Cradle of Splendor

by Patricia Anthony

“No.”

  “You’re really hitting the liquor. Never known you to do that. Don’t get drunk on me.”

  “Drunk is a matter of mind.”

  “Don’t go ass—over—end crazy on me, either, like McNatt. Guy freaks me the hell out.” Kinch lit his joint, took a drag, fidgeted. “Hey. What about that bombing? You see that? I had a ringside seat. Put some Sinatra on the headphones. Got on the telescope. Man, shoulda been here. Saw the bombs take out that fucking head of Kubitschek, the one that stuck out of the side of the museum. Broke it in half. Didn’t think anything could do that to basalt. So, what’s up?”

  “They have sent me to give you a message.”

  “Oh?”

  From the atrium, a cascade of song so haunting that the other birds hushed. Even Kinch went still.

  When the sabiá was finished, Hiroshi said, “Japan will share the rewards now, as will Germany and France and Great Britain. We have helped a great deal.”

  “Yeah. So I heard.”

  “But it is a pity—don’t you think it so?—to have earned the Brazilians’ resentment. It is a shame about your maid.”

  An instant of confusion. Kinch put out his joint, half smoked. “Yeah, I guess. I thought we had something going, too. More than the master/servant kinda shit. Although, hey, there’s something to be said for that, know what I mean? Anyway, I treated that nigger like the Queen of fucking Uganda. You think she cared? Fixed up her room. Gave her all sorts of stuff. Expensive clothes. Nice jewelry. A good watch—not a Rolex, mind you. But you can’t give them something like a Rolex. When you let them go home for a visit, the family steals them blind. You want some ... ah, chips? Nuts? Nothing? You sure? You had that maid one time. Right after the baby. Good looker, too. You ever, you know?”

  “It was a small apartment that we lived in.”

  “Yeah. Oh, yeah. And the old ball and chain. Man, I don’t know what I’ll do if they send me stateside. I mean, can you picture me back home playing hide—the—sausage with some fifteen—year—old nigger chick? Huh? Without her mean old gang—banger brother shooting my ass?” He laughed. Shrugged. “Well, anyway. For a while I thought it was love. But you know those favela cunts, they use and abuse you, right? Like the song says, take your heart right out, and throw it away. Hey. You nearly got you a dead soldier there. Sure you don’t want anything to eat?”

  If Kinch would turn around. If he would shut up. If the sabiá would sing again.

  “Another one, then? You brought a hollow leg?”

  “Show me the statue.”

  “The ... ? Oh. Oh, sure.”

  They stood up. And the sabiá sang. It sang them through the living room, and out to the sunlit balcony. It sang as Kinch pulled a chair to the telescope’s tripod. And then it stopped.

  The wind blew, tickled a set of nearby wind chimes. Hiroshi sat down in the chair, looked in the eyepiece. “Where?”

  “No. To the right. More right.”

  “I don’t see.”

  “Get up. Come on. Get up, guy. Lemme get it focused for you.”

  Kinch sat down, peered in the eyepiece.

  Hiroshi slipped the garotte from his pocket. He stepped forward until his belly pressed the back of the chair.

  “Almost, almost ... There! I—”

  Hiroshi whipped the guitar string around Kinch’s neck. A grunt of fear. Kinch clawed at his throat. His glasses fell, hit the stone with a click. He bucked. Heaved.

  Hiroshi fought to hold on. The wire cut into his palms, nearly pulled free. The chair squealed against the polished limestone floor. And Kinch fell hard to his knees.

  Hiroshi went down with him. Kinch’s dry hacking, less like the gurgle he expected, more like a simple cough. The guitar string birthed a shallow bloody river that cascaded down Kinch’s neck. Their two bloods mingled. Hiroshi’s was peppery palm oil and cana. Kinch’s was whiskey and weak American coffee.

  Between Hiroshi’s spread legs, Kinch shuddered. The American’s death trembled up Hiroshi’s thighs. From the sabiá, a liquid trill. From Kinch’s throat, a mist of crimson. His shit was a sharp—smelling tea—colored stream that pooled on the white stone.

  Hiroshi released the guitar string and let the body fall. “The message is,” he said, “that the god—in—goddess Oxumaré has turned woman for the last time.”

  The wind chimes rang. “Never again will she be man, not even when the seasons change and the rains leave.”

  He looked up. There. From a nearby balcony, a woman—a spirit—watched, face blurred by distance. Orange and purple dress. Crimson ribbon around her wrist. The loose ends of the ribbon and her long dark hair fluttered in the smoky breeze.

  Hiroshi spoke loudly, so Maria Bonita could hear. “Oxumaré says that because of shame she has thrown away her cock. She says she would rather be a rainbow, or a river, than wear it.”

  * * *

  When Jerry left to scout lunch, McNatt walked over to Roger. “Are you comfortable?”

  The floor tiles had turned Roger’s butt to ice. The handcuff had chafed his wrist raw. The night’s beer throbbed through his temples. “You bet. No prob.”

  McNatt sat on the parquet next to him, propped his elbows on his bent knees, his back against: the bed. “I appreciate the fact that, with Jerry in the room, you have not alluded to our little talks. I hope they are as precious to you as they are to me. But I’m afraid that I will now shock, and certainly, offend you.”

  The ice in Roger’s butt moved upward, froze his chest.

  “It’s my belief that mediums in fact channel themselves.” McNatt looked at Roger expectantly.

  “Hum,” Roger said.

  “Heretical, I know. I have watched films of the Brazilian psychic surgeons. They are so much more than the Filipinos. It’s possible to palm cotton soaked with blood; but how does one fake shoving a tablespoon into an eye? Pushing a table knife into a chest—a knife that, I might add, came directly from the plate of a university researcher?”

  Lunch. Oh, Jerry was going to come back with lunch. Roger’s stomach bobbled.

  “No amount of will can overcome instinct. And that is the answer: the psychic surgeon actually steals the patient’s free will.”

  In one fluid move, McNatt was on his feet and pacing. Roger practiced the Zen of becoming one with the wall.

  “What a wonderful, wonderful ... Well, I tell you, Roger. I must admit to a great deal of envy. Still, think of the tightrope they must tread. Safer to imagine that a higher spirit takes over. Dangerous to know, the raw power one holds inside oneself. He halted. “This said, follow the logic: if we are angels, we are, also devils. And murder is simply a collusion between perpetrator and victim.

  Whoa! Time to say something.

  “For years I believed murder sprang from hatred. Now I know that it comes from love.”

  Say something before it was too late. “Uh ...”

  “Yes?”

  “Uh. All the same to you, Doug, I’d rather not.”

  “I don’t ...”

  “I’d rather not die, okay? I mean, if it’s all the same to you. Consider this sort of a conflict we have here, although, I want you to understand, a very minor, ah, friendly conflict.”

  “Certainly.”

  “Nothing to upset yourself about. And, please ... please please please. Don’t hold it against me.”

  “Not at all. I welcome debate. Oh! Oh, my. You overheard Jerry and myself talking last night, didn’t you? I was wondering if you were awake. Well, I suspect that you might find this difficult to believe now, but when the time arrives, there will come a welcome feeling of surrender. I’ve seen it in so many faces.”

  He sat down beside Roger, put a hand on his knee. Roger nearly came up off the floor screaming.

  “I’d never do anything that you didn’t ask for first.”

  Tears came t
hen, and there wasn’t any sound to them. No sound at all. Just that brimming heat, and the warm wet slide. “Please. Please don’t. I mean, if it’s all the same to you, you know—? I mean, if we’re taking a vote here? Put my request in on the side of never, ever wanting to die.”

  “Shhh.” McNatt leaned close. Roger wanted to push him away. Wanted to run in place. Shriek. “I know you don’t want it. Not yet. Not now. But seeing is my gift, and when your special moment comes, I’ll take you.”

  No. Christ. McNatt was going to do something weird. Torture him until he begged for a bullet. Poison and then French kiss him. Jesus. Store his body in a closet for a few weeks so he would watch the insects chow down.

  “I’m gonna be sick,” Roger said.

  McNatt took the key from his pocket, reached for the cuff.

  “Oh, shit.” Roger’s voice was thick. “I’m gonna ralph.”

  Up and to the bathroom, McNatt at his elbow. At the commode Roger dropped and bent over. A noise between a whine and a moan came up, and suddenly Roger was sobbing.

  McNatt handed him a wet towel, patted his shoulder. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have been quite so forthright.”

  Roger’s teeth chattered. His shoulders shook. He bent over, opened his mouth, and once more brought up nothing but an anguished wail. “Ooooh. That’s okay. Really.”

  “Sometimes I forget myself. That was unforgivably insensitive. A Coke, perhaps? To settle your stomach?”

  “Yeah.” McNatt would leave him here. Would go to the refrigerator. Give Roger enough time ...

  “Up—sie daisy,” McNatt said cheerfully as he helped Roger to his feet.

  Now or never. Do or die. Roger gave it everything he had. He slammed his shoulder into McNatt and bounced off, thought for a confusing instant he’d hit the wall. Then a battering ram connected with his stomach, and he went down, gape—mouthed and mute.

  “Are you all right, Roger?”

  Roger tried to draw a breath. Couldn’t. Dark stars swarmed in his vision.

  “Goodness. I hit you rather harder than I intended. Instinct and training. One just can’t escape it. Well. The pain will go away in a moment. You—that’s right. Just lean back and rest a little.”

  Roger held onto the toilet bowl. He was breathing now, shallow unsatisfying pants.

  “That’s it. Just take your time. And again, let me apologize ...”

  “Me,” Roger wheezed.

  “Sorry? I didn’t catch that.”

  The dark stars swam away. “Me. Fault.” He waved a hand earnestly. “Please. Forgive. Don’t know. What came over ...”

  “Oh, misunderstandings like that are to be expected. Let’s go have that Coke, shall we?”

  Roger couldn’t straighten. McNatt held his elbow. He couldn’t do this. Couldn’t face ... God. He had to hold on to life and never let go, so that if McNatt took him, he would have to take the room, the house. Roger grabbed the doorjamb. His eyes seized every piece of litter, every stick of furniture.

  “I thought you wanted that Coke.”

  Roger started to sob again. His thighs went watery, and he sank to his knees. The doorjamb was smooth and hard against his cheek. How could it happen? Holding on to something. Breathing one minute, then dropping into the void.

  And that’s when Jerry walked in, humming “Gigi.” Roger heard the humming stop. Heard the rustle of paper. “What the fuck’s the matter with him?”

  “We had a little accident.”

  “Um.”

  “I think he overheard us last night.”

  “Why don’t I just go ahead and do him now?”

  Fear reduced Roger’s prayer to basics: no no no no no.

  “Otherwise he’s going to be a problem. Just look at him, Mac. Blubbering like that. You want to do one of your weird things, don’t you?”

  “We cannot do him now. Where would we stow the body?”

  “I could—”

  “No. He must go to Cabeceiras. Those are the instructions.”

  “Uh—huh. You and your instructions. Come on. We can say one of the Brazilians got him. Let me do it.”

  A sharp snap that made Roger jump in place. The sound of a silencer. Was he still alive?

  “I’ll do him that fast.” Jerry said. Another dry snap. “He’s gone, just like that. It’ll all be over. I’ll take care of the disposal. I gotta tell you—what you do, Mac, sometimes it really makes me sick.”

  A tsk. “You are so pedestrian.”

  McNatt knelt, put his hand around Roger’s shoulders, stroked him, and how could Roger leave? How could anyone take him? Was McNatt right, or would he feel terror at the end? Would it hurt? God. Would leaving life be like a fall into dark? And after, no touch, no sound, no smell at all, the whole wide world turned empty.

  “Roger?” McNatt’s voice was concerned. His stroke was gentle. “Come on. Don’t pay any attention to Jerry. Let’s you and me go have that Coke.”

  * * *

  At the zoo a dying elephant rocked, dull—eyed and fretful, too old or sick to lift his head. Jack looked back over his shoulder at Dolores, then turned his attention to Jaje. Poor Jack. He should have stayed near his wife and kids. Should have been at least a part—time husband and father.

  Conversation trailed the two. Mist blotted the sound.

  “ ... true?” The word hung in the gray, manure—fragrant air. The innocence of the question made Jack lower his head.

  Up a slick clay trail. At the top, a line of bushes. Below was a square carpet of grass where a multitude of silent, black—shawled Indians sat with their silent children.

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “But people do things for complicated reasons. And nothing ever turns put like you expect.”

  Not Harry. Harry had been a surprise. A whoopie cushion.

  “They were friends first,” Jack said.

  The lion cages, cats the same color as the bare ground. Two females side by side, an elderly male by them.

  “Your mom was in Congress, then.”

  Dolores halted. The ground sucked at her feet.

  Jack turned. “You okay, Dee?”

  “I’m fine. Just fine. Leave me alone.”

  Something between a shrug and a nod, then they, were walking past the pretty llamas, with their obdurate lantern jaws. Ana’s delicate beauty disguised her meanness, too.

  “ ... they approached her. Just to have a politician in their pocket. That’s the way the CIA works. And Dee thought she could handle them. And your mom thought she could exploit them. But one thing led to another ...”

  Love to marriage. Marriage to hate. Connect all the dots, step back, and you’ll see the prison.

  “They never meant to hurt anyone.”

  A ripping pain in her midsection. Dolores stopped.

  “Dee? You okay?”

  She would vomit blood. “Goddamn it, Jack. Leave me alone. I’m fine.”

  They walked on without her.

  She watched them leave, thinking she was about to die, that the pain she felt was a bursting heart. But then the pain subsided. She should have known. Empty as the Tin Man. When she took a step, she found to her surprise that her legs were steady.

  “ ... me?” Jack was asking with a smile. “No, sweetie. When I got to know your Aunt Dee real well, I decided to work for your mom. Always have worked for her. Always will, Like I said, it’s a big old complicated world.”

  Jaje murmured a reply. Jack put his arm around her shoulders. She leaned her head against him, and he hugged her tight. Dolores looked away.

  Someone had deposited walk—through dioramas on the zoo’s plain: huge concrete turds, painted in colors too frenetic to be happy. Indian children ran through the crude structures, chasing each other, never laughing. Moisture beaded on Dolores’s sweater sleeves, on Jaje’s hair, on the llamas. A fog not heavy enough to
be rain.

  Her legs ached. How far had they walked now? Miles. Decades.

  Jack stopped, turned. “Let’s wander around the city a little. You want to?”

  Dolores met a tiger’s apathetic gaze. Along its striped side, a baby—pink patch of mange. Best to keep moving. You could always outrun it. If the tiger would just get up ...

  “Dee?”

  “Why not?” she said.

  * * *

  What was the number? Had he written it down, or had Muller? No. That’s right. He had fired Muller. Sent him back to Rio Grande do Sul, back to Novo Hamburgo or one of those tight—assed German places.

  Ah, here.

  Done the right thing for once. Sent Muller to a cleaner, brighter life than Edson had a right to. Sent him away quick, before ... Edson sat in his easy chair. On the television screen, a smiling American reporter was interviewing a smiling British captain. Edson pulled the phone toward him, dialed.

  Over the receiver, a ring. Edson pulled his bathrobe close, tucked his legs under him until he was a terry—cloth cocoon. Not that he was any safer. Not that he could be clean. The skin of his hands was wrinkled from the shower, and still he felt ...

  It rang again.

  He’d scrubbed until his skin turned pink. Until the flesh of his groin had chafed. But only a knife could clean deep enough. Only a bullet. And Nando had taken his gun.

  Was there some weakness in him, like a hidden embolism or a cancer, a flaw that he had never once suspected? Did Muller have the flaw, too? That look he’d given him as Edson got in the car.

  Edson put the fifth of Maker’s Mark to his lips, took a drink.

  “CNN,” the voice from the receiver sang. How American, that flat nasal. Like they had their noses up the asses of the world.

  “Hello?”

  “Tem alguém aí que fala Português?

  “I’m sorry?”

  Edson sighed. “I don’t espeak the Engliss.”

  “Uh—huh?”

  Was his pronunciation too poor? Had whiskey slurred his words? More, than memory, then. Memory kept its edge. “I espeak from Brazil.”