Holy Water (19 page)

“
Are there many more like him?
”
Meredith continues.
“
Are there, like, Falklands
reenactors
? Sons of Grenada?
”

Norman shakes his head.
“
He
’
s the only one. Which is the appeal, you know. The uniqueness of his story.
”

Norman and Warren hit it off. They continue talking about film and vocation and life long after Meredith and Henry lose interest. They continue talking even after Norman realizes that Bangalore-bound Warren is not a potential personal-training client.

“
Anyway, ultimately,
”
Meredith tells him,
“
I think it can turn into a good thing, your taking this trip, this job. If only for a while.
”

“
But you just mocked my lack of preparation, my going for all the wrong reasons.
”

“
That doesn
’
t mean something good won
’
t come of it. I mean, were you really happy doing . . .
”

He shakes his head.
“
No. I mean, what have I ever done? All I do is what someone else tells me. I mean, every day it made me feel less like—
”

“
Hence the poker night, cigar night.
”

“
Meat Night.
”

“
The reluctance to have your testicles sliced with a knife.
”

“
Snipped.
”

“
Snipped from the gang. From tradition. From a chance to prove yourself beyond a valuable conference report.
”
She looks at Warren and Norman.
“
The definition of manhood is going through a major transition, Henry.
”
Then she looks down at the top of her breasts.
“
Women, on the other hand, have never been more confident.
”

“
Is it because we
’
re not used to being so afraid? Because terror has marginalized us? The economy?
”

Meredith shakes her head.
“
It
’
s because we
’
ve gone from a manufacturing- to a technology-based economy. It
’
s harder for a man to find a place to display physical strength now—it
’
s no longer socially or professionally rewarded. And men haven
’
t figured out how to deal with that. How to
remasculate
.
”

“
I
’
m going to try.
”

“
Good. I hope you really tear it up over there, Henry. Wherever it is. I really do.
”

Finally a song he recognizes.
“
How We Operate,
”
by Gomez. He listens to the words, finishes his beer, and stares at Meredith. Meredith the wise. Meredith the compassionate. Meredith the enormously buxom. His eyes betray his thoughts.

“
Not a chance, mister.
”

~ * ~

II

~ * ~

The New Oil

In the book
1000 Places to See Before You Die,
which Giffler had given Henry as a going-away present, the imperial palace in the Kingdom of Galado is listed as number 998.

And now, in-country less than eight hours, Henry is already inside the royal gates, smack in the middle of an after-party for a business conference he didn
’
t attend, surrounded by people who seem much more important than him, even if he is a VP of global water, investor relations for Happy Mountain Springs.

“
The world is parched,
”
this brute of an Aussie named Madden is telling Henry, presumably because he noticed Henry
’
s name-tag title.
“
Parched not like a bloke in a beer advertisement who
’
s just played a homoerotic touch football game with a bunch of handsome, scruffy young lads. It
’
s parched like a severely dehydrated, lost soul in the midday sun in some unforgiving desert. Deranged and naked, on trembling hands and knees, tongue wagging in the blistering heat, hallucinating, clutching its stomach, praying for something that can facilitate a more forgiving form of death before its organs shrivel and its heart explodes. That kind of parched. So congratulations—you
’
re in the right bleedin
’
business then, mate.
”

Henry nods, and for a second he wonders, If the palace is listed as the nine hundred and ninety-eighth place to see before you die, could Madden
’
s face be the nine hundred and ninety-ninth? The last?
“
Well, then,
”
he finally replies, raising his mineral water without bacteria-laden ice,
“
I guess I
’
ll drink to that.
”

He scans the room for possible asylum. Scores of white men in dark suits and locals in burnt-orange
ghos
with finely decorated sashes. In the opposite end of the great hall, small beings in what appear to be clown masks—children? dwarfs? robots?—are performing some kind of interpretive
dance to the dull throb of indigenous drums. Shug, his official guide and interpreter, stands beside a giant golden urn against the near wall, watching Henry but not acknowledging him, disinclined to guide or interpret.

“
So what do you reckon to accomplish here, Tuhoe?
”
asks Madden.

Henry considers this giant sunburned man who is what, his coworker? Competitor? Colleague? Employer? Mate? He hasn
’
t a clue. Nor does he have a clue about what he wants to accomplish. Saying
First of all, I
’
d like to forget about the last five years of my life, with a heavy emphasis on the last twenty four months,
seems a little too forthcoming under the circumstances.
“
Well, I guess it
’
s our job,
”
Henry hears himself saying and asking,
“
to somehow, not necessarily quench, I guess, but alleviate that thirst?
”

“
Our
job?
”
Madden laughs and snorts at the suggestion.
“
Ours?
Hardly
my
responsibility, Tuhoe. I will say this about your product, though: someday very soon nations will go to war not over oil but over water. And it will tear the planet asunder. So where do they have you staying, then?
”

Henry removes a slip of paper from his pants pocket.
“
It
’
s supposed to be a simple place near my office just outside the city. Something Djong. Didn
’
t actually get to see it yet.
”

More laughter from Madden, who smells of sweet booze and a smoke residue not unlike marijuana. Hashish? Henry doesn
’
t know what to make of any of this, but he is willing to blame it all on a monster case of jet lag. He was unable to sleep at all on his JFK-to-Bangkok flight (during which he watched three in-flight movies and read two Graham Greene novels) or, after a six-hour layover in the
Jetsons
-
like
Suvarnabhumi Airport, on the four-hour connecting flight to Galado. After landing soon after dawn and waiting almost three hours to clear customs and for the last piece of his luggage to be found, he was informed by his chaperone, Shug, that there had been a late change of plans: his presence had been
requested at the Royal Palace by His Most Serene Majesty the prince of Galado.

Even though Henry was weak and exhausted to the point where he was having trouble standing, let alone keeping his eyes open, he thought, Why not? This was the new beginning you sought, right? The much-needed adventure. The first day of the rest of your up-until-now pathetic life.

“
For your information,
”
Madden begins,
“
the Ayurved Djong and Spa is a five-star, hilltop,
multiculti
eco-lodge perfect for the searching of the soul and its libidinous depths. Far from a simple place, it is a spiritual retreat of the highest order. That is, if you like your Eastern spirituality backed by Western money and served up alongside vintage wine tastings, seaweed wraps, and a mind-blowing selection of in-room . . . let
’
s call them diversions.
”

Not knowing how to respond, Henry decides to pretend he didn
’
t hear Madden. He looks to his surroundings for diversion. The palace is much as he had imagined a royal residence in this part of the world might be—high paneled walls and coffered ceilings lavishly decorated with intricate Chinese- and Indian-influenced scrollwork in vivid blues and reds and yellows. Ornately carved dark-wood chairs and servers. Pink marble floors. Twelve-foot windows looking out on terraced fields, a glimpse of a river. But what he hadn
’
t expected were the movie posters, some from contemporary Hollywood, but most for lavish musicals from India, hanging where in past centuries there were surely gorgeous framed paintings or frescoes or tapestries.

“
Nice, eh?
”
Madden again.
“
You can thank the prince for that. The bloody loon. Obsessed with the pictures, with Bollywood, he is, almost as much as he
’
s obsessed with money, which plays into our hands quite conveniently, what with his father, the once saintly king, losing his own set of marbles in some faraway corner of the kingdom.
”

“
How long have you been here?
”
Henry asks.

“
Long enough to know that it
’
s about to blow wide fucking open. This is a country that has just met its steroid dealer, Tuhoe. Hungry to grow, no matter how fast or unnaturally. They try to fill us all up with this magical-little-kingdom shit, but if anything, it
’
s a corrupt, filthy, environmentally bankrupt fucking
kleptocracy
.
”

Henry fumbles with the
minibottle
of Purell in his pocket, thinking, as he tries to undo the cap, of Lady Macbeth
’
s damned spot, Mary
’
s typhoid, Dorothy
’
s heels trying to click, the cocked hammer of a pistol.

“
It
’
s more like San Marino without the human rights,
”
Madden continues.
“
Bhutan without the commitment to gross national happiness. So what exactly will you be doing in the water business here? Ultra-filtration membranes? Desalinization? Rural wells?
”

“
No,
”
answers Henry.
“
None of that.
”

“
The LifeStraw?
”

Henry shakes his head, thinking of his original conversation on the subject with Giffler.
“
Bottled water, actually.
”

“
Really? Distribution center? Treatment plant? Because while there is plenty of water here, most of it is—
”

“
Actually, it
’
s more back-office stuff.
”

“
Pardon?
”

“
Back-office. You know, like a call center. Customer relations for Happy Mountain Springs in Vermont.
”