Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord (30 page)

Upon hearing Dionisio ask Lazaro for his real name, those in the crowd who heard knew immediately that magic was afoot; why else would one want to know a man’s real name? They tried to follow Dionisio, but he turned round in irritation and said to them, ‘Por el amor de Dios, just go away and leave us.’ The people in the crowd suddenly thought that maybe the jaguars did look very fierce today, and maybe Dionisio Vivo would make their hair fall out if they did not obey him. They stood sullenly and watched the two men depart.

In the clinic the nurse took one look at Lazaro and knew what his disease was. Ugly and unhelpful she may have been, grim and hairy, but she was not ignorant, and she knew how to check Lazaro over in case her diagnosis was wrong. She checked through the
Paramedical Directory of Differential Diagnosis
and eliminated pachydermopteriostosis, peroneal muscular atrophy, Leishmaniosis, granuloma, erythema, Karposi’s sarcoma, sarcoidosis, tertiary syphilis, myxoedema, and everything else she could think of. But all her tests and criteria came back to only one conclusion. ‘You have lepromatous leprosy,’ she announced.

She performed a skin biopsy, a nasal scraping, a nerve biopsy, a histamine test, and a sweating test, and discovered to her amazement that the bacilli that were present in large numbers were all dead. She looked down from her desk where she had been scrutinising a sample with the microscope, and said, ‘You have already been cured, or had some kind of remission. There is no other explanation.’

Lazaro looked at her, sharing none of her surprise. ‘I know,’ he said, ‘Aurelio the brujo did it. But I want to be restored. I wish to look like a man, and make love to a woman like a man.’

The nurse frowned and scratched her temple, compassion for once breaking its way into her soul and briefly illuminating it. She smiled resignedly, ‘Vale, it is possible to correct the breasts and the face with plastic surgery, and nearly everything else too, and the other thing may be restored with injections of testosterone, but I have to tell you that no facilities exist for that in this country. We would have to send you to the Estados Unidos or to England, and that would cost an enormous amount of money. You could not possibly afford it.’

Lazaro bowed his head. He was disheartened, but, ‘I cannot remain like this,’ he said. He turned to Dionisio. ‘What can I do? Can you not help me, as Aurelio did, and complete his work?’

It occurred to Dionisio that it might be possible to raise a public subscription, or hold a lottery in the Alcaldia, and he replied, ‘I will see what can be done, but you will have to wait. It will take time.’

But Lazaro could not wait, and he resolved to throw himself upon the mercy of the richest man in the district that he could think of. He rose at dawn the next day and left the crypt, receiving before he left the blessing of Don Innocencio, who had been praying at the altar at the time of day that he loved the most, when there was nothing but peace in the world.

Naturally the nurse could not resist telling her husband about the leper who had turned up cured in the company of Dionisio Vivo, and naturally he could not resist telling everyone he knew, in the strictest confidence. Naturally, Dionisio was accredited with the miracle, and from now on he was pestered by the sick wherever he walked. When he told them to go to the clinic they were aggrieved, and attributed to him that worst of sins, which is spiritual idleness. This did not prevent some people from claiming that it was really he, and not the nurse, who had cured their chancres, their intimate weepings of varicoloured mucus, and the sprained tendons that they had imputed to the encroachment of terminal illness.

Hindered by the disobedience of his limbs and the limitations of his feet, Lazaro took two days to reach the Hacienda Ecobandoda, sustained solely by his hope. The way was long, and, in places, steep. He stopped frequently, taking advantage of the cedars to rest from the implacable assault of the sun. He would watch the vizcachas scurrying and think that one day he too would be able to run free. He would feel the play of mountain electricity in his hair, and watch as the alacrans, the mountain scorpions, negotiated their way through the play of the dust-devils. Once, in the distance, he heard yavari music, and knew that there were Indians nearby, creating their eerie sounds by playing the olla flute inside a pot. The music reminded him of beauty, and he thought that one day he too would be beautiful. Sometimes he would stop at the gaudy little shrines by the side of the road that commemorated the death by road accident of some unfortunate, and he would feel pity, because he himself was about to arise from the dead.

As he lurched onward he indulged in fantasies; when he was handsome again, would he seek out Raimunda and then spurn her? He smiled with vengeful satisfaction. Would he throw himself into her arms and forgive her, and make love with her in the hut on stilts? That was romantic, and he smiled with the thought of the rediscovery of that bliss. Would Raimunda be old and fat and ugly by now? He might find a young bride. Would Raimunda be married to someone else by now? He would win her away; they could elope together into the forest. How old were the little ones? He realised that he had no idea how much time had passed; he did not even know his own age any more. Was he thirty or sixty? He had lived outside life, and therefore outside time. His history was about to begin again after a long darkness. He liked the idea of being in the world again. Farewell to the dusk of the all-but-dead.

He slept the night amid the ichu grass of the pajonale, wrapped in the embroidered habit, and dreaming that one day soon when he passed an ariero driving his train of mules he would look the ariero in the eye, without his cowl obscuring his face, and say, ‘Buena’ dia’,’ and the ariero would nod in a friendly fashion and reply, ‘Buena’ dia’, que tal?’ and they would talk about the weather in a companionable way like ordinary people. He awoke with the cold once or twice, and thought wryly that there was an advantage to having no sensation in his feet and hands, but he slept again because there was a warmth like forgiveness and absolution, or smouldering palo santo wood, in his lust for the new world of the future where people would nod and say, ‘Buena’ dia’.’ How excellent that would be. And Raimunda would love him again. That was for sure.

He reached the Hacienda Ecobandoda in the middle of the afternoon. He was covered in dust, and was hungry and thirsty, despite having drunk only recently at an arroyo and having breakfasted on a jackfruit that he had brought all the way from Ipasueño. At the gate was a surly-looking man with a rifle and a bottle of chacta in the pocket of his shirt. He was unshaven and squint-eyed, and he looked at the mysterious cowled figure with automatic contempt. He did not speak, but raised his eyebrows and shoved his head forward to indicate to Lazaro that he should state what he wanted.

‘I have come to see El Jerarca,’ croaked Lazaro. ‘I have come to plead for his mercy. I am a leper, and I need money for the cure.’

The guard laughed ironically and feigned extreme courtesy. ‘Certainly, Don Leproso, the boss always likes to help lepers. Now turn around and get out of here or I will put you out of your misery myself.’ He lowered the rifle and pointed it at Lazaro’s stomach.

Lazaro saw all his dreams collapsing as though they were a bridge with severed ropes. ‘In the name of God, I beg you,’ he said. But the guard prodded him in the chest with the barrel and pushed him over. He laughed.

At this point El Chiquitin arrived in a cloud of dust in a pick-up truck, with El Guacamayo sitting beside him in the passenger seat. They had just returned from an all-night session of violating two young girls in a choza and cutting them up, but were not too tired for a little fun. They listened to what the guard told them, and told Lazaro to climb into the back of the truck, which he did with great difficulty but with renewed optimism.

They left him in a corral and told him to wait, and then went to see El Jerarca and relayed the story to him. It so happened that El Jerarca was bored, and was receptive to the idea of a little spectacle, so he called everyone together, and the whole party trouped off to the corral in a chattering, happy gaggle, while El Chiquitin went to get the necessaries. El Jerarca took his seat in the shade of a ceiba tree, just as he did at corridas, and waited for the return of El Chiquitin, who shortly arrived with a large jerrycan. He pushed the can through the rails and climbed in after it, and then he carried it to where Lazaro was waiting patiently, feeling most important, in the middle of the corral. El Chiquitin was speaking very loudly to Lazaro, so that the others would hear and be amused by his drollery.

‘We have a certain cure here in our hands,’ he was saying. ‘We call it “La danza del fuego” and it is very cheap, cabron, very cheap. It begins with a little wash in our curative water, so sit down and I will pour it over you.’

Lazaro started to make a speech of special thanks that he had been preparing for two days in his head, but El Jerarca waved his hand to signify that his modesty forbade, and Lazaro sat down.

Because of his disease he suffered from anosmia, and could not smell that the liquid was not water. He sat drenched in gasoline awaiting further instructions, and was still sitting patiently when El Chiquitin threw the match.

His first reaction was confusion and surprise because it was like being in the midst of a sudden whirlwind. His second reaction was that he could not breathe, and he started up upon his feet with his hands to his throat. He could see nothing in the rush of flame, and at first could feel nothing, partly because of his affliction, partly because of his incomprehension, and partly because the flame at first burned the superfluity of vapour rather than his flesh.

But that was only at first. When the searing bit him like a thousand piranhas his consciousness transformed itself into a single unrelenting scream. Demented with agony and asphyxia he whirled and ran in his column of flame while, unheard and unseen, El Jerarca and his company of lackeys cheered and clapped, wiped their eyes in merriment, and made the kind of remarks that passed with them for wit.

El Chiquitin was following Lazaro with the can, getting as near as he dared, and renewing the inferno before dashing backwards.

Even if his eyes had not melted in their unlidded sockets, Lazaro would still not have been able to see anything through the miasmas of his incendiarisation. He ran without direction, twisting and flailing, whirling and falling. He was shrieking and ululating in his agonies until finally the flames closed his throat. When he had fallen to the ground, had ceased convulsing, and had in the reverie of his death become whole and handsome once more, blissful in Raimunda’s embrace, a hawkhead parrot circled the corral once, and flew east.

When they had gathered around the charred and seeping corpse El Jerarca said, ‘Look boys, it was a woman. She had tits.’

But El Chiquitin pointed and said, ‘And a polla. It was someone who was a man as well, boss.’

El Guacamayo pondered the remains and flashed his gold-toothed smile. ‘Perfect cure, boss, not a trace of leprosy now.’

But El Jerarca took the fact that it was an hermaphrodite to be a bad omen, and he said curtly, ‘It stinks. Take the meat away.’

‘Where to, boss?’

‘Vivo’s garden, where else?’

‘What was it he was shouting when he was dancing?’ inquired El Guacamayo, ‘I didn’t quite catch it.’

El Chiquitin replied ‘It sounded something like “Raimunda”, but it couldn’t have been. A freak like that couldn’t have had a woman.’

RAMON CAME INTO
the house without knocking and went into Dionisio’s room. Dionisio was sitting in his rocking-chair in a dream, and as Ramon entered he turned his head and smiled. Ramon bent down and fondled the jaguars’ ears, and then straightened up.

‘Hola, Anaximenes,’ exclaimed the visitor, waving a bottle, ‘look, I have some Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon.’

Dionisio stood up and embraced his friend, saying, ‘Ramon, you must stop spending money that you don’t have.’

‘It is worth it, my friend, just to see you smile for once, and in any case, I bought it with the money that I get from the mad women for the rent of the goatfield, so it is money I owe to you.’

Dionisio went to fetch a corkscrew and came back with it. Ramon said, ‘I see that you have shaved for once. Does this mean that I no longer have to come round here and do it for you? Does this mean that I no longer have to tie you down and cut your hair? You know I was enjoying pretending to be your mother, but it was wearing thin.’

‘Tell me, cabron,’ said Dionisio, ‘how is it that you always have two days’ stubble? Don’t you have to shave in order to do that? And yet I never see you clean shaved.’

‘A mystery, Heraclitus,’ he replied, winking and tapping the side of his nose. Then he became serious and said, ‘Listen, I have very bad news. About Anica. I am not supposed to tell you this because only relatives should be informed, but I have received a police report from the capital, and I have seen Señor Moreno before coming here.’

Dionisio went pale, and the glass in his hand shook a little. ‘I don’t want to talk about her any more, Ramon.’

‘Well, don’t talk then. Just listen. There is no way to be gentle about this, my friend, and I know that you have never stopped loving her, and so let us forget all the crap, OK?’ Ramon looked at the floor, and then glanced up. ‘The fact is that she is dead, and that it was plainly a coca killing. I am very sorry. I loved her as well in my own way, as everyone did. She was the best woman in this town.’

Dionisio could only repeat, ‘A coca killing? How is that?’

‘I am telling you no details, friend, because they would make you sick. But the body was in a bad state and it took a long time to fit it to a description of a missing person. Apparently Anica was registered missing by the warden of her residence, but nothing was done until this body turned up.’

Ramon and Dionisio looked at one another in silence, and then Dionisio gazed blankly out of the window. ‘I got into the habit of thinking that she was dead,’ he said.