Chapter 19: WHEN YOU HAVE NO CHOICE, WELL YOU HAVE NO CHOICE (10)
Moa knocked and when a voice told him to enter, he did so.
In the room the impression of space in the room was accentuated by the choices of interior decoration. There was no large picture window allowing interior light to enter, no mirror on the walls or ceiling artificially doubling the volume in a trompe l'oeil style. No fireworks, no fuss, just a few folding chairs neatly arranged along the walls and a few folded out. There were only two people, each sitting on one of these chairs close to the other. The first one, a man, was the lieutenant Bulde Beddet, in charge of refueling during the first joust. The second one was a woman, Captain Moka Saintnoir, a counter, like Moa, but for punctured tires.
Bulde was someone Moa knew fairly well. The two men had chosen to serve in the third regiment for the same reason: their passion for mechanics. It was natural that they had sympathized, and without going so far as to strike the other in the back with bursts of very fat laughter as the human males liked to do it with their close fellow-relatives of the same sex, they sometimes saw each other after the fights to discuss camshaft and cylinder head gasket. In doing so, Moa had converted Bulde to Mikado and without the latter becoming completely addicted to the game; he belonged to the same circle of initiates who liked to meet for a few sets. It was possible to consider Moa as his creditor.
Moka, Moa knew her less but he didn't like her. She had arrived at the third regiment much later than Moa, at an equivalent grade; every counter started their career as a corporal. Her propensity to spread her thighs in front of the right people had earned her a rapid rise in the hierarchy, hence her captaincy. She had a big head, big breasts, a big ambition etc.; in fact almost everything about her was big.
Moka and Bulde had lost at drawing straws, which was why they had been chosen to go down to the third floor and to meet Moa.
In the room silence reigned.
The tranquility of a forest could make such silence pleasant, an atmosphere where to observe the wonders of nature: a squirrel passing from branch to branch and piercing the rays of the sun finding their way in the plume of the canopy; a longhorn beetle having found a hole in the bark of a tree where to lay its eggs; a frog on the ground looking for moisture in the mosses, lying in wait of a reckless midge; a butterfly twirling at the top of tall grass in search of flowers for browsing. This silence was prompt in leading towards meditation, rest and tranquility.
This same silence, on a front line, was tense, scary and oppressive. It meant that the maneuvers were ready to launch, that the assault was imminent. Silence in a war was synonymous with death.
Moa did not like this silence. It meant someone was about to die and his job was to count him. They were three in the room, was one of them going to die? It was the silence that made people interrogate themselves.
Interrogations, Moa had many of them. First of all, he wandered what he was doing here. He knew very well why he was not here: it was certainly not to congratulate him or to ask him his opinion on the technical characteristics of plumbing but he would have liked that someone broke the silence and answered the questions any normal person could read on the expressions of his face.
The two officers took a deep breath, seeming to weigh each of the words they were about to say to stay as true to their thoughts as possible. Finally Moa preferred to remain the master of his own destiny and decided to break the silence. In order not to pass as disrespectful towards two hierarchical superiors speaking before they even spoke, he put the forms, emphasizing on their ranks when he challenged them.
In any case, the question was legitimate. Clearly, they did not think to make him do sport. If it was the case, they would have invited him to the eighth floor. Shortening the distance demonstrated that the purpose of the meeting was different. To leave no ambiguity, he made simple sentences, simpler than when he told them about the death of the commander because at that time, they had to be confused. Captain Saintnoir, Lieutenant Beddet, he wondered why he was asked to come and meet them.
Therefore Moka spoke. She was the supervisor, the senior officer here, and it was her role. Moa was necessary aware that the emissary had been sacrificed this morning. The emissary was the one who, on behalf of the army, participated in the morning draws. He had lost the toss and it was the custom. The third regiment could not do without an emissary, especially under the present circumstances; this was something his instinct as a veteran had to tell him.
Moa agreed on the whole, it was common knowledge. He even followed the draw that morning and saw the emissary being caught when he tried to desert. But the fact that he agreed did not mean that he understood the link.
It was like if someone was showing him an apple and telling him that the bananas were yellow, except when it was not ripe and it was green. The information was true, but what was the connection between this apple and the bananas?
Moa was someone simple. He didn't like convoluted speeches because everything ended up getting tangled and what Moka served him was already full of knocks. Bulde knew him a little and seeing the difficulties of his superior in putting the right words in front of the right ideas, he resumed the speech.
If Moa turned his head to his left, he would find the old cubbyhole that served as a technical room when the place was a cinema. On the door, he should see a uniform, Bulde was sure that with the visual abilities of a counter Moa was able to see it, and that uniform was for him. He could go and change in the storage room.
Moa approached the cubbyhole and on the door was a brand new uniform, visibly suiting him well, neatly stored on a hanger. Moa took the hanger and apologized to Moka and Bulde; he was about to change.
At this instant, he was surprised. So, if he had been invited, it was to give him a new uniform. To tell the truth, it was not luxury, Moa was barely presentable. However, all this ceremonial did not seem necessary to him. Admittedly, this brought solemnity and showed him how important he was even if he had been denied access to the meeting earlier but a simple visit to the laundry would have achieved the same goal.
In the technical room, Moa began by undressing. He took care of everything, folding his old uniform well to avoid leaving too many creases. When he got to his boy's briefs, he decided to take them off. They were dirty, they smelled bad and the textile fibers had started to dry, making several surfaces in contact with his skin scratchy.
He retrieved the new jacket first, then the pants, and before he even put them on he saw that below was a white scarf.
Moa may be slow-witted but when the hints approached the first degree speech, in the end he was still able to understand. A white scarf was the hallmark of the emissaries. Moka's speech made sense finally; it was not the personal delusions of a person slowly sliding into dementia. Under the apple, there must have been an overripe banana.
Moa was disappointed. Thus, he had made up his mind as to what motivated this meeting. If it were not to give him a new uniform even if formally it was, it was to announce him that he would certainly die.
This kind of news demanded indeed to put the forms when addressed to an officer. A jump to the laundry wouldn't have done the trick.
As the room was a bit cool and musty, Moa put on the new uniform. He left his old one and underpants on a chair and went out for an explanation.
Normally, counters were indispensable officers. The army could not do without them. They were never designated as an emissary because statistically, an emissary had a one in two chance of not finishing the day. Counter asked for special qualities and not everyone could improvise in this function. To succeed in defeating all the traps and delivering correct assessments, it took time. Even if the army wanted to get rid of a weighty counter, they should not give that person the role of an emissary. Anyhow, the emissary still had a one in two chances of finishing the day alive.
Sending a counter with the risk of having to sacrifice it, Moa wondered what was that had bitten these officers. This was correctly the question he asked Moka when he left the technical room.
His captain smiled at him, visibly delighted that he had finally understood what he was doing here. It was no use beating around the bush, why playing the watch and delaying until later what should be done now, the time was not for procrastination but for action, actions first, the palaver afterwards, prevaricating no longer had any great interest because now, every minute counted, hesitating called into question the expected result, so she went straight to the point.
The introduction demonstrated that she had a good command of the vocabulary. So Moa had actually been appointed as an emissary. It was not an easy decision to make, but they realized that there was none left when they discussed the strategic choices for the afternoon jousts. The modality of designation was unconventional, normally it was a lottery, but a mission like that they couldn't leave it to chance.
A show of hands was taken. The result: unanimity minus two votes, two abstentions. One of the officers fell asleep and another one did not understand the question, the turnout was still 90%, which was not common for an election, Moa could feel proud of him.
This urgent need for an emissary was not a passing fad. It was a gap that had to be filled because they had decided on a vital mission which required the sending of an emissary.
Stupor, anger, haggling, Moa was starting to mourn over himself. However, Moka interrupted him when she heard him point out that a counter could not be an emissary and that someone else had to be found. She knew what he was doing and they didn't have time for it. He had to take it on his chin and to think of the others for once, the mission could not be postponed while he was slowly moving to something else. In any case the decision had been made; moreover what she held out to him was a new mission order, on letterhead and duly signed.
The officers had not managed to agree on the afternoon strategy. To put it mildly, they had no idea how to conduct the jousts so they had to think about something else. The most effective would be to gain time without the enemy noticing the new shortcomings of the third regiment.
The idea was to send an emissary for a tripartite initiative and to negotiate a cease-fire which was to take effect before… Bulde looked at his watch: an hour, seventeen minutes and a few seconds, i.e. before the start of the next joust. As for the duration of the cease-fire, they left that to his own discretion, not that they hoped it was as long as possible but to give a quantified objective was not conceivable; they had to leave Moa a door of exit to avoid that he committed suicide on the spot and that they had to take again the step from the beginning without an obvious person to entrust the role to and risking that it fell on them.
They were aware that the room for maneuver to carry out the mission was limited. The third regiment had nothing to offer other than the loyalty cards and VIP tickets found on the commander, but since Sirhod did not have the reputation of frequenting the same places, this approach was unlikely to work.
The emissary would have to be capable of adapting, of being eloquent, persuasive, in short of the qualities that Moa had to learn while he was at training camp.
He thought for a moment and remembering the content of the training, clearly, these were not qualities that were encouraged and developed there, no doubt a dead end in the program on behalf of their teachers.
A lot of information had poured into his brain in a short period of time. One after the other, Moka and Bulde made comments. They didn't really have any advice to give him except to carry out his mission and to say hello when he would meet Sirhod because this one was very strict with etiquette. They had gone round the table after the vote to establish a strategy of use for Moa, but as for the afternoon jousts, they had not managed to reach a consensus.
To cheer him up before he set off, Moka explained to him that since it was an exceptional mission, there was an equally exceptional reward: ten rolls of fleece triple-ply toilet paper in pure fir-wood.
She didn't remind him what was going on if he failed. She had the urge to do so, but had been ordered to send a combative emissary to the task, not a larva resigned to his own death. It was no joke to say that this ceasefire was vital to the third regiment.
The mission was also vital to Moa and he knew it. There was no need to remind him. Now, ten rolls of fleece triple-ply toilet paper in pure fir-wood were indeed a reward many would kill for. The standard size of a roll was twenty meters and the average consumption for a man living alone was thirty meters per month, ten rolls were more than six months of consumption falling from the sky.
However, was it worth the effort?
The question asked for a balance between the benefit and the risk, and the obvious conclusion was that ten rolls of fleece triple-ply toilet paper in pure fir-wood were something everybody could find as long as they had the right connections in specialty stores. It cost a little money, but didn't put life at risk. The other officers must have known this point. They nevertheless decided to offer him this opportunity. It would have been wiser to refuse this opportunity if it had really been an offer and not an order.
He hadn't eaten yet. He was no longer wearing his boy's briefs. Sometimes even philosophizing became useless; there was no way to make the best of a bad job if the bad job concluded with death.
Moa sighted. When you did not have a choice, well you did not have a choice.
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ludo2776
ludo2776 ... to be continued in the next chapter
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