I had another one of those clients this morning – obviously South Asian, with a military bearing, paying cash and giving an obviously fabricated name – this one insisted his was “Steven Phillips.” He claimed he was a graduate student from Catholic University doing research for his doctoral thesis.
“Catholic University?” I smiled innocently as he settled into the couch. “Is Cardinal Sin still Dean of Students?”
“Ah, not anymore,” my guest answered uncertainly. “At least, I don’t think so.”
“How’s Archbishop Cockburn? Is he still in charge of Men’s Athletics?”
“Uh, ah, I don’t remember…”
“How about Father Christmas? He still teaching toy making?”
“What?” My guest’s eyes went wide.
“Pakistani Army?”
He blushed so hard and deep, even his natural complexion couldn’t hide it. “Yes, yes, okay,” he sighed, “you have it.”
“All right then,” I continued, “let me guess. You’re here in Washington on behalf of President Musharraf.”
My guest stared down at the floor. “Yes.”
“And you’ve been all over Washington for the last few days, talking to people at the Pentagon, the CIA, the State Department, the White House…”
“Yes, yes,” he interrupted, nevertheless keeping his eyes locked on my hand woven silk Persian rug. “I even tried the Federal Reserve.”
“And everybody’s nice to you.”
“Very nice,” he nodded dejectedly.
“They listen politely.”
“Very polite.”
“Then they thank you for coming.”
“Yes, thanks. Thanks from everyone.”
“Then they show you out.”
“Yes, they put me out into the street afterward, so politely.”
“And you can tell they aren’t going to do jack squat, right?”
He turned his huge, deep brown eyes up to look at me. “This Jack Squat, is he also on the faculty at Catholic University?”
“Not exactly,” I responded. “But I assure you, he’s on the staff of every department in the federal government. See here, sir,” I went on, seeing no reason to mince words, “your boss has painted himself into a corner.”
“I’m sorry,” my guest replied in a bewildered tone, “but I am quite sure I have never seen him paint anything.”
“What I mean is,” I explained, “President Musharraf has played both ends against the middle so long, now he finds himself between a rock and a hard place.”
“Rocks… hard places… ends… middles… painted corners…” my guest shrugged. “In Pakistan, we would say, he is pulling on the tail of an elephant that has eaten too many rotten mangoes.”
“An elegant image,” I opined. “Very evocative.”
“Thank you, Mr. Collins,” my guest whispered dejectedly. “It is evident that you understand my predicament, and that of my country’s fearless leader, quite well.”
“Three out of four Pakistani provinces have demanded his impeachment,” I observed. “So he sent you here to ask Uncle Sam to bail him out.”
“Yes,” he said, his tone now louder and more demanding, “that is it, the bail out. Uncle Sam, he bails out your banks – your Freddies and your Fannies and your Bears; he bails out your Chryslers and your farmers and everyone and anyone, so why will Uncle Sam not bail out his good friend, President Musharraf? I am thinking very deeply upon this last night, and cannot make an answer of any sort – no, not one, not a single one, not of the least plausible phrases, I swear to you! So the idea comes to me, in the deep dark of a sleepless night, that I should ask Tom Collins, the one whom I have heard, is the smartest person inside the Beltway.”
“Perhaps,” I demurred. “But you must realize, my friend, that being the smartest person inside the Beltway is like being the tallest building in Baltimore.”
“Forgive me, Mr. Collins,” my guest sadly confessed, “but I have never been to Baltimore.”
“May none of your regrets,” I wished him sincerely, “be any greater than that.”
“Thank you,” he said ruefully, as he gazed over his shoulder out the window at the White House. “But I fear my regrets will be rather more severe, indeed. Tell me, Mr. Collins, if you can,” he beseeched, “why it is that, after so many years of helping the United States, every branch of your government now turns its back on my beloved leader?”
“Oh, that,” I mused. “Yes, why indeed? Could it have been his constant goading of the Indians, the way he incessantly rattled the saber, always pushing toward, then backing off from the brink of a regional nuclear war?”
“Oh, come now,” my guest interjected, “couldn’t everybody tell he was just having a bit of fun, jerking on the Hindu dog’s chain, so to speak? Surely, you here in Washington could tell, he was just joking. He only did that to win popular support at home!”
“Maybe so,” I allowed. “But we Americans take nuclear war pretty seriously. After all, we invented it. Then there’s that business with the ISI.”
A look of frank astonishment spread across my guest’s face. “What business?”
“You know,” I gently chided, “that business about the ISI being on both sides of the war on terrorism? You must have heard of that.”
“Mr. Collins,” my guest scolded back genteelly, “you, of all people, must realize that the ISI has been a power unto itself since before either of us were even born. Why blame what they do on poor President Musharraf? This complaining about the ISI, I will tell you without uncertainty, I have heard it from everybody I have visited here, with the exception of the Federal Reserve – they just remarked about Pakistan’s credit rating instead. Can we help it if our country doesn’t have any oil? Look at Israel – they don’t have any oil either, but Uncle Sam, he’s sending them billions.”
“Now, my friend,” I admonished, “you’re comparing apples and oranges.”
“So, the Jews are the apples and we Moslems are the oranges?”
“In a manner of speaking, perhaps.”
“And you Americans, you prefer Johnny Appleseed to Orange Julius, then?”
“Well,” I sagely ruminated, “I don’t know about that. But we definitely prefer our metaphors straight up, not mixed. In any case, my friend, you must admit, the way your boss handled the Benazir Bhutto affair can’t go unnoticed.”
“Surely, Mr. Collins,” my guest implored, “you cannot believe that President Musharraf had anything at all to do with her assassination? To think that, why, it is as if someone were to suggest that there was some kind of conspiracy to kill your President Kennedy, when all sane, rational people know that man Harvey Oswald, he surely must have acted alone.”
“Indubitably.”
His English vocabulary yet not up to Oxford standards, my guest shot me a perplexed look. “Do-bee-do-bee-do? This is your Sinatra, is it not?”
“Well,” I replied, “since you brought up the subject, my friend, I’d say that it’s pretty obvious that Pervez Musharraf definitely did it his way. But, just as obviously, he doesn’t understand how America treats its, ah… how shall I put it… native friends? Yes, that’s it – he doesn’t understand how America treats it’s native friends.”
“Native friends?”
“Yeah, you know, like Ngo Dinh Diem, the President of South Vietnam.”
“I regret,” my guest informed me, “that my knowledge of Southeast Asian history is somewhat incomplete. What, exactly, are you saying, Mr. Collins?”
“I’m saying, my… Pakistani native friend, that, despite all the things he did for America, when push came to shove, Uncle Sam’s good buddy native friend Ngo Dinh Diem ended up twisting slowly in the wind.”
“Twisting slowly in the wind?” My guest frowned. “English is difficult enough, but when I have to speak it with Americans, I am sometimes completely at a loss, as you say. Is this twisting in the wind anything like when you say ‘breaking wind?’”
“Not exactly,” I clarified, “but, come to think of it, a lot of… instances of flatulence… who play ball with us do end up like Diem did. Then there’s Manuel Noriega – he used to be real good buddies with the United States, particularly the Central Intelligence Agency – and look what happened to him.”
“’Noriega,’” my guest pondered aloud, “this is a Spanish name?”
“You know Panama?”
My guest wracked his brain momentarily, then smiled. “Yes, yes, I know it – a country in Central America. On one side is… ah, Colombia, yes, and on the other, is… Costa Rica, and you Americans, you built a big canal there, right?”
“That’s the one.”
“And?” His eyes lit up with anticipation.
“And we put Manuel Noriega in charge of it; and then we went in and arrested his sorry butt and put him in an American prison.”
My guest’s face fell, portraying abject horror and disbelief. “Why?”
“Because Ronald Reagan felt like it, that’s why. Then there were the Somozas.”
“Why bring Indian food into the conversation,” he demanded, a bit indignantly, “when you know quite well that I am a Pakistani?”
“No, no, not that kind of samosas,” I explained. “I’m talking about the Somoza family, and the dynasty of Somozas who ruled the country of Nicaragua in the name of the Monroe Doctrine and the United Fruit Company.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” my guest remarked, “how a family of Spanish people in the country on the other side of Costa Rica from Panama became named after Indian fritters. But perhaps it was… two things happening at the same time that appear to be related but, in fact are not…”
“A coincidence,” I interjected. “Exactly. A complete coincidence. So, the last of the Somoza clan, he was named Anastasio Somoza, and he was very, very good friends with Citigroup, Sears Roebuck, Westinghouse and Coca Cola.”
“Coca Cola,” my guest murmured in awe. “Such power. And Sears Roebuck, too?”
“Indeed,” I agreed, “but when a series of natural disasters and financial swindles ruined the economy, the starving, barefoot peasants rose up against him in a Marxist revolt. And when they rode into Managua, the capital city, shooting their AK-47’s in the air, riding around the Presidential Palace waving bottles of rum, the Somozas had to pack their bags and run away. And do you know what Washington did?”
A pregnant pause ensued while my guest considered my question. Finally, he spoke. “Flatulence left twisting in the winds?”
“Ah, yes,” I assured him, “I think you are getting the idea. Gretchen!”
At that, my private secretary opened the door separating my office from the reception area, where my name on a glass door faces the posh hallway on the thirteenth floor of the building where I do business as a consultant.
“Yes, Mr. Collins?”
“Check the Internet for Pervez Musharraf.”
“Yes, Mr. Collins.”
My now not-so-mysterious guest gazed at me uncertainly. “Why are you asking her to do that?”
“I have my reasons,” I responded dryly. “Tell me, do you think President Musharraf will be allowed to leave Pakistan, or do you think he will be forced to stay there and face criminal charges?”
My guest stood up defiantly. “How dare you even suggest that Pervez Musharraf is a criminal? The man gave his entire life to Pakistan! Everything he has done is for love of Pakistan and its people! He has slaved, sweated and sacrificed all that he is for Pakistan! The man is inspired of Allah, I tell you! Only a complete, raving, deranged lunatic of the first water – yes, of the first water, I tell you, could even conceive…”
“The Internet,” Gretchen yelled from the next room, “says the United States has issued an announcement that Musharraf is expected to resign within the next few days. He’s being forced out by ‘…a ruling coalition government which includes the late Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party…’ and something called ‘the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.’ It also says the Pakistani Army refuses to intervene on Musharraf’s behalf, and that somebody named Mohammad Mian Soomro is going to take over as interim President. And here, it says, the new government firmly states that Musharraf will not be allowed to leave Pakistan and ‘shall be detained to face impeachment for subversion of the Pakistani Constitution and high treason; followed by criminal prosecutions for mass murder, genocide, crimes against humanity, manslaughter, use of rape as a weapon of oppression, conspiracy, violations of international law, willful abrogation of national treaties, constructive theft, burglary, obstruction of justice, misappropriation of funds, embezzlement, necrophilia, pederasty, child pornography, sheep-shagging, drug smuggling, setting fire to cute furry animals, shooting Bambi’s mother and spitting on the sidewalk.’”
“Damn,” I exclaimed, “that’s exactly what the Democrats said they were going to get Nixon for! It’s dollars to donuts that the Pakistani Parliament got that entire list from right down the street at Foggy Bottom! You know what it means, don’t you?”
My guest shook his head sadly.
“It means, all he has to do is resign, and they will let him go.”
It took a couple of minutes for that to soak in, but when it did, the poor little brown bugger gave me his best woggie-wallah rickshaw-puller smile.
“Mr. Collins,” he beamed, “you have surely turned my day of utter despair into one of undiluted joy.”
“That,” I told him frankly, “is why I get paid the big bucks.”