Perpetual Winter: The Deep Inn

by Carlos Meneses-Oliveira

  Perpetual Winter

  (The Deep Inn)

  Carlos Meneses-Oliveira

  Language:

  English

  Translation

  William J. Shelton

  First edition:

  Portuguese 2015

  English 2016

  Cover by:

  Damonza.com

  Winter Base Model Herminio Nieves @ 2013

  Copyright © 2014 by Carlos Meneses Oliveira

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For permission requests, write to

  Perpetual Winter, Permissions Coordinator

  Av. Barbosa Du Bocage, 86, 1º Esq.

  1050-032, Lisbon, Portugal

  To Angela, the love of my life

  To Filipe, Sofia and Mariana, who give meaning to my existence

  To those who believe everything is possible, even if they can never achieve it.

  Part Zero

  Chapter 0

  Diary, Last Page

  “Some people seem worried about the Planet warming, but looking back at Mother Earth’s history, I’d be more concerned about losing its summers forever, about never again feeling the warm embrace of those centuries when even the Sahara Desert flourished with life and civilization.

  What used to really concern me was the opposite: the extreme cold, the frozen winter, a new, perpetual ice age. But not anymore. That was before I heard about the Deep Inn and the ‘unique’ winter they have hidden there. These days, as death insists on planning a rendezvous with me, I worry about the spring, be it the next one or another further down the line that could see the sprouting of the frozen seeds I’m told are down there.”

  Agent T, Washington, DC, 2018

  Part One

  Flight

  Chapter 1

  Incident in the Alley

  It had snowed late that dark afternoon, something that only happens every forty years in Lisbon. It was cold, very cold, but the low temperature didn’t bother him. He always wore a black or dark gray t-shirt, even during winter, and took cold baths year round. If civilization collapsed like his father predicted, he would survive, or at least survive the cold. Not only had winter and a premature darkness come that day, but the humid atmosphere was so thick that it threatened to turn to liquid at any moment. His heart was beating against his ribs and his lungs were sucking in all of the air as if oxygen was going to disappear. Panting like prey or panting like a predator? The question returned, like the intrusive rhyme of a song that wouldn’t go away.

  Lucas Zuriaga was not like other young men. At nineteen years old, he looked no older than sixteen. He was of medium build, looked taller than his actual height, and was muscular and clean. His hair was dark brown, slightly curly, and his eyebrows were not very heavy on his light skin, testimony of his Celtic ancestry.

  Lucas had broken the national speed record at fifteen, when he discovered swimming and gave up running, upsetting his parents and his trainer, who had proclaimed he would be a world champion. Racing seemed too simple for him. Animal races were interesting. Greyhounds, horses, pigeons. Not people. At seventeen, his times were the best in the country in several swimming styles. The only problem was that it was something technical, yes, but it was repetitive and, even worse, competitors could not interfere with each others’ performances. An athlete wasn’t truly forced to prove himself against others. It was gold without glory. At that point, Lucas decided his calling was martial arts and put on the white belt, starting at zero once again. He progressed quickly since he was fast, very fast. Ballistic. He could anticipate his adversaries’ moves which, to him, were painfully slow. He never ran nor swam again.

  He looked once more at the giant sprawled out on the steps like a rag doll. Having finished the fray, Lucas left this dreamlike world of warrior passion and the cold that changed his breath into steam now enveloped him more closely, and the volcano that had awakened in his breast was cooling down. He made his way along the facades overlooking this small Lisboan patio. All of the windows were sleeping. Only the public bathroom that sparkled as new in the wrong place, an avant-garde furnishing in a Rio slum, alarmed him as if it, a meddling witness, were looking at him. What was that small wheelless camper doing in an alley where no one goes?

  Lucas hated losing. He didn’t know how to deal with failure, how to fix it inside himself. Defeat slayed him; it was his survival instinct that sought victory at any price. He wasn’t after money, medals, or praise; he just didn’t want to lose. That day, eliminated by points in the ring, defeated by an adversary twice his weight, it was a fury that caused Lucas Zuriaga to hasten the tragedy pursuing him on each of the few occasions when he wasn’t the winner; at the end of the match, he transformed what had been a fight following martial rules, fair or not, into a street brawl. There, it became a free-for-all and there he always won. He then heard noise coming from the gym and left. As he withdrew from that small bit of chaos, he remembered his late father’s scarlet words, written in the margins of the book immortalizing Grendel; they’d jumped off the paper at him as if it were possible, as if they were alive. First, they had fluttered like foolish butterflies among the assorted images of pursuing and capturing wild boars he retained from hunting but, later, they chased him as if they were a swarm of wasps, a nocturnal stampede of bulls in fields of tall corn. “War,” he repeated in silence, attempting to wash the curse from himself.

  “Contrary to what the simple proffer, more than art, fire, agriculture or speech, war is what distinguishes us from animals. It is war that lays the ground for human civilization,” his biological father had written.

  Why? he almost spelled out, as if asking something, as if what had never depended on anyone else had not depended on him. Remember it’s only a game. A simple game, don’t you see? This time they’ll throw you out and this time it’ll be fair.

  The large street’s thousand suns projected themselves in the mouth of the alley, like spotlights on a stage. But that dude deserved it. He did. No, it won’t be fair. That son-of-a-bitch was asking for it.

  The gigantic elephant almost choking with happiness, he remembered. What good is being big? What value does it have if you don’t achieve it from the sweat of training hour after hour after hour? First, he engaged him by raining one hundred blows, unwavering, almost knocking him to his feet, kneeling because of his speed, and his fiber, but then, instructed by his trainer, the giant came back once more—this time with the anaconda’s embrace.

  Lucas had lost on points on the canvas without the judges giving him a second chance. They never did. But the best trapeze artist with a net is not the same as the one without that safety feature.

  The fear in the cretin’s face when he saw me enter the dressing room after our fight and realized that he was still twisting in the wind but with no ropes to keep him from falling.

  Even if his coach could censure him, what other choice did he have? It’s just a game? Is following the rules too hard for me? Why did he come, baring his chest? It’s not a game. They judged who was the toughest, the most resilient, the strongest. And he was the strongest, if not in the octagonal ring at least he certainly was on the alley’s polished, damp sidewalk behind the gym.

  When he left the alley, he bumped into Tomás. It took him two seconds to recognize him because the glare of the first streetlight blinded him. It was leaning, pointed right at the back street. One had to look under it, or the strong, intermittent light would be right in your eyes. Tom�
�s Sequeira, his friend, was a simple lad.

  “So, Lucas? I couldn’t get there. What happened?”

  “I have to learn to wrestle. That’s my weak point,” responded the new Achilles, continuing on his way, now following the pathway of the bright white Portuguese sidewalk that added so much to the stores, still open. He passed heavily clothed pedestrians, many of them carrying brightly wrapped sacks full of Christmas gifts. Tomás matched his slow gait.

  “Don’t tell me that you took it on the chin? I don’t believe it. Wasn’t it that autistic Silva, from Mafra?”

  “No, no, it wasn’t him. Just so you know, I got Quiroga, the hulk.”

  “Shit, that dude isn’t real. He’s an animal,” confirmed Tomás. “But are you okay?”

  “Two hundred percent. I got twenty or thirty punches in on him to his zero. He didn’t even touch me. But after the break, his trainer told him to grab me. He got me from behind. I have to learn to fight in a hold, it’s my weak point,” he repeated. “There’s no sadder scene, but I’ve got to do it, or I won’t be going anywhere.”

  He still remembered Quiroga’s bloody-toothed smile, going back to the advice his trainer had whispered, “Grab him,” in a chirped murmur too low for Lucas to have heard but designed with such a largesse that anyone could read it on his lips, “Grab him.” And, after the whistle had signaled Lucas’s defeat, Quiroga became a dead mass, pretending to be a paperweight, waiting for the referee to tell him to get off of Lucas. As if he, the black belt, needed a referee’s help. Disgusting. Why wasn’t he smiling in his dressing room? Why didn’t he grab me in the alley, at the moment of truth?

  “But why did the coach have you wrestle the Hulk? That guy’s not in your weight class,” asked Tomás.

  “I don’t know. He must’ve done it to punish me because of that ruckus last month.”

  “Ha, ha! You blew up and they won’t forgive you,” concluded Tomás.

  “No, not them. The coach. He’s not on my side.”

  “That’s a lie. If he didn’t put up with you, it’d have been over for you after that fit you threw at the last championship. They gave you silver, and you still jumped into the ring and trounced the guy who’d eliminated you on penalties, damn! And why that nonsense with the comb again, my God? I shouldn’t have thrown it to you. Great show you put on, but you went too far, that’s for sure. They expelled you, but what did you expect?”

  “Expelled, no. Suspended for a year. A year from now, I’ll go directly for the title.”

  “Expelled or suspended, they threw you out...”

  “Suspended, Tomás. I was suspended,” Lucas said, cutting him off.

  “And before summer, you had that scene with Salazar. Lucas, what do you want the coach to do? Adopt you?”

  “Hey, what’s that all about?” Lucas responded furiously.

  “Calm down, dude. You’re really stressed out. It was just something to say,” Tomás excused himself, remembering that Lucas was adopted. “The coach puts up with you,” he continued. “He’ll have to train you for a whole year without you bringing anything in and, on top of that, you don’t even pay him.”

  “What do you mean, I don’t pay him, Tomás? I’ll pay him right down to the last cent. You can be sure of that. And I’ll make money for the gym, I swear.”

  “Yeah, but in the meantime, the coach is giving you a chance. If it were me, don’t you think I’d have to pay on time every month?”

  “No one pays on time every month. Paying is one thing, but paying right on time is for those who can. What matters is that the money is coming in.”

  “But yours never does, Lucas. How long has it been since you paid one red cent?”

  “It was the coach who proposed me not paying for six months, okay? I bring a lot of coin into the club and, as soon as I can, I’ll pay.”

  “You’re going to make them money, Lucas, lots of money. The gym is lucky to have you. You can count on me as your manager when you’re a champ,” advanced Tomás, convinced.

  “For sure,” said Lucas. “We’ll go to the United States.”

  “To the States or to São Paulo.”

  “No, don’t even think about it. Brazilians all go to the US so why should I go to Brazil...”

  “We, man, we.”

  “Yes, we,” he confirmed. “To America,” he dreamed.

  Lucas still lived with his parents and, in spite of his slow pace, they were reaching his humble quarters. Tomás took his leave with a kind of half hug and set off, bobbing as he sashayed away. His few friends might have little education, but they didn’t lack in generosity. His high school pals had gone on to the University and he’d lost contact with most of them when he’d decided to stop for a year before continuing his studies. That one year had become three, and his martial arts dream had not yet borne fruit.

  The small house was one-story, painted white, and had a lightsome red roof with generous eaves. In the front, a porch let whoever knocked on the door take shelter, whether it was sunny or raining as, at times, both were excessive in Lisbon. In the lit window, he could see there were visitors in the living room. “Strange,” Lucas thought. “At dinnertime?”

  He entered to find the coach was there. His brother appeared, slipping through the door, excitedly bringing a new dinosaur to show him, but his mother told him to go do his homework in his room. The coach was some forty years old but looked older. His skin was weathered and dry from the sun. His hands were calloused, but not from boxing gloves. He was white, or almost white. People said he was from Puerto Rico, but no one really knew. Since blacks were called black and whites white, no one asked him what he was. He could probably be whatever he wanted. He had dark eyes that never seemed to blink. He still had his wolf-grey training suit on underneath his leather coat. He’d come straight there and did not stand when Lucas entered.

  “Hello, Mom, Dad.”

  “Son…” his mother acknowledged.

  “Good evening, Coach.”

  The coach did not answer but fixed him with his eyes. There was an empty chair at the small round table and Lucas sat down. Rather, he started to sit down but still had not touched the chair when the coach stood up. He slapped his leather cap in his left hand against his right before adjusting it on his head.

  Lucas explained himself, preemptively and juvenilely. “I know it’s just a game, Coach. I know it’s not serious...”

  “It’s not a game, Lucas,” the coach interrupted. It’s a combat sport. And it’s serious. You, young man, look serious, but there’s not a drop of sportsmanship in your blood and without sportsmanship, there’s no sport.” He shook Lucas’ father’s hand and lightly nodded his head to his mother. He did not look at Lucas as he left.

  * * *

  Lucas Zuriaga skipped supper and retired to his tight quarters, defeated by the coach’s decision. What do I do now? he asked himself.

  I’m out on the streets. When he got to his room he found his window ajar, and a black thief dressed in a denim shirt and cap entered his room followed by a Ukrainian having no eyebrows, a rat-gray sweatshirt, and a frayed hood. Lucas spun through the air and, on his first turn, kicked the thief who was leaping and, on his second, his foot went out the window and struck the albino. The first outlaw silently fell flat on his back and the other delinquent, who had reflexes to almost break his fall, got up quickly, without complaint. Not having the patience needed to go after the rats, Lucas leaned against the window.

  The burglars had not left. They stood still in the street for a moment, no more than six meters from his room, and noticed that lights in nearby houses were turning on. They calmly exchanged a few words and made a brief phone call with a huge ancient mobile phone as they brushed off the dust, muddy from the snow. Only then did they begin walking away at a normal pace with their chins held high.

  What asses, thought Lucas, observing them. What nerve. Instead of running off, they stick around to talk like they were shopping. You can barely recognize this neighborhood anymore. I s
hould’ve gone after them and beaten the crap out of them.

  He locked the window.

  Chapter 2

  Shadows in the Old Acacia

  His small room had a high ceiling. It was cold and a few leaks had caused the beige paint to peal here and there. You could hear the wind whistling through the window slats the young man refused to caulk. Lucas liked to hear the elements outside and would close the door so the cold wouldn’t consume the rest of the house. There was no carpet on the wood inlaid floor. In one corner, he had a punching bag and, since it was close to the wall, there were multiple signs of it having been sorely punished. Lucas had drawn a number ‘three’ on the bag in elegant calligraphy—he’d already destroyed two with the intensity of his training. The young man slept on a metal bunk. A desk, a wheeled chair, and a case full of books were under his berth. The majority of the books were about war and all types of weapons. They spilled out of the bookcase and onto the floor in piles—books about World War II, the Hundred Years War, Alexander’s march to Persia, great generals, and great conquerors. There were technical books about combat and self-defense, firearms and cutting weapons, and fewer about the fall of great empires, self-control and an atlas of human anatomy. There were even a few works of poetry that he kept because they were the only thing he had from his biological parents. An old translation of Beowulf with his father’s notes in it of which he had only read a few pages, and others he had barely touched, like Shakespeare’s Sonnets, and the first volume of Goethe’s Faust. It was in Beowulf with his victory over Grendel that he’d found the note about war he would never forget. “War. We discover it early but we rarely remember that. It is clear children exposed precociously to its most obscene suffocation never abandon that memory. But that is more an undesired visit of the phantoms populating the night than war as such. It has the same nature as crime, a misunderstood aggression at a tender age, arousing only fear and trauma.