Lionel Shriver - Game Control

Game Control

GAME CONTROL

Lionel Shriver

To the

NAIROBI PRESS CORPS whom I can thank for

my most barbaric opinions, and none of whose number ever batted an eye at the premise for this book.

The most dignified thing for a worm to do is to sit up and sit still .
HENRY ADAMS

Contents

Epigraph iii
1 The Curse of the Uninvited 1
2 Family Planning from the Tar Pits 19
3 In the Land of Shit-Fish 34
4 Spiritual Pygmies at the Ski Chalet 43
5 What Some Women Will Put Up With 65
6 Recipes for Romantic Evenings 80
7 Dog Days of Millennial Dread 91
8 Bitter Pills in the Love-Stone Inn 109
9 The Enigma Variations 124
10 A Drive to Bobs Save-Life Bar 142
11 The Battle of the Bunnies and the Rats 153
12 Maggots in the Breezes of Opah Sanderss Fan 164
13 The Diet of Worms 176
14 Paying the Piper 190
15 More Parameters 204
16 The IMF is OBEed 220
17 Back in the Behavioural Sink 234
18 An Elephant for Breakfast 252
19 Sprinkled with Vim and Garnished with Doom 262
ENDPAPERS: The Cool Rats 273
P.S. Insights, Interviews & More 278
About the Author
Praise
Other Books by Lionel Shriver Cover
Copyright
About the Publisher

1 The Curse of the Uninvited

Not on the list, the

askari declared grandly.
Perhaps the other voice oiled, deceptively polite, one of the
organizersDr Kendrick? Exaggerated patience made a mockery
of good manners.
With the bad luck that would characterize the next five days,
Aaron Spring was just passing the entranceway. Swell . The last thing
any population conference needed was Calvin Piper.
The Director bustled brusquely to the door. Its quite all right,
he assured the African with a sticky smile. This is Dr Piper. Is there
some problem with his registration?
This man is not on my list, the askari insisted.
There must have been some oversight. Spring scanned the clipboard. Lets enter him in, so this doesnt happen again. The Kikuyu glared. Not with that animal.
Reluctantly, the Director forced himself to look up. Wonderful. A
green monkey was gooning on Calvins shoulder, teeth bared. Spring
slipped the askari twenty shillings. That was not even a dollar, but
the price of this visit was just beginning.
The interloper looked interestedly around the foyer, as if pointing
out that he had not been here for some time and things might have
changed.
So good to see you. Spring shook his predecessors limp hand. Is it?
Youre just in time to catch the opening reception. What happened
with your registration, man?
Not a thing. What registration?
There must have been some mistake.
Not a-tall. I wasnt invited.
Spring winced. Piper had a slight British accent, though his
mother was American and hed spent years in DC. The nattiness of
Pipers tidy sentences made Springs voice sound twangy and crass. The Director led his ward through the sterile lobby. The Kenyatta
International Conference Centre was spacious but lacked
flairwooden slatted with the odd acute angle whose determination
to seem modern had guaranteed that the architecture would date
in a matter of months. Kenyans were proud of the building, the way,
Spring reflected, they were so reliably delighted by anything Western, anything they didnt make. All the worlds enlightened lite
seemed enthralled with African culture except the Africans themselves, who would trade quaint thatch for condos at the drop of a
hat.
Couldnt you at least have left the monkey home? he appealed. Come, Malthus is a good prop, dont you think? Like Margaret
Meades stick.
God rest her soul, Spring had always abhorred Meades silly stick.
Just like it.
Spring hurried ahead. Having assumed the leadership of USAIDs
Population Division six long, fatiguing years before, surely by now
he might be spared the pawing deference the Director Emeritus still,
confound the man, inspired in him. He reminded himself that much
of his own work that five years had been repairing the damage Piper
had done to the reputation of population assistance worldwide. And
by now Spring was well weary of his own staffs nostalgic stories
of Pipers offensive mouthing off to African presidents. Why, you
would never guess from their fond reminiscences that many of those
same staff members had ratted on this glorified game-show host at
their first opportunity. All right, Spring was aware he wasnt colourfulhe did not travel with a green monkey, he did not gratuitously
insult statesmen, he did not detest the very people he was employed
to assist, and his pockets did not spill black, red and yellow condoms
every time he reached for his handkerchief.
Behind his back Spring vilified Piper, but perhaps to compensate for going all gooey face to face. Here was a character whose
politics, having veered so far left they had ended on the far right
instead, Spring deplored as uncompassionate and irresponsible.
Spring aspired to despise Piper, but he would never get that far. He
would only be free to dislike the urbane, unruffleable, horribly wry
has-been once sure that Piper adored and respected him firstthat
is, never.
And Piper made him feel fat. Piper was the older although he
didnt look it, and was surely one of those careless types who never
gave a thought to what they ate, while Spring jogged four joyless
miles a day, and had given up ice-cream .
You ruined that Kukes day, you know, Calvin was commenting
about the askari . He loved barring my way. You get a lot of wazungu
rolling their eyes about Africans and bureaucracy, how they revel
in its petty powerbut how they dont understand it, wielding
stamps and forms like children playing office. Ive come to believe
they understand bureaucracy perfectly well. After all, most petty
power isnt petty a-tall, is it? These tiny people can stick you back
on your plane, impound your whisky, cut off your electricity and
keep you out of conferences you so desperately wish to attend. Bureaucracy is a weapon. And there is no pleasure greater than turning
artillery on just the people who taught you to use it.
Calvin, implored the Director, do keep your theories quiet this
week. Im off for some wine.
Leaving the man toothpicking pineapple to his ill-tempered
monkey, Spring felt sheepish for having let the rogue inside. He was
haunted by childhood fairy-tales in which the aggrieved, uninvited
relative arrives at the christening anyway, to curse the child.

It was a mistake to exhort Calvin to keep his mouth shut. Had Spring encouraged enthusiastic participation in the interchange of controversial ideas, Piper might have loitered listlessly in the back, thumbing abstracts. Instead Calvin perched with his pet in the front row of a session on infant mortality, making just the kind of scandal sure to see its way into the Nairobi papers the next day.

Why are we still trying to reduce infant mortality, Piper inquired, when it is precisely our drastic reduction of the

death rate that created uncontrolled population growth in the first place? Why not leave it alone? Why not even let it go up a little? He did not say a lot, but might as well have.

The room stirred. Coughs. Heads in hands.

The moderator interceded. It is well established by now, Dr Piper, that reduction of infant mortality must precede a drop in fertility. Families have extra children as an insurance factor, and once they find most of those children surviving they adjust their family size accordingly, etc. This is kindergarten demography, Dr Piper. We can dispense with this level of discussion. Ms Davis
On the contrary, Calvin pursued. All of Africa illustrates that fallacy. Death rates have been plummeting since 1950, and birth rates remain high. So we keep more children alive to suffer and starve. I would propose instead that this conference pass a resolution to retract all immunization programmes in countries with growth rates of higher than 2 per cent