Tom Rachman - The Rise & Fall of Great Powers

She drove home jerkily fast, foot tapping the rhythm on the gas pedal, singing at full voice—“Dada-dum, dada-dum, dada-dum-dum- dum !”—accompanied by the flapping plastic sheet over the passenger window. At the parking lot across from World’s End, she nosed the car around for a free spot — at night, the place filled with patrons headed to the Hook.

What about dropping in there for a glass of something to amplify her good cheer? She took a wander up Roberts Road, the rowdy banter growing as she approached the pub. A group of laborers — faces worn by sun, dirt, and cigarettes — sat at the picnic tables outside, gripping sloppy pints, eyeing ladies out on a hen night, heavy gals in stilettos, ankles tattooed, thighs goosebumped, floppy bosoms held up with underwire scaffolding. On the opposite side of the road was the legion bar, reserved for veterans of foreign wars. Now and then, a boy who’d fought in Iraq or Afghanistan took a break from darts and glowered at the pub across the way, at the wobbly girls giggling over spilled cider.

As Tooly passed between these two drinking holes, hawkish men on each side registered only her short haircut, pale lips, and sexless fashion, which rendered her invisible to them. If ever a man fancied her these days, she suspected him of low standards, of being a goat in heat. Were she to enter the Hook, she’d find many such goats. A tipsy one might make for brief amusement. But in a village you couldn’t avoid your mistakes. Best to return home. She wanted only a glass of mild intoxication tonight. A bottle of Pinot Noir was already open in the kitchen.

She filled her glass too high and, lips to the brim, slurped it to a more seemly height, then nibbled crackers and cheese, humming “The William Tell Overture” with wine-purple lips. What a marvel, this drink! Past a certain age — about twenty-six, was it? — after the last flickers of the younger self, a pressure grew inside her during the course of each day, butting against the limits of her existence. Until, at her first nightly sip, she dilated, the tightness eased, and she floated in thoughts, outside time. She cupped a hand over her brow and gazed out the latched window at the farmland beyond Caergenog, all blackness at this hour. She took a pace back, watching a reflection of the kitchen and of herself, wine level decreasing over the minutes.

Down the stairs she went, treading tipsily through the darkened shop. Within arm’s reach were so many sublime minds — she could awaken them off the shelf (no matter the hour, they were more alert than she), bid them start, and encounter a soul fitted with perception like hers, only sharper. But tonight it was the computer that lured her. She cradled the keyboard in her lap, giving a little shiver as the machine blinked and whirred, icons populating the desktop, her face lit by the screen.

Tooly had long shied away from computers, associating them so strongly with Paul. And she’d managed to avoid them better than most, living as she had, disconnected from wires, traveling city to city, job to job, taking positions that required minimal technological skills. The longer she’d gone without a computer of her own, the more mystifying all the digital hubbub became.

But World’s End, for all its bound paper, came with a few microchips, too, in the form of this clunky old desktop, a senior citizen at age four. Fogg had taught her how to enter sales on it, and had insisted on showing her around the Internet, too, extolling its marvels and scope by searching for her name — though he was rather crestfallen to discover no results whatsoever.

For more than a year, Tooly had remained aloof from that computer. At most, she tried simple Web searches like “ukulele,” nearly scared at the landslide of hits. Then, gradually, she explored a little further. Eventually, hours vanished there. Like a black hole, the Internet generated its own gravity, neither light nor time escaping. Cats playing the piano, breasts and genitals popping out, strangers slandering strangers. The lack of eye contact explained so much of what happened online. Including her own new habit: prowling through the past.

In recent weeks, she had started searching for names, old ones, of lost friends, former schoolteachers, fellow pupils, acquaintances from cities she’d left years before. Through the online murk, she spied their lives, piecing together what had happened: colleges, employers, married to, activities, interests. An employment history on LinkedIn might suggest a glittering start — Trainee to District Manager to Vice President — followed by an unexplained Self-Employed. The “Lives In …” on Facebook provided unexpected locales: Oslo or Hanoi or Lima. If she and they had maintained contact, the progressions from school to career to family would have passed so gradually as to be unremarkable. But online profiles converted the increments of life into leaps, transforming schoolchildren into graying parents in an instant.

How odd to have quit so many places and people, yet be preoccupied with them now, as they were surely not concerned with her. Still, Tooly never contacted those she peeped at, conducting her compulsive searches under the pseudonym Matilda Ostropoler, which combined her proper first name with the last name of a former friend.

All this nostalgic prowling — invariably after a few drinks — promised gratification yet left unease. It was as if a long spoon had been dipped inside her and stirred. Unlike in books, there was no concluding page on the Internet, just a limitless chain that left her tired, tense, up too late.

Time to switch off. Time to go to bed, look at the rafters, restore the memory of her music lesson. If she closed her eyes thinking of the fingerboard, would her brain practice while she slept?

She half stood — then roused the computer, testing its promise of satisfaction behind each next click. At the top left of the screen appeared a flag, a Facebook friend request. Because of her pseudonym, such requests came only from lurking weirdos. She clicked it, intending to decline.

Except she recognized this name: Duncan McGrory.

Tooly walked away from the computer, down the closest aisle, tapping nervously on books as she went. It had been years since her last contact with Duncan. How had he found her? Mouth dry, she stood with her finger over the mouse button. Read his name again. She clicked yes.

Within moments, he had messaged her: “Desperately trying to reach you. Can we talk about your father???”

She clenched her clammy hands, wiped them on her shirt. Her father? Whom could he mean?

“DON’T.”

“Don’t what?”

Before Paul had walked in, Tooly was jumping on her bed, watching the view of Bangkok fly up and down through the window. Upon hearing him, she bent her knees and grasped the covers in a breathless crouch, feet flexing on the quivering mattress. “I’m not wearing any shoes,” she said in her defense.

“Don’t be argumentative about everything.”

She took a ballet leap off the bed and crashed to the floor, tumbling across the cool tiles, landing on her belly, then rolling onto her back to show that she was unhurt.

“People live below us. Stop that.”

Paul was particularly tense that morning, expected at the U.S. Embassy in less than an hour to start his latest contract. He was an information-technology specialist for Ritcomm, a private company hired by the State Department to upgrade diplomatic communications overseas. The larger American embassies, such as here in Bangkok, had mainframe computers with telecom links to Washington, allowing them to check the latest “bad-guy list” whenever a foreign national sought to visit America. But many smaller U.S. outposts had never been linked to the network, and were obliged to consult ancient documents on microfiche. Paul was overseeing upgrades around the world, traveling to each dinky consulate, where he conducted a site survey, installed the Wang VS able to open up a 3270 emulation, ran BNC cables to every desk terminal. Finally, the staffers could connect at 9.6 bps via the phone line, type in a name, date of birth, place of birth, and wait for a hit.