A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism (17 page)

"And how was that?"

"It was fine. I wouldn't want to move back, but—"

"You're family is from Mexico?"

"No. I'm not—I'm half Chilean and half Russian." He hadn't been asked that question in years and it knocked him off balance. He'd been too adamant in his reply, he knew, but he couldn't stop himself. Grayson's burst of contempt had been strange, but then this quizzing about Gabriel's ethnicity—Gabriel wasn't quite sure how to proceed. He knew he hated the condescending undertone, though. He hated it a lot, and he was tired of encountering that tone with men of Grayson's stature, so he decided to try turning the tables. "What about you? How was Belfast?" he said.

Grayson hesitated, as if slightly surprised. "How did you know that I'm from Belfast?"

"From your accent, I suppose." This was not true at all. Grayson had no hint of an Irish accent. The truth—and Gabriel knew it, had read it in a profile on the International Monetary Fund's website—was that Grayson had studied at the terribly posh Dulwich College, in London, before matriculating at Cambridge. Grayson's parents had sent him to Dulwich doubtless for the express purpose of purging him of his brogue.

"You can hear it?" Grayson smiled stiffly.

Not wanting to push it, Gabriel backpedaled. "There's just a hint. I didn't mean to—"

"No!" Grayson shook his head. His face lingered between expressions as he tried to dig out the hidden insult that he apparently assumed was buried in Gabriel's reply.

He did not find anything, because there was nothing, but he shot back anyway. "Your family? Where are they from?"

"My mother's Chilean." Gabriel decided not to give him anything more than that.

"She was there during Pinochet's rule?"

"Sort of. She left in 1973. She—" Gabriel hesitated. He knew it wasn't wise to confess personal details to Grayson.

"Driven out by Pinochet?"

"No, not really," Gabriel lied. He didn't want to make it an issue. Out the window, he saw the emblem of the club had been carved into the bushes by an overeager topiary artist. The sun made a dramatic show in the west: the light fractured like a laser shot through a prism, each individual color parceled out and shining naked, alone. Eventually, he said, "Can I ask, what's with the map on your office wall?"

"It shows the infant-mortality rates of the countries of the world," Grayson explained. "I put it there when I arrived, it reminds me of the weight of these problems that we're looking at."

"Right." Foster would be done soon.

Gabriel was about to bid farewell to Grayson when Grayson said, "You know, it's not an easy job, representing the fund here. We're hated ninety-five percent of the time, and we're treated better than Christ risen the other five percent, when they need us. The truth is, I think we can really help them." Grayson accepted his martini from the bartender, had a sip, put it down on the bar. "People your age tend to see the world in absolutes, because it's easier. But we're not bad people." After a pause he added, "Anyway, that's why I put it there."

"Plus, it goes well with the de Kooning," Gabriel said.

"I really hadn't thought of it that way."

"Well, it's true." Gabriel stood up, took his wallet out.

"That's quite cynical of you, Gabriel." Grayson was tickled.

Gabriel pulled some bills out and put them on the bar. "I guess so." That was supposed to sound flip, but the incidental valences multiplied right there before him, fanning out colorfully, a terrible array of ways he could feel bitter without any good reason.

That night, Gabriel sat alone in his room with the television. He could have gone over to the Lookout, but it would have only made him feel worse. Lenka was at home with her son, her ex-husband, his wife, and the rest of the brood. She was sleeping alone as well. He pictured a narrow bed in a tiny room, glossy white walls. Though tempted to call her, he resisted. There was nothing good about how much he missed her that night. It didn't bode well for his ability to survive at Calloway. He thought about Oscar, who had said, "I have done this job longer than anyone I know, and I've done it for only five years." He knew that the real trick was merely to survive for as long as possible.

It wasn't unheard-of for a quant's hair to go white in his first year, and the pressure was much the same for analysts, it turned out. But if you could hang in for as long as Oscar, you'd probably be able to give each of your eight grandchildren a new Jetta on his or her sixteenth birthday without a problem. It was a different scale of reward. It was so outsize that Gabriel could not see how to convince himself that something like his relationship with Lenka—sublime and wonderful as it was turning out to be—could take priority.

The interview with Foster Garnett had not been as interesting as the conversation with Grayson, to say nothing of the one with Catacora. Foster did, to his credit, spill the beans about the United States' five-point agenda in Bolivia, but there were no surprises there:

• Total elimination of coca cultivation
  
• Increase free and open trade (minus the aforementioned coca)
  
• Preserve representational democracy
  
• Fight poverty and improve wealth distribution
  
• Help improve environmental standards
  

Gabriel had tried to get Foster to talk about the snafu with Vincenzo D'Orsi at the World Bank, but he just shook his head. He was still in his tennis whites. He had blond eyebrows, blond eyelashes, blond leg hair. He had the build of a jock but the social polish of a person who'd been to Exeter or some other American equivalent of Dulwich. Gabriel did his best not to stare at his prodigious Adam's apple—it looked as if he'd swallowed a golf ball.

"If Evo starts seizing foreign assets, what will you do? No reprisal? No reduction in aid?"

"He'll feel a pinch," Foster had said. The Adam's apple bobbled slightly.

"Will there be any change in policy from the World Bank and IMF?"

"We will put the matter to the executive boards of both institutions, we will lobby for punitive measures, but we don't have final say," he said, reciting double-pasteurized talking points. The message was there though, and it connected with what Grayson had said. The scandal with the Italian at the World Bank had killed any chance of a quick change in World Bank—IMF policy at the management level, the United States could only hope to rally support at Bolivia's next review by the board, some nine months away. But as long as Evo didn't make a scene, the United States would not likely find any backing. Ultimately, the State Department was prepared to just shrug at the defeat and move on. It didn't care to fight over a country like
that.

Gabriel was in his pajamas watching CNN International, trying not to think about Lenka, when he heard a light knock at the door. Assuming it was Lenka, he bounded over, but when he opened the door he found Fiona.

She wore a black dress with a wide crimson bow wrapped around her midsection, its knot sagging. "Merry Christmas," she said. Her lipstick matched the bow, almost.

He stepped aside.

She entered. She was wearing black stockings, a black jacket. Her hair was in a chignon; it looked different somehow. Better. "Where's your girlfriend?" she said. She took off her jacket and tossed it on the chair.

"What girlfriend?" he said, but it stung him to say it, so he added, "She's at home with her ex-husband and their son."

"Really?" she said. She sat down on his bed, looked around at the room. "This is horrible, Gabriel," she said. "You live here?"

He turned off the television, twisted the blinds shut. "Do you want a bottle of water?"

"Why don't you move to Hotel Presidente? I'm sure Priya would be happy to spring for it."

"I'm trying to be discreet."

She laughed; she winked. "Your secret's still safe with me." She lit a cigarette. He didn't say anything, so she went on. "And Lenka? How much does she know?"

"Why are you here?"

"Ouch," she said. Smiling at him fondly, she kicked off her shoes, had a drag, exhaled. "Do you know how vampire bats feed?"

"No, I don't."

She stood, undid the red bow at her waist, let it fall to the floor. "They come into your room at night and crawl along the wall like huge black spiders. They don't fly because the commotion might wake you up." She put her cigarette down in the ashtray on the bedside table. "They sneak up like that and then burrow under the covers and suck the blood from your big toe. Gently, so you won't wake." She untied her hair, turned, unzipped the back of her dress. "Because all bloodsuckers, as you surely know by now, have as their biggest problem—their number-one threat to survival—the question of how to do their thing without their host realizing what's going on. Mosquitoes weigh close to nothing, and their feeding tube is thinner than a strand of hair—you shouldn't even feel it enter." She dropped her dress to the floor. "Leeches actually anesthetize the area with their saliva." She stretched across his bed, crossed her legs at the ankles. "Did you know that?"

He shook his head.

"Well, that's what I'm here for, to enlighten you." She picked up her cigarette and had another drag, then stubbed it out, exhaled smoke at the ceiling.

He glanced down at the milky breasts puddled on her chest, her tan aureoles, he looked at the lacy fringe on the sides of her purple thong, he looked at her tiny curly navel—flat against a wall of muscle, it looked like a mollusk that had been stepped on. Looking at her face, the faded freckles, her too-big mouth, the wicked expression in her eyes, he knew this was not a good idea. There was nothing about this that was a good idea. Still, it was necessary. What was required was a wedge to split his feelings apart.

She laughed uncomfortably, and he realized he was staring.

"Sorry," he said.

She looked at him searchingly. She seemed aware of his guilt somehow. "Can I do anything for you?" she said.

He thought about it. "No." He shook his head. "You can do nothing for me."

Then he flicked the light switch off and, fingertips grazing the wall, felt his way across the room until his shins touched the edge of the bed. He sat down in the total darkness and started to undress.

AS LUCK WOULD HAVE IT, Alejo had come to the eighth floor to deliver breakfast to a neighboring room that morning; he'd knocked on that door and was standing there, in the grim light of the hallway, at the exact moment that Fiona and Gabriel exited his room. Alejo kept his eyes down, but the hall was small and it was just the three of them. There was no confusion about whom Gabriel was with—or, more to the point, whom he was not with. Nor was there any ambiguity about where they were coming from. Alejo knocked on the door in front of him again. He had a battered aluminum cart with a single plate on it shrouded in its tin cap: breakfast for one.

Fiona, oblivious to the complex personal scenario under way in that corridor, pushed the down button at the elevators. "What are you doing later?" she said.

"I'm—I don't know," Gabriel muttered, glancing at Alejo's back.

Then the guest opened the door and Alejo pushed the cart inside.

Fiona, picking up on the direction of his anxiety, gave a curled smile. "Feeling guilty?"

"Yes."

"Well"—she pushed the down arrow again—"you should get used to that."

"Yeah."

The elevator arrived.

Inside, he pushed two buttons: one for the ground floor, for her, and one for the second-floor cafeteria, for him. Last night, after she had fallen asleep, he had decided that he should see if he couldn't get her to give him something else. But he didn't want to leave with her now, in case anyone else saw them, so he needed to quickly set up his request. "Are you going to speak with Evo again?" he said.

The doors jerked shut. "I have a meeting with him tomorrow," she said. The elevator began its squeaky and unsteady descent.

Spotting an opportunity, however slight, to locate some information, he said, "Have you heard of Santa Cruz Gas?" There was no time for foreplay.

"If you're going to ask me to ask him about this Santa Cruz—"

"No, no, but if he says something about gas, or Santa Cruz Gas, you'll tell me?"

"Oh yeah, of course"—here, sarcasm—"you'll be the first to know." Despite her tone, he wasn't sure that she wouldn't tell him. She was, above all, a swift hand with the conversational whipsaw; all he could do was hope, against the evidence, that she would see fit to help him. She had no professional reason to share, none that he could think of, and she wasn't really the type to conflate professional and personal agendas.

The doors opened at his stop. He leaned in and kissed her quickly near the mouth and ducked out toward the cafeteria, as if trying to squirm away from a toxic odor.

He'd experienced a similar uneasiness at his circumstances when he'd come down to Bolivia a month ago, but the feeling then had at least been tempered by the thrill of being on his first assignment for the Calloway Group. The job had seemed to carry an air of espionage, at first. His first week there he'd been ensconced at the Lookout, yukking it up with the international press, embellishing his aliases, and generally enjoying the gamesmanship. Now, the aliases were a nuisance to maintain. The thrill had been replaced by fear and confusion.

On the bright side, that uneasy guilt had slackened and the lies came easier. He had never felt especially conflicted about lying to his mother about Calloway, which he considered necessary in precisely the same way that lying about premarital sex to a Catholic parent might be necessary. But he would be lying without hesitation to Priya now, or at least withholding information from her. He lied to all of his sources without a second thought. He'd even be lying to Lenka soon, about Fiona. He would rather not have had to lie to Lenka, at least. Part of him felt that it was inevitable, because such were the vicissitudes of his career. Lying would be, from now on, part of his life. The lilies were fine, but a little gilding wouldn't hurt. The work itself necessitated a certain amount of subterfuge, and he was getting better at the work. As Fiona had suggested, if he was going to let himself feel guilty about deceiving people, he would do well to resign and go back to writing copy for
IBI,
back to the long slog through the dreary middle.