The Rise & Fall of Great Powers

1988

TOOLY KNELT ON A CHAIR at the sink and turned on the taps, organizing dirty plates and cutlery. Steam rose and sweat trickled down her brow as she gazed into the swirling dishwater. Briefly, the name of this city was lost to her. What was outside this house? She dropped a knife into the water, its surface sliced with a plop, tossing up a grape of liquid that peaked, flopped back within itself, the suds sliding closed. How strange, she thought, that there were people doing other things right at this moment in different places. Everyone she’d ever known was alive somewhere, thinking different things.

“Can I have coffee again today?” she asked Humphrey when he entered. In her early days here, Coca-Cola had been her morning refreshment, but she had copied him lately, drinking instant coffee with cream and lots of sugar, establishing a way of taking it that was uniquely hers. Nothing felt quite so grown-up as having ways particular to oneself.

During her time in this house, she had discovered not only coffee but extraordinary books, too. Much of what Humphrey lent bemused her: blocks of text, abstractions about “will” and “reason” and “negative potentialities”; or grim histories about the NKVD and the Nazis. She did her best to read a few pages — just enough to pose questions. Today, he was explaining politics in Russia.

“There is long tradition,” he began. “First, we must have bald leader. After, hairy leader. Bald, then hairy. Tsar Alexander II, he is bald. Then, Nicholas II. He got hair. Next comes Lvov. Bald like cucumber. Then Kerensky. Lots of hair. Lenin is very bald. Who must come next? Stalin.”

“He was hairy?”

“This is reason he wins leadership battle. Trotsky also has fool head of hair, so it is close race. But Stalin has more. Also, he is more idiot. So he wins. After hairy Stalin, they need bald. They look around Politburo and see Khrushchev — perfect! Then Brezhnev, also fool head of hair. Then Andropov: bald. Chernenko: hair. Gorbachev: bald.”

“With the stain on his head?”

“Yes, but you don’t make fun of. It’s not nice.”

“I wasn’t making fun of,” she said. “Humphrey?”

“Yes, darlink.”

“You know more than anyone I ever met.”

He shied away from this, as if tickled under the chin. “When I was little boy like you—”

“I’m not a little boy.”

“Little girl.”

“You weren’t a little girl.”

“Tooly, stop. I am trying to instruct in historical materialism. When I was little boy like you, we have horse at bottom of garden and get fresh milk every morning.”

“You milked a horse?”

“No, no, no. We milk cow. Also, there is orchard for eating fruit. Once, I throw middle bit of apricot — what this is called?”

“The pit?”

“I throw pit in eye of girl by mistake. I am very frightened that she is blind and I go to prison.”

“You did go to prison.”

“Not for apricot pit. Because of Communist Party idiots.”

“I thought you liked Communists.”

“I hate them, and capitalists, too. All reactionaries.”

“Who do you like?”

“I am Marxist, but non-practicing,” he explained. “This is only sociable theory in life. Communism does not work, because people are selfish. But, personal speaking, I cannot see capitalism working, either. That’s exploitation and greed and selfishness.”

“Humphrey?”

“Yes, darlink?”

“Where do you keep all your books?” Fresh volumes materialized constantly, yet he had no shelves anywhere.

Humphrey stood abruptly, and she feared having offended him. He marched to the storage room, edging past her tent, pushing aside fake designer clothing, medical equipment, expired pharmaceuticals, barging toward a free-standing closet crammed against the back wall. He yanked at the jammed door. On the third pull, it burst apart in an explosion of hardcovers and paperbacks.

“Are you okay?” she asked, stepping through the mess to help him.

“Books,” he said, “are like mushrooms. They grow when you are not looking. Books increase by rule of compound interest: one interest leads to another interest, and this compounds into third. Next, you have so much interest there is no space in closet.”

“At my house, we put clothes in the closets.”

He sneered at this misapplication of furniture. “But where you keep literature?”

She went downstairs to prepare herself a smashed-potato sandwich. Returning, she found him flipping through a number of recently liberated editions, and she picked up one herself, her sandwich crumbs cascading onto the pages.

“Intellectuals never eat and read at same time,” he told her. “It is against law.”

“I’ve seen you doing it.”

“Yes, because I make this law.”

“If you make that law, can I make the opposite law?”

“Sure. Then we go to court.”

“What happens then?”

“Depends on judge.”

“Who’s the judge?”

“I am judge.”

“Can I make it against the law that you’re the judge?”

“I veto your law.”

“What do you mean, ‘veto’?”

“Veto is like if you make big sandwich — careful and nice you make it — and I come over and eat sandwich. No question asked. This is how veto works.”

She offered him a bite.

“No, no — is okay, darlink,” he said. “You eat, and I teach you Western civilization.”

“Can I veto?”

“I do not advise.” He cleared his throat. “All Western civilization begins with—”

Footsteps came up the stairs. “You nut,” Venn said, smiling.

“Hello,” Tooly said brightly, standing.

“I’ve talked to Sarah,” he said. “She’s meeting with your dad right now.” Venn glanced above her at Humphrey. Tooly turned and found Humphrey returning the look. It was the first time she had noticed such a communication between them — an exchange at an altitude that excluded her. Had they done this before? Had they done it always?

To draw their attention back to her height, she said, “I washed all the dishes.”

But the men had matters to discuss and went downstairs. She remained on the upper floor, sliding along the walls, playing at being stuck to them, then jumped into her tent and browsed Humphrey’s books.

That evening, Venn looked in on her. “How old are you, twelve?”

“Ten,” she answered, delighted at his mistake.

“You want to work with me?”

She nodded.

“Okay. So the people coming and going here — your job is to start paying attention, hear what they say. Who they’re friends with, who they don’t like, any other details. We’ll discuss it later. You’re somebody, little duck, who notices everything, just like I notice everything. Almost nobody else does. People have got no idea who’s walking behind them on the street, no idea where anybody’s hands are, no idea where anybody’s head is. But we pay attention. Which is tiring. But that’s how we are.” He cupped his hand against the side of her face and left her to think.

She attempted a little reconnaissance at the party that night, although he had left before they had a chance to discuss it. She took refuge in her tent, trying to read a book on Western civilization, but stared emptily at the page, sifting through observations she planned to make to Venn. Tooly heard her name only on its third utterance. She scrambled from her sleeping bag, undid the padlock on the tent zipper, and raised it, the orange nylon parting on a woman’s midriff, then a face.

“Darling dumpling,” Sarah said, reaching to stroke Tooly’s cheek with the back of her hand. “May I come for a visit?”

Tooly shifted to make space, and Sarah lay down with a puff of deep fatigue, hugging Tooly from behind, stroking her hair.

“You were away for ages.”

“Don’t scold me,” Sarah said. “I’ve been looking after your future.”

“Sorry.”

“And now,” Sarah resumed, “you’re free. From now on — from this second — you can invent yourself. Make up anything you want, Matilda. Be someone who laughs at jokes or someone who never smiles. Someone who sleeps all day or who’s up at dawn. You can be a liar. You can be honest. Be a kind person or a horrid one. Whatever you like, my lovely. But you must be brave to live like we do, to know there’s nobody else in the world but us. We’re a team. Better than a normal family, where you have to stick together. With us, it’s because we want to. In a normal family, everything needs explanations and apologies, and you end up shackled to people you have nothing more in common with than any name in the phone book.” Sarah fumbled about in her handbag. “Where are my cigarettes?” She sparked her lighter, took a drag, exhaled through the flap, her shoulders bare in an open-backed blouse, the naked curl of her spine. After a few minutes, she flicked the butt out, zipped the tent, closing them snugly inside. They lay there, drifting off to sleep, mindless of the noise of the party downstairs, her perfume mingling with tobacco scent.

Hours later, Tooly stirred. Sarah had stepped out. The girl looked between the tent flaps, peering into darkness. The festivities had ended, the music silenced, the chatter gone. Only two voices remained — Venn and Sarah, arguing downstairs.

“She doesn’t have her passport with her. How would you propose taking her anywhere without a passport? And the father’s not giving it up.”

“I could put her on my Kenyan passport.”

“It’d take months.”

“Have one of your friends make us a fake.”

“You don’t actually want this girl, Sarah.”

“Why do you say cruel things like that?”

“Don’t pretend to be so sensitive now. You’re the one who ditched her these past weeks, and vanished to wherever you went.”

“Didn’t vanish. I just couldn’t handle it, okay? Don’t say things to hurt me. Please?” she said. “Look, if he doesn’t give me that passport, I’ll turn him in.”

“If he’s locked up, you get nothing.”

“Can’t you go to his place and just take it?”

“No.”

Shortly afterward, Sarah raised the tent flap, whispering, “Will you have breakfast with me tomorrow morning?”

“Are you staying, Sarah?”

“Wherever you are is where I am. From now on.”

The next morning, Sarah was gone. Only Humphrey remained in the house. “Humph,” Tooly asked him, “did you ever play in your school band?”

“I was world-class violin genius. But jealous rival hits me in knees with trombone. Did I tell you this story?”

“Why would a jealous rival hit you in the knees? You don’t play a violin with your knees.”

“You ever try playing violin without knees?”

“I only played the ukulele.”

She sat, right there on the floor, sudden sadness deflating her. “Humphrey?” she said. “Humphrey Ostropoler?”

“Yes, my friend?”

“I just like saying your name.”

“You can say it.”

“I know things about birds.”

“Tell me.”

“Birds used to be dinosaurs.”

“I cannot believe. It is lie.”

“It’s true. They’re the only dinosaurs left. Or, they came from dinosaurs or something. Do you know how birds fly?”

“Flapping of wings.”

“I mean how they can fly and we can’t.”

“Also flapping of wings.”

“They have hollow bones, so it makes them light. And there’s this thing called lift, which I’ve heard about a million times. Let me remember. Okay, so, lift …” She drummed her lower lip. “Okay, so what happens is birds have curved wings. And the wind, when it goes past, blows faster over the top bit. Wait, I’m getting this wrong. Okay, what happens is the air pushes up on the bottom of the wing and makes them go up.”

Chin in hand, he nodded in fascination. “Please, continue.”

She found herself feigning expertise, trying to field his queries, Humphrey addressing her as if she were the absolute authority on matters avian.

“You open up whole new world for me,” he proclaimed, leading her to the backyard, where he stood, hands in the pockets of his shorts, gazing in wonderment at the sky. “Up there is such life going on! I never think of this before.”

A distant jet appeared, gliding slowly across the blue. Passengers were looking out through the portholes, down at this city, at the roof of this house, unaware of these two staring back. The people up there were thinking of destinations, of faces awaiting them at the airport, of faces they’d just left, just as she had on so many flights, before turning from her window to Paul, his face in a bird book.

Instead of a bird, a raindrop landed, then more, plump ones splatting against her face. Humphrey went back inside, calling her to follow. She resisted, tongue out to catch drops. When she joined him, her hair dripped a trail through the house. Humphrey had a towel ready for her. “What is your address?” he asked.

“My old one? It was Gupta Mansions in Sukhumvit.”

He took her hand, fetched her book bag from the tent, walked her to the front door. “Come,” he said. “Time to go.”