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Authors: Peter Cameron

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BOOK: The City of Your Final Destination
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“We shall certainly not cancel it,” said Adam. “We shall go and have a nice dinner with him. Caroline can mope in her tower and feel righteous. She is so very good at it. We can drink champagne with the adorable Mr. Razaghi.”
“All right, then,” said Arden. She stood up. “We'll pick you up at about seven-thirty. Is Pete coming?”
“I don't know,” said Adam. “He's disappeared. I assume he will come.”
“Do you think if you talked to Caroline, she would come?”
“No,” said Adam. “Let's forget about Caroline for the nonce, and have a happy time.”
Omar appeared in the front hall, promptly at 7:00, as he had been instructed. He was wearing a jacket and tie. He had interfered with cologne and pomaded his hair. He sat on one of the pewlike benches beside the door and tried not to sweat. It seemed very warm. After a moment, a door on the right side of the first gallery landing opened and Arden appeared. She was wearing a sleeveless striped silk shirtdress in sherberty shades of orange, red, and lilac; it was rather old-fashioned, and reminded Omar of a box of colored pencils—or a section of such a box. She looked very beautiful, and she knew it, for she blushed as she walked down the stairs.
“I'm afraid Caroline is not going to join us,” she said.
“Oh. That's too bad,” said Omar.
“She's—well, I won't make excuses for her. She's being difficult. But Adam and I are happy to speak with you. And dine with you.”
“Good,” said Omar. “Thank you. You look very beautiful.”
“Thank you,” said Arden. “So do you. Should we go? Just let me say good night to Portia.” She disappeared down the hallway toward
the kitchen. Omar opened the door and stepped out onto the portico. It was that lovely time of day when everything—the trees, the façade, even him, he knew—seemed gloriously lit. After a moment he heard the door open behind him. “There you are,” said Arden. “We're going to take Adam's car. So we've got to walk down to the millhouse, I'm afraid.”
“That's fine,” said Omar.
“If you don't mind, I think I'll take off these damn shoes,” said Arden. “They weren't really made for walking. At least around here.”
She bent down and unstrapped her shoes—beige, open-toed sandals with a heel. She carried them in one hand as they set off down the drive. “You must be tired of all this walking,” she said.
“No. I like walking.”
“So do I, but I get so tired of this route. It doesn't change much, day to day.”
“In some ways that's better: it's less distracting.”
“I would welcome a little distraction,” said Arden.
“Are you bored, living here?”
“No,” said Arden. “It's quiet, and I like that. And I think it's a good place for Portia to grow up. I don't want her to have all that junk that surrounds kids in the States. But there's no avoiding some of it. American popular culture is so pernicious, especially when it comes to kids. Of course, the price you pay for that is no culture at all.” She laughed.
“But do you like it here?”
Arden looked around. So did Omar. The setting sun filtered thickly through the alleys of pines. The two stone pillars of the gate were covered in climbing wild roses. The air was fragrant.
“Yes, I like it here,” said Arden. “I had a lot of drama early on in my life, a lot of moving around and inconstancy. Perhaps that's why I like it here. No doubt Portia will grow up wanting just the opposite.
You moved around, too, didn't you, when you were young? From Iran to where?”
“Toronto. Canada. And then I lived in Berkeley, California, before I went to Kansas.”
“What were you doing in Berkeley?”
“I worked in a restaurant.”
“As a waiter?”
“No, as a busboy.”
“And then you went to Kansas?”
“Yes.”
“And what about your parents? Are they still in Toronto?”
“Yes,” said Omar. “My father is a surgeon. He's very tyrannical, conservative. He has never forgiven me for not going to medical school. I come from a long line of doctors.”
“But aren't you getting a Ph.D.? Won't you be a doctor then?”
“If I write this book,” said Omar. “But it's not really the same. At least not in my father's eyes.”
“What about your mother? Is she proud of you?”
“No,” said Omar. “She would like me to be a doctor too. What about your parents? Where are they?”
“They are both dead,” said Arden.
“Oh,” said Omar, “I'm sorry.”
“I don't really miss them,” said Arden. “They weren't very good parents. Or people, for that matter. Well, my mother I hardly knew. She died when I was five. I think she killed herself, although technically it was an accident. I went to live with my grandmother then.”
“Where was that?”
“Ashland, Wisconsin. Nowhere, like here. I loved my grandmother. But then she died, and I moved to England, to live with my father. Or go to boarding school and visit my father. And now he is dead too. They are all dead.”
Omar said nothing. They passed through the gate and turned onto the road.
“I'm sorry,” said Arden. “I must sound morbid.”
“No,” said Omar.
“It's just that I hate the past,” said Arden. “I hate
my
past.”
“Why?” asked Omar.
“It seemed so stupid. So random. There was no logic to it, or evolution. It was just bouncing around. That's what I want to give Portia: a sense of stability, of home. I mean a home in every sense: even geographically. I think it's important to be allied with a place: to think you come from someplace specifically. Do you feel that way about Iran?”
“No,” said Omar. “Not really. We left there when I was ten. And Toronto never seemed like home, either, because there was always this idea that we might return to Iran one day, if things changed …”
“What about Kansas?”
“I've only been there a couple of years,” said Omar. “Perhaps when I have been there longer …” He remembered how he felt that night standing outside Yvonne's house, the night he had lost Mitzie.
“I felt at home here as soon as I arrived. I don't know why. Perhaps because I was pregnant, and needed to feel that way. Also, I think I was ready for it in some strange way. But in any case, it stayed, that feeling. It's odd: sometimes I have, or think I have, memories of being here as a child.” She shook her head. “It's very odd.”
“It is odd, how memory works,” said Omar. “And déjà vu.”
“Yes,” said Arden. “I don't believe in the afterlife, or in reincarnation, or anything like that, but I do think this life is more—more powerful, more complex than we think. I feel it sometimes, as if there is some incredible richness, complexity, lurking just beyond the wall. Some other level of living, of engagement.”
Omar said nothing. She is talking about love, he thought.
“I'm not making any sense, I know,” said Arden. “I don't know what I'm talking about.”
He wondered if she really did not.
Adam was ready when they arrived. He, too, was nicely dressed. Arden drove; Adam sat beside her and Omar sat in back.
“Is Pete not joining us?” asked Arden.
“Apparently not,” said Adam. “He has not returned from wherever he was.”
“He was in the garden this afternoon,” said Arden.
“He was in the garden this afternoon: it sounds so biblical,” said Adam. “I think I finally understand this sad propensity you, and so many others, have, to till this miserable earth. It is Eden you are after, vainly trying to regain a paradise lost.”
“It is not in the least about religion,” said Arden.
“Oh, but it is, my dear,” said Adam. “The nice thing about getting old is that you lose that sentimental attachment to the earth. I do not need to muck about in the soil, fertilizing carrots, to feel safe. Or saved.”
“Must you disparage everything we do?” asked Arden.
“Oh, I don't. I admire you very much. I think you drive very well. And dress nicely. I think you are a wonderful mother. And you make excellent coffee. In fact, your talents are infinite.”
For a while no one said anything. And the landscape they passed through seemed in some way reflective of their silence: the road was straight, though it rose and fell with the gentle swells of the earth, and the woods that bordered it were unremarkable.
“You seem to live very far from anything,” Omar said, after a moment.
“What an astute observation,” said Adam.
“Federico's is in Tacuarembó,” said Arden. “It's not far from here. Not terribly far.”
Adam turned around in his seat so he was facing Omar. “Federico's has been here forever,” he said. “By that I mean it has been here as long as I. I came here with my parents, and Jules. Often, of a Saturday night, the Gunds would dine at Federico's,
en famille
. They were a little pathetic, a little sad, our dinners at Federico's. A desperate attempt to retain Europeanness, normalcy.” He turned back around. “Just to give you some historical perspective,” he said.
Federico's looked alarmingly like Ponte Vecchio, the Italian restaurant Deirdre and Omar sometimes frequented in Lawrence, when their budget allowed a splurge. Omar wasn't sure what he had expected, but he had thought that an Italian restaurant in Uruguay would be different from an Italian restaurant in Kansas. At some level he believed that everything in Uruguay had to be different from everything in Kansas, such was his notion of the two places, and the fact they were not so different, and in some ways almost identical, was vexing.
The restaurant appeared to be quite empty. In fact, it was empty.
“I'm so glad you thought to reserve a table,” said Adam.
Arden laughed. “Well, you never know with Federico's,” she said. “It's either no one or the world.”
Omar was preoccupied by trying to find some sign that indicated the establishment welcomed credit cards, particularly Visa. He thought he had enough cash to pay for the meal, unless of course it was hideously expensive. But it did not look like the kind of restaurant that would be too expensive. He noticed two dead fish in the aquarium beside him in the entryway, which he took to be a good sign.
A man in a tuxedo appeared out of the gloom in the back of
the restaurant—it was very dimly lit, relying mostly on candles guttering in wine bottles for illumination (a technique also favored by Ponte Vecchio). The man looked rather funereal from a distance, and his glum expression did not alter as he drew near. He grabbed a few menus from atop the aquarium and said,
“Tres?”
“Sí,”
said Arden.
“Tenemos una reservación. A nombre de Gund. Para cuatro personas, pero sólo somos tres.”
The man seemed, understandably under the circumstances, uninterested by this information. He led them through the sea of empty tables to a circular booth along the back wall.
“Muy bien,”
said Arden.
“Gracias.”
Omar, who had understood everything Arden had said, felt empowered. Perhaps he was learning Spanish. Perhaps it really did just come to one, like getting a suntan or acclimatizing oneself to a new time zone.
“Sí, gracias,”
he said to the maitre d'.
Arden scooted into the booth and sidled toward the middle; Omar and Adam flanked her. She picked up the menus the maitre d' had somewhat flung onto the table and handed one to each of them. “Everything is good here,” she said to Omar.
“It would be more accurate to say that nothing is better than anything else,” said Adam. “But first we must order a drink. Will you join me in a cocktail, Mr. Razaghi?”
At some sedimentary level Omar thought that perhaps it might be best not to drink at this very important dinner—he did not hold liquor particularly well and was still feeling a bit stupefied from all the beer he had drunk with lunch—but his immediate response was affirmative: he would like a cocktail, so he said yes.
Adam snapped his fingers in a way that suggested he had spent much of his life summoning waiters (and others) in this fashion, and a waiter immediately materialized beside their table. They ordered drinks (martinis for Adam and Omar, a glass of wine for Arden) and turned their attention back to the menus.
Omar was mainly concerned with the prices and was trying to convert them into dollars in his head. He was delighted to find that the place was absurdly cheap—entrees for as little as $1.50! Oh, wait: he did the math again, and realized he had neglected to shift the decimal point to the right. Entrees were $15.00. And up. Well, it was still within his means. He didn't suppose the drinks and wine could cost that horribly much.
Adam put his menu down first. After a moment, Arden, apparently decisive, discarded hers. Omar was looking for the cheapest pronounceable thing; luckily he could discern the Italian origins of the dishes through the Spanish scrim. He, too, lowered his menu.
Their drinks arrived. Omar couldn't think quickly enough to make a toast—would toasting Jules Gund be in poor taste?—but the moment passed, as they all seemed more eager to sip their drinks than to make, or acknowledge, a toast. Toasting really is a ridiculous custom, thought Omar. It's like saying “God bless you” when someone sneezes.
BOOK: The City of Your Final Destination
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