The Lord of Opium (10 page)

“That’s how people used to talk about me,” said Matt. “When I was a clone, people insulted me all the time, and I felt it. Why wouldn’t she?”

No one said anything for a while. A pair of kitchen eejits peeled potatoes by the sink, and a fussy-looking man measured spices into a pot on the stove. Matt thought he might be the French chef Celia had talked about.

“I’m worried about you,” said Celia after a few minutes. “It isn’t healthy to care for someone who can never love you back.”

“That would be true if Mirasol were a Real Person,” Matt argued, “but I’ve decided that she’s a pet. People keep all kinds of things, dogs, horses, cats, even fish. How much love can you get from a fish? They’re pretty and fun to feed, and that’s about
it. From now on I’ve got a pet Waitress, and I’m going to feed her whenever I like.”

“What did he say? Waitress is a
fish
?” said Mr. Ortega, who didn’t always understand what people said.

She’s the best-looking fish I’ve ever seen,
wrote Daft Donald.
I’d have liked one myself when I was that age.

“We’re in trouble,” muttered Celia, getting up to move the French chef to another chore.

*  *  *

That evening Matt and Mirasol sat side by side in a pool of light under the great crystal chandelier. He served the food because her hands were bandaged, and he cut the meat up for her too. “Eat slowly,” he urged. But Mirasol seemed to have an on-off switch where feeding was concerned. The command
eat
meant
gobble
unless it was baked custard.

He tried various dishes—asparagus, turkey, fried shrimp, polenta—and they all met the same rapid treatment. For dessert he gave her strawberry ice cream, and she wolfed that down too.

Matt put the small gold statue of a deer he’d discovered in El Patrón’s apartment in front of Mirasol. “What do you see?” he asked. She remained silent, staring ahead. Perhaps that was too difficult a problem, he thought. He put her fingers on the cool metal. “What do you feel?” She was silent.

“If you don’t know, I’ll tell you,” he said. “That’s a deer. Not a real one, of course. It’s made out of gold and is
muy valioso
. Those things on its head are antlers. Real deer are warm because they are alive, but this one is metal and so it’s cold. Like this spoon.” He moved her fingers off the statue, picked up the utensil, and pressed it against her cheek. “Cold is what you feel when you eat ice cream.”

It was no use. She sat there like a stuffed bunny, yet there had to be a way to awaken her. With Eusebio it was music. With her, baked custard. If you could find one pathway, couldn’t you find others and gradually open up her soul?

Whatever a soul was. María talked about them, but Matt hadn’t paid attention because he didn’t have one until El Patrón died. According to the priest, clones went out like candles when they died and didn’t have to bother about heaven and hell.

Celia—surprisingly, for she had never before ventured into El Patrón’s private wing—appeared in the shadows at the far end of the banquet hall. “It’s time for Waitress to go to bed,” she said. “She’ll be exhausted tomorrow if she doesn’t rest.”

“Where does she sleep?” Matt asked, interested.

“Far from here. Come along, Waitress.”

The girl stood up obediently.

“I don’t want her to go to the eejit pens,” said Matt. He couldn’t stomach the idea of her lying in the dirt next to a toxic waste pit.

“Don’t worry,
mi patrón
. The house eejits have their own dormitory.”

“She could stay here,” he suggested.

“That would confuse the poor girl. She’s programmed to go to the dormitory, and any change would require retraining.”

Matt recoiled from the thought of retraining. Mirasol left silently, and Celia settled into one of the heavy iron chairs that El Patrón had looted from an old Spanish castle. She looked completely out of place. Her apron was stained with tomato sauce, and there were two brown patches where she habitually wiped her hands. Her dress was cheap and ill-fitting. And yet the vast wealth of El Patrón’s private wing seemed ugly next to her. Or perhaps it was the difference between the live deer and
the metal one. “I don’t like it here,” Matt blurted out. “I want to come back to you.”

“Mi hijo,”
she said sadly. “I can call you that when no one is listening. You are the Lord of Opium.”

“I don’t want to be.”

“You have no choice,” she said.

“We could run away. I know where El Patrón’s wealth is. I can open the border and we can escape to Africa or India or I can buy a little island in the Pacific—”

Celia hugged him as he’d been wanting her to do ever since he came back. “Oh, dear! You’re too young for all the problems you have inherited. But God arranges these things for a purpose. What was I but one of a hundred thousand women El Patrón enslaved throughout his long life? Yet Fate decreed that I arrive at the moment you needed me. María befriended you when no one else would. Tam Lin gave you the strength to escape when the time came. Without us, you would merely be a heart beating in an old man’s chest. You are meant to end the evil of this place, and you can’t run away.”

“You sound like María,” Matt said. “She’s always trying to civilize me.”

“She used to call you Brother Wolf,” remembered Celia. “Speaking of María, when is she going to visit?”

“Esperanza won’t let her come.”

Celia thought for a moment. “You know how to use the holoport. Open a channel to the Convent of Santa Clara and ask for
Sor
Artemesia. She’s somewhat scatterbrained, but her heart is good. If Esperanza is away, she can be talked into fetching María.”

“That’s a great idea! I can ask for Fidelito, Chacho, and Ton-Ton, too.” Matt was so pleased he couldn’t stop smiling.
“We’ll have a party. They’ll have a picnic on that side and I’ll have one here. It’s almost like having a real visit, and we can do it every day.”

Celia wiped her eyes with her apron. “I must have chopped too many onions,” she said. “Later, perhaps, you can ask Esperanza to let the boys visit. She doesn’t really care what happens to them. And don’t have Cienfuegos with you tomorrow. Sometimes it’s good to be alone with friends.” She kissed Matt good night, but soon returned with the dusty, chipped Virgin of Guadalupe that she had brought from Aztlán. “There’s too much gloom in this place,” she said. “You need something gentle to rest your eyes on.” And she left the light burning in the hall.

12

THE LONG-DISTANCE PICNIC

C
elia brought Matt’s breakfast and said that Waitress had been kept in bed to allow her hands to heal. Matt didn’t mind, because he was going to visit his friends. He’d seen them five days before, but it seemed more like five weeks, so much had happened. He made a selection of things from El Patrón’s apartment—a crystal goblet, the golden deer, a walking stick carved in the shape of a striking cobra—and then put them away. The boys might think he was showing off. In the end he took only the music box with the Mexican gentleman and lady.

Alone in the instrument room, Matt suffered a moment of doubt. María was capable of crying for a dead goldfish. How was she reacting to the deaths of her father and sister? He decided to ask
Sor
Artemesia’s advice before summoning her.

Matt held on to a table leg with one hand while activating the screen with the other. He didn’t want to be lured into the
holoport while it was opening. The room at the Convent of Santa Clara was empty, but a bell summoned a UN official.

“Great regrets,
mi patrón
, but Doña Esperanza is away,” the official informed him. “She said to tell you that the doctors you requested are being sought. It might take weeks.”

“Very well. I would like to speak with
Sor
Artemesia instead,” said Matt.

“Sister Artemesia?” the man asked, clearly surprised. “But she’s only a teacher.”

“I like talking to teachers. Please call her.”

The man went away, and soon
Sor
Artemesia hurried into the room, smoothing the wrinkles out of her dress and straightening the veil she wore over her hair. “I hope you aren’t angry because I was here yesterday,” she began. “It’s such a quiet place, and the light is so good for doing embroidery—”

“I’m not angry at all,” said Matt. “Please tell me how María is doing. Is she very upset? I don’t want to bother her if she’s in mourning.”

“Mourning for what?” asked
Sor
Artemesia.

Matt was astounded. Hadn’t Esperanza told María anything? “There was some trouble concerning her father and sister,” he said cautiously.

“They can’t come home yet. Of course her mother told her—not that María would worry about that. Emilia is always picking on her, and her father continually tries to push her into marriage. She’s too young, of course, but he doesn’t want her to be a nun.”
Sor
Artemesia, once she discovered she wasn’t going to be scolded, settled comfortably in front of the holoport.

“Could you call her?” asked Matt, hardly daring to hope.

“I’m afraid her mother took her on a trip to
Nueva York
. It was a real surprise, because Doña Esperanza never takes her
anywhere. But she says that María has become a little backward where social graces are concerned. She’s going to buy her pretty clothes and give her dancing lessons.”

And keep her away from me. Clever Esperanza,
thought Matt. “Do you know where my friends Fidelito, Chacho, and Ton-Ton are?” he asked.

“Everyone knows where they are,” said
Sor
Artemesia, laughing. “When they’re not raiding the kitchen, they’re picking flowers and digging holes in the garden. Chacho is still recovering from his ordeal, but he follows along readily enough. Ton-Ton is the leader. And Fidelito! Why, he stuck his bottom out a window last night and mooned a night watchman. The watchman threw a stone at him and gave him a bruise to remember. Would you like to see your friends?”

“Yes, I would,” said Matt.
Sor
Artemesia, away from Esperanza’s critical eye, had turned out to be very likable. He could see the nun letting María shirk her lessons to do the good works she preferred. “Could they bring a picnic lunch? I wish I could send them something, but I don’t know how.”

Sor
Artemesia smiled. “Don’t worry about it,
mi patrón
. We’ve practically got an assembly line feeding those boys.” She hurried off and Matt waited, wondering how long the holoport could stay open and how he could get Esperanza to release his friends.

Chacho arrived first. Then Fidelito burst through the door, to be yanked to a halt by Ton-Ton. “D-don’t you listen to anything, y-you turkey!” shouted the older boy. “Sister Artemesia says, uh, to stay away from that s-screen!”

“Matteo! Matteo! Matteo!” shrieked Fidelito at the end of Ton-Ton’s arm.

“I’ll b-beat the stuffing out of you!”

“You’re alive! My big brother!” sang Fidelito, not the least worried by Ton-Ton’s threat.

Matt had to swallow hard to keep tears from forming. Fidelito had called him brother! No one had ever done that. He was so moved he could barely speak.

“Are you all right?” said Chacho.

“Yes,” said Matt, struggling to gain control of his emotions. Chacho had lost weight in the few days since Matt had seen him, and his face looked haunted. “Are
you
okay?”

“
No tengo chiste.
So-so.”

“Me too,” said Matt.

“Are you living in a castle?” said Fidelito. “
Sor
Artemesia says you’re living in a castle and have thousands of zombie slaves.”

“If I had one, I’d tell it to eat your b-brain,” growled Ton-Ton. “Now sit!” He shoved Fidelito onto a floor cushion.

“Do your zombies eat brains?” the little boy asked excitedly. “Are they horrible and scary?”

“They’re only sad,” said Matt.

“Use your head, Fidelito. How could he find enough brains to feed thousands of zombies?” said Chacho. “Do you think he can put in an order to a company in Argentina?”

“As a matter of fact, they eat plankton,” said Matt.

“The same crap we, uh, had at the factory?” cried Ton-Ton.

“The same. Here they call it eejit pellets.”

“ ‘Plankton is the eighth wonder of the world,’ ” said Chacho, quoting the guards at the factory. “ ‘It’s full of protein, vitamins, and roughage.’ ”

“Especially roughage. It’ll take m-months to get rid of my zits,” mourned Ton-Ton.
Sor
Artemesia arrived with a large picnic basket, and Matt was grateful for the interruption. He had
his own basket from Celia. The nun also brought a bird in a cage to amuse Fidelito.

“This is María’s latest patient,” she told the little boy. “It’s a finch. See? It has only one leg. María took it away from a cat, but by that time the damage was done.”

“Will the leg grow back?” Fidelito put his face close to the cage, and the bird fluttered away.

“Don’t scare it,
chiquito
. I’m afraid this one is going to be a permanent guest, like the turtle with a cracked shell, the blind rabbit, and the toothless dog. Sometimes,”
Sor
Artemesia said, sighing, “I think God means for creatures to be called to heaven and that we shouldn’t interfere.”

“But this one is
muy bravo
to be hopping around on one leg,” said Fidelito.

“I suppose so,” said the nun. “Now you must be very, very careful around the holoport. Stay at least six feet away from it. I have to teach a class in math, but I’ll come back in half an hour to check up on you. Ton-Ton, you’re in charge.”

“Yes, Sister,” said Ton-Ton.

Once the woman was gone, the boys fell upon the picnic basket, and Ton-Ton divided up the food. They had ham, chicken, and cheese sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, celery sticks, and cupcakes. Fidelito poked one of the celery sticks into the birdcage, but the finch only cowered. “Give it cake crumbs,” said Chacho, so the little boy broke off a chunk and dropped it inside.

Matt had beef tamales, slices of papaya, and chocolate cake. The tamales were still hot, and a delicious odor wafted out when he unwrapped them.