[All bad things, like all good things, must come to an end]
“Pastille? Hold on a second! You fellows were behind the Pastille campaign?”
“That’s what I was getting at, yes.”
“But this makes no sense whatsoever! If you were supporting Pastille, how the hell did you get appointments with Korchell’s office?”
“I don’t know. I assume the Party over-ruled Prawnson” I said.
Elsin flung down her pad onto the carved marble table.
“Are you idiots telling me, at the end of all this, you don’t know how Korchell chose you as his closest aides? Do you take me for a fool?” she yelled, shaking her finger at me.
“I honestly swear I do not!” I said, throwing my hands up, “We sincerely worked for Pastille. The speeches I wrote for him were some of the finest writing I’ve ever done. Fenderis used all his floor-management skills to get people to our rallies. Fatty poured money like water into buying alcohol for the masses. Hedyikk personally threatened at least a dozen families in every locality that he would chop off their heads if they voted for Korchell. Winter and Ariel launched a massive charm offensive on the Trade Union leaders. Ariel even took up employment teaching Junichiro’s niece piano so that she could spy on him. I’m not proud of all we did – we bribed people, we intimidated them, we had the girls seduce them, anything it took to prevent Korchell from winning. I don’t know how many trips Ariel made to the confession room at Church, or how many tears she cried into her pillow at the compromises she had to make with her dignity and self-respect” – here Elsin snorted as if to indicate she didn’t think much of those two qualities to begin with – “but we felt the cause needed it. That the end – preventing the Capitalists from taking over Midgard and destroying the party – justified the means. When the election results were announced, it was the darkest day of our lives. Everything, all the efforts we had put in, all the acts we had told ourselves were acceptable…the curtain of respectability we had built to cover them had been torn off, and we felt exposed for what we were – spin doctors, bribers and pimps.”
“Five days after he was sworn in as a legislator, Korchell was to announce his list of top functionaries for the posts administered by him,” said Fenderis, his eyes firmly fixed on the ceiling, “he was to have a press conference for it at the Club – in this very room, in fact. Jormund and I turned up, more out of curiosity than anything. Ariel was missing that day, I recall. I suppose she had to visit her beautician. Imagine our shock when he read out our names, along with those of Hedyikk, Winter Coral, Artemius and Mortenson.”
Elsin cast a furious look in our directon. “You still maintain that you have no idea how you got appointed? Then what’s the point of this whole story? You’ve given me nothing!”
“What are you talking about, Elsin?” I asked, “We’ve just confessed to Electoral malpractice, bribery, distributing alcohol on an election day and using sex to get trade union endorsements! What more do you need?”
“It’s nothing their side doesn’t do,” said Fatty, with a dry laugh, “I’m sure she’ll print it, but it won’t have the impact she expects. Am I right, Elsin?”
Elsin didn’t reply, merely getting up from her perch and walking towards the door. Bradohov, in a rare show of chivalry, sprang to open the door for her. We stared at each other for a few minutes. Her departure, abrupt as it was, had left us a little confused.
Finally, Fenderis got to his feet and said, “If that’s that, I guess I’m off home. I’m booked to play a friendly round with Colonel Piddlewiddy tomorrow.”
“I’m signing a deal to buy farm implements from China and sell them back as wrought iron via Malaysia with a 6 ringgit profit,” Fatty said, joining Fenderis. The duo left through the exit near the bar which opens out onto the 18th green.
Having nothing else to do, I figured I’d head home myself. It was closing in on that hour when a few reddish spots appear over the horizon to dispel the darkness of night. I staggered to the door through which Elsin had just left and would have slingshot myself out safely too, had Bradohov not decided that his chivalry only extended to decidedly attractive blondes and shut the door two inches before it made contact with my nose. An adroit stumble, however, saved my nose from disfigurement, and with a glance that would have made Bradohov quail had I been sober enough to direct it at him, I opened the door myself and strode out.
I was greeted in the parking lot by a rather alluring sight. Ariel appeared to be clasping Elsin in a warm embrace, and few things are more edifying than seeing two women who had just been fighting like hungry cats show signs of making it up to each other. But it turned out that I had been rather mistaken, the dodgy light and my blurred vision having made rather a stew of my perception. In fact, it now appeared, Elsin was trying to assault Ariel, and the latter was holding her off by pinning her arms around her back. I stood watching the struggle for a while, before a crisp command from Ariel to “stop pussyfooting and help me put away this nasty snake if you want to get home in one piece” prompted me into action. I intervened by picking Elsin up off the ground and depositing her on top of Bradohov’s battered old pick-up truck. “It was you,” I caught her say, “YOU, you horrid blonde tart! You made all this happen. You’re at the bottom of it! I know it, I just know! Ooh you won’t get away with it, I swear you won’t”
“She’s so feisty,” said Ariel as she started the car.
“And deluded,” I added as we moved out of the Club’s parking lot and towards the National Park, “I mean, imagine blaming you for every little thing. You two JUST don’t get along, do you?”
There was a brief silence as we drove on through the night. It’s a secluded road, and ours was the only car on it that we could see. Surrounded by trees on both sides, the route makes for quite scenic viewing during the daytime, but with only a few stray beams of light now creeping up over the horizon, it looked more menacing than anything else at that moment.
“I don’t know about deluded,” Ariel said suddenly, just as I was about to doze off.
“What?” I asked groggily. “I said she wasn’t really deluded. In fact she pretty much had it spot on,”
“What are you talking about?” I asked her, shaking myself awake.
“Haven’t you ever wondered how Korchell got elected?”
“Pastille lost the election. What else was there to it?”
“Didn’t you analyse the exit polls?”
“No, not really.”
“You probably should have. The Trade Unions endorsed Pastille, but the members voted Korchell anyway.”
“They did! I thought it would be something like that! Am surprised though, don’t the members normally follow the union Leader’s line?”
“The Leaders had privately told the members to vote Korchell, that’s why. The endorsement was to lull you into a false sense of security and try less hard for the general vote.”
“How do you know this?”
“Because that’s what I told them to do, of course. Why are you gaping like a dying fish?”
“I feel like a dying fish,” I informed her, “You were double-crossing us all along?”
“I suppose you could put it that way. But honestly, Jormund, I could see the rebel candidate strategy was flawed from the beginning, and I’d said as much when Winter suggested it. It might have prevented Joshound from taking control of the Socialist Party and bringing it down from the inside, but having a rebel candidate elected didn’t do wonders for the party anyway. It only weakened the hold of the party on the electorate. Moreover even if Pastille had gotten elected, he couldn’t have given you prominent posts without you having to leave the party. All too complicated.”
“So you sold us down the river to Junichiro and his buddies?”
“Jormund, don’t be an ass!” she said, her eyebrows arching into a frown, “You know I haven’t done that. Look around you, does it look like we’re being controlled by anyone? I’ve managed to put the best people in charge of the most important positions. You should be groveling before me in gratitude!”
“And how do you think you did all this?”
She sighed, as the long-suffering parents of a kleptomaniac might in trying to explain to their ward the difference between ‘mèien’ and ‘vous’.
“It wasn’t all that difficult. You have to understand that I was cheating on you with Korchell back then, so he was all too pleased to parade me before Prawnson and Junichiro at their secret meetings to discuss campaign strategy. What he didn’t realize, of course, was that I also used to sleep with Junichiro, which meant the latter was totally incensed to see me with Korchell. It wasn’t long before I had the two of them at such loggerheads with each other that they absolutely refused to talk to each other. All communication was in writing, and since it was important to have a secure way of transmitting the written communication, Junichiro hired me to give piano lessons to his niece. So I was their messenger-girl, carrying all the letters around from Junichiro’s house to Korchell’s. Eventually, as you know, the elections happened and Korchell won. Jubilant as they were at things going their way, they still weren’t on speaking terms. The time had now come to choose the important officials, and as you know it’s the party that makes that choice. Prawnson had been appointed to do the needful for Korchell and he had the official party notice with the blanks in place of people’s names with him. Naturally he wanted this document to be filled in by Junichiro, so he slipped the notice to me the morning that Korchell was to announce the names of his officials.”
“Great Marx! And you never took it there, of course.”
“Don’t be silly, of course I took it there! Only it wasn’t the original, it was a copy. Well Junichiro filled it in gleefully and then he filled up my…”
“Spare me the details!”
“I meant he paid me my weekly wages! I was going to say he filled up my purse! Honestly, Jormund, your mind is a trash-can! So I took the false notice and drove over to Prawnson’s place to have it signed. Thankfully, my ploy to get him in trouble had worked. It was vitally important that he didn’t sign the notice at home. His wife was engaged in battering him with a saucepan, which meant he had no time to cross-question me about what had happened chez Junichiro’s.”
“Why was his wife battering him with a saucepan?”
“She didn’t stop to explain, but I’m sure it had something to do with her finding Winter Coral’s panties in Prawnson’s car, her dancing costume and girdle in his study and her lipstick under the sofa-cushions.”
“What? Winter was having an affair with Prawnson?” I nearly fell out of the car in shock.
“No, you silly creature, I planted those things there. When will you EVER learn? Prawnson finally made it out of his house, Mrs. Prawnson chasing him close behind, but he managed to clamber into his car and took off with me in the backseat. Naturally, he had no time to see the appointment notice, which made him a little panic-y but I told him it would be all right, the priority right then was getting to the Club where Korchell was waiting for the notice so he could announce his office-bearers. We got there barely half-an-hour before the press was to arrive. That’s where the most adroit maneuvering had to take place. The original notice had to be filled in, and Korchell distracted. I gave the notice to my accomplice, who wrote your names – and Winter’s and Artemius’ and the rest – onto the original notice. Then he slipped a double dose of laudanum into Prawnson’s Scotch, knocking him out for the rest of the day, but not before his signature was taken on the notice in that woozy state. Meanwhile I convinced Korchell that nothing would prepare him better to face his first big press conference than an extended session making out with me, thus keeping him away from Prawnson and suspecting any foul play was afoot.”
“So that’s where you were the day of the announcement?”
“Exactly!”
“And who was your accomplice?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I just told you he served Prawnson drinks.”
“Bradohov!”
“The same. So that, darling, is how you came to be appointed Korchell’s Secretary and all our friends to important posts. See, aren’t I the clevrest?”
“You’re way beyond clever,” I said reverentially, “But won’t Elsin publish all this? She seems to have put the pieces together. Our appointments are essentially by forgery”
“Oh Jormund, you worry too much. Elsin writes for Human Events – a paper no self-respecting socialist believes a single word of. And since she doesn’t have a single substantiating proof that your appointment was done through forgery, even moderates won’t pay it any attention. In fact, this is the best way for it to come out. Imagine if one of our own party rivals had found out – then it would have been published in a credible paper like The Socialist Today and we wouldn’t have had a leg to stand on. This way no one is going to pay any attention to her allegations.”
“You do seem to have a point. But what about the information she has regarding that Mauritian Bank account? Once she realizes this revelation doesn’t have to desired effect, she will surely publish that, in order to at least take down Korchell and Fatty.”
The car had now passed through the woods and emerged near the township where the workers of the Greater Midgard Spinning and Weaving Company have their tenements. Dawn had broken, and the suns rays were coming in on us straight in from the east. A few rays played on Ariel’s red-blonde locks and lit them up to a pale crimson. Her lips, shaded in a dull red lipstick, looked almost bloody as she threw back her head and laughed.
“Of course she will! I am waiting for her to do that.”
“But…you mean you don’t mind sacrificing Fatty and…?”
“Who said anything about sacrificing Fatty? He’s got at least 2 weeks before Elsin breaks that story; if he can’t cover his tracks and ensure he can’t be implicated in the scandal, he’s not the Fatty we know and love.”
“What about Korchell?”
“Well, darling, to be honest, I’m getting tired of him. He’s fun to play with when you aren’t around, but he gets irritating after a while. I’m tired of him and his constant whining and complaining. A spell in jail won’t do him any harm. I’ve already had Bradohov write to the politburo telling them about his tendency to hold orgies in the Club’s back rooms and some incriminating photos of him with a lissome brunette. He will be fired tomorrow; which means another bye-election. I recommend you let Winter stand this time.”
“What? Hang on a minute,” I shouted. My head had begun to spin. The car seemed to be dancing the tango with the kerbs, and for a moment I could not have sworn whether the clips in Ariel’s hair weren’t really horns.
“What’s the matter?”
“You’re still sleeping with him? What orgies are these? Who’s the lissome brunette? How can Winter win an election? She’s an ex-stripper!”
“How many questions you ask! If only you would wait to hear me out. Yes, I am still sleeping with him. You can’t neglect me the way you do, not meet me for days and weeks on end and expect me to just bear it. The orgies didn’t really happen, but Bradohov will product receipts and invoices to prove they did. The lissome brunette is me in a wig. And Winter will win because the Capitalist Party will be in such shambles by the election that they won’t have a leg to stand on, let alone a candidate to promote.”
“And how do you figure that, O modern-day Machiavelli?”
“I figure that, O modern-day Yorick, because the Economic Offences Wing, when they investigate that Mauritian account, will be less interested in whom the payments were made to and more interested in where that account got funded from. Fatty did some investigation into that, and guess who’s been putting slush money into the account? Korchell Jorkell SENIOR and Yachirobi! Yachi has been paying bribes to Jorkell Sr. for years to keep his own dealings in Nigeria and Kenya secret. Oh just you wait, Elsin Fasttrack, just you wait – the Capitalist Party in Midgard will be finished! Their reputation will be mud! You should see the debits to Nigeria! Jorkell Sr. and Yachi will be looking at nothing less than forty years! Nothing can prevent Winter from being elected. Now tell me – aren’t I the wonderfull-est? And don’t you love me more than anything else in the whole world?”
I didn’t answer for a while. The scenes unfolding outside the window were the daily rites of the urban poor – washing their clothes, waking the babies, washing the grime from their faces, boiling the morning cup of tea. Every few years, they went to the polling booths to vote for the candidate they thought would give them a better life.
I looked sideways out of the corner of my eye. Ariel was speeding along, doing eighty miles an hour, humming “Fur Elise” softly, the ends of her lips just slightly curled. She looked sublime, like a divine Goddess, her arched eyebrows, green eyes and high cheekbones combining to give an impression of haughty superiority. “Yes, darling, of course I do,” I said, answering her question. The puppet does well to agree with his mistress.
[And thus it finally comes to an end. I don't know when or if I will ever write again. This one has been just too difficult to do. I just hope this last effort doesn't make people wish it remains, indeed, the 'last' sigh of the Serpent]
