Transmission

by Hari Kunzru

  ‘It is an emotional moment for Gianni, as you see,’ said Becker. ‘And for me too. We’ve tried so hard to make PEBA a reality. And now it is real, a working institution. Not paper any more.’

  ‘We should make a toast,’ suggested Yves. He and Becker and Guy and Bocca raised their glasses, and it seemed to Guy that there was a moment of perfect communication between them under the glass dome of the Séraphim, an instant when all channels were miraculously clear.

  The main course came, food arranged like cuneiform characters on oversized white plates. Guy found he had ordered more fish. Bocca started to dismember some kind of small bird, a quail perhaps, teasing out tiny gobbets of flesh with the tines of his fork and inserting them one by one into his mouth. His eating had something remorseless about it, something mechanical. Guy had to look away He spent a period pushing fish and leaves through a squiggle of yellow sauce, then waved the empty wine bottle at a waiter, who floated over and replaced it with a full one. Monika and Yves had moved on to the subject of America.

  ‘We need to take a lesson from them,’ she was saying. ‘They sell themselves so well through their media. Everything American is the biggest and the best. They tell us this and we believe it, even when it is rubbish, like the cars.’

  ‘Or the food,’ added Bocca, crunching a fragile bone between his teeth.

  Yves nodded agreement. ‘Even the bad things in America are always the worst. Their cities are the biggest, the most polluted, the most dangerous. You tell them how Paris is, they don’t believe you. They can’t hear it, you know? It is like a religious faith.’

  ‘Or Rome,’ said Bocca.

  ‘Or the coffee,’ said Guy, who had only been half listening.

  ‘But this is the economic power of Hollywood! It is imperative we compete! Europe needs its own factory for dreaming! Not for vanity. For economic reasons. I have said this to Commissioner Papadopoulos many times. We must have a programme to fund the promotion of positive images of Europe through all media. The cinema, television, bandes dessinées, everything. At the moment it is like the Cold War and we are not even fighting.’

  ‘But,’ said Bocca, ‘there is already good work in these areas.’

  ‘Certainly, but please, Gianni, I don’t think classical music and television dramas about the Romans are enough. The promotion of heritage is one thing. We have won this argument. We are the oldest, no contest. It is the youth we must persuade. Hip-hop gangster rappers must drive European cars. They must fire European guns!’

  ‘They do, sometimes,’ pointed out Guy.

  ‘This is Guy’s area of competence,’ Yves reminded her.

  ‘Of course,’ she beamed. ‘And I’m sure you would have many ideas for this. I recently circulated a document urging the creation and promotion of a Community hero. They have Captain America and Colonel Sanders and so on. What have we? But really, I am going off the point. Culture is of course not my directorate. This is more a hobby. What we came to hear are your ideas for PEBA and instead I am talking so much about these other things. I am very excited by what Yves has told me so far, but it is not so much. I was thinking, can you give us a taste?’

  ‘I’d be delighted,’ said Guy, sitting up in his chair. It was the moment he had hoped for. His heart had slowed down to a sustainable level. He was prepared. Under the table was his laptop case, and a folder of samples and hand-outs. Yves looked on encouragingly.

  ‘I think the two things are linked,’ he started. ‘The idea of promoting Europe, making it seem like a hip place, was a central focus of our thinking at the agency.’ He handed out four outline maps of Europe. Across the top was written Tomorrow*’s continent as well as yesterday’s. ‘And of course people’s first contact with Europe is usually through its border police.’

  ‘Exactly!’ Bocca slammed his hand down on the table, making the glassware jingle like a peal of little bells. One or two people looked up from nearby conversations.

  ‘Gianni,’ admonished Monika. ‘Please, Guy, continue.’

  ‘Well, we have to promote Europe as somewhere you want to go, but somewhere that’s not for everyone. A continent that wants people, but only the best. An exclusive continent. An upscale continent. And our big idea is to use the metaphorics of leisure to underscore that message. Here’s what I mean.’

  He reached into his folder and brought out some keycard blanks. Each had EU blue and gold on one side and the words Platinum Member embossed on the other. Becker and Bocca turned them over in their hands.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Guy announced, with a verbal flourish he had been practising on the plane, ‘welcome to Club Europa – the world’s VIP room.’

  Director Becker was visibly charmed.

  ‘Of course you’re familiar with club culture, so you know that being on the right side of the velvet rope makes all the difference to young opinion formers both within the EU and outside. It’s a concept they’re familiar with. It’s one they respect, and we feel it speaks both to the citizen and to the prospective European. It’s a question of conveying the message that you should only try to get past our doormen if you’re wearing the right kind of clothes, so to speak. We’ve made a short film to support our pitch.’

  ‘Guy,’ said Yves, ‘why don’t you show them?’

  ‘Now? You want to watch it now? I have it on my hard drive.’

  ‘That would be fabulous,’ said Becker. Bocca nodded and made a carry-on gesture.

  Guy took his laptop out of its case and laid it on the tablecloth, carefully clearing crumbs and glasses out of the way to make a space. He switched it on, and while they waited for it to start up he passed round his team’s sketches for PEBA insignia and uniforms. The border authority’s acronym was shown as a blue neon sign, as a pattern of sparkling bulbs, and printed in a variety of seventies disco lettering styles. Shaven-headed male and female immigration officers were depicted wearing headsets and mirror shades, their futuristic black bomber jackets embroidered on the back with a PEBA portcullis logo.

  ‘Very striking,’ said Becker. Bocca pointed out that perhaps black shirts were a controversial look.

  ‘We’re not wedded to black,’ Guy reassured him. ‘Blue and gold is another obvious possibility.’

  By this time the laptop had started up. It sat on the tablecloth, humming and displaying a whirling Windows screensaver.

  ‘OΚ,’ said Guy. ‘I’ll just find the file. We call the film Europe: No Jeans, No Trainers.’ He clicked on the icon. Nothing happened. He clicked again and the screen went blank. Instead of the ‘DV odyssey through European clubland’ put together by his creative team after a punishing transcontinental bender, there was the stuttering sound of a troubled hard drive, a tinny blast of Indian music and a depressingly familiar little dancing figure.

  ‘Shit,’ said Guy. ‘Please, not now. Oh shit.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Monika. She peered across at the screen.

  ‘You have a problem,’ noted Bocca.

  ‘Yeah, thanks for pointing that out.’

  ‘Guy,’ warned Yves.

  ‘I hope it is not the destructive variant,’ said Bocca.

  Guy could feel himself slipping into panic. This was supposed to have been sorted. This was supposed to be over. ‘Shit,’ he said, stabbing the power switch with his finger. ‘Shit.’

  ‘Did you see in the news?’ Monika asked Yves. ‘The man has gone on television. He is some kind of stalker for this actress.’

  ‘Calm down, Guy,’ said Yves. ‘You have other copies of this data, yes?’

  Guy tried to regain some control over himself. This should not have been happening. Not when things were going so well. ‘Yes,’ he croaked.

  ‘So, you can phone your office.’

  ‘This bloody machine. I swear it’s a conspiracy.’

  ‘Maybe we should get some coffee,’ suggested Yves.

  Monika looked sympathetic. ‘Guy, don’t worry. The meeting is not until two tomorrow. You can get this film by then.’


  Guy looked from one face to the next. They were all smiling, sympathetic. They wanted him to succeed. He felt like a cable that had been stretched too far. He wanted to shout at them, tell them how everything depended on this pitch. His business, his home, his relationship – everything. He wanted to cry. Instead he muttered an excuse and went to the toilet, where he splashed water on his face and locked himself in a cubicle. He sat there for a few minutes, trying to regain some kind of command over himself. Why didn’t he have any more coke? That would have helped. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck. It.

  He punched the cubicle door, as hard as he could.

  The pain was excruciating. He thought he might have broken something. Clamping his throbbing hand with his armpit, he swore repeatedly under his breath. When it had receded to the point where he could concentrate on the outside world, he pushed his way out of the cubicle and ran cold water over the injury.

  When he got back to the table, Yves caught his eye and made the thumbs-up sign. Someone had powered down the computer and put it away.

  ‘Signor Swift,’ Bocca told him, with expansive courtliness, ‘please don’t worry. These technical things are not important. It is the quality of the ideas that interests us.’

  ‘We have both been most impressed by your presentation,’ added Becker. ‘You communicate very clearly.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Of course,’ added Bocca, ‘it still has to go through a formal procedure, but informally I can say that we have seen several presentations and the quality has been, ah – variable. In my opinion you do not have serious competition.’

  ‘You mean –’

  Yves grinned.

  ‘We mean nothing,’ said Director Becker. ‘This was an informal conversation, and these are private opinions. You should not think a promise has been made.’

  ‘But I loved the keys,’ put in Bocca.

  ‘And the logo is super-good.’ Becker gave Guy an unambiguous look. ‘You are a cool fellow, Mr Guy Swift. Here is my card, if you have any questions before the meeting.’

  ‘Shall we get some coffee?’ asked Yves.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Guy, surreptitiously massaging his knuckles. ‘Coffee. Great.’

  Half an hour later they were saying their goodbyes on the street outside the Séraphim. Bocca slapped Guy on the back and promised to lend him a document on the workings of the SIS which he was sure to find fascinating. Director Becker let him know that if there was anything he needed in the short term, she would be up for a few more hours working on some papers.

  Feeling drained, he fell into the passenger seat of Yves’s car.

  ‘My friend,’ said Yves, running a comb through his hair in the rear-view mirror, ‘we need a drink.’

  Guy looked over at him uncertainly. ‘I don’t know, Yves. I think I should try to sleep.’

  Yves pantomimed incomprehension. ‘Don’t be stupid. The meeting is not until the afternoon, and the contract is already in your hand. Come on, Guy. Don’t be so serious. I know these people. They have to pretend to be cautious, but they love you. That woman wanted you to go with her, I don’t know, into a cupboard. Anywhere. She would do whatever you say.’

  Guy managed a wan smile. Yves playfully punched him on the shoulder. ‘You need to relax. If you feel so tired, look in the glove box. There is something to help.’

  ‘Really?’ Guy opened the car’s glove compartment. Inside was a small leather-bound case, which unzipped to reveal an antique men’s grooming kit and a screwtop phial of white powder. Attached to the cap was a tiny silver spoon. He found himself reappraising Yves.

  Ten minutes later the idea of going on for a drink seemed like the best possible idea, the only feasible response to such an outstanding business success. Yves, who had done some reappraising of his own, was of the opinion that an ordinary drink would not suffice for men as world-beating as they. The future rulers of the earth needed a real drink. He gunned the engine and lurched out into the traffic, accelerating past a taxi and heading in the direction of the city centre.

  ‘Relax,’ he told Guy again, once they were under way. ‘I know a good place.’

  The good place was called the New Morning, a club with a frontage of discreet Ionic columns and a red plush entrance hall where they paid a cover charge to enter a large gloomy room with a brightly lit stage at the centre. They took seats at a sunken oval bar which put them at eye level with the crotch of a young dancer, naked but for a pair of shiny PVC boots and a garter into which was tucked a number of neatly folded banknotes. Yves ordered a bottle of vodka which they drank over ice, watching the girl perform an athletic routine, hanging upside down from a pole, sliding on her back across the floor and scissoring her legs in the air.

  Yves talked in a constant stream. The business opportunities stemming from the PEBA deal could, he maintained, be enormous. ‘Guy,’ he urged, ‘think about it. The Community has so many activities, so many things that need good presentation. The whole look and feel of immigration, customs, border police – all these things are so old-fashioned at the moment. The uniforms! My God, it’s like some twentieth-century bad dream. If you could make it more – more funky, instantly it would be so much better, more acceptable to modern people. All the protest they get, all the negativity, most of it is about the feel of these things. People don’t give a shit about power, not really, not if it looks cool.’

  Guy was only half listening. He felt ethereal, light-headed, drugs and alcohol and stress and lack of sleep prising him loose from his body and the place where it sat, propped up on its elbows in front of a glass. A new stripper had come on. She was jerking her body about like a whip, an elevated, almost manic smile on her face. She twirled round the pole in a kind of spastic dance, then threw off her leather jacket and bra to reveal a small but perfect pair of breasts. Her body glowed blue-white under the lights, and he thought, fuck Gabriella. Fuck that bitch. This is a woman. The real thing.

  The dancer noticed the way he was looking at her and dipped low, crawling towards him on all fours. Yves laughed, urging him to give her some money He fumbled in his wallet and pulled out a banknote, which he tucked into the top of one of her boots. In response she kicked her legs and ground her hips and licked her tongue round her mouth like a cat. Guy watched the crease of skin where her thighs met her buttocks, the outline of her ribs as she put her arms over her head. At last she unclipped her knickers and he held his breath at the sight of the little vee of pale skin that framed her cunt.

  ‘Come on.’ Yves was tugging at him. ‘Time for more.’ Guy half fell off the stool and followed him in the direction of the toilets. A doorman barged after them into the Gents’, but Yves palmed him €500 and instead of throwing them out he stood guard while they wedged themselves into a cubicle and did hits of Yves’s coke.

  Yves was unrecognizable as the suave venture capitalist of daytime meetings at Transcendenta. His hair had fallen over his face. His shirt collar was undone, and his silk tie hung in a bedraggled noose round his neck. He looked wasted. He looked almost British. ‘You,’ Guy told him, ‘are fucking amazing. You are the man.’

  ‘No, you are amazing. This is so great, you know. You’re going to get so much work from those people. The way that Becker was looking at you, I thought she would jump over the table.’

  ‘You know what? I thought she was all right.’

  ‘All right?’

  ‘You know. Fit. Sexy.’

  First Yves started to snigger, then Guy. The two of them clung on to each other, laughing so hard they almost tipped the drugs into the toilet bowl. Physical closeness put Guy into a confessional mood.

  ‘You know, Yves, if this hadn’t worked I’d be fucked. I mean really fucked. As it is, I don’t know if my fucking girlfriend has left me, or what the fuck is going on. But at least now I know you’re on my side. I’ve been thinking you were going to pull the plug.’

  Yves looked at him and cracked a woozy smile. ‘That’s funny. You want to know a secret? I need this deal t
o work as badly as you. This fucking market is so down, I can’t tell you. All these technology companies we funded? They turned to shit. Every one. And if we don’t make some money soon I’m going to be fucked too. What do you think of that?’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really Why do you think I’m here? Your fucking company has to work. My ass is on the line, the same as yours.’

  They looked at each other and started to laugh again. Guy thought he might be sick. The doorman banged impatiently on the cubicle door.

  ‘Time to go, I think,’ drawled Yves.

  They stumbled back out into the club. Guy slumped on to his stool. He looked at his watch. It was past two. Yves put an arm round his shoulder, leaning on him heavily.

  ‘It’s too fucking bad about your girlfriend.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘But you’re with Yves Ballard and your company is going to be a lean machine and you got a new client and you’re the tomorrow man, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So now you got another girlfriend.’ Yves jerked a thumb behind him. Two of the dancers were hovering in the shadows, smoking cigarettes and whispering to each other.

  ‘Take whichever you like.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Don’t worry. It’s all fixed. They all do a little work, you know, on the side. The manager takes a cut. It’s that kind of place.’1

  ‘It’s late, Yves.’

  ‘Don’t be a pussy. You English, you’re all such fucking pussies. Come on. You don’t have to spend the night with her. Just let her show you a good time for an hour, then kick her out the door. Come on, I already paid.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Sure. Don’t tell me I don’t look after my investments.’

  Guy looked at the two women. There she was, the one he’d stared at, her long permed hair tied up, dressed now in a short white dress and high-heeled sandals. Even with her clothes on she was exciting. The prospect of going home with her was a little daunting.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

  ‘Irina,’ she said in a flat Eastern European accent. He felt a twinge of misgiving. Not a customer-service voice. But sexy, potentially.