The Rise And Fall Of Great Powers Part 20

"I like it," he said, smiling. "Very practical."

"I notice you're not writing that down. Oh, and I always think about how they should make it so that cars run on tracks and are controlled electronically, which would end accidents and traffic jams."

"This idea already exists. It's called a train."

"Spoilsport," she said. "What about the salt shaker?"

"What about it?"

"I hate salt shakers. I don't want a little heap of salt on my mashed potatoes," she said, paraphrasing Humphrey. "I want salt evenly over the whole area. A salt sprayer. Make it happen!"

"I'll do my best."

She took another drag, returning the cigarette. "What's your big idea?"

"You are not the only one who can be secretive."

"Oh, come on! I gave you solid gold. The salt sprayer! And the train-I just reinvented the train! Don't I get credit for that?"

"Okay, okay. My big idea," he said, "is Wildfire."

As they walked, Xavi delivered a version of the presentation he'd done in cla.s.s. "The greatest impediment to online commerce is that the modern consumer is afraid to input bank details on a website. Both sides-sales point and client-want to do business. But they need a secure way to take the next step. That is where Wildfire comes in: a new form of money, for all transactions conducted on the information superhighway. You send a credit-card payment to Wildfire, mail a check or bank order, and in exchange you get tokens redeemable with cooperating businesses on the World Wide Web. Consumers get security and vendors get income. Furthermore, Wildfire tokens offer protection against instability in the world. You are safe from currency fluctuations, from government irresponsibility in monetary policy, from devaluations. Keeping money in the currency of the country where you happen to be born makes no sense in today's globalized world. We need a virtual currency for a virtual future: Wildfire."

"Xavi!"

"What?"

"That sounds like an actual idea."

"Yes, of course."

"How did you come up with that?"

"You like it?"

"I mean, I don't know anything. But it sounds insanely great."

He laughed shyly.

Tooly-calibrating her effect on him-considered commending him even more lavishly, or kissing his cheek, or saying they must go into business together. She inhaled the bracing air. "I always wanted a hand m.u.f.f, like in those glamorous movies about the tsars," she said, then unglamorously lost her balance and s.n.a.t.c.hed his arm to steady herself. She held it all the way to the corner of 115th Street. Outside the building, she handed him the leash and pushed away, skating down the frosty sidewalk in alternating black streaks. "Are you staying in the city through Christmas and New Year's?" she shouted.

"For part of it."

"I'm around, too," she said, skating back.

Tooly had no seasonal festivities at her place in Brooklyn. Humphrey boycotted public holidays, considering them rank conformism. But when she stopped in they did play Christmas Ping-Pong. Even that was ruined by the presence of Sarah, sulking because Tooly hadn't come for a shopping expedition on her twenty-first birthday. Worse still, Venn hadn't been in touch-never had he ignored her like this. She'd waited weeks. Her flight to Italy was in a few days, and she pressed Tooly to come along. When the invitation was rejected, Sarah stormed off into the night.

Humphrey looked up from his book and wiggled his eyebrows, which made Tooly laugh. He called her over to the couch and wondered if perhaps she should consider Sarah's offer, especially since there was a job there at that leather-goods store.

"I'm not going anyplace with the empress," Tooly responded with irritation. "And you just know there'd be no job waiting once I got there. There probably isn't even a leather-goods shop. Can you imagine Sarah running a store? You can't shoplift from yourself."

He ducked behind the book.

After a minute, Tooly prepared him a smashed-potato sandwich, an edible apology for having snapped.

"I have items," he muttered, as she delivered his food. "Items for discussing purposes."

"I'm sure. Let me guess," she said. "We should run away together?"

"If I tell you," he said, "then you get cross at me. You hate me, maybe."

"Whatever you have to say," she said, amused, "I think I can handle it."

He frowned, on the verge of speaking, wet lips flapping for a moment-then he curled forward and resumed his book, The Unreality of Time by J.M.E. McTaggart.

Tooly preferred that he keep reading. His "items" were only ever pretexts to keep her at the apartment, which saddened her, since she longed to be elsewhere.

Yet she couldn't entirely spurn Humphrey. Mostly, it was from pity. But another motive lurked, one she denied: she had no money to manage alone, and he'd always helped with small amounts. She had too much pride to ask Venn for cash, and, anyway, she saw him too irregularly. On occasion, Venn noticed her penury and slipped her a few banknotes. But she regretted those occasions, which only reinforced her uselessness. She could have taken a job, of course, and wouldn't have minded. But something was always afoot with Venn and she had to remain available-he could call at any minute and say, "I'm leaving tomorrow. Coming?"

THE DAY BEFORE New Year's Eve, the city awoke white. A blizzard hit overnight and sanitation trucks plowed the streets at dawn, driving snow into gritty ranges that rose from the gutters and sank to the cleared sidewalks. Tooly strolled through the West Village, stepping between two parked cars on Hudson Street, up an icy hillock whose peak collapsed underfoot. She stamped her snowy sneakers on the pavement, causing the automatic gla.s.s doors of a residential building to part. Right past the doorman she went, with such confidence that he merely returned to his horoscope. On the ninth floor, she found a low-lit hallway, doors all the way down. One was ajar, and she entered.

A man stood at the far end of the room, his back to her, gazing through floor-to-ceiling windows at the view of Manhattan.

"Excuse me," she said, hesitating in the doorway. "So sorry to bother you but-this might sound weird-but I actually grew up in this apartment. I happened to be walking by and was wondering, would it be insane if I asked maybe to peek inside? I'm getting a flood of memories even just standing here. Is that-"

"Very nice," Venn said. "You'll ask to use the toilet next."

"I'm too old for that line," she said, closing the door behind her. "Pity, I wouldn't mind walking into random apartments when I need a bathroom. Actually, yes-why don't I?"

The place was sumptuous, floorboards and walls brilliant white, a white orchid on the coffee table before a leather divan, a braided pachira tree in a pot. Tooly checked out the bookshelf, which contained only volumes about beads, b.u.t.tons, and Bakelite jewelry.

She joined him at the windows. The panes were four times her height and as wide as the entire apartment, a crystal cityscape of West Village rooftops steaming, high-rises crammed in higgledy-piggledy.

"Who lives in this place?" she asked. His eyes looked so intently ahead that she followed his gaze, only for him to turn to her, a grin creasing his cheeks.

"Who lives here?" he repeated back.

"Yes, here. The place where we're both standing right now. The apartment that-I think I can confidently say-isn't yours."

"You mean this place, where you grew up?"

"Seriously, whose?"

"Just a friend, duck."

"Speaking of your ladyfriends, Sarah is still holding out hope of hearing from you. And Humph is going nuts dealing with her. Could you just see her before she leaves? Or at least phone her at the apartment? It's easy for you, hiding out here in luxury. But we have to deal with her."

"And the boy-lawyer?" he asked, meaning Duncan. "How's that?"

"I'm making friends with the whole place."

"Friends? Make them fall in love with you."

"I might have something for you from there."

He pointed a remote control at the shutters, which lowered with an automated whirr, wiping out the city. "We ready to go?" He often spoke of "we" like this, as if he and Tooly were akin, which flattered her, since she viewed her personality as so small and his as so large. He understood her character and spoke of it so convincingly. When she was little, and he praised her as brave or uncomplaining, she sought to become that way. Until, gradually, she adopted the traits he claimed to have seen from the start.

They set forth into the snow. Venn went most places by foot, and she had a.s.sumed this habit. He was as likely to walk for three hours as three minutes, and never informed her of their destination. They tracked north today, past Fourteenth Street, through Chelsea, east at Penn Station, along secondary streets uncleared except over subway grates or where muddy footsteps had preceded them. For blocks, he said nothing.

"So," she asked, to break the silence, "the owner of the white apartment? Anything special?"

"No, no."

"Don't you get the urge to stay with any of these women?"

"Absolutely not. You know me."

"I know you," she said. "But I don't get you. You seem to be cutting out more and more stuff these days."

"That's exactly what I'm doing. I try to distance myself from things."

"What for? I don't see what you gain from that."

"I achieve a peace in it, I suppose," he said. "It's about recognizing how little I need and sticking with that, as forces around (and in me) tempt me to set it aside. I try to get rid of everything unnecessary."

"Meaning what?"

"Everything possible. Even unnecessary thoughts," he explained. "Fear, for example. The only way I was able to deal with fear was to reconcile myself with death. And no longer fearing death makes it so much easier to live how you want, without the interference of conventions, so many of which are just ways of staving off death anyway."

"How so?"

"Things like family, kids. Some people have children expressly so they'll be looked after in old age. They want adulation guaranteed, even when they're no longer worthy of it. The love they give is only because they expect it in return. There's always that condition, and it's at the root of failed love, marriages, friendships."

"Not always a condition," she responded. "Isn't that the point with stuff like marriage and children? It's supposed to be unconditional."

" 'Supposed to be' is just a way of saying 'isn't.' The reality is that people marry and procreate because of pressure from friends, from family. But there's something vital lost the moment couples define themselves by an achievement anyone-good, bad, bright, or boring-achieves with the same simple act. For me, starting a family would be capitulation. Not least because it'd force me to have lunch with uninteresting people whose only point of reference is that our kids take the same dance cla.s.s."

They walked on in silence. "I don't want kids, either," she said, looking at him.

"Why would you? Children are not remotely interesting till they grow up," he said. "Even then, few turn out to be."

"I was interesting, wasn't I?"

"But you weren't much of a child. Like I never was. We were hanging around in kids' bodies, waiting for time to rectify the mixup."

"Some children must be nice."

"How many did you like when you were one? I defy anyone to tell me that having them is meaningful," he said. "It's supposed to make you more loving and nurturing. But those are things I aim to be irrespective. People who must have a child to be kind are missing something in their emotional setup; they require someone's neediness to give their lives meaning. Life has enough meaning and beauty already. Discovering that is a proper pursuit. Not just making helpless little organisms. Or marrying whoever once turned you on. Bonds between people form in particular circ.u.mstance and times, and ought to end once those pa.s.s. But people are so frightened of being left alone that they collect all these malformed relationships. Accepting loneliness is everything."

"You're crazy," she said, laughing.

He chuckled. "I'm challenging my crazy self," he said. "Testing my limits and getting stronger in the process. Can I go without friendship, pleasures, warmth? Can I walk for twenty-four hours straight through the night? Can I challenge a tyrant? If yes, what have I achieved? An insight? A vanity? A change somewhere in me? To pursue my own life satisfies me in the way that parenthood must for mothers and fathers. Most of them would find my views offensive. But later they'll find themselves attracted to me."

Rounding the corner, they confronted a peculiar scene. At the entrance of a closed office building across the street, a b.u.m stood, tottering over a sleeping bag, which he jostled with his foot before unzipping his filthy black jeans and, right there, urinating on it.

"I think there's someone in that sleeping bag," Tooly said. "He's p.i.s.sing right on them."

"Stay here."

"Wait a second." But he was already crossing the street.

The b.u.m-knuckles covered in blue tattoos, face inked, too-zipped his fly, cursed the sleeping bag and kicked it, provoking a howl from within. He grabbed the end of the nylon bag and dragged it, a body flailing within. Noticing Venn, the b.u.m paused, glaring from under a scabby brow. "Guy's a f.a.ggot," he said, by way of explanation. "He's blocking my house." He hammer-fisted the sleeping bag, prompting another m.u.f.fled wail.

Venn pointed down the street. "Go that way. Now."

"It's my motherf.u.c.king door, man."

A toothless face jutted from the sleeping bag, nose bleeding, greasy comb-over flopping in the wind. "Aren't you just Mr. Sunshine," he babbled. "I think we're in love now."

"See?" the b.u.m told Venn. "Guy's a f.a.g."

"Leave it."

"Tell the f.a.g to leave."

"Now," Venn said. "Or I rip your ears off."

"What you say?"

Venn didn't repeat himself.

As the b.u.m unleashed another kick at the sleeping bag, Venn rammed him against the building. The b.u.m struck the wall with a thud and fell to the snowy pavement. Venn dropped atop, knee in his chest, pinning him, muscles straining as he pushed downward.

"Hurting me, a.s.shole!" the b.u.m hollered. "Can't f.u.c.king breathe!" After futile squirming and howling, he went limp. When Venn dragged him to his feet, the b.u.m lunged for a head-b.u.t.t. Venn caught him by the throat and eye socket, jutted a leg behind his, thrust forward his shoulder, knocking the man to the pavement, against which he bashed his face twice, before pulling him to his feet and frog-marching him a short distance away. "You're done."

Bleeding, the b.u.m stumbled off, stopping at the corner to shout back curses.

Tooly knelt before the madman in the sleeping bag: a little person, sweet-faced, effeminate, and so damaged that he could have been thirty or seventy. "You okay?" she asked.

"Why," he answered, "why don't you go screw yourselves." He cackled and pulled his head back inside the urine-drenched sleeping bag.

"A lunatic," Venn said calmly, and turned to Tooly. "Ready?"

He resumed their walk as if nothing had happened. She hastened to match his pace, shaky but determined to exude nonchalance. "Look." She held up her hand. "I'm trembling and I didn't even do anything! You're completely calm."

"Does no good to get frightened in a situation like that."

"I don't get frightened because I think it's a good idea."