Bel Canto(75)

“They could starve us out,” Roxane said, her voice steady and calm, as if she didn’t want to disrupt the game. “The food isn’t so terrible, not as bad as it should be if they were really interested in getting things moving. They can’t be so intent on freeing us when they essentially give us everything we want.”

Messner scratched the back of his head. “Ah, I’m afraid that’s your fault. If you thought you were famous before you came in this place you should read about yourself now. You make Callas look like a spear carrier. If they tried to starve you out the government would be overthrown in an afternoon.”

Roxane looked up at him, blinked a pretty stage blink, large and pleased. “So if I get out of here alive I can double my price?”

“You can triple it.”

“My God,” Roxane said, and there were her teeth, the very sight of which broke Messner’s heart. “Do you realize you’ve told him how to overthrow the government and he doesn’t even know it? It’s all he’s ever wanted and he missed it.”

General Benjamin had his hand on his bishop. He was rocking it side to side. The words passed over him, around him, like water passing over a stone.

Messner watched Ishmael. The boy appeared to be holding his breath until the General decided on his move. More than any other negotiation Messner had ever been involved with, he found that he didn’t really care who won this one. But that wasn’t it exactly, because the governments always won. It was that he wouldn’t mind seeing these people get away, the whole lot of them. He wished they could use the tunnel the military was digging, wished they could crawl back into the air vents and down into that tunnel and go back into whatever leafy quarters they came from. Not that they had been a brilliant lot, but maybe for that very reason they didn’t deserve the punishment that would eventually catch up with them. He was sorry for them, that was all. He had never felt sorry for the captors before.

Ishmael sighed as General Benjamin took his hand off his bishop and chose the knight instead. It was a bad move. Even Ishmael could see that. He leaned back against the couch, and when he did Roxane draped one arm across his shoulder and put her other hand on the top of his head, touching his hair as absently as she did her own. But Ishmael barely felt it. He kept his eyes on the chess game, which, in six more moves, was over.

“Well, that’s enough,” General Benjamin said to no one. As soon as the game was finished the floodgate opened again and set all the pain in motion. He shook Mr. Hosokawa’s hand in the quick and formal way they did after every game. Mr. Hosokawa bowed several times and Benjamin bowed in return, a weird habit that he had picked up like someone else’s nervous tic. After all the bowing he stretched and then motioned for Ishmael to take his seat. “But only if the gentleman wishes to play again. Don’t impose yourself on him. Gen, ask Mr. Hosokawa if he would prefer to wait and play tomorrow.”

Mr. Hosokawa was glad to play with Ishmael, who was already getting comfortable in General Benjamin’s warm chair. He began to set up the board.

“What do you have for me?” the General asked Messner.

“More of the same, really.” Messner thumbed through the papers. An imperative letter from the President. An imperative letter from the Chief of Police. “They won’t give in. I have to tell you, if anything they seem less inclined now than they did before. The government isn’t so uncomfortable with the way things have been going. People are starting to become accustomed to the whole thing. They walk down the street and they don’t even stop.” He handed over the daily list of demands from the military while Gen translated. Some days they didn’t even bother to reword the counterdemands. They just made copies and changed the dates with a pencil.

“Well, they will see, we are geniuses at waiting. We can wait them out forever.” General Benjamin gave a halfhearted nod as he looked over the papers. Then he opened the little French secretary and he took out his own set of papers which Gen had typed up the night before. “You’ll give them these.”

Messner took the papers without looking at them. It would all be the same. The things they were asking for had become reckless in the last month, the release of political prisoners from other countries, men they didn’t even know, food distribution to the poor, a change in voting laws. General Hector had come up with that one after reading some of the Vice President’s legal books. Instead of curtailing their demands, getting nothing had only made them want more. As usual, they made threats, promises to start killing hostages, but threat, promise, and demand, had become a set of decorative adjectives. They meant no more than the stamps and seals the government affixed to their papers.

Mr. Hosokawa let Ishmael go first. The boy opened with his third pawn. General Benjamin sat down to watch the game.

“We should talk about this,” Messner said.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“I think,” Messner started. He was feeling a weight of responsibility. He was starting to think that if he were only a more clever man he might have talked this thing through by now. “There are things you must consider.”

“Shh,” General Benjamin said, and held his finger to his lips. He pointed to the board. “It’s starting now.”

Messner leaned against the wall, suddenly exhausted. Ishmael removed the tip of his finger from his pawn.