The New Republic

by Lionel Shriver

  “Man gets in trouble,” said Pyre, bending back his gnarled fingers, “it’s one of three things: money, women, or politics. Saddler had a taste for all three. I’d say it’s even odds.”

  “Was Saddler’s copy so righteous that they’d take him out?” Edgar asked. “I’ve read op-eds in practically every paper deploring the SOB.”

  “I don’t think Barrington was critical enough,” Martha snipped. “He gave the Creams scads of column inches and did exhaustive features explaining their point of view. The Post has been much harder on those cretins. If Barrington was punished for his politics, then I’d really better watch my back.” She was clearly invigorated by the prospect of being pursued by anyone.

  “No chance they went for him over negative coverage,” said Pyre. “If anything, he got into something scuzzy over his head. Fact is, Saddler loved the SOB. By association, the Sobs made Saddler seem important. Anything less than adulatory that he said in print? A faint, unconvincing nod toward civilization for the sake of appearances.”

  “Y’all just never forgave him ’cause he wouldn’t share his sources,” said Trudy.

  Pyre reared back with a sigh. “You’ll see, Kellogg. Blow-ins from CNN, all they want to know is, Do you have contacts in the SOB? Pant-pant. Pretty unsavory. Like telling your host, ‘I’ve heard there are unscrupulous scumbags in your town, can we have those miscreants to dinner?’ Saddler was a tease. Maybe I know some scumbags, maybe I don’t, wink-wink. But he never came across. With any of us. Meanwhile, his stuff’s riddled with quotes ‘not for attribution’ or from ‘sources in Terra do Cão.’ ”

  “You guys are such suckers,” said a schoolmarmish type standing behind Pyre. “You expect him to file, ‘Here’s what I like to think a terrorist would say if he were stupid enough to speak to me’?”

  “Kellogg, you’re blessed,” said Pyre. “The New York Times correspondent her very self! Who has taken a few precious minutes away from fevering at the keyboard to have an itsy-bitsy drink. Edgar, Dame Alexis Collier.”

  “Charmed,” Alexis said primly, sounding anything but. “Anyone for a refresher?” Though Alexis had only just arrived, she seemed in a hurry.

  “Another Choque,” said Edgar. The bitter brew was growing on him.

  “Gone native, already?” Alexis asked archly, and whisked to the bar. Her bony butt cheeks were squeezed so tightly together that if she held a pencil between them she could sign her name. Her face was pinched, her manner officious, her haircut butch, and she was wearing a pants suit. When Alexis smiled at the bartender, she looked pained. The snap on her pocketbook reported smartly like a slap on the wrist.

  “Hard to tell, of course,” Martha determined, “but I think she’s in a bad mood.”

  “Of course.” Pyre smiled maliciously. “How’s she going to win a Pulitzer writing unpublished features on Barban wind flutes? I may be twiddling my thumbs, but at least this news vacuum keeps Ms. Coldkeister out of the paper of record.”

  “You said Saddler had a lot of SOB contacts,” Edgar pressed Pyre. “But he played those cards close to his chest. Still, would you know who any of them are?”

  “Likely I know any number of Sobs,” said Pyre slyly, and gestured at the barkeep. “But they don’t wear T-shirts. That’s what blow-ins don’t get. They expect to waltz into Cinziero and find terrorists in the Yellow Pages, under T.”

  “The cops went after Barrington once,” said Trudy. “After he published an interview? And they wanted his source? But he said the guy was wearing a balaclava—you know, a ski mask—and disguised his voice and everything. And stayed behind a sheet.”

  “That famous interview was probably with Verdade in Groucho glasses,” said Pyre.

  Edgar leaned forward. “Think Verdade would give me an interview?”

  Win Pyre had perfected an expression that simultaneously conveyed boredom and antipathy; he was either about to take a swing at you or drop off to sleep. “Oh, Kellogg, not you, too.” He sighed in fatherly disappointment. “Ordinarily, Verdade’s audience is as hard to win as the Pope’s. Lately, with nothing going blooey, he’s less in demand. You might get lucky. If that’s the word. I should warn you, he’s trying. Not so much enraging as stultifying. There’ve been times I’d set off a bomb myself to get him to shut up.”

  “What’s the difference between O Creme and the SOB? Are they really interchangeable?”

  If Edgar sounded overeager, even rushed, the race was with his own temperament. He placed a premium on savvy. Yet since you could only obtain new information by admitting you didn’t know it already, savvy required an apprenticeship as a naïve twit. You had to ask crude, obvious questions like, What’s the difference between O Creme and the SOB? You had to sit still while worldly-wise warhorses like Win Pyre fired withering glances as if you were born yesterday.

  Well, Edgar was born yesterday for the moment, although his tolerance for being treated like a simpleton was in short supply. He’d need to rattle off a multitude of stupid questions before he embraced his next incarnation as an insider. The trouble was that savvy coated your brain in plastic like a driver’s license: nothing more could get in. Hence the point at which you decided you knew everything was exactly the point at which you became an ignorant dipshit. Nevertheless, Edgar knew his own weaknesses. He’d transform into an ignorant dipshit in a matter of weeks.

  “They’re ostensibly separate organizations, and the conceit has proved useful,” said Alexis, setting the Choque before Edgar crisply. “If nothing else, as an allegedly harmless democratic party whose support for the ‘armed struggle’ is supposedly just impassioned speeches, O Creme de Barbear is legal; as a proscribed terrorist group, the SOB isn’t. So whenever the SOB does anything unpopular—which is often—O Creme backs off. It wasn’t me, it was my imaginary friend, etc. But Verdade needs the SOB’s clout. Without wink-wink paramilitary connections, he’s a no-account leader of a third-string political party in the back of beyond.”

  “Collier!” Pyre exclaimed. “Aren’t you afraid Kellogg will steal your ideas?”

  Pruning her lips at Win, Alexis situated her chair a bit outside the circle and clunked her Motorola International cellular phone conspicuously on the table, rubbing everyone’s nose in the fact that only the New York Times could afford those things. “Whether O Creme is the SOB or is merely associated with the SOB has never been established. In any case, Verdade’s running the only game in town that Lisbon can play. He’s the one Barban extremist with a postal address, so he’s the sole route to negotiating a ceasefire. Terrorist godfather or humble intermediary, Tomás Verdade is in the driver’s seat either way.”

  “And you guys don’t think Verdade is smart,” said Trudy.

  “I think he’s cunning, which is more dangerous than smart,” said Martha. “Anyway, Verdade and this press corps have something in common: we both need bombs. Without the SOB, we’re covering the back of beyond.”

  “Oh, let’s not have another guilt fest about how we’re parasites on other people’s suffering,” Alexis dismissed. “I’m tired.”

  “From what?” asked Pyre.

  “Doing nothing. If this news no-show carries on another month or two, I’m applying for Bosnia.”

  “You miss Barrington,” Trudy wheedled.

  “I don’t, particularly,” the Times reporter announced briskly. “He was an unprofessional influence. Guy Wallasek keeping him on after that atrocious business in Moscow was an outrage. Journalists like Barrington make us all look sloppy.”

  “What’d he do?” asked Edgar, as he was expected to.

  “To keep it short, he made things up,” said Alexis.

  “I read some of those articles, and they were terrif!” said Trudy.

  “Too ‘terrif,’ ” said Pyre. “One of his sources in the Russian army was so eloquent, so hilarious, and so bare-all about the shabby state of the military that David Remnick came over to do a profile for The New Yorker. Wallasek ordered Saddler to cooperate. At length it came to li
ght that there was no General Syedlo.”

  “Bear obviously took it too far,” said Martha. “But Alexis, haven’t you ever used a composite character for an interview?”

  “I have never used a composite,” said Alexis. “I quote verbatim. Factual veracity in journalism is sacred, and Barrington, regrettably, had only an acute sense of the profane.”

  “She’s so full of it,” Trudy muttered in Edgar’s ear. “Alexis hung on Barrington’s every word. They think she wanted to get in good with his contacts. But I bet the ice queen isn’t as frigid as Win thinks.”

  “Nuts, the joke’s on Wallasek,” said Pyre. “Barba turned out to be some ‘exile.’ By sheer accident, he threw the bunny into the briar patch, and Saddler landed on the biggest story of the decade. Typical.”

  “You know, that happened everywhere Barrington went?” Martha marveled. “He goes to Haiti, Duvalier’s overthrown. To Africa, bingo, Ethiopia obliges him a famine. He goes to Moscow, there’s a military coup. He goes on vacation in Israel and bang, Rabin’s assassinated. He had some unearthly karmic power. Honestly, that man could turn me mystic. There seem to be certain catalytic types around whom things just happen. That bastard had such a string of world-class events behind him that you had to start wondering if he made them happen. Barrington steps off a plane and suddenly some poor right-wing schmuck has an uncontrollable urge to shoot the prime minister.”

  “Did you like Saddler?” Edgar asked Martha point-blank.

  She paused, as if never having answered the question to her own satisfaction. “I think—maybe I did. But I felt strongly that I shouldn’t. Barrington Saddler was abusive, cocky, and unreliable. He hurt people’s feelings, whether from malice or negligence I’m not sure it matters. But when he made an appearance, well—I didn’t mind.”

  “Didn’t mind?” exclaimed Trudy.

  “Does that make sense?” asked Martha.

  “Yeah,” said Edgar, remembering Falconer’s confession. “You could only dislike him when he was out of the room.”

  “Excellent,” said Pyre. “He’s out of the room, forever. Start practicing, Hulbert.”

  Since this crowd was sure to keep picking at the subject of Saddler like a hangnail, Edgar slipped off to the bar to order carne de porco à alentejana, commended in his guidebook as a national specialty. When he returned, whatever methodicalness he’d imposed on the discussion of Saddler’s fate had given way to pandemonium.

  “IN SUM,” Edgar shouted, struggling to get the rabble under control, “none of you agree with Ordway, right? Saddler’s copy was if anything sympathetic to the SOB, and there was no reason he should have been singled out as an example. Win, you said Saddler might have got in ‘over his head.’ How? Could he have run guns, sold information? Or did he just know too much?”

  Pyre snorted. “That hotdog thought he wrote the book, but I doubt the Sobs saw him—”

  “This is ridiculous speculation,” said Martha. “Barrington was a user, and he was too charming for his own good, but I can’t see him running guns. It would be too much trouble. He was the laziest man on God’s green earth.”

  “Then let’s move on,” Edgar agreed readily, having grown attached to the idea that Saddler was a craven fake. “Win, you said there were three possibilities. Two: money. Could Saddler have been deeply in debt?”

  “He was free with cash,” said Alexis, “but he could afford to be. The weasel made a killing on exchange rates.”

  “How?”

  “When you submit expenses to your paper, you cite the official exchange rate. If you’re in Congo, say, the official rate is a fraction of the rate for dollars on the black market. Posted to enough Third World cesspits, you can make a fortune from the disparity.”

  “Alexis!” said Martha. “How would you know?”

  “I’ve read about it,” the Times reporter demurred.

  “He didn’t need to scam,” said Pyre. “He would, since grifting was Saddler’s idea of fun. But Wallasek paid him a fortune.”

  “That villa you’re camped in, Edgar,” said Alexis. “I think Barrington owns it.”

  “I’d like to know how the hell he got that house,” said Pyre. “The rest of us live in run-down prefabs. Aside from Henry Durham’s—and that squirt could buy Luxembourg if he wanted—Saddler’s swank Moorish palace is the only decent architecture left in Barba. You’re one lucky cuss, Kellogg.”

  “So just like Nicola,” said Edgar, as his pork-with-clams arrived. “You hate me, too.”

  Pyre raised his eyebrows. “Touché. Nicola Tremaine doesn’t waste hatred on many people.”

  Martha said sourly, “Nicola sees the good side of everybody.”

  “Even if Barrington did owe money,” said Trudy, “she’d have given him, like, millions of dollars if he asked.”

  “My,” said Alexis, nodding at Edgar’s food. “Aren’t you brave!”

  The bartender was plunking dark nuggets into Edgar’s bowl, along with a litter of stiff bits—clams? With a proud flourish, the barman ladled translucent yellow liquid over the meat, perhaps a broth. The dish wasn’t very appealing—the tight brown lumps in a vast yellow pool had a sort of bathroom look—but Edgar was famished. At the risk of sounding earnest, before digging in he interjected loyally, “I like Nicola.”

  “Of course you do,” Alexis purred. “I’ve never met a man who didn’t. She’s a wonderful cook, she knits adorably lumpy sweaters, she has no career, and she falls all over herself proclaiming her dearth of ambition in any sphere. Even Barrington fell for it. A sign of weakness, in my view. A strong man should want a strong partner.”

  Trudy rolled her eyes. “Gosh. Like who?”

  “Alex, you’re being unfair,” said Pyre.

  “Oh, we won’t hear a harsh word against her,” said Alexis. “I should warn you, Edgar. Ms. Tremaine comes on like Snow White, but she’s a terrible flirt.”

  “Nicola is the only reason Durham ever got published,” said Pyre. “She massaged his copy like nobody’s business. Ever since Durham got a bug up his ass about Saddler, he hasn’t let his wife near his articles. He’s shown me a few: dog meat. The Independent has spiked every one.”

  “Durham’s not your best pal?” Edgar finally gave up trying to cut the musket ball of pork in two, and popped it whole.

  “Henry Durham is pathetic,” Pyre announced while Edgar chewed. “Sure, it’s a shame about his family. But hard luck doesn’t make a journalist. I don’t even know if it’s still called hard luck when you get so much out of it. And sad sack or no, Durham’s a dilettante. Worse, a dilettante with money. The Independent only keeps him on hand because he costs the paper jack. You were in law, Kellogg. How’d you feel if some lamebrain whose nearest-and-dearest took the wrong airplane bought into your firm with booty and bathos?”

  “I got the impression—” the fried pork was so hard that Edgar’s jaw ached—“that buy his way into journalism was exactly what Henry Durham couldn’t do.”

  “Oh, the Independent brought him on board for his sappy novelty value,” Pyre barreled on. “But those two aren’t living on his day rates, are they? Your average wannabe couldn’t afford to pitch a tent in a hotspot for long without redeeming himself in print. Henry Durham can import fine wines and diddle over his word processor forever. But being lousy rich doesn’t mean you can write.”

  As the dry meat scraped down his gullet, Edgar reflected that little enough qualified these scribblers for their own jobs. Most hacks wrangled postings through sheer doggedness or serendipity. Which explained Pyre’s bile: if there’s one thing a dilettante hates, it’s another dilettante.

  “If Saddler was already loaded,” Edgar proposed, sipping several spoonfuls of the yellow liquid to moisten his raw throat, “that leaves women.”

  “Barrington didn’t need to cross the street for a girl,” said Martha, arms bunched. “Why would he leave the country for one?”

  “Or with one,” Alexis supposed.

  “And if he were going to lea
ve with one,” said Martha, “why is she still here?”

  “Only because he never asked her,” Trudy said significantly.

  “I didn’t mean you,” said Martha.

  “And why would that be so crazy?”

  “I didn’t want to tell you,” said Martha, “but you know what he called you behind your back? Truly Sissy. Is that a nickname for the love of your life?”

  “He had names for everybody. Including,” Trudy threatened darkly, “you.”

  “Please,” said Martha. “I’ve been called every name under—”

  “Martha Hugebutt,” spit Trudy.

  “At least I don’t go on and on about ‘our relationship,’ ” said Martha, “on the basis of a one-night stand!”

  “It was not a one-night stand!”

  “You had a longer affair with Reinhold Glück!”

  The yellow substance had left a disagreeable coating on Edgar’s gums, and it was slippery. That wasn’t chicken broth. In Barba, corn oil was a sauce.

  “Reinhold was a drip,” said Trudy. “I was trying to console myself, and it didn’t work. If you wanna know the truth, Barrington was afraid of love. He was starving for it, but when he looked it in the face he ran a mile. He could seem so cocksure, but deep down he reckoned he was dirt. None of y’all understand him at all.”

  “What I do understand,” said Martha, “is that Barrington always had something going on the side. Hell, he’s probably been having an affair with Benazir Bhutto for ten years, and he’s flown to Pakistan.”

  “It only seemed he had friends everywhere,” said Trudy. “But they weren’t real friends. Everyone expected him to be all funny and lively, and it was hard work! Real ironic and everything, but in private he admitted he was lonely—”

  “Not this routine again,” said Alexis.

  “Alesbo!” said Trudy, wheeling. “That’s what Barrington called you.”

  “Men often accuse women of being lesbians when they’re intimidated,” said Alexis coolly. “Personally, I’m convinced that Barrington had very little interest in sex, the act itself.”