"If you get seasick, just remember he killed a lot of innocent human beings," Kurtz advised her. "Everybody has a human face and this boy is no exception. A lot of good looks, lot of talent, a lot of unused capacity--all wasted. That's never very nice at all to see. Once we get in there, I don't want you speaking. Remember that. Leave all the speaking to me." He opened the door for them. "You'll find him docile. We had to have him docile while we shipped him and we have to keep him that way while he's here with us. Otherwise he's in good shape. No problems. Just don't speak to him."
Trendy split-level duplex gone to seed, she recorded automatically, noting the tasteful open-tread staircase, the rustic minstrel gallery and the hand crafted iron balustrade. One English-style fireplace with mock coals in painted canvas. Photographic lamps in evidence, supported by impressive cameras on tripods. One family-size tape-recorder on its own legs, one gracious Marbella-style curved sofa, foam rubber and harder than iron. She sat on it and Joseph sat beside her. We should hold hands, she thought. Kurtz had picked up a grey telephone and was pressing the extension button. He said something in Hebrew, looking up at the gallery as he spoke. He put the phone down, smiled at her reassuringly. She smelt male bodies, dust, coffee, and liver sausage. And about a million dead cigarettes. She recognised another smell but couldn't identify it because there were too many possibilities in her mind, from the harness of her first pony to the sweat of her first lover.
Her mind changed pace and she nearly fell asleep. I'm ill, she thought. I'm waiting for the results of the tests. Doctor, Doctor, give it to me straight. She noticed a stack of waiting-room magazines and wished she could have one on her lap as a prop. Now Joseph was looking up at the gallery too. Charlie followed his gaze, but not till a little afterwards, because she wanted to give herself the impression that she had done this so often she barely needed to look at all, she was a buyer at a fashion show. The door on the balcony opened on a bearded boy, backing into the room with a stage-hand's lopsided waddle, and contriving to convey anger, even from behind.
For a moment came nothing, then a kind of low scarlet bundle appeared, and after it a clean-shaven boy followed, looking not so much angry as resolutely pious.
Finally she got it straight. It was three boys, not two, but the middle one was sagging between them in his red blazer: the slender Arab boy, her lover, her collapsed puppet from the theatre of the real.
Yes, she thought, from deep inside her sunglasses, perfectly reasonably. Yes--well, not a bad likeness at all given the few years' age difference, and Joseph's indefinable maturity. Sometimes, in her fantasies, she had used Joseph's features, letting him understudy for the lover of her dreams. At other times a different figure had evolved, built upon her imperfect memory of the masked Palestinian at the forum, and she was impressed by how close he now came to the reality. You don't think the mouth a touch too long at the corners? she asked herself. Not overdoing the sensuality a mite! The nostrils too flared? Too much nip at the waist? She thought of getting up and rushing to protect him, but on stage one doesn't, not unless it's in the script. And besides, she'd never have broken free of Joseph.
For a second, all the same, she nearly lost her hold on herself. For that second, she was everything that Joseph said she was--she was Michel's saviour and liberator, his Saint Joan, his body-slave, his star. She had acted her heart out for him, she had dined with him in a lousy candlelit motel, she had shared his bed and joined his revolution and worn his bracelet and drunk his vodka and torn his body to pieces and had him tear her own to pieces in return. She had driven his Mercedes for him and kissed his gun and carried his best-quality Russian TNT to the beleaguered armies of freedom. She had celebrated the victory with him in a riverside hotel in Salzburg. She had danced with him on the Acropolis by night and had the whole world revived for her; and she was filled with an insane guilt that she had ever contemplated any other love.
He was so beautiful--as beautiful as Joseph had promised. He was more beautiful. He had the absolute attraction that Charlie and her kind acknowledge with rueful inevitability: he was of that monarchy and knew it. He was slight but perfect, with well-formed shoulders and very slender hips. He had a pugilist's brow and a Pan-child's face, crowned with a cap of flat black hair. Nothing they had done to tame him could conceal from her the rich passion of his nature, or extinguish the light of rebellion in his coal-dark eyes.
He was so trivial--a little peasant boy fallen out of an olive tree, with a repertoire of learned phrases and a magpie eye for pretty toys, pretty ladies, and pretty cars. And a peasant's indignation against those who drove him from his farm. Come into my bed, you little baby, and let Mummy teach you some of life's long words.
They were supporting him under the arms, and as he flopped down the wood stairs his Gucci shoes kept missing their mark, which seemed to embarrass him, for a flickering smile came over him and he gazed shamefully at his errant feet.
They were bringing him towards her and she wasn't sure she could stand it. She turned to Joseph to tell him so, and saw his eyes looking straight at her and heard him say something, but in the same moment the family-size tape-recorder started speaking very loud and as she swung round, there was dear Marty in his cardigan stooped over the deck, twiddling the knobs to get the volume down.
The voice was soft and heavily accented exactly as she remembered it from the forum. The words were slogans of defiance read with uncertain zest.
"We are the colonised! We speak for the native against the settled!... We speak for the mute, we feed the blind mouths and encourage the mute ears!... We, the animals with patient hooves, have finally lost our patience!... We live by the law that is born each day under fire!... The entire world except us has something to lose!... We will fight anyone who appoints himself the caretaker of our land!"
The boys had arranged him on the sofa, across the horseshoe from her. His balance was not at all good. He was leaning forward with a heavy list, using his forearms to shore himself up. His hands lay on top of each other as if chained, but only by the gold bangle they had put on him to get his costume right for the show. The bearded boy stood sulking behind him, his clean-shaven companion sat devoutly at his side, and as his recorded voice continued triumphant in the background, she saw Michel's lips slowly moving, trying to catch up with the words. But the voice was too fast for its owner, too strong. Gradually he gave up trying and instead pulled a silly grin of apology, reminding her of her father after his stroke.
"Acts of violence are not criminal... when carried out in opposition to force used by a state... deemed criminal by the terrorist."A rustle of paper as he turned to a new page. The voice grew puzzled and unwilling. "/love you... you are my freedom.... Now you are one of us.... Our bodies and our blood are mixed... you are mine... my soldier... please, why do I say this? Together we shall put the match to the fuse." A puzzled silence."Please, sir. What is this, please? I ask you."
"Show her his hands," Kurtz ordered when he had switched off the machine.
Picking up one of Michel's hands, the clean-shaven boy swiftly unfolded it, offering it to her like a trade sample.