bin. He is not a picky eater. He chooses chicken and avocado. He could have done worse, he thinks, as he plucks a Diet Sprite and moves to the cashier.
He sits at one of the outside stone tables despite the chill. He is suddenly very hungry. His last meal was a chef’s salad the previous night at a local Manhattan bistro.
“Oh, so it’s you.”
The words draw his eyes upward. The woman in pink and white stands above him, a burst of white teeth against tanned skin. He has never gotten used to people who smile so openly.
“May I join you?” she asks, resting a hand on the back of the other seat even before he can answer. Such tables are meant for sharing, yet she wants to be invited, and so he waves his hand while his wiry five-foot eleven body swivels to the side to let her pass.
This is the first opportunity to see her face without turning his neck. Her skin is remarkably smooth, as if she is newborn, her natural pink lips full to bursting. There is eye makeup and her brows are neat and dark, but he sees no other artificiality. He hesitates for words. He has rarely engaged a woman like this, but it is all frivolous and Sara is, frankly, not here to think otherwise. He suddenly enjoys the opportunity to relax.
“I thought you got off at a later stop,” she says.
“I did, but I needed to shop,” he answers and pulls the shopping bag upward.
She ignores his bag, saying, “Can you show me the beach?” She is almost so direct that he nearly winces.
All he can think to say is, “If you want to see the beach, you can take a taxi, or I guess I can drop you there.”
“That’s good,” she says without hesitation, yet even before the last words leave his mouth he realizes that a line has been crossed. He has left an opening, and a part of him, that piece of brain housing genetic material that determines conscience, hopes she declines. He has never been unfaithful to his wife, nor even considered it, despite Sara’s recent illusions. Yet this woman whom he now admits to himself looks exotically attractive does nothing to dispel this thought as she accepts the invitation.
“That sounds great.” She reiterates her approval. “Thank you.”
She replaces the top on her soup container and carefully lowers it together with the plastic spoon, wedge of bread, and napkin into a bag that matches his. He stands and directs her to the rear lot and into his car.
“It’s chilly here,” she says from the bench at the very back of the beach, only steps from where he parked. He has taken her to Atlantic Avenue Beach in Amagansett. There are no other cars, the unseasonable cool keeps everyone away save a couple dressed in yellow rain slickers standing near the water, tossing shells into the breakers.
She holds her cup of soup, which she says is too spicy, but nevertheless she eats greedily. In the short drive from where they met, introductions are exchanged. Her name is Heidi Kashani.
“I know Heidi is not a common American name,” she says, “but it is very normal in Austria.”
He agrees and tells her that he likes the name and that it makes him think of green meadows and snow- covered mountains and
“It will be two years next October. I have one more year of residency left. Then I will probably move to California, perhaps to Los Angeles. I am tired of cold winters.”
He concurs with her weather analysis, but avoids noting his own disdain for Los Angeles. Some people love it there, yet her speech is so formal and L.A. so laid back that he finds it hard to picture her in such a place.
She begins to shiver and they agree to head back to the car. She’s right, he thinks. If a fifty-degree day drives her indoors, it’s time to live somewhere else.
“Would you take my picture before we go?” she asks as they stand, but it is more a statement of fact, a command as if she is the one who lives here, and he the visitor. She pulls a camera phone from her bag and shows him where to press for the digital photo. She stands several feet away, the water some hundred feet behind her, a turbulent boil with white froth in the far background. He snaps a photo and she checks it. He has caught a broad, white smile, enhanced by an overhead midday sun.
“Now you,” she says. “If you give me your e-mail address, I’ll send it to you.”
He reluctantly moves from the bench and hands her the camera phone. He has never liked posing, but agrees. He stands with his feet spread and his arms akimbo. He tries to smile and feels relief when the shot is taken. She shows him the image, an olive-complexioned, dark-haired middle-aged man in a white button-down long-sleeved shirt and dark pants. The likeness is actually flattering. His age barely shows.
“Are you Jewish?” she asks after they have settled in the car’s front seat.
He doesn’t hear such a question often. Certainly not in New York. It is, however, not a new sensation. He is a Jew and Jews are integrated into the fabric of American life, yet there is an uneasiness that sits there. His family has been here for more than a hundred years, but nothing is settled. The Nazis had no qualms about killing Jews who had lived in Germany for centuries.
The woman’s words are innocent enough. He answers, “Yes,” and she goes on, oblivious to what flicks through his mind.
“My family is Muslim,” she says, “But I practice nothing. If religion is about morality and ethics, you can certainly have that without any ritual. Do you agree?”
He nods. His slight unease withdraws into a corner and all but disappears. Yet he is reluctant to let the matter rest.
“Why did you ask if I was Jewish?”
“Oh, there are so many Jewish doctors at the hospital, and you are somehow like them—friendly, certainly intelligent, but also a bit reserved and cautious. They often talk about Jewish guilt. Is that something all Jewish men feel?” She smiles at her own words, almost daring him to explain.
Perhaps she is now the psychiatrist playing games, he thinks. He shrugs, yet feels the onset of guilt as she speaks. The woman is flirting with him, but he knows that no matter how appealing, he could never sleep with her, even kiss her, without torment. She is right—he has become cautious.
“How often do the buses go back to New York?” she asks. The segue releases him for a moment from thoughts about guilt. The question doesn’t surprise him. They have only been together a bit more than thirty minutes. He is likely boring her. It’s time for him to get home. A part of him feels relief. He checks his watch.
“There’ll be one in about forty minutes. They have them all the time.”
“I like that,” she says. “Do you have the time to give me a short tour of the area?”
He feels trapped. “I guess I could do that,” he answers with a tug of regret, as if he should have feigned some imaginary appointment, a technique years of business deception had ingrained.
“Oh, that would be very nice,” she says in her clipped, very correct English.
“So I guess you speak Farsi and German as well as English?” he asks.
“What do you know about Farsi?” She raises one brown eyebrow.
“I’ve done business in Iran. I’ve been to Tehran, I think at least three times. And once to Khoramshahr to check on a cargo of steel pipes we sold. Business with NIOC, the National Iranian Oil Company.”
“While the shah was still there?” she asks.
He nods.
“All the senior people there were tied to the shah’s family. Everyone had a chance to make money.”
“Except the traders who sold to them,” he answers, but it is a throwaway line. Everyone made money then. Still, he has an urge to verbalize one of his memories of those days. “Every time we had a contract they would keep coming back and ask us to adjust our terms so there would be more graft to share. I remember one time when they said our sales price was actually too low. Can you imagine a state company telling a supplier to raise its price?”
She doesn’t answer. He wants to ask her what her father did in Iran, but he says nothing. Obviously her family has some money. Vienna is an expensive city and she’s gone to medical school. Perhaps her family was even one of the many he assisted in illegally transferring assets out of the country. There were strict rules against cash transfers, but Posner and his associates devised a scheme that enabled rich Iranians to buy commodities for export—copper, aluminum or steel scrap, it didn’t matter. As soon as the export left an Iranian port, the title documents were negotiable and the traders in Rotterdam were more than happy to pay slightly below market price, which Posner passed on to the Iranian family’s European bank account, less a reasonable commission. Maybe she’s
