‘Not that Uncle Sam gives a fart in a thunderstorm whether there’s one fucking lock or six,’ Jonah resumed in the same saw-edged tone of infinite contempt. ‘The more the better as far as the Yanks are concerned. Our gallant Yankee friends have given up the Canal for dead long ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if one or two of them were all for blowing the bugger up. Why should they want an efficient Canal? They’ve got their fast freightline from San Diego to New York, haven’t they? Their dry canal, they’re pleased to call it, run by decent moronic Yankees instead of a shower of dagos. The rest of the world can go screw itself. The Canal’s an outdated symbol. Let the other buggers use it – and bullshit to you, you dozy Kraut prick,’ he added, to the somnolent Dutch Henk who had presumed to doubt his wisdom.
But elsewhere round the table weary heads were lifting, fuddled faces turning towards Jonah’s dubious sun. And Mr Blüthner, anxious not to miss one gem of repartee, was halfway out of his chair and across the table in his determination to catch Jonah’s every word. The wandering sage was meanwhile rebuffing criticism:
‘No, I am not talking through my fundament, you Mick nipple, I am talking oil, I am talking Jap oil. Oil that was once heavy and has now been made light. I am talking world domination by the Yellow Man, and the end of fucking civilisation as we know it, even in the Emerald fucking Isle.’
A wit asked whether Jonah meant the Japs were going to flood the Canal with oil, but he ignored him.
‘The Japanese, my fine friends, were drilling their heavy oil long before they discovered how to use the stuff. They filled up kingsized storage tanks all over the country while their top scientists hunted day and night for a fucking formula to break it down. Well, now they’ve found it, so look out. Slap your hands over your appendages if you can find them, gentlemen, is my advice, and turn your arses to the rising sun before you kiss them goodbye. Because the Nips have found their magic emulsion. Which means that your tenure here in Paradise is scheduled to last about five minutes by the station clock. You pour it in, you shake it all about, and bingo, you’ve got oil like all the other boys. Fucking oceans of it. And once they’ve built their own Panama Canal, which is going to happen in the flick of a very small mayfly’s dick, they will be in the happy position of being able to flood the fucking world with it. To the considerable rage of Uncle Sam.’
Pause. Growls of confused dissent from different corners of the table before the literal Olaf deputes himself to ask the obvious question.
‘What are you meaning to say here, please, Jonah? – “once they have built their own Panama Canal”? Which orifice are you talking out of now, I would like to know, please? The idea of a new canal has been completely belly-up ever since the invasion. Perhaps you spend too much time under the water to hear what is going on upstairs. Before the invasion there existed a very high and intelligent tripartite Commission to study alternatives to the Canal, including a new cut. The United States, Japan and Panama, all were members. Now this Commission is completely eliminated. The Americans are very pleased. They did not like the Commission at all. They pretended, but they did not like it. They like much better to have things stay as they are with some new locks, and have their heavy industry companies administer the terminal ports which will be very profitable. I know all this, thank you. It is my job. The matter is quite dead. So fuck you.’
But Jonah, far from crushed, was furiously triumphant.
Staring at the gardenia wall, Pendel, like Mr Blüthner, strains himself to catch every word of prophecy that falls from the great man’s lips.
‘Of course they didn’t like the fucking Commission, you Nordic pedant! They hated it. And of course they want their own heavy construction companies bedded down in Colón and Panama City administering the terminal ports. Why do you think the Yanks boycotted the Commission once they’d joined it? Why do you think they invaded this stupid country in the first place? Pounded it to pieces any which way they could? To stop the naughty General flogging his cocaine to Uncle Sam? Bullshit! They did it to smash the Pan army and screw up the Pan economy so badly that the Japs couldn’t buy the fucking country and build themselves a canal that works for them. Where do the Nips get their aluminium from? You don’t know, so I’ll tell you: Brazil. Where do they get their bauxite? Brazil again. Their clay? Venezuela.’ He listed other substances Pendel had never heard of. ‘Are you telling me the Nips are going to ship their essential industrial materials up to New York and fast-freight them to fucking San Diego, then cart them across to Japan just because the existing Canal’s become too narrow and too slow for them? Are you telling me they’re going to send their giant oil tankers round the fucking Horn? Pump their new oil across the fucking isthmus, which takes for fucking ever? Sit on their arses while five hundred bucks are slapped on the price of every fucking Jap compact that arrives in Philadelphia because the Canal can’t fucking carry them any more? Who’s the biggest user of the Canal?’