Westlake, Donald E - Novel 51 by Humans (v1.1)

interview in two
languages. Today, though, after about five minutes, the new pilot frowned at
her and said, “Why do I know you from someplace?”
                This still happened sometimes.
People still remembered Maria Elena ,
the pop star, the rising talent who had shone so brightly and so briefly and
then disappeared. She had used only her first names, Maria Elena, and the people had cried them out at the
concerts—“Maria Elena! Maria Elena!”—as though she were a soccer star.
                Ah, but that was then. When someone
remembered now, or thought they did, she denied it. What was the point in
rehashing that painful history? They would want to know why, with her fame
still growing, with her record albums topping the charts, with her career on
the brink of the international—she had even recorded one album in Spanish—she
had so abruptly disappeared.
                And how could she talk about such
things? That her body was foul, her children dead, her husband recoiling from her
in disgust. That she could no longer sing, that the music was no longer in her.
And that when she had tried to use her celebrity for something that really
mattered, to protest the destruction of the land and the people on it, the
media had closed against her, shutting her out, more interested in jobs than
health, caring more about their wallets than their children.
                So when this new pilot asked why he
knew her, she offered him a small and distancing smile, as though he were
merely flirting, and said, “I can’t think of any reason,” and turned away to
look out her window at the ground bumping by far below.
                That stopped the conversation, but
only for a few minutes. Then, when she incautiously looked again in his
direction he grinned at her under his bandit moustache and said, “Not such a
good priest down there, huh?”
                Maria Elena looked at him in
surprise. “You could tell that from way over by the plane?”
                “I could tell that from the sky,” he said, and laughed.
                “He thinks God wants all this
misery,” she said. “Why should God want it?”
                “Who benefits?” said the pilot,
raising one brown stubby finger in a parody of the pedantic teacher. “That is
always the question to ask, when you want to know what is really going on. Who
benefits from the docility of the people? Does God?”
                “The owners of the factory,” Maria
Elena said.
                “Not God?” It was as though he was
teasing her.
                Jack, in the isolation of the seat
behind them and not understanding Portuguese, couldn’t take part in the
conversation. It was up to Maria Elena by herself. Earnesdy, she said, “God
made us. He loves us. He doesn’t want us to be tortured. It doesn’t benefit Him
if the people don’t fight back when the factory kills their children. It
benefits the owners.”
                ‘The owners.” He seemed doubtful.
“Who do you mean, exacdy?”
                “We all know them,” she said, with
contempt. “They live in Rio , with
their ocean views, they come to Brasilia surrounded by lawyers to testify that the
factories are cleaner than last year. Always cleaner, cleaner. We show the true
statistics, their lawyers make the statistics lie.”
                “But they aren’t the real owners,”
the pilot said. “Don’t you know that? Those people are the board. They only run the company. The real owners are the
stockholders.”
                “More of the same,” Maria Elena
said.
                “Not exactly.” The pilot seemed to
find all this amusing in some way. “The stockholders never come to Brasilia to testify, they never have to lie even
once to anybody. Never even come to Brazil . Do you think they ever breathe this