The Lord of Opium

37

THE FUNERAL

Matt did not know how much time had passed. He sat unmoving as the small sounds of a hospital went on around him. Air-conditioning clicked on and off. A blood pressure cuff inflated and deflated on Mirasol’s wrist. A heart monitor searched for a beat, found none, and searched again. Matt was no stranger to death. It had surrounded him all his life. He had seen El Viejo, El Patrón’s grandson, lying in his coffin. He had seen the eejit in the field as a small child. And what he did not see, he was well aware of.

Except for Tam Lin, it had been remote from him. Matt didn’t really know most of those people. But Mirasol, dulled and silent though she was, had been a living presence. Her eyes followed him as the sunflower, her namesake, turned its face to the sun. Now something had departed, and he did not know what it was.

Dr. Rivas came into the room. He was no longer dressed for surgery, but had reverted to a white lab coat. “I’m sorry, mi patrón,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “She was a pretty thing and quite bright for an eejit. I imagine you’d like us to take care of the disposal.”

“The what?” asked Matt, coming out of his trance.

“We have procedures to deal with this situation. Cienfuegos does it all the time. It isn’t healthy for you to grieve for someone who wasn’t really there.”

“Just as you never grieved for your eejit son,” Matt said.

Dr. Rivas winced. “I deserved that. But you see, I knew my son before. I have memories.”

“And I have memories of Mirasol.” Matt turned back to the motionless figure on the bed.

The doctor fussed with the equipment, detaching the blood pressure cuff and switching off the heart monitor. “I don’t know whether you have any religious preferences,” he said. “El Patrón was a Catholic, or at least he liked the ceremonies. I could have Sor Artemesia say a prayer over Mirasol.”

Matt thought of Listen’s quotes from the doctor: Religious holidays are crap. God doesn’t exist. Mbongeni is a happy baby. The rabbits are dee-diddly-dead. “Please go. And send me Sor Artemesia.”

The nun was as respectful as anyone could wish. She said a rosary over Mirasol and prayed silently. “I don’t think I can give her absolution,” she said hesitantly.

“What’s absolution?” said Matt.

“When someone is dying, Catholics give them the last rites. The person confesses his sins and is forgiven so that he can enter heaven. Mirasol couldn’t have confessed to anything. What sins could she have committed in her state?”

“What happens with dying infants and people in comas?”

“You’re right, mi patrón. These emergencies do come up, but the rite must be done while the person is alive. Mirasol is dead. It’s too late.” Sor Artemesia tried to pull the sheet over Mirasol’s face, but Matt prevented her.

“Not yet,” he said. “I say she’s still alive.”

“But the doctor—”

“Are you going to believe someone whose lifework is turning people into eejits? I am the Lord of Opium, and I say she’s alive.”

“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I don’t even know whether Mirasol has been baptized,” the nun said nervously.

“Then do it now.”

Sor Artemesia looked from Mirasol to Matt and back again. “I’m so confused. Perhaps eejits do die in a different way. Perhaps life fades slowly and it would be all right. . . . ”

Matt knew she was trying to convince herself. “Saint Francis would forgive you,” he said. “He forgave Brother Wolf, after all.”

Sor Artemesia left and returned with water, olive oil, and flowers. She poured water over the girl’s forehead and made the sign of the cross over her. “I’m doing a conditional baptism,” she explained. “If Mirasol has already been taken into the church, this one won’t count.”

When the nun was finished, she anointed the girl’s forehead with oil and spoke in a language Matt had never heard before. He didn’t interrupt her, for the ceremony had a quality that moved him deeply. At last she said, “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.” She placed the flowers in Mirasol’s hands.

“What language is that?” Matt asked.

“Latin. It was used by priests for many hundreds of years. The church prefers modern languages now, but I’ve always thought that God pays more attention to Latin.”

They stood silently for a few moments, and then Cienfuegos came to the door. “Dr. Rivas said you needed me to dispose of Mirasol.”

“Dr. Rivas can go to hell,” said Matt. “We’re taking her back to Ajo. She will be buried in the Alacrán mausoleum.”

A flicker in the jefe’s eyes showed how startled he was, but he didn’t argue. “Very well, mi patrón. I’ll get the hovercraft.”

* * *

Matt found Listen curled up in Mbongeni’s crib. “Come on. We’re leaving,” he said.

“I won’t,” she cried, clinging to the little boy. “Mbongeni needs me.”

“He’ll forget you the minute you’re out of the room.” Matt roughly pulled her arms away from the boy and dragged her out of the crib. She scratched and kicked him. “Stop that! Mirasol is dead, and we’re taking her body to Ajo.”

Listen stopped struggling. “Did I kill her?” she wailed. “I didn’t mean to.”

Mbongeni began wailing too. “Lissen . . . Lissen . . . muh muh muh muh muh.”

“He’s learned to say my name! He won’t forget me! Please, please, please let me stay!”

Matt didn’t bother to argue. He dragged Listen after him, and the cries of “Lissen . . . Lissen . . . muh muh muh muh muh” died away in the distance. Cienfuegos had the hovercraft at the hospital door. Mirasol’s body, wrapped in a white sheet, lay on the floor. Sor Artemesia had put more flowers on the shroud, and she sat by a window saying her beads.

Listen shrank away from the body. “She’s not dead. I don’t believe it. She’s not a rabbit.”

“Don’t be afraid of death, child,” Sor Artemesia said, beckoning to her. “It is when the soul is released to find its true home. Mirasol is not here. She is in heaven and far happier than she ever was on earth. She’s with her father now.” The nun put aside her rosary and took the child into her arms. “Here. We’ll look at trees as we fly.”

The hovercraft took off. Cienfuegos went around the Chiricahua Mountains by a southerly route, passing the ruins of a town called Douglas. A great battle must have been fought there, because the ground was scorched black and hardly a trace of buildings was left. Matt saw an ancient road going west, with the remains of cars scattered at the side.

They passed over the ruins of Nogales and crossed a valley filled with deserted farms. “This would be a good place to plant new crops,” said Cienfuegos. “The water table has risen and the soil is good.”

Matt listened without interest.

“That’s Kitt Peak,” the jefe said, skirting the highest mountain. At the top were two observatories, smaller versions of the ones in the Sky Village. “This is one of the first places El Patrón captured, and it gave him the idea for the Scorpion Star.” But nothing could rouse Matt. He was numb. Colors, sounds, and voices withdrew to a gray background in his mind. He couldn’t even think of Mirasol.

They landed at Ajo, and eejits carried Mirasol’s body, completely shrouded, to the large veranda in front of the hacienda. They laid her on a couch. Matt sat down next to her. A peacock wandered onto the veranda and gave a harsh cry.

Celia, Daft Donald, Mr. Ortega, and the boys came out, and Sor Artemesia cautioned them to keep their distance. She herself went up to Matt and said, “Mi patrón, please let me help. I think you have never arranged a funeral before.”

Matt looked up. “I don’t know what to do,” he said, dazed. “I don’t want her to be disposed of as though she were an animal.” He looked through the wide portico of the veranda to the distant fields. There were thousands and thousands of bodies out there. Cienfuegos had told him once that he had flown over the sand dunes of Yuma on a full moon night. By day you couldn’t see it, but by night the bones of Illegals showed up like a ghostly army sleeping on the earth.

“We need a coffin,” Sor Artemesia said. “A beautiful one. Perhaps one of the eejit carpenters could make it. The children’s choir could sing, and I will say the appropriate words. A priest would be better, but unfortunately we don’t have one.”

“El Patrón had a collection of Egyptian mummy cases,” said Matt. “Some of them are very beautiful.”

That very evening a procession of eejits dressed in white robes and adorned with flowers carried the coffin of an Egyptian queen. It had been buried thousands of years before in the hot sands of the North African desert. The queen’s likeness was carved on the lid. She wore a crown of gold and lapis lazuli. Her body was sheathed in white linen, and her arms were covered with carnelian bracelets. In her hand was a sacred blue lotus.

They came to the Alacrán mausoleum, a building as large as a house and covered with so many plaster cherubs it looked like a flock of chickens. Behind them came bodyguards carrying torches. Celia and the other servants, the boys, and Listen came next. Last of all walked the eejit children. They hummed the theme from Pavane for a Dead Princess, and the old choirmaster walked at their side to be sure they did it right.

Matt and Sor Artemesia met them at the mausoleum. On either side of the glass doors were what looked like chests of drawers. The name of a departed Alacrán was inscribed on each long drawer, but there were several that hadn’t been used yet. One was pulled out, and here the eejits deposited Mirasol’s body in the Egyptian queen’s coffin. Sor Artemesia performed the funeral ceremony, and two burly bodyguards slid the drawer closed.

They went outside. The sky was clear after rain, and the stars shone brilliantly. One of them fell, a bright streak across the blackness, and Celia turned to Listen and said, “Look, chiquita. That’s a prayer being answered by God. One of the angels is flying down to carry out His orders.”