The hugely turbaned pair of Sierra Leone women passed their table again, ripely as chords in music. Behind them, traipsing on and off one game leg, went an old Hollander, Wetter Malm Schroon-Malmsey, whose names had eighty years ago been amassed to hide the Javanese grandmother he was now forever mentioning. On the committees which dealt with those political prisoners whose betterment had been his lifework, he had the most pacific of tongues, careful never to speak aloud the controversial word “freedom.” While he talked, one could see again the stolid Dutch galleons which had steadily plied history while others fought. When worsted in an argument, he dipped his old bones and blanched-vegetable face like a third-rate actor, one hand on his heart, the other flung high in minuet. He believed in his own cause, yet like most here his very strengths came from a cynical flow exactly opposite. The most enduring international politicians had the same temperament as women of fashion; they were not profound thinkers but experts at seizing the infallible costumes of the moment, blithely aware that they already had fifty other exploded eras in their closets. Sincerity was not involved. Or the earthly paradise either—unless it happened to be à la mode.
“I rather wish I could be like the people here,” Wert said. “They know for sure the passing scene is—just that.”
“Ah, man—you want a village.”
“Balls.” Both their ambitions, so picayune. “But if I come across a tribe, a noble savage tribe where it’s in the structure for the fathers to marry the sons’ wives—I’m sure there must be one—I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks, there’s a kind bastard.” Smiley was bright red. “But now that you’re offering—take me along with you, this afternoon.”
Wert recoiled. “Why?”
“Maybe because I know the way. Queens Boulevard may be near, but it’s not easy.”
“I’ll find it.”
“Maybe because I haven’t seen a wedding lately. Not one catered by Western Electric International.”
“Sorry.”
“Maybe because I’d like to meet those three ladies.” With each try, Smiley-Brown leaned farther across the table, almost kneeling on his chair.
“It’s a Moslem household. Can’t take a man they don’t know.”
“You haven’t met them.”
Wert threw up his hands.
Smiley-Brown sat back with the calm which came from being beyond embarrassment. “Maybe because I want to hear that old guy give the responses, then.”
Wert swallowed; red crept up him also. Anybody who bothered to look could see the two of them for what they were, two angry dogs from the West. “He won’t be giving them.” A wave swept over him. Two homesick dogs from the West. He could almost see Bakhtiary standing at his elbow in the stage fog which traditionally surrounded such visitants when they came to warn—or to give advice.
“Don’t the men speak at their weddings?”
“In the only one I saw, bride and groom had separate rituals. But for all I know, this one could be taking place at the Teheran Hilton. With our ambassador acting as best man.” He looked over his shoulder. “No, I don’t really believe that…How would they do it in your village?”
“They—” Smiley-Brown shrugged emptily at his own fingers, elbows on the table among the dishes. “Nemmind.” Chin in hand, his look swept round again. “Suppose you think I’m a monomaniac,” he said hopefully.
“No.” I think you’re a fairly normal man, of the sort often born to excessive fathers.
“What, then?”
“I think—maybe you had to persuade yourself—that you were one. Or were persuaded.” By the daughter of a dean. “And now it’s gone. Your village is.” Others having taken advantage of it.
Smiley-Brown had his head between his hands now. The waiter, hovering for so long, had left, perhaps thinking bitterly that people who could afford to conduct all their emotions in restaurants, did so at his expense. Or else that all the emotions of such people were table-size. Wert laid down a large tip.
Smiley-Brown sat up at once. “Sorry. I only see the kids every other weekend. This is the other week. They always ask me about the village. And never listen to the answer. If it has gone kaput for me, you’re the only one noticed it.” He laid a tip beside Wert’s, patting the package which sat between them. “Help you out to the car with that thing? No? Don’t blame you. I might jump in…Well. Think I’ll take this desperate character to a movie.”
“Wait.” Hoisting the package, Wert put it down again, back into the social framework where so much he had accumulated was going to waste. “Your girl goes to Brearley, you said? The—troubled one?” Though he hadn’t quite said.
“See you know the lingo. Don’t tell me you do have—”
“No.”
“Didn’t think.”
Wert picked up a napkin and brushed at a spot on the package. “Why not?”
“Something two-dimensional about men your age who don’t have offspring—troubled or not. Hadn’t you noticed?” Smiley-Brown, having broken down in front of him was getting back at him for it. Whereas in Meshed, or Tabriz, they’d have linked pinkies over his outburst, and wept mutually.
“Hmmm.” Wert looked down at himself. “Well, I’ve still got a vest.” He pulled a pen from it. “Listen. Do me a favor. Call up a friend of mine whose girls go there, too. Spend the afternoon.” Was this dirty of him, or Samaritan? Dirty at first, but then the other. “You won’t be sorry. Warm house.” Soft beds. “Just don’t say I sent you, mind. At least not at first. Today you’re just a wounded parent wanting to talk to another one.” Over here his suits never had any accumulation of paper. He tore off a flap from the package, wrote a name, number and address on the reverse side, and handed it over. “Her troubled daughter’s name is Nancy, same as hers.”
Smiley took the paper and read. Half smiling, he tapped his teeth with it.
“Don’t get the lady wrong. She’s a friend.”
“But I’m not supposed to mention it, hah?”
“Not right away.”
“Not until your own afternoon errands are complete, eh. I see.”
“No you don’t. Never mind. If you do choose to go, you’ll find it—” How could he say it? It’s where the two of you can weep mutually. “You won’t have to—walk a chalk line there.”
He let Smiley help him to the car after all.
“Oh I’ll go,” Smiley said, lingering at the car door, tensing his long unmufflered neck in the raw air. The sky had a leaden secrecy; it was about to snow. He shivered like a bird. “I’m curious.”
No, you are desperate, Wert said to himself, stowing the package in the passenger’s seat. Arms still around it, he stopped short. But how do I know?
Smiley was studying the reverse side of the paper with the telephone number on it. “Fortnum’s. That the place where the grocery clerks—clarks—dress like—deputy ambassadors?” He let his eyes flick over Wert’s second suit, the ten-year-old one, which he was wearing in deference to the coming afternoon, and back to the piece of brown paper the wind was fluttering. “Biscuits, it says here. That great heavy thing holds biscuits? Poor Soraya. And what was it—Fatima? You must be making a play for big Madame.”
“They sent me a pot from Iran that’s damn near a national treasure,” Wert said sharply. “The old man did. I’m returning it.”
“Did he now. Whatever for?”
“Wish I knew. And he’ll only send me something else. For better or worse. As a valedictory bequest. I wish I knew what.” Wert’s neck felt cold; the dress muffler he wore was too thin. “The ladies know, I fancy. Over there, they usually know everything.”
“And never say a word?” Smiley sighed.
“Never used to.” Wert paused, hand on the car door. “Funny. I can almost feel—what it’s going to be. But not quite. Some bloody complication I’d be very wise to—forestall. It’s on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t name it. It’s even in my own day-to-day actions somewhere. Something quite simple maybe, that other people
might even be able to see.” He thought of Nosy. “Are able. Knowing me.”
“Ma-an. Maybe you better go to a movie.”
They shook hands lengthily, grinning at each other.
“Maybe your Nancy and I’ll talk you over,” Smiley said. “If we see anything, let you know.”
Both laughed, and kept standing there.
“Going to snow,” Wert said, staring up.
“Yeah.” Smiley probed the gray sky carefully. “Going to snow.”
Watching him go, Wert thought he looked jauntier. Starting up the car, he slapped its dashboard as if it were the rump of a horse. Nancy would be answering the telephone within say—half an hour. At least he’d done a destiny job as neatly as a machine.
Going around the block to change directions, he found Smiley on the corner, just hailing a cab. The traffic light held them fast. “Have fun in your village,” Smiley said.
III.
SNOW COMING IN gray and fine; it meant business. Each car traveled the eclipsed morning in its own shroud. In his three-sided bay window he piloted a satellite lost on Queens Boulevard, in light spectrally broader than any in London. Through the swirl, high-rise apartment buildings lofted up into the mists, dull palaces all with the same portico, occasionally a delicatessen or drugstore alongside. They had no addresses out front; they were ashamed of having only these six-digit numerals. No doorman knew the number of the adjacent hive. Only one could tell him in which direction on his side the numerals went higher; across the avenue was an unknown continent. He had by now inquired of four, each a sorrier grenadier as one got closer, all with blank eyes and coffin-chins. Each portico gaped forward, an old alligator’s upper jaw, its quartzy hide and gilt sawteeth chipped. Each man stood in the throat, the snow fogging all to an old movie frame. This was a foreigner’s bad dream of America, but a cheaper surreal than it ought to be; what were the Bakhtiarys doing out here? Once, Middle-Eastern United Nations functionaries had crowded into nearby Queens before they found its Third Avenue equivalent, or the even newer galleries and black basalts of mid-Manhattan. But that would have been years ago, about the same time as when he and Iranians like these had first met. They were dragging each other back, maybe. “Afraid I’m lost,” Wert said over the drugstore phone. “Sorry.”
“Ah, of course. Where are you?” A high male voice, squeaky, elegant. A papal nuncio, met once in that Rome hotel where all the priests went, had had a voice like that. Since those traveled in pairs, he half expected two men to enter the drugstore.
Only one hatless elder came toward him, a fan of salt-and-pepper curls high above his head, the handsome face unknown to him, but not its nose curl, these black-silk brows, the cheeklines drawn with a stroke of the pen downward, the nostrils that moved. In it he saw all of them again.
“Fereydoun. Cousin. Come in my car, Mr. Wert.” A 450 SL Mercedes, glowworm in the dim. He led the way, in that sloppy gait of theirs. Wert, transferring the package, couldn’t see the backs of his shoes. Inside the car, the snow seemed scarcely to have wetted that morning coat and striped pants. It was all coming back to Wert, the way they took the current atmosphere deeply into themselves—flowers, heat, oases, rain—but not like Westerners, into the boredom of conversation. “I was not in Venice when you were there, Mr. Wert.” He meant Wert to know he knew what had happened there. “I am with Madame. Always.” He pushed that forward, for a reason. I am not with Bakh. But the voice was what astonished. One flute-step beyond mere homosexuality, or age, where among Wert’s travels did it belong? Baloooch? No, not that. Rather, that remote flute which people played in mountain regions, anywhere. “But I have met your cousin. Your family house in Athens, Georgia—beautiful.”
“You brought the ring home. My wife’s ring.”
Fereydoun’s nod started the car.
Yes, they were dragging Wert back.
He won’t dig in his heels, he wants to be. Already. “You’re Madame’s cousin?”
“Oh yes. But I am also Bakhtiar.” He doesn’t add the y or i that some do; there are variations. It’s after all a tribe, a locale, as well as a name. And a force in their history.
“But Madame wasn’t with you. In Georgia.” Wert’s cousin would have said. She’d gone on for pages as it was.
“No. Someone else take my place with her.” The French had a name for such flutes—the mirliton. The car drew up a circular driveway and under a portico. They’d merely crossed the boulevard, to the high-rise opposite.
“She doesn’t travel alone.” Fereydoun turned off the ignition. He sighed. “But Bakh”—he paused—“he wanted to know what your house is like.” His mouth went roguish, as if it talked out of school. As if it often did.
“That far back? I can’t—” Believe it. But he could.
They got out of the car, Wert trundling the package. He’s the family equerry, I suppose, his cousin had written, in her spritely imp-lady style. He waddled rather, but was wonderful with the muffin stand, and compliments to suit. I shouldn’t mind having one of him for my very own. And he knew the ring for what it was.
Their grandmother’s sherry-wine ruby. She’d been enraged at the idea of its going into a grave.
Fereydoun’s gait wasn’t due to shoes, his sleeker than Wert’s own, which the hotel’s hamper hadn’t improved. But I won’t gossip about Bakh with him; I don’t know quite why. At that moment Fereydoun turned—just inside the maw of the entrance, where again a uniformed man stood in diminishing perspective—and made a low bow of welcome, his hips drawing him back—Coppelia, a sorcerer’s bow, a wheedling. Wert had seen old Prince Chumpot shuffle on his knees to and from the then young king of Thailand, but that was protocol. This came from the man himself, deeper than style. Fereydoun wasn’t fat exactly, but pear-shaped, as the striped trousers made plain. Like that castrato tone of voice?
Among the Bagirmi, in north-central Africa, such men were said to still exist; a retired colleague had so described their voices. Above Fereydoun’s wing collar and bow tie the neck lapped in a girdle-of-Venus fold. A chill hit Wert’s stomach. No, his cousin wouldn’t mind. Ladies from his heath, of her era, could still strangle a chicken because it tasted better after, or shoot a stoat. Or make fretful moan when the best chorister at Christ Episcopal lost his voice, due to virility. Once informed of what a Fereydoun might be, she’d never condescend to think of it further, and continue to enjoy her muffins. Like Madame? Because this would have been the bargain under which she could leave? Had been allowed to leave—Bakh?
They were now on the twelfth floor, in front of one of a long corridor of doors. Fereydoun had rung. “I have key. But ladies want to be warned.” A laugh like a squeaked grass-blade. In the mountains of France they used onionskin for those flutes.
“I’m not dressed for a wedding.”
Fereydoun sighed, tremolo. “The other side of the water—won’t see.” He’s Bakh’s era, if not quite his age. A fine-grained eighty-odd. Those glandular eyelids, not born to that face? It could have happened, within the boyhood history of those two. Their country’s history was full of sporadic reversions to its ancient practices. Hermias the tyrant of Atarnea—and patron of Aristotle—was one; they’re not always tabby cats. Narses, the general under Justinian. Smart, and faithful beyond other—men.
Wert’s hands were chilled. He rubbed them. Just that I’ve never knowingly seen one. His own genitals felt cold. Fool—it wasn’t catching.
Fereydoun was scrutinizing him, his suit. Footsteps padded to the door.
“I’m—a bequest,” Wert said. “Aren’t I.”
Fereydoun put up a plump hand. Not a hermaphrodite face, but of a special antiquity. The eyes mild with retrospect. Altered to it? The mouth went roguish again, tittered, and bit itself. “So—am I.”
As the door opened and was held for them by a woman in chador, Fereydoun bent and transferred the flower in his own buttonhole to Wert’s.
They followed the chador, a stolid gray servant-shape, unchanged. Ahead, down one of th
ose lemon-pale hallways which promised one of the typical “living spaces” these modern buildings provided, all floor-lacquer and cream-colored slats and lozenge design, he heard a fountain of female giggling. Smoke drifted, underlined with perfume; was there ever any smell more enticing?—promising frivolity and a light session of human politics, nothing to do with government. At the head of the hall he stopped, in a waft of wheat-smell. But not wheat. “Polo?” he whispered. Not accurate, but the way he remembered their saying it. Their long-grain rice, cooking somewhere. Fereydoun’s teeth glistened. Wert felt his own backbone melting. Oh my God, I’m going to be happy, he thought, dismayed. From the next room he could already sense that clan energy of people to whom roses were important, but who in their time had also lopped heads, grown opium, with a girlish smile for this when challenged, and two kings back had had a ruler who munched kebab while poets were hanged—and whose last Shah had once publicly bowed the knee to one. At Wert’s side, Fereydoun cluttered nervously. Wert remembered the other name for a mirliton. Eunuch-flute.
The serving-maid was beckoning. Amazing, how they’d used to do this from within that garment—and to see it still done, here in Queens—with the man next to him watching. Wert was made to put his present in a small room off the hall. As he set the box down in relieved good riddance, the name for what it had represented returned to him. Pishkesh—the prefavor or sweetening. Or bribe. By which you are warned.
Ahead, the chattering has stopped. His own Farsi’s already rushing back to him, clamoring a word for every object he sees, and all the old phrases he’d always been glib and good at orally, able to float in the give-and-take from street to embassy, though nearly unable to write or transcribe. Today, why appear to know any of it? Little advantage enough.
“Alors—” Fereydoun says, as if from now on they must expect any language—and they’re in.
The first thing he sees is Bakh. The long walls of this triple-sized room are hung with rugs: the two end walls are huge movie screens, one blank. On the other, slide-projected larger than in life, Bakh’s sitting in his garden, a girl at his side, facing the real-life family photograph below. Fifty to a hundred people must be in the room, lined up there, below the screen. Above them, Bakhtiary is in a black suit, on which Wert can sense the baking sun, a hand on each pommel of his high-backed chair.
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