A Hologram for the King (17 page)

But she was embarrassed about Alan. He didn't know half the people she talked about — dissidents and philosophers and leaders-in-exile. He would try to find an industrialist at the table, one of the husbands who knew unit costs and ship dates and not much about the potential for civil society in Sri Lanka. Sometimes he was lucky and they would hide together from the light of the idealists at war over the details of unworkable plans and unfundable mandates.

Her ideal mate, Alan knew then, would have been a Kennedy, a Rockefeller. Maybe Aristotle Onassis or George Soros. She needed a wealthy patron who had political influence, who could pull back the curtain of power and show her the levers and knobs. Who could fund
her plans. When she was frustrated, when she saw him as sand in her gears, she got mean.

—There's no such thing as “The One,” she once said. They were at dinner in Taipei, with a supplier and his wife. The couple had been married forty years. The idea that there's just one person in the world you're meant to be with, it's illogical, she said. She'd had a few drinks and was enjoying her own loud thoughts. The math just doesn't work! Who you end up with, it's really just an accident of proximity.

Alan opened his eyes in the tent by the sea. The young people were asleep. They thought he was a nothing, an irrelevant man. Did they know he had swum in the Rio Negro with crocodiles? That he had almost been torn asunder one morning, with his constantly cruel ex-wife the only person who fought for him then or any other day?

Alan had seen some of the crew members jump into the river occasionally, and that had prompted some discussion about crocodiles, and there had been lectures then and after about how rare attacks were, how they had no interest in human flesh unless the water was very low, unless there were extraordinary conditions and their usual food sources were scarce or gone.

So while the boat was docked at the village, a handful of the passengers were lured in, and swam without worry. It's fine, they said. They stood in the shallows, and village children splashed nearby, everyone in the river and no one being devoured by giant reptiles. There didn't seem to even be any in that part of the river, until a few minutes later, when there was a commotion from the other side of the boat. A crew member had been fishing, and had just caught a baby crocodile, the size of a shoe.
Alan and Ruby rushed over to look at it, and indeed it looked every bit like the ones he'd seen in books. It had an unbelievable underbite and looked apoplectic.

He had no intention of swimming. But to see it there, flopping on the deck, knowing that it had coexisted so closely to the passengers and children in the shallows, proved to Ruby that there was no danger, so she jumped in, splashed about, and tried to entice Alan in, too. He declined, and afterward, she stood with him on the deck, a towel around her shoulders, leaning into him.

—You should do it, she said.

And that's all he needed. He decided to go further, though, and found a rowboat on the boat, and put it on the river and himself in it. He figured he would row deeper into the river, and jump from the boat into the deep.

The rowboat was very small, more like a kayak in how low to the surface it was. He was rowing, his feet straight in front, and this seemed normal enough. But there was soon a crowd, the entire crew, watching him from the deck below Ruby's, and they seemed very amused by his progress. So Ruby began watching with interest, and soon saw what was amusing them. The boat Alan had chosen wasn't seaworthy, was full of holes, and it was sinking. The crew's laughter increased as they watched him slowly sinking into the river, and once Alan noticed he was sinking, they laughed even louder watching how quickly he began trying to turn the boat around, to row back to the main boat before he sunk completely.

Alan had been told of the utter lack of danger from the crocodiles, that they would only strike something human if they were starving and the water level was very low, but still, there were anomalies to any
animal-human détente — every week some zookeeper's assistant lost an arm in the jaws of a tiger, elephants crushed their trainers underfoot — and here was Alan, sinking into the Rio Negro, about thirty yards from the boat, far enough away to ensure that if something went wrong, if the crocodiles deemed him food, no one from the boat would reach him in time.

Alan was trying not to seem panicked, trying to remember how unlikely, impossible really, any attack would be, but then again: What if? When he was about twenty yards away, the water crested the rowboat and swept in with alarming speed. His forward motion ceased, most of the boat quickly disappeared into the rusty water, and soon he was sinking in place, into the river, overrun as it was by crocodiles and whatever else.

He wanted badly to swim back to the boat, and quickly, but feared that the splashing would attract teeth to his flailing limbs. At the same time, he wanted to bring the canoe back to the boat, for it had been his idea to go for a row-around, a wonderfully stupid idea, he now knew. He didn't want to let the rowboat, which he was holding between his legs now, sink to the bottom. And meanwhile he knew the dangling of his legs was probably being observed with great interest by the river's flesh-eaters. And still the faces were laughing. There were even those among the faces that had become bored. They turned away from him.

Alan had a moment where he looked at the riverboat, thinking, Well, this really might be it. This could be the last thing I ever see. It's a pretty boat, and on top of it, lovely Ruby, leaning over and now suddenly screaming.

—HELP HIM!

She was practically jumping in. She was bent over the top rail, trying
to get the attention of the crew on the deck below.

—FUCKING HELP HIM YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES! Ruby yelled again, and repeated this and other versions of the directive until, a minute later, three of the crewmembers were in a rowboat and were upon Alan and towed him in.

W
HEN
A
LAN REACHED
his room at the Hilton, his phone's red light was blinking. There was a message from Hanne.

—Call me, she said.

He did, and she picked up on the first ring.

—What are you doing tonight? she asked.

Alan thought of his room, the desperate adventures to be had here. The bed, the mirror, the moonshine.

—Nothing, he said.

—Come over to my house. I'll make something.

—Can I do that?

—Where I live, they don't care.

—You don't have to cook. I can take you out for dinner.

—No, no. It's more fun to eat at my house. Easier, too.

He called Yousef. He got his voicemail.

—Call me. I'm heading to the home of a ladyfriend and need a ride.

Yousef would love that. Alan expected a return call any second, but after thirty minutes, nothing. Yousef had never been unavailable before. A dull worry rose up in Alan. Alan texted him and got nothing in return.

Alan had the concierge arrange a different driver, bought some flowers in the hotel lobby, and in an hour he was outside Hanne's gate.

He rang the bell. He saw a shadow moving through an upper floor.

The door opened and there she was. She wore a sleeveless silk blouse and black pants. She was sleek, composed, her face aglow.

—Some flowers, he said.

—I see, she said.

The house was not unlike her office — it looked as if she'd moved in hours before. There couldn't have been more than five pieces of furniture. A couch, a table, a few stiff wooden chairs. They walked past the kitchen, where a pot was simmering.

—I made a stew, she said.

Alan told her it smelled good, though he couldn't smell much of anything beyond new paint.

—I have some wine. You'll partake?

Hanne was holding a thermos and a child's water glass bearing the image of a pair of cartoon fish. Alan smiled and she poured a pinkish liquid until the glass was half full.

—A friend here in the compound started making it recently. He's South African. They're the wine specialists.

Alan tasted it and winced. It was somehow both weak and bitter.

—That good, eh?

—No, it is. Thank you, he said, and drank a third of it in one pull.

—I got you more siddiqi, she said, and pushed another olive oil bottle across the counter.

—I can't tell you how grateful I am, he said.

She laughed. —People drink more here than Finland.

She walked to the living room.

—Come and sit. It's been a while since anyone's visited this place.

They sat on the couch, occupying the ends.

—It must be strange here, he said.

—It is
so
strange. But it's so quiet that most of the time I love it. The utter lack of social responsibility. You have no familial responsibilities, no real friend responsibilities. I'm lucky to have one guest a month. It's monastic, which is a relief.

Alan nodded. He knew. —And then there are the embassy parties, he said.

She lit a cigarette. —There are those. Did I embarrass myself?

—Not at all, he said. Everyone was doing crazy stuff.

Maybe that would do it, he thought, put her attempt somewhere in the realm of loony, something that no sane person would believe.

At that, a light in her eyes seemed to go out.

But just as soon, she recovered, forcing a smile.

—So I have news about the King for you. He'll be in Bahrain next week. So you're free.

—Oh, he said, unable to hide his disappointment. This wasn't the kind of freedom Alan sought. He wanted to be free to give his presentation, to get confirmation of the deal, to pack and go home. He wanted to be free to leave the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Hanne set the food out on plastic placemats, and soon she knew all the salient facts about him and he her. He had guessed she was divorced, and she was, but he had been wrong about her having kids. She had none, and that had been the agreement between her and her ex when they'd married. Hanne wanted none, and he wanted none. But then, five years in, he did. So they argued and drifted and soon he impregnated another. They were still married at the time.

The whole thing was very simple from then on, she said. She let McKinsey know she was up for far-flung assignments, and a few months later, she was in Seoul. Then Arusha. Then Jeddah and KAEC.

Soon dinner was done and the plates cleared and when Alan expected her to invite him back to the couch, or to lead him to the door with a yawn, she said, —You want to take a bath?

—A what?

—A bath. Just a thought I had.

—Both of us, you mean.

She laughed, dismissing it. —Just something that popped into my mind.

But then she wasn't ready to abandon the thought.

—We can pretend it's a hot tub.

He thought about this, but not soundly. He thought only that he would rather extend the night with her, however bizarrely, than be alone.

—Why not, he said.

—Good! she said brightly, and took a few quick steps to the bathroom. The thunder of water into tub began. As it filled, she returned to
the couch, picked up her drink and finished it.

—You plan to do any snorkeling, scuba, anything like that?

He said he hadn't thought about it.

—It's very good here. Very few people do it, so it's unspoiled. I went a few weeks ago just off the KAEC beach. I wore a bikini, actually, but I shouldn't have. After an hour a coast guard boat arrived. It was
haram
to be out there with so little on.

—So you were arrested, or…?

—No, they just told me that I needed to give them some warning next time. They're very accommodating around Jeddah, you know, to Westerners. They look the other way in most cases, but they want to know where you're doing whatever you're doing. Mostly so they can be assured that other people don't
see
you doing whatever you're doing. Want more?

She poured more wine and then went to check the state of the tub.

—Looks ready.

And so they were naked, facing each other, neither of them with any idea of what to do next. She had undressed first, stepping gingerly into the bath, seeming not at all familiar with it. He watched her, thinking she was lovely, her shape generous, her skin pale, freckled, her back sunburned. He waited until she was occupied with some candles behind her head, and then rushed in before she could see the whole of him.

Soon they were sitting, their knees up, their wine in hand. Now he wanted much more than he had in his cup.

—Do you take a lot of baths? Alan managed.

—Not really, she said.

Hanne had tried to use dishwasher soap to create some bubbles, but the result was anemic and soon disappeared.

—Too hot? she asked.

—It's good, he said, and meant it. He appreciated her, and admired her courage, and was fine with this whole situation, sitting in a comfortable tub with a new friend. But then again, he thought, What the fuck was he doing in this woman's bathtub?