Joseph O’Neill - The Dog

Georges got to his feet and took a shower. The female crewmember trained a high-powered hose on him as though he were on fire. He thoroughly lathered himself, dick and balls especially, and rinsed his hair and hopped around in the water jet. He kept chatting to me, even as the crewmember towelled him down. There was something faintly villainous about his showiness. He reminded me of those clever murderers who for a while run rings around Lieutenant Columbo.

‘And how is your old friend Mr Trompe?’ Georges, taking his seat, said. He was still in the buff, though now he wore his commodore’s cap.

‘Fine — I guess,’ I said. ‘I don’t really know him.’

‘Come, you’re being modest,’ Georges said. ‘Weren’t you invited to his wedding? At Palm Beach?’

This was correct — up to a point. Godfrey Pardew was the invitee, on account of the good work he had done for Donald Trump and especially Donald’s father, Fred, in the realm of wills, trusts, divorces, prenuptial agreements and other sensitive matters. But Godfrey had declared himself ‘regrettably unable’ to fly down to Florida, and at the last minute he notified the Trump people that I (plus one, Jenn) would be attending on behalf of the firm in the stead of Mr and Mrs Pardew. The wedding was a lot of fun, as it happens, and I shared certain amusing details with Eddie on the night of our reunion at Asia de Cuba. That was a highly consequential anecdote, as things turned out, because it was my connection to Donald Trump that prompted Sandro to approve my appointment.

I’m not sure what Eddie told him, but out of the blue Sandro flew to New York, bought me dinner at the Rainbow Room, and (making zero mention of the London fiasco) questioned me for over an hour about that magical night at Mar-A-Lago. I was able to tell him what it was like to stand next to Shaquille O’Neal, and to listen to Billy Joel playing the piano six feet away, and to take a leak with the great Trump in the adjoining urinal. Sandro was deeply moved. He confided that it was his dream to take part in The Apprentice , the Trump TV show in which job-seeking contestants compete for the approval of the magnate and are each ‘fired’ by him, save one — the apprentice. Sandro was in his late forties and presumably more qualified for the role of master than apprentice, so I was a little surprised. I began to understand his ambition to earn Trump’s blessing only after it became clear that Georges neither trusted nor esteemed Sandro, and restricted his role to that of running the Dubai holding company — a titular job — and chiefly expected of him, his older son, that he spend enough time in Dubai so as to serve as a human data point for technical legal purposes. When Sandro asked me about getting on Trump’s TV show, I told him I would see what I could do. This I duly did. I could do nothing.

‘I went as a representative of my law firm,’ I said to Georges. ‘I’m not close to the Trump family.’

‘Ah, this was not my impression,’ Georges said. Then he was telling me all about the crewing arrangements — two Norwegians (captain, chief engineer), a Greek chef, and five others from ethnically prestigious parts of Western Europe. Their uniform consisted of white Lacoste shirts, white sailing shorts with the Giselle monogram, and classic blue-and-white boat shoes. They all wore the same sunglasses. Uniformity aside, they might have been gung-ho young bankers on holiday. Georges said, ‘These people are the best in the world.’

I said something like, ‘Yeah, they look like they’re really stoked.’

He called out to one of the deck hands. ‘Giancarlo!’ The fellow came bounding over. Georges said something to him in Italian. Presently the boat dropped anchor. I heard splashes: Giancarlo and two others had plunged into the sea. They swam to the shore, climbed over the tricky rocks, and made their way up the hill to where a herd of goats was feeding on bushes. There was no sign of a goatherd. Giancarlo turned towards us and waved. He gestured at a black goat, and Georges gave him a double thumbs-up. The three men jumped on the black goat and wrestled it to the ground and instantly roped its legs. I might have been watching a rodeo. Giancarlo slit the animal’s throat. They held it down while it kicked and bled out. This lasted for some time. Giancarlo towed the carcass back, trailing a messy red stream. The three men stood on the deck wet and bloody. They held up the dead goat. ‘Bravo, bravo,’ Georges Batros said, applauding. Everyone applauded, me included.

‘You see?’ he said to me. ‘This is the quality of these men.’

‘Unbelievable. Wow,’ I said. There seemed no point in raising the issue of compensation for the owner of the goat.

A short while later, the chef arrived with a serving dish. ‘The liver,’ Georges said. ‘Fresh, fresh.’ He cut a piece off the red mass, squeezed lemon juice over it, and began to eat. ‘Fantastic,’ he said. ‘Take some. There is nothing healthier.’ I accepted a piece, against my will. I did not want to put a part of the goat inside me.

Georges said, ‘This idea you have, to have a foundation, this is a good idea.’

It took a second or two to figure out what he was talking about.

‘Tell me,’ Georges said. He was very fastidious with his white napkin and was taking a long time to clean his mouth and wipe his hands. His huge helping of raw liver was suddenly gone, as if by prestidigitation. ‘Who do you think we should help?’

‘Whoever you want to help,’ I said. ‘It’s your money.’ I added, for some stupid reason, ‘You have the honour of deciding.’

‘Honour?’ He laughed. ‘This is not my area of expertise. I would like you to decide.’

‘Uh, I’m no expert, either,’ I said. ‘It was just a suggestion. I just thought it might be a good idea. From the Batros standpoint. I mean, it’s my impression that you get a lot of requests for help.’

‘This is very true,’ Georges said. ‘A lot of people ask us for money.’ He pointed at my chest. ‘Tigers. Maybe we should help the tigers. They are very noble. I remember seeing them in Las Vegas. Poor Mr Roy, that was the tragedy of tragedies. Or was it Mr Siegfried? My question is, do you think we can save the tigers? How would we do it? How much money would it take? The problem is the Chinese,’ he said. ‘They eat tigers. I believe they will eat anything. Dogs, of course. They love the meat of the dog. It is not just the Chinese. The Indonesians, too. Let me tell you a story. I was in Indonesia once, in Sumatra. A savage place. I had to go up into the hills to speak to a big man. On the way up there, my driver is looking, looking, like this.’ Georges gripped an invisible steering wheel and peered from side to side. ‘Then’ — he turned the wheel — ‘ boum . We hit something. The driver gets out. He goes into the street. He picks up the dead dog by the legs and throws it in the back of the truck, like this. He says to me, We will give the dog to the big man. And this is what happened. The big man cooked the dog, and we ate it. Eating dogs isn’t so stupid, in my opinion. In Switzerland they eat dog sausages, and I cannot say the Swiss are stupid. Cold, yes. Avaricious, yes. Stupid, no. But eating tigers for medicine? Very stupid. Maybe this should be our focus, the fight against stupidity. It’s a very serious problem. There is a lot of stupidity in the world. It does much harm. You must understand this very well, coming from the United States.’

‘I — yes,’ I said. I was more taken aback by his comment on the Swiss, which on one view amounted to a comment on my mother.

‘The people of China work very hard, but still they are stupid,’ Georges Batros said. ‘Our problem is, they are’ — he searched for the English word — ‘ nombreux .’