Free The Orchids by Thomas H. Cook

all things that move with stamina through pain .
    I fold the letter carefully, then burn it in the ashtray beside my rack of pipes. Watching the smoke, I recall that moment once again when Anna and I faced each other in the park. Here in the Republic one can grow to hate such banal reminiscences. The aggrieved adolescent stands blank-faced in the park, watching his love abandon him, and feels the first touch of history, a mere chill around his shoulders, and then, that moment past, moves on to greater endeavors involving smoke and poison gas.
    Greater things, indeed, for one and all. And yet the little prince, rubbing his eyes under the sculptured gaze of Frederick the Great, can feel nothing of his own loss, nothing but sudden drift, dull and anchorless, as if the world’s firm substance had suddenly exploded, scattering fragments of earth and bone throughout the universe, as if the seas were made of star-crossed lovers’ tears, as if the rising chorus of Fidelio were meant to orchestrate the strife of teenage infatuation. For the true romantic, there is no history or literature or art that does not pertain to him.
    I gaze into the enclosing darkness. In the Republic, night is a signal for assault. The owls wait on their secret perches for the dark curtain to fall across the jungle floor, their eyes searching the blackness for the small rodents that must go forth, risking everything for food. Silently, they squeeze the branches with their talons and dream of small hearts beating within their grasp. In the blue, lunar glare of the searchlights Dr. Ludtz has installed about the compound, I see Juan puttering about the greenhouse, muttering prayers against the blight. He believes that darkness is the devil’s work, that it shields that unknowable miasma which will drift in to corrupt the orchids. To the left, the lights in Dr. Ludtz’s cottage are burning brightly through the barred and shuttered windows. Inside he reads Rilke and glances up periodically at the pistol that rests upon his nightstand next to his crucifix.
    I turn and walk into my office. Sitting behind my desk, I pour a small amount of absinthe into my glass. Outside, I can hear the night creatures fill the air with calls of mating or distress. Beyond the rim of light that circles the grounds like a thin white wall, the world descends to elemental needs. Out there, small creatures scurry across the leaves, fleeing the swoop of gigantic birds; the great snakes coil around mounds of eggs orphaned by the owls; the beetles inch their way into the viscera of the dead or tumble over lumps of larger creatures’ waste. Here, doom is no more than prologue to further violation. Each night the libretto is the same, and things go forth and are cut down, and all things wait to be relieved.

Part II

S PLENDID TO SEE you again, Don Pedro,” Don Camillo says. He roots himself in his chair. I can see a revolver bulging slightly under each arm of his three-piece suit.
    â€œGood to see you, also,” I tell him.
    Don Camillo looks off the verandah at the light dancing on the river. “A beautiful morning. Absolutely beautiful.”
    â€œYes.”
    Don Camillo turns to me. “Well, let me say that El Presidente is very much looking forward to his visit.” He smiles expansively. Don Camillo is a man of smiles and expansiveness, both closely related to his personal control of the Republic’s stock of copper.
    â€œPlease give El Presidente my regards,” I tell him.
    â€œYou will soon be able to give them to him yourself, Don Pedro.”
    â€œOf course.”
    Don Camillo glances about. “And where, may I ask, is my good friend Dr. Ludtz?”
    â€œIn his cottage.”
    â€œI hope he is well.”
    â€œQuite well. He is reading, I suppose.”
    â€œA well-read man. I noticed that right away about Dr. Ludtz,” Don Camillo says.
    â€œA product of culture’s refinements,” I add