Bel Canto(95)

“Pastel,” Gen said, his voice unsteady.

Perhaps she was trained in ways she didn’t understand, like a police dog, and cake was the word that released her, because as soon as he said it she fell on him, book and pencil skittering across the floor. She ate off of him, huge, devouring gulps, pressed her tongue against his tongue, rolled against the lower cupboards where soup bowls were stacked, one nestled perfectly inside the other.

They did not go back to work that night.

So the next night they agreed: an hour of studying before giving in. They applied themselves with great seriousness. But in fact that plan was three minutes less successful than the one they’d had the night before. They were hopeless, starving, reckless, and everything they did, they did again.

They experimented with shorter lengths of time but in every attempt they were unsuccessful until Gen came up with the following plan: they would make love immediately, the second they had securely closed the door behind them, and then after that they would study, and it was this plan that was by far the most successful. Sometimes they fell asleep for a while, Carmen curled against Gen’s chest, Gen inside the crook of Carmen’s arm. Like soldiers shot in battle, they lay where they fell. Other times they had to make love again, the first time forgotten as soon as it was finished, but for the most part they managed to get some work done. Before it was anywhere near getting light they would kiss good night and Carmen would go back to sleep in the hallway in front of Roxane’s door and Gen would go back to the floor next to Mr. Hosokawa’s couch. Sometimes they detected the slightest sound of his movement as he came down the stairs. Sometimes Carmen passed him in the hall.

Did the others know? Possibly, but they wouldn’t have said anything. They suspected only Roxane Coss and Mr. Hosokawa, who did not hesitate to hold hands or exchange a brief kiss during the day. If anyone suspected Gen and Carmen of anything it was only that perhaps they helped the first couple in their meetings. Roxane Coss and Mr. Hosokawa, however improbable to those around them, were members of the same tribe, the tribe of the hostages. So many people were in love with her that of course, it was only natural that she should fall in love with one of them. But Gen and Carmen were another matter. Even if the Generals relied on Gen’s translations and polished secretarial skills, even if they found him extremely bright and pleasant enough, they never forgot who he was. And even though the hostages had a soft spot for Carmen, the way she kept her eyes down, her unwillingness to point her gun at anyone directly, when there was any call from the Generals, she went and stood with them.

Recently life had improved for all the hostages, not just those who were in love. Once the front door had been opened, it opened regularly. Every day they went outside and stood in the hot sun. Lothar Falken encouraged other men to take up running. He led them through a series of exercises every day and then they went in a pack around and around the house. The soldiers played soccer with a ball they had found in the basement and some days there was an actual game, the terrorists against the hostages, though the terrorists were so much younger and trained into better shape that they almost always won.

When Messner came now he often found everyone in the yard. The priest got up from his digging and waved.

“How is the world?” Father Arguedas said to him.

“Impatient,” Messner said. His Spanish kept improving, but still he asked for Gen.

Father Arguedas pointed to the sprawled-out figure beneath a tree. “Sleeping. It is a terrible thing the way they work him so hard. And you. They work you too hard as well. If you don’t mind my saying, you look tired.”

It was true that recently Messner had lost the sangfroid that everyone had found so reassuring in the beginning. He had aged ten years in the four and a half months they had been living here, and while everyone else seemed to mind it less and less, Messner clearly minded it more. “All this sunlight is no good for me,” Messner said. “All Swiss citizens were meant to live in the shade.”

“It’s very warm,” the priest said. “But the plants do wonderfully, rain, sun, drought, there’s no holding them back.”

“I won’t keep you from your work.” Messner patted the priest on the shoulder, remembering how they had tried several times to let him go and how the priest would have none of it. He wondered if, in the end, Father Arguedas would be sorry to have stayed. Probably not. Regret didn’t seem to be in his nature the way it was in Messner’s.

Paco and Ranato ran up from the side lawn, which they now called the playing field, and made an extremely halfhearted effort to frisk him that consisted of nothing more than a few brisk slaps near his pockets. Then they ran back to join the game, which had been stopped for this purpose.

“Gen,” Messner said, and tapped the sleeping body on the shoulder with the toe of his shoe. “For God’s sake, get up.”

Gen was sleeping the sleep of the heavily drugged. His mouth was open and slack and his arms flung straight out to the side. A small, rippling snore came up from his throat.

“Hey, translator.” He leaned over and picked up one of Gen’s eyelids between his thumb and forefinger. Gen shook him off and opened his eyes slowly.

“You speak Spanish,” Gen said thickly. “You have from the beginning. Now leave me alone.” He rolled over on his side and pulled his knees up to his chest.

“I don’t speak Spanish. I don’t speak anything. Get up.” Messner thought he felt a shaking in the earth. Surely Gen must feel it, lying with his cheek pressed down to the grass. Was it his imagination that the earth might actually cave in beneath them? How much did these engineers know? Who’s to say that the ground wouldn’t swallow them up, opera diva and common criminal in the same fatal bite. Messner got down on his knees. He pressed his palms to the grass and when he had decided that he was only experiencing a temporary madness, he shook Gen again. “Listen to me,” he said in French. “We have to talk them into surrendering. Today. This can’t go on. Do you understand me?”