Life During Wartime

by Lucius Shepard

  “Then why haven’t you pulled them?” Debora asked.

  “We’ve made a number of mistakes over the years. Despite the accords of Cartagena, many of us were unable to put aside our bitterness, and from time to time the feud would flare up. We overlooked most of these flare-ups. After all, things were going well overall. But then”—Ruy let out a long, unsteady breath—“then we made a terrible mistake. About twenty of us were engaged in trying to neutralize the threat of the Palestinian terrorists, when the feud flared up again. Those twenty people became so involved in settling personal scores, they neglected their assignments. And as a result a terrorist plot to plant a nuclear device in Tel Aviv was carried out.”

  “Jesus!” Mingolla started to say more, but sarcasm and insult seemed unequal to the enormity of the folly.

  Ruy appeared not to notice his outburst. “We renewed the accords after Tel Aviv, but even so there continued to be flare-ups of trouble, especially among the younger generation. At last it was determined that all those who were keeping the feud alive—along with those of you from Sombra and Psicorps who were strong enough to help us shape a new world—would take up residence in Barrio Clarín and negotiate a separate peace. Once the peace was successfully negotiated, then and only then would we begin the takeover.”

  “What if you fail?” Debora asked.

  “Then we’ll die, and the takeover will go on without us. I’m not sure how the sentence will be carried out. Carlito’s in charge of that. An air strike, I presume. But we won’t fail. We’re making progress every day.”

  “Who’s Carlito?” asked Mingolla.

  “Dr. Izaguirre,” said Ruy. “My uncle.”

  “Right,” said Mingolla. “We’re going to Panama so that crazy son of a bitch can blow us up. Sure we are.”

  Ruy shrugged. “If you run, you’ll be tracked down. And besides”—he looked at Debora—“you want a voice in making a new world, don’t you?”

  “I’ll pass,” said Mingolla. “What you’ve made so far doesn’t seem much of an improvement.”

  “You know nothing of what we’ve done.”

  “I know this goddamn war!”

  “We didn’t start the war! You did! What we’ve done over the past few years is to reduce it to a fraction of its previous scope. We’ve had to maintain it to an extent to cover our operations, and we don’t have enough people to influence specific battles, only the command structure. But once the peace is achieved, we will end it. And then we’ll pull the strings and end all wars.” Ruy had another sip of coffee, made a sour face. “We’ve done shameful things, we’ve permitted shameful things to continue. But that’s the responsibility that comes with power. You do what you have to and live with the consequences. And if the result is good, all else is justified.”

  “Y’know,” said Mingolla, “I believe you’re sincere, man. I really do. That’s what scares me. You’re so goddamn sincere, you think sincerity excuses everything. Every whim and atrocity.”

  “Your problem’s not with us, man.” Ruy drew up his knees, rested his arms on them. “It’s with me. Debora here, she understands that the world has to change. She understands that no matter how bloody the path, things can’t go on as they have. But you”—he jabbed a finger at Mingolla—“you can’t see that. You haven’t lived down here. You haven’t seen your country violated by development bankers, by corporations and their little Hitlers. Sooner or later that lack of understanding will split the two of you.”

  “And that’s when you move in, huh?”

  Ruy smiled.

  “I wouldn’t count on anything,” said Debora stiffly.

  “I’m counting on your commitment, guapa,” said Ruy. “I know how deep it runs. And you can count on honesty from me.”

  Mingolla snorted at that.

  “You think we’re dishonest because we’ve been cautious with you?” said Ruy. “Don’t you know how hard it was for us to place trust in people too strong for us to control? But for the sake of the revolution, we did it.” He lit a cigarette, blew a bluish plume of smoke that gave his comments visible pause. “The kind of power we’ve enjoyed…being able to take whatever you want. After a while it instills an inviolable morality. The things of this world lose their desirability, and work becomes the only passion. That’s why our revolution will be pure.”

  “What happens to that morality,” said Debora, “when it encounters something it can’t have?”

  “You’re talking about you and me?” Ruy asked.

  “Just about you…about the lack of seriousness implicit in a person who contrives a passion over something he can’t have. It’s childlike.”

  Ruy stubbed out his cigarette on the sole of his shoe. “You figure that’s how it is with me?”

  “I know it.”

  “What’s it matter the way a passion begins?” he said. “Believe me, Debora. I’m serious.”

  “We can’t deal with these people,” said Mingolla.

  “No, he’s right about that much,” she said. “We have to.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “I think,” she said, “it makes more sense to be a part of this revolution than to deny it’s happening. I’ve always thought so…you know that.”

  “They’re lunatics, they’re…”

  “And your president isn’t? No, we have to deal with the families. But we may not have to deal with Ruy.” She said this last coldly and then reached into Ruy’s pack and removed his handgun.

  “It would go hard with you if you killed me,” said Ruy, undismayed.

  Mingolla took the gun from Debora and let the barrel droop toward Ruy’s groin. “It’s likely to go hard with us anyway.”

  Ruy couldn’t take his eyes off the gun.

  “Tell me some more about Panama,” said Mingolla.

  “You’re being a fool,” said Ruy. “Kill me, and they’ll never stop giving you pain.”

  Mingolla essayed a deranged laugh. “Call me irresponsible.” He cocked the gun. “Talk to me, Ruy, or I’m gonna blow away your spare parts.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Back on the boat you mentioned something ’bout armies in Barrio Clarín. Armies that did the fighting whenever the families had a squabble. Let’s hear ’bout them.”

  Ruy’s words came in flurries, his eyes fixed on the gun. “The armies, yes…there are about a thousand, maybe more. We had no choice, you see. We couldn’t keep killing one another, and passions were running so high. We had to do something.”

  “Calm down,” said Debora. “Take your time.”

  “Is he going to shoot?”

  “You can never tell what he’s going to do,” she said. “Now what about these armies?”

  “They’re the damaged, the hopelessly damaged. The ones whose minds are almost gone.”

  “Damaged how?” Mingolla asked.

  “Damaged by people like you…like me. Their minds disrupted by too many interactions. You know. Like the people at your hotel in Roatán. Except these are even more deteriorated. They can barely feed themselves.” Their stares unnerved Ruy further. “We had no choice, don’t you see? If we didn’t use them, we’d be killing one another and there’d be no chance for a peace among us. We’re not proud of it, believe me! But it’s working. I swear it! There hasn’t been a battle in over a month.”

  “God,” said Debora.

  “We don’t give them guns,” said Ruy weakly. “No guns are permitted in Barrio Clarín.”

  “Gee, that’s swell of ya.” Mingolla sighted along the barrel at Ruy’s chest.

  Ruy’s voice broke. “Don’t do this.”

  The gun seemed to be getting heavy in Mingolla’s hand, and he was tempted to lighten it by a bullet. But Ruy had value alive. If they could hide their power from him, he would make a good witness when they reached Panama, would testify to Izaguirre and the rest that Mingolla and Debora were strong, but nothing that couldn’t be handled. Mingolla was surprised that he hadn’t argued more with Debora ag
ainst continuing their journey, and he realized that what was motivating him was anger at the Sotomayors and Madradonas. It puzzled him that he should give so much weight to anger, but the strength of the emotion was enough to satisfy him, to stifle the need for self-analysis.

  “I’m gonna let ya live, Ruy,” he said. “Happy?”

  Ruy maintained a hostile silence.

  “But we’re gonna pull your fangs.” He picked up Ruy’s rifle, cradled it under one arm. “No point in letting you run around armed and everything like you were an adult.”

  “You’ve…” Ruy stopped himself.

  “What say, man?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You thinking mean thoughts, Ruy. I can tell.” Mingolla nudged Ruy’s knee with the rifle barrel. “C’mon, man. Spit it out.”

  Ruy glared at him.

  “Well…” Mingolla came up into a crouch, letting the barrel drift back and forth across Ruy’s chest. “Anytime you feel the need to talk, don’t be bashful.” He put an arm around Debora. “Try to make it during the day, though, will ya? We keep pretty busy at night.”

  Following this conversation, the character of Ruy’s attentions toward Debora underwent a transformation. He took to favoring her with ardent stares and despondent looks, to scribbling poems in a notebook, to gazing listlessly at the scenery: the very image of lovesickness. It was as if in revealing his true nature, he was also revealing the sappy core of his passion. Nothing except Debora commanded his interest, and though Mingolla was grateful for Ruy’s lassitude, preferring it to his previous aggressiveness, he found that he could no longer count on him for assistance in negotiating the wilderness. Ruy responded to Mingolla in monosyllables or not at all, and even when they encountered serious obstacles—obstacles as the town of Tecolutla—he exhibited no concern, but merely shrugged off Mingolla’s questions and said he didn’t care what they did.

  Mingolla did not want to enter Tecolutla. Even from the pine ridge above it, he could sense an ominous air to the place, one that the view through his binoculars did nothing to dispel. It was big for a high-country town, sprawling across the saddle between two hills, lorded over by a cathedral of crumbling gray stone with tilted vine-draped bell towers that had the look of vegetable chessmen whose board was in the process of being overthrown. The other buildings, the houses and shops, were not so imposing, but were equally ruinous, charred and broken and fettered with creepers, and under the thin mist that covered the valley, the town appeared insubstantial, to be either fading in or out of existence.

  “Ain’t no way ’round it,” said Tully. “Anyhow, we might find us some gas down dere.”

  “I don’t see any movement.” Debora lowered her binoculars. “It’s probably deserted.”

  “Y’ever here before?” Mingolla asked the question of all of them.

  “It’s an Indian market town.” Corazon nodded at Debora. “She’s probably right. I doubt anyone’s livin’ there. When the Indians abandon a place, they rarely come back.”

  “Okay,” said Mingolla. “Let’s try it.”

  They made two passes through the town before risking a stop; they roared down the empty streets, guns poked from the windows, the engine of the Bronco sounding incredibly loud in the stillness. Finally they pulled up to the cathedral, which fronted a shattered fountain in the main square. The doors of the cathedral were massive, cracked open a foot, the wood dark and studded with iron like the door of an ancient prison, as if the Catholic God were something to be kept under restraint. The square was cobbled, weeds protruding from breaks in the stone, and facing the church was a pink stucco cake of a hotel on whose facade was written in circus-style letters HOTEL CANCION DE LAS MONTANAS. Some rusted tables and shredded umbrellas sat out front, the remains of a sidewalk café.

  “Sometimes dese hotels got generators,” Tully said. “Might be some gas lyin’ ’round in dere.”

  Judging by the sumptuous rags of the draperies, the size of the reception desk, the silvercloth stripe visible in the moss-furred wallpaper, the hotel must have catered to the wealthy, but now it was tenanted only by lizards and insects. Thousands of slitherings stilled when they entered the lobby; their footsteps shook down falls of plaster dust. As they walked along a hallway past an elevator shaft choked with epiphytes, Mingolla turned to say something to Tully and saw that Corazon was missing. He asked where she was, but Tully hadn’t noticed her absence and had no idea.

  “I’ll fetch her,” he said.

  “No, I’ll do it.” Mingolla started toward the entrance, but Tully caught hold of him.

  “What’s de matter, mon? She likely just wanderin’.”

  “Maybe,” said Mingolla.

  “You can trust her,” Tully said.

  “Who says I don’t?”

  “Your face sayin’ it, mon.”

  Mingolla pulled away from Tully. “I’ll check it out. You keep looking for gas.”

  “She ain’t up to not’in’!” Tully said, but Mingolla just waved and sprinted back out into the square. Corazon was standing by the cathedral doors, peeking inside. He called to her, and she jumped.

  “You scare me,” she said as he came up.

  “What’re you doing sneaking off like that?”

  “I wanna look in the church.”

  The rose in her eye seemed to him—as it had in the past—a Sotomayor signature, a clever advertisement of power and folly. “Who are you?” he asked.

  “Nobody.”

  “I’m not interested in your goddamn philosophy. I wanna know what you’re doing…who you’re working for.”

  She stared at him deadpan.

  “I don’t trust you,” he said. “So you better talk to me.”

  “You wanna know somethin’,” she said, “why don’t you just look inside me? You strong enough to do what you want.”

  “I’ve already done that.”

  She looked startled.

  “Back on the boat,” he said. “I checked you out a coupla times. You seem okay. But there could be things hidden inside you I can’t get at. Traps. Commands. Things you don’t even know about.”

  “Well, if I don’t know ’bout ’em, I can’t help you.” She pushed the door wider. “I’m goin’ in.”

  He followed her into the nave, and they stood facing each other beside a stone baptismal font. In the half-light the rose appeared to be hovering deep within her skull, and the tip of her braid, hanging off the side of one shoulder, looked to have vanished in inky shadow. “So tell me ’bout yourself,” he said.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I ain’t doin’ nothin’ to Tully.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Just livin’.”

  Mingolla considered her minimalist nature, compared her to Nate and Don Julio and Amalia. It was quite possible that she was like them, a broken toy, and the fact that she professed minimalism as a policy would be just the sort of twist Izaguirre liked to employ in his creations. But he couldn’t be sure, and he was still hampered by morality in his judgments; he couldn’t act upon mere suspicion, especially where Tully’s woman was concerned.

  Corazon pushed through the inner doors, and Mingolla hurried after her, gagging on a thick fecal odor. Sounds of grunting, clucking. He started to ask Corazon another question, but then noticed that the altar was illuminated by four candelabras: an island of light floating in a black void, centered by a filigreed silver cross big enough upon which to crucify an infant. Wings whirred above their heads, and from behind them came an echoing boom, the sound of the outer doors closing and being bolted. The scrape of a shoe on rough stone somewhere near, and someone tried to snatch Mingolla’s rifle. He wrenched it free, heard footsteps pattering off, and ducked behind a pew. Probing the dark, he contacted a number of minds. Maybe a dozen. He could have stunned them, but was unwilling to show his hand in front of Corazon. He fired a round into the air.

  “Don’t!” Corazon pulled at the rifle. “There’s nothin’ bad in here. I can feel it.”


  He shook her off, fired another round high. “I want lights in here!” he shouted. “Or I’ll blow your butts away!”

  “Please!” said Corazon. “Don’t you feel it! Nothin’ dangerous here.”

  “Don’t shoot!” A man’s voice speaking in English from somewhere near the altar.

  “Then put on the damn lights!”

  “All right, all right…just a minute!”

  …David…

  Debora’s voice in his mind.

  …I’m okay…stay back…

  …what’s going on…

  …I don’t know yet…

  …David!…

  …just hang on…

  “Hurry up with those lights!” Mingolla called.

  “Wait a second, will ya!”

  The man’s voice, Mingolla realized, was American…and not just American. It had a distinct New York City accent.

  Dim yellow light flooded the church from fixtures along the walls, leaving the vaulted ceiling in shadow, and though Mingolla had expected to see something unusual, he wasn’t prepared for the extraordinary dilapidation of the church. Straw matting the floors, piles of animal waste, bird droppings speckling the pews. Swallows made looping flights overhead, swooping between the massive buttresses, flaring in the lights and vanishing. Two pigs were curled up in the center aisle, a black rooster was pecking at a dirt-filled seam between stones, and a goat was wandering along the altar rail. No one was in sight, but Mingolla could sense them hiding among the pews.

  “Jesus!” said Corazon.

  A priest in a black cassock came out of the entrance to a side altar some twenty yards away in the east wall, and approached them hesitantly. Skinny, with gray shoulder-length hair. He was one of the oddest-looking men Mingolla had ever seen. His features were firmly fleshed, youthful, yet his skin had the wrinkles and folds of someone in his sixties: like an actor made up to play an old man. He wore a necklace of white stones on which symbols had been scratched, and he fingered this as he might have a rosary.

  “Please,” he said. “You can’t stay here.”

  Mingolla gestured toward the pews with his rifle. “Tell the others to stand up.”