“He wants a cannon built for every member of his family,” she said.
“I heard he asked Sombat if you solely came up with that idea,” Kik said. “I think he likes you.”
“What’s not to like?” Fon said.
“He’s kind only to the people he likes,” he said. “I heard he bought all the flight attendants diamonds on his last vacation abroad.”
“He’s a great symbol of continuity in this time of chaos.”
“Great symbol of continuity?” Kik said. “If you gave my dad a job from which he couldn’t be fired and a highly fortified mansion in which to live, he’d be a symbol of continuity too.”
President Pranit wasn’t to be blamed. He did everything in his power to gift his children with opportunities. Fon’s parents also sacrificed a lot for her to be where she was. Her mother cared for children that didn’t belong to her for months on end, leaving Fon to feed herself, to take the bus home when she was barely eight years old. Her father drove rich families around for decades, leaving him limping with an uneven gait. Over the years, she thanked them with every raise she received, paying off a mortgage on their house, signing off on bills they could no longer work to pay. This was the expectation between the old and the new, that the next generation did better; only this Western notion of being recognized for her efforts attracted her. Only a daughter of a nanny and a chauffeur in this day and age could be plucked out of obscurity and be reborn as a Merit Creator to the president. Only a resilient pacifist like President Pranit would hire the Ministry of Merit to work on passive ways to maintain the status quo of their country. But before she could continue with her thoughts, she remembered she had to meet with Director Sombat about their plan.
“Come in,” Director Sombat’s voice sang from behind the door. “I have to brief you on some protocols.”
Fon walked in feeling triumphant and pulled out a chair, sitting down in front of him.
“We leave tomorrow morning. Do you have formal gowns? If not, I’ll ask my wife for something you can borrow.”
She nodded. She had tried on the dresses and shoes she had received from Marshal Kamlesh, flattered that he knew exactly where the silk would cling onto her hips even after just meeting once.
“An auspicious time,” Director Sombat said, and Fon returned a smile. “We are working with a true leader who is persistent, who is motivated to better his ideals, not just his pockets.”
He pulled out blueprints from his drawer.
“The president and his immediate circle have been briefed. I trust you have been practicing your aim the past months?”
She nodded. She wanted to prove to him that he did not make a mistake in choosing her. She had been practicing in the parking garage, shooting at cars from six stories above. She had shot at moving motorcyclists. She had shot Charn square in the middle of his belt buckle this morning, from the other side of the office.
“You’ll be positioned in the clock tower to the left,” he pointed on the map. “You will shoot the geckos the moment the marshal introduces his father so that it lands on his Excellency square in the chest.”
She said yes, that was her job after all.
“Shoot a little higher than his chest so the lizards have time to crawl around for the photos. It needs to be clear so we get the best shots.”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to ask Charn to partner up with you,” he said. “Don’t roll your eyes at me. He’ll be your extra pair of hands in case the cannon gets a little too heavy.”
“What practice does Charn have?” she spat.
Director Sombat sighed and rubbed his eyes. “It’s not just our reputation that goes down the drain if you miss the president.”
“No one will even see the little guys,” she said.
“If you miss and hit his Excellency in the eye, it’s treason.”
“I won’t hit him in the eye.”
“Remember, only the president and his closest advisors know about this plan. If you attract security, you’re on your own.”
“I’ve been on my own for the past eleven years.” She leaned across the desk, planting both elbows down to take up more space, to make more of a presence. “I think I’ve made my intentions very clear, sir.” Her sir emphasized how vital she was to him. To accompany Director Sombat to the president’s main residence for his belated birthday address was an opportunity she would not squander.
“Are you sure you don’t want someone there just in case?”
“I started this thread, so I will finish weaving it,” she said. “Besides, Charn has no practice. He will just be in the way.”
Director Sombat looked unconvinced.
“Don’t give me jobs I can’t finish, sir. I can walk out to find something much more lucrative with my skills.”
“Do you have any other questions for me, Fon?” Director Sombat asked. He meant this as a way to end their conversation, to pretend that he didn’t hear her threat.
Fon shook her head.
“It’s: no, sir.”
* * *
The ride to the Grand Residence was a bumpy one, but, thankfully, the president’s family, their security, and Fon’s team arrived safely. Once they arrived, Marshal Kamlesh stepped quickly out of the hired limo. Director Sombat grabbed Fon’s elbow to let the President’s army of hair and makeup artists go first. Security trailed them closely. Section off by walls and gates into four main courts, the President’s primary abode had been built as the country’s original administrative and religious center. Before coups and d’états, the enormous mansion housed the government, thousands of guardsmen, servants, foreign dignitaries, ministers, and courtiers. Now, it was nothing more than the sick President’s refuge.
There were hoards of people waiting for them. The crowd cheered, some of them children with their faces painted gold, students with dipped gold wreaths of jasmine around their heads, and adults in burnt orange tees chanting “Gold in the Land.” Marshal Kamlesh flashed his white teeth and waved, making sure to brush fingers with his countrymen while security enclosed him and escorted him up the stairs toward the main hall.
Fon kept the cannon close to her ribs, the machine hidden in a huge box as though she was the kind of rich woman who carried her own collection of hats. She clutched the edges tight, her fingers white from holding on to something so heavy, a classified mission that could change the course of history.
Outside, the garden was packed with lines of people buzzing on the field. Black heads of hair in ponytails or crew cuts. Ashy elbows pushed bodies closer to the large doors. Blackened feet in plastic flip-flops sank in the grass. People cheered as Marshal Kamlesh walked out onto the terrace, his pageboys and advisors joined him, hissing: “Sir, sir, we aren’t ready yet!”
The people below had their hands high, waving gold flags. The air smelled sticky with all the bodies brushing up against one another, sticky with the humid air of the ocean, and sticky with the anticipation of his speech. People tiptoed to catch a glimpse of the president’s son. Shouts of encouragement became a united roar, a force that hit so hard, she felt like she was being knocked back by a tornado through a tunnel.
“Our father built this house with his own hands,” Marshal Kamlesh bellowed. “He created us with his seed. He fed us from this land. He watched us grow with his own eyes.”
Fon looked down at the familiar faces: Grandmothers who spent decades looking after children that weren’t their own. Hawkers from the noodle-stall whose backs were now crooked from stooping over too many hot bowls of soup. Then there were the farmers, who probably sold their rice for three times less than what it was worth in order to keep their business. Poor people. Simple people. Serfs to the city people. Fon too, came from a home that had been excluded from big, political decisions, from pensions and welfares. She knew what it was like standing there, an eager supporter amongst the throngs of the ordinary, where the only way out was to wish and wait.
“This is our Father’s land and we are his
children,” Marshal Kamlesh said.
Each word carefully rehearsed to sound spontaneous. Each sentence catered to the dumbest person in the mob. Each action perfectly choreographed to appear ethereal.
Cheers erupted from below.
“If you have nothing nice to say about our Father, then get out. Get out of the house he built. You are not welcome here.”
More hoo-ha. Tears wiped from eyes. Low bows.
Marshal Kamlesh bowed and swiftly turned back into the hall. Everyone was running to and from places to get the room set up for the President’s arrival. Makeup artists, yelling over speakers, asked for more wet napkins. Servants swept and mopped floors. Large men clad in military khakis and carrying machetes divided themselves into troops to make rounds inside the building.
“Fon,” Marshal Kamlesh said as he tapped her on the shoulder, “ready?”
She looked for Director Sombat. She spotted him waiting by the corner entrance to the hall speaking into his cell phone. Fon tried to catch his attention waving, but amidst the frenzy, he didn’t see her.
“Good luck, sir,” she whispered, stuck close to the Marshal and left the room.
The clock tower was a strange place, made stranger by the fact that she would share the tiny rotting sanctuary with the President’s son. Once a stronghold for garrisons to defend the Bans from neighboring countries, the tower had been neglected over centuries. Dust accumulated along the walls with bodies of dead fruit flies and Fon kicked spiderwebs from corners of the room with her feet before bringing out the cannon. She assembled the weapon on the edge of the concrete aperture, while the Marshal struggled back up the stairs with an oversize habitat of geckos.
“Do you need anything else?” he asked.
“No. I’ll wait for your signal.”
“Good.” He placed the terrarium by her feet.
“You didn’t have to carry that, my lord.”
“It’s a novelty for me, really. I wanted to carry something for someone else for the first time.”
She laughed, appealing to him. On the terrace, the ceremony had begun with the orchestra playing “Glorify His Prestige” while guards patrolled the perimeter of the garden to ensure every citizen sang along. Fon remembered a classmate in university being hauled away from the school grounds at Morning Pledge for not knowing the words. She questioned how much of her own obedience was once tied to culture, to fear. She thought of the hours she endured studying, the hours at the Ministry of Merit, the hours she put up with Charn, and for the first time, felt relieved for following all the rules up until this point. Her hard work had fated her to this meeting, and this meeting was exotic in a way that no rendezvous with a normal man could ever be.
“Thank you.” She bowed.
“There’s no need for that, thank you for helping the people believe in us.”
He became more charming the more they spent time together.
“Has Sombat ever told you about how much of a father he’s been to me?”
She shook her head. “I’m afraid I only speak to the Director about work-related matters.”
“During the Third World War, the Western allies wanted to use Bankim’s land to host their soldiers,” he said. “I didn’t believe in joining either side. Bankim has never been colonized before, which is why I told my father to refuse them. But many of our country’s elites were corrupt, selling our natural resources to both sides of the war. One day, my father came back with new weapons, and gave our army top-of-the-line machines and armor.”
Fon wasn’t sure what to say, so she kept her face stone-still and impassive.
“I asked him, ‘Who did you get it from?’ He said, ‘I made a deal with the devils.’
Fon, feeling sorry for the young marshal, reached out for his hand.
“Irate, I yelled, ‘We are not slaves to the West!’ Immediately, my father tried to have me locked up. Sedated. Thrown away. Luckily, Sombat argued on my behalf, claiming that I, a nationalist and proud son of Bankim, only wanted our country to remain autonomous.” He looked at Fon sadly. “There’s a lot of things my father has done without my knowledge, but I hope it’s all good for our people.”
Fon agreed that it was hard to do the right thing. Sometimes, the right thing never felt like the best thing. Sometimes, you had to let other people take the stage. You had to stand behind the curtain waiting for your turn, not letting your moment go. She wondered what Kamlesh would have been like, if he didn’t live his life under such scrutiny. What version of a man would he be? What type of friends would he hold dear? What kind of job would he fight for? What would he fight for?
“I wasted my younger years partying, womanizing, drinking. I regret that.”
He squeezed her hand. They were standing very close and secretive, and Fon dismissed every reason about how out of line it was to want to kiss him. Who could resist?
“I have heard no such stories,” she said.
He was a wounded bird and she could tend to him. She calculated her worth: Twenty-nine years old. University degree. Unblemished. Still single. But still very accomplished. Sure, she didn’t come from an educated stock, but she didn’t have a history of scandal or of voting for the socialists or of foreign influences. The president’s son deemed her trustworthy enough to confide in, and she no longer felt the need to win him over with her looks, for her career or for the good of the cannon. She felt buoyant, that she was in the exact right place at the right time.
“It’s hard to live up to a father when he is so revered,” he said.
She couldn’t ignore the noise outside.
“We’ll celebrate afterwards,” she said. “I’m sure your father is proud to celebrate his long reign with you.”
“Sombat told me you would be polite and gracious,” he laughed. He brought her hands to his lips, then spun around and left.
Fon went by the cannon but wasn’t sure why she wasn’t with him on the terrace.
* * *
Director Sombat did not answer Fon’s texts, messages, or phone calls. By now, the president of Bankim had appeared on the terrace. His Excellency looked even worse than on television during the legendary Gecko incident; his entire body frozen by painkillers, so much so, that he remained still as a corpse in his wheelchair. He nodded off to sleep as the celebrations continued.
The garden became silent, out of respect, but Fon suspected the crowd held their breath collectively, as though one loud sigh could propel the president off stage. Marshal Kamlesh displayed no ounce of worry behind the microphone. He spoke about his father’s legacy, about how his father gave away government-owned land to triple Bankim’s agriculture economy, how his father assigned his private physicians to provide medical care in rural villages, and how his father doled out gold from their personal accounts to the poor on a regular basis. Kik’s words about continuity rang through her head, and she believed he was nothing more than jealous of her luck. She cursed herself for doubting in the president’s family.
“Now, my father, the Guiding Sun Ray’s, President for Life, and Lord of All Orbiting Planets, has a few words he’d like to say,” Marshal Kamlesh said.
This was Fon’s cue. The cannon, filled with geckos, was loaded. She rested her elbows on the ledge and positioned the lenses to face the president. Through the glass, he was still asleep. Why nobody else had noticed the president had nodded off in this long, arduous affair, was beyond her. The pageboys, advisors, the president’s wife and her family, all sat like mannequins next to him. Director Sombat was nowhere to be seen. Fon checked her phone and pager again. Without further instructions, she shot a gecko at President Pranit’s chest.
The gecko hit his Excellency’s collarbone. But for generations to come, no one would be able to discern whether the president had died before the shot or because of it.
Instead of green slime on President Pranit’s white jacket, splats of red appeared on his chest. Dark pools of blood seeped through his decorated top, and the ancient President’s head snapped backwa
rd as he slumped down in his wheelchair.
The scene unfolded slowly for Fon. First, the masses shifted forward unanimously, like waves hitting the shore, a rising applause. Then the guards and security fired into the air, as everyone on the terrace clamored to his Excellency’s aid. The landing, covered by the president’s closest circle, swarmed him and rolled him back into the hall. Fon studied the cannon still in her hands, the greenest geckos inside crawling over one another, unaware of the magnitude of the situation.
There had been no gun shot sound from her device. Only afterwards. Follow-up explosions. But the president was dead.
She pictured Marshal Kamlesh would announce to world that this had been a joke. That his Excellency had coordinated this peaceful way of handing over the leadership to his son, that he wanted the public to see him go, so that he could live his last years in peace like a civilian, out of the public eye.
Fon’s phone rang, Director Sombat’s name flashing on-screen, and she picked it up. Her voice shook. “Sir?”
“Get out of there. Something’s gone awry. The guards are searching the entire place for shooters, and you – ”
She recalled his earlier instructions. Only the President and his closest advisors know about this plan. If you attract security, you’re on your own.
“But Marshal Kamlesh, he was just with me, he brought up the geckos.” She sounded weak and out of breath. “He saw me dump the geckos into the cannon.”
“Leave the cannon and get out.”
Boots were marching up the stairs. Orders were being yelled out; downstairs, up the stairs, and around her she heard nothing but a long buzz. She looked at the wooden doors, held to the wall by a flimsy chain. She turned to face the open aperture, her only exit. To plummet to her death. They will not take me like this, she said to herself. They will blame this death on me, but they will not have me. All the luck in the world was not enough to keep Fon from her last breath.
The Greenest Gecko Page 2