lava. Gems encrusted the bodice, and a golden cross hung from her neck. Spiderwebs moored the statue to the walls, frail intricate supports billowing slightly in the wash of heat from the candles, and a beetle was crawling on the chipped forehead. Much of the pink plaster of her face had been eroded; painted symbols figured her cheeks and neck. A knife was taped to her left hand, and in her right she held a clump of flowering weeds. The dim lighting made her appear monstrous and decaying, yet there was a kind of organic magnificence about her; it seemed to Mingolla that the movement of the spiderwebs and the inconstant shadows cast by the candles were the result of imperceptible breathing.
‘You’ve seen all there is to see,’ said the priest. ‘Will you leave now… please?’
‘Why you want us to leave so bad?’ Corazon asked. ‘What you hidin’?’
‘Nothing, nothing at all. But you’re interfering with the process. We need solitude, we need to focus on the Conception.’
‘I s’pose we might as well,’ said Mingolla.
‘Ain’t you gonna do nothin’ ’bout these women?’ Corazon was outraged.
‘What should I do?’
‘Take ’em outta here, man! Get ’em ’way from this fucker!’
Mingolla turned to the body of the church, saw that the girls had gathered at the entrance to the side altar. ‘You ladies like it here?’ he asked. ‘Or you feel like leaving?’
They edged away, silent, their eyes looking as hard as obsidian.
‘Guess they’re happy,’ said Mingolla. ‘Thank you,’ said the priest.
‘You don’t know what you doin’!’ Corazon shook her finger at Mingolla. ‘These fuckin’ priests, they crazy! They get so desperate for God, they start thinkin’ they God themselves. That they know everything ’bout God. And then they mess with you. I know!’
‘How do you know?’ Mingolla asked.
Corazon drew a long breath. ‘When I was little, thirteen, this priest, man, he used to take me into the rectory… givin’ me special instruction, he tell my mama. Say he see somethin’ spiritual in me. At first he just tellin’ me ’bout the Mysteries, y’know. But then he start showin’ me. The Mysteries! Huh! After a year I know more ’bout the Mysteries than most married ladies.’
She was, Mingolla thought, quite convincing, and if what she was saying was true, it might explain much about her. But he couldn’t swallow it. Her opening up to him was too sudden, too coincidental with his growing lack of trust in her, and it might be best to act on impulse and get rid of her now. But then, he realized, he’d have to deal with Tully, and he didn’t want that. He could be wrong, after all, and even if he wasn’t, she would be no threat as long as he kept an eye on her.
Ignoring her railing, her emoting, he shoved her ahead of him toward the front door.
‘Go with God,’ said the priest, and then laughed. ‘Or whatever.’
Mingolla paused in the doorway, looking back at him, feeling a momentary sympathy for a fellow New Yorker. ‘This ain’t for real, man,’ he said. ‘Y’know that?’
‘Sometimes I feel that way,’ said the priest. ‘But’—he shrugged, grinned—‘I gotta be me.’
‘Well… good luck.’
‘Hey,’ said the priest. ‘How the Mets doing?’
‘I don’t follow ’em, I’m a Yankee fan.’
The priest adopted a stern expression. ‘Blasphemer,’ he said, and then, with a friendly wave, he closed the door.
Soon they began to see the war in the sky, eerie sunset glows visible at every hour of the day as swirls of pink and golden light bathing the clouds. The people in the villages where they bought gas told them that the battle zone stretched for miles and that no trails existed to circumvent it. That war should have such a lovely reflection made the prospect of encountering it all the more menacing, but there was nothing to do except to go forward. The jungle became less dense, the evidence of conflict increasingly apparent. Once they came to a grassy slope upon which lay dozens of yellowish brown shapes that at a distance resembled giant footprints, but on closer inspection were revealed to be dessicated corpses that had been pressed flat, perhaps by the passage of tanks; their faces were eyeless masks, their fingers splayed like those of the clay men Mingolla had fashioned as a child. Less than a day’s travel farther on, they discovered a mass grave that had been left uncovered, and that same evening they reached the base of a volcano that rose from the midst of an extensive stand of mahogany trees: Mingolla spotted large wooden platforms high in the trees, and as the Bronco threaded its way among the trunks, he saw men descending on ropes from the heights of the trees ahead of them. Though the men did not appear to be bearing arms, he threw off the safety of his rifle and told Debora to pull up. He and Tully and Debora climbed out, training their rifles on the two men who approached them.
‘Hello!’ one of the men called. He was a balding, stocky American in his fifties, wearing shorts and a tattered khaki shirt with a general’s star on the collar; he had the sort of healthy openness to his face that Mingolla associated with scoutmasters and camp directors. His companion was an Indian, older, wrinkled, dressed in jeans and a Mickey Mouse T-shirt, ‘God, it’s good to see new faces,’ said the stocky man. ‘Where you bound?’
‘Panama,’ said Debora.
‘Well, then you’ll have to stay the night, won’t you?’ said the American. ‘My name’s Blackford. Frank Blackford, US Army, retired. And this’—he gestured at the Indian—‘is Gregorio, my brother-in-law. You might say we’re co-mayors of our little community. Come on up. We’ll feed you and…’
‘Thanks,’ said Mingolla. ‘But we want to make a few more miles before dark.’
Blackford’s good cheer evaporated. ‘You can’t do that. You’ll be in great danger.’
‘From what?’ said Tully.
Gregorio muttered something in his own language. Blackford nodded and said, ‘There’s a rather large animal that inhabits this area. Nocturnal, and very fierce. Weapons don’t have much effect on it… which is why we’ve taken to the heights.’
‘What kind of animal?’ Debora asked.
‘That’s a long story,’ said Blackford. ‘Look, you can’t get much farther tonight. You’ll be right in the heart of the most dangerous area. Why not stay with us, and I’ll tell you about it.’
He seemed genuinely concerned for them, but, taking no chances, Mingolla reinforced his concern and that of Gregorio. ‘All right,’ he said. What about the car?’
‘Be perfectly safe here.’ Blackford chuckled. ‘The Beast has no use for it.’
‘The Beast?’ Debora glanced at Mingolla, alarmed.
‘Crazy motherfuckers,’ said Tully under his breath.
Blackford heard him. Crazy, perhaps. But alive! Alive! And in these times, that’s the only form of sanity worth recognizing.
From the edge of a wooden platform encircling the trunk of a mahogany tree, Mingolla could see other platforms through the interstices of the branches. Charcoal fires in iron braziers glowed like faceted orange jewels among sprays of dark green leaves; women were hunkered beside them, and children sat beneath lean-tos set closer to the trunks. The smells of cooking came on the breeze, mixed with the clean scent of the trees. Men slid from platform to platform on systems of ropes, passing one another in mid-air. Just below, water jumped like a silvery fish from the jagged end of a pipe, spilled into a trough that ran from tree to tree; a pump thudded somewhere nearby. Wind frayed the sounds of conversational voices and babies crying. The platform where Mingolla was standing was roofed with interlaced branches and furnished with pallets and cushions. Propped in one comer was a pale green combat suit and helmet, and after they had eaten a meal of beans and rice served in banana leaves, Mingolla asked Blackford about the suit.
‘It’s mine,’ said Blackford.
‘I didn’t know generals took part in combat,’ Mingolla said.
‘They don’t,’ said Blackford; he flicked his starred collar. ‘This is what they give you for twenty-five years’ service with the quartermaster corps. The suit’—he seemed to be searching for the right words—it was part of a fantasy I once had. It comes in handy these days.’
‘How come you people livin’ wit’ de fuckin’ birds?’ Tully asked. He was sitting against the trunk, his arm
