C4 antho - Chamber Four

American Subsidiary ~293~
a full-on laugh. Just the same, as he directed a quick salute
to the sales rep Wilson, a slightly pleasant superciliousness
washed over him, a feeling of gratitude to the fate that had
given him cafes and saved him from the America of sports
bars and chewing tobacco. Why shouldn’t he enjoy some of
the privileges conferred on him here and consider himself
every bit as superior as the true Germans felt?
Joseph watched through the kitchen window and, like a
basketball player who could dribble without looking, engineered
a second iced tea blind. It did make sense, despite a
tensing in his shoulders, that this man, Jack Wilson, would
go to the restaurant. He was the one scheduled to escort Herr
Doktor Hühne to the customer’s plant that afternoon. Wilson
and Hühne would tour the No. 3 Engine Plant in Cleveland,
which had accepted the very first proposal that Joseph had
written―an eleven-million-dollar project, the German factory’s
largest yet. And Herr Halsa was right to consider
Hühne’s impression of things. The previous executive vicepresident
had been recalled for capitulating too quickly to
the American way of doing business―particularly by replacing
German components with much cheaper substitutes.
In inviting Wilson to lunch there was no awkwardness,
because Wilson did not work for the company. He was a
kind of mercenary who agreed to play golf on the company’s
behalf exclusively and get drunk on the company’s behalf
exclusively and frequently with people who might or might
not have purchasing clout at whatever plant Wilson had led
the Germans to target. He was a go-between. A middleman.
The aesthetics of the thing were less germane than the
logic: it made sense for Wilson to liaise over popcorn
shrimp. Nevertheless, when Alan Freedman walked into the
lunch room, his hair full and proud, unlike all the monktopped
Germans, Joseph couldn’t resist saying something
conspiratorial.