The City of Your Final Destination (11 page)

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Authors: Peter Cameron

BOOK: The City of Your Final Destination
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There was a knock on the door.
“Entrez,”
said Caroline.
The door opened, revealing Arden standing in the vestibule. “I'm sorry to interrupt,” she said, “but I've just spoken with Adam.”
“What does he want?” asked Caroline.
“He invited Omar to have lunch with him and Pete. And Caroline, Omar has offered to take us out to dinner this evening, you and I and Adam and Pete. Adam has accepted this invitation. What about you?”
“Well, a dinner out sounds fine, but we cannot allow Omar to take us. While he is here, we are his hosts—”
“No, please, I insist,” said Omar. “It would give me much pleasure to take you all out to dinner. Really it would. You must allow me! I insist.”
“Adam suggested Federico's,” said Arden. “I hope you like Italian food,” she said to Omar.
Omar said he did.
“It was Jules's favorite restaurant,” said Arden. “It's a bit of a
drive, but as I told you, there are really no decent restaurants in the neighborhood.”
“In fact, there is no neighborhood,” said Caroline.
“Well, Adam is expecting you. He said to come at noon. Do you want to take the car or walk? He's only about a mile down the road.”
“I'd be happy to walk,” said Omar. “If you will show me the way.”
“It's just straight down the road,” said Arden. She turned to Caroline. “About dinner. Should I make a reservation at eight?”
“I seriously doubt we will need a reservation,” said Caroline.
“Well, just to be sure. Is eight all right with you?”
“Yes, eight is fine. You'd better go, Omar, if Adam expects you at noon. You don't want to keep him waiting.”
“No,” said Omar.
“Come, then,” said Arden. “I'll point you in the right direction.”
Omar felt a bit loopy as he walked down the road toward Adam Gund's house. His interview with Caroline—indeed the entire morning—had left him slightly discombobulated, and he was trying to calm himself and recover his wits. Yes, he thought, I was a bit mad. But then I think she is a bit mad herself, so perhaps it was okay. Why did I say that, about a subjective biography? Was it nonsense? Do I want to write that kind of biography? Could I? Would the university publish it? He stopped walking and stood in the middle of the road. He knelt and laid his palm on the cracked tarmac. Oh, he thought, it's quiet and beautiful and peaceful here. And warm.
There was no traffic on the road, which pitched gradually downward. He continued walking down its center. Woods grew close to the road on either side, and then on one side gave way to a clearing, a sort of meadow. The road turned around the meadow and then descended more sharply; a crude stone bridge rose over a wide, shallow creek. Omar paused for a moment and looked down at the water flowing briskly over the rocks. He thought: Here I am
in Uruguay, but I could be anywhere. I could be in Kansas. Although the air smelled different: there was some sort of warm, dusty scent that seemed vaguely exotic.
Omar crossed the bridge and saw the dirt lane that led to what must be the millhouse, a tall, cylindrical dwelling made of stone. He turned off the deserted road and walked down the tree-shrouded lane. A low stone wall separated the house from the lane, and inside the wall, in front of the house, was a yard paved with stones and crosshatched with moss. In this yard a man with a wire brush was vehemently scraping the paint from a wooden table. The noise this activity made, and his intentness upon it, prevented him from noticing Omar's arrival.
Omar stood outside the stone wall and watched for a moment. The man was Asian, and he didn't look much older than Omar. His dark hair was drawn back into a ponytail. His bare brown arms were sinewy and strong. After a moment he interrupted his activity, stepped back, and appraised his work. He noticed Omar. “Hello,” he said.
“Hello,” said Omar. “I am Omar Razaghi. I am here to see Adam Gund.”
“Yes,” said Pete. “We are expecting you. Come in.”
Omar opened the wooden gate and stepped into the yard.
Pete set the brush down on the table and wiped his hands on his pants, and then held one out. “I am Pete,” he said. “I live here with Adam.”
Omar shook his hand. “It's nice to meet you,” he said.
“How was your walk?” asked Pete.
“Very nice,” said Omar. “I enjoyed it.”
“You must be thirsty. Come in and I'll get you a glass of water.”
Before this act of charity could be achieved the front door opened and an elderly man, dressed in a linen suit that looked much in need of washing and pressing, emerged from the house. He wore a fedora made of straw and a cravat at his open neck.
He carried a cane, or a walking stick, with which he pointed at Omar.
“Mr. Razaghi, I presume?” he said.
“Yes,” said Omar. “Are you Mr. Gund?”
Adam held out his hand. “I have been,” he said. “And seem to keep on going being Mr. Gund, much as I try to avoid that fate. Every day I wake up hoping I have been metamorphosed. For this reason I have never understood that book of Mr. Kafka's. I would be delighted to wake up an insect.”
Omar shook his hand, but could think of no reply.
“So,” said Adam, who seemed not to notice Omar's silence. “You have survived a night with the madwomen of Ochos Rios. You look no worse for the experience, although not having prior knowledge of your appearance disqualifies me from making such a judgment. You were not eaten alive?”
“No,” said Omar. “I was treated very well. Especially considering I arrived unannounced.”
“Yes, how exciting your arrival must have been. Nobody ever arrives at Ochos Rios, let alone arrives unannounced. I'm sure the women are still fibrillating. Well, your arrival here was expected and I must say you are admirably punctual. I thought instead of running the risk of poisoning you with a meal served out of our encephalitic kitchen, we would venture to the only marginally safer neighborhood cantina.”
“That sounds fine,” said Omar. “Whatever.”
“I have a tendency toward preoccupation that makes driving an unwelcome adventure. Can you drive, Mr. Razaghi?”
“Yes,” said Omar.
“How nice for us all. How exceedingly perfect you are. We must leave at once, I am afraid, for the cantina stops serving lunch at two o'clock.”
“Enjoy your lunch,” said Pete. “I'll see you later, I'm sure, Omar.”
“Yes,” said Omar. “I hope so.”
“The car is this a way,” said Adam, pointing with his stick.
The cantina was a modest building in a clearing of trees about ten miles down the road. Many trucks and jeeps were parked in the gravel lot in front of it. Only men seemed to eat lunch at the cantina, Omar noticed, and they all seemed to be eating large plates of big-boned chops and crude, bursting sausage. The dining room was a tin-roofed platform open on the three sides that did not face the kitchen, from where great whooshes of flame periodically erupted. Adam and Omar found a table on the far side of the room, a bit away from the more boisterous diners. The table was covered with brightly colored, plastic-coated fabric. A very pretty waitress offered them menus, but Adam declined the menus and said something to her in Spanish that was beyond Omar's comprehension.
“I have ordered us a plate of grilled meat and a pitcher of beer,” he said, when the waitress had left them. “I hope that will suit you.”
It had only been hours since Omar had gorged himself on the bread and jam and honey, but he found he was hungry once again. There was a wonderful smell in the air of rendered fat and spice and juicy meat, and when the waitress returned with the pitcher of glowing amber beer, which seemed blessedly lit from within, Omar felt curiously happy. It was pleasantly warm in the drowsy grove of trees, the carnivorous men around him all seemed happy and handsome, and he was in Uruguay.
“I will let you do the honors,” said Adam, nodding toward the pitcher.
Omar filled two glasses with beer. He remembered Deirdre filling the glasses that evening at Kiplings, and was overcome with an urgent tender feeling for her. If it were not for her, he thought, I would not be here. In Uruguay, drinking beer with the brother of Jules Gund. He silently toasted her: Oh Deirdre!
Adam took a sip of his beer and cleared his throat. “So tell me,” he said, “have you managed to change their minds yet?”
“You mean about the biography?” asked Omar.
“Yes, of course. Although I may wish you would change their minds about other things, I don't know you well enough to presume you might.”
“I don't think so,” said Omar. “They both still seem pretty much opposed to granting me authorization. But it is hard to tell.”
“I trust you know that I am on your side in this matter?”
“I did not know that,” said Omar. “I thought the decision was unanimous.”
“Did Arden tell you that?”
“I don't know. I don't think so. I just assumed it, I think.”
“Well, you misassume. No, I am all for this biography. I tried to talk sense to those women, but as you have no doubt discovered, it is like shouting down a well. Shouting down a well? Is that an idiomatic expression in English or did I just make it up?”
“I don't think I've heard it before,” said Omar. “But English is my second language.”
“What is your first?”
“Farsi. I was born in Iran.”
“You mean Persia.”
“Well, it was once called Persia.”
“Yes, back when the world had a certain elegant order. Do you know, I never learned German until I was an adult? My parents never spoke it after leaving Germany. We spoke English at home and Spanish elsewhere, but never German. But that is beside the point. Of what were we speaking?”
“The biography,” said Omar.
“Exactly. I am all for it. And Caroline and Arden can be made to agree with me.”
“Can they?” asked Omar. “How?”
“Don't you worry about that. They disagree with me at this
point only because it is more interesting for them to disagree with me at this point. And in a way I am grateful for their recalcitrance, for it has brought you here to us.”
“Yes, but their agreement would have done the same.”
“Perhaps not so immediately, and so beseechingly. You are really too adorable! Of course you have no idea of how adorable you are, which only makes you more so. I am sure they were plumping your pillows and darning your socks all night long.”
“They left me quite alone,” said Omar, a bit indignantly.
Their platter of meat was delivered and set between them.
“Please, help yourself,” said Adam. “Take whatever morsels you so desire.”
“I don't usually eat meat,” said Omar, and thus excused, helped himself to some sausage and what looked to be a lamb chop.
“It seems rather pointless to be alive and toothed and not eat meat, but your diet, whatever it is, seems to agree with you.” Adam maneuvered several chops and sausages onto his plate and began to attack them with his knife and fork. He was a zealous and messy eater, Omar noticed: the pink juice ran down his chin, onto his cravat.
“No, no, no,” said Adam, after a moment of concentrated gluttonous consumption. “There is a reason I have lured you here, there is a reason for our little
déjeuner sur l'herbe
. And I am sure you have guessed what it is.”
The meat was delicious: tender and juicy; it was the kind of meat that made a very persuasive case for eating flesh. When Omar, who was in a bit of a blood-induced stupor, did not answer, Adam looked over at him. “Have you guessed?” he asked.
“Ah, no,” Omar managed to say around a mouthful of sausage.
“We must work together,” said Adam. “We must co-conspire.”
“Yes,” said Omar, “of course.”
“I can help you with this,” said Adam. He filled both their glasses with beer. “I can get the women to agree to authorization.”
“Can you?” said Omar. “How?”
“Never you mind how,” said Adam. “I haven't lived with crazy women for most of my life without learning a little about how to deal with them. Did you know my mother was crazy?”
“No,” said Omar.
“Mad. Undone by grief. Prostrated by sorrow. Loco. Yes, I have walked many a mile with a madwoman. And Caroline and Arden are two of the maddest. They aid and abet each other, you see.”
“They seem quite sane to me,” said Omar, although he remembered that he had only recently wondered if Caroline were mad.
“Oh, of course they appear to be quite sane. It is the crowning achievement of their insanity: their elegant rational façades. But it is only a façade, my dear boy. Behind it is a madhouse, I assure you. Bedlam! Rattling around in that spooked house like two Miss Havishams. It makes me shiver.” Adam did shiver, and forked another sausage onto his plate. “No,” he continued, “you leave the madwomen to me. I will have them signing on the dotted line—I assume there is a dotted line somewhere—in no time at all.”
“Well, good,” said Omar. “That's great.”
“Yes, isn't it great?” said Adam. “My father smacked me every time I said anything was great. Frederick was Great, he would say. Catherine was Great! Your
baba au rhum
is not great. Speaking of
baba au rhum,
do you want a flan? We had better ask for it now, before our waitress disappears. These waitresses have a maddening habit of disappearing. I think they are lured into postprandial dalliance by their customers. You look as if you could use a flan, or two.”
“No, thank you,” said Omar.
“You're quite sure?”
“Yes,” said Omar. “I couldn't, after all this meat.”
“No doubt it is the secret to your charming figure. But as I have long ago forsaken mine—or more aptly it has forsaken me—I will order a flan.”
He summoned the waitress and appeared to do that.
“So,” said Adam. “I will help you get the authorization you need.”
“Thank you,” said Omar.
“And I wonder if you would be so kind as to help me with something.”
“Of course,” said Omar. “What?”
Adam laid down his fork. He rubbed his napkin ineffectually on his stained shirtfront, and sat back in his chair. “There is something,” he said, “that you could do for me.”
“What?” repeated Omar. He was wondering if it would be piggish to take the last sausage, which had burst its skin and was leaking its savory stuffing onto the platter. No, he thought, I mustn't: I've had enough.

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