Cradle of Splendor

by Patricia Anthony

  Cold fear warmed to simmering irritation. Roger’s head throbbed, the aftermath of the previous night’s cachaça. His back was stiff from spending the night passed out on Flavio’s hardwood floor. The F of his “Fuck” was a violent, bespittled aspirant; the U a groan of exasperation.

  Silent panic. One man waved his hands wildly. The fat one held up a Bullwinkle Sketch—A—Lot. Roger squinted to bring the message into focus.

  HOSE IS BUG!!!!

  “What?”

  The thinner man crumpled in Marcel Marceau despair. Fatty frantically erased his Sketch—A—Lot, and printed in huge, clumsy letters:

  CIA BUG HOSE!

  “CIA—?”

  And Fatty shot his own brains out with an imaginary pistol.

  WE MUFON, ESTUPID!

  They waved Roger outside. Once on the brick patio, they took off their masks. Older than Roger had thought. Marcel Marceau was bald; Fatty’s graying sweat—damp hair stood up in spikes. They looked tired and hot and annoyed.

  “You was gone all night. We think they kill you,” Marcel grumbled.

  “You suppose to call!” Fatty clapped palm to forehead in frustration. “Jerry promise you call.”

  “Jerry?”

  “Shhh.”

  “Directionals.” Marcel screwed a forefinger and thumb into his ear, cupped his other hand into a dish, and scanned it across the dusty yard.

  “Jerry,” Fatty said. “Tucson conference. Talk about Gulf Breeze.”

  “Who are you guys?”

  Marcel Marceau shook his head, tapped his lips with a forefinger.

  Fatty translated: “No names.”

  Roger looked around the empty drive. The autumn sun’s glare made his eyes water. “How’d you get here?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Walk. From Savio and Irací house.” Fatty pointed east. “Neighbors see police. They—” He rolled his eyes. “Puxa vida! Qué merda, esta Inglês! They call attention? Dolores maid. And maid, she ...” Fatty’s English ground to a halt.

  “She ...” Marcel’s gaze wandered the sky in a search for vocabulary. “ ... get from town ...”

  “Hey, guys?” Roger said in Portuguese. “You don’t have to speak English.”

  A pause for thanksgiving, then:

  “We were scared to contact you—”

  “The CIA! But the people in Houston told us you were reliable. They said the CIA must have put pressure—”

  “They have been following you closely. At least until today. It has been difficult for us to—”

  “Jerry told us—

  “Jerry! A genius! He predicted everything. He would travel to Rio once a year—”

  “That’s how we met him.”

  “He said when they finally landed, it would be here.”

  A smug grin from Fatty. “Our Air Force did not bother them.”

  Marcel grabbed Roger’s arm so hard it hurt. He leaned forward. “Your military wants to shoot one down.”

  Roger tried to pull away. “I’ve been out to Cabeceiras. I’ve seen those things. The technology is light years ahead of ours. We don’t have weaponry good enough for that.

  “Yes? What about Roswell? What about Aztec?”

  “Grow up, man. There aren’t any bodies in Hangar Eighteen. Roswell was a weather balloon and Aztec never happened.”

  “Are you that stupid? You believe everything they tell you?”

  “Hey.” Roger shoved Marcel in the chest. The man stumbled backward but held on, his fingers digging into Roger’s arm. “Who qualifies here as the dumbass? I’m with NASA. I’ve been to Dreamland. I know what the military has and what it doesn’t. I’ve seen the fucking inventory, man, and every piece of weirdness we have comes from Brazil. The American military—”

  “Will kill anything that stands still.”

  “Hey.”

  “And they always shoot well. After all, they have the smart bombs, and war is only a game, neh? They killed thousands for oil. What do you think they would do for antigravity?”

  “Hey. You shut your fucking—”

  Marcel shook him. “I think you are lying to us. I think you are a CIA plant.”

  Fatty snapped, “Let him go!”

  Marcel stepped back, glaring. Roger retreated gingerly, palms out. He’d just remembered that the pair had guns. “Look, guys. Let’s chill. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know any Jerry.”

  “Oh?” Marcel’s eyebrows rose. “Then why did Jerry tell us he got in contact with Matt?”

  “Not Matt Nagel.”

  “Yes!” The tension left Fatty’s face. He beamed with relief, then turned to Marcel Marceau, who actually smiled. “Yes, Matt Nagel! So you talked to him? Jerry told us that if you have any questions, we are to tell you to call this Matt. He will verify everything.”

  “Matt Nagel died in a car accident three weeks ago.”

  Color drained from Fatty’s cheeks.

  Marcel said, “I cannot take any more,” and began walking fast down the driveway.

  A wave of panic washed over Roger. He wanted to tell Marcel Marceau he was full of shit. He wanted to fall on his knees and beg him for help. Jesus, he wanted to catch the next flight home.

  Fatty dug in his pocket, came up with a slip of paper, pressed it into Roger’s hand. “You must memorize that number, then burn it.”

  “What’s he talking about, he can’t take any more?”

  “Eighteen MUFON investigators have died in the past six weeks. Please. There is not much time left, Dr. Lintenberg. Call us when you find out something, and we will get the word out.”

  “Word of what?”

  Fatty started after his friend, then turned to look back. “America plans to go to war with the aliens. And I tell you this: you may be familiar with your country’s arsenal, but I have seen alien weapons. America will lose.”

  * * *

  Edson walked across the hangar, his footsteps loud against the polished floor. He walked until the gaping Door of the chamber stopped him.

  Ridiculous to think it could be seen. Emptiness was so private it could only be felt. He drank from the bottle of Dewar’s and contemplated the spot on the floor where darkness squeezed out the light.

  Emptiness felt like gravity. He had met it first in the mountains. It was what threatened to suck him down when he stood too near the abyss.

  He craned forward, listening for voices and hearing none—not even Dr. Lizette’s amorous croons to her Donato. So Edson sang a love song for her into the steel—walled chamber. “They died of thi—i—irst, my cattle ...” The cottony gloom absorbed sound. “Died of thi—i—irst, my heart.”

  Was that right? “Asa Branca” was such an old song—he couldn’t have forgotten the words. Coração. Sertão. Heart or land? Certainly he loved the land—he’d killed for it. He loved Brazil so much he stepped over the brink.

  Edson had been born near Diamantina. Shoeless, he’d walked the clay roads of Minas, tending his father’s lyre—horned cattle. He’d been raised to live the sun—scorched life of a caipira, so Edson knew that one day the land would dry him to bone.

  And would God welcome him when he arose, soul parched and weightless? Edson wanted to believe in Ana’s all—forgiving spirits, but lately when he thought of God he couldn’t imagine a form at all. He saw instead that emptiness inside thick—walled, baroque churches. God was chill, heavy with damp. He smelled of candles and stone and incense. His voice was merely echo.

  This time it was whiskey that made Edson step over the edge and into the chamber. His eyes searched the dark. The inside was as dim as God, but smelled of nothing.

  Where ... The word wriggled past, and was gone. Edson took another step and was suddenly caught up in a teeming school of murmurs.

  ... go home, want so bad to ...

  ... was a
teacher once.

  Dark here ...

  Please. Can you see where I am?

  He stretched his arms wide, but he wasn’t substantial enough to catch them. The babble flashed by, quick and bright. “Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you anymore.”

  A whisper flicked near his cheek, barely stirring the thick air. Where? ... can’t see ...

  He said, “Touch me.”

  A current nudged his fingers, slithered through.

  Then something caught him, jerked him toward the light. The Dewar’s bottle dropped endlessly. Edson stumbled backward and fell. Kept falling. He watched himself, jacket billowing, body tumbling, growing small, smaller.

  Someone was calling his name. The lights in the ceiling were bright. “Sir?” Muller’s face was close to his.

  Time to awaken now. Past time to stop falling. He had to tell Muller. It was the most important news in the world.

  Muller helped him to sit up. “What were you doing in there, sir? You all right?”

  Edson scrubbed his hands over his face. So short a time ago, yet he couldn’t quite remember.

  “I have the videotape you asked for. And some bad news. The São Paulo police overreacted to the demonstrations. It’s pretty bloody.”

  “Um. How many killed?”

  “No word from the hospitals yet. Are you sure you’re all right? They said you were in the hangar, and I didn’t see you. Then I looked inside the chamber, and you were just standing there. Just standing. What were you doing?”

  Glass shards from the Dewar’s bottle sparkled in the shadows beyond the door.

  “Sir?”

  “It isn’t what I thought. They are right by the doorway.” Late afternoon of a long day, and the whiskey was getting to him. Edson’s eyelids felt heavy, his forehead felt packed with sand. “Take me to Alvorada.”

  “Alvorada, sir? But it’s only three o’clock. I’m sure the president will be in her office—”

  “No. I want to talk to Freitas.”

  The agent helped him to his feet, led him outside, put him in the Mercedes.

  Edson reclined the leather seat and closed his eyes against the afternoon sun. The heat was stupefying, and he found himself drifting off. Falling.

  He roused himself. “Muller? Wake me up when we arrive.” The car door shut with a quiet, understated sound. The engine started with a roar. Edson loosened his grip on consciousness, embraced oblivion, and let himself go.

  * * *

  Hiroshi had seen the gaudy temple. Had been greeted by mystics dressed in silly costumes. Vale do Amanhacer was poor, crude, and pathetic. And even though it wasn’t a day for public visits, everyone in the Valley was gracious. And they oh—so politely avoided answering his questions about the president’s friend.

  He ate a late lunch at the larger of the town’s two restaurants, and started back to his car. A block later, he realized a young boy was trotting at his side. “She says she wants to talk to you.”

  Hiroshi stopped at his Honda’s fender and looked around. The town napped under a thin blanket of dust. Windows and doors gaped, open—mouthed and snoring. A dog, comatose or dead, sprawled in the shadows of an overhang. “Who?”

  “Mãe Xuli. She can call the spirits of Bispo de Pardá and Preto Velho. She said, ‘Go out into the streets,’ she told me. ‘And you will find a man who is lost.’”

  Exhaustion hummed through Hiroshi’s body, buzzed through his brain. It took him three tries to slot the key in the door lock, and he wondered if it was safe for him to drive home. “I’m not lost.”

  “You’re the only person in the street, so you must be lost.”

  “Go away now.” Hiroshi fished in his pants pocket for change, came up empty.

  The boy tugged on Hiroshi’s sleeve. “She says to tell you, Samurai.”

  A bluebottle fly landed near Hiroshi’s half—open mouth. He absently batted it away.

  “Did I say it right? Samurai? What kind of stupid foreign word is that?”

  Hiroshi relocked his Honda. “Take me to her,” he said.

  Nothing moved in the small town but Hiroshi and the boy, and they walked wordlessly. A flaxen haze of dust shimmered in the late afternoon. Sun gilded the cottages, flooded the streets with gold. The pair walked until town ended and wide desert began. At the last house, the boy entered. In the kitchen an enormous woman with skin like the hull of a Brazil nut was stirring a pot of black beans.

  The boy stopped behind her. Hiroshi stopped with him. Xuli didn’t look around. Her voice was laconic, her Portuguese musical Bahian. “Samurai. I been told to make you welcome.”

  Careful. He mustn’t let his imagination run away. Of course she didn’t need eyes in the back of her head to know that Hiroshi had arrived. The boy was barefoot. She’d heard the click of shoe heels. But “Samurai.” That was daring.

  “Maria Bonita comes to me three nights ago,” Xuli said. “Since then, she pulls my hair. She won’t leave me be, and it’s your fault.” The beans steamed their disapproval, perfuming the small kitchen with garlic and bay leaves.

  Hiroshi smiled, and decided to prove that he, too, could tell the future. “How much for a reading?”

  She whirled so fast that he backpedaled. “Jackass! Slant—eyed clown! I don’t know what Maria Bonita sees in you, but she tells me to throw the búzios. I can’t charge. You want her to snatch me bald?” Xuli wiped her hands on a dishtowel and left the room.

  Hiroshi wasn’t sure he should follow. The boy stayed, so he did as well.

  Rustles from the neighboring room. A thump. “Here!” Xuli called.

  Hiroshi pushed aside a flowered curtain. Xuli was seated cross—legged on the living room floor, a white towel spread within her reach. She grumbled, “Lucky for you this is Thursday. The búzios speak clearer on Thursday. Still, ô.” With a fingertip, she pulled her lower eyelid down. “Watch yourself. Don’t believe everything. I don’t throw the bûzios for years. Hurts my knees, but what does the bitch care? She was young when she disincarnated, so. Sit! Sit!”

  He sat on the floor across from her. The afternoon was so silent he could hear a one—note drone of fatigue in his head. The living room was ripe with foreign odors: cooking beans, the ghost of old incense, Xuli’s pungent sweat.

  A flick of leathery hands. Shells tumbled to the towel. She grunted. “Your orixá is Oxum. Serve him at rivers and waterfalls. Around here in autumn always use a stream; in winter you can make do with a fountain. Oxum likes mirrors and aftershave lotion and earrings. Make sure they’re expensive, mind. Oxum, he’s a vain little prick. You settle things with Exú first, then he calls Oxum for you. A little cachaça, some cigarettes, that’s what Exú likes. Better get all the gods on your side, ’cause you fighting a powerful hex. Quimbanda.” She raised her head. Her eyes were amber beads. “Somebody done told you.”

  He kept his face impassive. “Maybe.”

  Her eyes swept over the pattern of shells. “So. You don’t like that? I tell you something else: you go off on your own, pô. Since you’re a little boy, you dream of this. But now you living this dream, and it’s not how you thought. Little Samurai don’t like being lonely.”

  Hiroshi went cold.

  “Something scare you bad. Fear keep you up at night. Can’t tell your friends, neither. And búzios say you need to be afraid, ’cause this enemy of yours, he make a bad trabalho against you. He killed the goat and brought you the gift of blood.”

  He sucked in a breath. The long muscle in his leg went out of control, began a galvanic, crazed tic. The drone of exhaustion crescendoed.

  “You know this enemy.”

  “Yes.” He caught himself. “I’m not sure. But I have been told the president’s friend is a medium.”

  She laughed. A gold incisor flashed. “Henrique Freitas? That lily—white Kardeckian Spiritist? Our Father No Salt—No Meat
—No Fun? Freitas, he take out cancers with his fingers. He straighten bones with his hands. No, little one. Doctor Singh comes through Freitas, and he don’t have time for no low spirits. You, now. You got three enemies. One is black, and he destroys for love. One is white, and he destroys for pleasure. One is brown, and he destroys for envy.” She jerked her head toward the door. Her chins quivered. “You go.”

  “But ...”

  “Can’t read no more. My knee hurts. You come back some other day, I tell you more.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Can’t throw no búzios on Friday. Monday, neither. You buy a figa. Wear it. Funny. Your hands are soft like you work in an office, but the búzios say there is danger, like a construction worker who walks the high girders. This make sense to you?”

  He nodded.

  “Huh. Well, even with the figa, there be danger of the evil eye. When you at work, don’t look at nobody face—to—face, mind. ’Cause somebody there at work stole something of yours. And he got power over you now.”

  * * *

  Muller woke him so gently that Edson came to consciousness still befuddled by sleep.

  What was this place? Edson rubbed his eyes. He was in the car, that much he knew. When the power seat lifted into upright position, Edson recognized the underground parking area. The residence of the president: Palácio da Alvorada.

  “Sir? On the way here, São Paulo called again. The story is already out on CNN. Three dead, one a woman. The president is still in her office, and I expect she will be there for some time. I understand from the guards, sir, that Pastor Freitas is in his bedroom.”

  The confusion must have shown in his face, because Muller said, “Was I wrong to bring you to here?”

  Something bright. Slippery. Almost ... The thought darted from his grasp, minnow—quick. Then: “Yes. I remember! They were still in there. Right near the doorway.”