I lagged behind him. I peeked into closed-off sections of the complex. The side courts were in disrepair and the interior buildings almost entirely off-limits to my prying. Here is where the Empress Dowager Cixi made her extravagant demands. Here is where Puyi took the throne, lost it.
AT DINNER AT Beijing Da Dong Roast Duck restaurant, the congressman got drunk with businessmen from Bund International who slurped their noodles and instructed us to dip our Peking duck skin in the sugar bowl next to each place setting.
I reached out once to stay the hand of the waitress pouring Leo’s wine. It was fatal to my boss, what she kept dumping into his glass. The congressman struck my hand out of the way, hard enough that other guests heard the slap. He screwed his face up tight and hung a tough look on me. He was going to sit here with the other men and take his drink, and I had no right to stop him. Leo saw himself as a man of great soul beset, like all great men, by fierce demons—but his only proof of the great soul was the existence of the demons.
I watched him empty his wine. He dissolved into a clutter of symbols. He had an American flag pin he wore on his lapel the way someone superstitious might clutch an amulet. He had hardened hair, thin, combed sideways across his head and screaming insincerity. He was nothing like my own father, but he was a fatherly archetype—big-voiced, impatient, ever vigilant of his status in the room. Whenever he tried to expand his emotive range beyond gloating or annoyance, it was without exception uncomfortable.
Through dinner, the congressman did most of the talking. He was interrupted only when someone thought it necessary to announce the name of a particular delicacy being set before us or to relate a historical fact about our surroundings: “Here is the Cantonese chicken dish that Richard Nixon declared his favorite during the visit in 1972.” Something was said about Chairman Mao that I didn’t catch. And did we know the restaurant was once a granary for the Forbidden City?
Contrary to the custom of our hosts, who made these pleasantries and discussed nothing else specifically, the more Leo drank, the more eager he became to defend the intricacies of America’s global military positioning. He drank himself presidential, as though offering a realpolitik address behind closed doors to reluctant allies. The men from Bund International—with Li-Li along to translate—listened politely.
“Think of it as poker,” Leo said. “Saddam was representing aces.”
We sat at the table fifteen strong, as though in a well-catered committee meeting. I was served an architecturally plated dish of lotus root and crab. The low light was flattering, the windows at dusk even more inviting as decorative lanterns came lit in the street below. I focused just beyond Leo’s head, at the waiter boning out a duck, slivering the meat onto a serving dish.
“Fine, Saddam was bluffing. But it was still the right play, on the percentages,” Leo said. Our private dining room invited and prolonged his diatribe. “We made him show.”
The men nodded like veterans of Macau poker tables. The highest ranked among them, a vice president of some sort, eventually raised a question. He went by Charles, for our benefit.
“There is always a duty,” he said. “To know the tendencies of your opponent. To know how he bets.”
Charles was the only man who wore a tie I liked, checkered black and silver, sealed at the collar with an impeccable Windsor knot. He had matted cheeks, among many that glistened red around him, and two tiny eyes in his chinless, oval face.
“Let me tell you a story about our ‘opponent,’” Leo said. “Spring, 1990.” I stifled a groan. Leo continued: “We had this woman testify before Congress—a girl, really, not even eighteen. She worked in a Kuwaiti hospital. Saddam’s army bashed their way into the ward where she worked with newborns. The soldiers ripped three-pound babies out of their incubators, left them to die on the concrete floor of the hospital.”
“No one would dispute this is inexcusable . . .” Charles said.
Leo, at the time, had taken the nurse’s story personally. He pled for weeks after, to whoever would listen, begged we deploy our vast military for humanity’s sake. Pundits joked that the shortest distance between any two points was the straight line between Leo Fillmore and a television camera.
“It was truly awful,” Leo said. “And you know what else? None of it was true.”
Charles looked to me for clarification. I only scribbled in my small black notebook. On its title page I had written: The Congressman’s Memory. It started as a joke between Alex and me and afterward turned into a piece of our ritual banter. Once when I was running late in the morning, gathering my things, I asked her, “Have you seen The Congressman’s Memory?” and she’d said, “No, and I haven’t seen his conscience, either.”
“She was a setup,” Leo went on. “Her father was a Kuwaiti diplomat. They hired a goddamn advertising firm to coach her.”
“So what is the reason for this story?” Charles asked. He looked to Li-Li, perplexed, as though there must be context she was omitting.
“My point is this time it was pure calculation,” Leo said. “I don’t have anymore fucking illusions about saving the world.”
He took a pause here to survey his audience. The Gospel of Leo went something like this: “For God so loved the world he said, ‘Fuck it, you people aren’t worth saving.’”
“This sounds very much like two poor poker players,” said a man who hadn’t spoken all evening. He’d had the shortest introduction of all the executives and was seated farthest from Charles. His tie was thrown back over his shoulder. He was wildly drunk—a bottle of whiskey that had sprouted lips. He looked like he knew as soon as it was out of his mouth that he’d fucked himself.
“Well Saddam’s fucking dead,” Leo said. “How’s that for a hand?”
Charles directed curt words at the man who’d spoken out of turn. The man stood up, mostly under his own power, and there might have been fire ants crawling up his legs as he marked a curved path to the door. He turned, preparing for a final exchange, and was cut off by three men at once, who ushered him into the hallway. Li-Li translated none of this.
Charles stood for a toast to clear the air, but he looked like a man who knew his operation had just turned from rescue to salvage.
“We look forward to much future cooperation with Congressman Fillmore,” he said. Leo glared into his wine glass.
Charles continued: “And now I offer a toast to our mutual friend, Armand Lightborn, for bringing us together tonight.”
“To Armand,” Leo said, raising a glass to the absent presence. But I didn’t write Lightborn’s name in my book. I knew better.
MY BOSS FILLED my suit pockets with the business cards he’d collected, expecting me to alphabetize them later.
“They wish to say good night to you now,” Li-Li said, indicating the line of men clustered expectantly at the door.
The representatives of Bund International swayed like they were on the deck of a pitching ship. Charles listed right and gave my hand a firm shake, with a sweeping motion to lead me out of the room. He held the congressman back to offer further apologies. I stood in the corridor, and Li-Li was forced to take a few steps toward me as men gathered in tight around Leo. I remembered her red in the face at the morning’s meeting, embarrassed by how the men around her spoke, and so I took the risk of saying what came into my head. I had a desire to put a beam of daylight between my boss and me. I leaned to her ear: “You ever get the feeling these guys would rob their own mothers’ graves?”
Li-Li worked on what I’d said, visibly untangling it. Before she could respond, Charles pulled her away.
I hung back in the low, gold light at the top of the stairway, and I wanted to crawl into my shadow. It wasn’t that I thought I had risked much—it was that her reaction showed me an uncomfortable reflection. Perhaps to Li-Li I didn’t appear as different from these men as I wanted to be.
IN