The first hour went the way state dinners went.
Yuki gave the welcome remarks.
The U.S. ambassador’s principal gave the response.
There was a course of cold seafood.
Then there was a translation breakthrough on the evening’s first conversational subject. An exchange about Pacific shipping lanes that the Ashenmere delegation handled in English and the Norwegian delegation handled in Norwegian.
Catalina rendered Bjorn’s careful Norwegian opener about salmon access into a U.S. English that gave the U.S. principal the impression he had won something he hadn’t, in fact, won, and then rendered the principal’s gracious acceptance back into a Norwegian that told Bjorn the U.S. would later be discovering they hadn’t won it.
I nearly laughed at a state dinner, which would have been its own incident.
Bjorn, beside me, exhaled through his nose, which was the Bjorn equivalent of making a scene.
Anders leaned back in his chair as a server refilled his water. The movement placed his knee briefly against mine.
A reminder.
I moved my knee away.
For the next forty minutes, I behaved.
Mostly.
The salmon course came and went. The cocktail-hour transition began.
Tables broke up. Bodies redistributed across the room. The strict diplomatic geography softened into the working geography of an actual party, where deals were done and mistakes became useful.
Catalina rose from her seat.
She was approached almost before she finished arriving. I admiredthe efficiency.
Three conversations before most people would have managed one. The Japanese observer, who said two sentences to her in Mandarin that I caught the edge of from twenty feet away. One of Bjorn’s deputies, who said something in Norwegian and got an answer that made him smile. And the Sichuanese deputy from the Ashenmere council, who had been quietly impressed by Catalina across a translation desk and put a hand on her elbow in a small show of affection.
Catalina was working the room. She was very good at it.
I started creating a mental list of every person who put a hand on her that night.
This wasn’t a reasonable use of diplomatic energy.
I rose.
Bjorn didn’t look at me.
Anders stood at the same time.
“Circuit,” I said quietly.
Bjorn’s eyes moved to Catalina, then back to the room, then to me. An audit.
I gave him my pleasant diplomatic face.
He was unmoved, naturally.
After a moment, he inclined his head. Permission, with supervision.
Excellent. I had become a state project.
