Kaija Michaelsdóttir wasn’t the biggest fan of volleyball. Which was because she wasn’t the biggest anything – she stood barely over 5’2” tall – and had been mercilessly picked on by a couple of taller girls when she was at school. They’d been volleyball players.
Guess who has control of the drone button now, bitches, she thought for half a second. But it was a passing thought, and her attention drifted away from memories of tweenage rivalry to the game on the screen. It wasn’t her favorite sport, but it was
on, and Græntfjall were winning, which was more than could be said of the basketball or football teams of late. She watched as a tall woman went to the net and blocked a Natanian shot, evoking cheers from similar tall women. A much shorter woman in a green top joined in the celebrations.
Traitor, she thought.
“I’m glad you’re not overburdened by the duties of office.”
Guðjón, her husband, smiled at the scene. On one side, a stack of briefing documents as tall as her (which, as established, not that tall, but still big for a
pile of papers she had to read before tomorrow morning); on the other side, a half-drunk bottle of wine. She was wearing the outfit she’d worn to the morning event, an address on business confidence, except he didn’t remember the giant pink fuzzy slippers featuring. They were propped up on the table, on top of a file marked ‘TOP SECRET’. Or ‘TOP SECRE▮’, the wine had spilled. On the screen, the TV was showing the game as a tall black woman hit a fierce shot back over the net.
“I’ve given three speeches, sat on two policy councils, and chaired one round-table today. I’ve earned this.” She waggled an enormous (and empty) wine glass at him.
“You have to learn to delegate,” he sighed.
“If I delegate to the Liberal-Conservatives I’ll come back and find out they’ve sold the Navy to buy more shotguns and chewing tobacco.”
“I think there are one or two from your own party?”
She signalled her great faith in her party colleagues with a grunt. On screen, the Net Wolves had taken another set. Perhaps Kaija should have found the images of the black and white players high-fiving a moving testament to modern multicultural Græntfjall. She didn’t. All she saw were the tall girls who’d laughed as they stole her binder and put it on top of the lockers where she couldn’t reach.
“You have to read all this tonight? You don’t get a night off?”
“I think they sort of frown on Prime Ministers taking nights off.
Sorry that the Eurans invaded and salted our fields, but it was after working hours.”
“We could watch
The Barge? Everyone at the office is talking about the new episode, it’s hard to avoid spoilers!”
“I can’t. I have to go out.”
“…you have to go out? Kaija, do you know what time it is!?*”
“I’m sorry.” She realized she hadn’t even made eye contact with her husband yet, and turned off the television. The fuzzy slippers retreated beneath the couch as she sat up, looked at him, and smiled apologetically. “Really. I’m sorry. But I have a thing.”
“A thing?”
“It’s…” She picked up the ‘TOP SECRE▮’ file and gestured lamely.
He did not look convinced. “What could it possibly be at this time that can’t wait until tomorrow?”
“Guðjón, we discussed this. There are some parts of my life that are going to have to be off-limits. It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, it’s that I literally can’t.”
It wasn’t the first such discussion they’d had. It wouldn’t be the last. And what made it all the more frustrating for Kaija was that, while before she’d not always deployed the excuse in the best of faith or strictly within the parameters necessary to preserve state security… tonight, Jason Þórhallursson was thousands of miles away in Banija, and she wasn’t going to meet him: she really was headed for a meeting of the utmost secrecy. A meeting she couldn’t believe she had been talked into. A meeting with the last man alive she had ever thought she would sit with for counsel.
She rose from the couch, and said again: “I’m sorry.”
*
No, actually. Because I don’t know the time difference to Quebec, and don’t want to godmode the match time. Let’s assume it’s evening in Græntfjall, and if that doesn’t fit maybe she’s not watching the game live.
Aron Fritzson also did not enjoy volleyball. He was also not a tall man, in fact by Græntfjaller standards he too was on the short side. He’d also endured his spate of bullying at the hands of those bigger and stronger than him, and even today, he knew there were those who misjudged him on that account.
They were the ones whose screams he enjoyed the most.
The harmless little man opened the door to his office to find the Prime Minister, by all accounts the most beloved woman in the country, standing there. She looked displeased. He smiled obsequiously and tugged his forelock.
“Madam Prime Minister, I’m most honored. You must forgive my humble…”
“Fuck off. Let’s get this over with.”
She barged into the office, and he closed the door behind her. Not that there was anyone around to see: he worked deep in the bowels of a basement complex that did not exist.
“I’d offer you something to drink, but…”
“Coffee will be fine.”
Indeed. He’d smelled her breath on the way in. As he made for the coffee machine, making a great show of fumbling for coins, she sat watching the screen. He was watching the same volleyball as she had been half an hour prior in the comfy environs of her official apartment. In this dingy little dark office, the tall women on the screen somehow reached even scarier proportions.
“Nyagũthiĩ is playing well,” she mumbled by way of making conversation. He handed her a plastic cup full of what could only in the most strictly theoretical sense be described as coffee.
“Is he? Oh, that’s good.”
She squinted at Aron, took a sip of the ‘coffee’, and regretted both. He was about as pleasant to look at the black swill was to drink.
“I’ll turn it off,” he offered. After all, he’d only put it on to discomfort her. It had served its purpose. The screen winked out just as Kormlöð leapt for another block.
She set down the plastic cup. “You know, we issued a directive. Biodegradable cups in all government offices.”
“You did! But then, this office is not, strictly speaking, bound by such government directives.”
They looked at each other across the small office. He returned to his desk and sat down slowly.
“Which is, I would think, why you are here.”
“It’s very late, Mr. Fritzson, and I don’t have time to play verbal volleyball with you.”
He opened his hands in a peace offering. “Then I suggest you…”
“Nyowani Kitara.”
“They’re having
quite the Cup of Harmony campaign, aren’t they?”
“They’re also having a referendum.”
He did not move a muscle.
“Which, after Varakoula, we have made a great fuss of wanting to be run fairly, and of wanting to be successful.”
His eyelids narrowed. “And so…”
In the stillness that followed, Kaija found herself rather wishing she
did have a volleyball to smash back into his smug little face.
“I have been assured that you’re the man that can make that happen.”
He tilted his head and smiled laconically. “That can make sure the referendum is run fairly?”
“No, the other thing.”
“Ah.”
Kaija really was tired. And a little tipsy. She rubbed the bridge of her nose; Aron found it rather adorable, though he gathered from his surveillance videos he wasn’t quite her type.
“Madam Prime Minister…”
“Kaija, please. Or Ms Michaelsdóttir if you must.”
“Kaija. I assumed you came here to ask for my expertise.”
“I’m told you were very resourceful in Montaña Verde.”
“Told by whom?”
She sipped her coffee. It really was
awful. She wondered if he’d poisoned it. Took another look at his ugly little face. And took another gulp. At least poison would be quicker.
“I see. Well, this office certainly has certain specialties. Certain areas of expertise. And certain means at its disposal.”
A volleyball, right into the tip of his funny little nose.“But I had assumed you had come here to ask for my expertise.”
“Yes. I…”
“Don’t.”
Kaija took a second to register that her verbal track had been totally derailed. Unable to fumble for words, she had to ask ‘why’ using a bird-like bob of the head.
Adorable, thought Aron.
She was wasted on that oaf. “Kaija, why do you want the referendum to pass?”
“Varakoula. We made a big show of wanting a fair election…”
“A fair election can have two outcomes. In fact that’s the very definition of a fair vote.”
“We supported the DFLK.”
“Not really. Oh, I don’t doubt you send Mayor Ulf a very nice thank you letter after he sent you Isaksson. But troops on the ground? Money pouring into his accounts?” Aron swept his arm. “We’re within range of being able to shell Nyowani Kitara. Did you recommend our deal mutual friend Mr Juliusson bomb the Kitarans bank to their side of the lake? Of course not. You didn’t support the DFLK. You just didn’t quite oppose them quite as much.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Is that
really the logic of your new administration.”
Kaija felt she was back on track and was about to launch into a speech about the effectiveness of a liberal humanitarian foreign policy. Aron cut her off.
“If this referendum, let me spell out everything that will come to pass. One, there will be a massive humanitarian crisis. A flood of new refugees. Your border camps will overflow. And won’t the tabloids enjoy
that.
“Two, this new state, this ‘Osterland’, ‘Kitaran Republic’, whatever they decide to call it. It will be a mire. A disaster. A shithole. The KPWC will strip all material investment out of it, and you will be left to bankroll an entirely new failed state on our borders.
“And three, everyone who hates Nafuna Akongo will immediately flock to this new state. So when she then calls elections, she will have very neatly disposed of all her political enemies, or at least all the ones in the north, without the need for any costly death squads or prison camps or extrajudicial executions. They will have voluntarily disenfranchised themselves. She will win a triumphant election, rub the victory in your face, and deservedly so, because you will have handed it to her.”
“You’re saying…”
“Kaija.” The greasy smile had returned. “You shouldn’t be asking me to help sway the referendum to pass. You should be asking me to get down and pray with you that it
fails.”