How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid Page A

but occupancy after the bombing has been so low that she secured a discount of fifty percent.
    She kisses you on the cheek and observes you closely as she leads you to the restaurant. She notices, yes, that you are uncomfortable in your newly purchased and over-the-top attire, but also, conversely, that you are no longer uncomfortable in your own skin, there being something more mature about you, a sense of confidence, even of mastery, which you have added along with a few pounds and the odd fleck of gray. You seem to her properly a man, not a boy, although pleasingly your eyes have retained their animation, which of course she cannot know, even if she does suspect, owes a great deal to being at this moment in her presence.
    You are seated by the headwaiter, who recognizes her and selects a table that maintains a pretense of being out of the way while ensuring she will be widely seen. He is rewarded with a nod from the pretty girl, and he unfolds your napkins personally, handing her hers with a slight bow, not presuming, as he does with yours, the right to place it in her lap.
    â€œYou look good,” she says to you.
    â€œSo do you.”
    Indeed she does. As with the sun, you have always found it difficult to gaze upon her directly, but tonight you control your instinct to glance away, attempting instead to balance on that crumbly ledge between staring and shiftiness. What you see is a woman little changed by the years, not, obviously, because this is true, your first meeting having been half your lifetimes ago, but rather because your image of her is not entirely determined by her physical reality.
    Tonight she wears a yellow spaghetti-strapped top that accents her collarbones and the knuckled indentation of her sternum, along with a single bangle of polished mahogany. A shawl covers the rim of her bag, and she reaches below it to retrieve a bottle of red wine, which she twists open with a sound like the snapping of a twig. You note a hint of uncertainty in her expression, and then it is gone.
    â€œHave you been here before?” she asks.
    â€œNo, it’s my first time.”
    She smiles. “So?”
    â€œIt’s unbelievable.”
    â€œI remember my first time. The knives were so heavy, I thought they were silver. I stole one.”
    â€œAre they really silver?”
    She laughs. “No.”
    â€œWhat else have you seen like that, amazing things regular people don’t get to see?”
    She pauses, surprised by the stance of your question, the almost-forgotten, for her, terrain of wonder and lowliness it squats upon.
    â€œSnow,” she says, grinning.
    â€œYou’ve seen snow?”
    She nods. “In the mountains. It’s like magic. Like powdered hailstones.”
    â€œLike what’s inside a freezer.”
    â€œWhen it’s on the ground. When it’s falling, it’s like feathers.”
    â€œSoft?”
    â€œSoft. But it gets wet. If you walk around in it, it hurts.”
    You envision her sauntering through a white valley, a mansion in the distance. The headwaiter returns and ties a striped cloth around your bottle, discreetly hiding all but its neck from view.
    â€œWhat about you?” she asks, refilling your glasses. “What is this business of yours, exactly?”
    â€œBottled water.”
    â€œYou deliver it?”
    â€œThat too. I make it.”
    â€œHow?”
    You tell her, nonchalantly, omitting mention of the many wrinkles, such as incessant natural gas shortages or long periods when the water pressure is too low and your pump screams idly, unable to fill your storage tank.
    â€œThat’s brilliant,” she says, shaking her head. “And people actually buy it? Just like you were one of the big companies?”
    â€œJust like that.”
    â€œYou’re a genius.”
    â€œNo.” You smile.
    â€œAt school everybody always said you were a genius.”
    â€œYou weren’t there often.”
    â€œI went