“Of course we didn’t.”
“And now there are rumors and leaks. People are connecting the dots.”
“That I was there?”
“Yes. Which is all right, provided we get out ahead of it and make a statement.” Ruud had the habit, which now that Saskia had noticed it was beginning to get on her nerves, of lapsing into English mid-sentence when he wanted to drop in buzz phrases, like “connecting the dots” or “get out ahead of it.” Though, come to think of it, maybe that was preferable to letting that kind of talk seep into the Dutch language and clutter it up with faddish garbage.
“You want me to talk about this, specifically, half an hour from now!?”
Ruud shook his head. “Not Texas specifically. It would be a distraction, as you know. But to avoid confusion—if the whole story does come out—we can preempt it by issuing a policy statement against geoengineering.” He shook the papers. “Which I have inserted into this new draft. I just wanted to mention it to you so you won’t be surprised by the new wording when you come across it.” He paused and gave a little shrug. “I don’t know if you rehearse the speech—try to commit portions of it to memory—”
“I don’t. But I very much appreciate the consideration you have shown me by ducking in to give me this ‘heads-up.’” There. Now she’d done it too. But it triggered a memory of Rufus using that phrase in his dually, after the plane crash, and Alastair nearly being decapitated by a branch. Now she had to suppress a smile at the memory of that moment of slapstick.
Ruud noticed this and didn’t know what to make of it. He was now regarding her with just a trace of concern. “The least I could do,” he said. “Are you all right with this?”
On one level—the Grondwet level—this was a purely rhetorical question. It didn’t matter whether she was all right with it. Her job was to read the bloody speech. But it did actually matter.
“Is this the first time,” Saskia asked, “that the government has issued such a sweeping, blanket condemnation of geoengineering?”
“To my knowledge, yes.”
“Do you actually consider that to be a coherent policy? For a country such as ours that is, to a large extent, below sea level and kept in existence solely through, dare I say it, geoengineering?”
Ruud got a faintly disappointed look on his face and checked his watch, as if to say There isn’t time for me to explain these basic realities to you. There was an upwelling of crowd noise from outside. A horse-drawn carriage, not quite as magnificent as the queen’s but still richly encrusted with gold leaf, was entering the gates of the palace courtyard to collect the first members of the household. Horseshoes and iron wheel rims clattered on the paving stones as it swept round in a wide curve—the turning radius of these things was atrocious—that took it up to the door below. Nearby, a military band struck up a patriotic song.
“Let me guess,” Saskia said, “you’re about to tell me that it’s not about what you, or your party, actually think is the best policy. It’s about politics.”
Ruud now looked slightly less disappointed. He blinked and waited, eyes darting once or twice to the scene below, which looked not much different from how it would have during the days of Napoleon. But with jarring modern touches: the grenadiers in their red uniforms and tall bearskin caps shouldered NATO M16s, not muskets.
Ruud was the leader of the center-right party that in general got the most votes and anchored the ruling coalition. But there always had to be a coalition of some sort; in this country, it never happened that one party got enough votes to form a government all by itself. Ruud’s party had to form that coalition with parties that were either to the right or to the left of it. It had been the case for the last few years that Ruud was able to get almost all the votes he needed from a party that was more conservative. It was not quite a fringe party. It did, however, include a fair number of climate change skeptics. New elections were coming up next
year and the big center-left party was predicted to make a strong showing. By forming a coalition with single-issue parties on the far left they might be able to wrest the government away from Ruud’s party.
So Ruud was guarding his left flank here. Throwing a bone—blanket condemnation of geoengineering schemes—to the Greens, to blunt the force of the opposition’s campaign next year. He had probably been up all night hitting “refresh” on numerous browser tabs, watching his political foes “connect the dots” on Saskia’s trip to Texas and the Pina2bo bombshell. This made him potentially responsible—according to the letter of the Grondwet—for any fallout. Inserting this language into the queen’s speech would serve a dual purpose of protecting not just Ruud but Saskia as well from the repercussions of T.R.’s actions in Texas.