Kapitoil: A Novel

by Teddy Wayne

  “Ah, you are a banker.” He rubbed his fingers together and smiled. “You are making money, yes?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I donate Zakat to schools in Qatar.”

  “Are you from Doha?” he asked. I told him I was. “Then you should meet Fawaz.” He waved his hand at another man his age also in a white robe. Fawaz had one golden tooth, and told me that he was an Egyptian who previously lived in Doha but hadn’t been back in over a decade. He had lived near my family’s neighborhood, and we discussed the infrastructure changes there in the past ten years, e.g., construction for what will be the largest shopping mall in the Middle East.

  Fawaz wrote his address and telephone number on a piece of paper. “My family is having a dinner with others from the mosque on Friday,” he said. “Your presence would honor us.”

  “It would honor me as well,” I said.

  After I left I felt enhanced in all ways, so I decided to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and walked south on 5th Ave. past the wealthy apartments bordering Central Park. Mr. Schrub probably knows many of their residents. One goal I had hoped to achieve here which I haven’t yet is meeting more business people and networking partners to build social capital. But whenever I meet someone, I have difficulty thinking primarily of that person as part of a future network.

  The museum entrance was similar to a palace and made the Qatar National Museum seem like a small store. I was seven when I first went. I do not remember the actual visit, but only what happened before it. There was an exhibition on Qatari traditional clothing and how it is produced. Even though clothing is not my preferred subject now and it was not then either, my mother talked about it for several days in a way that stimulated my interest.

  The day arrived, and we were about to leave when my father, who was reading a newspaper at the kitchen table as he often does, asked where we were going.

  “I told you before,” she said. “I am taking Karim to the museum.”

  “You are pregnant. You should be resting at home.”

  “I can manage a museum,” she said. “And Karim is very interested in seeing the exhibition.”

  He put down his newspaper. “What is the exhibition?”

  “Traditional Qatari clothing.”

  My father turned to me. I was even worse then about reciprocating visual contact, and I looked at my shoes. “Clothing.” He laughed. “My son is interested in clothing.”

  I wished she had at least said it was about how the clothing was produced. But my mother just shook her head and took me to the door. “Do not forget to show him the jewelry and perfumes as well,” my father said as we left.

  When we got outside she said, “Do not ever let anyone make you feel inferior for what interests you.” I tried to remember this advice whenever my classmates made fun of me for being interested in computers before technology became popular.

  In the Metropolitan Museum I decided to observe exclusively the European paintings, as the museum was so vast that I had to specialize, and that area is also a major knowledge gap to address if I am to become as well-rounded as Mr. Schrub.

  I spent a long time studying the paintings of Paul Cezanne, who focused on objects and sometimes nature. But he also painted men and females bathing. At first I stood far away from the painting so no one would witness me looking closely at it, but then I listened to a museum leader lecturing to a cluster of tourists.

  “Cezanne was noted for his discomfort with female models,” she said. “He compensated by concocting imaginary tableaus in sylvan environments, and that visionary quality is what lends the bathing paintings a sense of the mythic. Note the characteristic diagonal, parallel brushstrokes that weld the bathers to the landscape while simultaneously asserting their division…”

  I stopped listening, because although I appreciate receiving some data to help decipher a problem, it’s always more enjoyable for me to utilize my own intellect. After the tourists left, I moved closer to inspect the brushstrokes. The leader was correct, and I examined them for several minutes and was careless when other visitors came nearby. It’s beneficial for my programming to remind myself that major projects ultimately derive from discrete miniature components.

  For the rest of the paintings I selected just a few that intrigued me, and similarly magnified them, even when they were of bathing females. After two hours I was taxed and walked home for exercise.

  I rerouted through Times Square, as I had not been there in several weeks. While I waited at a corner, a man nearby with an advertisement on a board surrounding his body said, “Naked girls! No cover! $10 lap dance specials all night!” A mother was adjacent to me with her young daughter, and she covered her daughters’ ears by pretending to hug her.

  I wanted to call Zahira when I came home, but it was too late in Doha. On Monday morning I called as I ate my labneh and pita, but my father answered. “Is Zahira at university now?” I asked him.

  “It’s pleasant to hear from you as well,” he said.

  I asked him how his business was progressing.

  “Not well,” he said. “That’s why I’m home early. No one entered the shop today. I told Qasim I will have to let him go.”

  “But he has worked for you for four years,” I said. “And without him, you will have to spend extra hours stocking and cleaning the store.”

  “I cannot afford his salary. If I must work harder, then that is what I will do.”

  “You should update your computer inventory system,” I said. His computer is obsolete and not connected to the Internet. “For instance, you do not currently use it to search for different suppliers, which could help you find lower prices and—”

  “I am satisfied with my current arrangement,” he said.

  It was frustrating, because I had several ideas for how a new computer could benefit his business, but I knew he wouldn’t listen. So I discarded the idea and told him he should advertise his shop in the newspapers, as I’ve advised him to do for years, because his shop does provide a valuable and unique service of searching for items that are difficult to locate. “You must spend money to make money,” I said.

  “Advertising inflates prices without enhancing the product,” he said.

  “Yes, but with greater profits from advertising, the manufacturer or supplier can then work on enhancing the product.” It’s an argument we’ve had frequently and we always state the same ideas, and I was able to discuss it while I tied up my full kitchen trash bag to deposit in the hallway incinerator.

  “A new department store recently opened nearby,” he said. “Nearly everything I have they also have, plus additional products. And now there is an advertisement on our street for it that depicts a white female coloring her lips.”

  Outside my window were many advertisements depicting females doing much more than that. “That is the means by which consumers respond,” I said. “It’s normal.”

  “It’s immoral. And if we permit foreign companies to advertise like that here, soon Qatari companies will advertise similarly.”

  “Showing females’ bodies is not necessarily immoral,” I said. I was about to tell him about the Cezanne paintings, but he interrupted.

  “Is that what you think after one month as an American banker?” His voice was sharp like a right angle on the words “American banker.” “Have you completely adopted American values?”

  I didn’t know why he had to note that I was an American banker, as I was a banker before, and he never previously criticized me for my profession. “I have not completely adopted American values. But after spending time here and seeing more of the world than merely Doha, I see that not all of them are harmful.”

  “If you think that, then you are already brainwashed,” he said.

  If there is one thing I dislike, it’s someone telling me that I am not in control of my own thoughts. “I would rather be brainwashed than not have a brain at all,” I said. “You are jealous because you don’t have the skills to succeed in a field like mine.”

&n
bsp; After a period of muteness, he said, “I will tell Zahira to call you,” and disconnected.

  The piece of paper on which Fawaz had written his address and telephone number was on my kitchen table. His address in Queens was in Arabic letters. I found an opening in the kitchen trash bag and put the paper inside, and in the hallway I threw it down the incinerator and shut the small door with force and went to work.

  While I was in a restroom partition in the afternoon, I heard Jefferson and Dan use the urinals. Under the door I saw their feet at opposite ends of the row. Dan said, “My friend Tim’s coming in this weekend. Want to go to Gentlemen Only with us?”

  “Yeah,” Jefferson said. “This time I’m getting the champagne room.”

  “Didn’t you hear? There’s no sex in the champagne room,” Dan said.

  They sang those words multiple times, and then Jefferson said, “Fuck that, if I’m shelling out 200 bucks, I’m getting a hand job,” and Dan said, “I hear that,” and they both left without depressing the flush handles or washing their hands.

  I didn’t see Rebecca the next two days, which relieved me, as I still didn’t know what to say. Then I finally innovated something. The brain frequently works in the background on another problem when it is solving something else.

  Sender: Karim Issar

  Recipient: Rebecca A. Goldman

  Date: Tue, 2 Nov 1999 21:14:38

  Subject: I am a…

  …tool.

  I waited for her to reply, and when she didn’t I grew panicked that she no longer wanted to be my friend at all. But on Wednesday morning she wrote:

  You don’t owe me any apology/explanation. If you want to, though, you can come to a party my roommate and I are throwing on Friday. Details below.

  I told her I would attend, but she didn’t write back then or the remainder of the week, and I didn’t see her in the coffee room.

  Zahira emailed that she didn’t have time to call me but that she had received a 97 on another biology exam. She didn’t mention anything about our father.

  sylvan = related to forests

  tableau = picture

  JOURNAL DATE RECORDED: NOVEMBER 6

  Rebecca’s building didn’t have an elevator. A female with short very blonde hair like a boy’s with plastic clips in it answered the door. She held a drink and wore a black dress that was the class of dress on old movie stars.

  “Hellooo,” she said as if she were singing a note. I didn’t hear anyone else inside.

  I tried to look into the room, but I didn’t see anyone. “Is this the apartment of Rebecca Goldman?”

  “It is. You’re Karim, I take it?”

  The solitary way she could know my name was if Rebecca had talked to her about me, which would be positive, but only if she gave me kudos. “Is this the night of the party?” I asked.

  “It is indeed the night of the party. You’re a little early, hot stuff.”

  In fact I wasn’t early, because the invitation stated the party started at 10:00 p.m. and it was 10:04 p.m., but I didn’t correct her. She told me her name was Jessica, and waved for me to follow her inside and danced as she walked to the sounds of a fast song that I didn’t recognize, then yelled for Rebecca.

  Rebecca entered in jeans and an informal shirt, which I had never seen her wear before.

  “This is for your guests,” I said, and offered her a container of ma’amoul I had baked and juice I had poured into a two-liter bottle of Coke. “And for you, of course.”

  “Thank you.” She put the container on the table with the other food and held the juice. “I hope Jessica didn’t scare you off.”

  “No, she is not scary,” I said.

  “Can I fix you a drink?” Jessica asked. “I make a mean mojito.”

  Before I could respond, Rebecca said, “Hey, don’t start stealing away my guests.” She directed me to give my coat to Jessica and to come into the kitchen, where there were several bottles of liquor and also nonalcoholic beverages. She handed me a red plastic cup. “Have whatever you like. Or your juice.” I had told her about the juice previously at work and urged her to have it because it is high in antioxidants. She tried it once and said she disliked the flavor. I told her most things people dislike are in fact healthy for them.

  I didn’t want to repeat what happened the previous weekend. But I also didn’t want Rebecca to think I was someone who never experienced fun. So I said, “I would like one beer, if you have any.”

  She took a bottle out of the refrigerator and opened it rapidly with a bottle opener. When she transferred it to me, our fingers briefly contacted.

  “I haven’t seen you around the office much lately,” she said.

  “I have been working overtime.”

  “Right, on your little Manhattan project.”

  Then neither of us said anything, and I was nervous because we were alone in the kitchen and the only sounds derived from the stereo. I was glad when the doorbell rang.

  The guests were a man with a black beard he continuously petted and a female who wore glasses with thick frames shaped like the eyes of a cat. Rebecca hugged them and offered them some food on the table, and the female said, “Is that ma’amoul?” Rebecca asked me to confirm it, and I said yes.

  “Where’d you buy it?” the female asked. “I can’t find it anywhere.” She picked one up and put it in her mouth.

  “I—” I said, then I stopped myself and waited for her to eat it, as I didn’t want her to convert her judgment because she knew its origin.

  “This is so good,” she said. “John, try one. It’s a cookie stuffed with dates.”

  “I baked them myself,” I said. “But I wanted to wait for you to eat it before I confessed.”

  Everyone laughed, although I didn’t intend for it to be a joke. The female wiped off her hand and held it out. “I’m Eleanor, and this is my partner, John.”

  “You have a business together?” I asked.

  “A business?” Then she laughed again. “Oh, no, I meant we’re domestic partners.”

  “I understand,” I said. “My name is Karim. Rebecca and I are international work partners.”

  I waited for the others to laugh at my joke, but no one did, and in fact no one said anything and it was tense until Eleanor asked where I came from. I told her, and she said she was an artist and had studied Middle Eastern art and she wanted to go there someday. John asked me questions about Qatar because he was a journalist and knew that we just had our first elections since our independence in 1971. I was happy to discuss politics, as I hadn’t truly done that yet in New York. Rebecca is interested in the topic but she is always nervous when discussing it with me, so our conversations don’t have much breadth.

  After an hour of conversing with them the room had become full, but I wasn’t anxious. A few more people joined our conversation and at one point I saw that Rebecca was watching us from across the room, but she turned her eyes away when I detected her.

  Then Jessica requested that we all dance, and although I’m not a sexy dancer despite my athletic skills, it was enjoyable and we continued for a long time to songs I hadn’t heard of because they weren’t of the class that reaches Qatar. Rebecca joined us halfway through and we danced near each other several times, but every time she came close it was like we were magnets with similar poles, and she moved away. She left after a period of time and talked with a few men who had thin beards and glasses like hers and wore unconventional materials that blended in with everyone else’s, unlike my suit, and I kept watching her even though I attempted not to. I didn’t want to join her cluster because I was the only one who didn’t wear glasses, and I would stand out like a syntax error in a program, even though my eyes were not defective and theirs were.

  I also didn’t understand what they were discussing, e.g., one of the men, who was not shaved and had long black hair tied with a green rubber band in the rear, said in a very deep voice, “I didn’t say I dislik
ed the Archdukes of Hazzard; I said they were derivative of so many late-’70s New York punk bands that I’d rather just listen to the original singers. Which, incidentally, would be a good punk band name—the Original Singers.” And Rebecca said, “James, you’re such an elitist, and an obscurantist,” and he said, “Using the words ‘elitist’ and ‘obscurantist’ is a performative sentence which renders the speaker an elitist and obscurantist, as well. Read your Austin,” and she said, “You suck—perform that sentence,” but she smiled and lightly struck him on the shoulder.

  Jessica left to talk with Rebecca and her friends, and she returned to our circle and asked, “Anyone for weed?”

  Everyone else said yes. “You want to have some fun, Karim?” Jessica said.

  I said loudly, “Yes, I would like to have some fun.”

  She said “All right,” and we all followed her to Rebecca in the corner. Rebecca watched me closely. She whispered, “You know what this is, right?”

  “I am not a child,” I said. “I know about marijuana.”

  “Okay, sorry,” she said.

  Jessica retrieved from a closet a tall red plastic cylinder that had a metal smoking pipe attached to it. She took it to the kitchen, and when she returned the cylinder was partially filled with water. One of the men removed a clear bag with marijuana in it. He inserted his fingers into the bag to pinch a small quantity, as if his hand were a machine that picked up dirt, and carefully deposited it in the pipe.

  I observed him closely so that when it was my turn I would not humiliate myself. He covered a small hole in the cylinder with his index finger while he moved an activated lighter over the marijuana, then he inhaled from the cylinder and simultaneously removed his index finger. The smoke passed through the water, and I hypothesized that it made it less carcinogenic and softer for the lungs, which made me less nervous about inhaling it, as I have never even used a hookah.

  Then he contained his breath for over ten seconds before he exhaled the smoke like a factory chimney. After he finished he said, “That’s a totally groovy bong, dude,” in an intentionally false and high voice, and everyone else laughed with him although I didn’t know why, and I decided I should not make any more jokes in the U.S. because I still didn’t understand the logic of humor here.