Homeland Elegies(5)
“How do you say it?”
“Ak-tar.”
“So Ak, like in Oc-topus.”
“That works.”
“But is that how you say it? Where you’re from?—Where are you from?”
“Pakistan.”
“Pakistan—”
“And we pronounce the name differently there.”
“I’m talented. I can say it right.”
“So we say Akhtar.” Father reverted to the native kh guttural sound that no white American in his experience had ever been able to master. There was a moment’s silence on the other end of the line.
“Oh, that sounds hard. I don’t know about that, Doctor.”
“Ak-tar is fine, Mr. Trump.”
They both laughed.
“Okay, okay. Ak-tar it is. And you call me Donald. Please.” Trump then proceeded to apologize for missing his appointment. Disarmed by his warmth, Father demurred. Trump asked if his room was big enough: “It’s New York City. Hard to feel like you ever have enough space. But I had them put you in a nice suite. Do you like it? We redid those rooms when I bought the place—”
“Mr. Trump—”
“That hotel is a masterpiece, Doctor. The Mona Lisa. That’s what it is.”
“Mr. Trump—”
“Call me Donald, please—”
“Please excuse me, Donald, but I didn’t come to New York to stay in a nice hotel. I came here to help you. I’m not sure you understand how serious this problem with your heart could be. If you have Brugada, I’m not exaggerating when I say you are a walking time bomb. You could be dead tomorrow.” There was silence. Father continued: “I’m flattered to receive the royal treatment from you, Donald. I am. But I just came from Brunei, where I treated the sultan of Brunei. He is a king, and he was on time for his appointment. Because he understood that if he doesn’t get it taken care of, he might be dead tomorrow.”
“Okay, Doctor,” Trump said blankly after a short pause. “I’ll be there. What time?”
“Eight a.m.”
“I’m sorry I missed it today. I’m very sorry, Doctor. It wasn’t respectful of you. Or your time. I apologize. I mean it.”
“It’s fine, Donald.”
“You forgive me?”
Father laughed.
“Okay, good. You’re laughing,” Trump said. “I’m sorry about today, but I will be there tomorrow. First thing. I promise.”
*
Early in the campaign for the 2016 election, when there was all the anatomizing of Trump’s character and his style—and the speculation about his real chances—one thing much repeated was that Trump did not know how to apologize. As he careened from one lie and ill-advised faux pas to another, it was endlessly remarked that the man seemed incapable of saying he was sorry, even when it might have helped him. To admit you were wrong meant to show weakness, and this, it seemed, ran contrary not only to his every business instinct but also to the very rule of his being. An unmistakable contempt for weakness is what I gleaned from every boardroom firing of The Apprentice I ever saw. Invariably, the contestant who ended up on the other side of Trump’s jab-and-sack signature line, spat out onto Fifth Avenue, forlorn, ferried—via black limousine—far from the Olympian suite near the top of Trump Tower, where the remaining aspirants sipped Champagne and celebrated the wisdom of Mr. Trump’s choice; invariably, that contestant was the one too willing to share blame, too willing to admit that a team failure was probably just that, failure of a team, not of a sole individual. In his on-screen role, Trump’s bewilderment over such displays of levelheadedness and camaraderie struck me as bizarre. Was it really possible he believed blaming someone else to save face was a legitimate business strategy? Of course, we now know it to be much more than that, something closer to the summum bonum of the Trumpian Weltanschauung. It’s likely that the real role he played was with Father that night on the phone—and the next morning, when he showed up to his examination on time with two cups of coffee and a small white gift box containing a LOVE LIFE! lapel pin, which he hoped Father would accept as a token of his contrition. My father would never forget the gesture.
To think: all it took was a worthless trinket Trump probably pilfered from the gift shop at Trump Tower for Father to feel justified, years later, in dismissing all that chatter about the man’s not knowing how to apologize: “If they only knew him,” he would hiss at the pundits on TV—and usually by way of yet another reminder about that lapel pin: “If they knew him, they wouldn’t say these things. They would know they were wrong.”
*
It would take years to get to the bottom of Trump’s malady. Though Father still thought Brugada was possible, he wasn’t sure. There was little margin for error: Brugada, untreated, was usually fatal. But the only treatment was an implanted defibrillator, which Trump didn’t want unless Father was absolutely certain it was necessary. Father couldn’t give him that assurance, for the shark-fin form characteristic of Brugada hadn’t recurred on any of the Holter monitor strips or during the biannual exams Trump flew Father to New York to perform. There were no further fainting episodes, though Trump did continue to report feeling that strange empty rattling in his chest from time to time. He would feel it, get winded, then sit down and wait for it to pass. Certain that these were incidences of arrhythmia, but perhaps not of the Brugada variety, Father prescribed a mild beta-blocker and a daily hydrating regimen. For four years these seemed to keep the troubling symptoms at bay.