The hot chai burned my lips. I drank anyway. "How," I said, "do you propose to stop this war?"
"We"ve got a plan." He held up a hand. "Forgive me if I do not tell you all my secrets on first acquaintance. But if you"re willing, we"d like you to do the honors."
"I"m sorry?"
Victor leaned into the light, his racc.o.o.n eyes puffing many shades of purple. He snuffled on blood, swallowed.
"Pitt had you kidnapped," he said, "because he thought you"d want to be here."
"You keep saying that, but all I see are a bunch of self-righteous volunteers in orange-and-red sheets."
"Here you can find the redemption that you seek."
I lifted one side of the chess table. The teapot and chessboard crashed to the floor. "No redemption here," I said. "h.e.l.lo-o?" I hollered. "Redemption? Woof-woof? Doggy treat, big boy?"
"Stop the American evil." Victor"s voice was sharp now. "Send it back where it belongs. Turn the tide on the forces of imperialism, be part of something great. The greatest thing to ever happen to mankind."
I frowned. "That"s not a war you can win. That"s why I left the States in the first place."
"You cannot escape them," he said quietly. "Their monstrous reach extends to every corner of the globe."
"Tempting," I said. "Find brick wall. Apply forehead. Tally ho!"
He took a picture from his pocket and held it out to me. A pretty blonde woman, mid-thirties, and a girl, obviously her daughter, aged twelve or so.
"See this?"
"Your favorite wh.o.r.es?"
I didn"t see the hand coming. My cheek burned. I blinked a couple of times. I thought about slugging him back, but decided I deserved the slap. "Not prost.i.tutes then," I said.
"They are my family, Horace," Victor said. His face was intense. "The Americans killed them."
"Bullet, blade or bomb?" I asked.
His hand shook. He put the picture back into his shirt pocket. He said, "Blade. A not very sharp one, either."
"Oh," I said. It leaked out against my will. "I"m sorry."
"First the CIA tortured them. With a rusty steak knife. In front of me. These very eyes, Horace." He chewed his lip. A trickle of blood ran down his chin. "Then the Americans raped them. And when I still refused to talk, they hung them from the ceiling by their toes and set them both on fire." He rubbed an eye. "The screams...they made me watch."
A bubble of silence surrounded us. I spoke first.
"Why would they do something like that? Are you a dissident?"
His fingers threaded together and apart. "I made a great discovery, Horace." He lifted his chin. "I am a geologist. I found a way to harness the Earth"s energy. For peaceful purposes. But they wanted me to make a terrible weapon. That uses the Earth"s own power for destruction. I refused."
"So how come you"re still alive?"
He tapped his temple. "Because of what"s in here. They kill me, they will never know the secret."
"What"s the weapon?"
He shook his head sadly. "That will go with me to the grave."
"And now you want your revenge, is that it?"
He sat back, examined his fingernails. "I have pa.s.sed beyond the revenge chakra, my friend. Gaia shall exact true justice on our oppressors. I seek only peace in what little time remains to me."
I chuckled. "With a little help from a brigade of activist monks armed to the teeth, is that it?"
"You like what you see here?" Victor asked.
"You mean living in a cave?" I said. "Not really, no."
"Horace." His eyebrows narrowed. "We do, actually. We ask only to be left alone. And a war would destroy this. All of it."
"But we"re on the Peruvian side of the lake," I objected.
"You think that"s going to make a difference when the shooting war starts?"
"Look," I said. I drank my tea. It burned its way into my belly. "Everybody"s got to die. Nothing I can do about it."
"Just one man, Horace." Victor sat back, his face now in darkness. "One man can save the world. One man can destroy it. Which man are you?"
"Funny. Ambo told me the same thing. Although according to him the world can"t be saved."
"He was half-right," Victor said with a smile. "It only takes one man. You"re more powerful than you realize."
"You"re both wrong," I said. "h.e.l.l, I can"t even save myself. How am I supposed to save the world?"
"It is by saving the world that you save yourself. The work is the cure."
I sneezed. "Bulls.h.i.t."
Victor"s head bowed, the crown of his head in the light. "I"m sorry you feel that way."
Guilt tugged at my soul, buried itself like a frightened chipmunk in my astral carry-on baggage. What"s an extra gram, I thought, when you"re carrying multiple metric tons.
"It"s none of my concern." I drained my chai, let the empty cup crash to the floor at my feet. "They want to kill each other? I say, let them."
SIXTEEN.
The dinner hour.
Cauldrons bubbled over wood fires on the smooth pebbles high on the beach. Victor brought me here, put a bowl in my hands, then excused himself. I stood in line, a single file of silent monks. A cold wind blew. I shivered. The monks were dressed in less than I was, but either did not feel the cold, or pretended not to.
I shuffled forward, my boots hissing against the small stones. My body was in agony from lack of my usual medications. Food might help me think more clearly. I had agreed to wait until tomorrow to see if Pitt would show up. Not that I had much choice in the matter. Where was I going to go?
I tapped the monk ahead of me in line. Asked, "You guys been here long?"
He looked over his shoulder, wagged his finger at me, put it to his lips.
"What, no talkie-talkie? Moron."
My turn came at the canteen. A fat monk spooned rice into my bowl. His face shone with sweat. It trickled down his chin, dripped into the pot beneath him. He scooped some broth over my rice. I looked up, expecting more.
"That all?"
But his frantic waving told me to move along, that he too could or would say nothing.
The monks scattered across the beach. They sat along the sh.o.r.e, watching the moon hover over Isla del Sol.
"Hey! Everyone!" I shouted. I waved my arms to get their attention. Thirty or so shaved heads regarded me in silence. "I"m looking for my friend Pitt! Any of you seen him? No? No one? Anyone?"
They shook their heads in unison, brought their fingers to their lips. "G.o.dd.a.m.n deluded idiots," I said, and plopped myself down in the sand.
No chopsticks, no spoon. As I puzzled over the best way to eat my meager meal, a monk sat in the sand a few feet away. Blue denim peeked out at his ankles. So that was how they kept warm.
The broth scalded my tongue. I scooped up a wad of rice, burning my fingertips, juggled it against my molars, relishing the pain. The monk at my side stopped eating. He watched the food travel from bowl to mouth.
"Have you seen Pitt?" I asked, breathing steam.
Pitt? He mouthed the word, then said it out loud. "Pitt?"
"You talk?"
"Shh!" He pointed. I followed his gaze. A fire burned at the far end of the beach. Victor and Kate knelt, studying what appeared to be a map. The master monk sat near them, his elaborate headdress adding an extra two feet to his height. The whip curled over his shoulder.
"So what"s the deal?" I said. "No one wants to talk to me."
"I"m just a volunteer," he said, voice barely audible. He looked out over the water, bowl under his chin, lips barely moving.
"Volunteer. Is that the word." I opened my mouth wide, letting the cold air soothe my burnt palate. "Bunch of morons, you ask me."
"They haven"t brainwashed you then." He picked at his food.
"I"m sorry?" I said, and studied him, but his face was low over his bowl. I looked back. The master monk walked along the beach toward us, arms crossed over his chest.
The monk pa.s.sed. I turned again to my dinner companion.
"Can"t say I see the appeal, no." I lowered my voice. "You don"t sound like the others. What happened? The brainwashers missed a spot?"
He kept his eyes on the ground, moved his lips imperceptibly. "Let"s just say I"m beginning to have my doubts."
I swallowed a mouthful of rice. "You really think Victor can stop the war?"
The guy choked on his soup. The monk with the whip looked sharply at us for a long moment. I waved. He looked away.
"Is that what he told you," the guy muttered.
"What," I said, "you mean, there"s more?"
He leaned his head toward the fire, toward Victor and Kate. "Get a hold of that map. See if you can-"
"Michael!"
My eating buddy swallowed, an audible gulp of unchewed food.
"Bowl down. On feet." The accent was thick, strange, Asian. The same I"d heard in the van.
Michael stood. He covered his a.s.s with his hands.
"Vow silence, Michael. When you learn?" The master monk stood between us. The whip dangled from his hand. It resembled Sergio"s cat-o"-nine-tails. Four feet long, a dozen strips of leather ending in twists of barbed wire. He said, "Ten strokes."
Michael reached under his robes, unsnapped his jeans. He pushed them down to his ankles. He lifted his robes, exposing his bare cheeks. He took the whip, hefted it in one hand.
"One," he said. He whipped the instrument over his shoulder. It dug into the skin. He yanked it free, and bits of gore flecked onto the sand.
"Two."
In slow strokes he slashed at his exposed flesh. Blood poured from deep gashes. He counted to ten, numbering each stroke, but otherwise made no sound.
The robes slipped to the ground. He bowed toward the master monk, returned the whip.
The monk bowed back. "Flesh weak. Mortal. Must teach it, obey. Then, mind free."
Michael closed his eyes, nodded. He stepped out of his jeans, draped them over his shoulder. He bent down for his bowl of food, but the master monk kicked it away, spilling the broth in the sand.
The beach. Later. The man in the moon hid behind the gathering clouds, ashamed to look at us. Kate sat on the sand at my side. It was cold. We hugged our knees with our arms. The night was a long, bitter silence between us. I spoke first. I knew the answer before I opened my mouth, but said it anyway.
"We could try again. Have another child."
"No!"
There was fury in her voice, the untouchable righteous anger that had once drawn me to her. Smite all injustice, tear down the corrupt, rebuild the world anew. Her impossible idealism had been the perfect counterpoint to my cynicism.
Until La Paz.
"We are but a speck of dirt on Gaia. We are c.o.c.kroaches," she exploded, in answer to my unspoken question.