by Hari Kunzru
—How many hours a week on the stair climber?
—Not enough.
—That one, though.
They looked Leonie up and down as we came in. She put on her hat and turned away from them, effectively masking herself from view. She was more beautiful than the women they’d been appraising, and they were offended that she was making no effort to please them. I watched their sexual interest curdle into a desire to hurt her, take her down.
—Where’s Corny, Leonie asked Carter, apparently unconcerned.
—Up at the house. He’s probably watching us through his binoculars.
As Leonie laughed, I tried to record it. Not literally. I tried to imprint on my memory the unforced rise in pitch, the broken descent. I would treasure it, house it in a place of honor, like the relic of a saint. I was aware of the pathetic figure I cut. Sometimes, late at night, I Googled her, looking at the same half-dozen party shots, Leonie with her arm round a curator, a musician, the owner of a West Village restaurant. When I imagined myself in their place, being the man who took her home and made out with her in the taxi and finally, in the privacy of some luxurious apartment, slipped the straps of an expensive dress over her shoulders, I was brought up sharply against my own physical meagerness. The contrast between us was so grotesque that I could never enjoy the fantasy.
Once in a while in New York we went over to her TriBeCa loft. It was a peculiar place, in a doorman building with a marble reception desk and fresh-cut flowers in the lobby. When you got out of the elevator, you felt as if you’d been teleported. Her books sat on metal warehouse shelving. She slept on a mattress on a little plywood platform. The walls had been stripped back to brick, and the floor painted heavy-duty battleship gray. It was a facsimile, a simulation of the kind of place other artists lived in, many stops away in the outer boroughs. Everything about her domesticity was apparently careless. Ashtrays and dirty plates. Bags of recycling propped up against a wall. Part of the huge open space had been crudely partitioned by a plasterboard wall that didn’t meet the ceiling, a white box inside which she sometimes painted or shot photographs. We would hang out at her fake squat with its panoramic view of the Hudson and I would watch the sunset and listen to her friends talking about this show and that fair while she sat cross-legged on the floor in a pastel jumpsuit or a lurid eighties sweater, transparently hoping that someone would ask about the bubble-wrapped C type prints stacked in neat rows against the far wall. Somehow they never did. I never did. Not because I didn’t want to. If I’d dared, I would have asked about her pictures.
Excuse me, she said, and made her way to the other side of the pool, where she bent down and greeted a man in his fifties, one of a group sitting and eating round a picnic table. He had an outdoor tan, sailing or skiing, ruddy around the nose with white bands at his temples where some kind of goggles had blocked the sun. His hair was swept back in a gray mane. She kissed him on the cheek, and he let his hand linger on her shoulder. As she talked, rocking animatedly from foot to foot and playing with the brim of her hat, he sat, half-turned on the bench, his eyes dipping down and back up again, scanning her from knee to breast. There was something raffish about him, a whiff of the bohemian that stood out against the conservative golf wear of the other men at his table. The linen pants, the popped collar on his shirt. I was offended by all of it, his boyishly tousled hair, his air of well-fed hedonism. I waited for her to move away, but she didn’t.
Carter disappeared to take a call, and I hovered by the grill, eating a burger. I couldn’t see anyone who might be willing to talk to me, so I drifted into the pool house, a quaint old building with a tiled roof and cedar siding that had weathered almost to black. Inside it smelled of chlorine and wet towels. A huge pair of oars hung from the roof, trophies of some long-dead varsity crew. The walls were hung with photographs of swimming parties dating back eighty years. Recurrent faces, remixes of Carter and Leonie in baggy woolen suits with rubber rings and drinks in their hands.
Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of radio, believed that sound waves never completely die away, that they persist, fainter and fainter, masked by the day-to-day noise of the world. Marconi thought that if he could only invent a microphone powerful enough, he would be able to listen to the sound of ancient times. The Sermon on the Mount, the footfalls of Roman soldiers marching down the Appian Way. I clapped my hands, listening to how the report was absorbed by the walls, but reflected by the concrete floor. The pool house had a strange tone, a particular blend of interior and exterior that made me suddenly wary. I retreated back out into the party.
People sat on lawn chairs or stood waist-deep in the pool, bonded in impenetrable social rings and hexagons. Things had gotten looser while I’d been inside, louder. Drinking and the summer heat. By the grill, one of the servants was cleaning up the shards of a broken bottle. My phone went off in my pocket. Carter was calling me.
—Get a ride and come up here.
—Where?
—To the house. Cornelius wants to meet you.
Two staff members were leaning against their carts at the foot of the hill. I walked up to them, but they didn’t acknowledge me. I trudged upwards, reaching the top in a flop sweat. Unsure if it was OK to go in through the front, I walked round to the back porch. Finding the screen door open, I picked my way in over a clutter of boots and hats and tennis rackets.
—Hello, is anyone there?
Crammed tightly together on the walls of the hallway were old prints and maps. I had a glimpse of a small room, not much more than a walk-in closet, containing what looked like a server rack, black modules with red winking lights.
Carter appeared in a doorway.
—There you are.
—So what does Cornelius want with me?
—You’re my business partner. He wants to look you over, see what he’s buying into.
—So no pressure.
—Don’t blow this, is what I’m saying.
—Jesus, Carter. Are your parents here too?
—No, they’re in Europe. It’s just Corny.
We found him in a study or office, standing in front of a huge oak desk on which sat no fewer than five screens, showing market data, news tickers, surveillance views of the property. Leonie hadn’t been joking about the binoculars. Dressed in the awkward smart casual of men who spend their lives in suits, Corny was standing at a bay window with a view downhill toward the pool, his legs braced, training a pair of German precision lenses on the party like a commodore on the bridge of his cruiser. As he formed his first unfavorable impression of me, I got a closer look at the binoculars. They were the military kind that incorporates a laser, returning various kinds of range-finding information. Beautifully engineered. Reluctantly, I made eye contact again to confirm that Leonie’s sneer was playing across a face decorated with Carter’s nose and cheekbones. The recombinant quality of this stranger in a button-down shirt was uncanny; a hostile alien intelligence animating the features of people I loved.
—So is this going to work? he asked.
—Sure, I said hesitantly, turning to Carter and silently cursing him for leaving me so unprepared.
—Seth’s kind of a wizard. What he doesn’t know about music technology isn’t worth knowing.
—And you think New York isn’t a mature market?
We both shrugged, at a loss.
—It’s like, too mature, said Carter. It’s decadent. People want to get back to the source. The old school. They want things they can touch.
I waited for him to say more, to give me a clue as to what we were trying to sell, but he trailed off into silence, scuffing the rug with a foot. The contrast between the two brothers was instructive. Corny, neatly put together, impregnably respectable. Carter’s bare legs, the tattooed skulls on his chest, visible in the deep V of his poet’s linen shirt. Corny spoke slowly, savoring his own patronizing restraint.
—I meant, are there other people who offer the same service? What is your competition?
I�
�d never seen Carter blush before. Sure, he mumbled. Of course.
—So there are?
—No. We’re the only ones. We can do, like, a lot of stuff. No one has what we have. I mean, in terms of equipment. And talent.
—Did you actually do any research? Or do you just know?
—Man, get off my back! Give me this one little area, at least. One tiny little area where I’m the one who knows.
—Please don’t call me “man.”
Carter threw his arms up in exasperation. Corny made a pantomime of thinking about his investment decision.
—If I do this, will you wash your hair?
—Fuck off.
—And wear underwear, and stop taking drugs?
—I knew this was pointless. Jesus, for a moment I actually thought you weren’t going to be a dick.
—I am serious. You’re a goddamn disgrace.
—Seth, let’s get out of here.
Corny chuckled.
—God, Carty, don’t get your panties in a bunch.
He took a large leather-bound checkbook out of a drawer, produced a pen.
—Like shooting fish in a barrel. How much, again?
—Fifty.
He sat down to write, arranging his materials with fussy formality.
—I’m satisfied you can’t be in that much trouble. If you had a drug habit or you owed money to the mob, you’d have promised to wash your hair.
Carter took the check and stuffed it into the back pocket of his jeans.
—Like I said, this isn’t charity. We’ll hook you up, no doubt.
—Dad would tell you to live within your means.
—That would involve Dad finding out my number from his assistant.
—Such a martyr. And don’t take it out on Betty when you run out of funds.
—Why not. She’s paid to deal with my shit.
—She’s only authorized to go up to a certain limit.
—But she’s paid, right. I’m her job.
—You’re all our jobs, Carter. Everybody does their share.
Corny made an ironic face, to show that he was waiting for the thank-you he didn’t expect to get. He held it for a second or two, then let it drop.
—So, I’m bringing some polo buddies into the city next weekend.
—Sure. I got you. Whatever you need.
—Great. I thought you might want to congratulate me, though. You know Dad’s made me VP of Correctional Services?
—Really?
—Really. I’m in charge of the whole Walxr operation. Fifty-eight facilities. All the ancillary services. Effectively I’m the CEO of my own company within the Wallace Magnolia Group.
—Feet fitting the big shoes, huh?
—Be as sarcastic as you like, but you know he’d love to do something for you too. If you cared enough.
—You are truly fucked in the head, Corny. You never take me seriously. I don’t need a job. I have a job. I make music.
—You shouldn’t leave it too long. Don’t get stuck in that life.
He waved a hand at me, casually dismissing the visible manifestation of “that life” like a tasteless shirt or an earring, a kid brother’s foolish and transient choice. Carter sighed.
—Come on, Seth. We’re done here.
We hopped on a golf cart and pit-stopped at the guesthouse, where we smoked a joint, leaning out over the balcony. I was aware that the check was still stuffed into the back pocket of Carter’s jeans, and I asked him if he wanted me to hold on to it. Carter handed it over and I filed it in the pocket of my laptop case. He asked if I really wanted to stay the night. There was probably a scheduled flight back later on, we could get on it. I told him I didn’t mind. Whatever he wanted to do was fine. He seemed despondent, all the morning’s manic energy broken on the jagged rocks of Cornelius. There was something intimate about the moment that made me feel I could risk a question.
—I know it’s not my business, but why are you having to do this?
—Do what?
—Go to your brother. We’re making some money. You don’t need to bow down before him.
He said nothing. I tried to work out if he was offended.
—I’m sorry. It’s just—we’re not in trouble, are we? Financially.
He shook his head.
—There’s stuff I want, that’s all.
—Stuff?
—Records. What else? Things have been put on shellac that I was born to hear.
—What records?
—I have one or two things going on. Deals I’m trying to swing. Don’t worry, you’ll get to hear whatever I buy.
Then we went back to the party. While we’d been away, afternoon had collapsed into evening, and the staff were setting out tables for a formal meal, lighting lanterns and hanging them in the trees. A four-piece band set up on a little stage and began to play jazz standards. People had disappeared to change, and were reappearing in cocktail dresses, jackets and ties.
Carter looked at the table map and moved our place cards so we were sitting with Leonie. only to find that when the meal started she sat down at another table, next to the man she had been talking to by the pool. The guests at our table were all twenty-something lawyers, eager young folk whose firms were attached to the Wallace Magnolia Group like barnacles on the hull of an oceangoing tanker. After a round of perky introductions, it became clear that I wasn’t worth talking to and Carter was ignoring them, so they made conversation amongst themselves. Carter sat with his phone between his legs, checking an auction on eBay. I ate my diver scallops and my duck and looked up at the lanterns in the trees, listening to the band amble through “Now Is The Time.”
After the main course had been served, Cornelius Wallace stood and gave a speech, acknowledging various people at the party and thanking us for “sharing this milestone” with him. He made a joke about being named the youngest member of the Magnolia board and claimed to be very thankful to have “Roger and Bill and Harry” to help him find his feet. Somehow he made his thanks sound like a threat, as if Roger and Bill and Harry would soon find themselves clearing their desks if they didn’t swiftly demonstrate loyalty to the new regime.
They served coffee and dessert and people began to move around. Some of the lawyers vacated their places and Leonie and her friend came over to sit with us.
—Carter, this is Marc.
Marc shook Carter’s hand, then sat back with placid self-assurance, crossing his legs and shooting his cuffs and adopting the expression of a man ready to be fascinated.
Carter said hi. There was a drawn-out pause.
Marc’s smile did not waver. Instead, though no one had asked, he told us how he knew Leonie. From downtown, he said, with a knowing underscore that made him sound almost archaeological. I did some quick calculations. Young in the eighties.
—Actually, I bought one of her videos.
Is that what you do, asked Carter. Collect videos?
—No, I have a software company. Lately some other projects too. I have an environmental nonprofit that takes up some of my time.
—Oh God, you’re that guy.
Marc was measured in the face of this unexpected aggression. Leonie looked furious. Carter sighed and scraped his chair back from the table.
—Ones and fucking zeroes. Excuse me, I need to piss.
He stalked off. I wondered if I ought to go too. The silence became awkward. Leonie filled it by introducing me to Marc, who shook my hand and gave me his ready-to-be-fascinated face. Up to that point, no one had acknowledged me.
—It was such a wonderful surprise to find out Marc was going to be here. It’s positively made my evening.
Leonie’s smile was almost as radiant as Marc’s. She behaved as if she and I were the greatest of friends, apparently hoping that I would help cover for her brother’s rudeness. Then she and Marc told each other again and again how pleased and surprised they were to see each other at the party, until I became convinced that they had arranged to meet, perhaps as part
of some subterfuge. I looked on his hand for a wedding ring, but didn’t see one. As they played out their little scene, I shrunk further into myself. A silence descended which I made no particular effort to fill, and they began to look around for ways to move on.
There was whooping and shouting, and then a splash. Corny’s friends from the plane had met another half a dozen young men as moronic as themselves, and together they’d pushed a girl into the swimming pool. Leonie used the opportunity to pull Marc away. I watched them go, his hand brushing the small of her back as they made their way towards the house. More than twenty years older. Probably twenty-five. I felt very bitter, brimming with a poor young man’s outrage against the old and rich. His thickening body against hers, his knowing unworshipful hands.
Around me, the party was bifurcating, one faction already saying good night, giving out business cards and promising to be in touch, the other gearing up for some real fun, shots and powder and sneaking in and out of rooms. Carter reappeared and told me not to talk to him, because he’d lost the auction he’d been following and now it was all he could do not to punch someone. A complicated cascade of transactions had depended on him buying a hillbilly record, some Appalachian fiddle band. The fiddle band record would make some kind of set or package with two others he already had, and the three together might lure someone he’d been talking to online to part with a worn but playable copy of Mississippi John Hurt’s “Spike Driver Blues.” But he’d been outbid. He’d not been paying attention. Someone else was using sniper software, so no John Hurt record. It wasn’t fair. The loss had put him in a foul mood. I knew from experience that it wasn’t a good idea to be around him. All he’d want to do was pick at his wounds and work up an excuse to lash out at me.
