springs. I thought the Knight was gonna drop down like he did the first time, but he springs, too. Feet first. And he catches the jaguar under the jaw. You could hear bone splinterin’, and the jaguar falls in a heap. He struggles to get up, but no way! He’s whinin’, and he craps all over the sand. The Knight walks up behind him, takes his head in both hands, and gives it a twist. Crack!’
As if identifying with the jaguar’s fate, the kid closed his eyes and sighed. Everybody’s been quiet till they heard that crack, then all hell broke loose. People chantin’, “Sam-mee, Sam-mee,” and people shovin’, tryin’ to get close to the pit wall so they can watch the Knight take the heart. He reaches into the jaguar’s mouth and snaps off one of the fangs and tosses it to somebody. Then Chaco comes in through the tunnel and hands him the knife. Right when he’s ’bout to cut, somebody knocks me over, and by the time I’m back on my feet, he’s already took the heart and tasted it. He’s just standin’ there with the jaguar’s blood on his mouth and his own blood runnin’ down his chest. He looks kinda confused, y’know. Like now the fight’s over and he don’t know what to do. But then he starts roarin’. He sounds the same as the jaguar did ’fore it got hurt. Crazy fierce. Ready to get it on with the whole goddamn world. Man, I lost it! I was right with that roar. Maybe I was roarin’ with him, maybe everybody was. That’s what it felt like, man. Like bein’ in the middle of this roar that’s comin’ outta every throat in the universe.’ The kid engaged Mingolla with a sober look. ‘Lotsa people go ’round sayin’ the pits are evil, and maybe they are. I don’t know. How you s’posed to tell ’bout what’s evil and what’s not down here? They say you can go to the pits a thousand times and see nothin’ like the jaguar and the Black Knight. I don’t know ’bout that, either. But I’m goin’ back just in case I get lucky. ’Cause what I saw last night, if it was evil, man, it was so fuckin’ evil it was beautiful, too.’
CHAPTER THREE
Debora was waiting at the pier, carrying a picnic basket and wearing a blue dress with a high neckline and a full skirt: a schoolgirl dress. Mingolla homed in on her. The way she had her hair, falling about her shoulders in thick dark curls, made him think of smoke turned solid, and her face seemed the map of a beautiful country with black lakes and dusky plains, a country in which he could hide. They walked along the river past the town and came to a spot where ceiba tress with massy crowns of slick green leaves and whitish bark and roots like alligator tails grew close to the shore, and there they talked and ate and listened to the water gulping against the clay bank, to the birds, to the faint noises from the airbase that at this distance sounded part of nature. Sunlight dazzled the water, and whenever wind riffled the surface, it seemed to be spreading the dazzles into a crawling crust of diamonds. Mingolla imagined that they had taken a secret path, rounded a corner of the world, and reached some eternally peaceful land. The illusion of peace was so profound that he began to see hope in it. Perhaps, he thought, something was being offered here. Some new magic. Maybe there would be a sign. Signs were everywhere if you knew how to read them. He glanced around. Thick white trunks rising into greenery, dark leafy avenues leading off between them… nothing there, but what about those weeds growing at the edge of the bank? They cast precise fleur-de-lis shadows in the clay, shadows that didn’t have much in common with the ragged configurations of the weeds themselves. Possibly a sign, though not a clear one. He lifted his gaze to the reeds growing in the shallows. Yellow reeds with jointed stalks bent akimbo, some with clumps of insect eggs like seed pearls hanging from loose fibers, and others dappled by patches of algae. That’s how they looked one moment. Then Mingolla’s vision rippled, as if the whole of reality had shivered, and the reeds were transformed into rudimentary shapes: yellow sticks poking up from flat blue. On the far side of the river, the jungle was a simple smear of Crayola green; a speedboat passing was a red slash unzippering the blue. It seemed that the rippling had jostled all the elements of the landscape a fraction out of kilter, revealing every object as characterless as a building block. Mingolla gave his head a shake. Nothing changed. He rubbed his brow. No effect. Terrified, he squeezed his eyes shut. He felt like the only meaningful piece in a nonsensical puzzle, vulnerable by virtue of his uniqueness. His breath came rapidly, his left hand fluttered.
‘David? Don’t you want to hear it?’ Debora sounded peeved.
‘Hear what?’ He kept his eyes closed.
‘About my dream. Weren’t you listening?’
He peeked at her. Everything was back to normal. She was sitting with her knees tucked under her, all her features in sharp focus. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I was thinking.’
‘You looked frightened.’
‘Frightened?’ He put on a bewildered face. ‘Naw, just had a thought, is all.’
‘It couldn’t have been pleasant.’
He shrugged off the comment and sat up smartly to prove his attentiveness. ‘So tell me ’bout the dream.’
‘All right,’ she said doubtfully. The breeze drifted fine strands of hair across her face, and she brushed them back. You were in a room the color of blood, with red chairs and a red table. Even the paintings on the wall were done in shades of red, and…’ She broke off, peering at him. Do you want to hear this? You have that look again.’
‘Sure,’ he said. But he was afraid. How could she have known about the red room? She must have had a vision of it, and… Then he realized that she might not have been talking about the room itself. He’d told her about the assault, hadn’t he? And if she had guerrilla contacts, she would know that the emergency lights were switched on during an assault. That had to be it! She was trying to frighten him into deserting again, psyching him the way Christians played upon the fears of sinners with images of fiery rivers and torture. It infuriated him. Who the hell was she to tell him what was right or wise? Whatever he did, it was going to be
‘There were four doors in the room,’ she went on. ‘You wanted to leave the room, but you couldn’t tell which of the doors was safe to use. You tried the first door, and it turned out to be a facade. The knob of the second door turned easily, but the door itself was stuck. Rather than forcing it, you went to the third door. It was cold, and it frightened you. The knob of the fourth door was made of glass and cut your hand. After that you just walked back and forth, unsure what to do.’ She waited for a reaction, and when he gave none, she said, Do you understand?’
He kept silent, biting back anger.
‘I’ll interpret it for you,’ she said.
‘Don’t bother.’
‘The red room is war, and the false door is the way of your childish—’
‘Stop!’ He grabbed her wrist, squeezing it hard.
She glared at him until he released her. ‘Your childish magic,’ she went on. ‘The third door, the one that frightened you, that’s Psicorps.’
‘Maybe I’m not frightened of it anymore.’
‘Bad side effects, remember?’
‘What is it with you?’ he asked. ‘You have some kinda quota to fill? Five deserters a month, and you get a medal?’
She tucked her skirt down to cover her knees, fiddled with a loose thread. From the way she was acting, Mingolla wondered whether he had asked an intimate question and she was framing an answer that wouldn’t be indelicate. Finally she said, ‘Is that who you believe I am?’
‘Why else would you be handing me this bullshit?’
‘What’s the matter with you, David?’ She leaned forward, cupping his face in her hands. ‘Why…’
He pushed her hands away. ‘What’s the matter with me? This’—his gesture included the sky, the river, the trees—‘that’s what’s the matter. You remind me of my parents. They ask the same sorta ignorant questions.’ Suddenly he wanted to injure her with answers, to find an answer like acid to throw in her face and watch it eat away her tranquility. Know what I do for my parents when they ask dumb-ass questions like “What’s the matter?” I tell ’em a story. A war story. You wanna hear a war story? Something happened a few days back that’ll do for an answer just fine.’
‘You don’t have to tell me anything,’ she said, discouraged.
‘No problem,’ he said. ‘Be my pleasure.’
