers, rare viruses, and hepatitis had been required; followed by radical experiments in cloning bacteria and viruses. Researchers in Johannesburg had experimented with monkey viruses. The great biological bomb that had exploded was the result of international collaboration. It had been determined the first biological bomb should be detonated in Africa where researchers hoped malnutrition would enhance the virus’s power. Hepatitis B had been the model they had followed to pl
ot the spread of the immune-deficiency virus. In Africa they had simply contaminated whole blood and blood plasma supplies to be sent to remote hospitals where patients were primarily women who had just given birth. Thus husbands and subsequent newborns were infected. They had modeled their immune-deficiency virus on hepatitis B because the targeted groups had already proven their susceptibility to hepatitis B.
Serlo had learned a great deal about virology and molecular biology from attending the group’s meetings. Serlo was able to appreciate the beauty of HIV in a way that Beaufrey could not understand. Hepatitis B was a disease of the poor, the nonwhite, the addicted, and the homosexual, but hepatitis B was curable. HIV had no cure. Members of the research team bragged that they had created the first “designer virus” specifically for targeted groups. The filthy would die. The clean would live. “Think of the greatest army on earth!” one of the researchers had exclaimed. “Imagine an army of billions and billions of deadly troops! What do we have? Yes, gentlemen! We have the virus army! Deadly and silent!” Of course Serlo and his associates had always been acutely aware secrecy was the group’s cornerstone, but at their core lay the conviction that an endangered species fought for survival with no holds barred. HIV was the perfect weapon for those who found themselves vastly outnumbered in a final battle for survival.
Beaufrey was always bragging about the work of his friends in the U.S. CIA. Beaufrey claimed the abundance of cocaine in the United States had been planned by U.S. strategists who were concerned that heroin users in ghettos would not spread the HIV infection fast enough. Beaufrey always had to have the last word. Serlo had heard the stories about the U.S. CIA, but he doubted very much the U.S. CIA had been so well coordinated. It had only been a lucky coincidence that cheap, abundant cocaine had appeared when HIV did. Running cocaine against heroin had been a long shot, but the U.S. CIA had had little choice. The CIA’s Company had lost billions of dollars in opium revenue after Saigon fell. The cocaine had been part of a deliberate plan to finance CIA operations in Mexico and Central America with the proceeds from cocaine sales in the United States. Without cocaine, the millions of young black and Hispanic men and women confined to ghettos in U.S. cities would riot. Without a cheap, abundant supply of cocaine, it would be “Burn, baby, burn!” all over again as it had been in New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Detroit, and Miami. Secretly, Beaufrey did not believe the rioting natives of the earth would have enough energy or ambition to overrun it. Uprisings and revolts always petered out after the revolutionists and their followers started watching television and had a little more to eat.
To call England or the United States a “democracy” was a big joke because in neither country did the citizens bother any longer to vote. What did it matter? Both governments had secret agendas and employed “private contractors” such as Beaufrey, while their stupid citizens muddled along in terror of new taxes. Monarchy had many advantages over corrupt elected officials; in noble family lineages, accountability extended even to the monarch. No lineage dare allow even their monarch to abuse his divine office, otherwise they might all be ruined by popular unrest, even civil war. The masses, the common folk, desperately wanted a monarch; one had only to look at the United States, where presidents and their families were embraced by the citizens as quasi-royalty. The lowly gray masses of England had paid and paid billions over the years to retain their beloved royal family. There was a strict biological order to the natural world; in this natural order, only sangre pura sufficed to command instinctive obedience from the masses.
BABY PICTURES
IN ORDER TO CONTROL the mare it was necessary to pull her head sharply to one side, pulling her into a tight circle that gradually slowed the mare to a walk again. David found the speed and danger exhilarating. He refused to try another horse and was bored at the slow pace Beaufrey and Serlo kept on their huge Dutch geldings. Serlo and Beaufrey sometimes performed dressage exercises as they rode along to illustrate obscure refinements. Absolute obedience, and absolute control. David could not resist making tasteless remarks about man and horses “becoming one” and other stupid sexual innuendos. The mare sensed David’s impatience with the slow pace, and she had begun to prance nervously and toss her head, rattling the bits against her teeth. The clatter of the steel against her teeth set Serlo’s nerves on edge.
Beaufrey could see Serlo was offended by everything David did or said. David was a darling in that regard. David was entirely predictable. Beaufrey had even guessed which horse David would choose. Beaufrey enjoyed riding between Serlo and David to feel the tension as it grew and grew until the little mare was prancing and even the Dutch gelding Beaufrey rode became restless and steadily more agitated by the antics of David’s mare. But before long David got tired of fighting to rein in the mare; and abruptly, without a word, David had let the reins go slack. The mare half-reared and took off with David like a rocket, leaving Serlo and Beaufrey behind in a cloud of dust.
Serlo thought it was really quite funny. He liked to look at David and smile because David would misread everything, blinded by egotism. David was expecting Serlo to make a big play for his body soon. They were sitting on a long dark leather couch in the sala, which opened into a center ballroom with a thirty-foot ceiling. With David, perhaps Serlo could teach Beaufrey a lesson about the common street trade. David’s photographs were not art, they were disgusting pornography no different from Beaufrey’s loathsome videotapes. Maybe all gringos were as dull witted as David. Sometimes Serlo wondered. The Texas boy Eric, he had been the same. Toys, little trifles, those boys had been punks. David never even suspected Beaufrey had arranged the kidnapping. Serlo had not asked Beaufrey about the child. He had perfected indifference to Beaufrey’s weird fixations. Serlo was not curious about the fate of insignificant beings; he had not felt the thrill Beaufrey felt watching Eric, David, and Seese waltz one another closer to suicide.
The rooms were full of a rich, diffuse light from the tall windows. Long porches shaded the rooms from the bright burning sun. Beyond the yellow-blossoming trees, the plains flattened away in every direction until the light blue of the sky folded over them. There were no other tall trees in sight on the llano, only shrubs. Bees and large black flies browsed in the trees’ blossoms. Huge black flies clung to the window screens and did not move even when the wind caused the screen to flex in and out. Serlo spoke softly.
“Down here, the hottest months are July and August. You look out these windows, and the heat is so thick it quivers—” David had a lens brush and was making delicate sweeps across the face of the telephoto lens. David did not respond. Serlo was forced to finish: “Like quicksand.” David smiled because he had forced those last words from Serlo.
“Quicksand?” David wondered. David did not think of heat as quicksand, but he knew there were people who were like quicksand. David was not as sure about Beaufrey now; he took trips alone to Bogotá and refused to allow David to accompany him. David had intended to fly to San Diego, to stay there until he located where Seese had hidden Monte. But Beaufrey’s unexpected trips to Bogotá had worried David. David did not believe Beaufrey’s story that Serlo was asexual, and he did not believe Beaufrey was flying to Bogotá to sell videos either. Beaufrey’s eye had strayed from Eric to David; David was determined not to let anyone or anything come between himself and Beaufrey. All of his life David had imagined an older man like Beaufrey—rich, aristocratic, and ruthless; someone who would be his patron, so that David would be invited to shows all across Europe.
Eric had accused David of being heartless like Beaufrey. At the time, David had said nothing, but he had been pleased with the comparison. Eric had cried too often, and the dampness on his cheeks and the down-turned corners of his mouth had nearly driven David insane with the compulsion to smash the crybaby’s face to bloody pulp. The dampness and moisture of Seese after the baby was born had also disgusted David. The morning David had left Seese, the last morning they had been together, David had pulled the sheets off the bed, screaming
at Seese—not even words, only sounds—screaming his rage, rage over the stickiness of the bed sheets from the humidity, rage at the odor and pale-yellow stains of milk that leaked at night from her nipples while she nursed the infant in bed with her.
Even after David had taken Monte away to Cartagena, David had felt revulsion when the baby had spit up on the edge of the blanket as he held him. The nannies had been instructed to dress the baby freshly before they brought him to his father. At first David had taken many rolls of film of the baby for comparison with David’s own baby pictures, which his mother had mounted in the blue leather baby books she had kept for him. David still got tears in his eyes when he thought about his mother dying. If his mother had been alive, she would have been delighted to see how much the baby looked like him. David had spent a great deal of time alone with his mother because his sister and brother had already been in school when David was born. His father had been an accountant who used to leave for his office then vanished on a three-day drunk.
David had been careful to keep all his mother’s family albums; she had taught him to look at photographs of all the family branches and to identify certain family characteristics in the eyes, cheekbones, or postures. David remembered his father as a silent, angry man whose thinning gray hair stood on end when he was drunk. David had been happiest as a child on the nights when the old man did not come home. The photographs in the albums had been their favorite pastime to share—far from phone calls from police who had found his father passed out in his car. After David’s sister and brother graduated and left home, the albums of photographs had been the best and most real part of his mother’s life, except for David. David was her very soul, she said; without him she would simply have died. She had her gin and tonic in the morning after David went to school.
The Almanac of the Dead Page 65
