The Orchids (12 page)

“He has a slight fever, I'm afraid.”

“Fever, yes,” Father Martínez says. “It's going around the whole province.” He takes his shovel hat and places it on his lap. There is only a hint of gray in his hair, for he is not an old man, though he would like to be one. For him, the idea of the aging, kindly priest serves as the perfect symbol of holiness. He wishes to age into saintliness, to grow ancient in the jungle, so that his long years of selflessness and humility might be noticed by his papal superiors.

“You are well, Father?” I ask.

“Me? Yes, of course.”

“I'm glad to hear it.”

“Of course, the fever is rampant in the village. We've even had some problems with hallucinations. The fever causes them, I suppose.”

“Nothing that can't be handled, I hope.”

Father Martínez shakes his head. “No, nothing we can't handle. A few women claimed they saw curious visions. Devils, that sort of thing. But nothing serious, Don Pedro.”

“Would you like some refreshment, Father?”

“No, thank you, Don Pedro. I don't have long to stay.” He watches me again, the silence lengthening. “Actually, I've come on a mission of sorts,” he says after a moment.

“A mission?”

“Yes,” Father Martínez says. “And a successful one, I hope.”

“What sort of mission, Father?”

He looks at me worriedly. “Well, it has to do with the orphanage, Don Pedro.”

“I see.”

“You know, the one in the village,” Father Martínez explains unnecessarily. He smiles. “You've seen it. Your generous gifts helped to build it, if you recall.”

“Is something wrong?”

“I'm afraid so, Don Pedro,” Father Martínez says sadly. “And, as always, it has to do with money. The fact is, we've run out of money to buy medicine.”

“I understand,” I tell him. He comes to me often with his requests, believing that I cannot turn him down because my life is steeped in crime. And so I must give in a spirit of atonement, must give money like a palmer's withered leaves.

“The situation has become quite serious, Don Pedro,” Father Martínez adds.

“I'm sorry to hear it.”

“I knew you would be.”

“How much do you need, Father?”

Father Martínez almost flinches at the directness of my question. For people to offer so readily diminishes the laboriousness of his labor, and therefore the glory of his martyrdom.

“Well …” he stammers, “the exact figure. I don't know.”

“An approximation, then.”

He gives me a paltry estimate. He could ask for many times more, but that would make his periodic trips unnecessary. Although he wants the money I can give him, he wants my confession more, and he believes that ultimately, on one of his little sorties against the obstinacy of my soul, I will break down and give it to him.

I offer three times the figure he has named. “I hope this will keep you in medicine for quite some time, Father,” I tell him.

Father Martínez's eyes widen. “So much, Don Pedro! So generous! Please, I could not accept such a large amount.”

“I am an old man, Father, what do I need it for?”

Father Martínez looks at me sorrowfully. If I should die, he would be denied the only really noteworthy conversion in El Caliz. “Really, it is too much, Don Pedro.”

“Take it with my blessing, Father.”

“With great thanks, Don Pedro,” Father Martínez says finally, and with great disappointment.

“I hope it will be of help, Father.”

“Much help, thank you, Don Pedro.”

“Good.”

Father Martínez does not move. He looks as if something has been skillfully stolen from him.

“Is there something else you wanted, Father?”

Father Martínez looks at me. His hands move nervously in his lap, like fish flopping about. “Don Pedro,” he begins cautiously, “I wonder if you would ever consider coming to the parish church?”

I feel something unspeakably cold skating in my blood. “For what purpose, Father?”

Father Martínez blinks rapidly. “Purpose, Don Pedro?”

“For what purpose should I come?”

“Well, I … for your own …”

“What?”

“Betterment, Don Pedro.”

“It is a long trip for an old man, Father,” I tell him. For years they have swarmed over the bloated carcass of the Republic in their black soutanes and dusty hats. I have seen them come and go, come and go. And some have done much goodness while they watched the jungle roll in its immemorial butchery. But all have died within the immense, consuming fog of their faith's mystification.

“The journey to the village is not so bad, Don Pedro,” Father Martínez says lightly. “I make it quite often, as you must know.”

“You are not old, Father.”

Father Martínez looks at me as if I have insulted him. “True,” he says, reluctantly giving in to the distance between himself and the grace of age. He takes a deep breath. “Well, it was only a suggestion.”

“One that I appreciate, Father,” I tell him.

Father Martínez's face brightens: “I'm told that you are a friend of the Archbishop.”

“You are misinformed, I'm afraid.”

Father Martínez's smile collapses. “Really? Misinformed? I'm sorry. I had heard that you and His Eminence were quite close.”

“Nothing to be sorry about, Father,” I tell him. “There are many false stories about me in El Caliz.”

Father Martínez watches me curiously, trying to determine which of the many stories he must have heard about me are true. “Well,” he says, “since you are the only European in El Caliz, I suppose that …”

“Yes. That must explain the stories, Father.”

Father Martínez smiles weakly. “I'm sure it does, Don Pedro.”

“I'll send Juan with my offering tomorrow, Father,” I tell him.

“The children will be most grateful, Don Pedro,” Father Martínez says. “Perhaps we could give you something as an act of appreciation.”

“That is unnecessary, Father.”

“But only as a gesture, Don Pedro.”

“Let them run and play, Father. Let them be healthy. That will be their gift to me.”

“But perhaps I could have them make something for you,” Father Martínez insists.

If they made something for me, then he would be required to bring it to me. This is what he wants. “No, Father,” I tell him firmly, “I will not accept any gifts from the children.”

“Then from me, Don Pedro?”

“No.”

He looks at me as if I have slipped a blade between his ribs. “As you wish, Don Pedro,” he says softly, lowering his eyes. He is a master of the aggrieved gesture.

“If you require anything else, Father, please let me know.”

Father Martínez raises his eyes. “Thank you, Don Pedro.” He pauses, watching me. “And if you ever require anything from me — any of my services — I hope that you will also let me know.”

I smile. “I will, Father.”

Father Martínez glances at the ridges in the distance. “The sun will be setting soon.”

“Yes.”

“I'd better get back to the village before dark.”

“I understand.”

Father Martínez rises from his chair. “The night is comforting, don't you think?”

“No.”

Father Martínez looks at me with a mildly fearful expression, as if I were some relic from a torture chamber. “But at least there's sleep,” he says.

I rise and offer my hand. “Let me know if I can be of any assistance to you, Father. As you can see, I have much to share.”

“Thank you, Don Pedro,” Father Martínez says. He turns toward the stairs.

“I hope you have a safe journey,” I tell him.

Father Martínez glances over his shoulder quickly, as if a threat is hidden in my remark. “Safe? Oh, yes. Well, I'm sure I'll be fine.”

“Good evening, Father.”

“Good evening, Don Pedro.”

He makes his way down the stairs, stooping slightly over his cane, assuming the bent attitude of the holy old man. At the bottom of the stairs he turns toward me. “Thank you so very much, Don Pedro,” he says.

“De nada.”

He offers me a telling look that he hopes will somehow sear my soul, somehow raise it to life again.

“It will be evening soon, Father,” I tell him. “Your children are waiting for you.”

The pointed look recoils into his face and something like muted resentment takes its place. “Yes, I must go,” he says. “Give my best to Dr. Ludtz.”

“I will, Father.”

He turns quickly and walks away, a small wind slightly lifting the hem of his skirt.

There was a time when I was tempted to make my way down to the little mud cathedral over which Father Martínez now presides. I was tempted, so very tempted, to lay prone before the altar, my arms outstretched in an attitude of crucifixion. There was a time when it would have been so very easy to split myself open and bathe my soul in the healing light of faith. But what would have come from so self-serving a conversation? Only the acceptance of an illusion that went no farther than myself, that animated nothing, bestowed nothing, taught nothing but the endless repetition of itself. I would have become no more than the vessel of a catechismal chant, a disembodied voice calling some great, imagined tongue down to lick my wounds. But I have come to know that mine are not the wounds that matter, and that even if they were, they are long past mending by priestly ministration delivered in a sacerdotal haze. For in the acceptance of that delusional comfort I would find my soul's repose, and in such repose the seed of yet another crime.

A
T THE END
of day here in the Republic, the sun drops slowly through a cloud of heat like a ruby through a tube of oil. Across the river, the wind begins its ghost waltz with the trees, pressing against them like a proud but subtle lover. There is never snow here, except, they say, in the northern provinces, where it comes only at the most telling moment, when lovers part or old men die by the window. At such times, it is said to come in huge flakes, drifting as languorously as goose down and remaining, unmeltable, until the symbol has run its course. But in El Caliz, heat is the only metaphor we have.

Juan passes below me, stooped, weary. For him, all metaphorical embellishment is reduced to the thick, dark humus of his impregnable superstitiousness. He lives utterly without benefit of subtlety, responding only to gods and demons who are wholly visible to him. They drown the fields, bake the stream beds, humiliate the orchids. They dispense blessings or maliciously withhold them. Walking through the jungle toward his home, Juan seems to merge with the engulfing brush, a perfect natural man, Rousseau's boyish dream, a simple, humble peasant who could only be accused of crime in some distant, dreamed-of world where men are expected to despise all manner of delusion.

In the Special Section, they taught us to sink all of our petty, personal illusions in the smudgy, boiling cauldron of a great one.

“Allow me to extend my personal congratulations,” Dr. Trottman said. He smiled heartily. “A very distinguished record, Herr Langhof. But wait. I suppose I must address you as Dr. Langhof from now on.”

The distinguished graduate allowed himself a moment of harmless banter. “That would be appropriate, I think,” he said with mock haughtiness.

Dr. Trottman seized Langhof's hand and shook it vigorously. “You will bring great credit to yourself, Doctor,” he said, his speech still retaining the arch formality of the professorial classes.

“That is my hope, Dr. Trottman,” our hero said.

And so Peter Langhof became a doctor. Langhof, the little boy who watched impassively as the blood trickled from his father's temple, who could not stand his mother's strudel, who spoke harshly to the butcher who later became his stepfather. Langhof, who found Anna and then lost her, who stood in the park and felt the first blessing of the stars, who wished to clean himself in the study of hygiene, who loved science and distinguished himself in gymnasium, university, and medical school. Our hero Langhof, who came to manhood in the Special Section, who was given an appointment at the Institute of Hygiene and then later reassigned to a place he calls the Camp. He, the catastrophic I, who later escaped as the cannons neared, who found his way to Switzerland and then to the southern provinces of the Republic by way of boat and burro and a battered little box of diamonds. He, Langhof, our beneficent Don Pedro, who sits white-haired in the sunset of El Caliz and who speaks with admirable detachment of the unspeakable.

He, Langhof, I, who on a certain day at his new job in the Institute of Hygiene found something curious as he stared at the medical journal on his desk.

“Dietrich,” he said, looking up from the open book, “come here for a moment. I want you to look at this.”

The lab assistant stepped over.

Langhof pointed to a line he had underscored. “Read that.”

Dietrich read the line aloud. “The livers of eighty women who had died suddenly were extracted and examined within ten minutes of their deaths. Findings may be somewhat impugned, since items were in a state of intense excitement at the moment of their deaths.”

Langhof watched Dietrich's eyes. “What do you make of this?” he asked.

Dietrich looked at Langhof emptily. “What do you mean, Dr. Langhof?”

“My dear Dietrich, how do eighty women die suddenly?”

Dietrich shrugged. “How do I know? We are at war. People die suddenly. Lots of people.”

“Yes. But eighty women?”

“It could happen.”

“All right,” Langhof said, “perhaps it could. But how is it that their livers were extracted within such a short time after their deaths?”

Dietrich shook his head. “I don't know.”

“Think, Dietrich. One can hardly imagine eighty women dying suddenly in a state of intense excitement directly outside the doors of a medical laboratory.”