Bel Canto(90)



“General Benjamin,” she said, leaning over so that only he could hear her. “Sir, are things all right?” Her hair fell loose from behind one ear and it brushed against his shoulder. It smelled like lemons. Roxane had washed Carmen’s hair in some of the lemon shampoo Messner had had flown in for her all the way from Italy.

The smell of lemons. He is a boy in the city, a quarter lemon clenched between his teeth as he runs to school, the bright lemon yellow of the peel showing between his open lips, the impossible tartness, the utter clarity of taste that he was addicted to. His brother, Luis, is with him, running along beside him, a little boy. He is younger than Benjamin and so he is Benjamin’s responsibility. He, too, has a lemon in his mouth and they look at one another and begin to laugh so hard they have to raise their hands to their mouths to catch the now empty rinds. The smell of lemons snaps him back. Carmen wanted something else. He was still in the living room. Why was it only now that he understood that things would end badly? It didn’t seem strange that he knew it, but that he hadn’t known it from the very start, that he hadn’t turned his troops around and run them straight back into the air vents the second it was established that President Masuda was not at the party. That mistake was almost impossible to comprehend now. It was all the fault of hope. Hope was a murderer.

“She wants to go outside?” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

“Cesar is still out there?”

“I believe so, sir.”

General Benjamin nodded his head. “The weather is good now.” He looked out the window for a long time to make sure that what he was saying to her was true. “Take them all outside. Tell Hector and Alfredo. Put some soldiers along the wall.” He looked at Carmen. If he had known anything he would have paid more attention to her. “We need some air in here, don’t you think? Get some sun on them.”

“Everyone, sir? Do you mean Miss Coss and the translator?”

“I mean all of them.” He swept a hand across the room. “Get them out of here.”

That was how it happened that on the very day after Carmen had taken Gen outside, the rest of the party was allowed to go as well. She did not want to be the one to tell the Generals Hector and Alfredo, but she did so as a direct order. She stood at the door of the study still stunned by the news. Outside. The Generals were watching soccer. They sat on the edge of the sofa, their hands gripping their knees, yelling at the television set. There was an abandoned card game half played on the table in front of them, two automatic pistols sticking out from between the cushions. When she was able to get their attention, she did not tell them that she had asked that anyone be allowed to go outside, or that Roxane Coss wished to speak to Cesar in the tree, she only said that General Benjamin had made a decision and she was instructed to inform them of that decision. She used as few words as was possible.

“Outside!” General Alfredo said. “Insanity! How are we supposed to control them outside?” He gesticulated with the hand that was short two fingers, a sight that always filled Carmen with pity.

“What is there to control?” General Hector said, stretching his arms above his head. “As if they would go anywhere now.”

It was a surprise. Hector was usually against every idea. If he had disagreed strongly they could have probably made General Benjamin change his mind, but the sun was pouring through every window and there was a staleness that had grown up around them. Why not open the doors? Why not today if every day was exactly the same? They went into the living room and the three Generals called the troops together and told them to get their guns and load them. Even after so many months of lying on couches the boys, along with Beatriz and Carmen, could still move quickly. They didn’t know why they were loading their guns, they didn’t ask. They obeyed their orders, and in doing so their eyes took on a certain coldness. General Benjamin could not help but think, If I told them to kill everyone now, they would still do it. They would do what I told them to. The idea of taking everyone outside was a good one. It would put the soldiers to work. It would remind the hostages of both his authority and his benevolence. It was time to get out of the house.

Roxane Coss had Mr. Hosokawa’s arm to lean on, but Gen was left alone to watch his lover running across the room with the soldiers, her rifle held high against her chest.

“I do not understand this,” Mr. Hosokawa whispered. He could feel Roxane trembling beside him and he pressed her hand between his own. It was as if a switch had been thrown and the people they knew were suddenly people they had never seen before.

“Can you understand what they’re saying?” Roxane whispered to Gen. “What’s happened?”

Of course he could understand what they were saying. They were shouting it, after all. Load your weapons. Prepare formations. But there was no sense in telling Roxane that. The other hostages were standing with them now. They pushed together like sheep in an open field of hard rain. Thirty-nine men and one woman, the sudden nervousness rising off of them like steam.

Then General Benjamin stepped forward and said, “Traductor!”

Mr. Hosokawa touched the translator’s arm as he stepped forward. Gen wished he was a brave man. Even though Carmen wasn’t with them now, he wished she could see him as brave.

“I have decided that everyone should go outside,” General Benjamin said. “Tell the people they are to go outside now.”

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