The Ambassador (12 page)

‘Quite,’ Strether agreed. He kept to himself Marius’s casual remark about visitors to the centre having very similar DNA. He did not want to antagonise her further, yet her stubborn defence of her work, even under pressure, was confused and unsatisfying. ‘I’m glad to hear you opt for individuality.’

‘I do.’ Lisa smiled once more and to Strether it was as if the sun had come out. ‘Not that these matters are entirely under our control. The urge to replicate, to make uniform, is extremely powerful.’

‘So that’s why so many upper-caste people resemble each other, is it? Tall, blond, blue-eyed, long thin fingers – they look as alike as cattle bred from the same sperm.’

She shrugged. ‘In western Europe Nordic looks have dominated for centuries. It’s the fashion, Bill, but none the less powerful. Mankind is a conformist species.’

‘So it does happen. Or, at least, it can.’

She seemed very downcast. ‘I won’t deny that. Anyway, that’s not really the problem. Bill, is that all you wanted to ask me? Because I am busy here …’

‘Oh, Lisa, I’m so sorry. No, that wasn’t all.’ He gazed at the screen. So what if somebody else’s gimlet eyes were on them? It was a free world, wasn’t it? ‘Look, I’ll accept it if you say no. But could we have coffee, maybe? Or that drink you mentioned? Or would you enjoy going out for a meal? I’d love to see you again. And maybe talk about – something else.’

The dimples broke out afresh; she raised her head and laughed sweetly. ‘D’you know, Bill, I’ve got so bogged down in work here, my social life has all but disappeared. Yes, what a terrific idea. When? Have you your diary handy? How about Tuesday?’

‘Yes, but what is it? Is it supposed to represent anything in particular?’

Strether and Marius were standing beneath a geometric complexity of gleaming tubes and globes, which soared above them into the cloudless blue sky. Marius consulted his guidebook. ‘It’s the Atomium,’ he offered helpfully. ‘Heavens, Bill, one lives in Brussels half the year and yet one never sees the place properly. It says here it’s a crystal molecule of iron expanded to 165 billion times life-size. It was built in 1958, so it’s just had its hundred and fiftieth anniversary, like the Union itself. We can take the lift to the top for the panoramic view. Interested?’

Strether shook his head. His mind was elsewhere, with a pretty woman with dimples and amber earrings. But, for the moment, he had to concentrate on politics.

‘Sure? Then how about Mini-Europe, with scaled-down versions of the principal monuments of every region in the Union?’

The answer was a grimace. Marius did not argue. ‘Me neither. We’re due for lunch at the Palais de la Nation in less than an hour. Do you know the etiquette? Belgium’s effectively two regions. Both Flemish and French have equal status. Whichever you’re spoken to in, you answer in the same one. Get it wrong and they’re insulted.’

‘I can’t manage either. My German is coming along slowly, but I didn’t have much use for Flemish where I came from.’

Marius grinned. ‘As an American you’re excused. Play dumb. Literally. Or use your auto-translator. You haven’t left it at home, have you?’

Strether fumbled in a pocket and found the neat leather pouch, assembled the
earpiece
, programmed it to ‘E’ for Europe, and slipped it over his left ear. As long as he stared directly at a companion, speech would be translated into English (of a sort) from any of thirty languages. The result was hardly great literature, and idioms would be badly mangled, but it served.

The two men strolled north along the Boulevard du Centenaire and headed into the Line 1A Métro. At Beekant they changed trains and rode six more stops to Park. Here trim lawns stretched smoothly away, carved fountains flowed sweetly. Date palms grew high over their heads, their green fronds moving slowly in the warm air. It would be hot today, over 30°C. Strether adjusted his straw Panama and hoped it sat well with the new suit in
summer-weight
fabric, modishly cut by Marius’s tailor.

The Prince indicated their destination, a stolid twentieth-century building. At the park’s far end stood a much more elaborate edifice from a more elegant era. As they spoke, a small group emerged from a side door and began to walk in their direction.

Marius peered then nudged Strether. ‘I knew we would be presented to the Belgian Crown Prince before lunch, but it looks as if we’ll meet him a little sooner. Prince Adolf Leopold. Bit of a stickler for protocol, I’m afraid – the less important they are, the more they insist on their status.’

‘That never seems to trouble you, Marius?’ Strether inquired.

‘No, but then I don’t have any proper status. The Hungarians decided thirty years ago to ditch their royal family so my parents, somewhat miffed at such treatment, left for London. They sensibly advised me to get a job and make myself useful.’ The figures were coming
closer, a bent old man in a peacock-blue cloak with several nimbler acolytes scurrying around. Marius pointed discreetly. ‘That’s him. I have a lot more fun than he has. As an elected peer in England I can get progress on issues. I don’t have to keep up appearances too much. I have excellent contacts here in the Commission, and relatives in every European capital, so I never need stay in a hotel. Who could ask for more?’

The royal party was upon them. Marius bowed exaggeratedly low, deftly reminded the elderly Crown Prince of his own name and lineage then introduced his companion.

He must have been almost ninety, Strether reckoned; Crown Prince because the King his father was still alive, the oldest monarch in the world at 115, though bedridden in the Laeken Palace and reportedly senile. Adolf Leopold had a tetchy look.

‘Your Excellency.’ Adolf Leopold held out a limp hand and removed it almost before Strether could make contact. ‘I have been to the United States,’ he continued, in a querulous voice. ‘New York World’s Fair, 2065. The Belgian Village Exhibit. It felt as if
I
was the exhibit.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Strether murmured.

Adolf Leopold’s slack lips worked as if more was to emerge, but with a despairing little cry he tugged his cloak about him and tottered on. Strether and Marius fell into step behind. The Crown Prince suddenly halted and addressed the American.

‘Have you seen the Manneken-Pis yet?’

‘Ye-yes, I have. Sir.’

‘Good. Then you’ve seen the lot. That was put up about the time your Pilgrim Fathers were sailing for America. The only bit of authentic Brussels left, after the – the –’ he waved a gnarled hand furiously in the direction of the Robin Schuman memorial where the Union blocks clustered ‘– after
they
took over.’

His courtiers shuffled their feet. One seized the Crown Prince’s elbow and propelled him firmly on his way.

Marius sucked his teeth thoughtfully. ‘You know, that happened ages before he was born,’ he whispered. ‘Shows you how persistent an opinion can be.’

Strether could not resist. ‘Hasn’t he been bred like that, though?’ he teased. ‘Isn’t it in his genes? His country before the Union?’

‘No, not him. He’s not an NT. He’d be a sweeter personality if he were. He’s just a miserable old curmudgeon, the true son of his father. That royal house is descended from Queen Victoria, and it’s pretty obvious at times.’ Strether was silenced. When he glanced at his companion he saw that Marius was chuckling to himself, though whether at the Crown Prince’s remarks or at his own remained a mystery.

The entrance to the Palais, as for every public building in Brussels and major cities during the year of the Grand Celebration, was a forest of regional and Union flags. Strether wished he held shares in flag-makers – somebody was making a fortune. The arrivals were greeted by obscure folk-dancing troupes; a frequent game was to guess their origin. Strether’s knowledge of mid-Continental ethnic styles was improving, especially since the embassy’s library had yielded a diskette gold-mine of back issues of
National Geographic
. This time, as he examined the sheepskin leggings and hoop earrings he chose Uzbekhistan while Marius hazarded Azerbaijan. Both were wrong: this was an invited group from Welsh Patagonia.

‘But they all drink Galactic Cola and wear Diana jeans at home,’ Marius whispered as they followed Albert Leopold up the steps, ‘and drive Ford-Mercedes family pick-ups, watch Yamaichi vidscreens and eat at California Raisin Hut. Doesn’t everyone?’

The hall’s parquet floor gleamed, the chandeliers sparkled. Strether, champagne glass in hand, moved towards the centre. He no longer felt quite such a beginner. His face and name were becoming better known; he had a modest repertoire of jokes and confidences in various languages, sufficient to converse for two or three minutes. Many guests wore an earpiece though a few, like Marius, seemed to manage easily without. On others, mainly young men with a superior air, a tiny titanium aerial behind one ear revealed an implant. Strether shivered at the idea: never to be able to turn it off – that would not suit him. Better; he felt, to
use
one’s brain than to try and replace it.

After this weekend President Kennedy was expecting a report. His ambassador would be able to answer truthfully that the Union appeared to function splendidly; as in a strong family, its members humoured each other’s foibles, but sensitivities were adroitly recognised. That was no surprise. More than one speech he’d heard had described a Union born out of conflict with millions killed in savage wars. Bitter enemies now worked in harmony – France and Germany, the Irish and British, or Turkey and Greece. He wished his historical knowledge was less vague. Hadn’t the Danes and Swedes once slaughtered one another? And the Estonians had loathed the Russians, the Romanians hated the Hungarians, the Poles … At this juncture his mind began to wobble. It was like trying to remember the myriad tribes of the American Midwest, which he had tried to learn out of respect for his wife’s antecedents.

What he would convey to his chief was that this vast empire served its citizens superbly. If the New White City games or Portobello Road were any guide, the citizens had blessings to spare. Though Fred the popcorn-eater might not know it, the lifeblood was trade. Boundaries and frontiers had disappeared. Crime was far less than in the US; most adults seemed gainfully employed. Wherever Strether went, an air of satisfaction seemed to prevail. If he could put his finger on something he did not admire, it was the smugness of the people he had met so far, though even that was tempered by their affability. With one exception, of course. Lisa was far from smug.

The Union, however, was an enigma. He could not quite see how it was run. For a start, the Europeans denied there was a centre; no federal government existed as such. True, the Central Bank in Frankfurt decided on interest rates and majestically controlled the stability of the currency, but it had done so for a hundred years and was irreproachably above politics. True, the President of the Union was elected. Herr Lammas had defeated three women candidates (a Cretan, an Italian and a Dane) by picking up second preferences even though he had come third on the first ballot. Nobody in Europe thought that was unfair since the voting methods were modelled on Ireland’s. It meant that nothing was quite as it seemed, and no outcome was predictable. At any rate, no electoral outcome. It was unmissable, though, that leading politicians all appeared to come from a handful of genetic families, so maybe it made precious little difference who won.

Government decisions at the centre – the ‘Brussels’ of which everyone complained – were a collective operation, as far as Strether could deduce. Collective, but not invariably consistent. Environment Ministers would scheme to remove chemicals from rivers and sewers while Health Ministers proposed the addition of new compounds to cornflakes,
chapatis or pasta. Transport would extend regional subsidies to this port or that airline. Trade Ministers would thunder that no region should obtain an unfair advantage through taxpayers’ money. Heated discussions would stir the night in a dozen dialects; but agreement was invariably cobbled together and hands shaken on a deal, even if in the final photographs some smiles were a mite forced. Then they would fly home, complain bitterly, and prepare for the next fight. It was a time-honoured tradition.

Thus Ministers, elected in their own regions, ruled collectively. The European Parliament had a part to play also. Debates there, Strether had been told, generated more heat than light: MEPs would become agitated about saving the world’s few remaining whales, or the desirability of fishing permits for their particular patch – subsidised, naturally, by everyone else. Strether was familiar with such log-rolling in Washington. And Parliament, like Congress, had the constitutional right to interrogate the President of the Commission, Herr Lammas himself, on the exercise of his duties. But that had deteriorated into a ‘State of the Union’ event, a ceremonial used to put across whatever the leadership wanted publicised and no more. Too many platitudes and too little probing. So where did power really lie?

Strether was seated on table four. Through the smoked dolphin (Norwegian) and the moose tournedos (Icelandic) he had conducted a stilted conversation in German with a stout woman on his right who had turned in relief to the Austrian on her other side. To his left Marius was entangled in a lively discussion in what might have been Czech. It gave Strether an opportunity to take in his surroundings.

The Crown Prince was seated hunched over the top table, sawing away grumpily at his meat. Next to him was the Speaker of the Belgian Parliament, the hostess, a colossally fat woman rumoured to eat her fried potatoes with mayonnaise. Further on, he saw a thin ascetic figure he did not know but who from his figure and throat decoration, was probably one of that ÉNA-trained elite, a senior civil servant. The English Prime Minister and a bunch of MPs were somewhere about. At a further table he spotted Maxwell Packer, the media mogul whom he had met at Buckingham Palace. Packer caught his eye and raised a glass in greeting.

‘Penny for them.’ It was Marius’s voice.

‘So where does the power lie?’ Strether asked aloud. In answer to Marius’s raised eyebrow, he added, ‘I’m looking at them. The MPs decide what they’re allowed to decide. The MEPs waste time on frivolities and fancy dinners. Ministers sign papers stuck in front of their noses, much of which they know nothing about, and mostly when they’re dog-tired. The President’s a figurehead. So who decides? Who writes those papers, props up the ministers, sets the parliamentary agenda, writes the President’s speeches?’

‘Who are the guardians, you mean?’

‘Are they called that? Is there some sort of secret society?’ Strether was astonished.

‘No, no,’ Marius murmured. ‘I was thinking of the saying,
quis custodies custodiet?
’ Strether looked blank. ‘Who guards the guardians? The answer is, nobody does. We each do our best with the limited faculties at our disposal. I say that as an elected peer. It is an onerous responsibility and we are ever conscious of our imperfections.’

Strether peered at him suspiciously, but Marius’s expression was studiously bland.

‘Oh, great. There’s no overall authority?’

‘No. How could there be? Only God, I suppose, if you are a believer. Or your conscience.’

‘Hum.’ Strether paused. ‘No, Marius, it won’t do. Somebody puts in the homework, somebody writes a priority list, and sorts out what’s affordable and what’s shelved. Or, at least, makes the recommendations.’

The meat course was cleared. A shout went up as a Bombe Bruxelloise was brought in, its snowy meringue illuminated by lit sparklers. Strether handed the half-spent sparkler to the German matron who held it at arm’s length with an expression of profound distaste. He quickly turned again to Marius and placed a hand on his arm.