Bel Canto(29)

Everything was slack now. The huge arrangements of flowers that were placed around the room were already wilting, the smallest edge of brown trimmed the petals of the white roses. The half-empty glasses of champagne that sat on end tables and sideboards were flat and warm. The young guards were so exhausted that some fell asleep against the wall and slid down to the floor without waking. The guests stayed in the living room, whispering a little but mostly being quiet. They curled into overstuffed chairs and slept. They did not test the patience of their guards. They took cushions off the sofa and stretched out on the floor in a way that was reminiscent of the night before but much better. They knew they were to stay in the living room, be mostly quiet, avoid sudden moves. No one considered slipping out of the bathroom window when they took themselves to the lavatory unattended, maybe out of some unspoken gentleman’s agreement. A certain forced respect had been shown to the body of the accompanist, their accompanist, and now they had to try to live up to the standards he had set.

When Messner came in he asked first to see Roxane Coss. His lips seemed thinner now, stern, and he thoughtlessly spoke in German. Gen pushed up heavily from his chair and went to tell them what was being said. The Generals pointed to the woman on the couch, whose face was still pressed into a handkerchief.

“And she will be coming out now,” Messner said, not as a question.

“The President is coming over?” General Alfredo said.

“You do expect to let her ride home with the body.” It was not the Messner they had seen before. The sight of a room full of hostages forced to lie on the floor, the battered Vice President, the boys with their weapons, all of that had only made him tired, but he was angry now. Angry with nothing but a small red plus sign strapped over his upper arm to protect himself from a roomful of guns.

His anger seemed to inspire an extraordinary patience in the Generals. “The dead,” Hector explained, “know nothing of who is sitting beside them.”

“You said all women.”

“We came up through the air-conditioning vents,” General Benjamin said, and then after a pause he added a descriptive phrase. “Like moles.”

“I need to know if I can trust you,” Messner said. Gen only wished he could parody the weight of his voice, the way he struck every word like a soft mallet against a drum. “If you tell me something, am I to believe you?”

“We set free the servants, the ill, and all of the women but one. Perhaps there is something about this one that interests you. Perhaps if we had kept another it wouldn’t have mattered so much to you.”

“Am I to believe you?”

General Benjamin thought about this for a moment. He lifted his hand as if to stroke his cheek but then thought better of it. “We are not on the same side.”

“The Swiss never take sides,” Messner said. “We are only on the side of the Swiss.”

None of the Generals had anything more to say to Messner, who needed no confirmation that the accompanist lying at his feet was, indeed, dead. The priest had covered the body with a tablecloth and the tablecloth stayed in place. Messner went out the door without pleasantries and returned an hour later with a helper. They brought in a rolling gurney of the type that comes from an ambulance, covered in boxes and sacks, and when they were unloaded Messner and his helper lowered the gurney and tried to tug the large man up. They ultimately had to be assisted by several of the younger terrorists. Death had made the body dense, as if every recital performed, each day’s never-ending practice, came back in those final moments and balanced like lead bars across his chest. When he was in place and strapped down, his fine hands dangling from beneath the cutwork tablecloth, they took him away. Roxane Coss turned her head as if to study the couch pillows. Mr. Hosokawa wondered if she was thinking about Brunhilde, if she was wishing for a horse that would take her into the fire after her lover’s corpse.

“I don’t think they should have brought the food in like that,” the Vice President said to a stranger sitting beside him, although he was hungry and curious as to what was in the bags. “I think they could have made two separate trips, out of respect.” The late afternoon light was slanting through the tall windows of the living room, making heavy gold strokes across the floor. It was a lovely room, Ruben thought, a lovely time of day to be in the room. He very rarely was home before dark and often he wasn’t home at all, out representing the President on one trip or another. The ice in his towel had almost completely melted and the sleeve of his starched dress shirt was soaked from where the water had trickled steadily down his arm. Still, the cool wet towel felt good on his swollen face. He wondered where his wife and children would sleep tonight, if the President and his wife would invite them into their home as a matter of good publicity or if they would go to a guarded room in a hotel. He hoped she would go to her cousin Ana’s. At least Ana would comfort her, at least she would make some fun for the children and listen to the girls tell their stories about being kidnapped. They would have to double up in extra beds and sleep on pull-out sofas, but that would be all right. That would be better than the Masudas’ chilly guest suite, where certainly Esmeralda would be made to sleep in the servants’ quarters.

On the other side of the room near a large bank of windows, Gen and Mr. Hosokawa sat away from the rest of their countrymen. It was a complicated form of politeness in which the other men would not have joined them unless invited. Even in these uncharted circumstances the social order stood firm. Mr. Hosokawa was not much in the mood for company. “He was a magnificent accompanist,” he said to Gen. “I’ve heard my share of them.” Of all the men in the room, Mr. Hosokawa was the only one who continued to wear his jacket and tie. His suit had somehow remained remarkably uncreased.