29

“Way to go, team!” said the Chinese real estate developer.

He brought a bucket of champagne to the table where Prin, Wende, and Rae were sitting. Knees were sort-of touching under the table. They were in a Frenchified cafeteria somewhere deep inside another building within the government complex, one that housed the offices of foreign embassies. Now and then, as tonight, the embassies could book the employee cafeteria and, for a short period of time and with no social media allowed and provided the mess was cleaned up before midnight, treat it like home territory.

The French certainly were.

The fluorescent overhead lights had been shut off, and candles and dark-shaded lamps placed in the middle of metal tables covered in creamy white tablecloths. Here and there were little vases of pretty desert flowers and baskets of steaming bread—baguettes flown in from Paris, par-baked and then frozen, then finished in local ovens. The bread was crispy and soft and warm and chewy. The food counter, also covered in creamy white cloth, was set up with bottles of wine and beer and champagne. Two bald, stubbly men took drink orders while a third ran electronic dance music off his laptop. He was dressed in a tri-colour Adidas tracksuit. Twenty or so people, mostly foreign contractors and diplomatic staff, most of them young and bespectacled and thin, were drinking and laughing and strutting to the music.

Knees were definitely touching.

Prin shifted away.

Wende shifted closer.

Prin adjusted his chair again and then reached and clinked his glass with the others before sipping. He was still waiting for an explanation of what they were celebrating, beyond the end of Ramadan, French-embassy style, and also why the Chinese real estate developer was here and why he was so happy about Prin’s Kafka lecture.

And how were they a team? Why were they a team?

“Thank you for the champagne and your kind words about my talk … I’m sorry, I still haven’t learned your name,” Prin said.

“Just call me The Nephew. Everyone does. And even if you don’t know who my uncle is, the point is that I have an uncle. An Uncle Uncle. Back in Beijing. You know what I mean?” said The Nephew.

“Not exactly,” Prin said.

“Probably better for everyone,” Wende said.

Prin glared at her while wondering how she was able to keep her shirt that unbuttoned without anything showing. She was smiling at The Nephew, who was re-gelling his hair into great, sharp spikes while surveying the room. Eventually a woman at another table made what technically could be construed as eye contact. He bolted. A moment later, he texted Rae to bring the bucket of champagne to his new table.

“Listen, Wende, something is clearly going on here between you and The Nephew—”

“Are you jealous?” she asked.

“And with the people here in Dragomans, with me and my university somehow caught in the middle of it all. Look, I’ve left my family behind to be here, and I just gave that exhausting and kind of stressful talk, and I have a responsibility to let my colleagues know whether it makes more sense to open this satellite campus in Dragomans or sell our last building to … The Nephew. That’s what I was told my role was here —”

“It doesn’t have to be. It can be more,” Wende said.

“I don’t want it to be more, Wende! I am not interested. And keep your knees to yourself,” Prin said.

“What do you mean? It’s a small table,” Wende said.

“I am not interested in this,” Prin said.

“You know I hate indeterminate pronoun usage. Say it, Prin. Say it and I will leave you alone,” Wende said.

“I am not interested in you!” Prin said.

She was about to say something but instead bit her lip. Her eyes, normally blue-gray shiny buttons, grew big and glassy, teary. Never mind the dragon-queen jewellery and sour-lip stuff, Wende looked like a lost little girl just then. He almost wanted to—but she got up from the table and left the room through a side door that had a picture of stairs on it.

Prin sat alone. He drank down his glass of cold, sweet champagne and watched all the happy, drunken bad dancers around him. So she was interested. All these years later. A junior staffer from the French embassy, as sober as an ayatollah, was circulating through the crowd to obtain insurance waiver release consents. All told, Prin was feeling pretty good and true and right. Here was temptation, real and right in his face, and he’d turned it away. All these years later. She had invited all of this, for reasons Prin didn’t know or care to know. He was here for work, only he was confused what that meant now. Looking across the cafeteria, Prin tried to get Rae’s attention—she’d tell him what was going on with The Nephew. But she was mostly blocked from Prin’s view by The Nephew’s chunky, Versace’d shoulders, which kept yukking up and down at whatever the woman beside him was saying. Prin got up to leave, waived the need for the waiver and so had to sign a “waiver waiver.” He made for the main exit and then his pants buzzed. It was a VaultTok text from Wende.

“Are you sure?”