Strings Attached (34 page)

Once Ryan, Rosa, and two of the gun-wielding
meninos
were shut inside what appeared to be an ancient jail cell—with its chiseled granite walls, uneven rock floor, and medieval-looking wooden door—she directed him over to a short, backless bench.

After huffing in protest and rolling his eyes, he sat.

She retrieved a big, dirty purse from the corner of the floor. From inside this she withdrew an extensive assortment of vials and tubes and brushes, which she organized on a table in front of him with as much precision as a surgeon preparing her scalpels.

“Stop moving your face,” she told him. From a tube she squeezed into her hand a string of white paste, which she wiped onto his face and neck, and then smoothed evenly.

“Are you making me a bitch?” he asked her, feeling his dread building.

“Oh, no!” She laughed and shook her head. “I am only making you more like our beloved Januário.”

“Who the fuck’s Januário?”

“He is you, my sweet. And you are he. Don’t blink.” She took the eye-liner and began tracing his eyelids with it.

His eyelashes batted despite her instructions—not from the pressure of the instrument on his skin, but rather because her breath stank.

She took some charcoal and contoured his face with it—his cheekbones, under his eyes and chin—and finally she encircled his lips with ruby lipstick.

She told him to stand.

He stood.

Over his hair she pulled a short black wig that itched his scalp and tickled his ears. She handed him a pair of black slippers so small they curled his feet. After this she took from a stand in the corner numerous undergarments—ancient-looking lacy, dressy, girly things—which she fitted him with, one atop the previous. Finally, she slipped his arms into a white silk robe with a high, stiff collar and cuffs embroidered with gold and scarlet filigree.

He looked down to see his wiry athlete’s frame buried so deeply in the garments that he resembled a hefty peasant bride all dressed up for her Slavic wedding.

“And for the most beautiful touch,” she murmured, unfolding an extravagant crimson cape, which she wrapped around his shoulders and buttoned at his neck.

“Would you like to see?” she asked him at last.

He shook his head
no
.

“You’ll like; you see.” She smoothed the blood-colored silk down along his shoulders and tugged at his cuffs. “
Finis!
” she said, and stepped back as her mouth split into a ragged smile of satisfaction. She turned and retrieved a tall, golden papal-style hat from atop the dressing table, which she brought to him and placed atop his bewigged head. “Stand, São Januário,” she told him. “Come see your holiness.”

He blinked stupidly at her.

Her face darkened. “Come, now!” She held out her hand. “You are guest of honor, most perfect Januário ever seen.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him to the other side of the room, where an antique pier mirror tilted precariously against the wall.

He stepped toward it.

That’s not me!

Indeed, the scruffy blond skateboarder had vanished. In his place stood the life-size statue of some creepy old Catholic saint—with gray, sunken eyes and starved-to-death cheeks and bleeding lips and stiff black hair. He blinked, just to see if São Januário would blink in unison with him.

He did.

Ryan began to cry.

“You’ve got to tell me what’s going on!” he babbled. “Come on, what’s gonna happen to me?”

Rosa smiled. “That’s good; the tears are good for the makeup,” she said, dabbing at his face with the rag in her hand. “Not too much, though, OK? Januário is martyr, but he is not the boo-hoo crybaby.”

“
Goddamn it, tell me!
” he roared. At once the
menino
with the gun snapped to attention.

“
Shhh, shhh
.” She took his hand and led him back to the bench. “Sit down, São Januário. Please sit and calm.”

“My name is
Ryan
,” he stated, trailing her back to the bench.

She patted his hand. “You are the saint of our people,” she began. “Tonight is your feast. The faithful are awaiting your appearance. You show yourself to them and they will come and ask for answered prayers. Your presence will make devotion. We pray, and then we have the
milagre do sangue
. This is the most beautiful night of the year.”

“What’s the
milagre do sangue
?”

“The blood miracle,” she said. “One time each year, the dry blood of São Januário turns to wet, like fresh. It is the ancient
milagre
.”

She nodded to the men, and they left the room. Then she reached into the old purse once again and produced a small package of waxy black paper that had been folded origami-style. She opened it, and Ryan saw that it contained a white powder.

“Is that coke?” he asked, suddenly excited. He loved coke.

“It is better—we call it Devil’s Breath. From Colombia. You’ll like it.” She fished a pristine medical mask from the purse and tied it on, then picked up a shortened drinking straw, lifted the paper to Ryan’s nose, and pulled up the mask to expose her lips; she closed her eyes and blew the powder forcefully into his face.

“
What the
”—he coughed violently—“
fuck
?”

At once a scalding heat and a tingling cold overtook his sinuses, while a deathlike stiffness crept into his limbs. Moments later, he discovered he could not move his hands or feet.

He slumped sideways.

Rosa caught him as he fell.

And then he realized that he was completely, utterly paralyzed—as if invisible ropes were binding his hands and feet.

The
meninos
entered the room, lifted him from the bench, and carried him over to a bed in the corner, where they laid him. Rosa bent down to dab at his makeup. “São Januário,” she whispered intimately, “your blood will give miracles tonight.”

He heard laughter and footsteps as the heavy door swung open, then saw, out of the corner of one eye, a carved golden coffin with glass sides being pushed into the room. He felt Rosa and the young men lift him from the bed and heft him up and over into the mysterious container. They wheeled him out of the room, turned, and pulled him along a tunnel to a freight elevator, which they boarded. This descended for some time before slowing to a stop. The doors slid open and they pushed him along a concrete walkway, which opened, finally, into the open air.

He made out, through his now blurred vision, clouds amidst the darkness. He heard people muttering in Portuguese—one giving orders while others shuffled about.

They loaded him into a van, which proceeded down the road that had brought him up to the compound in the Mercedes just a short time before. They turned onto another road; he could tell it was precipitous and snakelike from the way the van listed and swayed and the engine strained and the transmission shifted from low to high to low over and over. Finally the vehicle stopped, the cargo door was opened, and his casket was unloaded.

Once again he saw the night sky and its shroud of fog.

And candlelight…or a big fire…they’re gonna set me on fire!

His heart began to beat wildly as his mind became a hurricane of gore—if only he could just lift his hand or scream or rock himself out of this box—

As he was pushed toward the candlelit altar, he heard the growing murmur of a crowd, and he could even distinguish some words here and there; all around him was the hypnotic
zhuzhing
of people speaking Portuguese, and another crisper, more deliberate language that he did not recognize. But the murmur didn’t sound like talking—the tone was too monotonous.

They’re praying
.

He decided to do a little praying of his own. But then he decided to count, because he figured that by the time he reached a thousand he would be either safe or dead.

One…two…three…four…five…

But what the faithful gathered this evening saw was their beloved, and peaceful, São Januário—named for the eleventh month of the old calendar—being carried in his gilded reliquary with its glass sides and open top; he who had again returned on his feast day to grace them with his miraculous blood. Holy São Januário, who, because of his great faith, had been submitted to the torture rack of Timotheus, had leapt from fires unscathed, then had been thrown, along with his deacons, to wild beasts—only to have those beasts cower in submission at their feet. Courageous São Januário, for whom the peasants had begged mercy, and for whom the peasants had won a quick beheading rather than the agonizing death of being dragged by galloping horses through the streets of Naples on that night so many hundreds of centuries ago. São Januário, whose blood still turns from red dust to life-saving
sangue
each year as the priest says those amazing Latin prayers and holds that sacred pair of vials before Christ on the cross—the Redeemer of Mankind.

Only this was Ryan McCauley, who’d decided to backpack through South America with his best friend, Kris (recently deceased), after graduating high school, instead of beginning their first semester of college along with the rest of their friends. Ryan McCauley, an almost skateboard champ and confirmed lover of blue-eyed chicks with big tits, whose greatest conflict in life—until this moment—had been the grief he’d received from his dad after “borrowing” his credit card and buying some chrome rims for his metallic blue ’84 Trans Am. Ryan McCauley, who’d never spent a second in church, who didn’t believe in the Redeemer of Mankind, and whose only aspirations were to be a business major and to own a skateboard shop and to attend Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale this coming year.

Ryan McCauley, who realized he was about to die.

At once, beautiful singing—from a boys’ choir, in fact—rose up and filled the night air with silver caroled notes as pure and clear and ecstatic as they were restrained. Immediately the prayer mumbling ceased and the choir soared through its song—flowing and ebbing and rising, then falling, as they recounted the miracle of Creation’s triumph over damnation, and Redemption’s conquering of sin.

Silently, Ryan begged them not to stop. They wouldn’t—
couldn’t
—do anything to him while music this beautiful was being sung.

But they did finish their cantata, and after a few moments of silence someone began reciting an incantation. “
Lætámini in Dómino et exsultáte, justi,
” the authoritative baritone announced.

“
Et gloriámini, omnes recti corde
,” the faithful responded.

“
Istórum est enim, regnum cælórum, qui contempsérunt vitam mundi
,” he continued, “
et pervenérunt ad præmia regni, et lavérunt stolas suas in sánguine Agni. Deus, qui nos annua sanctórum Mártyrum tuórum Januárii et Sociórum ejus solemnitate lætificas: concéde propítius; ut, quorum gaudémus meritis, accendámur exemplis. Per Dóminum.
”

As the incantation ended, Ryan thought the voice familiar. But before he could determine where he’d heard it, the crowd responded with “
Et gloriámini, omnes recti corde
” once again.

And then he realized he was having trouble breathing—it felt as if a concrete slab had been lowered onto his torso.

A rustling of fabric caught his ear and a face came into view:
Rosa
—but without the wig. He saw her makeup had been removed hastily, as evidence of it still polluted what might have once been a friendly face.

“
Et gloriámini, omnes recti corde
,” the faithful stated again.

Rosa grinned and leaned down to kiss one of his hands, both of which had been placed in the crossed-arms position favored by nearly all funeral homes since Egyptian times. She looked him in the eyes. “Do not worry, São Januário,” she whispered with her stinking breath. “We do not cut off your head anymore, and this will not hurt any more than the needle from a good doctor. Then you will sleep, and when you wake, you will see the face of God.”

She straightened Ryan’s right arm by his side, while two altar boys carefully lifted out and then removed the glass from the right side of the coffin—the side facing the crowd. Rosa’s face disappeared and the boys’ choir began singing again and he felt his cuffed sleeve being unbuttoned just before the vein in his arm was sliced open, from his wrist almost to his elbow.

“
Deus, qui nos annua sanctórum Mártyrum tuórum Januárii et Sociórum ejus solemnitate lætificas: concéde propítius; ut, quorum gaudémus meritis, accendámur exemplis. Per Dóminum
.”

Darkness surrounded his field of vision.

One hundred seventy-seven
, his brain screamed.
One hundred seventy-eight
…
one hundred seventy-nine
…
one hundred eighty
…and then he drifted off. But something jarred him, and he realized it was Rosa shaking his shoulder. “São Januário, look!” she said. “The face of God. He welcomes you to come to home.” And so with superhuman effort he did his best to focus his fuzzy vision for the very last time as the nighttime fog cleared and the gargantuan figure of Cristo Redentor—with his perfectly stern yet somehow forgiving gaze and widely outstretched arms—loomed hundreds of feet above him into the impossibly black, star-strewn sky.

“
Et gloriámini, omnes recti corde
,” the faithful droned. And they watched their beloved São Januário once again give his miraculous
sangue
for them, as Ryan’s strong young heart pumped all of his body’s precious blood into an assemblage of the loveliest cut-crystal decanters ever created.