Mandragon

by R. M. Koster

  Mandragon sits up. Folds legs, raises cuffed hands Mohotty-fashion. Fingertips at the chin, nods serenely. The chaplain sighs.

  Mandragon smirks, pops fingers open, flops back against the fabric, grinning broadly. The chaplain blinks, then gives a sad, shy smile, gets to his feet.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know what …”

  “Thank you for coming, but I need this time alone. If you want to help, they’ve got my girls downstairs. Please go and …”

  My head swims, my eyes unfocus, I leave my body.

  Their cell. Gloom and dampness, light from the corridor trickling beneath the door. Paloma wailing, clutched in Full Moons’ arms, Apple stroking her hair. Terrified by the tremor. Confort fetused on a chain-hung metal slab, whimpering. Nightandmist sitting opposite, unkempt head slung forward, hands drooped beside her thighs. Fear and desolation.

  Paloma quiets. Full Moons looks up.

  “Can’t you feel it? Mandragon’s here with us!”

  “Yes! Yes!”

  “I feel it too!”

  A pale-green radiance glows beside the door. Swells, fills up the cell, then slowly fades.

  “Here with us! Mandragon was here!”

  “Are you all right?” The chaplain bends beside me.

  I nod. “They’ve got my girls downstairs. Please go and see them.”

  “I’ll try. I’ll see if it’s authorized. But, are you sure …”

  “Please, leave!”

  Turns and goes out with the guards. The door locks behind them.

  33

  Impulsive fellow, kneeling to me like that. Broke discipline to Church and Guardia, risked angering both sets of bosses, and all because he heard me preach once. Imagine if he knew what I pulled with Dred!

  Mandragon raised Dred Mandeville’s cadaver, and kept it on the job for seven weeks.

  Without dramatics. I could have had that corpse up on the deck of the cutter doing a barefoot, talon-toed buck-and-wing. Or waited till it was duly boxed and crypted, then had it claw free and slink out of the tomb. Or arranged a thrilling public entertainment—made it pop up out of the coffin during the eulogy, gape, and streel down shrieking off the bier. Instead I merely touched it and gave it a pulse respiration, brain waves, the life functions—then brought “recovery” along in careful stages. Discreetly, to avoid suspicion. Yet briskly, because my darling thirsted for pelf. Almost too brisk for the doctor and his colleagues. They judged Dred’s mending just short of miraculous, and had to be prodded to congratulate themselves. Miraculous and more! my masterpiece! but Mandragon wasn’t seeking public recognition. The only public I cared to please was Angela.

  Pleasing her was why, I don’t know how. Power working through me, as in healing. I’ve never understood and never tried to. Energy flowed from me into Dred’s corpse, all in a great rush that left me feeble. A fearful amount just to get it ticking over. Against strong resistance, like dragging a sledge uphill. The living want to stay alive, corpses want to stay corpses, and but for Angela I’d have been afraid to spend the force required. Love vaporized all sense of danger: a longing to administer delight; a need to have her notice and applaud me. I still could reach her only through third parties, murdering Alejo, raising Dred. In neither instance did I hesitate.

  Mandragon hauled Dred Mandeville back to life. Or, rather, yanked him undead. I zombied him into my darling’s service. I kept him on the job for seven weeks. More convincing than an animated dummy. More compliant than a roboted sailorman.

  Cutter to chopper, chopper to hospital. Bundled in blankets, oxygen-masked at the snout. Serums and vitamins pumped into scrawny buttocks. Dextrose and plasma adrip into breadstick arms. None of which was actually required, though it kept the doctor employed, made him feel useful. Mandragon rode with the newly returned departed. Angela’s smile applauded Mandragon’s art.

  We followed the dawn across the cordillera, thudded southwest above pastureland and cane. On route I lifted him to slumber. His eyelids fluttered, he moaned against the mask, twitched his legs weakly. I brushed his brow and calmed him to sweet slumber, having brought “recovery” along another stage.

  At the hospital a badly needed sponge bath, a clipping of finger-and toenails, a shearing of beard. Plus regarmenting in a clean white linen bed gown, not unlike that he’d worn of old in his mountain cavern, though now of course his role was entirely reversed. Through all of this our reborn slumbered sweetly. The name on his chart was Dagoberto Manrique. Best not to unsettle the nurses with a celebrity.

  Angela remained on the helicopter. Best not to attract unnecessary attention. It lifted away and returned her to the palace, where she received the minister of justice, the president of the chamber, and the local counsel for Hirudo Oil. As soon as she had that meeting running smoothly, she had it moved to another room and received the foreign minister, then the minister of finance, then Gonzalo Garbanzo. And when they were prepared to tackle the matters she assigned them, she received a gringo gentleman who was staying at the El Opulento, a greying gringo gentleman with granolith eyes who had taken over the whole top floor of the building and moved in communications equipment and had thick velvet blackout curtains hung, a grim-faced gringo in a sharkskin suit—steel-grey like his hair, with knife-sharp trouser creases—whose icy stare didn’t thaw when she informed him that their mutual friend was still under the weather, but the gravity of his case had been grossly overplayed: he’d be up and about in no time, perhaps by tomorrow, perfectly prepared to resume control.

  “When do I see him?”

  “When he wants to see you. The proper form of address, by the way, is ‘Madame President’ or ‘Your Excellency.’ I prefer the latter.”

  “How do I reach him by phone?”

  “You don’t. He doesn’t want to be disturbed. This audience will end if the proper form of address isn’t used.”

  “Doesn’t want to be, Your Excellency, or can’t be? The word from Scorpion is he’s very sick. I got the idea that he might be dying.”

  “I’ve already told you those reports were exaggerated. But have any idea you please, it’s the same to me.”

  “Is it? That’s odd. Your Excellency, Madame President, whatever. I understood that part of your, uh, compensation is to be in the form of options. I was instructed to bring the relevant papers.”

  “So?”

  “So we’re talking about a very important man. He’s been out of sight, but his hand’s been on the tiller. Very firmly. And very obviously to people concerned with these things. The way he moves, his style, shows he’s in control. If that control ceased or were significantly interrupted, or even if people got the idea it had or might be, you’d see, shall we say, significant downward movement in a number of securities. On every major exchange. Worldwide. So it’s not the same to you, not if you’re expecting to hold options.”

  “Are you threatening to leak false information?”

  “Your Excellency, I’m not threatening anything. I’m trying to tell you my idea of his health is important, that I’d better find out pretty soon just what’s going on. Other people had access to those messages. Very few, but one is enough. We’re talking about very inside information. The possibilities for profit are enormous, and therefore very tempting. And why do people resist temptation? Fear, that’s why. In this case fear of a particular man. But at last report that man was deathly ill. All right, they’ve seen the messages, I’m on the spot. Thirty-six hours have gone by. If word doesn’t come from me soon that the man’s all right—and I can’t send it till I’ve seen him or at least heard his voice—someone’s going to be tempted to take short positions—through intermediaries, of course, it can be done—then leak the information from the sub. Someone may have been tempted already.”

  “You’ve gone short yourself, haven’t you? Or are you still only thinking about it?”

  “The question in my mind, Your Excellency, is whether you have. It would be a way of clearing something on this venture. If he’s not all right, I me
an, and you can’t expect to receive the agreed compensation.”

  “Anyone who goes short will be wiped out! He’ll be up and about by tomorrow, ready to resume control, from an open and secure base of operations, something he hasn’t had for years. And then you’ll see significant upward movement!”

  “Oh, I hope so, Madame President. He’s my principal. But what if there is a leak, can you produce him? What if he’s just a little sicker than you think, or takes a little longer to get back on his feet? Or assume he hasn’t even got a head cold, can you get him to parade for the reporters? What about that, Your Excellency? He never went for publicity, never gave one interview, not even in the boy wonder days. Suppose the news gets on the wire, that the last his people know he was deathly ill, in coma, on the high seas. It won’t work just to deny it. Or have him talk by phone, that could be a fake. If it isn’t clearly refuted, right away, in person, those stocks won’t just go down, there’ll be wholesale dumping. Severe disruption in the markets, suspensions of trading. You can’t turn that sort of thing around in a hurry. It might be months before present levels are regained. Meanwhile, you never know, he might have a relapse. I’d really like to speak with him.”

  “I’ll tell him of your concern. Perhaps he’ll call you.”

  “I’d really like to speak with him by this evening.”

  “Before the Times and the Journal go to bed.”

  “Let’s say by eight.”

  “I’ll tell him. He knows where you are.”

  “So, I’m afraid, do the press, that’s another problem. They track me everywhere. Your Excellency.”

  “How flattering! And how convenient! In case you have any juicy tidbits to leak.”

  “Annoying, actually, Your Excellency. The price of being his chief executive agent. It won’t be long before they know he’s here. They don’t even have to know, they’ll report it anyway. Now that they’ve tracked me down. As soon as they see what’s going on at the hotel. Which is why I’ve called a conference for this evening.”

  “For eight o’clock?”

  “That’s right, Your Excellency, eight o’clock. Now, assuming I speak to him by then …”

  “You will!”

  “I’ll release the information that he’s in this country. They’ll ask for how long, I’ll say indefinitely. But tomorrow we’ll have to deal with the federal government. He’s under several serious indictments.”

  “None of which has a shred of validity here. This is an independent, sovereign republic.”

  “With an extradition treaty with the US.”

  “To which Tinieblan citizens are immune. His application will be filed today. A bill waiving the term-of-residence requirement will be offered tomorrow. Sponsored by the government, of which I am the head. Endorsed by the majority party, of which I am the leader. Supported by deputies from every region of the country, of which I am the constitutional president. As long as he enjoys my hospitality, he’ll be more secure than he’s ever been in his life.”

  “Well, Your Excellency, I hope to hear from him. With a hostess like you, he may not need a jailer.”

  “You do yourself no service by impertinence. Your principal and I are in perfect accord. Return to the hotel, you’ll be contacted. This audience is over.”

  So the next person she received was Mandragon. Sent a limousine, cyclists with sirens, the lot. Whisked me over from Señor Manrique’s bedside.

  “How is he?”

  “Asleep.”

  We were in the state office, which she’d found time (perhaps on the day of the funeral) to rearrange. Alejo’s desk and chair put into storage. A thronish article brought up from the dining room. All other furniture against the walls away from it, except for a footstool and an end table with phones. Sat slumped against the carving, hands clasped behind her neck, legs stretched, bare feet plumped on the stool. No sleep for thirty hours and not much before, so that she looked nearly two-thirds her age. Half-eaten plate of food on the table beside her. Damask napkin chucked down on the intercom phone.

  “Can you have him talking by eight o’clock this evening? One phone call, but it might go on awhile.”

  Mandragon smiled.

  Sighed deeply, let her chin drop. “Good!”

  Brought her hands around to knead her temples. Then dropped them to the chair arms and sat up quickly, ancient eyes gleaming.

  “Can you have him out of bed, standing up, walking?”

  “I can have him doing handsprings, like your brother Pedro.”

  “Things he doesn’t want to do? Things he’s never done?”

  “Like to see him bite the heads off a few live chickens?”

  “Lovely! But later. Tonight I want him to hold a press conference.”

  And then: “I’m terribly tired, darling, you must be too. Let’s continue this in bed.”

  Mandragon had no objection.

  Becoming her consort, her confidant, companion, confederate. The siesta enlarged his comprehension, as well as his self-esteem and other parts. He learned what a stock option was and what was a short sale, that truth was whatever the news media reported, things he’d lived in ignorance of before. He heard an account of her chat with the gringo gentleman, and the plan she’d hit on to teach him some respect—“Just make him squirm a little; you’ll help, won’t you, darling?” He snoozed while she used the phone, then got up and helped.

  By then the hospital grounds were vultured with journalists—jeaned or seersuckered gringos hovering and circling; a flapping gabble of Tinieblan stringers. Who accosted every passing nurse and doctor, demanding to know about “the mystery patient,” the one flown in by chopper early that day. At dusk a TV film crew joined them, straight from the airport, down from Miami, all hot. In time to shoot the hearse sliding in on a side street, convoyed by dozens of cops, no common event. They shot the sheeted stiff on the wheeled table, Mandragon and orderlies stoking it gently inside. They shot the sullen-faced hospital spokesman as he mumbled, “No comment,” then had a name pried from his lips.

  “Dagoberto Manrique?”

  “Catch those initials, dummy? It’s got to be him!” The hearse slid away. Police closed the street behind it. Disrespect for the dead, they warned, was a crime in Tinieblas. Those who tried to follow would be arrested. No matter, they had plenty. The flock swept off.

  And found that cable, telex, and international telephone service was suspended, that Monteseguro Airport was shut down, that Tinieblas was cut off from the rest of the planet.

  The subject of their unfiled scoop slumbered sweetly. On a slab in a funeral parlor, but only moderately stiff. He slumbered while a barber trimmed and combed him, while Angela herself dabbed his cheeks with rouge. He slumbered while we dressed him, just as he’d done that afternoon while a haberdasher took his measurements. Silk underwear, broadcloth shirt, calf-length stockings. Cream-colored flannel trousers, snowy buckskin shoes. A double-breasted blazer with brass buttons. No tie, he never wore ties, a sea-blue ascot—the very shade to set off his bunny-pink eyes. Then Mandragon lifted him awake.

  Like dragging a rock up from the bottom of a quarry. Didn’t want to be alive, much less awake. Such marvelous peace when his infinite will stopped goading, when his senses dimmed and flickered and then went out. Bad enough to be yanked from that peace into unconsciousness. Bad enough being hoisted to slumber (though I’d let him dream about grass between his toes). Hideous to be awake, all senses flaring. No solace that his will no longer goaded. Mandragon’s did.

  I zombied Dred into my darling’s service. I ran him with my will for seven weeks.

  Whined about the light, we gave him dark glasses. (Made him take them off later for flashbulbs and TV floods.) Begged to go back to sleep, but he’d had enough coddling. No sleep for Dred, it was time he got on the job. Angela briefed him on what to tell the reporters, catechized and rehearsed him until he had it straight. When he whined and tried to malinger, Mandragon’s will goaded.

  At El Opulento the journalis
ts fumed and cursed, the chief executive agent bubbled with fury. At eight o’clock he mingled his rage with theirs, howled bodysnatch and swindle, while they screamed about the public’s right to know. Mutual lamentations for the future. What hope was there when the forces of civilization—corporate empire and the free press—could have their sacred functions thwarted in a banana republic? We let them stew together thirty minutes. Then we gave them Dred.

  At eight-thirty that evening the nattily attired, undead corpse of Dred Mandeville climbed out of a palace limousine at El Opulento. He looked neither left nor right, marched slowly forward, legs stiff and arms held stiffly at his sides, invisible tin key revolving between his shoulder blades. Through the lobby, up the stairs, into the ballroom. Across the polished floor to the microphone. Bumping against the shoulders of gawping journalists. Chesting his gape-mouthed executive out of his way. Then turned, reached stiffly up, removed dark glasses. Held bunny-pink eyes unblinking for flashbulbs and floods. Spoke-in the tone of a recorded announcement, of a voice giving weather data over the phone:

  “Good evening. My name, as you know, is Dred R. Mandeville. I am, as you see, alive and well. I shall reside from now on in this country. I have applied for Tinieblan nationality. I expect it to be granted in a few days. I shall continue to manage my business interests. Good evening.”

  Mandragon’s will goosed him before the speech replayed.

  The bunny-eyed undead corpse stepped stiffly forward, chesting the mike aside. He did not look down as it leaned and tottered floor-ward. He marched slowly out through exploding clusters of journalists. He did not flinch as their questions flew in at his cheeks.

  “How much did you pay for asylum?”

  “What about the indictments?”

  “Where have you been hiding all these years?”

  The questions thwopped against Dred’s pale, rouged cheeks, fell harmlessly to the polished floor of the ballroom, and were at once forgotten, may still be lying there, abandoned and trampled, for as Dred marched out, turned left, stepped onto the elevator, the hotel manager entered, announcing that communication service had been restored.