Tom Knox - The Babylon rite

The lid was open. Adam couldn’t help his curiosity. If he was going to die he wanted to see what he was going to die for.

He peered. The powder inside the box looked not unlike tobacco snuff, only greyer and finer.

Monroy carefully placed the open box on a side table. He took out a tiny silver spoon from a pocket in his pale jacket. His eyes flickered across them, from face to face. ‘Your theories as to the functioning of ulluchu were audacious. Creditable. But you missed the crucial factor, you failed to grasp what makes this plant so utterly unique even amidst the bounteous entheogenic richness of Amazonia.’ He picked up the box again. ‘Yes, the drug induces hypersexuality. Yes, it arouses violence and sadistic urges. Yes, the alkaloids therein work with extraordinary speed, just like dimethyltryptamine. Yes, the ulluchu commonly has gruesome or precise side-effects: the urge to drink blood is common, likewise a desire for sex per ano. Especially in a zoophiliac or necrophiliac context.’ He gazed at them, ‘And yes, the seeds, when powdered very, very finely, also have the happy character of being completely absorbed into the blood stream with great efficiency. The powder, we have elucidated, is best absorbed through the nasal or oral membranes. That way the powder is dissolved in seconds; if it is taken orally it is undetectable a few minutes later; you would have to analyse the molecules of the glottis to discern what had happened, even if you knew what you were looking for.’

He turned. ‘I deviate. You need to know what this drug does. You need to know because I am about to give it to you, approximately 0.5 grams, in a fine powder form, about five times what I take every day from my little Georgian snuffbox. When taken at that very concentrated level, in one single dose, the drug not only powers the libido and the aggressive and libidinous instincts, it arouses what Freud called the death instinct, thanatos, so closely entwined to eros, the sex drive, the life instinct. You see, the drug,’ his smile was pallid and moist, ‘ makes you want to die. It makes the user yearn for death, so that he

…’ He paused. ‘Or she, will self-mutilate, tear at their own flesh, or hurl themselves into danger with urgent fearlessness. Hoping for a fatal wound. Like the brave Templars of the Crusader Levant, foolishly throwing themselves into battle, believing they died for Christ, believing they died like Christ. Sacrificing themselves, quite intoxicated with the death instinct. Quite, quite inebriated on ulluchu. So this really is the secret that gets you killed. The late Archibald McLintock so loved that phrase.’

He scooped a tiny amount of powder from the box with the delicate silver spoon.

‘Half a gram. I am going to give each of you half a gram of ulluchu. At first you will feel nothing. Then you will experience intense pleasure, and you will become aroused, and probably violent, possibly at the same time. This will be interesting for us all. Consequently the very high dosage will… kick in. You will feel an unconquerable urge to seek the end, to slough off this weary mantle of worldliness, perhaps to hack off your own lips, to gouge out your eyes, in short: to die. You will want to die: this is the death drug, the ultimate drug, the suicide drug. Then you will kill yourselves. I have no idea in what way. It seems to affect different people in different ways: how they actually perform the Babylon rite of self-murder. The entertainment will be potentially quite profound, even, it is arguable, desolately beautiful. A kind of artwork. A gesamtkunstwerk, a living theatre of sex and death, like the rituals of the Moche in the Pyramid of the Sorcerer, like the overdosed Templars torturing men and children in Temple Bruer and hiding the evidence.’

Abruptly, he stepped close and grabbed Nina’s white cheeks, so hard that her mouth was forced open. He poised the heaped little spoon in front of her mouth, and blew the powder between her soft red open lips.

Then he let go. She coughed and hacked brown spittle on to the floor. Monroy shook his head. ‘The powder is on the very back of your throat, already being absorbed. You cannot spit it out. And now for the gentleman.’

Adam tried to avert his face but Monroy’s grip was very strong. He felt the powder hit the back of the throat. Felt the bitter taste, extraordinarily tart, almost like a powdered acid. A tang of some heavenly dark citrus. The taste disappeared, and a surge of pleasure overtook him.

Monroy stiffened, and walked to the last chair. ‘I don’t have to force you, do I, Jessica Silverton? You want the drug, don’t you? You want to die? That is, after all, why we are all here?’

She mumbled her reply, her eyes wet with tears. ‘Yes.’

Le Casa de Carlos Chicomeca Monroy

‘Why?’ said Nina, softly, gazing at Jessica. ‘Why did you betray us? Because you are ill?’

Jessica Silverton said nothing: she stared at the chevrons of the parquet floor. Handcuffed and miserable.

Carlos Monroy set the silver spoon on the marble mantel. ‘I can explain for Miss Silverton. You have to understand. She is an expert in her field, one of the brightest. She guessed some time ago the possible true nature of ulluchu. That it contained a unique alkaloid. Let us call it thanatine. An alkaloid which induces the desire to die. An alkaloid we have tried, and failed, so far, to isolate, extract and synthesize. Despite all our valiant attempts.’

Adam looked at Jessica for confirmation. But her blonde hair curtained her downcast face.

Monroy continued, ‘The second thing you need to know is that Jessica’s father died when she was young, of Huntington’s Disease. And that is a very evil way to die. Progressive and degenerative and appalling. The kind of disease which makes you question the goodness of God.’ He walked closer to Adam. ‘There is, of course, no cure. Huntington’s is genetic. Many people with the disease refuse a genetic test to see whether they are carriers. Why? Because a positive diagnosis induces many to commit suicide even before they fall ill, so great is their terror of the eventual affliction.’ He paused. ‘Jessica is, we now know, a carrier. What is more, she has the worst kind: a speedy and juvenile variety of the chorea. The clinching symptom is epileptiform seizure.’

Adam spoke, his voice hoarse. ‘How do you know all this?’

‘For many months Jessica admits she has been in denial of various symptoms — the initial signs that she had Huntington’s. And who can blame her for denying such a terrible fate for herself? Then, when her situation became incontrovertible, in the last weeks, days even, the intense horror took hold: and she knew she wanted to kill herself rather than go through what her father endured. And she wanted to face this death with yearning rather than dread, face it with contemptuous courage even, face it like the noble Templars, or the gallant Moche, the fearsome berserkers. Rather understandable, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Jess.’ Nina whispered. But still Jessica said nothing. Adam could feel the first rush of his own heart. The drug kicking in. They were all spiralling into oblivion, into the pure darkness of dementia. The sensation was blissful and terrifying.

Monroy paced the gilded room, like a gifted young lecturer, like the Harvard scholar he once was.

‘Jessica guessed, a while ago, what ulluchu really did. That it was a drug that made you want to die, thus obviating the terrors of death and of suicide. She felt that you, in turn, were unlikely to achieve success in finding the real ulluchu. Certainly she could not rely on this, and she was ever more desperate. Yet she knew I was most likely to be in possession of the echt drug, and she could not be sure anyone else had any of the dwindling supplies — and she could not be sure anyone else would understand her side of the bargain. Therefore she kept her options rather cleverly open by initiating contact with me, from Lima, the day you met. She gave me a few clues as to her situation and your whereabouts. Following her seizure on your boat, when her genetic fate was confirmed, when she felt the cold kiss of death on her pale American neck, she called me once more from the UNESCO site. She said if you failed in the jungle she would do a deal. Cut a sweet little deal. She would, if she could, make a phone call from the jungle: we were monitoring her phone, we were able to triangulate her location. She took a risk, but she is not without courage. And we knew you were near Iquitos: Peru is a cheap place to buy friends. So we located you, and thus we were able to come and… rescue you. As it were.’