The Names

The room with its stone hearth, marble font, its ferns and fan palms and village rugs was devised by Lindsay to make her husband feel he had put behind him, at least for a time, all airports and travel. At regular intervals she apologized for the size of the place. The marble balustrade on the terrace, the glass wall producing a sunset, the ship painting from Hydra still unhung in a corner. Too large, she'd say, letting her hands swing out. Too long, too tall, too grand. Not one of life's pressing dilemmas, we reply. But we have to remember that queasiness of this kind has always been a form of middle-class grace, especially when it arises from a feeling of privilege that is binding, privilege that does not allow easy denial, and Lindsay had arrived here, the new young wife, some weeks after David found the apartment. The place made her uneasy. It made her feel, among other things, that whatever risks David ran in places like Lebanon and Turkey were connected to the size of this room.He was playing his collection of Pacific Jazz records, a nice relic of the fifties with their original cover paintings, the odd cello and flute. Roy Hardeman showed up, here for two days of meetings and wearing new glasses, oversized and squarish. We decided we'd have one more drink and go to dinner. An early night, Lindsay said. We needed an early night.Hardeman's attitude, as uninvited guest, was one of temporary deference, a studious waiting for the host, the hostess, the good friend to approach some topic that might give him a chance to reason and speak competitively. He didn't have to wait long.David said, "I keep reading about tribes or hordes or peoples who came sweeping out of Central Asia. What is it about Central Asia that makes us want to say that people came sweeping out of it?”"I don't know," I said."Why don't we say the Macedonians came sweeping out of Europe? They did. Alexander in particular. But we don't say that. Or the Romans or the Crusaders.”"Do you think it's a racist term?" Hardeman said."White people established empires. Dark people came sweeping out of Central Asia.”"What about the Aryans?" Hardeman said. "We don't say the Aryans came sweeping out of Central Asia. They filtered down, they migrated or they simply arrived.”"Exactly. This is because the Aryans were light-skinned. Light-skinned people filter down. Dark people come sweeping out. The Turks came sweeping out. The Mongols. The Bactrians. They came in waves. Wave after wave.”"All right. But your original premise is that Central Asia is a place out of which people come sweeping. Now is it only dark people who come sweeping out of Central Asia or is it simply that Central Asia is a place out of which people of any color might come sweeping, with the exception of the Aryans? Are we talking about race, language or geography?”"I think there's something about Central Asia that makes us want to say that people came sweeping out of it but there is also the fact that these people tend to be dark-skinned. You can't separate the two things.”"We've separated the Aryans," Hardeman said. "And what about the Huns? Certainly the Huns came sweeping out of Central Asia.”"What color were the Huns?" David said."They weren't light, they weren't dark.”"I should have had this conversation with someone else.”"Sorry.”"I felt I'd perceived something important and interesting, all on my own, you son of a bitch.”"Well you probably did. I'm not sure of my facts really.”"Yes you are.”"Actually I am.”"Of course you are.”"But it's an interesting premise," Hardeman said."Fuck you.”We went to dinner in an old mansion near the U.S. embassy. Hardeman was inhaling short Scotches. The perfect part in his hair, the geometric glasses and three-piece suit seemed the achievements of a systematic self-knowledge. This was the finished thing. He was physically compact, worked neatly into well-cut clothes, and nothing attached to him that had not been the subject of meticulous inner testing."Karen was saying-listen to this, Lindsay-that you both have to come and stay with us in London, soon as we're settled.”"Good. In the spring.”"In the fall would be better. We have to find a nanny.”"But you don't have children," she said."My original kids.”"I didn't know you had original kids.”"My first marriage.”"I didn't know," she said."They'll spend the summer. Karen's looking forward to finding a nanny.”David sat quietly, surrounding a beer, still unhappy over the earlier conversation."I saw Andreas not too long ago," I said. "We had a dinner of brains and lower organs.”"A good man," Hardeman said. "Bright, analytical.”"What does he do for the firm?”"Sales rep. A hard worker. They love him in Bremen. Speaks German well. They tried very hard to talk him into staying.”I let a silence fall over this last remark. We ordered beer all around. When the food came we examined each other's dishes. After some discussion Lindsay and I traded plates."Have they told you," Hardeman said, "how Karen used to spend her evenings?”I said I wasn't sure. Karen used to spend her evenings sitting on a stool near the right-field line in Fulton County Stadium, Atlanta, Georgia, running down foul balls hit that way by National League stalwarts. She was sixteen years old, a golden girl on grassy turf, hair reaching her waist. He met her six years later in a revolving restaurant."I thought it was the left-field line," David said."Right-field.”"She told me left.”"Couldn't have been left. It was left-handed hitters she feared most. Who was active then? You're the expert. Give us some names.”David went back to his curry. When we finished the beer, Hardeman ordered another scotch. And when he asked where the men's room was, I said I was heading that way myself.The only water was cold. We stood with our backs to each other. I held my hands under the tap, talking over my shoulder to Hardeman, who was at the urinal."Did I understand you to say that Andreas is leaving the firm?”"Correct.”"I thought I understood he was moving on to London with other key people in the region.”"Not so.”"He wants to stay in Athens then.”"I don't know what he wants.”"Is he looking for a job, do you know? Has he said anything to you at all?”"Why would he? We don't interact at that level. I'm in manufacturing.”"I'd be interested in finding out what his plans are. It would only take a phone call.”"Make it," he said."I wonder if you'd do it for me. Not to Andreas. Someone in the sales department or personnel.”He was finished at the urinal and slowly wheeled in my direction. I turned my head toward the blank wall in front of me."Why should I?" he said."I'd like to know why he left, who he plans to work for. If he doesn't have plans for a new job, I'd be interested in knowing why. I'd also like to know if he intends to remain in Athens." I paused, letting the water run over my hands. "It could be important.”"Who do you work for?" Hardeman said."I'm sure David's told you.”"Does he know?”"Of course he knows. Look, I can't go into details. I'll only say Andreas may have a sideline. He may be connected to something besides air cooling systems in Bremen.”"Andreas was a valuable member of the firm. Why should I involve myself in an unauthorized read-out? We work for the same people. And if he's chosen to leave, he may also choose to return someday.”"What do you know about him that may not be in his personnel file? Anything at all. One thing.”"It's not his identity I have doubts about.”"Very funny.”"I don't mean it to be. Sure, David's mentioned political risk insurance. He's also mentioned the scrambled telexes he occasionally sends your way, unscrambled, which I told him I thought was unconscionable, regardless of content, regardless of friendship. I may not know anything about Andreas' private life or his politics but I know the firm he's worked for these last three or four years. What do I know about you?”What could I say, we were fellow Americans? I felt foolish, staring at the wall, my hands turning in the stream of water. My attempt to learn something was less useful than the dumbest amateur's because this is what an amateur enjoys, a men's room meeting with clipped dialogue. I wasn't even good at clipped dialogue.He was waiting to wash his hands.The news that Andreas was not going to London would lurk vaguely in my mind in the days to come like the knowledge of some unpleasantness whose exact nature will not surface when one tries to recall it. Maybe London was his clumsy way of ending the affair with Ann, inventing a distance between them. Maybe the story revolved around her. It was all part of the same thing, that rapt entanglement I'd spoken to her about a couple of days earlier (only to be made fun of). The world is here, the world is where I want to be."We promised ourselves an early night," Lindsay said.Hardeman ordered another drink. He described the house he was renting in Mayfair. He spoke slowly but very clearly and his sentences began to extend into an elaborate and self-conscious correctness, a latticework of clauses, pure grammar. Drunk.He and I shared the back seat in David's car. We hadn't gone two blocks when he dropped off to sleep. It was like the death of a machine-tooled part. At a red light David looked at me in the rearview mirror."I have an idea. Are you ready for this? Because it's one of the great ideas of my career. Maybe the greatest. I started thinking about it during dinner when I saw how much he was drinking. It came to me then. And it's developing, refining itself even as we sit here waiting for the light to change. I think we can bring it off, boy, if we're cunning enough, if we really want to do it.”"We're cunning enough," Lindsay said, "but we don't want to do it.”The idea was to put Hardeman on a plane to some distant city. There was a flight at 3:50 a.m. to Tehran, for instance, on KLM. He wouldn't need a visa to get on the plane. He would only need a visa to get out of the terminal once he was there. This was beyond our purview, David said. All we wanted to do was send him somewhere. We'd need his passport, which David was certain he'd be carrying, and a ticket, which David would purchase with one of his credit cards.We passed my building. A moment or two later we passed their building. Lindsay stared into the window on her side."Once we have the ticket," David said, "we come back out to the car and get him on his feet and walk him between us into the terminal. We get him a seat in the nonsmoking area, which I'm sure he'll appreciate upon reflection, and then we face our biggest problem, which is how to get him through passport control.”Lindsay began to laugh, a little warily."By this time he is probably semiconscious. He can walk but can't think. If we stick the boarding pass, ticket and passport in his fist, it's possible he can make it past the booth through habit alone. But what happens then? We can't follow him through passport control. It's too much to expect that he'll look at the boarding pass and walk automatically to the right gate.”I told him there was a simple solution. We were on the airport road, doing a hundred kilometers, and he looked at me in the mirror, briefly, to make sure I was serious."Breathtakingly simple," I said. "All we have to do is buy two tickets. One of us takes him through the entire process, right to his seat on the plane.”Lindsay thought this was very funny. It could work after all. There was a huskiness in her laugh, the slightly surprised dawning of the idea that she was mean enough to want it to work."Then the one who accompanies him simply turns around and goes down the ramp and gets back on the shuttle bus, feigning illness. They'll cancel the ticket. It won't cost a dime.”David whispered, "Of course, of course.”I felt all along we wouldn't do it. It was too grand, too powerful. And as many times as I'd traveled with a visa, I didn't know whether he was right about that. I thought they examined visas at the airline counter before issuing boarding passes. But David kept on driving, kept on talking, and Lindsay began to sag in her seat as if to hide from the enormity of it all. Tehran. They would think he'd come to hold a service for the hostages.In the end we couldn't even get him out of the car. He kept hitting his head, falling away from us, limbs floppy. It was interesting to see the concentration in David's face. He viewed the formless Hardeman as a problem in surfaces, how and where to grip. He tugged at him, he wrestled. The door-opening was small and oddly shaped and David's considerable bulk was a problem in itself. He tried kneeling on the front seat and scooping Hardeman out to me. He tried a number of things. He was completely involved in the idea, the vision. He wanted to send this man to another place.