Upstairs in Steven's office I served the group coffee on a silver tray and, for the president, specially brewed tea in a silver teapot, or rather, I left it with them, letting them serve it themselves since they had already spread their papers out and didn't need my interference, and went back downstairs to the kitchen.

After a while Steven came into the kitchen and asked, "How's it coming, Edward?"

I said that if they were ready, I could have lunch on the table in five minutes.

"Excellent!" Steven exclaimed, and dove into the cellar to select a wine to go with the meal. You can always tell unerringly by the quality of the wine just how much value Steven places in his guests. He wanted these, as I guessed, to share a distribution network with him, that is, to undertake to sell his cars too. No doubt they have a very good network; indeed, as a powerful firm, why shouldn't they? It turned out I was right. Steven came back with two bottles of Chateau Haut-Brion, 1961. Oho, I thought, he's treating them first-class! Even the fact that Linda had warned me the day before to be sure to wear my black serving pants, white shirt, and a jacket ("Steven asked me to tell you," Linda diplomatically put it), even that fact underscored the importance of what was taking place.

I've gotten spoiled as the servant of the world bourgeoisie, and have even permitted myself to serve lunch to Steven and his people dressed in a T-shirt with the legend "Cocaine Is Hazardous to Your Health!" printed on it. Or else, East Side patriot that I am, I prance around in another shirt given to me by Bridget in her day with the words "IRT Lines" on it — the New York IRT subway line, that is, the main East Side line hidden under Lexington Avenue. That T-shirt had once belonged to Richard Hell himself, to our number one New York punk rock star. Bridget's boyfriend Douglas had once been Richard Hell's drummer. In that T-shirt, slashed here and there with a razor blade — intentionally slashed — Richard Hell had given newspaper interviews. And I, after sewing up just a couple of holes in that punk rock relic, wear it around Gatsby. My «fall» didn't happen all at once, but gradually. In the beginning, I dressed every day in black pants and a white shirt.

Gatsby and the Rolls-Royceans sat down at the table and I served them lamb and steamed vegetables, which I can't stand myself, and then whistled upstairs, by that whistle inviting Linda to assume her place at the kitchen table with me. Mr. Richardson was supposed to have lunch with Linda and me too, since he was at the house every day now, working on Gatsby's latest fantastical project. This one concerned the allocation of the Southeast Asian labor force. Gatsby, along with some big international corporations, wanted to put to work the unfortunate boat people who had been hacked to pieces by Malay pirates or by Thai fishermen. As you see, Gatsby thinks in global terms and strives to extend his power over mankind; he's a typical Big Brother. Usually Mr. Richardson has lunch with Steven when the latter's at the house, but that day was a special case. Mr. Richardson doesn't have any part in the automobile business, so he was having lunch in the kitchen with the secretary and the housekeeper.

Linda and Richardson came downstairs and took their places at the kitchen table. I sat down with them, chewing a piece of meat. I poured myself a bottle of Guinness and started listening to what they were saying.

"Perf!" said Linda, after trying a lamb chop. "Perf! You've really learned how to cook lamb, Edward."

"Perf means «perfect» in Linda's private slang. She also uses the term "delish," short for «delicious» and no less important to her vocabulary.

Linda was telling Mr. Richardson with a serious expression that she had the day before reheated some spaghetti and that it was better reheated than fresh. I grinned ironically. I didn't actually believe that it was only the first time in her life that she had reheated spaghetti. She's probably lying, I thought, pretending she lives better than she really does. But I refrained from making any comment. Let Linda tell Richardson whatever she likes and play at the high life; what difference did it make to me? If she'd started lying about politics, I'd have gotten into it, but lying about food was harmless enough.

Linda then started describing to Richardson how she and her black belt in karate, David, had been invited for dinner the previous weekend at the house of some friends on Long Island. The dinner was a candlelight affair with classical music — Vivaldi had been playing in the living room the whole time. Right,

I thought ironically. Vivaldi is good for the digestion. Linda and her friends can't invite a symphony orchestra to assist with their digestion the way Gatsby does, so they eat to records.

I left to clear away the empty dishes for the boss and the Rolls-Royceans. "Tank yu verri mach!" Gatsby said to me with a Russian accent. The Rolls-Royceans thanked me too. Since the boss was fucking around, it meant he was in a good mood. The business had therefore gone well and they would be selling his cars. I served Steven and his comrades salad and after coming back to the kitchen gossiped to Linda and Richardson about how things stood. This gave them an excuse to shift the conversation to the boss, our usual topic, although from time to time Linda and I pledge not to talk about him, at least not while we are having lunch.

"Oh, Steven's in a very good mood," Richardson said. "I've noticed in general that he's become more human. Perhaps because he's getting older? He's much less irritable than he was a couple of years ago."

And Linda agreed that it seemed to her too that he was getting better. We all happily started talking at once. Why not, our savage was turning into more of a human being. Excellent! Marvelous! Fantastic! And then in the midst of our enthusiasm it suddenly occurred to me, Does that mean he won't get pissed off? And I went to see what the gentlemen at the table were doing. The gentlemen were still confabulating over the remaining salad and cheese. I asked them if they wanted coffee, and they happily consented. After clearing away their dirty dishes once again, I served coffee and returned to the kitchen. It turned out Polly had just called, and the conversation therefore passed naturally to a discussion of Gatsby's sexual capacities.

I announced: "I don't believe that Steven's sexual indices are that high. In my view, he's probably crude and primitive in bed. Even though he's a strong guy, it still seems to me that all he's capable of is very simple sex of the in and out type, and not even that for very long."

Linda seconded me and even generalized my thesis, saying that in her opinion all WASPS are uninteresting in bed, their puritan upbringing having deprived them of sensuality. For Linda this last remark had a particular point, since her boyfriend David was a Jew.

I didn't want to offend Linda, and so I didn't tell her that I didn't have that high an opinion of Jewish men either. And so we took up the case of Gatsby again, whom his relative Mr. Richardson defended. And of course not merely because he was Gatsby's relative, since he often referred to Gatsby ironically, but also because Mr. Richardson was a WASP himself; he was offended on behalf of all WASPs. Which is quite understandable. After all, who wants the reputation of being worthless as a man, especially if you acquire that reputation only because the nation you belong to is regarded as undersexed? The battle began in earnest.

I didn't really want to insult WASPs, but I did have my own stake in the quarrel. I would like to have told them that in my opinion artistic people were much more interesting in bed than businessmen. No question about it. But I couldn't. Mr. Richardson would probably be as offended on behalf of businessmen as he already is on behalf of WASPs, I thought. I had already tried once to talk to Richardson about Dostoevsky, stressing that the profession of writer is an exceptional one. To which Mr. Richardson answered in an irritated tone that everyone invests a part of his labor and talent in the world, and that as a businessman he, Richardson, did too. And then he brought in the usual businessman's propaganda — that they, businessmen, are important to the world, that they give people work… and other such slogans from his arsenal.