A downtown restaurant in a large North American city. Lunch hour, and the restaurant is nearly full. A man walks in. He is dressed in an impeccably cut dark suit. In one hand, he carries a folded newspaper and a guidebook, in the other an expensive leather briefcase.
How many in your party, sir?
One, he says, smiling. Just one.
In town on business, sir?
Yes. Business.
Any preference, sir?
Someplace warm. In the center area, I think. I've something of a chill. That one, perhaps. The man points to a table where two women are pushing back their chairs. Older women wearing elegant dresses and jewelry. The man notices that one has animal fur around her shoulders. He can see they have left their food half uneaten.
When the table has been cleared, the man follows the host, walking quickly to keep up. He bumps the back of a diner's chair. Excuse me, he says. I beg your pardon. When he reaches the table, the host pulls out a chair and he eases into it. Thank you, the man says. Thank you very much. He lays his guidebook on the table and places the briefcase on the floor beside him. The host departs.
The man unfolds his newspaper and scans it. Several nearby diners glance in his direction, but their eyes pass quickly over him, and they return to their meals and conversations. After a moment, a waitress comes to his table. She keeps her hands folded behind her and nods slightly as the man orders tea and dry toast.
When she has left, the man lays his newspaper down and looks at the adjacent table. A young couple and a small child, a girl, five years old, the man thinks, no more, sit at it. The two adults are eating and talking and laughing quietly. The little girl, a mutilated hamburger pushed off to the side, is moving crayons over a large piece of paper. The man watches her, tongue protruding from the corner of her mouth, as she draws. After a minute, she glances up and sees him.
The child smiles.
The man smiles back.
She holds up her drawing, a jumble of squiggly lines, stars, arrows, faces and irregular shapes in various colors, mainly orange and red.
I did this, she says loudly.
Her parents look up, startled.
Yes, the man says, nodding. It is a good drawing. A fine drawing.
Oh, the mother says, looking at the man. I'm sorry. Then, at the child: Don't bother the gentleman. That's not polite. I'm sorry, the father adds, turning his palms upward. Excuse her. Please.
Oh, no, the man protests. He waves a hand in their direction. I have been watching her draw for several minutes. Such concentration! He chuckles. I am delighted she showed me the final product.
Oh, thank you, the parents say almost simultaneously. You're very kind. Draw another picture, they tell the child, then, lower, and don't bother the man any more. They return to their food.
The waitress brings his order. Thank you, he says. Thank you very much. He breaks a tiny corner off one of the pieces of toast and puts it in his mouth. He looks around the restaurant, now completely full. Fashionably dressed women. Old people. Businessmen. Young couples holding hands across the table. Families.
He eats the toast and drinks the tea.
The waitress returns, smiles, and leaves a leather folder. He removes some money from his jacket pocket and places several bills inside the folder, as they told him to do. It is good, he thinks, that they sent him. You look like them, they told him. No one will notice. He pushes his chair back and again glances around the room, listens to the muffled hum of a hundred conversations, the scraping of utensils, the clinking of glasses. It is not, he thinks, unlike the places where he eats at home. The food is not the same, and it is noisier. These are the only differences, he thinks, then immediately corrects himself: the only perceptible differences. What one cannot see, he reminds himself, but what is undeniably present, is the impersonal egotism these people secrete like perspiration, the stench of their unquestioning assumption of precedence, their...
Once more, the man looks over at the girl. She is watching him. One of the crayons hangs from the corner of her small mouth. Goodbye, he mouths silently, and his fingers flutter in a tiny wave. The child smiles, waves back. In his mind, he revisits her drawing, but now the reds and oranges, the broken and disjointed shapes, these and other colors, other forms, more than this child or any other could ever imagine, fill the center and sprinkle the edges of a fiery flower unfolding. He allows himself the smallest of smiles, and silently, he speaks the pledge he has recited so many times, as boy, young man, adult: to serve by the tongue and by the sword. And always by the heart. He reaches down to turn one of the brass latches on the briefcase and then gently push it under the table until it is all but hidden by the white tablecloth. He pauses a few seconds, then rises from the chair, dabs his mouth with his napkin and begins to walk, not slowly but not too quickly, either, toward the door, all the while counting backward from sixty.