The Navidad Incident

by Natsuki Ikezawa

  What has he done with his life? And what is he trying to do? Clinging to this chair as it drifts along, where the hell is he going?

  The revolving restaurant atop the Navidad Teikoku Hotel, which broke down and stopped revolving within one year after the building was completed, is a laughingstock for the islanders. Now diners’ll have to carry their own plates around while eating, they joke, or Now they’ll have to put up sails to turn the thing around, or Let’s all just hold the restaurant steady while they rotate the islands. Navidadians have always had a talent for humor, though maybe not quite in the same league as East Europeans or Egyptians, people whose harsher colonial histories have honed their sense of satire razor sharp.

  Most of the non-revolving restaurant gags do find their way to the President, generally via Angelina. No doubt the local comedians would be delighted to know their punch lines reached the chief executive’s ears, but Matías just shrugs off the sarcasm. It’s not his hotel, after all. He may have had a major hand in its construction, but that was it. The place is Japanese owned and operated, so whatever its losses, that’s their business. He still receives a fixed sum that he doesn’t have to share out with anyone. At most, he’ll return the favor by holding the occasional large dinner there, just enough to send a token show of gratitude and support back to Japan. The non-revolving restaurant isn’t his concern. Not that he’s unaware that a good part of the jokes are directed at himself. Misguided or not, taking the odd potshot comes with the job of president.

  That evening, after a non-revolving soirée with a number of influential legislators, an unusually subdued Matías doesn’t really feel like returning to the Presidential Villa. He has no particular outside business at this hour, when normally he’d be back in his private quarters writing up memos, but he just isn’t in the mood to review any paperwork.

  “Take me to Angelina’s,” he tells Heinrich.

  This makes two nights in a row. Last night he talked a little about the Yuuka Yuumai, leaving out his own participation and what went on afterwards. Somehow, perhaps because of keeping mum about Améliana, he wasn’t up to sleeping with Angelina. How will it be tonight?

  The gently purring Nissan President pulls up behind the building as usual. Matías opens the passenger door himself, heads for the unobtrusive green entrance, and goes in. He walks up the dark corridor to his room and sits pensively on the sofa. A tug on a special cord in one corner of the room will ring a tiny bell in the salon one floor below, which Angelina should hear and respond to immediately. What expression, then, should he wear? With Améliana now acting as though the whole incident never happened, it’s tempting to just play along and forget about it too. But that almost seems to make the two of them partners in crime. Funny, one-on-one it never occurred to him; only now, faced with a third person, Angelina, does conspiratorial guilt make problems.

  On the other hand, had Améliana come back and made a fuss, it might have actually strengthened his ties with Angelina. A president is allowed his selfish little indiscretions, especially if the circumstances encouraged that sort of thing, so if the girl screamed bloody murder, there’d be ways to deal with it. Pretty high-handed reasoning, but the world is full of high-handed individuals who’ll tell you the best kind of self-help is taking a big helping for yourself. Still, Améliana didn’t say a word.

  No, his motives were different. That’s why his sense of guilt with Angelina is so strong. If it had merely been a sex thing, his having gone too far and raped a sleeping girl, he could make a case—spurious or not—claiming that any man in his situation would have done the same. Angelina, by occupation, is used to men’s excuses; it’s practically the first rule of her profession. But his intentions at the time hadn’t been anything so simple or selfish as plain lust. It was something else, unrelated to any desire he usually felt for Angelina’s body. It was as if—how to put it?—the womb of time had used his cock for its own ends. How can he tell Angelina that?

  Between what Améliana won’t let him say and what he can’t bring himself to say to Angelina, they’re going to drive Matías crazy, these two women. Two strong females towering over a homunculus cringing beneath their gaze. He has to regain his position as president, as de facto owner of this brothel, as Angelina’s one-and-only man. She’ll forgive him anything. She’ll hear him out. No, he can’t put things that way—makes Angelina a mother to his naughty boy.

  Matías reaches a decision. He tugs on the cord to the inaudible bell downstairs, then settles back into the sofa, loosely cross-legged, and waits. A knock comes on the thick oak door.

  “Make me so happy to see you two nights in a row,” chirps Angelina as she enters.

  “How’s it going tonight?” he asks, maybe because the Navidad Teikoku Hotel’s finances were a topic of discussion earlier in the evening. That deficit is their problem, but he can’t afford to be disinterested in the business prospects of this establishment.

  “Lots of young people,” answers Angelina. “Livens the place up, the girls like it too.”

  “Locals?”

  “Mostly. Drinking a lot too. Three separate groups came in, then they all got together, it’s like a party down there.”

  “Any other customers?”

  “Two American old-timers. And three Filipinos, they’re already gone to the back rooms. Not a bad turnover.”

  “Good. That’s what I like to hear,” says Matías. “So you’re not needed downstairs?”

  “No problem. If anything comes up, they’ll call. The girls can handle things. No rough customers tonight.”

  “So how about catering to this lonely old customer?”

  “Lonely, are we?”

  “No, I just wanted to see your face. I just might come here every night from now on.”

  “Now that’s what I want to hear.”

  “I could sleep here every night, nice and sound until morning, then go to work at the villa.”

  “You can’t do that,” says Angelina. “You be grumbling right away how you can’t get any work done. In nine years, you try that three times already, and all three times you end up going back in the middle of the night. You never ever stay here till dawn. And after you go, I have to go back to sleep all alone.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “Yesterday, you seem tired. How about tonight?”

  He knows what’s on her mind, but what does she really expect of him? It’s not like he’s obliged to come here and sleep with her, after all. He takes his pleasure when he damn well pleases. He makes the demands and she responds. Okay, he was tired and he didn’t feel up to doing anything, what’s wrong with that? Of course, Angelina would say she understands. Though when has she ever come forward and said “Sleep with me” or “Don’t sleep with me”? On the other hand, has he ever asked her how she spends her daytime hours? She could be having some wild times with those two damn homos Ketch and Joel for all he knows. Skilled technicians, those two, did what he needed done. Foreigners or not, he owes them. No, Angelina probably just quietly gets on with things. She’s not the type to screw around. He knows her too well.

  “Let’s have some hash. And yeah, some champagne.”

  A good start, but the night doesn’t function. The hash gives almost no buzz, the champagne tastes like carbonated blanc de blanc. Angelina’s sensuous physique is showing her age, as if he’s seeing her with different eyes. The usual sense of security he feels coming here after a hard day doesn’t gel. He waits for lust to rear its head, but nothing comes. Meanwhile, the odd realization overtakes him: what a long time he’s spent with this woman. Somehow the idea of Angelina aging cuts closer than his own befuddled decline. Either way, old age will come for both of them. For now, she’s still beautiful. Better enjoy her while he can, take pride in the fact that she’s his.

  But even so, tonight things just don’t click. Pretty much as expected. His trusted tool doesn
’t show its worth. However long he caresses her skin, nothing goes any further, until finally a sobering chill sets in. Not the hash or champagne, nor her still buoyant breasts or soft whorls of pubic hair or taut brown thighs or glistening coral-toned inner parts, can prevent him from cooling off.

  “Getting old,” mutters Matías.

  “You’re just tired,” says Angelina. It’s her regular line, calculated to explain away the lack of vigor in this nocturnal refuge as the toll of a secular daytime routine.

  No sooner have his ears intercepted the words, however, than out of nowhere a great wave of sleepiness descends on him. He throws an arm around Angelina’s shoulder and nuzzles in toward her breasts, and the last thing he remembers is a fleeting premonition that he’ll probably stay asleep until morning. This isn’t like his sudden plummeting blackouts; it’s too easy, too natural, too much like his sleep on Melchor. Hell, he might even dream tonight. Hopefully a nice dream—and then he’s out cold.

  The housekeeping staff have all gone home, and Améliana and Itsuko are sharing a simple supper. Normally they eat Japanese food—salt-grilled or soy-simmered fish, sometimes sashimi—dishes Améliana knows the President has for breakfast. She’s not averse to the taste of rice and fish with soy sauce, but occasionally she’ll go into the kitchen and boil some taro, which Itsuko eats without objection. Their two schools of home cooking are apparently not mutually exclusive, nor maybe even all that different, though the Navidad fare is generally blander and closer to the natural flavors of the local produce. Even so, until she was given a room here, Améliana—like most Navidadians—had no idea the President lived in a “Little Japan.” Previously, only Itsuko and the President himself were in on the secret; the rest of the villa that the housekeeping staff sees is done in a faux-Western style with Navidad trimmings that might pass for “Filipino modern.”

  Only once did Améliana ever see the President dine here in his private apartments. It was a Sunday, and only two other housekeepers were left on duty. Itsuko cooked not the usual Japanese fish, but a big, thick American steak. Améliana prepared taro and ma’a as side dishes. As with his breakfast, the President took his dinner alone at a precise hour, after which he retired to his study for the remainder of the evening. Afterwards, the women ate at their leisure; there was even a small cut of steak for everyone. Itsuko told them that once the President retired to his study, he never called for her; he didn’t touch coffee at night, always mixed his own drinks. Very easy to work for, she added.

  Tonight, however, the President is not dining in. It’s just Améliana and Itsuko having a simple supper. Itsuko, in typical fashion, never talks about herself to Améliana; nothing about how she came to work here or what she used to do in Japan or where she first met the President. It’s as if she has no past. So Améliana never reciprocates with stories of her own, never mentions the Yuuka Yuumai (Itsuko merely thinks she took time off to visit her family). Quiet meals finish quickly. Améliana cleans up and washes the pots and dishes as has become her habit. Meanwhile, Itsuko takes a bath, and when the kitchen is all in order, she makes a few preparations for tomorrow’s breakfast. That’s the last the two of them will see of each other before they turn in.

  Two hours later, Améliana sneaks out of her room, just three doors down from where Itsuko is sleeping. Améliana has never once heard a sound from the old maid’s room, but still she’s extra cautious opening the door. She slowly steps out, returns the handle to a close without it clicking, then quietly pads up the wood-floored corridor toward the President’s study.

  There is another heavy wooden door between here and there. It shouldn’t be locked. She gives it a slight push and it opens. She carefully closes the door behind her and makes sure that the President is not about. Tonight is a good chance to snoop around. She’s not planning to stay in this big, creepy house forever. The sooner she can find what she’s looking for, the faster things can move ahead. It’ll be better for everyone.

  To the left is the private chamber where each night the President stays up writing memos, updating his journal, and planning his agenda for the following day. Améliana knows there is an extraordinary amount of paperwork in this room. She has come this far once before, the night before she left for the Yuuka Yuumai. The President wasn’t in that night either. Probably he was at Madame Angelina’s, as happens several times a week—as everyone in Baltasár City knows. The unofficial first couple’s imagined antics are the stuff of Navidadian fantasies; for some years now, bored husbands and wives have spiced up their lackluster sex lives by playing Guili-and-Angelina games. If the President isn’t back here in his apartments by this hour, then he’s got to be at Madame’s. She also knows how he spends his time there. Which is why she scoured this study last night. What she’s looking for wasn’t in any of his desk drawers or the filing cabinet or the bookshelves lining the walls; it wasn’t hidden behind the framed portrait of His Excellency Matías Guili, President of the Republic of Navidad. No, it had to be in another room.

  Actually, her search began even before coming to the Presidential Villa. She went through Angelina’s premises from top to bottom. That’s why she got herself placed there to begin with. She assumed that since Angelina was surely involved in drawing up the document in question, it either had to be in her safekeeping or under Guili’s own lock and key. She has no idea whether the other pair engaged in the contract might have a copy or not. The big man might have even sent it out of the country. That paper underwrites the security of both sides. He’d have been very careful about where he kept it.

  A door across the room leads to a short passage and a thin papered sliding door, easily mistaken for a wall. With a light touch on the finger hold, she gently slides the door open, then feels for the light switch, hoping there’s no alarm. She warily presses the button and the lights come on. What a strange room! The floor is fitted wall-to-wall with twelve glossy yellow grass mats. These have to be from Japan. Who knows what they’re called? There is a recess in the far wall, an alcove of sorts, where another portrait of His Excellency Matías Guili, President of the Republic of Navidad, is hanging. Only this one isn’t framed or in color; it’s black and white and pasted in the middle of an oversize length of paper. Is this how they put up pictures in Japan?

  This is Itsuko’s territory. No one else is allowed in here. No one else could even begin to know how to clean a room so completely Japanese. What she’s looking for has to be in this room, she can just feel it. If it’s not here, it’s nowhere. Which would mean there was no contract, only a verbal agreement. Before she goes digging around in here, she takes a good look at these strange quarters.

  There are two more sliding doors: one paper, the other wood. She opens the paper door and finds another room laid with yet another dozen or so of the same grass floor mats and several layers of what look like thick blankets spread out in the middle. This must be his bedroom. On the far wall is a large window covered with vertical wooden slats and a framed glass pane slid partially open. For ventilation perhaps? This place is much more vulnerable than she’d imagined. She knows there’s no surveillance system out in the garden. No Island Security patrolling here at night. The President doesn’t seem to have given any thought to the possibility of an attack during the night.

  She closes the paper door and now tries the wooden one. Beyond is what appears to be a bathroom. The lower half of the walls is skirted in a queer-smelling wood, and there’s a large square box over in the corner, covered with the same resinous boards. Even the floor is laid with this wood, the slats spaced to let the water drain through, she assumes, because those two gleaming faucets over there—one with a red knob, one blue—are positioned to pour directly onto the floor.

  No, he wouldn’t keep an important document in a wet area. Blank walls, no cabinets of any kind, no place to conceal papers. But then, back in the first grass-matted room, there’s no furniture to speak of either. The only place to hide papers w
ould be behind the portrait, tacked onto the back of that long hanging mount. Easy enough to check—but nothing there. In the center of the room is a large square cushion, twice shoulder width in size. She thought there’d be a zipper, but the purple silk cover is sewn tight on all four sides and appliquéd with heavy yellow tassels in the corners and center.

  She tries feeling the cushion, but it’s too densely stuffed to tell if any paper is hidden inside. Maybe it’s folded up? Was that something she felt just now? Only one way to find out: get a knife and cut it open. But then how will she ever sew it up again? One look and he’ll know the document is missing. In any case, she’d planned to run away as soon as she found it. That was her whole reason for coming here. She’ll cut the cushion.

  There must be a letter opener in the President’s study, something he keeps handy to slit envelopes. She hurriedly backtracks to the desk and soon finds a package knife in the top drawer. Perfect, one straight cut with this and then run. She just hopes Guili doesn’t show up and catch her red-handed. She’ll slash the underside, take out the papers, turn the cushion back over, and no one will be the wiser. Or does she want him to find out? Isn’t that part of her purpose here?

  She grabs the knife, returns to the twelve-mat room, and is about to slice open the cushion when a voice comes from behind—

  “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

  She turns to see Itsuko standing there. The woman may be small, but there’s a stern authority about her. Instinctively, Améliana’s fingers clench the knife in her hand.