The Rise & Fall of Great Powers

by Tom Rachman

  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. embassies Paul had passed 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 classroom, 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 reassure herself as much as to inquire.

  “Shelly’s been a godsend. Didn’t think I had space in my life for someone, but she’s been, yes, a godsend.” 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 Shelly 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 hello 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 pissed with the stall door open.

  She led Humphrey back to his bedroom, helped him into fresh clothing, brushed his hair. “Done.”
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  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 hell 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!”

  They sat in silence.

  “When I get to that stage,” he continued, “I’ll jump out a window. But I’m not at that stage. So you can damn well shut up about it.”

  She didn’t recall his ever having spoken to her so aggressively. Such words were not shocking in themselves, but from his mouth they wounded her. “Sorry,” she said.

  He shifted in his armchair, pressing the TV remote, unable to produce any effect.

  “Can I help you, Humph?”

  “No, you cannot. Television’s broken.”

  The push of a single button would have lit it up as he wanted. Yet she couldn’t think of a tactful way to take it from him. He closed his eyes, clearly not sleeping, hands twitching with rage.

  Since her arrival in New York, his condition had only worsened. It was as if he’d been clinging on, and her presence had allowed him to release.

  “It’s okay, Humph. I’m making sure everything’s all right.”

  He spoke again of his exhaustion with being alive, of his desire to be gone already. She struggled for a response—she might have felt the same in his position, into the ninth decade of life, blind and deaf and trapped in this miserable room. “Dear Humph, I know it’s rotten, this situation you’re in. It is. But you’ll be free from it soon.”

  “I’m impatient,” he said. “I want to be done.”

  She took his hand, but it remained limp in hers.

  “You’re here now,” he said, “and I’m afraid of you going away, me being alone again.”

  “There are other people. There’s Yelena.”

  “But you are Tooly Zylberberg.”

  “I am,” she said, smiling sadly.

  “The favorite person of my life.”

  Her eyes welled up. “I’m not going away,” she promised, fighting to maintain a steady voice. “I’ll stay as long as you need me.”

  “When my father died,” he said, “his breathing went very slow.”

  “Do you remember that, Humph? Where was it?”

  He recalled looking out a window at a big tree. And imagining himself seen from space, a miniature dot of a human being, there at the southern tip of the African continent.

  “This was in South Africa, was it? Can you tell me more about your life there?”

  “At my age, you can either have time or you can have dignity.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “If you’re not careful, it gets too late to do anything about it, and …” He gazed at the convex reflection in the switched-off TV, then around the room. “I don’t want you staying. It’s horrible here—that awful bitch next door with her loud music and those little boys of hers that she treats so horribly. I can’t bear it. I don’t think I should have to keep going forever. It’s enough now. I’ve had an interesting time. I’ve seen many things. I had friends. Not many. I’ve had friends. Not many.”

  “Have you been lonely in your life, Humphrey?”

  “The people who liked me are all in books. I would’ve loved to meet a woman who took an interest, but it didn’t happen. When you and me kept each other company, I wasn’t lonely then. We were friends.”

  “We were; we are.”

  “I’m glad I didn’t stop my life earlier. I wouldn’t have known Tooly Zylberberg.”

  “And I wouldn’t have known you,” she said. “Think how different I would’ve been. I wouldn’t have read John Stuart Mill!”

  “Yes, yes,” he said. “My old friend.”

  “Who knows how I’d have ended up without you.”

  “I didn’t let that happen.”

  “I know you didn’t, Humph. Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me, please. Don’t thank me,” he said. “I can’t bear it if you thank me. Please, don’t thank me.” He leaned forward, rested his hand atop hers, head bowed, and she saw the crown of his rumpled gray hair.

  She exhaled, very slowly.

  “I’d like to make you coffee,” he said.

  “Let me.”

  “Would you?” he responded, as if amazed at such generosity. “Thank you, do. Thank you, do.” He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it, dry lips grazing her fingernails.

  She walked fast to the communal bathrooms, hugging herself to stifle her distress. She splashed water on her face. He had been forced to use these toilets, these filthy shower stalls, for years. She returned with his mug. This time he drank not in big drafts but slowly, sipping like a connoisseur, like one who wants to pay attention.

  As she patted his veiny old hand, it occurred to her that not only would he soon not exist but that, when she no longer existed, no trace of this man would remain anywhere. It would be as if Humphrey, now pulsing before her, had never been. Within a generation or two, not even your photo was identifiable: just a person, at some forgotten event, in old-fashioned clothes, the distractions and appetites of that day lost, an image framed halfway down a stairwell, or stuck in a drawer, or saved in digital code. Once you; in time, a stranger to all.

  Upon leaving the building, she dialed Fogg, needing to be transported from this time and this place. As the call clicked through the circuits—in that instant of hissing quiet—she anticipated his buoyant voice. Yet by the first ring, regret gripped her. She had to tell him definitively.

  It was the first time they’d spoken in weeks, and Fogg had much to recount. “Where do I even start? We’ve had drama of the highest order here in Caergenog: police are investigating criminal damage to two pushed-over fence posts on Dyfed Lane.”

  She smiled. “I miss being there.”

  “Yes, yes—what torment,” he said, “you living it up there in
New York City.”

  “Did you talk to any bookstores in Hay yet?” she asked. “I told you—sparkling reference from me, whenever you want.”

  “That’s settled then, is it? You’re not coming back?”

  She shook her head, said nothing. “I have to stop your wages soon. I’m so sorry, Fogg. World’s End is yours for a penny, if you want it. All stock included. You’d still have to cover the rent. And utilities. Probably, I should pay you to take the place. Would if I could.”

  That evening, she lay in bed, remembering Xavi—lately, she kept thinking of him. She went upstairs to help herself to a drink, and awoke one of the McGrorys’ laptops. She typed in his name: Xavier Karamage. As ever, the only result was a middle-aged white businessman with a red mustache, the director of a company at the International Financial Services Centre in Dublin.

  She called the number. There was no answer—it would be dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. So she waited. At 4:12 A.M. Connecticut time, she tried again. A receptionist picked up. It was good luck, the woman remarked, since the company staffed the office only one day a week. Tooly asked if Mr. Karamage was present. He was not. Further questioning indicated that he didn’t often appear—indeed, the receptionist had yet to meet him, despite having worked there for two years.

  “The name is so unusual,” Tooly said. “African, right?”

  “No, no. American, I think. But, sorry, what can I help you with?”

  Tooly asked for a number where Mr. Karamage might be reached, but the receptionist wasn’t disclosing it. Tooly could leave a message, and Mr. Karamage would reply at his leisure. The problem was, Tooly explained, she’d been ordered by her boss to send a birthday present to Mr. Karamage. The courier required a phone number to take the delivery. And the gift had to get there on time, or her boss would murder her.

  “Sorry. Can’t give out his number.”

  The receptionist suggested that Tooly send the gift to the office. Though, of course, it was hard to say when he’d receive it, since he hadn’t been there in two years. After much coaxing, the receptionist gave a long sigh, then put Tooly on hold, returning finally with a mailing address in rural Ireland. She was not giving out any phone numbers, but Tooly could try sending the gift there.