Ghost Lights by Lydia Millet (classic fiction txt) 📕

There was something sharp about Brady, something sharp and rancid.

Suddenly he longed for the company of Gretel. He liked Gretel. She was nice.

Germans, he reflected, were possibly not so bad. Even if they were a super-race, maybe they didn’t mean to be. After all, as national arrogance went, in his recollection from traveling, the French were far worse. And people often forgot that it was the Frogs, not the Krauts, who invented fascists. When people thought about the French, they thought of wine, the Eiffel Tower, the fatuous berets and painters on streets. They forgot these were the same guys who invented the whole fascist deal in the nineteenth century, then let the Germans run with it.

It was easy to be sucked into the thrall of a European. That much was true. German or French, English or Italian, even quaint, poor and Irish, there was something superior about all of them. They valued education, for one thing, which gave them a bit of a head start. They did not cherish ignorance like his own countrymen. For that reason—recently, at least—they were less destructive, megalomaniacal and brutal, for instance. Which might be seen as an advantage for them. On the other hand, their maturity could also be somewhat boring. In America adults acted like children; in Europe the children acted like small adults. Even the cornboys, though boyish enough in their activities, were more like miniature engineering students than carefree ten-year-olds.

Also, the lack of childish, wanton destructiveness failed to stand the Europeans in good stead when it came to world domination. Being smart, educated and civilized, and having learned some fairly significant lessons from their history, they had pretty much retreated from the world-domination forum over the past half-century and now were like a small band of AARP members watching the carnival from a distance and drinking nonalcoholic beer.

But as far as super-races went, the German women, at least, were warm and generous. He liked them.

The one he knew, anyway.

“Here we go. Bit of a walk. Nice beach house. No parking any closer.”

“Your friend Cleve coming?” asked Hal to fill the space as they got out of the car.

“Should be. Yeah. You know, see most of the same people at these things. Whole city’s what, sixty thousand bodies. You got a small expat community, you got your local figures. Same old. Except for the help. The help changes.”

Ahead of them was a large, white, blocky house surrounded by waving palms. A nice breeze had sprung up off the ocean. It was good to be here, after all, Hal thought with relief, if only for the breeze. There were people milling on a second-floor terrace, which was strung with lights.

“Pool, too,” said Brady. “Jacuzzi.”

“I didn’t bring my suit,” said Hal.

“No worries,” said Brady.

He followed Brady into the house, through an atrium full of waxy-leaved plants with huge flowers, up tiled stairs onto the terrace, where the drinks were. There was music, but he could not tell where it was coming from. People around, most of them tanned and quite young. Where were all the geriatric expats? They had to be around somewhere. People retired here, after all. There should be plenty of wrinkled old crones smeared with Coppertone. But instead there were only models and athletic types. Among them Hal would not shine.

A bartender, tables with candles in the center, and there: a topless woman in the hot tub. Already. She was on the other side of the pool, down off the terrace on the first floor, but he saw her. Her shoulders were brown but her breasts floated whitely on the water like twin buoys.

He encountered a lot of nudity, in this tropical location. For years, in his life, almost no nudity, only clothing. Clothing, clothing, clothing. Wherever he went, there seemed to be apparel. Although he lived in Southern California, and not far from the beach either, somehow he did not frequent the nude locations.

Then he came here and suddenly: nude. Nude nude nude.

“Here, have this one,” said Brady, and put a drink in his hand. Out of it stuck a parrot fashioned from colored pipe-cleaners: red, blue, yellow.

“So who’s our host?” asked Hal, lifting the drink to his lips. As he raised it the parrot swiveled and hit him on the nose.

“The folks throwing this shindig,” said Brady, whose own drink featured no parrot, “are ethanol. They just inked some kind of deal with BSI. The sugar monopoly.”

“Huh,” said Hal. If he took the parrot out it would stop falling on him when he drank. But in his pocket it would be crushed. He liked the parrot. He could give it to Casey. She enjoyed souvenirs, especially if tacky.

He held the parrot with one crooked finger while he raised his glass. That was the trick: restrain the parrot. Keep the parrot captive.

“Toucan’s giving you a tough time, huh,” said Brady.

“Oh. I thought it was a parrot.”

“Hey! Jeff!”

There was the lawyer, lifting himself out of the pool. He wore a Speedo. He reached out and grabbed a silky bathrobe, mounted the stairs and came up to them, nodding and waving at others he passed.

“Let me introduce you around,” he said.

They walked down the far stairs to the pool area again, where there was another bar. Beyond a wall lined with flowering vines were the beach and the ocean. A DJ played music on a stereo and people danced. They stood next to the dance floor, watching.

“Thanks for inviting me,” said Hal.

“Marcella. Marcella, this is Jeff Brady. The U.S. embassy. The one I told you about? The racquetball story?”

A passing woman shook Brady’s hand. Hal noticed long fingernails, shining silver.

“Hal Lindley,” he said, because the lawyer seemed to have forgotten his name. “Just visiting. Tourist.”

A guy on the dance floor bumped into him, sloshing his drink.

“Marcella handles the Canadians,” Cleve was telling Brady.

A server brought up an hors d’oeuvres tray. Brady picked up a small food item and shoved it into his mouth.

“What are they?” asked Hal, peering down.

“Sribuffs,” said the