IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FIRE by Dolores J. Nurss
Volume
II: Tests of Fire and Blood
Chapter 42 What Teofilo Wants
Tuesday, May 26, 2708,
continued (Among the clients with a taste for Ganymedes,
I recall one man more than any other, who used to always ask for me by
name. Slender, muscular; he practiced
gymnastics, he said. Sometimes he'd come
to Madame's straight from the gym, sweaty and smelling strong. I used to love to lick the sweat from his
skin. He taught me some
gymnastics, all right. I used what I
learned on the other gentlemen who came to me, and my price went up. But though he didn’t need it, I urged Madame
to keep his fee down--for the training, I said.
And she did as I asked, but she shook her head and she looked so
sad. "Don't fall in love,
Teo," she used to tell me.
"It's the worst thing that can happen to a whore." I spent extra time with
him. The boys always had fewer customers
than the girls; we could afford the minutes stolen here and there. He would trace my face with his strong, strong
fingers and say, "Perfect. You have
the most perfect skin, Teofilo--not a blemish, not a line." And I would hold him in my
arms, my brown skin pressed to his fair, I would listen to his life story--how
his father never understood him, his wife never understood him, he came here so
he wouldn’t feel alone. I heard about
the beatings for the mere suspicion of what he was, pounded bloody in all the
finest schools till he built the muscle to fight back. I heard about the sickening pretenses, the
furtive meetings, the ugly divorce. I
listened when he spoke of the mistress who afterwards kept up appearances and
his house for him--the well-paid mistress that he never slept with. I thought about how alike we all seemed, rich
and poor, nobody exempt from suffering, no reason to envy anyone. And I would comfort him. "Does he ever comfort
you?" Fatima once asked me.
"Does he ever ask about your life story?" But it didn't matter. I hardly knew I had a life outside of
him. I lived from sunset to sunset
waiting for the warmth in those muscular and graceful arms, waiting to fill him
to exploding with a joy so keen that the sound of his cry would pierce my
heart. I thought that I could write my
story on his body and that the tale would last forever there. Then one day I made the
mistake of asking, "Someday, will you take me away from all
this?" I knew it for a fantasy even
as I said it, but I wanted him to play along, like the gentlemen did for the
girls, say the most beautiful lie in the world, say, "Yes, of course--someday." That word, "someday", made it all right,
made it just enough not quite a lie that they could bask in the fantasy for
days, dreamy smiles during morning clean-up that let us know which of the girls
played the game. But instead he laughed the
kind of laugh that stings.
"Me? Take a faggot out into
the light? Have you lost your
mind?" Of course I didn't mean
that, not really! But my traitor eyes
watered; I didn't laugh along with him and call it all a joke--the fantasy
loses all magic if you ever admit that you don't believe in it. His face twisted in disgust,
warped into an ugly smile that I’d never imagined could disfigure his face--and
then came the blows. First a slap--a
sting of reality incinerating dreams.
Then the shock in my face angered him and the hands closed into
fists--how dare it surprise me to learn that I counted as nothing but a
thing! I cried out, I begged him to
stop, I wept. I screamed exactly the way
that men expect a woman to scream, and it pleased him, and he hated me for
pleasing him that way, and he hurt me worse. It seemed to go on forever,
but actually Lucinda burst in on us in no time at all. She pounded up the stairs and subdued that
athlete like a little boy, dragged him bumping and kicking down to the lobby, wrestled
him through the door, and then shoved him out the gate with a fractured arm and
not a stitch on him, and let him worry about explaining. And he never came
back. Madame wouldn't let
him back. Nobody ever passes her gates
again once they damage the merchandise. And I pined. I wouldn't eat for days. That's when I realized fully that I didn't
want to be merchandise. Things can't
forgive. Things don't form relationships
with all the ups and downs, don't work it out, don't throw themselves back into
stormy reconciliations. Oh, I know damn
well I've got no business wanting him back, after what he did to me--but don't
I have the right to try? Don't I have
the right, when it comes down to it, to my own bad judgment, to play the fool
if I choose? But no. He got on Madame's blacklist and that ended
that. It never even occurred to anybody
to ask me what I felt about it. Ah, what must I look like
now, I wonder? Not a pretty sight, I
imagine, and never will be again--no one's toy.
Who would ever buy merchandise packaged in scars for all to see? I sigh with relief far greater than anything
in the pills they give me. The next man
to have me will love me--love me, myself, and not the thing I used to be.) * * * We all wake some time in
the afternoon. I slept like the dead, no
dream that I can remember, except maybe...no.
Nothing. As soon as we may we
hasten down into the basement. Madame
gives me a smile as she draws the cigarette from Teo's teeth. "He woke just in time to greet
you," she says. "Hi," Teo says as
though he had a normal mouth. "Hi, yourself. Howya feelin’, brother?" "High," he says
gaily, and gurgles a sort of laugh. I nod. "Good--we want your pain
controlled. It promotes healing when the
blood vessels don't constrict." I
ask Madame, "How's his hydration?" She waves to his makeshift
bedpan. "Looks like he's pissing
whiskey." I peer into the brownish-gold
liquid. "I see what you mean. Well, we'll just have to keep up the fluids
for awhile more. Anything else I should
know?" Seriously she says,
"Just that he needs somewhere better than this to stay." "I know," I sigh,
and pace to think about it.
"Someplace with antibiotics."
Infection must lace his entire body by now--and we couldn't do a thing
to prevent it. "Unfortunately, it
wouldn't take long for a government hospital to figure out where he got his
burns--even if we could afford their price.
We can't just hand him over for execution." "I know another
way," Madame tells me. "I've
already sent out a messenger while you slept." Her wry smile returns when she says,
"Long ago, in my youth--back when I had a name--I made many a contact of a
rather different character than I do these days. And so I happen to know of one convent left
that the army hasn't quarantined--in fact, it has successfully petitioned to establish
its own infirmary." "Well done!" I
say from the heart and look on her with new respect. "When can we take him there?" "After nightfall, of
course. If we bring him in by day they
could lose their privileges." I kneel to Teo's side. "You're going to be all right," I
tell him earnestly, though I know his real odds and dislike them. "The nuns will...what is it?" "Ta...tan...tanks?" "The tanks?" "Uh huh." "We blew them all up,
Teo. We fulfilled our mission." His ruined mouth tries to
grin. "Goooood," he
moans.
"So...cel...eh...vrate." I stare at him, stunned,
then we all look at each other.
"No," I whisper. "Huh?" It must hurt to wince with a face like that,
the motion visible under the bandages. "Teo, you can't expect
us to..." "I did
no...goood?" "No, Teo! Your sacrifice saved lives! You did well." "Then...ve...ha, haff,
hafpvy...for...vhe, bvah, uh, bve..." "Happy for
you." Poor boy can't even say
"me" anymore. "Uh huh." The grin comes back tentatively. Demandingly. Then we try hard to smile,
too, even though he can't see us, he'll never see another smile. "Okay, Teo," I tell him. "We'll celebrate your victory over the
tanks." "Our
fhic...to...reee!" "Yes. Our victory." "Has...to...ve...worth...the
fhae...pfae...pfain." "Worth the
pain." Dear God--we haven't numbed
him enough. "Oh yes, Teofilo--we
have seriously crippled the enemy.
They'll never crush us under their treads again." Unless Soskia can get another factory going
elsewhere, with all her funds. Or has
tanks already out there from past production.--as she must. Madame smiles way too
brightly with her watering eyes as she claps her hands. "Ladies," she calls out, "You
heard the gentleman. Bring down the
sherry and the chaummin, bring down the whiskey and the brandy and the ale,
bring down...well hell, just bring down the whole damn bar! Right here, where Teo can share..." "...Symbolically in
our merrymaking," I put in hastily.
"Alcohol could kill him, Madame." Her face falls, but Teo
says, "Okay. Jus...giff...vfe...fi,
fil, pfills." I say to Madame, "I’m
sure you know opiates better than I do.
Increase his dose, if you think it's safe. And you..." I say to Gaziley as he
thirstily eyes the bottles that the whores bring down, "...will share
Teofilo's hydration drink and juice, and nothing else." "Huh? Says who?" "Says your
medic," I tell him. "You
already gave your half-grown liver way too bad a beating last night. I won't let you hurt yourself again a mere
eight hours later." "Lucinda," he
pleads, "You're in charge, not her.
Tell her..." "Sorry, Gazi." Lucinda throws her palms up with a wry
grin. "Medics outrank everybody in
their own field." I hand him the pitcher and
the timer. “Every fifteen minutes,
Gazi,” I tell him. The others have already
opened bottles and begun to pass them around.
A real health officer would put an end to this rebel-style carousing
that practically mandates excess. But I
grab the dark brown glass as greedily as anyone, and gulp down its cold stinging
with ferocity, as though it could put out something that burns inside and
hurts, but the fire still sizzles, nothing seems to quench it, for I have
killed. So pass me the green glass, and
the white. Give me license, please, to
forget this victory. A couple flutes and a
tambourine come down with more liquor.
Kanarik takes the tambourine immediately and makes wild with it. Now, accompanied by the clangor of kids on
whatever objects they can beat into percussion instruments, two sweet harlots
harmonize the shrill and moan of their flutes with Damien on harp as he sings
us back our deeds, though he still sounds hoarse from last night's revelry, and
his voice doesn't get any better with those swigs between songs. And doesn't he sing more deeply now? After a few harsh swallows
of my own I begin to realize that we really did win, we do have something to
celebrate. We blew our target to
smithereens. We killed without getting
killed, if Teo lives through this, and hell, they'd have done the same to us if
we'd let 'em, but we outsmarted them that day.
And think, Deirdre--if we can get through this revolution with no more
than one burnt kid per battle, we'll be so outrageously lucky the whole world
would stand up in shock. A swallow or two more, or
three, and I get up and dance with the others, just to let Teo hear the
thumping of our feet. I sway my hips
with the fallen women and the rebel youths, I throw my arms up with theirs and
clasp their hands and stamp my doubts into the ground. I'm a soldier, not a murderer. They shot at me first (mostly.) I just finished what they started. Or drunken little Lufti and Aichi over there
finished it, bless them, not all me, after all.
Who can say now whose bullets hit? A few more drinks and I
tearfully admire the courage in frivolity--the will to rejoice in the teeth of
death and pain, to count our blessings, celebrate our victories no matter what
the cost. Brave Teofilo tries to groan
out a song, join right in with the rest of us, God bless him. Bless us all.
It becomes easier and easier to laugh, to make cracks at the expense of
those poor, stupid slobs who tried to keep us from blowing up their
tanks--after we already had. And the guy
in the white coat--what business did he have there after dark, anyway? Just couldn't wait to perfect machines of
destruction, could he? The jokes fly
faster, get coarser and coarser, but hey, they have it coming. Go ahead and mock the dead--our ghosts can
beat up their ghosts. My luck doll
bounces between my breasts as I dance and drain a flask, sweet brandy trickling
with the sweat down my neck and staining the doll's bright yarn. A few more drinks and my oh
my but the time flies as fast as the humor does, as fast as dancing feet and
braids whipping through the air, till the roof-vent windows darken, and before
I know it a shock of water hits me in the face where I sprawl against a stack of
sheets and I can't remember when, precisely, that I stopped dancing. Madame hisses, "I said pull yourself
together, Medic! You'll have to go with
us to report on his injuries." |
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