by R. M. Koster
At the top of the seventh flight she sees a doorway filled with light. Mandragon stands in it, smiling down at her. She crawls forward, sobbing. Mandragon bends and takes her ankle in both hands, drawing the pain out. Raises her and leads her into a large loft, bare except for a potbellied stove, some mattresses, and a large, old-fashioned bathtub. Four girls stand under the skylight, holding hands.
“This is Apple,” Mandragon announces.
The girls smile and nod.
• • •
Apple knew then who she was, and that she mustn’t think of anything that had happened before she joined Man dragon. All that concerned another person, who had ceased to exist. The next day I sent Full Moons with her to get her things.
Full Moons had pranced pompom’d in vast stadiums, had pouted by the doors of jet planes, had preened her honey muff and custard bubbies across the double-fold of Riggish. Her laugh had tinkled at Palm Springs poolsides. Her eyes had flashed across after-ski dance floors at Vail. Now she lived nunned in an attic, the housekeeper, Princess Paloma’s special servant. She was allowed out only to do the marketing, was forbidden to speak save in the entail of her tasks, was required to kneel naked for long penance on the floor, her full moons beaming at the skylight. Yet she was always smiling. What Mandragon’s tribe had in common, besides their obedience, was their contentment. None had ever been so happy, had ever hoped to be. They were reborn. They were poured full of light. My tribe were all as though pregnant with light, and their contentment was that of women who smile to themselves and clasp their hands over full-swollen wombs.
Full Moons, wearing a prison smock, sits at a scuffed, cigarette-scarred table. Sunlight streams from a window at her left, striping the tabletop with shadows of bars. She is being interviewed by two gentlemen, the US Consul in Ciudad Tinieblas and his young deputy, both in blue seersucker suits. The younger man stares at a wall stain, roughly the outline of Cuba, beyond Full Moons’ head: the best stratagem he has discovered to prevent himself from staring at her hungrily. Even in a dirty smock, with her hair rumpled, she is delectable. The smock, in fact, which scarcely hides the outline of her breasts, far from repelling serves to stimulate the male protective instinct, makes Full Moons look especially cuddly. In the same way, her hair calls out to be smoothed, to be caressed.
“You don’t understand.” Full Moons is smiling as at children, trying to get through to them “Mandragon was with us. Is still with us. Will always be. Escape wasn’t our problem. Our problem was making sure that we could stay.”
• • •
After Apple, I stopped taking girls. My needs were filled. I was provisionally established. To take more girls would have been empty flaunting of power. As for men, I would take men later. I’d grown weary of men in El Olvido Prison and had no need of any at the time.
The time of my emergence was approaching. I had no inkling of what form it would occur in, or what it would entail, but I knew it would come soon. I was impatient, apprehensive, but I refused to let such feelings bother me. Instead I luxuriated in a last interim of peace.
I tuned my powers, exercised my gifts. I practiced my transformations. I rode the subways dipping in the minds of strangers. I made this woman scratch and that man sneeze, gladdened this weary straphanger with memory of an old delight, reddened that spinster’s cheeks with shameful fancies. I took patients of opportunity: the boy I found bad-tripping in an alley off Thompson Street—neighing in terror, chewing bloody lips—whose mind I cleansed of demons with a chant; the derelict whose scrofula I cured by laying on hands. I ruled my tribe, watched over their restructured spirits. Hearing Todo Confort’s confession, I might, for no fault at all, freeze my face into a glacial sternness, fire my eyes until they scorched her brow, and then, while the poor thing was blubbering, while the rest trembled at Mandragon’s wrath, melt my frown to loving-kindness, cool my gaze to blessing, so that all wept in thanks. I gave them entertainments. Brought the kettle to a boil on the unkindled stove. Sent the tub skidding ponderously the whole length of the loft, with the illusion that its gryphon feet were walking. Made Full Moons feel, and the four others see, a gladiolus sprout up from her bum and rise on a thick stalk until its blossoms wavered just below the skylight. I did appearances and disappearances, showed up on the ledge outside the window, gesticulating wildly, as though in peril; or shrank and scurried off into a rathole. I let them love me.
The girls are bathing Mandragon, who lies as though asleep, forearms draped limply on the tub sides. Nightandmist, her face masked in ashes, stands behind, cradling Mandragon’s head. Todo Confort kneels on the left, her hands beneath Mandragon’s lower back and upper thighs. Apple kneels on the right, soaping Madragon’s throat and chest.
Apple raises her hands. Full Moons, who stands beside her, moistens them with water from the kettle. Princess Paloma stands at the foot of the tub. She smiles vacantly at Mandragon, clasping her arms in the sleeves of her white robe.
Todo Confort raises Mandragon’s loins out of the water. Hairless groin, penis the length and thickness of a child’s thumb, foreskin gathered in a narrow point. Below, instead of testes, a young girl’s cleft.
Apple soaps Mandragon’s abdomen. Soaps groin and inner thighs. Rinses her hands, draws foreskin back, washes gently. Rolls the penis between lathered palms—no stiffening, and no engorgement. Dips her lathered hand into the cleft.
Mandragon’s hands hang limply. Head floating calmly in Nightandmist’s palms. But now Mandragon’s eyes are open. Mandragon is smiling, a smile immensely tender, loving, gay.
I meditated, sat in a corner sponging my mind of word-thought. I made jouneys of ascent and of descent, immersed myself now in light and now in gloom. I made journeys outward and journeys backward, witnessed events distant and events past. And when they came on me, I made journeys forward, presenced events to come.
One day I was flung here to Tinieblas, for a sneak pre view of my execution.
It was early winter. I had gone into a cafeteria to get warm and sat at a sloppily swabbed table, watching a procession of overcoated tray-pushers shuffle toward the cashier. All at once I felt the anguished agitation, the pitiable weakness in my limbs, the sense of being prey to a cruel ravishment. My eyes unfocused in vertigo. My head fell forward to one side. Then I was on Bolívar Avenue, in Ciudad Tinieblas.
I stood back in the press with my back against the wall of a building. Later I was on a balcony near Plaza Inchado, then in the grandstand overlooking Parque Mocoso. I wore what I’d been wearing in New York, my fur cap and my parka, my field pants and furtopped boots. No one re marked these oddities. No one noticed the Mandragon who was watching. The others and I watched the Mandragon who was performing in the morning’s ritual.
I saw myself trot tethered to a patrol truck: I was hand cuffed by my right wrist not my left. I saw myself pelted with garbage: a corncob clipped my heel and not my ankle. I saw the major drop the cable loop over my head. I saw Angela give the signal. I saw myself rise.
With that my vision faded. I found myself sprawled across a sloppily swabbed table in a cafeteria in New York City. But by then I’d seen enough. I didn’t know Angela or the three colonels. I didn’t know when my execution would take place. I didn’t know why. But I knew how, precisely how. Mandragon would be hanged. With a steel cable, and a pulley, and a winch. On the big tree in Parque Mocoso where, in the old days, my countrymen hanged Feliciano Luna and many others.
Why did I return? Why didn’t I stay put? Why didn’t I run to the far side of the planet from Tinieblas?
Beloved, Mandragon knew another thing besides. I knew that no one stifles destiny, or alters, or escapes it. The best you can do is nurture it, and when it ripens take communion with it. The best you can do is seek it out and meet it gracefully. The best you can do is embrace it lovingly.
5
Mandragon would have told that to the colonels, but they didn’t ask. I would have assured them I’ll be as graceful as I can, though I can’t answer for w
hat happens once my feet leave the ground. Can’t guarantee grace unless they furnish me a gallows and a drop, but I realize stringing up’s an old tradition, and the tree an institution. Not that they’re after grace. Grace wouldn’t be commonplace, while their whole point is to assure folks that Mandragon was an ordinary fellow. Well, a bamboozler of talent, maybe, with an exceptional run of luck, but not an actual sorcerer. No powers—strangled when strung up, just like a dog. False messiah.
As for embracing my fate lovingly, I would, I would, but I’m used up. Empty. Depressed, as they say. I don’t think I can manage a loving embrace. It’s the best one can do, however, and I’d have told them so, had they asked.
Embrace it lovingly; it’s what you’re getting anyway. Seek it out, it’s been prepared for you. Nurture it, and when it’s ripe, take communion with it, because it is your portion. In short, chow down and lick your chops.
Alternatively, you can try pushing it aside; can balk, complain and grouse, demand a substitute; berate the chef and snivel that you should have been consulted; whine and hold your breath, howl if you care to; clench your teeth and kick your feet and struggle—and end up taking what’s on your plate force-fed, or via enema.
The choice, just that much choice, is yours.
Or so, in any case, it was with me. The power of the universe chose Mandragon. The power that lived in me ruled my life. I tuned myself to it—or did until I forgot who I was. I went with what had been portioned to me.
Mandragon would have been honest with the colonels. I had no inkling what emergence might entail. I had no idea why I had been chosen. I had no preference. Having a preference would have been empty self-deception. Power had use for me, power had plans, and would let me know when knowledge was required. Returning to Tinieblas never entered Mandragon’s head until the power in me booted me futureward. I didn’t request that revelation either, any more than I’d asked for my other gifts. They were forced on me. Light was stuffed into me without my leave. My choice was to accept what I was stuck with, or to reject it and stay stuck with it anyway. I decided to trust my vision and perfect my gifts. So since Mandragon was going to Tinieblas, would end up there, Mandragon had best set out.
As for what I did after I arrived here, I acted from no plan of my own. Some people, it’s true, think they can shape events. They deceive themselves. Mandragon knew better. I didn’t dream the action up, or direct it. Oh, no! I only played the role I’d been cast in. Till I met Angela, that is, and went over to her and forgot who I was. Forgot my mission and my destiny, my obligations to the power that lived in me. Till then if I ad-libbed a phrase here and there, it was from enthusiasm, not from any false illusions about my ability to shape the scenes.
I would have told them this. Not in extenuation. Certainly not in any hope of clemency. No one can stifle destiny, or alter or escape it, but everyone’s still responsible for what he does or doesn’t do. I would have told them in the interests of truth. I would have made a full confession. But none was required, or even (under the circumstances) permitted.
The guard woke me by poking my throat with the point of his truncheon. I was stumbling along the hall before I realized I wasn’t still asleep and dreaming. I swayed against the hand that gripped my bicep. I raised my manacled hands—in what must have seemed a prayerful attitude—to rub sleep from the corners of my eyes.
Colonel Atila Guadaña sat in a tall leather swivel chair behind the prison commandant’s desk. The other two sat beside him on straight chairs. Colonel Lisandro Empulgueras. Colonel Fidel Acha. A major—the commandant? the duty officer?—slouched behind Colonel Acha. A balding gentleman in a dark suit sat at a low table set near the wall at a right angle to the desk. The only light was from two metal reading lamps, one on the desk, the other on the table. When the guard had guided me in and stopped me about three feet from the desk, Guadaña pushed the dish shade of his lamp so that the light bore on my face—from habit I guess, because I didn’t get interrogated. I stood blinking into it, swaying slightly, my fingers dangling at my groin.
The gentleman in the dark suit asked my true name and, when I hesitated, looked in query at Guadaña, who glanced left and right at his two colleagues, then shook his head.
“Skip all that crap. Read him the charges.”
That took about a minute. The fellow mumbled. I was half-asleep. I recognized “treason” and “subversion,” then “abuse of power,” floating more or less submerged in a thick porridge of legal terms. There were others I couldn’t make out clearly. When that was finished, Guadaña asked me if I had anything to say, and when I hesitated, collecting my thoughts, read me the sentence. “… to a public place … hanged until dead.” Then he lifted his hands and flicked them toward the door. I was back in the corridor before I realized that I’d had my trial.
I thought there’d be more. True, I had the entire junta, but in the middle of the night? Here in the prison? No witnesses or testimony? No questions or cross-questions? No scourging of any kind? It was all over before I was fully awake.
I’m not complaining. They didn’t have to give me any trial at all. That’s the whole point of government by junta. I’m sure they had things to do and couldn’t take all night. I understand.
But I hope that they do also. Mandragon isn’t recalcitrant. Worn out, yes. Depressed, as they say. But not rebellious, nowhere disrespectful of authority. Authority happens to consist of three festering dog turds, but that’s not unusual in this or any other country. They serve their purpose, and soon earth will be cleansed.
Mandragon isn’t even angry. Mandragon scarcely feels resentment. Mandragon doesn’t mind being strung up. The animal minds of course, which is why I’ll surely do a lovely dance, but Mandragon doesn’t. There’s no point now that my powers have left me. And I deserve to be punished. Not for any of those charges. For having lapsed from my assigned role. For having forgotten.
Had they cared to know more, I would have told them. I would have cooperated. I would have made a full confession.
6
I couldn’t have given them my true name, though. Or my birth date, or my birthplace. I couldn’t have given them my sex, not in one word. Mandragon has parts standard on males, and other parts standard on females. Or, more accurately, I have substandard parts, some male, some female. Mandragon sits the gender seesaw at dead center, sometimes rocking this way or that. My sex can be described as “Neuter Wholeness.”
I was probably born somewhere in Tinieblas, about thirty years ago. I suppose I had a father—though there’s a story to the contrary—but I know nothing of him. My mother either died or got rid of me while I was still an infant. I know nothing of her either. So I can’t give my true name.
As a child I was called Raro and Monstruito. Or Rara and La Monstrua. Also Aborto and Abortito. At times, to marveling third parties, Nuestro Fenómeno. In the circus, where weirdities abounded, I was billed as El Milagro Doble-Sexo. The Amazing Androgyne when we played Port-of-Spain. A British midget who was with the troupe called me Pronged Pussy. This was transposed, with variations, into Spanish—a familiar mode of reference and address. But when power chose me and I rose from freak to mago, I named myself Mandragon.
I might have divined my ancestry. That would have been within Mandragon’s scope. I might have dredged up infant memories, uterine memories, memories of when I swung twixt my daddy’s legs. I might have traced my line back to the monkeys, but I never got round to it, it wasn’t important. Mandragon begat and bore Mandragon. That was enough. And now, of course, my powers have left me, so I cannot give the facts of my origins.
There are myths though. Or rumors, gossip, tall tales. The first members of my tribe had revelations. Or fantasies, delusions, foolish dreams. Which, when I returned here to Tinieblas, new members of my tribe heard an emended. Five myths. I like them all, though I can’t say what truth there is to any of them.
• • •
In one, Mandragon’s mother was a Bastidas dockhand’s daughter who spent a
night with Alejo Sancudo during his 1948 campaign for president. He took a different woman each afternoon and night, to calm his nerves, but none except Mandragon’s mother ever got pregnant. His enemies said he’d lost a testicle and become sterile, but that wasn’t it. He had a German astrologer with him in those days, whom he trusted completely, even with the direction of his campaign, and this stargazer foretold that if he ran for president he’d win, but also father a child that would destroy him. So he took care to make his couplings barren.
Except with Mandragon’s mother. She was exceptional in that of all the girls Sancudo had that year she alone required coaxing. She was in the crowd that lined his progress through Bastidas, a slim girl with clear beige skin and cameo features. He spotted her, and stopped his motorcade, and sent his bodyguard to fetch her.
Sancudo’s bodyguard was also German, a Nordic-hero type, blond hair, broad shoulders. Mandragon’s mother told this German she’d go to bed with him if he felt like it, but not with an old man. Which was unfair really. Alejo was only forty-nine then, in the prime of life. The German stood with his mouth hanging open while the girl turned and stalked off through the crowd.
Alejandro Sancudo was accustomed to getting what he wanted. He sent his private secretary after her. He had an Italian private secretary, a former diplomat of Mussolini’s, and this Italian followed the girl home and spoke to her parents. He held his hands toward them, as though weighing imaginary tennis balls, and told him that Engineer Sancudo would be pleased if their daughter visited him that night, and vexed if she chose not to do so. A car would come for her at midnight.
He didn’t have to say that Sancudo would be president again in a few weeks. Everyone knew that. Everyone also knew that in his good moods Sancudo could be generous, but that it wasn’t smart at all to make him vexed.
The parents yammered at the girl all evening, but she held out. A little before midnight a storm broke on the town. Rain hammered on the roofs, and lightning flashed. The lights failed. In the sudden darkness the girl said she’d go. Her mother reached to embrace her, but she pushed her mother back and went outside. Five minutes later Sancudo’s chauffeur found her standing naked in the downpour.