People no longer smell sulfur when they see me. A papaya vendor at Hangman’s Market takes a sudden interest in the depths of a coin purse. A bank clerk’s posture stiffens with dignity and fear. A young man seizes me up and dismisses me as a possible competitor for any female he would seek to bed.

            As a result, in my dotage, I’ve permitted myself to become a man of habit. Hangman’s Market each weekday at 11, where I load my string bag like all the market-goers–papaya, yams, some dried sausage. A daily glass of tafia before lunch at Don Pedro’s by the sea. A crossword puzzle I make no real effort to complete. The siesta afterward, while my housekeeper cooks my evening meal without supervision, since she’s the only person who can be trusted, and even then, I make her taste dinner first. Although I’ve never been known for making my assassination easy, habit is how I show my contempt for the citizens of this sleepy regional capital, who have no manly appetite to punish the Devil for his sins.

            What alters my habit today are the massive wooden doors of the Cathedral of Saint Agatha. They are wide open as if it were Sunday. They are an invitation, the first I’ve had from God in years. Back when I was in power, the cathedral’s archbishop and I worked in close partnership. Many times, I sat at his table. He’d been, God rest his soul, a man of immense faith, but also practical and not particular about means, so long as the end was sanctified. 

            His successor? A holy fool, dithering about law and morality while Rome burns and the Communists plot. I met him only once, and it was enough to conclude he isn’t a man with whom I could ever work. Indeed, I doubt whether he be a man at all. 

            Yet now, perhaps bored by habit and the sleepy citizens, I climb the Cathedral steps. I dip my fingers in the holy water and make the sign of the cross, as is still customary, I think.

            The holy fool stands on the altar, all in black save his collar. Plump, earnest, diminutive, he’s pontificating to a group of men in short-sleeve button down shirts, who look like architects. The bishop gestures toward the ceiling the way an evangelical might summon the Lord. I look up–even the devil craves another glimpse of God–but as soon as I do, the bishop falls silent. Though I’ve exchanged my military uniform for a sweat-stained Panama hat, a linen suit open at the neck, and a bushy mustache my vanity forces me to dye an unlikely black, he’s recognized me, like a dog with a keen nose.

            “Good afternoon, your Eminence,” I call out. “I don’t mean to disturb you.” The string bag swings at my side like a hanged corpse. I’m used to perplexing others. Over my years in power, surprise was my best friend. Keep them on their back foot. Make a generous offer to an enemy. Yank tight the noose on a friend whose presumption might get us both killed.

            “Good afternoon, Commandant,” the bishop says. The architects look at the marble floor. Then they eye my bag as if it might contain the severed head of their oldest son.

            I flick my right hand to shoo them away, and a vestige of holy water shoots off my fingertips. Such is their respect and fear, the architects scurry through the side doors, so they don’t have to pass me.

            The holy fool looks dismayed, perhaps thinking: How will such scurrying men build something permanent and great in this Cathedral if they so quickly give way before this old man who no longer stinks of sulfur?

            Finding himself abandoned, he steps down to the floor of the sanctuary, perhaps to discourage me from setting foot on the sacred altar. He and I eye each other. He is six inches shorter even with my stoop. He inclines his head. He raises his eyebrows. He wrings his hands. He’s perhaps hoping in his deepest hearts that I’ve come at last to express contrition, which, for this hapless priest, would have been the highest moral achievement of his now interminable spiritual reign. A feather in his mitre, if you will.

            “I came to invite your Eminence to lunch,” I say, though of course I’d come with no purpose whatsoever. “It’s been too long, has it not? You must know, your Eminence, it’s my habit to take the midday meal at Don Pedro by the sea?”

            A shadow of revulsion passes over the bishop’s face. For him, even white lies are a sin, so he’s incapable of generating a simple excuse to turn me down.

            “It’s settled then,” I declare. “You’ll join me today. In half an hour.”

            The priest’s hand drifts to his white collar. He fiddles with it as if it’s too tight.

            “I’m not an Eminence,” he says.

            “No? What are you then?”

            He looks reluctant to answer, as if the title is as repugnant to him as I am. “I’m an Excellency. That’s the title that’s used for a bishop.”

            “Ah, Excellency. Yes. Well, that is … most excellent.”

            The holy fool can’t help but smile, then catches himself. Without removing his eyes from my face, he calls over his shoulder. A pretty woman appears.

            His assistant, he says. 

            The archbishop would never have kept her around. She’s too pretty. Too much temptation. Too much risk of grave scandal. If the archbishop had desired such a woman, he’d have found her in the privacy of the whorehouse. 

            Without emotion, the bishop’s assistant jots down our appointment on a tablet device. We all nod, and I take my leave, feeling pleased with myself. The problem with too much allegiance to habit is that it’s easy to forget how to have fun. The Devil does love his mischief.

            And yet, my freedom in this capital is not perfect. My satisfaction is thin. How much I crave a worthy resistance to counter enervating habit. Why must I always do everything myself? It is corrosive, this lassitude of my countrymen. Confounding. I must come to some understanding of its origins. What more ought I have to done to terrorize them? To be still present in their nightmares?

            At my customary table, which enjoys the best view of the beach below and the sea, Don Pedro has set out a single viper fruit on a shallow white plate. Out of courtesy, he’s also provided a bone-handled knife, though I always supply my own. 

            I spread a green-and-yellow checked napkin over my lap. I run the blade of my knife three times on each side against a leather strap and set it next to the plate. I weigh the viper fruit, which is the size of a small pineapple, in my hands as reverentially as if it were the Eucharist, which makes me think of the bishop’s squirming, which makes me smile.

            Setting the fruit back on the plate, I slide my blade along the rough skin from the stem to the fruit’s base, first on one side and then on the other. The cut only goes as deep as the skin. A few drops of juice well out. 

            Trembling, I scoop up the drops with my fingertip and bring it to the tip of my tongue. Sweeter than holy water. Sweeter even than pussy. I remove the skin as I might my lover’s undergarments—slowly, respectfully. My eyes trace every inch of the exposed yellow flesh beneath. In coarse circles, the viper fruit is also known as trouser fruit, because it notably swells when released from its cover.

            Setting the fruit on its side, so the base faces me, I probe inside, where the poisonous pulp protects the black seeds. The seeds, which are edible, have to be extracted with extreme care so as not to taint the ripe fruit or touch the skin, as it is potent and easily absorbed and can kill instantly. I backhand beads of sweat that form at my hairline and slip on a pair of sunglasses. I’ve seen a man die from an inadvertent splash of the pulp that struck him in the eye.

            While I work, Don Pedro slips up to the table and sets a tafia at my right hand. He’s the soul of discretion, an exemplary man with a healthy fear of me, on account of the hard measures I had to take to restore order to this region and eradicate the socialists.

            Between cuts, I sip tafia. Its flavor improves as it’s warmed by the sun. When inspiration hits me, I mark the crossword. By this time, I’ve forgotten about the bishop, so when a shadow shatters my contentment, I’m peeved. Of course, the dutiful drone would come, not realizing the invitation was merely a prank. 

            But the visitor isn’t the priest. It’s a woman–pretty, long dark hair, a flash of a smile that’s like the muzzle of an old flintlock discharging. The bishop’s assistant!

            She begs leave to sit with me, because, she says, I have the only table in the sun and the day is cool.

            “Of course,” I say. “Of course.” 

            I’m thinking: She’s not afraid of me. Perhaps she doesn’t know who I am?

            I remove my sunglasses, set my own knife next to don Pedro’s, and pull out a chair. I’m as surprised by my courtliness as she is.

            “And where is your priest?” I ask.

            She looks up sharply. She utters some obvious untruth to excuse the bishop’s absence. She, at least, isn’t afraid to lie, and I like her better already. I offer her a helping of black seeds, which are like caviar. 

            “I eat a viper fruit each day,” I boast, “for the vitamins.” 

            I pound my old chest to demonstrate the effect of vitamins on my still rugged constitution. 

            “I prepare it myself,” I assure her, “and you can see, can you not, that I’m not yet dead?”

            “Not yet,” she says cheerfully. 

            She swallows the seeds and proclaims them delicious. I find myself as gratified as if it’s my own member the bishop’s assistant has tasted, and I wonder if she might let herself be seduced by an old man, which would certainly be a welcome break from habit.

            Out of courtesy, I resist telling stories of the days when I first came to regional capital, when the revolution was shaking the country’s foundations and its furious center was this failing city. Fishermen had become revolutionaries, exchanging hooks and line for wires and bombs. Socialists abounded. Atheists. All manner of threats to the homeland and our culture. 

            Rather than speak of those turbulent times, the bishop’s assistant and I exchange pleasant remarks about the sunshine and the price of papayas. She encourages me to take a second tafia and watches me drink as if it were poison. Something in her expression is familiar, but she detects my budding recognition, and her face closes like a book.

            So, the bishop’s assistant does know me, after all. Aroused now, curious, wary, and a little drunk, I draw myself up in my chair.

            “You’re staring at me, Commandant,” she says, suggesting perhaps I’m taking notes to be a witness against her in court.

            “I don’t believe in courts,” I say.

            A passing old soldier has paused on the sand at the edge of our patio. When I acknowledge him, he salutes. His arm stops short at the elbow.

            “It’s been thirty-five years since I killed a man,” I say.

            “They still love you,” the bishop’s assistant observes, her eyes on the soldier.

            “At least seventeen since I ordered a man killed. Ten since someone killed a man for me without being asked, simply on the basis of a grimace or a gesture.”

            “You’re past due,” she says, shifting her gaze back to me and at the same time seeming to draw away, though she hasn’t actually moved.

            I fix my eyes on her. I can’t quite place her. Too many families terminated for the sake of the homeland. Too many fathers or brothers begging for mercy.

            “Democracy,” I say, “is a feeble, flabby invention. See how we suffer.” I gesture toward the back of the soldier, who’s limping away. I wonder if I ought to have given him a coin but decide it would have been an insult to him.

            “The principal of authority,” I say, “is the principal of achievement. They’re one and the same. See how all the best citizens run away to America.”

            I think I’m boring her, and there’s nothing more criminally boring, more deserving of death, than an old man speaking of the past. Who am I, anyhow, if I don’t stink of sulfur? 

            At that moment, a word occurs to me. I mark the crossword. The bishop’s assistant slides her chair closer, as if she’d like to help. Will she be disappointed when I confess that I don’t remember the face or name of whomever she blames me for having lost in the revolution?

            “Another scoop? I could never finish it myself.” This isn’t true at all. I eat mountains of viper fruit seeds, more as I age. I’m not sure why I’m pretending to have lost my appetite.

            As if to take another helping, the bishop’s assistant leans across the table. I’m distracted. She wears no bra. What new kind of churchwoman is this? No nun, that’s for sure, at least none like the ones that served the old archbishop. I have no concept or category to fit the likes of the bishop’s assistant, and this dangerous new sort of creature gives me a little thrill. I detect a bit of the rank perfume of her armpits. Is she nervous?

            The bishop’s assistant sits back in her chair. She looks disappointed, not in me, but in herself, as if she’s lost the chance to do what she came for.

            I place my leathered hand on top of hers. “What’s wrong, child?” 

            She looks amazed, as if it was plain to anyone with eyes to see what was wrong. 

            “Why did you do it?” 

            I don’t toy with her. I don’t ask, “Do what?” I have more respect for her. I say, “I was concerned about preservation of civilization, the safety of women and children.”

            I turn to locate Don Pedro, who has disappeared, which is decidedly not his habit. I have a keen instinct for anomalous behavior, and suspicion assails me just as the bishop’s assistant snatches up Don Pedro’s bone-handled knife. 

            My reflexes are slower than they used to be, but I knock her arm aside. The blade just grazes my armpit, which, I’m confident, smells neither of musk or fear, but of the scent of liver gone bad in the equatorial sun.

            I rise halfway to my feet. The bishop’s assistant jabs at me a second time. With both hands, I seize the wrist of her knife hand. The bishop’s assistant slaps my face. 

            We dance, grappling with one another. My chair falls on its back. The remainder of the viper fruit–even the poisonous core–spills from the table. The tafia glass smashes. I notice for the first time the bishop’s assistant hasn’t had a drink. Even as I wrestle with her, I inwardly curse my lack of courtesy. 

            I raise my gaze from the knife to her breasts, and from her breasts to her face. She lunges again, but I have her wrist trapped. I have plenty of strength left, thanks to the Almighty. The bishop’s assistant weakens, not physically but morally. She believes she’s already lost her one opportunity for justice. Even in this flabby democracy that replaced the military, they will certainly lock her away. 

            I bang her wrist on the edge of the table until the bonehandled knife clatters underfoot. We stare at each other.

            It’s the moment, I think, for generosity to the enemy. I release her. She rubs her wrist. Her expression is disbelieving, curious, wary, even grateful. 

            And then the bishop’s assistant grabs my knife and plunges it into my chest. The blade enters me as deeply as I’d longed to enter her pussy. She twists the blade. I seem to breathe two words simultaneously from my lips and from the lips of the wound, and they are pride and surprise, and I wonder whether this last breath in her nostrils might yet contain a hint of sulfur that she will remember forever when she thinks of the nameless loved one she has avenged without achieving real satisfaction. 

– Scott Pomfret