The Lord of Opium

39

MARÍA LEARNS THE TRUTH

Matt hung Chacho’s drawing next to the lady in the white dress. It was surprisingly good, considering that his friend had little art training. Chacho said he’d been sketching things for as long as he could remember. His grandfather had encouraged him, buying paper and paints, but when the old man died, all that had ended. Chacho was packed up with dozens of other unwanted children and shipped to the orphanage where Matt had first met him.

“Drawing wasn’t allowed there,” said the boy. “We worked all day and at night recited the crotting Five Principles of Good Citizenship and the Four Attitudes Leading to Right Mindedness.” Matt remembered noticing how clumsy Chacho’s hands had seemed, but Eusebio had the same hands. It showed that you couldn’t judge people by their outward appearance.

“The picture is really good,” Matt said. “Would you mind doing a painting of Mirasol? I’ll get you whatever you need.”

Chacho looked up and, for the first time in many days, smiled. “I could work at the guitar factory. It would give me something to do.”

After he left, Matt continued looking at the drawing of Mirasol and the painting (as he imagined) of María. Mirasol’s wasn’t as skillfully done, but it showed her bright beauty and her eyes gazing at something in the far distance. They weren’t dead as they’d been in life, but still remote. María was altogether more interesting. She smiled as though she had some prank in mind that could get you into trouble, but would be fun anyway. Matt was suddenly overcome by a desire to see her.

He hurried to the holoport room, chose the icon, and activated the screen. The sickness that had come over him when he first used it had gone away. The scanner had evidently adjusted itself to recognize his slightly different handprint, and Matt could now open parts of the border or communicate with people as often as he pleased.

“At last,” said a voice behind him. Matt turned to see Sor Artemesia standing in the doorway. “Please let me stay, Don Sombra. I’ve been so worried about María. She must be lonely with me gone and with you . . . neglecting her.”

“I haven’t been neglecting her,” said Matt, stung.

“María doesn’t know that. She thinks you’ve forgotten her.”

Matt was annoyed to have company, but he could hardly send Sor Artemesia away. She was the closest thing María had to a real mother. By now the portal had cleared, and they saw the peaceful convent room. A small woman in a nun’s habit was dozing in a chair.

“Sor Inez!” called Sor Artemesia. The woman jerked to attention.

“¡  Jesús y María! Please wait and I’ll get Esperanza,” she cried.

“Stop!” ordered Sor Artemesia. “You are to fetch María alone. Don’t bring her mother. Do you understand? Alone.”

“Esperanza will skin me alive,” said Sor Inez.

“She won’t if she doesn’t know. I have the Lord of Opium here, and you can’t imagine the pain he’ll cause if you don’t obey.” The little woman scurried off.

“I couldn’t possibly hurt anybody from here,” said Matt.

“I have found,” said Sor Artemesia, “that if you give an order forcefully enough, people will obey it without thinking too much.” María appeared almost immediately, so she must have been waiting nearby. Matt wondered for how long.

“Sor Artemesia!” she cried. “Please come back, or make Mother send me to you. I’m so lonely”—and then she noticed Matt. “Mi vida, why didn’t you answer my calls? It’s been weeks. Have you left me for Mirasol?” Tears began to roll down her cheeks.

Matt felt terrible. He’d been so wrapped up in grief that he hadn’t considered the effect of his silence on María. “Mirasol is dead,” he said. His throat closed up, and he couldn’t speak for a moment.

“How—” began María.

“She was an eejit. They don’t live long,” said Sor Artemesia.

And then María drew the kind of conclusion that was so typical of her and that made Matt love her. “You were trying to save her,” she said. “I understand now. You were trying to save her, and she died anyway. How awful it must have been for you!”

The generosity of this conclusion made tears come to Matt’s eyes too. He blinked, remembering Mirasol dancing and then falling limp into his arms. It hadn’t been as high-minded as María thought. “I want you to come here,” he said.

“I’m trying. I keep arguing with Mother, but she’s like a brick wall. She’s—oh, this is terrible—she’s trying to arrange a marriage for me.”

“You’re too young,” said Sor Artemesia.

“I know. It won’t be an actual marriage, more like a betrothal. Honestly!” María stamped her foot and looked, for an instant, like Esperanza in a snit. “You’d think it was the fifteenth century, with girls being given away like favors to slimy old men. It’s one of Mother’s friends on a human rights board. He’s not really old. Thirty-five or so, but he’s hopeless. He wants me to help him do good works, distribute pamphlets on dental hygiene or getting immunized against AIDS.”

Sor Artemesia stifled a snort of laughter. “Mija, isn’t that what you’ve always wanted? To emulate Saint Francis?”

María looked daggers at the nun. “Of course, but not with him. I haven’t got anybody on my side here. Please call Emilia or Dada. Maybe they can back me up.”

Both Matt and Sor Artemesia flinched. They knew the story of El Patrón’s funeral had been kept secret to protect Matt’s fragile hold on the Alacrán empire. “What should I do?” the nun mouthed silently.

Matt thought rapidly. Sooner or later the news had to come out. He was a lot more confident of his power than he had been months ago. “I’m going to tell you something that you absolutely have to keep secret,” he said, without much hope that María would.

“Aren’t Emilia and Dada there?” she said uncertainly.

“Listen to me. It’s extremely important. This involves my safety and Sor Artemesia’s, too. You must promise to say nothing to anyone, including your mother.”

“She should have told you long ago,” put in Sor Artemesia.

“Of course I’ll promise. Is Dada in prison?” said María, with a keener sense of her father’s activities than Matt thought she possessed.

“He’s—he passed away,” said Matt. “So did Emilia.” How was he going to tell her the circumstances of how it happened?

Sor Artemesia came to his rescue. In a careful, restrained tone she described El Patrón’s funeral and the old man’s final revenge on anyone who dared to outlive him. “It was quick. They didn’t suffer,” the nun said.

María looked stunned. “How long has Mother known?”

“Since the first time I saw you through the holoport,” Matt said.

“She lied to me. She let me write letters to them for months. She gave me their answers. She wrote them herself.” María was crying now, but she was also angry. “She wanted to betroth me to that mealy-mouthed creep. She said Dada was in favor of it. She lied!”

“We’re on your side,” said Matt. “I’ll tell Esperanza that I won’t cooperate with her unless she sends you here.”

“She’ll find a way around it. She always does.” María paced around the room, smacking a fist into her palm. Sor Inez came in and signaled wildly. Esperanza was on her way. “Mother’s going on a fact-finding mission to Russia next week,” María said quickly. “Contact me at the other holoport in Paradise on Tuesday afternoon. I’ll have a plan then.” She snapped off the connection before Esperanza could come in and discover what she was doing.

Sor Artemesia sat down as mist filled the screen and the Convent of Santa Clara disappeared. She was trembling. “I hate dealing with people like Esperanza,” she admitted. “What I wouldn’t give for a cottage in a quiet valley where all I had to do was garden.”

“Me too,” said Matt. “I wouldn’t grow opium there either.”

Sor Artemesia smiled weakly. “I noticed that the altar cloth I embroidered wasn’t fastened to the wall at the convent. I wonder what happened to it.”

“María sent it to me.” Matt didn’t say that it was under his pillow or that he felt for it in the middle of the night when he had trouble sleeping.

* * *

The following Monday Matt went to the guitar factory to see how Chacho was getting along with the supplies he’d sent him. Boxes of watercolors, oil paints, and pastel crayons had arrived, along with brushes and various kinds of paper. To his surprise he saw Chacho working on an entire outside wall. It was a mural of people dancing, to go by the sketch done in charcoal on the whitewashed surface. Fidelito, Listen, and Ton-Ton were watching, while Mr. Ortega strummed a guitar.

“H-he’s really fast,” said Ton-Ton. “Started this morning and now, uh, look.” It was indeed impressive. At one end were flamenco dancers, and at the other were more modern figures doing whatever modern dancers did. In the middle was an orchestra led by a man who was unmistakably Eusebio Orozco. In one corner, high up as though she were floating, was Mirasol, doing the Trick-Track with an invisible partner.

Chacho had a stepladder and was working near the top of the wall to draw birds circling over the musicians. “This is the easy part,” he called down to Matt. “Doing the actual painting is hard.”

Matt sat down next to Mr. Ortega, who continued to play. “Chacho’s a natural,” the man said. “One of his ancestors was José Clemente Orozco, the best artist Mexico ever turned out. It runs in the family. Eusebio is a good artist too, but he’s better at music.”

Matt watched in amazement as Chacho dragged the ladder from one end of the mural to the other to add things that had just occurred to him. “What would he be like with training?” he said, turning so Mr. Ortega could read his lips.

“Something wonderful,” the man said, his fingers moving over the strings of the guitar. “The original Orozco was mad about painting murals even though he had a weak heart and had lost one hand and an eye at an early age. He had to stop and rest before he could climb a ladder. People like that are driven.”

“We absolutely have to find Chacho a teacher,” said Matt, thinking that Ton-Ton needed one as well. They had so much talent! And to think that all the Keepers thought they were good for was making ratty sandals out of plastic.

He saw Listen lurking behind Ton-Ton. “I know you’re there, so don’t pretend you’re not,” he said.

“I don’t see you and you don’t see me,” she said.

“That doesn’t make any sense, chiquita.” He sat down on the ground next to her.

“Yes, it does. You put me into the freezer and I’m staying here.” Listen scooted to the other side of Ton-Ton, who put out a lazy hand and hauled her back.

“L-life is too short for stupid arguments,” the big boy said.

“What are you talking about, Listen? I didn’t put you into a freezer,” Matt said.

She hugged herself and leaned over so she wouldn’t have to look at him. “Yes, you did. That’s what Dr. Rivas calls ‘ignoring people.’ You don’t talk to them, you don’t see them. It’s like being a bug on the bottom of a shoe. Dr. Rivas used to put me into the freezer when I was bad. He wouldn’t let me play with Mbongeni or anything until I said I was sorry.”

Another reason to dislike Dr. Rivas, thought Matt. “This time I’m apologizing. I was so upset by Mirasol’s death that I couldn’t think of anything else. I think I ignored everyone for a while.”

Listen uncurled herself and put out her hand. He took it. “That’s okay. I was bad and deserved to be punished,” she said. “Do you know what I did to make up for it? I told Chacho about Mirasol’s dancing, and he put her up there on the wall. It looks like she’s flying with the birds.”

They sat for a while, watching Chacho speed from one part of the wall to another until he was satisfied with his sketch. “I’ll think about the colors next,” he said. “I don’t know much about mixing oil paints, so it’s going to take a while. I have to figure out how to protect the picture from sunlight or rain. Oh, crap! It better not rain.” Chacho looked unhappily at a thundercloud rising over the distant mountains.

“I’ll have a plastic sheet hung from the roof,” Matt assured him. He’d never seen the boy so animated. Chacho, as Listen would have put it, was flying with the birds. “Come and have lunch at the hacienda,” Matt said. “You need to rest.” Mr. Ortega put down his guitar and led the young artist away.

“I’m going to Paradise tomorrow,” Matt told Listen. “Would you like to come?”

“You bet! Can Fidelito come too? I told him he could fly a stirabout and see the Scorpion Star up close.”

“You’re not running around on your own,” Matt said, thinking that not long ago he could have told Mirasol to watch them. Depression settled on him like a fine dust.

In the end he took Cienfuegos, Listen, Fidelito, Sor Artemesia, and the Mushroom Master. The last was the jefe’s idea. “The old fellow has done so much for us. Sooner or later he’ll have to return to his cramped life in the biosphere, and I want him to have happy memories.”

“Are you sure that going up into the sky will give him a happy memory?” Matt asked.

“He can bring his umbrella,” said Cienfuegos.