to the side of the window opposite her and sat.
"Aren't you worried we'll be seen up here?" I said. "We won't be seen. Look down there."
It was the second time that night a book I hadn't much cared for came to mind. The first was Inferno . This time it was Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire .
I was looking at an orgy.
In the moonlit firelit dust of the square I saw men and women coupling everywhere. Women spread out naked upon the bare red earth or on their knees being taken from behind, women sodomized and forced to perform fellatio. In more than one case both of these at the same time. I saw women being mauled and prodded and slapped and caned. And I saw guards and the three sisters passing through all of this and fueling its dementia with bottles of whiskey, mescal and tequila.
I was glad the window was shut so we didn't have to hear it too.
I saw joyless, spiritless faces. Both the takers and the taken .
It was when I saw what they were doing to Celine that I turned away.
" You, writer ," Elena had said to me the night before. " Take this down .
" They will find it on our bodies ."
I don't wish to tell this. But I think I owe it to all concerned.
"The fat pig is Fredo," she said. "The tall thin one is Gustavo. I do not know the third one. A buyer.
"You don't want to witness this, writer? Fine, don't."
But she wanted me to. I could hear it in her voice. I could see it in the eyes which pooled with tears but never wavered and barely blinked. When I saw what grief and rage those eyes held I turned back again.
If she could so could I.
Though Celine was directly below us had it not been for the thin white camisole pushed up nearly to her breasts I could not have recognized her. Her face was hidden.
She lay spread-eagled on her back naked from the camisole on down and the one Elena called Fredo was kneeling on each of her forearms spread wide above her nearly at the elbow joint. Her head was in his cradled hands, raised up and tilted back toward him which must have agonized neck and arms and the muscles of her back as he moved her head up and down in time to his naked plunging hips. The Indio Gustavo held her legs apart at the ankles while the third man — an Anglo judging from his long thin matted hair — knelt to one side.
There was no way to know if the bird had been dead or alive when he began.
It was dead now.
Its head dangled in on a broken neck, wattles and comb and beak disappearing and reappearing again as he moved the hackles up inside her back and forth nearly up over the breastbone. He had the chicken gripped in both hands and when he looked up at Gustavo he was smiling .
"It is good," she said . "She will live through this. She does not resist. Soon, little sister. Soon."
I watched until the Anglo tired of this game and stood and walked over to where Gustavo was kneeling, dropped to his own knees in front of her, unbuttoned his trousers and covered her with his body .
An hour is a very long time to wait when you're frightened and know in your heart that something very bad is coming toward you like distant hoofbeats. Something that will likely change your life forever if you manage to live through it at all. You can deal with that hour in many different ways according to your lights.
Elena's gaze never left what was happening outside the window, the tension in her body visible only in her white-knuckled grip on the Winchester. Mother lay silent on the bed like a man dead in his casket with his hands folded over his belly and his eyes shut. Hart stood leaning against the wall behind the door, his rifle in one hand pointed at the floor and his dice rolling soundlessly across the knuckles of the other.
I sat there facing away from the window and closed my eyes and tried to stop wishing for a drink, tried to relax, tried to think about better days long past, theatre and the opera, baseball games and taverns with the boys at Harvard and my first love, Jane Geary, who left me for a
"Aren't you worried we'll be seen up here?" I said. "We won't be seen. Look down there."
It was the second time that night a book I hadn't much cared for came to mind. The first was Inferno . This time it was Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire .
I was looking at an orgy.
In the moonlit firelit dust of the square I saw men and women coupling everywhere. Women spread out naked upon the bare red earth or on their knees being taken from behind, women sodomized and forced to perform fellatio. In more than one case both of these at the same time. I saw women being mauled and prodded and slapped and caned. And I saw guards and the three sisters passing through all of this and fueling its dementia with bottles of whiskey, mescal and tequila.
I was glad the window was shut so we didn't have to hear it too.
I saw joyless, spiritless faces. Both the takers and the taken .
It was when I saw what they were doing to Celine that I turned away.
" You, writer ," Elena had said to me the night before. " Take this down .
" They will find it on our bodies ."
I don't wish to tell this. But I think I owe it to all concerned.
"The fat pig is Fredo," she said. "The tall thin one is Gustavo. I do not know the third one. A buyer.
"You don't want to witness this, writer? Fine, don't."
But she wanted me to. I could hear it in her voice. I could see it in the eyes which pooled with tears but never wavered and barely blinked. When I saw what grief and rage those eyes held I turned back again.
If she could so could I.
Though Celine was directly below us had it not been for the thin white camisole pushed up nearly to her breasts I could not have recognized her. Her face was hidden.
She lay spread-eagled on her back naked from the camisole on down and the one Elena called Fredo was kneeling on each of her forearms spread wide above her nearly at the elbow joint. Her head was in his cradled hands, raised up and tilted back toward him which must have agonized neck and arms and the muscles of her back as he moved her head up and down in time to his naked plunging hips. The Indio Gustavo held her legs apart at the ankles while the third man — an Anglo judging from his long thin matted hair — knelt to one side.
There was no way to know if the bird had been dead or alive when he began.
It was dead now.
Its head dangled in on a broken neck, wattles and comb and beak disappearing and reappearing again as he moved the hackles up inside her back and forth nearly up over the breastbone. He had the chicken gripped in both hands and when he looked up at Gustavo he was smiling .
"It is good," she said . "She will live through this. She does not resist. Soon, little sister. Soon."
I watched until the Anglo tired of this game and stood and walked over to where Gustavo was kneeling, dropped to his own knees in front of her, unbuttoned his trousers and covered her with his body .
An hour is a very long time to wait when you're frightened and know in your heart that something very bad is coming toward you like distant hoofbeats. Something that will likely change your life forever if you manage to live through it at all. You can deal with that hour in many different ways according to your lights.
Elena's gaze never left what was happening outside the window, the tension in her body visible only in her white-knuckled grip on the Winchester. Mother lay silent on the bed like a man dead in his casket with his hands folded over his belly and his eyes shut. Hart stood leaning against the wall behind the door, his rifle in one hand pointed at the floor and his dice rolling soundlessly across the knuckles of the other.
I sat there facing away from the window and closed my eyes and tried to stop wishing for a drink, tried to relax, tried to think about better days long past, theatre and the opera, baseball games and taverns with the boys at Harvard and my first love, Jane Geary, who left me for a
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