To Edgar, the Barking Rat had overnight lost its edge. Glaring sullenly over bitter beers, murmuring in a mishmash of Slavic-sounding consonant blends, those thick-necked, shadowy Barbans lurking in corners had originally made Edgar uneasy. He couldn’t decipher their palatal mumble, and he’d had every reason to view the morose local patrons as shady characters. Yet now the zhuh-shuh-chuh shuffled with no more menace than an old man in slippers. Potato-heads no longer gooned from their posters with sinister stupidity, nor wielded ordnance with forbidding nonchalance; on examination, the automatics in photos looked distinctly plastic. The political ephemera scattered about the premises—LIBERTA A BARBA OCUPADA teaspoons, SOB ashtrays, and cherry-bomb spangled coffee mugs—winked with the bald artifice of tinfoil swords in community theater. In fact, the deformed plastic souvenirs over the booze exuded more integrity than the publican’s SUPORTE NOSSOS SOLDADOS OUSADOS tea towel. At least, if not half-melted, there really was an Eiffel Tower.
Approaching the foreign correspondents’ regular round table, Edgar forded another wave of unexpected compassion. After one more week absent SOB “violence,” the press corps emitted an air of impending dissolution, like a staff meeting in the last week of summer camp. Now that the fun and games appeared nearly done, they gazed at one another with a rash sentimentality safe only in moribund relationships. A fuzzy halo of nostalgia hovered over the gathering, that peculiar harkening back to the days you’re still living, a nostalgia for the present. Hell, this bunch might as well reminisce fondly now, since later they’d remember Barba and wince. Poor schmucks. Every last journalist in Cinziero had been suckered.
Trudy Sisson would never have seized on Tomás Verdade as a pinup heartthrob if she’d realized that the dingy office atop the Terra do Cão gift shop constituted the extent of his influence, or that the arsenal at his disposal contained not a fiendish array of Semtex and Gelignite but the lone stun gun of his monotonous rhetoric. Martha Hulbert cherished having baddies to deplore, since antipathy is a form of romance, and enemies are no less luscious than lovers. Abandoned by her bête noire, the old maid would feel desolate, left at the altar. Win Pyre was bound to be less bereft than embarrassed—the wizened old hand who’d dodged mortars from Beirut to Mogadishu, reduced to tilting at windmills. Likewise Alexis Collier, Dame Truth in Journalism, would be obliged to exchange her starchy pants suits for sackcloth. Henry would be put further behind in his quest for respect; no hack who’d taken the bait in Barba would hold his head high for a while. Aside from its depressive effects on her husband, Nicola would be the least disheartened by the revelation that the SOB was Barrington’s idea of a knee-slapper. In fact, she alone would be delighted: one less acronym up to no good. By contrast, after stalking from the Rat affronted that a witless greenhorn was endangering his life with loose talk, Roland Ordway had put himself in the way of poetic comeuppance.
“Heard you interviewed Verdade,” said Ordway, as Edgar slid into a seat at the Guardian reporter’s elbow. “Edifying?”
“Stultifying,” Edgar corrected breezily. He took a swig of his Choque and recited, “Some folks know more than they say. Other folks say more than they know. Verdade impressed me as the latter.”
“Verdade knows plenty, I assure you,” Ordway scoffed.
“About the SOB? Verdade knows beans.”
“I assume he fed you the old O Creme is a legal political party. Don’t tell me you swallowed it whole.”
“Oh, but I did,” said Edgar cheerfully. “I think o presidente is totally above board. To his own dismay.”
Ordway snorted get-a-load-of-this-guy toward Win Pyre. “Right. Tomás Verdade, humble populist, fighting for justice through proper political channels. There just happens to be a lethal paramilitary army bombing the trousers off three continents for the same cause. Convenient, to say the least.”
“Verdade isn’t humble; he’s not even populist,” Edgar countered amiably. “He’s not fighting for justice, but for his own day in the sun. That’s not illegal anywhere, last I checked. When it is, you and I are both in trouble.”
At a loss for retort, Ordway disgustedly turned his back.
“Sorry we won’t have got to know each other better,” said Alexis, leaning from Edgar’s other side. Her smile was tight and perfunctory. “Marching orders arrived this morning. I’m being transferred to Jerusalem. The Barban story seems dead as a doornail, and the Middle East is heating up.”
“Mazel tov,” Edgar toasted.
“Such a shame.” Alexis patted his hand. “Your arriving right when this story dries up. You must have been looking forward to cutting your teeth on it.”
“I’ve found the odd irony to chew on.”
“I’m afraid self-preservation may be kicking in. Beginner insurgents crave martyrdom. Seasoned guerrillas save their own skins. The Sobs have got away scot-free so far. According to my sources, the leadership has decided to quit while they’re ahead.”
“Oh?” said Edgar. “What sources are those?”
“I may be leaving soon,” said Alexis coyly, “but I haven’t turned into Santa Claus.”
“It’s just, my sources suspect that the SOB may be planning a new offensive.”
“What sources?” pressed Alexis. Her mouth assholed.
“Am I wearing a white beard and going ho-ho-ho?”
“Well, of course,” she said, flustered, “I don’t expect . . . But I haven’t heard that rumor at all—”
“Oh, my sources are impeccable,” Edgar assured her brightly, signaling the bartender for another Choque. “Then, since you’re off for Jerusalem . . .”
“Naturally, if the situation changed, I’d—”
“Nicola!” Edgar called across the table. “Do you know how to prepare bacalhau?”
“Did Verdade say something?” Alexis panicked, tugging Edgar’s sleeve. “Did Verdade let a hint slip?”
“See, I bought a pound of salt cod the other day,” Edgar continued, “and I can’t figure out anything to do with it besides resole my shoes.”
Nicola shouted across the table about soaking and the importance of parsley while Alexis cried, “Did Barrington leave behind his contact book? . . . Edgar? . . . Edgar!”
“What’s happened to you?” Nicola pressed quietly once he escaped to negotiate a seat beside her. “Your posture—you’re not slumping. Your face—you’re not scowling. Have you got good news? Because so have I!”
“Let’s just say I’ve decided not to take Cinziero too seriously,” he telegraphed in all sincerity. “What’s your good news?”
“Sh-sh-sh!” Roland hissed.
“I’ve sometimes wondered if you’re right,” Trudy was telling Martha. “If Barrington ever, like, totally fell in love, you know?”
“Stuff it, Trude!” said Ordway, gesturing over the bar to the TV, whose volume the publican had just turned up. “There’s been another bomb.”
The newscast was in Portuguese. Ordway raised a hand for quiet; the rest, though uncomprehending, grew respectfully silent. The Rat’s local patrons were also fixed on the TV, mum and immobile. Edgar had never seen Barbans so attentive, so awake. Even Bebê Serio had rotated in the direction of the tube. Though you couldn’t call his eyes focused, they did seem to have picked up something in their sights besides the wall.
At last pictures were telecast. Over the camera’s meaningless pan of granite rubble, Roland translated. “Grant’s Tomb. Ten injured, two critical. Japanese tourists. And the landmark itself’s been completely demolished.”
“Is it—is it for us?” Martha ventured nervously, like a ravenous restaurant patron when an enticing platter emerges from the kitchen.
“No claim,” said Ordway. “Yet.”
Barrington had said that they’d have to “bide their time,” which Edgar had assumed meant weeks or months, giving him a chance to think this out, to get a grip, maybe even come to his senses. But the next day? And Barrington had said that it wouldn’t have to be a 747, that maybe they could settle for a s
care or some minor postal mischief. But Grant’s Tomb? This wasn’t a letter bomb.
Edgar’s metabolism was sedate from churning on stationary bicycles by the hour in New York health clubs. Yet in the last two minutes his heartbeat at rest had accelerated to at least 120. The racing pulse thumped in his teeth. A muscle spasmed around his left eye.
“Please, please, make it a Sob job!” implored Henry, whom the Independent hadn’t published in months.
“A delayed claim is par for the course,” said Ordway, whose perch on the round table was making the whole thing tilt; Edgar rescued his beer. Ordway clumped a cowboy boot on a chair. “Sobs like suspense. Always keep the authorities sweating a day or two.”
“It builds tension,” Pyre agreed, having gimped to Ordway’s side with an I’ve-been-the-victim-of-terrorism-myself limp that seemed a tad pronounced. “Delay means the story breaks twice: first the bomb, then who did it. Extends the operation’s shelf life. Smart.”
“We’ll have to sit tight. Ring some Creams in the meantime, get the usual denials on the record—if we’re lucky, something none too apologetic from Verdade.” The Briton’s terse business-as-usual failed to mask his excitement. The table top wavered; twice Ordway reached to shove his blazer above his elbows, where its sleeves were already jammed.
Speak of the devil; the newscast had switched to an interview with Tomás Verdade, who tacked on a statement in English for the benefit of his foreign fans.
“Naturally O Creme de Barbear has no knowledge of this unfortunate incident,” said Verdade, looking sorrowfully into the camera. “Hence we can neither confirm nor deny if this is the work of Os Soldados Ousados de Barba. Our hearts are with the injured and their families. Yet I would be remiss if I did not take this opportunity to remind the international community of my people’s fight for national self-determination. Should this prove to be an action of SOB volunteers, let us resolve that those injured today will not have suffered in vain. Once Barba is free and in control of her own borders, tragedies like the bombing of Grant’s Tomb will no longer be necessary. I pray fervently for that day. Obrigado.”
Most patrons ignored this part of the broadcast—they’d seen the performance a hundred times—but Edgar was riveted. What elegant hypocrisy: to pretend to be lying.
“Edgar,” Nicola whispered. “What is ‘Grant’s Tomb’?”
The question endeared Edgar entirely. Brits like Roland Ordway might not know that hulking eyesore on Manhattan’s Upper West Side from Mount Rushmore, but they’d never in a million years ask the likes of Edgar what it was, if only because as a New Yorker he was bound to know.
“It’s a chunky architectural atrocity on the edge of Harlem,” Edgar explained, “where a Civil War general and one of the worst U.S. presidents of all time isn’t even buried. The monument has no redeeming aesthetic or historical value, and has become the nearly exclusive preserve of Asian sightseers. They’re very dutiful.”
Nicola played with a tress of her hair intently. “What does the American Civil War have to do with illegal North African immigration to Portugal?”
“What did holidaymakers headed home to Heathrow have to do with Barba?” Edgar posed. “Or two kids in a DC shopping mall? Commuters in a Paris metro?”
“Sorry.” She pulled the hair in front of her face. “You must think I’m slow.”
“No, no!” Edgar tucked the strand behind her ear, fingers lingering as he made the trivial but tender mental note that Nicola’s lobes were detached. He dropped his voice. “Those are good questions. Nicola, you’re the only one in town who’s ever mentioned that the emperor might not be dressed to the nines. Your journo friends here operate like Visa card outfits: no matter how impoverished the losers look, keep giving Sobs more credit. It seems all you have to do to be classed as a mastermind is to kill people.” The habit of speaking of the SOB as extant was hard to break.
“Oh, I know I’m in a minority,” Nicola conceded, twisting a wisp at her temple. “All the hacks think I’m wet. Most historically ‘great’ men have been killers, I expect.”
Edgar smiled, and forgot himself. “Barrington claims people aren’t attracted to virtue. That sainthood’s all very well in theory, but in practice it’s a drag.”
Nicola tilted her head. “Barrington? But you never—”
“You said you had good news,” he interrupted hastily.
Nicola lowered her voice. “Oh, Edgar! I got a postcard!”
“Uh-huh?”
“It was blank, you see, with only our address. Edgar, he’s all right!”
“Who’s all right?” asked Edgar, a little wickedly.
“Oh, you know who, stop being so—”
“How can you be sure?”
“The card, it’s a picture of the Kremlin. Maybe he means that he’s back in Moscow, or maybe the card was old; it was postmarked in Vietnam, of all places. But who else could it be from? Because of Henry, he couldn’t . . . I hadn’t realized how worried I’d been . . . Oh, with this awful bombing, I feel like such a heel. I know I shouldn’t be happy.”
“This operation has Sob fingerprints all over it.” Martha had sidled up to Edgar, carrying a fresh vinho do porto. A little drunk, she kept her balance with moral gravity. Her voice was solemn, her brow furiously furrowed. “High-profile landmark, no warning, total disregard for casualties. We’ve been lucky; this could have been a lot worse. But mark my words, if it’s not the SOB, it’s an organization that’s studied their methods.”
“BA-321 wasn’t a ‘landmark,’ ” Edgar observed contentiously. “And any terrorist operation has ‘total disregard’ for casualties, since if you’re really concerned about not hurting people you don’t blow things up. So I’m curious, Hulbert. Could anything explode anywhere that wouldn’t, in your view, display ‘Sob fingerprints’?”
“The Daring Soldiers have deployed a variety of strategies,” said Martha archly. She ticked off on her fingers, “Operations designed to kill, to maim, or to warn. Bombs, shootings, nuisance scares, and thank Christ the chemical weaponry was a brief experiment. American targets, European targets, that foray into Japan. Exasperating, yes, but it’s cunning to vary your tactics. Predictability would make those reprobates easier to apprehend.”
“If the pattern keeps changing, there is no pattern.” Hulbert would never understand that Edgar was trying to do her a favor. “Strategy? What strategy? You’ve just detailed yourself that Sob targets are completely random.”
“Randomness is a strategy!” Martha insisted, her face beet-red.
“Man!” Edgar shook his head and laughed, rubbing his eyes. “You people deserve this.”
“I’m not sure I like his attitude,” Martha stage-whispered to Trudy as Edgar picked up his coat. “Those poor tourists in the hospital, and he doesn’t seem the least upset. Barba is bound to be implicated. But Kellogg started chuckling! As if the SOB is some kind of joke. Sometimes he reminds me of Barrington, in the worst way.”
Before he slipped out the door, Edgar paused to listen to the hubbub behind him. Theories and consternations blended to crowd hum. Yet a crowd hits a pitch distinctive to the occasion, and this wasn’t the deep, funereal rumble of an assembly coming to terms with loss. Pierced with shrieks of hastily stifled laughter, English and Portuguese alike bubbled into a shrill, trippy buzz, less like the mumble at a wake than the excited pre-curtain chatter before a cracking good show.
Chapter 22
Taken for SAPSS
WHEN EDGAR WAS in high school, a popular if cumbersome method of fund-raising for charity was to collect per-mile pledges for athletic events. Though direct donations would have accomplished the same benevolence with a fraction of the fuss, Yardley students had learned the drill from raising money for the school’s construction of three extra tennis courts during Edgar’s sophomore year. The walk-athon involved door-to-dooring with a clipboard and getting the odd pledge of ten cents a mile promised largely to get rid of you; then pairing up with some pimply cretin assigned to
be your “buddy” and trudging about the lake with your sandwich decomposing in your daypack; then doing the rounds with the clipboard again, when pledge-makers would often be short of cash or conveniently out. Still, anything beat freshman year, when Edgar house-to-housed in Stonington selling chocolate bars for the Debate Club. Kindly June Cleavers at screen doors never failed to remark on how much of his product Edgar appeared to have sampled himself.
February of junior year, Toby Falconer proposed a fresh fund-raising approach to his doting inner circle. This time the noble cause would be the group’s private community chest. Thus, with much hilarity late night in the dorm, Falconer and his merry men, of whom Edgar had only recently counted himself a member, concocted phoquefartic shytosis—“a wasting disease of young adults”—along with the Society in Aid of P.S. Sufferers (SAPSS).
Edgar gave Falconer a hand in the print shop, drafting a letter of introduction and lined pledge sheets, in whose logo a gaunt teenage boy was fainting off the last S. That afternoon the printing instructor barged in unexpectedly, and Falconer didn’t turn a hair. Oh Mr. Galveston, we’re so happy you turned up. We were having a little trouble centering this letterhead. See, we’re running a charity marathon for the Society in Aid of P.S. Sufferers—What’s that? Oh, Mr. Galveston, my brother has it, which is why I got involved. It’s really debilitating and everything and he can’t play football anymore—
Galveston offered to help out. As a consequence, the SAPSS three-color stationery looked spectacularly official.
For soliciting pledges, Falconer coached his crew on the pitch. He insisted they practice saying phoquefartic shytosis without cracking up, and be able to rattle off a portentous pathology. Falconer claimed that the average adult vocabulary shrank by 6 percent a year; considering what he got away with reciting on Stonington’s front stoops, he was probably right. Young men stricken with PS in their prime suffered from priapism, ultimogeniture (inheritance by the youngest son), and helminthophobia (fear of worms). House to house, Falconer improvised juvenile disorders as he went along: rectal infarction, nasal globulus, and cerebral smegmatism.