Eternity and Other Stories

by Lucius Shepard

  • • •

  The colonel did not arrive at the Drive-In Puerto Rico until nine o’clock the next morning. Most of the tables on the deck were occupied. At one sat Margery Emmons; she was talking to a thin, balding man in a pale yellow guayabera who now and then cast anxious glances to the side. Her eyes slid toward the colonel as he took a seat in the corner of the deck closest to the water, but she did not smile, and gave no other sign of recognition. The colonel held a tiny mental burial for the minor fantasy he had conjured concerning her, and had a few sips of the strong black coffee that Tomas’s girl, unbidden, brought to his table.

  Beyond the break the heavy swells glittered in patches, as if irradiated by the backs of glowing swimmers threatening to surface as they pushed their way in toward shore, shattering into white plumes of spray that rose and fell with the abandon of wild horses, and to the east, Punta Manabique stretched out into darker waters like a long green witch’s finger with a palm tree at its tip, its trunk forced by the wind to grow almost horizontal to the ground, so that at the distance it resembled a curving talon. The amiable chatter of the other patrons seemed part of nature, a random counterpoint to the percussive surf. A sweetish smell was borne on the north wind, overwhelming the scents of beans, eggs, and sausage, and the colonel imagined that a great ship filled with spices had been breached just over the horizon, its hull leaking streams of cinnamon and myrrh. The day held too much beauty for his troubled cast of mind, and he gazed down into his coffee, at the trembling incomplete reflection of his face, an image perfect in its summation of his mood. When Tomas dropped into the seat opposite him, the colonel asked him immediately about the lizard.

  “You have seen it again…or another like it?” asked Tomas in a guileless tone that caused the colonel to suspect that Tomas knew something he himself did not; but then he thought that even if Tomas knew nothing, he would wish to give the impression that he did.

  He told Tomas of his experiences the previous evening; when he had finished his story, Tomas said, “Hmm…curious.”

  “‘Curious’?” said the colonel. “I expected more of a reaction. A lecture on spirit lizards, perhaps.”

  “There are no such things. At least not that I’m aware of.”

  “What is it, then?” the colonel asked after a pause.

  “The lizard?” Tomas made a casual gesture, writing with his forefinger a sequence of quick little loops in the air. “How would I—a poor deluded hechicero—understand such a phenomenon? I think you should seek the help of a real expert. Perhaps there is someone at the Botanical Station who will advise you.”

  The colonel refused to rise to this bait. “You painted a lizard on your wall like the one I saw. A lizard of a type neither of us have seen before. Can you explain it?”

  “I was kneeling by a corner of the mural, trying to think what I should put in the space directly above the space where I intended to paint the face of Satan. It came into my mind to paint a lizard. An indigo lizard. With orange eyes. I recall that I felt rather strongly about this decision. Certain that it was correct. Since my artistic choices do not usually incur such a feeling of certitude, I made note of the fact. Apart than that…the world is replete with these strange correspondences. Who can guess their cause or their meaning?”

  The girl set a plate of fried eggs, tortillas, and peppers in front of the colonel and asked Tomas if wanted something.

  “Aguardiente,” he told her.

  “Drinking so early?” The colonel tore off a piece of tortilla and dipped it in yolk.

  “Early for one is late for another. All my life I have been a sober man. Now, at life’s end, I wish to be drunk. There are things to be learned from both conditions.”

  “You’ll outlive us all, Tomas,” said the colonel, chewing.

  “You speak as if you know, yet you know nothing.”

  Tomas seemed aggravated; the colonel let the subject drop.

  “I’m certain there’s no connection between the lizard I saw and the one you painted,” he said. “But nonetheless…”

  “Do you know why you have come here this morning? You want me to tell you that the lizard is magical. It climbed down from my wall and sought you out. It is a message, a supernatural being compressed into the shape of a message. It has great import in your life. It is a sending from Oxala or Jesus or some primitive black shape whose name has the sound of a bubble squeezed up through jungle water from some terrible netherworld. It wants you to see yourself as it sees you. Henceforth, you must always give homage to this lizard and the god who sent it. That is what you want me to tell you. Because hearing such shit will make you believe nothing happened to you last night. That it was a dream, a mental slip. Then you’ll be comfortable. You’ll be able to ignore it.”

  The girl handed Tomas a glass and an unlabeled bottle of clear liquid. He poured a stiff measure. Startled by his vehemence, the colonel could not think what to say. At a nearby table a blond girl in a navy blue T-shirt with the word “Wolverines” printed on the chest collapsed in laughter and shrilled, “I just can’t believe you said that!” Margery, the colonel saw, had departed.

  Tomas drank, let out a sigh, wiped his mouth on his forearm.

  “I apologize if I’ve angered you,” said the colonel.

  The old man made a popping sound with his lips and shook his head sadly. “When I came to Puerto Morada many years ago, I liked this place.” He tapped the table top. “This right here. This stretch of beach, I liked it very much. I knew I had to build my restaurant here. It was simple as that. I did not say to myself, This is a magic place, and if I build here, it will be a magic restaurant. Magic is an unwieldy word. It fails to communicate its true meaning. It has come to mean great works. A system of spells, a logic of supernatural connections. I am an hechicero, not a magician. I have no system, no history of great works. I see things, I feel things. I sometimes recognize certain sights and feelings that may have slightly more significance than certain others. Because I have done this for many years, on occasion I can create small effects. So small you might not notice them. But I cannot paint a lizard and cause it to come alive. I cannot ask it to seek you out and make you see through its eyes. If I played any part in what happened to you, I was acting without intent or forethought. This does not mean, however, that what happened was not magical.”

  Two small boys ran past on the beach, yelling and waving their arms, chasing a skeletal yellow pariah dog that was so weak on its legs, it barely could outrun them; it stopped to catch its wind, panting, its body curled, gazing with desolate eyes back at its pursuers, then loped off as the boys drew near.

  “It may have no importance,” said Tomas. “This lizard of yours. It may signify nothing. The energy of the world will sometimes express itself in singular ways and for no apparent reason. But you must try to understand it. It is yours alone to understand.”

  The colonel thought that the old man’s advice about going to the Botanical Station was the most salient thing he had said. He wished now he had never mentioned the lizard. Tomas would likely go on at length about the subject of magic, its subtle nature, and the colonel did not want to be rude. But Tomas only looked about at the tables, at the bar, and said, “Tell me, Mauricio. Have you ever had a place that was yours? Not a place owned, or a place occupied. I’m speaking about one that called to your heart, your soul. One where you felt you absolutely belonged.”

  “Not for a long time, certainly.”

  Tomas poured another glass of aguardiente. “But you like my restaurant, eh? The place itself, not just the food and drink.”

  “I come here as often as I can, don’t I? Of course I like it. You’re a fortunate man to have such a beautiful home.” As an afterthought, the colonel asked, “Why did you name it the Drive-In Puerto Rico?”

  “The words have a pretty sound.” Tomas touched the edge of the colonel’s plate. “Your eggs are cold.”

  • • •

  The Botanical Station, operated by Princeton Univer
sity, was located some miles from the center of town. Several dozen acres of plantation were enclosed by a hurricane fence and centered by a long, low building of pale brown concrete block, topped by a shingle roof edged in darker brown. Air conditioners were mounted beneath each window. The glass panes spotless, the lawn out front manicured. A healthy-looking parrot sat on a ring perch beside the door, clucking gently to itself. Automatic sprinklers whirled. It was so thoroughly American a place, everything so shiny and neat, that when the colonel stepped into the frosty interior, he felt that he had crossed a border illegally, bringing with him the dust of a poorer land. He pictured the beads of sweat on his brow popping like champagne bubbles.

  He presented himself at the reception desk, inquiring if there was anyone about who had some expertise in herpetology, and moments later he was standing in an office, leaning over the shoulder of one Dr. Timothy Hicks, a sunburned young man with shoulder-length brown hair, looking at pictures of lizards on a computer screen.

  “See anything?” Dr. Hicks asked.

  “They all look the same,” said the colonel. “No…wait. There. That one there.”

  On the screen was a photograph of a lizard whose shape resembled the one that had been haunting the colonel’s hotel room.

  “Norops bicarum.” Dr. Hicks punched the keys and the photo vanished, then reappeared magnified several times over. “One of the anoles.”

  Reading the information printed beneath the photo, the colonel was disappointed to learn that norops bicarum grew to lengths of only five inches.

  “The one I saw was considerably larger,” he said. “Eight or nine inches long. And it was indigo in color.”

  “Solid indigo?”

  “Yes…except for some black markings around the face.”

  Dr. Hicks tapped the side of his keyboard. “Well, I’m stumped. If you can catch it, I’d love to have a look at it. There are thirty-six known varieties of anole in this part of Central America. Who knows? Maybe you’ve found number thirty-seven.”

  He gestured toward a chair on the other side of the desk, and the colonel took a seat.

  “What do lizards see?” the colonel asked.

  “They have excellent vision. They see colors…it’s very much like human vision. This fellow here is monoscopic. His eyes are set so that he sees in different directions. Two distinct visual fields. Some chameleons are able to see both ahead of them and behind them at the same time. But some types of anole have stereoscopic vision. They see a single image.”

  Disappointed that he had not resolved the mystery, the colonel thanked Dr. Hicks, promising to bring the lizard to him if he could catch it, and returned to his hotel. He plumped up his pillows and lay on the bed, opened the book he had been reading, but his mind would not fit onto the page, and after a few minutes he set the book down. Loneliness at that moment struck him as less a passing condition than as an environment in which he was trapped. The sounds of life from without—traffic, the cries of vendors—seemed to arise from a great distance, and he had the thought that if he were to shout, no one would hear him. For an antidote, he picked up his cell phone, a recent acquisition that he rarely used, and called his father’s house in San Pedro Sula.

  His sister answered in a strained voice. “Dígame!”

  “Hola, Teresa!”

  “Oh…Mauricio.”

  “How are things?”

  “Fine,” she said.

  In the background he heard a commotion.

  “It sounds as if you’ve got company.”

  “Is that how it sounds? Like I’m entertaining?” Teresa scoffed at the notion. “That’s right. I’m always entertaining. Fabulous guests. Champagne brunches. You don’t know what you’re missing.”

  “Is there something wrong?”

  A brief silence. “How can you ask that question? Oh, I forgot. You’re never here. You don’t know the unending joy of our life.”

  “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  “Where shall I start? Your father. Do you know he’s running around with a twenty-two-year-old woman? Una puta sucia! He brings her here. To our mother’s house. He carries on in front of your nephews. And your nephews…” She moved the receiver away from her mouth and shouted at someone to be quiet. “Your nephews. They’re doing wonderfully. Here. I’ll let them tell you themselves.”

  A second later, a sullen boyish voice said, “What do you want?”

  “Emilio?”

  Silence.

  “Are you being difficult with your mother?”

  “Fuck yourself,” Emilio said.

  Immediately thereafter, Teresa said, “Do you see how well he’s doing? He’s a drug addict, Mauricio! He’s like you. He’s hardly ever here. And when he does come home, it’s only to steal money for his cocaine! And your other nephew…your precious Pepe! He told me the other day that it is his ambition to become a homosexual. His ambition! God knows, I do not judge those people, but I don’t believe that homosexuality should be an ambition!” A pause during which he heard her breathing hard; then, her voice sugary, she asked, “So how are you? Where are you?”

  “Puerto Morada,” he said. “Listen, Teresa. I’m sorry things aren’t going well. I’ll try to get back home soon.”

  “No, please! Not on our account. It would be criminal to interrupt your world tour.”

  “You know I’m not doing this by choice.”

  “You’ve been away twenty years, and you say it’s not by choice? That’s a lifetime, Mauricio. Twenty years. I married, had children. My husband died. Mother died, and our father grew old. You don’t know any of it. Just the dates. The birthdays, the funerals. Now and then you get lonely and you’ll call or drop in for a visit and pretend you’re part of our family. But you’re not…you’re a stranger. A ghost who haunts us at Christmas and Easter.”

  “You know why I’m…” he began.

  “Don’t tell me it’s the business! It can’t be just the business that’s kept you away so long.”

  Resentful, yet at the same time knowing there was some truth to Teresa’s words, that his own indulgent nature had been in play, the colonel said nothing.

  “I have to go. I have things…” Teresa broke off; then she said, “I love you, Mauricio. But I hardly know you. I…I’m sorry.”

  • • •

  After hanging up, the colonel sat on the edge of his bed, unable to clear his sister’s words from mind. A ghost. It was an apt image. While struggling with this new conception of his relationship with his family, he noticed the indigo lizard on the wall above the bathroom door; he was so depressed, he could not rouse himself to attempt its capture. The light dimmed; scattered raindrops began to fall. He lay down and let the seething of the rain on the palmetto fronds lull him to sleep. Shortly before three o’clock that afternoon he was wakened by a pounding on his door. “Who is it?” he called.

  “Maury! Let me in!”

  When he opened the door, Jerry Gammage piled into the room, followed by Margery Emmons. They both began talking at once.

  “Man, I need your help…”

  “I’m sorry to intrude…”

  Margery succeeded in outvoicing Gammage. “Jerry’s in some trouble.”

  “I think they mighta spotted me on the beach,” Gammage said.

  “Who spotted you?” asked the colonel.

  “Carbonell’s men. They’re trying to kill me.”

  “What possible reason…”

  “I’ll explain everything, I promise,” Margery said. “Will you let us stay here for a while?”

  “I know I got no papers on you, Maury,” Gammage said. “But I’m in the shit.”

  The colonel closed the door and indicated that they should sit; they perched side-by-side on the foot of the bed, gazing at him like anxious children.

  “Why does Carbonell want to kill you?” he asked.

  “Battalion Three-Sixteen.” Gammage twisted his mouth into a gloomy shape. “I got tape, pictures…everything.”

  Marge
ry shot the colonel a guilty look, but did not speak.

  “Somehow they got wind of it,” Gammage went on. “They been beating the bushes for me since yesterday afternoon. I can’t risk the airport. I’d never get past the checkpoints on the highway. Basically, I’m fucked.”

  “You have this material with you?” asked the colonel.

  Gammage nodded.

  “Perhaps if you surrendered it…”

  “I got pictures of Carbonell doing horror movie shit with men, women, little kids. He’s twenty years younger, but you can tell it’s him. He posed for the shots. The guy’s fucking Dracula. He’s not gonna let me bounce.”

  “He’s not exaggerating,” Margery said. “I’ve seen some of the pictures.”

  The colonel asked Gammage what he planned to do.

  “Live through the evening,” said Gammage. “Rancher I know in Choluteca owes me. Guy’s got a private plane. Little single-engine job. If I can smuggle myself to Choluteca, I think he’ll fly me down to Bluefields.”

  The colonel paced across the room, sat on the arm of the chair by the window, gazing out through the palmetto fronds at the empty sunstruck street. His thoughts moved like sentries back and forth between two points.

  “What’s wrong?” Margery asked.

  “You’ve put me in a difficult position,” he said. “By helping you, I’ll be committing treason.”