The Russian models nodded, smiled, and knelt.
It took me two days to come back to the DVD. It felt disconcerting to have fallen from watching films of Isabelle Adjani to this. But maybe the cosmos was speaking to me. Had I not always retained an interest in the film industry? A dream that I’d tucked away after Marie-Anne’s attempted novel failed to materialize and took with it my own creative zeal? Well, marketing a kitsch infomercial-cum-documentary-cum-fitness-DVD might not lead me to the Oscars, but one could classify it as film work, broadly defined. It might serve as a gateway into other kinds of film promotion.
I decided to put together a PowerPoint presentation. This particular software program told us everything there was to know about how to persuade. With its bullets, tracks, columns, grids, it was chock-full of martial vocabulary. Even the name seemed to suggest that persuasion was an act of enforcement.
Once I told Qasim that I had a presentation ready for him, he became so excited that he said he’d be on the next flight to Philadelphia. Such things should happen face-to-face, he explained in his e-mail.
In the postscript he asked that I get in touch with Mahmoud so he could be present at the meeting as well. I asked Marie-Anne why it was necessary to bring Mahmoud in. She simply said that Mahmoud tended to get offended if his influence over a deal was not explicitly acknowledged. No one who ran a venture through him ran the risk of challenging his wrath.
* * *
Getting ahold of Mahmoud wasn’t easy. He was a very busy man, though it was unclear why or how, especially as I hadn’t found anything he had written, or even anything in terms of television or radio appearances. He seemed to be known without any effort. The best I could infer was that he was a sort of fixer or liaison who connected people in government and media and other important public institutions. A socialite and a promoter in his own way. But I failed to understand what he got out of it all or how he had attained his station.
I wrote to tell him that I was Marie-Anne’s husband and that Qasim wanted him present for our initial meeting. He replied a week later and said he could stop by on his way to New York from DC. I suggested a couple of hotel conference rooms. But Mahmoud vetoed that option; he said Qasim wouldn’t be comfortable with the possibility of someone hearing about Salato and stealing the idea. He recommended our place as the more suitable venue. I cleared the meeting with Marie-Anne, who was so happy to see me in the flow of work that she said she would come back from Virginia early and be present at the meeting as support.
* * *
On the appointed day I finished tinkering with the presentation and cleaned up the apartment. Outside an airy sleet settled over Philadelphia. The drops lacked volume. The ice was imperceptible, only visible against the reddest of brick, and even then seeing the drops required the assistance of the meek bulbs glowing in the alcoves.
The idea of having a get-together at home filled me with a peculiar anxiety. We hadn’t invited anyone over since that fateful party. All day my eyes went to the bookshelf. This time it wasn’t because of the since-removed Koran, but due to the Nietzsche collection and the works of Rushdie. It was unlikely that a pair of believers would like to see such work in the possession of a man they were doing business with. I swept my hand and moved the seven or eight volumes into the wine closet. I moved the Jewish writers too, just to be safe.
Mahmoud, Qasim, and Marie-Anne ran into one another down in the lobby and came up together.
Qasim was just as tall and fit in person as in the video. He wore a black suit and a gold tie. His watch was Swiss, loafers Italian, embossed handkerchief English. He kissed each cheek of mine with warmth. I pictured him having done the same to Marie-Anne, so when I greeted her I kissed her on the lips instead of the usual peck on the jaw. I regretted it as soon as I did it. I had forgotten that this was one of her pet peeves. When a guy kissed a girl in public it suggested ownership, and Marie-Anne was loathe to give anyone the impression that she was owned.
Mahmoud was much shorter than Qasim. He was also more muscular, with a craggy and severe face that suggested having spent a considerable amount of time outdoors. His eyes seemed fixed to the distance. He wore a traditional fitted black skullcap and his long curly black hair curved out from underneath. He shook my hand. He kept a scarf swirled around his neck. Dangling off his left wrist was a neon turquoise rosary that kept slipping out from underneath the sleeve. His smile was of a man who often found others giving themselves away to him.
During introductions I paid close attention to Mahmoud’s interaction with Marie-Anne. He seemed not to notice her. There was no alchemy there. He only related to her as a contact. All the visions I had of him as an admirer of my wife tumbled away and broke. I was alone again. The only man in the world who persisted in finding Marie-Anne beautiful.
Initially it didn’t seem like Marie-Anne was inclined to let me get to the presentation. She wanted to talk about the meetings in the Persian Gulf. Apparently, both Mahmoud and Qasim had been instrumental in getting MimirCo the private audience with a buyer in the Wazirate and Marie-Anne wanted to emphasize to both men how grateful her CEO was. It occurred to me that my work on Salato was, at best, some sort of quid pro quo, and quite likely a cover for future conversations on behalf of MimirCo. I wasn’t against being Marie-Anne’s tool in the advancement of her career; but I would have liked to have been apprised of my role.
It was Mahmoud who brought the conversation back my way. “Should we find out what sort of plan for Salato we have on the table?” he said, throwing open his old blazer and checking a watch on a platinum chain.
I gave his outfit a second look. Dressed in a V-neck sweater and tight denim jeans, I felt like a child ordered to perform before his father. I had not felt this eye — of evaluation, of criticism — in quite some time. People who used to come to Plutus had been so desperate for us to take them as clients that they used to fall at our feet. And they paid in advance. That assurance was missing now. I had to impress these men or fail to get paid. I became even more nervous when Marie-Anne dimmed the lights and sat down next to Mahmoud, throwing one leg over the other so her foot pointed at him. I stared at her foot so intently that water came to my eyes and in the blurry gaze her foot and his leg seemed to touch. But of course no man would be interested in touching Marie-Anne. I was the only man who could bring himself to do that.
I projected the images onto the wall above the TV and started talking. The first couple of slides detailed the kind of expertise I had. My contacts. My experience. Mahmoud and Qasim sat unmoving through this part, lightly scratching their faces. Qasim was intense. Mahmoud was casual; he evaluated me more than the presentation.
Marie-Anne, meanwhile, smiled in the way she did when she was trying to be supportive, like when I tried to enter her with a condom on and just couldn’t muster the hardness.
The next few slides specified which particular outlets and personalities I’d like to pitch Salato to. These were followed up by specific examples of what previous campaigns I’d done.
Qasim raised his hand. “But what are you going to say to them when they ask what it is? I mean, is it Middle Eastern fitness? Arab yoga? Is it Muslim jujitsu? What’s the hook? The catch?”
This was the inquiry I had set the presentation up for. Richard Konigsberg had taught me to build anticipation. It showed you weren’t afraid to make the client wait, which the client understood as confidence. “It’s kind of like what priests and rabbis do to sell God to us,” Richard had explained. “They talk about everything but God, and we assume it’s because they know God already.”