by Dave Eggers
—Yes, I know. But he won’t be able to make it today. I’m sorry to say that he’s stuck in Jeddah.
—He’s stuck all day in Jeddah?
—Yes sir. But he said he will be here tomorrow. All day, and you can name the time you want to meet.
—Are you sure there’s no one else here I should talk to in the meantime? Just about the wi-fi and the food, things like that?
—I think Mr. al-Ahmad is your best contact for all those things. And anytime tomorrow will be fine. It will all get sorted, I’m sure.
Alan returned to the tent, where he found the team in their separate corners with their laptops. Rachel was watching a DVD, something involving cooking, a bearded chef. Alan told them all that Mr. al-Ahmad was not in that day.
The ride back to Jeddah passed quickly, the young people chattering throughout like summer campers. Alan watched the road, half awake, his ankle aching. When he got to his room, he couldn’t remember if he’d said goodbye to anyone. He did remember entering the dark lobby, smelling the chlorine.
He’d been in the sun too long and was grateful for the dark, for the cool, for the manmade and ugly. But when the heavy door to his room punctuated the end of the day, he felt trapped and alone. There was no bar in the hotel, no diversion that would satisfy his needs, whatever they were. It was just past six o’clock and there was nothing to do.
He thought of calling one of the three young people, but asking them to dine would not work. Not appropriate. He could not call either of the women. Lecherous. He could call Brad but he did not like Brad. If they were all eating, and he was invited, he would eat. If they called he would come. By seven, though, no one had called. He ordered room service and ate a chicken breast and salad.
He showered. He rubbed the knob on his neck.
He got into bed and hoped for sleep.
Alan could not sleep. He opened his eyes and turned on the TV. There was a story about the BP leak. Still no discernible progress. They had attempted a top kill, something involving dumping cement on top of the hole. Alan couldn’t watch. The leak devastated him. It had been unstoppable for weeks, and all he and everyone else could do was watch the plumes of oil shooting into the ocean. Alan favored every extreme method of putting an end to it. When he heard the idea, proposed by a Navy man, of sending a nuke down there, he thought, Yes, yes, do that, you fuckwads. Just end it, please. Everyone’s watching.
He turned off the TV.
He looked to the ceiling. He looked to the wall.
Alan thought of Trivole.
—Everything can be sold using one of four angles, he’d said.
Nine in the morning and they were standing on the street, in front of a dilapidated house. It was only a few blocks from the home where Alan had been raised, but he’d never given this right-leaning house a glance or thought.
—First thing you have to do is analyze the customer, okay?
Trivole was wearing a double-breasted tweed suit. It was early September and far too hot for such a garment, but he didn’t seem to be sweating. Alan never saw him perspire.
—Each customer requires a specific approach, a specific appeal, Trivole said. There are four. The first one is Money. This one is simple. Appeal to their thrift. Fuller products will save them money by preserving their investments — their wood furniture, their fine china, their linoleum floors. You can tell immediately if someone is practical. You see a simple, well-kept home, a practical dress, an apron, someone who does their own cooking and cleaning, you go with this first strategy.
—Second is Romance. Here you sell the dream. You put the Fuller products in among their aspirations. Right there next to the vacations and yachts. ‘Champagne!’ I like to say. With the foot spray, I get them to take off their shoe, and I say, ‘Champagne!’
Alan didn’t understand that one. —Just ‘Champagne!’ out of nowhere? he asked.
—Yes, and when I say it, they feel like Cinderella.
Trivole wiped his dry brow with a silk handkerchief.
—Third is Self-Preservation. You see fear in their eyes, you sell them Self-Preservation. This one’s easy. If they’re afraid to let you in, if they talk to you through the window or something, you go with this way. These products will keep you healthy, safe from germs, diseases, you tell her. Got it?
—Yes.
—Good. The last one is Recognition. She wants to buy what everyone else is buying. You pick the four or five names of the most respected neighbors, you tell her those folks already bought the products. ‘I just came from Mrs. Gladstone’s house and she insisted I come here next.’
—That’s it?
—That’s it.
Alan became a good salesman, and quickly. He needed the money to move out of his parents’ house, which he did a month later. Six months after that, he had a new car and more cash than he could spend. Money, Romance, Self-Preservation, Recognition: he’d applied the categories to everything. When he left Fuller and went to work for Schwinn, he brought the same lessons to bike sales. All the principles applied: the bikes were practical (Money); they were beautiful, glittering things (Romance); they were safe and durable (Self-Preservation); and they were status symbols for any family (Recognition). And so he’d moved up quickly at Schwinn, too, from retail sales in downstate Illinois to the regional sales office, to a place at the table with the execs in Chicago, planning strategy and expansion. And then the union-busting. Then Hungary, Taiwan, China, divorce, this.
He turned the TV on again. Some news story about the Space Shuttle. One of the last flights. Alan turned the TV off. He didn’t want to see that, either.
He found himself dialing his father’s number. International long-distance, it would cost a fortune. But the Shuttle had him thinking of Ron, and that had him thinking of calling him.
It was a mistake. He knew it was a mistake the second the phone started ringing.
He pictured his father in his New Hampshire farmhouse. The last time Alan had seen him, about a year back, he’d seemed stronger than he had in decades. His face was ruddy, his eyes gloriously alive.
—Look at that mutt, Ron said that day.
They would be on the porch, drinking Scotch, watching Ron’s dogs, three of them, all garrulous and filthy. His favorite was an Australian sheepherding type who never stopped moving.
—That is a mutt for all ages, Ron said.
Ron lived on a farm near White River Junction. He kept pigs, goats, chickens and two horses, one that he rode and another he boarded for a friend. Ron knew nothing about farming, but after he retired, and after Alan’s mother died, he bought 120 acres in a soggy valley near town. He complained about it constantly — This fucking place will kill me — but by all accounts it was keeping him alive.
Alan had grown slower with time, was patched up and scarred, but his father had somehow become stronger. Alan wanted a less adversarial relationship, and was that too much to ask? He could do without the taunts. Alan, you hungry? He loved to needle him about the Hungary debacle. Ron had been a union man. They made fifty thousand shoes a day at Stride Rite! he’d say. In Roxbury! You couldn’t get Ron to shut up about the place, all of its innovations. First company to provide day-care to its workers. Then eldercare, too! He’d retired with a full pension. But that was before the company ditched the unions and moved production to Kentucky. That was 1992. Five years later they moved all production to Thailand and China. All this made Alan’s role at Schwinn even more disagreeable to Ron. That Alan had been management, had helped scout a new, non-union location for Schwinn, had met with suppliers in China and Taiwan, had contributed not insignificantly — Ron’s words — to all that undid Schwinn and the 1,200 workers employed there, well, it made communication difficult. Most subjects led to their differing ideas of what ailed the nation and thus were off-limits. So they talked about dogs and swimming.
There was a small lake that Ron had dug and in which he swam every day, from April to October. The water was cold and full of algae and Ron smelled of it always. The bog
man, Alan called him, though Ron hadn’t smiled.
—You want to help me kill a pig? he’d asked.
Alan declined.
—Fresh bacon, kid, he said.
Alan wanted to go into town for a real meal. Ron was playacting, to some extent, all this Farmer Ron stuff. He knew a good deal about French food, wine, and now he was pulling this meat-and-potatoes schtick. In town, Ron leered at women on the street. —Look at that one! Bet she’s got a great snatch.
This was all new, acting the part of caveman. Alan’s mother never would have stood for such barbarity. But who was the real Ron? Maybe this was him, the man he was before his wife, Alan’s mother, refined him, improved him? He had settled back to his natural form.
The phone stopped ringing.
—Hello?
—Hey Dad.
—Hello?
—Dad. It’s Alan.
—Alan? You sound like you’re on the moon.
—I’m in Saudi Arabia.
What had Alan expected? Astonishment? Praise?
There was silence.
—I was thinking of the Shuttle, Alan said. That trip we took to see the launch.
—What’re you doing in Saudi Arabia?
It sounded like an opening, an invitation to brag a bit, so Alan gave it a shot.
—Well, it’s pretty interesting, Dad. I’m here with Reliant, and we’re pitching an IT system to King Abdullah. We’ve got this remarkable teleconferencing equipment, and we’ll be doing a presentation to the King himself, a three-dimensional holographic meeting. One of our reps will be in London but it will look like he’s in the room, with Abdullah—
Silence.
Then: —You know what I’m watching on TV here, Alan?
—No. What are you watching?
—I’m watching this thing about how a gigantic new bridge in Oakland, California, is being made in China. Can you imagine? Now they’re making our goddamned bridges, Alan. I got to say, I saw everything else coming. When they closed down Stride Rite, I saw it coming. When you start shopping out the bikes over there in Taiwan, I saw it coming. I saw the rest of it coming — toys, electronics, furniture. Makes sense if you’re some shitass bloodthirsty executive hellbent on hollowing out the economy for his own gain. All that makes sense. Nature of the beast. But the bridges I did not see coming. By God, we’re having other people make our bridges. And now you’re in Saudi Arabia, selling a hologram to the pharoahs. That takes the cake!
Alan contemplated hanging up. Why couldn’t he?
He walked to the deck and looked out over the sea, a few tiny lights in the distance. The air was so warm.
Ron was still talking. —Every day, Alan, all over Asia, hundreds of container ships are leaving their ports, full of every kind of consumer good. Talk about three-dimensional, Alan. These are actual things. They’re making actual things over there, and we’re making websites and holograms. Every day our people are making their websites and holograms, while sitting in chairs made in China, working on computers made in China, driving over bridges made in China. Does this sound sustainable to you, Alan?
Alan rubbed the knob on the back of his neck.
—Alan, you getting this down?
Hell, he could pretend it was a mistake. Alan pressed a button on his phone and hung up.
XIII.
AT EIGHT O’CLOCK in the morning, Alan was on the shuttle again, with the same young people. They chirped about the hotel, and things they had done the night before.
—I swam in the pool, Cayley said.
—I ate a whole pie, Rachel said.
Alan had not slept. A circus of worries kept his mind darting all night long, taking in the action. By the end it was almost funny. When the sun broke over the sea, his face heavy on the pillow, he’d chuckled to himself. Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn.
When they got to the new city, there was a note on the tent door: Reliant: welcome back to the King Abdullah Economic City. King Abdullah welcomes you. Please make yourselves at home and we will be in contact after the lunch hour.
Inside the tent, all was the same. There were the many white chairs amid the gloom. Nothing had been touched.
—They left us some water, Rachel said, pointing to a half-dozen plastic bottles, lined up on the rug like artillery.
Alan and the team sat in the dark cool tent. The young people had brought food from the hotel. They sat around one of their laptops and they watched a movie most of the morning.
After lunch, no one from the Black Box arrived.
—Should we go up to see them? Cayley asked.
—I don’t know, Brad said. Is that customary?
—Is what customary? Alan asked.
—Is it customary to show up uninvited like that? Maybe we should just wait here.
Alan left the tent and walked up to the Black Box. He was soaked when he arrived, and again he was greeted by Maha.
—Hello Mr. Clay.
—Hello Maha. Any chance of seeing Mr. al-Ahmad today?
—I wish I could say yes. But he is in Riyadh today.
—Yesterday you said he’d be here all day.
—I know. But his plans changed last night. I’m so sorry.
—Let me ask you something, Maha. Are you absolutely sure that we shouldn’t be meeting with anyone else here?
—Anyone else?
—Anyone else who might be able to help us with the wi-fi, and might be able to give us some prognosis about what will happen in terms of the King, our presentation?
—I’m afraid not, Mr. Clay. Mr. al-Ahmad really is your primary contact. I’m sure he’s very anxious to meet you, but has been unavoidably delayed. He will be back tomorrow. He has guaranteed it.
Alan walked back down to the tent, his ankle aching.
He sat in the darkness on a white chair.
The young people were watching another movie.
—Should we be doing something else? Cayley asked.
Alan couldn’t think of anything else to do.
—No, he said. What you’re doing is fine.
After an hour, Alan stood and went to the plastic window.
—To hell with it, he said.
He left the tent, was struck dumb by the heat, recovered, and walked to the Black Box, soaked in sweat.
When he arrived, he did not see Maha. There was no one at the reception desk. Good, Alan thought to himself, and strode quickly across the vast lobby.
He took the elevator up, the doors parted, and he was in the middle of what appeared to be a very busy workplace. Men in suits walked past him, carrying papers. Women in abayas, heads uncovered, hurried by.
He walked down the hallway, seeing no numbers or nameplates.
Alan hadn’t thought of exactly what he’d say if he came upon a decision maker here. There was the nephew. Mention the nephew. And of course Reliant being the largest in the world, a company built for a job like this. Money. Romance. Self-Preservation. Recognition.
—You look new.
A female voice, deep and sonorous. He looked up. A caucasian woman, blond, about forty-five, stood before him. Her head was uncovered. With the black gown dropping from her shoulders like a curtain, she looked like a judge.
—I’m supposed to meet someone, he said.
—Are you Alan Clay?
That voice. It was tremulous, as if someone had strummed the low strings of a harp. An accent from Northern Europe.
—Yes.
—You’re supposed to meet with Karim al-Ahmad?
—I am.
—He won’t be here today. I work in the office next to him. He told me to look out for you.
Alan assembled himself and put on a glossy smile. —No, no. I’m just surprised. I understand completely. Busy times here, I’m sure.
She said her name was Hanne. She had an accent. Alan guessed Dutch. Her eyes were ice blue, her hair cut with a slashing severity.
—I was about to have a smoke, she said. Join me?
Alan followed her through a
glass door and onto a wide balcony, where other KAEC employees and consultants were smoking, talking, drinking tea and coffee.
—Watch the step, she said, but it was too late. He’d tripped on the runner below the door, and his arms flew forward as if attempting flight. A dozen pairs of eyes saw it happen, and a dozen mouths smiled. It was not a simple trip. It was comical, wild, theatrical. The sweating man entering, his arms shooting everywhere, yanked by invisible puppeteers.
Hanne smiled sympathetically and motioned for him to sit across from her, on a low couch of black leather. Her eyes seemed almost flirtatious, but that was impossible. Not so soon after he’d embarrassed himself. Probably not ever.
—You’re from Reliant? she asked.
—Recently, yes.
Alan rubbed his ankle. He’d twisted it further.
—And you’re here to present?
—The idea is to supply the city with IT, yes.
They went on this way for a bit as he glanced around. None of the women, Saudi or not, were covered. There was a black plastic barrier on either side of the balcony that prevented them from seeing anything but the sea ahead. And, he assumed, prevented anyone below from glimpsing the world, egalitarian and free from restrictions, within the Black Box. This was the cat-and-mouse game being played in the Kingdom. Its people were forced into the role of teenagers hiding their vices and proclivities from a shadowy army of parents.
—So how are things at Reliant? she asked.
He told her what he knew, which was very little. He mentioned a few projects, a few innovations, but she knew it all anyway. She knew everything, it turned out, that he did, about his business and all others related to his. In a few minutes of introductions, of assessing where their paths might have crossed, they covered a handful of consulting firms, the plastics business in Taiwan, the fall of Andersen Consulting, the rise of Accenture.
—So you’re here to get the lay of the land, she said, putting out her cigarette and lighting another.
—I’m really just trying to get an idea of the timeline. When we could expect to have some news about the King, that kind of thing.