Diplomacy

interested.” But not in the art.
    “Lucas, would you mind very much if I stole that lovely fiancée of yours away for a moment? There are some people here I’m sure she will want to meet, and I have to turn her into the perfect diplomat’s wife for you, right?”
    That was obviously a rhetorical question, because as Lucas was trying to form a witty answer, Maria carted Lucy off to a group of middle aged women standing together at the other end of the room, so he was left to his own devices, only a few steps away from Jack.
    Lucas hadn’t even been able to say hello yet, as Jack was still busy with a number of Americans and Belgians. Lucas could hear him speaking English and French, occasionally even Spanish, seemingly effortlessly switching between the languages. Lucas knew he should be building his network, talking to people and introducing himself, but what he really needed to do was talk to Jack. Unfortunately, the American might as well have been on the other side of the world.
    Eventually Lucas took a walk around the hall, admiring the very diverse artwork, hoping that Jack would take his continuing presence at this function as the sign it was meant to be: a cry for contact.
    People started to leave as the waiters stopped coming around with their drinks trays, and Lucas found himself almost alone in a corner of the hall. He had seen Maria and Lucy talk to numerous people, and they were now sitting together in the foyer talking girl talk, judging from the excited expressions on their faces.
    “It always strikes me how effortless art is with indigenous people,” Lucas heard a familiar voice with an American accent say. “They use it in everyday objects, like this rug for instance, and they depict ordinary daily occurrences.” Lucas closed his eyes and a smile broke on his lips. He was afraid to look to the side, afraid that he would break the spell if he looked, D i p l o m a c y | 47

    and the voice continued. “Art is also a collective thing. The ego of the artist is not important, in fact, you may have noticed that on a lot of these works, there is no artist mentioned, because the name or names are not known.” Lucas could listen to this voice for hours and searched for the right question to keep him talking.
    Eventually he dared to look sideways, only to find there was no one there. He could see Jack walking out towards the hallway. Oh no, he wasn’t leaving!
    Lucas looked around to see if it would be deemed suspicious if he followed suit. Realizing the hall was almost deserted, he practically ran in the direction where he had seen Jack disappear. Once inside the hallway he only just saw Jack slip into the men’s room. There were more people standing around here, and he noticed some of them looking in his direction. He tried to look inconspicuous and took a deep breath to calm himself while he walked over to the side where the toilets were.
    As he stepped inside, Jack was washing his hands.
    “Now can you tell me why you’re avoiding me?” Jack looked up, giving the young man a stern look. He took a paper towel, dried his hands and then proceeded to open all the stall doors to check if anyone was inside. Luckily they were all empty. Lucas understood he had been careless, and his shoulders slumped.
    “I’m sorry…”
    “No, you’re not,” Jack answered, with clear amusement in his voice.
    When Lucas looked at the older man he saw Jack was smiling.
    “Why do I feel like we’ve had this conversation before?”
    “Well, if you stop apologizing for things you’re clearly not sorry for, then we can stop having this conversation.” Lucas took a step closer to the American. Come on, you’re both adults, can’t you have an adult conversation about this? “I tried to contact you, talk about…” Lucas’s voice was unsteady all of a sudden, “…things.”
    “I’ve had a very busy week, Lucas. First time I was at the office for longer than it took me to change my jacket was this afternoon. I…”
    “You had my cell phone number. Gertje did give it to you?” 48 | Z a h r a O w e n s

    Jack nodded, but since Lucas was still looking at the wall over his shoulder rather than at him, he added, “Yes, but not until a few hours ago.
    I was going to…”
    “You were going to call me on Monday, right?” Lucas sighed and then looked defiantly straight into Jack’s eyes. “You probably figured this was business?”
    Jack shook his head, taken aback a bit by Lucas’s aggressive