Bob Shacochis - The Woman Who Lost Her Soul

Then out into the metropolitan darkness to the waiting van, footlockers and all, the urban air windless with a furnace smell of sulfur and the winter mothball smell of crones and bitter diesel exhaust and the flurries falling straight to the pavement and melting. At the back gates of the embassy, the marine guards mirrored the underside of the van and checked passes and identification and cleared the vehicle through the maze of concrete blast barriers to deliver Burnette and Scarecrow and turn around and back out again, continuing on with Spank and Tilly. Tex awaited them with a nose drip and hacking cough and balled handkerchief, shivering in a trench coat, stoically miserable, unable to muster a collegial smile.

Which one you want? he asked, gesturing toward the two black armored 4x4 SUV limos parked on the apron, adorned with tiny American flags. Both the embassy and Vasich had offered to supply drivers but the head count wasn’t going to work and Burnette was against the idea anyway, agreeing only to valets at the drop-off points. Let’s fire ’em up and get those heaters going, said Scarecrow, I’m freezing my ’nads. I almost forgot, said State, reaching into his coat pocket for a folded note. The PAO asked me to give you this, and Burnette glanced at the message scribbled on the paper, crumpling the note in his hand. What’s what? Scarecrow said and Burnette told him it was a request from ITN television to interview the undersecretary after the funeral. Ain’t going to happen, said Ev. Out on the street, the police escort assembled without fanfare, two teeny cartoonish squad cars mounted with disco lights, four motorcycles ridden by faceless androids, and they were off to the airport across the gray city, the sunrise offering its inhabitants little more than spreading gloom.

They stamped their cold feet to take out the numbness, watching the Gulfstream land and taxi toward the general aviation terminal and stop in front of the idling motorcade. The D-boys’s brains switched from hibernate to operational, a visceral zone of total concentration and reflex, the Oakley sunglasses coming out of their breast pockets, flicked open like switchblades and slipped over their eyes. The hatch opened, the stairway unfolded, and a black-suited fellow appeared and then a second, clean-cut civilian versions of Burnette and Scarecrow. Those are mine, said the Texan. Two of three. The undersecretary appeared next, beaming with affability, a hand raised in salutation, looking beyond his welcoming entourage into the middle distance to broadcast benevolence and affection to an imaginary crowd, the gesture merely premature, given the scarved and gloved throngs ahead and their reciprocal adoration. Behind him came a disheveled giant with a scornful grimace, his impatience nearly pushing Chambers down the steps. That’s Holbrooke, said Tex. The famously abrasive special envoy, Holbrooke, the wizard of peace, grand ringmaster of the Balkans’s fragile accords, clearly unwilling to put to rest a contretemps with his diplomatic colleague, interrupted but not ended by their arrival, something they got into in Brussels, at the NATO summit’s deliberations on Kosovo.

At the bottom of the stairs Holbrooke stepped around and in front of Chambers, turning on him, jabbing a prosecutorial finger at the undersecretary’s chest while Chambers stood there silently, taking it in stride, absorbing this browbeating with a respectful smile of promised compliance, nothing obviously defensive in his genteel veneer. In fact, Burnette thought, he looked the superior being in every respect, the model august statesman, the very embodiment of statesmanship in elegance and temperament, distinguished in his camel-hair topcoat and Savile Row suit, the knotted perfection of his silver necktie reflecting the sculpted crest of platinum hair. There he stood, dignified and composed, his demeanor vibrant with an easy understated presence of command, his visage bronzed with a year-round suntan, professionally handsome, a bit short on the gravitas associated with the word noble but not lacking in the impressions associated with the word aristocrat. And there he stood, in the grip of the choleric envoy, Holbrooke looking rumpled and slightly shabby, an unattended self, thickset and overheated, a boardroom pugilist with his tie loosened and the flaps of his black hair uncombed, displaying the mannerisms of a vulgarian and bully, snarling at Chambers, You’re marching off a cliff with these motherfucking Serbs, when Burnette intervened.

Sir, he said, stepping forward. Time to go.

Not the slightest acknowledgment of his protégé, no indication whatsoever of registering Eville’s presence. Chambers simply walked past Burnette with an expressionless gaze to where Scarecrow held open the rear door of the SUV and took his seat. Crow closed the door, obscuring the undersecretary behind the tinted glass. Who’s Burnette? asked the special envoy, prompting Eville out of this stinging moment of invisibility, identifying himself and stepping away with Holbrooke toward the cockpit of the Gulfstream.

Listen, Burnette, said the envoy, dropping his voice. Major, right?

Not yet, sir.

This plane is yours. After the funeral, I want you to put Chambers on it and take him back to the States.

I don’t expect he’ll want to do that, sir. There’s a luncheon—

He’s not going. Under any circumstances. Chambers was being detrimental to peace, fighting the administration on Kosovo, bucking against the framework. This man is out of his goddamn mind, the envoy said. He needs medical attention.

Sir — Eville began to protest but Holbrooke interrupted, taking a cell phone out of his coat pocket, saying a name, a magic word.

Let’s call Ben. You’ll listen to Ben, right? You think this could happen without Ben’s approval?

Sir, if the undersecretary resists. I mean—

Holbrooke seemed amused by the concern. Persuade him, Captain.

Braying sirens, whipping lights, radio squawk from walkie-talkies, Scarecrow behind the wheel, Tex’s third man, Bill, joining him up front, Eville sliding anxiously into the back with the undersecretary, the special envoy hustled into the SUV behind them, and they were on the move. The motorcade made its way past the terminal and out to the highway and Eville thought for many reasons, This is so fucked, not the least of it the shunning, Chambers sitting erect with indifference, eyes closed, eyes open but blinking at the back of the driver’s skull, Who is it among us who exist for this man? tormenting himself with that, the disavowal, this reinjury and its penance of emotional solitude that seemed to be the lasting consequence of Dottie’s death, this totally in-the-way personal shit. Just trying to cope with the toxicity of it, until out of the corner of his eye he noticed Chambers staring at him, stalled in a genuine effort of memory, and when the undersecretary finally spoke it spooked Burnette. Dottie had voiced concerns and Ben had danced around it and now Holbrooke had been explicit and he had seen for himself peculiar vignettes of erratic behavior, the early warnings were out there but he did not entirely comprehend the undersecretary’s condition, and now Chambers opened his mouth and words came out to carry on a conversation they weren’t having.

These are days to look forward, Ev, said the undersecretary, an otherwise unctuous sentiment were it not so bizarre. Retain our optimism. I was hoping I’d see you here. Say, did you ever make it down for Christopher’s wedding?

No, sir, he said, toneless.

What a shame. I thought you and Dorothy had it all planned out. Meet in Johannesburg, drive up to Harare, spend a few days exploring Kruger on the way. Fantastic.

Yes, sir, he said. That was our plan.

Fantastic, said Chambers, how was it?