The Orchids (24 page)

I clear my throat loudly, interrupting the General in his poetic flight. “Are you saying that we are in danger here in El Caliz?” I ask.

The General blinks his eyes. “From what?”

“The serpents you mentioned in that memorable image.”

The General nods. “I attempt precision in my images.”

“And always attain it,” I tell him.

“You perceive my meaning, then?” the General asks.

“I presume you fear a rebel contingent may lurk in the vicinity of El Caliz?”

“Precisely, yes.”

I nod thoughtfully, as if considering his remarks. “May I ask what purpose they would have in coming here? El Caliz is very remote, as you know.”

The smile that adorns General Gomez's face looks as if it has been painted there. “Purpose? You do not understand these rebels, Don Pedro. They need no purpose. They have no purpose.” His eyes close sadly, then slowly open again. “It is part of the nature of human history that men of purpose must continually do battle with those who have no purpose whatsoever. Is that not so, Don Pedro?”

“Precisely,” I tell him. Far to the right, through a clearing in the trees, I see Esperanza pulling a wooden lorry piled high with dried palmetto leaves. Tomás is buried underneath them, picking worms from his arms, his eyes searching the dusty mass for the curled tail of the scorpion.

“The rebels will not fight like true soldiers,” General Gomez continues. He pulls an amber cigarette holder from his uniform pocket, places a cigarette in it, then brings it to his lips. “They fight like the vicious serpents they are. They lie in wait and attack without warning. They are cowards, Don Pedro. They are unworthy of being considered citizens of the Republic.”

The sun shines radiantly through the amber holder. Within its rich glow I can see the scarlet macaw and the hawk-headed caique and the Patagonian conure as they tumble to the jungle floor, feathers flying, while the helicopters bank left and right, raking the trees with their fire.

General Gomez shakes his head despairingly. “The rebels cannot be considered real men, Don Pedro. They live and fight like animals.”

It is a curious etiquette that the General employs. In the Camp I once saw a man shot because he had been caught gnawing on the fingers of a dead body that lay beside him in the bunk, a bestiality the Special Section, in its purity, would not permit.

“When you live like a beast, you must be treated like a beast,” General Gomez concludes.

“Certainly,” I tell him. “But do you think the rebels actually intend to attack El Caliz?”

“Attack?” the General says loudly. His eyes narrow. “These rebels do not know the meaning of the word
attack
. They are not warriors.”

One cannot speak to General Gomez without first understanding the categories that define his intellect and the language that conveys them. I rephrase the question. “Do you think the rebels intend to sneak into El Caliz and carry out some sort of vicious assault?”

“Possibly,” the General replies. He lights his cigarette. “With those animals, anything is possible.” He watches me closely. “Tell me, Don Pedro, have you seen any suspicious activity around the compound of late?”

“Suspicious activity?”

“Movements? Strangers? Anything like that?”

“No.”

General Gomez allows his eyes to drift out over the verandah. “From this height,” he says, “you can see a great deal, can you not?”

“A great deal, yes.”

The General snaps his eyes back toward me. “I am told you spend much time on the verandah.”

“I am too old to move about the compound, General.”

“And yet you have seen nothing, Don Pedro?” the General asks doubtfully.

“I have noticed that from time to time the monkeys are disturbed,” I tell him.

General Gomez slaps his knee delightedly. “You see, that's what I mean,” he says excitedly. “Something is disturbing them, yes?”

“No doubt.” Soon, perhaps, the helicopters will dive from the upper air and devastate the monkeys.

“Rebels skulking beneath the trees, I think,” the General says. “They disturb the monkeys.” He glances back toward the river. “I knew it. I told El Presidente that the rebels might try to take advantage of his visit here.”

“But he will be well protected, will he not, General Gomez?” I ask.

The General turns his eyes to me. “Of course, Don Pedro.”

“Then we have nothing to fear.”

General Gomez returns his gaze to the jungle depths. “We need more powerful defoliants,” he says quietly, almost to himself. He turns back to me and smiles. “In certain areas of the northern provinces, we have entirely denuded the earth,” he says boastfully. “Even the scorpions cannot find shade.”

I have seen photographs of his enterprise. They portray vast stretches of barren ground, the scorched trees rising from the cracked and gutted earth like twisted wire.

General Gomez leans across the table toward me, the cigarette holder embedded in his smile. “Tell me, Don Pedro, do you retire early to your bed?”

“No.”

“You sit out on the verandah until late in the night, then?”

“Yes.”

General Gomez nods. “Very good. And do you ever see fires across the river? Campfires, I mean?”

I shake my head. “I'm afraid not, General.”

General Gomez leans back in his seat as if to seek a better vantage point for staring into my mind. “You're quite sure of this?”

“Quite sure.”

The General pulls the cigarette from his lips and looks admiringly at the amber holder. “A gift from El Presidente,” he tells me.

“Most elegant, General.”

General Gomez moves his fingers up and down the holder, caressing it lovingly. “Imported. From Paris.”

“I should have known. It is very European in its delicacy.”

General Gomez extracts the cigarette butt from the holder and drops it over the railing of the verandah. It appears to fall in slow motion through the waxy heat.

“I think El Presidente will be safe here,” I say.

The General turns his eyes toward me. They look like two small gun barrels trained on my face. “Why is that, Don Pedro?”

“We are very far from the northern provinces,” I explain.

General Gomez pulls a crimson silk handkerchief from his uniform pocket and wipes the sweat from his brow. “Never underestimate a serpent, Don Pedro,” he warns.

I nod. “Are there any special precautions we should take for El Presidente's safety?”

General Gomez smiles at me indulgently. “Don't trouble yourself, Don Pedro. El Presidente's safety is in my hands.”

“Very good, then, General.”

The General peers into my office, scanning the shelves of books. “You are a reader, I see.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me, do you receive the newspaper that the army publishes, Don Pedro?”

“I'm afraid not.”

The General looks disappointed. “It's quite a fine paper,” he says. He pauses. “Are you by an chance a reader of poetry?”

“No.”

The General's face seems to tighten. “Really? I had thought you might be, Don Pedro. A man of learning, I am told. Don Camillo has been much impressed by your intelligence.”

I smile. “Perhaps my tastes are not as catholic as they should be, General.”

General Gomez glances wearily at his hands. “Perhaps someday I will retire. My first love is literature.”

“A worthy vocation,” I tell him.

The General frowns. “The Republic has no poets of any note whatsoever. It is most unfortunate.”

“Here in the Republic we are much oppressed,” I tell him.

The General's eyes snap to attention. He looks at me suspiciously. “Oppressed?”

“By labor,” I add quickly.

The General nods slowly. “Ah, yes, quite true. I am often very tired.” He rises slowly and thrusts out his hand. “Thank you for your help, Don Pedro.”

I take his hand in mine. “I am always your obedient servant, General Gomez.”

The General turns and moves down the stairs to his jeep. His high black boots thud heavily against the clay. He pulls himself in beside the driver and looks back up toward the verandah. “Vaya con Dios, Don Pedro,” he calls.

I
N THE RUMBLE
of the General's jeep as it pulls away, I can detect the crumbling foundation of the Republic. Built with the shoddy, decrepit timbers of El Presidente's greed, it is a structure destined for collapse. The Camp, too, was destined for collapse, but the steady rumbling that rolled over it — echoing through the stinking barracks and settling into the contorted bodies that lay randomly in the mud or hung stiffly from the sagging wire — came from the air, as the bombers made their way toward the Leader's tottering capital.

In medicine, there is a time of life known as the agonal period. It is the agony suffered by a creature that still lives but is irrevocably dying. In the jungle, the great birds convulse in a final fluttering of wings. On the river bank, the silver fish heave and shudder, their mouths twisted, gulping, their broken fins jerking sprays of mud into the indifferent air. The agonal period of the Camp was long and tedious, and Langhof watched it with a kind of aloof amusement. His compatriots gathered on the steps of the medical compound and trembled as the planes passed overhead. But Langhof did not tremble; he rejoiced. Once, slouching against one of the barracks with Ginzburg at his side, he watched a little knot of Special Section officers who crouched and whispered below the chimney of the now defunct crematorium.

“What do you suppose they're talking about?” Ginzburg asked.

Langhof stared grimly at the black-uniformed men who huddled in the distance. “About what they've done, I suppose,” he replied.

Ginzburg shook his head. “I doubt it,” he said.

“What else is there to talk about?”

“Beer and knockwurst,” Ginzburg said lightly.

Langhof smiled. “It'll all be over soon. You'll be free.”

“I'm not so sure,” Ginzburg said, continuing to watch the men who stood together a few meters away. In an act that suggested their declining discipline, some of them had turned their uniform collars up against the wind.

“It's just a matter of time now,” Langhof said confidently. “Nothing can save the Camp.”

Ginzburg scratched his chin and seemed to peer out beyond the barbed wire. “I once saw an automobile accident in Paris,” he said. “Two cars collided. A man got out of one. He had been driving, and I could see a woman's body slumped forward in the passenger seat. His wife, probably. She wasn't moving. You couldn't tell if she was alive or dead. Anyway, the man got out. He was stumbling toward the curb — covered in blood, but conscious. Several bystanders rushed up to him. You know, to help him. We eased him down to the sidewalk and started unbuttoning his shirt. But he kept slapping at our hands. You could tell by his eyes that he meant to be saying, ‘Don't worry about me, help her.' But his mouth just wouldn't get it right, and he kept repeating, ‘Don't worry about her, help me.'”

Langhof looked at Ginzburg curiously. “What are you trying to say?”

Ginzburg shrugged his shoulders. “I don't know for sure. It's just that I never forgot about that incident. It blackened my mood for the whole day. That night, on the stage, my rhythm was completely off. Practically nobody laughed for the entire performance. It was a disaster.”

Langhof fingered his lapel. “I won't have any use for this uniform much longer.” he said. He touched Ginzburg's shoulder. “What do you think you'll do when it's over?”

“I don't expect to survive,” Ginzburg said dully.

Langhof looked at him, astonished. “Why not? Of course you'll survive. They've already stopped the gas chambers. It's over. Of course you'll survive.”

“Perhaps,” Ginzburg said. He looked at Langhof. “What about you?”

Langhof shook his head. “I don't know.”

Ginzburg smiled sardonically. “You'll probably end up with a fat wife and a thriving practice in the suburbs.”

“I don't care what happens to me,” Langhof said wearily.

“Do you think that's heroic of you?”

Langhof shook his head. “I don't think it's anything. Just a fact. I'm completely worn out. I don't care what they do to me.”

“They?”

“The Allies.”

The sound of another squadron of bombers passed over the Camp. Ginzburg looked up toward the sky, then back at Langhof. “What if things should suddenly change?” he asked.

“What things?”

“What if the war should turn around and everything started up again? The gas chambers. The medical experiments. What if that happened?”

Langhof sunk his hands deep into his pockets. “That's impossible.”

“But what if it happened?” Ginzburg insisted.

Langhof stepped around to face Ginzburg. “I wouldn't do it.” he said firmly. “I wouldn't start it over again. I swear it. I wouldn't!”

Ginzburg watched Langhof closely, as if coming to some determination about him. “Strange, Langhof,” he said, “but you know, even now I don't think you can really speak for yourself.”

“You doubt me?” Langhof asked, wounded.

“Is doubt such a terrible thing?” Ginzburg asked softly. “I mean, it keeps you thinking, doesn't it?” He turned away, his eyes moving upward toward a line of trees that stood in the distance, far beyond the wire. “I want to walk in Paris again,” he said with a slight smile. “I want to nibble a buttered croissant.”

Staring at Ginzburg's bedraggled, emaciated figure, Langhof could scarcely imagine such a possibility. “I'm sure you will,” he said.

Ginzburg's eyes drifted away from the trees. “Kessler has stopped screwing me,” he said. “He still feeds me, but that's all.”