The Dragon Griaule (44 page)

‘You can call me Jefe,’ the man said. ‘That’s what everyone calls me, but it’s not who I am.’

Women peered from the windows of the pink building as they approached – one of them beckoned, soliciting a visit – yet Jefe paid her no mind and entered a door with an intercom mounted on the wall beside it. Beyond lay a tunnel with concrete walls and a ceiling less than a foot higher than Snow’s head, lit for its entire length by fluorescent fixtures. He pictured electric carts rolling along the tunnel, conveying grim uniformed men with side arms and secret orders and missile codes toward a command center. He kept an eye on Jefe, watching for a sign that Luisa’s pills were having an effect, but the man’s walk held steady and his conversation was terse and on point.

After three or four minutes, by Snow’s estimation, they came to a large paneled room with indirect lighting, a burgundy carpet, and three doors leading, he assumed, to bedrooms, kitchen, and so on. Its central feature was a long banquet table set about with high-backed chairs, the dining surface fashioned from an ancient church door carved with a complex scene that illustrated a typically Temalaguan confusion of cosmologies – anguished men and woman supplicating the angels who hovered just beyond reach, appearing both disinterested in their suffering and unaware of the doings of the less well-defined beings above
them who looked to be doing a portage across the heavens with some kind of solar vessel. A mahogany sideboard stood against one wall, supporting an array of liquor bottles, ice buckets, and glasses, and mounted above it was a flat screen TV. Four photographic prints in aluminum frames hung on the opposite wall, each depicting a spectacular cloud formation. For all the luxuriousness of its appointments, the room stood two-thirds empty, far too spacious for such a paucity of furnishings, and this indicated to Snow that while its primary inhabitant might have an awareness of interior decoration, he was seriously myopic as regarded an overall aesthetic.

Jefe told him to have a seat at the table, spoke into an intercom mounted on the wall, and then said to Snow, ‘I’m going upstairs for an hour or two.’ He opened the door to reveal a stairwell. ‘Yara will bring coffee and whatever else you require.’

Snow had nurtured a faint hope that Yara had survived the disappearance of the cult, but that had been wishful thinking and now, hearing her name, her presence alluded to so casually, it was as if a bomb had gone off in his head, obliterating his ability to reason. Once Jefe had gone he stood up from the table and immediately sat back down, dizzy to the point of passing out. He stared at the two doors at the far end of the room, shards of memory falling through his mental sky, and when a woman entered, wearing a shapeless gray smock (a nightgown, his initial impression), moving stiffly, slowly, her hair close cropped, a monastic look, lines of strain on her face deeper than those he would have predicted a thirty-year-old to have . . . and when he recognized her to be Yara,
his
Yara, miraculously alive and still beautiful despite the attrition of time, he started up from his chair again, intending to embrace her, a great joy building, enfolding him like a garment he had prepared in anticipation of this day yet never thought to wear . . . but then he halted his approach. Her expression betrayed no trace of any kindred emotion, not an ounce of welcome or happiness. She wrangled a chair back from the table and collapsed into it, breathing shallowly. After collecting herself, she said, ‘You have some things to wash?’

‘Yara,’ he said. ‘It’s me . . . Craig.’

‘I know who you are. Show me your clothes and I’ll wash them.’

Baffled by her response, he asked what he had done to anger her.

‘Apart from running out on me?’ She sniffed. ‘Nothing.’

‘I tried to persuade you to come with me.’

‘You should have tried harder. You could at least have told me you were leaving. You didn’t have to sneak away.’

‘You don’t . . .’

‘I hunted for you everywhere. People thought I was demented, I went on about you so. You should have told me. I wouldn’t have tried to stop you and we could have said a proper goodbye.’

‘It was all . . .’ He gave his head a frustrated shake. ‘You don’t understand how much I beat myself up for abandoning you, but I was afraid. I didn’t know what else to do.’

‘I guess I shouldn’t blame you for being yourself.’

That stung him, but he reminded himself that these emotional post-mortems unfailingly began with a litany of bitterness.

‘You’re not truly at fault,’ she said. ‘You weren’t a part of what was going on. But it hurt and I hated you for a long time. Seeing you again brings back a great deal of anger and heart-sickness, but I suppose it’s just residual emotion.’

‘Yara, listen. I . . .’

‘Don’t bother. It’s all in the past.’

‘Maybe for you. It’s been my present for the last thirteen years.’

She laughed humorlessly. ‘Don’t tell me you’re a romantic at heart!’

‘Listen to me for a minute, okay?’

‘If you’ve come here thinking you can rekindle our affair, forget it. That part of my life is over.’

‘How can that be?’ he asked. ‘You’re still young, you’re a beautiful woman.’

She liked hearing that, he could tell, yet tried to hide the fact, thinning her lips in disapproval.

‘I didn’t come here for any reason I can name,’ he said. ‘I assumed you were dead. I may have hoped to see you again, but the hope wasn’t real. It was . . .’

‘Stop it!’

She slapped the table and, as if cued by that percussive sound, a mechanical grinding issued from the stairwell, growing louder with each passing second, impeding their conversation.

‘What the hell’s that?’ Snow asked.

‘He’s flying. Shut the door.’

Snow did as instructed, reducing the noise by half, and returned to the table.

‘Did you notice there aren’t any men in the village?’ Yara asked, cutting off his unspoken question. ‘Within a month after we came to Tres Santos, Jefe had killed them all. Some tried to run, he seemed to know when they ran, and where, and he hunted them down. He kills every man who comes here except for the PVO guys, and he’ll kill them once they’ve outlived their usefulness. I actually believe he gets along with men better than he does with women, but it’s like he’s obeying some beastly imperative, wiping out the competition.’ She paused. ‘He’s probably going to kill you.’

Snow wanted to make light of what she had told him, but could not.

‘Don’t look so shocked,’ Yara said. ‘I don’t know how you found this place, but you knew about the PVO, didn’t you? You must have realized you were taking a risk by coming here.’

‘There must be some way of dealing with him. What should I do?’

Yara’s face, which had softened a little, walled over again. ‘I can’t help you.’

Snow was hard put to think of anything to say.

‘Do you want me to explain?’ Yara asked. ‘Can you listen without interrupting, without telling me I’m being ridiculous? I don’t have the patience for that anymore. There’s a lot I don’t understand, but what I know, I know.’

‘How long have I got?’

‘Chances are you’re safe for today.’ She brushed strands of hair from her eyes and, with no small degree of malice, said, ‘Even if I’m wrong, we have time. He’ll be flying for hours.’

*

‘As you recall,’ Yara began, ‘when we were together I used to go into the city to meet with various men, passing along Griaule’s instructions and delivering the money I’d collected from Club Sexy and other sources. I recalled little of those meetings, because I was under his thrall. But soon I realized the money was being used to establish the PVO, to fund their arms purchases and recruitment campaigns . . . even the construction of this complex. It was completed years before Jefe and I took up residence, and built according to a design I imparted to the architect. Of course I have no recollection of this, but I’ve been assured that was the case.

‘As the party grew in strength and numbers, the job of fund-raising was taken over by men who could operate with more efficiency than I, but I continued to serve as a conduit between the dragon and the party. It might seem odd that a woman could function as the putative leader of a male-dominated organization, especially once the party was on a solid footing. At any rate, it seemed odd to me. Yet I came to understand that extremist groups depend on a mystical element, an occult component, to lend gravitas to their actions. I was for the PVO that mystical element, the Virgin Mary who in effect gave birth to their messiah, so I was granted immunity from their prejudices, protected from their violence. Whenever a man crossed the line with me, as happened more than once, the party dealt with him mercilessly.

‘When you lived with me I wasn’t altogether certain about things. There were times I doubted my sanity and your doubts, your accusations, affected me more than I let on. Had you stayed, I might well have fled with you, because I was having a crisis of faith. I questioned the dragon’s reality and, in moments during which I was satisfied that he
did
exist and was not simply a function of my madness, I questioned his plan. Getting involved with the PVO was the antithesis of what I wanted for myself, for the country. After you left, however, my communication with the dragon sharpened. Previously I went into that little bone chamber, I went to sleep and emerged with vague messages. Now those messages came into my head while I was awake and were more defined. I could sense their flavor and configuration.
It became evident that the PVO was only a step in Griaule’s plan. They would protect the dragon reborn until he no longer needed them. For a while I believed he had brought you and me together for some purpose. To test my faith, perhaps. But I know now that was a conceit. Disembodied, his will was weak and he required years to shape people to his purposes. I overestimated his influence where we were concerned.

‘Along with sharpened communication I experienced painful side effects that limited my mobility. Before long I was unable to venture into the city and I concentrated my efforts on the adherents, lecturing them on my enhanced appreciation of the dragon’s nature, counseling them and presiding over events like the one that frightened you away. You had a right to be afraid, as it turned out, but after each of them I felt enraptured, understanding that someday they would result in the achievement of our goal. We had additions to our community, and subtractions. Colonel de Lugo died, but not before he recruited his replacement. That was the way of it. Some left, others arrived, and little by little we approached the right mix of people that would enable the miracle to occur. I became so involved with the dragon, I was scarcely aware of my own life. One morning I woke to the knowledge that this would be the day. Everything was so sharp, so clear. I knew precisely what to do. From the first moment when the dragon touched my mind, I recognized that I would be the instrument of his renewal, but not until then did I fully comprehend the nature of that renewal, the act of transubstantiation it demanded. In this regard, the adherents had been closer to the truth than I. He may have whispered a promise to them, a guarantee that they would live on in him, and for all I know they do live on. But he made no such promise to me and I thought I was to die that morning.

‘I gathered the adherents in front of the skull and brought them into a trance state. The dragon’s mind and my own were in perfect unity, interpenetrating. His thoughts were mine, and mine his. What was about to happen might be seen as horrific, an event to rival Jonestown, as you had said, but all I saw was the perfection of Griaule’s design and I felt exalted to be part of it. The air grew warm, uncomfortably warm. Several people
fainted – I remember fretting about them, but my main worry was whether they needed to be conscious for the miracle to take place. And then my clarity went away, my mind clouded over. When I regained my senses I discovered that I was wandering in the jungle, far from the skull. It was still hot and seconds later a burst of heat boiled through the trees, like the heat from an explosion, knocking me off my feet. I made my way to the clearing as rapidly as I could manage. The shelters had been flattened and the adherents were gone. The skull, too, was gone, yet the trees and the bushes were virtually undamaged, and there was no sign of scorching or charring. I was distraught. The deaths of hundreds of people, no matter I had anticipated this outcome . . . how could I feel otherwise? But my feelings may have been due less to grief than to the fact that I had not witnessed the miracle. All those years laboring to create it, and I had missed it! Where was the result? Had nothing happened apart from a mass disappearance? I looked around the clearing, hoping to find some evidence as to what had taken place. I think I was on the verge of losing my mind. I stumbled about, going first one direction and then another, beating aside the brush, becoming frantic, until at last I spotted Jefe. He lay curled up on a patch of emerald moss, close to where the jawbone had rested. A beautiful little man, naked and perfect. I had believed the dragon would be reborn in his original form, but I knew him at once. The sight was so serene and lovely, it was like a balm to me. It had the quality of myth. His milky skin against the oval of vivid moss, his fists clenched like a newborn infant’s. I went to him and cradled him in my arms. He woke to my touch and gazed about in confusion, unable to speak, clinging to me. Once he was able to stand I helped him out to the road. Shortly thereafter the PVO showed up and brought us to Tres Santos.’

Yara drew a deep breath and released it slowly.

‘In the years since,’ she continued, ‘he’s made unbelievable progress. He’s learned to speak and perform as a human. It wasn’t learning, really, I don’t think. I’d teach him one thing and within a day or two he’d display a complete spectrum of behaviors. As if we’d given him a key and he unlocked a door behind which a store of knowledge was hidden. Yet his instincts
are different from ours and he doesn’t understand us very well. He assists the PVO with their schemes – he has an amazing grasp of politics and is a brilliant tactician. He has no memory of his life prior to his rebirth, yet he does recall the plan for political dominance he developed and he knows something is not as it should be. He talks about a recurring dream, a vision in which he stands in an arena before thousands of people and says that when that dream becomes reality he will undergo a change – from what I gather he’s referring to a second alchemical act, a more radical transformation, one that will enable him to regain his original form and fly as once he did, without the need for mechanical aids.’ She laughed merrily, a laugh that seemed misplaced to Snow. ‘He’d spend all his time flying if I let him. Neither the PVO nor I have been in a hurry to illuminate him about his past. Rushing the process would damage him, I believe, and their concern is fueled by a desire to keep him ignorant and under their control. They think that once he’s done his duty for them, they’ll get rid of him. They haven’t accepted the fact that their control is limited . . . if it exists at all.’