Tom Rachman - The Rise & Fall of Great Powers

What, she wondered, would it have been like to live in an important era? How would she have acted during world wars? Humphrey had raised her with World War II and Soviet totalitarianism as the signal events —that history was her place and time, far from the banality of this peace. These days, it was as if the whole world, even New York City, aspired only to be Seattle. She wished the present would impose itself on her and determine her course.

“Come,” Venn said, leading her back downstairs.

As they strode along Canal Street, he said nothing. She wanted him to speak, so that she might learn his mood — Tooly hated this quiet (though traffic blared beside them). Hated being useless to him, offering nothing. She had achieved things in this city, slipping into a few homes. But to what end? For a few minutes’ company? To peek at how college kids lived? Quizzing that student on 115th Street had produced nothing. He’d been harmless, which was the problem: you meddled with bastards, not with some shy kid.

Venn scanned for a free taxi, his attention shifting to the next appointment. This encounter was about to end. A long wait till the next.

She’d hoped this would be a full day together, the beginning of a fresh adventure with him — at the very least, a long meal or a long walk. But it was over already. With a presentiment of her coming solitude, she watched him.

But hang on. Don’t disappear.

“I did do one thing,” she blurted.

Before intending to, Tooly found herself describing Duncan and mentioning Xavi and Emerson — even the guy downstairs with the pig. To make herself sound industrious, she inflated everything, sketching a setting that was fat with potential. “I realize they’re only in college,” she said, “but they must have parents.”

“Most people do, you’ll find.”

“I got tons of stuff on them.” She searched her coat pockets for the crumpled ball of newsprint where she’d jotted notes upon leaving that apartment. She read aloud her scribbled fragments, watching Venn for the detail that would snag him, sharpen his gaze.

None did.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Don’t apologize to me, duck. Never any need for that,” he said. “Look, if you want, keep digging around up there. Or give the boy lawyer a call sometime, see what comes of it.”

“I’m so stupid — I don’t even have his number.”

“How’d you manage that?” he asked, chuckling.

“You say I’m not supposed to write numbers down anymore!” Contrary to his preferences, Tooly had long kept a little phone book. She crossed out every number after they left a city, but he still preferred that they only memorize information — after all, the people they encountered were not necessarily types one wished to be connected to in writing.

“So you did get his number,” he asked, “but can’t recall it?”

“I didn’t even ask,” she admitted. “I hate getting numbers. They want mine back, and I never know what to say.”

“Say you’re moving and don’t have a new phone line installed yet.”

“Hey,” she exclaimed, nostrils flaring, “that’s what you always tell me !”

Grinning, he shut his eyes, lids flickering. Tooly frowned, meaning for him to see when he looked up. Instead, he walked on. She couldn’t stop herself hurrying after. “You idiot,” she said, threading her arm under his, inhaling the wet-wood scent of his sweater.

Venn was busy reviewing the scrap of scribbled notes about the students — how had he even taken that from her? “This paper smells like peanut butter.”

“My sandwich was in there,” she said, grabbing it back. “See — never worry about me writing stuff down; I can always eat the evidence.”

He burst into laughter, which caused such a surge of joy in her.

“It’s decided,” she announced. “I’m going back up there. And I’m getting something useful for us from these college kids. Okay? Just tell me what you’d like.”

“Little duck, you know what works.”

Venn touched her cheek, causing her to fall silent. He entered a taxi, leaving her alone on the caterwauling street.

SHE PASSED JUST ONE HIKER in the Black Mountains that morning, a small boy with a large rucksack who mumbled a greeting that Tooly cheerfully returned. It didn’t seem like the world up here. The villages below remained attached to modern life. But the hares and sheep darted away whichever the century, whatever excitation swept the valleys, whether menfolk were conscripted, if decades later they reminisced of war, if long after that their widows sat alone for supper.

In the distance down the ridge, something caught her attention. A group of walkers, maybe. But they were approaching too fast. Dirt bikes? She squinted. Those weren’t people but ponies, the wild ones that roamed these hills. They were a mile away but galloping — in two minutes, they’d be on her. The path was only as broad as a car, with thick brush on either side and sharp slopes beyond. The ponies grew distinct now, about twenty of them. She waded into knee-high bracken. Could the animals veer off the path and trample her even there?

But upon arrival they had slowed to an amble, scarcely glancing at this strange human observing them from the brush. They grazed before her, foals between mares, a chestnut youngster on twig legs, a heavy-gutted gray stallion with tail swishing. Tooly held still — a thrilling arm’s length from wild animals. She tried to memorize this instant, all the more urgently because there was nobody to share it. Once, she had read a story in which a man, dying in an asylum, sees “a herd of deer, extraordinarily beautiful and graceful,” run across his imagination. If this moment returned to her years hence, what would she recall? A memory of having wanted to remember?

Abruptly, she turned from the ponies, striding down the steep hillside, tripping through bracken, speeding to the point of danger. It was futile, she knew, to ruminate.

“Desperately trying to reach you,” Duncan had written. “Can we talk about your father???” What gave a boyfriend from a decade before the right to bludgeon her with punctuation? Her father had been beaten and robbed in New York, Duncan explained via Facebook messages. Whatever falling-out she’d had with the man, she needed to fly out immediately and help. Well, yes — that sounded reasonable. Except that Tooly had no idea who this father could be.

She had never mentioned any relative when she and Duncan were together. But after he lost touch with her in New York, it transpired, Duncan had gone looking for her, only to find her father living at a storage space near the Gowanus Expressway. The old man conveyed nothing about Tooly’s whereabouts — instead, he had made Duncan play chess.

And, with that, she knew this “father” could only be Humphrey.

Little stirred her as did thoughts of the past. Starting with — well, how to describe what had happened? She didn’t consider it a kidnapping. What, then? Taken from home, left in the care of a stranger, moved around the world. Those events had seemed to be heading toward some purpose, only for everything to collapse in New York.

The lack of a proper ending gnawed at her still, no matter how she had tried to forget. For years, she had awaited Venn’s return. She had moved from one country to another, taken on lovers, changed jobs, yet retained the expectation of another life — a wormhole through which she’d one day slip, rescued by his company. Only upon buying the shop had she suspended this. It had been crushing, then almost a relief: no longer wandering, no longer believing herself distinct from those she walked among. Instead, she came to consider herself rather less worthwhile than average. As Venn had done, she razored away the unnecessary: companions, conversation, affection. She understood now all that he’d once said to her, and longed to tell him so.