The House of the Scorpion (12 page)

He recoiled against a heap of music when part of the wall slid open and threw up a cloud of dust that made him choke. He reached for the asthma inhaler Celia insisted he carry at all times. When the dust had settled, Matt saw a narrow, dark hallway.

He peered around the corner. An empty passage stretched both to the left and to the right. By now Felicia had stopped playing the piano. Matt held very still, listening for the clink of ice in glass. After a while he heard the maids carry Felicia away.

Matt flipped the switch once more and saw, to his great relief, that the wall closed up again. He slipped out of the closet, leaving dusty footprints across the carpet, and was scolded by Celia when she saw the state of his clothes and hair.

This was even better than an episode of
El Látigo Negro, Matt thought, hugging the secret to himself. This was a place that belonged to him alone. Not even Tam Lin could find him if he wanted to hide.

Slowly and carefully over the next few weeks, Matt explored his new domain. It seemed to snake between the inner
and outer walls of the house. He found peepholes in the wall but saw only empty rooms with chairs and tables beyond. Once he saw a servant dusting furniture.

A few of the peepholes looked into dark closets like the one in the music room. Matt didn't understand until one day, while feeling his way along the passage, his hand struck against another switch.

He flicked it on.

A panel slid open just like the one in the music room. Matt's heart beat wildly. He could walk right into the closet! It was full of musty clothes and old shoes, but if he pushed them aside, he could get to the door on the other side. He heard voices. The doctor and Mr. Alacrán were pleading with a third person whose replies were muffled. The doctor spoke harshly, bringing bad memories back to Matt. “Do it!” Willum snarled. “You know you have to do it!”

“Please, Father,” said Mr. Alacrán, gentler than Matt had ever heard him be.

“No, no, no,” moaned Mr. Alacrán's father.

“You'll die without chemotherapy,” his son begged.

“God wants me to come.”

“But I want you here,” Mr. Alacrán pleaded.

“This is a place of shadows and evil!” The old man was clearly becoming irrational.

“At least get a new liver,” Willum said in his harsh voice.

“Leave me alone,” wailed the old man.

Matt retreated to the passageway and closed the opening. He didn't understand what the men were arguing about, but he knew what would happen if someone caught him listening. He'd be locked up. He might even be given back to Rosa.

Matt made his way to the music room, and for a long time
he didn't venture into the secret passage. He did, however, keep listening to Felicia's music. It was something that had gotten inside him, and no matter how dangerous it was, he couldn't go long without hearing it.

One afternoon Matt was alarmed to see the doctor arrive with Felicia's drink instead of a servant. “Oh, Willum,” she moaned as he mixed in the ice. “He doesn't talk to me anymore. He looks right through me as though I weren't there.”

“It's all right,” soothed the doctor. “
I'm
here. I'll take care of you.” He opened his black bag and took out a syringe. Matt held his breath. The doctor had given him a shot when he was sick and he'd hated it! Matt watched, fascinated, as Felicia's arm was swabbed and the needle jammed in. Why didn't she cry out? Couldn't she feel it?

Willum sat next to her and draped his arm around her shoulders. He murmured things Matt couldn't hear. It must have pleased Felicia, because she smiled and rested her head against the doctor's chest. After a while he guided her from the music room.

At once Matt was out of his hiding place. He sniffed the glass and sampled the contents. Ugh! It tasted like rotten fruit. He spat it out at once. He listened carefully for footsteps outside in the hall and sat down at the piano. He carefully pressed a key.

The note rang softly in the music room. Matt was entranced. He tried other keys. They were all beautiful. He was so enchanted, he almost didn't hear the servant coming down the hall, but fortunately, he woke up soon enough to scuttle behind the potted plants.

After that day Matt studied the comings and goings of the servants, to work out when it was safe to visit the music room. Felicia never used it in the morning. In fact, she didn't get up
until the afternoon and was active for only an hour or so then.

Matt discovered he could re-create the songs Celia sang to him, using one finger. Felicia used all ten, but he hadn't figured out how to do that yet. Even so, the ability to create music filled him with a joy too large to contain. He forgot where he was. He forgot he was a clone. The music made up for everything—the silent contempt of the servants, Steven's and Emilia's snubs, Tom's hatred.

“So this is where you get to,” said Tam Lin. Matt swung around, almost tumbling off the bench. “Don't stop. You've got a real talent there. Funny, I never thought of El Patrón as being musical.”

Matt's heart was beating wildly. Was he going to be barred from the room?

“If you're musical,
he
must be,” said the bodyguard. “But I guess he never had time to study. Where he lived, they chopped up pianos for firewood.”

“Can you play?” asked Matt.

“You must be joking. Look at these.”

Matt saw stubby fingers sprouting from large, awkward hands. Some of the fingers were crooked, as though they'd been broken and healed again. “You could use one finger,” he suggested.

Tam Lin laughed. “Music has to be in the head first, laddie. The good Lord passed me by when He was handing out talent. You've got it, though, and it'd be a shame not to use it. I'll talk to El Patrón about finding you a teacher.”

This proved difficult. No human wanted to teach a clone and no eejit was smart enough. Finally Tam Lin found a man who had gone deaf and was desperate for work. It seemed odd to Matt that someone who couldn't hear could teach music, but
so it was. Mr. Ortega felt it through his hands. He placed them on the piano as Matt practiced and caught every mistake.

It wasn't long before Matt added musical ability to his growing list of accomplishments. He could read ten years beyond his level, do math that left Tam Lin bewildered—and irritated—and speak both English and Spanish fluently. In addition, his art grew better by the day. He threw himself into studying everything that came before him. Matt could name the planets, the brightest stars, and all the constellations. He memorized the names of countries, their capitals and chief exports.

He was in a rage to learn. He would excel, and then everyone would love him and forget he was a clone.

Y
ou're like a wild animal,” complained María as she stood in the doorway of Matt's room. “You hide in here like a bear in a cave.”

Matt looked indifferently at the curtained windows. He liked the safe, comfortable darkness. “I
am
an animal,” he replied. Once those words would have pained him, but he accepted his status now.

“I think you just like to wallow,” said María, striding in to open the curtains and windows. Outside lay Celia's garden filled with stands of corn, tomatoes, beans, peas. “Anyhow, it's El Patrón's birthday, and that means you'd better take that snarl off your face.”

Matt sighed. He could unnerve almost everyone by growling at them, but not María. She only laughed. Of course, he never dreamed of growling at El Patrón on those rare occasions when the old man visited. To do so would have been unthinkable.
Each time, El Patrón looked more frail and his mind seemed less in order.

It broke Matt's heart to look at him. He loved El Patrón. He owed everything to him.

Matt could hardly remember those terrible days three years before, when he was kept in a pen with roaches for friends and old chicken bones for toys. But he knew he'd still be there—or buried under the floor by Rosa—if the old man hadn't rescued him.

“El Patrón's one hundred and forty-three today,” said Matt.

María shivered. “I can't imagine being that old!”

“Celia said if they put that many candles on the cake, it would melt the paint off the walls.”

“He was kind of strange last time he was here,” said María.

That's one way to put it
, thought Matt. El Patrón had become so forgetful, he repeated the same sentence over and over again. “Am I dead yet?” he asked. “Am I dead yet?” And he held his hand before his face, studying each finger as though to reassure himself that he was still there.

“Are you ready?” cried Celia, rushing into the room. She made Matt turn and adjusted the collar of his shirt. “Remember, you're sitting next to El Patrón tonight. Pay attention and answer all his questions.”

“What if he's . . . weird?” said Matt. He remembered answering the question “Am I dead yet?” over and over the last time the old man visited.

Celia stopped fussing with the shirt and knelt before him. “Listen to me, darling. If anything bad happens tonight, I want you to come straight to me. Come to the pantry behind the kitchen.”

“What do you mean, bad?”

“I can't say.” Celia looked furtively around the room. “Just promise me you'll remember.”

Matt thought it was hard to promise something like that—nobody planned to forget—but he nodded.

“Oh,
mi hijo
, I do love you!” Celia flung her arms around him and burst into tears. Matt was both startled and dismayed. What could have upset her so much? He saw María out of the corner of his eye. She was making a face that indicated how totally soppy she found this display. That was María's favorite word recently:
soppy.
She'd picked it up from Tam Lin.

“I promise,” Matt said.

Celia sat back abruptly and wiped her eyes with her apron. “I'm a fool. What good would it do if you understood? It would only make things worse.” She seemed to be talking to herself, and Matt watched her anxiously. Then she stood up and smoothed the wrinkles in her apron. “Run along,
chicos
, and have fun at the party. I'll be in the kitchen serving up the best dinner you ever saw. You look wonderful, both of you, like you stepped out of a movie.” The old, confident Celia was back, and Matt was relieved.

“I have to get Furball from my room,” said María after they left.

“Oh, no! You can't take him to dinner.”

“I can if I want. I'll hide him on my lap.”

Matt sighed. There was no point arguing with her. María took Furball everywhere. Tam Lin complained that it wasn't a dog, but a hairy tumor growing out of her arm. He offered to take her to a doctor and have it removed.

Tom was in María's room, and Furball was nowhere to be seen.

“You didn't let him out?” cried María as she looked under the bed.

“I never even saw him,” said Tom, glaring at Matt. Matt glared back. Tom's bristly red hair was slicked down, and his fingernails were neat, white crescents. Tom was always perfectly groomed for these occasions, and it earned him many admiring comments from the women who came to El Patrón's birthday parties.

“He's lost!” wailed María. “He gets so scared when he's lost. Oh, please help me find him!”

Reluctantly, Tom and Matt left off their glaring contest and began looking under pillows, behind curtains, in dresser drawers. María whimpered softly as the hunt dragged on without any results.

“He's probably running around the house having a great time,” said Matt.

“He hates being outside,” said María, weeping. Matt could believe that. The dog was such a loser that he ran from sparrows, but he probably
was
outside hiding in any of a thousand places. They'd never find him before dinner. Then something odd struck him.

Tom.

Tom was searching, but he didn't seem to be really
looking.
It was hard to describe. Tom was going through the motions, but all the while his eyes were watching María. Matt stopped what he was doing and listened.

“I hear something!” he cried. He dashed into the bathroom, lifted the toilet lid, and there was Furball, so waterlogged and exhausted, he'd been able to utter only the faintest whine. Matt pulled the dog out and dropped him hastily on the floor. He grabbed a towel and wrapped up Furball. The dog was so tired, he didn't even try to bite. He lay perfectly limp as María snatched him up.

“How did he get in there? Who put the top down? Oh, darling, sweet, sweet Furball”—she cuddled the revolting creature next to her face—“you're okay now. You're my
good
dog. You're my honeybunch.”

“He's always drinking out of the toilet,” Tom said. “He must have fallen in and pulled the lid down on top of him. I'll call a maid to give him a bath.”