The House of the Scorpion

Inside the secret passage, María concludes that El Patrón made the secret passage to spy on people. Matt defends El Patrón, saying that he probably needed to. They reach an air-conditioned computer room, where María shares that she decided to forgive Matt after reading about the Catholic saint Francis. Saint Francis convinced a wolf to stop terrorizing people and become a vegetarian. Instead of punishing the wolf, Saint Francis told “Brother Wolf” that he could start his life anew. Though Matt wants to say he didn’t poison Furball and doesn’t need forgiveness, he doesn’t want to ruin the mood. María makes Matt promise to be good, and he agrees. María calls Matt “Brother Wolf,” and Matt asks if he can call her Saint María. María responds that she has too many faults to be a saint and proceeds to share her mistakes at the convent. When Matt asks if María has been baptized, she shares that she wouldn’t be able to go to heaven if she hadn’t been. She then explains that the priest was harsh to him because society believes that like animals, Matt doesn’t have a soul and can’t go to heaven. However, María disagrees.

María admits she likes being with Matt because he is easy to talk to. When the two hear voices approaching, they run and hide in the passageway. From a peephole, they watch Tom and Felicia enter the room to look for Matt and María on the cameras. The two observe El Viejo’s body in the empty salon and laugh—he is useless because no one can get transplants from a cancer patient. As they search the security footage, they see María’s black hat in the music room and watch Celia and Tam Lin wondering where Matt and María could have gone. Celia and Tam Lin are aware that someone is listening and are careful with their words, frustrating Tom.

Felicia then switches to the outside cameras and shows Tom the lotus pond. She shares that she saw Matt taking Furball out of María’s apartment and followed him. When Tom asks if she saw Matt kill Furball, she admits that she killed Furball and blamed Matt. Felicia was angry at Matt’s behavior with Tom at the birthday party and poisoned Furball with her own laudanum. María slides to the floor, horrified by the discovery. Matt reassures her that Furball didn’t suffer before leading her along the passage. Tam Lin intercepts them, calling them fools. El Patrón told him about the passage after having guessed that Matt somehow found it. María interrupts Tam Lin to share their discovery and Matt’s innocence. Tam Lin starts escorting María out. María is humbled that Matt let her forgive him for something he never did. Matt shares one of Celia’s favorite sayings: “A little extra forgiveness never hurts” (164). María apologizes for being unfair to him. After reminding him of his promise to be good, she tells Matt she will miss him.

After María leaves, Matt is left alone once again. He reads books that María and Tam Lin would approve of, including survival manuals and one about Saint Francis. Saint Francis cares about and speaks to everyone from criminals to insects. He wonders if Saint Francis would care for him—as a clone, his existence isn’t natural. Matt now always feels like he is being watched. After learning that Felicia is as awful as Tom, he wonders why he didn’t realize how much she hated him before. Once a week, Matt takes a Safe Horse to the oasis and converses with Rosa each time, and he wonders what might be going through her mind. At the oasis, Matt thinks about how Saint Francis gave away all his possessions and how El Patrón would have a heart attack if someone told him to do the same.

Matt starts reading A History of Opium and learns that 100 years ago, the United States and Mexico, now Aztlán, were in conflict about the thousands of illegal immigrants crossing the border. Matteo Alacrán, the most powerful drug dealer in the world, joined forces with other drug dealers and convinced the nations to grant them land along the border. Alacrán promised to capture the illegal immigrants and to stop selling drugs in North and South America. The author, Esperanza Mendoza, condemns El Patrón’s plans and calls him evil. The book examines the different families ruling the Farms in Opium and how a government formed with El Patrón as its absolute dictator. Angered by such accusations, Matt throws the book. He doesn’t see anything wrong with El Patrón’s genius plan and thinks Esperanza is jealous. Matt thinks the old man has a higher destiny and that El Patrón has been educating Matt to one day help the family run Opium. He decides to free the eejits once he is in charge.

On the way back to the house, Matt stops to ask the foreman of the water purification plant why the water smells so bad. The foreman shares that dead fish and chemicals are filtered from the water and dumped to the ridges in the distance, known as the wastelands. Matt rides towards the wastelands. The stench is unbearable, and Matt sees buildings with iron bars on the windows—the eejit pens. Struggling to breathe, he uses his inhaler. His horse collapses, and Matt himself is about to faint when a man grabs him and throws him into a truck. The men in the truck, who Matt realizes are Farm Patrol agents, discuss whether Matt is an eejit or an immigrant. As Tam Lin taught him, Matt acts tough. He tells the men he is El Patrón’s clone. Realizing he sounds just like El Patrón, their demeanor immediately changes, and they become friendly. The men, Hugh and Ralf, talk about soccer as they take Matt back to the estate. Matt learns the two are from England and Wales, and another agent in the truck is Scottish. When Matt asks if Tam Lin ever murdered anyone, they share that Tam Lin was a Scottish nationalist and terrorist with a social conscience. After he placed a bomb in the prime minister’s house, the blast accidentally killed a busload of children.

That night, Celia wakes up Matt in a frenzy. While trying to wake up, Matt struggles with the conflicting images of the Farm Patrol. On one hand, Celia’s terrifying stories equated them to Chupacabras. On the other hand, the agents he met that day became good-natured boys when they learned he was El Patrón’s clone. After forcing Matt to eat strange-tasting food, Celia rushes him to the hospital. At first, Matt objects, saying that he isn’t sick. One of the bodyguards accompanying them tells him that El Patrón is sick. As soon as the guard tells Matt that El Patrón had a heart attack, his vision blurs and he vomits. At the hospital, Matt is lifted onto a stretcher. Tam Lin shows up in the room and tells Matt that El Patrón is alive because the doctors used a piggyback transplant to regulate his heartbeat, but the heart is too small to do the job itself.

When Tam Lin learns Matt is sick after visiting the wastelands, he scolds him for his stupidity and makes him promise never to go there again. He wonders how Tam Lin can criticize him after he murdered those children. Celia arrives shortly thereafter, crying over Matt’s bed. Matt is taken to meet El Patrón, who has lost his previous energy. Unsure how to comfort him, Matt suggests that he give things to the poor as Saint Francis preached. Enraged, El Patrón can’t believe his ears. He didn’t build an empire larger than El Dorado’s to give it away; he built it to be worshipped like a god just like him.

Later, Tam Lin compliments Matt for cleverly filling El Patrón with emotion again by suggesting he donate his “dragon hoard.” When Matt asks what a dragon hoard is, Tam Lin explains that a dragon amasses wealth from pillaging castles and hides it in a dark cave in the mountains. Despite how uncomfortable it is to sleep on the treasures, the dragon can’t feel it because he is covered in scales. Matt questions if this actually makes the dragon happy. Tam Lin explains that the dragon knows when anything goes missing from the hoard, no matter how small, and burns the thief in an instant. Understanding that the dragon is a metaphor for El Patrón, Matt asks if El Patrón knows how much he has in his storeroom. Though Tam Lin doesn’t think El Patrón does, he wouldn’t take a chance on it.