by Dave Eggers
A woman had staged Alan’s house. There are people who do this. They come into your house and make it more appealing than you ever could. They brighten the darkness you have brought into it with your human mess.
Then, until it’s sold, you live in a version of your house, a better version. There is more yellow. There are flowers and tables made of reclaimed wood. Your own belongings are in storage.
Her name was Renee, with wispy hair swept upward like cotton candy. Start by eliminating clutter, she said. You’ll need to box up and remove ninety percent of all this, she said, sweeping her arm over all he had accumulated in twenty years.
He packed it up. He removed, removed. He left the furniture, but when she returned she said, Now we replace the furniture. Do you want to buy it or rent it?
He removed his furniture. There were two couches in the living room and he gave them both away. One to a friend of Kit’s. One to Chuy who cut his lawn. Renee rented artwork. Noncommittal abstractions, she called them. They were in every room, canvases with agreeable colors, vague shapes signifying nothing.
That was four months ago. He had been living in the house all the while, evacuating when the realtors wanted to show it. Sometimes he stayed. Sometimes he stayed locked in his home office as the visitors walked through his home, commenting. Low ceilings, they would say. Small bedrooms. Are these the original floors? There’s a musty smell. Are the occupants older people?
Sometimes he watched the potential buyers come in, leave. He peeked through his office window like an imbecile. One couple stayed so long that Alan had to urinate in a coffee cup. One visitor, a professional woman in a long leather coat, saw him through the window as she was walking away, down the driveway. She turned to the realtor and said, I think I just saw a ghost.
Alan watched the waves break gently against the shore. Who knew Saudi Arabia had a vast and pristine coast? Alan had not known this. He looked at a few dozen palm trees below, planted in the courtyard of either his hotel or the one next door, the Red Sea beyond. He thought of staying here. He could assume a new name. He could abandon all debts. Send Kit money somehow, leave the crushing vise of his life in America behind. He had done fifty-four years of it. Wasn’t that enough?
But no. He was more than that. Some days he was more than that. Some days he could encompass the world. Some days he could see for miles. Some days he climbed over the foothills of indifference to see the landscape of his life and future for what it was: mappable, traversable, achievable. Everything he wanted to do had been done before, so why couldn’t he do it? He could. If only he could engage on a continual basis. If only he could draw up a plan and execute it. He could! He had to believe he could. Of course he did.
This Abdullah deal seemed like a given. No one could compete with Reliant’s size, and now they had a goddamned hologram. Alan would close this up, get his cut, pay back everyone in Boston, then get going. Open a small factory, start with a thousand bikes a year, then ramp up from there. Pay Kit’s tuition with pocket change. Send away the realtors, pay what’s left on his house, stride the world, a colossus, enough money to say fuck you, and you, and you.
A knock at the door. His breakfast had arrived. Hash browns to his room in five minutes. Impossible unless he was eating food prepared for someone else. Which he realized he was. He didn’t mind. He let the waiter set everything up on a table on the balcony, and with a flourish Alan signed the bill while seated ten stories up, squinting into the wind. He felt, momentarily, that this was him. That he was worthy of this. He needed to adopt an air of ownership, of belonging. Maybe if he was the sort of man who could eat someone else’s hash browns, who the hotel wanted to impress so much they sent him someone else’s breakfast, maybe then he was the sort of man who could get an audience with the King.
III.
THE PHONE RANG.
—We had a problem with the first driver. We called a second one. He’s on his way. He should be here in twenty minutes.
—Thank you, Alan said, and hung up.
He sat, breathing carefully until he felt calm again. He was an American businessman. He was not ashamed. He could muster something today. He could be better than a fool.
They had given Alan no guarantees. The King is very busy, they told him repeatedly in emails and phone calls. Of course he is, Alan said again and again, and reiterated that he was willing to meet anywhere, at the time of His Majesty’s choosing. But it was not simple like that; it was not just that the King was busy, but that his schedule changed quickly and often. It had to change often and quickly, given there were many who might wish to do the King harm. So not only does the King’s schedule change often, given the demands of state, but it must change often, for the sake of king and kingdom. Alan was told that Reliant, along with a number of other vendors interested in providing services to the King Abdullah Economic City, were to prepare their wares and present them at a site to be determined, somewhere at the coastal heart of the burgeoning city, and that they would be notified shortly before the King would arrive. It could be any day, and it could be any time, Alan was told.
—So days, weeks? he asked.
—Yes, they said.
And so Alan had arranged this trip. He’d done this kind of thing before — kiss the ring, present the wares, cut a deal. Not an impossible task, usually, if you had the right fixers and kept your head down. And working for Reliant, the largest IT supplier in the world, was not challenging. Abdullah, presumably, wanted the best, and Reliant considered themselves the best, certainly the biggest, twice as big as their closest U.S. competitor.
I know your nephew Jalawi, Alan would say.
Maybe I’m close with your nephew Jalawi.
Jalawi, your nephew, is an old friend.
Elsewhere, relationships no longer mattered, Alan knew this. They did not matter in America, they did not matter much of anywhere, but here, among the royals, he hoped that friendship had meaning.
There were three others from Reliant along on the trip, two engineers and a marketing director — Brad, Cayley, and Rachel. They would demonstrate the capabilities of Reliant, and Alan would rough out the numbers. Providing IT for KAEC would mean at least a few hundred million for Reliant right away, and with more to come, and more crucially, a life of comfort for Alan. Maybe not a life of comfort. But he could dodge potential bankruptcy, would have something to retire with, and Kit would stay at the college of her choosing and would be that much less disappointed in life and in her father.
He left the room. The door closed like cannon fire. He walked down the orange hall.
They had built the hotel to bear no evidence of its existence within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The whole complex, fortressed from the road and sea, was free of content or context, devoid of even a pattern or two of Arabic origin. This place, all palm trees and adobe, could have been in Arizona, in Orlando, anywhere.
Alan peered down into the atrium, ten stories below, where dozens of men milled about, all in traditional Saudi dress. Alan had to remember the terminology: the long white tunics were thobes. The cloth covering the hair and neck was the gutra, held in place by the black round rope, the iqal. Alan watched the men mill about, the thobes giving their movements a kind of weightlessness. A convention of spirits.
At the end of the hall he spotted an elevator door closing. He jogged to it and thrust his hand into the gap. The doors jerked back, startled and apologetic. In the glass elevator were four men, all in thobes and gutras. A few glanced up at Alan but quickly returned their eyes to a new tablet computer held between them. The owner was demonstrating the keypad feature, and was turning the device round and round, the buttons dutifully reconfiguring, and this was giving great pleasure to his friends.
The glass container that held them all fell down through the atrium to the lobby, silent as snow, and the doors opened to a wall of fake rock. The smell of chlorine.
Alan held the door for the Saudis, none of them thanking him. He followed. Fountains threw water into the air
without reason or rhythm.
He sat down at a small cast-iron table in the lobby. A waiter appeared. Alan ordered coffee.
Nearby, two men, one black and one white, sat together, dressed in identical white thobes. Alan’s guidebook told him there was a pronounced, even naked, racism in Saudi Arabia, but here was this. Perhaps not evidence of societal harmony, but still. He could not think of an instance when a custom or dictum described in a guidebook had ever been borne out in practice. Conveying cultural norms was like reporting traffic conditions. By the time you published them they were irrelevant.
Now someone was standing near Alan. Alan looked up to see a chubby man smoking a very thin white cigarette. He held up a hand, as if to wave. Alan waved, confused.
—Alan? Are you Alan Clay?
—I am.
The man stubbed his cigarette into a glass ashtray and gave his hand to Alan. His fingers were long and thin, soft as chamois.
—You’re the driver? Alan asked.
—Driver, guide, hero. Yousef, the man said.
Alan stood. Yousef was short, his cream-white thobe giving his stout frame the silhouette of a penguin. He was young, not much older than Kit. His face was round, unlined, with the wispy mustache of a teenager.
—Having some coffee?
—Yes.
—Did you want to finish?
—No, that’s okay.
—Good. This way, then.
They walked outside. The heat was alive, predatory.
—Over here, Yousef said, and they hurried across the small parking lot to an ancient Chevy Caprice, puddle-brown. This is my love, he said, presenting it as a magician would a bouquet of fake flowers.
The car was a wreck.
—You ready? You don’t have a bag or anything?
Alan did not. He used to carry a briefcase, legal pads, but he’d not once looked at the notes he took in any meeting. Now he sat in meetings and wrote nothing, and this practice had become a source of strength. People assumed great mental acuity from someone who took no notes.
Alan opened the back door.
—No, no, Yousef said. I’m not a chauffer. Sit in front.
Alan obeyed. The seat released a small cloud of dust.
—You sure this thing will get us there? Alan asked.
—I drive this to Riyadh all the time, Yousef said. It’s never failed.
Yousef got in and turned the ignition. The engine was mute.
—Oh wait, he said, and got out, opened the hood, and disappeared behind it. After a moment, he closed the hood, got in again, and started the car. It coughed awake, sounding like the past.
—Engine problem? Alan asked.
—No, no. I had to disconnect the engine before I went into the lobby. I just have to make sure no one wires it.
—Wires it? Alan asked. To explode?
— It’s nothing terroristic, Yousef said. It’s just this guy who thinks I’m screwing his wife.
Yousef put the car in reverse and backed up.
—He might be trying to kill me, he said. Here we go.
They left the hotel roundabout. At the exit they drove past a desert-colored Humvee, a machine gun mounted on top. A Saudi soldier was sitting next to it, in a beach chair, his feet soaking in an inflatable pool.
—So I’m in a car that might explode?
—No, not now. I just checked. You saw me.
—You’re serious about this? Someone’s trying to kill you?
—Could be, Yousef said, and pulled onto the main highway, parallel to the Red Sea. But you never know for sure till it happens, am I right?
—I waited an hour to get a driver whose car might blow up.
—No, no, Yousef said, now distracted. He was trying to activate his iPod, an older model, which was reclining in the drink holder between them. Something was wrong with the connection between the iPod and the car stereo.
—It’s nothing to worry about. I don’t think he knows how to wire a car that way. He’s not a tough guy. He’s just rich. It would only be possible if he hired someone.
Alan stared at Yousef until the young man added it up: a rich man very well might hire someone to wire the car of the man screwing his wife.
—Fuuuck, Yousef said, turning to Alan. Now you’ve got me scared.
Alan considered opening the door and rolling out of the car. It seemed a more prudent course of action than riding with this man.
Meanwhile, Yousef removed another thin cigarette from a white package and lit it, squinting at the road ahead. They were passing a long series of huge, candy-colored sculptures.
—Terrible, right? Yousef said. He took a long drag, and any concern about hitmen seemed to disappear. So Alan. Where are you from?
Something about Yousef’s blasé demeanor rubbed off on Alan, and he stopped worrying. With his penguin shape and thin cigarettes and Chevy Caprice, he was not the type of man who would interest assassins.
—Boston, Alan said.
—Boston. Boston, Yousef said, tapping the steering wheel. I’ve been to Alabama. One year of college.
Against his better judgment, Alan continued talking to this lunatic.
—You studied in Alabama? Why Alabama?
—You mean, because I was the only Arab for a few thousand miles? I got a scholarship for a year. This was Birmingham. Pretty different from Boston, I’m guessing?
Alan liked Birmingham and said so. He had friends in Birmingham.
Yousef smiled. —That big statue of Vulcan, right? Scary.
—That’s right. I love that statue, Alan said.
The Alabama stint explained Yousef’s American English. He spoke with only the faintest Saudi accent. He was wearing handmade sandals and Oakley sunglasses.
They sped through Jeddah and it all looked very new, not unlike Los Angeles. Los Angeles with burqas, Angie Healy had once said to him. They had worked together at Trek for a while. He missed her. Another dead woman in his life. There were too many, girlfriends who became old friends, then old friends, girlfriends who got married, who aged a bit, whose kids were now grown. And then there were the dead. Dead of aneurysms, breast cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It was madness. His daughter was twenty now, and soon would be thirty, and soon after, the afflictions came like rain.
—So are you screwing this guy’s wife or what? Alan asked.
—No, no. This is the woman I was supposed to marry. Like ten years ago. She and I were totally in love, but her father…
He looked to Alan to gauge his reaction so far.
—It sounds like a soap opera, I know. Anyway, I wasn’t good enough for the father. So he forbids her to marry me, blah blah, and she goes and marries another guy. Now she’s bored and she texts me all the time. She writes me on Facebook, everywhere. The husband knows this and he thinks we’re having an affair. You want something to eat?
—You mean, should we stop and eat?
—We could go to a place in the Old City.
—No, I just ate. We’re late, remember?
—Oh. We’re in a hurry? They didn’t tell me that. We shouldn’t be going this way if we’re late.
Yousef made a U-turn and sped up.
IV.
MAYBE KIT WAS better off staying home a year. Her college roommate was a strange bird, a rail-thin girl from Manhattan, a noticer. The roommate would notice that Kit was restless in her sleep, and she had some opinions about what it meant, how it could be treated, the deep-seated causes of such behavior. Her noticings were followed by questions, suspicions about the various problems Kit might have. She noticed tiny bruises on Kit’s arms, and demanded to know what man had done this to her. She noticed Kit’s voice was high, a bit small, almost childlike, and this, the roommate explained, was frequently a sign of childhood sexual abuse, the victim’s voice frozen at the age of the trauma. Did you ever notice your voice was like a child’s? she asked.
—You do this a lot? Alan asked.
—Drive people around? It’s a side thing. I’m a student.<
br />
—Of what?
—A student of life! Yousef said, then laughed. No, I’m fucking with you. Business, marketing. That kind of thing. I have no idea why.
They passed a vast playground, and for the first time, Alan saw children. Seven or eight of them, hanging on the monkey bars and climbing on the slides. And with them were three women in burqas, charcoal black. He had been among burqas before, but to see these shadows moving through the playground, following the children — it gave Alan a chill. Was it not something from a nightmare, to be chased by a flowing figure in black, hands outstretched? But Alan knew nothing and said nothing.
—How long is the drive? Alan asked.
—To the King Abdullah Economic City? That where we’re going?
Alan said nothing. Yousef was smiling. This time he was kidding.
—About an hour. Maybe a little more. When were you supposed to be there?
—Eight. Eight thirty.
—Well, you’ll be there at noon.
—You like Fleetwood Mac? Yousef asked. He’d gotten the iPod to work — it looked like it had been buried in the sand for centuries and then unearthed — and was now scrolling through his songs.
They left the city and were soon on a straight-shot highway that cut through raw desert. This was not beautiful desert. There were no dunes. This was an unrelenting flat. An ugly highway cut through it. Yousef’s car passed tankers, freight trucks. Occasionally, off in the distance, there was a small village of grey cement, a labyrinth of walls and electrical wires.
Alan and Ruby had once driven across the United States, from Boston to Oregon, for a wedding of a friend. The kind of ludicrous option available before children. They had fought repeatedly, explosively, mostly about their exes. Ruby wanted to talk about hers, in great detail. She wanted Alan to know why she’d left them and chosen him, and Alan wanted none of it. Was a clean slate too much to ask for? Please stop, he begged. She continued, glorying in her history. Stop stop stop, he finally roared, and no words were spoken between Salt Lake City and Oregon. Each silent mile gave him more strength and, he imagined, bolstered her respect for him. His only weapons against her were silence, truculence; he cultivated an occasional brooding intensity. He had never been as stubborn as he was with her. This was the version of himself who spent six years with her. This version of Alan was fiery, jealous, always on his heels. He had never felt more vital.
