by Todd Grimson
He was on his way to visit the retired professor of Mesoamerican history (and advisor to the national museum) Saturnino Ortiz. Ariel had been in the city three days, had talked to several historians and antique dealers—if anyone would know anything about it, several agreed, it would be Ortiz. It had been difficult, however, to arrange to see the man. Saturnino Ortiz was eighty-four years old, and (this from his housekeeper) singularly uninterested in strangers by this time. No, he was in reasonably good health for a man his age. But he had been pestered by dumb questions long enough. Let some of these people just open a book.
And so Ariel saw no alternative. On the phone with the housekeeper, who did not sound mean or completely unsympathetic—his instinct was to tell her everything he knew, throw himself on her mercy—he said he was employed by a client who was looking
desperately for an albino jaguar skin that might be several hundred years old. He didn’t know the whole story, he confessed, but the client’s daughter was somehow in trouble, something was wrong, and it was hoped that finding out if this jaguar skin existed … well, no, he didn’t understand it, they hadn’t told him the whole thing.
Hours later, the housekeeper (Señora Ramirez) called him at the hotel and said the professor would see him tomorrow at three o’clock in the afternoon. He should not be late. Ortiz had put up with enough tardiness in his time to have little tolerance for it now, when he could determine his own rules.
The day was cloudy. On the street, some children had set up a kind of puppet theater, starring toy skeletons with articulated limbs. The children chattered conspiratorially, their voices intermingled with the sounds of chickens and dogs. Ariel saw a motionless lizard on a rock.
Near the end of the Mayans’ hegemony, they began carving, in stone, what are referred to as zoomorphs—strange, unknown animals, monsters, griffonlike creatures, mixtures of several animals in one beast. In the last few years of the empire, they had seen monsters. A clue, surely, to what might have been going on in the collective psyche.
Monsters, he mused, as he crossed a plaza toward the professor’s address. Two fair-haired tourists, probably Americans, with cameras, good-looking, reminded him of something that had happened in the countryside near here. To the local Indians, red or blond hair is a sign that one is a devil. Two Dutch archaeologists had been working, digging in a special field, on a holy day, and twice refused offers of food or something to drink. Devils do not eat or drink. The Dutchmen, unable to express themselves well in the local tongue, kept on smiling and shaking their fair-haired heads. So they were murdered, with knives. The Indians, when brought to trial, were found not guilty. They had believed that they were killing devils. They’d acted in good faith.
The housekeeper was very ugly, but pleasant. For some reason she seemed to welcome this intrusion. Perhaps retired Professor Ortiz had been spending too much time alone. Into the parlor, and coffee with hot milk. Saturnino Ortiz sized him up, nodded impatiently as Ariel explained his mission, and then began talking, in such a way that it was not immediately apparent whether he was being responsive … but Ariel knew how to listen, and how to wait.
Ortiz had a histrionic manner, at least part of the time. He would slip into it, as if delivering his discourse before an attentive classroom, eyes far away … then coming back to Mendoza’s face, making sure he was listening, lowering his voice.
He began with jaguars and jaguar-gods. Some general information on jaguars: how they differed from African lions, Bengal tigers, and other feline carnivores. Albino specimens were, he said, extremely rare.
“You’ve heard of Pedro de Alvarado? The most notoriously bloodthirsty of that first wave of conquistadors…. After the Aztecs were conquered, Cortes sent him down to Guatemala, where he killed and tortured indiscriminately, rapaciously looking for gold … always the gold. In 1533 he went to Quito, taking five hundred Spaniards and two thousand Indian and Negro slaves. None of the slaves lived to return. In 1541 Alvarado went north from Mexico, looking for the seven cities of Cibola … and finally died, falling from his horse on rough terrain.”
Ariel waited. It was possible Ortiz knew nothing pertinent. Ariel was patient, enjoying the coffee and the cookies, which, coated in powdered sugar, reminded him of tasty little skulls.
“Alvarado had a friend,” Saturnino Ortiz said. “This fellow— Orestes de Fontana—had the reputation, early on, of being very devout. He had an innocent air about him, some of the others thought he should have been a monk. He came to Guatemala after it was largely pacified, though there were constant problems with slave rebellions and the like. Since the Indians were not Christian, they were not human, so they had no souls. Orestes de Fontana was influenced, one might say, by his friendship with Alvarado. Who can imagine the conversations they must have had?
“In any case, it is mentioned in a letter of the time that in 1535 or so, Fontana came into possession of a very large white jaguar skin … it’s not clear whether he himself actually killed the beast. He had by this time picked up Alvarado’s habit of invading villages and massacring nearly everyone present, torturing the survivors to see if they knew where to find more gold. In this manner, he accumulated a lot of miscellaneous goods, including jade figurines, Mayan codexes—which, as a good Christian, he burned—and a large number of slaves. But evidently he differed from other, garden-variety conquistadors in that his mayhem gradually took on a more demonic flavor … there are documents that are locked up in the Vatican library … as Fontana, ah … gave himself over to the dark powers.”
“What do you mean?”
“He evidently came to believe—it’s said he formed an alliance with some renegade Mayan priest, who convinced him that by sacrificing children he could achieve magical powers, so that he would be led to the legendary El Dorado and be acclaimed there as their king. It was also necessary, apparently, to acquire a quantity of Spanish heads— enough to erect a small pyramid, atop which he would enact his final sacrifice … however, he was stopped before he could carry this plan out. The Indian accomplice escaped, and Fontana was judged to have been possessed by a demon. So they buried him alive, within an iron cage. Juan de Aparecido next came to own the white jaguar skin. We know this from the records of an auction some years later, after Aparecido had been murdered, poisoned, by his Indian concubine. A fellow named Arturo de Silveira purchased it—paying the money to the church—and departed, stopping in Hispaniola on his way back to Spain. But the ship was attacked by Dutch pirates, led by Lars Morning, who took the booty to Rotterdam, where the skin was auctioned again. Thereafter, it passed into oblivion for some two hundred years.
“But in Mexico, in 1802 Don Carlos de Bienvenida, a great landowner, one of the family who repeatedly helped put down the Tabasco Indians … Don Carlos had a large couch, made by a fine Italian furniture maker, the famed Pietro Volponi… and this couch was upholstered with a beautiful white jaguar skin. Now Don Carlos came to an untimely death, trampled by horses, and, as he had no heir, the church took over the hacienda. Bishop Quiroga gave the couch as a gift to Maximilian, the unlucky one, who in short order passed it on to Sebastian Velasco de Nunez. And I believe it’s been in the possession of the Vélaseos ever since. They’ve had some reverses in the last twenty years, so nothing is certain. But you, Señor Mendoza, are fortunate in having come to me. I have not taken a special interest in this skin, yet I have noted it, as I have noted many other little things. I could give you an educated guess, for instance, as to what became of Cortés’s sword.”
Ariel flattered the old man’s memory and let Saturnino Ortiz entertain him with other, perhaps more often told, historical anecdotes. Professor Ortiz, finding a worthy audience, brought out a painstaking copy of one of the three surviving Mayan codexes—which Ariel was truly interested to see—and translated the hieroglyphs as well as he could. When the housekeeper came in to remind the professor of his siesta, Ariel was, far from being bored, sorry to have to leave.
Ortiz asked him if he would promise to t
ell him the outcome of the quest, by letter or by phone, or in person if he passed this way again, and Ariel said yes, he would let him know.
There was no guarantee that the couch still existed, none at all, but Lorenzo Velasco, in Guadalajara, was the one to ask.
Later, over a simple meal of tapado and a green salad, Ariel contemplated the story he had been told by Ortiz. It had come so easily, the old man could have had it rehearsed. This hypothesis didn’t make any particular sense, but then, Ariel knew that he was far from knowing all the relevant facts. Indeed, he had not even been provided with a clear rationale for the Novas’ odd quest. The story Ortiz had related might be true, or not. It did arouse his suspicious nature to have it all lead so patly to one man, this Lorenzo Velasco. Ariel would approach him with great care.
In the meantime, he smoked a cigarette, drank brandy, and considered whether or not it would be worth the trouble to have a whore sent to his room. Dr. Nova’s expense account, under “miscellaneous services,” would pay. But no, he wasn’t really in the mood. In Guadalajara, he’d see. He’d been there once before.
In the darkness of his bed, Ariel plumped up his pillow. He was having a hard time getting to sleep. There was a bar nearby, and although it wasn’t noisy, from time to time there was audible, flirtatious conversation before the people walked off or drove away. Ariel took another big swig of sweet thick red codeine cough syrup. He didn’t have a cough, but he was in the habit of helping himself fall into sleep. By doing so he usually obliterated the possibility of a lurid, awful nightmare … or, for that matter, any other kind of dream.
FOURTEEN
Lisa shuddered. It was spooky, the constant drumbeats drove one a little wild, it was impossible not to sway, to move, to feel it take one over a bit, the regularity of the polyrhythms disrupted with the master drummer’s emphatic blow, never quite when you expected it, just when your body thought it had comprehended the rhythm it changed, slightly but significantly, the repetition was important, sound waves going through your muscles, your nervous system, meat, tense and relax, you could not help but react.
There were several hundred candles burning, and the black umbanda priest, red and gold beads around his neck, danced around the tethered young white goat. The air smelled of some particularly fragrant, complicated mixture of rum, sweat, and big bags of fresh popcorn. They were near the beach, in early evening, shadows in purple shapes beginning to form, colors changing against the illumination of all these flickering, waving little flames.
Lisa wore a white dress: A black blindfold was tied over her eyes. There were many representations of the saints, the transformed African gods. The beats were too swift and sure to be counted or sorted into time signatures … the priest beat on an iron bell with a carved heavy stick, playing off the beat, behind it, the offbeat only complicating and talking to the central rolling surge. Layers of unstoppable wood, skin, stretched skin accelerating sonic hieroglyphs—as Lisa nodded, the priest was speaking to her, his sparse graying beard and yellow teeth, his yellow eyes, speaking into her ear as she took into her hand, still blindfolded, the sacred knife. The priest showed her the way, and she made one introductory ritual slice into the neck. The goat was screaming, struggling, kicking, feet tied together, Lisa’s blindfold fell off as the animal was raised by two strong shirtless young black men over Lisa’s head. The cut had been widened and the blood flowed freely, dark and bright bright red, like flowers, onto Lisa’s head and down over her face, as she gasped and closed her eyes, the red staining the pure white cotton of the dress.
She raised her hands up then, as if in ecstasy, opening her eyes, uttering something—when suddenly the two fellows wielding the sacrificed goat were flung backward, simultaneously, as the goat carcass flew violently at the priest, knocking him over. The priest seemed then to be lifted up bodily and thrown down onto the ground, levitated involuntarily and then dropped yet again, as the drumming continued, now mingled with women screaming, disorder ensuing. The priest was lifted up high and thrown down once more, bruised and bleeding, and the crowd began to scatter. Tavinho, who had been watching, forced his way toward Lisa, who was transfixed. Gazing at her hands, or her fingers. The bloody white matted fur of the goat began smoking, smoldering, twitching, even as several birds fell from the sky, one or two at a time, just falling, apparently struck dead in midair. Birds just kept falling down from the sky.
At last the master drummer sought to halt his demon-possessed disciples … and Lisa sprinted away, barefoot, across the white sand to the blue-green foamy sea. She wasn’t running from Tavinho, he was sure of that, and so he went after her, as she ran she stripped off the stained white dress with its delicate stitching, throwing it down as it burst into orange flames.
Into the surf, she was nude now, cooling herself in the saline waters, ducking under to wash away the blood. When Tavinho caught up with her she was wild-eyed, she didn’t know him, he held her and, soaking wet, newborn in the sea, she wept, her face completely naked, more naked than he had ever known, she could hardly speak, shivering, she cried, “Look!” and showed Tavinho her hands.
On the back of each finger was tattooed a letter. The right hand (burning cross on the arm) spelled L-O-V-E. The left (jaguar on the bicep) said H-A-T-E. Tavinho understood that this had just happened, the dark blue ink was brand-new. Some bad magic had powerfully intervened, and the exorcism had been foiled.
FIFTEEN
The obvious allusion was a cinematic one, to Night of the Hunter, in which Robert Mitchum plays a demonically sleazy evil preacher, with H-A-T-E and L-O-V-E tattooed on his fingers in the same manner that Lisa now possessed. Obviously, also, many Hell’s Angels and other bikers had the same design, as well as maybe some of the transformed zombies, so one could not be sure exactly what Boro meant, or if he meant for there to be any message at all outside of the message inscribed in the demonstration of his power and the fact that he was aware of what was going on so far away—assuming, that is, that he was still in Los Angeles … which, yes, Lisa assumed.
The other reference, just in her own head, and it hadn’t occurred to her as it was actually happening, but only later, picturing what had occurred—she thought of Carrie, when at the prom a bucket of blood is poured over Carrie’s head, how that had looked….
In the hotel room, after showering (unfortunately there was only lukewarm water at this time of day, but she made do) Lisa emerged, in a white terry-cloth robe, using another towel, still drying her hair. She thought she was comparatively calm about everything, although Isabel was still upset. The ceremony had been Isabel’s idea, after all. Tavinho … Lisa knew that he loved her, and he was gentle and
understanding, she was afraid if she allowed it to happen he would get hurt. She didn’t want to hurt him, maybe it would work out differently, but that was her first guess: that she would be responsible, and he would be hurt. He had learned of the purification ceremony somehow and followed them here. Knowing this now, Lisa thought his devotion was cool. She liked it that he cared.
Lisa had asked for coffee, with milk and sugar, and she poured herself some now, checking the backs of her fingers to see if the alien marks were still there. They were.
Isabel was on the phone to Sao Paulo, trying to get through to Dr. Nova, visibly rattled, trying to keep her composure with one underling after another … sending a meant-to-be-reassuring, uncertain smile to Lisa as the crazy stepdaughter sipped her sweetened coffee.
Lisa had known the dress was going to go up in flames, she’d had a prickly feeling on her back and between her shoulder blades, her breasts… she’d known it before the fabric even started to get warm. The dead birds falling from the sky had seemed inevitable, as natural and neutral as the rain that now poured down, steadily, not quite a monsoon, washing all the church spires and cobblestones and red tile roofs.
She felt modest, like a child, and like a child she had no volition or plan for the near future: Whatever she was told to do, she’d do. They would know best. The
ceremony hadn’t worked out so well, at least in its official goal, but on the other hand it had clarified some things, they could see it wasn’t all just her imagination, and so, despite the new, tangible signs of Boro’s power, she found some strange relief.
Tavinho came over to Lisa, and two black maids entered, bringing in trays of food. It was nine-thirty, and no one had had any supper. Isabel was irritably telling someone on the phone that she had to go. The maids regarded Lisa with something like kinship, an odd familiarity, mixed in with some horror and undisguised awe.
“Are you hungry?” Tavinho asked as Lisa got up to go put on some clothes, just a T-shirt and faded jeans. “No,” she said as she walked away, closing the door. She was ravenous.
Tavinho scored points by ignoring the contradictions, the perversity. He didn’t ask her, for instance, why in Rio she would never come to the phone after she’d been in jail, and Lisa noticed this forbearance, she saw that he wasn’t even thinking about any of that. They ate shrimp in coconut milk, with peanuts, and spicy fried bean patties called acaraje, and some kind of firm white-fleshed fish flavored with coriander and garlic. Everyone was soothed by the act of eating. Isabel and Solange were soon laughing about something, which Lisa missed. Tavinho asked her after a while, thoughtfully, licking his thumb clean of pimenta, “So tell me … how are these strange things that are happening to you affecting your view of the world?”
It was a good question; it made Lisa wonder how much he knew, and she threw him a penetrating glance. He seemed impervious.
Accordingly, she answered, “Oh well, it all comes in, it all goes out… it’s all material, you know. Experience.”
