President Obama’s Remark at the Al Smith Dinner Regarding the Issue of His National Origin

“Contrary to the rumors you have heard, I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father, Jor-El, to save the planet Earth.” Fifty

Markus was at Natalie’s door. It was time to act, something that plunged him into the most perfect inaction. Benoît, a coworker from his team, walked by.“Hey, what are you doing?”“Um … I’ve got a meeting with Natalie.”“And you think you’re going to see her by standing stock-still in front of her door?”“No … it’s just that we have a ten o’clock meeting … and it’s nine fifty-nine … so, you know me, I don’t like to be early …”The coworker walked away feeling more or less the same way he did one day in April 1992. When he’d seen a Samuel Beckett play in a suburban theater.At that point, Markus was forced to act. He went into Natalie’s office. Her head was buried in a file (114, maybe?) and she raised it immediately. He walked toward her with a determined step. But nothing can ever be simple. On the way to Natalie, he had to slow down. His heart was beating harder and harder, in a real Election Day symphony. Natalie wondered what was going to happen. In fact, she was somewhat afraid. However, she was well aware that Markus was niceness incarnate. What did he want? Why wasn’t he moving? His body was a computer in need of debugging because of data overload. His data was all emotional. She got up and asked him, “What’s happening, Markus?”“…”“Is everything okay?”He managed to focus on what he’d come to do. He took her suddenly by the waist and kissed her with energy he didn’t know he had. There was no time for her to react before he’d already left the office. Fifty-one

Markus left that strange scene of a stolen kiss behind him. Natalie wanted to plunge back into her report but finally decided to go and look for him. She’d felt something complicated to define. As a matter of fact, this was the first time in three years that someone had taken hold of her like that. Without thinking of her as something fragile. Yes, it was strange, but she’d been shaken up by his hit-and-run, nearly savage gesture of virility. She walked through the hallway asking the employees she passed on her left and her right where he was. No one knew. He hadn’t gone back to his office. That was when she thought of the roof of the building. In this season no one went up there, because it was very cold. He had to be there. It was just as she’d thought. There he was near the edge of the roof, looking quite calm. He was making little movements with his lips—puffs, obviously. He looked like he was smoking, but without a cigarette. Natalie walked silently up to him. “I come up here, too, sometimes, to hide. To breathe,” she said.Markus was surprised to see her. He never would have thought she’d go and look for him after what had just happened.“You’re going to catch cold,” he replied. “And I don’t even have a coat to offer you.”“Well, then, we’ll both catch cold. That’s at least one way of being that’s the same for both of us.”“Clever.”“No, it’s not. And the way I acted wasn’t clever, either … I mean, really, it’s not like I committed a crime or something!”“Then you don’t know anything about desire. A kiss from you, and then nothing more, of course it’s a crime. Even in the land of hard hearts you’d be convicted.”“The land of hard hearts? … That isn’t how you usually talk to me.”“I’m certainly not going to break into poetry about 114.”The cold was changing their faces. And aggravating a certain injustice. Markus was becoming slightly blue, not to say pallid, and Natalie was becoming as pale as a depressed princess.“Maybe it would be better to leave,” she said.“Okay … then what’ll we do?”“Well … that’s enough for now. There’s nothing to do. I apologized. We’re not going to make a big production out of it, are we?”“Why not? I wouldn’t be opposed to the idea of seeing an extravaganza like that.”“Then we stop. I don’t even know what I’m doing talking to you here.”“Okay, we stop. But after we go out to dinner.”“What?”“We have dinner together. And after that, I promise you we won’t talk about it anymore.”“I can’t.”“You really owe me that … just dinner.”Certain people have the rare ability to come out with such a statement. An ability that keeps the other person from answering in the negative. Natalie sensed all the conviction in Markus’s voice. She knew it would be a mistake to accept. She knew she should back away now, before it was too late. But, in front of him, it was impossible to say no. And then, she was so cold. Fifty-two

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