A Dangerous Friend Page 4

  He signaled the barman for a fresh drink.

  Impossible to wind back the film. Not his, not Karla's. Nor Rosa's. If only Karla were different, he thought. She had no faith in the future.

  In the beginning they never talked politics or worried about the fate of nations. When they met she was a struggling musician, trading as much on her looks as on her talent, which she had in modest abundance along with so many other young cellists. He saw her at an evening concert at one of the downtown churches. He was seated in a side gallery at the front, the musicians almost close enough to touch. The three cellists sat on low stools behind metal music stands, two middle-aged men in tuxedos and Karla in black trousers and a black turtleneck sweater with a long white silk scarf, the ends of it reaching to the small of her back. She had a wide forehead, her face divided by sharp planes, without doubt a central European, foreign born. Her hair was so blond it was nearly white and cut short with little reverse commas where it touched her shoulders. When she leaned forward to arrange her score, her hair swayed with the movement of her fingers, the whiteness of her skin and hair brilliant in the glum light of the church. She wore high-heeled back leather boots and handled her cello as if it were featherweight. Her instrument was of a richer, darker wood than those of the men. They were cracking jokes in muffled voices, leaning back casually on their stools as she bent forward; but they were looking at her provocative bottom, as purely defined as if she were nude. Sydney could not see the expression on her face but he thought she was smiling.

  And then they began to play, gathering the instruments between their thighs. Karla's right boot was planted on the floor, her left hooked on the first rung of the stool. Her legs formed a figure 4 and he thought her graceful as a dancer, disappearing into her music as a dancer disappeared into the dance. When the cellos were silent she wound her arms around the cello's neck, resting her fingers on the purfling. When she turned her head sideways, Sydney noticed no emotion in her face; and when things got off track in the fifth movement she neither frowned nor sighed, only stared at the score, ignoring the raised eyebrows of the musician on her right and the administrative yawn of the one on her left. The conductor seemed momentarily to lose his way, though he never looked at the score. The cellos came in again and she bent to her task, the fingers of her left hand throbbing when she touched the heavy strings, the sound dense as the earth.

  They were playing Brahms's grief-stricken German Requiem, the requiem in which, if you listen hard enough, you can hear the anxious souls beseeching God, struggling to enter the gates of heaven.

  The applause was prolonged and when the orchestra was asked to rise and she slipped wearily off her stool, Sydney noticed that her sweater clung to her skin and her face glistened with perspiration, even though it was damp and chilly in the church. When she moved to pick up her cello she faltered, shivering. Now it had the weight of an anvil. She looked around but her colleagues were already gone. Sydney stepped forward to hand her his coat, which she accepted with a distracted nod of thanks, and then she disappeared into the dark space behind the altar where the other musicians were. The audience began to disperse. He waited for fifteen minutes but she did not reappear. The others said she had gone home. Karla always left at once when the concert ended. No, they did not know where she lived. Her address was never to be given out.

  The next day she telephoned.

  I seem to have your coat, she said.

  How did you find me?

  A letter in the pocket. Who's Babs?

  My sister, he said.

  Hmmm, she said, and laughed.

  Well, he amended. She's someone's sister.

  She signed it ex-ex-ex oh-oh-oh. What does that mean?

  Hugs and kisses, he said.

  She laughed again. She said, You were sweet to give me your coat. I'm afraid I forgot I borrowed it. At the end of these things, I'm out of it. I'm kaput. I don't know where I am. The church was so close, like a sauna. And the orchestra did not play well. The horns were out of sync. The baritone's voice was small.

  The fifth movement, he said.

  And the fourth and part of the third.

  I didn't hear anything wrong, he said.

  I did. Probably it was something only a musician would heat, things sort of collapsed. The tempi went haywire. Our conductor is very old and deaf in one ear, though he denies it up and down. But in the final movements he loses energy and then he loses his concentration. And last month he lost his wife. The requiem was for her. Did you notice, he had tears in his eyes the whole way through? I think he was pleased with the performance, on the whole. He said he was, and I suppose he wouldn't lie. He almost never does. Are you a musician?

  Amateur, he said. Jazz trombone. Weekends I sit in with a band at a bar around the corner from my office.

  Where's that? she asked.

  Sixth Avenue, downtown. I work for a foundation.

  Foundation? she said, as if she had never heard the word. What does a foundation do?

  Gives money away, he said.

  To anybody?

  Irrespective of size, sex, race, or national origin.

  Oh, she said, and fell silent. He could hear her breathing and wondered if he had somehow insulted her. Then she said brightly, Tell me when you're playing and where and I'll come by and listen a little and return your coat, Sydney.

  Wasn't it bliss, that night and the nights following? Sydney played like a dream. Close your eyes and he might have been Jack Teagarden. He sang a solo of "Ain't Misbehavin'" and "Rockin' Chair" and Karla clapped and clapped. He persuaded the band to attempt a blues version of the first movement of Brahms One, the sextet, and the crowd loved it. Karla, too. Sydney walked her home and spent the night. They made love at once and talked until dawn, mostly about music and what separated the great from the good. Was there something in the German language that inspired musical composition? Later, he lay in her narrow bed and listened to her practice; ferociously, he thought.

  He went to all her performances and many of her rehearsals, sitting in the front row where he could see her face as she played. She always wore black, and it gave him a kind of oily satisfaction knowing that she wore nothing under-the trousers and black sweater. A month later they were married in a private ceremony, family only, with a reception at the New York Yacht Club—his father's idea, and not the success they had hoped for. The families did not get on, Sydney's father and Karla's mother separating after the first dance, Fred to the bar and Magda to the billiard room, where she challenged an aging member to a game of two-ball. Sydney and Karla departed the club in a shower of rice but no cheers. In the car Karla informed him that the quarrel had to do with politics, a mistake all around, but your father started it, she said, and wouldn't let go.

  Magda gave as good as she got, Sydney said.

  Not quite, Karla replied bitterly.

  Sydney continued with his work at the Foundation, still the youngest man in the room with no retirements in sight. His father remarked that he was putting on weight; looking a little portly in your three-button suit, he said. Meanwhile, Karla had reached a plateau with her music. She compared herself to an athlete whose muscles were in the wrong places and no amount of exercise or training would improve them. If she were a miler she would clock in at four minutes, fifty seconds; that was the best she would ever do, owing to the muscles that were in the wrong places. She had always thought that desire was nine-tenths of the struggle. Desire could carry you over mountains. She knew that she would never be a soloist and it broke her heart; she had wanted it so badly, and still did. This, however, she kept to herself. When the baby arrived she took a year off, practicing her music on weekends. At least, she thought—at least she had a marriage that worked, with a husband who loved her.

  Rain beaded the windows of the train, lumbering now into the grimy suburbs of Toulouse, row upon row of brick factories and lifeless streets with their cafés and boulangeries. The streets were narrow and without charm. Sydney thought they were as p
eevish and exhausted as the continent itself. Toulouse was the end of the line, and he imagined Comminges one step beyond that, a region more of the nineteenth century than the twentieth. He wanted this visit over and done with so he could get on with the business at hand. He ran a little riff on the window with his fingernail, then rested his head on the seat back and dozed.

  A Child in Such a Milieu

  MISSY HAD NOT BEEN exaggerating when she described the charm of the Armands' stone house, a rambling affair with a flat tile roof and tiny windows set next to a second-century Roman wall, the wall damaged here and there but recognizably from antiquity. They were situated in a narrow valley overseen by towering hills, and a river was nearby. Monsieur Armand was as wide as a barrel with heavily muscled forearms and bowed legs. His wife was similarly built. They had greeted Missy with shouts and laughter; as if she were truly the fourth daughter. When she introduced Sydney they welcomed him cordially, happily accepting his gifts of smoked salmon and chocolate, purchased at the shop in the rue du Louvre. They insisted on showing him the house, each room including the wine cellar. The house was filled with heavy country furniture, crucifixes prominent in the bedrooms. Madame pointed out family pictures, her husband making jokes about the circumstances of the photography. Their English was poor and eventually they gave it up and spoke French, Missy translating when it was necessary.

  Because the night was warm they sat in the garden. Monsieur Armand poured red wine from a huge pitcher. Sydney sat back and listened to their animated conversation, first Missy's news—a promotion expected at the bank, a new carpet installed in the living room—and then the activities of the family Armand. The daughters had gone to Toulouse for the evening but would return the next day. There were frequent references to Abidjan and the oil business, apparently prospering. From time to time Missy turned to Sydney and translated, and he would respond with a question he hoped was intelligent and not too forward or intrusive.

  How long have your brother and his wife lived in Abidjan?

  Oh, many, many years.

  Twenty years, Madame Armand said. They have a bungalow on the beach and fortunately servants are plentiful. They like the hot weather and swimming in the ocean. They own a small boat—

  She had a face like a bun, pushed together, wrinkled and kindly. Her smile was beautiful to look at and she used it often. Sydney was beguiled despite his many reservations about the French and Europeans in general, often so resentful. Madame Armand turned to him frequently, making certain that his glass was full and that he was i)ot too estranged from the conversation. And he managed to pick up bits and pieces, his university French returning helter-skelter. He was not paying close attention. The night was warm and Monsieur's wine tasty. He soon lost the thread of whatever they were talking about; in any case, it was Monsieur Armand's monologue, soft in the night air. Madame Armand excused herself to go into the house to see about dinner. Sydney relaxed and listened to the incomprehensible conversation and the buzzing of small insects.

  Monsieur Armand suddenly leaned toward Missy and spoke rapidly, something about one of his brothers; and Sydney heard the words Xuan Loc, uttered with a discouraged shake of the head.

  Sydney pulled his chair forward with a show of interest.

  It's a town north of Saigon, Missy said.

  One of my brothers lives there, Monsieur Armand said in English. It's a pretty market town. Then, to Missy: Tell him about Claude.

  He's Papa's youngest brother; Missy said. He manages one of the rubber plantations in Xuan Loc district. He's been there, oh, fifteen years. But times are hard now. Production has been disrupted owing to the revolution. The Americans are bombing his rubber trees.

  It's in a contested area, then, Sydney said.

  Monsieur Armand erupted in a furious burst of French, Missy listening with a wry smile. When he was finished, she translated. Papa says it wasn't contested until the Americans decided to contest it. Everyone was happy working the plantation. The revolution had nothing to do with the rubber and everyone got along. Xuan Loc was always a quiet sector until the Americans invaded with their infantry and aircraft. Their artillery that fires indiscriminately at night. Until the Americans arrived, Xuan Loc was as tranquil as Comminges, Papa says.

  This is true, Madame said from the doorway. We visited Claude and his wife four years ago. We remained two weeks and traveled everywhere with no difficulty. We went to Saigon for the shopping and to Cap St. Jacques on the sea. The people were always friendly and many of them spoke French. Of course there was politics. There's always politics, isn't that so?

  One artillery shell can ruin a dozen trees, Monsieur Armand said.

  Yes, Sydney began, but—

  And the production's ruined.

  Yes, Sydney said.

  It's a very old plantation, very dependable.

  The Viet Cong, Sydney said.

  Monsieur waved his hand, a gesture of contempt. Pah! he said.

  Still, Sydney said, and tactfully did not mention Dien Bien Phu.

  The real war, Monsieur said sharply, the war with the Viet Minh, the war we fought for twenty years, that was serious. And we understood them, too, what they were capable of, because we had governed them for so long, since the middle of the nineteenth century. In the North they are serious people with a serious army. These people in the South are not serious. The government isn't serious, either. And the Americans are too serious.

  Sydney smiled at that.

  It's a bad thing for the population, Monsieur said.

  I agree with you there, Sydney said.

  They should be left in peace, therefore.

  Tell that to the Viet Cong, Sydney said.

  Syd's going to South Vietnam, Missy put in.

  She translated while Sydney explained about the Llewellyn Group, a benevolent arm of the government wholly separate from the Pentagon. The two were as different as chalk and cheese. An enthusiastic, public-spirited Congress had appropriated two billion dollars for the improvement of roads and bridges, the security of the market, and new schools and clinics equipped with the latest medicines. All this to get South Vietnam on its feet once more, the government functioning both in the capital and in the provinces, the countryside pacified. Then the population would rally to the Saigon administration. The Communists would be licked, deprived of their base of support ... As Sydney spoke, he felt the power of the logic. Of course he was describing an illusion, but men died for illusions, at Thermopylae or Antietam, or Verdun. Illusion was another word for ideal, something serious and altruistic, neither heartless nor selfish. He was conscious of speaking with the authority of the government itself, and then he remembered something Rostok had said.

  It's a matter of hearts and minds, you see.

  In the sudden strained silence it was obvious that Monsieur did not see; and Missy was looking at him strangely. Sydney knew that he had failed to make his point. The French had a specific way of looking at things and always through the prism of their degraded colonial past. But their capacities were diminished. Their view of the world was no wider than this valley in Comminges, and now that he thought of it Sydney decided that the analogy would be to the not-much-of-a-future-but-oh-what-a-past American South, the cavaliers so backward, broken down and sentimental. The French were conscious of being on the fringes of things and without influence. No one cared what they thought or did beyond a few cineastes who thought the silver screen a reliable mirror of the world's injustice. The French couldn't hold Indochina and they couldn't hold Algeria, no matter what General de Gaulle promised. Probably even Bangui would be lost to them, so they lived in a threatened might-have-been world.

  Yet this much was also true. Those few French who remained in the various colonial outposts would have valuable insights. You would have to look from their prism into your prism. Rostok was quite emphatic about it, intrigued as he was when Sydney described the Armand connection. Claude Armand could be very helpful if he chose to be. He would have friends, and the frien
ds would have friends. And from Claude and his friends and the friends of the friends, Sydney would learn the lay of the land, the solidarity or lack of it among the colonials, and their relations with the government and the government's enemies. What did these colonials want for themselves? And when they peered into the future, what did they see? Rostok knew without a doubt that they saw a future identical to the past, a plantation life that flourished without regard to the politics that surrounded it. They saw themselves as a still center inside the vortex, and as long as they moved with the vortex, the center would remain—still. The administration at Saigon or Hanoi would have no more effect than a hurricane to a bottom-dwelling fish.

  Discover what you can, Sydney.

  That's your first assignment.

  First question: How does a plantation operate effectively in the middle of a war when the enemy controlled the countryside, provided the security, and collected the taxes? Rostok had offered the obvious answer: They paid off the Viet Cong in Xuan Loc as forty years before saloonkeepers in the Loop paid off Scarface Al while the police looked the other way; and the police, too, were rewarded for their trouble. The American ambassador had a theory that the so-called insurgency was little more than simple banditry, a convenient way to make a living in uncertain times. A Chicago shakedown racket, the ambassador called it—and perhaps Claude Armand would offer a disinterested view of this theory, or at the least the view of the saloonkeeper.

  This was Sydney's first intimation of the parallel world, and what he saw in his imagination was an ambiance not far removed from that of the Abenaki Club, well-tended gardens surrounding a graceful, low-slung bungalow with a swimming pool and perhaps a croquet court in the shade of a great Asian sandalwood, dogs and children underfoot, white-coated servants passing cocktails and canapés on silver trays in an atmosphere as tidy and civil and sound as safe Switzerland.