Bel Canto(37)

“It is ridiculous that we sit here like this,” Franz von Schuller said. Gen translated into French for Simon Thibault and Jacques Maitessier and then into Japanese for Mr. Hosokawa. There were two other Germans there as well. The group of them stood by the empty fireplace, drinking grapefruit juice. An enormous treat, the grapefruit juice. It was better than a really good Scotch. The sharpness settled over their tongues, making them feel alive. Today was the first time it had been brought in. “These people are amateurs. The ones in here as well as the ones outside.”

“And you suggest?” Simon Thibault said. Thibault wore his wife’s huge blue scarf tied around his neck and hanging down his back, and the presence of this scarf made people less likely to listen to his opinion on serious matters.

Pietro Genovese walked by and asked Gen to translate the conversation to him as well. He knew enough French but no German.

“It isn’t as if the guns are hidden from us,” von Schuller said, lowering his voice even though no one seemed able to pick up the German. They waited for Gen.

“And so we shoot our way out. Just like television,” Pietro Genovese said. “Is that grapefruit juice?” He looked bored by the conversation even though he had just walked into it. He built airports. As a country’s industry enlarges, so must its airports.

Gen held up his hand. “One moment, please.” He was still translating the German into Japanese.

“We would need a dozen translators and arbitration from the UN before we could decide to overthrow the one teenager with a knife,” Jacques Maitessier said, as much to himself as anyone, and he knew what he was talking about, having once been the French ambassador to the United Nations.

“I’m not saying that everyone would have to agree,” von Schuller said.

“You’ll give it a try on your own?” Thibault said.

“Gentlemen, your patience, please.” Gen was trying to translate it all into Japanese. That was his first responsibility. He didn’t work for the general convenience of the people, although everyone managed to forget that. He worked for Mr. Hosokawa.

Conversations in more than two languages felt awkward and unreliable, like speaking with a mouthful of cotton and Novocain. No one could hold on to their thoughts long enough and wait their turns. These were not men who were accustomed to waiting or speaking precisely. They preferred to expound, to rant when necessary. Pietro Genovese went off to see if there was more juice in the kitchen. Simon Thibault smoothed down his scarf with the flat of his palm and asked Jacques Maitessier if he would be interested in a hand of cards. “My wife would kill me if I was involved in an overthrow,” Thibault said in French.

The three Germans spoke rapidly among themselves and Gen made no attempt to listen.

“I never get tired of the weather,” Mr. Hosokawa said to Gen as they walked back to the window. They stood side by side for a while, clearing all those other languages from their heads.

“Do you ever think of rising up?” Gen asked. He could see their reflections. They were standing very close to the glass. Two Japanese men, both wearing glasses, one was taller and twenty-five years younger, but in this room where people had so little in common Gen could see for the first time how they looked very much the same.

Mr. Hosokawa kept his eyes on their reflection, or maybe he was watching the garúa. “Something will rise up eventually,” he said. “And then there will be nothing we can do to stop it.” His voice turned heavy at the thought.

The soldiers spent most of their days exploring the house, eating the pistachio nuts they found in the pantry, sniffing the lavender hand lotion in the bathroom. The house offered up no end of curiosities: closets the size of some houses they had seen, bedrooms where no one slept, cupboards that held nothing but rolls of colored paper and ribbon. A favorite room was the Vice President’s study, which was at the end of a long hallway. Behind the heavy draperies, the windows stopped short at two upholstered bench seats, the kind of place where a person could tuck up his legs and look out into the garden for hours. The study had two leather sofas and two leather chairs and all of the books were covered in leather. Even the desk set, the cup that held the pencils and the edges of the blotter were leather. The room had the comforting and familiar smell of cows standing in the hot sun.

There was a television in this room. A few of them had seen a television before, a wooden box with a curved piece of glass that threw back your reflection in peculiar ways. They were always, always broken. That was the nature of televisions. There was talk, big stories about what a television once had done, but no one believed it because no one had seen it. The boy called Cesar put his face close to the screen, pulled back his lips by hooking a finger into either side of his mouth, and enjoyed the picture. The others were watching. He rolled back his eyes and shook his tongue. Then he took his fingers out of his mouth, crossed his hands over his chest, and began to mimic a song he remembered Roxane Coss singing that first night they were waiting in the air-conditioning vents. He wasn’t quite getting the words, but he was close to their sounds and right on their pitch. He wasn’t mocking, exactly, he was singing and then he was singing very well. When he couldn’t remember what came next, he stopped abruptly and bowed at the waist. He turned and went back to making faces in the television.

It was Simon Thibault who turned the television on. He hadn’t meant anything by it. He had come into the room because he heard the singing. He thought that someone was playing some odd and beautiful old record and it made him curious. Then he saw the boy doing the show, a moderately funny boy, and thought he would get a kick out of the picture coming up suddenly where his face had been. Simon picked up the remote control from where it sat balanced on the arm of a comfortable-looking leather chair and pushed the power button.