Mao II - Don Delillo [55]
His book, smelling faintly of baby drool, was just outside the door. He heard it moan solemnly, the same grave sound that welled in his gut.
In the morning there was a knock at the door. Bill was sitting in a chair, dressed except for shoes and socks, cutting his sepia toenails. The visitor was George Haddad. Bill was only slightly surprised. He went back to the chair and resumed trimming. George stood in a bare corner with his arms folded.
“I thought we might talk,” he said. “I felt we were slightly inhibited with Mr. Everson in attendance. Besides, it’s difficult to have a productive dialogue with bombs going off. And one can’t talk in London anyway. It’s the latest language hole in the Western world.”
“What do we want to talk about?”
“This young man can’t be saved. I’m not even saying released. He can’t be saved, his life is at risk unless we’re able to work without organizational pressures and without a constant police presence. ”
“You said his freedom is tied to the media. Do we work without them?”
“London has failed. Everyone has a script he brings along. No one talks about ideas. I think we have to reduce the scale of this operation.”
“The bomb has done that.”
“Reduce it radically. You and I need to trust each other enough to start over, just the two of us, somewhere else. I live in Athens now. I’m conducting a seminar at the Hellenic-American Institute. It’s very possible, although I can’t actually promise, but it’s possible I can arrange for you to meet the one man who can literally open the basement door and let the hostage go.”
Bill said nothing. A moment passed. George sat in the chair near the window.
“There’s something I wanted to ask the other evening at dinner.”
“What’s that?”
“Do you use a word processor?”
Bill had his right foot bent into his left hand and was working the curved blade of the scissors under an inward twist in the hard thick nail of the big toe and he paused briefly, pursing his lips and shaking his head no.
“Because I find I couldn’t conceivably operate without one. Move words, paragraphs, move a hundred pages, plus instant corrections. When I prepare material for lectures, I find the machine helps me organize my thoughts, gives me a text susceptible to revision. I would think for a man who clearly reworks and refines as much as you do, a word processor would be a major blessing.”
Bill shook his head no.
“Of course I’ve asked myself what you have to gain by traveling to Athens under circumstances that might be called—what do we want to call these circumstances, Bill?”
“Shadowy.”
“I’ve asked myself, Why would he say yes? What does he have to gain?”
“And what’s your answer?”
“You have nothing to gain. There is no guarantee of accomplishing the slightest thing. There is only risk. Any adviser would stress the possibility of personal danger.”
“I’d have to buy a shirt,” Bill said.
“It’s possible to talk in Athens. Beneath the frantic pace there is something I find conducive to reason and calm, to a settlement of differences. Not that I think you and I have deep disagreements at the level of ideas. Just the opposite in fact. We’ll have a dialogue, Bill. Unfettered. No one coming round to set guidelines or issue ultimatums. I have a terrace with a sweeping view.”
Bill had breakfast with the doctors. Just before noon he packed his bag and then paused by the open door and looked back into the room to make sure he’d left nothing behind. He went down to the lobby, checked out and walked a couple of blocks to a taxi rank. Look left. Look right. He imagined Charlie standing before a mirror knotting a brilliant necktie and waiting for the phone to ring. A cab