Last Stories and Other Stories (9780698135482)

by Vollmann, William T.

  Which would you advise?

  Now the infantrymen were all past, and the head, pleased to have been asked, chuckled: Both.

  At once his mind’s harbor was overwhelmed by chained galleons of treasure-dreams, so that he grew weak and nauseous with silver-sickness, and said: Brother, I’ll trust in you for the best. There’s an Amazon—

  Who told you about that?

  Rodrigo, one of those who you killed.

  Oh, I know him. Just now he’s at Satan’s right hand.

  What about you, brother?

  You’d wish to marry her, I suppose? You know that Amazons have but one breast.

  I don’t care about that.

  All right, then. Her name is María Platina. You’ll court her, and punish her enemies. She’ll marry you. And when you’re ready, brother, when you’re tired of everything, we’ll go under the earth.

  What if I’m never ready?

  That’s as Christ disposes, replied the pious head.

  So the head whirled him west and west, which is the red direction, and hence the realm of women; long before the alarm gun ever sounded, he found himself passing from one country to the next, like a white-clad blind musician creeping along with his hand on his colleague’s shoulder; and the brothers flew through sunset, night, and a morning as moist and hot as a new tortilla; then after traversing a day as red as blood and a night as pink as coral, they arrived at Ziñogava Island, where silvery jungle hills rise up in the rain, and every ill can be healed.

  Now what? the head demanded.

  Truth to tell, Agustín had grown happier the farther away from prison they travelled; but once they alighted he felt no better off than before. For one thing, he feared his brother, or at least worried that his brother might get angry at him over something, and then bite him. The new country was pretty enough—nearly as lovely as Veracruz’s trees of white flowers and trees of red berries—but somehow he nearly felt himself to be once again within the long shade of prison walls, and he could almost smell the foul water of the latrine-hole.— Impatiently the head nibbled at his wrist, and he said: Shall we take her by force?

  No. Do exactly as I say.

  But if she—

  Thanks to God, brother, she is as good as ours.

  Again it was night. Ready to pounce on his happiness, Agustín ascended a wide road, toward the distant glowing of the jade palace, with a cool sea breeze ever at his back; and the head flew before him, lighting the way with its blood-red eyes. They came to a river, and the head made him wash himself. With its teeth it trimmed his hair and beard. Once more he put on the prison sentry’s clothes, and the head shrank itself down into a golden pendant of ghastly design, on a copper chain for him to wear around his neck.

  So they arrived at the palace. Just as the windblown sands seek ever to smother the streets of Veracruz, so an unnamable tainted emotion began to sweep over Agustín; the grandeur he saw, instead of inciting him, confused him; he stared down at his feet.— Hurry forward! hissed the head. Eyes up, chest out!— So in they came.

  Here stood Amazons yet more numerous than the vultures in the sandy streets of Veracruz. For instance, they met Laura, Lidia, Lucrecia, Luísa, Magdalena and Margarita; and all of them tall, handsome and one-breasted. Now, what the head actually understood and foresaw I who merely tell this tale have never been able to make out; but it is certain that Agustín felt more lonely and inferior before these lovely women than he had even before the tribunal of worthies who condemned his brother; perhaps they were too silvery for him; if he only could have seen the sweet face of his brother’s concubine Herlinda I am sure he would have pricked up his courage; as it was, he felt numb enough to face the thing out, and unwilling to go against the flying head—which, after all, had brought him to the place he wished to go. Somehow the head must have dazzled the Amazons; for what had Agustín with which to impress them? He had fallen out of the habit of looking into people’s eyes. Since his cellmates used to take him from behind, he never had to stare into their gaunt yellow faces when he was making them happy. When the Amazons inspected him he prepared for the worst.

  Make yourself happy, whispered the head.

  But, brother, I don’t feel so.

  Put on a good face!— And the head murmured into his ear three boisterous jokes, which he deployed to best advantage, so that the Amazons laughed and began to love him.

  The Queen of Ziñogava now entered the hall, wearing an ankle-length sleeveless robe of silver and gold, and at once the day grew as bright as the scrutiny of our merciful Church. She was young, slender and high-breasted—but, as usual, one breast was missing. Her golden hair was roached high above her forehead; then it spilled down her neck. Her eyeballs could have been green stones. Her eyebrows and eyelashes were silver, and her lips were garnet-red. Her coral-pink arms were perfectly smooth. Her hands were graceful, her fingers long, with their nails, of course, painted in that mineral-green shade called amazonite. Agustín felt no desire, but told himself that he did. For a fact, she was nearly as beautiful as our Lady the Virgin Santa María.

  She is ours, whispered the head, smiling a little sadly.

  What is that pendant you have on? asked the Queen.

  Slipping the chain over his head, the young man bowed, and presented her with the toy.

  How very real it is! she laughed. And are those rubies in its eyes?

  Yes, Majesty.

  She closed her eyes as if in pain (really she was thinking of something), and the tendons stood out on her long pink neck. Since he felt like a very little boy, he could not help but wonder how it all might turn out.

  She presented him with a decorated box of blue crystal, filled with round beads of pure silver. What was he supposed to do with it? He bowed to the floor and was dismissed. Creeping into the jungle, he ascended a fig tree, gorged himself and slept in the crotch, while Salvador’s head hovered faithfully until dawn, keeping watch for snakes and jaguars. Meanwhile Agustín dreamed that he was walking down a long prison corridor toward a faraway curtain of rotten hide whose edges let in white light. It was a dream which had often settled on him of late, and he feared it without knowing why. He awoke in a sweat, and there was the head hanging in the darkness, a hand’s breadth away from his face, with its red eyes glowing like flames and its rotten black lips smiling at him.

  On the following night he returned as the head commanded him to do, although, truth to tell, he would much rather have gone home to Veracruz if he could have kept his liberty there. When he entered the presence of the Queen she said: Someone stole the pendant you gave me.

  What did you do, Majesty?

  I had two of my maidservants put to death.

  This made him respect her. Certainly God would be well pleased with a lady who thus enforced her rights.

  Señor Agustín, what do you carry in the sack at your belt?

  My brother’s relics, Majesty.

  Very loving of you.

  The head whispered: Tell them that you are the best knight in the world!— So he did. Then he offered to serve her according to his power, and she clapped her hands for pleasure, because her eastern dominions were currently oppressed by all sorts of monsters. And the Amazons said to him: God has sent you.

  The Queen of Ziñogava gave him a mirrorlike sword and chain mail nearly as silky as a woman’s hair. Then she called him back to bestow more treasures on him, so that before she was done she had armed him with shield, spear, sword, silver armor and golden crossbow. So he sallied forth, with the aid of God and His Glorious Mother (not to mention the flying head).

  7

  His battles lay eastward, in the yellow direction. You may be sure that in his path were monsters indeed: namely, the extra ecclesiam who dwell outside of Christian grace. Although of course he had never been there, he seemed to recognize certain vistas from his childhood: papayas, almonds, coconut palms, vast sp
reading mangoes whose tops were in a fire of yellow flowers. Loudly invoking Saint Santiago, as he had seen actors do in battle-pageants, almost forgetting how afraid he used to be in those days, he did exactly as the head instructed him. Had he been alone he would have pondered, worried and planned, so rigorous had been his education; but when one’s brother is a flying decapitated head, there is not much to do but throw oneself into each campaign, trusting in magic all the more since Salvador used to be a lucky gambler.

  First came the dog with the eagle’s face. The flying head worried its throat to pieces; meanwhile Agustín lanced it through the breast. He cut out its jeweled eyes for souvenirs, and for that instant felt pride, but the head sternly told him: Never say that we mean justice, or care for the right. We do not forget; there is nothing to be made whole.

  How can that be, brother? We’re killing the bad, so aren’t we becoming good?

  Keep wondering, said the head. That’s the first step.

  Then there was the three-headed ogre. Vowing to have him dead, and all his minions delivered up unto her who ruled Ziñogava, Agustín rushed upon him with unexampled hatred and courage.— Kill the center head first, said Salvador.— In the end Agustín accounted for two heads, while his brother finished up. The third head was small, high-foreheaded and sad. Agustín picked it up and stared into its eyes. Then he threw it away, at which the flying head sang a cheerful song.

  Although they made a great cry and entreated his kindness, he put all the ogre’s children to death, male and female, and his joy rose up like smoke to see their suffering. As for the monster’s slaves and servitors, Agustín dispatched them back to Ziñogava, enchained in terror by the flying head. Not daring to step right or left from the straightest path, nor even to upraise their eyes, they shuffled into the Queen’s presence, bearing her necklaces of gold beads and shells. The Amazons all agreed that he was succeeding even better than the pirate Lorencillo. And the Queen began to desire him.

  He halfway expected to meet enemy spirits or even flying heads. What if the earless Indian’s ghost were as powerful as his brother? But thanks to Our Lady he never did meet one.

  Next to fall were the winged crocodile, the Laughing Bird Lady and the giant whose armor proved less infallible than he had expected.— The head kept saying: Don’t hesitate. God will help us.— When the giant first turned an eye on him, Agustín seemed to see once more in the base of the guard-tower at San Juan de Ulúa that long tunnel which seems to penetrate impossibly beyond the diameter of the tower itself, at which he felt weirdly quelled and quenched, as if he were helpless, but at once the head flew round and round his face, buzzing angrily, until he came to his senses and realized that this enemy reckoned for as little as the others. So he slew him, beating in his head with his sword.

  Thanks to the flying head, all Agustín’s battles taken together were no more frightening than one of the cane games which our horsemen play in honor of Corpus Christi. The Snake Twins proved difficult, but since the head could not be killed, they bit at it as much as they pleased, while Agustín took advantage. So the Snake Twins perished; their clay skeletons quickly turned to dust. Thus the two brothers continued to deal with the wicked and rebellious as they deserved; indeed, Holy Writ has proved that for unlawful villains there never could be any escape. Both brothers enjoyed to see a severed head bite dirt in its dying rage. They exterminated the Bee People; they reduced escaped negroes to reason. Seeing this, even the Devilfish Tribe surrendered. Approaching his mercy, blowing animal-headed whistles and flutes, they knelt to await what would happen; he and the head slew them all, sending back trophies to the Queen of Ziñogava.

  There was a certain evildoer named Dzum; he was wider than the cathedral at Veracruz and his flesh was harder than steel. Agustín felt daunted, but the head buzzed round his ear, saying: Remember those Inquisitors who condemned us! and at once rage empowered him into leaping forward like a picador about to thrust the lance over his horse’s head and gore the bull again. And even Dzum could not withstand those two brothers. When he fell, Agustín kicked his teeth in, wondering whether this might be happiness.— Back in Veracruz, when Señora Marín was still able to walk, she and her husband used to cudgel Herlinda and Salvador for their own good, sometimes kicking their heads a few times, and if they caught Agustín miserably eavesdropping they would command him to come in, which of course he was not required to do, not being their slave; but for Salvador’s sake he always marched stonily in, bowing his head and never crying out when they began to beat his head, which in truth they did but moderately, since he had barely entered the years of reason; and this proved to be a valuable education for the boy, who as he grew found ever less pity within himself. This memory increased the zeal with which he finished off the giant. Suddenly he remembered his brother’s execution, and sobbed. By then the head was out of sight, swooping about its business, most likely devouring birds and insects, for it sometimes grew so thirsty that even a battle wasn’t enough. Agustín gave thanks that it had not observed his tears. By the time it returned, he had recovered himself, and was cutting away Dzum’s leather armor in hope of discovering something precious.

  There remained the Poison King, whose touch was death.— That’s nothing! crowed the head. Have you forgotten the night when you were weeping for hunger, and I burgled the glovers’ guild?

  Yes, brother. A pretty loaf of bread you got me—

  And meat. Don’t you remember that?

  I remember that bread—

  And I got myself Herlinda. She loves money far more than you do.

  She’s still alive?

  Never mind.

  And now I’ll have María Platina for my wife.

  Yes you will, brother. Perhaps then you’ll begin to grow good.

  Thus conversing, they slew the Poison King safely from a distance, Agustín shooting him with arrows while the head hovered dropping stones from its jaws.

  These were but a few of Agustín’s battles. Although many monsters fought against him with courage, his deeds kept passing as straight and useless as do the sentries through the endless colonnade of San Juan de Ulúa, the head weaving noble treacheries for him, as industrious as a skilled clothmaker at eight reales a day. Thus they felled all those miscreants, or Turks as they are often called in New Spain. I consider our two heroes nearly the equal of those great lords in New Spain who find time to go a-hawking.

  When all the evildoers were dead, the two brothers flew home to Ziñogava, and María Platina gazed at him as if he were taller than Seville’s highest churchtower.

  I am yours more than mine, she whispered.

  Reader, here is the story’s happiest turn—that by virtue of marrying her, he instantly led her and her entire realm to the True Faith.

  8

  It was a very fine wedding, with musicians, singers and dancers, and a thousand Amazons looking on; Agustín taught them how to dance the Jarocho fandango. The head flew in, gripping a hogshead of Andalusian wine. Agustín prayed aloud for the perpetual glory and security of Ziñogava. As soon as he had been crowned, he enslaved all the Amazons, and under pain of death set them to working the silver mines.

  She was very rich of person; even her single breast was as high-silvered as Mexican pesos. No one could deny her purity of blood. He took her maidenhead, together with all that is referred to in that measure and demarcation. At once she lost her powers. She was very learned, and sometimes composed chamber music in the musical notation which is aped by certain slave brands. She was meant to be his earthly bliss. He ruled her like some cunning pork-farmer who buys up all the grain for his pigs, so that the townspeople go hungry.

  For him, the joy, so he had supposed, was to be witnessing the sunlight on the buttocks of María Platina, Queen of Ziñogava. For her, it was to continue supposing his soul to be as white-coraled as the Island of Sacrifices. And indeed, he sought sincerely to inhabit goodness, like an Aztec warrior
crawling inside his captive’s flayed skin.

  But once he had possessed her, he felt like an unwanted child sucking from a sour-breasted nurse, and of course he always hated to be touched. Every night he dreamed most weirdly or sorrowfully. Sometimes he struggled to breathe. Bitterness rose up out of him in bad vapor from his heart, and he wondered why he could not get his happiness even when María Platina remained as pliable as a slave of the correct blood. Perhaps he would rather have had his brother’s former novia Herlinda. But wasn’t he supposed to love life here in Ziñogava? What should he say to anyone? All he had wished for was to rule a kingdom; but the misery haunted him like the mosquitoes of Veracruz; he could not decide whether he had become foul, as his co-ruler said, or whether the judges had spoken true in asserting that he had always been filthy and malicious, perhaps on account of the color of his skin—or might it be that he needed but to pursue one thing of which he had not yet conceived, a thing perhaps even easy to get, and then he would be happy?

  He caused a special fortress to be built after the fashion of San Juan de Ulúa, and here raised a tower where his silver ingots were locked away; to this stronghold he alone kept the key, although his wife looked surprised and sad, as if she were seeking something to say to him. Upon pain of death he required the architect to copy everything which could be remembered about the prison-island, right down to the low outer parapet with its iron ship-rings within each of which two people could have embraced. Once the place was constructed and dedicated, he never went there.

  Brother, he said, I’m feeling almost murderous.

  Yes, brother. Then shall we go forever under the earth?

  No, not yet.

  Then go to your wife. And when you have a moment, get that servant to fetch me another bowl of fresh dog’s blood.

  His wife said: I am struggling to understand you.

  She said: I shall not be rid of this feeling until I regain what you have taken from me.