Sleeping Dragons

by Magela Baudoin; Wendy Burk; M. J. Fièvre

  The doors of Moebia opened for you. Such is the omnipotence of fear. You were persistent and you almost succeeded in getting what you were looking for. Almost. You believed that you could alter the course of events, having always done so before. Not this time. I’ll give you credit, though: anyone could make an accusation, but only you were willing to write the story. The long lines on visiting days were not made up of relatives, but rather pilgrims who came from all over the world to visit the famous “cocaine prison.” That was the scoop!

  You lied about your reasons for coming. Let’s say it without euphemisms: you were deceitful. But when did you ever care about procedures? One afternoon, you decided to find El Pata and write a story that would blow up his mythology. You announced it petulantly to the newsroom staff: “If you strip the symbolic trappings from the heroes, you get to the flesh.” Your plan was to walk in and meet him, but Rafael stopped you. The click of your boots down the corridor woke him from his siesta, but he pretended to be asleep, stretched out in his hammock, blocking your way. I bet you stared at him, traced his hard abdomen with your eyes, and imagined unzipping his already half-open fly. But the truth is that when he opened his eyes to surprise you, you looked down.

  “I came to talk to him,” you said, sure he would know who you were referring to.

  “Why don’t you talk to me?” he answered with a smile. “I can tell you whatever you want to know.”

  “I’m not interested,” you replied.

  Your heart skipped and your brain buzzed. Never before had you met a man of that caliber, who, to top it all, was giving you the time of day. Ugly women know that men don’t look at them, least of all men like Rafael, because the world is obsessed with perfect proportions: beauty over brain, shine over substance. You had studied these facts to erudition. From the beginning of times, from Aristotle to Nietzsche, beauty was the territory of contemplation and goodness, while ugliness was the space of repulsion and violence, much worse than no place at all. You wished ugliness could have been simply the opposite of beauty: a symmetrical counterpoint. But it was worse than that; it brought out the most human, and therefore the most perverse reactions—disgust, hate, and terror. That’s why you saw Frankenstein as the most sincere parable of humanity: the monster fleeing to his death. Beauty shook people and made them stupid, but you had never before experienced its impact, its frenzy, and its paralysis. If love at first sight exists, it must be a drug like this one: poisonous. You didn’t want to see him again because you felt him in your veins as an addiction, and you knew you would be unable to free yourself. So, of course, you came back every day. Even then you pretended you didn’t know him for who he was, even then you mocked him. You were cruel. Rafael liked your black humor and the strange circumstance that you were immune to his charms. He waited eagerly for your arrival; he followed you around the prison and laid siege to your life outside, sending you gifts made with his own hands and calling you on the phone.

  You kept coming, Magdalena—not for the paper, but for him. First, for a coffee hour. Then, for an afternoon. And then, for an entire night. It was not just about Rafael, but also about the way you felt there. In prison you were learning another sense of beauty, one you had read about, but that you had invariably mocked. Something immaterial and innocent, something you had to come back for because it brought you joy and even peace. You imagined prison as an artistic representation of the world, that is to say, ugliness masterfully imitated, which acquires a beautiful resonance. Your time there was beautiful in that way, for you felt yourself freed, welcomed, and not in the sense of sententious admiration, not as if you were a pearl among swine, but because you were a part of the whole. You laughed at yourself, for you could feel the dislocation in your soul caused by this rapturous and unhealthy tenderness. El Pata saw you from afar and understood how you fit into that mess. He threatened Rafael, warned him of the dangers, but it was useless. Then he confronted you, without any effect. You refused to listen and you ended up living with Rafael in prison. You moved into a prison, Magdalena! You paid to spend the night and you left in the morning.

  When you were kicked out of the paper, you didn’t care. You would write a book—you swore it—a true work of art, with which you would touch the sun at its zenith. You manipulated events as easily as if you were cheating at cards, and this gave you a sense of scientific authority, since you were proving your theory that destiny was, in fact, subject to appeal. Rafael was serving the last of his sentence and, although you didn’t plan it, it happened that he made you pregnant. You had rejected the archetype of motherhood at a young age, but now you embraced it easily, as one more aspect of your existential metamorphosis. Then the girl was born and El Pata, in exchange for leaving father and daughter alone, demanded that Rafael’s visits to him continue. They spent nights together, in spite of Rafael’s anxiety to be with you. He returned every morning like an exile; you solemnized his homecoming as your revenge and personal triumph. El Pata felt that he’d been tricked, so why wouldn’t he seek vengeance? By taking your daughter’s life, he thought he could take what he really wanted.

  Rafael explained these facts so insistently that the warden interceded and sent samples of his DNA out of the country for testing. But they also listened to him because of your own influence, Magdalena. Mutilated by your daughter’s death, you roared for justice, watching your architecture fall to pieces around you. All you wanted was to go back to prison because you had been happy there to the point of insensibility; you wanted to return to that refuge where everything was so dead that even your thorns didn’t show. What made you think it was possible to achieve happiness? Why did you dare to imagine a life with him on the outside? Why did you betray your own faith and surrender to the delirium of perfection? Now you were defeated by the certainty that you were losing everything. You had no strength left, Magdalena. You felt besieged by the inaccuracy of the facts, by the severity of your own judgment and the blind rage in your heart. Your man drifted in a catatonic sleep, far away from you. He just lay there. Did he blame you? Had he stopped loving you? Did he reproach you for your doubts? For the first time, Magdalena, the pull of what others said was stronger. You had awakened. The press poured out the fury of their ink as they awaited the results of the DNA test, fateful results that arrived on the Friday morning when Rafael was found dead in his cell. You made yourself believe that your hands were clean. You hid what you knew; you made the results of the lab tests disappear, because your mission in life was always narcissistic. Then you just got back to writing your book. Get as high as the sun and burn.

  GOURMET

  THERE WAS A place she would have liked to return to. It was a bedroom in her grandparents’ house, a room her grandmother had decorated especially for her, even though at first the fabrics and the colors seemed a bit too grown up. Abuela had stitched the comforter herself, along with the curtains and the bed cushions, so that they would last a lifetime. Hence, Inés’s taste for checkered bedspreads: it all originated from that first, fluffy comforter, white and blue, with checks on one side and flowers on the other. After dinner, Abuela would prepare the bed for her to sleep in. She would spread out the comforter and then turn it down, revealing just the tops of the pillows in their white, embroidered pillowcases. On the bedside table, the lit lamp, a small pitcher of water and a glass, a box of tissues, and a book, usually one of Abuela’s recommendations. There was also the scent of lavender, which rose softly from the corners of the room, because of a few fresh sprigs or a candle left by her grandmother. In that room, Abuela could cure her of anything. When Inés was a teenager, Abuela would lead her by the hand to the room, tuck her into bed, remove the cushions, and pull the curtains until the room became night. In the warmth of the closed room, Abuela would sit beside her, combing her hair until she was deeply asleep. Because sleep is the best of all cures, her grandmother said, and Inés believed it, heart and soul.

  So whenever she needed something to help her cope, Inés lay in the dark, on her bed, wher
ever that bed might be: Buenos Aires, Oslo, Abidjan… She closed her eyes and tried to conjure up a pleasant aroma—if not lavender, let’s say cinnamon—to allow her to purge whatever daylight in each new country could not suppress. On that summer afternoon in the Amazon, not long after Manuel’s most recent relocation, the tension was high, so Inés threw herself face down on her fluffy comforter. When she woke up, hours later, she felt almost wholesome, as if propelled by the force of twilight: “We have to make friends!” she said. It sounded so childish that Manuel started laughing. But she insisted, like a breathless puppy. “I need to talk to other people. I feel so alone.” He sensed that if he did not agree, her strange euphoria would soon turn into tears. So he encouraged her to invite people over. “But who?” she asked, pouting with pessimism. “People from the school,” he answered automatically, without even thinking. Inés remained pensive for a while, and then began to tally up the children who occasionally came to their house and the parents she met at dismissal. In the end, it wasn’t too hard to make a list and move on to the menu.

  What would she make? Certainly nothing too fussy, too eager to please; something universal that would agree with everyone’s taste. Inés called the women, set a date for next week, and started the preparations. Occasionally, Manuel chimed in: “What about pork?” (because he loved pork). “Too heavy,” she said. “Fish, maybe?” he offered—just to say something, really, since he didn’t even like fish. And she decided that fish was perfect. She went to the market very early in the morning to get a mammoth twenty-pounder, which she cooked slowly in the oven, generously bathed in lemon, garlic and parsley, wrapped in aluminum foil to allow the juices to mix with the butter. Inés didn’t care that it had been windy since dawn, with heavy rain all afternoon. She knew herself; she knew that any tremor in her spirit could make her want to die, but only after killing Manuel first. So she would serve—yes, oh, yes—her big fish with sweet potatoes and green bell peppers, both liberally seasoned with lemon. “And why not an appetizer?” she improvised, lit up with the fires of inspiration. Something delicate, from the only cookbook she owned. She flew back to the market. Soon she was mixing plain mayonnaise with minced celery and parsley, spicy pickled peppers, mustard, and a few drops each of Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco. She then cleaned and cut the crabmeat, and soaked several avocado halves in lemon juice. Finally she laid a bed of watercress on each plate, added a halved avocado, stuffed it with crabmeat, and topped everything with a lavish spoonful of sauce. For a garnish, she added chopped tomatoes and black olives. Manuel watched, astonished by her newly acquired culinary skills. “Everything has lemon!” he said, looking out the window, where the rain poured down harder than ever. Inés turned toward him, embattled, furious at his comment, but found herself facing an exhausted man. She realized that she was not the only one who felt uprooted, floating in this new, hellish city. “Let’s set the table,” she said.

  These were the scenes from her life that Inés wished she could assemble into a collage to preserve them forever, even if they were more than a little staged: she and Manuel potting plants and choosing the best places for them in the new house; or the two of them eating orange sherbet from the same bowl while looking at photos of a happier time together. Now they were getting ready to bring the dishes to the table, him singing like Charles Aznavour, and her pretending to be happy. Inés wondered if Manuel also cried, although she preferred to believe the old adage that men don’t cry. It was her way of balancing the scales: in truth, Manuel had always loved her more than she loved him, and until lately, he had never seemed to consider this a disadvantage.

  Manuel looked at the time. They had invited their guests for eight o’clock, and it was now past nine. Inés hurried in and out of the kitchen, wrapped in a cloud of garlic and butter. She circled the table nervously, placing a candle here, a napkin there, asking Manuel to get changed quickly, but first to cut the bread. Outside there was thunder. Manuel stood with his back to the kitchen, covering his digital watch with his hand to stop himself from looking at it again. He thought about stepping out for a bit, so he wouldn’t have to face Inés when she started asking what time it was. In their country, arriving thirty minutes late was reasonable, but to be an hour late was a very bad sign. He was sweaty, even after his shower, and he heard the seconds ticking away in his chest. He understood what awaited him, the storm of her anger pounding him against the rocks: his job, his never having wanted children, their years of exile… Inés would cry, and she would hate him until he begged her forgiveness, a little of which she would grant every day, leaving signs of peace strewn throughout the house. He knew the ritual well, only this time he felt too exhausted to follow it. If no one came to the party, Inés would sink first, and then she would sink him into a swamp of reproaches, suffocating Manuel as surely as the smell of fermented fruit, heavy on the ground of that treeinfested city. Again: a flash of lightning outside the window. Inés had also gotten changed. Her face was washed, she wore just a touch of lipstick, her eyes were serene—or perhaps she had been crying, Manuel thought, as he followed her in silence to the kitchen.

  It was almost ten o’clock when the bell rang, surprising Manuel, who stood motionless by the door. Inés smiled, beckoning him to open it. She looked lovely now, like a wideeyed girl about to attend her first party. He smiled at her as he walked to the door. He greeted the guests, who had arrived en masse, leading them into the living room. The guests had brought wine. He thanked them. He didn’t know what to say about the bottles because he had no idea what was what. Wine gave Manuel acid reflux and was too bitter for his taste; he could only tolerate it occasionally. He chose to talk about the weather instead, about the torrential rains, until his wife came to his rescue. She introduced herself casually, lit the candle she had placed on the side table, and very soon took over the conversation, laughing at herself, at her dubious cooking skills and her new kitchen arsenal, warning them about the unpredictable outcome of her culinary experiments. Manuel had always admired this in Inés, her ability to secure the affection of others by disarming them with her vulnerability, her unscripted approach to life: traits that were somehow infallibly attractive. He looked at her and breathed more easily. They had dodged the bullet. At least for tonight.

  A REAL MIRACLE

  CATALINA SKIPPED through the house preparing for her trip to the countryside. She was thrilled because, for the first time, her father was allowing her to go, even though she’d be gone for many days, they’d be traveling by bus, and Alejandra hit her sometimes—all reasons Papa could have used to say no. Papa didn’t like Alejandra. In fact, when she wasn’t within earshot, he referred to her as “that little bitch.” Mama, on the other hand, had liked Alejandra because she was the daughter of her neighbor, who was also Mama’s childhood friend and whom Catalina called Auntie, even though she wasn’t her aunt at all. And, of course, since every one of Mama’s wishes had become sacred after her death, Papa had agreed to let Catalina go. She was starting to believe in miracles. Miracles bathed in pity, not produced by any saint, but rather by her gleaming orphaned face. Catalina knew—because her mother had explained it to her many times—that you can’t please everyone all the time, and you shouldn’t get angry about it. She also knew that when adults called someone “naughty,” they actually meant “unbearable.” She wondered with religious curiosity if the people who now treated her so kindly were not simply faking it because they feared that her mother might be spying on them from the heavens. There was no other way to explain the transformation of Mrs. Isadora, for example, who was as horrible as a fat pigeon, and who always used to make Catalina eat green bean salad when she knew she hated it; and now suddenly she was always asking, “And what can I get for the little lady?”

  Oh! If Papa only knew: what she liked about Alejandra wasn’t playing with her. She liked her family’s apartment; she liked pretending to be part of that family. There was no need to tell this to Papa. He’d feel bad about it and, besides, he wouldn’t understand
what it was that Catalina liked about the noise, the mess, and the way Alejandra’s siblings interrupted one another and snatched things away from each other. She liked their loud laughter, and the way it never seemed to echo. In Catalina’s house, everything echoed, especially Papa’s footsteps. Catalina listened to them as he got out of the elevator, came down the hall, and opened the heavy security door to their apartment. That was something else she liked about Alejandra’s house: there were no bars on the door because they had a dog, a black dog with a loud bark. Papa had put up the bars because of the recent kidnappings, and the robbers who would come into your house and put a gun to your head and take everything. They could very well shoot you and kill the dog, too… Poor Papa.

  But Catalina wanted to think only of the trip. To forget about the empty little bottles of whiskey she discovered hidden under the cushions of the easy chair. She wanted only to think about what they would sing on the bus, because Auntie had a nice voice, just like Mama’s, and she sang with the girls using different voices as if she were a one-woman choir. Catalina liked to sing, but not as much as she liked cooking. She was so excited that she had prepared a bag of sandwiches for the road, like Mama used to, with hard-boiled eggs and mayonnaise. Papa explained that these sandwiches were good enough to eat at home, but that there was nothing more repulsive than egg salad and the fart-like smell that would impregnate the bus when she opened the bag. But Catalina paid him no mind, because not taking the sandwiches would have been a betrayal of her mother. Papa, giving in at last, tucked her plush blanket into the top of her backpack, along with a bag full of sweets and potato chips to share with the other girls, which he hoped would make his daughter forget all about the sandwiches.