On this day the sun had broken through the clouds, so they took the tram down to Bürkliplatz and then another one toward Tiefenbrunnen, and ate at Tres Kilos, which they usually did only for birthday parties or other big occasions. But this was a day to celebrate. First sun of the year, February 19; by no means a Zurich record, as Jurgen noted lugubriously. The Swiss like to keep records for these kinds of weather phenomena.
A short day, so that by the time they got to the restaurant, night had long since fallen. The string of chili-shaped lights draping the entryway glowed like spots of fire. Inside someone else was celebrating too, and just as they walked in all the lights went off and a waitress carrying a cake with sparklers sparking off it walked in from the kitchen to the sounds of Stevie Wonder’s “Happy Birthday.” They cheered and sang with the rest, and sat back near the kitchen where they always did if they could. Mary sat next to Estevan and Imeni, and listened to them flirt by bickering. This was getting to be an old routine, but they seemed stuck in it.
“We are the Ministry for the Future,” Estevan insisted to her, “not the ministry to solve all possible problems that can be solved now. We have to pick our battles or else it becomes just an everything.”
“But everything is going to be a problem in the future,” Imeni said. “I don’t see how you can deny that. So if you pick and choose, you’re just dodging our brief. And end up in a shitty future too by the way.”
“Still we have to prioritize. We’ve only got so much time.”
“This is a priority! Besides we’re a group, we have time.”
“Maybe you do.”
Imeni elbowed him, then poured them both another margarita from the pitcher, which had just arrived. They shifted to a discussion of the day’s news from Mauna Kea: carbon dioxide had registered at 447 parts per million, the highest ever recorded for wintertime. This despite all the reports from individual countries showing significant drops in emissions, even the US, even China, even India. Even Brazil and Russia. No: all the big emitters were reporting reductions, and yet the global total still grew. There had to be some unreported sources; or people were lying. Opinions as to which it was were divided around the table. Probably it was a bit of both.
“If people are lying, it means they know they are in the wrong. But if there are secondary emissions no one knows about, maybe stimulated by the heat already baked in, that would be worse. So we have to hope people are lying.”
“Easy to hope for that, you always get it!”
“Come on, don’t be cynical.”
“Just realistic. When have people ever told the truth about this particular question?”
“People? Do you mean scientists or politicians?”
“Politicians of course! Scientists aren’t people.”
“I thought it was the reverse!”
“Neither scientists nor politicians are people.”
“Careful now. Mary here is a politician, and I’m a scientist.”
“No. You are both technocrats.”
“So, that means we are scientific politicians?”
“Or political scientists. Which is to say, politicized scientists. Given that political science is a different thing entirely.”
“Political science is a fake thing, if you ask me. Or at least it has a fake name. I mean, where’s the science in it?”
“Statistics, maybe?”
“No. They just want to sound solid. They’re history at best, economics at worst.”
“I sense a poli sci major here, still living the trauma.”
“It’s true!”
Laughter around the table. Another round of margaritas. The bill was going to be stupendous— Tres Kilos, like all Zurich restaurants, maybe all restaurants, made most of its money by way of outrageous liquor prices. But probably her team thought the ministry would be paying for it tonight. Which was true. Mary sighed and let them refill her glass.
She looked at the table, listened to Estevan and Imeni flirt. Feeling each other out, but subtly, as they were with the group. In-house romances were never a good idea, and yet they always happened. No one was going to be doing this job for life; and that was true of all jobs. So why not? Where else were you going to meet people? So it happened. It had happened to her, long ago. She could recall this very kind of banter between her and Martin, long ago in London. Mary and Marty! Two Irish in London, a Prot and a Catholic, trying to find some way to get their claws into the system. Now he had been dead for over twenty years.
Quickly and firmly she refocused on the present. Estevan and Imeni were very much alive. And Mary could see why they might take to each other, despite their obvious differences. Well, who knew. Their banter was a little brittle, a little forced. And what drew people to each other was fundamentally unknowable. For all she knew they had already become lovers and then broken up, and were now negotiating a settlement. No way to be sure, not from the boss’s angle.
At the end of the long meal she hauled herself to her feet and calculated her level of inebriation— mild as always these days, she was careful, she was with her colleagues, her employees, and it wouldn’t do to be unseemly; and her youth had taught her some hard lessons, as well as given her a pretty high tolerance for alcohol. All was well there, she could glide along in her crowd to the nearest tram stop and get on one of the blue trams, transfer at Bürkliplatz and catch one going
