Mandragon

by R. M. Koster

  Housed wife and children in the palace but spent little time there. Lived and worked in a fortified compound fifty miles from the capital. Walls topped by watchtowers and grounds patrolled. Rarely went out in public, and when he did wore a bulletproof vest and a curtain of bodyguards. Drank to calm his nerves, and since of all things most afraid of his own fear, invented, in collaboration with sister Mesalina, a fictional character, also named Genghis, and played at being him.

  This imaginary Genghis felt deep compassion for the downtrodden, had pledged his life to the cause of social justice. Came forward at the people’s call and led them to magnificent advances. A world figure, loved past all believing in Tinieblas, revered wherever liberty was prized. He was wise: his sayings were collected in a booklet and memorized in all the schools. Humble: he wore a simple fatigue uniform with no insignia. Above all, absolutely fearless, nothing less than every inch a man. Observe: he was a prodigious consumer of women.

  Here was a Genghis! But, as usual in acting performances, the connection between the player and the role was mainly illusion. The flesh-and-bone Genghis had compassion only for himself: his cause was personal safety. No one had asked for him. His rule advanced nothing, except thievery and disorder. He was more slave of his own fears than leader of anything. A belch produced by the country’s indigestion, a chancre not a spirochete. Tinieblans loathed him, and when safe from his spies reviled him and ridiculed him. Foreign leaders, once they’d met him, knew him for a poltroon and clown. The sayings where ghosted. The fatigues were for camouflage, so he could mingle with troops in case of attack. And he was always frightened. Basted in terror, marinated in dread, stewed in fear. At only one point did the real and fake Genghises meet: the appetite for female flesh wasn’t an act.

  The general’s compound enclosed two bomb-proof bunkers, He lived in one and kept the other stocked with whores. Flew fresh ones in from Miami every week. Saw to it they earned their money. And when he toured the country and couldn’t take whores along, his goons rustled local girls for his bed or hammock. Some would have gone freely—was in power, after all—but he didn’t want these. Liable to care for him, to enjoy themselves, and therefore unsatisfying. The whole point of women for the general was that polluting one who neither cared for nor enjoyed him made him feel brave. In that brief spasm he faced life with a high heart. Otherwise, he lived in fear.

  And, since the drought, in abject trembling terror. Not for his country or the people in it. Cared only about himself and wouldn’t change now. Not afraid of ruin either. He had his loot outside Tinieblas—a stock portfolio, and an Aegean isle, and a castle in Spain, and bulging accounts in Switzerland and Panama. Fields could go barren and cattle lank. Banks could fall and businesses go bust. Tinieblas could blow away; he’d live in plenty. But he had the common coward’s fear of life and death, and the despot’s fear of comeuppance, and now he feared for the only relief he got from either. Since the rains stopped, the general hadn’t had a spasm.

  It sprinkled throughout Tinieblas on that now wistfully remembered Christmas Eve, and the general spritzed all over his harlotorium. But neither he nor the Tinieblans counted blessings. Christmas was rainless, but the rains were scheduled to quit. And spritzless for the general, but he was with his wife. Went with her to mass, though public men had been murdered in cathedrals. Had himself photoed with her on the steps, though the Alcaldía roof gave a field of fire onto them, and snipers had been known to elude police. Distributed Christmas baskets with her in La Cuenca, though grenades had been thrown from tenements before. Sat opposite her at an eight-course Christmas dinner, though she wouldn’t let his mess sergeant cook it, so all he could risk eating was the bread. Stood beside her on the receiving line at an interminable reception, though even a lightweight flak suit stifles and rubs. Spent a whole night, not in the same bed with her, or even the same room, but under the same roof, though the roof was hardly bombproof. But when the ordeal was over and he could stop acting; when, with every nerve screaming, he’d coptered back to his compound; when he’d dashed to his quiffodrome, and torn his clothes off, and flung himself down between two sides of US Prime; when he’d chosen the juicier and plunged his gorged Genghishood in to the haft—what then? Why, nothing. Nothing at all. He humped and he pumped, but nothing happened.

  Kept at it, didn’t you, good soldier? Gave it your best. On the satin sheets, among the plump pillows. Against the mound of silk cushions, on the fluffy rug. Forty feet underground, cased in concrete, while the air conditioner hummed soothingly, and the phonograph moaned, and the rose-colored lamps blushed softly. Remounted from a different angle. Nothing. Changed mounts. Still nothing. Dismounted and let the professionals take charge. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. Not all their skill could lure a twitch of solace, nor all their toil wring out one drop of case.

  Tried again that night. Failure. Canceled appointments and spent the next day at it. Zero. By then the trulls were rasped raw and couldn’t continue, not even for bonuses, but it was all their fault anyway, wasn’t it? Ordered your overseas pimps to send the new batch in early and, meanwhile, sampled a batch from your local pimps. The guards winked at each other in admiration for mi general when the gringas waddled out and eased their punished stems into the staff car. They whistled in envy of mi general when the chopperful of replacements clattered in. But had they seen mi general a few hours later, they’d have cackled in scorn. Flaming horn and purple filberts. Whimpers of selfpity and defeat. You’d have cut your throat, wouldn’t you have, mi general? If you hadn’t been such a coward. And if you’d had my gift of futuretouring, you’d have cut it anyway, coward or no. Mi general’s martyrdom was only beginning.

  As it slunk on, mi general expanded his pimpacy till it had branches in thirty cities on all five continents. Culled him the cream of the quimintern. Plucked the flower of strumpetry and shipped it to Tinieblas air express. Women so lovely a mere glimpse of one would drench the average man’s trousers, so skilled that aged and desiccated gaffers, who’d given their loins up for dead, revived at their touch end performed prodigies. They arrived smiling and gay, confident of the huge bonus mi general offered to whoever brought in a gusher. And left dejected. All they pumped were salt tears. He had famous specialists flown in to examine him, and made secret visits to famous clinics, but the doctors were as helpless as the whores. So he consulted the best witches in Tinieblas, brujos and santeros and curanderos. In stealth, because he couldn’t trust them to keep their mouths shut, and couldn’t let it get out he was anything less than every inch a man. His bodyguards snatched them from their houses in the predawn hours, and whisked them to the compound in unmarked cars, and prisoned them there as long as their treatments lasted. And put them in the ocean when their treatments failed, from a good altitude, via helicopter. Would have done the same with any who succeeded, but since they all failed, mi general said he was doing the state a service, ridding it of quacks.

  In this way, La Negra came to spend three weeks at the compound, and to leave it by air for a swim in the Pacific. She knew from the first mi general would never risk her gossiping about him, but she was very old now, and ready to die, and she extracted a harsh revenge in advance. Made him swill all sorts of excretions and secretions. Made him sleep with a live viper in a pot under his bed. Made him endure her own scabrous caresses—all in the name of curing him, of course. And when she judged his credulity had about run out, threw the hoax in his face.

  “Your case is hopeless, you fool! I knew that the minute I saw you. You’re bewitched by your own shittiness, and there’s no cure for that!”

  Then she turned back. Still faithful to her art, though she’d die that night and knew it. Still enthralled by love’s mysteries, concerned by a baffling case. “Three women might have cured you. Alejo’s Argentine whore, but you exiled him. Irene Hormiga, but she’s been dead five years and wouldn’t have touched you anyway, And I might have cured you too, if I hadn’t sold my monster.” Stuck her tongue out between e
mpty gums. “But I wouldn’t have! Not to save my life!”

  Mi general was crying like a baby.

  The drought worsened, and so did the general’s martyrdom. The earth dried up and hardened, and his untapped gonads swelled to the size and consistency of billiard balls, so that the least movement was painful for him. Fields turned to dust, and the wind blew choking dust clouds from border to border, and the general’s unslaked dreads rattled inside him, like loose stones. Thought only of himself though, so time passed before he connected his suffering with the country’s. But when he did, he became totally terrified, once and for all. He was Tinieblas’s curse, and Tinieblas was his. His drought and the country’s were the same ailment. He would never spritz again until it rained, and it would never rain again until he spritzed.

  Around and around.

  Poor Genghis.

  Mandragon will save you.

  22

  Mandragon came in the seventh year of the dictatorship, in the sixteenth month of the drought. As power’s instrument and emissary, to accomplish its purpose and my fate. Saved and destroyed, brought harmony and strife, triumphed and fell; and now waits, wombed and coffin’d, for the next turning.

  Pattern of all things on earth and out of it, each insect, tree, and star: emergence and flowering, splendor and withering, death and rebirth. Each nascent budlet doomed, each end always also a beginning. Spin off in a few hours, and also go round again, portioned to maggots.

  Same when I went to prison in Costaguana: dismantled and recycled. Circus entertainer into harlot—not as pretty as Genghis’s, but not as mercenary either, and my lovers weren’t finicky about looks. Still giving delight, still bringing awe and wonder, but in a different fashion, through a different form of power.

  My magoship died along wih Don Lorenzo, self-snuffed. I hadn’t the strength to be power’s toy any longer. For days I lay in a Chuchaganga lockup, my mind a static buzz, and when I rose to consciousness again, I was empty: the power that had lived in me was gone. Not for good, though I thought so then. And felt mixed anguish and relief as I do now. Abandoned and worthless, but free of responsibilities I’d never wanted and had pretended didn’t exist, of obligations that I couldn’t bear. Everything has its reward, even extinction.

  Because it’s not all that rosy trucking omnipotence around, having an alien force inside you, never knowing what monsters or miracles are up your sleeve. Oh, bearable enough, and even fun, when it’s content with harmless pranking, amusing wonderlets, innocent monkeyings with commonplace reality, and if there are side effects, if it scares some poor bystander witness or drives him to drink, well, you can handle them. So long as you can pretend you’re not to blame. But slaving for it, feeling it piss your precious strength into total strangers! drain your life away without even asking!—much less asking nicely! much less saying please! Having it toss you into trance whenever it cares to! sling you, willy-nilly, all over space-time! shove your face into messes you never made! Being its toy, its tool, its flunky, no! that’s not so pleasant! No! that’s not what you’d call a very good trip! And then, when it turns demonic! When it takes up murder! When it uses you to strangle people! When it makes you the instrument of its justice!—or its vengeance or horror-lust or taste for sick jokes! When it does that, and you know that you’re responsible … Something inside you that isn’t you and you can’t control it, but you’re still responsible for whatever it pulls! Nothing to do, but still, you should have done something! You ought to have tried! At least you ought to have been appalled! AT LEAST YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE ENJOYED WHAT IT WAS DOING! Oh, no, that’s hideous, too hideous to bear.

  There is a choice for those chosen by power. Step forward into the mystery. Put terror to one side, give yourself fearlessly. In respect and awe, but with your puny dignity about you; calm but also vigilant, unwavering. Then it may serve you even as you serve it. Or turn away, slink off, and hide your face from it. Then it may leave you as a thing unworthy. I chose the latter after Don Lorenzo died.

  Not from contrition, Either one of Rebozo’s ducks was worth a Hollywood of Don Lorenzos. The ducks had talent, they made people laugh. I chose from fear, the most disgusting of all motives. Fear of the power in me, of what it might do next, of the way it drained me, of being bound in its service. And also that special form of fear people call guilt, at the joy I felt when Don Lorenzo strangled, joy in his suffering and in having a part in it. I turned away and hid, and power left me, and, just as now, I felt anguish but also relief: no gift, no obligation. Yet even then I was about to take service with another form of power, for everything on earth and cut of it is in the service of one form of power or another, knowingly or not, and all forms are part of the same network. I was about to take service with the power of love.

  Already turning toward love there in the lockup where they held me till my trial. Cell to myself, a murderers privilege, but now I was uneasy with solitude. Till then I’d felt complete in myself. I hadn’t realized I cared for Rebozo till Don Lorenzo showed me. I’d know love only at second hand, in Rebozo’s dreams, and years had to pass before I learned one must love everything, on earth and out of it, each insect, tree, and star. But in that lockup, empty and dispirited as I am now, I began turning.

  Toward love, and carnal love is the first turn. For which one needs gender, and that was coming too. No luxuries in there, no brocade sofas, but I was softening already, rocking femaleward. It wasn’t till later that my hips broadened and my breasts puffed, that my penis withered to the size of a child’s fingertip and the cleft below it tuliped and swelled. The police medic gave me a glance and noted my donglet, foolishly X-ed me male, but I’d never been male and was femaling already, tipped toward that end of the seesaw by my craving for companionship and the presence all around me of lonely men. Plenty of males are tipped the same way in such conditions, but I went more easily. I hadn’t any gender to give up.

  I gave up my virginity in El Olvido. Which was different from this place, though all prisons are places of harshness and violence. But El Olvido was off in a desert place away from everything, as if the prison itself, not just us prisoners, had been discarded and forgotten. Harshness and violence all around as well as inside it; jagged escarpments, stony wastes, splintery-walled dusty pits where, chained in couples, we quarried rock for gravel. Strange venue for the flowering of love.

  Wooden doors on the cells, like downstairs where they keep the political. And that’s strange…. Never been down there yet I know the doors are wooden, not bars like the cages on this floor and upstairs. Can feel the texture of rough mold-stained wood against my check, though my cheek’s pressed to the fabric of this chaise. Rough wood against my chest and palms, though I’m curled here…. Confort stands with her breasts and palms and check pressed to the cell door, cheek wet with tears against the heavy wood. I feel it through her! half down there already! I could go down and be with them! Power seeping back, filling me …

  Trick of my mind, imagination. Or memory: I stood that way myself. Weeping against the cell door in El Olvido when Tulio Lobo, who was my lover, died. Not my only lover, not by a hundred, but I wept for him. Broke a guard’s thighbone with a sledge trying to escape, and they buried him alive, head down in a pit up to his knees and made bets on how long his feet would keep kicking. I leaned against the cell door weeping for him, and that’s what it was just now, a memory. Press my check against soft fabric and go back to El Olvido Prison.

  Where the cells had wooden doers. And wooden bunks with sweat-blotched bug-rife mattresses. On a pile of which I gave up my virginity. A bandit from Hermosura, Anibal Cuervo, dumped the mattresses onto the floor and pronged me there, while our two other cellmates waited turn.

  No rape, I collaborated fully. Though when I depantsed and lay down, I was confused as to motive. Cuervo declared his intentions as soon as the door shut behind me. Partly political: establish power over me by using me, and over the other two by going first, and I thought, Yes, that’s what I deserve. Full of guilt
and eager to be punished, craving all the victimhood I could get from the moment Don Lorenzo’s corpse dropped at my feet. Or that’s what I thought in my confusion, I was about to take up service with love.

  Depantsed and lay down. Opened to him before he could turn me over, and what surprise when he discovered I was female! Not female entirely, no one is, but female enough, more female than anything else in that prison, though plenty of the men there had been bent in that direction. Substandard parts, but I had them, and while gender doesn’t depend on how you’re equipped, they meant a lot to Cuervo. He hadn’t seen female parts in fifteen years.

  Howl of delight that put me off my thoughts of guilt and punishment. Turned me tender. Didn’t feel victimized at all and no longer craved to, not that he puzzled long over his find or showed it much reverence. Pronged straight in. Stabbed and jabbed and flopped onto me croaking, Hurt me of course, I was all torn and bleeding, but also at peace. Seized, but the power working through him wasn’t alien.

  Now see me spraddled on the bedbugged ticking with a squirming thief nailed into me. Vitruvio Víbora, cellmate. Climbed on as Cuervo rolled off, speared me so quickly I hardly noticed the interruption, and it’s a good exercise to give that scene a rerun, scan it in upside-down roachorama from the ceiling, or as if there’d been a mirror like the one over poor Genghis’s divan. Help keep my mind off morning and my dance, off hope-fear that power might return to me. The light is from a loaf-sized crossbarred niche high up in the wall, afternoon rays bathing my riveter’s rump as he wangles it clock- and counterclockwise. His hands grip my upper arms, his toes beetle for purchase on the stone. Bare knees planted on the edge of a mattress and trousers at his ankles. Cuervo sits hunched on a bunk frame absorbed in the show, hands dangling between spread thighs, dork drooping tearfully, while Euclides Chova, number three, stands by at modified present arms, ready to take over, clutching his peeled wand with both fists as though he were afraid it might fly off him. My knees are raised. My brown calves reach to twine the waist above me. Getting the knack of it, and as the grip melts, as the loins untense and sag against me, my arms reach up to twine the shuddering shoulders, my smile floats up beside the tucked head, a smile immensely tender, loving, gay.