Her delight was tainted with dread, but the fragrance of the roses aroused a giddying sense of her own power. Had she not been so recently heartbroken, she mightn’t have realised that Wibawa had an ulterior motive. But after her dalliance with the MP, she was newly attuned to male bullshit. Wibawa had no real romantic or sexual interest in her; he placed no value on any individual female – which must mean there was a darker reason for the extravagant display. He needed a conduit to the West, and one that he could control. It was a dangerous game to enter into, but in that moment she felt completely equal to the task. She had been born to seduce princes.
She went to find Carl to show him the spectacle. ‘Look,’ she said, simply, throwing open the door to her room.
Carl’s jaw seemed in danger of dislocating, it dropped so fast and so heavily. He did not seem to think the roses were anything other than a grand seductive gesture. Bernadette thrilled at his amazement. Seeing his reaction simply compounded her growing belief in her own invincibility. It was intoxicating.
‘Crap,’ Carl muttered, under his breath.
Bernadette laughed.
‘You’ve got to be careful, Bernie,’ he said. ‘The guy’s a notorious womaniser. The Demonic Don Juan, they call him. Seriously. This is not good. This is not good. Fuck. I should have foreseen this. I shouldn’t have brought you.’ He tugged at his hair in a puerile fashion and shook his head back and forth in despair.
It was incredible how Carl could ride through a war-ravaged landscape and not bat an eyelid, and yet come completely undone at the sight of a few flowers. Bernadette, on the other hand, felt safe for the first time since they had landed. Machine guns and roadblocks scared her; roses she understood. ‘I think it’s sweet,’ she said, shrugging.
Bernadette, who was paranoid by nature, half believed her room must be already bugged, and she was careful to say nothing damning of the President. Carl stared at her, dumbstruck, as if seeing her for the first time.
That evening at dinner, she was seated next to the President. Much to the chagrin of the journalists – especially, she noted, the one female journalist in the group – Wibawa had eyes and ears for no one but Bernadette. He questioned her about her family, her education and her dreams.
‘My biggest dream is to be a recognised journalist,’ she said with a tone of awe. ‘But I’m scared I’m not good enough.’
‘You’re afraid of a lot of things, aren’t you?’ he said, poking her arm jovially. ‘You’re a little scaredy-cat.’ She simpered the correct amount. ‘I think you’re a remarkable young woman,’ he continued. ‘But why do you want to be a journalist, when you could do anything you choose?’
Bernadette looked at him, her eyes dark pools. ‘There’s so much bad in the world that I can’t make sense of. Every day we’re bombarded with information, with shocking pictures and descriptions of violence. It’s too much. I want to find the good in the world and report it,’ she said, with a saintly expression etched firmly on her countenance. Wibawa turned away, hiding his smile of delight, and Bernadette knew then that this was a game she could win.
Two days later, the President sent the other journalists home, cutting their trip and their expectations short. He had given Bernadette the gift of sole interview rights, a gesture that would secure her self-professed dream of becoming a recognised journalist. Carl was beside himself with worry, still not understanding the reality of the situation, which Bernadette did not dare relate. Before his return to the UK, he begged her to reconsider and fly back with him, offering all kinds of assistance in the case of an emergency, from the personal numbers of people very high up in the UN, to the full weight of Bloomberg as an organisation.
Completely in the grip of the seduction, Bernadette had few qualms about being left alone. And, she comforted herself, if she had committed herself to certain death, at least it was all for the love of her mother.
She was moved from her room at the hotel and installed in an exquisite temple-style room in the palace. The individual low hut, with its carved wooden beams and pretty thatched roof, had a large four-poster bed and a view of the turquoise ocean. Mosquito nets and white linen curtains gave a soft romance, as did fragrant pink blooms and bronze statuary.
The plan was that she should stay for a week, and in that time she was to follow the President in his everyday life, in order to best understand the man he really was.
Their unusual relationship had already sparked a flurry of media interest overseas, and people waited anxiously for Bernadette’s first reports. But she claimed that she felt too pressured by the attention of the world to write sensibly, and so Wibawa decided that she should compose her article when she got home to England, and spend her time with him taking notes. She followed him around like a faithful puppy. He allowed her to ask anything, and promised to give an honest answer. She focused less on his political policy and more on his personal ideals, and they had many intimate conversations that lasted for hours at a time, whilst they walked along the golden sands, or dined in splendour.
Bernadette worked a constant game of opposites, flaunting her desire for independence and a successful career, whilst hinting sometimes that she would appreciate the attention of a good-hearted man. She also offered up the idea that her relationship with Carl was more than platonic, and that she felt a certain amount of loyalty to him. The President listened carefully to everything she told him and, in turn, played a subtle hand. He paid her all the attention a woman in such an exotic and romantic situation would expect, but was cautious never to push too far. He was aware of his own reputation, and the last thing he wanted was to scare Bernadette. He often hinted that he needed to find a wife, and he spoke fondly of his education in Britain. Their dynamic was a layered one. More than anything, he seemed determined to spoil her, and offered her lavish gifts, which she refused to accept.
‘I can’t take anything from you,’ she said conscientiously. ‘It would be seen as a bribe. I have to remain impartial in order to profile you accurately.’
He would back off immediately, with profuse apologies, and reiterate his belief in her as a writer and his desire to see her succeed in anything that would make her truly happy. But then, a matter of hours later, he would try to give her another extravagant gift, this one even more immoderate than the last.
‘What are you trying to do?’ she asked huffily at one point. ‘Purchase a woman for a herd of cattle and twelve bales of hay? It doesn’t work like that. This is the twenty-first century, you know,’ for she had learnt that the President liked it when she bossed him a little.
Two days later, a herd of sorry-looking cattle was paraded, in great state, around the palace walls, and a decorated pyramid built using twelve bales of hay was erected outside her bedroom. Bernadette had to laugh when she saw the President’s cheeky face, his delight with his own joke, and the way he practically danced up to her begging to be admired. Like all despots, he had a taste for the whimsical.
‘Very good,’ she had said, laughing too. ‘But don’t think you own me now.’
‘I know I can never own you,’ he said, suddenly serious. ‘But I hope that perhaps one day you will come to me of your own accord.’ She looked away with a troubled expression, biting her lip. ‘I won’t push you,’ he continued. ‘I know how gentle you are, and how much you dislike pressure. Just know that I feel this way. But no expectations – I am happy to have you as a friend, if nothing more.’
Bernadette tried not to marvel at her victory too soon. It was an exhausting activity, and she was watched and tested constantly. She had been appointed a personal security detail, and one night her burly close-protection officer, a South African man with bright red hair, spoke to her about the President. ‘Be careful,’ he whispered one evening, as he escorted her to her room. ‘The guy’s a killer.’
Bernadette, ready for such a warning, turned cold eyes on him. ‘There’s a war. He’s had to make choices,’ she said. ‘But he’s working for the greater good. He cares passionately about hi
s country. And his people.’
‘Just you watch your heart,’ the man said, nodding earnestly. ‘He likes Western women. He flies planes full of prostitutes over every month.’
Bernadette clicked at him impatiently. ‘Have you ever actually seen these planes full of prostitutes?’ she demanded. The officer thought for a moment, and shook his head. ‘It’s all lies,’ she continued. ‘They make things up about him to fuel Western hatred. I’ve heard all the stupid stories, but they’re completely unsubstantiated. I’m not saying he’s perfect, but he’s absolutely not the pantomime figure of evil that he’s made out to be.’
Bernadette quite enjoyed the theatrics of it all, to the extent that she almost convinced herself of Wibawa’s greatness. But at night, alone in bed, she silently prayed for the President’s numerous victims, remembering that he was a cold-blooded killer.
When certain periods of life are full of excitement, danger and novel experiences, time takes on a peculiar habit and seems to stretch itself wide, simply in order to accommodate the number of grand events. Careful observation is impossible under such an onslaught, when the rush of spectacle abuses all senses, despite the dilation of the minutes and hours. Detail has to be carefully stored to memory, to be meditated over at leisure. So it was for Bernadette and her week with President Wibawa, which seemed to have lasted a lifetime, so much had been crammed into the days. She had seen impossible fantasies, and worked herself to near exhaustion with the fatigue of constant deception. Yet nothing was clear in her mind, and the specifics of her various encounters evaded order, dancing in a colourful haze of confusion that would not settle and be seen. Some greater force must have been controlling her actions, for when she looked back, she couldn’t remember making a conscious decision the whole time, and her behaviour seemed to be that of a stranger. The disembodied feeling lasted for a while and she found peace in it. Bernadette liked to escape the burden of accountability whenever possible.
Her parting from the President was a spectacularly tender one, and she shed a few tears. ‘There’s part of me,’ she whispered, ‘that doesn’t want to go home.’
His face lit up. ‘Would you stay with me?’ But then his gaze clouded, and he patted her hand. ‘But what about your mother?’
Bernadette moved past him, her heart racing. ‘I can’t turn away from my life, my real life. But I’ll miss you. That’s all.’ She felt rather like an actress in a cheap daytime soap opera, and wondered at life, and its absurdity.
He gave a small laugh. ‘That’s all! Will you let me know, Bernadette? If you get back, and you still miss me?’
‘You’ll be able to know how I’m feeling when I get home. All you have to do is read the article I’m going to write,’ she said, staring up at him devotedly. ‘My heart will be in my words.’
He moved to kiss her, but she demurred, as she had done every other time he had tried. She knew that withholding physically was part of her power, and it was a part she was loath to give up. Instead, they hugged, gripping one another tightly, as if they would never let go. ‘I like that you are a chaste woman, Bernadette,’ he murmured into her hair, as over his shoulder she gave her most lascivious smile.
Back in England, in the wondrously safe and quiet environment of Rose’s compact house, Bernadette was a changed girl. She locked herself in her bedroom for two weeks and barely came out. She hardly ate, and spent many sleepless nights worrying herself sick. Rose could hear her typing madly away at her laptop at all hours, fingers clicking feverishly at the keys as if she were hammering out a grand sonata.
The resulting article caused a global sensation and made Bernadette a minor celebrity in her own right. It was entitled ‘Who’s seducing whom?’ and her damning account of President Wibawa contributed to a final, successful violent uprising in his country.
The President, she wrote, is a cunning man, whose Machiavellian mores and morals more than equal those of any of history’s greatest tyrants. His mind, shaped by a Western education and poisoned by the inherent ascendancy of his birth, seeks to abuse any weakness. He exploits the current political climate, inciting anti-American hatred among his people, whilst profiting from their poverty. His hypocrisy knows no bounds, and though he may preach the value of a religious life, he enjoys the worst excesses of a liberal society. He is responsible for the deaths of thousands of his citizens. He maintains a brutal oligarchy whilst courting the affection of international allies. He is no great leader. He is, however, a political animal, and this is where I come in.
I was accompanying Carl Adams in the role of reporter’s assistant, as part of the delegation chosen by the President to record a biographical series for dispersal around the world. I do not believe President Wibawa ever intended for this series to be written or published.
Despite his insistence on wanting to present an honest account of himself for public scrutiny, the President must have known that anyone with half a brain couldn’t spend any significant time with him and help but see him for what he really is: a ruthless killer and a monster. What he wanted was a sympathetic foreigner, a woman, someone with limited journalistic experience, who would be flattered by any attention he might show her. I was the youngest person in the group. I am a woman. I was an assistant, not a journalist. The President automatically believed me to be a vulnerable and impressionable person, susceptible to his powerful charisma, and the ideal courier for his message to the West.
He sent me mixed signals. He had to flirt with me – he is aware of his own reputation as a ladies’ man, and to have avoided any kind of pass at me would have upset my feminine pride. For my part, I played the role of dumb female and allowed him to believe his manipulations were succeeding. It was a gruesome task. He wanted me to think he was under my spell, that I was in control, that he was unthreatening. It was an extravagant and insidious seduction, involving a certain amount of effort, and we must wonder why he is so keen to court our good opinion.
The article went on to detail the intricacies of their mutual inveiglement. Bernadette unabashedly explained her own duplicity; how she had purposefully acted exactly as the President expected her to. Parts of the report were so extreme in denouncing the stupidity of men, as embodied by the President, that a few commentators suggested Bernadette might be as mad and dangerous as her subject.
But these critics were in the minority. Bernadette was almost universally praised for her unique slant on the situation, and people were so caught up with the nationalistic politics, and her impassioned rhetoric, that they completely missed the misandry that worked its way throughout the piece, snaking through the narrative like a wild thing.
Bernadette was offered book deals, guest appearances on news shows, and could now write for any publication her heart desired. She took it all in her stride, and accepted her new-found success with little fuss or astonishment.
The most significant thing to come out of the President Wibawa escapade was the fact that she met Tim. Hollywood came knocking at Bernadette’s door, as it is wont to do whenever there is a notable story involving a good-looking female activist, and she flew out to LA to talk to potential agents and managers. Tim was the first person she met, and she signed with him immediately, despite having been counselled to take her time and shop around.
With Tim’s help, she managed to carve out a credible, respectable and profitable career. She refused all the grander offers, and instead chose to concentrate on writing articles for quality publications. Tim marketed her as ‘The Man Whisperer’ and found her gigs interviewing high-profile men, where she would encourage them to share intimate details of their lives, and give away trade secrets. It was a bandwagon that the men seemed thrilled to jump on, and celebrities, tycoons and princes alike lined up to be ‘whispered’ to by Bernadette. Her articles always had a ‘gender agenda’, as she called it, and were written from a purely female perspective. But now, tempered by Tim, instead of the strident arrogance of her first piece, she crafted a happy, seductive character that people could relate t
o. The tone was flirtatious and provocative, titillating without becoming tawdry.
And so she found herself celebrated at a tender age, achieving dizzying heights of career success that most people could only dream of, and yet she was dissatisfied. Despite lacking passion for her work, she was good at it. She had a passion for Tim, and that sufficed. But she was filled with self-loathing, knowing that her empire was built on sand. Her piece on President Wibawa had been driven not by bravery, or the desire to shape the world for the better, or journalistic integrity. It had been inspired by youthful prejudice, and pain, and the fact that the universe had responded by reaffirming that sentiment, by rewarding her for her act of violence and for the darkest part of her character, sat uneasy in her heart.
Her disappointment with the opposite gender only increased. It was true that she was suddenly surrounded by the most successful men on the planet, and spent her days in conversation with exalted characters, but men who have achieved greatness, who take risks and make decisions at a level the majority would baulk at, are not necessarily the first people you would turn to when looking for examples of ‘good’ men. And she moved to live in Los Angeles, which is not noted for the virtue of its citizens.
For her part, however, Bernadette was ungenerous and judgemental, silently critiquing the people who loved to be interviewed by her. The philanthropists were glory-seekers, the geniuses were nerds, and the wealthy were capitalist pigs.
As for the President, a few days after the article came out, he sent Bernadette one dozen long-stemmed red roses, with a card that read, It was I who should have been afraid. Bernadette was not moved by the gesture, but she was relieved.
Bernadette sighed and slowly nodded at Radley Blake. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’d like to interview you. I’ll do it for Squire. We’ll make cover. I’ll need to shadow you for a couple of days, preferably when you’re following a normal routine.’
Acts of Love Page 6