Christian Nation (15 page)

When neither Adam nor his wife raised the subject of the mystery guest at dinner, I did.

“Who was the woman? And why weren’t we introduced? Why the secrecy?”

“Our being here is forbidden. This house is forbidden. The typewriter is forbidden. What you are doing is forbidden. And you ask ‘why the secrecy’?”

It was the sharpest tone he had taken with me during our entire acquaintance.

“Let me be more precise. Why are you keeping secrets from me?”

“Ah,” he said, smiling at his wife, “that’s different. What do you want to know?”

“Who was the woman? And while we’re at it, are you part of the Free Minds movement, how did you get the job in the archives, and what are you going to do with what I write? That’s for starters.”

Adam’s wife left the table. “I’ll answer what I can. The woman today belongs to my FM cell. I did not introduce you because I don’t know her name, or at least her real name, and even if I did, I couldn’t tell you. Or Sarah. What’s my role in the movement? Honestly, I’m not entirely sure. I was told to get a job at the archives to get close to you. And what I want from you is what I have asked you to do. To remember and to write exactly what happened and why.”

He rose from the table and signaled with his body language that the conversation was over. Nothing he said surprised me, though I knew it wasn’t the whole truth. For the moment, it was enough. We had begun the conversation, and a certain taboo had been lifted.

I feel oddly confident, even strong, as I pick up my story. The stars are bright and the North Star is crisply reflected in the mirrored surface of the lake. I stare at the reflection and will the water to ripple. A breeze obliges and I indulge the fantasy that I have caused a minute wrinkle in space-time, and I wonder, momentarily, what might be its consequences.

It was almost a year before the midterm elections in 2010 that I had started work at the firm on the most important matter of my career. By 2009 some farsighted engineers in the world’s largest mining company had started to worry about the near monopoly the Chinese government had obtained in an esoteric class of minerals called rare earths. These metals—with names like cerium, neodymium, scandium, and yttrium—are not used in bulk quantities, as are copper or bauxite, but are absolutely essential to a whole range of applications, including aviation, computer monitors, and medical imaging. Previously, rare earths were produced from mines located in North America and southern Africa, but every one of those mines had been shut as the result of low-cost competition from China. Customers didn’t mind, though, as the Chinese supplies were reliable and cheap.

But once the Chinese consolidated their near-monopoly position, they limited supply and achieved a gradual increase in prices to a level exceeding that at the outset of Chinese competition. Some vague talk of export quotas had been heard from Beijing. The US and EU governments sounded the alarm, and Harco, a global conglomerate based in the United Kingdom, saw an opportunity. It quietly bought up the mining licenses for the world’s largest non-Chinese rare-earth deposits, located deep in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Development of these deposits to compete with the Chinese would require negotiating a long-term agreement with the government of PNG, assembling a joint venture, and raising most of the US $8 billion project cost.

When Harco came to RCD&S with the assignment, the general counsel specifically requested that I should be the lead attorney. It was a remarkable opportunity for a young lawyer.

I spent the next two years in a peripatetic international existence, traveling many times to Port Moresby, the sometimes violent and dangerous capital of PNG, to negotiate with the government. On a particularly bad day I remember the freshwater supply to the city having been cut off by rebels. The hotel staff responded by bringing two buckets per day of salt water to my room—“one for flushing, one for washing,” the bellman cheerfully explained. Negotiations with the relevant ministry were held in a Quonset hut dating from the Second World War. I also traveled frequently to Tokyo, Frankfurt, and London. One day I would be patiently explaining the joint venture arrangements to the senior executives of a Japanese trading company in Tokyo, and the next would find me in Frankfurt explaining the same provisions to German businessmen in a wholly different way. I found I was able to communicate to different audiences with remarkable success.

I
HAVE BEEN
silently staring out the window overlooking the lake for ten minutes now, startled by my ability to feel again what it was to be that person. I remember vividly my immense productivity and the exclusive claim made by the job on my life. I felt again the almost guilty satisfaction of really understanding when those around me were confused, and the rewards of listening well, bringing solutions to the table, and bridging interests and cultures. I recalled the gratitude of the clients. I had been truly happy in my work. After I left the law firm, I never looked back in this way. And now I have, and I’m surprised by the magnitude of what I lost.

My work on the rare-earths deal marked the beginning of a new phase in my relationship with Emilie. She didn’t mind my working long hours because she did the same. She didn’t mind the stress that I brought home because we had that in common. She never complained about my not being around, about missed dates, or about not attending weddings of our college friends. When I called her from a car in Tokyo to say I would not be back for the wedding of one of her oldest friends, the other RCD&S lawyer in the car cringed. When I reported her curt reply—“I understand, no problem”—he said simply: “She’s a keeper.”

On the other hand, nothing annoyed her more than my periodic doubts about whether I wished to spend my life as a corporate lawyer. She mocked anything I said that had about it even a whiff of diluted ambition. In that sense, the rare-earths deal should have been good not only for my career but also for my relationship with Emilie. This is because after a few months of working on rare earths, I was so interested and fulfilled by the work that most of my career-related doubts evaporated. I allowed myself to be defined by the job, and I acquired the confidence and ambition of a fast-rising star. For her, it should have been an aphrodisiac.

Perhaps it was. As our time together became scarcer, our physical relationship became more intense. We were still cathartic lovers. I remember one night in bed, after sex, I told her about my most recent trip to Japan, particularly how fascinated I was by the contrast between the refinement of Japanese culture and the misogyny and potential for cruelty that seemed equally embedded. I told her about the Zen rock garden at Ryoan-ji.

“Did Mitsubishi commit to a billion?” she asked.

“What?”

“Isn’t that why you went? Did you get them to sign up for a billion?”

“Yes, but—”

“Good. Keep your eye on the ball, Greg. No one is interested in the Japanese. They’re has-beens. The money is in China now.”

She turned away and went to sleep. I remember staring at her back, as if it was the first time I had ever seen it. I was stung by her complete indifference to the things that fascinated me. I see now that in a lifelong quest for perspective, the years I dedicated to rare earths were the great leap forward, and the experiences that propelled me were those that Emilie disdained.

During the same period, Sanjay was deeply frustrated by his forced inactivity. The loss by the Republicans of the House of Representatives had effectively paralyzed the White House, and the president and Steve Jordan’s religious and cultural agenda was at a standstill. The fear of the theocratic tendency, urgently felt by millions following Sarah Palin’s first year, now itself seemed extreme. Sanjay pointed out to anyone who would listen that the fundamentalist movement was famously patient and that the Internet revealed continued plotting and intrigue by dominionist groups. Millions of children each year were still being withdrawn from public schools so their minds could be locked in the cage of fundamentalist dogma. But very few people had time for such arguments.

Instead, the entire attention of the country was now focused on what was being called the Second Depression. It was three years after the housing crisis and near financial meltdown, and the American economy had not budged. The newly Democratic House seized the initiative and adopted a series of strong fiscal stimulus measures. Republicans continued their relentless accusations that these measures were taking the country down the road to socialism, but they sensed—and shared—the fear of permanent economic stagnation, and allowed the measures to pass the Senate. The president did not use her veto.

A couple of weeks after my return from Japan and the strange moment in bed with Emilie, I dropped by Sanjay’s apartment downtown after work. Honestly, I can’t remember whether I was going to cheer him up or vice versa. But I do remember we both were feeling low. I described my attempted conversation with Emilie about Japan and how her response had troubled me in a way that was completely out of proportion. For the first time, I found myself sharing with him doubts about whether my relationship with Emilie would survive—doubts that I had not even allowed myself to entertain consciously until I found myself speaking them out loud to Sanjay.

“G,” he said, “I am no expert, but I think there may be only one question, which is whether she makes you happy.”

“Sometimes, yes. But I think we want different things. Don’t you think that’s a problem?”

“You and I may want different things and we are still friends.”

“Friends. That’s different.”

When she was angry, Emilie often called me “clueless.” After all this time, I am starting to understand what she meant.

The conversation about Emilie was a short one. And then, for the first time ever, Sanjay admitted to me that he was dealing with his own doubts.

“What if,” he said, “I am wrong? Most people think I am missing or undervaluing the factors that doom the theocratic program to failure. What if they are correct? What if I have been deeply egotistical in becoming so invested in my own analysis?”

After a long pause, he continued. “What if I am just another gay man afraid of a heterosexual world? Or a mind deluded by an illusion of prophetic powers? Or even worse, an insecure person seeking status and validation? What if, G, that is what this all is? I would find it unbearable.”

I was shocked to hear Sanjay articulate so precisely my unarticulated disquietude about his crusade. Yes, I thought, those are the right what-ifs. You are, my friend, finally worrying about the right things. Of course these were words I did not say. But the more profound surprise was seeing the usually imperturbable Sanjay so vulnerable. He routinely questioned his actions and plans, but always in the language of reason. That night, I heard the language of fear.

I got up and went to the kitchen and came out with two cold beers. Sanjay had a weakness for an artisanal lager from Brooklyn.

“San, tonight we are going to give birth to something completely new. I call it ‘brewga.’ It’s going to be big. Bigger than
You and I
, and a lot more fun. A nice big gulp of Brooklyn lager between every pose. This is the way I want to learn yoga. Will you teach me?” We hadn’t done yoga together since we were in college.

Without comment, he took the beer and started teaching. Three hours and four beers each later, we had run through all the poses of the Ashtanga primary series, stupidly chanting “brew-ga, brew-ga” at the end of every pose. Sanjay told me he had never before laughed out loud while doing yoga. At the end, we sat cross-legged on his brown carpet facing each other, knees almost touching. I remember the smell of his sweat, slightly sweet, mixed with my own, more acrid, and the stale odor of the beer we had spilled on the carpet. Empathy aligned our inhales and exhales. His breath wafted across the small distance between us and was drawn inside me. His tender gaze gently held my eyes. We sat like that for a very long time.

I
AM RETURNING
to the typewriter after a long break. I did not write at all this afternoon, but I walked to the other side of the lake and sat on the large boulder opposite the cottage. I realize that the last time I did any yoga was the morning before the invasion of the Battery. The last day of my former life. Tonight I feel my body in a different way. I feel the strength and upward thrust of my skeleton and the relentless pull of gravity on the muscles and soft tissues. I plant my feet on the floor, feeling the four corners of the foot. My muscles remember. I realize I could stand up now and do my practice. But I’m not ready for yoga. Not yet.