A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism

by Peter Mountford

  "That's true," he said.

  Someone behind them honked, and she put the car back into gear.

  A block later, she parked on the north side of Plaza Avaroa. The plaza slanted slightly to the southeast and was full of knobby, tumor-laden maples that stooped behind worn metal benches. Restaurants and cafés packed the promenades on two sides of the square; the other two were occupied by a mixture of colonial houses and old ministerial buildings. On the distant westerly corner, the American ambassador's former residence, a once stately mansion, was dark and abandoned now. The residence had been too exposed there on the square, too easily accessed by the mobs, and the ambassador had had to move down to the far corner of an obscure neighborhood in south La Paz.

  ***

  When she asked him what he wanted to know, Gabriel leaned back and thought it through. The boisterous restaurant was packed with people, mostly leaning over two-person tables and talking animatedly. It seemed as if all of them were smoking at once. He didn't know why they called it Blueberries; nothing on the menu involved blueberries. He said, "It's all deep background right now, nothing for attribution. So, if you could tell me the next finance minister's name, I'd be eternally grateful."

  She squinted at him, an expression somewhere between scolding and flirtatious.

  "The name of the head of the central bank?" he continued. "Minister of the interior?"

  She rolled her eyes. She had made it clear already that Evo would not be revealing the names of these people until January. It was a big deal to Evo. If she leaked one of the names, she'd be fired.

  A gambit opened for him. With Lenka, he had little reason left to maintain his cover. Of course, if she let it out that he was there as an analyst for Calloway, Priya would probably fire him. And Lenka herself had little to no reason to want to talk to a hedge fund. She might do it anyway, and she might keep his secret, but these were far from certain, still, she knew everything he wanted to know. And he liked her a lot already, and the feeling seemed mutual, and if he told her the truth, she wouldn't have as much of a reason to withhold that information. He held his course, though. "Is he going to expropriate the natural gas?"

  "He has said repeatedly that he plans to do that."

  "Right." Gabriel paused, but she offered nothing else, so he said, "But does he mean it?"

  She smiled, partially exasperated already. This was turning into more of an interview than he'd intended it to be.

  He continued anyway, unable to stop himself. "And what about the mines?"

  "Can I ask you a question?" she said.

  "Anything," he said. The eye contact was steady, but her flirtation was dimming.

  "What kind of questions are these?" she said.

  "They are direct questions. If you want, I can ask what he plans to do once he takes control, but if that's what you prefer, then you should just give me a copy of your latest press release."

  She had ordered tea, which now arrived. He watched as she drizzled pale honey over the floating tea bag until it started to sink. She put the honey down, and the bag rebounded, returned to the surface. She tugged on the string and the bag bobbed.

  "You can be at the speech when he unveils his cabinet picks. It'll be in January, if he gets elected. I'll save you a seat in the front row."

  "I'll be there. Look, I'm sorry I've been—" He gestured vaguely.

  "Pushy?"

  He smiled at her.

  "I like you, Gabriel," she said, "and you're pretty, but I can't get involved with some reporter who's just going to leave tomorrow, so I—"

  "I'm not leaving tomorrow."

  She squinted at him dubiously.

  "I'm not saying that I'm staying forever," he said, "but I'll be here for a month, at least. Maybe more."

  "You're great, but I don't know what I'm supposed to do with you. I don't even know if this is a date or an interview."

  "Can it be both?"

  "It can be both," she said.

  "I was sent here with the understanding that I would be discreet about my purpose, and I'm finding that it's very hard to do that. Please, I ask you, as a personal favor, don't tell anyone. Is that okay?"

  She nodded, her expression amused, almost.

  "I work for an investment firm called the Calloway Group."

  Her expression didn't budge. She sighed. She nodded. She pushed her cup away. "Thank you, but I should go." She picked up her bag, put the strap over her shoulder, and was about to stand when he reached out and touched her arm.

  "Please. Please give me a minute."

  "You lied to me."

  "I lied to everyone. You're one of the only people I've told the truth to."

  "Well, in any case, you need to talk to the central bank, not me."

  "But who would I contact at the central bank? Who's going to be in charge in two months? That's what I need to know."

  She took her bag off her shoulder and set it down again, but she kept the strap in her hand. "Why are you in Bolivia?" she said. "What kind of investments are these?"

  "I honestly don't know," he said.

  She squinted at him.

  "You won't tell anyone?" he said.

  "Why would I?"

  "It'll be in equities," he explained. "Probably betting for or against stocks of foreign companies heavily exposed to Bolivia, mostly in minerals and natural gas, maybe some telephony and basic infrastructure. There are around five to ten companies that will be deeply affected by Evo's decisions in the next month or two."

  "Do the other reporters know who you work for? Does Fiona?"

  He thought about it briefly before he said, "No, none of them know." And, like that, his foray into candor was over. While he would have preferred not to lie to her from here on out, it was inescapable. He needed her to recognize the sacredness of his secret, and if he admitted to telling others, she would be less inclined to see it as sacrosanct.

  "And what will happen to you if the reporters find out?"

  "I don't know." He shrugged. "I'll probably have to leave, go to another country."

  "And if I don't tell you what you need?"

  "The same—I'll leave."

  Now she was perking up again, enjoying herself a little more. This was interesting to her. The flirtatious edge returned to her voice. "And what if you find out something and then it turns out to be untrue?"

  "It depends on what I tell my boss and what she does with the information. If she acts on it and loses money, I'll probably be fired."

  "That's not very nice."

  "Well, she's not very nice."

  She smiled at him. "And are you betting for us, or against us?"

  "We're not betting on anything, so far. And I doubt it would involve Bolivian companies. It's more likely that it'd involve foreign companies exposed to Bolivia."

  "Right, but I'm asking which way you will be betting."

  "Well, I'm not betting," he said, hoping to put some distance between himself and the answer to that question. "I provide them with information."

  "You provide them with information. That's a choice you make."

  "Yeah. I'm a spy for assholes. It's true. But it's still the coolest job I've ever had."

  She laughed, shook her head.

  "I'm hoping to find out what Evo will do with natural gas."

  "He's going to expropriate! He already said so!"

  Gabriel glanced around to make sure no one was eavesdropping. "I know that's what he's saying," he said, lowering his voice in the hope that she would quiet down too. "But a lot of Latin American presidents have said things like that, only to change their minds once they're in power. If you look at the stock prices of the companies in question, it's clear that they don't know what to think of Evo yet. I'm here to help expedite the answer to this question for my boss."

  She blinked quickly at him, shaking her head, unsure of whether to trust him or not.

  He lifted his glass of wine, and she reluctantly clinked her teacup against it. They each had a sip. "Salud," he
said. She grinned at him, just barely, over her teacup.

  Lenka was a hard one to read, her confidence was as vivid as her reticence. There had once been, he believed, some brightly spangled joie de vivre about her, which was probably blunted by the birth of her son and her subsequent divorce, or maybe it was just the inevitable drudgery of life. Still, her mood seemed to remain on a spectrum set to measure degrees of amusement, rather than of sorrow or indignation. Peculiarly for someone in the business of dealing with journalists, her bullshit detector did not seem to have an off switch, and she didn't have the self-restraint to keep her opinions to herself.

  She was unlike most women he'd been attracted to, who tended to be powerful and sexual in conspicuous ways. Although he could sense some attraction from Lenka, the signals were dampened. She would not, as Fiona had done, strip naked midconversation on a first date. She was not proud or brash in the way people of her professional stature in other countries might be. She was very Bolivian. She was reserved, in that she reserved portions of herself and was not impatient to release them all at once. Her demeanor was what he might have expected from the younger sister of a terribly boisterous and adored woman in North America. She paid attention, waiting, and then let loose.

  So he toned himself down too. He let her run with her thoughts. She'd had a long day, after all. She talked about Evo, and he listened carefully, admiring her from across the table. She was remarkably attractive. Or, she was quite attractive, and he was remarkably attracted to her. Though he wanted her to like him as much as he liked her, the odds were not in his favor. Still, he did his best. He asked sensible questions and listened carefully to her answers. She didn't reveal anything that he had come to find out, but she did tell him about Evo as a man, about his love of his country and his eagerness to help his people. She had become an expert at describing his difficult roots—growing up impoverished, the child of miners, working in the coca fields, and eventually becoming involved in organizing workers and in public service. She sketched a hero's journey, but tilted it, slightly, for Gabriel's benefit. She made sure it was clear that Evo knew his weaknesses as well as anyone. He hired people who were capable of doing the difficult work of interpreting the data, she said.

  Now she was in her element, Gabriel could tell. Her speech was limber and she made adjustments to her narrative to suit his bias. She was playing as well as any of them could: giving a unique and personalized spin to the one tale she had to tell. With Gabriel, she chose an unusually frank tone. Eventually, she stopped and sighed an exhausted sigh. A week ago, she'd been the press liaison for a long-shot presidential candidate in an obscure South American country. Now he was certain to win and she found herself charged with the task of being the voice of the most exciting political phenomenon in Latin America in years.

  "Thank you for meeting me, by the way," she said. "It's been nice to talk off the record—to talk to someone who is interested but isn't a journalist, someone who doesn't work with me and isn't in my family."

  "It was a pleasure," he said, still hoping to project something like eagerness. "Sorry if I seemed pushy before, I'm just—I don't know." He spoke slowly in a low voice, trying to draw her forward. "I'm new at this too, you know. It's exciting to be here. I used to be a reporter, and I'm still learning what's different about this job."

  She tilted her head in a way that he found encouraging. She said, "Yes, I like that about you. We're both in over our heads. We have accepted our lots, because it would be crazy not to accept, but we find ourselves wondering what we've gotten ourselves into. Isn't that right?" She squinted at him, inspecting him.

  He nodded. That was a purer distillation of his situation than he himself had managed so far, but he didn't want to get into it with her yet. So he changed the subject, asked her what she had done before.

  "I worked at the Casa Cultura," she said.

  "Tell me more."

  So she did, and they remained there at that little square table, pursuing a line of conversation that moved further and further afield from the designated talking points.

  On the drive back, she wove through the narrow roads west of Prado, where the city sloped gently up toward the steeper cliffs. The streetlights gave the city a sickly yellowish tinge. Above them, the gibbous moon was high and bright, the contours of its surface cut vividly. As they drove past the square at San Pedro, she mentioned that she lived up the hill three blocks. Gabriel offered to get out and take a taxi the rest of the way, but she just shook her head.

  They stopped at a red light and she pulled the car out of gear, glanced at him. He wanted to kiss her, but he was afraid he might come off as entitled. "Let's meet again," he said. "We don't need to talk about Evo."

  "What else would we talk about? You called me because you want to know about Evo. Please don't pretend it's something else. I don't have time for anything, but I especially don't have time for people who pretend."

  "I'm not pretending. The truth is that I'd like to see you again, and we don't need to talk about Evo."

  She looked at him sideways. "Are you even able to be honest?"

  "I think so," he said, which was true. "I hope so." Also true.

  She yawned, pulled into the intersection. They sped along and he stared at the city as they flipped through shadows and bright concrete beneath streetlights spaced to conserve electricity.

  She parked in Hotel Gloria's taxi stand. He was trying to get up the gumption to kiss her when she said, "By the way, did you hear the news?"

  He shook his head.

  "One of the vice presidents at the World Bank quit his job yesterday over Bolivia. He said the U.S. was pressuring him to cut off Bolivian aid."

  He nodded. "That's weird."

  She nodded too, yawned. "An Italian. I think I'm going to invite him here."

  Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was still taking notes for his next message to Priya. He didn't want it to be that way, but he needed to keep his priorities in order if he wanted to last there.

  He leaned over and kissed Lenka on the cheek. He paused, looking at her up close, but she just turned away and started her car again. She shook her head and kissed him once, slowly, gently, on the mouth. She looked him in the eyes, blinked once, twice, then turned back and looked ahead resolutely, as though she were already driving away. He could see tears starting in her eyes. "Not a good idea," she said and blinked quickly. She let the parking brake down.

  He opened the door, got out, and stood beside the car. He leaned down and looked at her through the passenger-side window. Her hand gripped the wheel, knuckles stretching the skin. It was not the pristine, dainty hand of a young woman, but a strong hand, one marked by years of activity in an active life. She glanced back at him. The severity she seemed to want to radiate was undermined by those vanilla specks on her chin. Gabriel grinned deviously. "I'll call you tomorrow."

  She shook her head and pushed the car into gear.

  A large brown envelope sat upon his bed when he returned that night. Inside, he found a copy of Bolivia's latest Article IV report, with Fiona's kiss, in brownish lipstick, on the top page. She'd gone back to her bureau's office in Lima and had DHLed this from there, apparently after some waffling. Gabriel lay down on the bed and flipped through boilerplate. He skipped to the end and found the phrase "profound fiscal imbalances that will create long-term instability in the macroeconomy." He read on. The diagnosis from the IMF was beyond grim. There was nothing in there that would be useful to Priya, but he wanted her to know that he'd managed to get a copy of the report, so he went down to the business center and sent her e-mail explaining that he had it and it was useless.

  Back upstairs, he ordered a ham and cheese sandwich. With the plate on his lap, he watched CNN International. Then he put the plate on the bedside table, lay down, and stared at the asbestos tiles in the ceiling, which were stained gray-brown by decades of smoke. The odor of all that smoke still clung to the room. There were blackened spots on the tabletops too, as if some demon had
set a scalding finger down. Gabriel turned off the television, turned off the lights. He rolled onto his side, closed his eyes, and lay there, motionless, listening to the cacophony.

  During his orientation at Calloway, Oscar had said, "I have done this job longer than anyone I know, and I've done it for only five years." That had struck Gabriel. It repeated on him. He knew most were fired. Getting fired, and soon, was the norm. He wondered how long he would last before he was fired.

  Oscar went on to say that he'd actually known two other analysts—neither at Calloway, but it was the same—who had managed to keep their jobs for several years. They'd both sworn off the industry altogether recently.

  "Why?" Gabriel asked.

  Oscar appeared surprised by the question, as if the answer should be self-evident.

  Oscar wore oval gold-rimmed glasses. He had roughly cut gold cuff links, a gold tiepin, a loose-fitting gold Rolex. He was jowly, pale, of an indeterminate age, though if Gabriel had to guess, he'd say Oscar was in his midforties. He was friendly and subdued, intensely distracted. He had a lot going on, and this other duty, the interviewing of a prospective analyst who would cover the rest of Latin America, meant little to him because he would not be working with the person. By the job's definition, they would not overlap. Still, he listened to Gabriel's questions, and he talked about the life, what Gabriel could expect.

  "My wife is a saint," he said. "We met before I took the job. She has the kids to think about, and many hobbies. Tennis. Knitting. This thing called Pilates—you know it?"

  Gabriel nodded.

  Oscar continued. "She has friends too; I don't know them very well. My wife and I used to talk on the phone often while I was away. Eventually, we accepted that the phone only makes it worse, so we don't do that anymore. When I'm gone, I'm gone. Sometimes, after I'm gone for a long time, I sleep in the guest room for a couple nights when I return, because it's as if we don't know each other anymore. My wife used to worry that I had a mistress, but she has realized that it's not possible. Because there is no place that I go. There's literally nothing there. When I am out there, I am nowhere. Do you understand?"