27

Eventually they reached the complex of government buildings where Prin was to spend the next three days. After passing through a steel gate set in massive cinder-block walls topped with metal spikes, long black gun barrels lolling in between many of them, they drove over a deep-ridged road into a zigzag of security checkpoints, each hemmed in by V-shaped concrete barriers. The barriers were wrapped in images of the President releasing doves and of clasped hands and happy children and women in full hijabs playing soccer while chatting on iPhones.

“We welcome you, Professor, and apologize for these precautions, but we cannot take any chances,” said a guard.

“Of course,” Prin said.

“Much hotter than … Canada, yes?” the guard asked.

“Yes, much hotter,” Prin said.

“Very good! Justin Trudeau! Drake! Their songs inspire the world! My name is Rafik. If you need anything while you are our guest, remember only one thing: I am here. Also: I am here to protect you. Understood? Now, please wait beside your driver,” the guard said.

Prin stepped to the side and Rafik barked at two younger men with significantly less yellow braiding on their uniforms. The two men approached the sedan holding long metal poles affixed with mirrors.

“Those are actually selfie sticks!” the driver said.

He winked dramatically. They’d made it safely. He kept his promise. He had a wife and all those sons, and also the daughters. This guy had daughters. Didn’t he hear about the tips?

Prin stepped away from the driver, not wanting all the undulating and smiling and nodding and winking to look like conspiring. His eyebrows hurt from all the squinting he’d been doing in Dragomans daylight. His collar was damp and he could feel beads of sweat running down his cheeks. Much hotter than Canada! Also, his teeth absolutely ached. He must have been clenching his jaw for hours, all the hours since he’d arrived and left the easy foreignness of the terminal—it could have been a luxury-goods mall in Minnesota—for this hard, bright, strange place.

One of the young guards motioned for them to return to their vehicle and so they drove on through the complex, passing identical squat brown buildings set apart by wide, paved roads, stumpy date palms, and elaborate, browning flower gardens. The driver stopped in front of Government of Dragomans Building #4, as the sign read in Arabic, English, and French. It had a giant QR code pasted on one side, and invitations to Like Us on Facebook. There was also a lot of small print in Cyrillic.

The driver wished Prin well, took one of his hands, and pressed into it a whole lot of mints. Then he held out his other open, empty hand. Assuming this was a cultural thing, Prin grabbed it and the two of them sat there, smiling at each other and holding hands as the mints crumbled between them. Eventually Wende came out of the building and gave Prin fifty dollars to give the driver, who praised God and Canada and left.

She wore a buttoned-up shirt and flowing, off-white pants that looked like a dress until she moved her legs. It was kind of weird, like a magic show, how she moved, and it looked like a dress and then like pants, pants, then dress, and also kind of like the necks of swans and Easter lilies. Prin was jet-lagged.

She gave him a firm nod.

“We’re being watched right now. We’re not married, and we’re obviously not family, so no skin-to-skin contact between us, however innocent,” she said.

“That’s thoughtful of you to let me know, but there’s no need, really. Nice to see you and nice to be here. And who’s watching us?” Prin asked.

“We’re an atheist white woman and a Catholic brown man in a Muslim-majority Middle-Eastern country, Prin. Everyone is watching us,” Wende said.

And that’s a good thing, he thought, for all of us. He didn’t like how smiling and secretive she came across, right away. She certainly didn’t smile or sound secretive in UFU meetings, or in VaultTok, or in his living room with his wife and children. So why now? Because she finally could? And could what, exactly?

He wanted to get this over with, right now. Did she really sit in 34C on her flight to Dragomans, or was that information meant to remind him of something? What did she want, really? Who? Not Whom, but really, him? Or was this all in his limp noodle brain? Probably, if he confronted her—Wende, are you trying to break up my marriage?—she’d laugh (and laugh) and show him a picture of her giant Wall Street boyfriend. Of the two of them laid out on a private beach on an island no one had heard of, one of his great white hands basking on one of her legs.

This was business. She needed to do whatever was necessary to make sure he’d come to Dragomans and give his lecture and keep the money coming. And she knew Prin well enough to know that being strung along (and along) could actually be a kind of perfect state of holy fudge for him: just enough to worry about feeling guilty, and not enough to be found guilty, and either way, exactly enough to keep doing whatever it was he was doing. She had done him the greatest mercy, sleeping with another man while they were dating back in graduate school. Otherwise, they might have been sort-of-engaged for all eternity. This was all in his head, 34C.

He followed her into the front hall of the building, which was dark and freezing. Four security guards, each wearing an automatic weapon across his chest, stood positioned in the four far corners of the hall in front of giant air conditioning vents that rippled big banner portraits of the President with the doves and children and soccer moms of Dragomans. There was an empty information desk in the middle of the hall.

“So, there’s been a schedule change,” Wende said.

“Which is?” Prin asked.

“Good news, actually. It turns out the Minister and some of his staff want to attend your lecture, alongside the students,” Wende said.

“Why?” Prin asked.

“I don’t know. But what the Minister wants, the Minister gets. So, to accommodate his schedule, the talk has been moved from tomorrow morning to this evening—”

“What time is it right now?” Prin asked.

“Exactly. You need to get some sleep and freshen up so you’re ready to give the talk. Because if the Minister’s going to be there, and your lecture goes well, this could be really good for us. We need to get you into bed,” Wende said.

She curled her lips.

He held his breath.

He held his phone.

He wanted it to buzz with a call from HOME. No he didn’t. This was all and only a game. This was all and only business.

“Where’s my room, Wende? I want to call my wife and kids, then take a shower, then take a nap, and then get ready to give my lecture. So stop smiling like there’s something going on here and tell me where I’m supposed to be and please arrange for someone to get me when it’s time to give the lecture,” Prin said.

“RAE!”

The Chinese real estate agent popped up from the information desk in the middle of the hall and came over. She took Prin and his bags away.