The Rise And Fall Of Great Powers Part 26

She took a sweater from his closet. "And Xavi," she asked, pushing her head through the neck hole, "where's he?"

"Back later. He said you guys held a couple of meetings about his business idea."

There had been four such meetings, including a New Year's Eve party of B-school types. "His online-currency idea is really smart, actually," she said. "Just needs funding."

Duncan crouched by the stereo, working on a welcome-back tape for her, writing its label in smeared rollerball ink: "Year 2000 Mix by D-Mac." She had still not played his previous mixtapes, since the radio-ca.s.sette player in her kitchen in Brooklyn turned out, on closer inspection, to be only a radio. His compilations remained forgotten in her coat pocket, the tapes jiggling in their cases at her every step around the city.

She watched Duncan working the CD player and double-ca.s.sette deck, his eyes sinking shut at a favorite chorus, hands swatting the air during a drum solo. Observing him, she came unstuck from the present moment, experiencing it as if viewed a time hence, as if all this were long past, and he at this age resided only in memory. The song exploded, stopped dead. He spun around to look at her. "Amazing, no?"

"Very amazing," she responded, noting how he sought her approval. She pressed a kiss to his lips, slid her hands up his long-sleeved T-shirt and over his warm chest. She was the person of chief consequence in his world, but he was not that person to her.

"I got totally into cla.s.sic rock over Christmas," he said. "It was like high school: headphones on in my old room, listening to my parents' records." He double-clicked a track on Napster, playing it through the laptop speakers: "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd. He smiled, but the irony was lost on Tooly, and he had to explain that this was a notoriously cliched rock anthem.

She paid close attention, glancing sightlessly around the room, then shook her head. "Never heard it."

"How is that possible?"

The song went on, the singer wailing, "Lord knows, I can't change/Lord, help me, I can't chay-yay-yay-yay-yay-yay-yay-yay-ange!" Abruptly, the tempo sped up, and Duncan did something unexpected. The meek law student leaped onto his bed and gave the most astonishing air-guitar performance she had ever seen: arpeggios along an invisible fingerboard, hard-strumming every downstroke, eyes scrunched, tongue out, head banging, licking an air pick for effect, stepping on invisible distortion pedals, bending a whammy bar, swinging imaginary rock-n'-roll hair from his face. This act-in addition to being incredibly funny-was absolutely f.u.c.king perfect. She watched, trying not to close her eyes.

"What the h.e.l.l, McGrory!" she shouted at the fade-out, he standing above her on the bed, breathless. "What the h.e.l.l!" she repeated. "That was genius!"

He tried not to smile too proudly.

"I didn't even know you knew guitar."

"That doesn't," he said, breathing heavily, "actually count as playing."

"You could start an air band."

He hopped off the bed and, fired up by her praise, fetched Emerson's acoustic guitar from the living room to show what he could do with a real instrument, which amounted to power chords and the opening to "Smoke on the Water," all of which impressed her. She gave it a try but the frets were too wide for her small fingers.

"I used to play the ukulele in school," she said, giving a tuneless strum.

"You played well, I see."

"Music is not among my talents."

His bedroom door swung open. "Wildfire," Xavi called to her.

"I know. We need to talk." She left Duncan to finish her mixtape and went to discuss business in Xavi's room. After an hour, Duncan entered and handed her the ca.s.sette.

"Quit law school and join us," she told him. "We'll be rich beyond your wildest imaginings."

In coming days, her planning with Xavi took hours. Soon she was entering his room without a knock, hanging around late into the evening, long after there was no further work. Duncan gravitated to his friend's room, too, though he still sought permission to enter. His comments were invariably negative-valid concerns but unwelcome, and Tooly dreaded his appearances.

She consulted with Venn by phone, recounting her progress, which seemed rapid to her. He loved how she really believed in this project, though he noted that it still lacked funding-hardly a trivial oversight. However, they had identified a source.

"Really don't want to ask him," Duncan responded.

"You don't ask," she said. "You mention that there are these entrepreneurs starting a dot-com, and you actually know these guys. They don't want outsiders involved because it could be huge. But they asked if you wanted to get in. That's all true. You don't ask for a thing. Let Keith think he's come up with the idea."

"My father doesn't operate that way."

"If he gets involved and it takes off, he'll think of you differently forever."

"Differently how?"

"Not as a kid asking for money but as a friend."

Duncan said nothing for a minute. "I really, really do not want to beg my dad."

Instead, he spoke with his mother, asking what his folks might consider contributing to Wildfire. Xavi made progress, too, meeting at length with Venn about the business plan. Venn showed him the view from the roof of the Brain Trust and an empty cubicle with a handwritten note: "Reserved for Wildfire." Xavi filled out all the paperwork to join the cooperative-once the funds came in, they were set.

2011.

SHE ATE DINNER alone in the bas.e.m.e.nt suite, a window high in the wall providing gra.s.s-level views of the McGrorys' backyard. The summer grew hot and light lingered far into the evenings now. Children's bare feet rushed past and little faces peeped at her, squashed against the panes. She was part of their household now, tending to Humphrey by day, back to Connecticut by night. When she ventured upstairs, the family welcomed her. They counted on her steady mood, knowing that, no matter how grouchy they were, she was impossible to upset. Mac, in particular, glommed on to her-except if Duncan returned early from work, at which point the boy trailed behind his father like a faithful pooch.

But Duncan was a rare presence. He missed most family dinners, often returning after the kids were in bed and departing before they rose. When home, he was pursued by emails. His respite was what Bridget termed "anger hour," a nightly rant at the cable news channels. It was peculiar: he spewed such vitriol in that house, yet acted with notable kindness outside it. Accounts emerged from Bridget of his decency toward new hires at the firm, toward strangers, and to Humphrey in the months before Tooly arrived. Bridget once cited an entire chapter in her husband's life of which Tooly had known nothing, how he had nursed a sick friend till the person's death. When she inquired about this, Duncan changed the subject-he couldn't accept praise.

Then, by breakfast, he was gone. It was Bridget who poured the kids' cereal and orange juice. She was present, involved, interested. Yet it was Duncan's absence that shaped the household. The triplets used obscenities because it made him chuckle. When they threw a dart at Mac and it stuck in his b.u.t.t, Bridget had to clean the pinpoint wound with rubbing alcohol. "Not funny," she said. But Duncan had smirked, and the girls noticed.

Such dynamics caused tension between Duncan and Bridget, but the hostility abated when Tooly turned up. She had become the glue here, mending and maintaining, but exhausting herself in the process. She longed-longed!-for time on her own, s.n.a.t.c.hing what minutes she could alone downstairs, indulging in ukulele practice to hold them back, until one or another McGrory couldn't resist leaning into the music room, asking what she was up to. Aside from Mac, the most regular visitor was Bridget, who relished having a grown-up friend on-site.

Each night, Tooly got into bed with a gla.s.s of red wine and an old newspaper, since she lacked the concentration for anything more involved. Throughout her waking hours, she was prodded by a sense of responsibility, a.s.suaged only when need did present itself-Humphrey coughing, calling for water; Mac panicking about an imminent sporting humiliation-whereupon she could act. Afterward, her uneasy vigil continued, dissipating only in sleep. But going to bed tipsy produced a shallow slumber, interrupted by trips to pee.

At dawn, she awoke weary-couldn't sleep in as she had in younger years-and stayed under the covers, floating around Caergenog till the present gained focus. She glimpsed the wine bottle on the counter, not half drunk as intended but nearly empty. She had barely noticed the third and fourth gla.s.ses of the evening before. Tooly resolved to skip her nightcap that evening, and bought nothing on the way home. Then bedtime came again, and unease with it, leading her upstairs for a nip of something. She stood in the dark house, looking out the front window, full gla.s.s in hand.

Sipping before one of the McGrorys' laptops, she resumed her late-night hobby of peeping at the lives of those she'd known. Running through names from the past, she typed in "Jon Priddles"-still at King Chulalongkorn International School, it turned out: chairman of the board of trustees now, after "a beloved career as princ.i.p.al," according to the school website. She found information on Gilbert Lerallu, too, the owner of that pig at 115th Street, now critically acclaimed (the man, not the pig) for an alb.u.m of avant-garde harpsichord compositions. When she typed in Xavi's full name, "Xavier Karamage," nothing relevant came up.

Of those she'd known in New York, he'd seemed the most likely to flourish: smart, ambitious, charming. There was no trace of him. She had tried to ask Duncan, but whenever she mentioned those days he cut the conversation short. She never pressed the matter. So many aspects of that period troubled her, particularly how she'd behaved.

"SLEEP WELL?" she asked Humphrey, unloading a few ready-to-heat meals from shopping bags. Her attempts to pull him from torpor, to get him eating properly, reading again, to rouse his intellect-all this had fizzled.

The former Humphrey grew harder to retrieve. Insidiously, the present Humphrey snuffed out the previous one, which came to seem implausible. People manifested so many selves over a lifetime. Was only the latest valid?

"Let me open the curtains-gorgeous sun today."

He frowned at the white-and-black object she held. "What's that?"

She handed over her newspaper, and he pressed the front page to his nose, then extended it, struggling for focus. She fetched his gla.s.ses and perched herself on the arm of his chair.

"Who's this?" he asked, tapping the photo of a disgraced New York politician who had injudiciously distributed photos of his crotch. It was a bad summer for powerful men, she informed Humphrey, with the humiliation of Anthony Weiner, the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the humbling of Rupert Murdoch, the ousting of Arab dictators.

He pointed at another photo. "She looks strange."

"That's a man."

They worked through the newspaper, not by the words but by the faces, making a game of guessing each expression. Abruptly, Humphrey stood, the paper falling off his lap and coming apart at his feet. "Look at the clouds," he said, tottering toward the window. He shuffled back to his armchair, sat heavily, interlaced his fingers across his chest.

"What are you thinking, Humph?"

At length, he responded. "I don't know what's happening in the world."

"I'll leave the paper here for you. You can go through it after I've gone."

The next day, that copy sat untouched. She had the latest edition with her. "I read this amazing article, Humph, about how thirty-five hours of new footage get uploaded to this website called YouTube every minute. Incredible, no?" But how absurd to speak of tech marvels to a man who'd never left the previous century. She attempted to explain: electronic pulses hurtled around the world, sending information, photographs, video everywhere. "Sorry, I'm explaining it badly. I'll show you sometime."

He grunted at her description of the present. "I feel apprehensive," he said. "What am I supposed to be worrying about?"

"About nothing. I'm taking care of things."

He looked away, unconvinced. "Can't find what I want."

"Well, you have a lot to remember, Humph. Your life has been going on since the 1920s."

"How old would you say I am?"

"You're eighty-three."

"Am I?" he replied, astounded. "That's almost indecent!"

"But you feel like you're only six."

"Seven," he corrected her.

"You felt six the other day."

"I'm more grown-up than a six-year-old."

She kissed his cheek.

"Gosh, I don't know you that well," he joked. "Can I make you a coffee?"

"Let me," she said, and leaped to her feet, elated at this glimpse of the old Humphrey. There were times when it was him again, burning through thick clouds.

"Tricky spelling your name," he remarked, when she returned from the communal kitchen. "How would you do that?"

"What, spell it?"

"Yes, all right." He took the mug, drizzling coffee down his trouser leg.

She gave her name letter by letter. "And you remember my nickname: Tooly."

"Well, I'm not going to argue over it. How long are you staying?"

A horrible realization struck her: he didn't recognize her. "I was thinking of when I was a little girl, and I met you," she said. "You explained chess, and you let me cheat. You were very sweet to me."

"Nonsense!"

"You were," she insisted. "I was there."

Within an hour, Tooly stood at the window of a motel room on Emmons Avenue, overlooking the parking lot. On the bed behind her, Garry smoked. Every few days, they rented a room for four hours, which was affordable if they split the cost. The place made for a sordid rendezvous, wallpaper peeling, mattress covered with plastic, p.o.r.n on Channel 33. Yet the awfulness amused them, and they competed to find the most repellent feature. Today, the winning entry had been dead c.o.c.kroaches in the shower stall.

Garry had a handsome face, eyes narrowing to slits when he laughed. He patted her bare stomach; a dull smack. "You are too thin."

To disprove this, she pinched a bit of fat, then gathered her underwear to cover her nakedness. She took a drag of his cigarette for the intimacy, the damp filter, and listened to his young-man chatter about the inevitability of his own success, described with knee-jiggling zeal. He had grown up in Novosibirsk, dreaming of a million bucks. "Today, I realize one million buys nothing."

They spoke as if conducting different conversations, she the older woman, he the younger man, both conscious of the gulf, which had such different meanings for each. Afterward, they sat in his banged-up Pontiac in the parking lot, and he unpacked a picnic, food taken from home, supposedly to keep him going while he studied at community college.

"Doesn't your mother notice when so much stuff goes missing?"

He chewed with his mouth open. "She thinks I have a big appet.i.te." In pa.s.sing, he mentioned an upcoming vacation in Russia with his fiancee.

"Oh," Tooly responded. "Didn't know you had one."

"I planned this trip for ages."

"I mean," she specified, "didn't know you had a fiancee."

From a fling like this, Tooly expected only human contact and distraction. Both could be found elsewhere. "Let's leave it at this," she said, when he dropped her at the Sheepshead Bay station. She always felt a little relieved at an excuse to break up-one less thing to carry around.

Tooly returned that night to find the McGrory siblings at war, videogames bleeping in the TV room, their mother chewing her fingernail in the glow of an iPad 2-"Hey, you," Bridget said, "come hang out"-and since Tooly was a guest she had to, though what she needed was the opposite of their eyes. Then hers opened and it was time to rise and begin again, Mac staring at her, awaiting his drive to another unhappy day.

He had begged his parents to enroll him in this moviemaking course at the Y, and so refused to admit how badly he fared. His cla.s.smates were older and from a different school-when he spoke, n.o.body heard. To tell Bridget how miserable her son was would betray his confidence. So Tooly attempted, during the morning drive, to inflate him for the puncturing day ahead. She asked his opinion on matters that concerned her, like what she should do if Humphrey got a bit better; and where she might live after she left here, given that her shop was closing. She could live anywhere in the world now. Tooly took his answers seriously, so he gave them seriously.

"Live here. You could have your own house, but close."

"Couldn't afford to live in Darien. Not by a long shot, I'm afraid. But tell me something," she said. "If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be? Even just to visit."

He fiddled with the side mirror. The boy had a way of vanishing, not hearing questions-it was infuriating to teachers ("Needs improvement"), to other kids ("Earth to Mac?"), to his father ("Hey. Mac. Seriously now."). She observed him, wondering about the inside of his head, whether it was far away and empty, or near and full. He was humming, and she recognized the tune.

"That's 'The William Tell Overture.' I was practicing that on my ukulele."

He denied that he'd been listening in.

"Come in next time. I don't want you hiding in your own house."

"Wasn't hiding."

"Oh dear. Everything I say is wrong, Mac, my friend."

His chin pruned.

She hated to see him on the verge of tears, but turning away seemed worse. She gave a pull of his earlobe and had a rush of-what would she call it?-a wish to suffer harm in his place. "I'll look after you," she said. "What do you think of that?"

"Okay."

"Things improve when you grow up. You'll see," she said, turning in to the YMCA parking lot. "Some people hate getting older, but it'll suit you. There are people made to be children and people made to be adults. Since you spend most of life as a grown-up, it's better to have the good bits then. Don't you think?" Tooly had no idea if what she said was hogwash, so a.s.serted it as confidently as possible. She reached across him and opened his door. "Spit on the ground for luck."