Ann Patchett (35 page)

Even though it was an enormous house by any
standard, there was no privacy for people living in the vice-presidential home,
not for anyone except Carmen and Gen, who met in the china closet after two
A.M.
in
order to keep their lessons a secret. Opera and cooking and games of chess were
there for public consumption. The guest room was on the same side of the house
as the study where the television nattered on hour after hour, so if one of the
young terrorists was looking for entertainment he would probably let the chess
go. The hostages, when they were allowed down the hallway based on the caprice
of whoever happened to be holding the gun at the door, were more likely to stay
for ten or fifteen minutes of a game, but in that time they were lucky if they
saw a single move. They were used to soccer. They tried to consider chess a
kind of sport, certainly it was a game, but they wanted to see something
happen. The room had the same effect on the spectators as long liturgical
services, algebra lectures, Halcion.

The two observers who managed to stay and never
fall asleep were Ishmael and Roxane. Roxane came to watch the performance of
Mr. Hosokawa, who, after all, spent so much of his time watching her, and
Ishmael stayed because eventually he wanted to play chess with General Benjamin
and Mr. Hosokawa, only he wasn’t sure if such a thing was actually allowed. All
of the younger terrorists tried to know their limits and not ask for more than
they could have. Like all children, they may have pushed on them from time to
time, but they were respectful of the Generals and they knew not to ask for too
much. They might stay too long watching television, but they never missed their
post on guard. They did not tell Messner to bring in gallons of ice cream. Only
the Generals could do that and so far they had done it only twice. They did not
fight among themselves, though the temptation to do so was overwhelming at
times. The Generals punished fighting severely, and General Hector took it upon
himself to beat the boys longer and harder than they could ever beat one
another to teach them that they had to work together. If there was a terrible
need, an argument that could only be settled one
way,
they met in the basement, took off their shirts, and were careful never to hit
each other in the face.

Some things were against the rules, rules that
were memorized and repeated in drills. Some rules (speaking respectfully to a
superior officer) stood firm. Other rules (never speaking to a hostage unless
it was to correct him) weakened and fell away. What the Generals would and
would not allow was not always clear. Silently, Ishmael memorized the
chessboard. He didn’t know the names of the pieces because no one in the room
ever spoke. He practiced in his head the most appropriate way of broaching the
subject. He considered asking Gen to ask for him. Gen had a way of making
things seem especially important. Or he could ask Gen to ask Messner, who was
the man who handled the negotiations. But Gen seemed very busy these days and
Messner, frankly, didn’t seem to be doing such a great job considering that
they were all still there. He wished most of all he could ask the Vice
President, the man whom he held in the greatest esteem and thought of as his
friend, but the Generals made a special point of ridiculing Ruben, and anything
he asked for would certainly be denied.

So if Ishmael wanted something, the only
logical person to turn to was himself, and after waiting a few more days he
found the courage to make the question. One day was just the same as the next
and so he reasoned there would never be exactly a right time or a wrong time to
ask. General Benjamin had just completed his move and Mr. Hosokawa was only in
the earliest stages of considering his next position. Roxane sat forward on the
little sofa, her elbows on her knees, her hands making a comfortable support
beneath her chin. She watched the board like something that might try and run
away. Ishmael wished he could speak to her. He wondered if she was learning how
to play as well.

“Sir,” Ishmael began, a sharp chip of ice
lodged in his throat.

General Benjamin looked up and blinked. He
hadn’t noticed the boy in the room.
Such a small boy.
He was an orphan whose uncle had enlisted him to the cause only a few months
before their attack, saying all the boys in the family were small and then came
into impressive growth spurts, but Benjamin was beginning to doubt this would
ever be true. Ishmael didn’t look like a body that was planning on doing
anything impressive. Still, he did the best he could to keep up with the others
and endure their teasing. And it was helpful to have at least one person who
was small, someone who could be hoisted up, pushed through windows. “What is
it?”

“I was wondering, sir, if you would consider.” He
stopped, collected himself, and started again. “I was wondering if there was
time later, if I might play the winner.” It occurred to him then that there was
a fifty-fifty chance that the winner might be Mr. Hosokawa, which might be an
inappropriate request.
“Or the loser.”

“You play chess?” General Benjamin asked.

Mr. Hosokawa and Roxane kept their eyes on the
board. There was a time, out of politeness, when they would have at least
looked at the person who was speaking, even if they couldn’t understand a word
of what was being said. Now they both knew a little Spanish and they didn’t
bother to look up. Mr. Hosokawa was angling for the General’s bishop. Roxane
could see what he was thinking.

“I guess I do. I’ve been watching. I think I
understand it now.”

General Benjamin laughed, but it wasn’t such an
unkind laugh. He tapped Mr. Hosokawa on the arm. Mr. Hosokawa looked up, pushed
his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and watched while General Benjamin took
one of Ishmael’s small hands beneath his own and put it on a pawn,
then
he hopped the pawn from place to place on the board. He
motioned between the three of them and that was clear enough. Mr. Hosokawa
smiled and clapped the boy on the shoulder.

“So you will play the winner,” General Benjamin
said. “Everything is agreed.”

Ishmael, feeling a great rush of luck, took up
a place at Roxane’s feet and stared at the board the way she did, like it was a
living thing. He only had half a game left to learn everything there was to
know about chess.

Gen rapped lightly on the frame of the door to
the study. Messner stood behind him. Everything about Messner’s countenance
seemed weary except for his hair, which was as bright as daylight. He still
wore a white shirt, black pants, and a black tie, and, like the hostages and
terrorists alike, his clothes showed signs of wear. He folded his arms and
watched the game. He had been on the chess team in college, rode the bus to
play against the French, the Italians. He would have liked to play now, but had
he stayed in the house for three hours he would have been expected to have
something significant to show for it when he came outside.

General Benjamin held up his hand without
looking. He was beginning to sense that his bishop was in peril.

Messner watched the direction of his eyes. He
considered telling the General that the bishop wasn’t really his problem, but
God knows Benjamin never would have listened to him. “Tell him I’ve brought
today’s papers,” he said to Gen in French. He could have said that much in
Spanish but he knew the General would only have glared at him, speaking in the
middle of the move.

“I’ll tell him.”

Roxane Coss lifted one hand and waved to
Messner but kept her eyes on the board, as did Ishmael, who felt the creeping
bile of fear churning in his esophagus. Maybe he didn’t know how to play chess
after all.

“Are you planning on springing us anytime
soon?” Roxane asked.

“No one moves,” Messner said, trying to be
light. “I’ve never seen such a stalemate.” He felt oddly jealous of Ishmael,
sitting right there by her feet. He would only have to slide his hand two
inches to brush against her ankle.

“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.”