Cradle of Splendor

by Patricia Anthony

  “Thank you. Please hold.”

  Edson understood “hold” only the instant after the music began. A strangely familiar melody, but Edson needed eight bars to recognize it. “Dores de Coração” “Heartbreak.” The classic modinha they stole for that American movie.

  A click, and then a new voice. A young woman’s happy chirp. “¿Pronto? No hay alguien aqui que habla Portugués. Puede usted hablar Español?”

  Americans. They stole it all, and never bothered to learn the language. He took another drink, gave a resigned “Sí.” And then he told her to speak slowly.

  “Bueno. ¿Puedo ayudarle?”

  “Yes.” Help him, yes. Roll back time to before Freitas. To before Brasília. Before the murders in São Paulo. “My name is Edson Carvalho,” he said. “And I wish to make a confession.”

  He looked into the plate glass window, was surprised to see that he cast a reflection. “¿Señorita?”

  “Yes. I—wait ...” Muffled conversation from the other end. Fast, panicked English. Then the girl and her Spanish again. “Uh, sir? Sir? The Carvalho who is the head of the secret police?”

  Was he that? So sinister—sounding. The midnight knock on the door. The fatal drive. “Yes.”

  “Señor Carvalho? They’re telling me, uh, they want to record this conversation. Is that all right?”

  “Nothing matters.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I said, nothing matters, querida. It hasn’t mattered since I was twenty—seven years old, you see? And my country did not have a death penalty and so what do you do then? Please. Can you understand me? Sometimes the Portuguese words are different.”

  “No, it’s fine. I—”

  “We were prudent. Only the third time they were caught—never the first, because we might have made a mistake, neh? And never the second, because the second was sometimes enough warning. No. We waited until the third time, because then we were sure that we had the guilty man, and we were certain that the man would never learn. And the only thing left was to kill him. And we did that, you see? Took them to the swamps and killed them. They cried, but softly. And they struggled, but they were handcuffed. They fell down in the mud, and made you dirty with them. Still they were human, I suppose. In the same way that a feral dog is a dog.”

  She cleared her throat.

  “What is your name, please?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Your name.”

  “Rosa.”

  “No, child. We share secrets. Give me your name so I have something of yours to hold on to.”

  “Rosalinda Teresa de Concepción Herrera Gonzales y Peña.”

  “Rosa.” In the patio, sun glinted on the palm trees, filtered through the grapevine and cast dappled shade. On the TV, the reporter and the captain were still smiling. “Are you a reporter, Rosa?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “What do you do, then? A producer?”

  “I’m, uh, a secretary in the Marketing Department. We’re trying to get hold of one of our Spanish—speaking reporters right now. Uh. Oh. Okay. They tell me he’s on his way. In the meantime—there’s a crowd here—they’re sort of passing me notes and things, so I know what to ask you. It’s a little confused on this end. I’m sorry.”

  “But it’s you I want to speak with, Rosalinda Teresa Gonzales y Peña.”

  “Oh? All right.”

  “Because I have never to my knowledge, killed a reporter. But I have killed secretaries, I think. And I have killed children half your age. And that, too, was a crime against humanity. Although I have always been of the opinion that the Church sinned first. All those children. No one to care for them. They were hungry, the children. They were wild dogs. You couldn’t turn your back. Feed them, and they would bite you. The gangs fought each other, and it was good to find their bodies on the sidewalk in the morning. Good to find a boy whose throat had been cut. A bullet would have come from a shopkeeper. Or another officer. That’s when my wife left me and took my sons. I don’t think she ever knew ... Well, yes. I suppose she did. Even when you wash them, cordite stays on the hands.” He took a drink. “Rosa. Rosinha. Are you from Atlanta?”

  “No, sir. Not originally.”

  “Where?”

  “El Paso, Texas.”

  “And is it pretty? El Paso, Texas?”

  “Well, it’s desert.”

  “A hard beauty, then. I tended cattle, growing up in the sertão when I was half as tall as a zebu’s shoulder. Huge, the color of caramel custard, with horns longer than my arms. Alone with them, just me and my stick. But no need to beat them. When I called, they followed my voice. The cattle were smarter than the men I killed. They were kinder, and I loved them for that. They could have gored me. Me, such a baby. And them so gentle.” He looked down the hall, at the hanging Christ. His eyes watered. “Rosa? Do you think that God is sweet, like the cattle?”

  Whispers.

  “Rosa?”

  “Just a minute, Señor Carvalho.” More whispers. Angry ones.

  Edson’s tired face in the patio door. A squeak ...

  “Sir? I didn’t catch that.”

  Oh. Had he cried out? The snap of a fastener. Hands on his belly, moving down. His own hips thrusting eagerly up.

  “Sir? Sorry. I was trying to get them to stop recording, sir. But they wouldn’t.”

  “This should be recorded. I want you to play it for your president. For all the American people.”

  “Do ... ? Okay. Okay. They’re nodding.”

  “You must promise.”

  “Yes, sir. The executives here are all nodding.”

  “I told you the rest so that you would see the sort of man I am, for I have done an unpardonable thing. I am responsible for the Disappeareds. I alone. I arrested them. I took them to a place, and I killed them.”

  The “why” was so quick, so shocked, that it had to have come unprompted.

  Because Freitas was hungry.

  He took a quick breath, held it, closed his eyes, and said, “Because I could.”

  Was this how it felt to fall, helpless, in the swamp? Before he left, he wanted to make Freitas dirty. Perhaps he would forget things, then. If God was sweet.

  “Rosinha?”

  “Sir?”

  “I am not fond of the Church, but even so, thinking it might be possible to die and to awaken to cattle ... please. Would you say a Rosary for me?”

  On the television, the airport and helicopters. And a frantic reporter.

  “Sir? Señor Carvalho? Sir?”

  Gently, he hung up. He went into the bedroom and put on his jeans, a shirt. He picked out a light jacket, a fresh fifth of Jim Beam. And then he walked outside to the Mercedes. It was an easy road. A wide road. Even drunk, he could remember the way, Cabeceiras was an inevitable place. If he simply stood still, the world would tip east, and he would fall there.

  CNN, Live

  ... helicopters! Hundreds of ... Can you—Oh! God! Too close. A helicopter directly overhead. Just deafening. And that rotor wash ... Amazing, Bernie! They ... All the helicopters. Can you still hear me?

  Ye—

  Right overhead! Flying so low they shake the ground! All flying toward the airport, looks like. And—Quick! Quick! Get a picture of that! Down the way. Right there! We’re trying to get closer. Bernie? Can you see this? The Brazilian soldiers in the next block are dropping their weapons. They are dropping their weapons, Bernie, and—I don’t believe it. This group of soldiers here by the zoo ... I don’t know, maybe fifty or so men—they marched up from where they were blocking the highway cloverleaf earlier ... they’re just putting down their rifles, and sitting in the middle of the street. They’ve put their hands on their heads. All very orderly. The officers are standing around near them ... can you get a picture of this yet?

  Yes. Yes, we can, Susan.r />
  But they must be putting up resistance elsewhere, Bernie. I’m hearing rifle fire. Repeat, I’m hearing a lot of rifle fire. And still no word from the government. At least, from whatever part of the Brazilian government still exists ...

  SHE TURNED from the shop window and the television screens.

  “Dee!”

  The quick tap of footsteps, following.

  “Hey.” Jack sounded exasperated. “Wait up.”

  She had to keep moving. Down a winding alley. Past dun steps and black vultures with tattered capes for wings. Nimble, weightless, they fought over a fish, and the pink of those guts was the only color in the world. She passed shuttered shops and high garden walls. Life had to go on someplace in Lima, didn’t it? In Brazil, even the slums had color. The slums had samba.

  Jaje’s: “Well, just ignore us, you know? What’s the matter with her?”

  Jack’s: “She gets in a snit sometimes. Best to just leave her be.”

  It was Harry who got into snits. Didn’t Jack know that? Of course he did. Men stuck together.

  Jaje’s: “Come on, Aunt Dee. Please? I want to go back now. It’s gonna rain.”

  It never rained in Lima. Hadn’t for one hundred and fifty years. But clouds kept the sun hidden, like the people behind Lima’s walls.

  Another alley. Everyone Oriental. Japanese? Chinese? They stared as she passed.

  Jack’s weary: “Dee. Please.”

  Around another corner, moving fast. Furniture shops. The day so dark that they’d lit the lamps. Open doors invited. Plate glass windows. Light gleamed on ornately carved wood, on plump satin cushions, on the faces of the waiting hucksters.

  Not furniture. Coffins. To every side were shops and shops of coffins.

  Close your eyes. Here it comes. They say you never hear the one that gets you.

  The cold of the gun barrel against her temple, and that was the last time she cried. Never again would she let Harry see that he frightened her.

  Let’s do roller coaster. Huh? Whaddya say?

  Fine, she’d tell him. Go ahead. Because he’d do it anyway. Go ahead, turn off the headlights at the top of the mountain. Race the darkness and the hairpin curves down. Had to be strong to face Harry every day for the rest of her goddamned life. Why didn’t she kill him? God. Why didn’t she just leave?

  Jaje’s small, frightened: “This is too weird here, you know?”

  And Jack’s: “Come on. That’s enough, Dee. Let’s go back.”

  She could sense it coming. Not flesh, not bone. It would swallow you if you let it. Cold, dark mouth, and you couldn’t escape it. Couldn’t kill it, not ever.

  Jack’s: “You okay, hon?”

  Jaje’s: “Yeah, I guess.”

  “In a minute we’ll go back to the apartment, have us a nice cup of hot chocolate. Saw some chocolate back in the cabinet. There’s enough milk in the fridge. And tomorrow night we’ll be in Vancouver. How about that?”

  Faster. The echo of her steps. Windowless walls to either side, an intestine of a place. Then suddenly the cobblestones ended. Black—shawled Indians. The gloomy silence of Indians. And a claustrophobic clay path—shining path—a rivulet of sewerage down its center.

  Jack: “This is far enough, Dee. This is dangerous.”

  After Harry, nothing was dangerous. She’d had the vaccine.

  Someone came up behind her, grabbed her wrist. She pulled free and whirled. In Jack’s face, no surprise, only desperation.

  She hissed, “Don’t touch me! Never touch me like that!”

  Jack’s soft: “Please, baby. If not for me, for her. We’ve got a responsibility—”

  And Jaje’s: “Oh, get over it, Aunt Dee. He just wants to help.”

  Get over it. A responsibility you could never get rid of. It stank of medicine and its own incontinence and stale hate. Dolores seized Jaje’s upper arms. How could those perfumed arms, those perfumed hands, know? Dolores shook her so hard that her neck whipped back and forth, that her brown hair flew.

  “They kill you, Jaje! Damn it, they kill you! They take everything, and we always let them do it. Two steps behind. That’s where they keep us. Harry had to get sick before I could have my career. Sneaking around the house. Apologizing. Like painting was a goddamned lover. I lost my life being cook, nursemaid, resident twat. And, you know? You have to ask yourself if it’s worth it. Don’t you, Jaje? I mean, at some point? Harry wasn’t even good in bed, and I let him control me. Isn’t that pathetic? Paulo was lousy in the sack, too. Or so your mom always said. But still, her twat must have thought he was worth taking the beatings—”

  Jack’s startled shout: “Stop it!”

  Two Indian children were staring. Jaje was sobbing.

  Oh. Dolores was sobbing. She was trembling. Cold here. Too cold. If she didn’t keep moving ...

  She let Jaje go and rushed down the foggy alley, around the next dim corner. This time Jack didn’t follow.

  * * *

  The invasion was noisy. McNatt and Jerry played hearts while Roger sat chained to the bed, counting helicopters. Big helicopters: transports. And huge transport planes. Where the hell had they come from? Leapfrogging up from Paraguay, through the unpopulated Mato Grosso. Bringing their own fuel, appropriating it. Everything timed to the second. Now the soundproofed cottage trembled as they passed overhead, flying south.

  Cabeceiras would come next. And after that ...

  The phone rang. Roger flinched. He watched McNatt get up from his game and—oh, Christ—here came the instructions.

  He picked up the receiver, turned his back to Roger. Not the back. Please. Not the silent treatment. McNatt listened intently, and hung up.

  Roger’s own back was so tense that it felt like he’d been shot between the shoulders. McNatt walked to the table and stood, looking down.

  Roger wanted to go home now. Wanted to get on one of those transport planes and fly to Houston. Wanted familiar smells to surround him: the pine trees, the smog, the oil refineries.

  “What’re the instructions, Mac?” Jerry asked.

  Roger wanted to be in his own living room so badly that he could feel himself sinking into the leather sofa.

  McNatt frowned at the tabletop.

  Oh, Christ. Roger wanted to go home. He thought about the little nick in the fireplace mantel. The original lava lamp he’d paid big bucks for.

  McNatt said, “You looked at my cards, Jerry.”

  “Did not.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “Mac, you’re so full of shit.”

  McNatt sat down, swept the cards into a pile, tapped their edges straight. “You’re on point.”

  “Get outta here.”

  Sunlight glared through the kitchen window, spotlighted McNatt’s strong hands, loaned Jerry a halo. Helicopter forty—two—or was it forty—three?—raced south, the vibration of its passing tickling through skin, through muscle, all the way down to Roger’s bones.

  “I said, you’re on point, Jerry.”

  Scream of metal against tile. Jerry shoved back from the table. His hands hung relaxed and loose between his jeaned thighs. His face was tense. “I’m not one of your candy—ass Marines, Mac. You don’t get mad at me, and then tell me to drop it and give you twenty.”

  Roger plotted trajectories, wondered if he could escape the line of fire.

  “Get your weapon,” McNatt said.

  Uh—huh, Under the bed was good. McNatt and Jerry would kill each other. He could gnaw his arm off and leave.

  “Get your weapon, Jerry, and stand point. Please.” McNatt straightened the cards again. Dug a roll of Tums out of his tee shirt pocket, popped two.

  A swift, alarming move. Jerry was on his feet. In his face, an eerie calm. Three fast steps. He grabbed the Uzi from against the wall and turned.

  Roger froze
in place. Where the fuck was the U.S. Army when you needed them? Please, God. Make some grunt come busting through the door, an M—16 at his hip.

  McNatt put the cards into their box.

  “Mac?”

  McNatt looked up. The Uzi was pointed straight at him. Slowly Roger tucked his body into the alcove between the headboard and the bedroom’s half—wall. No sudden moves. But, Jesus. The bullets were sure to go through the plaster.

  He heard Jerry say, “I’m gonna go stand point now.”

  And McNatt said, “All right.”

  “I’m going to protect us against all those marauding rich people out there.”

  “Good.”

  “I mean, the diplomats—our neighbors—who happen to currently be our allies. And their maids. I forgot the maids.”

  “I appreciate that, Jerry.”

  “I think the dog next door’s onto us.”

  Roger peeked around the corner. McNatt was cleaning his pistol. The strap of the gun hung over Jerry’s right shoulder. The Uzi was pointed in McNatt’s general direction. Suddenly, as if he knew Roger was looking, Jerry glanced his way.

  Roger ducked into the alcove, gave it a count of fifty, then looked again. Jerry was peering out the window. Had he seen something? He was nodding. Some sort of signal? Then, strap secure on his shoulder, hand braced on the top of the gun, Jerry started to bounce. Jesus. How weird. Point the foot. The other foot. Talking to himself, expression dreamy. Jerry planted the muzzle of the Uzi on the floor and, Christ—he started a mincing dance around it. Roger could hear Jerry’s breathy words: “ ... my—y—y own ...”

  Jerry moved like he was weightless, like his joints were perfectly oiled, more effortless Fred Astaire than athletic Gene Kelly. McNatt was still industriously cleaning his gun, but one foot tapped rebellion.

  Jerry soft—shoed Roger’s way. He swung his arm, the barrel of the Uzi still clutched in his right fist. He’d obviously forgotten the lyrics, but that didn’t stop him from belting out the tune. “ ... la la LAH la la, ta—dum—da da da DAH da ...”

  A familiar melody. One that was far too sugary for the circumstances. It reminded Roger of music halls and the 1930’s. Something “Doll.” What the hell was it?