Love, Sex and Other Foreign Policy Goals

by Jesse Armstrong

  ‘Good,’ Penny said and looked at me seriously, as if our view of events was significant.

  ‘Good,’ I echoed. ‘Good. Yes.’

  ‘What the fuck?’ Simon said and took a joint end from Onomatopoeic Bob.

  ‘If Babo wins, there can be peace,’ Penny said. ‘People can get back to their lives. Supplies, school. We’ve seen it up there. Everything works.”

  ‘But Velika isn’t free,’ Simon said.

  ‘Well, I don’t know about that?’ Penny said.

  ‘It’s safe. The people are safe,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Simon said. I looked at the joint before him smouldering. ‘Freedom, it – it doesn’t do much except jam the door open to everything – but anything that shuts the door has to be mistrusted,’ he said.

  I looked at the floor with as much rueful scepticism as I could muster, wobbled my head and jutted my lip and tried to marshal my view into a paragraph. We had been there. We had seen the peace pocket: warm and dry and well cared for.

  ‘People. Save the people. Don’t hurt people. That’s first. Just keep the human bodies, safe,’ I said. Penny was listening, but she didn’t look convinced.

  ‘Maybe?’ Simon said. And I looked to Penny again, for her to chip in, but she just shrugged. It was particularly dispiriting, not just because I was losing the argument, but because the views I was expressing were not mine at all, not mostly. They were a reimagined version of stuff she’d said in Manchester at our meetings. I was presenting them back to her like a cat delivering a dead mouse to the kitchen mat as trophy and expecting some reward. But it seemed she couldn’t even be bothered to agree with herself.

  ‘Who is POUM here?’ she said eventually. ‘Maybe Babo is POUM and Itzbegovic and the 5th are Stalin?’

  ‘Or maybe Sarajevo is Barcelona and Velika is the Lubyanka?’ Christian answered.

  ‘How do you mean? What?’ I asked and they both ignored me.

  *

  I loaded up with a fresh round of Coca-Colas. When I came back, Simon was seated next to Penny on the slippery sofa. I had to ignore their body language and accept at face value Penny’s claim that I wasn’t interrupting anything.

  ‘But you did get it?’ Simon asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and no more.

  ‘And did you like it?’ he prompted.

  ‘Er, sure. Sure.’

  Wearing a face of frozen terror that I tried to thaw into something animated and lifelike, I handed them their drinks, hoping to break the moment. But Simon took his bottle without looking at me.

  ‘I worked hard on it,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure,’ Penny said, smiling infuriatingly.

  ‘I think it said everything I wanted it to say.’ He knew it was a lovely little poem, the one I’d ripped up, and thought he knew she was clever enough to know this too. So why wouldn’t she admit it?

  ‘Sure,’ she said.

  ‘So is there any chance of . . .?’ he began, glancing at me to fuck off.

  ‘Of what – you pushing your “sea urchin” into my “clam”?’ she said. To which Simon smiled quizzically, getting that there was a reference here to something but not quite able to summon what.

  If Penny had read his face, rather than looking rather melodramatically straight ahead, she might have caught the truth: that he’d never heard this line before in his life, let alone written it.

  ‘Er – well, of – of . . . how do you mean?’

  My natural inclination is always to clear up a muddle, but I thanked God for this one.

  ‘I’m not sure I’m ready to climb up, or down, to the sea with you, OK?’ she said.

  ‘All right. OK. Fine,’ he said, tetchily. She was talking in riddles. And he sat back defeated, letting his aching jaw ride some circles now normal sensation was returning to his muscles after the chemical tremble of the night.

  *

  Once there had been no shooting for an hour or so, finally, sitting with my back against a wall, I slept. Or pretty much slept. It was that thin walking-on-frost sleep where half of you is being dragged under by deep physical tiredness but half is being tugged awake by pips and spurts of chemical still frazzling in the blood. Sara went to her room to sleep, but the rest of us stayed together. Huddled like sheep, warm to each other from the night before, and sticking close in case we needed to dart from the wolf at the door.

  I was woken from my dribbly slumber by Simon sitting down deliberately hard next to me. It was like waking to a nightmare. My head crackled. I was confused.

  ‘I know what you did, you fucking shit,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You tried to fuck me.’ My guts filled up with cold water drawn from a deep well.

  ‘What?’ I said, recalling where I was and that this was true.

  ‘She showed me the poem. She doesn’t want to believe you switched them. She doesn’t think you’re that kind of shit. But I think you are.’

  ‘I’m not,’ I said, then remembered, like in a crime drama, to add, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Let’s go and talk to her. If you say it wasn’t you, maybe you can explain what happened? All right?’

  I followed Simon’s gaze beyond the bar, beyond the reception area, through into the plate glass of the refectory-restaurant, where I could see Von and Bev eating cereal from bowls. Penny sat on a nearby table massaging her temples. Simon offered me a hand to pull me upright and I was ready to follow him to my execution, to let the pain of the situation at least be anaesthetised by its drama, when across my line of vision came Hamdo Abdic, marching into the hotel past our grim-faced guard and followed by Miami Dolphins/Baltimore Ravens and a phalanx of foot soldiers.

  After a word to the porter at reception, he came through and stood at the top of the short set of steps which led down into the bar and started to talk via his translator, Baltimore Ravens. Joints were still being extinguished. Von and Bev, Penny and Christian were still making their way from the refectory, but he didn’t wait. He gave no quarter. His authority had its own authority; it didn’t need recognition.

  ‘Good morning. I am here to inform you that through last evening and this morning a successful operation has taken place to remove the illegitimate command structure of the 5th Corps. They will no longer be holding Bihac pocket under their control. Atif Dudakovic has handed himself over to our forces. Members of the district assembly who were not willing to cooperate with the new town authority have been taken into custody.’

  Shannon stood behind Sara and hugged her from behind. History was in the making! Von positioned himself to do the same to Cally, looping his arms over her shoulders and giving her breasts a very quick ‘honk’ on their way to clasping over her belly. She didn’t seem to object.

  ‘The Peace Force is now in full control. As soon as the necessary arrangements can be made, Bihac town, Cazin and the rest of the southern pocket will be reunited with the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia,’ Baltimore Ravens said, hurrying to keep up with Hamdo, as he yammered out the sentences. It seemed he had already delivered this speech a number of times and was growing bored of it. The relative proportion of admin to action is very high, even in a coup, I guess.

  ‘We will be making a statement to the international agencies and representatives in the area such as yourselves throughout today,’ he said. We looked at one another with not a little pride. Us, in our van, with our ghee and bleach, were international representatives!

  ‘And reports as to the situation will be made on local media, which we, the Peace Force, are already in control of, as we are the rest of the town.’ This repeated claim regarding the extent of the victory was the only thing to raise any doubt. Had Hamdo won? Or was this a premature declaration?

  ‘And to cement our legitimacy of the announcement we are seeking representatives from among the international community to announce on Bihac Radio the current situation.’

  And then, shockingly, like a shop mannequin speaking, Hamdo s
aid in English, ‘I want some to come now please. Come.’

  He looked directly at me. I looked to Shannon. The gang huddled up while Bev, Yves and Elsa approached Hamdo and asked a number of questions.

  ‘OK. We don’t know what the fuck’s going on. We stay here and sit tight. This guy showed up once before the play, we don’t even know who he is,’ Simon said quietly and quickly into the huddle.

  ‘Well, we know him. Don’t we, Andrew?’ Penny said.

  ‘Er, yes. Yes. We met him, we saw his HQ. When I took him something. When we went yesterday.’

  ‘What? What did you take?’ Simon asked.

  ‘I don’t know. From Babo. Maybe money. I don’t know. We just took it.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ Simon said.

  ‘I’m going to call for advice,’ Von said, heading out towards the reception as Onomatopoeic Bob laughed after him:

  ‘Good luck!’

  ‘I think we go. Who should go? I should go,’ Shannon said.

  ‘Shannon. No. No. No no no no no no no no no,’ Simon said.

  ‘Very persuasive,’ Christian said.

  ‘Well argued,’ I said.

  ‘Well, who the fuck are these people?’ Simon asked.

  ‘They’re the Peace Force. They actually call themselves the Peace Force, Simon,’ Onomatopoeic Bob said.

  ‘Yeah, but if I called myself Dave the Egg you still couldn’t dip your fucking toast in me.’

  ‘No, but still,’ Penny said.

  ‘It would probably imply you at least liked omelettes?’ I said, thinking it would sound more playful than it came out.

  ‘They are bringing peace. Right?’ Shannon said.

  ‘They’re fucking – collaborators,’ Simon said. ‘Collaborators paid by Andy.’

  ‘Hey,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know if you have the right to use that word, Simon. Helper is, anyway, another name for a collaborator?’ Christian said. ‘Got to be careful of labels.’

  ‘Helper is a nicer word,’ Onomatopoeic Bob agreed.

  ‘OK, they’re helpers, of Babo, who are helpers of the Bosnian Serbs, who are helping people into shallow graves all over this country they’re helping to pull to pieces.’

  The truth was I had no idea what we should do. I tended to submit to men, especially with guns, who told me to do things. The room available for personal choice felt radically curtailed. I didn’t really think I could be held to account for anything we did right now; we were just acting as required. They said to go to the radio station and report what was happening, and what was wrong with that? It was only Simon’s presence that made any of us need to think about it at all.

  Yves, Elsa and Bev were getting moved aside and Hamdo began to turn his attention to us, just as Von returned, bounding in like a red setter. ‘I got through. I spoke to Dad, he says, to go. To get out of here. We can go.’

  ‘OK,’ Penny said.

  ‘How did you even –’

  ‘Satellite phone. There’s a journalist staying here. He has a satellite phone,’ Von said.

  ‘OK, well, listen. All I will say is I think this is very unwise and we shouldn’t help these guys,’ Simon said.

  ‘I’m going,’ Shannon said.

  ‘I’m going,’ Penny said.

  I looked at Simon.

  ‘I’m going too,’ I said.

  ‘Von? Wanna come?’ I asked.

  I wanted another man with me. And he was big and strong and smiley and I just couldn’t imagine anyone shooting him. It would be gratuitous, like shooting an inedible cow.

  Von took my arm and pulled me aside. ‘Sorry. This is it, matey. The big one. I’m gonna can it,’ he said and nodded to Cally.

  ‘Yeah . . .?’ I said.

  ‘Oh yeah, needs doing, and now,’ he said and drew a finger across his throat, clarifying his intentions for the relationship. From the other side of the lobby Baltimore Ravens looked over at us. I feared a communications mix-up.

  ‘Easy, Von,’ I said and nodded at the watching soldiers. Helpfully, Von clarified things by putting a finger pistol in his mouth and blowing his head off.

  ‘It’s dead,’ he said, then looked at the soldiers and asked me: ‘Do you think we’re all going to get killed?’

  ‘Er . . .’

  ‘I might give her one last waggle on the joystick?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I can’t really see why they’d shoot us, unless it’s a mistake, or something?’

  Hamdo gave me a hawkish nod and we headed out to join Baltimore Ravens. Penny and Shannon led the way out, joined at the last minute by Bob. Following them came me and Yves and Elsa. Finally, Bev caught up with us and said he thought it might be best to come too, ‘as protection’, although really I think it felt like getting left behind to stay.

  *

  We walked, surrounded by a buffer of soldiers, through empty streets. Penny’s white T-shirt, which she’d worn under her khaki soldier’s shirt for the performance, was hanging loose and as she walked she hitched it up to tuck into her fatigues. I saw for a second her back, lovely and shimmering with a little damp. I skipped a couple of paces to make up ground until I fell into step beside her. My legs quaked. I caught her eye and shook my head in general astonishment at the things that occur in the world, testing the water, but she just marched on.

  Through the old town, there was a general curfew in place. The day was slack and hot. From many apartment windows people looked down and I had the curious sensation that I was onstage again. But without any lines. This was improv. When I whispered to Penny the words frothed and dribbled.

  ‘Baltimore Ravens. Before it was – he was the guy from the checkpoint? Right?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ she said. ‘Baltimore Ravens, née Miami Dolphins.’

  I laughed, a lot. Too much. Then stopped.

  The sound of the soldiers’ boots resounded off the walls of the main street. There were no corpses about. Either they had been pulled away to shallow graves or the hospital or perhaps the firefight had been relatively confined. Then, like it wasn’t that big a thing, Penny asked me out flat: ‘So, did you destroy a poem from Simon to me, Andrew?’

  I stopped, and looked at her straight on, into her eyes, the tadpole pupils dilated from the night before, almost merging with the iris, and I went for something, a flanking manoeuvre, or the truth, a blurt of feeling, I can’t really say what it was, if it was my ‘heart’ or trying to be clever, to cling on, but I met her stare full on and said: ‘I love you.’

  ‘Great, but what do I get out of it? Financially?’ she said.

  ‘I’m not joking.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I mean, we had sex,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said and turned to walk on – we were the last people in the group and Baltimore Ravens chivvied us to catch up with the others, who were passing beyond the municipal buildings where we had performed. ‘But not really.’

  ‘No, sure. But we did.’

  Baltimore Ravens waved to two armed men outside the council offices who waved back.

  ‘It didn’t actually go in, did it?’ she said airily, looking at some shell damage.

  ‘Er – well, I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Look, I don’t want to –’

  ‘I don’t think it did,’ she said.

  ‘Sure, I mean, I guess that’s not the point. I think for a bit it –’

  ‘No, sure.’

  We passed a mosque that had the shape of a church. I think it said in my guidebook that it had been a church. But outside were Muslim headstones – mini obelisks topped with a kind of poppy-head turban. We were close enough to the Una that we could hear the water rush.

  ‘I mean, I love you,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, you said. Look, did you throw away his poem?’

  But then we arrived outside the radio station – and parked up outside, huge and hulking, like an elephant, was an actual, physical tank.

  ‘That’s a T-54,’ Bev said, turning and breaking the moment between
Penny and me.

  ‘Right,’ I said.

  ‘That’s Russian. Second World War.’

  I looked at the big beast. It made me feel tired, as though I was revising for an A-level exam, just to look at its thick metal plate and great long ridiculous gun. Zhukov, Stalingrad, Hungary ’56, Prague ’68, the long boring seventies and eighties waiting on the German plain for nothing – and now here. The poor big bastard. What things we make things do.

  *

  Upstairs in the radio studio there were many civilians sitting on the floor around a producer’s desk. In the presenter’s booth a man and woman were playing fast folk pop music and frequently turning it down to read the same message from a typewritten sheet.

  There wasn’t any triumphant revolutionary fellow feeling in the radio studio. Our arrival and subsequent on-air appearance was more like an item to be crossed off from a checklist. All seven of us were ushered into the DJ area. There weren’t any chairs for us so we huddled around a microphone that dangled from the end of a metal stand like an executed man. The room was beige and orange and in the corner there were three or four broken desk fans and an electric guitar without any strings. The song ended, then the host asked, ‘Hi, you are EU monitoring representatives? What are you seeing on the streets of Bihac, can I ask?’

  ‘It is peaceful. So far as we can tell,’ Yves said.

  The host gave a thumbs up and motioned with hands tumbling over one another that he could do with a little more.

  ‘All seems to be peaceful. There is quiet,’ Shannon said.

  ‘You are also from the international theatre group nice work the Peace Force has defeated Dudakovic forces, correct, right?’ the DJ asked me in particular.

  I stepped forward and while maintaining eye contact with the host gently spoke up towards the microphone. ‘That is what we can see from what our eyes tell us.’

  I stepped back like a private on a parade ground, duty done.

  ‘Thank you. Great to meet you guys. Good luck,’ the DJ said and that was it. As we exited the booth the small heat around us dissipated entirely, and I felt like a sacked executive who, having been chauffeured in, is left to get the bus home. Hamdo and his entourage stayed behind talking quickly and laughing with folk in the radio station while we were escorted back to the hotel by just a single guy.