A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism

by Peter Mountford

  The walls were paneled wood, stained a rich, if improbable, mahogany. The furniture was bulky, embellished with too many brass buttons, which pinned the burgundy leather down tautly. On the wall by the bar, he saw a deeply contrived series of paintings of English fox hunts, red coats on the riders and all. He asked for a glass of water and the bartender poured him one from the tap. Gabriel asked if he could have a bottle of water. The bartender explained that the water came from a well and was purer than bottled water. Gabriel accepted the glass and had a sip. It tasted like stagnant pond water, an amoeba velouté. He thanked the bartender and put the glass down.

  The other men in the bar were conferring in whispers. They drank cognac from bulbous snifters. Taking it in, Gabriel found that all of it—the brazen excess, the fierce allegiance to the patrician pretense—made him miss the actual cushiness of the north even more.

  For most of his adult life, he had not cared for cushiness at all. He had scoffed at the comfort of hotel rooms and preferred the two-dollar-a-night flea-ridden bed in Quito's Taxo hostel, where slugs held sway in the kitchen and laced every surface available in their silvery tinsel trails, so all the guests had lived on takeout pizza and cheap beer. He'd stayed there happily for two months. A year or two ago, though, Gabriel had undergone an elemental transformation. Everything he had desired before, everything he had coveted, had been surreptitiously replaced by other things. His daydreams themselves had molted while he wasn't paying attention. Now he came to a place like the Tennis Club and, though he still felt a light scorn, instead of wanting to retreat into the dingy alleys of La Paz, he pined for genuine luxury. This would have seemed a gross turn to the person Gabriel had been two years before, but he wasn't that person anymore. He didn't even know what he would say to that person if he met him. Life was, finally, too haphazard for such straightforwardness, for such clarity.

  He looked at his notepad and was about to go over his notes again when he felt a tap on his shoulder. "Gabriel?" It was a familiar voice.

  He turned to see Grayson McMillan—ruddy, stubbly, reeking of musty cologne. "Hey!" Gabriel shook the hand, motioned for him to sit. "I wasn't expecting to see you here."

  "I'm a member." Grayson sat, ordered a martini from the bartender. "I wasn't expecting to see you." Grayson remained savagely handsome, remarkably fit; he wore an untucked oxford, the top three buttons open and the shirt splayed, exposing a hearty swath of chest hair. He was a marvel: a sort of well-tanned mascot for Gabriel's evolving ambition. Grayson's smile started hard and judgmental, but warmed quickly. "So, what the hell are you doing here?"

  "I've got a meeting with Foster Garnett of the U.S. embassy, but he's playing tennis." Gabriel smiled at Grayson; it was good to see a familiar face, even if it was one he so disliked.

  "I know him. Wife is perky and pleasant, as they go—he's on his way out, I believe, lucky fucker." Grayson cleared his throat, glanced around, then tilted his head to one side and regarded Gabriel appraisingly for a moment. He said, "Have you seen Fiona since she returned?"

  "Not yet."

  "Me neither."

  Gabriel glanced out the window, saw a nurse in black scrubs wheeling an oxygen tank out toward the gym—for guests who felt lightheaded, no doubt. While he had Grayson, he might as well try to solve one of Priya's other questions. "I was wondering if the World Bank or the fund is going to cut programs here; do you know?"

  Grayson shook his head vaguely. "What, you heard about the Italian?"

  "Yeah." This is what Lenka had mentioned the night that they went to Blueberries. It had been in the news for a week or so afterward: an Italian vice president at the World Bank had very publicly resigned over the fact that he was being pressured by the United States to cut aid to Bolivia. The story had flared briefly, and then gone away.

  More recently, Lenka had mentioned that the Italian had accepted the invitation she'd extended, on behalf of Evo, to come to Bolivia. Evo was going to have a party in the Italian's honor on the thirtieth of December, the day before she and Evo set off on the world tour, which she had been busy arranging.

  "You think that'll affect the bank-fund approach to Bolivia?" Gabriel asked.

  "I don't know. Off the record?"

  Gabriel nodded. "Absolutely."

  "I honestly don't know, but the way I see it, these days—with Wolfowitz already drawing a lot of fire at the World Bank—I doubt they'll want to appear to be accepting pressure from the U.S."

  "And the Italian put Bolivia into play in that way."

  "So if any of the aid institutions acts unilaterally against Morales, or Bolivia, everyone will assume that it's in response to pressure from Bush, and the scandal will flare up again. So, for now, Bolivia has a reprieve. It won't last, but I think it's too hot an issue for anyone in the aid community to take an interventionist position. Again, that's just my guess."

  Gabriel hadn't thought of it that way. "They care?" he said.

  Grayson shrugged. "Probably."

  Gabriel looked around. Grayson seemed to pick up on his disdain somehow. "You think poorly of this place?"

  "It's fine."

  "Yeah, right," Grayson said. "But it feels good to be inside, doesn't it? Go on, admit it."

  "It does."

  Neither one of them said anything for a moment. Then Grayson, perhaps bothered by Gabriel's possible disdain for the club, said, "No doubt it's easier to turn your nose up at it if you don't live here." Gabriel hadn't expected him to be so defensive. Grayson had somehow convinced himself that Gabriel was an anti-elitist. Grayson wasn't as dexterous at his art as his reputation suggested. Reportedly a lethal diplomatic sniper, he was instead armed with a blunderbuss. Gabriel didn't quite know how to respond, so he just shook his head. "No, I'm just not really a country-club guy."

  "So you're not a little bit of a socialist?"

  Gabriel laughed. "No, no, I'm not a socialist—trust me."

  Grayson squinted at him. "Where are you from?"

  Gabriel shook his head. "Southern California."

  "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 wi
ndow, 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.

  7. Mistakes Were Made

  Friday, December 23, 2005

  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."