The Belgium Situation
The letter from the International Gerbil Football Federation arrived on a Tuesday. It was, by any measure, a remarkable document.
It opened with three paragraphs of warm congratulation on Belgium’s squad selection. It described the squad as “exemplary,” “admirably thorough,” and “a credit to the nation.” It used the word “impressive” four times. It noted that seventeen was, historically, a significant number in international football. It did not specify how. It cited no sources.
The fourth paragraph expressed, with considerable delicacy, that the album template had been designed with great care to accommodate squads of seventeen. It described the template as “an achievement of some distinction.” It said the template had feelings about this, then crossed that out, then left the crossing out visible, which Gwendoline felt was a mistake but Greta felt was essential.
The letter did not tell Belgium to leave six players out. It simply described, at length, the experience of having exactly seventeen players in a sticker album. How complete it looked. How satisfying. How every space filled was a small moment of resolution. How the eye travelled across the page and found, in seventeen faces, something approaching harmony.
It was, Griselda said, reading the draft, deeply manipulative.
“Thank you,” said Greta.
Belgium’s response arrived four days later. It was courteous, precise, and professionally formatted. It thanked the Federation for its kind letter. It noted that Belgium had given the matter careful consideration. It confirmed that Belgium’s squad would be seventeen players.
It did not say which six had been removed. It did not explain the process. It simply enclosed an updated list, alphabetically ordered, and wished the tournament every success.
Gwendoline read it twice. “They sound fine.”
“They are not fine,” said Greta. “But they are participating.” She smoothed the letter. It didn’t need smoothing. She did it anyway. “That,” she said, “is what matters.”
Greta read the letter again the following morning. She refolded it along its original crease and placed it in the correct file. Then she sat for a moment with the expression of someone revising a theory they had held for some time. “They sent it alphabetically,” she said eventually.
“Yes,” said Gwendoline.
“That means someone made a list. Sorted it. Looked at six names at the bottom.” A pause. “And took them off.”
“I want to know,” said Greta, “who the six were.”
“We could ask,” said Gwendoline.
“We absolutely could not ask.”
This was understood to be correct. Some things were more powerful as mysteries.
The six unnamed Belgians who had been alphabetically sacrificed for the integrity of a sticker album existed now in a particular kind of administrative limbo — real enough to have been removed, absent enough to be imagined. Greta found this more interesting than their inclusion would have been.
Griselda had already allocated Belgium their seventeen spaces. The pages looked, she had to admit, exactly as described in the letter. Complete. Settled. Each space waiting for its face.
“What if they were the best six?” said Gwendoline.
A longer silence.
“Then Belgium,” said Greta, “have made a significant sacrifice for a sticker album.”
She did not sound displeased about this.
Griselda looked at the letter. She looked at the template. She looked at the letter again.
The template had always had twenty spaces. It had twenty spaces when Greta proposed the album. It had twenty spaces when the Federation wrote to Belgium with such delicate, carefully constructed sympathy about the profound satisfaction of seventeen. It had twenty spaces now. It had never, at any point, had seventeen spaces. Belgium had removed six players, alphabetically, from an international tournament, submitted eighteen stickers for the remaining seventeen, and wished the Federation every success.
“We will not,” said Greta, “be writing to Belgium again.”
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