the painters arguing in whispers. Daniel and Abbas were as invisible as ghosts.
Daniel pointed at Harlequin. “Why let this get you angry? This is great
work. Can’t you just enjoy it? We saw all that crap yesterday, and it didn’t
bother you.”
“Because it was crap. It is not what I am doing. But this is good. I think I
am better, but anyone can see I am almost as good.”
Daniel admired and envied such confidence, even if it sounded slightly in-
sane. But if you’re going to be competitive, why not compete with the great
dead?
“No, it is not enough to do good work.” Abbas sneered. “You must sell it.
I have nobody to blame but myself. I should have tried harder yesterday. I had
my chance and I blew it. And we go back tomorrow and I have wasted this en-
tire weekend.”
Daniel felt like he’d been slapped.
“What am I? Chopped liver?”
The hoary old punch line elicited nothing from Abbas but a blank stare.
“You are fun,” he said. “Our affair is fun. But I have been too busy having
fun. I need to work harder.”
But an affair is work, thought Daniel. Especially with you.
“Bullshit,” he told Abbas. “You work very hard. I saw you yesterday. You
worked those dealers like crazy. You did everything but offer them your first-
born male child.” But that might not sound like a joke to Abbas. “You don’t
need to beat yourself up.”
“Easy for you to say. You have given up being an artist and care only for
the other things.”
E x i l e s i n A m e r i c a
1 8 1
Again Daniel felt slapped. “Yes. Maybe. Why not?” he replied. “There is
art and there is life and a man has only one heart.” He was automatically quot-
ing someone but could not remember who.
“Well, I have three hearts,” said Abbas, and he counted them on his fin-
gers. “For my work, for my family, and for men.”
Not for Daniel in particular, but for men in general. Fine.
“I think you’re spreading yourself awfully thin,” said Daniel.
“You think that? Yes. You would.” He spoke softly, drily, sadly. Then he
noticed the Japanese couple. They watched from the corner with a passive,
connoisseur gaze. Abbas abruptly lifted his arms and shook the backs of his
hands at them: go away.
They could not have looked more startled if a painting had made a face at
them. They turned and hurried out.
“Degas,” said Daniel. “It was Degas I quoted.” He pretended that that
was all that was troubling him, the source of his quotation.
Abbas bowed his head, as if to say, Sorry. Or, Things are fine now. Or sim-
ply, Let’s not talk about this anymore. “What else is there? Show me some bad
art. Bad art makes me feel better.”
They spent the next hour wandering the Wallace wing, looking at every-
one from Matisse to Rothko to Jasper Johns. It wasn’t a great collection, but
Abbas said little, making none of the larky, unfunny jokes that he’d made
about the Old Masters. Both men remained in a mild sulk, although Daniel
assumed Abbas wasn’t sulking about love but about his artistic future. The
Iranian resented not being part of this collection. Which might be nuts, ex-
cept Daniel felt Abbas really did belong here. He could be hurt by the man
but still admire his art.
f 2
When they decided they’d had enough, they returned to the Great Hall to get
their coats. The hard space echoed like a high school gym. Packs of people
passed over the floor like schools of fish.
“Danny? Oh my God. Danny! Daniel Wexler! ”
A shockingly familiar face floated forward. A middle-aged woman like a
Long Island soccer mom surfaced in front of him.
1 8 2
C h r i s t o p h e r B r a m
“What the hell are you doing in town?”
It was Daniel’s sister, Amy, who was a soccer mom on Long Island. Her
face looked leaner, her hair grayer. He’d just seen her in August, and she
hadn’t changed, but he was always surprised now by how much his older sis-
ter resembled their late mother.
“Hello, Daniel,” said the short, jowly man by her side, Daniel’s brother-in-
law, Tony.
“Holy shit!” cried Daniel, and he covered his embarrassment by giving
Amy a fierce hug. “Sorry. I came up on business. I would’ve called but knew
there wasn’t time. Uh, this is a colleague at school. Abbas Rohani.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Tony.
Abbas gazed at the husband and wife as if from a great height, but he was
a head taller than both.
“Where’s Zack?” asked Amy.
“Back home. He couldn’t get away.”
Amy studied Abbas from the corner of her eye, then let out a nervous