A New Yorker's Stories by Philip Gould

we’ve been in touch for some time” and so forth as I extended my calling card. Then the telephone call was made: I held my breath. Would that person remember? Would she say “write a letter” or “send a fax.” Time was so precious now and all the ingenuity and initiative that got me this far might have imploded on the spot. My correspondent must have wondered how I managed to get through all the corporate barriers. Did curiosity win her over or a predisposition to be helpful. She came out of the inner office. We sat on the upholstered chairs in the entrance reception area and got our business done. She accepted a packet of papers I had prepared and we parted. This was one big achievement, saving lots of time and energy because I did not have to go through “regular” procedures. But the afternoon was only half over.
    There were two more stops to make, all in the same area, in that fabulous New York center of art galleries and antiquities establishments where the rents are so high only the best and most expensive items can be offered to the patrons and lovers of art. In these places time may pass boringly slow or people sweat out tense relationships but the façade must always remain impeccable and affable. I think my visits were welcome interludes; lucky me. Two more times that afternoon I found myself beyond the public rooms, now the conversation could be open and unambiguous and hopefully eventually fruitful.
    Postscript : The next day I actually met the concierge’s referenced Tiffany’s worker who was more than cooperative in responding to my inquiry about bracelet supports. (12/11/06)

A DAY I WISH I COULD REDO
    The day began auspiciously enough but ended in a minor catastrophe. My young friend came over around eleven o’clock as planned. He is an ethnic Chinese but a second generation Chinese. Both his parents are professionals, doctors who could and did give their son the best possible American education. He graduated from an Ivy League school. He has every appearance of a Chinese boy doll: straight black hair, high cheekbones, eyes that slant, and all the rest, but he doesn’t speak a word of Chinese and doesn’t have the slightest knowledge of his Chinese heritage and furthermore doesn’t much care. Well, he is just like another American young man and that is how is sees himself. He made me think of a similar case. While traveling in the Mexico City subway I noted a chap who looked exactly like the images of Mayan or Aztec men found on stone stele or painted on ceramics: a sharp aquiline nose, slightly slanted forehead, and ruddy complexion. But this fellow was dressed in the modish style clothing of contemporary Mexicans. I was sure he had no idea of his ancestral past. I thought there must be a time warp here. Only anthropologists and archaeologists keep the history of the past current.
    My Chinese-American friend and I went out to lunch. I introduced my young friend to my senior citizen center lunch. It was a ritual I wanted to share with him and he was also curious to see another side of life in New York. All the old-timers at the table took the young man in stride, a gracious gesture, I thought.
    We parted afterwards. I took the subway downtown and my friend the subway uptown. I was headed to the Downtown Hospital on Williams Street just to check on the exhibition of my wife’s paintings. Forty paintings were still up in a two-month long memorial exhibition in “celebration” of my wife’s demise early in August. She requested the show of her paintings on her deathbed and her friends fulfilled their promise. The opening was a huge success. I thought about a hundred people showed up, enjoying the reception food and drink (wine as well as soft drinks). I offered a thirty-minute slide show and talk on modern art of the past one hundred years as a way to give a context to my wife’s work. Everyone acted in a most respectful way: lots of