Kill the Ámpaya!

by Dick Cluster

  Still, in some way this answer was a false card laid on the table. And also her worst card, her least intelligent move. Though aware of her difficult role, she did in fact want to play. She was doing so, without knowing exactly why, by betting on a rebellious sense of loyalty that betrayed her. Though Aquiles Contreras apparently no longer had any feeling for her, he represented a collective past, an entire way of being of which she was a part. Like it or not, this universe of imperatives and eventualities perforce included her.

  “My premonition will have to be enough for you,” she added. “I can’t step beyond the bounds of that darkened room.”

  And now it was as if she were already seeing him dead, laid out in an expensive coffin, shining in the cold light of four wax tapers. There he lay in his dress uniform of luxurious trappings from the dazzlingly polished boots to the gold braid at his collar, from which his head emerged like a withered flower shut up in the definitive peace of his private and irrevocable death. She turned her back. She knew, as a woman, that she was leaving behind an inconstant man. She was relieved to be rid of the uncomfortable baggage. She was ready to live like someone who drives off in a carriage among new friends, a carriage that advances, unconcerned, while no one looks back.

  After she was gone, Spencer Knapp emerged from his office and returned to the reviewing stand. With his face bathed by an emotion he couldn’t feel, he searched stolidly for La Niña Mejía among the crowd, but all he saw was how much the multitude had grown—and more, how it had changed, how some transformation was at work in each of its members, how this same woman who would offer her body for a few coins and receive his most intimate spasms could now, strangely, rise triumphant in the illustrious figure of His Reverence the Monsignor and equally in the threat posed by the mild-mannered Justice Ubaldo Rincón. She was even embodied in the troubling presence of his own officers, star witnesses mutely signing an absurdly blank page.

  The ball game, of course, was still going on. It moved along, sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly, as decreed by the straitjacket of a rhythm that, nonetheless, refused to reveal what the end would be. The crowd, now packed threateningly into every inch of the parade ground, came to life only when the mulattos Calderón, Bendito, and Cañongo stepped up to bat. Which they did, now, with notably different results. Calderón, besides the strength common to all three, possessed an elegance like that of a palm tree waving in the breeze, a greeting that awoke the utmost jealousy in the rest of the men, while most of the women accepted it without the slightest blush. But Calderón made no effort, barely exerting himself enough to strike out before returning intact to the bench. There he listened to the frenzied cries with which the public greeted the lightning shots of his compatriots, both of them hits that advanced their teammates around the bases. As the sun reached its height, the contest came to an end without a winner, though not before Bendito took advantage of a mistake by the hurler to hit a second cuadrangular, as did a sergeant named Conrad Burns, a cook’s assistant most of the time but today enjoying the opposite face of power. With the score tied, a technical decision was reached to leave it that way, because the game had to end at the appointed hour. The military band reemerged behind the fluttering colors, followed by a ceremonial wheeled cannon that fired a protocol shot, the command to spread the copious meal that would blanket the offensive stench of the moral corpse rotting underneath. What place was there for happiness except within such a lie, playing along, exchanging scornful, oft-repeated jokes, the sorts of tragic jokes that never make anyone laugh?

  Knapp and his guests ate and drank at the table of honor, as planned, under the welcome shade of a roof that had been raised by a previous power. What remained of that power now? Only the mute, indifferent stones, heaped one upon another like an argument constructed out of the phrases closest to hand, yet retaining the form and content of a fallacy from long ago. When weariness laid waste to what was left of the day, Spencer Knapp had the rash idea he should go to La Niña Mejía, should present himself to be loved. Unconsciously, what he wanted was to dissipate his anger, give the lie to her foreboding, take revenge by possessing her. Revenge on whom? On himself, perhaps, as well as all the rest. La Niña Mejia merely fulfilled her office. At first she made him wait, sending a message that she was indisposed, letting him cool his heels among younger women and tinkling songs. But that was an empty gesture, an errant one that led her nowhere, so finally her embroidered card invited him to enter. He found her naked and smiling, like a different woman. She kissed him exuberantly, yet as mechanically as a bell responding to the pull of a string.

  “Give it to me,” she said. “Give me whatever is left of you.”

  The unaccustomed frankness, the coarse familiarity appealed to Spencer. La Niña Mejía had never been like this, but if she could be, all the better. It was like opening the shutters alongside an unknown garden and enjoying the splendid fragrance that rushed into the silent dark, even while thick window bars kept the garden firmly out of reach. Her body’s surrender was that way too, her charms as undeniable as they were fleeting, as if her nakedness were clothed in the somber attire of one lone occasion of intimate use, one lone exception to the rule. After the brief encounter, his delight faded. He found himself set aside like a heavy tome closed after reading and placed on the table nearest to hand. As for her, when all was said and done, she had been used as on so many other occasions to provide relief and nothing more. Reckoning up her need to be alone, she wrapped herself in a robe and left the room. Returning with a cup of tea, she knew that something important was lacking in this man, that in truth she felt neither pity for him nor any desire except to see him leave. Though she was not expecting any other visitors tonight, she wanted him gone. But not through the door by which he had entered, so once he was dressed she opened another one that led to a different way out. In this passage Knapp heard words and laughter that, through no one’s fault, led him to a luxurious sofa holding Counselor Rondón. The magistrate could not see the admiral, nor was he in condition to do so. The woman cleared her throat.

  “I don’t need to add anything to what you already know,” she pointed out logically. “Don Ubaldo has always been a visitor to our honorable home.”

  That was true, of course. The intelligence reports that so often burdened Knapp with new and pressing truths, carelessly woven among inconsistent details, had given him entry to an endless labyrinth of personal information, whether openly presented or left to be inferred. Since he counted this knowledge among his instruments of power, there was no point or credibility in feigning surprise. With one foot out the door, he had to ask the only question that really mattered to him, the one that had brought him here whether he knew it or not.

  “Why did you warn me of a terrible day?”

  The woman met his gaze with rigid, angry candor, suspended like a wildflower over the wound of an almost perfect smile.

  “I don’t know. We’ve always been at war. This time, it’s against you.”

  Someone was coming down the street, so it was time for him to leave. His two bodyguards appeared to escort him, one on either side.

  “We didn’t want to interrupt you, but there’s something you need to know before you reach the fort. The three Negros who played on our teams were brutally murdered.”

  Was this a bad joke? Who thought they had the right to challenge his authority that way? Murdered? Was that really what one of the two soldiers flanking him had said? The other, as if rectifying a grave error, added a hair-raising detail to complete his companion’s report.

  “It happened just now,” he said. “That is, right when they returned to their homes. Everything indicates the killers were waiting for them. Their heads are on a bench in the barracks.”

  They passed through the streets of the small city, deserted because of the gruesome news, as if all were shielding themselves from an earthquake whose rage would reach them no matter what. At the entrance to the stronghold, Knapp noticed for the first time what was written there—
His Majesty Carlos III—and more besides, short phrases that informed anyone entering the gate or merely passing by, like incantations from a much thumbed grimoire. The severed heads of Cañongo, Calderón, and Bendito were unmistakable, debris left behind by the error of recruiting them to play. A shiver deep inside testified to his elemental terror, the extreme condensation of all the hatreds he harbored. Without further ado, he shut himself in his room. Too many things had happened today, a day that the delicate hands of his lovely French clock said was coming to a close. Perhaps what was left of the night would grant him a reprieve. Unable to sleep, he automatically lit a lamp. A childish impulse drove him to the large mirror in whose depths his image appeared like a huge, looming ghost. Could that really be he? Was that truly Spencer Knapp, beholding his other self like a small child being told the story of what he will become, who he will be in the end? With the bitter intuition that this moment could swell into a chapter that would consume the rest of any man’s life, he filled his pipe and headed for the tower—for the cool, refreshing immensity of the open sky, clear as it so often was and blanketed with stars. Out in the air, he felt he had reached the home of an old friend who would hear him without complaint. He was an admiral. There was no doubt of this, he was the admiral, the absolute lord of the dark majesty of this deep hour of the night. The soldiers on watch snapped to attention when they recognized his long silk robe. In a corner of the courtyard, in one of the great open trunks where all the furled flags and banners had been laid, rested the bats, balls, and gloves. All they were good for now was provoking a memory, and upon that memory floated the burdensome ghosts of the three ill-starred blacks.

  The vast tranquility of the moment rendered all precautions moot. There was only a ticking remnant that promised his soul peace and a tangible result. Knapp climbed toward the battlements. The city lay prostrate beneath him, intact and silent like the buried spine of a forgotten monster. Breathing deeply so as to fill his soul with the power of things, he leaned out over the embrasure, on the side of the tower that faced the river and, beyond, the slow swells of the sea. In the lookout’s box, like a murmur escaping from the ashes of one long dead, stood an inoffensive figure in a frock coat and glowing spectacles that must have been framed in gold. The figure uttered a single short sentence, fondling every syllable while pointing the mouth of a gun at the officer’s forehead.

  “Admiral Spencer Walker O’Sullivan Knapp, here I am.”

  CLOCK REACHES THE EMPEROR’S CITADEL

  Rafael Acevedo

  (Puerto Rico)

  Rafael Acevedo (Santurce, 1960) is a poet, novelist, and editor. He has been the editor of the magazine Filo de Juego, of the cultural supplement to the weekly Claridad, and of the publishing house La Secta de Los Perros. His novel Exquisito cadáver won a Casa de las Américas (Cuba) prize in 2001. Poems from his six books of poetry (most recently Eligía franca, 2015) have appeared in several anthologies of Latin American and Puerto Rican poetry and in English translation in Guernica Magazine, Two Lines, and Words Without Borders.

  As in the “The Strange Game of the Men in Blue,” in Acevedo’s novel Flor de Ciruelo y el viento (Plum Blossom and the Wind) the diamond game appears as seen by eyes that have never seen it before. This time we are in a more playful work, set in a mock-medieval China where a character called Zhong, or Clock, the mechanic in charge of all the water clocks in the Emperor’s main palace, flees his job to search for his missing brother and becomes legendary as “the peaceful warrior,” both for his battles with bandits and swindlers and for his avoidance of battle when possible. Finally, he agrees to accompany ten of the Emperor’s soldiers to go see the ruler, whom he has never met in person.

  After ten days riding at a comfortable pace, the ten soldiers and the peaceful warrior reached the citadel where the Emperor was residing incognito. It was a structure of only a hundred rooms in which the supreme ruler liked to escape from the cares of administering the navel of the world. In a low-lying area, Clock saw a group of men, divided into two opposing bands, carrying out a strange rite.

  At the sound of a gong, nine men clad in striking indigo robes and orange hats ran full tilt onto a terrain demarcated by straight lines traced out in pure white lime. On the left side, a chorus of Buddhist monks chanted lively mantras as if tossing them into the air. On the opposite side, soldiers responded with trumpet blasts and the plucking of lutes. Multicolored pennants adorned the festival. Clock noticed that the men in indigo, now standing relatively still in positions mimicking those of the stars in the night sky, wore grotesque gloves that seemed to be made of yak skin, but only on one hand. Though no expert on the Zodiac, he thought the figures were grouped to look rather like the Great Bear.

  One of the nine gentlemen in indigo stood on top of a small hill and from there he threw a sphere that seemed to be made of white marble to a crouching confederate with the trappings of a samurai. Then Clock saw an adversary approach the man receiving the sphere. The adversary was decked out in similar colors but inverted—with a bright orange robe and an indigo cap. Turning to regard the warrior on the hill, he brandished a stylized club in his hands. He touched the club to a pentagon lying on the ground and then took up a position of attack.

  If this rite was a simulation of combat, Clock thought, the warrior in the crouch needed only to knock down the one brandishing the club, or the one with the club should surrender in view of the numerical advantage of the gentlemen in indigo. However, this did not seem to be the point of the cer emony. An old man attired in deep black raised his hands and shouted Kía. All went silent, and the warrior on the hill launched the sphere with all his might. The man with the club feinted at it, then let it go by. Da! said the sage dressed in black, as the samurai contained the sphere in his large glove of yak skin. With a satisfied expression, the samurai returned the sphere to the warrior on the hill. The monks on the left side let sounds of complaint escape their mouths. A crane crossed the sky, letting out a hoarse croaking sound, an omen, perhaps. The warrior on the hill raised his leg and, in a graceful motion, threw the object again. This time the man smashed into the marble sphere with his club. Soldiers, monks, and all began to emit howls. The man with the club ran to a square marker some twenty paces from the pentagon. Ignorant as he was of the whole animated ceremony, Clock could not fathom the chaos that this unleashed. When he was about to inquire the meaning of such a pageant or simulation, he was interrupted.

  “Here we are.”

  The palatial structure seemed to have been built to blend in with the land—as if an enormous rock had been hollowed out into halls, chambers, passages, and stairways. The external walls were covered in ivy, whose berries sprouted freely over their length and breadth. This apparently decorative feature was intended for defense. From a distance, the palace seemed to be a grove tended by a careful landscape artist. The dark green color was not unattractive, but any contact with the plants or—still worse—any tasting of these berries would bring fever, constant diarrhea, and a sleep from which one never awoke. That is to say, the victim’s eyelids would remain hermetically sealed even as the rest of the senses continued to operate. Some parts of the structure were covered by these vines to a height of fifty meters, while others remained naked in their gray or reddish colors as if those walls had stood for centuries. What was most marvelous was that the vegetation constituted a medical resource, too. The imperial doctors stationed there could repair scars and cure some forms of tooth decay with potions made from the same material that, in the hands of novices or assassins, would prove fatal.

  When Clock entered the castle, without having passed through any gate, only a series of linked paths, a Tibetan girl was singing while a musician accompanied her with the sweet sounds of a flute. Clock’s nose made out, among various competing smells, the stubborn odor of cod. And indeed, in the great kitchen of the castle a delicious dinner was being prepared for the participants in the game and the soldiers who had fulfilled their duty of capturing the mechanic.


  In the kitchen, cooks were slicing the cod into chunks. Skillfully, they shaped fine strips of ginger. The chef shouted orders like an engineer supervising the construction of a drawbridge. Mushrooms, bamboo shoots, onions. In one corner, a worker was peeling sweet potatoes.

  “Hey, you, roll up the ginger and the mushrooms in that fish!”

  “You over there, corn oil! Where’s the oil, I want to know!”

  A famous sheng player coaxed melodies out of that woodwind as if all this had nothing to do with him—because it had nothing to do with him. Strangely, the cook in charge of beating egg whites did so with great efficiency but without the noise of his actions interfering with any melody. He poured cornmeal into the eggs as if he could hear, in its fall, an integral part of the harmony.

  The sizzle of the frying pans, the sound of each roll being pulled out one at a time, golden brown and dripping, all seemed to make up part of the imperial orchestra. The finishing touch came from the percussion section; as red sauce in a bowl was mixed with a bit of sugar and vinegar, salt, and broth, the sounds of colliding wood, porcelain, and metal did justice to those of musical compositions.

  “Hey, more seasoning in that hot pan! The rolls, the rolls!” the chef ordered like a vocalist singing out of tune. “Sesame oil on the griddle, now!”

  But those commands were completely unnecessary, because the cooks carried out their duties with apparent art, pleasure, and sometimes even joy.

  “Where are the damn boiled sweet potatoes? Okay, good. Good. No, over there. . . . Okay, now, that’s it!”

  When all was ready, color flowed back into the chef’s visage. He wiped off the sweat with a white linen cloth and smiled for the first time. The kitchen workers sprinkled cilantro over the dozens of serving platters.