The Navidad Incident (5 page)

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, what if we regard your petroleum as a kind of insurance, then hash out premiums. Say we value the peace of mind from having three hundred thousand kiloliters stockpiled here at one percent of its market value—purely hypothetical numbers. That should be simple enough to figure out.”

“At twenty-five dollars per barrel …” Suzuki wriggles his fingers, telling the beads of an imaginary abacus. “That makes 4.7 million dollars a year, or a little over five billion yen. Quite a tidy sum.”

“My one percent was purely hypothetical. Insurance premiums are highly arbitrary. In any case, there's plenty of room for negotiation.” Matías bides his time, just to impress upon his visitor that he's the one running this discussion. “The main issue is much more basic.”

“And what issue might that be?”

“Namely, why should my country let you line up your ugly tankers on our beautiful coral reef and run the risk of an oil spill just to ensure the security of Japan? Did you think I'd jump at the mere mention of money?”

“Nothing could be further from my mind. Which is precisely why, in the order of business, or rather of proper etiquette, I took it upon myself to go over the main points.”

“Right.”

“As you say, why Navidad
?
Again, rather than go into all the details, let me just cite the proximity to Japan's oil routes, ideal reef conditions, the small population, the welcome absence of intellectuals to object to a project of this sort, and …”

“…and a president who's easy on the take?”

“Curiously enough, I myself advanced that very same opinion.”

To whom?
Matías looks the man in the face but shelves the question. Well, consider it an achievement that he's showing a shade more honest slime.

Suzuki smiles back at Matías. “But forget our position. What matters here are your country's long-term priorities. I wouldn't claim to be an expert, but let me offer a few, perhaps untoward observations. My apologies in advance.”

What a funny man
, thinks Matías. The way he keeps changing colors. Up to a minute ago he was a dyed-in-charcoal-gray bureaucrat, now suddenly he's the visiting lecturer in international relations. Slippery, but also a prime mover. Lubricant that turns to fuel.

“To put it bluntly, your country is too small. Say we posit the optimum size for a country to be a million or more; anything less is a logistical disadvantage—you survive in peacetime, but come war you disappear. A population of seventy thousand is nothing. You get by as islands, but in the middle of a continent your country would never exist to begin with. Likewise, economically, Navidad's national budget derives almost entirely from foreign aid, from US and Japanese ODA,” Suzuki argues, hammering home his disagreeable logic.

“Point taken,” acknowledges President Guili.

“Up to now that was fine. The underside of Cold War tensions was safe. Materially sufficient. But in the century to come there will be shortages, north and south will fight over resources, foist toxic wastes onto one another. We're entering a period of global realignment. And when elephants fight, the safest place for a mouse is on an elephant's back.”

“So you're saying we should ride with Japan?”

“In a word, yes. Fortunately, Your Excellency's affinities with Japan run deep. Navidad looks to its farsighted President to secure relations between our two countries.”

“By means of an oil tanker stockpile?” asks Matías.

“To entrust something of importance is to forge a bond of trust.” The bureaucrat resurfaces with his specious phrases. With Japan's strategic materials kept here, any attack would be an attack against Japan. A security pact by default.

“No, what scares me is that the bond will become too strong.”

“The bond is not cement. Only a few million dollars a year, surely?”

“There are prewar precedents.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I mean, Navidad and the other League of Nations island protectorates in your so-called Domestic South Seas effectively became Japanese colonies or military bases. We saw terrible fighting during the war, then later the Japanese government made no appreciable reparations. I grant that you're our closest major power, and I'm personally acquainted with Japan. That still leaves me plenty of reasons not to trust your country implicitly.”

“Most regrettable,” Suzuki apologizes. A sentence without a subject. Who regrets? The Japanese people? The government? The man himself? “But those days are gone. Open warfare is a thing of the past.”

“Who's to say? The surest way to secure resources is to colonize the resource country. You yourself said as much a minute ago, talking about ‘the century to come.' ”

“All the more reason to find safety under Japan's wing.”

“Suddenly elephants sprout wings. Enough. Let's leave it there for today and meet again tomorrow. We each have things to sort out before then.” Not a bad start, thinks Matías, even more inclined to favor the project than before.

At the dinner reception, the delegation's deputy leader, former Naval Ensign Saigo, makes a speech:

“At this time, on behalf of our entire delegation, I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude to His Excellency the President and to the Republic of Navidad for the magnificent banquet that has been laid before us.

“Thinking back, it was nearly fifty years ago that we sailors of the Imperial Navy came to defend these islands. When I reflect that half a century has passed, my emotions know no bounds. Can fifty years really have gone by so quickly? Can we have aged so much? It makes me realize all the more the impermanence of human life. When we were stationed here, we comrades-in-arms were mere youths in our twenties. Leaving home for the sake of our country, with pride in our chests we sailed to these solitary islands and engaged in mortal combat with the encroaching enemy, losing many before returning to Japan desolate and bereaved. Now fifty years on, treading these sands once again to comfort the souls of the many noble comrades who died, I cannot help but feel their sacrifice was not in vain. In my heart of hearts I know it is because of them that Japan prospers, that the world is at peace, and that their children and grandchildren enjoy the happiness they have today.

“Losing one's comrades is hard,” blusters the big bald-headed old officer. “Losing one's subordinates is hard. Men forced to drink muddy slurry for lack of water, to eat grass for lack of food, only to perish with fever for lack of medicine. Harder still is it to see one's friends with arms and legs torn asunder by mercilessly superior American firepower, covered with blood, screaming in agony. It was hard to see them die that way. Yet is it not precisely because of what we endured that we worked so arduously after the war, pushing forward on the battlefield of industry to build up today's Japan? We have come this far thanks to those buddies of ours looking over our shoulders. And so it is only fitting that finally, fifty years after leaving behind their earthly remains to board the sadly departing ships, we return with renewed respect.

“And yet the souls of our comrades-in-arms, the courageous spirits of our bright-eyed shipmates, never thought to linger in this remote and alien place. For though they left their corpses scattered in the jungle gloom, their souls took wing, each and every one, to fly back to their beloved Japan. Some may scoff when I say this,” his voice creeping up a note, “but I saw them. I shall never forget the day, April 25, 1944, in the harrowing aftermath of the saturation bombing that obliterated our Command HQ, when I watched as one white bird then another flew up from the bodies of our comrades strewn about the smoldering ashes and, once the American planes had gone, circled the blue sky, then went winging off to the north-northeast. What was that flock if not the courageous souls of the Greater Japanese Imperial Forces who selflessly met their deaths on these lonely South Sea isles?

“I have heard similar reports from other places on the islands. Not a few of you, I'm sure, may also recall such startling scenes. That's right, those fallen heroes turned into pure white birds and flew off to their beloved Yamato. Unable to defend their ancestral homeland in life, they flew northward over the vast ocean to guard the nation in spirit.

“Indeed, I would submit—and in no uncertain terms—that as hard as we have worked these fifty years to give our comrades-in-arms comfort by rebuilding postwar Japan, in a sense it is they who have comforted us. They who have tirelessly watched over us. And so we come now to these antipodes not only to remember those painful times, to grieve together with them as fathers, husbands, brothers, but to dedicate ourselves anew. If by some oversight any of their bones were missed in the repatriation of remains, let us find them.

“Let this be our cause: to consecrate an altar upon which to offer our deepest, purest prayers! Recalling those days of suffering”—his voice sinks low and sinister—“the spiritual strength of our generation must rise again! Those who have betrayed their heritage—our mindless youth—must be opposed! That above all is the true purpose of our noble mission. Is it not time to take action, to lay anew the foundations of the once-and-forever Greater Japan?”

“Right,” mutters President Matías Guili in native Gagigula, “just keep telling yourself that.”

The President has visited Angelina's place once or twice a week since 1977 when she first set up on the island. Unlike the Japanese bath in his official residence or the limousine that came with his presidency, this affair with Angelina is strictly private; she's the only true love he's ever known. Most decisions he talks over with Angelina; he needs her to let him see the issues objectively. He's always demanded a lot from his women, but never lots of women. That much hasn't changed from the time of his long stable marriage to María Guili.

Matías makes a brief appearance at drinks after dinner with the veterans, but can't bring himself to join in their mellow mood of nostalgia and ducks out without fanfare. Their positions are now decisively reversed—the politico who was once just an errand boy, the servicemen who are now doting old losers—but they don't know that. They don't recognize the Japanese-speaking local big shot as the little brat they used to boss around: “Get me some palm wine! Get me a woman! Get me some decent fish!” And Matías hasn't the least intention of telling them.

Heinrich drives slowly as he always does these nights, easing the Nissan to a stop behind Angelina's brothel. Matías opens the car door himself and enters the building by an inconspicuous green door. Straight on down a dark hallway, he heads up a small staircase and opens a hardwood door to another dark hall. He pauses to part the heavy curtains along the wall to peer down on the floor below where men in suits or aloha shirts lounge with scantily clad young women, talking in hushed tones or tipping back drinks as they hold hands. The usual peaceful picture, jazz playing softly in the background.

At a table to the far right sit two white men, Ketch and Joel. They never seem to change. Indeed, ever since they started coming here, doing odd custodial chores during the day, they've become a permanent feature. Look in at this hour and they'll be at a table for two with a bottle of twelve-year-old I.W. Harper planted in the middle. Every night it's the same: they down a bottle of bourbon while playing chess or teasing the girls or whispering secret in-jokes. Sometimes they just sit and stare. The two of them polish off the bottle, then retire to their private room where they fall asleep on a queen-sized bed in each other's arms.

There was a time when Matías couldn't stand the sight of them. They reminded him of something, but now they're such cornerstones of his existence that it's become a ritual to check in on them. Seeing the two of them there, he feels relieved. He can dismiss the awkward associations they arouse. He's even grown rather fond of them, and if it suits his mood, he'll go have a drink with them. They're witty, veritable fountains of information, the best kind of drinking partners. Not that it diminishes the problem, though. It's been almost a year since it all happened. Still, what will he do when they finally up and leave?