The Navidad Incident

by Natsuki Ikezawa

  Kazuma Ryuzoji had always been an exceptional individual and his own thinker—especially in his youth. This may not have counted for much in the war zone, where he kept his ideas to himself, but back in Japan he brought them to bear on the economic battlefield through the company he set up. Every friend, every acquaintance was a human resource to be developed. He tirelessly performed favors, smoothed ruffled feathers, and charted avenues of compromise between divergent camps without either side losing face. Matías, too, was a case in point, though the investment in someone so young was exceedingly long-term. Ryuzoji paid older associates their due respect and never resorted to intimidation; rather he dispensed influence, then when he was sure of his backing he moved in to collect—the classic Japanese politician’s ploy. If Matías eventually proved a bigger fish than Ryuzoji, it was a credit to his mentor. Matías only wished his sensei could have seen him sworn in as second President of the Republic of Navidad.

  Ironically, after lingering in Japan to see Ryuzoji’s gradual ascent, the event that ultimately sent Matías packing was when Shinheiwa went bankrupt. As should have been obvious to anyone, a temporary pinch caught the company critically short of capital and a temporary pinch sent it under, though barely three months later Ryuzoji was back on his feet and had formed a new company. But whether Matías took it as a sign or an opportunity, he didn’t let his good thing with Tsuneko hold him back. Eight years in Japan was just a little too long. Twenty-eight was the right age to be heading home to prepare for the next decade or two. And so it was that in August of 1951—the year Tsuneko and Matías heard over the radio at breakfast that General MacArthur had been relieved of his post as Proconsul of the Occupation Forces in Japan and Elvis Presley topped the charts with “Heartbreak Hotel”—Matías left Japan behind and returned to Navidad, now a protectorate of the United States of America.

  At ten o’clock two mornings later, the President is sitting in a special VIP room at Navidad International Airport waiting for his airplane to be readied. Beside him is Executive Secretary Jim Jameson and a young official from the Home Office, together with the maid from Melchor who just two days ago received the name Améliana. Seen through the large window, the clear skies look made for flying.

  Half an hour ago, when the President appeared at the entrance of the Presidential Villa with an unknown young woman in tow, the other two were taken aback. Who was this girl in the white blouse and long green skirt splashed with a yellow floral print? She didn’t look like any public servant they’d ever seen.

  “Think of her as my personal advisor,” said Matías by way of introduction. He apparently had no intention of further clarification, nor did the others dare to ask. They all climbed into the Nissan President, and fifteen minutes later, no one had spoken a word.

  “It’s all so sudden, so we can probably expect a brief wait,” the executive secretary finally informed him just before Heinrich deposited them at the airport. The President had only brought up the idea to go on a reconnaissance run to Brun Reef that very morning, and the government Islander prop plane was already booked for the day. It took some doing, but the prior reservation was canceled so the plane could be reassigned to the President. Now they’re waiting on pre-flight maintenance.

  The door from the lobby swings open, and in steps Katsumata. Two corpsmen stand guard by the entrance to the VIP room, but of course they do nothing to stop the chief of Island Security, who strides right up to the President. Only then does Katsumata notice Améliana, and he casts her a suspicious glance.

  “What’s up?” asks the President, intercepting the man’s probing gaze.

  “Nothing really, I just went by the Presidential Villa to present my routine report, and they told me you were heading out on a trip. I thought I might still catch you, so I came here.”

  “Do you actually have anything to report?”

  “No, nothing special. No bus, no leads. No new information on the flagpole incident either. The fact is, there’s been no other incident since. No more handbills, everywhere’s quiet.”

  “And you still haven’t solved one damn thing,” growls the President.

  “We’re trying. We just need a little more time,” he says, eyeing Améliana again. He wonders whether he should warn the President about letting unidentified persons get too close, but decides against it. Island Security’s ID checks are nothing to boast about.

  “No protection today?”

  “Don’t need any.”

  “Are you sure? In times like these?”

  “Idiot. Brun Reef’s a hotbed of activity, is it? Move. Out of my sight.”

  “Okay then, take care,” says Katsumata, leaving a stronger impression in reverse than he realizes.

  The door to the tarmac now opens, and a gust of hot air blows in a man wearing a white pilot’s short-sleeve shirt with epaulets. “All ready, sir. You all can board whenever you like.”

  Everyone rises and files out onto the apron. The weather is perfect, if a tad windy. The President takes his customary copilot’s seat. The two officials leave one row empty and sit in the third row to help balance the aircraft. Améliana sits behind them, alone in a seat on the right-hand side. The pilot immediately revs up the engines, ticks his checklist with a ballpoint pen while reading various meters and gauges, then calls the control tower for flight clearance.

  “It’s Brun today, wasn’t it?” he shouts over the engine noise.

  “Correct,” answers the President, also shouting.

  “Didn’t wanna be taking you to the wrong place,” jokes the pilot, handing the President a spare headset and gesturing for him to put it on. The instant Matías dons the gear, static-riven cross talk leaps into his ears. The control tower is telling them they have right of way ahead of the Continental flight to Guam. Well naturally, knowing the President’s on board.

  “Excellent weather conditions, so we should have a smooth ride,” the pilot assures him, switching from control tower to intercom. Always busy talking, this man.

  “When we get there, could we circle a few times around the reef before we land?” asks the President into his microphone.

  “Sure thing. She’s your plane today, sir,” comes the reply. “Your word is my command.”

  Clearance for takeoff has apparently been given, and the Islander cuts along the taxiway in front of the Continental Boeing 737 and onto the runway. Then, in the moments before becoming airborne, even the pilot falls silent to concentrate on the operations at hand. They start to climb, reach cruising altitude, and nose off in the direction of Brun Reef, at which point the commentary resumes. Okay, so he talks a lot, Matías still likes the guy. Part of the reason he sits up front in the copilot’s seat is to watch him play with all the buttons and switches while chatting over the intercom; no one else in Navidad is as frank and open with the President. Originally a crop duster from America, he somehow drifted across the Pacific and up until two years ago was working for PMA, a small-time carrier that ferries missionaries from island to island. Then he was piloting Cessnas and Pipercubs for a private concern in Guam, when he got himself fired for causing a minor accident (that just happened to affect Matías’s fate in a big way). At which point the Navidad government picked him up and gave him this cushy job as an offering to appease Providence on the part of Matías. And ever since, the President has flown once or twice a month in the man’s Islander.

  For the entire thirty-minute flight, the pilot holds forth on his favorite subject: what a waste it is for the government to keep a plane like this all to itself when it only flies full capacity, what?—three, four times a year? And there’s the redundancy of separate government bureaus flying twice in one day to the same island on different errands. Turn this into a national airline and carry civilian passengers, why they could almost operate in the black. Navidad only needs to lay out the venture capital, then leave it to him to run; he guarantees much cheaper,
more convenient air service than now. A win-win proposition the way he tells it.

  “So you buy another plane this size and hire two more pilots, because you gotta pump it up first. But in the long run, you’d be saving the country money, and I’d be making some myself too. The demand is there … Ah, look, there’s Brun.”

  Sure enough, up ahead under a wisp of cloud is a long, thin land form. The pilot eases the throttle and gradually brings the plane down closer to the reef.

  Brun is a ring formation broken in one place, a very misshapen ring, with the widest patch above sea level at the point furthest east from the break. It’s here that a few fishing families live. A kilometer away is a simple landing strip; otherwise it’s just a handsbreadth of empty land and coco palms. Inside the reef are two or three tiny unoccupied islets, used only for fishing operations. Today there’s not a single wave; the waters around the atoll are absolutely calm. A single car can be seen moving along the lone stretch of road that runs up the bare backbone of sand. As instructed, the pilot flies three complete circles above the reef. According to the diagrams included in Suzuki’s plan, the oil depot would be built inside the ring, to the immediate right of the break. That’s where they say they can moor deep-draft tankers with only minimal dredging.

  A pickup truck is waiting beside the landing strip. Two wardens from the government outpost watch the plane land, their expressions immediately changing when they spy the President on board. One of them shouts an apology as he runs up to the Islander while the engines are still roaring. “We only heard someone was arriving from the capital. We didn’t know His Excellency was coming. We only have this truck.”

  “Doesn’t bother me. You two ride in back,” the President tells the executive secretary and Home Office man. Améliana he seats up front before getting in next to her. The two Brun wardens take a minute to discuss the situation, then one takes the driver’s seat and the other climbs in back. The dirt road glares white in the blazing sun. Once the plane’s engines die down, everything goes absolutely still, the better for the pilot to take a noonday nap in the shade before the return trip.

  The President instructs the driver where to go. They drive for twenty minutes, with the sea to either side, until the road gives out. The President gets out and prompts Améliana to follow. The three men from the back of the truck dust themselves off as they set foot on the white coral ground. By the side of the road is a hut, whose only occupants, children, peer out startled by the sudden visitors. Their clothes are ragged, but they themselves look bright and cheerful. There seems to be no adult around. No boat tethered to any post where nets hang drying near the water, so maybe the father is out fishing. But where’s the woman of the family?

  The executive secretary and Home Office man stand by idly, looking utterly confused. What made the President want to come here to this godforsaken place? Matías ignores them and walks off down a footpath into a coconut grove. He disappears among the trees, with Améliana close behind. The other four men have no choice but to follow. And twenty paces back, their curiosity piqued, the children tag along cautiously.

  Several hundred meters through the coco palms, the President emerges onto a beach. Before his eyes the coral steeps pure blue in the crystalline waters, but across the lagoon he can see a dark gray line. To the right must be the exit to the open sea, not quite visible from this position. This side of the mouth is a small deserted islet, concealing the opening on the other side. There’s not a boat anywhere inside the reef. Probably all gone out after big fish at this time of day. Most fish school on the outer shoals, right where the reef drops off into deep water.

  The President sits himself down on a toppled coco palm. The trunk is still rooted and arches up into the air, so his short legs dangle. The four men look on from a distance, hesitating to go near. Améliana, however, approaches and leans on the tree trunk. Matías mops his forehead with a handkerchief and gazes at the sea before him. The sea breeze is wonderful.

  According to Suzuki’s plan, the projected facility is to be built between that deserted islet and this side of the reef. Ten tankers all moored together in a row, and right about here on this beach they’ll build an office in an Island Security compound. The road will need to be extended up to here from back at that hut. The crew for the facility will probably sleep on board ship, so other personnel will have to commute back and forth by motorboat. No way for them to build a bridge across. A floating causeway perhaps? The biggest issue is the dredging. A good mooring depth is one thing, but if they have to dredge the channel to bring in the ships, it’ll be a huge undertaking. Rip into the reef and fishing will suffer.

  The President calls over his two men and asks them to tell the local wardens to go take a hike somewhere. Améliana stands behind the President. The children hide among the coco palms a safe distance away.

  “This is where the Japanese want to build an oil base,” Matías tells his three companions. “They proposed it the other day, and I’m considering the ramifications.” He has to speak up over the breeze that blows Améliana’s hair in waves. “See that little island? Between there and this beach here, they want to moor ten thirty-thousand-ton tankers.”

  “That Japanese visitor the other day?” asks Jameson. He’s good.

  “The very same. As he explained it, Japan has been readying reserve oil for a long time now, and apparently this amount here would give them some measure of security. We lie nearby the shipping lanes from the Middle East, and politically we’re stable. Our ties with Japan go way back. So it’s ideal, he says. The annual maritime leasing fees would generate a sizeable income. Though of course, by the same token, we’d also become much more closely tied to them. Still, all in all, not a bad scenario, I’d say.”

  “The scale of the operation would be tremendous,” says the executive secretary.

  “Absolutely—it would take five years to complete.”

  “Who would be assigned to it on our side?” asks the Home Officer staffer. A typical green young bureaucrat’s question, straight to the technicalities.

  “How about setting up a new coordinating office especially for the project? After all, it would involve the Home Office and Foreign Office and Bureau of Outer Islands.”

  “Right, there may be difficulties negotiating with the locals here,” Jameson comments. “Even with a massive settlement, folks around here aren’t going to budge.”

  “That’s where you boys come in. It’s up to you to do something about that,” says the President. “I don’t want any opposition in the capital. The legislators will go along with it. The Tamang faction has been quiet lately. No real grounds for ordinary citizens to get up in arms either.”

  Yes, but what about those strange handbills pasted up around town? he remembers. Whoever’s been doing that just might try something. But supposing Island Security gets that backing from Japan a little earlier—that would make it much easier to squelch any opposition movement. Actually, once this project gets under way, it should facilitate things politically.

  “And have you already committed to this plan?” asks the Home Office staffer, his tone polite but heavy with innuendo. He has no personal objections to the President’s directives and never really expected to be taken into consultation anyway. All he wants to know is where things stand, a practical career concern.

  “I wouldn’t say so,” Matías responds evasively, walking a few steps toward the lapping water’s edge. Well, has he made up his mind? One thing and one thing alone is clear: the decision will be his. He’s only talking up the plan to the two of them now so that when the time comes, they’ll be able to move on it as required; he’s not asking their opinion. So what will it be? He sees Améliana sitting on a rock not far away. What does she make of this setting? Or won’t she say? She just sits there staring at the sea, not a thing written on her face. Matías walks across the sand toward her. A hermit crab scurries out of the way of his f
eet. He does not see the creature, but Améliana’s eyes race after it. She cringes slightly. Matías sits down next to her.

  “What do you see here? Won’t you tell me?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “Yes, if there’s something you see.”

  “Up to now you’ve closed your eyes to what you did not want to see. Isn’t that so?”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Exactly what I said. Sometimes not knowing is better.”

  “No, I want to know. For better or worse, I want to know everything.”

  “Oh. That’s brave of you,” says Améliana. There’s not a trace of irony in her voice. The matter-of-fact words are whisked away in the wind. She takes up his hand from where it rests on the rock beside her and grasps it firmly. She looks out to sea.

  Matías looks out at the same sea, his hand in hers. Inside the reef all is still, nothing moves even on the further shore. And beyond, above a horizon hidden from view rise layers of stratus cloud. But that is far, far away. Overhead there’s not one single cloud, only the sun slowly, patiently heating the earth below. Let the palm trees put out all the shade they can, the tree trunks would still be baked through to the core.

  Matías wipes the sweat from his forehead with his linen suit sleeve.

  His mind dives beneath the lagoon. As far as the eye can see, the inner reef is alive with schools of tiny brightly colored fish. A shadow slants down as a big fish passes above. In a flash, fingerlings light off in all directions, and for one brief instant, the water shimmers with countless invisible scales. When was the last time he saw such a scene with his own eyes? Even as president, Matías still feels the urge to go diving. Not with those overblown scuba tanks, but just mask and fins and snorkel. Here, on a quiet shore far from the Presidential Villa, his hand entrusted to a young woman, gazing on a silent sea. More silent than silence.