Life During Wartime

by Lucius Shepard

  “They’re frightened,” said the priest. “They’re only girls.”

  “They can’t be too frightened,” Mingolla said. “One tried to take my rifle.”

  “They were just trying to protect me.”

  Again Mingolla motioned with the rifle. “Tell ’em.”

  The priest called out in Spanish, and one by one the girls stood. They were all young, in their teens, and several were pregnant. Wearing white cotton shifts. With their dark skins and black hair and stoic faces, they might have been sisters.

  “What’s the story here?” said Mingolla.

  “Huh! I tell you what’s the story!” Corazon jabbed a finger at the priest’s face. “This motherfucker been feedin’ lies to these women to get ’em on their backs.”

  “No, that’s not…”

  “Don’t tell me no lies!” said Corazon. “I was raised by bastards like you. Fuckin’ Catholic Church been screwin’ people here since they first come!”

  “I can’t deny…” the priest began.

  “Goddamn right you can’t!” Corazon paced away.

  Mingolla was less interested in the priest’s explanation than in Corazon’s uncharacteristic passion, but he said, “Let him talk.”

  “I can’t deny the Church’s excesses,” said the priest. “Though since before the war we have fought on the side of the people.”

  Corazon sniffed.

  “But I assure you, I’m not taking advantage of the girls.” He made a gesture of helplessness. “Something’s goin’ on here…it’s extraordinary. Hard to explain.”

  “I bet,” said Corazon.

  “Who’s the father?” Mingolla pointed to one of the pregnant girls.

  “I am,” said the priest. “But…”

  “What I tell you?” Corazon went chest to chest with the priest. “These holy men…I know some that fuck anything that moves. Women, boys.” She stuck her nose in the priest’s face. “Animals!”

  Something about Corazon’s vehemence rang false to Mingolla. It was as if she was performing for him, putting on a show to convince him of her humanity, her untampered soul. And maybe that was what his bad feeling about the place had been trying to tell him. Not that there was danger of bodily harm, but a danger that he might buy what Izaguirre was selling.

  “You’re from New York, aren’tcha?” said Mingolla.

  The priest looked blank for a moment, then nodded. “Brooklyn.”

  “I’m from Long Island.”

  “I hardly remember the place,” said the priest absently. “So much has happened.”

  “Yeah? Like what? What’s happening now?”

  …David…

  …it’s okay…be out soon…

  The priest heaved a sigh. “Maybe she’s right about me.” He nodded at Corazon. “Maybe I’m only erecting a justification for violating the rule of celibacy. I wouldn’t be the first priest to suffer delusions.”

  “Delusions…bullshit!” said Corazon. “The man ain’t got no delusion, he just wanna little pussy.”

  “But even if they’re delusions,” the priest continued, “they still have substance. This place”—he looked up to the ceiling, following the flight of a swallow—“the foundations are carved from an enormous boulder that the Indians claim has magical properties. Maybe it’s true. Even when I first came here I could sense life in these stones. It seems to attract life. Like the swallows. Generations that have never flown beyond these walls.”

  “Lotta churches like that,” said Corazon.

  “True, but the swallows here…” The priest gave a wave of his hand. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Bet your ass,” said Corazon.

  “Shut up!” Mingolla told her.

  “The fuck I will! You don’t know these bastards!”

  She was about to say more, but Mingolla cut her off and told the priest to go on.

  “Have you ever seen the murals they paint down here?” asked the priest. “In bars and hotel lobbies? They’ll have ocean liners and volcanoes and racing cars and Jesus all in the same painting. It seems nonsensical, random. But I’ve come to believe that that tendency is at the heart of a syncretic process permeating the region. You see it—the process—at work in every area of life, and I believe it’s all reflective of something more important going through that same process.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “God…or at least the idea of God.” The priest held up a hand as if to ward off ridicule. “I know, I know! Ludicrous, demented. But we—the girls and I—live every day in that process, in the syncretic blending of Christ and some Indian spirit.” He rushed his words to override Corazon’s interruption. “You’d have to stay here to understand, to feel the truth of what I’m saying. But you must believe me! I haven’t coerced the girls…at least not knowingly. They were drawn here, just as I was drawn to violate my vow of celibacy. Drawn by dreams, voices. Intimations. The scheme of the new god is working itself out in us. Pagan and benign.” He touched his necklace and muttered something in a language unfamiliar to Mingolla; he pointed to the girls. “Ask them if you want. They’ll tell you.”

  “Sure they will,” said Corazon. “They fuckin’ brainwashed.”

  “What’s your new god alla ’bout?” Mingolla asked.

  “It’s not yet clear,” said the priest. “We keep adding to the image, and someday it’ll be complete. But…”

  “What image?”

  “Here, I’ll show you.” The priest started off along the east aisle, beckoning, and they followed him toward the side altar. Standing at the back of the altar, mounted on a head-high pedestal and fronted by banks of flickering candles, was a twice-life-size statue of the Virgin clad in a stiff gilt gown whose folds looked like flows of golden lava. Gems encrusted the bodice, and a golden cross hung from her neck. Spiderwebs moored the statue to the walls, frail intricate supports billowing slightly in the wash of heat from the candles, and a beetle was crawling on the chipped forehead. Much of the pink plaster of her face had been eroded; painted symbols figured her cheeks and neck. A knife was taped to her left hand, and in her right she held a clump of flowering weeds. The dim lighting made her appear monstrous and decaying, yet there was a kind of organic magnificence about her; it seemed to Mingolla that the movement of the spiderwebs and the inconstant shadows cast by the candles were the result of imperceptible breathing.

  “You’ve seen all there is to see,” said the priest. “Will you leave now…please?”

  “Why you want us to leave so bad?” Corazon asked. “What you hidin’?”

  “Nothing, nothing at all. But you’re interfering with the process. We need solitude, we need to focus on the Conception.”

  “I s’pose we might as well,” said Mingolla.

  “Ain’t you gonna do nothin’ ’bout these women?” Corazon was outraged.

  “What should I do?”

  “Take ’em outta here, man! Get ’em ’way from this fucker!”

  Mingolla turned to the body of the church, saw that the girls had gathered at the entrance to the side altar. “You ladies like it here?” he asked. “Or you feel like leaving?”

  They edged away, silent, their eyes looking as hard as obsidian.

  “Guess they’re happy,” said Mingolla.

  “Thank you,” said the priest.

  “You don’t know what you doin’!” Corazon shook her finger at Mingolla. “These fuckin’ priests, they crazy! They get so desperate for God, they start thinkin’ they God themselves. That they know everything ’bout God. And then they mess with you. I know!”

  “How do you know?” Mingolla asked.

  Corazon drew a long breath. “When I was little, thirteen, this priest, man, he used to take me into the rectory…givin’ me special instruction, he tell my mama. Say he see somethin’ spiritual in me. At first he just tellin’ me ’bout the Mysteries, y’know. But then he start showin’ me. The Mysteries! Huh! After a year I know more ’bout the Mysteries than most married ladies.”


  She was, Mingolla thought, quite convincing, and if what she was saying was true, it might explain much about her. But he couldn’t swallow it. Her opening up to him was too sudden, too coincidental with his growing lack of trust in her, and it might be best to act on impulse and get rid of her now. But then, he realized, he’d have to deal with Tully, and he didn’t want that. He could be wrong, after all, and even if he wasn’t, she would be no threat as long as he kept an eye on her.

  Ignoring her railing, her emoting, he shoved her ahead of him toward the front door.

  “Go with God,” said the priest, and then laughed. “Or whatever.”

  Mingolla paused in the doorway, looking back at him, feeling a momentary sympathy for a fellow New Yorker. “This ain’t for real, man,” he said. “Y’know that?”

  “Sometimes I feel that way,” said the priest. “But”—he shrugged, grinned—“I gotta be me.”

  “Well…good luck.”

  “Hey,” said the priest. “How the Mets doing?”

  “I don’t follow ’em, I’m a Yankee fan.”

  The priest adopted a stern expression. “Blasphemer,” he said, and then, with a friendly wave, he closed the door.

  Soon they began to see the war in the sky, eerie sunset glows visible at every hour of the day as swirls of pink and golden light bathing the clouds. The people in the villages where they bought gas told them that the battle zone stretched for miles and that no trails existed to circumvent it. That war should have such a lovely reflection made the prospect of encountering it all the more menacing, but there was nothing to do except to go forward. The jungle became less dense, the evidence of conflict increasingly apparent. Once they came to a grassy slope upon which lay dozens of yellowish brown shapes that at a distance resembled giant footprints, but on closer inspection were revealed to be dessicated corpses that had been pressed flat, perhaps by the passage of tanks; their faces were eyeless masks, their fingers splayed like those of the clay men Mingolla had fashioned as a child. Less than a day’s travel farther on, they discovered a mass grave that had been left uncovered, and that same evening they reached the base of a volcano that rose from the midst of an extensive stand of mahogany trees: Mingolla spotted large wooden platforms high in the trees, and as the Bronco threaded its way among the trunks, he saw men descending on ropes from the heights of the trees ahead of them. Though the men did not appear to be bearing arms, he threw off the safety of his rifle and told Debora to pull up. He and Tully and Debora climbed out, training their rifles on the two men who approached them.

  “Hello!” one of the men called. He was a balding, stocky American in his fifties, wearing shorts and a tattered khaki shirt with a general’s star on the collar; he had the sort of healthy openness to his face that Mingolla associated with scoutmasters and camp directors. His companion was an Indian, older, wrinkled, dressed in jeans and a Mickey Mouse T-shirt, “God, it’s good to see new faces,” said the stocky man. “Where you bound?”

  “Panama,” said Debora.

  “Well, then you’ll have to stay the night, won’t you?” said the American. “My name’s Blackford. Frank Blackford, U.S. Army, retired. And this”—he gestured at the Indian—“is Gregorio, my brother-in-law. You might say we’re co-mayors of our little community. Come on up. We’ll feed you and…”

  “Thanks,” said Mingolla. “But we want to make a few more miles before dark.”

  Blackford’s good cheer evaporated. “You can’t do that. You’ll be in great danger.”

  “From what?” said Tully.

  Gregorio muttered something in his own language. Blackford nodded and said, “There’s a rather large animal that inhabits this area. Nocturnal, and very fierce. Weapons don’t have much effect on it…which is why we’ve taken to the heights.”

  “What kind of animal?” Debora asked.

  “Malo,” said Gregorio. “Muy malo.”

  “That’s a long story,” said Blackford. “Look, you can’t get much farther tonight. You’ll be right in the heart of the most dangerous area. Why not stay with us, and I’ll tell you about it.”

  He seemed genuinely concerned for them, but, taking no chances, Mingolla reinforced his concern and that of Gregorio. “All right,” he said. “What about the car?”

  “Be perfectly safe here.” Blackford chuckled. “The Beast has no use for it.”

  “The Beast?” Debora glanced at Mingolla, alarmed.

  “Crazy motherfuckers,” said Tully under his breath.

  Blackford heard him. “Crazy, perhaps. But alive! Alive! And in these times, that’s the only form of sanity worth recognizing.”

  From the edge of a wooden platform encircling the trunk of a mahogany tree, Mingolla could see other platforms through the interstices of the branches. Charcoal fires in iron braziers glowed like faceted orange jewels among sprays of dark green leaves; women were hunkered beside them, and children sat beneath lean-tos set closer to the trunks. The smells of cooking came on the breeze, mixed with the clean scent of the trees. Men slid from platform to platform on systems of ropes, passing one another in mid-air. Just below, water jumped like a silvery fish from the jagged end of a pipe, spilled into a trough that ran from tree to tree; a pump thudded somewhere nearby. Wind frayed the sounds of conversational voices and babies crying. The platform where Mingolla was standing was roofed with interlaced branches and furnished with pallets and cushions. Propped in one corner was a pale green combat suit and helmet, and after they had eaten a meal of beans and rice served in banana leaves, Mingolla asked Blackford about the suit.

  “It’s mine,” said Blackford.

  “I didn’t know generals took part in combat,” Mingolla said.

  “They don’t,” said Blackford; he flicked his starred collar. “This is what they give you for twenty-five years’ service with the quartermaster corps. The suit”—he seemed to be searching for the right words—“it was part of a fantasy I once had. It comes in handy these days.”

  “How come you people livin’ wit’ de fuckin’ birds?” Tully asked. He was sitting against the trunk, his arm around Corazon. Ruy was lying on a pallet, staring at Debora, who sat cross-legged beside Mingolla. Darkness was settling over the treetop village, and a few stars could be seen between the separations of the leaves; to the west, visible beneath a branch, the last of sunset was a neon scar on the horizon.

  Blackford stretched out his legs, took a pull from a bottle of rum. “I guess I have time for a story before I get to work.”

  “You work at night?” Debora asked.

  He nodded, picked at the label of the bottle. “For most of my time down here,” he said, “I was stationed in Salvador. I was a damn good organizer, but nothing of a military man, and that had always bothered me. I figured that if they’d give me the chance, I’d be as good as any of the glory boys. What was war, I asked myself, if not organized violence? If I could organize shipping schedules and deliveries, wouldn’t I be just as efficient at running a battle? I applied for front-line assignments, but they kept turning me down. Said I was more valuable where I was. But I heard their jokes. The thought of Frank T. Blackford in combat made them dizzy with laughter. So I decided that I’d show ’em.”

  Blackford’s sigh accompanied a sudden dimming in the west. “Looking back, I can see what a foolish idea it was. I suppose I was a fool, then. At the least I was ignorant about war. Even though I should have known better, I saw war as opportunity, a field upon which a man could make his mark. And so to prove my mettle, I pulled some strings and wangled myself temporary command of a combat unit in Nicaragua, one of the long range recon patrols. This was done under an assumed name, you understand. I had some R & R coming, and my plan was to take the patrol and do great things. Impossible things. Then return to Salvador and shake my combat record under the noses of my superiors. Well, after three days in the field, I’d lost…I was about to say I’d lost control of my men, but the truth is I’d never had control. They’d just started using Sammy in those
days, and the safe dosage was still a matter of conjecture. My men were lunatics, and once I began doing the drug with them, trying to be one of the boys, I became as crazy as they were. I remember coming into the villages, peaceful little places with fountains in the plazas. I moved through them spinning, a kind of mad dance, spraying bursts of fire that seemed to be writing weird names on the walls. I laughed at the men I shot. Shouted at them. Like a kid playing soldier.”

  He lifted the bottle to his lips, but didn’t drink, just stared off into the leaves, “I couldn’t take it. No, that’s too easy to say. I could take it. I relished the chemical bravery, and no moral wakening brought me to my senses. I simply outstripped my men in madness, and they deserted me. Left me without drugs, without a radio, to wander the hill country. I walked back through some of the villages we’d destroyed, and then, only then, did it begin to come home to me where I was and what I’d been doing. I saw ghosts in the ruins. They chatted with me, followed me, and I would run and run, trying to escape them.” Blackford had a drink, shivered as if the rum had hit a raw place inside him. “The nights were awful. I figured out why dogs howl at the moon. Because they’re answering it, because it’s a howl frozen up there, the end of a long yellow throat opened by terror and despair. I hid in the ruins, in holes in the ground. I hid from things that were there, things that weren’t. Once I lay in a ditch all night, and when the light started to gray I saw that what I’d thought was a log was actually a stiffened corpse. It had been staring at me the whole night, and I could feel the bad news its eyes had beamed into my head. I was inside madness. I’d reached the place where madness has its own continuum of correct actions and policies. The heights upon which you can sit and hold rational discourse with a sane man and be so madly fluent that you can win every point. And I would have traveled farther into madness, but I was fortunate.”

  Blackford started to have another drink, but remembered his manners and passed the bottle to Tully. “It was the volcano that restored me to sanity. It was such an elementary sight, it seemed to offer the promise of simple truths. There it was, a perfect cone rearing into a blue sky, like something a child with crayons might have drawn if you’d told him about Nicaragua and how it used to be. Empty except for Indians and fire in the earth. I was so taken with it, I walked around it three times, admiring it, studying it. Buddhists do the same thing, you know. Circumnambulation, they call it. Maybe I remembered that, or maybe it’s just something your cells instruct you to do once you reach your magic mountain. Whatever…I loved the volcano, loved being under it, in its shadow. And all the time I was walking around, I never noticed anyone living nearby. Not until Gregorio decided to save me from the Beast. I thought Gregorio was madder than I. He’d never spotted the Beast, never seen its track. Yet he would have sworn to its existence. In a way the story he told charmed me; if it hadn’t I might have risked staying on the ground just for the sake of obstinacy, and I might have died. But I wanted to hear more, to learn about these curious people that lived in the trees.”