The Lord of Opium

But the nun raised her head again, and although she was pale, she seemed in control. “I shouldn’t have been surprised,” she said. “Time and again I warned them. ‘Don’t build your house at the foot of a volcano.’ But they didn’t listen. The money was too good.” She sipped the fruit juice absently. “When Doña Esperanza left, I went with her, and when Senator Mendoza sent the girls to boarding school, I made sure to be one of the teachers.”

“What was Esperanza doing for her daughters?” asked Matt. “María thought her mother had abandoned her.”

Sor Artemesia sighed deeply. “Some women are not meant to be mothers. Doña Esperanza loved power, and her daughters were merely an annoyance. Which is worse? Someone who is there and resents your existence, or someone who is gone? I did my best for the girls, but Emilia was difficult. She had the worst traits of both her parents, and now it has brought her to this. If you would excuse me, mi patrón, I would like to go to the chapel and pray for their souls.”

Matt thought briefly of the shrine to Jesús Malverde. That would never do. The church Celia had gone to was several miles away through the opium fields. Its priest had died at the funeral along with the rest. Matt didn’t know whether a church was usable without a priest.

“I’ll take you,” Cienfuegos said. “We’ll have to drive, but I’m sure Daft Donald wouldn’t mind taking out the car. I’ll wait outside the church, you understand. We wouldn’t want God to strike it with lightning.”

He gently helped the nun to her feet. They walked together, neither looking at each other nor speaking. In the fading light of sunset, they seemed more like figures from the paintings than living beings. No one said a word until their footsteps had faded away and Mirasol had lit the chandeliers.

29

NIGHT TERRORS

Poor María!” Ton-Ton said at last.

“She visited me in the hospital every day,” said Chacho. “She brought me sweets when the nurses weren’t looking. You know, they only feed you boiled vegetables and soup. Why do bad things have to happen to good people?”

“You were horrible to Sor Artemesia,” Matt said to Listen. “Didn’t you realize she cared about those people?”

“She asked a question and I answered it,” said the little girl pertly. She had a heap of unwanted mushrooms next to her salad bowl and now amused herself by flicking them across the table.

“Stop that! Where did you get such an ugly word like ‘dee-diddly-dead’?”

“That’s what Dr. Rivas says when he kills the rabbits.”

“Well, it’s nasty, and I don’t want you to use it. How did you find out about the funeral, anyway?” said Matt.

“Dr. Rivas and Cienfuegos talked about it. They don’t call me Listen for nothing.” The little girl scowled. “You’re El Patrón’s replacement. For all we know you could be feeding us poison right now, and we wouldn’t know until it was too late.”

“Don’t be such an idiot,” Matt said, but he considered how she’d been raised, watching the doctor kill animals and hiding out from the Bug. It was going to take work to rehumanize her.

Mirasol took away the salad bowls and began serving the dishes Matt had planned to delight his friends—porterhouse steak, scalloped potatoes, and asparagus. At first the boys were too disturbed to notice what they were eating, but the unfamiliar richness of the food soon got through to them. Ton-Ton attacked his steak as though it might run away, and Fidelito chomped asparagus like a horse eating carrots.

“We should remember our table manners out of respect for Sor Artemesia,” protested Chacho. But the food was too good, and besides, she wasn’t there.

“More scalped potatoes, please,” Fidelito said.

“Th-that’s scalloped potatoes, you loon,” said Ton-Ton.

“Waitress, give Fidelito more potatoes,” Matt said.

“Why do you repeat orders to her?” asked Chacho. “And why do you call her Waitress? I thought her name was Mirasol.”

Matt watched as the girl mechanically filled Fidelito’s plate. “That’s enough, Waitress,” he said. She went back to the serving station and stared out at the room with unseeing eyes.

“That’s weird,” Chacho said.

“Sh-she isn’t normal,” said Ton-Ton, suddenly alert. “Her eyes . . . ”

“She isn’t normal,” confirmed Matt.

Ton-Ton got up and looked directly into her face. Mirasol didn’t react. “I d-don’t believe it. We’ve been around these, uh, servants for hours and I didn’t see it.” He took her hand, and she accepted it passively. “She’s just a kid.”