This was last night, you understand, by all accounts an ordinary night, no different from a random evening last summer or some Thursday in April and though they spoke on mundane topics, a new neighbor, an upcoming trip for work, there was a mysterious undercurrent to their conversation, as if everything Dominic said meant quite the opposite and all Diane’s comments had a double meaning.
They sat across the kitchen table from each other and spoke while eating grapes from a metal colander, red grapes, grape after grape, barely pausing between them as if grapes were suddenly essential to conversation. It was in the middle of all this grape eating that Diane decided she would tell Dominic what had happened three weeks ago, on Saturday afternoon.
You remember, Diane said, we’d decided to have a few people over for dinner. I set out around eleven, wandering around specialty shops, picking up various items or reeling at the prices, thinking about these friends we hadn’t seen in a while and wondering what they might especially like to eat. I’d heard about an exceptional florist way over on the East Side which was how I came to be standing on First Avenue not far from the United Nations.
It was a crisp sunny day, the kind of beautiful day that people remark on after an atrocity occurs, as if the most difficult fact to grasp about a tragedy is that it can happen under a blue sky and white sun.
The florist was unremarkable, I decided to try another. There was still cheese to buy, several kinds, all the way back on Amsterdam. Also fish, if we were going to have fish, I wouldn’t decide until I saw the selection, until I stared into those glassy eyes myself, checking for clarity. An unsettling enterprise, but the only reliable way to tell if fish is fresh.
Here’s where it all got strange. When I came out of the flower shop and stood on the street I couldn’t remember what I was doing, why I was there, or which way to go. I had very deliberately set out with actual errands to accomplish but now I couldn’t decide which to tackle next, whether I should do something else entirely or, in fact, give it all up, cancel our dinner and crawl into bed.
In front of me Forty-Third Street appeared insurmountable, it resembled a huge ascent on the scale of Matterhorn. I stood at the base of it, holding a bag of chestnuts. I didn’t need chestnuts, I don’t even know what you do with chestnuts, I’d bought them solely for their color. Gripping this useless bag, I looked straight ahead of me, then right, then left. The only choice I didn’t have was to walk east since that would have landed me in the river. But each time I decided yes, I’ll walk down the avenue and then west on a street in the thirties, I immediately decided that no, I would walk north for a while, but before I’d even finished that thought it seemed ridiculous and the better plan was to head straight up this daunting hill, which isn’t a hill at all, of course, but completely flat.
I stood on the sidewalk, rooted there with my shopping bag, considering my options, at one point becoming distracted by an important-looking foreign delegation striding toward the U.N. For several minutes I wondered what sort of destructive global action these men might be on their way to unleash, then I returned to this decision I had to make about how to travel west, which appeared to be the most critical decision I had ever faced. I was starting to panic that I might stand there for the rest of my life holding a bag of chestnuts as my hair turned grey and tourists asked me where to buy water. Really, she told Dominic, my feet felt as if they were encased in concrete, my heart churned like the river behind me.
But as Diane stood there astonished and also not astonished, since this ambivalence was only one component of the piercing restless uncertainty that had bothered her for a number of weeks, she happened to look up toward the crest of the hill where a tall building on the corner stood mantled in beams of sunlight.
All of a sudden I felt at peace, she told Dominic. This hot star calmed my turbulent heart, it settled my stomach and there, while I basked in its light, the road ahead became clear.
Diane finished her story and looked across the table that she once found uninspired but now appreciated for its Swedish practicality. She gazed into the eyes of her husband and asked for his opinion. Well, said Dom, it sounds like the story of a lost person. He got up for a glass of water, turned to lean against the sink and proceeded to say more than she cared to hear.
Later, when she woke in the middle of the night, fresh from a dream about misplacing her passport, for she dreams about airports and travel almost exclusively, she lay next to Dominic as she had laid next to him for fifteen years. His expression as he slept was one of relief. And Diane thought back to their conversation in the kitchen, the details of which immediately began to distort, grow foggy and fade.
At four twenty-something in the morning, her mind darting from thought to thought, trying to remember exactly what was said as they ate grapes from a metal colander, her phone lit up.
Henry Joles.
Urgent, he said.
She was needed at the Museum.
# 5:30 a.m. #
—Could he be faking?
—As the wife tells it he’s been up half the night with his head in the toilet. I’ll try again around nine, he can hold a goddamn bucket if he needs to puke. I don’t know who this wife thinks she is.
—Let’s get started…Diane takes the armchair opposite…—We can wait on Kulap.
Henry scoots to the edge of the couch, the briefcase open on his lap, and with great trouble leans forward to hand Diane a piece of paper…—Here. Printed from a digital file so the resolution’s not great. Taken in 2002.
Staring down at the photocopy…—Where’s my?
—Coffee, right here…Chris hands her a take-out cup.
—Thanks…immediately setting it down, hot! returning to the blurry photograph…—Tell me what I’m looking at, Henry.
—Dancing Shiva.
Our Dancing Shiva.
It’s a violent image. Diane has only ever seen Shiva in his current home down in Indian Subcontinent where the statue stands reverently bathed in a circle of soft light. In the photocopy Shiva lies tipped on his side in the back of a filthy van, surrounded by crumpled newspapers and encrusted with dirt. With the naked eye it’s impossible to make out the details of the newspaper print, but a sharper picture and a little magnification will reveal a date or some other identifying feature suggesting that if Dancing Shiva was stashed in a dirty van in 2002, the statue was not purchased from a private collector, not a deaccession from a museum, not stumbled upon in Pop-pop’s attic and, most essentially, not purchased before the Unesco Convention of 1970. It was looted.
—There’s more…Henry holds out another sheet of paper.
—Later…waving it off…—Start from the beginning. Is it only Kulap’s department?
A nod, a sigh, a swift hoist of the belt and then, with his usual distaste for chronology, Henry shoots off on a narrative that includes a number of detours and hesitations, introducing brief asides on the history of India, as well as the pros and cons of colonialism, laying down immaterial clauses as if he’s building escape routes from an unsound structure.
—Guy named Dixit paid a French couple to pose as photographers compiling a book on antiquities in India and Pakistan……he continues…—These two run around rural temples snapping photos of icons and sending him the pictures. At which point, like he’s browsing a catalogue for a pair of khakis, Dixit picks out his icons and a couple of local punks boost the statues. Guess they’re not fucked about karma.
—Where did the pictures come from?
—Dixit’s compound in Mumbai. IPS searched it, found a memory stick loaded with images of statues in their original locations, as well as objects in the process of being cleaned and boxed up. Not a whole lot of room for interpretation. Pictures got sent to Delhi where the cops called in a couple of antiquities experts. One of them is a guy of mine, Greek national. He recognized our pieces.
—How many?
—Three small objects and Shiva. So far.
Four. Not great but not terrible. She watches Chris stooped over the coffee table unpacking white paper bags, assembling a bagel tower on a paper plate…—Any idea where…turning to Henry…—Kulap picked up dirty pieces?
—From what I understand, Dixit slapped “Made in India” stickers on the bottoms of the statues, mixed them in with birdbaths and planters and labeled the whole shipment as lawn ornaments. With the help of a pal in customs he shipped it through Hong Kong to a garden center in New Jersey. I assume they ran up a bunch of bogus documents because the statues were sold through auction houses and legit dealers. I don’t know which dealers sold us the stuff and I won’t until Kulap gets his head out of the toilet and calls us back.
—Diane? Plain or sesame?
—Sesame.
Placing the bagel on a plate, Chris passes it to her, along with a plastic knife…—Lox spread?
—Maybe later, thank you…she watches him rip the top off a tub of cream cheese. He’s wearing a t-shirt tight enough to highlight a rich assortment of muscles in his chest and shoulders and arms.
—I have a dress shirt in my office.
—No worries…looking across to Henry slathering cream cheese…—And we have this contained?
—We will. I mean, it’s five-thirty in the morning, so.
—You’ll call State.
—When it’s remotely possible Decker’s in the office.
—But you left a message.
—Yes, Diane, I left a message but, really, we have plenty of time. DHS lost a bunch of cultural property guys in the last budget cuts, they’re still playing catch-up. I’m not worried. It’s happened before, hasn’t it, and we’re still standing.
—Yes, but right now, I mean, the timing’s a little. It’s hardly ideal. The current situation. I don’t need another you know,
challenge, on my watch…Diane gets up and crosses to her desk, taking the uneaten bagel with her…—We need a solution in the works before the board gets wind of it.
—There are hundreds of photographs to sort through. It will take them days to track the stuff to us.
—But presumably more of our pieces could show up.
—Correct…Henry sets his take-out cup on the table and leans back…—In the meantime we need to pull Shiva and the other objects my guy spotted…sighing, probing his sternum…—Who can oversee?
—I’ve emailed the entire Asian department…Chris glances up from his phone…—Nothing.
—Don’t people go to the gym any more?
—There is a tech downstairs right now…thumbing his screen…—Ferris Finotti. But he works in Oceania—
—Close enough. Grab him.
—Can we really ask—
—We can…Henry affirms…—Have him meet me in uh—
—Rotmiller?
—Right, and what about Shay Pallot?
—Said she’d be here in…Chris checks the time…—Fifteen.
Diane freezes. Halting the dry bagel on its ascent from her plate to her mouth, trying to identify. What is it? Not the vague vertigo she’s had for the past month, something else. A far-off rumble.
—Diane?
They’re both staring at her, concerned, phones parked mid-air.
—Making a mental tally.
Henry’s cell phone buzzes and he struggles up with an oof sound and moves to the window…—Freddie…murmuring, hazily backlit by the garden spotlights…—You read my email?
—Should you sit down? Diane?
—Who’s Henry talking to at this hour?
—London. You look pale.
—No, I’m fine I need a…tugging at her shirt.
—Arriving before seven.
—What is?
—A new blouse. I noticed you were wearing the one from yesterday and I—
—Grabbed it, dressed in the dark.
—assumed it wasn’t purposeful—
—Dom was still asleep.
—So I ordered you a new one.
—At five in the morning?
—Togz. Two hours guaranteed. Warehouse is in Queens, I think.
—You dick…Henry, warmly into his phone…—You can fuck right off.
—Quick run-through?…Chris spins around, finds her coffee and hands it over…—I’ve canceled everything I could.
Diane waves him on with her cardboard cup. There’s a weather system making havoc in her stomach right now, a result, perhaps of eating grapes and only grapes for dinner. But she needs to keep her mind on the situation at hand instead of trying to recall exactly what took place last night at the kitchen table.
—At eight-thirty we have…
—I’m listening.
—Digital. In case Jakob has something impressive we can bring to your five-thirty.
—My hands are tied…Henry, louder.
—Fine, but Chris, let’s keep it short, twenty minutes at most.
—We parsed the contracts a thousand times.
—At ten…raising his voice, Chris shoots Henry a scathing look…—A meeting with Goldfarb & Hernandez.
—God no, kill that, tell them I, whatever, set it for next week.
—They’re hoping for a decision about the brunnel.
—The brunnel is not happening. That is the decision. How many ways do I have to? We need to close shop on this, we’re…she catches Henry’s warning glower…—Oh, please…she turns to Chris…—As if you don’t know everything.
—Sorry, what do I know?
—About the new wing.
—I know we ran out of money.
—We didn’t run out of money.
—We didn’t?
—No, we did, but…she sips her coffee, electing not to finish the sentence…—Reschedule the architects.
—Listen to me…Henry into his phone, beginning to pace…—I’ve told you exactly where we’ve stood from the beginning.
—They’re flying to Sydney tonight. Ten days.
—Then we’ll do a call.
Chris bends his head to his phone, tapping the screen.
—Freddie, Freddie, calm down, this is all negotiable…Henry, for some reason still in her office…—I’m there next week, we’ll go to Bocca, order that scrappy Barolo you like.
Taking a bite of dry bagel in the hopes of quelling her nervous stomach. As she chews she can feel her jaw making a figure-eight motion that can only be described as bovine.
—Eleven-thirty, Diane, Diane?
—I’m listening.
—Quick check-in with merchandising. Shouldn’t take long. We’ve canceled a couple of times now, so. Noon is a tour with the Khan brothers.
—Tuesday. Abu Dhabi’s Tuesday.
—It was, it was, but Momo hated Paris, there was a snubbing and they left early.
—Okay, well…tearing at the bread…—Drum up someone impressive to bring.
—Clive Hauxwell?
—God, no, not today. And postpone our visit to Walter Wolfe. We’ll go next week.
—Christ on a cross…Henry, call ended, throws his phone on the couch. Then he picks it up, glares at it.
—About the Khan brothers, Diane, I thought maybe a brief walk-through of some galleries? They’re hoping to simulate the guest experience.
—Fine. Let’s keep it brief…reaching for her coffee. The Khan brothers unsettle her with their exquisite tailoring, the fine British manners that convey respect and contempt.
—Now, after the tour, I’m afraid back in July I agreed to lunch with Ambassador Ichimonji…Chris starts tapping…—Let me change it to a coffee.
—No…Diane tilts her cup, staring into it…—Coffee’s not enough.
—We hosted that big lunch last spring and he’s coming to the gala tonight.
—The Samurai show.
—I heard he gave it to D.C.
—Unconfirmed.
Chris taps his phone…—Okay, so a super speedy but lavish VIP lunch and maybe a zip around B24? Everyone loves storage.
—Good, yes, that’ll work…getting up from her chair…—But, Chris, preemptively warn—
—Him, yes, how busy you are, the gala and so forth. Directly after, Sutton will prep you for your three o’clock with Lucas Boone.
—Boone doesn’t care how much I know about armor. In fact let’s reschedule Boone…finding herself by the window, looking into the darkness onto the lit-up landscaping below…—What is happening…tapping on the black glass…—With the Van Gogh maze? It was supposed to be ripped out last week.
—Tomorrow.
—Before the gala, I thought.
—No, after the gala.
—At this point it feels downright pathological. Are we living in
Grey Gardens?
Henry says ha ha, not actually laughing, from where he sprawls on the couch holding his phone in one hand and jabbing at it with a finger.
—Sorry, Diane, could we go back? About Boone, he seems committed and I wonder if delaying your meeting could possibly—
—You’re sure he’s committed?
—Positive.
—Because if he wants groveling and, uh—
—Not the case.
—Fine.
—So we’ll keep Boone…Chris taps his phone…—Restaurants go dark at four o’clock, at four-thirty Security begins moving visitors toward the exits. Museum doors close at five on the dot. At five-thirty we have Silicon Valley.
—That’s Zed Willington?…Henry looks up, curious but not particularly invested…—How much is he talking about?
—Twenty, twenty-five.
—Nice, help get you out of your jam.
—Oh,
my jam. Thanks.
—So, uh…Chris coughs, his anxious cough, she knows all the coughs in his range.
—What?
—Yesterday a small news item popped up. Seems like Willington is, or was,
was invested in a firm currently under investigation—
—For what?…Henry, alert now and lawyerly.
—Violating child labor laws.
—Child? No. Sorry but
child labor? Kill the meeting, Diane, please. The optics.
—Wait…Chris, with a calming motion of his hand…—There’s more—
—We cannot accept money from someone who exploits or or or even
facilitates the exploitation of kids in Dongguan or Dhaka or—
—Petaluma?
Henry flops back on the couch and stares at Chris.
—The company was using local sixth-graders to code after school. Called it a computer club, only the kids went home at night clutching their hearts and tossing back Zoloft. Parents investigated. Feds got involved.
—The Feds, lovely. Day at the goddamn beach.
—Apparently Z was clueless. According to his website, he considers himself an ethical steward.
—A billionaire with ethics, good one. Now I’ve heard it all. I’m finishing the lox spread.
—We’ll keep the meeting…Diane returns to her coffee…—Hair and make-up is at six?
—Yes, arriving at six along with your dress. If you need the full hour and a half it will only give us forty minutes with Willington but his assistant was, well kind of a b, to be frank. She wouldn’t budge on the time. Five-thirty was the earliest I could get.
—But Zedekiah—
—Z, he goes by Z now.
—Okay, but he’s definitely coming to the gala?
—As far as I know.
—Then we’ll manage.
—Trustees and special guests arrive at seven-thirty…Chris squints at his phone…—Doors proper open at eight. Which is when you, Anton Spitz and the team from Noizy—
—Not Noizy.
—No?
She shakes her head.
—Okay, uh, so then, eight p.m. just you and Anton greet arriving guests. Security promises everyone out of the building by two.
—And this morning? Party installers get here at what?
—Seven-ish.
—Set a courtesy call to Conrad around nine.
Chris types rapidly into his phone.
—Needs we can assist with and so forth, likewise a call to Anton. Looking forward, blah, blah. Don’t mention his dog.
—Don’t mention his, okay, and the Ambassador? Should there be some sort of formal toast this evening? Might nudge him in the right direction.
Henry looks up from piling papers into his briefcase…—What do you need from Japan?
—Their Samurai show. Made a small fortune for the British and was headed to San Francisco before their water pipe disaster…that fluttery feeling in her abdomen again…—We’re offering to host, begging really, but Ichimonji loves D.C. so—
—Or the Met. They awarded him some kind of medal.
—Medal? What medal?
—I don’t know, some honor they invented.
—God they are legendary suck-ups, aren’t they? I mean, kudos. Why didn’t we think of a medal?
In his hand Chris holds his paper cup which he waggles as he talks. She doesn’t hear a word, distracted by his cup. The undulating motion is making her seasick.
Diane jumps up and starts for her private bathroom, no…—Back in a sec…across the office and out the door, racing down the hallway so they won’t hear.
# 5:47 a.m. #
—What the hell?…Henry turns to Chris for a translation…—Why’d Diane sprint out of here?
But the kid stays glued to his phone, thumbing the surface with chilling speed.
—Think she’s puking?
—What?…Chris glances up.
—Diane. Her skin looked clammy…reviewing his empty plate, the mess of crumbs and schmear, Henry considers another half bagel…—Pregnant, maybe.
Chris now looks truly alarmed…—I mean, she probably needs more sleep or, anyway, isn’t she too…searching for the word…Advanced?
—Forty-four, forty-six? Not impossible.
—Mr. Joles, I’m pretty sure that’s too old.
—Trust me, friend. Happened to my cousin at fifty. Thought she’d hit menopause. Fuck was she surprised. Now she’s sixty-five with a kid in high school.
Chris blinks several times.
—Sorry, is that, maybe—
—I should uh…Chris points to the door…—You’ll wait here for Shay Pallot?
—I will.
—Need anything…gathering bagel bags, plates and cups…—I’ll be at my desk…Chris slips out the door.
And Henry drops back onto Diane’s cushy sofa, settling into the grossly expensive linen or shantung or pongee or whatever. What he needs is an antimacassar. There’s no hair oil anymore, there’s no hair, but he remains one of the great moisturizers. Both wives remarked on it. His grandmother had them on every seat in the house. She also had false teeth that rattled in wind storms. Of which there were many, she retired to the south of France, home of the mistral.
He closes his eyes. Dirty sculptures will be a headache, but not much more. The right phone calls, some diplomatic arm-twisting, a few veiled threats and one or two outright bribes. Henry used to live for this kind of thing. The thrill of war, the rush of high stakes. Not these days. He’s without his old sense of purpose. Become ambivalent, evasive. Not indifferent but capricious. And Diane can tell. He’s caught her watching him, her expression quizzical. A month ago she breached his office with a bottle of Blanton’s. Her ominous smile and two extremely heavy pours put him into a panic. So she’s discovered my shenanigans and come to fire me, he thought. But the business was personal. A minute for the bourbon to hit, then: I love my husband but I dream about running away. Henry wanted to be the trusting friend she’d mistaken him for, but her admission came too quickly, too freely. He had little intention of spilling his own secrets and this appeared to be a set-up for mutual confessions. He stared into his drink wishing for an ice cube. The longer Diane spoke the greater Henry’s desire for ice became until his need was so overriding and intense he could barely understand a word she was saying. It was his usual response to a personal disclosure of any kind, a focus on the pettiest issue at hand.
Diane’s computer screen turns black and the word
peregrinate swims across the screen followed by its definition. Next to the keyboard three mechanical pencils lie in precise parallel lines. Henry watched her laboriously position them as Chris took her through her day. She’s been taken by a scrupulous drive lately, squaring stacks of imperceptibly uneven papers, raking her skirt with the blade of her hand.
—Mr. Joles?
He looks up. Shay Pallot. Sharp in her black jacket and red tie, trousers sadistically tight at the hips. The uniform’s crisp cut and faux-military details would have excited him once, the prospect of discipline and authority in a curvy woman. But Henry has no energy left for such things. And the hunger he once had for Black women, what they call exoticization, he understood years later. Not good.
—Ready to go?
—Let’s do it…Henry gets to his feet, sucking in his gut and hitching his pants.
#
5:53 a.m. #
Nikolic yanks the blender jar off its base and tips it over the trash, watching the pureed goosefoot surge over coffee grounds and yesterday’s sticky rice. Pesto was a mistake. It’s an amateur move, even made with weeds. He needs a second coffee, stronger. He fills the kettle, sparks the gas. His mental state is not good. Too many sleepless nights have made mincemeat of his sanity. For a while he tried smoking pot before bed but it made mornings groggy. Took three espressos just to get dressed. So, a new approach. Springing out of bed the minute his eyes open. Three, four, the sky still dark. Wonderful, he says to himself, his inner voice facetious, more hours to spend experimenting. On sleepy legs, Niko snaps the sheets in a parody of efficiency, splashes cold water on his face and charges into the kitchen like the cuckold in a bedroom farce. Starts banging around with tongs and sheet pans, setting out bottles of asian condiments. The relentless drive to develop a new dish could be mania, he thinks, knowing nothing about mania. Or, a sad attempt to matter. If Nikolic can come up with a dish so delicious that Emerson adds it to the menu, he’ll really be someone. The upstairs neighbors complain about waking to the smell of garlic or fried smelt. Niko doesn’t care. Or he does but he overrides it. By six his eyes feel like clay marbles. The water in his body has been replaced by coffee. And to what end. Garbage cans of green slurry. Burns and broken bowls.
Across the room, row after row of mason jars stand empty on the shelving unit. They need refilling. Soon, before winter, he’ll collect sumac, maitake, black walnuts, paw-paw. But not from Central Park. A bigger trip, upstate. If Nikolic can make it past Poughkeepsie.
# 5:55 a.m. #
Diane stops in the hallway, pressing her forehead against the cold window, staring down at the lit-up rings of rotting sunflowers. It isn’t the Mumbai issue that’s turning her stomach. Even today, facing PR crises on two fronts, as well as potential termination at the hands of the board, she remains irrationally positive. Which means the reason for the nausea must lie in
—You okay?
her marriage…—Grand…she watches a cardinal take several hops, red feathers glossy in the spotlights.
—What are you doing?
—Looking out the window…she can hear Chris stabbing the elevator call button with his usual excess.
—So
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