The Angels of Our Better Beasts

by Jerome Stueart

  And perhaps now, as the crowd anticipates this familiar stranger doing something that will win their belief back, Tom slips off the seat to an effortless stand, holds up his drink, and, with all the style expected of him, accuses the house management of stirring his drink, threatening the man if he ever gets the drink wrong again, but never actually getting red or spitting in his face.

  And what if he enters the bathroom, with its heavy blues and dim lamps and sectioned mirror, goes up to the sink, washes his face, looks into the mirror and sees six men—not actual living, breathing men, not as if they were there to actually help him, but just images in the mirror—and they know him and he knows them, and they are Sean, George, Roger, Timothy, Pierce, and Daniel, each in his own mirror, and Tom begins to talk to them and the whole thing sounds something like this:

  “You blew that one,” Sean snaps.

  “I came in with the confidence, assurance . . .” Tom begins.

  “. . . but if you can’t handle the card game,” Roger continues.

  “It was the drink. I couldn’t get the drink.”

  “Shaken, not stirred,” Timothy reminds him.

  “Oh, that part was easy, but I stir my drinks afterwards.”

  “But you can’t,” George says.

  “But I did. What do I do?”

  “You stop your hand,” Pierce reminds him. “You move it under the table, out of sight.”

  “Well, perhaps not—he might think you were going for a gun. A fat man did that to me once . . .” Roger just confuses Tom.

  “Then you punch him, or chase him,” Daniel says.

  Sean interrupts: “A card game is not an action sequence. Tom, you tell yourself that you cannot stir the drink, no matter how much you want to. It’s not in you.”

  “Then why is it there? Why is that characteristic there if it isn’t in me?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Pierce says flatly. “It isn’t there now, and even if it is, you’ll be aware next time. You’ll suppress it. We’re good at that.”

  “But what if someday I go off and order a daiquiri? I’ve always liked daiquiris.”

  “You can’t.” Sean is emphatic.

  “The banana ones especially.”

  “It’s against your character,” Sean continues. “You must preserve your sense of character over anything else. You must be consistent. No matter if the world spins off in its own tawdry rhythm, you, of all men, must remain the same. And you wouldn’t order a daiquiri, banana, strawberry, or any other. Martini—”

  And they say it together: “—shaken, not stirred.”

  “You were right before.” Tom wipes his face with the blue towel. “The card game is intimidating.”

  Roger grins. “I was always very good at the card games.”

  Tom looks around sheepishly. “Then why don’t you fill in for me on this one? I’m feeling overmatched.”

  “Never,” Sean shouts, “never let yourself say that.”

  “But it’s true. The fat man is intimidating.”

  He’s got Sean fuming now. “It doesn’t matter. You are a legend. Legends don’t run into bathrooms and complain about life being a little hard—”

  “Who’ve you got for an escort?” Roger asks.

  “Norwegian chess player, Rook. She’s very stunning.”

  Roger adjusts his tie. “I’m sure she’s a good match.”

  “Perhaps a good mate. You’ll have to check.”

  “One game only.” Roger reaches out of the mirror and takes Tom’s outstretched hand.

  And when he emerges from the bathroom, Roger strides over to the table to finish the game.

  So what if somehow that enduring crook of a smile, the one with the hook at the end and the teeth just emerging, isn’t crooked at the same angle that it was when he was there before, at the card table, next to the purring chess player named Rook. Because when he orders the drink again there’s a sigh of relief, perhaps (though not everywhere) as he takes it, pitches the olive to his right, and sets the glass again on the table. It tells everyone that the momentary excursion to the bathroom was enough to snap the man they know back into something they can believe. It tells the fat man with the fez and the cat at the end of the table that he shouldn’t have doubted because everyone has an off day.

  So when the agent wins and slips Rook a hand on her hip and a whispered rendezvous in her ear, what if he goes back into the bathroom, strides up to the mirror and says this:

  “Well, I’ve put you in a position to castle, Tom.”

  “Thank you.” Tom, uncertain, retreats further into the mirror, afraid of the hand that might pull him out again.

  “He does everything for you, doesn’t he?” Sean says. “You have to blaze your own trail. Soon, boy. What will you make of yourself, our self?”

  Roger dismisses the question with a hand, looks at Tom. “You’ll have to move fast—the fat man you were playing cards with has rigged Austria to explode at nine. I’ve arranged for you to be at the symphony when it does.”

  “The symphony?” Tom says.

  Roger reaches into the mirror, and despite the intrepid avoidance techniques and skilled hand-to-hand combat training, Tom is easily snagged and pulled back into the bathroom.

  He shakes his arms and legs out. “What do I do at the symphony?”

  Roger talks to him as if he is a child, and normally he doesn’t mind because he could use the training; tonight, however, Roger seems arrogant. “Mozart has written a very special part into his fortieth symphony—a duet between violins and cellos. When the cellos reach the allegro fortissimo and the violins have been riding on top so long that they must hit the eight-second allegro grande with the staccato high b flats, the entire symphony hall will shower down like confetti in a parade.”

  “So how do I—”

  “You should know this part. Think.” Timothy sighs and begins to walk away. “I’d say it was hopeless. No more of those little Vienna sausages.”

  “And you mustn’t forget the world leaders,” Roger says as Timothy fumes in the back of his mirror, thanking God he only saved the world twice and did it perfectly.

  “What about the world leaders?”

  “They’ll be at the symphony. They’re at a conference now debating important issues like export quotas.” Roger pulls on a black glove. “But later they’ll be hamburger.”

  “What if I don’t want to save the world tonight? Has anyone ever just once felt that way?”

  “It doesn’t matter what you want. It’s what you are,” Sean growls, assuring him that if he is to learn, it will be tonight, before the symphony explodes. They disappear then, leaving a worried Tom alone in the bathroom.

  He exits, grabs the arm of Rook and whispers through gritted teeth, “We have to go to the symphony. They’re about to rock Europe.”

  >?

  But what if what actually happens is that he reaches the world leader’s conference first, in order to stop the catastrophe early, having the most noble of intentions—even if he didn’t have the slightest idea what or how to do it—and, spying a certain table, he suddenly has other ideas in mind, ideas that include the taking of nametags on that table—one for himself and one for his escort, waltzing into a room crowded with several world leaders, and spending a good portion of the night saying something like this:

  “I am too Xi Jinping! I am too the President of the People’s Republic of China.”

  And so, that is where we are. It is where things have led us. Beyond the table, inside the room, where several international delegates will sit discussing not quotas really, but graver issues that they will never really find agreement on. And probably, over the course of the next few days—if they weren’t all perishing together tonight at the symphony—they would find it harder and harder to discuss anything other than the weather, the food, and the lack of good
toilet facilities to accommodate the expectations of every culture.

  So, maybe everything begins here, in the burgundy-carpeted hotel conference room, with two hundred representatives in colourful hats and cultural attire crowding around a man they seem to know, are sure they recognize, and are trying to convince themselves that he is. It is not that they are quizzing him in conversational Chinese, or noting the fact that the mole on his chin is gone, but, knowing exactly who he is—his reputation having preceded him, no doubt, with an obvious show of bravado and a hefty supply of superlatives—they are adamant in their cross examination.

  “You are not the one who operates submersible cars?”

  “Gyrocopters, exploding briefcases?”

  “An agile fighter?”

  “Carrying a large black gun?”

  “Protector of world peace . . .”

  “Guardian of the free market . . .”

  “Defender of all human life?”

  And with perfect English he answers them, while gesticulating in several other languages at once. “No, no, no. I’m the President of the People’s Republic of China. It just wouldn’t be me.”

  “But your face is so familiar,” notes the Burmese Prime Minister. “You’ve saved my life before from a man who was mad with power.”

  “I’m mad with power! I’m trying to tell you that I am Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Repub—”

  “Yes, yes, you’ve said that. But the way you move in a tuxedo, you can only be the man we’ve come to know as—”

  “Shaken and not stirred!” someone in a yellow turban yells out.

  “No. I will prove it to you. Do you see my escort?”

  Everyone nods.

  “She is not really the world chess champion, Rook. She’s actually the assistant to the assistant of the Press Secretary for Tuvalu.” Rook, looking at her nametag, confesses this is true. “Would your man dare to be seen with less than an heiress, a mysterious escort, a deadly but fascinating arm drapery?”

  And they begin to see that maybe they are wrong. Slowly, the leaders of the world begin to react as if he were truly the man he claimed to be. As long as he speaks in ultimatums and makes impossible demands on neighbouring countries, he is terribly convincing.

  And, at least twice during the evening, he sighs a deep, troubling sigh.

  Still, the mirrors get in his way.

  The room is mirrored every other panel, and as he walks the room, his reflection pairs with a passing Sean, a droll George, a pleading Roger, a furious Timothy, a wry Pierce, an impatient Daniel, each reaching their arms out to be taken into the scene, to restore their fine name to its former glory. Tired of their protests and disgruntled faces, he smashes the mirrors as he passes. When asked about his peculiar behaviour, he comments, “I’m the President of the People’s Republic of China; I can do as I please,” and passes over to the next image and gives it a good whack with a chair. Of course, this causes several rumours that the Chinese regime is unstable and about to fall, or that Communist China is ruled by a crazy man. It also causes quite a row with the hotel busboys, who follow Xi Jinping with a broom, dustpan, and trashcan.

  But it is really much later when Tom, or Xi as the nametag reads, is involved in a card game with the leaders of Burma, Chad, Iraq, and the Czech Republic—and pulling out ahead it should be noted—that Roger, Timothy, George, Daniel, and Pierce, spearheaded by a bold Sean, leap into the room via the shiny, reflective, wine-glass tray sitting on the heavily sculpted buffet (given as a token of gratitude from the Republic of Guatemala) that Xi for a moment touches, and all hell breaks loose.

  Suddenly, there are seven of them and every mouth drops. Xi Jinping is taken to the floor with a full Nelson.

  “It’s all right.” Timothy stretches out his hands, warding off the unbelief.

  “Perfectly under control. We have the impostor,” Roger adds.

  “The impostor of what?” the French Prime Minister says, standing.

  “This man is not who you think he is.” Daniel struggles with Xi on the floor.

  Sean explains, “He is not Xi Jinping. He is instead—”

  “Aren’t you that detective fellow?” someone calls out to one of the men.

  “Yes!” Pierce shouts in rapture.

  The Brazilian delegate smiles, knowing that is who he is, knowing that the face is finally pegged—not Chinese, not quite at least, but something else, something more familiar, daring, dashing.

  “I am—” Xi struggles to his feet. Sean knees him in the abdomen. “I am—” Pierce chops him with the edge of his hand. “I am too—”

  “No,” George says, “He’s someone else. Think. Who is the man who saves the world from mad, power-hungry moguls?”

  “The man.” Timothy crosses his arms in a way that should show them—gun in one hand, leering smile on the other side of his face. “This representative of British Imperialism, who always comes out on top in fights with villains from foreign governments?”

  “The man who comes out on top with all the ladies?” Roger adds.

  “The man whose cars turn into boats,” Pierce says, “whose watches turn into lasers, whose pens turn into machine guns, whose shoes turn into submersible breathing equipment, whose name terrifies the treacherous, conjures up the most relentless pursuit of one-upmanship in the history of—”

  “I know him.” A man stands at the back of the room. He is distinguished, greying, thin with powerful strides as he comes up to the three men standing in black tuxedos with peerless smiles, to the men on the floor struggling to find who will be what they really are. “I know him.”

  “Then you also know that the situation is serious.” Timothy shakes his hand.

  “Always,” the man answers.

  “And that millions may die,” Pierce says.

  “Such is often the scenario.”

  “And that this man needs to know who he is, who he represents,” George says.

  “Exactly. I should say he needs heavy debriefing.” The man brings Xi to his feet.

  >?

  So, now they are all sitting in a room together, the seven who look so alike, the distinguished man who is willing to help, the men who represent the world as they knew it, and Rook, who is devouring pastries.

  “Everyone dies at nine o’clock.” Sean is sure this is highly irregular, and that they are going completely against standard, so he shuts the curtains in the room that look out onto a beautiful view of Symphony Hall.

  “But I can do things as Xi Jinping that I can’t do as the other fellow.” Tom pulls out a chart. “In five years, I estimate, with the proclamations I hand down through this government, I can improve trade with foreign countries, thereby increasing the cash flow coming into China—while still maintaining a communist nation.”

  “Why that’s ridiculous,” Roger snorts. “You can’t do that. I never did.”

  “You can’t have a capitalistic society and a communist society together.”

  “You’re wrong, Sean. I can be the only business in town. I can make my country export things that other countries depend on. I can be a benevolent Communist dictator.”

  “You can be a blithering idiot,” Timothy says.

  “I was meant to be Xi Jinping,” Xi says.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” the distinguished man says.

  “But he can’t. Who will save the world’s leaders?”

  “Oh really, come on,” says the distinguished man. “You know and I know that second-in-commands are always a better judge of world economics. The destruction of the world leaders might be a good thing. We can’t really know.”

  He turns to the crowd. “We’ve never really known, have we? Someone always rushes in at the last moment and saves everyone, now doesn’t he? I see by your looks, your smiles, that you agree. At least one of these men, every time, has come b
y and whisked trouble away from you. And so, the countries you represent have always run along their merry courses because democracy, or monarchy, or communism was safe once again. No one’s allowed a dramatic regime change, permitted you to explore the effect of outside interference, of disaster, of the effect of sympathy upon your nation. No one’s ever mixed up the pot before.”

  “What do you want to do?” Timothy asks him.

  Sean says to the man, “You want them all to go to the symphony, listen to twenty minutes of Mozart’s greatest work, and scatter their intestines and brains all over Vienna. I see what you mean.”

  “That’s not it at all,” the distinguished man chides, his fingers on his chin. “The elimination of the world leaders would cause a mass rethinking of government as we know it. It could have the greatest possibilities for new ideas to emerge, and come the closest to world peace.”

  Sean puts his hand down flat and loud on the table. “You’re talking about sacrificing the lives of men who have earned their way to the top of their country’s ladder, taken on a load of responsibility. This is not the way you repay hard work.”

  “I’m thinking of something else entirely,” the distinguished man says. “Something spurred on by the thinking and rethinking of one man. This man, this man I will call—Xi Jinping.”

  And of course, as anyone might have guessed by now, Xi is a hero. But the night is still young. And as Xi stands, and the distinguished man shakes his hand, the smile that so wanted to flood across his face many times before, between costume changes and explosions and nights of white satin, suddenly finds its way to Xi’s face. He feels comfortable—not so wanted, not so needed, but definitely noted. And the distinguished man makes a suggestion that forever alters everything. Literally everything. He strides over to the punch bowl filled with punch and dumps it onto the carpet, wipes the bowl out with a towel, and walks around the room passing the bowl to people, so they can throw their nametags within its shiny reflective roundness.

  “We should have done this long ago,” say the Haitian delegates.

  “It doesn’t matter now,” the distinguished man says. “If we can have a new Xi, we can have a new anything.”