Read Online A Simple Distance by K. E. Silva - Free Book Online Page A

only deep-water harbor at the expense of all other exports, so that hundreds of tourists could pour into our capital every day, litter our streets, over-use our trails to places like Soufre Lake and Victoria Falls, cut through our rain forests for better access—when the cruise line tried to do that, we just smiled. When it came time to negotiate their contract, again we smiled, but we told them they’d have to pay the Baobiquen workers who would clean their toilets, cook their caliloo and fried plantain, the same wages they paid their American employees.
    Of course, we knew they wouldn’t. They offered to build us a second deep-water port, up near Granny, in De Cote, just so they could keep the tourists streaming in. But the long-term costs to the island would have been detrimental.
    Our constituents in Bato were not happy they did not get those new jobs and they did not get that regular supply of fresh tourists to put shoes on their children’s feet. Explaining the breakdown in the contract negotiations with the cruise line to the public was a delicate maneuver. In the end, it worked best to create a diversion. To take their minds off that problem. Give them something else to worry about … There are some times, Jean, when creativity is a government official’s most important asset. And, I tell you, they do not teach you that in law school.
    There were countless victories in the work.
    My uncle paused to regain the composure pilfered by his paralysis, his breath slow and steady, returning to him like an obedient dog to its master after only a few seconds.
    I’ve told you about the American fellow, in Tete Queue, who came to the island and took up living there. The homosexual who began, shall we say, corrupting some of the local boys. Do you know what he would do, Jean? Do you? He’d call them in for cold juice or rum, or some other such pretense, and they’d wind up doing only God knows what unspeakable things. So when he tried to buy a house on the island, to live here permanently, he ran into his share of bureaucratic obstacles: land surveys not using the right valuation formula, missing signatures, unexpected deadlines. I made sure of that.
    And I’m certainly not saying this is true, but I also heard rumors that some of my constituents in Tete Queue approached him about leaving the island late one night when the generator supplying the area with its electricity wasn’t running and the moon was just a sliver in the sky.
    He left quite abruptly. American Airlines flight 2330.
    Uncle George had hit his stride, spoke clearly even through the slack in his face.
    These are the moral victories that made my political work most satisfying. Because—listen closely, Jean, you must not forget this—just as we must preserve Baobiquen culture by resisting the economic exploitation that will scavenge the best from our island for the whimsy of American tourists and leave us destitute in twenty years time; just as we must choose the services of our local companies, like CarCom, before we succumb to the convenience of First World corporations—just as important to the health of our island is its moral cleanliness. We cannot have people like that here in Baobique.
    I admit my law practice has suffered since I entered politics. At times, your Uncle Martin has had to take on some of my overflow cases. But the truth is, the work I most enjoyed was never the litigation. The work I most enjoyed was the politics.
    When I served as Chief Minister, under Prime Minister Devon, Dame Devon, for the Liberty Party, I effected more change on this island than a hundred lawsuits.
    When I ask myself, Jean, if I have lived a good life, it is not just me who answers. It is also the old women in Sommerset with running water; it is those boys in Tete Queue who will grow to have wives and children; it is their parents; it is the collective voice of Baobique.
    Ask yourself that question in twenty years time. And see what you have to say for