The Rise And Fall Of Great Powers Part 31

He asked about Tooly's bookshop, her life on the Welsh-English border, her travels, all of which she had mentioned in their phone call. While she answered, he folded his napkin, placed the spoon and fork perpendicular to each other, rotated them like clock hands, leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs one way, then the other.

"I've been waiting," he interrupted, drawing his chair up to the table. "I've been waiting to hear from you. It was years. I thought I wouldn't." He went quiet, tried to finish, voice rising in pitch but strangled in his throat. He forced a laugh, unthinkingly tapping the boy's arm.

"Ow, get off!"

"Excuse me. Sorry," Paul said, hand raised. "Pardon me."

Mac-unaware of the distress emanating from the man-asked when they were having dessert. There was none. Could he get down and play on his phone? He could. The boy departed for the front room, where he lay on the floor, swiping at a game onscreen, indifferent to their conversation in the kitchen.

"I always wanted to explain myself to you," Paul continued. "Always wanted to. I had a duty-thought I had a duty-regarding what I did. I wanted to explain that, but planned to wait till you were grown. Then I never heard from you. I wasn't going to interfere. Didn't want to disturb your life."

Tooly could have claimed that she'd been prevented from contacting him, but that was untrue. She hadn't wanted to. They had been a team once, she as vital to him as he to her. Yet she had abandoned him. Knowingly, she'd done so.

"I felt it was not in your interest that you stayed with your mother," he explained. "That was why I acted. That's why I took you. It wasn't selfishness. I hope you realize that."

"I know."

"She'd just go absent, days at a time. Stop me if you don't want to hear this." Since Tooly didn't object, he continued. "She could only fix her attention on the thing in front of her and nothing else. And we weren't it. You were so undersized when you were little-is it possible that was caused by your mother neglecting you? I had a duty, I thought. Not only as your father but as a human person. Which is why I acted. But only with good intentions."

From adolescence, Paul had been a joiner of clubs and teams-not by preference but against it, plunging himself into uncomfortable social situations in the hope of converting himself into a different person, one more affable and easygoing. But his nature resisted experience: he remained frustratingly the same. By college, he'd submitted to introversion, taking a degree in computer science, which led to a job in D.C. at Ritcomm. After a few years, they appointed him to run an overseas project, a ten-week contract with the Kenyan government. It proved a disaster. The independence leader, President Jomo Kenyatta, was dying, and members of his inner circle were contesting power and enriching themselves from state programs. When Paul refused to cooperate, officials shunned him. He pet.i.tioned Ritcomm to return stateside, but this risked voiding the contract. They told him to sit it out.

With nothing to do, he booked a countryside tour, lured by the promise of birds. Also, he hoped for cooler locales, since heat aggravated his respiratory problems. But the tour guide drove homicidally, and constantly sought to divert Paul to bordellos and shady jewel merchants. Part of the tour had been touted as a two-night "bird safari," yet turned out to be nothing of the sort. Paul found himself at a ramshackle former hunting lodge run by a louche Italian and his miserable English wife, both serious drinkers. Big-game hunters used to stay out there, but the independent Kenyan government had banned blood sports. A few lodges had transformed themselves into nature parks; others offered illegal hunts. When Paul refused such an expedition, the Italian owner lost interest, telling him to wander the grounds and look skyward-that was the bird safari. But traipsing through the bush seemed madness, with savage creatures out there, so Paul remained in his room, feeling aggrieved. The daughter of the lodge owners turned up, offering to show him the few birds found on the premises, several in cages. Previously, her job had been to photograph guests with their kills. She asked him about America, gazed too directly at him.

He returned to Nairobi and resumed his nonexistent job. To his surprise, the young woman from the lodge appeared at his hotel with a tale of woe: her ex-boyfriend had tried to shoot himself, and all the white settlers in the area falsely blamed her and made life insufferable. She had nowhere to stay in the capital, so Paul booked her a room at the hotel-on a different floor, however, to avoid any suggestion of impropriety. She knocked on his door late that night, inviting him to the bar for a thank-you drink. He ordered a gla.s.s of milk, listening as she recounted her life, a series of injustices and misfortunes, it seemed. Well after closing time, they continued their conversation on a lobby sofa-it was she who spoke-before breaking apart at around 2 A.M. and taking the elevator to their separate floors. At dawn, there was a knock at his door. She stood there. Only because Paul was half asleep did he have the courage to do what followed.

For the first time, he understood the accounts of sane citizens hurtling toward disaster because of romantic pa.s.sion. He'd thought lovers were showing off when they made their ardor public. But his need for her proximity overwhelmed reason. It was a need too expansive for his insides, requiring outward acts. They had "relations" (Paul put the matter delicately, even decades later), which he'd always thought a fearsome milestone, but which she offered with intoxicating ease. There was-despite his lifelong expectations to the contrary-a little territory available to him. Not just the confines of himself but in her, too, and a place they might have together. Before his departure, Sarah was pregnant. They flew to the United States, and he bought a home for his new family.

"Where?"

"You're in it."

But, soon after arriving, Sarah recanted the plan to marry, a shock to Paul. After all, she was pregnant-he hadn't imagined that a woman might willingly not marry under such circ.u.mstances. But she seemed to find him intolerable, even repugnant. She came to blame Paul for everything, be it the immigration official at whom she'd cursed or the obnoxious shop detective who'd accused her of shoplifting. When Paul noted that the U.S. surgeon general had deemed smoking noxious during pregnancy, Sarah reached for her lighter. Just as impulsively, she broke down and apologized, appearing so disconsolate that her underlying decency was plain to him, and she was redeemed. Their daughter, Matilda, arrived. The situation only worsened. Once, Sarah left the girl in her bath seat and spun on the tub faucet, then went to make phone calls. She'd only turned on the hot tap. The infant howled and howled, and Paul ran upstairs, finding his tiny daughter's feet submerged in scalding water. "Thank G.o.d it was a weekend and I was there. You can imagine what it made me wonder about days when I was away at the office. For years, you had those burn scars on your feet."

"Was that why you always made me wear socks around the house?"

"Maybe, yes."

The day he saved her in the tub, Paul went down to the bas.e.m.e.nt and paced. He loathed Sarah with an intensity that exceeded his former desire for her. The easiest option was to move out, have nothing to do with her. But he had duties to this small person, who hadn't chosen to be included in his mistake. So he resolved to live an unhappy life, to allow Sarah her manipulations, her relations with other men, and whatever else she was up to. He'd work and ignore the rest. This was to be his life.

However, Paul's acquiescence only riled Sarah. She grew more provocative, seeking to spike him into rage-and he had a temper, if pushed. During one such quarrel, she threatened to take their child back to Kenya, or maybe farther, and live as she pleased, and never see him again. He believed her. Yet Sarah seemed not even to care for Tooly, playing with her for just a few minutes before losing interest or berating the infant-only to then cuddle her, leaving their daughter stupefied. Daydreaming of escape, Paul recalled that road trip in Kenya. How far from the world he'd felt. You could disappear overseas, especially in poor countries. It was like leaving the present.

Ritcomm won a major government contract to modernize communications at smaller U.S. diplomatic outposts. It was 1981, and the State Department was connecting even the most far-flung tentacles of the United States to Washington, or at least to a regional mainframe with access to the visa lookout system. This meant using local phone lines. But hooking into an overseas grid-generally operated by a state telecom company-incurred security risks. You couldn't allow foreign nationals to do the installation; it would take just one Soviet infiltrator. But the U.S. government lacked suitable specialists to do the work. So it contracted Ritcomm. The company itself struggled for staffers willing to take the work, which meant a rootless existence, only a few months at each consulate.

Paul volunteered. As an installer, he'd have a generic maintenance account to log on to the mainframes, which allowed him to read the bad-guy list. Not only could he vanish overseas; he'd have access to the very system that would flag his name to U.S. officials when Sarah reported him. He prepped their disappearance by apologizing to Sarah for being so boring, promising to take her on an expensive vacation-or, if she preferred, she could go alone with Tooly. Yes, Sarah answered with alacrity, that's what she wanted. He agreed, on condition that she obtain an American pa.s.sport in their daughter's name. Tooly could have traveled on her mother's pa.s.sport but it was Kenyan, he noted, which might mean delays and complications. Better to secure their daughter a U.S. pa.s.sport, which could subsequently help Sarah herself obtain citizenship. Paul filled out the application. Sarah signed everything.

"Then," he said, "I took you."

Life abroad had been hard. Foreign locales exacerbated his allergies and his asthma. The food made him sick. And fear of capture kept him in constant anxiety, especially at border crossings. He had access to the American watch lists but not to foreign ones, so each international flight was a cause for fear. Had Sarah reported him to any other nation? Might they detain him on arrival? If so, what would happen to Tooly?

Paul persuaded Ritcomm to base him for a full year in each foreign hub. The company agreed, because he was such a useful employee: never wanted to come back, neither for home leave nor permanently. (Indeed, he refused to return to America at all, leery of heightened security stateside. His responsibility to guard Tooly prevented him even from traveling back to California when his adoptive father was dying-an omission that wrenched Paul still.) A full year in each city, he figured, allowed Tooly to attend a full grade. But the plan stumbled in Australia, since schools there worked on a different calendar, which later led to dispute over which grade she was rightly in. He couldn't risk arguing the case-he sought to be forgotten the moment he left any room. He avoided teachers and parents, remained distant with colleagues. Once again, Paul commented, he'd thrust himself into a situation that he could not manage.

"But you did manage, amazingly well," she said.

"I found it tough." Partly, it was the risk of discovery-that she'd say something imprudent. He came to rely on his own daughter. She was his sole companion. "But never a moan from you. You settled in wherever we were. New kids, new friends, never complaining."

"You didn't complain, either-and never one mean word about my mother. I remember you saying she couldn't be around, and we kept things private in our family. But nothing nasty ever. You were protecting me." She watched his hand, wanting to touch it, but couldn't somehow. "You were brave to do this, you know."

"Brave? I lived in constant dread." Then his worst fear was realized: she failed to come home. Something had happened, but what recourse did he have? The Thai police? They were notoriously corrupt. She'd never mentioned any friends in Bangkok; he didn't know where to start looking. Her school called the next day, asking where she was. He claimed Tooly was at home, ill. He was in a panic. Couldn't report her absence to the emba.s.sy-or should he? What if some bad person had her? What if she'd run away, or had an accident? Then Sarah got in touch.

"How did she even know we were in Bangkok?"

"That trick you had of counting out a minute?"

"What about it?"

"You remember a guy named Bob Burdett, from the U.S. Emba.s.sy? You might not recall this, but he was over for dinner once. You came out of your room and showed how you could make your eyes vibrate and did your one-minute trick."

"He was getting violent with you. I came out to try to help."

Bob Burdett-a wannabe spy always trying to impress the station chief by finding "subversives"-had invited himself for dinner because he hadn't liked the look of Paul. During the meal, Bob Burdett tried to provoke his host into saying something anti-American. Toward the end of the evening, a small girl stepped from a bedroom. How odd to conceal her like that. And no mother in evidence. Bob Burdett checked with contacts at other U.S. emba.s.sies Paul had pa.s.sed through, and heard versions of the same story: a systems specialist, barely remembered, no wife or daughter anyone knew of. Further burrowing turned up the name of a Kenyan national, Sarah Pastore, who had entered the United States with Paul several years earlier. A contact in military intelligence located her, still in the United States, though with an expired visa. She'd been arrested for shoplifting and awaited deportation. Bob Burdett reached her, posing as a State Department official. What was her relationship to a man named Paul Zylberberg? Had he ever voiced any socialist tendencies? Was she aware of a little girl? If the child was Sarah's, why was she not there in Bangkok? Had she filed a missing-persons report? Didn't she want her daughter back?

Soon thereafter, Sarah arrived in Bangkok.

"I was in a bad state after you went. I hoped you were fine, but there was nothing I could do. Legally speaking, I'd kidnapped you. I had no rights. Sarah needed only turn me in. We came to an arrangement, but I had no right to expect you'd contact me," he concluded. "You were angry at what I'd done. You had every reason to be."

"I wasn't. And I'm not."

"You found a good school in the end? With friends you liked?"

Her childhood after Bangkok would have appalled him-never another day in a cla.s.sroom, tramps for babysitters. She gave a sanitized summary, inventing an adolescence that was varied and carefree. As she rolled out this fantasy, she recalled the truth and found herself sorrowful, though unsure why.

Paul had always worried, he said, about whether the money for Tooly was sufficient. Sarah demanded that four thousand dollars be paid monthly in exchange for never reporting what he'd done. "I'd have sent child support anyway-all I could possibly afford. I often sent more than what was expected. She really didn't need to threaten me. And I'm sorry, Tooly, about cutting it off when you turned twenty-one. I was hurt that you never contacted me. Suppose I hoped you might write or something. Which was unfair."

Her insides tightened, yet she could say nothing-needed Paul to think all had been fine. But she'd known nothing of any payments, let alone a cutoff at age twenty-one. She had turned that age in New York, in 1999. Sarah had shown up then, just before her birthday, promising to tell her something. What?

"Sorry to be going on about this," Paul said. "I'm sure you and your mother are close. As you should be. I really had no right trying to raise a little girl. Never was good with children."

"You were good with me." She looked directly at him, needing to impress this upon him. "And, Paul, you're happy in your life now," she said, to rea.s.sure herself as much as to inquire.

"Sh.e.l.ly's been a G.o.dsend. Didn't think I had s.p.a.ce in my life for someone, but she's been, yes, a G.o.dsend." But they'd become friends only after Tooly left, he added decorously.

"Just think, if I'd been there, that would never have happened."

"Well ..." Paul didn't welcome hypothesizing-he'd settled on a past, knew which elements hurt him, which provided comfort, and wasn't prepared to reconsider.

He inquired about this young fellow, Mac, whom she had arrived with.

"No, he's not mine. I stole him."

Paul looked up pointedly. "That's a joke."

"It better be-it is," she said. "Actually, we should be going. Long trip back to his house." She stood. "Look-I want us to meet up again. Can we?"

He rose as if unprepared, as if he hadn't considered this outcome. "I'll get bottles of water for your drive," he said hastily. "You need to stay hydrated on the road."

As he fetched them, Tooly stared hard at the floor, trying to compose herself.

He returned with a gift he'd been keeping for years: her old sketchbook of noses. "And this photo-thought it'd give you a kick. Us on the plane to Thailand. Remember that Australian girl, the teenager sitting beside me who took our picture? The one who kept smoking the whole time?"

It was a Polaroid, showing more of the overhead bins than of its subjects: Paul in the middle seat, earnest, young, fatigued; Tooly by the window, far more smiley than she'd believed herself to be then. "I'm always available for you," he said, as they hesitated by the front door. "Always have been; always will be." He extended his hand.

"You used to wake me every morning with a handshake," she said, talking fast in order not to cry.

"Did I?" he said, self-conscious now, lowering his hand.

But she took it, holding it between both of hers. "Can I just say something quickly?" she asked. "I felt-actually, still feel-so terrible about everything that happened, about what I did. I left you there alone."

"You were a little girl, Tooly."

"That doesn't matter," she said. "I was still me."

Seated in the minivan with Mac, she took a moment to calm herself. A sedan was parked down the street, she noticed, a middle-aged Asian woman in the driver's seat, waiting for her to leave. Tooly started the engine, pulled out, and watched in her rearview mirror as Sh.e.l.ly exited the car and returned to her home.

As Tooly negotiated the unfamiliar streets of Lodge Haven, she wondered what it was like to live in a suburb like this, to have been from here. She switched on the car radio, using an NPR interview to orient herself again in the present: Host: Uhm, before we get to why you think this is a result of climate change, which is I think what you're saying, what are some of the records that this month's heat wave has set so far? And I'll say we're recording this on Friday, July 22, so- "This trip is boring," Mac said. "It's taking forever."

"Sorry," she responded. "I was selfish to take you with me. I wanted company, and thought you might enjoy it."

She reminded Mac that he had agreed to say a quick h.e.l.lo by phone to Humphrey, which would be so welcome, particularly since she'd been unable to make her daily visit there.

Mac said the old man "smelled gross," at which Tooly fell quiet and drove.

The sun was low when they arrived. She had phoned Bridget to say she'd taken Mac out, claiming it was just to look at birds. Tooly asked Mac to stick to that account, and infiltrated his belongings and medications back upstairs. She overheard him in the TV room, talking to Duncan.

"I'm doing an email right now, Mac."

"We went to Maryland."

"Good for you guys."

It wasn't for her to intrude on this family, or to alter anyone's life. I'm not made to be a mother, she thought. Anyway, not to Duncan's child.

THE NEXT DAY, Humphrey looked around upon waking, anxious, then soothed by the sound of her voice. She helped him stand and led him down the hallway to the communal toilets. Yelena had been unable to come that morning, so Tooly sponged him down in the shower stall, dried him. "You'll feel better after a shave."

"Everything keeps going on so long."

She stood him before the mirror and lathered his cheeks with hand soap, which made him sniff shyly.

"Well, you've been around for a while, Humph. You're eighty-three now."

He turned to her, jaw soapy. "Am I? It's almost indecent."

"Hold still, my dear Humphrey." She ran the safety razor gently down his jaw, then helped him brush his remaining teeth, a white bubble of Colgate on his lower lip. Another resident walked in, spat in the toilet, then p.i.s.sed with the stall door open.

She led Humphrey back to his bedroom, helped him into fresh clothing, brushed his hair. "Done."

Once returned to his armchair, he glanced around quizzically.

"Nice and comfy?" she asked.

"I was on a ship," he said, "and we wore black armbands the whole way."

"You've told me this story before."

"Had to hold mine because my arm wasn't thick enough," he continued. "They were made for a man's arm."

"Where were you going, Humph? Where was the ship going?"

"Then they sewed my armband smaller, so it fit me."

"I remember you telling me that." She wondered if all this rummaging through his past interfered with a merciful process of forgetting. These retold snippets of his childhood returned with diminishing pleasure, it seemed. "Know where I took Mac? To see my father. He told me all sorts of stuff about how Sarah used to be. Said he used to send her money for me."

"Who did?"

"My father, Paul, sent Sarah money."

"Oh, yes," he said. "I think that might be right."

"You remember this?" she said. "But wait-Sarah was always borrowing off me. What the h.e.l.l was she spending it on?"

"I was on this ship, a liner," Humphrey continued, "and I had to wear a black armband."

"Humphrey? What was she doing with all that money?"

"But the armband was too big on me."

"I know this story."

"What happened was ..." His was cable-car conversation: you could get on or you could get off, but you couldn't divert it from its track. Didn't really matter who was listening, she or a stranger. Except that Tooly was the last person who listened to him at all.

He fell silent, pensive. "There are things," he said, as if preparing her for a shock, "that people claim happened to me, and it's completely blank. I think I'm getting away with it for now. But if people start noticing-I don't want people looking after me. That's undignified. I need you to tell me if you see I can't manage anymore. Do you understand what I mean?"

"I understand." She sat on the edge of his bed, watched him, wondering how direct to be. "Humph, I will be honest with you."

"All right," he said rigidly.

"You asked me to say if I thought you couldn't manage anymore. I think that's the case now."

"Most ridiculous thing I ever heard!"