Sudden Lockdown

by Amos Talshir

  “You’ll realize that the president is a man like any other, with wishes and desires,” the president answered, mock-humble.

  “I’d be happy to teach you how to dance. Actually, to teach all of you,” Veronica declared in Spanish, savoring the startling effect that her declaration had produced upon their smug, suggestive expressions.

  “To dance?” the president marveled.

  “I’m an expert in adult dancing,” Veronica said.

  Rose was impressed by the speed with which “aerobics” became a new profession, “an expert in adult dancing,” making a note to herself to anticipate more quick, agile surprises from this woman. Veronica pulled the president by his arms toward the center of the reception plaza outside the boxes, a space once used to set up tables loaded with refreshments and other pampering treats for respected guests such as themselves.

  Rose and Simon stood outside the circle of dignitaries, who stared blatantly at Veronica’s shapely thighs and moved in accordance with the hidden rhythm beating in her veins. Rose, too, was captivated by the charm revealed behind Veronica’s seemingly obvious and immediate façade. She continued to track the inviting motions of her body and her seductive smile, thinking that perhaps there was more to this woman packed inside her tight dance outfits, a woman who flowed in cyclical motions, connecting with a smile that expressed faith in anything that crossed her path; a woman bestowing devotion and pleasure, who could identify a man fluent in French, who was amenable to little lies, and perhaps could not do without them. Such lies provided her with a sensation of control and flexibility. She knew how to adapt to what was expected of her and was willing, of course, to be lied to. What was the problem? Life became easier when you could simply lie. After all, it was the truth that hurt. A little lie, an expert in adult dancing, for example, simply made things more pleasant for both parties. Rose felt a deep curiosity, extending to the bottom of her heart and the roots of her mind, about this woman, who perhaps was more than a chatty fitness instructor, a woman who might have even intentionally played dumb in order to make it easier for people to patronize her. It was easier for her to live that way. Unlike herself, Rose thought, who always stuck to her guns, maintained her dignity, and so on.

  Veronica dragged the president along in light dance steps. He was encouraged by the clapping of his excited entourage. His awkward body, trapped in its filthy suit, lost all of its presidential grandeur when his short legs fumbled in an attempt to follow the steps modeled by Veronica, the “expert in adult dancing.”

  “I can’t dance without music,” the president blurted out, his throat dry, trying to bow out by grasping at the last straw at his disposal.

  “Mr. President has resigned himself to tap water and snacks and will have to resign himself to dancing with no music,” the elegant minister of health, his suit hanging from his body after his extreme weight loss, called out to him. The minister of health’s somewhat impudent comment stirred up an awakening opposition ripening within the entourage of ministers. The cacophony of their reactions in the local language became an expression of open outrage toward the president, accompanied by gestures of aggression. Rose huddled with Simon, whispering to him that the tradition of revolutions and rebellions in her country might lead to an improvised ousting of the president here.

  “Isn’t that what your resistance movement was trying to achieve?” Simon asked Rose.

  “We fought for freedom for the people and the world, not for seizing control,” Rose replied.

  “If your president and his entire government are locked in here with us, that means someone has seized control.”

  “Right, I realize now that the Others are already in control of the regime. Today it’s already clear to me that the regime was taken over, and not in order to bring freedom to the world. I suspect that David, the head of our resistance, collaborated with them too.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I was supposed to streak in the middle of the game, and David instructed me at the last moment to start after the game. I think he did it so that I’d distract everyone, including the president’s bodyguards, while the Others took over the stadium and trapped us inside.”

  Rose’s silence anticipated the shock with which Simon would respond to this act of betrayal. However, he did not react. “You don’t look surprised to me,” she said.

  “Every year, after summer, autumn comes, along with the storms that cause shipwrecks. For some reason, the fishermen forget the nature of the sea and sail out during autumn.”

  “What’s the nature of the sea?”

  “To devour. The sea is there to storm, to devour and to swallow up. That’s its nature,” Simon said into Rose’s warm eyes.

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “What’s your nature? The resistance movements, the authorities, the idealists who are right and the idealists who are wrong. Those who kill and those who are killed, and vice versa the next time around. Your collective nature is betrayal. Betraying the ideal, your comrades, the cause or yourselves.”

  “What are you telling me?” Rose asked.

  “That you shouldn’t have been surprised by David’s betrayal.”

  “And what should I do?”

  “Cooperate with the president. He’s your new ally. Give him music, so he keeps dancing with Veronica.”

  “Please accept some music, Mr. President,” Rose said, and burst out in passionate singing, accompanied by hand claps, from the repertoire of their turbulent country.

  Veronica threw back her head with its mane of blond curls, swept up in Rose’s warm voice. Rose’s singing filled the gray concrete space under the stand. The president’s rickety body was suddenly imbued with an energy that sent his jittering limbs far from his squat body. Veronica writhed lithely around the president, encouraging the entourage of ministers to clap rhythmically. They formed a tight circle around the dancing couple, like a group of partiers encouraging the couple to the rhythm of the thrilling song. Some of them joined in on the familiar tune with their weary voices, stamping their heels in a steady beat.

  Sweat ran down the president’s forehead. His effort and sense of release were evident after the ongoing nightmare of losing control of the country and being trapped in the VIP box. Rose moved on to another song, more rhythmic than the preceding one. Veronica improvised a variety of dance steps and wiggling, inviting the thrilled president to embrace her and launching him on virtuosic twirls that allowed him to brush against her sweaty body. Several ministers could not hold back and also engaged in improvised dance steps on their own and opposite each other. Their fatigue was clearly apparent in their exhausted, elderly bodies. Rose began to sing a romantic tune with a tango beat. The lyrics of love and yearning magnetized the bodies of Veronica and the president. The ministers stood around them, breathing heavily, bent with tiredness, their eyes drawn to the intimate dance the president was performing with the dance instructor. Veronica called out to them to choose partners and join the passionate tango sung by Rose. Somewhat tentative at first, they followed Veronica’s instructions, issued in Spanish with a French accent. Within seconds, the concrete plaza filled with pairs of soccer-loving cabinet members, embraced in each other’s arms in their filthy suits after long months of confinement. Rose’s lusty tango produced an expression of yearning from their exhausted faces, of a sort that they had not experienced for quite a while. The members of Los Españoles Estados Unidos’ government danced in pairs with one another, with Veronica at the center of the group, leading the president in slow dance steps, her body locked tightly to his own.

  Simon took the smartphone out of his backpack and connected it to the mobile speakers and the power supply. He went online, found a dance music website, and turned on the quality speakers through which he would listen to soccer broadcasts, at full volume. The sounds of the music playing swept the masculine group of cabinet members into a dance part
y that made them forget not merely the fact that they were all men, but also the fact that control had been seized from them in a coup, and they were now its prisoners, with no information on how the state was being run or about their own future. The speakers echoed and the ministers danced, embracing each other. The elderly president could no longer stay upright on his feet, despite Veronica’s vigorous arms, and was happy to sit down when Veronica led him to the concrete bench on which Rose was sitting.

  The president tried to overcome his labored breathing following the energetic dance, flattering the two women. The bird and the gazelle, he called them, reciting overwrought words of admiration and appreciation for the most beautiful women in the world. A moment before Simon privately decreed that this president was a hopeless moron, the president’s face altered abruptly, assuming a surprising, focused and sober expression.

  “Keep making my gang of freeloaders dance, and let’s talk,” he said. “I understand you’re playing this music off the internet, right?”

  “Yes, sir,” Simon replied.

  “Never mind the ‘sir,’” the president requested. “From now on, I’ll be Fredo, like one of you. Please tell me, why didn’t they block all internet communication?”

  “They didn’t block the internet or cellular communication or the electrical outlets all through the stadium.”

  “Well, then, why can’t you find out what’s going on outside and in the world through the internet?” the president persisted.

  “We do know what’s going on outside,” Simon said, “but when it comes to the Others, we can’t understand a thing. They didn’t block or censor information, news or airline websites, internet forums, or anything else that could help us connect to the world. But they just don’t connect to the Web, so we don’t have any information about them. They control us and maintain secrecy by giving us complete freedom of information online.”

  “I’m not sure I understand that logic,” the president said.

  “It’s simple. We know what’s going on online and we know what’s going on in real life outside, based on the Web. But we have no ability to learn about them, about their habits, about their history or their plans, because they’re not connected to the Web. Exactly the opposite of what you’d expect from people who take control of you or of the world.”

  “I don’t understand this logic,” the president repeated.

  “They know what every computer kid knows. If you’re online, you can’t be secure. If you’re not online, you’re almost invulnerable.”

  “What do you know about them despite all that?”

  “That they know enough about computers and the internet not to use them.”

  “Did you talk to people on the outside?”

  “There’s no point in talking to people on the outside. They all recite what the Web is spewing, and the Web is spewing what people who don’t know anything are feeding it. I think I know more than other people, and it’s not information from the outside.”

  “How come?”

  “If you learn what’s going on from the inside, from inside the stadium, you can figure out the system.”

  “You’re an interesting guy. What do you know, for example?”

  “What killed the sharpshooter,” Simon said.

  “Don’t say any more,” Rose intervened. “We don’t know who’s who and what the president is scheming.”

  Simon grew silent under the authority of Rose, who was older than him and more experienced in the machinations of regime and politics. The way in which Rose instructed him not to talk reminded him of his mother Clara’s instructions to his father. Long before his father had moved out, Simon had sensed his mother’s mysterious authority over his father. As he lived in the isolated house on the bluff, Simon had had few occasions to visit other children’s houses. Therefore, he had no way of knowing whether this thing that flummoxed him took place in those houses as well. His mother’s command over his father was very obvious, but usually hidden. When his father was walking on the beach or swimming in the sea with him, when he carried heavy cargo from the beach to the house, or hefted a boat engine on his back, Simon felt as if Dad was directing traffic on Earth. But suddenly, one word or a tiny gesture from Mom would pop up, out of nowhere, utterly paralyzing Dad. Simon was swept up in that magic.

  He examined the president and thought how strange women’s influence on men was. Just a moment ago, the president had been prancing like a billy goat around a woman younger than him by forty years, his mouth dripping folly and humility, utterly devoted to her simply because she was a woman and he desired her, willing to slither on his belly and wiggle his scrawny rump. If she had promised him more than a dance, he would have willingly executed every minister in his government.

  But suddenly, the fool had come to his senses and was revealed as an intelligent, attentive man, willing to garner information from a boy leading him through the intricacies of the internet. Simon marveled at the revelation whose significance he was still pondering: women’s bewitching influence on men. The unexpected jolt in the behavior of a man attracted to a woman. Were the manifestations of attraction indeed milder in women, he asked himself, or were the symptoms of unrequited love limited to the party who had the bigger crush, with no other distinctions, whether it was the man or the woman?

  “She’s right,” the president said. “I know I deserve everything that you and your resistance think of me. I just want you to know that it happens to anyone who is in control. That’s not how I imagined my behavior. It happens to all of us. Even if we arrived as visionary revolutionaries, we become brutal animals because of the fear of being deposed.”

  The president battled the sweat dripping down his forehead, but the pathetic handkerchief he extracted from his jacket pocket was already wet and malodorous. Veronica offered to bring water from the restroom but had no container for it. Simon produced the thermos from his backpack and poured some water into the stainless-steel cup that served as its cap. The president sipped delicately and burped like a baby. The cabinet members tired of the dance party and began to retreat from the plaza.

  “I’ve never appreciated a glass of water so much,” the president said.

  “Fredo, we want to know more about you than just how you enjoy drinking,” Rose firmly declared.

  “My dear,” the president said, gazing at Rose’s face with obvious sympathy, “I understand your aggression and respect it. I even appreciate you for the contempt you feel for me. I myself was contemptuous of the leader from whom I seized control more than twenty years ago. I thought I’d be different from him and from other leaders in the world. We all become what we fought against, and deserve to be fought in turn. I thought it would be justified if I assassinated the dictator who preceded me. You may also aspire to assassinate me. Could you? I don’t think so. You’re too pretty, you love life too much, you’re beloved, idealistic. Let’s talk about it. That might be the one thing you gain from me in return for the pleasant hour you gave me. What’s the first and most important skill that an animal develops in nature? Have you thought of that? More than any other ability it has, the animal develops the skill of identifying the proximity of something that might cause it harm. All of the gazelle’s senses sharpen to identify the predator hiding in the thicket. The identification is certain. The prey will never err in identifying the predator. It can escape. But that’s already a different skill.”

  “You know a lot about those who might assassinate you,” Simon said.

  “How unfortunate that the Others preceded you and your fellow resistance members. They are indeed capable of murdering people who disobey them, certainly including me,” the president said. “You, for example, are made of the right stuff.” The president smiled at Simon, sipping more water. “You don’t love life to an extent that would stop you from snuffing out the life of another. You don’t particularly sanctify your own life, either, and that’s why
you’re not afraid. And to answer your question, indeed, the only serious training people like me undergo when they rise to power is to identify the potential assassin. Believe it or not, there’s no studying, preparation or training to realize the ideals we used to justify grabbing the reins from our predecessors. The only training we receive, all of us, all the rulers of the world, is how to survive, to identify the opposition, the assassins, how to escape our fate. As someone who took those lessons seriously, I can tell you, kid, that you’re a potential assassin.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Simon said, “although those aren’t my plans.”

  “Well, then, here’s some advice. You too, princess of the resistance, whose photos adorn the walls of our secret service, even if not in the nude. This business is becoming a lot more complicated for you. It’s no longer a romantic assassination of one cruel despot like me. We bad guys have also learned how to cooperate with those who are similar to us in other coalitions uniting different states. Toppling the regime in one country is no longer enough, and the Others learned this as well. That’s the one item of information I can provide you in return for the glass of water and the wonderful dance with Miss Veronica. The Others who have locked us in the stadium know they have to simultaneously seize control of a coalition of states, and perhaps more than one coalition. I’ll only tell you this now, and we can continue talking when my band of tyrants won’t be around. I know who’s responsible for the lockdown and will be happy to reveal it to you next time.”

  “Maybe we’ll establish an ongoing dance class?” Veronica was exultant.

  “I’ll never forget tangoing with you,” the president said, bowing to her.

  “My mother won’t believe I danced with the president.”

  “Call me Fredo,” the president requested. “I hope we can continue dancing in my presidential palace in Victory Square. I should go now, so we don’t raise any suspicions of collaboration beyond the tango, since there are informers in my group, as well.” He parted from Veronica by kissing the back of her hand, bowing to Rose.