My grandfather said, Damn, Juancito knows how to shoot, who knew?, and that was it. He was already very depressed in those days, and he killed himself a few years later. I miss my grandfather every day, even though it’s a predictable fate for members of the Order and we’re taught to accept it. The house smelled like gunpowder for weeks—weeks that Juan spent locked in his room. When he came out, I told him he could find someone else too, and he shouted, Who’s going to want me? I told him, Oh, anyone will, you can take your pick, but he dismissed my words with a gesture of defeat. He never has realized what disquiet and fascination he provokes in other people. I was telling him the truth. At fifteen, Juan didn’t look like a teenager, and though he was delicate and pale, he had all the look of a man, with his broad back, prominent veins in his arms, that sad and arrogant look in his eyes.
I departed at night and left him crying: the driver was waiting for me, the suitcases already in the car. The drive to Ezeiza was long but hypnotic, and I didn’t feel sick until I boarded the plane. I didn’t know how much I was going to miss Juan or how unbearable his absence would be, but I felt free and distant and alone. It was what I wanted. Vomiting during the entire trip was a cleansing.
Stephen was waiting for me at the airport. The wind had tousled his hair and his streak of white hair covered his eyes. The white had appeared the day after his first Ceremonial: that was when Juan marked Stephen’s back with his golden claws. It was an unforgettable moment, because Stephen was very young, because he was Florence’s son, and because the wounds were deep and long, running from beneath his shoulder blades to his waist. All the participants screamed: they thought Juan had killed him. The healing was as definitive, immediate, and perfect as when he cauterized my uncle’s mutilated hand. The two elegant lines, Stephen would say now, proved he was a fallen angel, and were very attractive to his lovers. But even so, when he received them, the trauma left him speechless and gave him those sudden white hairs. The mark also indicated that he was the medium’s companion, if he desired. I never felt jealous: on the contrary, it was a relief to have someone with whom to share the task.
We embraced like lovers: he picked me up and spun me around amid the travelers and tourists, the porters, the voice announcing the next flights. I adored Stephen; he had all the joy and defiance I was lacking, at least in those days. He carried the suitcases to the car that would take us to the Order’s headquarters, his mother’s house in St. John’s Wood. Though my family had houses in London and could also rent one for me, Florence preferred, at first, for me to be her guest. She wants to understand why you’re leaving Juan, Stephen had told me. But I wasn’t leaving him. Was it so hard to explain? My life had been dedicated to him for the past six years. I wanted to miss him and go back to him with real desire. I wanted him to become a man. I understand perfectly, my friend, Stephen said. If only Juan could understand too, I replied. He will, and if not, I’ll beat it into him. I laughed and kissed Stephen on the cheek. He was in love with Juan too, but he never interfered with us and I always wanted him nearby, like the other spouse, the peacekeeper.
The house in St. John’s Wood was surrounded by a brick wall that blocked its view from the street. I had been there before, some years earlier on a brief trip. It had a garden that was lovely but sad, with a stone fountain, red and yellow roses, and gravel paths. The intense green of the grass made you squint your eyes. The house held the Order’s main library. A group of experts cared for more than three thousand books; there were also two rooms dedicated to contemporary editions. And in the most closely guarded place, the Book that was written in the words of the Darkness, the Order’s sacred Book, to which Juan had contributed the best and most extensive pages. Because of that crucial contribution, he was granted a normal life, with less frequent Ceremonials and a new method that wasn’t based on using him to exhaustion, like all of his predecessors had been. Florence was proud of having made that decision, because the results were clear: never had the Darkness given so much information, though it was at times erratic and confused. Our task is to interpret it, she said, and we must learn patience.
She greeted us with a hug: she was alone except for the servants and Eddie, her younger son, who lived with her because there was no institution that could contain him. The first thing she did was ask me if I wanted to take a bath before eating, because I must be exhausted after the overnight flight. I was exhausted, and famished: the nausea and disgust had passed. Florence took me upstairs to the guest room, and one of the servants left my suitcase on the straps of the luggage stand. The wallpaper was of thorny roses, like the ones in the garden. From the window I could see the damp street and people walking quickly, freezing in the February cold. The bathtub, to my surprise, was already full. Florence took care of those details that, in my house, my mother had never learned how to organize. When I started to feel cold, I got out of the water and put on a simple black dress, long and loose, and a pair of moccasin boots. The house was warm and I didn’t need anything else.
We had a somewhat uncomfortable lunch, the three of us. Florence listened to my plans to study at the Warburg Institute and Cambridge; she said only that it was all arranged, I could start classes in two weeks, and, when the time came, begin the regular school year. We didn’t talk about Juan, but we did talk about Eddie. While we were downstairs eating, he was upstairs tied to his bed, because he would try to bite himself, and he’d already managed to destroy his wrists with his teeth. Florence kept the secret of exactly what she had done with her younger son, but she told the basic story because, she thought, Juan’s arrival had been a wake-up call about her arrogance, a way of showing her that neither she nor anyone else could influence the Darkness’s decisions. By training her son to be a medium, she had lain waste to his psyche. Eddie was crazy and he was dangerous, to himself and to others. She regretted it and her pain was sincere, because she loved Eddie desperately.
Stephen didn’t let me rest after we ate. When they cleared the plates and Florence ordered the tea, he told me we’re going right out, you have to see the city, it’s wonderful. The rest of the country is worthless, but London is the center of the world.
Florence didn’t stop us. She didn’t like the company of young people like us. We reminded her of what she had lost as a teenager, when she had to take over the Order. In her mind, we had no responsibilities. Stephen kissed me in the doorway of the house, under the umbrella, and with the tip of his tongue put a tab of acid on my palate. It’s only a fourth, he told me, to see if you have a bad trip. It’s good to fly low your first time. And we climbed into his moss-colored Lotus Elan—a convertible, even though, he would say, you can only put the top down three days a year on this damn island. He was exaggerating, of course, but not much.
Before Florence, the Order was led by Charles Mathers, the grandfather Stephen never met. Charles was determined to find a medium for his generation, as his older brother George had when he’d found Olanna. But he was frustrated at every turn, though his search was frenetic. He spread the Order throughout the globe with the promise the Darkness had made: members would be given the chance to perpetuate their consciousness on this plane; that is, to experience a form of immortality on earth. He found, in fact, many mediums in various parts of the world, but he couldn’t keep any of them alive very long or achieve significant advances. It’s all in the Book. A young woman who died during the Ceremonial. A teenager who killed himself after barely a month as the Order’s medium. A young man in the United States who tried to strangle several Initiates before dying from a stroke. Charles realized how difficult it was to keep these sinister children alive and lucid, but he couldn’t figure out how to do it. Florence was the first one to understand.