The Navidad Incident (31 page)

But no, wait, he finds he can look down on himself from high above, from Lee Bo's perspective. There's the bustling village square. The friendly everyday Navidadians. What's going on here? Has he died? How can he be seeing these things? Well, sure, he has to die sometime. No telling when, but this body will perish, another spirit lodged in another body will walk the earth, think and love and work for others, laugh and cry and bear children. A happy soul. With his dead self watching over it.

Will anyone remember him? Once upon a time there was a man named Matías Guili who went as far as to become president and shape the workings of this country, pulled people up to the living standards they enjoy today, skillfully created a network of promises with other more powerful nations and, in exchange for all that, skimmed a lot off the top. He saw the presidential system firmly established here, made various arrangements for the next generation of politicians to carry on, then withdrew—will people remember that? Will they put as many flowers on his grave—or more—than on the grave of Cornelius?

It's not the number of flowers, though. It's not whether people remember him or not. Dying ends all that. All posthumous glory is pointless. An instant after death none of it will matter; all acquisitions and debts will be set back to zero so the mind can rest in peace. Rest in nothingness. So much the better. He can just relax and have nice long talks with Lee Bo or the ghost of Cornelius or Ryuzoji or Micael and María Guili. Eventually Angelina will show up too. And it wouldn't be such a bad thing to see Bonhomme Tamang and apologize. He'll probably never forgive and forget, but in the afterlife how bad can that be?

What
is
he thinking? He must be burned out from the festival, that's what's putting these crazy ideas in his head. He's in this alone and he's going to the next world alone. And anything that happens between now and then, no matter how grand and glorious it looks from the wings, is really just liquidating holdings. No matter how many more terms he serves as president, it's straight on from here for Matías Guili, and that's fine with him.

But what if people
do
forget all about him after he's gone? Who's to guarantee they won't? His name will become a footnote in the history books, his memorial stone obscured by moss, while Angelina goes on to find another lover and the next president (who's it to be?) sets the country on a totally different course. Fair enough, though he'd have liked to leave some lasting mark. Not a soft spot in people's hearts, nothing so iffy as warm feelings or respect—something more indelible.

Ah, if only he had an heir. Why wasn't he so lucky? Tsuneko wouldn't keep quiet on the subject. The desire to give love a tangible shape in the form of a child, it's not like he didn't understand it. Young, ignorant, and bursting with sex drive as he was, he did it twice a day, morning and night with an older and, frankly, ugly woman, and never tired. Took her at her word that she didn't want children—but really she did. She took no precautions. All right, Matías was foreign-born, but he was her last chance to father her child, clearly that's what she believed. Almost fooled him too—squeezed every last drop of semen out of him. And yet, for all the incessant fucking, not once did she get pregnant. Not a hint. And then in the end, as he was boarding ship, she said it—“You have dead seed.”

Never considered that. All that time he'd thought the trouble was on Tsuneko's side. It must have been simply ego that prevented Matías from thinking it through further. Maybe that's what made him not go after younger women and shack up so cozily with María. Fidelity to her meant he never needed to find out whether the infertility was on his side or not. With any other young and willing and fecund partner, of whom there must have been many when M. Guili Trading Company was just hitting its stride, he couldn't have
not
known. Not having risen to the occasion, he sees now, was enough to raze any erection. He blew it twice and for all eternity.

Wait, maybe all is not lost after all. Maybe he just hasn't given it a decent try. What about the girl asleep in the next room? She's young, body brimming with all the blessings of the Yuuka Yuumai, and she's completely conked out. She bore her brothers and cousins a son, didn't she? Maybe she can be persuaded to give him one last chance.

As if germinating in the morning sunlight, strange thoughts arise in his mind, expanding with a life of their own. What if Tsuneko was wrong? There's one way to find out. He gets up, drawn to this available sleeping partner not by some vague, uncontrollable urge, but a specific desire to procreate, an aim so far-off it will almost justify anything.

He walks quietly into the next room and goes over to the bed. He looks down at Améliana lying innocently in her white cotton dress on the floral print sheets, sleeping face-up, eyes firmly shut, arms stretched out to either side. She's barefoot, her kicked-off rubber sandals lying beside the bed. Deep asleep, her breathing is scarcely discernible. He must look like this when he sleeps. She's completely unconscious, in no state to refuse anything, enjoying a special respite granted by the gods. Would the gods punish him for disturbing her? No, the gods have baited this seductive trap and will laugh at whoever is lured in.

He wants to feel her bare skin. Her upper arm shows below her short balloon sleeves. He reaches out and touches the soft warmth, a resilience underpinned by the hardness of bone. But for now he doesn't press; he merely runs his fingers lightly over her. Améliana doesn't move. He places his entire palm on her and waits for her body heat to come across. There are truly all sorts of sensations in this world—hard and soft, rough and sharp, cool and warm, wet and dry—but none as familiar and thrilling as touching the skin of another human being.

He kneels down on the wooden floor and moves closer on his hands. He's near enough to smell the odor of sweat and wind and dust and torch smoke on her. For forty hours, all eyes have been on her as she performed one complicated ritual procedure after another, feet in step, arms waving in supplication to the gods. Eight ceremonies, the dark paths in between, the fierce sun and full moon, the spiritual communion with the seven other priestesses, all the dense, long hours have left layers of scent on her skin.

Améliana does not move. Her sleeping figure doesn't beckon by any stretch of the imagination, but defenseless it is. Will the gods not protect her? Or will lightning strike if he takes another step? This is the body that invited her seven brothers and cousins to have their fun. A body that bore a baby boy. He reaches out and unfastens the first of the large red buttons that run down the center of her torso. He's as nervous as if he'd broken into a house in the owner's absence. Another button. The skin of her neckline is beautiful, dark and gleaming smooth. Another button. She's young. Beauty is no excuse; beauty is always seductive, and whoever falls for it is lost. Which is maybe not such a bad thing.

To his credit, the notion that he is entitled to do anything he wants because he's president does not spring to mind. Given his position, he easily could have told Island Security to abduct her and bring her to his bed at the Presidential Villa, and he knows the world is full of leaders capable of doing so (and not a few young women who would consider it an honor). But Matías was never the womanizer, he was satisfied in the past with just María and now with just Angelina; the few occasions he slept with new girls at her brothel, it was less out of lust than curiosity, a shadow partner's dutiful curiosity. In most cases, one time was enough (the few second times served only to reexamine qualities he may have missed), after which he always reported his findings to Angelina as accurately as possible. No, lust is not his principal vice.

He undoes two more buttons to finally expose her breasts. Just the right size and shape. Small nipples and large areolas nicely set off from the surrounding skin. Springy to the touch of a finger. Améliana doesn't even twitch. Ever so slightly, her breasts rise and fall with her breathing, two sacred vessels gently resting on her chest. Her expression never changes. One by one he continues unbuttoning. She's not wearing underwear. During the ceremonies, she wouldn't have worn anything so Western under her robes.

The tender swell of her belly comes into view, and beneath that a tuft of pubic hair sprouting like reeds in rich soil. The last two buttons. Below her mons, her body divides into two firm thighs, ending in shapely shins and ankles. Fallen limply to either side, her dress no longer protects her. Can the white folds really abandon their duty so easily?

Her pubic hair is a tiny flame, burning with an intensity concentrated in that secret inner chamber, signaling that inside resides an energy just waiting to be coaxed into form.

He puts his hands between her knees and gently forces her legs apart, then reaches under her calves to spread them wider with only the least passive reflexes of the dormant body—not will or habit, but simply bone and muscle tissue reacting to external pressure.

She doesn't wake. The gods are not with her. She can put up no resistance.

Parted genitals: a complexity that at once forbids and invites. Who can really tell what's open or not? Yet whatever makes it through that doorway counts as intercourse. And in the warm dark interior of the womb, the child will grow for nine months until it's born. At which point, there's no question of with or without consent. His own mother obviously thought so. As did the father. The end result is everything.

She sleeps on. Her pubic hair is beautiful. Her thighs are spread, her genitals glisten. He takes off his clothes, then climbs onto the bed and settles in between her thighs. With his skin touching her legs, her breasts, her midriff—already he's getting a hard-on. Is it him or the gods wanting the deed done? Whichever, the cock is his and it's erect enough by now. His pudgy belly gets in the way of seeing any more than the very tip of his cock, but he knows what to do. He spreads her wide open, presses up close and shoves in.

It's no use. No lack of lubrication, but something isn't right. Can he do this completely without her cooperation? She's still fast asleep, no change in her crotch at all. He's the only one getting off here. Like Heinrich, he gets frenzied, driven to penetrate despite the discomfort. He rocks back and forth, but the tip slips out. No, this won't work. He's got to spread her thighs more … He rides up on top of her, struggling to thrust in on his own solitary power. He pushes her thighs wide, he can feel his tension mounting, he grabs at her ass to press harder and harder, and in the confusion, just when he thinks he's
there
all the way inside—an illusion … —he ejaculates.

Suddenly the room swarms with tiny butterflies, swirling about the two of them on the bed, diving at their sweat, choking all the air in the room. Matías looks up in alarm, unable to make out the walls; all he sees is a fluttering lilac storm. The girl and her butterflies, it's a wonder he didn't see any during the ceremonies. No matter, he's done, he's finished.

He pulls out. Suddenly all the butterflies have vanished. Did he actually see them? Now he's starting to doubt he even got his sperm all the way in, though the close, contained heat he felt was all too real. No, he remembers the spurt of release. Simultaneously, sitting on the edge of the bed in a haze, it comes back to him that his own mother was violated like this. His own act has now come full circle to something that has dogged him since puberty, the notion that he himself is the result of rape. How could he go and do the same thing?

His cock slowly shriveling, he gets up off the creaky bed. Améliana still doesn't move, her legs still splayed apart.
Look at your handiwork
, thinks Matías, reaching over to close them, the very least he can do to cover up his crime. How can she possibly sleep through all this? Should he button up her dress the way it was? That's when he sees it: the stain. A bright red spot on the white cotton fabric just under her behind. No, it can't be. Was it her period? She's bleeding all right. He wipes himself off—semen and fresh blood.

Didn't she say she had a son by her brothers and cousins? How the hell can she still have been a virgin? This is crazy. He gets a towel from the bathroom and wipes Améliana's thighs and genitals. But what to do about her stained dress? She can't help but notice when she eventually wakes up. She'll know.

Matías is starting to get scared, doubt creeping toward paranoia, the fear that he's being pushed about by forces he can't begin to comprehend. Was Améliana really a virgin? Then why would she have lied about bearing a child? No, maybe she wasn't lying. Those were words put in her mouth on that occasion, lines she recited. She's just a pawn in a much larger game. The mistake was seeing her until just now as innocent. She's not young and attractive; she's part of a huge plot, and this was her assigned role.

Now he's getting angry. Never in all his life has he been so manipulated. If he's up against an unseen enemy, then there's not a single move he can make without questioning. In any case, he can't stay here any longer. This is a crime scene.

He folds the girl's dress over her without bothering to do up the buttons, then runs. At least she's alive. She's just sleeping. He'll have to pretend he played no part in that ugly crime. He can't invite her to ride back with him in the presidential plane as he planned; he's got no time to lose waiting around for her to wake up. She'll need a hell of a lot more sleep anyway. Shielded by this logic, he bolts from the house. If he hurries, he'll get to the airfield just about in time for the plane. Will she catch her ship? What if she doesn't come back at all? Will she never show herself again at the Presidential Villa? If not, that's just how it goes. He can only wait and see—although he would like to clarify what happened within the next nine months.