Benchere in Wonderland

by Gillis, Steven;

  IN THE MORNING, an orange mini-van appears and Heidi and the other BAA students pile out.

  Rose and Stern watch from the hill, take photographs of each new arrival. They conduct searches through the database on their computer, identify and record everyone. “Heavy traffic,” Rose says.

  “A reunion,” Stern notes.

  “Looks like,” Rose scrolls, checks the list.

  8.

  BY THE FIRE, DEYNA WEARS A SANDSTONE JACKET, BLUE sweatpants and brown hiking boots. Zooie is there with Daimon and the BAA students. Benchere sits in one of the deck chairs Harper brought. Scuff-whiskered, already his muscles have begun to ache. Tomorrow he and Deyna, Naveed and his students, Zooie and the Iowa three will dig the second and third foundation holes for the sculpture. When not filming, Daimon will help as well. Naveed finds an empty wooden crate to sit on. He talks of Julie, is anxious to see her, wants to arrange a special dinner for the night she arrives from the States, is thinking antelope.

  “Go on then, bwana,” Harper slaps Naveed’s knee, pictures him with the rifle shooting wildly into the desert. In the morning Harper will head back to Maun, return one of the trucks and pick up the Maule he’s rented. He’ll then fly Julie out to camp along with a crate or two of fresh supplies.

  The new arrivals have placed their tents a hundred feet to the west of the common area. The Munds remain further off. Their tent is a double ridge dome, shaped like an igloo, made of Gore-Tex with curved internal rods that lift and round the roof. During the day, the Munds wander back and forth from their tent to the work areas, chatting up whoever is near while avoiding any real labor. Tonight, as at every meal, they wait near the wooden picnic table Naveed assembled while the others cook. When the food is ready they fill their plates.

  Dancy joins the fire now. No longer dressed in shorts, he’s changed into corduroy slacks and a leather Burberry bomber jacket. He unfolds a canvas chair, places it to the right of Benchere. There’s a hint of aftershave, a sweet manufactured smell, miscast against the dry and feral scents of the desert. Dancy acknowledges the group, extends his hands toward the fire and comments on how quickly the air has chilled from the 100 degrees it was a few hours before.

  “It’s the sand,” Deyna explains that sand is easily heated by the sun but has a very low capacity for storing energy. “At this time of year when the sun sets and the air cools, the sands chill and the temperatures drop fast.”

  “The sand is it? Well what do you know?” Dancy looks at Benchere and asks, “Did you know that?” He laughs as if the fact is remarkable, then points in the opposite direction, out toward the staked off field, and says to Benchere, “This is exciting, isn’t it, Mike? This is great. Look at all of this, will you.” Animated, Mund’s energy appears part of his genetic coding. Even as he sits there’s a sense that he is moving. He says of the desert, “I love it. Where better to build your sculpture? You have no competition. The Kalahari’s yours for the taking.”

  The comment is old corn. Yesterday, and the day before, the Munds proposed developing the area around Benchere’s sculpture, transforming the grounds into a desert oasis. “People are going to come to see your work, Mike. Why not give them a place to stay?” Mund repeats all this now. Resilient against dissent, he disregards Benchere’s objections, refers to the sculpture as “a marketer’s wet dream. We’ll call the hotel African Daybreak, an all-inclusive built right here with your sculpture at the center.”

  Benchere refills his cup, passes the whiskey back to Harper, treats Mund’s suggestion as just so much prattle, of no interest to him, he lets Mund know, “Never going to happen, Dan.”

  “Now Mike,” Mund raises his shoulders, resets his hip, says, “Never is a long time.” He recounts the research he and Gabriella have done, how there’s money to be made in Africa if one has their wits. “The problem in the past,” Mund says, “with the Brits and Frogs and all the others who tried to plant their flag, is they approached things as imperialists and not as businessmen. Think how much better Africa would be economically if she embraced a modified form of colonization.”

  “Just bend over and take it, is that what you’re saying?” Heidi stands with Mindy, their backs to the fire.

  “Not at all,” Mund attempts to laugh.

  Deyna has the sleeves of her jacket pulled down over her hands, is holding her whiskey against the leather. Skeptical, she asks, “How do you see modifying what has already been rejected a dozen times?”

  “I’m glad you asked,” Mund shifts forward in his chair. “As a business model,” he explains, “terms and conditions would be negotiated with the focus on cash money. Right now it’s all a mess. Africa has over 3,000 ethnic groups. After 10,000 years the entire continent is still a tribal culture. It’s primitive. Its nation-state design is inherently flawed. It survives not on industry but on the kindness of strangers. All these liberal charities and foreign subsidies providing handouts rather than incentives, it’s glorified welfare. The strategy has killed Africa’s development, has created dependence while perpetuating bad business.”

  “Hold on now,” Mindy as a reflex takes offense. “These liberal charities have brought clinics and schools, created farms and social awareness.”

  “To what end?” Mund turns and looks at Daimon who is standing with his camera filming. “Good business is forward thinking. Good business serves American interests right here.”

  “Wait. American interest?” Zooie doesn’t let the comment pass.

  “Of course,” Mund moves his bad leg away from the fire. “What serves America will ultimately serve Africa,” he says. “Who’s going to help Africa advance if not the west? It’s a jungle out there,” Mund can’t resist. “Look at Rwanda in the days after Habyarimana’s plane was shot down. Look what went on without intervention from the west,” he does not pause. “Without American investment, Rwanda’s controlled by gangsters running their black market through the RDB. Without American business there’s no stability, no economy.”

  Deyna’s features are lit by the fire. She finds Mund’s charge naïve and says as much. “You’re not discussing reformation you’re talking exploitation. Rwanda’s corrupt because of American interests. Starbucks and Google, Mobil and Exxon and Standard. American business makes oil and mineral deals with the OGMIR and ignores human rights violations.”

  “Apples and fish,” Mund has an answer prepared. “Americans are trying to bring business to the region. It’s the locals who are exploiting one another and killing themselves off.”

  “Hold on,” Daimon sets his camera hip high, finds talking with Mund is like playing slap paw with a cat; it may seem cute at first but the eventuality is never pleasant. “You can’t just call out the locals as if that’s all there is to it,” he says. “It’s more than tribal clashes. It’s corrupt governments. In Zimbabwe, Somalia and the Sudan, Kenya and South Africa, there’s no support for current regimes. The people want change.”

  “All the more reason American business is essential,” Mund insists. “American interest provides jobs, creates an economic market and social stability.”

  “You make is sound like stability is a western concept.” Deyna argues, “Right here in Botswana the people have put in place a stable democratic government.”

  “Please,” Mund waves Deyna off. “Compared to what? You’re measuring Botswana against Zaire? The C.A.R.? The GNP of Botswana is less than North Dakota. The schools stink, the number of AIDS cases is higher than almost anywhere in the world. The reality is this,” Mund says. “Africa has three things going for it: oil and minerals and tourism. Now maybe you want to argue this is how American business likes it, that without stability America can wheel and deal as it pleases. I’m not here to say otherwise. I believe in self-interest. Propping up illegitimate governments helps America extract a country’s resources. It’s efficient. If along the way putting unqualified people in power creates politicized plutocracy, so be it.”

  “What do you mean so be it?” both Zooie and M
indy together.

  “I mean there’s no reason to expect anything different.” Mund says, “Let’s be clear. There’s nothing altruistic in what we’re discussing. Business is business and that’s the first rule. It’s not the fundamental nature of capitalism to do any sort of nation-building. Reclamations are only worthwhile if there’s a profit to be made. Sure a stable socio-economic culture can grow out of a capitalistic venture but capitalism first draws cash to itself before anything can be put back in. That’s the bottom line. Remember the Mensheviks thought capitalism would naturally evolve into socialism but that was just pie in the sky nonsense. Capitalism serves its own god.” The statement causes Mund to grin. Emboldened by his own bluster, he faces Benchere and says, “You know what I’m talking about, don’t you, Mike?”

  “Sure I do, Dan,” Benchere wags his finger and thinks to howl but does not want to give Mund the satisfaction. All this yakking. He wipes the sand from inside his cup then stands. The size of him rises above the fire. What there is to know about Africa Benchere has learned from Marti. He does not romanticize the continent, is aware of the conflicts, the brutality and setbacks, the issues with Omar Bungo, Musevni, Kaggme and Mugabe, Mapinduzi and Nguema, Kabila, Jammeh, Deby and Guebuza. He has championed causes, raised money for UpNow and Doctors without Borders, is familiar with the complications and not so callow as to dismiss everything Mund is saying. Still, taken as a whole, it is the personal effect of Mund’s misapplications which feeds Benchere’s current irritation.

  He rubs his chin, leaves his drink beneath his chair, readies himself as Dancy rocks forward and declares, “We’re all capitalists, Mike. We can’t help. Even your art is commerce. This is not an insult. All great works have commercial value.” Mund notes the million-dollar selling price of Picasso’s Nude, Green Leaves and Bust and Giacometti’s sculpture L’Homme Qui Marche 1. “Everything’s for sale. This is the beauty of the marketplace. Everyone has something to sell. A man like you, an artist with your reputation, when you make a sculpture you’re creating value. That’s what we’re looking to tap into here. That’s what we’re after.”

  Benchere in reply speaks censoriously, with caution in his tone, a hint of buildup in the message as he repeats the question back, “What am I after, Dan?”

  Mund responds in a way he hopes will curry favor. “You’re here to make a great work, Mike. I know that. You’re here to build your David, your Hermes and the Infant Dionysus.” He sets his hands in his lap, folds them, says nothing about Marti or the verisimilitudes of art, concentrates instead on convincing Benchere, “We both want the same thing. We’re here to make your sculpture a success. A resort will get your work the attention it deserves. Think Anne Norton and Gustav Vigeland. It’s all about amplifying the value of your art.”

  Such blabber is meant to convey solidarity, but instead Benchere is even more put off. He moves beside the stack of wood where he searches the pile for manageable sticks. Gathering what he needs, he arranges the twigs at angles, binds them together with a loose bit of twine, mounts his effort against a larger length of wood then thrusts the base end into the sand. “There you go, Dan,” he says. “A bit of desert sculpting. How much do you think its worth, this one-of-a-kind, freshly minted and first of the African series? What do you suppose, Dan?”

  Mund stares, knows he is being mocked, is no fool, and yet who is to say the piece does not have value? He thinks, Why not? and begins to reach, considers the offer.

  “You like then?” Benchere touches the top of the piece.

  “Like?” Mund hasn’t thought of it in those terms and looks more closely now. “Well yes, I do. Of course I do,” he says.

  Benchere remains beside his creation, keeps Mund from taking hold. “What do you like, Dan?”

  “What?”

  “When you look, what do you think?”

  “Well now,” Mund considers, again squirms back in his chair, can only come up with, “I think it fits your oeuvre perfectly. It is a raw extension.”

  “Isn’t it though,” Benchere moves behind the sculpture, all cobbled together and rising to his waist. He examines his effort, inspects the sticks and string, the placement and positioning, then shakes his head and grips the center post. “Nope,” he says. “Not quite right,” and here he pulls the work out of the sand and tosses it into the fire.

  For a second, Mund nearly comes out of his chair, a reflex to save what Benchere has wasted, but again he knows enough not to play the fool for Benchere’s demonstration, and eying the fire, he says, “Better luck next time then.”

  Harper cracks loud along with Mindy and Daimon who has caught the scene on film. Deyna watches Benchere who is watching Mund now differently. He imagines what Marti would have made of Mund, all his talk of Africa and American influence and reducing everything to its commercial effect. He looks at Zooie, gives a wink, thinks Right, right, right. What to do with such a man? Jazz barks and Daimon flips his camera off. Benchere stretches and says goodnight, turns and walks back to his tent.

  9.

  LINDA DARLING CATCHES THE SAME RED-EYE THAT JULIE is on. Five hundred milligrams of Ativan lets her sleep all the way to Maun. She clears customs, clears her head, goes outside where Julie has offered her a ride.

  Harper spots Julie and waves. Linda has her sunglasses down, two bags in tow. Harper hesitates for only a second, can’t help, has seen the post online and says, “Linda Darling in the flesh.” He laughs at this, laughs again as he imagines Benchere’s reaction. He takes a cigarette from his pack and gives Linda a smoke.

  DAWID HAS TAKEN the second truck to retrieve the final shipment of metals now docked at Walvis Bay. Benchere uses the materials already in camp to begin work on his sculpture. Each of the foundation beams is brought out to the field by the crane Benchere’s rented. The posts are huge: eighty feet long and over 1,800 pounds as they are laid out on their sides. All of the foundation holes have been finished in preparation for placing the beams in the ground. Twenty-five hundred pounds of cement arrives along with 100 gallons of river water. The foundation holes are filled halfway with cement mix then secured by reinforcement bars to keep the base from cracking.

  When the cement dries the beams will be placed on top, bolted down and the holes then filled completely. Long sheets of copper and nickel, bronze and brass are laid out beside the beams. As they wait for the cement to dry, Deyna, Mindy and Naveed work with Benchere detailing the sheets which will then be welded to the beams as an ornamental second skin.

  Benchere kneels over the metals, teaches Deyna how to use the pliers and ball peen, describes how he wants the copper and bronze sheets to look. Deyna holds the hammer between her thumb and forefinger; rolls her wrists like a xylophone player. The work gloves she brought from the States are Kevlar. Her hair is turned up, not in a bun, but folded and clipped for convenience. She wears boots, grey socks and shorts. Her shoulders and face are a perfect golden tan while Benchere is more red, his flesh forever threatening to peel.

  They talk as they work, fall into a steady back-and-forth. Deyna is like Marti, practical-minded, methodical, appreciative of the empirical, of order and form and logic. She also has a fearlessness about her, has flown to Yemen in the middle of the night to study the findings of a piece of farming equipment uncovered and dating back some 12,000 years. As a scientist, her creative instinct contains a rational approach, differs from Benchere’s wild hare way of addressing the world by creating abstract works drawn directly through chaos.

  Deyna asks Benchere about his sculpting. She is interested in the genesis. He tells her as he did Marti years before about SoHo and the East Village, talks as well now about his mother, about Amelia Benchere, a designer of landscapes. An adherent to the primal call, large in body and spirit, Amelia worked the grounds like a natural aesthete, filled her sausage fingers with black soil and squeezed the dirt into Benchere’s palms. Full of humor and frankness, she more than anyone exposed Benchere to the significance of art and encouraged him to embrace the m
ystery of creation.

  “My dad,” Benchere said, “provided a different sort of influence.” B. William Benchere was a Keynesian capitalist, follower of Robert Smith and James Tobin, he made his money selling industrial chain link fences, took his company national, became involved with global trade, with bringing product overseas, opening factories and employing workers at salaries less than he paid in the States before exporting his product back to Yonkers and all points west. A mixed bag, Benchere’s parents were counterparts, contrary in their views yet somehow managing to merge well. As a couple they were happy, gave balance to the other, laughed loud and embarrassed Benchere with open affections, dances through the living room and high squeals from private quarters. As progeny, Benchere was the mutt made in the stew.

  Deyna likes this, says to Benchere, “Everything is part of something else. Eventually all things connect as they should.” She tells him about a study she read a few years ago, where photographs were taken of a hundred different faces. The photos were then cut in half and reconfigured so that the right side of each face was duplicated and matched with itself. The process was repeated left to left. The result showed that in matching right to right and left to left no one looked at all like themselves. “It was only when people were composed left and right together that they became again who they are: a sum of the parts.”

  Benchere says, “It’s all a grab bag mix.” “Yes, but it’s not chaos,” Deyna in reply, describes anthropology as the search for reason, the seeking of clues in what already exists. “All things happen by design. The study of history reveals this,” Deyna says and applies the ball peen to the metal.

  Benchere taps the surface of the sheet which he has heated with a handheld butane torch to make the copper more pliable. Now that construction is underway his mood is singularly directed. As always, the process of creating art causes him to internalize his focus, removes him from his outward self. He replies to Deyna in a matter of fact tone, “History comes after the fact but doesn’t help us in the moment.”