We Are the Dead

We Are the Dead

By

Victor Allen

Copyright© 2004

All rights reserved

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Table of Contents

#Part I

#Part II

#Part III

Excerpts from other books by Victor Allen

#Essex

#A-Sides

#The Lost Village

#Wandil Land

#Xeno Sapiens

#Katerina Cheplik

PART I

"W ithin the bowels of these elements,

Where we are tortur'd and remain for ever:

Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscrib'd

In one self place; for where we are is hell,

And where hell is, there must we ever be:

And, to conclude, when all the world dissolves,

And every creature shall be purified,

All places shall be hell that are not heaven."

Dr. Faustus, Christopher Marlowe

THE WITCH'S MARKET

FOR FATHER AND DAUGHTER, December in Lima was never like December in New Bern.

Jenny tugged on George's hand, hustling him through the human flurry of the marketplace, taking in the sundry, cut-rate merchandise through eyes too bright and water-blue to belong to anyone other than a six year old girl.  Ojos claros, they called her eyes down here; in the land where the sun burned in the northern sky and the man in the moon slept upside down.

The market had endured for centuries on a dirt road outside the modern city of Lima, tucked like a long forgotten memory three miles high in the Peruvian Andes in the almost lost village of Esperanza. A pitiless summer sun blazed with unfaltering fire, coaxing out thin ribbons of sweat that mingled with the dust on George Walburn's face. Muddy trails settled out in the river deltas around his squinted eyes. His aged safari hat perched soggy and tired on his head, a poor armor against the star's blistering kiss. Unhappy waves of black flies buzzed around his ears, almost overwhelming the lively banter ringing him from the brightly dressed market patrons.

Lofted by the summer thermals -their shadows falling as big as airplanes on the market dwellers below- giant, Andean Condors patrolled the sky's turquoise turtle shell, probing miles ahead for prey and carrion with unsympathetic orbs as black as they were austere.

The beating heart of Lima pulsed a scant twelve miles away, but only a few of the market patrons would ever know a skyscraper, or care to, as anything other than a distant monument; a relic as mysterious and unapproachable as mystic, temple ruins. No steel skeletons bound by copper wire ligaments plied the steep mountains to deliver electricity to nonexistent appliances. Muddy, ant-infested water came from hand dug wells and the only motor vehicles the villagers ever saw were the infrequent, rattling VW vans that hauled tourists up and down the snaking roads. Eight or ten two-story buildings of crumbling brick squatted like stone ogres on either side of the long-standing thoroughfare, providing a little prized shade for the merchants who set up their stalls in front of them.

An ill-used woman with two children in tow, much older in appearance than her actual years, stepped in front of Jenny. She was stocky and short, her face broad, nose squashed. Straight black hair slumped by the broad domes of her brown cheeks, pinned down by the bowler hat which capped her stingy ensemble. Her scleras were red and gummy, the dark irises blending effortlessly into the pupils.

Ay! Mira que preciosa! the woman gushed. Pelo rubia!

Her two children -a boy strapped to her back and a little girl- gawked at Jenny. The little boy peered with interest, the girl -a thinner, ten year old clone of her mother- with the studied coldness of a distrustful vixen.

Chiquita, the woman said, her dusty fingers already grubbing in Jenny's hair. Puedo tocar su pelo? Por favor! Que suave! Tan rubia! Mira, mira, ninos! Ojos claros.

Ya basta, George said softly. Enough already.

Que? the woman inquired. George stared at her until she uncoiled and stood up. She backed away a few feet and crossed herself. The woman's daughter looked at George and smiled shyly.

Me llamo Juanita, she said, and skipped away with her mother.

Jenny fidgeted as George loitered, scanning the crowd. He didn't mind bringing her to the market when he was fetching some scallions or fresh coffee, but he had come to buy coca leaves. Chewing the leaves gave one a bland buzz, quite mild compared to shotgunning a blast of white dynamite up your nose, but Jenny didn't need to know that.

George had reason to be concerned. Kidnapping of the children of American industrialists wasn't uncommon in drug deluged South America, and American children, especially blond, blue eyed little girls, were best kept close to hand. Still, George had some private business to conduct and, against his native prudence, decided to let Jenny get a slab of goat. He was surprised when Priscilla told him that Jenny had developed a fondness for the wretched, purple meat.

Some of her dirty little school friends must have introduced her to it, she had remarked, wrinkling her nose and going back to watering her plants.

George looked down at Jenny. How would you like a hot slab of goat meat?

You bet, she said. What about you?

Would I let you eat alone? He gave her a few bills. Have Cusi load it up on that hard, crusty bread, okay?

Okay.

I'll be right over there, George said, stabbing a finger at a crowded stall across the road. A porcine, balding man with an affable face engaged in busy trade with the patient line of clients lined up around the table. Stay with Cusi until I get back. If anybody pesters you, get behind the counter with him and I'll come on the run.

Jenny sidestepped through the crowd, squeezing between rubberneckers. Some thought to touch her, but something made them look back at George, as if they could feel his watchful eye on her. At six feet nine inches tall, one look at the big American kept only eyes, not hands, on Jenny.

Cusi stood as Jenny approached, a happy smile creasing his jowly face. His monstrous girth was stuffed like sausage into a dirty, sleeveless t-shirt. Beads of sweat trapped in smile wrinkles on his forehead glittered like Christmas lights. He nodded as Jenny spoke, then began  assembling two sandwiches, cutting the meat off a broiling carcass with a shiny, pitted knife. His grin showed mostly gums as Jenny took a bite out of the first sandwich.  Cusi would have a good eye out for any trouble. One look at the Peruvian Sasquatch brandishing his butcher knife would probably make any would-be kidnapper hunt easier prey.

George took his place in  line. He alternated glances at Jenny with curious stares at the sun-scorned alleys between the buildings. Smoke, as from burning piles of rubbish, towered up in unpleasant columns. In there, hiding away from the disinfecting sunlight, skulked the Witch's Market.

Even with the white shield of logic held before him like an invulnerable charm, George had never found a reason to venture into its dark passages and rile up the broom-riders. On the night side of his mind he wondered if such things as the Witch's Market promised could actually be. He thought of wandering at his leisure, browsing through the old texts he knew were there, written in Greek and Latin and badly translated into Spanish, as dusty and moldy as the dead years that had passed since their penning. The ingredients for magic potions could be had there: Rooster's blood, eye of Newt, wing of bat. The cauldron from Macbeth stewed there, bubbling, bubbling, toiling and troubling.

George looked away. His line had shortened and he took another look over at Jenny. She had finished her sandwich and was talking to Cusi. He held his beefy hands up in a gesture of incomprehension.

The man before George concluded his business. He grinned as he turned around, his pockets stuffed with coca leaves. His eyes were bright with the promise, if not the fulfillment, of his purchase.

George made his trade, engaging in a little storefront haggling with the vendor who refused to be swayed from his price. He took his goodies and stuffed all but one of the leaves in his pocket. He placed the remaining leaf in his mouth and turned around, ready to eat his sandwich and let the coca numb his brain and back the popping in his ears down to a tolerable level.

He jolted to a stop, the coca leaf falling from his suddenly cold lips.

Jenny was nowhere to be seen.

A man bent down and picked up the half-gnawed leaf. He proffered it to George.

Quiere esta, Senor?

George brushed the man aside. The man shrugged, happily placing the leaf in his own mouth.

George shouldered his way through the crowd to Cusi's stand. The shoppers gathered there like a writhing knot of fishing worms disbanded and Jenny was still missing.

George spoke loudly to Cusi, who was sharpening his archaic knife on an even more archaic steel. The clang and clash of scraping metal stopped when Cusi turned toward George. The knife flashed like a silver smile.

Que, Cusi began, but George stamped on his words.

Where's Jenny, he said, his voice strained.

Cusi looked at George blankly, his head cocked to one side.

Que, George? He pronounced it Horj. No comprendo Ingles.

George groped for his imperfect Spanish. Most of the little he knew had left him on agitated wings. He anxiously scanned the market patrons for a couple of seconds, searching for a nodding blond flower in a flowing field of black Dahlias.

Donde esta Jenny, he said. Donde vas ella?

Cusi shrugged. No se, Horj. He pointed in the direction of the woman who had made such a fuss over Jenny's hair. Ese dirreccion.

George bulled through the crowd that seemed to have tripled. He bounced back and forth and shoved people out of the way.

George reached the woman and laid his massive paws on her shoulders, spinning her around with a frightening heavy handedness. The several sizes too small bowler hat balanced atop her head tumbled to the dusty road.

The woman's plain face wilted with fright. She raised her hand in an ineffectual warding off gesture before the dark craters of her eyes.

Por favor, senor, she begged, sure that the big gringo meant to strike and kill her, leaving her two children motherless. Her papoose drooled senselessly while Juanita clung to her leg and glared at George.

George released the woman, frightened at his inability to locate Jenny and revolted at the terror he had struck in this woman. A fearful sword tip prodded the pit of his stomach and tightened his throat. Not a soul had bothered to intercede.

George stared vacantly at the woman. I'm sorry, he said. "Lo siento mucho. My daughter, mi hija..."

The woman clamped onto Juanita and backed away a few steps. She stooped and picked up her bowler hat, seeming to realize George meant her no harm.

I'm sorry, George repeated. He broke away from the woman and looked toward the alleyways. She had to be in the Witch's Market. There would be no time to visit at his leisure.

He dove into the darkness of the first alleyway. The sky at the top of the buildings painted a blue stripe between them. No probing fingers of sunlight broke into the alley, no pools or puddles of warm sunshine dappled the dusty, hard packed earth. The temperature fell fifteen degrees, maybe twenty.

George's eyes adjusted to the gloom just in time for him to avoid stumbling into a table decked with a bizarre assortment of monkey balls, monkey paws, frogs, and dried fish eyes. A shadowy figure stood sentinel behind the table, marked by two light eyes and the burning end of a cigarette. Quiet bargaining went on in here as well.

He walked on, seeing the other wares for sale in the Witch's Market. There were jars of fetuses at some of the tables, from pigs to horses, some no larger than his thumb, others as big as a medium sized dog. Dried animals of all kinds were displayed. He saw a dead cat with its mouth open, its dried up gums revealing teeth that looked like cardboard imitations. It snarled a soundless snarl and spat a soundless hiss. Bat wings and entire bats, some dead, some alive and squeaking in their cages dotted the table tops. Jars held liquids of various colors and consistencies, their cheesecloth covers banded on with rubber strips or thongs of twine. He knew for certain there was blood in some of those jars, animal or human he didn't know. A cock crowed somewhere in the darkness.

There were faces in the shadows. They weren't hideous monstrosities from some post apocalyptic horror story, but they were not the same as the faces of the sun dwellers. They were too pinched, too thin, pale as if the time spent in the darkness had leeched their vitality. Their eyes seemed lighter, but that might have been because there were dark circles beneath them. The eyes looked at George as he plowed through the alley like a bull in a china shop. Like the players in a high stakes poker game, the eyes regarded George for a threat. Finding none, the blank eyes offered him an invitation of no kind, then went back to their business.

A pungent stink billowed from the far end of the alleyway, carried to George's nostrils by a cloud of stinging smoke. He blinked his watering eyes and, sure enough, ran on a boiling cauldron attended by an old woman who looked as timeless as the hills and just as trodden on. She stirred her simmering cauldron with a huge, wooden spoon. It was a near thing when she smiled, the puny, shriveled raisin of her mouth exposing the toothless hag's pink and black gums. Any light had faded from her eyes decades before and they were as glassy as those of mounted deer heads.

Perdone me, por favor, George said, forcing himself to grip the wrinkled crepe of the old relic's arm. It felt as brittle and hollow as a fall-seared reed. With sudden loathing, George saw a jar with a human fetus sitting on the rickety shelf behind her. The fetus was at least seven months, possibly full term.

Not far away, the cock crowed again.

The woman looked at George, her face vapid and shiny, smiling only a little at the recognition of a potential customer.

You like a little fetish, eh, eh, the woman inquired in thickly-accented English. Her scouring powder voice grated on George's raw nerves.

My daughter, George said. A little blond girl. Have you seen her?

The woman looked down and resumed her slow stirring of the contents of the pot.

Ojos claros?

Yes.

The old hag shrugged painfully. I see her. Maybe.

George produced all the cash he had, fifty dollars American- more readily accepted than the Nuevo Sol- and pressed them into the living corpse's hand. He curled the swollen joints of her bony fingers around the bundle of bills and held on.

Fifty dollars, George said. Did you see her?

Dio, the woman said with passable disgust. Fifty bucks? You no like your little girl much, no?

George's grip tightened. Now was not the time for him to be pushed by some back alley harridan whose life wasn't worth the effort it would take to snuff it out. It would take but little more to crush those aged and malnourished bones and he was prepared to do it.

The old crone's face screwed up in an aching grimace and a whistling hiss escaped her sun-dried mouth. The wooden spoon dropped from her free hand and plopped against the side of the cauldron as she tried to jerk away. A blurt of boiling brew sloshed out of the pot and splattered on the ground.

A huge, stinking shadow loomed out of the gloom behind George.

Que es esto?

George barely turned toward the voice, able to see from the corner of his eye that the man was fat and soft.

Get your ass out of here, George said with deadly calm. The shadow receded into the darkness. George turned to the woman again.

Where is she, he asked deliberately. A dangerous combination of circumstances that an unlucky few had got on the wrong side of gathered around him. It was the same conspiracy of anger that had landed him here in the asshole of the world in the first place.

Se mato, Gringo, the woman shrieked.

Not if I kill you first.

They's no need for killin', man, said another voice from the shadows, one not so far away. George released the woman. She clawed at him, but George brushed her away as if she were a flitting gnat.

If you be lookin' for a little blond haired lady, the voice went on, she's safe and sound with Unk Maum. You just follow your ears and you'll find her.

INTERLUDE IN PERU

TEN YARDS FROM THE old woman and her cauldron, another wall emerged from the gloom. The market was so dark that George hadn't seen this stall less than thirty feet away. 

Propped on a three legged stool behind the table sat an ageless black man, slouched to one side as though the years had broken his will to sit upright. Thin, grey wool crowned his scalp, sloping forward in an odd little widow's peak uncommon for black men. His blue smock flapped open to the midpoint of his sternum, revealing an ashen chest where knotty ribs stood out like staves in a busted cask. A small fetish attached to a gold chain around his neck gleamed like brass.

The man's stall consisted of a rude, weathered-wood table warped from years of humidity. A tri-sided backdrop partially enclosed the stand, its upright walls cluttered with a wide variety of dried plants and fish. Proudly displayed on the center wall hung a large bone to which various amulets and talismans were attached like charms to a bracelet.

He held a rooster in his lap, his elbows resting on his knees, a man at the end of his term who no longer had the strength or the desire to be bothered by the niceties of proper introductions. And though his body was that of a cadaver, his eyes were those of an elf. There glinted a kid-like sparkle in them that shone out from the darkened whites with an eerie potency. His welcoming smile was gummy, but bright.

Jenny stood behind the table with the old man. She held her hand over the rooster's comb as if attempting to pet a dog. The rooster blinked in the singularly irritating way that fowls do, bobbing and weaving its head away from Jenny's hand like a champion boxer.

Jenny looked up, all wide eyes and innocence. George was too relieved to be angry. It seemed his rage for the day had been used up with the old hag.

Daddy, Unk Maum has a chicken. It ran out into the market and when I tried to catch it, I followed it in here.

The old man stood up, taking forever to rise to his full height of just over five feet. He stretched his arms out in a slow and graceful gesture. The rooster fluttered to the ground with a lively flapping of wings, bobbing and darting in broken circles. Jenny -half-stooped with her hands on her knees- tried to follow its zig-zag progress.

The man held his hand out and George was fascinated at the thinness of the limb; at the way the knobby bones of his wrist and elbow joints were like bulbous growths in otherwise sound wood. There was something serpentine in the way he moved that reflected in his every labored action.

Thanks for looking after my daughter, George said, taking Maum's hand. She got away from me. No telling what kind of trouble she could have found.

No trouble for the children as long as Unk Maum's around. I look after the young 'uns.

George let go of Maum's hand. He detected a faint amalgam of accents, from sharp Caribbean to the street jivey, subjunctive phraseology of the black American subculture. Another American, exiled from his home.

Eli Maum, at your service.

George Walburn. He knew he should gather up Jenny and be on his way, but Maum intrigued him. He seemed so frail that even drawing breath appeared a herculean feat. But he was out here with the rough boys, hawking his wares.

Will she be alright here?

Long as she sticks close. Maum spoke to Jenny. Stay near to home, little lady, lessen your daddy takes you off before you ever get a chance to catch that bird.

Maum sat down, the action flushing his breath with a wheeze.

My apologies for the lack of accommodations. Sorry I can't offer you a seat.

No apology needed.

Maum rubbed the back of his neck. Slow day, he said. Not often I get a chance to talk with another American. Mostly the hired help from the drug lords lookin' for strong juju. Maum cracked a thin smile and rearranged some items on his table. The local shamans are afraid of my magic. Unk Maum, the old witch doctor. Sees all, knows all. That's old hat now, but it really used to sell in New Orleans.

Are you from there? Originally?

Maum was a familiar piece of Americana that George well-remembered from New Bern, like pickup games of basketball with the black kids from across the tracks. Worn leather balls heaved at netless rims hung on chafed backboards. The black parents would sit out on their stoops, fanning themselves with newspapers, some of the luckier ones enjoying the effortless breeze from a 'lectric fan, watching the poor kids, black and white, with friendly smiles.

I was born in the most blessed land on earth, Maum said. The island of Haiti, first named Hispaniola by Columbus.

I've heard it was a beautiful place, George said.

That it is. But what the tourists don't see, especially the white men, is what goes on in the secret places hidden behind the cliffs and lit only by moonlight. Ritual and religion more mysterious than the dark side of the moon, though I guess not even the moon is much of a mystery anymore. He said this almost sadly. The table still hid in shadow and George couldn't really see what he was doing. His restless hands never stilled as they talked.

I stayed in New Orleans for forty years, Maum resumed, pulling himself up in his chair. Jenny gave up her rooster chase as a bad job and pouted by the edge of the table.

"I made landfall in New Orleans in 1922, when I was ten, earning passage by shoveling coal on the SS Century. I had not a thin dime of American money and spoke but little English. But I was at peace; my Natina had told me where to go."

Where was that?

The church of Marie Leveau, Maum said. Highest of the Obeah priestesses. She's gone now, as much from bein' put down by the police as old age. She was the last.

Nobody replaced her?

"If you call cheats and hoaxers good at mixin' drugs and killin' roosters replacements. They were as shameful and deceitful as the three card monte dealers you see in any big city. They didn't have the heart for it. The real heart. The amulets and chants and symbols of any religion mean nothing without faith: without a real belief in a power beyond our own. Do you know what I mean?"

Maum's words made George think of the bleak days after he had picked up the package at an out of the way, dead end road. The days he wished for a lamp with an omnipotent genie to make the bad times go away. He looked at Jenny, unwilling to give an answer. Maum saw and understood the look.

No need to trouble yourself about the little one. There's lots worse things in the world besides the hoodoo. Obeah is for good and you can turn on the TV any night and hear tales worse than these. Am I right?

As rain, George said.

Maum reflected momentarily, his bright eyes dimming.

But there are tales from the Obeah to darken the soul. I could unfurl a story whose gentlest phrase could still your heart; make hot blood run cold, make your limbs tremble with dread.

Such as?

After Obeah was outlawed in Haiti, Maum began, "the last two Houngans were put to death in 1922. They swore nothing would keep them from their revenge. Armed policemen escorted their coffins to the burial vault and a crowd of gape-mouthed citizenry watched as they were sealed in.  Oh, the government made a big show of it, wanting to convince the people that if they passed a law against gravity, everybody would walk on air.

A heavy slab was placed over the vault and armed guards stood watch for three days. For seventy two hours the curious and the nosy and the frightened never quite seemed to dwindle to nothing. Not a second went by without an eye on those graves. When the stone was lifted on the third day- again, before a thousand witnesses- and everybody peered into the vault, do you know what they saw?

Two dead bodies?

"Two dead goats, each of them with the broken cord of the hangman's noose around their necks. The police commissioner lit out soon after and nobody's seen or heard from him since. Be he alive or be he dead is anybody's guess, but if he's still around he's sure as hell one scared hundred and thirty year old cop. If he's dead, who's to say the houngans didn't have their revenge?

The Obeah is also filled with things magical. If you're feeling poorly, what I have in one of these jars would have you doing jumping jacks and handsprings. I can make the blind see, the lame walk, and the demons cry.

And the other side, George asked.

The Spaniards found themselves in the richest land of all the world back in fourteen and ninety three. The people, West Indians then, had never known work or want in their island paradise. But the Spaniards, in their goldlust, enslaved the people and worked them beyond the limits of human endurance in the mines.

Maum stared into the distance, as if recalling rather than retelling.

The natives died by the thousands. The West African slave traders had no shortage of manpower and Haiti was repopulated with slaves from the African coast. They brought their culture and their religion with them: the Obeah. For centuries first the Spanish, then the French, tried to stop the practice. The official line was that they succeeded, but when the bad times came, the slaves returned to the familiar chants and rhythms that had been taught by their fathers and their fathers before them.

Maum took George's arm in an easy grip. His gaunt hand was rough and deeply lined.

I been long away from my home; long enough to know that home ain't where you hang your hat, it's where your heart longs to be. You as far from home as I am, I guess, but your time is coming close. You take my word for it, George. None of us witch doctors got where we are by being foolish. Like I said, Unk Maum, sees all, knows all. News is waiting for you.

What kind of news, George asked, humoring Maum.

News to cheer your heart. It's what should never have been taken from you.

You really can't expect me to believe that, George said.

Maum shrugged good-naturedly.

In that case, George countered with equal good humor, let me offer you a home cooked meal. My wife doesn't get to cook for company very often. You'd be doing me a kindness.

Maum shook his head with real regret. Unk Maum can't accept no favors. I'm not the fit man to be bringing my taint of the old black magic into right living people's homes.

At least let me buy something from you, George persisted. Pay you for keeping Jenny out of trouble.

"Unk Maum don’t transact business with friends. But he is generous."

Maum moved his hands again on the table and came up with a gold chain. A small leather sack no more than an inch across dangled from its clasp. Gold string knotted its top and metallic-looking sequins boxed the compass on four seams down its exterior. The light was too dim to make out details, but the ornament seemed to generate its own light in a soft, pearly halo. Maum dangled the bauble before Jenny's wondering eyes, its mysterious light bathing her face in a serene glow.

This was called a devil bag many years ago. It's to keep away evil. But an Obeah man doesn't believe in the Christian devil so we use it as a good luck charm.

I can't accept that, George protested.

"I didn't offer it to you, now, did I?" Maum held his sinewy arm out to Jenny. The fetish swayed back and forth drowsily in his grasping fingers and pendulumed delicately before her round eyes. She hesitantly held her hand out and Maum dropped the trinket into her palm. The thin gold coiled into her hand with a silky hiss and lay curled there like a dozing snake.

Can I have it, daddy, Jenny breathed.

Jenny, it's not right to accept expensive gifts from a man you hardly know.

But it's not right to invite people you hardly know home for supper, is it? Especially without telling mom?

I'm your father, George reminded her. Do as I say, not as I do.

Maum smiled. Don't be hard on the girl, George. He paused for a scant half beat. She’s the seed that bloomed into a beautiful flower. Let an old man do a nice thing.

George's eyes flickered at Maum's omniscient words, but he recovered quickly.

At least let me pay for the chain, George said, then remembered he had left all his money with the old crone. He half thought of going back and prying it from her greedy hand, but let it go. Might as well make the old man happy. 

You take American Express, George asked.

Maum looked around curiously at his meager surroundings as if searching for something, then chuckled.

I seem to have left my credit card machine at my accountant's office, he said gravely. No, George, I don't take no money for a gift. He spoke to Jenny. You keep that with you always, child. That bag has Unk Maum's blessing on it and won't no harm come to you so long as you wear it.  He beckoned Jenny forward with his wire-thin finger and looked at her on eye level. He lifted her hair and clasped the chain around her neck. There you go, little lady. Safe from harm for all time, courtesy of Unk Maum.

Jenny fingered the bland, unimposing bauble, looking down as it lay against her chest. George wondered if there might be more to the whole thing than just a lonely old man who enjoyed company from his homeland.

You're sure you won't accept some hospitality, George asked. You've more than earned my gratitude.

Gratitude is payment enough for me, Maum said.

"Thank you for the...the...doodad," Jenny said.

That's a fetish, little lady, Maum corrected kindly. It's a lot more valuable than it looks. He looked up at George. Got to get back to business, George. Better take your girl and get home. News is waitin'.

George took Jenny's hand and led her toward the welcoming sunshine outside of the alley. He looked back at Unk Maum and raised his hand in farewell. Maum returned the gesture and receded into the gloom as George guided Jenny past the old witch, the stinking shadows, the stuffed cat with the cardboard looking teeth, the jars of fetuses. Once in the light outside the alley, George could see nothing but darkness down its narrow way. The encounter he'd had only minutes before had taken on a dreamlike quality.

One of the Andean condors drifted by overhead and George flinched a little as its shadow briefly engulfed him. When it moved on, George peered back into the alley. It wasn't hard to look into that vacant darkness and believe he had never met Eli Maum at all.

BACK AT THE FORTRESS

GEORGE'S ARRIVAL IN Peru six months before had left him reeling, only to be brought back to the real world on the first Friday after he settled in. On that day, three robbers broke into his office and demanded the payroll. Thinking on his feet, George told the banditos that they were a week too late; the payroll had come last week. He was badly afraid that the robbers would shoot him with the heavy caliber weapons they carried. By some miracle, they left without harming him.

They were back the next week, demanding the payroll. This time George told them the payroll had been distributed the day before and that they were again out of luck. He looked from face to face in the group, more convinced than ever that his last memory on this earth would be the swarthy, hard-knock faces of a gang of Peruvian thugs. Finally, the leader of the gang demanded George's wallet. He handed it over and the goons divided the fifty dollars or so amongst themselves. One of the gang inspected the brown bag lunch George had brought to work. Two bologna sandwiches and a hard roll. They conferred amongst themselves, then gave George back half of his money, telling him to get something decent to eat. Shortly after that, new security measures were installed and no more was seen of the merciful thieves.

He almost smiled at the memory as he stopped at the compound gates with a squealing of brakes.

The stony faced gate guard wearing mirrored sunglasses leaned out from his tiny shanty and held out his hand.

May I see your ID badge, please?

George knew the guard as Cliff. He surrendered his laminated ID card. It identified him as George Walburn, Chemical Engineer in good standing with Norton Aluminum.

The guard knew George, but inspected the card anyway.

Been to the market, Cliff asked.

Yes.

Cliff returned George's card. George noted his real sidearm and the quick way he looked into the back seat, his hidden eyes betraying nothing. These were not your average rent-a-cops. These were real guards with real training.

Go ahead, Mr. Walburn. He stepped back into his shack, lowering the yellow and black-striped, tubular metal gate across the road behind George. The barbed wire atop the ten foot high wall angled outward to ward away intruders and metal stanchions were strategically placed in the long driveway to the gate. No suicide bombers would ever crash through the guard post at breakneck speed here. The metallic-black, rectangular TV cameras mounted at intervals atop the walls recorded every event with robotic efficiency. The guards and cameras and walls were constant reminders that George lived in a hostile land three thousand miles from home.

Jenny was out of the car and leaping up the stairs to their second floor apartment almost before the car had stopped.

George climbed the stairs a little slower. Maum had seemed pleasant enough, but his intuitions were bound to be as false as the brick veneer walls on which George steadied himself as he plodded up the risers. Only one bit of news George could hear would make him happy and he doubted that Loren Wheatly, good as she was, could have settled the irate feathers of the government in only six months.

'Scilla’s nose was buried in a book when he came in. He thought of how stooped and haggard he must look from the dust and the sweat. He didn't want her to see him like this. He felt stripped to the bone, unable to control his own destiny or that of his family.

'Scilla put down her book and greeted him with a kiss.

I see Jenny brought back some booty from the market. She couldn't wait to tell me.

She got it from an old black guy, George said. Eli Maum. Unk Maum he calls himself. He's an interesting old goat. Looked to have been a kid about the time Jesus was dipping little girls’ pigtails in the inkwell.

Did you get anything else?

Just some leaves. Nothing much new today.

Except Unk Maum?

Just him, yeah. I invited him to dinner, but he cut and ran on me.

You homesick again? 'Scilla's eyes, like Jenny's, always wide and blue and curious, tracked his.

Babe, if I never saw Peru again it would be too soon.

George fished through his breast pocket and found it depressingly empty of cigarettes. 'Scilla gave him a More menthol. He had always said it made him feel like he was smoking a pretzel stick. American cigarettes were obtained through the American embassy, just like the Cheerios that 'Scilla picked up once a week and baked in the oven to run the weevils out.

Careful to sound indifferent, George asked 'Scilla if she had heard from Loren Wheatly.

Today? No. I haven't heard from her since last week. You remember. She said things weren't going well and it turned you into such a foul bear that nobody dared speak to you. Why? Were you expecting her to call?

Just wishful thinking. Christ, if I could have that day back, I swear I would do things differently.

They had it coming, 'Scilla said through lips that had thinned