The figure appeared in a blizzard, moving toward the house from the other side of the park, a skier in bright banded colors coming in diagonal stride, the only clear shape in that dead-even light, a world without shadow, a winter's worth of snow on the streets and cars and laid over the park benches and the bird bath in the yard, the skier digging in, working across that dreamlike space, red-hooded, masked.You can't walk down Bay Street and pick out the Americans from the Canadians. They are alien beings in our midst, waiting for a signal. This is the science-fiction theme (SF for semi-facetious). They're in the schools, teaching our children, subtly and even unintentionally promoting their own values- values they assume we share. The theme of the corruption of the innocent. Their crime families have footholds in our cities -drugs, pornography, legitimate businesses-and their pimps from Buffalo and Detroit work both sides of the border, keeping the girls in motion. The theme of expansionism, of organized criminal infiltration. They own the corporations, the processing plants, the mineral rights, a huge share of the Canadian earth. The colonialist theme, the theme of exploitation, of greatest possible utilization. They are right next to us, sending their contaminants, their pollutants, their noxious industrial waste into our rivers, lakes and air. The theme of power's ignorance and blindness and contempt. We are in the path of their television programs, their movies and music, the whole enormous rot and glut and blare of their culture. The theme of cancer and its spread.I stood in the window as she removed the skis and carried them up the steps. The sight of her cutting through that blown snow, appearing out of the invisible city around us, the craft and mystery of it filled me with deep delight.
George Rowser stepped out of the elevator at the Hilton in Lahore, looking pale and rumpled. He put his briefcase down, setting it between his feet, then used both hands to adjust his glasses, raising the hands toward his face, fingers extended, palms turned toward each other, in a gesture that started out as a blessing of multitudes. When he saw me in a lobby chair he walked toward the coffee shop, pigeon-toed. We ordered Kipling burgers and fresh fruit juice. Gatherings of more than six people were forbidden."Why am I here, George?”"Where were you?”"Islamabad.”"So I wanted to talk. It's not as though you were on the other side of the world.”"Couldn't we talk on the phone?”"Be smart," he said. "In addition to which, this city has architecture. Go look at the public buildings. What would you call this architecture? Gothic, Victorian-what else, Punjabi? Why do I have the impression you know things like this?”"Maybe it's Moghul. Or Moghul-influenced. I don't know really.”"Whatever, it's a nice blend. A very happy blend. Who were the Moghuls?”"They came sweeping out of Central Asia.”Four or five ballpoint pens stuck out of the breast pocket of his suit coat. His briefcase was under the table, upright, wedged between his calves. I waited for him to tell me what he wanted to talk about."I'm getting a remote ignition device put in my car. They stick a thing on the trunk. I can start the car while I'm in the kitchen boiling an egg." He looked out into the lobby. "If it blows up, the egg tastes that much better.”"Nice. What about tear gas ducts?”"I do defensive measures only. Are you kidding? The parent would be upset if they found out I was loading a vehicle with incapacitators. Not that it matters anymore.”"What do you mean?”"I'm seriously thinking I may resign, Jim.”The fact that he used my name seemed almost as important as the statement that preceded it. Was he saying one thing or two?"Choice? Or are they forcing you out?”"There are pressures," he said. "Developments no one could have foreseen. Never mind details. I think it may be time, that's all. I need a change. We all need a change now and then.”"What kind of pressures? From the parent?”A little bored. "The parent is a collector. They acquire companies, they adjust, they seek a balance. We're one of the companies, that's all. They look at the profit curve. That's all they know from.”"What do they see when they look at this curve?”"What they lose one year in insurance they gain in consumer products or manufacturing. They diversify to minimize risk. You and I work at risk but not in the same sense the parent knows the word. The parent knows the word in a limited sense.”"What did Iran do to us?”"Limited coverage. Plus reinsurance. But we got hurt like everybody else. Who could predict? I don't know anyone who predicted. A haunting failure. They're still straggling onto the beach in Greece. Like the Lebanon thing earlier. We picked the right place for our headquarters. That's one thing we did.”Hamburgers for dinner. This was Rowserlike. Skip lunch, bolt dinner, go to bed, remembering to secure all systems."What's happening in your life, George, outside the Northeast Group?”"I have to wear white socks. My doctor says I'm allergic to dye.”"Tension. You ought to change your wardrobe completely. You look like an assistant principal of the 1950s in a high school on the wrong side of town. Get one of those knee-length shirts the men wear here. And some loose trousers.”"They're throwing away their London suits to wear traditional things. You know what that means, don't you?”"Our lives are in danger.”"How's your burger?" he said.He suggested we get a car and driver and take a ride before dark. There was a mausoleum he wanted to see. I watched him go to the desk to make arrangements. He walked in a block of heavy air, a personal zone in which movement was difficult, breathing slightly labored. Every space he inhabited seemed enclosed. There was a basic containment or frustration. His compulsive secrecy, the taking of endless precautions would explain some of this, of course. Then there were his numbers, the data he collected and sorted and studied endlessly. This took up the rest of his space.The Mall in Lahore is a broad avenue running roughly east and west, built by, named by the British. Vehicles rush into it with the cartoonish verve of objects possessing human traits, so individualistic, so seemingly intent on playing merry hell with the boulevard's stately pretensions. Cycle rickshaws, horse-drawn taxis, minicabs painted pink, fuchsia, peacock blue, trucks and cars and scooters, bicycles weaving in and out of bullock carts, vendors wheeling massive arrangements of nuts, fruits and vegetables, buses leaning under the rooftop weight of trussed-up bundles, furniture and other objects.What we see, Owen Brademas might say, is the grand ordering imperial vision as it is overrun by the surge and pelt of daily life.Then there was the guard at the entrance to the local office of the Mainland Bank. An elderly turbaned fellow with enormous drooping mustache, a tunic and pajama pants, a curved dagger in his sash and a pair of pointed slippers. A relative of the doorman at the Hilton. The outfit seemed intended to register in people's minds the hopeful truth that colonialism was a tourist ornament now, utterly safe to display in public. The foreign bank he guarded was a co-survivor of the picturesque past, exerting no more influence than the man himself. The man had a single task, David told me once. To lower the steel shutters at the first sign of a demonstration.We passed some of the buildings Rowser had referred to, the high court, the museum, and headed north."Tanker loadings at Kharg are down to two a week.”"Maintenance.”"The fields are looking pretty grim. Only five rigs in action, I hear from Abadan.”"Parts," I said."Plus which the telex and telephone are down between Abadan and Tehran.”"But you still hear.”"I hear a little.”"The bankers call it a black hole. Iran.”"Have you seen the mosques? Isfahan is the place to go. I mean gorgeous. You have to spend time in the courtyards. Spend time, relax, check the tilework. I'd give anything to get up close to one of those domes. There's a dome in Isfahan"-he shaped it with his hands.We were stopped by traffic on the road around the old city. A man came through the fortified gate and stood at the car window looking in at us, a man with a bamboo stick, wearing a rag wrapped around his head, a military jacket with copper medals, a dozen bead necklaces, a filthy white robe, oversized army boots without laces, beads around his ankles and wrists. He had hair dyed red and carried live chickens. Rowser asked the driver what he wanted. Hundreds of people congregated near the gate. I tried to look past them into the old city. The driver said he didn't know."I think I'm in New York," Rowser said."That reminds me. I want to ask you about taking three or four weeks in early summer. I want to spend time with my son in North America.”"I don't have any problem with that.”Rowser never said yes. He said, "I don't have any problem with that." Or, "I don't see how it could hurt.”"Will you still be with the firm?”"No," he said."It's imminent then.”"I don't see any reason to hang around the halls. When the time comes, you have to have the grace to disappear." We were moving again. "Did you ever remarry?" he said. "I never got divorced. I'm only separated, George." "That's a crazy way to live. Separated. Divorce teaches us things. You never learn anything being separated." "I don't want to learn anything. Leave me alone." "I'm only saying do one thing or do the other." "I don't want a divorce. It's boring, it's trite." "In these matters it's best to terminate officially. That way you forget. File the papers in your steel cabinet.”We crossed a river and pulled up in front of a tall gateway, locked for the night. Rowser spoke to the driver, who went to look for the watchman, returning in ten minutes with a man chewing betel leaf. We entered a vast garden with fountains and paved watercourses. At the far end was the tomb of Jehangir, a low red sandstone structure with a minaret at each corner. The minarets were octagonal, coming to full height in white marble cupolas. Rowser said something to our driver, who spoke to the watchman. The watchman took a socket wrench out of his back pocket and inserted it in an opening in the pavement, turning full circle. The fountains began to play.We walked slowly toward the central chamber, hearing the sunset call to prayer from somewhere beyond the walls. A breeze blew Rowser's tie over his shoulder."We all need a change now and then. This is basic to anyone's sense of perspective. The type person I am, which is to say a plodder, go it slow, work the angles, worry it, piss blood over it, even this type person has to start over now and then. But maybe this type less than others. I personally hired you, Jim. This makes me responsible to a degree. I'm your sole contact with the parent. You'll have a new man in the region. He'll be hired directly by the parent or sent over from one of their other interests, other arms. It could be an uncomfortable arrangement. We're identified with each other, you and I, in people's minds. That's all I'm saying. Give it some thought.”We stood on a platform at the main arched opening, which jutted from a series of eight other archways. The exterior walls were inset with designs in white marble."I'm told there are better examples," Rowser said, "but this is a basic Moghul tomb, except it doesn't have a dome.”He gestured with his free hand, indicating a dome. We went inside and stood a moment, waiting for the watchman to turn on a light. The sarcophagus stood under a vaulted ceiling. I circled it slowly, running my hand over the surface. Rowser set the briefcase between his feet."Take my advice," he said. "Resign, find a job somewhere in the States, invest in real estate, start a retirement plan, get a divorce.”The white marble surface was inlaid with semiprecious stones in seamless floral designs and in chaste calligraphy, shaped stones, jeweled stones, delicate and free-figured. The surface ran cool and smooth. Traceries of black Koranic letters covered the longer sides of the tomb with a smaller grouping on top. My hand moved slowly over the words, feeling for breaks between the inlay and marble, not to fault the craftsmen, of course, but only to find the human labor, the individual, in the wholeness and beauty of the tomb.It wasn't until we were walking back through the garden that I asked our driver what the words represented. They were the ninety-nine names of God.