The Rise & Fall of Great Powers

1988: The End

HUMPHREY BECKONED HER to follow him out of the house. She reached for his hand, but it rose, resting on her head. “Your hair is wet from rain,” he said, as they walked down the alley. “Warm now, also.”

“Because of the sun,” Tooly explained, touching the hot crown of her head, sandwiching his fingers there and holding them for the entire walk to the main road.

The traffic — buses and tuk-tuks and motorcycles, fumes tickling her nose — overloaded her senses after weeks inside that house. He hailed a taxi and helped her into the backseat, flopping in after her and giving her address. Odd to hear him say “Gupta Mansions,” as if a character from this version of Tooly had wandered into the previous version. She watched him looking out the car window, his old eyes following each vehicle they passed, focus dragged along with it, then the next.

The taxi stopped at her street. “Very soon,” Humphrey said, opening the door on her side, speaking differently than he had, more seriously, “very soon you will grow up. Being small is hard bit of life. But you are nearly done with it. When you are grown, Tooly, you can be boss till the end. You are someone who must be boss of your life, not pushed around. So be careful.”

“I’ll be careful of trivial beings,” she suggested, to please him.

He smiled sadly. “Yes. Of trivial beings.”

“And the Moron Problem.”

“This also.”

She stepped from the taxi, watching him, unsure what was happening. “Are you going?”

“Good luck for your life,” he answered through the window.

The driver turned the cab around. Humphrey’s head was visible in the rear window as the taxi drove away.

She stood beside a pothole, looking into it, then stepped over and continued down the soi, past the fruit stall, past the tailor pumping his foot-pedal sewing machine, past the construction workers in bandannas.

It was Shelly who answered the door. She backed away to let Tooly in, bowed, hastened to her quarters. Paul was still away at work. Tooly found her bedroom tended and tidy, bed made, sheets tight. The apartment was air-conditioner cold, its thrumming units rippling the curtains. On the desk, her schoolbooks were lined up. She opened her book bag, looking for Nicholas Nickleby, but had left it behind. She took out her sketchbook of noses instead, yet couldn’t bring herself to draw more than a line, so left it on the desk. She jumped onto the bed, landing on her knees, mattress jiggling — her first proper bedding after weeks in the tent. She let herself fall flat on her face and lay still, her mouth dampening a patch of bedspread.

At the sound of Paul arriving home, she awoke with fright but did not move for several seconds. Finally, heart racing, she walked into the living room.

“Tooly.” He gaped at her, absently putting down his briefcase. “Tooly.”

She held still.

Paul reached out, and she extended her hand to shake his. He’d only meant to touch her arm.

“Did Sarah bring you?”

Tooly shook her head.

“Are you okay? You look so thin. Are you hungry?”

As they ate, he asked if she wanted to stay with him and that she could — he’d figure it out somehow. They could leave right now, move again. Did she want that? But these questions were too direct coming from Paul — she expected him to be otherwise, so didn’t know how to answer.

All fell quiet, like their meals of old. Just the tremors of his desire to speak. So strange after days of free discussion with Humphrey and everyone there, after all she’d done — drinking coffee each morning! cheating at chess! debating one of the Great Thinkers!

She asked to get down from the table, and went to her room. She hadn’t had a door for so long, and was unsure whether to use it now, if it would be rude. From the other room, he cleared his throat, as if to call her back. She knew where he’d be: seated stiffly on a chair, work folder in his lap, willing her to join him.

However, she found him otherwise than imagined. He lay on the couch, arm draped over his eyes. She stood beside him, looking at his shielded face. He reached over to draw his daughter nearer. But she turned, spiraling away.

On her balcony, Tooly gazed down at the lit swimming pool in the courtyard, a pane of blue glass. The shacks on the other side of the wall were dark. Lights from distant skyscrapers dotted the night.

She slipped out, ran down the stairs, passed under the jacaranda trees, beyond the saluting porter, up toward Sukhumvit Road, into the first tuk-tuk.

The destination she gave was Khlong Toey Market — she and Sarah had passed it that first night. Upon arrival, she handed the driver all her money, the tips from helping tend bar. She was on her own in a swirl of strangers, and looked for the alley. She tried one, but it was wrong. She walked up the next. All grew darker as she went. She closed her eyes, the better to listen for music and crowd noise. She heard only traffic, far behind her now. Tooly turned a blind corner. And there it was: the house. She crossed the concrete patio and tried the front door, which opened immediately.

All three of them stood there, their conversation interrupted. The way they regarded her — Venn smiling slowly, Sarah reaching for her cigarettes, Humphrey compressing his lips — it seemed that the discussion might have been about Tooly herself.

“I figured you’d make it back, little duck.”

“Thank God, thank God, thank God — thought I’d lost you,” Sarah said, though she was looking at Venn.

“Look what I got,” Tooly said, taking out her passport.

Venn lifted it from her hand, flipped through, and handed it to Sarah, from whom Humphrey grabbed the document. He appeared uneasy about the girl’s return, lips parting as if to object, though he had no power to dissuade anybody. He had tried. But people didn’t listen to him.

“See,” Sarah told Venn, eyes wide. “She wants to come with.”

“You’re being unrealistic.”

“It’ll arrive in my account every month; he promised. It’ll come to me and I’ll share it with you. I don’t mind.”

“Who’s looking after her?”

“I will,” Sarah said.

“Me, you, and her going around together?”

“We’ll be company for you,” Sarah told Venn. “You can do what you like. With whoever you like. I’m not trying to make some claim on you. You won’t get sick of me. I promise.”

Humphrey addressed Tooly: “They’re not staying here. You know that? They’ll be going some other place. You might not like it. I won’t be there. There won’t be school, probably. It might not be safe.”

Tooly nodded her assent.

He appealed to Sarah and Venn: “You can’t take her.”

“How much are we talking about?” Venn asked Sarah. “And monthly, right?”

Humphrey shook his head unhappily. “Look, look.”

“What?”

“If you do this,” he said, “I come.”

Venn smirked. “What do you have to do with anything?”

“I keep eye on her.”

“Sorry, but I don’t travel like that,” Venn said.

“We don’t need to all go together,” Sarah argued. “Just tell me where you’re headed. I’ll get there on my own. Me and Tooly will join you.”

“And Humph comes along and babysits whenever you wander off?” Venn said.

“I’m not wandering off. It’ll be a decent amount, Venn. It’s yours as far as I’m concerned.”

“Do what you like, Sarah. You, too, Humph. Makes no difference to me.” Venn winked at Tooly, who grinned back.

Sarah lit a shaky cigarette, blew a smoke cloud, and patted her thigh to call the girl nearer, hugging her tightly, kissing her cheek so hard that Tooly’s neck bent from the pressure. “What have you done?” Sarah whispered. “What have you done to your poor, poor father?”