Green Eyes

  Otille went to the door. ‘Baron,’ she called. ‘Would you bring my parasol from my office. I don’t want to burn.’

  Beyond the door, beyond rows of tombstones tilted at rustic angles, was the raw mound of earth covering Dularde’s coffin. A group of ‘friends’ was in line beside the grave, laughing and chattering; more were straggling toward the line along the path leading from the cabins. Simpkins stood atop the grave, a box of syringes and medicine bottles at his feet. As each of the ‘friends’ joined him on the mounded earth, he would tie off their arms with a rubber tube and give them an injection. Then they would stagger away, weaving, and collapse among the weeds to vomit and twitch, their arms waving feebly, like poisoned ants crawling from their nest to die. It was, thought Donnell, an ideal representation of the overall process of Maravillosa: these healthy, attractive men and women bumping together in line, playfully smacking one another, being changed into derelicts by the cadaverous Simpkins and his magic fluid. He appeared to be enjoying his work, spanking the newly injected on the rumps to get them moving again, beaming at the next in line and saying, ‘This one’s on Brother Dularde.’ Someone switched on a radio, and a blast of rock and roll static defiled the air.

  Donnell stepped out of the crypt, squinting against the sun. Just above his head, surmounting the door, was a whitewashed angel with black tears painted on its cheeks, and he could relate to its languishing expression. Clea, Papa and Downey had not yet arrived, and their absence meant he had to put up with Otille nonstop. He peered down the path, hoping to see them. A man and a woman were walking toward the graveyard, dressed - he assumed at first - in gaudy uniforms of some sort. But as they neared, he realized the uniforms were a satin gown and a brocade jacket, and he saw that their faces were brown and mummified, the faces of the corpses identical to those he had seen in the Replaceable Room. He wheeled about on Otille. She was smiling.

  ‘Just a reminder,’ she said.

  He looked back at the corpses; they were holding hands, now, skipping along the path, and he wondered if there really had been corpses in the Replaceable Room, or if there had only been these counterfeits. He turned back to Otille.

  ‘I don’t need a reminder of what a bitch you are,’ he said.

  He had expected she would flare up at him, but she drew back in fright as if the sound of his voice had menaced her.

  ‘What’s the problem, Otille?’ he asked, delighting in her reaction. ‘I thought you still wanted me.’

  At this, she whirled around and walked hurriedly off toward the house.

  ‘Bitch!’ he yelled, venting his rage. ‘I’d rather shack up with barnyard animals than make it with you again!’

  The people by the grave were staring at him; some were edging back. Still boiling with anger, he gestured at them in disgust and stormed off along one of the paths leading away from the house. He continued to fume as he walked, knocking branches aside, kicking beer cans and bottles out of his way. The thicket was festooned with litter. Charred mattresses, ripped underwear, food wrappers. Scraps of cellophane clung to the twigs, so profuse in places they seemed floral productions of the shrubs. His anger subsided, and he began to worry about his loss of control, not only its possible repercussions, but its relevance to his stability. He had been losing his temper more and more frequently since arriving at Maravillosa, and he did not think it was solely due to Otille’s aggravation. Certainly she was not responsible for the feeling of possession. The path jogged to the right, widened, and he saw the sternwheeler between the last of the bushes. Against the glittering water and bright blue sky, it had the unreal look of a superimposed image, a black stage flat propped up from behind. Something snapped in back of him.

  ‘Mornin,’ brother,’ said Simpkins.

  Donnell looked around for an escape route, knowing himself in danger, but there was none.

  ‘You just don’t understand how to handle Otille,’ Simpkins said, advancing on him. ‘She’s like a fisherman who’s been havin’ a good day, got herself a string of big cats coolin’ in the stream. Every once in a while she hauls one up and thinks about fryin’ him. And that’s your situation, brother. Just floppin’ on the dock.’

  Donnell started back up the path, but Simpkins put out a restraining hand.

  ‘You gotta just hang there and let the water flow through your gills,’ said Simpkins. ‘You struggle too much and you bound to catch her eye.’

  ‘What do you want?’ asked Donnell.

  ‘A little talk,’ said Simpkins. ‘See, brother. Since you arrived, things been goin’ downhill for the rest of us, and we’d like to know what it is you got. Maybe we can get some of it for ourselves. And then’ - he chucked Donnell under the chin in good buddy fashion - ‘once that’s done, the one and only Papa Salvatino is goin’ to cure your ills.’