The Fahrenheit Twins by Michel Faber Page B

afternoon.
    ‘They will stand well back,’ argued the dictator. ‘You will hardly notice they are there.’
    Gala closed her eyes and pressed her lips tightly together. In her mind’s eye, or the back of her retina, a negative image of sunlit flowers glowed. It was red roses today, far too many of them crammed into the vase, the stems ugly and thready from torn-off thorns.
    ‘One speck of dust from a rifle,’ she said, ‘contains a million germs, more than enough to sweep through your body like a plague. A soldier’s belt buckle can kill you – and not just in the way that is usual in our country.’
    ‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ demanded the dictator.‘ I have a university degree in these things. What I meant was, my men can watch you through the glass. It will be educational. They may be called upon to perform a bit of surgery themselves, one of these days.’
    Gala Sampras looked the old man straight in the eyes.
    ‘I hope they have not been instructed to shoot me if I appear to be in any way harming you,’ she said, quietly and reasonably. ‘After all, I am going to cut a hole in your chest, open you up like a satchel, and put a stop to your heart. They know, I trust, that all this is as it should be?’
    If the dictator was unnerved, he didn’t show it.
    ‘It is your … gentleness they will be watching for,’ he said. ‘Your thoroughness, your keen concentration, your … finesse. You see, they’ve heard that when you apply yourself to the task, you do it with love, as if your very own child was lying there.’ His fat hand made tender stroking motions in the air between them, describing a crescent curve, like a half-moon, an infant’s head, a woman’s naked breast. ‘And of course,’ he continued, ‘they will be watching at the end, to see me wake up.’
    For the first time, Gala allowed herself to consider the possibility that for all her skill, the sheer force of nature, of statistics, might dictate the outcome.
    ‘Mr President,’ she pleaded. ‘You understand that this operation has been rarely performed, and usually on much younger men.’
    He laughed, throwing up one arm in the general direction of his portrait.
    ‘Let’s be optimistic!’ he roared. ‘This country was built on optimism, after all.’
    Outside the window, a whistle blew. The dictator leapt to his feet, as if he’d already been granted a new lease of life. Enthusiastically, he motioned to Mrs Sampras to accompany him to the window. Rather than feel his hand grasping her arm, she hurried to comply.
    Together, they looked down into courtyard. Foreshortened by the perspective of many storeys, a teenage girl was walking uncertainly between two phalanxes of soldiers, her gait stiff and artificial. Despite the fact that she had a young woman’s figure, a fashionable haircut, and other features that made her almost unrecognisable as the child she’d been only a few years ago, she was unmistakably Gala Sampras’s daughter. She might have stepped straight out of the photograph in Gala’s pocket. Eyes downcast, she negotiated the concrete paving as if walking on eggs, while two dozen men looked on impassively.
    ‘Where are you …’ whispered Mrs Sampras to the old man at her side. ‘Where is she going?’
    ‘She is on her way to meet you,’ said the dictator. But, before Mrs Sampras could recover from her sharp intake of breath, he added: ‘It’s a shame she has arrived a little too early. I sometimes forget how fast our country’s trains are nowadays.’
    He led Mrs Sampras away from the window and signalled his readiness for the ordeal ahead. He escorted Mrs Sampras to the door, laying his palm gently on her shoulder, for she seemed discomposed, unsure of her balance.
    ‘It’s all right,’ he reassured her. ‘She’ll be made most welcome. You and I won’t be busy for long, will we? And if anything should delay us, I’m sure my staff will be able to find your daughter some companions of her own