The Lord of Opium

“Listen to me. It’s extremely important. This involves my safety and Sor Artemesia’s, too. You must promise to say nothing to anyone, including your mother.”

“She should have told you long ago,” put in Sor Artemesia.

“Of course I’ll promise. Is Dada in prison?” said María, with a keener sense of her father’s activities than Matt thought she possessed.

“He’s—he passed away,” said Matt. “So did Emilia.” How was he going to tell her the circumstances of how it happened?

Sor Artemesia came to his rescue. In a careful, restrained tone she described El Patrón’s funeral and the old man’s final revenge on anyone who dared to outlive him. “It was quick. They didn’t suffer,” the nun said.

María looked stunned. “How long has Mother known?”

“Since the first time I saw you through the holoport,” Matt said.

“She lied to me. She let me write letters to them for months. She gave me their answers. She wrote them herself.” María was crying now, but she was also angry. “She wanted to betroth me to that mealy-mouthed creep. She said Dada was in favor of it. She lied!”

“We’re on your side,” said Matt. “I’ll tell Esperanza that I won’t cooperate with her unless she sends you here.”

“She’ll find a way around it. She always does.” María paced around the room, smacking a fist into her palm. Sor Inez came in and signaled wildly. Esperanza was on her way. “Mother’s going on a fact-finding mission to Russia next week,” María said quickly. “Contact me at the other holoport in Paradise on Tuesday afternoon. I’ll have a plan then.” She snapped off the connection before Esperanza could come in and discover what she was doing.

Sor Artemesia sat down as mist filled the screen and the Convent of Santa Clara disappeared. She was trembling. “I hate dealing with people like Esperanza,” she admitted. “What I wouldn’t give for a cottage in a quiet valley where all I had to do was garden.”

“Me too,” said Matt. “I wouldn’t grow opium there either.”

Sor Artemesia smiled weakly. “I noticed that the altar cloth I embroidered wasn’t fastened to the wall at the convent. I wonder what happened to it.”

“María sent it to me.” Matt didn’t say that it was under his pillow or that he felt for it in the middle of the night when he had trouble sleeping.

*  *  *

The following Monday Matt went to the guitar factory to see how Chacho was getting along with the supplies he’d sent him. Boxes of watercolors, oil paints, and pastel crayons had arrived, along with brushes and various kinds of paper. To his surprise he saw Chacho working on an entire outside wall. It was a mural of people dancing, to go by the sketch done in charcoal on the whitewashed surface. Fidelito, Listen, and Ton-Ton were watching, while Mr. Ortega strummed a guitar.

“H-he’s really fast,” said Ton-Ton. “Started this morning and now, uh, look.” It was indeed impressive. At one end were flamenco dancers, and at the other were more modern figures doing whatever modern dancers did. In the middle was an orchestra led by a man who was unmistakably Eusebio Orozco. In one corner, high up as though she were floating, was Mirasol, doing the Trick-Track with an invisible partner.

Chacho had a stepladder and was working near the top of the wall to draw birds circling over the musicians. “This is the easy part,” he called down to Matt. “Doing the actual painting is hard.”

Matt sat down next to Mr. Ortega, who continued to play. “Chacho’s a natural,” the man said. “One of his ancestors was José Clemente Orozco, the best artist Mexico ever turned out. It runs in the family. Eusebio is a good artist too, but he’s better at music.”

Matt watched in amazement as Chacho dragged the ladder from one end of the mural to the other to add things that had just occurred to him. “What would he be like with training?” he said, turning so Mr. Ortega could read his lips.

“Something wonderful,” the man said, his fingers moving over the strings of the guitar. “The original Orozco was mad about painting murals even though he had a weak heart and had lost one hand and an eye at an early age. He had to stop and rest before he could climb a ladder. People like that are driven.”

“We absolutely have to find Chacho a teacher,” said Matt, thinking that Ton-Ton needed one as well. They had so much talent! And to think that all the Keepers thought they were good for was making ratty sandals out of plastic.

He saw Listen lurking behind Ton-Ton. “I know you’re there, so don’t pretend you’re not,” he said.

“I don’t see you and you don’t see me,” she said.

“That doesn’t make any sense, chiquita.” He sat down on the ground next to her.