I pull a chair over beside the bed and sit down. “Are you taking antibiotics?”
“Yes.”
“Liquids?”
“Of course.”
“Well, I’m sure the fever will break shortly.”
Dr. Ludtz stares at me mournfully.
“Really, Doctor, I don’t think there’s anything to be alarmed about.”
He folds his hands over the covers and squeezes them together rhythmically. “When is El Presidente due to visit us?”
“In a few days.”
Dr. Ludtz glances worriedly at the ceiling. His lips tremble slightly. “I’m sure I’ll be ill when he comes,” he says.
“There is nothing wrong with being ill, Dr. Ludtz.”
“But what if he should be offended?”
“You have nothing to fear, Doctor. You must believe me.”
He does not believe me. He has lived in an atmosphere of betrayal too long to believe in anything but God and pistols.
I glance toward the windows, but they are tightly shuttered. He never allows them to be opened. “You should take a look outside,” I say. “It’s a lovely night.”
Dr. Ludtz turns his eyes from mine. “Do you believe in hell, Dr. Langhof?”
“No. Nor heaven, either.”
Dr. Ludtz looks at me with astonishment. “Really? You mean, you believe that after death there’s nothing. Just oblivion?”
I smile. “Dr. Ludtz, why so morbid? Why these ridicubus questions? Surely you haven’t got it into your mind that you’re dying?”
“One never knows. I’m not a young man.”
“You have a slight fever. Father Martínez says this same fever is spread all over the province. It is nothing to worry about. It will pass.”
“I wish I had your confidence,” Dr. Ludtz says. Fear is in his face. I can see it like a gray web over his features, spiders crawling in his eyes.
“You’re going to be fine, Dr. Ludtz. You need rest, that’s all.”
“Forgive me, Doctor. Forgive my morbidity. But may I ask another favor?”
“Of course.”
“I do not want to be cremated.”
I try to smile. “Dr. Ludtz, really, this is unnecessary. You are upsetting yourself.”
He stares at me imploringly. “Please, Dr. Langhof, promise me.”
“All right. You will not be cremated.”
Dr. Ludtz nods toward the closed door. “I have built a little structure, as you know. Out there. I wish to be buried near it.”
“As you wish, Dr. Ludtz. But the likelihood is that you will bury me first.”
“Still, at my age it pays to make plans.”
“All right. I will do as you wish.”
Dr. Ludtz smiles. “I suppose I’m a poor patient, Dr. Langhof. They say doctors always are.”
“It’s understandable.”
“I’m sorry to trouble you.”
“It’s no trouble, Dr. Ludtz. I only wish that you would not alarm yourself.”
Dr. Ludtz waves his hand wearily. “Even without the fever, there would be things to worry about.” He looks at me sadly. “I suppose you’ve heard how things are going in the northern provinces.”
“Things?”
“The rebels, Doctor.”
“What about them?”
Dr. Ludtz straightens himself in the bed. “What if El Presidente should be overthrown?”
“That is most unlikely.”
“But this rebellion, the one in the northern provinces. It is said to be gaining strength.”
“The northern provinces are far away, Dr. Ludtz. And even if the rebels were to control them wholly, it would not interfere with El Presidente’s dominion in the south.”
Dr. Ludtz swabs his brow with a large cloth. “How can you be so sure?”
“Such places as the northern provinces are always weak,” I tell him confidently.
“But they are sometimes successful, are they not?”
“Rarely. They rely too much on courage, Dr. Ludtz.”
Dr. Ludtz’s body trembles slightly. “A chill,” he says fearfully. “I’ve been getting these periodic chills.”
“It may be anxiety, Dr. Ludtz. Would you like a sedative?”
“No,” Dr. Ludtz says quickly, flatly. “I don’t take sedatives.”
“Very well.”
He appears relieved that I do not press the matter. Perhaps he thought for a moment that it was my intent to kill him. Here in the Republic, one cannot be too careful.
“Thank you for the offer,” Dr. Ludtz says, regaining his calm.
I push my chair back slightly and rise. “Well, have a good night’s sleep. I will look in on you in the morning.”
“Yes, thank you, Dr. Langhof.”
I turn, walk to the door, and open it.
“Dr. Langhof?” Dr. Ludtz calls from behind me.
I turn to face him. “Yes?”
“Do you really believe that it’s just oblivion?”
“Yes.”
I walk out, closing the door behind me. The night is black as a dream of death. In oblivion there will be no color, not even blackness. But if there were a world beyond this world, perhaps we would be reborn into it not as our physical selves, but as the simple, irreducible essences of what we were. The killer would be born again, not as a man or woman, but as some perfect engine of destruction — a pistol or an ice pick. The comedian would return only as a laugh, the victim only as a scream. In such a world Ludtz might be reborn as a crusty little tomb, and Langhof as a maggot imprisoned in a tear.
IT WAS on a morning brilliant as this one that I arrived at El Caliz. The sun was rising over the ridge like a burning eye. But more than anything else, I remember the burro. I remember the way it staggered forward under my weight, its ears pinned back with the strain. It was very hot, hotter than people in temperate climates can imagine, a heat that sank into the body like a boiling liquid poured through bread. The burro must have felt this heat as I did, but it was not deterred. I had paid for it with a diamond that glinted exotically in the merchant’s hand. He, the merchant, was round-faced with oily black hair and skin the color of scorched wood. He looked at the diamond and asked me what it was. When I told him, he laughed. I assured him that it was real, but he only grinned at me and said that it was pretty anyway, no matter what it really was, and that perhaps his wife might be charmed by it. And so he sold me a wheezing old burro for a jewel he thought counterfeit. The burro was gray with spots of black around the neck and down the legs. It had the face of a sad old man.
I took the reins, which dropped from the bit in the burro’s mouth, and walked away. I had a small, tattered map to lead me to the property I had purchased in the capital from the dissolute and debt-ridden son of a dead patron. I had paid for it with diamonds. Diamonds and stars, the twin themes of my romance.
Not long after I arrived at El Caliz, the burro fell into decline. It coughed and wheezed, spitting up large gobs of yellow mucus. I gave it various injections, but it was hopeless. The burro was rotting from within. And so late one afternoon I lifted my pistol to its head and shot it between the eyes. It shuddered as if the world had moved beneath it, then the front legs collapsed and it dropped to the ground, blood streaming from its black nostrils. I told Juan and a few other servants to throw it into the river. They dragged it to the river bank and hoisted it into the water. I stood and watched it float away. The head and hindquarters were covered by water, so that all I could see was one swollen side bobbing slightly like a hairy gray ball. I started to turn away, but suddenly the body began to jerk and tremble. Waves of blood spread out from around the carcass, and I could see water splashing with thousands of piranha. For the one and only time in my life, I utterly lost control. I ran after the burro, ran into the water after it, firing wildly and sending up sprays of tiny, glistening fish. Waist deep in the river, I continued to fire, emptying clip after clip. The surface of the river was split by sprays of bullets, but the piranha continued at their work until the burro turned over, slowly like a sleeping man, revealing the white bones of its stripped side. My hand jerked up and I could feel the barrel of the pistol cool against my temple. At that moment, Juan leaped into the river after me and grabbed my wrist in a tight, unflinching grip. His voice seemed to come to me from down a long tunnel. “No, Don Pedro. No.”