by R. M. Koster
Mandragon spiraled back to Ciudad Tinieblas, came snail-crawling down from Bastidas hamlet by hamlet, across swampy lowlands, over the cordillera. Pushing frenzy ahead of him. Three days before his return it hit the capital. Pilgrims streamed in from all the surrounding countryside, and the engorged city gave itself up to revelry, to mass paroxysms of generosity, consumption, and waste, to indiscriminate frigging, firking, and futtering. And also to fasting and other mortifications. Bands of sackclothed flagellants roamed the streets, stumbled about among the coupled futterers, flailed themselves with brambles, raked their cheeks. The population (swollen now to nearly a million) swung back and forth to extremes of joy and contrition, caroming temporarily to hatred whenever an unbeliever was exposed.
At Mandragon’s approach the mania passed all bounds. Thousands fell in fits of prophesying. Feasts flowed from house to house about the barrios. The squares were packed with dancing, singing mobs, with lovemakers, with penitents in chains and crowns of bramble. Alfonso Sancudo, a confirmed hedonist all his life, stripped himself to a loincloth and gashed his thighs and crawled the length of Via Venezuela, dragging a heavy oaken cross behind him. Don Hunfredo Ladilla, a notable skinflint, filled a gunnysack with rose-red hundred-inchado bank notes and took it up on the roof of the Hotel Excelsior and strewed cash on the revelers in Plaza Bolívar, all the while grinning blissfully, shouting “Viva el nuevo Tinieblas!” An unbeliever was torn apart in the streets of La Cuenca. Raging women seized him and fell upon him, pulled him limb from limb, then beaked up morsels of his flesh and chewed them. And when Mandragon entered the city, he was at once infected. A crimson aura burned about him. He levitated himself above the throngs and marched in air at an altitude of several meters, down Avenida Washington, into Plaza Bolívar, on to Plaza Cervantes and Parque Mocoso, whipping his homagers to new ecstasies with this performance and pausing every few blocks to cast mirage visions of the new Tinieblas across the sky, at which all fell to their knees and cried out in wonder. In this fashion he proceeded to the palace.
(Mandragon will take that route again in a few minutes, on solid pavement this time, trotting tethered to a truck.)
Then Mandragon came out on the balcony with Doña Angela and appointed his cabinet. In his gyre round the country he had collected a number of personal retainers, especially fervent believers who had tagged on behind him at one stop or another and whom he suffered to follow and attend him. Mandragon chose his cabinet from among these. A druggist from Belém named Anselmo Tostado, whose duty it was to carry Mandragon’s toothbrush and bring it to him each morning and each night, became minister of justice. Doña Alma de Gorgojo, one of the richest women in Remedios Province, had followed Mandragon when he left Angostura and since then had prepared his coffee. Mandragon named her minister of foreign relations. A cane-cutters daughter, Prudencia Zorrilla, whose office had been to fluff Mandragon’s pillow, was appointed minister of public works. And so forth, while the multitude hurrahed, until all the ministries had been distributed. Then Mandragon uttered a new revelation, that within three years Tinieblas would be rich enough to expand and bring its blessings to less favored peoples. He declares the coming of the Tinieblan Empire and began distributing kingdoms.
Ticamala and Costaguana would be incorporated first. Mandragon appointed kings to rule them. Their reigns would begin at the appropriate moment, but they might use their titles at once. In recognition of Alfonso Sancudo’s unprecedented fervor of belief, Mandragon named him King of Mexico, with New Mexico tossed into his realm by way of a bonus. He named a Tuquetá Indian woman who’d cooked for him during his tour Queen of California. He created a King of New Orleans and a King of New York. And so on, until some forty dependencies of the Tinieblan Empire-to-be had been disposed of, the mob in each case cheering Mandragon’s choice. Then he urged them to keep on displaying their faith in the future (as if urging were necessary!) and declared a national fiesta (as if it needed declaring, as if it weren’t already zinging along!) and withdrew into the palace with Doña Angela.
To tour the provinces of her mind and body, swilling up deference all along the way. Angela received him and paid homage. Fugled and bugled, that is, to an accompaniment of transformations.
Mandragon changed into a leopard, and Angela changed to a gazelle—timid flesh for clawing, pawing, and mawing. Then he changed himself to an otter, she to a trout. He turned into a falcon, she into a dove. Then Mandragon became a sacred ibex, preening and strutting, and Angela became its attendant priestess, adored it and worshiped it, soothed its plumage with soft fingers, laved its person clean with respectful tongue. He became a rare egret, she its custodian. He became a performing duck and she the audience that applauded its antic flappings.
Angela changed herself into a rose (isn’t this review charming?), and Mandragon became a slug and trailed slime across it. She made herself into a wheat field and he into a cloud of despoiling locusts. She changed into a garden; he changed into a hog and rooted it up. Angela changed herself into a rich carpet and spread herself before him. Mandragon became an army of filthy boots. She turned into a pool of clear water. He turned into a scaly caiman and slithered in and thrashed it foul and muddy.
All this by way of enhancing their plucking and shucking, she savoring love, he gobbling up deference. Mandragon became an ax; Angela became a flowering medlar. He turned himself into an iron plow (this lovely parade of changes could go on all day, but soon the door will open, the guards will come), she changed herself at once to a yielding plain. Mandragon became a spit, and Angela a shoat and impaled herself on it. He became a dagger, she turned into a wound. He changed himself to fire, she became kindling. He changed himself into an ocean breaker, and she turned into an unprotected shore. Mandragon transformed himself into a cyclone; Angela became a supple, bending palm.
In every part of the palace, in every style and posture of connection that confirmed his mastery and her deference. Mandragon despoted, Angela serfed. Happily too, though she wouldn’t admit it these days. Couldn’t debase herself enough, since that was what administered him delight. He gorged and still stayed hollow.
For two weeks, their appetites kept fresh by their transformations, while all around them the country raged and reveled. All government business had stopped, but Mandragon held court for an hour or two each morning, repaired to his mirrored lair and received homagers while the ministers and commandants waited on him. Angela used the time for squeezing Zombito, called him up and had him stuff funds in her secret accounts, since there was no way to set up new investment trusts, not with all the banks and courts and law offices closed, not with all the clerks out feasting or doing penance. Each afternoon she accompanied Mandragon on an hour or two’s perambulation through the city—she and his train of personal attendants, the cabinet and commandants, the kings of this realm or that. He walked among the people, sopped up their deference, witnessed new proofs of belief, appointed grand dukes and crown princes, whipped the frenzy on with visions in the sky and other displays. After a time he decided walking was beneath him, even strutting along in the air at an altitude of several meters. He had a pair of portable throne constructed—armchairs from the state dining room with horizontal poles clamped to their legs. He and Angela were carried through town on these. By ministers and kings and princes regent. They vied for the honor of being bearers, and the commandants marched alongside in their dress uniforms, and whenever the procession stopped, presented themselves. Colonel Guadaña bent his back and braced his hands on his knees, and Colonel Empulgueras got down on all fours, and Colonel Acha lay prostrate, and Mandragon used them as steps for his descent.
Until one day at the end of the sixth week of his regime when his procession met another. The Guardia Civil had captured five foreign girls wandering in Otán without proper papers and brought them to the capital for deportation, and when the truck they rode in reached the outskirts, someone recognized them as members of an unbeliever band. A mob surrounded the truck and convoyed it on towa
rd Bondadosa
Prison, jeering and howling insults, tossing fruit and refuse, while the girls cowered behind the wire screening like beasts in a cage. The two processions met at an intersection in La Cuenca.
Mandragon got down from his throne, stepping on the backs of the three commandants, and went to inspect the captives. As soon as they saw him, they began laughing and weeping and crying out for joy and lamenting, pleading with him in English and saying they loved him, while Mandragon stood blinking in amazement. Then one of them, a lovely girl (though her honey-blond hair was all rumpled, though her blue eyes were all puffed and inflamed from weeping), quieted the others and began to dance. She danced bent over in the rear of the patrol truck, moving slowly, miming birds and insects, humming and squeaking. A look of horror passed Mandragon’s face.
Mandragon backed slowly away from the truck. Then he turned and set off on foot back to the palace, first at an ordinary pace, then faster and faster, till he ran in a frantic, panicky stampede, and his hands shook, and his teeth chattered, and his knees trembled, while Doña Angela and his train tried to keep up, and all the citizens gaped and babbled in wonder. He screamed for his attendants to leave him alone and shut himself up in the palace with Doña Angela.
A week later Mandragon fell. Happy hatred howled from border to border.
37
Grey dawn at the window, boots in the courtyard below. They’ll come for me soon. To give me a mechanized strangling, but no matter. Almost done recalling and reclaiming, a process begun on a street a few blocks from here.
Full Moons had reminded me who I was.
Too hideous to bear, I’d betrayed everything. For three days I lay on the polished floor of the ballroom, my mind a static buzz. When I rose to consciousness again, I was empty: the power that had lived in me was gone. Mixed anguish and relief: worthless and abandoned, but free of all responsibility.
Angela’s anguish unmixed; fun to recall it. Her glorious lover out of commission in coma (she had doctors discreetly in, but they couldn’t help). Her prime minister out of action with the country in chaos (she issued statements in my name, but they went unheeded). And her zombie was out of business permanently. Dred’s undead corpse collapsed the moment that I did, dropped like a felled pine among the TV sets and began stinking so powerfully the security guards straightway broke in the door. Dry bones and putrid flesh was all that was left of him. His passing filled poor Angela with grief. She’d given him a perfectly marvelous squeezing, but she grieved over all the pelf shed failed to wring out. While worrying about being able to enjoy what she had with her lover/protector/prime minister out of service.
How relieved she was when I returned to consciousness! Laughed and wept for joy, soaked me in caresses. That passed soon enough. I cared nothing for her, hated her in fact—or, rather, I showed her some of the hatred I felt for myself, blamed her for bewitching me, though of course I’d done it all myself. And she realized almost at once that my power had left me. No use to her anymore, but a memory of love may have remained with her. Or she may have thought my power might return. In any case, she didn’t send for the colonels. She simply left me. In a few days I swung back to neuter, parts substandard, facial hair gone, just as before. She stayed in her suite of rooms, I moped about the lower floors of the palace, both of us waiting to see what would happen.
The moment I collapsed, everyone in the country stopped believing in the new Tinieblas and the Tinieblan-Empire-to-be. No one admitted it for some time, however, not even to himself, much less to others. The gulling people had taken was just too painful. Two or three days went by, for instance, before Alfonso Sancudo burned the plumed-serpent visiting cards he’d had made up with the legend “ALFONSO I, REY DE LOS MÉJICOS,” while another day or so passed before he told his cook to stop calling him Majestad. But the feasting and fasting piddled out in short order. People stayed home, then began straggling back to work.
The victim-vision I’d keyed into the colonels’ cortices faded the instant I started my own panicky stampede, but it took them a full week to get over their terror. One morning, at their regular meeting in the comandancia, all three of them realized at once that they were their old selves again. No twinge of guilt would ever again afflict them. All three at once proposed overthrowing me.
It took them three hours to collect sufficient troops—the Wild Alligators, the Mountain Tapirs, all their assassins. Not to intimidate the populace: no more welcome military coup has ever been celebrated on this continent. Out of sincere respect for Mandragon’s powers, but I went docilely as a lambkin. My powers had left me.
Returning now, recalled, reclaimed, no matter. I’ll go docilely this morning too. Best be out of it. No more welcome execution will ever
Here they are.
38
Fumbling at the lock, the door swings open. Officer, two guards, more out in the corridor. Best meet them standing.
But can’t! Anguished agitation, limbs gone weak! Eyes unfocusing, head lolling! Not fear, felt this before, a cruel ravishment! Seized and flung, snatched from my body, whirling …
A grandstand filled with well-dressed men and women. Line of assault troops with their rifles trained. Angela and the colonels on the palace balcony. Cordon of presidential guards in dress uniform. Parque Mocoso, Mandragon’s execution.
Two privates have marched me up to the big tree. Have turned me round, they stand gripping my biceps. My shoulders are trembling. The major marches up, he steps behind me. Drops the loop on my shoulders, pulls it snug. Cablenibble.
Mandragon stands head bowed, blinking quickly. Lick my lips, rub them together, very afraid. Of cablebite painhorror. Choke-anguish agon-jounce …
Strange! Fear draining from me, gone! Power, peace, and order flooding to me! Singing in me, filling me again!
Mandragon looks up, bares teeth, stares toward the balcony. The major is saluting. Angela holds her fan out at arm’s length. She flicks it up.
Slow roll of drums. The crowd goes still, Mandragon’s girls start keening. Angela draws her fan back, opens it at her breast. Angela smiles faintly at Mandragon.
The major drops his salute and shouts a command. The starter whines, the motor catches and revs. The privates release Mandragon and step back. Gears grate, the motor races, the winch turns. Mandragon rises.
But rises independently of the noose! Cable slack above it, no strain on the winch! Body motionless, head lifted, face serene! Mandragon rises like an acrobat filmed in slow motion, soars as if from a springboard or trampoline. Rises majestically, until the noose is just below the pulley.
The Jeep engine coughs and stalls: Mandragon has stopped it. Mandragon stands in air. A pale-green aura floats about Mandragon.
Moans and shouts in the grandstand, along the seawall. The keening turns to high-pitched wails of joy. Angela snaps her fan closed, flicks it frantically. The major bellows, the starter whines and whines. Mandragon stands in air, features serene. Throat in the noose, the cable slack above it. The drum roll wavers, stops. The crowd falls silent.
Mandragon lifts knees and calves, raises and tucks them. Swings manacled hands under butt and tucked-in toes. Brings hands forward, holds them toward the balcony. Lets legs extend.
Mandragon stands in air, opens outstretched hands. The chain that joins the handcuffs shivers. Every link breaks at once and falls to the ground. Mandragon spreads arms wide, holds them outspread. The handcuffs split apart and fall to the ground. Moans of fear and wonder from the on-lookers.
Mandragon bunches fingers, flings them open. The padlock on the wire-mesh door of the police wagon breaks and falls. The door swings open. Mandragon draws palms inward. The girls get down from the police wagon. They walk in single file toward the great tree, weeping faces radiant and uplifted. They kneel in pentagram beneath Mandragon, faces lifted, hands clasped at their breasts. Mandragon is smiling. Mandragon speaks:
“Beloved, the universe is not an adversary. It is not an enemy to be subdued or destroyed. Ii is a
rhythm to accept and dance to.”
Mandragon is dancing. Mandragon dances in air, eyes closed, face smiling—a dance immensely solemn, immensely gay. Floats dancing, left and right, backward and forward. Above, the cable dances with Mandragon. The onlookers moan and sway to Mandragon’s rhythm.
Shout of command from the balcony. The major salutes and shouts commands. The assault troops at the grandstand come to attention. They turn about and trot into the park, weapons at high port. They halt below Mandragon ten or twelve yards off. They form two ranks of eight facing Mandragon. They stare fixedly ahead at the big tree. Their bodies pulse out tension and ferocity, like dogs on leash, like snakes about to strike.
Mandragon opens eyes, smiles down at the soldiers, a smile immensely tender, loving, gay. Dances on, spreads arms as to embrace them.