The ruins of the Queen’s Palace sit atop a hill with a commanding view of Antananarivo. It was built in the nineteenth century by Queen Ravanalona, the Lady Macbeth of Madagascar, who wanted to impress the Europeans bent on undermining her rule. Her efforts eventually failed and the ruined walls now serve as a monument to—some say a tomb for—her defiant nationalism. Neglect and that most mutable of Madagascar’s commodities, time, ate away at the building. A few years ago a fire hurried things along.
My solitary footsteps scrape along the paved walk as I look at the burned-out shell and think about how hard the old queen tried to keep out people like myself.
When I turn away, I find Roland Rabary gazing at me with his perpetual frown.
I don’t offer to shake his hand. “I’m surprised you came.”
“No more so than I.” Rabary turns his back to me and looks out over the city. I amble over to stand beside him. Without looking at me, he says, “Did you know, Robert, that from this cliff Queen Ravanalona threw to their deaths thousands of Malagasy who had adopted European ways? She did the same with a few French and British missionaries, trying to eradicate the menace they posed to our culture.”
The Malagasy shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe there is a moment, still waiting, in which we Malagasy rid ourselves of all of you and our culture can flow on uninterrupted.”
“And maybe there’s one where the ancestors are happy. From what I’ve seen, they could use some cheering up.”
Rabary looks over his shoulder at the ruined building. “In her heart, Ravanalona must have known that if she had to build a European palace in order to impress Europeans, she had already lost.”
“Funny you should say that. I was coming out of my driveway this morning and saw something making its way up the road, pulled by three or four guys on foot with a couple more pushing from behind. With the heat shimmering off the pavement, I couldn’t make it out at first. I thought maybe they were pulling a cart loaded down with an altar of some sort, some kind of religious procession. But as they got closer I could see what it was—a bunch of guys standing in the shafts of a zebu cart that had no zebu, pulling a cart loaded down with an old car that had no wheels. It struck me as a metaphor for the whole country.”
Rabary raises his eyebrows as he tries on the idea. “Yes, the very picture of the Malagasy people impoverished by their thralldom to foreign ways.” With a casual flick of his hand he indicates the palace behind us. “I know what you’re thinking, Robert. And you’re right. I am exactly what she detested most. I am like this house, claiming to be Malagasy, but, finally, made along European lines. And just as empty.”
“Cut the philosophy, Rabary. I just want to make a deal. Something the old queen would love. I’m thinking your ministry would like nothing better than to nail a Western diplomat’s hide to the wall. The Queen would love it. So let’s make it me. I’ll tell you all you need to know about my gambling debts and how I’m not paying them off. You can tell your bosses I’m thumbing my nose at Malagasy law. Abusing diplomatic privilege. I’ve also been under-tipping at local restaurants. That should be enough to get me PNG’d, and you can lay it all on the desk of your bosses tomorrow.”
“Like a cat laying a dead mouse at the feet of its owners.”
My stomach tightens with the effort to remain civil. “However you want to look at it. Then you can have me thrown out of here. You win your government’s undying gratitude. They give you that post in Paris. You end up sipping Pernod at the Café de la Paix, while I go back to a cheap apartment in the burbs of Washington.”
“It sounds inviting. But I don’t understand why.”
“One condition. I need it done in a hurry.”
Rabary says nothing as we stroll along the bluff overlooking the city. I can hear his mind clicking over, wondering what this is all about.
“Robert, you made a very ugly scene the last time we met. And you deceived me about the provenance of that story in Notre Madagascar.”
“Here’s your chance to get even.”
“Why are you so anxious to embrace disaster? You’ve never wanted to be expelled before now.”
“No one wanted to kill me before now.”
Rabary raises his eyebrows. “Who would—?” The Malagasy stops in mid-sentence as the last tumbler falls into place. “Ah. Yes. Our friend Picard is even more displeased with you than I am,” Rabary says, adding with a sniff, “But surely you exaggerate his anger.”
“I don’t think so. Not only did I humiliate him in front of a casino full of his clients, but he seems to think I’m lying to him about the money being gone, that I have it hidden somewhere. He can’t believe I’m as big a fool as I claim to be. But I am. Two guys came by my house last night. They beat up my guard and broke in, looking for me and the money. When they didn’t find either of us, they tore the place apart to make it look like a street gang had ransacked it. Picard was with them. If I’d been home we probably wouldn’t be here having this pleasant chat. I’d simply be another victim of the unrest in your country.”
The Malagasy looks narrowly at me and senses I’m telling him the truth. He throws back his head and laughs, the sound echoing off the old stone walls. It makes me want to throttle the little potato-nosed bastard.
“So,” Rabary says, still chuckling, “as always, it is we Malagasy who are at fault. We don’t go to your country and tell you to be more like us. But you cross oceans and continents to come to this distant island and tell us we should live like you. And when that approach brings you to grief, it is we who are to blame. Pah!” Rabary’s face turns hard. “So now you want to leave and you think I will help you.” His laughter dies with a bitter snort. “You don’t understand. We are both, um…” He searches for the idiom. “… screwed. Even if gambling debts were enough to get you PNG’d—and I don’t think they are—I believe my superiors are already considering throwing you out of the country over this Sackett affair. If so, your expulsion will have nothing to do with my efforts. And I will receive none of the credit.”
“So you haven’t got much time left to take up my offer.” I sound like one of those guys pushing exercise equipment on late night TV. Maybe if I agree to throw in a set of steak knives. “Look, I can give you everything you need to throw me out before they decide to do it themselves. Rile ’em up good and they’ll PNG me this week, maybe in the next day or two. I’m only asking that you get them to do it before Picard catches up with me.”
Rabary smirks. “You’re really frightened, aren’t you?”
“Damn right I am.”
We walk silently along the edge of the bluff. “Yes, perhaps you’re right about Picard,” Rabary says finally. “Most people want revenge served cold. Picard would prefer it hot.”
“And Picard isn’t afraid of committing murder. After all, he got away with it once before, didn’t he?”
Rabary stops, stony faced. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You’re really good, y’know? The hell you don’t understand. That’s how you have your hooks into him, isn’t it? He paid Andriamana to kill a kid from Tamatave who wouldn’t pay his gambling debts. You were an administrator down there and somehow you found out. Or, after you moved to the capital, maybe Picard told you in a careless moment. I’d say it might have been Andriamana who told you, but he’s never had a careless moment in his life. In any case, you know Picard’s murderous little secret. And you’ve kept it to yourself until you could make it pay off.”
Rabary looks at me, the hint of a smile on his lips. “You never know when you’ve gone too far, do you? You have to blurt out everything you know. Play out every impulse.” Rabary speaks calmly, like a doctor informing a patient of an incurable disease. “You have in the past dismissed my warnings that you were steering yourself toward destruction. Let me try just once more, then my conscience will be entirely clear.” He looks at me, making sure I’m taking in what he’s saying. “Do not underestimate Andriamana as much as Picard does. Picard caught him at a vulnerable moment. Andriamana was just another police officer when this happened, and he needed money quickly to gain a promotion. So he murdered this boy for Picard—and has lived with this sword over his head ever since. A charge of murder against him, even an old one, would be a boon to his many enemies and an impediment to his advancement. But Andriamana did one intelligent thing. After he got his promotion and became the man we know him to be, he came to me. Yes, we’d known each other when I toiled down there as Customs chief. He knew that I could find a way of making Picard keep quiet about it. And so I did. Picard needs an exit visa if he is to ever leave Madagascar, and I can make sure he gets it only on the terms I offer. So, on behalf of the Captain, I demanded his silence.”
“And on behalf of yourself you demand a bribe for the visa.”
Rabary bows his head as if acknowledging a compliment and says, “Despite all this, Picard still thinks this secret gives him power over Andriamana. He doesn’t understand. If Picard remains silent about their little transaction—a wise course—the captain is content. If not, if Picard somehow decides to make a fuss, or demands one favor too many … Well, the captain would decide he must rid himself of this embarrassment.”
“You’re right. Picard doesn’t see it that way. He thinks Andriamana wouldn’t dare do anything to a wealthy vazaha. He thinks he’s in the clear over this.”
Rabary clasps his hands together. “Well, as you say, that’s fine.” He looks over the bluff we walk along. “Picard underestimates us Malagasy. He forgets that we are known to throw foreigners off cliffs.” He shakes his head and laughs. “But you, you make it too easy. You throw yourself off.” He essays that Gallic shrug. “I can’t help you. For my own interests, I wish it were otherwise. But what you are offering up is not enough to get you expelled and, in any case, you come to me too late.” He holds up his hand, two fingers extended downwards and wiggles them, mimicking a running man. “So it is time for you to run away. Any way you can.” He holds up his hand as if about to take an oath, but waves it dismissively. “I have no more time for you.”
He turns his back on me and walks off, still looking over the edge of the cliff.
Pushed by a tailwind of fear and self-disgust, I drive back to the embassy just in time to find I’m being called to another emergency Country Team meeting regarding the deteriorating security situation.
Everyone in the conference room makes a show of good cheer, demonstrating how well they deal with pressure. Steve Trapp is full of jokes and the gunny wants to start an office pool, placing bets on when President Ramananjara will flee to Switzerland.
For now, though, the President’s party still holds the reins of power, and the news media remain firmly under his control. Even with riots spreading across the country, with the Malagasy franc falling like a shotgunned pigeon, and the government teetering on the brink of collapse, news reports focus on the visit of a North Korean diplomatic delegation.
Rumor fills the vacuum. Radio trottoire—sidewalk radio—speaks of foreign agitators, but also of several deaths near the main market and of university buildings burned to the ground. Reports are incomplete, contradictory, and sensational to the point of fantastic, yet reflect something real about the chaos and confusion spreading across the country.
In the surest sign that the government has decided the disturbances have spread far enough and it’s time to put the hammer down, roadblocks have popped up on every road leading out of the city.
Esmer says he can neither confirm nor deny any of the rumors, though police officials have told him gangs are roaming Ivandry, breaking into foreigners’ houses and beating up anyone they find at home. “Including, last night, the residence of our political officer.” He looks down the table at me. “Fortunately, he was not at home at the time.” He makes it sound like a character flaw.
Pete Salvatore starts laying out possible evacuation routes in case the balloon should truly go up—to the airport if it’s open, or, if it’s closed, by a caravan of automobiles down to Tamatave and a rendezvous with an American naval ship.
I brighten at the possibility that all my problems might be solved by such a taxpayer-funded deus ex machina. Then I remind myself of how many evacuation plans I’ve worked on over the years, and not one of them ever came to pass.
“On the other hand, the government may be in luck,” the DCM concludes, “There’s a storm brewing. I mean that literally. High winds, rain. It should hit the coast late this afternoon and be here by evening. That’ll keep people inside tonight and maybe for a couple of days after. No one’s going to demonstrate in the middle of a hurricane.”
I wonder how this storm stacks up against the low pressure system building in my gut. I remind myself that I’ve vowed to take my fate in my own hands, to act, but my resolution is slipping. What was it Don Quixote said? “Fear has a thousand eyes and can see things underground.” Could I be more afraid of doing something, of acting, than of getting killed?
It’s nearly dusk when the meeting breaks up. As I walk back to my office, I run into Cheryl heading for the door. She says goodnight over her shoulder then stops and asks me, “Should I take that girl back down to Post One with me?”
I start to ask, “What girl?” But I already know. “No, I’ll see she gets out.”
All three of the room’s occupants look up as I appear in the doorway. Nirina has pulled a chair over to Walt’s recliner and sits with her hands resting on the old cowboy’s arm.
Cheryl hadn’t mentioned Speedy. The young thief sits on the floor, leaning against the wall. He smiles and tips a straw hat he has picked up since I saw him last.
Whatever they’ve been talking about, they stop when I come in.
I ask, “Does Miss Gloria know you’re here, Speedy?”
The young Malagasy’s eyes shift away. He says nothing.
“You’re lucky you didn’t get arrested walking down the street to the embassy.” I hear the edge in my voice and wonder if they can tell how taut my nerves are.
“Speedy knows how to get past the cat,” he says with a wink at Walt.
I look around the room, not knowing what I’m searching for until I find it. Poking out from behind Walt’s chair is a heavy cloth strap. I cross the room and look over the back of his recliner. On the floor are two large satchels.
“Going somewhere?” I ask.
“Caught,” Walt said, affecting lightheartedness.
Nirina rises to her feet. “We’re leaving. Tonight.”
Walt throws his hands up. “Robert, I can’t be sittin’ around for months, wonderin’ when this government’s going to let me go. I gotta get outta here.”
How many times has Walt said the same thing? And how many assurances have I given him that the embassy was doing everything it could? None of them have come to anything.
“What if we could sneak you up to the Ambassador’s residence?” I suggest. “It wouldn’t be half as risky as just breaking out of here. The cops are still out there, but the fact that Speedy got in tells me they’re not paying much attention anymore.”
Walt shakes his head. “No, dammit. I ’preciate everything you done for me, Robert. But all you’ve managed to do is get me into a prison that’s a little higher class than the one I just left. I want out. I wanna be free.”
I turn to Nirina. “Do you even have a plan?”
“We are heading for the coast tonight,” she says, “My brother is a fisherman. He will have his boat waiting for us near Tamatave and take us to Mauritius.”
“You didn’t get the weather report? A big storm is working its way here. If you try to drive to the coast you’ll be blown off the road.”
Nirina’s eyes widen but her voice is firm. “Still, we are leaving.”
“Okay. Let’s assume you live long enough to make it to Tamatave and somehow don’t drown on your way to Mauritius. Then what?”
Walt and Nirina look at each other.
“Wait, don’t tell me. You haven’t thought that far ahead.”
Walt tries to smile. “We’ll think of something.”
I look at Speedy, sitting on the floor. “You’re getting out of here too?”
Speedy shakes his head and smiles. “I am just the driver, Monsieur Robert.”
“You have a car?”
Speedy squints up at me. “Not yet.”
“You’re going to steal one.”
“No, Monsieur Robert.” He tsks at the thought. “A friend is going to steal one for us.”
“Why would someone steal a car just so you can get some American out of here?”
“After what you and Walt did to get us out of prison, all the criminals love the USA.”
“Another key demographic swings our way,” I say. “It’ll never work. The police have set up roadblocks all around the city to keep the riots from spreading any further than convenient.” I turn to Walt. “If you drive into one of them they’ll throw you back in jail, even if they have to build a new one to hold you. And, Speedy, I don’t know how you snuck in here, but they’ll probably nab you when you go out to get the car.” I see that none of this makes any impact with them. “You’re all nuts.”
No one argues the point.
Looking at their determined faces, I remember my pledge to get my life unstuck. The moment has arrived to slam on the brakes or keep going.
“Look, I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Don’t go anywhere until then.”
A rising wind rattles my Peugeot as I drive out through the embassy’s main gate. Heavy clouds riding over the city give off an odd yellow-gray tinge, like a deep bruise. Lightning lights the sky and rain begins to fall in sheets.
The windshield wipers can’t keep up as I drive along the city’s deserted streets and turn onto the Avenue de l’Independence. And I suddenly see how wrong Pete can be.
Long lines of policemen have formed up in the wide grassy strip in the middle of the avenue, their thin blue uniforms turning dark in the pouring rain. On the other side of the avenue large knots of sullen young men stand under the porticoes of the old colonial buildings, trying to gather the collective will to do something, milling around like extras in a movie to which no one has yet written the next scene.
Things are spinning out of control in my own life and in this unhappy country. I’m about to break out of the norms that have constrained me for more than twenty years. I might end up dead. At the very least, taking off now, leaving the country without authorization, I’ll likely end up dismissed from the service. The old Knott quakes at the possibility. The new Knott says “so what?” If I stick around for Picard’s ax to drop on my neck, getting fired is the least that might happen to me. Besides, I can always try to claim that by taking off in a storm-tossed boat with Walt Sackett I’m demonstrating admirable zeal in assuring that a persecuted American escapes to freedom. It might even work. Over the years, I’ve noticed that the steady water torture of small mistakes dripping onto the forehead of the Department will get you fired, while total jaw-dropping fuck-ups often go unpunished, as if they somehow imply vision or have short-circuited the crabbed imagination of the bureaucracy, leaving it helpless to act.
These thoughts instill a strange sense of exhilaration as I speed out of town. I can’t suppress a wide smile that speaks even to me of irretrievable madness. But I have one more errand to run before heading home.
Rather than turning up route Hydrocarbure, I head toward Ambodivona, the part of town where Paul Esmer lives.
Esmer answers the door holding his son in his arms. He’s a cute kid, about three. I can never remember his name, but Esmer’s a different guy around him, you can see the love in his eyes. He’s a good dad, a loving husband. I try to remember that when he’s driving me crazy.
If his eyes brighten at the presence of his son, they dim again on seeing me. He puts his boy down. “Go to the kitchen and see if you can help Mommy.” Then he says to me, “What brings you out on this dark and stormy night, Robert?”
I squint ruefully at him. “Y’know, Paul, I was thinking maybe you were right. Last night kind of spooked me. If the offer’s still open, I’d like to borrow that gun you mentioned.”
Esmer looks at me like he’s thinking of telling me, “I told you so,” but I’ve sunk so far in the embassy hierarchy that it’s not worth the effort.
“Sure,” he says.
Leaving me standing in the doorway, he goes down a hallway and comes back a moment later carrying a nine millimeter automatic. He holds it in his open hand. “You pull back this slide to put a round in the chamber. See? I didn’t actually pull it back just now because it’s loaded. If you go around with this tucked in your waistband and a live round in the chamber you’ll end up blowing your dick off.” He hefts the gun. “After you’ve pulled the slide back you just squeeze the trigger for each shot. Fifteen round clip.” After demonstrating once more, he hands me the gun with the air of a dad handing the car keys to a teenage son. “You want an extra clip?”
“No. I just want a little protection. I’m not storming the Winter Palace.”
“Whatever. Just bring it back when you’re through.”
Through with what, I wonder. I make a little wave with the gun by way of thanks, stuff it into my coat pocket and get back in the car.
I arrive home to find Jeanne has cleared out the broken chairs and lamps and thrown blankets over the slashed furniture, doing her best to tidy up the previous night’s wreckage.
I dash up the steps to the bedroom and start throwing things into a bag.
“What are you doing, Monsieur Knott?” Jeanne stands in the doorway. “You’re not going to leave me in this house alone, are you?”
“I’ve got to make a trip. I’m not sure if I’ll be back.” I take a wad of francs from my wallet and open a cabinet in the bathroom, missed by last night’s intruders, where I keep a little more. I shove it all into her hands. “Here, take this. It should be at least three month’s pay. It’s yours.” Trying not to look at her frightened eyes, I kiss her on the forehead and run downstairs, calling over my shoulder, “If anyone calls, you didn’t see me.”
A pounding on the front door. I freeze. I look at Jeanne and cock my head toward the door. “See who it is.”
Deep worry lines form on Jeanne’s brow, but she goes to the door and opens it. “It is Miss Gloria,” she calls to me.
Gloria brushes past Jeanne, her hair a mess, her raincoat buttoned all wrong. “Where’s Speedy?”
I hesitate, but decide I’d better tell her at least part of the truth. “He’s at the embassy.”
“What’s he doing there?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I do so! When I came home he was gone. He’s risking arrest just by going out the door. And I’d bet anything you’re encouraging him.”
I should have known that if she ever fell in love it would be with everything in her overachieving soul. And there would be no lying to her. “He’s going to drive Walt and Nirina to the coast. They’ve got a boat waiting to take them to Mauritius.”
“In this storm?”
“Walt wants to take his chances. Speedy is just doing the driving. If everything goes right, he’ll be back tomorrow.”
She eyes my bag on the floor. “You’re not going too are you?”
“Maybe. Listen, I’ve got to get out of here. I don’t want to explain.”
She stares at me as if I’ve gone crazy. She’s probably right.
I cock my chin in the direction of the distant embassy. “Don’t tell Mom, okay?”
“Oh, I’m supposed to just go home and keep quiet and wait and see if you and Speedy get yourselves killed?”
“That’s about it.”
“So I didn’t come here tonight. I didn’t talk to you. I don’t say a word to anyone.”
“Pretty simple, isn’t it?”
She sees the finality in my face and can only whisper, “Get Speedy back to me.”
“I’ll do my best. I really will, Gloria.”
Her fists clenched, she leans in toward me. I brace myself for a scene. To my surprise, she kisses me on the cheek. Less to my surprise, she then punches me in the chest hard enough to hurt, and walks back out into night.
A few minutes later, bag packed, I’m heading for the door.
Jeanne takes a deep breath. “Goodbye, Monsieur Knott.”
“Goodbye, Jeanne.”
“I’m afraid you’re going to die, Mr. Knott.”
“So am I, Jeanne.” I wonder at the logic of getting myself drowned or driving off a cliff in a hurricane to avoid getting shot. I try to forge a smile for Jeanne. “Well, small loss.”
I head for the car, but instead of getting in, I walk toward the back yard. I have two guards since the break-in, both new, standing under the cover of the carport. They watch me as I peer through the pouring rain toward the Seuss-like tree on the knoll.
I’ve been told that the Malagasy believe certain trees lead directly down into the spirit world. Could there be a separate tree for each spirit? Maybe this is the one that could have brought me to an understanding of this alien land, the Island of Ghosts, if I’d only walked up to it, touched it, breathed in its unknown scent. But I never tried.
It’s too late. The night is dark, it’s raining, and I can’t see it.
Time to go. Like ice breaking on a frozen river, I’ve begun to move and can’t stop now.
I wave for the guards to open the gate. As I get into the car I shout to them over the pounding rain, “There’s a chameleon who lives here. If you see him, tell him the place is his now.”
Then I pull out onto the street and drive away.