Ali Eteraz - Native Believer

Marie-Anne guided George my way. I moved forward and extended my hand. It occurred to me that George had been at work three days already and yet this was the first time I had interacted with him. As we shook hands I angled him into the shade of the Blanc. “A very warm Philadelphia welcome from all of us,” I said with a raised voice. “On a very cold Philadelphia night. ”

The room turned toward us, expecting some kind of response from George, verbal acknowledgment, hell, a smile. But he only waved and turned away, as if they were easily dismissible.

One by one people returned to their conversations. None of them tried to come over. Marie-Anne and I were the only ones with George. He glanced around and dug his thick-knuckled fingers into a bowl, spilling raisins and cashews and macadamia nuts. I touched Marie-Anne on the small of her back to entice George to say something to her. No luck. He juggled nuts in a palm and popped them into his mouth one at a time. Marie-Anne bit her lower lip and shrugged at me.

“Is this the art museum area?” he asked.

“It is,” Marie-Anne said.

“There’s a restaurant here I like. It’s called Figs. I went there with my wife recently. It’s Middle Eastern. But they call themselves Mediterranean. I don’t think the countries on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean should use that term. It’s misleading. Regardless, the food is exquisite.”

I nodded. “We know Figs.”

I expected George to say something more; but he had moved on. He pointed to the wall with his middle finger, a nut between forefinger and thumb. “That. Interesting painting. I have seen this one. I do believe I have seen it.”

“It’s called The Poet,” Marie-Anne said, running her hand over the image of the upside-down green head taking a cup of tea with a wine bottle near him. “By Chagall.”

“Are you aware that Chagall was a Jew?” George looked at me.

“Yes, I believe his first name was Moishe,” I said. “Russian. Going with his Jewish name was a big deal. Jewish artists in Russia could either hide their roots or express them. He was one who chose to express them.” I said all this in a glib manner, because I was actually insulted by his initial question. There was little about Western cultural history I didn’t know. And I was always updating and revising that knowledge. All this technology that came out every few months was developed for people like me. I was a man who ate the West, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

“And what do you think about that?” George slid next to me. “Which side do you fall on? Hide or express?”

“Do I look Jewish?”

I had meant it as a joke. But the grim look on George’s face made me pause. I wondered if I should clarify that I wasn’t making a comment about what Jews looked like; rather, I couldn’t be expected to second-guess the fear, the pressure, the persecution that Russian Jews of a particular time and age had been creating art against.

Trying to find a way out of Lake Awkward, I found a life preserver on my bookshelf. I reached forward and touched my copies of Ozick, Chabon, and Roth, with near-ritual piety. “But all kidding aside, in answer to your question, today’s Jewish artists seemed to have followed the route of expression. Children of Chagall, one might call them.”

George Gabriel seemed to find my answer either perfectly adequate or entirely worthless and dropped the line of inquiry. Piqued by the books, he came forward to inspect the bookshelf. The mahogany fixture hung on the wall and had five levels. The bottommost contained a Balinese carnival mask Marie-Anne and I had picked up during our second honeymoon. It was porcelain white and had two faces, one male and one female. The next three levels contained books. And the topmost shelf, far out of casual reach, was empty. George ignored the mask and got lost in reading every last title. Because of his immense height he had to bend and crane in a peculiar way.

Marie-Anne watched George turn away and excused herself to go and open the Blanc. This brought a small cheer from the crowd, and they huddled around the table. George didn’t seem fazed by the other guests. He inspected each and every book, trying to read the tiniest inscription, asking me where I had purchased them, even their prices.

I gave him one-word answers, looking to the party with envy. Here I was, stuck with this boorish inquisitor, while the others were enjoying themselves. I became irritated by his presence. With the way he flicked his hands in his pocket and made the nuts rattle, and the way he poked his fingers around like he had three little erections. I was also annoyed that he had come completely empty-handed. I was even annoyed that judging by his dry clothes it could be surmised that he hadn’t even suffered the ignominy of a distant parking spot. My mind rushed. What kind of name was George Gabriel? Where was he from? What was up with that Jewish question?

It struck me that I had played this hand badly. Had I presented Marie-Anne too blatantly? Had I been too earnest in my welcome? Was it too obvious that I was trying to appeal to him? Maybe George Gabriel had simply seen through my game and now everything was a kind of taunt.

I began wishing I had invited Richard Konigsberg, the man who had brought me into Plutus and otherwise sponsored me through the gauntlets of the profession. He had what I lacked, and what Marie-Anne, as a woman, couldn’t be too blatant about: the authority to command, to instruct, to establish order. “A big swinging dick,” as Marie-Anne put it when describing men with standing.

* * *

It would be George, ultimately, who saved me from my rampant thoughts.

“I see you like your Goethe and your Nietzsche.” He pointed to the complete works of both, taking up the third- and second-highest shelves.

I smiled. Despite the notoriety of the authors, talking about their work was actually the least controversial, least confrontational thing we could do. These two authors were my favorites. They qualified as my intellectual home court. I could talk about them casually, esoterically, academically; probably even make a poem about them. From the start of German romanticism to its end. The earlier antipathy George had inspired seemed to fade. Maybe there was still a way to ingratiate myself to him.

“Gods among men,” I said.

“Agreed,” he said with his first smile since arrival. “And definitely deserving of the elevated place you’ve given them.” He put his hand up in the air and measured the distance of the books from the floor. “They should hover above us mortals. Hover over all the other books in the world.”

George put a hand on my back. It was warm. He kneaded my shoulder. I felt a companionship form between the two of us and the bookshelf. George looked over to a row of idle people leaning against the sofa. He gestured at Mark. “You there. Bring me a glass of the Blanc.”

Mark bowed without so much as a pause and returned holding the wineglass with both hands under the base. George throttled it. He was about to dismiss Mark but caught himself. “Get the host a drink as well.” I wondered when in his life George had reached that moment when he attained total certitude. Were some people simply born with executive force? As the descendent of a subject race, I always feared that authority had to do with genealogy, a kind of historical grooming that took place unseen, maybe an enriching of one’s blood, maybe a kind of spectral psychosexual force field that surrounded you. Whatever it was, I didn’t have it and George did.

I did find a great deal of delight in seeing this sort of docility in Mark. When he had first gotten hired to our team he had completely sidelined Candace and me, refusing to answer our e-mails for unreasonable periods, while taking himself straight to Dinesh’s office to discuss all our ideas as his own. Dinesh started to think that the new employee was simply more talented than the known quantities he used to work with, and appointed him our supervisor. Before long I ended up getting called into Dinesh’s office, where Mark told me the news about the Special Projects assignment. Candace had survived, largely because Mark said that it was good for male morale to have a pretty female to look at.