“Not at all. Based on my simple notes, you extemporized most convincingly, Mr. Joel. To wit, that alcohol serves to cut those outlandish desires down to size and conveniently evaporates any lingering dissatisfactions. Or more to the point, getting drunk makes you feel as if you’d already realized your desires. And alcohol’s a lot cheaper. Not this high-class stuff, of course,” says Ketch, holding up his glass of I.W. Harper. “But still, compared to a battleship or diamonds to entice a beautiful woman or a rare antique vase, it’s a whole lot less expensive. Thanks to alcohol, people can just skip all those over-the-top desires.”
“That’s right. Alcohol’s an imagination amplifier,” adds Joel.
“Very well put. It amplifies us drunkards into the most highly evolved peace-loving dreamers in all creation.”
“But horses and cows and whales don’t drink, and they very peaceful,” says Angelina.
“Most certainly. That’s because horses and cows and whales are innately good. No such thing as a bad horse. No evil whales. We must ingest alcohol to return to that happy horse and whale state. And compared to drugs and bondage and sexual disorders, alcohol’s pure. Don’t know about plankton, but it’s the nearest thing to grain.”
“Talk of sexual disorders, where does that put you two?” asks Angelina, speaking with a knowing confidence that she’s not offending.
“We’re both one hundred percent normal. We’re friendly with our own kind. We never sleep with women, nothing so perverted.”
“Tsk tsk, he’s just teasing. We’re normal, the customers who come here are normal, the girls are normal. It’s people who can’t get it on without slashing their partner to ribbons who’ve got a problem. Now that’s a disorder.”
“So there you have it. Taking the argument to its logical conclusion, we showed that a highly evolved drunkard species is just about as peaceable as horses, cows, and whales.”
“Within one week, a full third of the AA members quit the organization.”
“Really floored us, it did. Made me feel as if I’d done something wrong.”
“Oh, come now. It was all in the power of words. And none of them even knew just how ‘amplified’ you were at the time.”
“No, they knew,” says Angelina. “Same as I know drunks are basically good. Mind you, there’s better or worse at everything. We get some lousy customers in here, make a nuisance of themselves, but given time even they get the hang of it.”
“See? They evolve,” quips Ketch.
“Well, don’t you evolve too much. We all love you as you are. We wish you could stay drunk forever. And if you can, we just want you to see us as lovely ladies.”
“Don’t we always?”
“Yes, always,” echoes Joel, pouring himself another glass of bourbon.
Angelina wonders whether to have one herself, but then looks up and notices the maid from Melchor is gone. No, she’ll pass on the drink; it’s too much trouble to go get a glass.
“This bottle, though, wish they’d done a little better by the shape,” chides Ketch. “What’s inside is so good. Why’d they have to make such a god-awful bottle?”
“Square bottles are unnatural, the fake cut-glass work is uncalled for. The cap’s too big, it looks cheap. They wanted something to set this twelve-year-old apart from the run-of-the-mill bottle, but they overdid it.”
“Round, slender bottles are the thing. Better to fit right in the palm of your hand.”
“Don’t you two ever disagree on things?” asks Angelina.
“Certainly. All the time.”
“Actually, we don’t get along at all.”
“Funny, I never heard you arguing.”
“Only when we’re alone. And without screaming or shouting.”
“Oh, then you really do get along. Shut out the world and you have your own little world to yourselves.”
“You think?” says Joel.
“Listening to records every night, laughing, whispering. What on earth you two talk about? Everybody want to know. What you got so much to discuss?”
“Call us creative.”
“Alcohol heightens creativity. Some say the best part of human culture is distilled from it.”
“Like a toy choo-choo train, running on alcohol. That’s humanity.”
“That’s why, while we do reminisce from time to time, most of the time we make up new things.”
“New things? Plans, things to do?”
“No, worlds,” says Joel matter-of-factly. “Inhabited by people doing all sorts of things, with unexpected events in the offing so there’s an element of change. We make it all up. Natural backdrop and human actors, settings that’ve been there forever but the scenes keep changing. You know the sort of thing—a world.”
“Or two.”
“And that’s what you make up?”
“Well, in words,” says Ketch.
“We toss out different ideas, sketch in the details, then put it all together.”
“Care to let me listen in sometime? At the creation,” teases Angelina, a rare note of coquetry in her voice.
“One day,” says Ketch.
“All in good time,” adds Joel, noticing something out of the corner of his eye. The maid from Melchor is now standing in the corner of the salon staring this way. Intrigued by their conversation possibly? Or no, thinks Joel, was that a spark of defiant challenge in her eyes? As if to say, we’ll see who’s better at making up worlds! One brief flash of eye contact, then she retreats to her room.
BUS REPORT 7
Sunday morning, Santa María Cathedral in Baltasár City, the bus attended First Mass at seven o’clock. As parishioners took their seats and the priest approached the altar, the bus was already there, at the end of a pew far to the back. Throughout the service it sat quietly with its engine off, so despite its size, only those sitting in the same row and the priest and acolyte who faced the congregation even noticed it. According to testimony from those seated nearby, during the hymns and litany two voices came from inside, probably the driver and young Foreign Office staffer assigned to accompany the veterans group. A former choirmaster went on record as saying that one sang at a high tenor pitch, the other bass.
When the collection basket was passed around, witnesses saw an arm reach out from the driver’s seat and contribute a substantial amount of banknotes. However, when the time came to take Communion the bus did not rise. Most probably it—or they—felt unworthy to partake of the sacrament. Later, this puzzled people: on the one hand, if there were any sinful people on board it had to be the Japanese ex-soldiers, not the two locals duty-bound to drive and assist them, though they too presumably felt guilty consorting with wrongdoers. The subject of these most uncatholic venalities was much debated among the faithful of the capital.
Once Mass was over, as if to avoid any questions, the bus slipped outside as unobtrusively as it came. The backing maneuver was a feat of consummate skill. People ran after it, but all they saw were the taillights rounding a bend in the road. Others ambling about the cathedral lawn infused with righteous grace after Mass saw the bus leave but for some reason didn’t think of giving chase by car.
Another rather more secular question people later asked themselves: what exactly were those Japanese doing all through Mass? And the answer was, quite obviously, they must have been sleeping. So the only two good Catholics on board, the driver and the Foreign Office aide, probably had conspired to take the bus to church, even though the sinful forty-seven inside slept right through the angelic hymns of praise.
President Matías Guili, habitual early-riser, is pondering a question in his dojo: whether or not to call that young woman from Angelina’s over to the Presidential Villa. By all measure of daytime logic, which is to say in the language of politicking—bureaucratic institutions or persuasive rhetoric or sharing out mo
nies—the act carries no obvious merit at all. He already told Lee Bo, he can’t even explain why he wants her nearby, so probably he shouldn’t give it another thought. Still, he has the feeling this is an important decision for him. Shifting and shapeless, a nocturnal vision born of the shadows between late night and dawn, the implications are unclear, yet compelling nonetheless. For in some spiritual sphere, far from workaday events, other powers hold sway. Somewhere, he knows, she’s connected with him. With so many strategic judgments to make in the weeks ahead, keeping her around will have its advantages. For psychic support, for guidance. She probably won’t know herself if something she says is prophetic or not. Even if nothing happens, some of her powers might just rub off on him. All very iffy, he knows, but that’s a risk he’ll have to take.
Matías isn’t discounting how Angelina might react. Didn’t he tell Lee Bo he can’t afford to lose her? She’s everything to him, the incumbent dictator of his desires. Yet sex aside, there must be something Angelina’s not providing, or why would this maid from Melchor even bother him? Highly irrational, but so are the extenuating circumstances of the moment. Doesn’t her very advent signal strange times ahead? Why else would he brood over a woman he’s hardly seen head on, let alone spoken to? Everything’s changing directions so quickly, escalating thick and fast, the usual channels can’t deliver. With so many unknowns volleying at him from all sides, reflexes alone won’t do.
Now’s no time to be standing idle. The music’s playing, so you better dance it to the end. And if you think before you move your arms and legs, you ain’t dancing. You can’t lose the moment, that flash of decisive inspiration. He’s been here before. Just like when he decided to ask former Imperial Navy mentor Kazuma Ryuzoji to sponsor his studies in Japan. Or the anxious months before he finally brought Angelina here to this country, when he felt like he was fraying on the edge. Or when he first ran for president. Even after losing the presidency, the road to reinstatement was paved with snap decisions, like that contract with Ketch and Joel; the minute he met them, he knew it was no coincidence. Knew it without a second’s hesitation. Call it a gut feeling—Yes, here’s a solution! And now, this maid from Melchor is practically waving another contract right under his nose. But first, better read the fine print!
Matías reaches a decision. Before breakfast, he takes out a sheet of his personal stationery and pens a short note to Angelina:
Need an extra hand at the villa. Lend me that maid from Melchor for a while.
Matías
He’s dashed off memos to Angelina before. He hates to telephone and would rather not rely on others to relay urgent messages. Heinrich, however, he can trust to deliver a simple note. Nothing new about that. Only this time, he’ll be bringing someone back with him.
What will Angelina make of this snap request? He thinks it over. Any way he looks at it, the maid takes first priority. He’ll have plenty of opportunity to explain it all to Angelina later. Or no, she’ll catch on soon enough without his having to explain a thing. He needs the maid’s powers to overcome the crisis he faces. Angelina picks up on these supernatural vibes more than he does, Matías tells himself. She’ll understand better than anyone.
At eight thirty, Heinrich arrives. Immediately the President summons him to the back office and hands him a sealed envelope. “Take this to Madame before midday, wait for her instructions, then come back here.”
Heinrich, expressionless as ever, takes the envelope and heads for the garage. The President half-listens to Jim Jameson read off the day’s lackluster schedule as he thumbs through a stack of papers to be signed, his eyes barely skimming the words. None of it sinks in. All documents have been prepared according to ministry manuals and precedents on file: minimal bureaucratic meddling, hand delivered by his excellent staff for the executive secretary to scrutinize before reaching him. As a rule, he’d read each one, but this morning he just can’t seem to focus and signs them perfunctorily. He gets up and saunters from the office, touching base with Jameson now tackling mountains of paperwork out in the foyer.
“I’m stepping out for a bit. Be back in thirty.”
It’s so unlike him to simply walk out in the middle of his morning session that Jameson rises in alarm, but the President reassures him.
“Just going out for a little walk. Won’t take long.”
And with that, he leaves the startled executive secretary behind and walks down the hall. First President Cornelius undertook the construction of this Presidential Villa immediately after assuming office. While hardly luxurious by foreign standards, the sprawling neoclassical structure with its imposing whitewashed walls is the biggest thing ever built on the islands. In the beginning, opinion was not entirely favorable, but eventually the islanders came around to the idea that a president was bigger than all the clan elders put together; he needed a building this size to inspire international confidence. Even simple folk from the tiniest outlying villages know by now that in today’s world, image is everything.
Matías likes the building. Admittedly, it was only after he became president he realized how much he liked it, how much he went in for big things in general. Construction proceeded slowly. Then six years after independence, just as the plasterwork was to receive the last finishing touches, President Cornelius fell ill and died; he never knew the comforts of living here. Three months later, Home Office Attaché Matías Guili was sworn in as his successor and quite pleased to take up residence. Soon he was having additions installed, with his own private quarters tucked unobtrusively behind, complete with Japanese bath. What he really likes about the Presidential Villa, however, is its formidable frontage, the broad lawn graced with translucent curtains of flowing water, the long galleries in columns end to end. It takes a lot of man-hours just to keep the tropical undergrowth from encroaching, and the illuminated fountain doesn’t come cheap either, but the coffers can spare that much. These things aren’t for Matías; it’s the nation that needs them.
He’s lived here eight years, not counting the three months when he lost out to Bonhomme Tamang. His rival never actually resided here during his short term in office—no, he commuted every morning from his own humble bungalow—or rather, just as he was moving in, the “American” president up and died.
Matías ambles through the building with no real urge to go outside. The villa is big enough for a good walk. The U-shaped two-story Palladian pastiche centers on a faux third-story facade surmounted by three flagpoles. At most times, when there are no visiting dignitaries, only the Republic of Navidad flag waves from the middle pole. Most of the ground floor is given over to various executive staff offices, in name at least; only the right wing is actually occupied. Walking the long hallway toward the left wing, behind which hide his private quarters, he passes the occasional secretary bearing a briefcase or an armload of papers. Each without exception is startled to encounter the President wandering about at this hour and fumbles to come up with a salutation. He ignores them all and keeps walking. If only he were a ghost, invisible to others! sighs an inner voice, his stray thought surprising even himself. He’s still got plenty to do, too much in fact. By the time he runs into his fourth underling bowing clumsily, he’s already regretting this whole exercise.
He makes straight for a stairway, which leads up to the grand hall that occupies the better part of the upper floor, a formal reception room for inaugural ceremonies and fêting guests of state. To either side are passages that run the length of the left and right wings upstairs, leading to various waiting rooms and some ten spacious guest suites. Apparently Cornelius had different ideas for the Presidential Villa; Matías has no intention of putting up guests here, official or otherwise. He occasionally has food catered in and will hire temporary help for special functions, but it’s no fun being a hotel. Nor will he make a single budgetary concession to hire extra help. A once-a-week cleaning is the only time anyone comes up here. The beds where no one sleeps in room
s where no one stays are draped with white drop cloths. The President walks the corridor devoid of human presence, reaches the end, turns around, and walks back. He turns a corner, passes through three sets of double doors to the grand hall, turns another corner, reaches the other end, and returns. Back and forth.
He thinks of the man who had this mansion built. His dark face and ash gray hair, that winning smile, his unshakable sangfroid in decision-making. Unlike Matías, he could openly boast about his one-quarter German blood, and at age thirty he anointed himself battle-ready with that nom de guerre: Cornelius. An air of megalomania wafted about him and propelled him into the presidency, fulfilling an already tangible promise of greatness. If the man hadn’t come along at the right time, the country might never have adopted the presidential system. Certainly no one else would have built such a grandiose Presidential Villa, nor put up such strong opposition to America. Yes, but if as a result Navidad drew closer to Japan, which in turn led to this Brun Reef oil-stockpiling thing, who was to say that trading off America for Japan was really an improvement? Seen against the growing estrangement between those two countries, was choosing a nearby major power over a distant superpower such a smart move?
Walking the corridor, it all comes back to him: Cornelius’s face, his proud-chested stature, his deep rich voice. Whatever else you could say about him, the man had all the makings of a president. Compared to which Matías’s own small frame is almost laughable. Not that Matías strikes people as especially short. There’s something about him; he has only to ignore his height as if it were a trick of perspective, and those around him are forced to overlook it as well. Seated, no one ever notices how short he is; on his feet, good manners dictate that others pretend he just happens to be standing in a lower spot. This presents problems when he has to meet guests at the airport and cross the wide tarmac apron, so he makes a point of always waiting inside the terminal. Which constitutes no particular breach of protocol as long as the visitor isn’t of equivalent rank—but foreign heads of state never come here anyway.
The Navidad Incident Page 13
