Flights of Love, page 20
He nodded.
“I used to want to know how a man who’s uncircumcised would feel inside me—if it would be any different, better or worse. My girlfriend said it made no difference, but I didn’t know if I should believe her. Then I told myself that I wouldn’t gain all that much with an uncircumcised man, because if it does feel some other way, that could be for any number of reasons. You can’t imagine how different particular circumcised men can feel.” She cuddled up against him. “And how good you feel!”
He nodded.
He woke up the next morning at four. He wanted to go back to sleep. But he couldn’t. Over there, at home, it was ten o’clock and broad daylight. He got up and dressed. He opened the apartment door, set his shoes and suitcase out in the hallway, and pulled the door to so gently that it barely clicked. He put on his shoes and left.
THE SON
1
THERE HAD been no civilian air service since the rebels had shelled the airport and hit an airliner. The observers arrived on an American military plane painted white with blue markings. They were received by officers and soldiers, who escorted them across the runway, down long corridors, into a large hall, and on past out-of-service moving sidewalks, closed ticket counters, and deserted shops. Advertising signs were dark, flight information boards blank. The large windows had been sandbagged to chest level, many had no glass. Slivers and sand crunched beneath the feet of the observers and their escorts.
A small bus was waiting outside the terminal. Its door was open and the observers were politely requested to board. No sooner had the last man stepped onto the bus than two jeeps pulled up in front and two trucks with soldiers moved in behind. Then the motorcade set off at high speed.
“Welcome, gentlemen.” The observers recognized the old man with white hair and a white mustache who was standing between the two front seats, clutching their backs—the president. He was legendary. He had been elected in 1969 and toppled by the military two years later. He hadn’t fled the country, but instead had stayed and been put in prison. At the end of the seventies, as a result of pressure from the Americans, he was released to house arrest; in the eighties he was permitted to work as a lawyer and by the nineties had organized the opposition. When the rebels and the military were forced into peace negotiations, they agreed to install him as president. No one doubted that the planned election would confirm him in office.
The motorcade had reached the outskirts of the capital—huts constructed of planks, sheets of plastic, and cardboard; a cemetery, its mausoleums inhabited, its gravestones providing foundations for shacks; little mud-brick houses with corrugated tin roofs. Women, men, and children walked along the roads carrying containers with water. It was obviously hot and dry. Over everything, even the asphalt road, lay a coat of sandy dust that was kicked up by the passing motorcade. After a short while dust clouded the bus’s windows. The president talked about the civil war, about terrorism and peace. “The secret of peace is exhaustion. But when is everyone finally exhausted? We’ll be happy if the majority is exhausted. But not too exhausted—they have to prevent the fighting initiated by those who want to go on fighting. ” The president offered a weary smile. “Peace is an improbable state of affairs. That is why I asked for a peacekeeping force of twenty thousand men. Instead, the twelve of you have come to observe whether the agreed-upon establishment of mixed units, the election of governors, and the reinstatement of civilian administration are properly carried out.” The president looked into the face of each of them in succession. “You have shown courage in coming here. I thank you.” He smiled again. “Do you know what our press is calling you? The twelve apostles of peace. God bless you.”
They were now in the heart of the city. It lay at the end of a valley, a couple of streets with an old cathedral, government buildings, the parliament, and courts from the nineteenth century, plus modern office and retail buildings, and apartment houses. The president took his leave. The bus drove on. Halfway up the mountain it halted at the entrance to the Hilton. The side of the hotel facing the mountain revealed bullet holes and boarded-up windows. Sandbags had been used to reinforce positions in the park.
The manager greeted them in person. He apologized for the less than perfect arrangements and service. The military had given the hotel back only a few days before. In any case the rooms were in perfect condition again. “And throw open your balcony doors. The nights are cool and heavy with the scent of flowers in our garden, and the mosquitoes stay down by the coast. You won’t miss the air-conditioning, which still isn’t running.”
2
DINNER WAS served on the terrace. The observers sat at six tables, corresponding to the country’s six provinces. Each of the two observers assigned to a province was joined by an officer of that province’s military and a comandante of its rebels. Just as the hotel manager had promised, the temperature was pleasant, the garden fragrant. Now and then a moth burned up in a candle flame.
The German observer, a professor of international law, had stepped in for someone else at the last minute. He had already worked for various international organizations, had sat on committees, written reports, and drafted treaties. But he had never agreed to be placed in a trouble spot. Why had he always dodged such assignments? Because as an observer one enjoys neither influence nor prestige? Then why had he insisted on it this time? Because he had felt like a charlatan who had never faced the realities he managed from a desk? Maybe, he thought, maybe that was it. He was the oldest of the observers and weary from flights over the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, and from an argument with his girlfriend in New York that had lasted all night between flights.
His partner was a Canadian, an engineer and businessman who had become involved in a human rights organization once his business was able to run without him. When the officer and the comandante , with whom they would set out for the more northern of the two coastal provinces the next day, proved uninterested in stories about his previous assignments as an observer, the Canadian pulled out his wallet and spread photographs of his wife and four children on the table. “Do you have a family?”
The officer and the comandante looked at each other in embarrassed surprise and hesitated. But then each reached into his jacket for his wallet. The officer carried his wedding picture with him—he in black dress uniform with white gloves and his wife in a white dress with a veil and train, both looking very serious and sad. He also had a picture of his children; they were sitting side by side on two chairs, his daughter in tulle and lace, his son in a camouflage uniform, both too small yet for their feet to reach the floor and both with that same, serious, sad look in their eyes. “What a beautiful woman!” Clicking his tongue, the Canadian expressed his admiration for the bride, a girl with black eyes, red lips, and full cheeks. The officer quickly put the picture away, as if he wanted to protect his family from such admiration. The Canadian examined the portrait of the comandante’s wife, a smiling student in her graduation robe and cap, and said, “Oh, what a beauty your wife is too!” The comandante laid a second photograph on the table, of himself and two little boys, one on each hand, beside a grave. The German saw the officer’s eyes narrow and his cheeks grow taut. But the comandante’s wife had not been killed by soldiers, she had died giving birth to her third child.
Then everyone’s eyes were directed at the German. He shrugged. “I’m divorced, and my son is grown.” But he knew he could have had a photograph with him all the same. Even earlier, when his son was still small, he hadn’t carried one. Why? Would it have reminded him, perhaps, that he was not much of a father to his son, who had been five at the time of the divorce and been raised by his mother, so that he saw him only seldom?
Their meal arrived. The first course was quickly followed by a second, third, and fourth, and there was red wine from the coast. The comandante ate and drank with concentration, head and chest bent over his plate. After each course he took a piece of bread, wiped his plate clean with it, popped it in his mouth, and sat up straight, as if about to say something, but then said not a word. Although he was scarcely any older than the officer, he seemed to come from a different generation, a generation of slow, ponderous, taciturn men who have seen everything. Sometimes his eyes would measure the others— the Canadian, who talked about his wife and children; the officer, who stuck out both pinkies when using his knife and fork and asked polite questions; and the German, who was too tired to eat and leaned back, his eyes meeting the comandante’s.
I should talk, the German thought, and polish up my rusty Spanish. But nothing occurred to him. True, pulling out photographs to show had not made buddies of these husbands and fathers, but he felt as if they belonged together and shared in a right to this world that he did not have.
While they were eating dessert, they heard shots, the rattle of submachine-gun fire. Conversations broke off, everyone listened into the night. The German thought he saw the officer and the comandante exchange glances and shake their heads.
“That was one of yours,” the Canadian said, looking at the comandante. “That was a Kalashnikov.”
“You have good ears.”
“It would be good if all the Kalashnikovs were in their hands,” the officer said, nodding his head in the comandante’s direction.
They could hear the same hum that had risen from the valley all evening—the soft hum of power stations, of air conditioners in the office, retail, and apartment high-rises, of traffic, of workshops and restaurants. And of breathing. The German thought of people in their sleep, of lovers and of the dying—it was a pleasant thought.
3
AS ALWAYS after a transatlantic flight, he woke up at four. He stepped out on the balcony. The city lay dark in the valley. The fragrance of flowers wafted from the garden. The air was mild. He opened up his chaise longue and stretched out. He couldn’t recall ever having seen so many stars. A light was moving; he followed it with his eyes, lost it, found it again, lost and found it once more, and stayed with it to the horizon.
It grew light around five. All at once the sky was gray instead of black, the stars vanished, and the few lights left in the city and on the hills went out. In the same moment birds began singing, all together, a loud dissonant concert, interrupted sometimes by the fragment of a melody like some secret greeting. Was that why the music of different cultures sounded different? Because the birds had different songs?
He went back into the room. Breakfast was to be at six, and they were scheduled to leave at seven. He showered and dressed. In his carry-on he found a tie he didn’t recognize. His girlfriend must have slipped it in between his suits after they had argued. Should she join him in Germany or should he join her in New York, should they try to have children, shouldn’t he try not to work so hard—it was a riddle to him how they could have spent the whole night talking about such things. An even greater riddle was how after the argument, which had ended in bitterness and near exhaustion, his girlfriend could have packed a tie for him as if nothing had happened.
He picked up the phone without any hope that it would be functioning. But it was, and he called the hospital where his son had begun working as a doctor only a few weeks earlier. As he waited for his son to come to the telephone, the hum on the line reminded him of the hum from the city.
“What’s wrong?” His son was out of breath.
“Nothing. I just wanted to ask . . .” He wanted to ask him if he could fax him a photograph of himself, since if the phone was working the fax would be too. But he didn’t dare.
“What is it, Papa? I’m on duty and need to get back to my station. Where are you calling from?”
“From America.” He hadn’t spoken with his son for weeks. There was a time when he had called his son every Sunday. But their conversations had been labored, and so one day he let it slide.
“Let me know when you get back.”
“I love you, my boy.” He had never said that before. Whenever he heard how easy it was for fathers or mothers to say it to their sons and daughters in American films, he would resolve to say it to his son. But he had always felt too embarrassed.
His son was embarrassed now too. “I—I—I also wish you all the best, Papa. See you soon.”
Later he asked himself if he should have found more words. Should have said that he had always wanted to tell him that he loved him. Or that being so far away from his usual surroundings had made him think of what was important, and that when he did . . . But that wouldn’t have made it any better.
They rode in four jeeps, the officer in the lead, then the Canadian, then the German, and the comandante at the rear. They each sat in the back seat, up front were the driver and another soldier. The Canadian and the German would have liked to ride together. But the officer and the comandante wouldn’t allow it. “No, ingeniero,” they said to the Canadian, and “No, profesor,” to the German. If there were any mines along the road through the mountains, they didn’t want two observers blown up in one jeep.
They took off at breakneck speed. It was chilly, the jeep was open, the wind whistled, the German froze. After a while the asphalt gave out and they moved more slowly over gravel, dirt, and potholes, but still fast enough that he was tossed back and forth no matter how tight he held on. But that warmed him up.
The road wound its way up into the mountains. They were to rest at the pass at noon, put up for the night in a monastery halfway down into the valley, and arrive at the provincial capital by afternoon the next day.
“Can you tell me why they didn’t take us over these stupid mountains in a helicopter?” The second jeep had blown a tire, and while the driver changed it the Canadian offered the German whiskey from a thin silver flask.
“Maybe it’s a matter of protocol? In a helicopter we’d be in the hands of the military, but this way we’re in the hands of both the rebels and the soldiers.”
“They’d rather risk us being blown up than agree on protocol?” The Canadian shook his head and took another swig. “I think I’ll ask.”
But he let it be. The officer and the comandante were standing off to one side and talking excitedly. Then the comandante returned to his jeep, took the wheel, gunned past the other vehicles, sending up a spray of grass and soil from the embankment and forcing the Canadian and the German to leap out of the way, and stopped in the middle of the road in front of the officer’s jeep. The Canadian handed the German his flask again without a word. “I’ve got more in my baggage.”
4
THE HIGHER they went the slower their progress. The road got narrower, and worse. It had been hewn into crumbling rock that rose steeply on one side and fell steeply into the valley on the other. Sometimes they had to move a fallen boulder or fill a washout with stones and branches or secure the jeep behind with a rope whenever gravel had slid out from under the one ahead. The air was warm and damp, and steam was rising from the valley.
It was getting dark by the time they reached the pass. The comandante stopped. “We can’t go any farther today.”
The officer joined him. They exchanged low words that the German couldn’t make out, until the officer shouted, “Climb out! We’ll drive on again tomorrow.”
To the left of the road was a large open square, at the far end of which was a little church and a view to the faraway mountain chain turning gray in the dusk and wrapped in fog. The church was a burned-out shell. The frames of what had been doors and windows were blackened with soot, and the roof timbers were charred. But the tower had been left untouched—a squat cube, topped by a slender but likewise squared-off belfry that ended in a rounded crown with a large cross. As darkness swallowed the traces of fire, the church’s silhouette loomed black and intact against the gray sky. It could almost have been a church in Bavaria or the lower Alps of Austria.
The scene came back to the German. It might have been twenty years before. He had been spending a two-week vacation with his son on a lake south of Munich. One evening at the beginning of the second week they had walked as they did every evening to the church at the far end of the village. It was on a little hill, with an open square leading from it down to the village; behind it meadows rose up to hills and mountains and finally the distant Alps. They were sitting on a stone bench in the square. It was autumn and already chilly, but the warmth of the day lingered in the stone. A convertible stopped at the edge of the square, and his ex-wife and her new young boyfriend got out, came over, and stood in front of the bench—his wife in a white dress with a gold belt, coquettish and self-conscious at the same time, her boyfriend in black leather pants and an open white shirt, standing with his feet well apart.
“Hello, Mama.” The boy was the first to speak, sliding forward on the bench as if he were about to jump up and run, but he stayed seated.
“Hello.”
Then her friend started talking. He insisted that they were taking the boy with them. The court had granted the boy’s father just one week of fall vacation, the other belonged to his mother.
That was true, but they had agreed between them to do things differently this fall. His wife knew that, but said nothing. She was afraid. She was afraid of losing her boyfriend, although she realized how pompous he was and how pompously he was going on about how the boy belonged with his mother and with him, the man who now stood at her side. The boy’s father saw her fear and, behind his pomposity, the fear of her boyfriend, who was aware of his inferiority when it came to achievements and a place in the world, leaving him unable to enjoy the advantage of being younger. He saw the fear in his son, who was acting as if all this had nothing to do with him.
The other man talked himself into a fury, shouting about kidnapping, a trial, and prison and barking at the boy to get into the car. His son shrugged, stood up, and waited. His father saw the question in his eyes and the demand that he fight and win—and then the disappointment that he was giving in. He could have yelled at the other man, punched him out, or run away with his son. Anything would have been better than to go along, to add a shrug of his own, and nod to his son with a smile of regret and encouragement.
