Peter’s language was changing now, to that of a different Peter.
“So I head down through the first, open part of the slope, fairly steep, you know, black diamond, and I’m swerving around the drops and absorbing the rollers with my knees, keeping it on the ground but trying to go as fast as I can, because I’m assuming this guy can ski, and, you know, I don’t want him to think I’m a moron. So I get to the edge of the trees and stop, and I turn around. And he’s this small black and red figure at the top of the slope. And he pushes off. And I think, holy shit!”
She laughed.
“I mean, seriously: he turned twice, and just from those two turns I could see that there was something really different about this guy. And then he faces straight down the slope and starts accelerating. Places where I swerved to avoid a ten-foot cliff, he’d go straight over it, and land it like nothing, and keep speeding up, and then hit the next one even faster. And I’m standing on the edge of this fairly tight stand of aspens, expecting him to stop, and instead he barely slows down, I just hear this swoosh of snow and he blows past me, right into the trees, and he starts weaving through them like a freaking cruise missile! I swear … I have never seen anything like it, and I’ve seen some amazing skiers: ski racers, ski instructors, people who skied in the Olympics. Never!
“So I pick my way through the trees, and I see him waiting down below me. And there’s this one three-foot drop, and I think, well, I’ve got to bust something out here. I mean, he’s been hitting ten-foot drops and making it look easy. So I hit it with a little speed, and right as I get airborne I freeze up, as I always do, and when I land I bury my tips and go somersaulting down the slope about fifteen feet and both my skis come off, and my goggles get filled with snow, my ears are filled with snow, and there he is, waiting for me, and he says, ‘Looks like you’re having some trouble with the drops.’
“And I wipe the snow out of eyes, and I say, ‘You noticed! I always freeze up.’
“And then he says, and I remember this clearly, ‘That’s because you’re being two people. One of you is trying to land it, and the other one’s looking at you from the outside. You can’t be looking at your life from the outside. You want to land the drops, you’ve got to be all the way in it.’
“So he points to this roll-over about a hundred feet further down, and he says, ‘I hit that one a couple of days ago—it’s about five feet. I’ll go first and post up down below. Then you hit it, and this time focus completely on tucking and expanding. You ski like somebody who’s had lessons, so I figure you know already. But this time, just focus on what you’re doing. Nothing else.’
“And then he takes off, hits it—and he’s gone. I wait a few seconds, and I hear him calling something, but I can’t make out what, and I think, Okay. This is it. This is the moment. If I’m ever going to do this, it’s now.
“So I head down, do a couple of hard turns to check my speed, then get about seven feet about the edge and straighten my skis out for the takeoff, and then, boom, I’m in it. Except, it wasn’t five feet! It was, like, an abyss, and I’d just launched it! And this is the point where I’d usually panic, but this time, the fear sort of flickered across my mind, and then it was gone. And everything suddenly slowed down. I was just floating there in this silence. And I thought: Cool! I have all the time in the world. I’m moving so slowly. This is so easy. And I floated there awhile, and when I got close to the ground, I started expanding. And as soon as my skis touched the snow, everything sped up into fast motion again.” His face had a look of astonishment. “And it was just … immaculate! The most perfect two seconds of my life. I have to say that I have never felt better. When I got to the bottom his comment was, ‘You know, I was wrong about that one. It’s more like ten or twelve feet. I was trying to warn you.’ And then he says, ‘But you landed it.’”
And I was thinking, Yes, you’re god damn right! I freaking slowed down time and I landed it! I told him what had happened, how amazing it was about that moment just going on and on, and his only comment was ‘Yeah. It does that.’”
Peter laughed at the memory. “Like, ‘Yeah, transcendent moments happen to me all the time!”
“So we skied back down to the lift, and then he had to go meet his son. Of course, I knew better than to try to keep up with them. So we shake hands, and he looks me in the eye and he says, ‘You impressed me up there.’ Then he told me his name was Harry, and if I ever got to Juneau, he managed the True Value hardware store there. He said, ‘I’m easy to find. Just go to the downtown True Value and ask for Harry. Come in the winter. We’ll do some runs.’”
Peter paused and collected his thoughts. “And you know, Camille … I had just cashed out for three hundred million dollars. I’d been profiled in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. And it didn’t matter. What mattered was that I’d landed the biggest drop of my life and that I’d … had this incredible moment. All because of this guy that runs a hardware store in Juneau, Alaska. And it was all so … mysterious. You know? His whole life was this mystery that I’ll never get to the bottom of.
“And all that day I kept thinking of what it would be like to be that man, to be fortysomething or fifty and ski like that, with that freedom, and have children you were proud of and who looked up to you, to run a hardware store, and just not really care about all of the things that were so important to me—status and keeping score and being a player. And that really stayed with me. I still find myself reconstructing this guy’s life from whatever pieces I can scrape together. The way people do, you know: a log cabin with a cast-iron stove that I probably saw in a movie. Some mountains from … I don’t know, probably a photo in a magazine. A blond wife in some sort of 1950s snowflake sweater. His son, who probably looks like him, a daughter who looks like his wife. The whole thing, just like you would picture it. The snow. The fire. The house.”
Something inside of Peter seemed to move, and he gave a deep sigh. His voice changed from wonder to profound sadness. “My son tried to commit suicide a few months ago. He’s thirteen.”
She involuntarily raised her hand to her mouth. “I’m so sorry.”
Peter went on. “He’s okay now. He went through rehab.” His tone was flat and injured. “I went to New York to see him, and after an hour he told me to go back to China. That he wasn’t a tourist attraction. He’s extremely angry at me. And he’s not the only one.” He stopped and cleared his throat. “Something happened to me last week.”
She was relieved he had finally brought it up. “You were attacked on the Bund.”
“You know about that?”
She shrugged sadly. “I have known about it since several days ago,” she said. “A friend sent me a link. I’m very sorry.”
“So you knew already. I must look like a complete ass.”
“You look like a man who is embarrassed. That’s normal.”
The fondue pot came with its bubbling white contents, along with cubes of bread and pickles. He paused from their conversation to taste the wine and to dip the first cube of bread. She followed his example.
He sighed. “It is embarrassing. It’s been a really hellish week.” He told her the whole fantastic story, describing how the old man had pretended to be his friend and then led him to a place where he could be attacked, and how it was even possible that the singer had somehow arranged the videos simply to embarrass him and to make himself look like a hero. “And he succeeded. You can’t imagine how it feels to know that there’s millions of people watching you get punched in the face and cheering.”
“That’s terrible,” Camille said softly.
“And it doesn’t end there. It’s ruined our business. Kell and I had to dissolve our whole corporation and have him reconstitute it without me. I’m too much of a liability. I lost face, as they say here.”
She nodded sympathetically and reached across the table to put her hand on top of his and squeezed it. “That’s just face, Peter. It’s only appearance.”
“But if
you lost face, publicly, in front of millions of people, you would feel bad, right?”
“Yes. But I would be stupid to feel bad.”
“But you would feel bad!” he insisted. “No matter how much you told yourself not to. And in this case there’ve been real consequences with my business, my loss of an investment opportunity, physical pain—all of those things!”
She withdrew her hand and picked up her wineglass.
“So, naturally, I’m not going to just lay down and die on this.”
“What will you do?” she asked, looking at the piece of bread on her skewer.
“I’m going to punish him.” He sounded cold and arrogant. “I have a PR firm that specializes in dealing with exactly this sort of problem and they will crush him like an egg.” He told her how they worked, how they could destroy Pete Harrington’s image forever. Now Peter’s face had become almost red. “He’s not getting away with this! He thinks he can just walk up to me and assault me with no provocation whatsoever then use it to relaunch his career? That’s bullshit! It’s twisted! I’m not going to take that from some two-bit has-been rock star!” He noticed her reaction, and he leaned back in his chair. “I’m sorry. I get a little bit overwrought.” He sipped at his water, calming himself. “So. What do you think?”
She was quiet for enough time to dip a piece of bread into the cheese and drink a few sips of wine. She reached over and squeezed his hand again. “Do nothing,” she said.
“Why?” He looked puzzled and irritated.
This was the moment to be unattached. She looked directly at him. “Because you deserved it.”
He pulled his hand away. “What?”
She smiled. It was really rather simple. “Of course you deserved it!”
He shook his head, stunned. “How can you say that? Everything I did was legal, and it was done in good faith. Every investment—”
“You made so much money, Peter!” He didn’t like being interrupted, but she went on anyway. “And you got to keep that money. That’s good! You were trying to find your other life. But people like Pete Harrington—they lost money. Maybe for him, a lot of money. For your other life. Your life swallowed his. So, yes, he has a right to hit you.”
“I can’t believe this! You’re basically saying you agree with all those people who’ve been posting hate messages all over the Internet about me? You’re saying they’re right?”
“They are right to be angry! Of course! And when you accept that, I think you will be much happier.”
“You think I’ll be happier?” He struck his forehead with his palm, chuckling bitterly. “This is crazy!”
“Is it really crazy, Peter? How happy are you now?”
“How happy am I now?”
“Yes. At this moment.”
The question stopped him completely. “Well…” He lifted his shoulders and tossed his hands to the sides as if he’d forgotten where they belonged. She saw his throat move up and down as he forced a smile to the surface. “Not so very happy, to be honest with you.” He brushed his eye with the back of his hand, beaming at her at the same time as he looked deeply sad. “It’s confusing, actually. Fairly confusing. I’m supposed to be very successful.” His voice became thin. “I mean, as people measure success. I’ve got a ton of money. I’ve got a son that I love, though I guess really, I’m not much help to him. I’ve got great friends all over the world—not so much in Shanghai, but in other places. I have everything. What else could I wish for?” He laughed, and it made his teary eyes overflow. He wiped it with the napkin. Other diners were staring at him, but he didn’t care. “This is so crazy! Happy!”
She let him sit with his thoughts for a time. Neither of them were touching the fondue. She poured them both a bit more wine and waited for him to begin again.
“I have no real reason to be here now,” he finally offered.
“You never had a reason.”
He looked down toward the table, then back up at her. “You could tell?” She didn’t answer him, so he answered himself. “I thought China would be a change from New York, but the whole thing with Metropolitan Partners was more of the same. Or worse. I mean, look at me: I’m incorporated in the Isle of Man. My official home is a post office box in Bermuda. I pay nothing in taxes, and my most recent business venture is based on taking advantage of distressed public infrastructure. No wonder people hate me. I hate me! I’m a bored, selfish rich man of a type that’s existed throughout history. The only dignity I have left is trying not to tell myself I’m anything other than that.” He opened his fingers in a gesture of helplessness and sat back in his chairs to wait for her reaction.
“That is all true,” she said at last. “But you take it too seriously.”
He looked at her, surprised. “I’m sorry; I’m in the middle of a major life crisis, and you feel I’m taking it too seriously?”
“Far too seriously, Peter!” She could see he was becoming quite annoyed. It made her laugh. “It’s so simple! You keep looking for the Other Life. But your own life is the other life.”
He opened his mouth to throw back a sharp answer, but he held it back, then stared down at the table with his lips half-apart. He smiled and looked back at her. “I’m trying to understand what the hell you just said.”
“Peter! Look around! This is what the Other Life looks like. Close your eyes and listen. Right now!” She watched him shut his eyes and listen to the clattering and clinking and bits of conversation. She leaned toward him as if she was telling him a secret. “This is how it really sounds!”
He opened his eyes and looked around the restaurant and at her. He gave a single dry laugh. “I’m sorry, Camille. I’m just not getting it.”
“It’s okay. You can think about it if you like.” She leaned back again. She was suspicious of long talks about philosophy. They always turned back on themselves and lost their real meaning. “And something else on another subject: that picture, by Xu Ruoshi? It is too expensive. Offer half of what she asks. Then pay a bit more. Diana made the price three times higher after Xu Ruoshi won that prize. But don’t tell her I warned you, or it will create problems for me.”
He considered it, knowing what it meant that she had told him. “Thank you, Camille.” For the first time that night he actually seemed happy. They each ate a few pieces of bread dipped in cheese, and talked about the food in Switzerland. They speculated that this restaurant must have an exact fake-Chinese counterpart somewhere in Geneva or Bern, where people were looking at outdated Chinese clothing and musical instruments and imagining a China that no longer existed. For a little while they were simply two people out for the evening, though she knew that everything had not simply gone away with a few pronouncements. At last he let the conversation go silent so he could speak.
“So, Camille, what would you do if you were me? Seeing as I have no purpose in Shanghai.”
“I thought of that. If I were you, I would go to Cold Mountain for a while. Look for Han Shan.”
“Who’s Han Shan?”
“The sage of Cold Mountain. I told you about him last week. That poem. The mountain is massive. The mountain is mist.” Peter didn’t understand anything. “In the Tang Dynasty. More than twelve hundred years ago. No one knows if he was a real person: all we have are poems.” She told him about Han Shan and his poems about the mountain and the high paths and the mist. How the legend said that he had gone finally into a cave and closed it up behind him.
“I give you credit for one thing, Camille. You’re not a slave to linear thought.” She merely indulged him with a smile. “Let me make sure I’ve got this right: I’m a global laughingstock who’s been physically assaulted, dumped by his girlfriend, and kicked out of his own business, and you think I should go and look for a legendary poet who’s been dead for twelve hundred years? That should be my next move.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
He pressed his lips tightly together and looked down at the tablecloth. He considered it for quite a while, a
nd she could see different expressions going across his face. Finally he turned back to her. “Where is Cold Mountain?”
6
The Elephant Hunt
The chorus of Pete Harrington’s newly rediscovered fame didn’t start going out of tune until a few weeks after he’d gotten back. He’d been putting together a touring band, auditioning players with Duffy and seeing how things felt. They were doing well fleshing out the songs he’d written with Duffy, but he hadn’t come up with anything new since Shanghai. Strangely, he felt dry again.
The days of going to the Rainbow to write, or even pretending to write, were over. People recognized him everywhere, and though it had been fun to have that back the first week or two, he gotten pretty sick of fending off the same questions over and over again. People wanted his autograph, or to know how he’d felt, or to congratulate him, or to shake the hand that had punched Peter Harrington in the face. The babes were back, too, or rather, the babes had gotten younger. But it wasn’t like being twenty. The game felt old.
He was spending a lot of time in front of his computer. Before Shanghai he never ego surfed because there was nothing new anymore, just the same stale pages and outdated hero worship going back twenty years. Now, though, everyone was talking about him. Entertainment and celebrity sites, people who’d lost money in Crossroads, sites that specialized in fight videos, fan sites, political sites, social media pages, blogs of every stripe. It had even spawned sites of its own. He turned up one called BitchSlapBankster.com that featured his videos and a list of banksters still in need of bitchslapping, complete with their pictures and addresses. The comment board was a sinkhole of ugliness, the hatred slopping over to Republicans, Democrats, Jews, Chinese, traitors who didn’t carry a copy of the U.S. Constitution in their pocket, even to Pete Harrington himself: If a d1ck head like Pete Harrington can do it, anyone can! Or, This video makes me laugh. 2 f@ggots getting it on! These were the people he was trying impress? He registered under a phony name and wrote, You r all just fat shyts in undershirts writing comments and jerking off to porn. You wouldn’t have the guts. F&ck U Pete Harrington. Let ’em figure that one out.
This Is How It Really Sounds Page 28
