he host glitters as he leans into the mike, glitters in the swath of white shirt between his dark lapels, glitters even in his hair. He may have tinsel in his hair. He’s dapper and dazzling and leans in to intone, and his words are wise, wise and funny at once, a poignant combination that makes the people in their seats sigh, sag, dab their eyes. The host smiles. Applause bathes him like balmy waters, the issue of a sulphur spring. It eases his joints. It smooths his glowing white hair, his creased pink skin. He speaks again and the clapping swells.That’s when our heroine’s cellphone rings. She stoops to the floor, hair falling haphazard and dark around her, no tinsel there, and rummages in her purse to find that damn phone. It’s ringing so loud. Her shame burns deep.
Angry faces swivel her way. Attend a gathering like this, and you should have the presence of mind, the poise and courtesy — hell, let’s state it frankly: the class — to shut off your fucking phone. Whatever happened to manners?
If these people knew the whole truth, they’d be more than annoyed. They would be outraged, unsettled, struck dumb. The woman is not mortified on account of her phone going off. How could she have anticipated that? No one has this number; she carries the phone for safety, in case she has to dial 911. No, her shame springs from something far worse, something the phone’s unforeseen ringing has betrayed.
I should step back a moment and describe for you the big picture. This event, which has sold out the auditorium, is a gathering of sophisticated people. They have convened for a grand and conscionable cause. They have money, inhabit tasteful homes. Most of them are white people, which is a bit of a collective embarrassment. But they are very progressive, the most cosmopolitan bunch of white folk you could ask for.
The group onstage is another story. Except for the host, the people there could be described — and, in fact, during the chit-chat that preceded the event, have been described — as a veritable United Nations. The races of the world are represented, and so are various traditional garbs. We have a Buddhist monk, draped in robes the colour of PEI soil. The stubble on his head resembles a kiwi’s. We have a woman in a sari. A West African man in a bright purple dashiki. Only the host sports formal wear of the type associated with Western societies, which is to say a tux. He stands at the lectern, and the “veritable United Nations” occupy a row of chairs facing the audience.
The topic under discussion is tolerance. The panel members have worked bravely to promote or exemplify tolerance in their home nations. One of them is a journalist who was jailed and tortured for exposing systemic genocide. Another risked his life defending the rights of a maligned minority. Another took office and revolutionized her nation’s policies in the face of virulent resistance. These panel members possess a true and hard-won wisdom, evident in the angles of their heads, the telling creases around their eyes. (“Like song lines,” someone whispers to her companion, eliciting a soft moan.) With the host on hand to coax and inquire, they are here to expound.
o let’s get back to our heroine, to her shame. As we’ve learned, it does not derive from the simple fact of her phone’s having gone off. It derives from the content of her ring tone. Through an online search, the obsessive diligence of which astonished her even as she surrendered to it, she managed to acquire the opening bars of a military march composed in 1936 by Wolfgang Schimmermann — one of his final works. It is a stirring and perhaps even catchy melody, though listeners today may find its martial accent overbearing. It was composed for the regime of Nazi Germany. Rumour has it the tune was sung by rampaging thugs on Kristallnacht.She fumbles in her purse, finds the phone, and stabs it silent.
The host, coincidentally, has just introduced a Jewish dignitary, who waves from his seat and smiles. He is wearing a yarmulke. His face is elderly and beneficent. Again our heroine feels a hot gush of shame in her gut, as if she had suffered an internal injury, had been slit perhaps by a shard of glass she’d swallowed.
But no one else cares anymore about her phone. Irritation has waned; her neighbours’ attention is fixed back on the stage. The sari-clad woman is being introduced. She has won acclaim battling caste injustices; the room bristles with anticipation as the host promises that this woman has “tales you will not believe”; perhaps, the room collectively ponders, we’re in for some real horror stories, poverty the likes of which you just don’t see in Toronto.
Immediately those same minds will rapidly correct themselves: of course you see terrible poverty in Toronto, that was a ridiculous and ignorant idea, thank God I didn’t say it out loud.
Our heroine calms down. Her pulse returns to normal. She concentrates on the proceedings, to — how do you say this; not enjoy, exactly — absorb, perhaps, maybe even benefit from the important event playing out before her. Certainly not enjoy. No one’s munching popcorn.
The West African man smiles at his introduction and says something into his clip-on mike. The room seems to swoon at the lilt of his accent. His teeth are so bright.
A gentle hand touches our heroine’s shoulder. She turns with a start. She’s in an aisle seat, and a sad-faced bald man kneels beside her. He has a long head, slim and oval. His eyes droop at the outer edges. His race is indeterminate. Immediately she wonders why she would notice this, the indeterminacy of his race. It’s not like she’s filling out a police report, where race is one of the first things they ask.
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” says the man. Now she spies the crest on his shoulder, the icon of a security firm. “But you’ll have to come with me.”
She slings her purse over her shoulder. He leads her quietly up the aisle, a process that feels to her as if it takes several minutes — he has a slow step, the dusty soles of his shoes slapping softly on the thick carpet — but she observes with gratitude that no heads turn to watch their departure. He leads her into the lobby, and then through an ingenious door that looks like a portion of a large painting depicting Greek or Roman gods but is in fact a door, swinging inward with the faintest squeak. A corridor is next, painted grey and lined with pipes and wires. They arrive at the security control room. Surveillance screens crowd the walls; one of these allows our heroine to see that the Indian woman has risen to deliver her portion of the presentation.
Our heroine watches the sari-clad woman, but no sound accompanies the image. Our heroine observes the woman’s body language, the cascading shifts in the drape of her sari when she gesticulates. It is a hypnotic sight, and our heroine has not noticed the security man approaching her, holding a plastic bin.
He clears his throat. “I’m sorry, miss,” he says mournfully, and his eyes flicker to the bin. Peering in, she sees it’s full of cellphones. “It’s our policy, there’s nothing I can do about it.” His tone is intensely earnest, as if it were part of his job to gain her sympathy. “We have a cellphone policy: one ring, and it goes in the bin.” He shakes his head. “I know it’s… I didn’t make the policy. Just doing my job.”
He has been looking at the floor. Now his eyes rise to her face.
