“I don’t do a great deal of business in Greece,” Mr. Hosokawa said to Gen that night over drinks in the bar of the Athens Hilton. The bar was on top of the hotel and looked out over the Acropolis, and yet it seemed that the Acropolis, small and chalky in the distance, had been built there for just this reason, to provide a pleasant visual diversion for the drinking guests. “I was wondering about your other languages.” Mr. Hosokawa had heard him speaking English on the phone.
Gen made a list, stopping from time to time to see what had been left out. He divided into categories the languages in which he felt he was extremely fluent, very fluent, fluent, passable, and could read. He knew more languages than there were specialty cocktails listed in the Plexiglas holder on the table. They each ordered a drink called an Areopagus. They toasted.
His Spanish was extremely fluent.
Half a world away, in a country twice as foreign, Mr. Hosokawa was remembering the Athens airport, all the men with mustaches and Uzis who called to mind the man who held the gun now. That was the day he met Gen, four years ago, five? After that, Gen came back to Tokyo to work for him full-time. When there was nothing that needed translating, Gen simply seemed to take care of things before anyone knew they needed taking care of. Gen was so central to the way he thought now that Mr. Hosokawa forgot sometimes he didn’t know the languages himself, that the voice people listened to was not his voice. He had not understood what the man with the gun was saying and yet it was perfectly clear to him. At worst, they were dead. At best, they were looking at the beginning of a long ordeal. Mr. Hosokawa had gone someplace he never should have gone, let strangers believe something that was not true, all to hear a woman sing. He looked across the room at Roxane Coss. He could barely see her, her accompanist had her so neatly wedged between himself and the piano.
“President Masuda,” the man with the mustache and the gun said.
There was an uneasy shifting among the well-dressed guests, no one wanting to be the one to break the news.
“President Masuda, come forward.”
People kept their eyes blank, waiting, until the man with the gun brought the gun down so that now it faced the crowd, though in particular it appeared to be pointed at a blonde woman in her fifties named Elise, who was a Swiss banker. She blinked a few times and then crossed her wide-open hands one on top of the other to cover her heart, as if this was the place she was most likely to be shot. She would offer up her hands if they might afford her heart a millisecond of protection. While this elicited a few gasps from the audience, it did little else. There was an embarrassing wait that ruled out all notions of heroics or even chivalry, and then finally the Vice President of the host country took a small step forward and introduced himself.
“I am Vice President Ruben Iglesias,” he said to the man with the gun. The Vice President appeared to be extremely tired. He was a very small man, both in stature and girth, who had been chosen as a running mate as much for his size as for his political beliefs. The pervasive thinking in government was that a taller vice president would make the President appear weak, replaceable. “President Masuda was unable to attend this evening. He is not here.” The Vice President’s voice was heavy. Too much of this burden was falling to him.
“Lies,” the man with the gun corrected.
Ruben Iglesias shook his head sadly. No one wished more than he that President Masuda were in attendance right now, instead of lying in his own bed, happily playing over the plot of tonight’s soap opera in his mind. General Alfredo quickly turned the gun in his hand so that he now held the muzzle rather than the handle. He brought the gun back in the air and hit the Vice President on the flat bone of his cheek beside the right eye. There was a soft thump, a sound considerably less violent than the action, as the handle of the gun hit the skin over the bone and the small man was knocked to the ground. His blood wasted no time in making its exit, spilling out the three-centimeter gash near his hairline. Some of it made its way into his ear and started the journey back into his head. Still, everyone, including the Vice President （now lying half conscious on his own living-room rug where not ten hours before he had rolled in a mock wrestling match with his three-year-old son） was pleased and surprised that he had not been shot dead.
The man with the gun looked at the Vice President on the floor and then, as if liking the sight of him there, instructed the rest of the party to lie down. For those who didn’t speak the language this was clear enough, as one by one the other guests sank to their knees and then stretched out on the floor.
“Faceup,” he added.
The few who had done it wrong rolled over now. Two of the Germans and a man from Argentina would not lie down at all until the soldiers went and poked them sharply in the backs of their knees with rifles. The guests took up considerably more room lying down than they had standing up, and to accommodate the need for space some lay down in the foyer and others in the dining room. One hundred and ninety-one guests lay down, twenty waiters lay down, seven prep cooks and chefs lay down. The Vice President’s three children and their governess were brought from the upstairs bedroom, where, despite the late hour, they had yet to go to sleep because they had been watching Roxane Coss sing from the top of the stairs, and they, too, lay down. Scattered across the floor like area rugs lay some important men and women and a few extremely important men and women, ambassadors and various diplomats, cabinet members, bank presidents, corporation heads, a monseigneur, and one opera star, who appeared to be much smaller now that she was on the floor. Bit by bit the accompanist was moving on top of her, trying to bury her beneath his own broad back. She squirmed a bit. The women who believed that this would all be over shortly and they would be home in their own beds by two A.M. were careful to adjust their full skirts beneath them in a way that would minimize wrinkling. The ones who believed they would be shot presently let the silk wad and crease. When everyone had settled to the floor the room was left remarkably quiet.
Now the people were clearly divided into two groups: those who were standing and those who were lying down. Instructions were given, those lying down were to remain quiet and still, those standing up should check those lying down for weapons and for secretly being the president.
One would think that being on the floor would make one feel more vulnerable, more afraid. They could be stepped on or kicked. They could be shot without even the chance to run. Yet to a person everyone on the floor felt better. They could no longer plot to overpower a terrorist or consider a desperate run at the door. They were considerably less likely to be accused of doing something they did not do. They were like small dogs trying to avoid a fight, their necks and bellies turned willfully towards sharp teeth, take me. Even the Russians, who had been whispering a plot to make a run for it a few minutes before, experienced the relief of resignation. Not a few of the guests closed their eyes. It was late. There had been wine and turbot and a very nice small chop, and as much as they were terrified, they were tired. The boots that stepped around them, over them, were old and caked in mud that flaked off into trails across the elaborately patterned Savonnière carpet （which, mercifully, lay on a good pad）。 There were holes in the boots and the edges of toes could be seen, toes being now so close to eyes. Some of the boots had fallen apart and were held together by silver electrical tape that was itself filthy and rolled back at the edges. The young people crouched down over the guests. They did not smile but there was nothing particularly threatening in their faces either. It was easy to imagine how this might have gone if everyone had been standing, a smaller boy with several knives needing to establish his authority over a taller, older man wearing an expensive tuxedo. But now the boys’ hands moved quickly, fluttering in and out of pockets, smoothing down pants legs with their fingers spread. For the women there was just the slightest tapping around the skirts. Sometimes a boy would lean over, hesitate, and pull away altogether. They found very little of interest, as this was a dinner party.