by R. M. Koster
“We have a camera in the car behind the candidate, but we could use one in the crowd and one on the roof of the Excelsior. And one in a helicopter. I wish we could afford a helicopter.”
“So you could direct it all from up in the sky,” says Marta. “Like God.”
“That’s how Frankenheimer did Grand Prix. And this is a race too, isn’t it?”
“We’re doing a documentary, not a feature,” says Carl.
“And you’re not Frankenheimer,” adds Sonny.
“I’m better than Frankenheimer,” Phil says smiling. “It’s just that I’m the only one who knows it. And there’s a great feature in this campaign, in your father’s career, Mr. Sancudo.”
“The Last Hurrah with rum instead of whiskey. All the King’s Men with chile instead of grits.” Marta translates.
“No. I wouldn’t want to make another soap opera. Or another morality play. What I mean is, I don’t believe in lovable old warriors, and Lord Acton’s cliché has been dramatized to death already.”
“Acton was inaccurate.” Sounds like a dog retching. “Power doesn’t corrupt. The desire for power corrupts. When the private itch seeks a public fingernail. When you first guess the body politic might be a good lay. You’re already soiled. And that goes for everyone. Including honest backwoods lawyers like Willie Stark. Or Abraham Lincoln, for that matter.”
“For you too, Kiki?” asks Marta after she translates, and I nod.
“What about the man who wants to do something for his country or for the people?” asks Phil. “Who isn’t thinking of himself?”
“He’s grafted his personal urges onto the mass.” Wait for Marta to translate, and Phil tries to say something, sitting up like a bright child, mouthbound shrimp detained two inches above his plate. Blue eyes glisten as he tries to shine, but I belch on softly. Still able to command a conversation. Authority intact at all gatherings, and I won’t give it up. “Your man may not be thinking of himself consciously. Your true politician has a hard time seeing where he leaves off and the people begin.”
“Well, what about the man who has power forced on him?”
“Usually the result of years of quiet maneuvering. Only looks like he’s being forced. But assume it’s true. A man who doesn’t want power has it forced on him. He’d be a poor leader. It’s like making love: if you don’t enjoy it, you’re not much good at it.”
Marta leans to wipe my chin with her napkin and goes on translating. Elena smiles across at me. Phil nods intensely. Carl and Sonny eat.
“And the more you enjoy it, the more you want it. Is that it?” asks Phil.
“Enjoy it, or can’t live without it. A politician is a man, driven toward power, by inner whips. There are two kinds. Those who know the whips are there, and those who don’t. I’m not sure which king is best. Or worst.”
“I should think,” says Elena, taking a sip of wine, “that the man who knows himself would be best. Don’t you think so, Marta?”
“I agree with Kiki: they’re all bastards.”
“A politician operates.” Sounds like a hog feeding. “By rationalizing his private powerlust. In terms of the public good. Too much self-knowledge. Can work against him. Compare. A man can seduce a woman. More efficiently. And more pleasantly for them both. When he’s not too conscious. Of all the subtle ways. She reminds him of. His mother.”
“Do you want some water?” asks Elena.
Nod, and she rings the silver bell for Edilma.
Vein beating at the side of my nose, and I’m too short of breath to say that one might imagine a man conscious of ambition yet unaware of a secret urge to do good, to help his country and the people. And then, when power is almost in his grasp, he begins to realize that power isn’t what he cares about. And because of this he commits an error, which costs him … In short, that a man may be destroyed by a noble motive. That grace corrupts as well. But there’s no need to bring it up, or ask Phil if he thinks it would make a good plot for a movie. And probably I had no secret urge. Probably I’d merely brainwashed myself with my own speeches. And yet, perhaps that’s how people grow, some people anyway. By saying things first and then coming to believe them.
Edilma holds the water. Eyes turn away in fake nonchalance. Tall glass with two cubes floating. Short breaths between sips, and lean my head against her old turkey talon. Ache in my neck. So much effort to make my body do a simple thing like chat at the lunch table. Mind as strong as ever. Dynamo in a rotten shack. Bust it apart someday.
“… atmosphere of an election here,” Phil is saying. “That’s what I’d like to capture. So much surface brilliance masking darkness beneath. I mean, the purpose of an election is to stylize the struggle for power, to sublimate violence into words and votes. But here it seems to work the other way.”
“In the States, too,” says Sonny.
“Yes. I suppose so. We need a cinema Shakespeare to make history-movies of the last few administrations. Then maybe we’d understand what happened. But Shakespeare did it too, didn’t he? I mean he went to foreign countries like Denmark and Rome to dramatize political themes. So a film about an election here could have relevance in the States.”
“We hope you can achieve that in the documentary, Phil,” says Elena.
“Of course. But the more I see and hear,” he looks to me, “about Tinieblas, the more I wish I could do a full treatment. And be free to arrange things. The trouble with documentaries is that reality is more or less meaningless. The only way to make sense of it is by inventing. Hell, Shakespeare even rearranged English history.”
“Do you see yourself as a modern Shakespeare, Feel?”
“Well, the movies are still waiting for a Shakespeare. Though Bergman has a claim. And the form isn’t much older than the English theater was when Shakespeare showed up. I’m not trying to be pretentious, Marta. Why not aim high? And Shakespeare would have gone crazy with a movie camera.”
“If he’d been able to afford a helicopter.”
“OK. OK. But there’s tremendous communication in visual imagery. I mean, you can say a terrific amount about the level and extent of political participation just by showing those kids in T-shirts with the candidates’ pictures stenciled on them. And the faces of the people. We saw some wonderful faces this morning.”
“Did you do any filming?” asks Elena.
“I got the President,” says Carl.
“He almost got you,” Sonny says. “We were down on the main drag, Miss Delfi, when about thirty cops on Harleys came by at fifty miles an hour with all their sirens blowing, leading a Caddy limousine, and this jerk jumps out in the middle of the street and starts shooting film. They would have run him over if I hadn’t pulled him back on the sidewalk by his belt.”
“That’s going to be a great sequence,” says Carl. “All those cycles filling up the street, and the glare on the cops’ sunglasses. We could run it in slow motion and open the picture with it.”
“Starring Peter Fonda,” says Phil. “Easy Rider South.”
“You wait’ll you see it.”
“It did give a terrific impression of power,” Phil tells Elena. “Those eyeless faces, and all those machines blaring along to take one little man to an appointment. It communicated power like a tank.”
“Kiki walked.” She smiles at me over the centerpiece. “Didn’t you, Kiki?”
Nod.
“I don’t get it.”
“On the day he was hurt, when he went to speak in the plaza, he went on foot.”
“You. Went. Too.”
“Yes. I went too. Through the crowds and the heat. It took us over an hour, Phil, but it was better than an air-conditioned car and a motorcycle escort. You know, if one were to do a feature film here, the best subject would be Kiki. It’s better than anything anyone could write.”
“Yes!” says Phil, seizing the idea. “We could center on the, uh, day you mentioned and flash back over the whole career.”
“Aren’t you sick of movies with flashbac
ks?”
“You’re right, Marta. Better to sketch in the past with dialogue. We could use a foreign reporter covering the campaign.”
“Or a director making a film of it. An intense young gringo with a bushy beard who doesn’t know anything about politics here and has to have it all explained to him. And the movie would be about the impact of the campaign on him.”
“No, Marta. It has tremendous drama. A young candidate in a violent country. Simultaneous working out of individual and collective destines. And structured like a bullfight with everything rushing toward the moment of truth in the afternoon.” He looks at me and returns from his movie world. “Excuse me for discussing it, uh, you in those terms, but …”
“An artist always considers experience as potential art. That’s it, isn’t it, Feel? Do you have the talent to go with that attitude?”
“It might be all right as art. As personal experience it could use touching up.” Marta translates.
“What would you change, Kiki?” asks Elena.
Change Ñato. Make him a better shot. A good way on a good day.
“Would you decide not to run?” she goes on. “Or change what you said?”
“I’d hire a stand-in. Every candidate should have one.”
“Can we talk about something else?” says Marta when she’s finished translating.
“What’s the program for this afternoon?”
“The rally’s at six. Which means somewhat later.”
“You have siestas here, don’t you?” asks Sonny.
“I’m going to take a walk around,” says Phil. “Want to come, Carl?”
“Is that an order?”
“We slept late. The way to do this documentary, Mr. Sancudo, is to shoot plenty of film and compose afterwards. We don’t know how the campaign will turn out or what might occur during it or what might turn out to be good background footage. In a city like this we might find good stuff anywhere.”
“That’s right, Feel. Three blocks from here is the street where they blew up León Fuertes, which is less than half a mile from the square where they shot Kiki. And there’s the tree where they hanged General Luna and the palace where Alejo shot Colonel Azote. In the States you’d have to fly thousands of miles between locations like that, but we have them concentrated within walking distance of the good hotels.”
“I. Was. Going. To. Make. Marta. Director. Of. Tourism.”
Which gets a laugh, and Elena starts the bowls revolving again.
“Yes,” muses Phil, helping himself to more meat. “It’s better than a film script. You were an Olympic winner, weren’t you?”
Nod.
“It was almost a disaster, Phil,” says Elena. “Kiki was the only Tinieblan entered in the Games, and the Finns hadn’t bothered to get a Tinieblan flag. When he made the finals, they panicked; there were no Tinieblan flags in Helsinki. Finally the Americans stepped in and flew a flag in from Paris in time for the ceremony. Which was nice of them, since he’d beaten the American wrestler, but not so nice, because the Russians were bringing a flag from Leningrad by rail.”
“Was that the flag—I mean the one we flew in from Paris—was that the flag you paraded through the Reservation?”
Shake my head. “Too good. You can do that in your movie.”
“There never was a president anywhere who was an Olympic medalist.”
“The King of Greece won a medal sailing,” says Carl.
“It’s not the same,” argues Phil. “Sailing’s a different kind of sport. Wrestling’s one of the original Olympic sports. ‘A victor in the Games.’”
He nods thoughtfully, thinking of ironies, restructuring his masterpiece to give the star some wheelchair scenes. Happy problem of selecting from a superfluity of juicy incident, whereas I must be thrifty, composing my today and my tomorrow on a low budget. No wide-screen melodrama, no technicolor swashbuckling, no hairbreadth scapes, unless from a convulsion, and there’s small romance in that. No high pageant of state affairs, no filter-lensed tableaux of lyric love, no battles, no revolutions, no elegant soirées from which the principals withdraw to intrigue in an alcove. No music, except perhaps a fugue in minor key, unceasing variations on a somber theme. No gaudy lights, no brilliant costumes, no rare, exotic sets. Only a drab revenge play cast on the torn screen of my mind. But nicely planned for impact and economy. And adequate to keep me occupied. For I’ve become an artist too, Phil, by circumstance if not by inclination, and I trust I’ll be able to communicate to my small public. I’m sure he’ll get my message.
Or are you gauging me as a rival, Phil, computing what chance you’d have with Marta if I were whole? And not linking the result? Poor Phil, you’ve got it wrong. I’m more competition now than in my prime. She wouldn’t have felt guilty if you’d come after her then, and I was always able to find room for new girls and say goodbye to the ones who left. I can hear you reassuring yourself: “I’ve got my gift, my insight, to match his life of action.” Take all the comfort in it that you want; I won’t deflate you by mentioning the insights shown to me by Professors Pain and Paralysis. Take her and get out. Make your documentary and take Marta, and Elena too, and get out, and let me make my own movie. Let me make my little horror film for Ñato.
“Well,” says Carl, “if we’re going to go …”
“Never mind,” says Phil. “I’ll go alone. I just want to get the feel of the city. I’ll get more out of it alone.”
That’s right, Phil, go alone. Walk along the sea wall toward the docks. Feel the heat. Watch the people. Stop a pushcart man and eat shaved ice with fruit syrup poured over it, or get a beer at some cantina. Listen to the music from radios turned up too loud in tenement rooms hung above garbaged alleys. And political announcements you won’t understand screamed by earnest fools. Smell the dirt and smeared baby sweat on chocolate-colored urchins. Aim your insight through unpainted walls at undershirted men on rumpled cots and women with cotton bathrobes clasped to flaccid breasts. Buy lottery, like everybody else, out of the trays of limbless cripples and hollow-eyed black crones—You dreamed of Satan? play number fifteen—and guard the tickets like a pardon that may he signed on Sunday. Walk, walk along the sidestreets with your shoulder brushed against the wall to snatch a little shade. Lounge in a doorway and watch the narrow sidewalks fill up with people hurrying back to work. Sit in the little park behind the Alcaldía and have your shoes shined, a boy to each shoe, while bent old men in torn white suits play checkers, chattering like monkeys. Breathe our air. Soak in the city through your pores, and when it’s dark go marinate yourself in the cheap perfume of cantina barmaids and the body smells of moon-hipped negresses who sell themselves for fifty cents against the limestone wall of the cemetery and in the breath of twelve-year-old whores waiting in taxi cabs along Bolivar Avenue. And think yourself the brother of such a girl, or, if that’s too hard, a merchant sailor who’s missed his ship and had his papers stolen. Wander the streets, and in the hour before dawn you may begin to taste the killer’s terror and the murdered man’s despair.
“Who’ll have coffee?” asks Elena, which is my signal, for there’s no reason why my guests should have to watch me being carried upstairs.
“Now?” asks Marta. I nod, and she goes to get Jaime. He backs me out of the dining room, and the conversation bubbles in around my empty place.
“How is it, Kiki?” he asks over my shoulder.
“Tired, brother. Lift me easy.”
“Sure, Kiki.”
He parks the chair beside the stairs and comes around to get me. Flat-faced grin. Not embarrassment, just happy to be able to do something for me. Right arm thrust under my thighs, left clasping my back, he bends and heaves me up, pushes the chair out of his way with his foot. Jounces me against his chest and plods upward. Reliable as a Sherpa for these climbs, and if I asked he’d carry me up Everest. Gentle too, considering my dead weight. I can’t put an arm around his neck to take the pressure off his forearms. Want him just as tender with Ñato when he ca
rries him inside. Seventeen steps, and I rise like a soul in Purgatory.
Cool and dark in my room, curtains drawn and air turned on by Neira while I ate. Lays me softly on my bed, feet toward the pillow, and takes off my shoes and socks, pulls off my trousers and shorts. On to the bathroom. Now that I have some control over my sphincters there is pleasure in relaxing them. More mental than physical, but I list it along with coffee in the morning and the alcohol rub I let Marta perform on some evenings. Jaime removes my shirt while I sit, then wings me, naked, back to bed and tucks me in.
“Anything more, Kiki?”
“No, brother. Yes. Take a drive by Ñato’s. Park in front. Let him see the car. But if there’s a guardia, just drive by.”
“To help him enjoy his siesta?”
“That’s right. So he’ll enjoy it as much as I do mine.”
“How is he going to die, Kiki? Like Garza or like Memo?”
“I’m thinking about it, Jaime. I’ll tell you.”
He nods, and turns, and, as he goes out, Elena comes in.
And locks the door, and opens her silk dress and lets it fall around her feet, and kicks it away and with it her soft suede shoes, and unhooks her brassiere and drops it forward, and brushes down her half slip and panties, and, pale and golden, slips into bed beside me.
“Do you mind, Kiki?”
“No. It’s lovely. I just wish I could pull my weight. If it were you who was paralyzed, there’d be less of a problem.”
Soft hand on my chest. “I wanted to be with you.” Soft kiss against my scarred neck.
“Don’t you find it a little morbid? Like nuzzling a corpse?”
“No, Kiki. Don’t think like that. Or make me leave.”
“I won’t. I’m getting soft. The times I wouldn’t let you. Be with me like this. It was because I like to pull my own weight. But I’m getting soft. And you just want to show me some affection. It isn’t pity or perversion. You still care for me. And want to show affection.”