Authors: Bel Canto
“You can always go back to the jungle with
them,” Roxane said, looking over her shoulder at the Generals, who spent their
free time watching her. “They seem to want to give you a job.”
“I would never give him up,” Mr. Hosokawa said.
“Sometimes,” Roxane said, touching Mr.
Hosokawa’s wrist for just a second, “these matters are out of our control.”
Mr. Hosokawa smiled at her. He was reeling with
the naturalness of their discourse, the sudden ease with which they passed the
time. Imagine if it hadn’t been Kato who played the piano! It could have been
one of the Greeks or a Russian. Then he would have been locked out again,
listening to English translated to Greek and Greek into English, knowing that
Gen,
his
translator, would not have the time to then
repeat every sentence in Japanese. Kato said he would like some Fauré if it
wouldn’t be too much trouble, and Roxane laughed and said that nothing could be
trouble at this point. Wonderful Kato! He scarcely seemed to notice her. It was
the piano he couldn’t take his eyes off. He had always been a tireless worker
and now he was the hero of the day. There would be a healthy raise when all of
this was over.
Messner came in as usual at eleven in the
morning. Two of the young soldiers patted him down at the door. They made him
take off his shoes and they peered inside them, looking for tiny weapons. They
patted his legs and frisked beneath his arms. It was a ridiculous habit that
had grown not out of suspicion but out of boredom. The Generals struggled to
keep their soldiers in the mind-set of battle. More and more the teenagers
sprawled on the leather sofa in the Vice President’s den and watched
television. They took long showers and trimmed each other’s hair with a pair of
elegant silver scissors they found in the desk. And so the Generals doubled the
night watch and guard duty. They made their soldiers patrol the house in pairs
and sent two more outside to walk along the edge of the yard in the drizzling
rain. When they went, they carried their rifles loaded and held them up as if
they were looking to shoot a rabbit.
Messner submitted to this drill with patience. He
opened his briefcase and slipped off his shoes. He held his arms out straight
to either side and moved his sock feet wide apart so that the strange little
hands could rummage around his body as they saw fit. Once, one of them tickled
him on the ribs and Messner brought his arm down sharply.
“¡Basta!”
he said. He had never seen such an unprofessional group of terrorists. It was a
complete and utter mystery to him how they had ever managed to overtake the
house.
General Benjamin swatted Ranato, the boy who
had tickled Messner, and took his gun away from him. All he had hoped for was
some semblance of military order. “There is no call for that,” he said sharply.
Messner sat down in a chair and retied his
shoes. He was irritated with the whole lot of them. By now this trip should be
forgotten, the snapshots developed, shared, and placed into an album. He should
be back in his overpriced apartment in
collected. He should be taking a packet of mail from the cool hands of his
secretary in the morning. Instead he went to work, inquiring how the group was
doing. He had been practicing his Spanish, and even though he kept Gen close
by, for a sense of security as much as a backup for his vocabulary, he was able
to conduct much of the informal conversation on his own.
“We are growing tired of this,” the General
said, and ran his hands back over his head. “We want to know why your people
cannot find resolution. Must we start killing hostages to get your attention?”
“Well, first off, they are not
my
people.” Messner pulled the laces tight. “Nor is it
my
attention you should be trying for. Don’t kill anyone
for my benefit. You have my complete attention. I should have gone home a week
ago.”
“We all should have gone home a week ago,”
General Benjamin sighed. “But we have to see our brothers released.” For
General Benjamin, of course, this meant both his philosophical comrades and his
literal brother, Luis. Luis, who had committed the crime of distributing flyers
for a political protest and was now buried alive in a high-altitude prison. Before
his brother’s arrest, Benjamin had not been a general at all. He had taught
grade school. He had lived in the south of the country near the ocean. He had
never had a moment’s trouble with his nerves.
“That is the issue,” Messner said, looking over
the room, doing a quick tally of all present.
“And is there progress?”
“Nothing I’ve heard of today.” He reached into
his case and took out a sheaf of papers. “I have these for you.
Their demands.
If there’s anything new you want me to
request—”
“Señorita Coss,” General Benjamin said,
hitching his thumb in her direction. “There’s something she wants.”
“Ah, yes.”
“There is always something for Señorita Coss,”
the General said. “Kidnapping women is a different business entirely from the
kidnapping of men. I hadn’t thought of it before.
For our
people, freedom.
For her, something else, dresses possibly.”
“I’ll see about it,” Messner said, and tipped
his head, but he didn’t get up to leave right away. “Is there anything I can
get for you?” He indicated nothing directly but he was wondering about the
shingles, which every day seemed to cast their coarse red net another
millimeter across the General’s face and would soon be dipping their fingers
into the cool water of his left eye.
“There is nothing I require.”
Messner nodded and excused himself. He
preferred Benjamin to the other two. He found him to be a reasonable man,
possibly even intelligent. Still, he worked hard to prevent any feeling of real
fondness for him, for any of them, captors or hostages. Fondness often
prevented one from doing the most effective job. Besides, Messner knew how
these stories usually ended. It seemed better to avoid much personal
involvement.
But no sensible rules applied to Roxane Coss. Most
days there was something she wanted, and while the Generals could care less
about the requests of the other hostages they were quick to give in to her. Every
time she asked for something, Messner would feel his heart quicken slightly, as
if it was him she wanted to see. One day it was dental floss, one day a
muffler,
then
some herbal throat lozenges that Messner
was proud to note came from
Other hostages had gotten into the habit of asking Roxane when there was
something that they needed.
When she asked for men’s socks or
sailing magazines, she never blinked.
“Have you heard the good news?” Roxane said.
“There’s good news now?” Messner tried to be
rational. He tried to understand what it was about her. Standing next to her,
he could look down on the place where her hair parted. She was just like the
rest of them, wasn’t she?
Except, perhaps, for the color of
her eyes.
“Mr. Kato plays the piano.”
At the mention of his name, Kato stood up from
the piano bench and bowed to Messner. They had not been introduced before. All
of the hostages greatly admired Messner, both for his calm demeanor and his
seemingly magic ability to go in and out of the front door at will.
“At least I’m going to be able to practice
again,” Roxane said. “On the off chance that we ever get out of here, I still
want to be able to sing.”
Messner said he hoped he would have an
opportunity to hear the rehearsals. For a brief, disquieting moment Messner
felt something that was not unlike jealousy. The hostages were there all the
time, so if she decided to sing first thing in the morning or in the middle of
the night, they would be able to hear her. He had bought himself a portable CD
player and as much of her music as he could find. At night he lay in his
two-star hotel room paid for by the International Red Cross and listened to her
sing
Norma
and
.
He
the spidery cracks in the ceiling and they would all be there in the grand
living room of the vice-presidential estate while she sang “Casta Diva.”
Enough, Messner said to himself.
“I’ve always had closed rehearsals,” Roxane
said. “I don’t believe that anyone is entitled to hear my mistakes. But I doubt
there would be much point in trying to arrange that here. I can hardly march
them all up to the attic.”
“They could hear you in the attic.”
“I’d make them stuff cotton in their ears.” Roxane
laughed at this and Messner was moved. Everything in the house seemed more
tolerable since this new accompanist had stepped forward.
“So what can I do for you?” If Gen had been
turned into a secretary, then Messner had become the errand boy. In
was a member of an elite arbitration team. At forty-two he had had a very
successful career with the Red Cross. He had not packed a box of food supplies
or driven blankets to a flood sight in almost twenty years. Now he was scouring
the city for orange-flavored chocolate and calling a friend in
came in a small black tub.
“I need music,” she said, and handed over her
list. “Call my manager and tell him to send this overnight. Tell him to fly it
down himself if he thinks there could be any problem. I want this by tomorrow.”
“You might have to be a little more reasonable
than tomorrow,” Messner said. “It’s already dark in
Messner and Roxane spoke in English, with Gen
discreetly translating their private conversation into Japanese. Father
Arguedas sidled up to the piano, not wanting to interfere but wanting very much
to know what was being said.
“Gen,” he whispered. “What does she need?”
“Sheet music,” Gen said, and then remembered
the question had been asked in Spanish.
“Partitura.”
“Does Messner know who to speak to? Does he
know where to go?”
Gen liked the priest and didn’t mean to be
annoyed but Mr. Hosokawa and Kato clearly meant to follow what was being said
in Japanese and he was falling behind on the conversation taking place in
English. “They’ll contact her people in
Father Arguedas and returned to the work at hand.
The priest tugged at Gen’s sleeve. Gen held up
his hand to ask him to wait.
“But I know where the music is,” the priest
persisted. “Not two miles from here. There is a man that I know, a music
teacher, a deacon in our parish. He loans me records. He has all the music you
would need.” His voice was becoming loud. Father Arguedas, who had devoted his
life to doing good works, was nearly frantic for the want of some good works to
do. He helped Ruben with the laundry and in the morning he folded all the
blankets and stacked them with the pillows in neat rows against the wall, but
he longed to provide assistance and guidance of a more profound nature. He
couldn’t help but feel he stayed just on the edge of bothering people rather
than comforting them, when all that he wanted, the only thing that mattered,
was to be helpful.
“What is it he’s saying?” Roxane asked.
“What are you saying?” Gen asked the priest.
“The music is here. You could call. Manuel would
bring it over, anything you need. If there was something he didn’t have, and I
can’t imagine it, he would find it for you. All you need to say is that it is
for Señorita Coss. You wouldn’t even have to say that. He is a Christian man. If
you tell him you need it for any reason, I promise he will help you.” Her eyes
were dazzling in their agitation. His hands leapt in front of his chest as if
he was trying to offer up his own heart.
“He would have Bellini?” Roxane asked after
listening to the translation. “I need songs. I need to have entire opera
scores, Rossini, Verdi,
Mozart
.” She leaned towards
the priest and asked for the impossible straight on. “
“
Les Contes d’Hoffmann
!”
The
priest’s pronunciation of the French was discernible if not good. He had only
seen it written out on the record.
“He would have that?” she said to Gen.
Gen repeated the question and the priest
replied, “I have seen his scores. Call him, the name is Manuel. I would be most
grateful to place the call if I were allowed.”
Because General Benjamin was locked in a room
upstairs holding a heating pad to his inflamed face and could not be disturbed,
Messner made the request to the Generals Hector and Alfredo, who granted it
with bored indifference.
“For Señorita Coss,” Messner explained.
General Hector nodded and waved him away
without looking. When Messner was almost out of the room, General Alfredo
barked, “Only one call!” thinking they hadn’t shown proper authority by
agreeing so quickly. They were in the den, watching the President’s favorite
soap opera. The heroine, Maria, was telling her lover she did not love him
anymore in hopes that he would leave town in desperation and thus be protected
from his own brother, who, in his love for Maria, sought to murder him. Messner
stood in the doorway for a moment to watch the girl on television cry. So
completely convincing was her grief that it was difficult for him to turn away.