Cradle of Splendor

by Patricia Anthony

  A loud knock. McNatt sprang out of his chair. Instantly, both guns were pointed at the door. McNatt peered out the window. Jerry opened the door a crack.

  “Help!” Roger screamed.

  Louder. And now. Now! McNatt was rushing toward him. At the door, Jerry turned.

  Roger gave it all he had. “Help me!”

  Then Jerry opened the door wider and this Oriental guy in a jogging suit sauntered in, his hands shoved in the pockets of his cotton jacket. McNatt abruptly relaxed.

  Oh. Not the Army after all. The CIA had sent Roger someone special.

  The guy looked at Roger. “Why is he handcuffed?”

  Wait. Not CIA. Too much sushi in that accent.

  “What are you doing here?” McNatt asked back.

  “Ah.” One of those Japanese half—bows. “I have been on assignment, and—”

  “I heard you were on sick leave.”

  Jerry closed the door, stepped behind the guy, neatly sandwiching him between two guns. Uh—oh. Some kinda weird shit going down.

  “Yes, Major. If I am on special assignment, that is what they would tell you. I was actually in Blumenau, tracking an old KGB agent. And when I returned—”

  McNatt’s brusque, “Why?”

  Mr. Cucumber Cool, that Japanese. He slumped into a chair, his hands still in his pockets. “To see if he knew something about the Disappeareds.”

  “Oh,” Jerry said. “Oh. Is this the guy, Mac? The one who got the Japanese’s shorts in a wad about the missing Brazilians?”

  “Who was the KGB agent you talked to?” McNatt asked.

  “Piehl.”

  “Right. Piehl.” McNatt was so blasé that Roger was sure he didn’t know Piehl for shit. “And what did you find out?”

  “Where is Kengo?” the Japanese asked.

  Whoa! So cool! The guy sat in his conversational bunker, lobbing questions at McNatt like grenades.

  McNatt: “Don’t you know’?”

  “Why should I know? I was in Blumenau, and I came back to find American paratroopers and attack helicopters. It is too dangerous to go to the embassy, and I cannot call. Your bombs brought down our secure system.”

  “What did you find out about the Disappeareds?” McNatt asked.

  The Japanese guy shrugged. “What I found was that I went to Kengo’s apartment and he had disappeared, too. It has been a long walk. Do you have something to drink?”

  A Pearl Harbor of a comeback.

  “They sent Kengo back to Japan.”

  “Yes?” The guy sighed tragically. Nodded. “Ah.”

  Jerry said, “You fucked up his career, man. And you royally screwed the Company’s rep, too.”

  “They believed you.” McNatt tucked his pistol into his waistband. He went to the refrigerator.

  Jerry laughed. “Hey. Someone who fucks Kengo’s rep totally can’t be all bad.” Then he was humming, this time so softly that Roger couldn’t pick out the tune.

  The Japanese could. “Very nice. One of my favorite songs.”

  Jerry spread his arms and assumed the serenade position. “What the —”

  The Japanese pointed at Jerry. Pop. Jerry fell. At the refrigerator, McNatt spun. His face. God, the shock in his face. Beer and glass hit the tile like bombs. He grabbed for his pistol. Too late. Pop. McNatt dropped to one knee, a red bloom on his white tee shirt. Pop. His head snapped back, spraying crimson.

  Before McNatt’s face hit the floor, Roger was already screaming. “Jesus Jesus Jesus!”

  The gun was barely larger than the Japanese guy’s fist. And the toy barrel was pointed at him.

  “Aw, please!” Roger cried. “I don’t know anything! I’m NASA! Not CIA! Not!”

  “I know,” the guy said. And lowered the gun to his lap.

  Roger couldn’t believe it. His mouth hung open, his lungs full of another scream.

  The Japanese leaned his head back against the rest. That’s when Roger noticed that the guy’s palms were bleeding.

  “Uh ...”

  He opened his eyes. Looked at Roger questioningly.

  “Have we, uh, met?”

  “No, Dr. Lintenberg. We have never met.”

  Aw, jeez. “You, a ... you’re a spy aren’t you? You’re a spy, too.”

  The guy sat up, put the gun on the kitchen table, wiped his hands with Jerry’s beer napkin. It came away soaked with red. There were deep cuts down the guy’s palms, like he had picked up knives the wrong way.

  The guy was bleeding a lot more than Jerry. There was only a quarter—sized spot of red at the center of Jerry’s chest. He didn’t look particularly dead, old Jerry didn’t, except for those empty eyes.

  McNatt, now—he looked so dead that Roger didn’t dare sneak more than quick glances at him. The head shot had drilled McNatt’s cheek, and then came bursting out the top of his skull, bringing brain and bone and hair with it. Jesus, To die like that. Almost embarrassing. One minute breathing. Gee, Roger. Thanks for calling me Doug. And the next minute you’re all over the refrigerator. All over the kitchen cabinets. All over ...

  “That was one of my favorite songs,” the guy said sadly.

  Shit. Not again.

  “Do you think the world needs love, Dr. Lintenberg?”

  Please. Oh, please. Not again. And the way the guy mangled the word ‘love.’ Roger would sooner cut out his own tongue than laugh. “Uh. Yeah. The two of us, say. One would like an alibi. And the other guy would just love a handcuff key ...”

  “Where is it?”

  “McNatt’s front pocket.”

  Just like that, the guy went and got it. He apologized for the blood that dripped on Roger as he unlocked the cuff, and Roger told him it was no big deal, no biggie at all. Then another helicopter went over, and Roger remembered the paratroopers, and he wondered where he was supposed to go, and what he was supposed to do next.

  When the guy started to leave, Roger realized that he was as scared of being lost and alone as he had been of being handcuffed with company.

  “Hey! Mr.—Uh, sir?” Roger said. “Wait up! Mind if I come with you? Just till I meet up with the Army or something? Hey, thanks. I appreciate that. Uh, just ... lemme get my stuff, okay?”

  * * *

  Hollow concussions of mortar fire. Hiroshi didn’t stop, didn’t bother to take cover in the empty streets. His fault. If he had killed Kengo as Xuli had ordered ...

  The American sounded out of breath. “Where we going?”

  There was no place left.

  “Wait a minute! Please? Just a minute! Jesus! You ever take a breather, or what?”

  Hiroshi glanced back. The American had stopped on the sidewalk. He was panting, hands braced on his thighs. His suitcase was scuffed and ragged along the side he had been dragging it.

  Distant mortar fire again. Hiroshi lifted his head. Nothing moved in the street but wind—buffeted branches: palms, jacarandas, almonds. The flagstone breezeway nearby reminded him of his own apartment building; but it was the sound of helicopters and small—arms fire that drew him. That is where he needed to go. Baka! You stupid. lf he had done things right, the invasion could have been prevented.

  “Oh, wait! Please, okay? I gotta get my passport. Just ...”

  The American left his suitcase open on the sidewalk, was shoving papers into his camera bag. He hurried to catch up. “I don’t want to be too much trouble, but you know? I mean, you know?”

  Hiroshi would die in battle. No one to trouble themselves, not for his sake. No one to perform kuyō for him, no one to offer spirit food or pour hydrangea tea. And then his soul would wander, and that would be best. He had been made so foreign that, if he returned home, family ghosts would not know him. Japanese spirits would think him a stranger. Besides, this way was easier. When dead, he could walk where he wished. Do what he wanted. Tra
velers incurred no shame.

  “Could you, uh, slow down, maybe just a little?” the American was asking. “If it’s not too much trouble or anything. I’m wiped out. What a vacation, huh? Captured by spies. See some flying saucers. Oh, man. And what great flying saucers. I fall in love with the president’s daughter. Yeah. Bonfim’s daughter—who, I kid you not; has the world’s greatest—looking ass. Then to top things off, a little icing on the cake, I do a revolution. Just wait till I get home—although, well, I guess I can’t talk about everything. And, oh. Hey. I won’t mention you. Hey. Count on that. Come on. ’Fess up. In there with McNatt the Weird and everything. I mean, right now, even as we speak, we could have been part of his dead body collection. Weren’t you just a teeny bit scared?”

  The dead don’t fear. And that was a good thing, too, for Hiroshi had nothing to live for. Oxalá did not accept him as The Warrior even after he had, with bowed head, asked the gods to save him. Even after he had filled himself to bursting, made himself sick, with Brazil.

  Baka.

  Hiroshi had been given two buns. The first he had stupidly thrown away. The second he had carelessly put in his pocket, and lost on the road.

  “So you think I’ll get in trouble with the Army? Maybe I shouldn’t tell them anything, right? Although I don’t guess the CIA’s going to buy that I killed McNatt. Me? Do McNatt? Store him in the closet. Keep a leg hung on my mirror to remember him by.”

  A helicopter growled in the distance. South. All the tumult was south, by the airport. He walked faster.

  Around the corner, the American still chattering. Odd. There were people on the next block. A crowd of women. Ribbons trailed loose on their wrists, red and purple and blue.

  “Wow,” the American said. “Cool.” He dug in the camera bag, brought out a Canon AE1. A camera flash. Some of the women looked startled.

  Then Hiroshi was swept up by the crowd and pushed toward the mouth of a nearby plaza, all individuality absorbed. The jostle soothed him.

  “Excuse me,” the American was saying, behind him. “Excuse me, ma’am. Hey, lady? Coming through.”

  Something nearby was burning, and Hiroshi let himself be assimilated by the smoke, by the movement. The sound of mortar fire was louder, the wind black.

  “Mega—cool,” the American said as he came up alongside. He snapped another picture. “Good news. Here come the Marines.”

  Through a screen of smoke, soldiers, and the firecracker pop of gunfire, so harmless—sounding that everyone stopped as if to listen. Then, in the quiet of the tree—shaded plaza, screams. And the women started to fall.

  Hiroshi gave himself to it: the shouts, the cries, the clatter of people running. It was over quickly; and when it ended only Hiroshi was left standing.

  It was quiet but for the soft mewling of the wounded. Blood splattered the decorative planters, dripped off the stone benches. Amid the flagstone field of bodies lay the debris of curtailed life: purses, string shopping sacks. The breeze blew smoke into Hiroshi’s face, and made ribbons on dead wrists flutter.

  Beside him the American engineer lay, clutching his belly. His eyes were wide. He was trying to speak.

  Hiroshi bent down.

  “Oh, man,” the American whispered. Blood pumped from between his fingers, pooled thick on the flagstones. “It’s—it’s ...”

  The American had dropped his camera. Hiroshi picked it up. The American grabbed Hiroshi’s pants leg and held on.

  “I will bring it back,” he promised, but the grip didn’t loosen. In the end, Hiroshi had to pull himself free.

  Across the plaza, camera held high. The platoon of soldiers milled, confused, at the other end. A shout—the lieutenant ordering them to leave. At the camera flash, three of them turned and raised their guns.

  “The people had no weapons!” Hiroshi told them. “I see! I see what you have done!”

  He was very close, shoving the camera into their faces. They were younger than he had thought. And scared. “I see you. You killed them.”

  Flash. Startled blue eyes, shamed eyes.

  “I will tell the world how you killed them.”

  Flash. The angry brown eyes of the lieutenant.

  “Sergeant,” the lieutenant said. “Take care of this.” He herded his men down the street.

  Flash. The resigned hazel eyes of the sergeant.

  And the world went black.

  * * *

  There was so much blood that he thought he had been shot. Blood over his hands, over his face, over the broken camera.

  Hiroshi sat up, felt around the gash on his cheek. The plaza was silent now, the cries of the wounded stilled. Corpses lay strewn across the flagstones, and the sun was going down.

  He picked up the pieces of the Canon AE1 and took them back to the American; but the pool of blood was already drying, and the American was dead.

  Hiroshi squatted, put the broken camera into his hand, folded the limp fingers around it. Then Hiroshi sat with him awhile, hoping his soul would find its way to Houston. It was happier to die and be prepared. More suitable. A fly landed on the American’s cheek. Hiroshi brushed it away.

  The camera bag had spilled its contents: a telephoto lens. Filters. Yellow rolls of Kodak film. A jade—green passport, its pages riffling in the breeze.

  And a second camera. A tiny gray one. Hiroshi picked it up, turned it over. It was full of film.

  “Thank you,” he told the American. He stood and bowed deeply.

  Photo of the NASA engineer, dead near his passport.

  Stop at the next body, to bow permission. Snapshot of a woman, her forehead spilled hot red, cooled by the striated blue shade of a palm.

  The teenage girl beside her, contorted in agony, body stiff, colors brilliant as a macaw. Pepsi—Cola tee shirt. Bloody Guess jeans. Yellow sandals. Hiroshi bowed forgiveness for the intrusion.

  “I do this so you do not wander,” he said to each corpse. “I do this so you are never lonely.” And he moved through the hush of the plaza, gathering souls.

  * * *

  There was panic at Cabeceiras. In the orange afterglow of sunset, just past the main entrance, Edson parked. He was immediately surrounded by soldiers.

  “Out of the car!” a sergeant shouted.

  “I am Ed—”

  “Out of the car!” A dry rattle of guns. Rifles pointed at Edson’s face.

  He raised his hands. The sergeant opened the door.

  “I am the Direct—”

  “On the ground!” Voice high—pitched. Hysterical. “Face on the ground!”

  Something clubbed Edson’s back, knocked the breath out of him. He dropped. Dirt in his mouth, his eyes. A jab on the back of his skull. The unmistakable touch of a gun barrel. So this is the way it would end.

  “Call the captain!” the sergeant said.

  “Orders were to shoot intruders on sight, sir.”

  “Damn it. Call the captain now.”

  Edson tried to get up, but a booted foot shoved him down.

  And then a gentle voice. “Are you all right?” Nando, shaking his head with consternation, helped Edson up.

  “Where is Ana?” Edson asked.

  “At your safe house in Villanova. Go home, Edson. You are drunk.”

  “I will go home when you give me my whore of a pistol.”

  Nando sighed. “Get in the jeep,” he said. “Come on.”

  They drove through kilometers of fortifications. An entire regiment was there, too much for the Americans to tackle with Special Forces. And, despite the accuracy of their smart weapons, they would be afraid to bomb.

  “Where is Freitas?” Edson asked.

  Nando shot him a look. “Don’t go in there. I have already tried to get that boy away from him, but you can’t make that bastard do anything he doesn’t want. He’s too dangerous to approac
h. If he shows his face outside, my soldiers have been ordered to shoot. Without warning. Without question.”

  “You left him with the boy?”

  “Don’t lecture me, Edson. Not after what you have done.”

  They pulled up outside the first building. About them was chaos and noise: grumbling engines, tank sprocket squeaks.

  Nando shouted to a major, “Is it ready?”

  “Nearly, sir,”

  “Damn it, son. Get it ready. We don’t have much time,”

  Edson tugged on Nando’s sleeve and raised his voice to be heard over the rising scream of a helicopter. “”Get what ready?”

  Nando shook his head, leaned over, cupped his ear.

  “What are you making ready!”

  A nod. “Yes! We will raze these buildings!”

  Nando started to get out of the jeep. Edson grabbed him. “Did Ana give the order?”

  The general pulled out of Edson’s grip. “She is the president. All the other orders she gives me, I follow. And I expect you to follow them, too. Your pistol’s in the glove compartment. Take it. Shoot yourself. Or if you feel like living, wait here.” And he stalked off.

  The gun was too easy. And not oblivion enough. Edson would go into the chamber and gather the Disappeareds. Lead them to freedom, if he could. Enter nothingness with them, if he could not.

  Edson climbed out of the jeep and walked past a baffled guard. When the door was firmly shut behind, he could hear it in the air of the complex—the sad, eerie quiet of abandonment.

  Not much time left. He broke into a trot. Past rows of modified Cessnas in Building One. Shortcut through the abandoned offices in Five, where red drops on the floor made him slow his pace. Farther on, near a filing cabinet, a lump of maroon jelly. No. A liver. Blood made a dribbled pathway past gobbets of mealy yellow fat. Edson followed the gore to Building Eight, the main hangar, and stepped in.

  His footsteps echoed. Nothing there, except for the open welcome of the Door. Except for the grotesque Hansel and Gretel trail. More trickles of blood. A pink kidney in a fist of blue veins. A pale ribbon of intestine.