Evensong

For a moment Anwar had a surreal feeling that Zaitsev was about to be assassinated by one of his own people. But the Meatslab walked rapidly over, went to whisper something in Zaitsev’s ear, thought better of it in view of the mikes and cameras trained on the stage from all angles, and used hand gestures—more like semaphore, given his size—to ask to borrow his pen. Zaitsev passed it to him, but he couldn’t make it open. Patiently, Zaitsev indicated the button on the side of the pen’s barrel, and did sign language with his thumb to demonstrate how to open it. Then he had to ask Zaitsev for some paper, and the dumb show was in danger of repeating itself until one of the others at the top table passed him a notebook. He scribbled something and handed it to Zaitsev. Zaitsev stared at it for what seemed like a long time, then got up and announced he had to leave for a few minutes. He got one of the others on the top table to chair the proceedings while he was away, and then walked rapidly off the stage and out of the auditorium.

He returned an hour later. He looked shockingly different. Either devastated or exultant, but obviously consumed by something that wasn’t consuming him when he left. He waved away requests for him to resume the Chair, and sat silent and rigid while the fractious proceedings continued to get more fractious. He was actually trembling.

What was that about? Anwar asked himself. Even he couldn’t read Zaitsev’s body language or voice inflections reliably. One of the very few occasions when he couldn’t. But he knew one person who might know.

“It was a call from Rafiq,” Gaetano told him. Olivia had left the summit, with Anwar in tow, to attend another Outreach meeting in the Boardroom. Anwar had got her to stop in the piazza in front of the Conference Centre so he could call Gaetano.

“And,” Gaetano continued, “I understand it was followed by a flurry of calls between Rafiq’s staff and Zaitsev’s. They’re still going on now. And no,” he said, anticipating Anwar’s next question, “ I don’t know the substance of the calls, any more than you do. But something is changing. Very quickly.”

“Gaetano,” Olivia said, into Anwar’s wristcom, “tell them to put the Outreach meeting on hold. I’m going back to the summit.”

Zaitsev sat for a few minutes, still visibly trembling. Eventually he told the acting Chairman (a retired UN diplomat) that he was ready to resume the Chair.

The auditorium was silent.

“The Agenda...” Zaitsev began, then stopped. His voice was high-pitched and feverish. He cleared his throat, and began again. “The Agenda of this summit was agreed after hours of preparatory negotiation. It contains,” he was now reading from the Preamble, “detailed proposals, painstakingly computer-modelled and costed, to establish Guiding Principles and codes of conduct to address all water resources disputes—damming, diverting, forestation, and other matters—plus detailed schedules for individual discussions between those most affected, coming back to collective discussions when the individual discussions have borne fruit...”

There was more, and he read it all. It was a typical UN document: logical, rational, with infinite possibilities for subsequent spin, and leaving enough room to cobble something together for the signing. He read it slowly and magisterially, to the annoyance of the delegates who, having argued about it for five days, already knew it quite well enough.

“So: the Agenda.” Theatrically, he held it up between thumb and forefinger, and brandished it.

“And you know what we’re going to do with it? Tear it up.”

He proceeded to do so, scattering pieces on the stage.

“Tear it up. Throw it away. All of it. I have something better.” 

10

After the uproar died down, the summit got into the particulars of what Zaitsev had for them. Then the uproar began again, but this time in a different tone.

When the summit broke for lunch at midday on October 19, Olivia returned with Anwar to her bedroom. They’d said nothing to each other since leaving the Conference Centre, and didn’t now. They didn’t know where to begin.

She switched on the newscasts.

“...this morning’s developments at Brighton. UN Secretary-General Zaitsev left the summit abruptly, and returned an hour later. Whatever happened in that hour inspired him to take the summit down a new and quite unexpected road. Some say it could make history. This commentator would still counsel a degree of caution, as some consequential details remain to be settled. But it is, without doubt, an extraordinary development. The summit looked to be on the point of collapse. Now it looks to be on the point of achieving something far beyond the Agenda, which Zaitsev rather theatrically tore up, live on stage, before outlining his new initiative.”

“Seems to have taken everyone by surprise,” she said.

“Including Zaitsev.”

“What?”

“Switch to one of the science channels. See what they say.”