“Mostly Arabs, I suppose,” Isabelle said. “There still are a lot of backward Arabs, aren’t there? Like medieval people in a high-tech world?”
It was too obvious an attempt at flattery. Enron responded with a flash of contempt in his eyes and the quickest, bleakest of smiles. “Actually, no, Ms. Martine. The Arabs proper are all quite sophisticated. You must really learn to distinguish between Arabs and speakers of the Arabic language, you see. I was referring specifically to our readers in the agricultural regions of the northern Sudan and the Sahara, who are Arabic-speaking Islamics, but certainly not Arabs in any true way.”
Isabelle looked flustered. “We know so little, here, of what things are really like in other parts of the world.”
“Indeed,” said Enron. “This is true. A great pity, the insularity of this country. I feel sorry for America. Ignorance is dangerous, in such difficult times as these. Especially the kind of ignorance that displays itself in triumphant complacency.”
“Perhaps we ought to order dinner,” Rhodes put in, sounding strained. “If I might make a few recommendations—”
He made more than a few. But Carpenter observed that Enron was paying almost no attention to anything Rhodes was saying. His eyes were already on the menu; he had punched choices of his own into the restaurant’s data system long before Rhodes had finished. There was a certain abrasive charm about the fellow, Carpenter decided: he was gloriously offensive, all the bad things you had heard about Israeli rudeness and arrogance rolled into one—practically a stage Israeli, a ballsy little guy with such totally excessive self-esteem that you began to think it had to be an act. And yet you had to respect the intelligence, the quicksilver Darwinian adaptability, the dry playful Darwinian wit of him. A bastard, sure, but an amusing bastard, if you could be amused by someone like that. Carpenter could.
A bastard all the same, though. Playing like a cat among mice with poor beleaguered Nick and poor edgy Isabelle and poor silly Jolanda. Enjoying his domination of them a little too much. Perhaps back in Tel Aviv, among his own people, Enron might be considered a tactful and courteous guy, easygoing, even; but here, among the goyim, the barbarian Americans, he felt it was necessary to score points with every word he uttered. You would think that Israelis, a people who had turned up one of the few winning hands in this era of the intensifying uninhabitability of the Earth, would be able to relax and enjoy their position of dominance, without rubbing your face in it. Not this one, apparently.
“But we should get down now to the topic of our chief concern, the great issue that has brought me here tonight,” Enron said, while the others were still tapping out their dinner orders. He placed a tiny crystalline recording cube beside his plate, and activated it with a quick touch of his thumb. Then he looked slowly around the table, letting his eyes linger contemplatively on each one in turn for a long disturbing moment before they came to rest on Nick Rhodes. “My magazine,” he began in a new and more formal tone, “wishes to address itself early next year to the tremendous problem that the world faces: that is, of course, the problem of the continued deterioration of our environment that is occurring despite all the palliatory measures that have been taken. A problem that is more intense in some regions than in others, but will ultimately involve us all. For there is really no hiding place, is there, anywhere on Earth? It is one small planet, is it not? And we have made it very difficult and uncomfortable for ourselves.”
“More difficult for some than for others,” Carpenter said.
“At present, Mr. Carpenter. At present. I agree, the shift of global rainfall patterns in my part of the world has delivered great and unexpected economic advantages to my country.”
That and the general ban on fossil fuels, Carpenter thought, which had wiped out such wealth as the Arab world had been able to accumulate during the years of the world’s dependence on oil and forced them to turn in desperation to their old enemies the Israelis for technological guidance.
“But it is a short-run advantage,” Enron continued. “For us to say that we of the Middle East have not been harmed by the environmental challenges that are presently afflicting other areas—-in fact, have greatly benefited from them—is like the passengers on the top deck of a sinking ocean liner telling each other that they have nothing to worry about, because it’s only the other end of the ship that’s going down, and when the people down there have drowned there’ll be that much more caviar on board for us to eat.” Enron, obviously pleased with his own well-worn simile, laughed enthusiastically. “Only the other end sinking! Do you see, do you see? We all breathe the same air, is that not so? Solutions must be found or we will all sink together. And so my magazine will devote an entire issue to the situation, and to the possible solutions. And you, Dr. Rhodes—your work, the extraordinary potential of your work—” Enron’s eyes were glittering again. His narrow, strong-featured face was alive with predatory intelligence. Clearly he was zeroing in on his real prey, now. “We believe that your work, if we understand its purposes correctly, may hold the only answer to the salvation of the human race on Earth.”
Isabelle Martine said suddenly, very loudly, “Christ, no! No! May God help us all if what you just said is true! Nick’s work the only solution? Christ! Don’t you see, his work is the fucking problem, not any kind of solution!”
Carpenter heard Rhodes gasp. Rhodes turned toward Isabelle in a slow numb way and gave her a sad-eyed look, as though he might be about to break into tears.
No one said anything. Even the Israeli had been startled into speechlessness by her outburst. For the first time all evening his impermeable composure seemed broken. The taut planes of his face seemed to dissolve momentarily in confusion, as though Isabelle’s outburst was entirely beyond his comprehension. He blinked a couple of times and gaped at her as though she had picked up the wine bottle and sent its contents spilling forth across the middle of the table.
Finally Rhodes said, mildly, into the twanging silence of rising tension, “Ms. Martine and I have some political differences, Mr. Enron.”
“Ah. Yes. Yes. So I see.” The Israeli continued to seem mystified. Such a vehement public display of disloyalty to one’s companion must violate even an argumentative Israeli’s sense of the permissible. “But surely it is not a political matter, the saving of the human species,” Enron said. “It is a matter only of doing what must be done.”
“There are ways and then there are ways,” said Isabelle, pointedly ignoring Rhodes’ plaintive stare.
“Yes. Of course.” Enron sounded bored, offended, even, by her contentiousness. He gave her another of his dismissive looks. Carpenter saw the gleam of barely suppressed fury in the Israeli’s eyes. Doubtless Enron was thinking that Isabelle was going to be an obstacle to his gathering the information he needed. A pain in the ass for him, nothing more. Rhodes, who had taken on an unnerved and disconsolate air, was studying the tablecloth and industriously working on his next drink.