The Autobiography of Red (16 page)

Not only was he very hungry but much more humiliating—

 

12,000 meters above the mountains that divide Argentina from Chile

 

with their long white gouges tracing

 

the red sandstone like a meringue pie—Geryon felt himself becoming aroused.

 

He was sitting in between Herakles and Ancash.

 

The plane was cold and they had an Aeroperu blanket thrown over

 

the three of them. Geryon was trying to read.

 

He had not realized until he found himself stranded in it high above the Andes

 

halfway to Lima that the novel he’d bought

 

in the Buenos Aires airport was pornographic. It made him furious with himself

 

to be stirred by dull sentences like,

 

Gladys slid a hand under her nightgown and began to caress her own thighs.
Gladys!

 

He loathed the name. But his thighs

 

under the Aeroperu blanket were very warm. He snapped off the light

 

and shoved the book deep out of sight

 

in the seat pocket ahead of him. Sat back in the dark. On his left side Herakles

 

stirred in sleep. Ancash was motionless

 

on the right. Geryon tried to cross his knees but could not, then shifted sideways

 

to the left. He would pretend to be asleep

 

so he could lean against Herakles’ shoulder. The smell of the leather jacket near

 

his face and the hard pressure of Herakles’

 

arm under the leather sent a wave of longing as strong as a color through Geryon.

 

It exploded at the bottom of his belly.

 

Then the blanket shifted. He felt Herakles’ hand move on his thigh and Geryon’s

 

head went back like a poppy in a breeze

 

as Herakles’ mouth came down on his and blackness sank through him. Herakles’

 

hand was on his zipper. Geryon gave himself up

 

to pleasure as the aeroplane moved at 978 kilometers per hour through clouds

 

registering −57 degrees centigrade.

 

Two women with toothbrushes stumbled up the aisle in the reddish dawn dark.

 

These are all very fine passengers,

 

thought Geryon dreamily as he and the plane began descent to Lima. It filled him

 

with tenderness to see many of the people

 

had little red flush marks on their cheeks where they had slept with faces

 

pressed to the seat cushion. Gladys!

 

A soiled white Saturday morning in Lima.

 

The sky heavy and dark as if before rain but it hasn’t rained in Lima since 1940.

 

On the roof of the house Geryon stood

 

looking out to sea. Chimneys and lines of laundry surrounded him on all sides.

 

Everything curiously quiet.

 

On the roof next door a man in black silk kimono emerged at the top of a ladder.

 

Clutching his kimono around him

 

he stepped onto the roof and stood motionless in front of a big rusted water tank.

 

Stared hard at the tank then lifted

 

the brick holding down the lid and peered inside. Replaced the brick. Went back

 

down the ladder. Geryon turned

 

to see Ancash climbing up onto the roof.
Buenos días,
said Ancash.
Hi,
said Geryon.

 

Their eyes failed to meet.

 

You slept well?
asked Ancash.
Yes thank you.
They had all three slept on the roof

 

in sleeping bags borrowed

 

from the American downstairs. Ancash’s mother had the roof divided into living,

 

sleeping and horticultural areas.

 

Beside the water tank was where guests slept. Next to that was “Ancash’s room,”

 

an area bordered on one side by the clothesline,

 

where Ancash had neatly arranged his T-shirts on hangers, and on the other side

 

by a scarred highboy inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

 

Beside the highboy was the library. Here were two sofas and a bookcase packed

 

with books. On the writing desk stood

 

piles of paper weighted down with tins of tobacco and a gooseneck reading lamp

 

that plugged into a cracked extension cord

 

running across the desk and over the roof and down the ladder to the kitchen.

 

Ancash had made a ceiling of palm fronds

 

above the library. They moved and clicked in the wind like wooden tongues.

 

Next to the library was a squat structure

 

built of clear heavy plastic and some pieces of dismantled telephone booth.

 

Here Ancash’s mother grew a cash crop

 

of marijuana and herbs for cooking. She called it Festinito (“Little Feast”)

 

and said it was her favorite place

 

in the world. Plaster figures of St. Francis and St. Rose of Lima were placed

 

encouragingly among the plants.

 

She herself slept next to the Little Feast on a cot piled high with bright blankets.

 

You were not cold?
Ancash continued.

 

Oh no just fine,
said Geryon. In fact he had never been so cold in his life as last night

 

under the dull red winter stars of Lima.

 

Ancash came over to the edge of the roof and stood beside Geryon staring down

 

towards the streets and the sea.

 

Geryon stared too. Sounds came to them across the white air. There was the slow

 

thock of a hammer. An uncertain music

 

like a water pipe starting and stopping. Many layers of traffic. A crackle of garbage

 

burning. Dry howls of dogs. Sounds

 

entered Geryon small at first but gradually filling his mind. The streets below

 

were after all not empty. Two men crouched

 

beside a half-built wall pulling bricks out of a little stone oven on a shovel.

 

A boy was sweeping the steps of the church

 

with a palm frond as big as himself. A man and woman stood eating breakfast

 

out of plastic containers and staring

 

in opposite directions up and down the street. They had a thermos and two cups

 

perched on the hood of their car.

 

Five policemen strolled past with carbines. Down on the beach a soccer team was

 

practicing and beyond them

 

the filthy Pacific came crashing in.
It is different from Argentina,
said Geryon.

 

How do you mean?

 

No one here is in a hurry.
Ancash smiled but said nothing.
They move so softly,

 

Geryon added. He was watching the soccer team

 

whose movements had the rounded languor of a dream. Smells of burning blew across

 

the air. Dogs went nosing without urgency

 

through the garbage and marigolds that lined the seawall.
You’re right Argentinians

 

are much faster. Always going somewhere.

 

Geryon could see many small Peruvian people wandering along the seawall. Often they

 

would stop to stare at nothing in particular.

 

Everyone seems to be waiting,
said Geryon.
Waiting for what?
said Ancash.

 

Yes waiting for what,
said Geryon.

 

There was a sudden loud hiss. The electrical cord that ran across the roof

 

at their feet exploded in light sparks.

 

Damn,
said Ancash.
I wish she’d rewire this. Every time someone plugs in the kettle

 

in the kitchen we have a meltdown.

 

Herakles’ head appeared on the ladder.
Hombres!
He clambered up onto the roof.

 

Big chunk of papaya in his hand which he waved at Geryon.

 

You should try this stuff Geryon! It’s like eating the sun!
Herakles sank his mouth

 

into the fruit and grinned at them.

 

Juice ran down his face and onto his bare chest. Geryon watched a drop of sun

 

slide past Herakles’ nipple and over his belly

 

and vanish into the top of his jeans. He moved his eyes away.
Did you see the parrots?

 

Herakles demanded.

 

Parrots?
said Geryon.
Yes she has a room full of parrots at the front of the house.

 

Must be fifty birds in there.

 

Purple green orange blue yellow it’s like an explosion and there’s one big

 

motherfucker who’s totally gold. Says

 

she’s going to have to get rid of it. Why?
asked Geryon.
Kills everything smaller

 

than itself. Last week it killed the cat.

 

That’s conjecture,
Ancash interrupted.
No one saw it kill the cat. Whose cat?

 

asked Geryon rather lost.

 

Marguerite’s,
said Ancash.
Marguerite is the wife of the American downstairs

 

you remember she lent us the sleeping bags

 

last night? Oh,
said Geryon,
the woman with the cold hands.
He barely recalled

 

introductions in a foggy kitchen at four a.m.

 

Thing is, who else would have killed the cat?
Herakles persisted.
Guerrillas maybe,

 

said Ancash.
Last winter they killed

 

all the cats in Huaraz one weekend. Why?
said Geryon.
A gesture,
said Ancash.

 

Gesture of what?
said Geryon.

 

Well it was after a TV broadcast where the president spoke from his living room.

 

He sat in an armchair with a cat

 

on his lap explaining how the police had the terrorists completely under control.

 

Next day no cats.

 

Good thing he didn’t have his wife on his lap,
said Herakles licking his chin.

 

The electrical cord was sparking again.

 

A little black puff rose from it.
Want me to fix that?
said Herakles as he

 

wiped his hands on his jeans.

 

Okay,
said Ancash,
my mother would appreciate it. Got any duct tape?
said Herakles.

 

I don’t know let’s go look in the kitchen.

 

They disappeared down the ladder. Geryon closed his eyes a moment, pulling

 

his overcoat tight around him.

 

The wind had changed, now blowing in from the sea and carrying a raw smell.

 

Geryon was cold. Hungry. His body

 

felt like a locked box. Lima is terrible, he thought, why am I here? Overhead

 

the sky waited too.