Temporary People

by Steven Gillis

  I place my feet in two soft pairs of socks and slip on the most flexible shoes the Chief Inspector can find. The ache in my arch, toes and heels causes me to think of Emilo and once more I’m over whelmed. The Chief Inspector waits for me to finish sobbing, does not ask questions or suggest I sip more whiskey. Across town, my father is just settling in behind his desk when we arrive. He watches us approach from the far end of the hall, recognizes me at once and comes to meet my embrace. “Skin and bones,” he says, and there’s a tremble in his voice. He looks toward the Chief Inspector who tips his hat and turns away. “How then, André?” he wants to know, pulling at the hairs on my head.

  Warez has phoned ahead and told one of his men to bring Katima here. Soon after the Chief Inspector’s cell rings and we learn Katima is not at home and the corporal assigned to watch her can’t be located either. “It’s no doubt nothing,” Warez says, and asks me then if I prefer to wait, which I do, of course. I’m nearly delirious in my desire to see Katima, am tempted to go to the house myself but know this is not a good idea. I want to speak with her friends and clients, to drive through the city and howl her name, but instead I say, “If we haven’t heard by noon we should leave.”

  “For where?” my father wants to know.

  I create a story, pretend that Warez and I are to meet with officers in the army who wish to sever their alliance with Teddy. My father, of course, does not believe me. His eyes find mine and insist does not believe me. His eyes find mine and insist I return his stare. To the Chief Inspector he says, “So much talk all these nights, Franco, and here all you were missing was André.”

  We eat in the kitchen, my sore feet forcing me to sit on the stool while my father stands and prepares fruit slices and squares of bread. The Chief Inspector makes several more calls. We discuss separate arrangements for my father, make plans to move him somewhere safe but he refuses to go, says “I’ll wait here for you to come and get me.” Later, at the front door he touches the Chief Inspector’s shoulder, draws me in and holds me close. His hands are mammoth paws still strong, he doesn’t let go for the longest time. I leave then with the Chief Inspector and slide back inside the car.

  CHAPTER 14

  Teddy turned to Leo and said, “Explain it to me again. What exactly’s supposed to happen?” Back before the coup, Bamerita established a Natural Energy Center to reduce dependence on imported oil. The plan was to apply Jacques-Arsene d’Arsonval’s theory for creating electricity by combining cool and warm ocean waters, producing steam to power turbines in a plant built on shore. Teddy abandoned Dupala’s idea once he discovered the 2,000-foot deep seawater pipeline supplied a more immediately marketable product; desalinated water, tens of thousands of years old, absent pollutants and rich with traces of phosphorus and calcium. The water was pumped to the surface and bottled as, ‘Bamatine, The World’s Most Wholesome Beverage!’

  Since the trailer for the unfinished Leo Covings’ film first appeared overseas, sales for Bamatine more than tripled. People began looking for Bamerita on maps and Google searches. Several countries including the United States ran old episodes of General Admission on cable. The spark of celebrity brought Teddy windfalls he quickly exploited. Each day he checked the late night ratings of General Admission, calculated the most recent sales of Bamatine, spoke with his advisors about producing souvenirs, t-shirts and stickers for merchandising. The media took note, ignored at first the small matter of the revolution, concentrating instead on the fifteen minutes of fame afforded General Lamb.

  Only after initial interest in Teddy died down did editors and producers decide to take a serious look at the war. Reports appeared claiming, “startling revelations,” about what had happened at the Port. With Teddy’s character under fire, ‘General Admission’ was pulled from the fall schedules. Sales of Bamatine declined then fell off altogether. “What do we do?” Teddy turned to Leo.

  “Not to worry,” Leo explained the three dramatic stages of rise, fall and resurrection. “The hero must take his lumps in the second act. Look at Travolta. Look at Polanski. Look at Richard Nixon for Christ’s sake. You can’t bully your way back. You have to let the audience believe you’ve earned redemption.” He assured Teddy the scene at the University would provide him the opportunity. “All you have to do is show a little forbearance and give the audience something to embrace.”

  “But what is this scene?” Teddy still did not understand. “What’s going to happen?”

  “What indeed,” Leo said no more than this, mentioned instead a separate scene he planned to shoot with Teddy and splice into the mix. “I promise you’ll come off looking better than Gary Cooper in ‘High Noon.’ Better than Jimmy Stewart in ‘Mr. Deeds.’ You know the pictures? I’m thinking Oscar. You’ll be hotter than hot then, you’ll be electric.”

  Early the next morning, Katima stood in the center of campus, a few yards from where she spent the better part of the night. People here and there had wandered down, the cameras rolling in anticipation of some as yet unspecified event. Others watched the live feed on the screen in the Plaza before making their way to the University, while soldiers both sent and curious stood at the opposite end of the grassy common.

  The corporal assigned to Katima sat off to the side, on a cement bench in front of the graduate library. Leo perched himself high above the lawn in one of those hydraulic cherry picker baskets. Katima looked at him but did not acknowledge his wave.

  Out in front of the American Embassy, Nick passed between the wooden barricades, the piece of paper Dukette provided to show the General folded in his pocket. “No promises,” the American Consul said he would try and arrange things, explained how Teddy spent less time in the capital these days. “For obvious reasons. Here,” he rooted through his desk, gave Nick a cell phone, told him to, “Just sit tight until you hear from me.”

  In the car Nick read the note, turned on the phone, slid everything out from beneath the seat and arranged the explosives in the metal box. He fixed the camera on top to make the two separate pieces seem connected. The result was awkward and unlikely to fool anyone. “What now?” He put the box and camera into the leather bag he brought, the fit snug and almost convincing. Ten minutes later he was driving east out of the capital. He parked a few miles away, near a bluff past the woods overlooking the water. The sky was empyrean blue. He thought of the last time Anita and he made love, pictured her body ginger and soft, her thighs in their grip as she lifted and fell over him. How easily he let himself go then, and how much of everything now was inspired by his need to be there again.

  The air inside the car was a pitch steam hot. Nick wiped his hands down the front of his shirt, ran through a list of how things were supposed to go. His plan was crudely formed, without specific details from this point on. He considered the next step, and then the whole of what he was doing, what sense it made and didn’t make. He though of Anita once more, and when the phone rang at noon and the American Consul told him, “You’re in,” he hardened his focus and thought of nothing else.

  Directions were given, instructions how to get across the highway. The drive took twenty minutes. Nick felt the breeze through the car window, breathed in the smell of the sea. The house was smaller than he expected, a cottage with a flat roof and white wooden siding, one of several shelters Teddy used as a dodge during the war. Nick stopped a hundred yards up and set the timer on the alarm, checked the minutes against his watch before putting everything back in the bag. A poem by Frances E. W. Harper came to him, “A Story of the Rebellion,” which included the lines: ‘Someone, our hero said/must die to get us out of this/ Then leaped upon the strand and bared/His bosom to the bullets’ hiss.’ He touched his chest above his heart and said, “What the fuck.”

  A second car was just arriving as Nick drove closer. A man in a rumpled white suit, black moustache and panama hat got out, followed by another more slender man wearing a poorly fitted suit and walking as if his shoes hurt his feet. The guards greeted the two men and let them pass
up to the house. Nick, in turn, was stopped before he could get near the gate, the two soldiers running toward him, both in green uniforms, with brown boiled faces. They pointed at Nick with their rifles, motioned at his bag and told him to, “Put it down!”

  In response, Nick waved the letter from Dukette, said “The General’s expecting me. The American Consul called.” He unzipped the leather bag, wanted them to see the camera on top, hoping that would be enough. “Here,” he said. “Here,” and continued to wave the letter. The nearest soldier grabbed the paper while the second snatched the bag, was about to inspect the contents when something from inside the house caused him to stop and run with the other guard through the front door.

  I tell the Chief Inspector to move away from me. “There’s no need, Franco,” I say, but he answers, “We’ll see.” The soldiers recognize Warez and let us pass. We’re greeted the same way as we enter the house, are escorted down a long hall toward Teddy’s office where we find him standing behind a mahogany desk, a folder opened and held flat in his hands. There are two other men with him, a priest and an American in uniform I don’t recognize. Teddy glances up from the material he’s reading, his face dark, his features strained. He looks nothing like a movie star, has on large black framed glasses which he doesn’t wear in public, his hair brushed back and the jacket of his uniform unbuttoned. He greets the Chief Inspector, acknowledges me, gives a curious stare, and then the priest is pointing.

  Gandhi said: “I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.” I thought of this before, down in my cell where I also wondered, But what of the evil that remains if you don’tkill it? I fumble for my gun, stand without illusion, completely resigned, knowing who I am and what went wrong and why then can’t I shoot? I curse myself and still I’m unable to raise my gun, am about to put it down when I see Teddy reaching inside his jacket. The Chief Inspector notices all and in an instant fires and hits his mark. The priest jumps and shouts, then steps aside as Teddy falls.

  I turn toward the American colonel who’s also surprised and only now reaching for his pistol. Reconciled, I wait to receive the counterblast while giving the Chief Inspector time to run, but Warez has his own plan and saves me again with a second shot.

  The sound of gunplay brings the soldiers racing into the house. Warez shouts, drags me with him. We dash back down the hall where the Chief Inspector points for the guards, “In there! In there!” confusing them for a moment as they rush past. One of the soldiers is carrying a large leather bag, I’m not sure why. Everything’s a blur. My head pounds, I find myself contrite and at the same time calm, if not at peace then near enough. Gandhi said: “I believe forgiveness is more manly than punishment... But forgiveness only when there is the power to punish... A mouse hardly forgives a cat when it allows itself to be torn to pieces.” To this I’ve earned the right to forgive and be forgiven, I think, though even after all of this I can’t be sure.

  There’s nothing now to do but run. Satyagrahi bids goodbye to fear but what of the rest? I think of Tamina, of Katima and my children in front of me, am wanting then when I’m lifted suddenly and sent flying over floors no longer there. The roof goes missing, the air now grey while I soar through a bright white patch of starlight. Everything disappears in a deep ivory flash, the entire house demolished, as if an enormous fist has ripped through the ground and sent us broken and burning into the sun.

  That afternoon, the campus grew crowded as more people came. Leo stayed in his lift overhead, watching Katima and the others, waiting for something to complete his film. The area in the middle of the lawn remained vacant, a gap of some twenty yards dividing soldiers from the rest. Katima sat near the edge, her legs beneath her crossed. People gathered in small groups, whispered among themselves. The cameras ran, recorded the stillness. Two Port-A-Johns were sent for as Leo knew better than to risk blowing a scene because an actor had to take a crap.

  Others outside gathered at the gate of the University, the sight of soldiers making them nervous. Only the movie cameras and Leo’s assurances assuaged their alarm. “Come on, come on,” he called to those hovering on the periphery, “Don’t be shy.” Food was brought in shortly after noon, sandwiches and cupcakes Leo had delivered to the center of the lawn. At first people approached with caution, snatching a meal and moving back. The soldiers, too, seemed uncertain, bringing their rifles as they went for the food. Katima found the corporal still sitting on the cement bench, brought him a turkey sandwich and a quarter bag of chips. After this everyone realized there was enough to share and took just what they needed.

  They sat among themselves and ate, each on their side of the lawn. Drawn to the food, bees buzzed, one yellow jacket invading the loose fit of a woman’s blouse. As she jumped and threw her hands and legs in the air, Leo took the initiative, signalled at once for music. The sound engineer pressed on R.E.M.’s Losing My Religion. Seeing the woman, others got up to dance. The soldiers as well, happy after their meal, having set down their rifles and looking for something to do, came toward the song.

  The wind changed. The day went from warm to hot as the air stirred in from the sea. The waters rose and rolled beneath the island. Floating free all these many thousands of years, Bamerita’s movement, inch by inch, east and south, was subtle even in the fiercest storms. Sometime shortly after 1:00 p.m. however, the ground began to rumble. Perhaps it was the dancing, or the game of frisbee which broke out with soldiers and people tossing back and forth their sandwich plates. Maybe it was the plates themselves, set deep in the tuff and soil, laid like ancient china resting on buried shelves sliding across the substratum by way of palaeomagnetic ticks. Or it may have been the latest blast which occurred outside the capital and shook things up all on its own.

  When word first reached the University about Teddy, traveling as always with the alacrity of birds, people waited for confirmation, and when that came just as quickly all the dancing stopped. Games of toss and tag and casual mingling ended, the soldiers separating one by one from the people. The music that was playing - Beautiful Day by U2 - was turned off, the sides dividing as if the tremble in the ground below had shaken them apart. The roar of thunder rose, a clap before the first shower of rain. Katima saw the soldiers move for their rifles and people slipping off again quite nervous.

  She thought of Medha Patkar then, the disciple of Gandhi she’d read of in one of André’s books. The legend of Medha had her trying to drown herself in protest against the government-built Sar dar Sarovar dam which ruined the fishing in the Narmada River and forced the resettlement of more than 200,000 indigenous people in India. In 1999 Medha stood in frigid monsoon waters for 30 hours, waiting for the rains to bring the river over her head, only to be pulled out in the last moment by soldiers sent to keep her from becoming a martyr. Katima looked overhead, up into the rain. She thought of Medha drowning, and not drowning, thought of Andr é, not yet knowing, wondered about tomorrow and tomorrow and where would she go if she left now?

  She went to sit in the center of the lawn.

  Others turned and saw her. A young woman Katima didn’t recognize though she looked somehow familiar, came in from the gates, having walked from the house where she was staying, sat then as well, there in front of the soldiers. In the space between, another man and then two women more came to sit. A corporeal across the way sat, followed by two others. A man who noticed Katima called her by name and also sat down, and then more of the soldiers. The rain fell, and steady, too; people sat and the soldiers each in their turn. Everyone faced one another, silent and still, as if in worship, for the longest time.

  Nothing happened after that.

  This is what Leo Covings filmed.

  CHAPTER 15

  “Lucky you weren’t there,” the American Consul said to Nick about the blast. “A few minutes earlier and you’d have been worm chum as well.”

  More American soldiers arrived that week. “To keep the peace,” Dukette explaine
d. A list was compiled of would-be candidates to take over the presidency, with Gabriel Mafante the popular choice. Open elections were promised eventually, though a counsel of American and Bameritan businessmen, ex-senators and old soldiers was assembled to review the situation and run the country, Dukette said, “For now.”

  “You see?” Kart let the others know. “All of everything and for what?” He thought of Kara and Angeline, of days in waters warm and nights when nothing was impossible. The following afternoon he drove to All Kings where 200 American troops were quartered. He slowed the car, leaned out the open window and threw something over the fence.

  The night after burying her father, Anita sat up late with Nick. Word of André came in the after-shock, the Chief Inspector said to have brought him across town as a recaptured prize for Teddy when the building blew. (Other stories told were dismissed by the press as too fantastic.) “I can’t believe,” Anita went three days earlier with Feona into the woods, and knelt where Ali was buried, there among the last of the children. Markers were set stone upon stone, piles of rocks in a patch of forest near the first hill where grass and weed would eventually grow over. Together they piled flint and rock, said the names of all those shorn as flowers wild and cut with long blades sharp and glinting. Feona held the final stone to place atop Ali’s marker, the one with the pointed edge used to carve his name into the ground.