mean.”
“You were pretty mean before,” said Roy, “But bravo anyway.
Amazing what getting laid can do for you.”
They let out little laughs. Hollow ones. Down deep they all knew
that Roy was just trying to condense an unfathomable experience
down to a more manageable size.
As they mused silently, Martin burst in for a kaffeklasch. There
seemed a heavy emphasis on the klasch.
“Give me a cup of coffee, Roy, and I will give you the world,” He
declared.
“I normally charge less.”
Martin held up a black cartridge. “I have in my hand a chink in
the armor of the enemy. Do you happen to have a VCR in this
antediluvian asylum?
The most technologically-advanced item in Undergrounds was
the espresso machine, an Italian relic from the time of Mussolini.
They adjourned to Roy’s house to watch the tape.
It proved predictably crazed and merciless, just the kind of thing
that Martin’s patrons loved. Basically an all-out indictment of
Biddenbrooks and its policies, it took major liberties and threw in
heaps of speculation, in the end offering this basic message: The
reason there was suffering in the world was not because of weather,
inefficiency or corrupt governments. It was because of Biddenbrooks.
“Great, huh?” said Martin, jazzed about the new product. He was
going to start screening it at Gymnesia, hoping to spur his altruistic
army on to vertiginous peaks of kinetic frenzy.
“It was actually kind of funny,” said Roy. “I liked how you
interspersed pictures of poor people drinking sewage with images of
rich people drinking Biddenbrooks.”
“It’s not supposed to be funny. It’s true,” Martin insisted, “Those
are the people who pick Biddenbrooks’ coffee beans in Ethiopia.”
Roy let out a long, low whistle. He said “Those are the people who
pick everybody’scoffee beans in Ethiopia. And they’d be drinking
sewage even if they weren’t picking coffee. It’s nobody’s fault they’re
drinking sewage. Except maybe their governments.”
“Why don’t they just drink coffee?” Colin wondered.
“I can’t believe you’re taking their side,” Martin complained,
“America consumes the most coffee in the world, and Biddenbrooks
is a huge coffee buyer in America. They help maintain the system.”
“I’ve got news for you, Martin. We maintain the system.
ABYSSINIA
166
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