As the announcer read, Ga, listening intently, became very still, very attentive, his gaze fixed on what must have been a loudspeaker inside the control room. He might have been a child listening to a bedtime story about himself, so complete was his absorption in what was being said. His eyes were wide, his face bore a look of wonder, his mouth was slightly open. A police photographer took several pictures of him. Ga drew himself up and posed, head thrown back, one shackled foot advanced, as if he were wearing one of his resplendent uniforms.
After that, he was marched back to the Rover and again dumped into its trunk. He did not struggle or make a sound. The camera, it seemed, had given him back his dignity.
Roadblocks manned by soldiers had been erected on the road to the presidential palace. At the approach of Benjamin’s Rover they opened the barricades and saluted as we passed. We were a feeble force—two ordinary sedans not even flying flags, four police constables and an American spy with a defective passport, plus the prisoner in the trunk of the car who was the reason for the soldiers’ awe.
The palace came into view, illuminated as before by the megawatts that flooded down from the light towers. A dozen stretch limousines, seals of high office painted on their doors, were parked in the circular drive of the presidential palace. The palace doors were guarded by police constables armed with Kalashnikovs. On the roof of the palace, more constables manned the machine guns and antiaircraft guns that they had taken over from the army.
Benjamin waited for the constables in charge to haul Ga from the trunk, then he got out of the car. He gave me no instructions, so I followed along as he strode into the palace with his usual lack of ceremony. We climbed the grand stairway. All busts and statues and portraits in oil of Ga in his many uniforms had been removed. Less than an hour before, he had walked down these stairs as president of the republic for life. Now he climbed them as a prisoner dragging chains. There was a dreamlike quality to this scene, as if we did not belong in it or deserve it, as if it were a reenactment of an event from the life of some other tyrant who had lived and died in some other hour of history. Did Caesar as he felt the knife remember some assassinated Greek who had died a realer death?
A courtroom of sorts had been organized in Ga’s vast and magnificent office. His desk and all his likenesses had been removed from this room too. The Ndalan flag remained, flanked by what I took to be the flags of the armed forces and other government entities, but not by the presidential flag. The presidential conference table, vast and gleaming and smelling of wax, stood crosswise where Ga’s desk had formerly been. Through the window behind it Ga’s antelopes and gazelles could be seen, bathed in incandescent light, as they bounded across the paddocks of his game park. Half-a-dozen grave men in British-style army, navy, and air force uniforms sat at the table like members of a court-martial. They were flanked by a half-dozen others in black judicial robes and white wigs, clearly members of the supreme court, and a handful of other dignitaries wearing national dress or European suits.
All but the military types seemed to be confused by the entrance of the prisoner. In some cases this was obviously the last thing they had expected to see. Some, if not all, of them probably had not been told why they were here. Maybe some simply did not recognize Ga. Who among them had ever imagined seeing in his present miserable state the invulnerable creature the president of the republic had been?
If in fact there were any doubts about his identity, Ga removed them at once. In his unmistakable voice he shouted, “As president for life of the republic, I command you, all you generals, to arrest this man on a charge of treason.”
He attempted to point at Benjamin but of course could not do so with his wrists chained to his waist. Nevertheless, it was an im pressive performance. Ga’s voice was thunderous, his eyes flashed, he was the picture of command. For an instant he seemed to be fully clothed again. He gave every possible indication that he expected to be obeyed without question. But he was not obeyed, and when he continued to shout, the large constable did what he had done before, at the radio station. He clapped a hand over Ga’s mouth and pinched his nostrils shut, and this time prolonged the treatment until Ga’s struggle for breath produced high-pitched gasps that sounded very much like an infant crying.
The trial lasted less than an hour. Some might have called it a travesty, but everyone present knew that Ga was guilty of the crimes with which he was charged, and guilty too of even more heinous ones. Besides that, they knew that they must kill Ga now that they had witnessed his humiliation, or die themselves if he regained power. The trial itself followed established forms. Benjamin, as head of the national police, had prepared a bundle of evidence that was presented by a prosecutor and objected to by a lawyer appointed to defend Ga. Both men wore barrister’s wigs. Witnesses were duly sworn. They testified to the massacre of the beggars. The spick-and-span young captain testified that Ga had embezzled not less than $50 million from the national treasury and deposited it in secret accounts in Geneva and Zurich and Liechtenstein. The court heard tape recordings of Ga, in secret meetings with foreign ambassadors and businessmen, agreeing to make certain high appointments and award certain contracts in return for certain sums of money. Damning evidence was introduced that Ga had ordered the death of his own brother and had perhaps fed him alive to hyenas in the game park.
Without retiring to deliberate, the court returned a unanimous verdict of guilty on all counts. Benjamin, who was not member of the court-martial, did not join the others at the table and was not called to testify. He spoke not a single word during the proceedings. When Ga, who had also been silent, was asked if he had anything to say before sentence was pronounced, he laughed. But it was a very small laugh.
The prisoner was delivered to Benjamin for immediate execution. After this the court-martial reconvened as the Council of the High Command, and in Ga’s presence—or, more accurately, as if Ga no longer existed and had been rendered invisible—elected the chief of staff of the army as acting head of state and government. Benjamin kept his old job, his old title, his old powers, and presumably his pension.
I wish I could tell you for the sake of symmetry that Ga died the kind of barbarous death that he had decreed for others, that Benjamin fed him like a Thomson’s gazelle to the cheetahs or gashed his flesh and set a pack of hyenas on him under the stadium lights. But nothing of the sort happened.
What happened was this. The generals and admirals and justices and the others got into their cars and drove away. Ga, Benjamin, the sergeant, the two constables, and I went outside. We walked across the palace grounds, Ga limping in his chains, walked away from the palace, over the lawns. Animals in the zoo stirred. Something growled as it caught our scent. Only the animals took an interest in what was happening. The constables guarding the palace stayed at their posts. The servants had vanished. Looking back at the palace, I had the feeling that it was completely empty.
When we came to a place that was nearly out of sight of the palace—the white mansion glowed like a toy in the distance—we stopped. The constables let go of Ga and stepped away from him. Ga said something to Benjamin in what sounded to me like the same language that Benjamin and the sergeant spoke to each other. Benjamin walked over to Ga and bent his head. Ga whispered something in his ear.
Benjamin made a gesture. The sergeant vanished. So did the two constables. I made as if to go. Benjamin said, “No. Stay.” The stadium lights went out. The sun was just below the horizon in the east. I could feel its mass pulling at my bones and, even before it became visible, its heat on my skin.
We walked on, until we could no longer see the presidential palace or light of any kind, no matter where we looked. Only moments of darkness remained. Ga sank to his knees, with difficulty because of the chains, and stared at the place where the sun would rise. Briefly Benjamin placed a hand on his shoulder. Neither man spoke.
The rim of the sun appeared on the horizon. And then with incredible buoyancy and radiance, as if slung from the heavens, the enti
re star leaped into view. Benjamin stepped back a pace, pointed his Webley at the back of Ga’s head, and pulled the trigger. The sound was not loud. Ga’s body was thrown forward by the impact of the bullet. Red mist from his wound remained behind, hanging in the air, and seemed to shoot from the edge of the sun, but that was a trick of light.
Benjamin did not examine the corpse or even look at it. I realized he was going to leave it for the hyenas and the jackals and the vultures and the many other creatures that would find it.
Benjamin said to me, “You have seen everything. Tell them in Washington.”
“All right,” I said. “But tell me why.”
Benjamin said, “You know why, Mr. Brown.”
He walked away. I followed him, not sure I could find my way out of this scrubby wilderness without him but not sure either whether he was going back to civilization or just going back.
Diamond Alley
Dennis Mcfadden
FROM Hart’s Grove
THE YEAR WE WERE SENIORS in high school, a girl in our class was murdered and the Pittsburgh Pirates won the World Series. Which was the more momentous event? No contest, of course; how could a game, a boys’ game at that, compete with the death of a classmate, a girl who was our friend? Yet somehow, despite our lip service to the contrary, these two happenings seemed to attain a shameful equality in our minds. And if anything, now that so many years have passed, Mazeroski rounding the bases in jubilation after his homer had vanquished the big, bad Yankees is more vivid in our memories than the image of Carol Siebenrock, young, beautiful, and naked, as seen from the darkness beyond her window.
The Pirates were with us everywhere that autumn. They filled the air. Every evening when we went out, we didn’t need our transistors—we could hear Bob Prince calling the game all over town, his friendly baritone drifting from radios on porches, in kitchens and living rooms, pervasive as the scent of burning leaves. We would often pause, interrupting whatever nonsense we were up to, holding a hand in the air to signify an at-bat worthy of our attention: maybe Smoky Burgess coming up to pinch-hit with the tying run in scoring position, or Clemente connecting, sending a screamer through the gap, or big, dumb Dick Stuart approaching the plate with enough runners on to win the game with one mighty swing of his lumber. And every time they played the Pirates’ jingle, we would sing along:
Oh, the Bucs are going all the way,
All the way, all the way,
Oh, the Bucs are going all the way,
All the way this year!
We might have been anywhere in Hartsgrove, the hilly, leafy town of our youth that most of us have long since abandoned. We came out after dark, after our homework was done, savoring our first heady taste of freedom—seniors now! When we weren’t at Les’s Pizza Palace down by the bridge over Potters Creek, we were at the elementary school playground on the north side, back in by the swings and seesaws near the trees, watching the stars, smoking the Winstons and Luckies we’d pilfered from our old man’s pack on the kitchen counter. Or walking down East Main Street, by all the crowded houses sorely in need of paint and repair, or trudging up Pine, where the leaves on the trees were burnt orange in the scattered streetlights. We might have been crossing the swinging bridge over the Sandy Lick Creek by Memorial Park, seeing how perilously we could get it to sway in the dark, or taking the shortcut down Rose Hill, shrieking like ghosts in the woods on the rutted, littered path that had been a turnpike a hundred years before. Everywhere we went, we smelled the burning leaves and listened to the Voice of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The darker it got, the better we liked it.
Many nights found us in the pine shadows of Carol Siebenrock’s backyard on Diamond Alley, waiting for the light in her window.
Her house was on a hill—Hartsgrove was built on seven hills—the backyard at eye level with her second-floor bedroom. We didn’t venture there till late summer, when the days were getting shorter, the concealing nighttime longer. We’d heard the rumors a year or two before, from older guys, guys since graduated and gone, but we were younger then, our curfews earlier, it was the fifties, and we were timid; peeping was a serious offense in Hartsgrove, Pennsylvania—that and running stop signs were about all the cops had to live for. But now we were seniors, bulletproof, brave, bold and fast, our ears attuned to the slightest hint of a cruiser on Diamond Alley, a dozen escape routes mapped out in our minds.
On the good nights, her light would come on. And there she was. “Ladies and gentlemen, it is now showtime,” Wonderling would whisper. At the foot of her bed she unbuttoned her blouse, looking out at the darkness hiding any number of eager eyes; then she turned, blouse open. Steadying herself, hand on the dresser, she stepped from her shoes, loosened her belt. Then the snaps and crackles would begin, as we positioned ourselves in the pine needles for a better view, louder than dancing elephants. She stepped from her pants, shrugged from her blouse. White bra and panties. Heavenly curves and crevices. Her bra fell away, nipples staring us down like little red eyes. Her thumbs went to the sides of her panties.
The nights were rare and precious when the planets aligned to allow us the perfect sighting. She might have gone to bed too early, or too late, or it was raining, or we were spotted on Diamond Alley, or we heard a car, or we had too much homework, or we were simply giving it a rest. But when the planets finally did align, it was ecstasy, nearly unbearable.
“You’re blocking my view!” Wonderling whispered hoarsely, shoving Nosker. But his inflated state amplified the whisper, and the ensuing chorus of shushes must have sounded to Carol as though her backyard had sprung a leak.
She came to the window holding a pillow over her tits, and yelled through the screen, “Why don’t you guys grow up! Go get a girlfriend!”
We were gone. Down Diamond Alley in the dark, wind whistling past our ears, coming out on Pine beneath the streetlight, where we slowed, ambling down toward Valley Street. Suddenly we stopped. In the air we heard Rocky Nelson line a shot up the right-field alley, scoring Groat all the way from first with the winning run— How sweet it is! cried Bob Prince; How sweet it is! —and we pumped our fists and yelled, falling to our knees on the sidewalk, nearly weeping.
Next time the curtains would be closed. They would inch open again over the next few nights, first a visible sliver, followed by a gradual widening. We wondered if Carol could guess we were there, and we tried to believe she was willing to play the game, willing to be seen as long as we didn’t let her know we were seeing. That was what we wanted to believe. It never occurred to us that she might simply have felt she had the right to fresh air, that she might have believed that we had given up, or, better, that we had grown up now and respected her privacy and were above crawling on our bellies in the dirt and darkness for a cheap glimpse of flesh.
She stood out from the other girls in our class. Other girls were pretty, sexy, smart, and popular, but none of them packaged it quite the way she did. None of us had been her boyfriend, but we’d all been her confidant at one time or another, the one chosen to rub her back between classes, to sit with her at lunch, to dance with her at Les’s, to have those privileged, personal conversations when her clear blue eyes would mesmerize you.
When we rubbed her back, she would put her arms on her desk, her head down as if she were going to sleep. “Higher,” she would say. “Right there—between the shoulder blades.” And she would moan. That moan. That skin. We would have to pretend our heavy breathing was caused by the physical exertion of rubbing. And we would have to cross our legs.
“Do you have a date for the record hop?” she would ask.
“I hadn’t really thought about it,” we said, panting.
She was concerned about our social life. She didn’t want any of us left out, left behind. It was as though she wanted us all to experience life in the same expansive, wonderful way that she was. She was always offering helpful advice: Bobby, you should be more serious—everything’s not always a joke, you know. Or, Jimmy, how come you never smile? You loo
k so serious all the time. Or, Doug, why don’t you comb your hair in a DA? You’d look really sharp with a DA. Or, Don’t squeeze that, John. If you squeeze it, it’ll leave a scar.
“Why don’t you ask Brenda?” Carol said. “She likes you.”
“I don’t know. I’ll think about it.” We wanted to play it cool. “You going with Bucky?” Bucky was her boyfriend. Her boyfriends were always three or four years older than us, always with cars and the coolest of reputations.
“Yeah. Wait’ll you see his car.” Bucky had a new midnight-blue GTO, leather seats, four on the floor, competition clutch. She told us all about it. Then she put her hand on ours, leaning close, adding conspiratorially, “But I don’t like it—the back seat’s too small.”
A comment such as that could fuel our masturbatory fantasies for a month. She was mature, sexy without being slutty, no easy feat in 1960. Her silky blond hair and clear blue eyes seem almost suspect now, as if our memories have polished them to perfection, but her picture in our yearbook—which we dedicated to her—bears out the truth of it. She always seemed to wear the skimpiest briefs beneath her cheerleader’s outfit, and Nosker in fact claimed that once she wore none at all, swears to this day he saw her beaver that fateful Friday night. We insisted he was full of shit, secretly allowing ourselves to entertain the possibility, masturbatory fuel for another month.
Harlan Coben Page 38
