The Refugees(22)
Martín sighed, coughed, and glanced at his watch. “We’re brothers, Artie,” he said, raising himself from the desk, which creaked in relief. At the door, Martín paused, as if to say something else, and then left, the absence of his considerable heft palpable, an imaginary cutout into which Arthur’s own body could fit. According to Dr. Viswanathan, the donor would have been a man of roughly the same size and weight as Arthur himself, and from there, before having learned about Men Vu and meeting Louis, Arthur had conjectured that the donor might be in other ways like him too: middle-aged and graying, of a Mexican ancestry only vaguely remembered by word of mouth from ancient grandparents with faces like Easter Island statues, vulnerable to the seductions of seven-dollar all-you-can-eat Chinese buffets and sugar-glazed doughnuts pregnant with raspberry preserves, a profile also befitting Martín. Would Martín have given Arthur a spare part of himself? A kidney, say, or bone marrow? Would Arthur have done the same for Martín? The questions bothered Arthur all day, and later that evening in Louis’s apartment, he gave the most honest answer he could to his friend.
“I think so,” Arthur said. “I would, I think I really would.”
The bones and scraps and wilted garnish of their dinner lay on the coffee table in Styrofoam containers, whisked to Louis’s door every evening by the teenage son of a widow who cooked for two dozen bachelors. She used the four-burner stove in her own kitchen to conjure dishes that were, Louis said, minor masterpieces, aromatic catfish caramelized in a clay pot, tender chicken sautéed in lemongrass and chili, a deep-dish omelet of mushrooms and green onions, -wok-fried morning glory studded with slivers of garlic, -everything meant to be dipped in a pungent sauce that was the lifeblood of Vietnamese cooking, a distilled essence of fish imbued with the color of dawn and flecked by red chili pepper. Satiated, Louis sighed in appreciation and said, “It’s like getting shot at. No one really knows what he’ll do until bullets are flying.”
“Really, I would,” Arthur said. “Even though I can’t stand him, he’s still my brother.”
“It’s easy to say when you won’t ever have to do it.”
Indeed, Arthur never would. After he had bravely announced to Dr. Viswanathan that he too wished to donate his organs, the doctor had explained how the cyclosporine and corticosteroids Arthur ingested to keep his body from rejecting the liver had ruined his body for donation. Secretly Arthur was pleased, feeling that his decision to donate, before he was told he could not, gave him a toehold on the moral high ground, the kind of real estate that Louis said could not be bought. Louis knew the value of real estate, for he owned two houses and a condo in Perris, the affordable suburb in the far-eastern reaches of the Inland Empire that he liked to call the other Paris. Even now Louis was doing his homework, watching a television show about increasing the resale value of houses with simple and inexpensive renovation ideas that involved thrift-store shopping, Dumpster diving, and attic treasure hunts.
“I love that stick-on floor tile they’re using in the kitchen,” Louis said. “From here, you can’t even tell it’s not really marble.”
“Why don’t you just live in one of those houses you bought?” Arthur said. Louis’s apartment was even bleaker than before. With the inventory gone, the mismatched furniture was fully exposed, as were the walls, once white but now gray. “You should enjoy your quality of life. That’s one thing I’ve learned this year.”
“But I am enjoying my quality of life.” Louis stretched out on the couch, from whose depths would later emerge a double-size bed for Arthur. “I’m thinking about how my renters pay my mortgage and how I’ll profit from those houses in a few years. I’m thinking about how I’m going to corner the market in better than genuine goods, which is a bigger market than the one for things most people can’t afford to buy.”
This, Arthur realized, was the difference between them. Arthur thought of what he had done, what he was doing, or what he should have done, but Louis thought only of what he would do. For example, rather than resigning himself to saying “fake” or “knockoff,” Louis preferred to say “better than genuine.” But, he always emphasized, his wares actually were better, in the sense of being much, much cheaper. Why own one of the originals, he liked to say, when for the same price you could own a dozen, two dozen, even several dozen, of the better than genuine version?
“It’s not all about money, Louis,” Arthur said. “What about a wife? A family?”
“You mean love?” Louis pointed to the gold ring on -Arthur’s finger. “Can you say that’s made you happy, Arthur?”
“It’s not love’s fault if things haven’t worked out between me and Norma.”
“I’ve tried love,” Louis said, as if it were a kind of soft, malodorous French cheese. “It’s okay, but the problem with it is the other person involved. She has a mind of her own. You can’t say the same thing about things.”
Arthur watched Louis for any sign of irony, but the small frown on Louis’s face indicated he was serious. “Tell me about her,” Arthur said. “Or was there more than one?”
“It’s all in the past, Arthur.” Louis gestured over his shoulder dismissively. “And I never think about the past. Every morning that I wake up I’m a new man.”