Ithaca

by David Davidar

  “Perfection,” says Hayley, always the first off the mark.

  “Solid,” says Frank, dull as ever.

  “Paranoid,” says C.K. Lee puzzlingly, and possibly insultingly. Thank God, Mortimer thinks, that the Australian company represents less than half a per cent of their turnover, it would be worrying otherwise to have someone who thinks like Lee in charge.

  “Innovative,” says Bob, loyally repeating the trait he has planted.

  He pretends to be thinking about their suggestions for a minute or two, then says, “I like Bob’s suggestion, it is imperative that we are seen as ‘innovative’ so let’s take that on board. And maybe ‘successful’ is more positive than ‘solid.’ ”

  Frank says, “Fine.”

  “How about ‘honest?’ ” he asks. The group agrees, as he knows they will.

  “Let’s have one more,” he says. When no suggestions are forthcoming he suggests “thoughtful,” adding, “We are a publishing company; it would be a good idea to plant the idea in the mind of the consumer that we are thoughtful about what we do.”

  “We could have the acronym printed on T-shirts that could be handed out to employees, authors and customers on our anniversary,” Hayley says enthusiastically.

  “Successful. Honest. Innovative. Thoughtful. S.H.I.T. Would people really want to wear that on their chests?” Bob asks drily.

  The group laughs nervously – they know Bob holds a privileged position, but this is dangerously close to being offensive, and that simply won’t do with Mortimer. Everyone knows how much he resents Casey’s effrontery. But Mortimer is not offended. He is sure Bob didn’t mean to displease or make fun of him, and he was smart to catch the obvious danger with the slogan.

  “Let’s take ‘honest’ out, that should solve the problem, it’s a self-evident trait anyway, everyone knows that we are renowned for our honesty. And perhaps ‘thoughtful’ as well.”

  No one contradicts him, the discussion about values has gone on long enough. They will only be taken seriously in this country; the subsidiaries will adopt them grudgingly and jettison them at the first opportunity.

  “Moving on,” he says, “I would like every CEO to examine the Globish ecosystem closely, see where we can effect improvements at minimal cost.” Lately, he has found himself using whatever management buzzwords are current – “ecosystem,” “DNA,” and the other claptrap that disguises imprecise, lazy thinking – it’s either another step in his development as a CEO or it is the beginning of the long slide down. As quickly as the thought arises he suppresses it, the meeting needs to go on, he will have time later to examine his use of the English language.

  “Do we need to meddle with our logo, freshen it up?” he asks. “In some of the new media the face of the cougar looks too bloated, sluggish.” There is no response and he thinks, And I’m going to handle this decade of change with this lot, with not one original idea among them! They are a handpicked bunch, he reminds himself, noted for their personal loyalty, and for their lack of enterprise and brilliance. Those qualities are fine lower down the pecking order, but not at this level, where they can be too threatening. For every advantage, a disadvantage! He picks up the clicker next to him, switches on the laptop, projects some images of the redesigned logo on the screen – the body of the cougar is trimmer, the visible eye is larger and a bit more benign. There are no objections, he didn’t expect any, and he moves on to the last item on the agenda that deals with the logistics of the anniversary celebration. There will be press conferences and parties in New York and London, each with a keynote speaker, and he checks that all arrangements have been made; he is very particular and detail oriented about these things, and they spend half an hour discussing menus, floral arrangements, and seating for honoured guests. He has made arrangements for his image to be projected on a giant screen behind him when he makes his chairman’s speech, in the manner of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates – he was careful to run this particular idea by Greg, his boss, who given the extremely competitive nature of the software industry, was very supportive of it. Naturally, everyone in this group thinks it is a great idea. He intends tomorrow’s year-end presentation to be a dry run of what they are planning to do next year.

  Bob takes over and gives a PowerPoint presentation on the company’s P&L and balance sheet. Mortimer’s attention drifts, he knows the figures to the last cent, so he is thinking instead about the new midnight-blue Kiton suit he has ordered for tomorrow’s presentation – he will cut a dashing figure, of that he is sure.

  As the discussion on the financials and three-year plan comes to a close, Lee, who appears to have been asleep for much of the conversation, pipes up and asks how they are going to achieve their growth targets in 2011 and 2012 with nothing that comes close to matching the Seppi revenues.

  “Casey is confident half a dozen of her repeaters will get bigger,” he says looking across to Frank for confirmation, which he gets. “In addition, we will have various paperback formats of Storm of Angels, and I am confident that we can get Litmus’s publisher to dream up new projects with the Seppi estate.” The Seppi franchise is one of the reasons he has been able to value Litmus handsomely, and while he hasn’t talked to Zach about it yet, he is sure that they will be able to publish some sort of new Seppi book annually for at least the next three years.

  “What if sales dwindle when it is clear that the books are written by someone else?” Hayley asks. “I haven’t checked figures but I think with the Ludlum and Bond franchises, unless there were movies attached, sales of posthumously ghost-written books were nowhere near as high as the original books. Fans of books with freakishly high sales are fanatical, they want the original article.”

  “I’m aware of that,” he says calmly. “The guy who runs Seven Star Studios is a friend of mine and they are as keen on the Seppi franchise as we are and they will keep it going for as long as possible. I’m not worried, I think we’ll be able to wring a lot of sales out of Seppi.”

  Mortimer operates by the rule that, until proven otherwise, all New Yorkers are crazy – either good crazy or crazy crazy. It doesn’t matter if they got here last week or are sixth-generation locals, they all possess that crazy streak. Others might characterize them as unique or cynical or just plain cussed; each to his own, he prefers crazy. This craziness makes them difficult to impress, and as New Yorkers constitute approximately seventy per cent of his employees he has had to come up with a twenty-fifth anniversary presentation (or, to be more accurate, a trial run) that is daring and different.

  At six P.M. on the day of the year-end party, which is traditionally held on the last day of the sales conference, the four-hundred-seat hotel ballroom is filled to capacity with Globish employees. Frank climbs the steps to the raised platform at the front of the room, welcomes the gathering, and introduces Mortimer. The lights dim. Mortimer rises to his feet, makes his way to the podium. He wishes his classmates who had kicked him around in school could see him now, all those hapless morons spinning their days out in their stately homes or in empty pomp. His repaired heart pounds strongly in his chest as he looks out over the assembled gathering. “Friends,” he begins, “the coming year will mark an important milestone in the history of our great company. We stand on the threshold of an extraordinary future – what we do today will determine how we get to our long-awaited destiny of becoming the most celebrated, the most innovative publishing company in the world.”

  To everyone’s astonishment, Mortimer then shrugs off his expensive Kiton suit jacket, twirls it thrice around his head, and flings it into the audience, where it lands on the surprised Hayley. He then pulls off his tie and unbuttons his shirt to reveal the black T-shirt underneath, on which is printed the new-look Globish logo over the letters SI: Successful. Innovative. “Today, we remind ourselves of what Globish stands for,” he thunders. “Each one of you is our future; let these words lodge in your hearts and minds, as you look to the coming year.” The music swells, it’s Dvorak, and on the giant screen behi
nd him a movie begins to roll. It opens with a shot of the Panjshir mountain range in Afghanistan and then cuts to the terrifying sight of silos in a thinly populated region north of Islamabad opening as they prepare to launch nuclear missiles. The warheads take flight at the same time as a host of deadly missiles roar forth from army bases in India. World War III has begun. THE END OF DAYS appears in flaring letters on the screen. DECEMBER 21, 2012. And then four great beings fill the sky – Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel – and over, above, and everywhere around them, the incandescent face of God. The missiles explode harmlessly against the glowing presence of the Celestials, and the music swells to a crescendo, as Storm of Angels and “Massimo Seppi” appear in gold type on a black background. The music dies away, and a giant image of Mortimer appears on the screen, towering over his presence at the microphone. Suck that up, Steve. On your bike, Bill. This is Mortimer Weaver, prophet of the future. He launches into his speech – perhaps the best one he has made this year, the silly gimmick with the jacket notwithstanding. Ten minutes later he is finished, and as the applause rolls over him he thinks with satisfaction, Nothing can stop me now.

  Zach is seated at the back of the room and he thinks that the presentation was terrific; judging by the mood in the room a lot of the others feel that way too. Then he hears a young assistant in the row ahead of him ask her neighbour, “What was that about, then? Must have cost a fortune, do you think we’ll get a raise this year?”

  “Fuck knows,” her neighbour says. “All I know is that if I don’t make more money I can kiss my apartment goodbye.”

  At the lavish dinner that follows, where his employees choose between salmon and New York strip loin for the main course (the seventeen vegetarians get eggplant parmesan), Mortimer is mobbed by the more unctuous and ambitious elements within the company; the expense has been worth it, he thinks, the anxiety caused by the recent layoffs Globish has had to make has been neutralized. Between dessert and coffee he introduces the speaker for the evening to the sated and largely disinterested audience. Timothy Hellman has worked with some of the most impressive Silicon Valley start-ups and now runs an innovative blog on developments in the digital world.

  As Hellman begins his speech the image of an enormous statue appears on the screen behind him. The figure has four arms and is ringed by a wreath of fire. His right leg is planted on a grotesque dwarf, his left leg is raised. A cobra uncoils from his right forearm; his upper right hand holds a drum, and flames shoot from his upper left hand; his other right hand forms a mudra; a crescent moon and skull are twisted into his long hair, which is caught up in a topknot. A great serpent encircles his waist.

  The speaker points to the figure on the screen, which for all its size and complexity is exquisitely sculpted and perfectly balanced. “Can anyone tell me what that is?” he asks.

  The ten people in the audience who are paying attention, Zach among them, look to where he is pointing. Nobody answers, and Zach feels the tension building within the pit of his stomach, the same sensation that he had felt all those many years ago when he was preparing to answer the question another keynote speaker had put to a class of publishing wannabes.

  “Nobody?” Hellman asks.

  “Nataraja,” Zach says.

  “Exactly right,” Hellman says, “Now who was that?”

  Zach raises his hand.

  “Could you stand up, please?”

  He does so. Reluctantly. He sees Mortimer looking at him and gives him a weak smile.

  “And what do you know about Nataraja, my friend?”

  “He is an avatar of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction.”

  “And creation,” Hellman says, motioning for Zach to take his seat. “In the great Hindu trinity, Shiva is the god of both destruction and creation. This image was created about a dozen centuries ago, and it is the perfect metaphor for all of you who are involved in the creative industries. In it, Lasya (creation) and Tandava (destruction) are held in perfect balance. As Shiva dances, old worlds collapse under his thundering feet, to be replaced instantaneously by new worlds. The mantra that a lot of companies are muttering to themselves today as they try to reinvent themselves to cope with a rapidly changing world is ‘Creative Disruption.’ That is what the Dance of Shiva symbolizes, that is what creative disruption means: break everything you know and reassemble it in new and unheard-of ways. That is the future of the book, my friends, and it is incredibly exciting.”

  Hellman takes them on a swift journey through all the relevant developments taking place in the digital world, then predicts that in five or ten years these developments will be seen as the first stuttering steps taken in a transformation that will be more wide-ranging than anyone today can foresee. But he says this should not worry them because the future is there to be grasped by those who have the vision and the courage to do so. “For two hundred years, the reading of books, the telling of stories has been a largely passive experience, but as the wheel turns it is being returned to what it once was, a lively, enriched, layered experience in which the soul of a culture resides. The future is not something you should be afraid of. Just as Shiva destroys the old and brings forth the new, so will the world of books and publishing rise, and rise again in fresh and exciting ways.” He bows to the assembled crowd, holds his interlocked hands up, and says by way of parting, “Range far and wide, mash it all up, the future has never been as exciting.”

  As Hellman returns to his seat, Zach glances across at Mortimer. The president’s face is alive with excitement. Zach thinks about his rousing speech, his obvious determination to make Globish a leading player in the digital age and feels that being part of Mortimer’s company might not be such a bad thing at all, Gabrijela’s reservations notwithstanding.

  7.

  SYDNEY

  The old men stagger wearily out of the coffee-coloured ocean and head for their burrows, shaking the moisture from their bedraggled waistcoats. They are about a foot tall and look grumpy. No wonder, Zach thinks, he has never been as cold and miserable in his life and he is just visiting. He and a bunch of other tourists have waited for over an hour in driving rain to watch the parade of fairy penguins on Phillip Island. Their guide explains their mating and nesting habits, and then as quickly as it has begun the show closes and they take the van back to their hotel in Melbourne.

  On the long drive back, as the chill gradually leaves his bones in the heated interior, his mind lazily drifts over the events of the last six months. The highlight, without a doubt, was the day Julia invited him to her parents’ home in Surrey for Christmas lunch. He had taken the train on a clear, crisp morning and had been met at the station by her father. He had always got on well with his parents-in-law, and with Julia’s younger sister, Natalie, and the family had seemed to view the first slow steps towards a rapprochement positively. After lunch, where he had eaten and drunk too much, Julia and he had taken the family’s Labradors, the black one named Troilus and the golden one named Cressida, for a walk. He has always liked the English countryside – its domesticated palette of colours, the orderly hedgerows, the disciplined tweeting of birds – and on this afternoon it was at its glorious best. Julia was chattering about the abrupt exit of a well-known publisher. “His farewell party was like something out of The Tudors,” she had said, while struggling to control Cressida. She had finally let the Lab off the leash, and it had bounded ahead, farther into the woodland where they were walking. This is what makes me happy, he had thought – the woman I love beside me, talking of everyday things! Before he had left to catch his train, he had asked her when exactly she was intending to move back in with him, and to his great relief she had replied that she was all packed and ready and would return to their Kensington flat before the year was out.

  She would have loved the fairy penguins, he thinks. It is unfortunate she couldn’t make the trip, but she had to spend time with her mother, who was in hospital. He is in Australia for the Sydney Writers’ Festival; before he gets to Sydney he has taken a couple
of days off in Melbourne to visit friends and, naturally, along with koalas, cockatoos, and kangaroos, he has been told to take in the little penguins.

  He laughs as he thinks about his initial impression of the city; after he had passed through the sprays and sniffer dogs with which the island nation tried to keep out unwelcome imports, he had spent a few hours worrying about unexpectedly encountering some of the world’s deadliest snakes, most of which (somehow this was what bothered him the most) had astonishingly innocuous names – brown snake, fierce snake, tiger snake and so on – it was almost as though the Aussies were so tough that they couldn’t be bothered to give their venomous cohabitants scary names. His nervousness had gradually dissipated – after all he was born in the land of the king cobra and the krait. Once he discovered that Gorgon’s knots of writhing reptiles that could kill you in the blink of an eye weren’t suspended from every street lamp, he had given himself over to enjoying the city and its friendly people.