Tom Rachman - The Rise & Fall of Great Powers

What rankled Tooly was how much time Venn had to spend in the company of creeps. “It’s the worst part about how we live,” he affirmed. “Always dealing with this awful outer circle of people. Hardly get to see my inner circle.”

“Your inner circle? Who’s that?”

“Well …” he said, pondering this, then smiling. “Actually, just you, duck.”

It didn’t matter that others had status and rank; he cared nothing about that. How else to explain his years of kindness to her and Humphrey. Indeed, Venn was fondest of outcasts who, like himself, recognized the pretense everywhere. He was a man who took no part in society, never voted. He was a being wrought of his own will, belonging to nothing. He’d not known or cared which of those bearded men wandering through his childhood had been his father. As for his mother, he’d kissed her goodbye. Family meant nothing more than did random names in a telephone directory. The relations that counted were those of choice, which made friendship the supreme bond, one that either party could sever, and all the more valuable for its precariousness.

He had no delusions about ending the long reign of fools in the world, yet he insisted on decency within the small realm that he could affect. She had seen him rent hotel rooms for addicts to whom he owed nothing, give loans to bums who would never pay him back. Once, he covered a flight home for a Filipina trafficked into prostitution in Cyprus. He intervened with great physical courage to protect the frail, such as whenever thugs bullied Humphrey, or the time a lustful drunkard in Prague tore off Tooly’s shirt. If Venn delivered violence, he did so without a shout or shove beforehand. He just struck. Aggression terrified Tooly. Yet she found herself wanting him to apply his violence sometimes, he alone imposing the justice that was everywhere absent.

The wind on the roof swept Tooly’s hair across her face. “Is there something I could do at this place?”

“There aren’t really jobs,” he answered. “It’s not that kind of situation.”

“What about a project for the two of us?”

“Our friendship is the project, as far as I’m concerned.” He looked down at the street. “What you need to do,” he said, “is go into advertising, like those girls downstairs.”

“Shut up,” she said, laughing.

In recent years, in recent countries, Venn had alluded to a project — that they’d soon work together, as she had longed to do since childhood. In fact, they had done small jobs when she was little, though it had taken her a while to realize it. He’d have her knock on strangers’ doors in new cities and ask to use the toilet. A minute later, he’d knock himself, claiming breathlessly to be the father of a lost little girl — had she come this way? He entered, touchingly relieved to find his girl, accepting a glass of water with thanks and making his targets’ acquaintance. By the time these strangers offered him something — say, a place to stay or a job — they practically forced it upon him. People loved his company, just wanted his presence.

For her help, Venn used to treat her at the best hotel restaurant in whichever city they found themselves. On the way, he stopped at a junk shop and bought them elegant used overcoats, then led her into the opulent eatery, waitstaff gliding before them to a table — it was his lovely daughter’s birthday, Venn declared, so treat her like royalty! He spun further yarns, captivating the management and drawing Tooly into his fibs. They consumed oysters and champagne (she sipping from his glass), pheasant and roast potatoes, cheese plates, and as many sweets as she pointed to on the dessert trolley. Once coffee and brandy had been ordered, Venn chaperoned her toward the washrooms. In hotel restaurants, these were typically outside the dining area through the lobby. Only after a few such banquets did Tooly grasp why they always went straight through the rotating lobby door, onto the sidewalk, and away. A steaming coffee and a glinting brandy snifter arrived at their table, along with the vast bill folded discreetly on a silver tray. That charming man and his adorable daughter must be in the washrooms still, the waitstaff reasoned. Nothing to worry about — they’d return. After all, those overcoats still hung from their chairs.

As Tooly grew older, she witnessed other shortcuts: how one might vacation for nothing by befriending a shy local of the opposite sex, earning free room and board, even a tour guide for a few days. Another game involved posting reward signs for a lost key inside a tourist-jammed train station. She put on a hiker’s backpack (stuffed with Humphrey’s laundry) and sought out the smokers — always easiest to start a conversation with. Any mean-faced jerk was her preference, the more unpleasant the better. She borrowed his lighter, sparked a cigarette, and complained that she had to fly home early because her grandma had fallen ill in Florida. While stepping away to the vending machines, she entrusted her backpack to the guy, then returned with a look of astonishment and something in her palm: Hey, is this that key on the reward posters? At a phone booth, they called the posted number. Frantic with excitement, the key’s owner promised to drive over immediately with the generous cash reward; he’d arrive in an hour. Alas, Tooly couldn’t wait — she had her flight to catch. However, the man on the phone (Venn) demanded that she wait. Appearing befuddled, she thrust the phone at her new acquaintance. Venn told him that this girl had just agreed on five hundred dollars for the key — give her the money now and I’ll refund you as soon as I arrive. Hell, I’ll quadruple it, if you stay put: two thousand in cash, plus the five hundred you gave the girl. Her unpleasant new companion sprinted to the closest ATM (Tooly helpfully pointing it out), and withdrew as close to five hundred dollars as possible. She gave him the key and hastened to the cab stand — no time for the airport train now! When, after an hour or two, the guy was still waiting, he irritably tried the number on the reward posters. It rang and rang.

But such high jinks had dwindled away — Venn came to see them as cheap, as did she. And he was occupied with more legitimate endeavors now. Yet he looked after her all the same, arranging her travel to each new city, finding lodgings for her and Humphrey. Weeks might pass without word from Venn. Then he’d phone. His voice — grin audible — immediately erased her disappointment that he’d not been in touch.

He was maddening, he was unpredictable, he was late. But he always arrived in the end. So, she waited.

“Any brilliant new ideas?” she asked.

“Lots, duck. But what are yours?” He gazed across at the rooftops. “I brought you here to see these kids downstairs — your age, more or less — coming up with things. You don’t want to end up like Humph. Need to make your own propulsion.”

Humphrey sent those ridiculous letters on her behalf (“Attention New York Times: I have young lady you must be interest in….”) because he was certain of her quality. Venn was more measured, and that wounded Tooly. But he was correct: she had produced nothing. Humphrey always claimed that the tumult of the twentieth century had ruined his prospects, that he’d been “cornered by history.” But Tooly had grown up in an era of relative calm, after all the proper history had ended. She’d been too young to understand the hoopla of the Berlin Wall falling or the protests in Tiananmen Square, her awareness dawning around Operation Desert Storm and the L.A. riots, countries splitting up and ruining all the maps, then the O. J. Simpson trial, a computer that beat humankind at chess, the cloned sheep named Dolly, an English princess dying in a car crash, the most powerful man in the world fornicating with an intern. They were scattershot events, none relating to any other, and certainly not to her.