The Matriarch Matrix

by Maxime Trencavel

  Looking around at her family, who have lived out this scenario too many times in their lives, Zara says, “Stay in the truck. You will be safe if I go with them.”

  As Zara leaves the truck cab willingly, perhaps sacrificing her life for theirs, Maryam screams out, “I can’t bear losing you too. Is Xwedê not satisfied with taking my son and my husband? Not my only daughter as well.”

  Chapter 7

  On a day when the wind is perfect the sail just needs to open and the world is full of beauty. Today is such a day.

  —Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī,

  thirteenth-century Persian Sufi mystic

  6:50 p.m. GMT−8, May 13, 2021

  Pacific Heights, San Francisco

  Hypnotized. Astonished. Mr. Murometz is calling him personally on his MoxWrap. The Mr. Alexander Murometz.

  He stares spellbound at the elegant, strikingly lovely Asian face on his MoxWrap as he waits. She is quite becoming with straight, shiny shoulder-blade-length black hair, fine and silky. Deep peach lipstick with matching stone drop earrings. Wow. Maybe his mother was right. Maybe his sister was right—he needs to diversify with a sexy raven-haired Asian siren. Her visage, so sensually different from his last girlfriends’, hauntingly echoes something in the deepest reaches of his psyche. Is she the dark-haired woman from his dream?

  “Mr. Gollinger,” she says in what he hears as a dreamy voice, “I’m transferring you to Mr. Murometz.”

  “Mr. Gollinger. I’m so happy I was able to catch you,” says Mr. Murometz, a man in his sixties with thinning white hair. “I want to express how much I have wanted to talk directly with you after having seen your job application. I apologize for the extremely short notice, but I hope you can come interview with us at my office in San Francisco tomorrow?”

  Peter stutters, “Why, yes, Mr. Murometz. This is probably the most important interview of my life.”

  “Very good, Peter—may I call you Peter?”

  “Why, of course, Mr. Murometz. Please call me anything you want.”

  “Then simply Peter will do well between us. Tomorrow you will meet Mr. Chapwell, who will run you through a standard interview. We have to be consistent with everyone we interview, abiding by your country’s laws. Please be patient with him and bear with the process, as he is only doing his job, which he does well. Rest assured, Peter, you need not worry not about the results of his tests. For certain, you and I will talk by video conference afterwards. I apologize for being so short on time here. I have a dinner engagement waiting for me.”

  “No worries, Mr. Murometz. I’m tremendously honored you called.”

  “Good. See you tomorrow, Peter.” Alexander Murometz, Chairman, MoxWorld Holdings, signs off.

  And the oh-so-lovely face comes back. “Mr. Gollinger, sir, can you see me clearly?”

  “Yes, yes, I can. Very clearly,” Peter assures her as this exotic woman inspires his inner banana slug to emerge, slithering out strong and big.

  “Mr. Gollinger, I’ll be in the lobby of our office in San Francisco at eight thirty a.m. and will bring you to our Head of New Talent Assessment, Mr. Harlan Chapwell the Third. After meeting Mr. Chapwell, I’ll bring you to our videoconference suite to continue your conversation with Mr. Murometz. Is that okay with you, Mr. Gollinger?”

  “Yes, of course,” Peter affirms. “Eight thirty a.m. sharp in the lobby. Do you mind, is this a suit-and-tie type affair?”

  “Mr. Gollinger, wear whatever you believe is appropriate to show your true self. That’s all we’re looking for,” she says with a smile that could make the North Star look dim. “Good night, Mr. Gollinger. And I will see you tomorrow morning.”

  *

  “I love you. You haven’t deceived me. You loved me. You saved me,” mutters Peter as he hugs the woman of his dreams. A woman with lovely dark hair. His diversification from blond. His nocturnal proof that Oedipus does not rule his roost.

  He rolls and rolls in passionate embrace, in the greatest bliss any night has bestowed upon him.

  Thud. Once again, he’s on the ground wrapped in a sheet. He clears the sheet from his face. How bad are things? When you wake up finding out you’ve been making love to your pillows, it is pretty bad.

  As daybreak emerges through the fog the next morning, Peter goes through his daily routine, looking at his haggard face in the mirror. Bags and angst wrinkles. On his morning run along the fogbound Pacific, he reflects. What a dream. Why is it now he is starting to remember these dreams? Only in the last couple weeks? And this one, yet another version of that dream he can’t recall. Something emotionally deep? Crying? Lots of crying? Lots of crying and this woman. A dark-haired woman again? He’s ready to cry too. He shakes his head, which has its habitual haze, fog, and ache.

  He throws icy water on his face as he looks in the mirror again. He smiles as he admires the world-renowned Sammy the Slug on the belly of his UC Santa Cruz shirt. A tasteful navy polo with the official mascot in yellow. Very tastefully professional, he thinks. Then he harkens a voice. The distinct sound of his mother. He looks at his MoxWrap. Nothing there. Where is she? She’s saying, “Don’t wear that shirt, Peter. Be the man I raised you to be. Wear a proper white dress shirt and tie.”

  He gets a smartly starched and pressed white shirt out of the closet, the one he thought he would be wearing at his wedding with Sarah. Looking in the mirror as he buttons up, he thinks something is missing. He goes to his closet and gets a UC Santa Cruz tie, in a tasteful navy with a cute little yellow banana slug on it. Still missing something. Ah, the cap. He finds his navy UC Santa Cruz cap with a bigger banana slug emblazoned on the front. Now his ensemble is perfect. How can this raven-haired siren not just fall in love in the presence of sexy Sammy the Slug?

  “And the lovely lady said, ‘Mr. Gollinger, wear whatever you believe is appropriate to show your true self.’ And this is my true self,” Peter says as he pats Sammy on his lightly padded belly.

  Five minutes before 8:30 a.m., Peter enters the lobby of MoxWorld USA, which, like the other big digital giant in the city, sits within easy access to Interstate 80 and 280, BART, and the airport. MoxWorld wanted to make their headquarters at least as commuter friendly. The building is the antithesis of grandiose. Not much color. Bluish hue. But everything is tall inside. MoxWorld knew its workers were virtual and global, so there is no need for minion offices and cubes, which he strategically didn’t tell his mother. No need to get her worried that he would be assigned hazardous duty in lands afar.

  A black monolith dominates the lobby. In the midst of a glistening pool, the twenty-five-foot towering stone overwhelms the senses, measuring eleven feet wide and three feet deep, surrounded by gushing fountains. No other design element adorns the walls save the simple enigma of the corporate logo, which looks like a connect-the-dots outline of a bird diving downwards. But with Mr. Murometz’s money, empire, and global influence, he certainly could have picked anything he wanted for a logo. As Peter continues to scan, he sees no reception desks, no security guards, just a few stone blocks for sitting on in the waiting area. Odd.

  “Hello, Mr. Gollinger. Welcome to MoxWorld USA,” the lovely Asian lady from the night before greets him. “I extend Mr. Murometz’s personal and deep appreciation for coming on such little notice. Your dedication to your work has been noted. I see you’re admiring our lobby. Clearly, we at MoxWorld are unlike any other US-based firms you may have encountered.”

  She waves her hand and says, “And this is how MoxMedia welcomes its esteemed guests like yourself.” The blank walls of the lobby light up with screens of news and programming from around the world, with Rhonda dressed in black-and-coral trim with her perfectly done hair, bright coral lips and perfectly matching makeup front and center.

  Peter is too distracted by the aura of the room to digest the text scrolling under Rhonda’s image: “Russia poised to invade Georgia. China sinks Japanese destroyer in the South China Sea. Arabic Confederation overtakes Iranian Persian Gulf ports. Turkey�
�s Prime Minister warns the AC that any border crossing will result in war. Are we at precipice of world war?”

  Instead of watching the news, Peter stands in awe of his hostess—long, lithe, and taller than he by an inch or so. This morning, she sports deep coral lips accented by spiral coral earrings and matching eye shadow. Her makeup resembles that worn by Rhonda and dozens of other female anchors, whose faces are now emblazoned around the room. Peter reflects on his sister’s commentary. What kind of man, perhaps monarch, is this Mr. Murometz that he commands his female employees to coordinate their colors on a global basis?

  This philosophical thought aside, he admires her long silky hair, pinned back on one side with a matching coral-and-red pin in the shape of a lotus. She emanates sheer elegance in her black Mandarin dress with coral lace trim. He studies her face. Not the almond-eyed, fair-skinned and pointed-chinned face of classic Chinese models, nor the soft, delicate, dollish beauty of modern Chinese media stars; but underneath her makeup, which tries to connote a reserved, delicate femininity, he sees the sharper lines of a certainly determined woman.

  Looking down, he cannot help but notice her dress’s long side slit, which reveals her very trim, shapely, oiled legs. And adorning her lovely feet are black lace-and-suede sling-back shoes. Two-inch heels. Very elegant and sensible. If she had worn three-inch stilettos, Peter would have no respect for her whatsoever. His girlfriend before Sarah, Tara, was a physical therapist who educated him on the foot and calf distortions caused by heels and how to remedy them. But two inches is elegant and sensible.

  She walks ever so wispily towards him. He extends his hand to shake hers, and she clasps both her hands around his in such a way as to ensure he sees no ring on the left hand. “Mr. Gollinger, my name is Mei. That’s Mei with a tone that starts high, goes low, and comes high again.”

  Still in awe, Peter notices that her arms match her legs. Long, very trim, shapely, muscular but not bulky, and oiled. All with the perfect tan. “Thank you, Mei. I am so honored to be here. What’s your last name? I didn’t catch it.”

  His hostess simply smiles that North Star blinding shine. “It’s just Mei. Just Mei. Do you know what Mei means in Mandarin, Mr. Gollinger?” Peter shakes his head no. “It means beautiful. Simply beautiful.”

  Peter wants so badly to agree with her as he rolls his tie between his fingers to distract himself from what he’s really thinking. Is she the one? The one in his dream?

  “Mr. Gollinger, what is that cute little yellow thing on your tie? And it’s on your cap too.”

  “Oh, he’s Sammy the Slug. The mascot from my university. He’s thirty-five years old and still going strong.”

  “Simply cute, Mr. Gollinger. Simply cute. Please follow me, and I’ll take you to Mr. Chapwell’s office.”

  Peter trails behind her, transfixed by her toned, tanned, trim, oiled legs, which seemingly float her across the room. Peter searches for any way to distract his mind from what is clearly a hyperglandular response. Even Mrs. Harrison in her nothingness of a tank top didn’t evoke this kind of a response. His nostrils have flared. What’s happening to him? As a visceral storm begins to fully envelop him, this maelstrom makes Peter wonder how he can concentrate on his interview with currents of raging hormones swirling about.

  They enter Mr. Chapwell’s office. A perfect corner-windowed suite, except these are not windows, but perfect virtual replicas that display whatever the office’s occupant desires. Today, the office sits in the middle of Harvard Square.

  “Mr. Gollinger, please let me introduce you to Mr. Harlan Chapwell the Third, Head of Talent Assessment, MoxWorld USA,” says Mei. “I’ll leave you two gentlemen to your work and wait over there, next to the Out of Town newsstand.”

  Peter takes the sole seat in front of Mr. Chapwell’s desk as Mei takes a post in the corner.

  “Very good, Mr. Gollinger,” says the staid man in the conservative bespoke light grey pinstripe Savile Row lightweight cashmere suit. “I’ll be asking you a set of questions, after which we will run you through our standard battery of tests, which every candidate across the globe has taken. Let us start with your education.”

  Looking at Peter’s tie and cap, Mr. Chapwell, stiff like a mummy in his heavily starched white Egyptian cotton shirt, starts with, “I can see without looking at your resume that you attended University of California Santa Cruz. Why there, instead of more prestigious institutions like Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, or an East Coast Ivy?”

  With a quick glance around, Peter spies the diplomas on bold display behind the third Harlan Chapwell’s head. Princeton undergraduate, summa cum laude. Wharton MBA in organizational behavior. Harvard PhD in neuro-psychobiology. And the “defend the underdog” gene in Peter activates.

  “Mr. Chapwell, those are all fine schools. Unquestionably, they’ve produced some of the finest leaders in all walks of life. I, however, loved UC Santa Cruz. I loved the spirit of the students and the professors. We had freedom to think, but in a rigorous way. The school fostered us to seek out innovation and discover,” Peter asserts as he peers intently into Mr. Chapwell’s eyes for a reaction.

  “And most of all, I loved the ability to hike in the redwood forests. In the damp morning fog, the banana slugs would all come slithering out, and I would silently commune with them.” Peter would have thought this would cause Chapwell to wince. But nothing.

  Unfazed, Mr. Chapwell moves on to the next subject. “Mr. Gollinger, you have a checkered history of jobs. Your resume appears as if you have been playing hopscotch with your career. Is there something we should know about your instability?”

  “Oh, Mr. Chapwell, as you know, I’m an editor. À propos other peers, my past is the perfect paragon, the paradigm of impassioned perseverance in comparison. We’re never long-lived. Variable cost, you know, and there’s always someone who doesn’t like your work.”

  Peter begins to sweat just a bit. He tries to think of what he will say if asked for references.

  Mr. Chapwell takes note and says, “And your strengths and weaknesses, Mr. Gollinger. Be candid.”

  “Oh, candor is my strength,” Peter beams. “Clearly my strength is telling the truth and doing what is right.”

  No response from Chapwell other than, “And your weaknesses?”

  “Telling the truth and doing what is right,” Peter spits out rather cheekily.

  “And are truth and righteousness the reasons why you were dismissed from your last job, with the Journal of International Geo-Archeology, Mr. Gollinger? Your job history makes you look more like a loser than a winner. A perennial loser.”

  Peter slumps in his chair. He must have spoken to Jerrod Olson, managing editor of the journal.

  Peter smiles and replies, “Oh, you must have spoken to Jerrod. I saved his author from enormous embarrassment and public ridicule. As I explained to Jerrod, that author clearly ignored the last decade’s evidence refuting the Black Sea flood hypothesis. Another noted scholar hypothesizes a major meteor strike in the Black Sea around 9,000 BCE may have caused the legendary flooding, wiping out the advanced civilizations thought to have lived on the northern shores.”

  No response whatsoever from Mr. Chapwell. Instead, he throws a real curveball. “Mr. Gollinger, our reference check indicates a checkered history. Is there a reason for this phenomenon?”

  Peter is caught off guard by that one. “Mr. Chapwell, I thought companies conducted reference checks after the interview was completed. It seems you have a full census already.”

  “Mr. Gollinger, when you pressed the button to accept our invitation to interview, you agreed to the 2,785-word terms of agreement, which stipulate that you allow us to conduct reference checks and mine our data sources on you,” Mr. Chapwell states in his matter-of-fact manner.

  With that, Peter tries his best to turn the situation around. “Of course any of my references from my brief stint in New York won’t be good. You know how those stuffy East Coast types simply don’t understand native Californians. My be
st references would come from the emancipated, the open-minded, the free spirits whom I have helped establish their voices as writers and authors.”

  No response from the ice-cold, rigid Mr. Chapwell, which bothers Peter to no end, as his answers are wonderful, thoughtful, and provocative. So Peter takes cheeky one step further. “Mr. Chapwell, I don’t see any response from you. Nada. Is this normal, or is it true that the Ivy League sucks the life out you lest you fail to be awarded summa cum laude?”

  Bull’s-eye. Mr. Chapwell is clearly not amused as he ends the questions and asks Peter to take a series of tests on the screen in front of him. Peter wonders why no more interview questions. He is quite smugly proud of his clever answers just as his father taught him to defend himself in a world built on socioeconomic status and stereotypes.

  While Peter starts taking the tests, Chapwell stares at a screen of his own, watching his answers and periodically glaring at him. “Mr. Chapwell, most interviewers go away at this point and leave the battered, beleaguered, belittled candidate alone to suffer their fate in the deafening silence of solitude,” proposes Peter.

  Mr. Chapwell affirms that observing him is part of the evaluation. Oh. Now Peter knows for certain he’s going to flunk the interview. He feels that big F painting itself on his forehead.

  “Mr. Chapwell, might I ask if there’s a time limit for these tests?”

  “No.” Said with no emotional or physical cues. Mr. Chapwell clearly has had the life forces sucked out of him, not by Harvard, Wharton, or Princeton, but clearly by alien abduction. With that deductive conclusion made, Peter plows onwards without further discussion.

  Five hours later, Peter finishes. He is bewildered by the odd, crazy, sometimes twisted tasks and questions he completed. An SAT would have been akin to adding one plus one compared to this. Oddly enough, he is not tired; quite the opposite, he is surprisingly refreshed after these exercises.

  Chapwell lets him know he will have Peter’s results later this afternoon and waves to Mei to get him. Peter looks back at her and notices she must have been standing there for hours as there is no place to sit. She must have either feet of iron or superb judgment when it comes to footwear. Two-inch heels, sensible and elegant.