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Authors: Rivka Galchen
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awful for taking the Swede there. I hadn’t had a chance to preview it. It had looked much better in the pictures. There was just one window, and it was in the corner and was tiny. The place had terrible old furniture, there was an ugly cat there, the floor had rotting parquet. The Swede took a quick walk around; he looked at his racecar driver friend. Now this feels homey, he said. His friend nodded. I was amazed. What does he mean that it feels homey? It was like a puzzle. It stuck with me. It made me think that maybe I’m really missing something, that maybe if I better understood what he meant, then maybe I would be doing better.
I bet he just likes old buildings, the daughter said. I like old buildings.
But it was disgusting, the mother said.
Or maybe it was just that it had furniture. Just that someone lived there.
I thought about that. And, you know, later the broker from the first apartment called me and asked me for feedback. She asked me what my client thought. I told her honestly that he hadn’t liked it. But I told her, also honestly, that I thought it was beautiful, and that it was crazy of him not to like it. She asked me what he didn’t like about it, because she was trying to think how she could better market the apartment, because she was having, she said, to be honest, trouble selling it, even though she felt it was well priced. I felt bad for her. She sounded distressed. I told her it’s hard to sell anything right now, even something great. I told her not to worry, that things would turn around.
Did the Swede buy the maid’s apartment? the daughter asked.
Oh, in the end, he didn’t buy anything from me, the mother said. He liked me, though. He said I was honest. He didn’t buy anything at all. Instead, he moved to Dubai.
What?
He moved to Dubai instead of New York.
To Dubai? Or to Abu Dhabi?
I don’t know. Somewhere sunny.
That’s too bad, the daughter said. I think. About the apartment, I mean. But you have to stop confusing things. That’s why you come to the wrong conclusions. Because you start in the wrong place. So then you’re not really even talking about what you’re talking about, the daughter went on, not really sure what she herself was talking about, and realizing that she had lost track of precisely what it was that she was trying to estimate justly, and why she had imagined that she could.
AMERICAN INNOVATIONS
This was in Singapore City, midday in an August. I was visiting my thin, tan, sixty-something non-native-of-Singapore aunt of exceptional math skills who had made her fortune, from near enough to nothing, in spandex and sequin fashions. When I was younger, we had called her Tina Turner because her styling was similar—also, she had once seen Tina Turner in a grocery store in Los Angeles, and they had nodded knowingly at one another, that was the story—but now my aunt seemed smaller, and tamer, if still disturbingly “hot,” considerably more hot than either of her daughters, both now middle-aged and involved in their own relatively less demanding lives, in more prosaic bodies, in other countries. My aunt still shared her mahogany-interiored seven-bedroom house—it was a sixties construction, with lots of obtuse angles, so that you could make right after right after right after right and still not be facing your original direction—with her husband of all those years, although he left for the beach by 5:00 a.m. most days, and she was a night person, and so it was as if she lived alone. After 11:00 p.m., she liked to play bridge online, often with people “in your sorts of time zones.” My aunt told me that not everyone in the online bridge world was very nice; in fact, it was difficult to believe how rude some people could be; really, it was amazing.
“This guy, we were partners; he opened a heart, and then he rebid two spades over my no-trump—that’s a reverse. Do you understand bidding? It’s like he was going backward. Look, it’s
I bet he just likes old buildings, the daughter said. I like old buildings.
But it was disgusting, the mother said.
Or maybe it was just that it had furniture. Just that someone lived there.
I thought about that. And, you know, later the broker from the first apartment called me and asked me for feedback. She asked me what my client thought. I told her honestly that he hadn’t liked it. But I told her, also honestly, that I thought it was beautiful, and that it was crazy of him not to like it. She asked me what he didn’t like about it, because she was trying to think how she could better market the apartment, because she was having, she said, to be honest, trouble selling it, even though she felt it was well priced. I felt bad for her. She sounded distressed. I told her it’s hard to sell anything right now, even something great. I told her not to worry, that things would turn around.
Did the Swede buy the maid’s apartment? the daughter asked.
Oh, in the end, he didn’t buy anything from me, the mother said. He liked me, though. He said I was honest. He didn’t buy anything at all. Instead, he moved to Dubai.
What?
He moved to Dubai instead of New York.
To Dubai? Or to Abu Dhabi?
I don’t know. Somewhere sunny.
That’s too bad, the daughter said. I think. About the apartment, I mean. But you have to stop confusing things. That’s why you come to the wrong conclusions. Because you start in the wrong place. So then you’re not really even talking about what you’re talking about, the daughter went on, not really sure what she herself was talking about, and realizing that she had lost track of precisely what it was that she was trying to estimate justly, and why she had imagined that she could.
AMERICAN INNOVATIONS
This was in Singapore City, midday in an August. I was visiting my thin, tan, sixty-something non-native-of-Singapore aunt of exceptional math skills who had made her fortune, from near enough to nothing, in spandex and sequin fashions. When I was younger, we had called her Tina Turner because her styling was similar—also, she had once seen Tina Turner in a grocery store in Los Angeles, and they had nodded knowingly at one another, that was the story—but now my aunt seemed smaller, and tamer, if still disturbingly “hot,” considerably more hot than either of her daughters, both now middle-aged and involved in their own relatively less demanding lives, in more prosaic bodies, in other countries. My aunt still shared her mahogany-interiored seven-bedroom house—it was a sixties construction, with lots of obtuse angles, so that you could make right after right after right after right and still not be facing your original direction—with her husband of all those years, although he left for the beach by 5:00 a.m. most days, and she was a night person, and so it was as if she lived alone. After 11:00 p.m., she liked to play bridge online, often with people “in your sorts of time zones.” My aunt told me that not everyone in the online bridge world was very nice; in fact, it was difficult to believe how rude some people could be; really, it was amazing.
“This guy, we were partners; he opened a heart, and then he rebid two spades over my no-trump—that’s a reverse. Do you understand bidding? It’s like he was going backward. Look, it’s
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