Ali Eteraz - Native Believer

The idea of having a get-together at home filled me with a peculiar anxiety. We hadn’t invited anyone over since that fateful party. All day my eyes went to the bookshelf. This time it wasn’t because of the since-removed Koran, but due to the Nietzsche collection and the works of Rushdie. It was unlikely that a pair of believers would like to see such work in the possession of a man they were doing business with. I swept my hand and moved the seven or eight volumes into the wine closet. I moved the Jewish writers too, just to be safe.

Mahmoud, Qasim, and Marie-Anne ran into one another down in the lobby and came up together.

Qasim was just as tall and fit in person as in the video. He wore a black suit and a gold tie. His watch was Swiss, loafers Italian, embossed handkerchief English. He kissed each cheek of mine with warmth. I pictured him having done the same to Marie-Anne, so when I greeted her I kissed her on the lips instead of the usual peck on the jaw. I regretted it as soon as I did it. I had forgotten that this was one of her pet peeves. When a guy kissed a girl in public it suggested ownership, and Marie-Anne was loathe to give anyone the impression that she was owned.

Mahmoud was much shorter than Qasim. He was also more muscular, with a craggy and severe face that suggested having spent a considerable amount of time outdoors. His eyes seemed fixed to the distance. He wore a traditional fitted black skullcap and his long curly black hair curved out from underneath. He shook my hand. He kept a scarf swirled around his neck. Dangling off his left wrist was a neon turquoise rosary that kept slipping out from underneath the sleeve. His smile was of a man who often found others giving themselves away to him.

During introductions I paid close attention to Mahmoud’s interaction with Marie-Anne. He seemed not to notice her. There was no alchemy there. He only related to her as a contact. All the visions I had of him as an admirer of my wife tumbled away and broke. I was alone again. The only man in the world who persisted in finding Marie-Anne beautiful.

Initially it didn’t seem like Marie-Anne was inclined to let me get to the presentation. She wanted to talk about the meetings in the Persian Gulf. Apparently, both Mahmoud and Qasim had been instrumental in getting MimirCo the private audience with a buyer in the Wazirate and Marie-Anne wanted to emphasize to both men how grateful her CEO was. It occurred to me that my work on Salato was, at best, some sort of quid pro quo, and quite likely a cover for future conversations on behalf of MimirCo. I wasn’t against being Marie-Anne’s tool in the advancement of her career; but I would have liked to have been apprised of my role.

It was Mahmoud who brought the conversation back my way. “Should we find out what sort of plan for Salato we have on the table?” he said, throwing open his old blazer and checking a watch on a platinum chain.

I gave his outfit a second look. Dressed in a V-neck sweater and tight denim jeans, I felt like a child ordered to perform before his father. I had not felt this eye — of evaluation, of criticism — in quite some time. People who used to come to Plutus had been so desperate for us to take them as clients that they used to fall at our feet. And they paid in advance. That assurance was missing now. I had to impress these men or fail to get paid. I became even more nervous when Marie-Anne dimmed the lights and sat down next to Mahmoud, throwing one leg over the other so her foot pointed at him. I stared at her foot so intently that water came to my eyes and in the blurry gaze her foot and his leg seemed to touch. But of course no man would be interested in touching Marie-Anne. I was the only man who could bring himself to do that.

I projected the images onto the wall above the TV and started talking. The first couple of slides detailed the kind of expertise I had. My contacts. My experience. Mahmoud and Qasim sat unmoving through this part, lightly scratching their faces. Qasim was intense. Mahmoud was casual; he evaluated me more than the presentation.

Marie-Anne, meanwhile, smiled in the way she did when she was trying to be supportive, like when I tried to enter her with a condom on and just couldn’t muster the hardness.

The next few slides specified which particular outlets and personalities I’d like to pitch Salato to. These were followed up by specific examples of what previous campaigns I’d done.

Qasim raised his hand. “But what are you going to say to them when they ask what it is? I mean, is it Middle Eastern fitness? Arab yoga? Is it Muslim jujitsu? What’s the hook? The catch?”

This was the inquiry I had set the presentation up for. Richard Konigsberg had taught me to build anticipation. It showed you weren’t afraid to make the client wait, which the client understood as confidence. “It’s kind of like what priests and rabbis do to sell God to us,” Richard had explained. “They talk about everything but God, and we assume it’s because they know God already.”

I gave Qasim a confident look. “Well, I felt that given today’s political situation, with mosques that aren’t allowed to be built, with mentions of terrorism and suicide everywhere, with Americans caught up in numerous wars with militants, it would be best to avoid any mention of words like Arab, Muslim, or Middle East. The hook, then, is a little more ambiguous, meant to evoke mystery, to capitalize on intrigue.”

I clicked the space bar and a slide popped forward. WORSHIP, YOURSELF the words said in calligraphic lettering. On three sides were images of Qasim and the Russian girls grabbed from the DVD, bowing, kneeling, and prostrating before the words.

I could tell something had gone wrong. Qasim curled his lip and paced the room, shaking his head. He sucked up the light in the room and turned it murky. He walked to the kitchen sink, ran the water, and dabbed his eyes.

Mahmoud, catching Qasim’s drift, made a wincing expression and then moved toward the wall. “The execution is good,” he said, “but the substance is not right.”

“I’m sorry, but what’s the problem? Is it the logo?”

Qasim tossed away a napkin, rushed to the projection, and rapped the wall with the back of his hand. It sounded like he might hurt his knuckles. “That slogan. I cannot believe. It is a fail. Muslims don’t worship themselves. Worship of the self is the biggest crime in Islam. It is leaving the faith. I don’t want to put a product out there that isn’t Islamic.”

“But look, there’s a comma. That stops it from being a theological assertion. It’s meant to suggest that Salato is something you can do alone, as opposed to other forms of group exercise.”

Qasim shook his head and buttoned his jacket. “I think we are very far. I was told I should hire you because you were Muslim and would know exactly what we wanted. Instead, you gave me this thing, this idea of worshipping something other than God. There is a word for this. Maybe your parents never taught. It is called shirk . There isn’t a Muslim out there who would find shirk okay. I am sorry, Marie-Anne, but we are very far.”

It took Qasim a second between his final declaration and his ultimate decision to leave the apartment. In that brief moment the rest of us looked around as if seeing each other for the first time.

Mahmoud remained behind. “I am sorry,” he said. It wasn’t an apology as much as a phrase that was necessary to occupy that moment. “I will talk to him.”

“What just happened?” Marie-Anne asked.

“Let’s just call it a cultural gap,” Mahmoud replied. “Qasim is smart enough to know that the only way to get Islam into America is to sell it. Like pizza. Like cars. But because it is Islam he cannot get past how dirty a business sales is.”