Turning my back on the now forbidden pleasures of both drinking and gambling, I drift toward the tall windows overlooking the city and find that I can no longer bear to look at my reflection. Unconsciously, I tap the stack of fifties in the breast pocket of my coat and wait for Jacques to find me.
“Hey, Robert, whacha doin’ here?”
My head snaps around so fast I fear my eyes will get left behind. “Ah. Hello, Paul.” I feel like a kid caught poised in front of a store window with a rock in his hand.
Outside the normal environment of the embassy, Esmer looks like an imposter, his polo shirt and khakis a feeble disguise over his security man’s soul.
“Hey, you look like you’re not feelin’ so good,” he says.
I force a smile. “I’m fine.”
“So what are you doing here?”
“Slumming. How about you?” I'm glad to see Esmer's a little drunk, his focus slightly off.
He adopts an expression meant to convey steely vigilance, though it looks more like constipation. “Yeah, me too. Just keeping an eye on things.” He looks at me, puzzled. “But, hey, you’re not playing.”
“Maybe later.”
Esmer considers this. “Later. Yeah, me too. I’ve already lost six thousand francs. How much is that in real money? Eighty bucks?”
“Something like that.” I add nothing more, hoping Esmer will go back to the tables. When he doesn't, I start to get nervous. I decide to leave and make the rendezvous with Jacques the following night.
I clap Esmer on the shoulder, a bit of overacting that he doesn't seem to notice. “Color me gone. See you tomorrow, Paul.”
“What? You just came in here five minutes ago.” The security man’s eyes narrow. “You're up to something.”
He doesn't look so drunk that he'll forget our conversation by morning. I grope for a way out. “It looks kind of dull in here tonight, that’s all.”
“Tonight? You come here a lot?”
“I’ve been here before. Who hasn’t?”
“Hey, what I mean is, do you come here often?”
“All you security guys are suspicious by nature.” Trying to act casual, I swirl the ice in my glass while a trickle of sweat crawls down my chest from where the dollars in my breast pocket sit like a cancer.
“Ah, Monsieur Knott isn’t it?” Jacques Razafintsalama comes up to us, spreading his arms in greeting. “We see you so seldom.”
I could kiss him.
We shake hands. “Yes, Robert Knott from the American embassy. And this is Paul Esmer, embassy security.”
Jacques pops his eyes wide and withdraws his hand as if burned. “Ah, security. You’re here to see if our dice are loaded?”
Esmer gives him the narrow-eyed look. “All us security guys are suspicious by nature.”
Jacques beams. “We are so pleased you are here, Monsieur Knott. I know the Colonel will want to extend his greetings personally.”
Esmer’s face droops when he realizes the invitation doesn't include him. But he's accustomed to the fact that a security officer doesn't carry as much prestige as the head of the political office, even if it's only me, and doesn't protest as Jacques and I walk away. I resist the temptation to wave goodbye.
I ask Jacques, “Should I thank you for getting this guy off me or was that just coincidence?”
“As you wish.”
“Sure. You knew who he was?”
“He was someone you didn’t wish to speak to. Anyone could see that.”
As we near the elevator Jacques stops and holds out his hand. “I think you have a little package for me.”
I glance across the room and see that Esmer's still looking at us. “For God’s sake, put your hand down.” He doesn't budge, so I take his hand and shake it. At the same time I tell him, “I give this to Picard myself.”
Jacques smiles his regrets. “The Colonel is not available at the moment.”
“You mean he doesn’t want to be seen with me.”
The Zebu Room’s manager shakes his head in a way that doesn’t mean no.
“You just told Esmer he wants to see me. You’re going to look funny trying to stop me.”
I walk quickly along the hall leading to Picard’s office with Jacques trailing behind. “No, Monsieur Knott. You mustn’t.”
But I already have.
I enter without knocking. The office is empty. “Where is he?”
Jacques is puffing with irritation and anxiety. “I told you. He is not available.”
I cross to the private door behind the desk, throw it open and start down the spiral staircase.
Jacques’ voice calls after me, “Monsieur Knott!” I hear his heavy tread thumping down the steps behind me.
I reach the bottom step just as the big Frenchman emerges from the door of his darkened bedroom. The whiteness of his bathrobe contrasts nicely with the black pistol in his hand. I freeze, one foot poised in the air at the bottom of the steps. The door of a bedroom stands ajar, and I glimpse a face caught for a moment in the spill of light from the main room. A young woman? A young man?
Picard closes the door behind him. “How are you, Robert?” he purrs.
Jacques has stopped halfway down the stairs. “I told him you were not available, Colonel, but—”
I break in. “But he also said you wanted to see me. So, I took my pick.”
For a moment Picard keeps his pistol trained on my navel, then waves it away almost playfully. “I apologize for the drama, Robert. Sometimes a client loses more than he believes he can afford and goes a little crazy. I have to be ready.” He sticks the hand with the pistol into the pocket of his robe. “You need to be careful, Robert. One of these days I may end up killing you. It would be a shame if it were an accident.”
Weighing the ambiguity of Picard’s remark, I unwind from the staircase and step into the middle of the room. I draw the envelope of fifties from the inside pocket of my coat. “Just making my first payment.”
“You shouldn’t come barging into a man’s quarters like this. Ever.” The big man’s shoulders slump, the tension gone, and he raises his eyes toward the gamblers losing their money to him on the floor above. “War was much simpler than running a gambling den. Kill the enemy so that he doesn’t kill you. What could be more clear? What could better trigger that exhilarating urge to survive?” He looks at the ceiling as if searching for an answer on its bone-white surface. “I’ve killed a lot of men, Robert. But it became a terrible bore.” His eyes take on a faraway cast, then come back to me. Picard looks a little startled, as if he’d forgotten I was there. “The dead look so relaxed, so beyond caring, that one envies them.” He executes a careless shrug. “I have tried to stop envying the dead. Now I simply steal from the living.” He raises his chin toward the envelope in my hand. “Set it on the coffee table.”
I toss the money down and take my first easy breath since I entered the room. But I don't take my eyes off Picard. “And you have something for me?”
“Jacques has it,” Picard says. “You will make your exchanges with him in the future, not with me.” He looks at Jacques, who descends into the room, takes a package of Malagasy francs from his coat pocket and holds it out to me, giving me a look that says he won't soon forget the embarrassment I've caused him.
Picard picks up the stack of dollars from the coffee table. His eyes darken with suspicion. “It feels a little thin, Robert.”
“Yeah, the embassy is only giving us bank rates now, not the official rate, and they started charging a fee. Besides, I didn’t want to exchange too much at once.”
When I handed Nirina part of the stack of fifties the previous night, the lie had seemed perfectly plausible. Standing now in front of an impatient man with a gun in his pocket, I feel my confidence seeping out through my pores.
“All right, Robert.” Picard flips his hand toward the staircase, letting me know it's time to go back to the Zebu Room. “I’m glad we had this little chat.”
“Yes, it’s been lovel
y.”
Picard turns toward his bedroom, but stops and says to me over his shoulder. “And remember, don’t ever again come in here unannounced.”
14
I lean against the wall of the little cell and look at Walt Sackett, see the dullness in his eyes and the waxy gleam of his skin. Kneeling by the American’s cot, Gloria hands him a bottle of pills from Dr. André and tells him how often to take them.
Speedy sits cross-legged on his bed, looking at Walt with concern—and at Gloria with something else entirely.
“Mademoiselle Gloria?” he asks.
“Yes, Dokoby?” Over the last couple of visits, she has softened toward the young Malagasy. She insists on using his given name as a last line of resistance, but I can see that, despite herself, she's giving in to his unceasing charm. Girls are suspicious of charm. But Speedy sees something in her that I don't—that nobody does—and she knows it.
“Monsieur Walt is going to get well?”
Walt’s French isn’t very good, but I'm sure he understands the question. Gloria’s answer seems directed at the aging cowboy. “The medicines will make him better, and I’ve brought some beef broth to make him feel stronger.”
“Miss Nirina brings him food every day.”
“Ah, yes, Miss Nirina. I must meet her someday.”
“She’s Monsieur Walt’s girlfriend.” Speedy chews this over and decides it needs something more. “Everyone needs someone, Miss Gloria.”
“All right, Dokoby, that’s enough,” she says gently. Is that a blush I see on her cheeks?
“Hey, I’m still here.” Walt tries to make it a joke, but we all hear the tone in his voice and no one laughs. He looks away and says quietly, “I think I’m going to need to get out of here pretty soon if I’m going to get out at all.”
“We’re doing everything we can,” Gloria says, though she has to understand how feeble that sounds. “The Ambassador will write to the Foreign Minister. The Ministry has said her letter will receive every consideration.”
“Well, I guess that ought to do it.”
Walt’s gentle sarcasm knocks the props out from under Gloria and she slumps against his bed. Walt reaches over and touches her hair.
I've seen how much these visits take out of her. She needs increasingly more time to recover from each one, as if she takes home some measure of Walt Sackett’s illness. She's one of those people who has known nothing but success, if only in a Rotary Club award kind of way, and her inability to get Walt out of prison is killing her.
Walt looks across the cell at me. “You’re standing a long way off, Robert. Why don’t you come over here and join the fun?”
I shuffle over to Speedy’s cot and sit down.
“You act like you’re at my funeral, Robert. Kinda tough on a fella’s morale.” Walt makes a try at his old laugh.
Speedy reaches under his bed and retrieves a fading chrysanthemum, a hint of the night’s freshness still on it. “Miss Gloria, you didn’t tell me what kind of flower you like, so I picked this one for you.” He holds it out to her.
Like an overloaded circuit, Gloria’s face goes blank.
“Be nice,” I tell her in English, “Take the flower.”.
The young thief adds in English, “Yes, Miss Gloria, be nice to Speedy. I picked it from in front of the Presidential Palace.”
She takes the flower in the tips of her fingers. “Thank you, Dokoby,” She breathes in its scent. “But be careful. Don’t be caught picking flowers from the president’s palace.”
The young Malagasy makes a serious face. “Yes. They might throw me in prison.”
Gloria is too moved to even smile.
Walt picks up the broken thread of the conversation. “So, Robert, have you talked to Nirina yet?”
I hope my face doesn’t show the unease twisting my gut.
“Yeah, we finally had the chance.” Does Walt know she's trying to find the money to get him out of prison? Maybe. Probably. And she knows that if she spends it to get him out of here, he can’t pay her back, that there's no pot of gold waiting his return to America. Maybe she really thinks he'll marry her and she’ll get the visa to go to the United States, finally see that other world.
Walt’s eyes shine with his fondness for her. “She takes good care of me, Robert. Don’t know quite why an old guy like me deserves it.”
“She’ll help you any way she can.”
“She’s a great little girl.”
Surprised that my conscience can leave me too abashed to speak, I nod in agreement and tell myself that this stuff must be even tougher on decent people.
The two clergymen stand side by side in the embassy lobby, surrounded by the Malagasy and American staffs. The Protestant minister is the younger, dressed in the black suit and white collar of the local Methodist church. The Catholic priest, despite his white hair and stooped frame, makes an impressive sight in the full regalia of a bishop, a smoking censer in his hand.
Pale from overwork, her skin almost translucent, Ambassador Herr introduces the two clergymen, adding, “We are so pleased to have these reverend visitors with us this afternoon to bless the commencement of work on our remodeled entrance.”
Though everyone knows the truth, the Ambassador doesn't mention the real reason for the clergymen’s presence. Despite the pleadings of reason and faith, many within the Malagasy staff still refuse to risk bringing the former protocol secretary’s curse upon their heads by entering the embassy through the space that was her office, and the two clergymen have come to perform a public exorcism.
The ministers smile gravely at each other before starting on a long, slow circuit through the lobby, offering their prayers and blessings, giving particular attention to the deserted protocol office, leaving behind them a haze of smoke and a whiff of incense.
Like all fine ceremonies, it ends with tea and cookies.
I wish my problems could be exorcised so easily. I grab a couple of cookies and head toward my office, but stop when Lynn steps in front of me, her eyes hard as agate as she reaches into the pocket of her slacks and pulls out a piece of torn cloth.
“What’s this?”
“Um, percale?”
“Get serious. One of the mechanics found this shoved under the back seat of the car you took to Tamatave.”
“I told you. We had a young woman with us when we drove away from the village after Samuel got shot. She tore pieces off her dress for bandages.”
She looks at me with disbelief edging toward contempt.
“Oh, come on.” It's been so long since I've been falsely accused of something that I feel righteous. “You think I’m tearing dresses off women in the back seats of embassy cars now?”
“No,” she grunts. But the expression on her face says she would have enjoyed believing exactly that.
“This is a funny time to start getting jealous.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” The look in her eye only slowly changes from anger to suspicion. “And why are you suddenly exchanging so many francs for dollars? I’m not blind. I see you every few days at Annie’s window, handing over a stack of francs.”
“My luck changed. I’m on a roll down at the Zebu Room.” She scoffs. “You’ve turned your whole life into one long losing streak. The gods ain’t smiling on you again in this lifetime. Robert, do you ever step back and take a look at yourself, ever ask yourself what you’re really doing?”
“Self-awareness is a pretty heavy burden when you’re a natural asshole.”
“So, tell me about the money.”
Caught off guard, I struggle to come up with a plausible lie. I'm beginning to fear I'll actually have to tell her the truth when, despite Lynn’s assertion, the gods smile on me. Paul Esmer comes up to interrupt us.
“Lynn,” the security officer says, “I need to talk to you and the Ambassador. We need Pete Salvatore, too.”
Lynn gives me a last withering look before turning to Esmer. “What’s up?”
“Our friend’s report of
trouble at the coast.” He nods toward me. “It's old news now. Word is that there was some sort of riot down at Antsirabe in the last couple of days.” Antsirabe is only a two-hour drive to the south.
“Anti-government stuff?” I ask.
“Anti-everything. Shops looted, a policeman shot, city hall stoned. Or so they say. I don’t know how much of it is true, and there’s nothing in the papers or on TV. The part that has me worried is talk of gangs mobbing foreigner’s houses, overwhelming the guards and breaking in. Smash, grab, gone.”
“You figure it’s heading this way?” I ask.
“A contact over at Interior tells me there was trouble in Fort Dauphin a week ago. So, it seems to have been working its way north for a while.”
“You want to meet right now?” Lynn asks.
“Yeah. I need to brief the Ambassador and DCM on this, and I need to talk to you about beefing up the guard force.” Though the security office supervises the guards, it’s admin that hires and pays them.
Esmer spots the Ambassador saying goodbye to the clergymen. He rolls his shoulders and says, “I’d better grab the old gal before she gets away.” When things get tense, Esmer’s Bogart shtick becomes more pronounced.
With Esmer gone, Lynn eyes me again. “We both know I should be talking to Paul about your sudden need for dollars, cashing in stacks of Malagasy francs.”
“But you’re not going to.”
“Shut up, just for once.” Her eyes flare with anger. “No, I’m not going to. You know why? Because I used to see something pretty decent in you. Idiot that I am, I still think it’s there somewhere. But you’d better find it quick.”
“Oh, Robert.” The Ambassador’s words cut through the spell. “Lynn and I have to meet with Paul in a moment, but I wanted to ask you if you’ve seen Gloria today.”
Though I don’t really want to attend the meeting with Esmer, I feel the wound of not being asked. And I wonder when the Ambassador started assuming it was my job to keep tabs on her Public Affairs Officer.
“No, ma’am, I haven’t seen her.”
Michelle Herr’s worry lines deepen. “I needed to talk to her about something, but she wasn’t in her office. Apparently she hasn’t been in all day.”
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