The Lord of Opium

“That doesn’t work. Dr. Kim tried it.”

“So did we. So did I over the years,” said Dr. Rivas. “I sacrificed hundreds of eejits trying to find a cure for my son. I tried nullifying the magnetism with electrical currents. I engineered a white blood cell to attack microchips. I induced high fevers, hoping they would destroy the chips before they killed the brain. Nothing worked.”

“So this is hopeless,” Matt said.

“You can do a procedure a thousand times and sometimes the thousandth time is different. You make a lucky mistake. That’s the only hope I can give you.”

Matt looked down at Mirasol, her beautiful face composed, for the moment, in sleep. How could he order this mutilation without any hope of success? They said eejits didn’t feel pain, but he knew, deep down where no one could detect it, they did. “Leave her as she is,” he said.

“Shall I give her a lethal injection?” The doctor removed his gloves.

“No. Give me the infusers. When she starts suffering, I’ll give her one.”

“She might linger for an hour or two. No more.”

Dr. Rivas left, and Matt sat by Mirasol’s bed. She awoke, and for a moment her eyes were clear and she seemed to see him. Then the anguish overtook her and she screamed. The last time she looked directly at Matt and he bent over and kissed her. “I love you, Waitress,” he said.

She gazed back, really seeing him. “I am called Mirasol,” she whispered, and then, as the infusion flooded her veins, she sighed and did not wake again.

37

THE FUNERAL

Matt did not know how much time had passed. He sat unmoving as the small sounds of a hospital went on around him. Air-conditioning clicked on and off. A blood pressure cuff inflated and deflated on Mirasol’s wrist. A heart monitor searched for a beat, found none, and searched again. Matt was no stranger to death. It had surrounded him all his life. He had seen El Viejo, El Patrón’s grandson, lying in his coffin. He had seen the eejit in the field as a small child. And what he did not see, he was well aware of.

Except for Tam Lin, it had been remote from him. Matt didn’t really know most of those people. But Mirasol, dulled and silent though she was, had been a living presence. Her eyes followed him as the sunflower, her namesake, turned its face to the sun. Now something had departed, and he did not know what it was.

Dr. Rivas came into the room. He was no longer dressed for surgery, but had reverted to a white lab coat. “I’m sorry, mi patrón,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “She was a pretty thing and quite bright for an eejit. I imagine you’d like us to take care of the disposal.”

“The what?” asked Matt, coming out of his trance.

“We have procedures to deal with this situation. Cienfuegos does it all the time. It isn’t healthy for you to grieve for someone who wasn’t really there.”

“Just as you never grieved for your eejit son,” Matt said.

Dr. Rivas winced. “I deserved that. But you see, I knew my son before

. I have memories.”

“And I have memories of Mirasol.” Matt turned back to the motionless figure on the bed.

The doctor fussed with the equipment, detaching the blood pressure cuff and switching off the heart monitor. “I don’t know whether you have any religious preferences,” he said. “El Patrón was a Catholic, or at least he liked the ceremonies. I could have Sor Artemesia say a prayer over Mirasol.”

Matt thought of Listen’s quotes from the doctor: Religious holidays are crap. God doesn’t exist. Mbongeni is a happy baby. The rabbits are dee-diddly-dead. “Please go. And send me Sor Artemesia.”

The nun was as respectful as anyone could wish. She said a rosary over Mirasol and prayed silently. “I don’t think I can give her absolution,” she said hesitantly.

“What’s absolution?” said Matt.

“When someone is dying, Catholics give them the last rites. The person confesses his sins and is forgiven so that he can enter heaven. Mirasol couldn’t have confessed to anything. What sins could she have committed in her state?”

“What happens with dying infants and people in comas?”

“You’re right, mi patrón. These emergencies do come up, but the rite must be done while the person is alive. Mirasol is dead. It’s too late.” Sor Artemesia tried to pull the sheet over Mirasol’s face, but Matt prevented her.

“Not yet,” he said. “I say she’s still alive.”

“But the doctor—”

“Are you going to believe someone whose lifework is turning people into eejits? I am the Lord of Opium, and I say she’s alive.”

“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I don’t even know whether Mirasol has been baptized,” the nun said nervously.

“Then do it now.”