The Orchids (16 page)

“This is not science,” Langhof said hotly. “This is politics, nothing but politics.”

“Look out the window, Langhof,” Rausch said lightly. “Surely you cannot call this politics.”

“Then what is it?”

“A great experiment,” Rausch said with a wink. “We are investigating great philosophical questions here.”

“Nonsense.”

“All those little philosophical tidbits we used to debate over our beer in university taverns, they are all part of our situation here. Why, the question of freedom versus determinism alone is undergoing a monumental reexamination.”

“Discuss such things with Ludtz,” Langhof said. “I have no stomach for them.”

“Ludtz is an idiot,” Rausch said. “A fool.”

He paused and then smiled with what seemed to be genuine good nature. “Oh, come now, Langhof. Let's discuss it a bit, shall we? Tell me, my good doctor, did you freely choose to end up in this little room, or was it preordained from all eternity?”

Langhof stiffened. “Get out.”

“Not a very philosophical attitude, Doctor,” Rausch said.

Langhof shook his head wearily. “Just leave me alone.”

“If you think you are above this, Langhof,” Rausch said sternly, “you are mistaken.” And with that, Rausch turned very quickly, at a military clip, and left the room.

And so Langhof was left alone in his room. He slumped onto the bed and ran his fingers through his hair. At that moment, he saw himself as a figure out of classical drama, the noble spirit fatally and undeservedly ensnared in evil. But he was in fact a figure out of melodrama, mired in self-pity and self-justification, the handmaidens of weakness and crime.

And what was the nature of this illusion that turned Langhof's tragic mien into a shoddy harlequin?

It was this — if now, amid the swelter of my compound, I can know it rightly: that he, Langhof, had been sinned against, victimized, betrayed, stabbed in the back. He believed that now he saw the outside forces that had brought him to his current condition, and saw them clearly. He saw the monumental ones: war, inflation, politics. He saw the lesser ones: his father's suicide, Anna's flight, the velvet-gloved coercion of Dr. Trottman. But in fact, he saw nothing, because he did not see himself. There is no limit to our capacity for self-deceit. And perhaps our greatest craft lies in our manifold rejection of that knowledge which, if we embraced it, would make life almost impossible.

And so Langhof, as he lay down on his bed and closed his eyes, began to believe that he had at last seen all the invisible whips that had driven him to the Camp. And he slept, not knowing he was still a fool, still a shadow, still a riddle wrapped in sable.

Part III

I
STAND
in the hot mist of the nursery and watch the orchids droop. In some, the petals draw slowly in upon the pistil like Caesar's robed assassins. A soft rot has overtaken the Erwinia, wrinkling the leaves as the internal tissue collapses. The buds of the Phalaenopsis are rotting, brown spots spreading across the knotted petals. Fungi devour the rhizome of the Epidendrum and the Vandas. The nursery has become the slaughterhouse of orchids. Their languishing is critical to Juan, trivial to me. Still, he will not follow my instructions. He has closed the greenhouse, which will suffocate the orchids. He has filled the pots with water, soaking the osmunda fiber, and syringed the buds and leaves, spreading the infection with the flowing water, drowning the orchids in their own disease.

For Juan, I am no longer the protector of the orchids. For him, I am the young Don Pedro in a yellow, wrinkled skin, a strange, white-haired presence who totters about the compound or sits for endless hours in the baking heat of the verandah or strolls into the jungle night, alone.

It does not matter what Juan thinks. Least of all, should I be subject for his thought. For the orchids — and the demon spirits that assail them — are his only concerns. His mind is cast in the mold of a healthy, thriving flower, and his interests do not extend beyond the kissing of its petals. In an otherwise blameless life, this is his awful crime.

I turn, and he is standing in the doorway of the nursery, framed by it like some romantic's portrait of the noble peasant. He nods. “Don Pedro,” he says humbly.

“Sí.”

In Spanish, he asks me if anything is wrong.

“No, Juan.”

He does not move. He is guarding the orchids against my lunacy. He suspects that those devils that plague the orchids somehow reside in me.

I tell him that the orchids do not look well.

He nods sadly, a vassal of the flowers, a last centurion of the princely orchids.

I touch the petals of one of the Lymbidiums and tell him that even in decline, they are beautiful.

“Sí, bellísima,” Juan replies. Standing quietly in the doorway, he is the perfect representation of the terrible and inert slumber of the pastoral.

I release the petals. Watching Juan, I know that he will not leave the nursery until I do. I walk past him. “Buenos noches, Juan.”

“Buenos noches, Don Pedro.”

I make my way up toward the house, then pause and glance back at Juan. He is standing where I stood, staring down at the orchids, assuring himself as best he can that I have not brought them harm. Standing amid the flowers in a hazy square of light, Juan looks like some cheap lithograph of Christ in the Garden. It is the same melancholy face and outstretched arms offering perfect solace, the same head bowed slightly toward the penitent and the wounded that I have seen in a thousand store windows. It is in the nature of religion to take everything into itself, draw everything within its circle, especially the wounded heart. And one day, perhaps, there will be a certain Saint Juan, patron saint of orchids, canonized in the year three thousand because of miracles wrought in the desolate stretches of the Republic, miracles of rebirth and redemption, of half-eaten burros rising from bloody waters to drink from the hand of Christ. And then further miracles of rejuvenated orchids, of crops flourishing in drought, of seeds dropped from a bountiful heaven. Saint Juan who cures the orchids with prayer and air and water. Saint Juan, steadfast in his faith, who in his great simplicity refused the devil's wiles and did not treat the ravaged blooms with Ceresan or amputation, but only caressed the withered parts with his dusty peasant hands and made them whole. There is no limit to miraculous possibilities once the first miracle has been accepted.

It is said to be different in the northern provinces. All insurrectionary ballads attest to the stony pragmatism of the revolutionary mind. In the northern provinces clouds are clouds, not beds upon which angels lounge. And water is water, fire is fire, earth is earth; all the medieval humors are stripped of their ancient prerogatives of mystery and power.

And to the south, El Presidente, snoozing on his satin pillows while the flies grow drunk with wine, must dream from time to time a dream of fallen power, of Ozymandias as desert solitary, a dream suffused with every lachrymose cliché of besotted rule. We are the things that make us weep, and El Presidente shakes with tears at the possibility of ruin. And to the north, the rebels' tears fall into their tin plates, salting the fetid guacamole, their grief fanned to revolutionary fire by their hatred of El Presidente and his torpid, bejeweled entourage. Undeserved suffering and undeserved privilege: this is the dialectic of the Republic.

Here in El Caliz, it is easy to look north and south and in that act discover the nature of our distress. Here the contending forces wave banners announcing what they are and from where they come, and no amount of deceptive plumage can mask the essential line upon which the case is drawn. This is the clarity of underdevelopment, that nothing lives between the uplifted and the debased, that the dust from Don Camillo's limousine can fall only into the eyes of those who live beneath its wheels. Each element of the Republic must adhere to one side or the other; whether it be the Church or the fledgling middle class or the baking peasantry, each must fall or rise to its own density within the heavy liquid of the Republic.

But the forces that created the Camp were of a confused and baffling density, a compound made of thousands of separate elements with no defining structure. Each man had his own valence, and although each also rolled about within the same engulfing stream, still there was the singular unity of each individual person, a unique chemical structure called upon to react in relationship to the greatest catalyst of our time.

But what was this complex dialectic? Of all the people Langhof met in the Camp, only Rausch believed he knew. Opening Langhof's door the day after his arrival, he stood in his black uniform, the naked bulb of Langhof's room shining on his polished boots. “This is the implosion of history,” he said with a wholly self-conscious portentousness.

Langhof raised himself obliviously on his bunk. “What time is it?” he asked.

“Time to begin your work,” Rausch said. He slapped his riding crop against his boot. “We rise early in the Camp. From now on you'll have to get up on your own. I'm much too busy to be a bunkmaster.”

Langhof rubbed his eyes, feeling dread wash over him but dismissing it. He opened his eyes and looked at Rausch standing in the door, his legs spread wide apart, the harsh light before him shading his features.

“I told you to get up,” Rausch said.

“Did you wake Ludtz yet?” Langhof asked.

“Your friend is already fully dressed,” Rausch said. “I should call him eager.” His eyes seemed to squeeze together. “I let you sleep somewhat later. You will have more to endure, I think.”

Langhof rose from his bed and took a towel from the rack on the wall.

“No time for showers this morning,” Rausch said quickly. “We must hurry.”

“But I —”

Rausch smiled. “The whole camp stinks, my dear Langhof. Your particular contribution will not be noticed, believe me. Now, let's go.”

Langhof, refusing to be rushed, dressed slowly, then followed Rausch down the hall, outside the building, and into another, almost identical structure. Guards and prisoners were moving all about. Somewhere in the distance a band was playing
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
.

“You'll be working with Dr. Kessler,” Rausch said. He led Langhof farther down the hallway, then opened the door. Inside, Langhof could see Ludtz and another doctor, both in white coats, standing idly before a large metal table.

Rausch made the introductions. “Dr. Kessler, allow me to present Dr. Langhof.”

Kessler put out his hand, and Langhof took it. “Happy to have you with us, Doctor,” Kessler said brightly. “We're terribly overworked here in the Camp.”

“Thank you, sir,” Langhof said. He glanced toward one side of the room and saw what looked to be twenty or thirty female bodies stacked neatly, heads pointed toward the wall. They were all pregnant, and some of the fetuses had already crowned, the tops of their heads drooping from the vaginas. Langhof felt his stomach coil …
the livers of some eighty women who had died suddenly
…

“Don't be alarmed, Dr. Langhof,” Kessler said gently.

Langhof stared palely at Kessler but said nothing.

“You no doubt find this somewhat unusual,” Kessler went on quietly, “perhaps even a bit macabre.”

Langhof tried to speak, but couldn't.

“We don't have very sophisticated facilities here,” Kessler continued, “and that sometimes makes for a certain amount of unpleasantness.”

“Of course,” Ludtz said quickly. He watched Langhof with worry.

Kessler smiled. “As I was explaining to Dr. Ludtz, in this ward we are examining various methods of sterilization. But first — as regards females — we must inquire into the whole process of gestation.”

Langhof summoned enough strength to nod politely.

Toward what was he nodding? What was it that he saw? The perversion of science? Of course, but what else? His own pitiful helplessness? Absolutely. Anything else? His own moral and intellectual superiority? Doubtless that, and he even felt a little undeserved shiver of decency, not to say humanity, pass over him. But beyond these things — and the stacked bodies — what?

Nothing.

For Langhof had not yet begun to absorb the Camp. He had not passed into its bloodstream. He still persisted in the belief that it was not his crime, even though at this point, he was — admittedly — an accessory to it. But still, he could not see it as
his
crime, so he could not objectify his experience and then place himself within it. At this point, he could only feel his own, personal distance from the things around him. He could only look down upon them, as if dangling from some lofty aerie.

“We begin by taking females in various stages of pregnancy,” Kessler explained. He stopped, dipped into his coat, pulled out a cigar, and lit it. “After that — oh, forgive me, would you like a cigar?”

“No, thank you,” Langhof said.