Bel Canto(31)

“You tell Mr. Hosokawa for me,” she said. She stopped to pin some of her hair back away from her face. “What the hell. It isn’t like I’m so busy I can’t tell him myself. Does he not speak English? Well, you’ll translate. You’re the only one of us around here who has a job now. Are there any languages you don’t speak?”

Gen smiled at the very thought of such a thing, the towering list of languages he didn’t speak. “Most of them I don’t speak a word of,” he said. He stood up and Roxane Coss put her hand on his arm to walk across the room as if she might faint. It was a possibility. She had had a very hard day. All around the room the men raised their heads and ended their conversations to watch them, the tall young Japanese translator navigating the wide expanse of living room with the soprano on his arm. How strange and lovely it was to see her hand resting on the top of his sleeve, her pale fingers nearly reaching his wrist.

When Mr. Hosokawa, who had been trying to look the other way, realized that Gen was bringing Roxane Coss to him, he felt a deep blush coming up from the collar of his shirt and he stood to wait for her arrival.

“Mr. Hosokawa,” Roxane said, and held out her hand to him.

“Miss Coss,” he said, and bowed.

Roxane took one chair and Mr. Hosokawa took the other. Gen pulled up a third, smaller chair and waited.

“Gen has told me you feel in some way responsible for this,” she said.

Mr. Hosokawa nodded. He spoke to her with great honesty, the kind two people use after a lifetime of knowing one another. But what was a lifetime? This afternoon? This evening? The kidnappers had reset the clocks and no one knew a thing about time anymore. Better this once to be inappropriate and honest as the burden of his guilt was tightening a string around his throat. He told her he had declined many invitations from the host country but then agreed to come once they told him she would be there. He told her he had never had any plans of helping this country. He told her he was a great admirer of her work and named the cities he had seen her in. He told her he must be in some part responsible for the death of her accompanist.

“No,” she said. “No. I sing in so many places. It’s rare that I would sing for a private party like this. To tell you the truth, most people don’t have the money, but I’ve done it before. I didn’t come here for your birthday. With all respect, I didn’t even remember whose birthday it was. Besides, from what I understand, these people didn’t even want you, they wanted the President.”

“But I was the one who set this thing in motion,” Mr. Hosokawa said.

“Or did I?” she said. “I thought about declining. I declined several times until they came up with more money.” She leaned forward, and when she did, Gen and Mr. Hosokawa ducked their heads down as well. “Don’t get me wrong. I am very capable of blame. This is an event ripe for blame if ever I saw one. I just don’t blame you.”

The members of LFDMS could have opened all the doors at that moment, thrown down their guns and told everyone to go, and Mr. Hosokawa would not have experienced any greater sense of relief than the one he had knowing Roxane Coss forgave him.

Several of the foot soldiers came around with the bags that Messner had brought in on the accompanist’s gurney and distributed sandwiches and cans of soda, wrapped slices of dark cake and bottled water. If nothing else, the food seemed to be in great abundance and when they took one sandwich each the boy shook the bag at them, urging them wordlessly to reach in for more. Or maybe there was simply more for them because they were sitting with Roxane Coss.

“It looks like I’ll stay for supper,” she said, unwrapping the white paper like a present. Inside the heavy slabs of bread there was a piece of meat, orangish-red with sauce or watery peppers. Its juice dripped into the paper which she spread across her lap. The two men waited for her to begin, but they didn’t have to wait for long. She ate like she was starving. “There are people who would like to have a picture of this,” she said, lifting up the sandwich. “I’m very particular about my food.”

“We make exceptions in extraordinary times,” Mr. Hosokawa said, and Gen translated. He was pleased to see her eating, pleased that her grief had not overwhelmed her in any way that could endanger her health.

For Gen, the oily piece of meat (which animal?) inside stained bread made him stop and consider exactly how hungry he was. He was hungry. He turned his head away from Roxane Coss and Mr. Hosokawa, afraid of the orange grease on his lips. But before he had the chance to eat even half of his sandwich, one of the boys wearing a green baseball cap came for him. They were just starting to become distinguishable, these boys. This one had a cap with a photo button of Che Guevara on it, another wore a knife on his chest, one more had a cheap scapula of the Sacred Heart tied high up on his throat with a string. Some of the boys were very big or very small, a few had a handful of whiskers sprouting on their chins, others had acne. The boy that Gen had noticed with Roxane had a face like a fine-boned Madonna. The boy that came for him now told Gen in a Spanish so rudimentary that it was a struggle to understand, that the Generals would see him now.

“Forgive me,” he said in English and Japanese, wrapping up what was left of his meal and putting it discreetly beneath a chair in hopes it would still be there when he returned. He had especially wanted the cake.

General Hector used a pencil to take notes on a yellow tablet. He was extremely meticulous about his writing.