In the tent, young people darted around, arranging chairs, taping down speakers, testing the microphones.
Rachel saw him first. —Is this really happening today?
Alan had no idea. —Looks like it, he said.
Brad looked up from the projector. —We’ll be ready.
Along one side of the tent, a vast table had been erected, easily forty feet long, covered in a white tablecloth and bearing dozens of silver heating trays. The catering had already arrived, a mix of hot and cold foods, Saudi and Western, everything from fava beans to risotto to shawarma. There was an array of white couches, a team of Pakistani workers arranging them in rows facing the stage.
Alan left the tent, running to the Black Box to see if he could get any clarity about the timing of the visit. He heard a helicopter, and looked up to see two of them, flying low, landing somewhere near the welcome center. He jogged to the front door.
Maha at the reception desk, who had been so unhelpful before, was now eager to talk. Blond! She told Alan that the King’s people, if the King were to arrive that day, would send word twenty minutes beforehand. Otherwise Reliant should be ready immediately and all day.
Alan returned to the tent. Brad was on the stage, sitting cross-legged, typing furiously into his laptop. Rachel and Cayley were standing below, talking on their cellphones. Alan approached Brad.
—We ready?
—Two minutes.
In two minutes, just after Brad announced that they were ready to test the holographic presentation with their team in London, a man they hadn’t seen before entered the tent. He was Saudi, tall and wearing a white thobe, carrying a leather attaché. He stood in the doorway, as if reluctant to invade their personal space, and raised his hands to get the attention of all those rushing around inside.
—Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to say that the King will not be here today. You have been misled. He informed them that there had been some miscommunication somewhere along the line. Someone in the King’s communications department had given unauthorized and incorrect information to someone at Emaar, and the news had been wrongly and widely disseminated. The King’s schedule for KAEC was still up in the air but for now he was, in fact, in Jordan, and would be for the next three days.
The mood among the young people, at least for a moment or two, was something like despair. Alan had the feeling, looking at Brad’s deflation, that this was among the bigger disappointments of his life. Rachel and Cayley, after a short period of mourning, went back to their laptops, and seemed happy enough now that there were couches in the tent, and food, and a strong wi-fi signal, so they sat eating contentedly while Brad lay on the stage, between the various projectors, his legs akimbo, like a toy bear.
Alan went outside, where he saw the same sort of activity as earlier, only in reverse. The delivery trucks were leaving, the taxis and vans were gone, the place was shutting down.
He wandered around the grounds of the development, noticing various improvements they’d made that morning. There was suddenly a wide moat of flowers around the Black Box. The promenade now was crowded with palm trees — maybe a hundred more had been installed that day. Far off he could see the fountains around the welcome center, now shooting bright plumes of water high into the air.
Standing at the bottom of the steps to the Black Box, he spotted a black SUV emerging from the underground garage. It stopped next to him and the rear window dropped, revealing a blond head, a smiling face. It was Hanne.
—Thrills galore, she said.
—I guess so.
—Sorry for the false alarm.
—No need. Probably good that we practice.
—I’m going back to Jeddah. You need a ride?
Alan thought about it. There was no need for him to be on the site. But he did not want to be alone with Hanne.
—I should stay with the team, he said.
—You okay?
—I am, he said.
She raised her eyebrows, some indication that she would pry if he had given her reason to think it would be welcome. He said nothing more, and with a wave she was gone.
Before he could move, he heard his name.
—Alan!
He looked up to to the Black Box. A familiar man was racing down the steps. Alan couldn’t immediately place him. The face came into focus just in time. The man was upon him, extending his hand.
—Mujaddid. From the tour. Remember?
—Of course. Good to see you again, Mujaddid.
—A lot of excitement today, huh?
Alan agreed that it had been exciting.
—I’ve been looking for you, Mujaddid said. I happened to talk to Karim al-Ahmad, and he let me know about your trip down the canals, and how enthused you were about the development.
—I was very impressed. I am very impressed.
—Excellent. Well, as you know, I am in charge of private home sales, and I hope it’s not presumptuous of me to think you might be in the market for a home here in the King Abdullah Economic City.
Before Alan could protest, Mujaddid had explained the various advantages of having a second home — he used the phrase pied-à-terre — here at KAEC, especially for a man like himself, who was likely to be spending some time here implementing the IT plan. Hearing what seemed to be the near certainty in Mujaddid’s statement, the strong implication that Reliant’s grip on the IT sale was unshakeable, gave Alan a burst of confidence. He agreed to a tour of the condominium.
—Were you aware that some of our people are already living here? Mujaddid wanted to know.
Alan had not been aware, but it explained the faces he had seen, occasionally, in the high windows.
They entered the building and Mujaddid stopped them in the vast foyer. The ceiling was thirty feet, a glass rotunda above.
—It is both grand and welcoming, don’t you think? It was garish and daunting, but Alan nodded cheerfully.
—Now, as you may know, one floor of the building has been finished, and a number of the staff members are currently occupying the units. I’d like to show you their homes, so you can see the level of luxury and convenience available, even at this early stage of the dev—
Mujaddid paused, retrieved his phone and looked at its screen. Something alarmed him, so he answered it. A brief conversation in Arabic ensued, and when he was finished, he smiled apologetically.
—Would you excuse me for a moment? I have received some urgent news from the office, and they’d like me to run over there for a meeting. It’s unavoidable, I’m afraid.
—No problem.
—I will return shortly.
Alan must have looked put out, and maybe he was, because he didn’t want to be alone. Mujaddid conjured a new plan.
—Why don’t you go up to the fifth floor yourself? Ring the doorbell at number 501. I will let the owner know you’re coming, and he will show you the unit. Actually, that’s best. He has lived here from the beginning and gives a better testimonial than I can. His name is Hasan.
Mujaddid apologized again and left.
Alan wandered the first floor, through the sites of the future Wolfgang Puck, the future Pizzeria Uno. The floor was covered in dust and sand. The only piece of furniture on the entire level was an enormous steel cooling rack, standing alone in the middle of the floor like the framing of a mobile and lonely skyscraper. He felt silly wandering around the empty building, but he couldn’t be rude. He had to take the tour. It might be some kind of quid pro quo situation. He buys a condo, they give him the IT. At the very least, it was the friendly thing to do.
He walked to the end of the building, and there he found another stairway, dark and made of concrete. When he got to the third floor, he heard voices, close, just on the other side of the fire door. Had Mujaddid said the fifth floor when he meant the third?
Alan opened the fire door and a roar of echoes flooded through. He was in a large raw space full of men, some in their underclothes, some in red jumpsuits, all yelling. It looked like picture
s he’d seen of prison gyms converted to dormitories. There were fifty bunks, clothes hanging on lines between them. The beds were empty, though — all the men were gathered in the center of the room, barking, pushing. Alan had interrupted some kind of fight. These were the workers Alan had seen around the site; Yousef had said they were Malaysian, Pakistani, Filipino.
Alan wanted to leave, and quickly, but couldn’t tear himself away. What was happening? He needed to at least see what they were fighting over. There was a pair of men in the middle, their arms entangled. One of them held something. Alan couldn’t see it — it fit into the man’s hand. Money? Something very small. Keys?
A man at the periphery saw Alan and got the attention of the man next to him. They both stared, dumbfounded. One of the two men gestured for Alan to come to them, presumably to break up the fight that they couldn’t. Alan took a step toward them, but the second man flicked his hand at Alan, shooing him away. He stopped.
Now a few other men saw Alan, and within seconds they had announced his presence to the room. It grew quiet, and the fighting stopped. All the men, all two dozen or so of them, stood still, as if Alan had come to inspect them. The man who had originally urged him forward did so again. Alan took another step toward them, but didn’t see a deep groove in the floor. His shoe caught and he found himself flailing backward. He regained his balance momentarily, but then slipped on the sandy floor, causing him to teeter quickly to the left. He almost imploded completely but found a wall in time and steadied himself. The twenty-five men saw it all.
Alan had two options now. He could simply retreat, having made an ass of himself before opening his mouth. Or he could press on, given they had not laughed and still seemed to see some aura around him. Something about his strangeness, his clothes, said he belonged here more than they did.
Alan raised his hand. —Hello.
A few men nodded.
Stepping toward them, Alan took in the smell of working men, of sweat and cigarettes and stale laundry.
—Now what’s happening here? Alan said. What’s this all about? He heard in his own voice some hint of a British accent. Where had that come from? No one said anything, but he had their attention.
Alan stepped between them, bolstered by their apparent faith in him as mediator, and demanded that the two men open their palms. One man’s were empty. In the right hand of the other man, a cellphone. It was an older model, a flip-phone with a cracked screen. It looked like someone had thrown it out. Then, with a shudder of recognition, Alan realized someone had. It must be Cayley’s. It was the phone she’d tossed the first day.
—Where did you find this? he asked the man who held it.
The man said nothing. He had no idea what Alan had said.
—Does anyone here speak English? Alan asked.
A few of the men recognized this query, but shook their heads. No one spoke a word of Alan’s language. This would be difficult. He couldn’t find out how they’d gotten the phone, or who had a right to it. He couldn’t get at any of the reasons why they were fighting, or who was right, or the history between the two men, or the men they represented. Maybe this was some rivalry, some feud going back months or centuries? He had no way to know.
He hoped he had a quarter. He reached in his pocket and found one. A coinflip seemed as fair as any other way to settle it.
—Okay, he said, whoever guesses right, which side is up, he’ll get the phone. Okay?
He showed the men the two sides of the coin. They seemed to understand. He flipped it in the air, caught it, covered it and pointed to the man who had last held the phone.
—You call it, Alan said.
The man said nothing. They hadn’t played this game. As Alan was trying to decide how to explain heads and tails, the other man grabbed the phone and left the room, bounding down the stairwell. For a few long moments, the second man didn’t know what to do. He seemed to expect that Alan would have a solution. But Alan did not have a solution, and once this had been established, the man ran out, following the first man into the stairway and down.
The mood of the room quickly darkened. The rest of the workers surrounded Alan, yelling in his face. His sleeve was being pulled. Someone pushed his back. They wanted him to leave. He backed away, apologizing, not sure if he should turn his back and run. Finally he did, and fled the same way the two men had, but knew he couldn’t go straight down — he might encounter the second man, the losing man, coming back. He ran up, hearing footsteps in the stairwell. At least a few men were chasing him.
He got off on the fourth floor. He swung the door wide and ran across the empty floor. There was nothing there but columns — no walls, no framing, nothing. The door didn’t close behind him. He heard a thump as the men passed through. They were still after him. Would they actually harm him? He was in a white shirt and khakis! He didn’t turn around. He made it to the other end of the floor and to another stairwell. He thrust open the door and scrambled up.
He needed to find room 501. Now footsteps below him, following him up. His breath was labored, heaving. At the fifth floor, he pushed open the fire door, leaned against it, to rest and to block their entry. When he looked up, he found that he had leaped forward in time. It seemed to be an entirely different building. The fifth floor was finished, modern, no detail forgotten.
He waited for the men following him to burst through, but there was no sound on the other side of the door. Had they been scared off by this, the finished floor? Did their run of the building end here? It seemed to make a certain sense.
He jogged down the long hallway, illuminated brightly by a colonnade of chandeliers. The ceiling was the deep blue of a summer storm, the wallpaper a symphony of stripes in cornflower and ochre. The carpet was lush, cream colored and undulating as if swept by tiny winds. There were fixtures, outlets, polished teak tables, fire extinguishers, every last sign of civilized living.
Dazed and disbelieving, he found room 501 and knocked on the door. It opened immediately, as if the man, wearing a suit and what appeared to be an ascot, had had his hand on the knob all day.
—Mr. Clay, I presume. He was a man of about Alan’s age, clean shaven, wearing glasses and a sly smile.
—Hasan?
—So good to meet you.
They shook hands.
—I worried you’d gotten lost.
—I think I did.
—Come in.
His home was vast and open and bathed in amber light. It occupied the full width of the building, panoramic window to panoramic window. The decor was sophisticated, with gleaming hardwood floors, custom rugs, a mix of low-slung midcentury couches and tables, the occasional antique flourish — a huge mirror with gold leaf and a lightning-shaped crack through the middle. Over the mantle, a quartet of drawings by someone who was either Degas or drew dancers precisely as he did. Classical music spiraled from every corner.
—Are you okay? Hasan said. You look like you just ran a few miles.
Alan heard no sounds from the hallway, and was sure that whoever was pursuing him would not come here. He was away, he was safe. This was somewhere else entirely.
—I’m fine, he said. Just the stairs. I’m out of shape.
Alan moved toward the window facing the sea, and soon found himself standing there, looking out. He could see the tent, just below, looking far smaller than seemed possible from only five floors up. Beyond it was the beach, and quickly he could see where he had spent his days at the water.
—Tea?
Alan turned, about to answer.
Hasan raised an eyebrow. —Or something more compelling?
Alan smiled, thinking he was kidding, but Hasan was standing before a fully stocked bar cart of glass and gold, his hand on a crystal decanter.
—Yes, please.
Alan understood nothing in this country. He had not seen even one rule observed consistently. He had, moments before, been among an army of impoverished Malaysian laborers seeming to be squatting in an unfinished building and now
he was two floors up and in the most sophisticated dwelling possible. And drinking with a man he had to assume was a Muslim of some influence.
Hasan handed him what seemed to be Scotch, and gestured to the couch. They sat on opposite sides of a U-shaped configuration of immaculate white leather.
—Soooo, Hasan said, stretching the word until it implied any number of things, all unsavory. He folded his left leg over the right with something just short of elegance. There was something slightly unnerving about Hasan, and Alan figured out what it was — a facial tic, or a pair of them, working in concert. His left eye would wince, and his mouth frown, as if repeatedly disapproving of the distraction caused by the tic of the eye. It happened again: blink, frown.
—Have you seen much of the building?
Alan told him of coming upon the men on the third floor. He said nothing of the fight, given the possibility that the workers, as disposable as they were no doubt considered, might be fired en masse and quickly replaced.
—I’m so sorry. How did you get to that part of the building?
—Just found myself there, I guess.
—What did you see among the workers?
—I saw them just there, you know, milling around.
—Were you shocked to find them here?
—Not really. Nothing here surprises me.
Hasan chuckled. —Good. That’s really good. We house the rest of them offsite. You might have seen some of the trailers. More?
He topped off Alan’s Scotch. The first pour had disappeared quicker than it should have.
—How’s business? Alan asked, considering the question rhetorical. The man was trying to sell the condos at KAEC. His answer would be effusive.
—Honestly? Quite trying.