“Two point three billion dollars,” I said. Jim was silent for a while. Then he shook his head. “Wildly overoptimistic,” he said. “Your assumptions on customers adopting this thing are way too high. Would you be willing to step into a machine, be dematerialized, and then recomposed thousands of miles away? This is exactly the kind of hyped-up bullshit our clients pay Underwood Samson to see through.” I hung my head. “But,” Jim continued, “your approach was right on. You have what it takes. All you need is training and experience.” He extended his hand. “You’ve got an offer. We’ll give you one week to decide.”
At first I did not believe him. I asked if he was serious, if there was not a second round for me to pass. “We’re a small firm,” he said. “We don’t waste time. Besides, I’m in charge of analyst recruiting. I don’t need another opinion.” I noticed his hand was still hanging in the air between us, and — fearful it might be withdrawn — I reached out and shook it. His grip was firm and seemed to communicate to me, in that moment, that Underwood Samson had the potential to transform my life as surely as it had transformed his, making my concerns about money and status things of the distant past.
I walked back to my dormitory — Edwards Hall, it was called — later that same afternoon. The sky was a brilliant blue, so different from the orange, dusty sky above us today, and I felt something well up inside me, a sense of pride so strong that it made me lift my head and yell, as much to my own surprise as I am sure it was to the other students passing by: “Thank you, God!”
Yes, it was exhilarating. That, in an admittedly long-winded fashion, is how I think, looking back, about Princeton. Princeton made everything possible for me. But it did not, could not, make me forget such things as how much I enjoy the tea in this, the city of my birth, steeped long enough to acquire a rich, dark color, and made creamy with fresh, full-fat milk. It is excellent, no? I see you have finished yours. Allow me to pour you another cup.
Chapter 2
DO YOU SEE those girls, walking there, in jeans speckled with paint? Yes, they are attractive. And how different they look from the women of that family sitting at the table beside ours, in their traditional dress. The National College of Arts is not far — it is, as a matter of fact, only around the corner — and its students often come here for a cup of tea, just as we are doing now. I see one in particular has caught your eye; she is indeed a beauty. Tell me, sir, have you left behind a love — male or female, I do not presume to know your preference, although the intensity of your gaze suggests the latter — in your homeland?
Your shrug is inscrutable, but I will be more forthcoming. I did leave behind a love, and her name was Erica. We met the summer after we graduated, part of a group of Princetonians who had decided to holiday together in Greece. She and the others were members of the university’s most prestigious eating club, Ivy, and were traveling courtesy of gifts from their parents or dividends from their trust funds, which they were now of an age to access; I had cooked my own meals in the basement kitchen of my dormitory and was there thanks to my sign-on bonus from Underwood Samson. I was friendly with one of the Ivy men, Chuck, from my days on the soccer team, and was well-liked as an exotic acquaintance by some of the others, whom I had met through him.
We assembled in Athens, having arrived on different flights, and when I first saw Erica, I could not prevent myself from offering to carry her backpack — so stunningly regal was she. Her hair was piled up like a tiara on her head, and her navel — ah, what a naveclass="underline" made firm, I would later learn, by years of tae kwon do — was visible beneath a short T-shirt bearing an image of Chairman Mao. We were introduced, she smiled as she shook my hand — whether because she found me irresistibly refined or oddly anachronistic, I did not know — and then we headed off with the group to the port city of Piraeus.
It was immediately apparent that I would not have, in my wooing of Erica, the field to myself. In fact, no sooner had we set sail on our ferry to the islands than did a young man — a tooth dangling on a string of leather in front of his bare, but meagerly muscled, chest — begin to strum his guitar and serenade her from across the deck. “What language is that?” she asked me, leaning close enough for her breath to tickle my ear. “English, I believe,” I replied after much concentration. “As a matter of fact, it is Bryan Adams, ‘Summer of ‘69.’” She laughed. “You’re right,” she said, politely lowering her voice to add, “Wow, he’s terrible!” I was inclined to agree, but now that I knew the troubadour posed no threat, I chose to maintain a magnanimous silence instead.
A more serious challenge would come from Chuck’s good — and similarly monosyllabically monikered — friend Mike, who, the next day, as we sat in a restaurant overhanging the lip of the shattered volcano that is the island of Santorini, casually extended his arm along the back of Erica’s chair and remained in that position, which surely became uncomfortable, for the better part of an hour. Erica made no sign that she wished him to remove his arm, but I drew some consolation from the fact that throughout the dinner she listened intently when I spoke, smiling from time to time and training her green eyes upon me. Afterwards, however, on the walk to our pension, she and Mike trailed behind the rest of us, and that night I found it difficult to sleep.
In the morning, I was relieved to see that she came down to breakfast before Mike — not with him — and I was also pleased that we appeared to be the first two of our group to be awake. She spread jam on a croissant, gave half to me, and said, “You know what I’d like to do?” I asked her what. “I’d like to stay here by myself,” she said, “rent a room on one of these islands and just write.” I told her she should, but she shook her head. “I wouldn’t last a week,” she said. “I’m not good at being alone. But you, on the other hand,” and here she tilted her head and crossed her arms, “I think you’d be fine.”
I have never, to the best of my knowledge, had any fear of solitude, and so I shrugged in assent and said, by way of explanation, “When I was a child, there were eight of us, eight cousins, all in the same compound — a single boundary wall surrounded the plot of land my grandfather left to his sons, you see — and we had between us as many as three dogs and, for a time, a duck.” She laughed, and then she said, “So being alone was a luxury, huh?” I nodded. “You give off this strong sense of home,” she said. “You know that? This I’m-from-a-big-family vibe. It’s nice. It makes you feel solid.” I was pleased — even though I was not sure I fully understood — and said thank you for want of anything better to say. Then, hesitantly because I did not wish to be too forward, I asked, “And you, do you feel solid?”
She considered this and said, with what I thought was a trace of sadness in her voice, “Sometimes, but no, not really.” Before I could respond we were joined by Chuck, and then by Mike, and the conversation turned to beaches and hangovers and the timings of ferries. But when I looked at Erica and she looked back at me, I felt we both understood that something had been exchanged between us, the first invitation to a friendship, perhaps, and so I waited patiently for an opportunity to resume our discussion.