The Lord of Opium

18

THE AFRICAN CHILD

The nursery, fortunately, had normal-size beds. Matt didn’t think he could stand a row of empty cribs. It was a brightly lit room with pictures of baby animals on the walls. Stuffed dolls, building blocks, and simple puzzles were strewn over the floor. Matt lay down. He really was tired, and depressed for so many reasons that he had trouble sorting them all out: the fight with María, Esperanza’s scorn, the child who had fled from him in the garden, the clone lab, and last of all, the fountain full of El Patrón’s embalmed memories.

He fell into a deep sleep and only stirred when he heard a strange noise: Bub-bub-bub-bub-bub. A sharp voice said, “You take that out of your mouth, Mbongeni.” Matt heard a scuffle and an outraged squawk. He was so tired he didn’t want to open his eyes, but the thought occurred to him that the room was littered with toys. Recently used toys.

He opened his eyes. Someone had raised bars around one of the beds, creating a cage. Inside sat a chubby black boy in diapers. He was too old for diapers, being at least six, and he was rocking back and forth. Bub-bub-bub-bub-bub, he said, blowing air through his lips. Outside the bars sat the little girl Matt had seen in the garden. The place where the bite had been was covered by a bandage.

“Do you want a bottle, Mbongeni?” asked the girl. “Nice, warm milk? Nummy-nummy-nums?”

Mbongeni smiled, and a line of drool fell from his lips. The girl got up and went to a small fridge. She removed a bottle and put it into a microwave for a few seconds. She was so tiny and businesslike that Matt was charmed. She had clearly not seen him yet.

The microwave chimed, and the girl expertly tested the temperature of the milk on her skinny wrist before handing it to the boy. “Muh! Muh!” he cried, cramming the nipple into his mouth and sucking lustily.

“That’s very good,” said Dr. Rivas. He was sitting on the far side of the bed, and the little girl watched him intently. “If you were bigger, I’d let you take Mbongeni for a crawl. I’m afraid you wouldn’t be able to stop him if he got into trouble.”

“I wish he could talk,” said the girl.

“He’ll always be a baby, but he doesn’t seem to mind.” The doctor looked up and saw Matt. “There’s someone I want you to meet—no seas timida. Don’t be shy, little one.”

“No,” moaned the girl, but Dr. Rivas picked her up and carried her to Matt’s bed.

“Mi patrón, this is Listen, a very bright girl.”

“I saw her in the garden,” said Matt. “She was crying because something had bitten her.” He held out his hand, but the girl flinched away.

The doctor grimaced. “That, I’m afraid, is an ongoing problem.”

“Someone should protect her.”

At this, Listen looked up and met Matt’s eyes for the first time.

“I want to be your friend,” the boy said, extending his hand again. She touched it briefly and retreated. “What kind of name is Listen?” he asked Dr. Rivas.

“African. It may sound odd, but all names have meanings in their original languages. Matteo means ‘gift of God,’ and Mirasol means ‘look at the sun.’ ”

“ ‘Look at the sun.’ Yes, that suits her,” said Matt, thinking of Waitress’s habit of following him around like a small planet. “Do you listen a lot?” he asked the little girl. She hung her head.

“She does. That’s why I’m glad we didn’t have to blunt her intelligence when she was harvested,” the doctor said.

Harvested, thought Matt. Listen had been grown inside a cow just as he had, and that meant she was a clone. Then the rest of Dr. Rivas’s statement sank in. “What do you mean, blunt?”

“All such infants are injected with a drug that destroys part of the frontal lobes—all, that is, except El Patrón’s clones. He wanted them to experience the kind of childhood he never had.”

“So that’s what’s wrong with Mbongeni,” said Matt, looking with horror and pity at the little boy who had finished the milk and was banging his head rhythmically with the bottle. He realized that the bite on Listen’s arm came from this poor, damaged child.

“Take his bottle, Listen,” said the doctor. The girl fled from Matt and leaned over Mbongeni’s cage. She yanked the bottle away from the boy and, before he could complain, popped a pacifier into his mouth.

“Isn’t it better that he live as a happy infant, unaware of the hatred people have for clones? When you speak of destroying tissue samples, by the way, he’s one of them,” said Dr. Rivas.

“He’s a child,” Matt said.

“Not according to the law. He exists for one purpose only, to prolong the life of his original.”

“I make the laws here,” said Matt, “and I say Mbongeni is a child.”

Dr. Rivas sighed and ran his fingers through thinning hair. “Would you like lunch in the garden, mi patrón? The eejits can set out a table under the grape arbor.”

“I want Listen and Mbongeni to come.”

“I’m afraid the boy would be frightened. Clones like that get very attached to routine and start screaming if anything is changed.” The doctor pressed a buzzer, and a pair of eejit women came into the nursery. One of them upended Mbongeni and changed his diaper. The boy howled with rage, but when he was laid back down, fresh and sweet-smelling, the other eejit began to play peek-a-boo with him. Mbongeni gurgled with delight, not tiring of the game. Eejits, of course, never tired of anything.

“They’ll do that until he falls asleep,” said Dr. Rivas.

* * *

Listen wasn’t eager to go with Matt, but Dr. Rivas explained that it was her duty. Matt was the new patrón, and they had to obey him. She seemed to accept this, although she folded her arms to keep from taking his hand. The doctor must have relayed a message, because the eejits had already put up a table under the arbor by the time they arrived. A fine spray of water cooled the air, and birds flew back and forth through the mist. A mockingbird sat at the top of the arbor and sang.

Lunch was a large pizza and a salad. Listen wriggled in anticipation as the doctor served Matt first, then himself, and last of all her. She inhaled the odor of hot cheese and pepperoni, but she didn’t eat until Dr. Rivas had given her permission.

“What do you like to do?” Matt asked her.

“Don’t know,” said Listen. She ate with surprising delicacy, or perhaps Matt was only used to Mirasol’s wholehearted gobbling.

“Do you like dolls or coloring books?” Matt tried to remember what he did at her age. “Do you watch TV?”

“Don’t know.”

“That’s very rude, Listen,” said Dr. Rivas. “Answer the patrón.”

“I like all of them,” the girl said sullenly.

“Did you ever see El Látigo Negro?” Matt said, naming his favorite show.

“I might have,” Listen said.

“I liked the battles El Látigo had with the Queen of Skulls. She was always playing dirty tricks on him.”

“She turned into a snake once and he picked it up, thinking it was his whip,” said Listen.

“I remember that! It bit him and he almost died.” Little by little Matt drew her out until she was almost relaxed, but she kept her distance.

For dessert they had watermelon. It was brought to them by Mirasol, who was followed by a chef in a long white apron. “I had to let her come,” he said apologetically. “She kept jittering, and I didn’t know what to do.”

“That’s all right,” said Dr. Rivas. Mirasol took up her post by Matt’s chair. She was in her waitress uniform again. “Listen, you may take slices of watermelon for yourself and Mbongeni, but pick out the seeds before you give him any.” The girl slid out of her chair and made a speedy exit.

The doctor turned toward Matt. “Aren’t you going to ask me who Mbongeni’s original is?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to allow the boy to be operated on,” Matt said.

“He’s Glass Eye Dabengwa’s clone.”

A vague feeling of dread came over Matt. He found it difficult to connect the happy child with the sinister adult, but someday—if Mbongeni survived—he would turn into an elephant-gray monster with yellow eyes. “Why is he here?”

“This hospital was the finest of its kind in the world. It was a safe place for the drug lords to raise their clones, and in those days El Patrón was Glass Eye’s ally. That was when he was still president of Nigeria. Now he’s retired. El Patrón’s great-great-grandson Benito married Dabengwa’s daughter.”

“Her name was Fani,” said Matt. “I remember she had to be drugged into doing it.”

“Drug lords marry for power, not love,” said Dr. Rivas. “Tissue samples for Mbongeni and Listen were sent here eight years ago. The original Listen was Glass Eye’s favorite wife, but the original died before our Listen was harvested.”

Matt flinched inside. He would never get used to the word harvested.

“Normally, such embryos are terminated, but Glass Eye wanted her spared. She was, legally, no longer a clone. She was human and would grow into an intelligent, beautiful woman. He wanted her raised to be his wife.”

“That’s disgusting!” said Matt, pushing his chair away from the table. “He’s horrible. He’s a sadist. He’s ninety-nine years old, and he never blinks.”

“Drug lords live a long time.” Dr. Rivas signaled to Mirasol, and she began gathering up plates. “When Glass Eye is a robust hundred and ten, Listen will be eighteen.”

“He’s not getting anywhere near her!” Matt could feel rage rising within him and desperately tried to force it down. But Dr. Rivas’s next statement took him by surprise.

“I agree, mi patrón. She’s too good for him. But consider this: As long as we have Listen and Mbongeni—especially Mbongeni—Glass Eye won’t dare to attack Opium. He needs the boy for spare parts.” The doctor smiled a friendly, all-encompassing smile. You could almost believe that he wouldn’t say boo to a baby, let alone harvest it. “They’re our insurance policy.”

And they were, Matt realized. They would give him breathing space to renovate the hospital, cure the eejits, and replace the opium with real crops. Later he could deal with the problem of Dabengwa, but for now he felt an enormous burden roll off his shoulders.

He noticed that Mirasol was dawdling over the leftover watermelon slices. “Eat,” he commanded, and she, with her usual speed, obeyed.