The Dragon Griaule

They went over details. The chains, she told him, slid up or down, back and forth along their tracks, and their movements could be modified by means of the keypad, but usually Jefe keyed in a code that initiated a pre-choreographed sequence. The trucks, the old yellow Toyotas parked on the streets of the village, belonged to the PVO. They looked like wrecks, but were kept tuned up and gassed, and could be counted upon to get them as far as the border. They could not stay in Temalagua once Jefe was dead – they’d be hunted. If they could reach the States, they could sit down somewhere and decide what to do next. And so forth. A multitude of ifs, ands, and buts attached to the plan. No matter how carefully it had been worked out, they would need to be very lucky. One thing in particular kept nagging at Snow, causing him doubt, and he finally asked why she had risked involving the engineer.

‘It wasn’t much of a risk,’ she said. ‘I had no choice, and I knew the PVO intended to disappear everyone who worked on the project.’

‘Yeah, but he might have blurted out your secret before they could execute him. He would have betrayed you if he thought he could save himself.’

A grave look veiled her features. ‘Give me some credit. I killed him before he had the opportunity to betray me. As soon as I was certain the code worked, I stabbed him. I explained to the PVO that he had tried to rape me.’

Snow, nonplussed by this admission, by the cool authority in her voice, ducked his head and scratched the back of his neck to hide his reaction.

‘You see?’ she said. ‘I told you I was damned.’

Over the next few days Snow concocted elaborate paranoid fantasies about Yara. His favorite, the one he kept returning to, was that her plan was a cruelty meant to extract the last drop of torment from him, a lie that would insure his docility as he was led to the slaughter. He imagined her taunting him as he waited to die, and her insistence that they sleep in separate beds in order to reinforce the notion that they were feuding, played into the fantasy. Now she was through with him, the trap set, and the distasteful (to her) act of intercourse was no longer necessary – thus her ploy. He stopped short of believing this, yet when he recognized how dependent he was on her and thought of everything she had done to guarantee the dragon’s survival, he was tempted to think the worst of her.

‘You probably think it’s weird I haven’t told you I love you,’ she said the following night when Snow dropped by her room to wish her good night.

He thought she must have told him and searched his memory, wanting to remind her of the occasion.

‘I’m not sure why I’ve been so reticent. I think I know why, but . . .’ She pretended to punch the side of her head. ‘Sometimes things get all screwed up in here. Anyway, it must be obvious.’

‘What’s obvious?’

‘That I love you.’

Her voice carried no conviction. She had draped a blue scarf over the lampshade, dimming the light, making it difficult to read her expression.

‘I don’t mean to sound tentative,’ she said. ‘I had to decide about Jefe first and then I wondered whether you really wanted me. And there were other considerations, other pressures. I do love you, but saying it has just seemed awkward.’

He sat down on the bed. ‘I know you have trust issues.’

‘It’s not that. You’ve changed so much from how . . .’

‘I haven’t changed. Basically I’m the same post-hippie I’ve always been.’

She chewed that over. ‘Have I changed? Aside from physically?’

‘Yeah. You’re more worldly now, more in control. Less moody.’

‘That’s what being a murderer does for you – it either derails you or works wonders for your poise.’

‘I don’t think that’s to blame. You’d already killed someone when I met you.’

She looked at him in surprise.

‘The Austrian guy,’ he said. ‘The child molester.’

‘How do you know about that? I didn’t tell you, did I?’

‘Guillermo told me.’

After a few beats she said, ‘I don’t recall killing Scheve. I remember him bleeding, but I’m not certain it’s a real memory. I was always stoned when I was a kid and a lot of things happened that I’m not too clear about. Anyway . . .’ She dismissed the subject of her childhood with a flip of her fingers. ‘In my head I feel more-or-less the same as I did when we met, and yet you say I’ve changed. And I bet it’s like that for you. So if I’ve changed, you have to admit to the possibility that you have, too.’

‘I suppose.’

She lay without speaking for several seconds. ‘I forget what I was going to say. You made me lose track with that talk about Scheve.’

‘Sorry.’

‘It’ll come back, maybe.’ She pressed her fists to her temples. ‘Even if I can’t remember how I wanted to link things up, I do remember the point I was going to make. We’re both of us pretty fucked-up.’

Snow chuckled. ‘You think?’

‘Listen! What I’m saying isn’t funny.’

‘All right. I’m listening.’

‘We’re fucked-up people. Me, because my life was a mess from day one. And you because . . .’