Bruce Sterling - Distraction

“Are they cold people, the Dutch?”

“Cold and wet. And getting wetter. All the time.”

“They tell me the Navy is considering knocking some holes in their dikes with artillery blasts.”

“You’d know that, being NSC, wouldn’t you?”

A chill like dry ice wafted between them. Oscar almost sensed a swirl of congealing fog.

Clare leaned back in her chair. “It smells funny in Buna. Doesn’t it? All these tents and gas shelters. That big dome smells weird. It’s like they never change their underwear.”

“This isn’t Boston, it’s the Gulf Coast. You think it smells funny inside here, you should walk around outside for a while.”

“Too many mosquitoes.”

Oscar laughed.

Clare frowned. “You don’t have to know what happened to me in Holland. I just got in too deep, that’s all. I got away from there, and I was lucky to get away, that’s my big story. I’m lucky Lorena has such a big heart.”

“Clare… it’s just a shame. War is a hard game and even a toy war has casualties. I wouldn’t have wished that on you for anything.”

“You told me that. You warned me about it. Remember? And I told you that I was a grown-up. We were working in this dinky little Boston election where the guy had seven-percent approvals. We were like kids in a sandbox. I thought it was so upscale and important, and it all seems so innocent now. And here you’ve done this incredible thing and I … well, I work for the Senator now. So I guess that’s all right.”

“It’s the breaks.”

“Oscar, why aren’t you more of a scoundrel? I’m all burned out on men. And you’re like this slimy pol who always gets his way, and I thought I’d be all burned out on you, but when I saw you to-night… well, it all came back to me.”

“What came back?”

“You and me. That you’re this cute guy who was always sweet and polite to me, and gave me his house pass and taught me about funny old modern art. My old flame. The dream boyfriend. I really miss you. I even miss the satin sheets and your skin temperature.”

“Clare, why are you telling me this? You know I’m involved with another woman now. For heaven’s sake, everyone in the world knows I’m involved with Greta Penninger.”

“Oscar, you can’t be serious about that. Her? She’s a rebound type. No, she’s not even that. Oscar — don’t you get it? People make jokes about you and her. She’s funny-looking. She’s old. She has a big nose and no ass. She can’t be any fun. I mean, not like the kind of fun we used to have.”

He conjured up a smile. “You’re really jealous! Shame on you.”

“Why would you go for her? She just had something that you wanted.”

“Clare, even though you’re a journalist, I really don’t think that’s any of your business.”

“I’m saying wicked things because I’m sad, and I’m jealous, and I’m lonely, and I’m sorry. And I’m getting really drunk. And you dumped me. For her .”

“I didn’t dump you. You dumped me, because I was out of town, and you wouldn’t fly down and join me, and you decided that it was a better career move to go live with our country’s worst enemies.”

“Oh, well, that’s better,” Clare said, and wrinkled her nose at him, and grinned a little. “I guess I’m getting through to you, finally.”

“I did my level best to make it work out for us, but you wouldn’t let me do it.”

“Well, it’s too late now.”

“Of course it’s too late.”

She looked at her watch. “And it’s getting pretty late tonight, too. ”

Oscar glanced at his mousebrain watch. The thing had just dampened his wrist with liquid waste, and it was nowhere near the correct time. It was sometime around midnight. “You’d better sleep this off, if you’re going to make the Senator’s flight back to Washing-ton.”

“Oscar, I have a better idea. Stop toying with me. Let’s just do it. This is my only night here, this is our big chance. Take me upstairs, let’s go to bed.”

“You’re drunk.”

“I’m not too drunk to know what I’m doing. I’m just drunk enough to be a lot of fun. You’ve been looking at me all night. You know I can’t stand it when you look at me with those big brown puppy-dog eyes.”

“There’s no future in that.” He was weakening.

“Who cares about the future? It’s about old times. Come on, it’s practically just as bad, just ’cause you want it so much.”

“It’s not just as bad. It’s worse to do it. It’s the worst of all. When the volcano burns, everyone knows it, but when the heart is in flames, who knows it?”

She blinked. “Huh?”

Oscar sighed. “I just don’t believe you, Clare. I’m a smooth talker and I know how to please, but as a male specimen, I’m just not that overwhelming. If I were, you’d have never left me in the first place.”

“Look, I already said I was sorry. Don’t rub it in. I can show you how sorry I am.”

“Who sent you here, really? Are there bugs in your purse? Are you wearing a wire right now? You got turned, didn’t you? They turned you, in The Hague. You’re a foreign agent. You’re a spy.”

Clare went very pale. “What is this? Have you cracked up? All this paranoia! You’re talking like the Senator at his worst!”

“What am I, a useful idiot? There’s a war on! Mata Hari was Dutch, for Christ’s sake.”

“You think they’d let me work for a Senator, if I was a Dutch spy? You don’t know what Washington’s like these days. You don’t know a damn thing about anything.”

Oscar said nothing. He watched her with lethal care.

Clare gathered the rags of her dignity. “You really insulted me. I’m really hurt. I have a good mind to just get up and leave you. Why don’t you call me a cab?”

“Then it’s the President, isn’t it?” Her face went stiff.

“It is the President,” he said with finality. “It’s me and Greta Penninger. The situation’s a little out of hand down here. It’d be better for domestic tranquillity if the girlfriend and I came to a sudden parting of our ways. Then it would all work out. That would put a nice healthy dent in the local morale. The Moderators would slide right into his private espionage network, and the scientist would go back to her lab, and the slimy pol who can’t keep his hands off women would be outed to everybody as just another slimy pol.”

Clare lifted a napkin and wiped her eyes.

“You go back and tell your agent-runner that I don’t work for the President because he’s a nice guy. I work for him because the country was up on blocks, and he got the country moving. I’m loyal to him because I’m loyal to the country, and it’s going to take more than a nightingale to push me off the playing board. Even if it’s a very pretty nightingale that I used to care about.”

“That’s enough, I’m leaving. Good night, Oscar.”

“Good-bye.”

Bambakias left Texas the next morning with all his krewe, including Clare. Oscar was not outed. No recorded tapes of the conversation showed up. There were no blaring net-flashes about his tete-a-tete with a former girlfriend. Two days passed.

Then there was big news on the War front.

The Dutch were giving up.

The Dutch Prime Minister made a public statement. She was small and bitter and gray. She said that it was hopeless for an unarmed country like the Netherlands to resist the armed might of the world’s last military superpower. She said that it was impossible for her people to face the environmental catastrophe of having the country’s dikes bombarded. She said that America’s ruthless ultimatum had broken her country’s will to resist.

She said that the Netherlands was surrendering unconditionally. She said that the country was declaring itself an open country, that her tiny military would lay down its arms, that they would accept the troops of the occupier. She said that she and her cabinet had just signed documents of surrender, and the Dutch government would voluntarily dissolve itself at midnight. She proclaimed that the War was over, and that the Americans had won, and she called on the American people to remember their long tradition of magnanimity toward defeated opponents.