Although a little jumpy at the prospect, I took Ollie up on his offer. Why not, after all? I wasn’t to know (and would surely have been scared off if I had known) that he would personally handle the job, which is to say, handle me—wash my feet, trim my toenails, clip my cuticles, patiently carve slivers of skin off my heels with what looked like a miniature cheese slicer, rub a pumice stone over the carved heels until they were pink and new-born. (Afterward, his assistant manipulated my insteps and ankles, and, last but far from least, applied lotions to my feet, shins, and calves.) Ollie was not even slightly queasy about any of this, not even about the flakes of dead skin accumulating like muesli on the towel on his lap. He spoke only in order to utter a kind of podiatric poetry about what action he was performing and which part of the foot was the planum, which the tarsus, and which the dorsum, consistently impressing upon me the enormous importance of feet, those great unsung workhorses whose sensitivity and quasi-magical neural properties had been insufficiently examined and remained wrongly undervalued. What can I say? It was my happiest hour in Dubai.
Things have gone amazingly well for Ollie, I am very pleased to say. In a somewhat unreal turn, he has become an important and fashionable pedicurist who flies around the world to meet high-net-worth individuals who want important and fashionable pedicures: to this day he sends me gleeful, can-you-believe-this-shit texts from St. Petersburg and London and New York. There is a downside, of course: Ollie got so busy he was forced to quit diving; and so I quit diving.
(I tried out another buddy but the guy was full of hot air and even underwater would clown around and bug me with pointless OK signs and make me feel unsafe. He boxed me in, somehow, even in the unpartitioned ocean. When Ollie and I dived, we stayed close; we accepted a severe duty of mutual care; but all the while we enjoyed the feeling of privacy that being underwater offers. This was fundamental to the undertaking, though of course there are those who understand privacy as a business of personal smells and locked bathroom doors.)
Ollie and I still have our jaunts, however. Sometimes, to blow off steam, we will James-Bond-drive, as Ollie terms it, on the Gulf side of the Musandam Peninsula. After we cross the Oman border and hit the new and almost empty highway, we notionally race to Khasab. It is no contest. I’m in my Range Rover Autobiography (2007 model, with a Terrain Response™ system designed for rough ground), and Ollie drives the bright red Porsche Cayenne S that is his idea of a concession to family life. He zooms away almost immediately; from time to time, I catch sight of a pepper on a mountainside. Good luck to him. It is a joy merely to motor on this wonderfully engineered road, which curves between bare brown headlands and a blue bareness of open water, and whose rolled asphalt concrete is a kind of lushness. The road follows a dynamited zone of coastal mountain rock, and yet, as it has struck me again and again, my understanding never profiting from the repetition, this destroyed portion seems hardly different from the rest of the mountain, which itself seems to have been subjected to a vast natural blowing up. It is hard not to feel at one with the car advertisements as your vehicle adheres at speed to the surface of the earth, rushing through and over immense geophysical obstacles, then cresting at the pass, and then twisting down to a fjord so blue it seems technological. Who, a century ago, would even have dreamed of such transportation? We are practically in the realm of the incredible. Ollie sometimes urges me to rent something fast for the day—ideally another Porsche Cayenne S, to make a match of it—but I’ve never done that, chiefly because I don’t want to be in an actual race, which would be frightening and dangerous and reckless. So as not to spoil his fun, I maintain that my choice of vehicle is strategic. I tell him, Remember the tortoise and the hare.
More usually, Ollie and I meet up when my feet feel dry. When that happens, I drive over to his salon at the Unique Luxury Resort and Hotel on the off chance that he or one of his helpers will be able to fit me in. It would feel wrong to make an appointment.
The morning after the run-in with Mrs. Ted Wilson, my feet felt very dry.
There’s more than one Unique. Ollie is based at the Unique on The Palm, and not the other, older Unique, which is in Jumeira. Driving along The Palm’s main thoroughfare, The Trunk, always makes me think of Ceauşescu’s Bucharest boulevards: visually coercive concrete apartment buildings that speak of broken Hausmannian dreams. A different gloom descends once I have passed through the tunnel and come to the west crescent, at the tip of which, near Logo Island, the Unique is situated. The west crescent consists mainly of the semi-abandoned construction sites of the Kingdom of Sheba and other failed waterside developments. One or two of the resorts give the appearance of functioning, but there is no getting around it: the drive is a downer. I cannot avoid recalling the automatic plenty of childhood, when a pail and a patch of beach sand are enough to summon us into life’s spell.
There is an important drawback to the Unique: I am known there by a false name. The (Assamese? Nepalese?) parking valets have no real interest in who I might be. Not so the pair of jolly, extraordinarily tall, and splendidly robed Nubian greeters whom all visitors must pass on their way into the hotel. (By “Nubian” I am not making an informed reference to the ancient or modern people of the Nile, about whom I am ignorant. I am thinking of the Nubian in Gladiator, a very black good giant gladiator who is Russell Crowe’s trusted friend in enslavement. Both greeters look like that Nubian.) I have never spoken to either of these gentlemen, and yet every time they see me they very loudly and gladly shout, “Good day, Mr. Pardew!” They have not gone mad. Mr. G. Pardew is how, in a panic, I once identified myself to the front desk when presenting myself as a visitor of one of the female hotel guests.
I pulled into the hotel entranceway at the same time as a Maserati GranTurismo. I recognized the car. Its driver and his beautiful blond female consort were paid to go from hotel to hotel in order to make an impression on tourists. I knew what would happen next: the Nubians would give their full attention to the performance of opening the doors of the Maserati GranTurismo. So it proved. I took the opportunity to sneak by unseen.
“Good day, Mr. Pardew!” the Nubians called out.
I stormed past the front desk with a highly preoccupied air. “Good morning, Mr. Godfrey,” a receptionist said. I gave her an austere little bow of the head. This gesture was borrowed from and, I’d like to think, was a homage to the actual Godfrey Pardew, the octogenarian wills and trusts specialist who is my former mentor and remains the most senior partner at my old law firm and is the most correct, respectable, discreet, and altogether old-school person I have ever met. In my assessment, he would rather disembowel himself than show his face at the Unique Luxury Resort and Hotel. I hasten to add that I would never try to pass myself off as Godfrey Pardew, Esq., of New York, New York, or any other actual G. Pardew. That would be wrong. G. Pardew is merely my Unique name.
I once tried to tell Ollie about this, but he raised a hand and said, “I know nothing about Pardew. Nothing.” He knew, all right, but of course he didn’t know, because what G. Pardew gets up to at the Unique is formally illegal. Of course, everybody knows that the Dubai authorities give sexual contractors a nod and a nose-tap and a say-no-more.
I walked past the Fountain of Ishtar and into the Hanging Gardens. The Unique has a Babylonian theme. What this imports, I do not know. My familiarity with Babylonian matters pretty much begins and ends with the words “Ishtar,” “Hanging Gardens,” and “Nebuchadnezzar,” this last item coming to me thanks to the (indoor swimming) Pool of Nebuchadnezzar, which one passes on the way down to the Unique Spa & Hammam. Here the Mesopotamian fantasia relents somewhat, although it may well be that high-net-worth Babylonians had light-flooded soaking pools and twelve-foot-long towels and whispering attendants dressed in white nursing uniforms.
I walked in—and there, in conversation with a technician, was Ollie! Hooray! “Well, well, well,” Ollie said. “Need a foot up?” This question is his catchphrase, and I will never tire of hearing it. It invariably pr
efaces a half hour or more during which I’ll sit back and receive ministrations, and Ollie will tell me about his globetrotting adventures and fill me in on local excitements. He is extremely well informed, being the confidant of scores of Dubaian ladies. I am a little sick of tittle-tattle, and almost as sick of only-in-Dubai stories—the lion cub somebody spotted in a neighbor’s garden, the guy deported for flipping somebody the finger in traffic, the tipsy girl at the Oil Barons’ Golf Tournament who couldn’t get a taxi home and drove down Sheikh Zayed Road in a golf cart. But what else are we to talk about? Dubai is where we are.
I don’t feel too bad about imposing on Ollie. This is completely to his credit. He always makes me feel that my turning up and putting a large male foot on his lap is the greatest thing that could happen to him. He won’t accept a single dirham from me, which makes me uneasy until I remember that a sine qua non of real friendship is a happy freedom from cost-benefit considerations. That said, I don’t think I should completely banish from my mind the fact that I played a role in Ollie’s success, namely bringing him the corns and chronically ingrowing toenails of Sandro Batros. The introduction had such a triumphant outcome that Sandro would not stop boasting that he had discovered the world’s number one foot guy, which led to Ollie being picked up by Fabulosity, which led to Ollie developing a worldwide client roster of luxurious multimillionaires. The rest is chiropodial history.
Sandro—I’m not one to attach importance to small tokens of appreciation, yet even I find it remarkable that you have not once expressed gratitude for, or even acknowledgment of, my role in procuring for you the services of Oliver Christakos. This leads me to wonder if there are any circumstances that would lead you to feel, let alone give voice to, simple human thankfulness.
Hi Sandro—One more thing. You may be tempted to act on one of your many capricious and baseless threats to fire me. So be it. Cookies crumble. But please bear in mind that (1) Oliver holds your happiness in his hands; (2) he is my best friend.
In accordance with our routine, I was first put in the care of one of Ollie’s very pretty assistants. She led me to the Human Touch™ massage chair and pressed the buttons that set into motion the marvelous robotic devices, contained within the upholstery, whose actions are designed to approximate the touch of a highly skillful human massage therapist. (I have come to know this particular chair well and like it very much—and I speak as something of an amateur of such chairs and as the owner of a Pasha Royale X400™, perhaps the most “intelligent” chaise de massage in the world. I always feel a tiny, absurd pang of infidelity about giving myself to a massage chair other than my Pasha.) After a fifteen-minute Human Touch™ rubdown, I soaked my feet for five minutes. Then Ollie showed up in the very white, very medical jacket he wears at work.
He gave me a rapid pedicure. “You’re in pretty good nick, actually,” he remarked, and I wondered if he meant that I was pushing my luck, dropping in on him with healthy feet. But rather than showing me the door, Ollie asked if I would mind if he tried out a new treatment. He produced a small paintbrush and began to coat my skin (from toes to knees) with green enzymic goo. He looked more scientific than ever. He explained to me that an enzyme was a catalyst of chemical reactions, then explained what a catalyst was, then exactly described which enzymes he was using and which particular catalysis they were promoting. This excess of information was so soothing I nearly fell asleep. Little wonder: I’d been lulled into a soporific feeling of all going well in the world, of clever men and women in unseen laboratories toiling and tinkering and steadily solving our most disastrous mysteries, of benign systems gaining in efficiency, of our species progressively attaining a technical dimension of consciousness, of a deep and hitherto undisclosed algorithm of optimal human endeavor coming at last within the grasp of the good-doing intelligences of corporations and universities and governments and NGOs, of mankind’s most resilient intellectual/moral/economic foes being routed forever and the blockheads and bashi-bazouks and baboons running for the hills once and for all.
Ollie said, “Oh yeah, listen to this.”
To paraphrase him: A friend of a friend, an Iranian, goes to Dubai International Airport. It’s his intention to fly home for a funeral. After he passes through security, the Iranian realizes that his return visa is not in order. What to do? He cannot go back through passport control into Dubai, and he cannot fly to Bandar Abbas for fear of not being allowed to return. The Iranian decides to stay where he is, in the huge duty-free area known as Concourse 1, until his travel documentation is put right. (I’m familiar with Concourse 1, even though these days I’m a Terminal 3 man and we have our own, I think better, concourse.) Unfortunately, this takes longer than anticipated. A week passes, then another. Still he is stuck in no-man’s-land. His predicament comes to the notice of the mutual friend. The mutual friend is worried. He asks Ollie to check in on the marooned Iranian next time he flies out, maybe buy the poor guy a drink and a bite to eat. You bet, says Ollie.
Ollie said, “So we meet in the Irish Village. I buy him a Coke and a beef pie, which he just gobbles up. He doesn’t say anything. He’s just eating and chugging down the Coke. I’m thinking he doesn’t really speak English. He’s just wolfing everything down. Then he burps—I mean, it’s this really loud, kind of contented burp—and starts to tell me about his new life. Mate, you wouldn’t believe it.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “He’s happy as a clam.”
Ollie looked at me with respect. “Correct. He’s a pig in shit. I’m completely wasting my time feeling sorry for him. He’s the toast of the town. He knows everybody. They all love him.” Ollie put down his green-tipped spatula. “You should have seen him, strolling around and waving to everyone. The cock of the fucking walk. Duty-free? How about just free? Free newspapers, free magazines, free food, free access to a health club, free internet, free everything. OK, the concourse is crowded, it’s a shithole—but basically it’s a mall. I mean, a mall is exactly where he’d like to be if he wasn’t in the airport.”
I was laughing hard. Ollie had nailed it. Dubai’s undeclared mission is to make itself indistinguishable from its airport. “Where does he sleep?”
“Oh, he’s found a nice little spot over by one of the gates. He’s got himself a sleeping mat and a sleeping bag and, mate, he couldn’t be more comfortable. He looked very well fucking rested when I saw him, I can tell you.” Ollie was hunched above my feet, doing the last touch-ups. “Why wouldn’t he? He’s got nothing to worry about. He doesn’t have to worry about work”—the Iranian had some middling finance job—“because they’re keeping his job open until the paperwork goes through. And he doesn’t have to worry about his family because his salary’s still coming in.”
“He’s totally off the hook,” I said.
“Home fucking free,” Ollie said. He squinted and frowned at my green limbs as if he’d just finished the Starry Night.
I said, “I had an interesting visitor yesterday evening.” It wasn’t often that I was the one with news.
“Oh yeah?” Ollie said. “Who’s that?”
“Mrs. Ted Wilson,” I said. “She dropped by. She told me her husband was missing. Vanished.”
Ollie grinned—as if the advantage had somehow passed to him. He said, “Which one?”
I told him I was talking about the wife of the Ted Wilson who was the Man from Atlantis.
Still the grinner, Ollie said, “I know that. I’m asking you which Mrs. Wilson you’re talking about.”
I didn’t understand.
“Now this is just what I’m hearing,” Ollie said. “I’m not saying anything. I’m just passing on what I’m hearing.”
“I don’t want to know,” I said.
“What I’m told,” Ollie unstoppably said, “is there are two Mrs. Wilsons. There’s Mrs. Wilson number one, who lives back in the States: your Mrs. Wilson; and there’s Mrs. Wilson number two, who lives here.”
Yep, I didn’t want to hear that.
BUT WH
AT WERE MY OPTIONS? Quickly seal Ollie’s lips with duct tape? Stuff my ears with wads of cotton wool I kept handy for just such an eventuality?
It might be said I have only myself to blame: I opened my big mouth about Mrs. Ted Wilson: I brought the multiple Mrs. Wilsons on myself. But it is in the nature of a mouth to open, especially among friends. Or am I supposed to avoid Ollie? Why not withdraw completely from society while I’m at it? And why stop there? Why not withdraw from anatomy, too? Who needs a mouth? Who needs ears?
This isn’t to say that we’re totally helpless and that there’s no defending the boundary between the here and the there. That’s not my case at all. But there is a limit, if you will, to the fortifications one can build; there is the problem of force majeure. Here’s an example. This summer, I have as an office intern Alain Batros, Sandro’s fifteen-year-old son. I’ve never wanted an intern, and, were I to want one, I should certainly not want Alain. However, there’s nothing to be done about it. I must accept my instructions. The fortifications fail. Force majeure.
The kid’s hours are 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Monday–Friday. He sits in a chair at a little desk facing the wall, usually with his head resting in cupped hands, which he thinks conceals his closed eyes. From time to time he makes a groan. This is to be expected. He has the task of perusing unavoidably stale and contextless documents and double-checking the calculations they contain. It is without doubt an ultra-boring assignment, but unfortunately I am not operating a fairground. I have been instructed by the kid’s own father that he is not to have access to a computer or electronic devices of any kind and that a spell of drudgery is exactly what he needs. Alain goes to boarding school in England (where things are not going well for him, is my impression) and usually spends his holidays in Beirut, where the Batros family (notwithstanding complicated taxational assertions to the contrary) most actually resides; but, in the words of Sandro, “the time for fun and games is over.” The boy has been sentenced to passing the hottest months of the year in Dubai in the Jumeira family compound—Fort Batros, as I call it. “I want him to have work experience,” Sandro has explained over the phone. “I want him to learn what work means. Learn that work means work. It doesn’t mean play. If it meant play, if it meant fucking around, they wouldn’t call it work. See what I’m saying? Work is called work because it’s work.”
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