Tom Rachman - The Rise & Fall of Great Powers

“There’s a Russian woman I pay a few bucks to clean up, get his groceries, hang out with him most mornings.”

“That’s really generous of you.”

“Basic decency,” he said.

“And I guess they can talk Russian together.”

“Didn’t know your dad spoke Russian,” he said. “I apologize, by the way, if I downplayed the situation. Just, this thing has consumed way too much time these last few months. My wife is upset, my kids are upset. I’ll be honest: I was getting desperate. Tried everything to find you.”

“How did you?”

“He mentioned how your actual first name is Matilda. I typed that in.”

“With his last name.”

“With Ostropoler, yeah,” Duncan confirmed. “Sorry if you were trying to get away from him, but you need to be involved.”

“Wasn’t trying to get away.”

“Well, sort of unusual not to talk to your dad for years, or even know where he was. Or him you.”

This made her sound so callous. She wanted to justify herself. But that required saying too much about their own past. Neither wanted to get into that.

“Sometimes I used to tell Bridget — I’m not even kidding — I told her I was working late on a case and actually snuck to Sheepshead to check on him,” he said. “It’s like I was having an affair. I’m the only guy in the tristate area who cheats on his wife by visiting a man of eighty-three!”

“But he knows I’m here, right?” she said. “And he wants to see me?”

“Of course. And it should be fine.” Duncan paused on the stairs, uncertain whether to say more. “But still,” he warned her, “you might want to brace yourself.”

LUXURY CARS BLOCKED the entrance to King Chulalongkorn International School, engines snarling as a pair of sweat-soaked Thai guards checked credentials and pointed families toward the parking lots. The vast complex — elementary school, middle, and secondary, over acres of southeastern Bangkok — was on display for International Day, an annual celebration of the diversity of bankers, diplomats, journalists, shady expats, and spies rich enough to send their children here.

Once inside, the kids ran wild, unleashed by parents and yet to be harnessed by teachers, with classes not starting till the following week. Some had arrived in school uniform; others wore street clothing, with Izod Lacoste and Polo Ralph Lauren in abundance. Childhood hierarchies reasserted themselves, abandoned during summer and tweaked now according to the growth spurts, the arrival of new dweebs, the repatriation of schoolyard idols.

“Tooly?” Paul asked, as they waited outside the administrative offices for a tour. “Were you in those same clothes yesterday?”

She wore shorts from which her little legs jutted, one sport sock pulled high, the other at her ankle, deck shoes squashed at the back to allow entry without lacing, T-shirt specked with soup stains from the Chinese restaurant.

“You didn’t wear that to bed, did you?”

“I don’t think so.”

He glanced around, assaulted by high-pitched shrieks everywhere. The children segregated themselves according to gender but, since this was elementary school, the boys’ voices were just as shrill as the girls’.

“You don’t smell, do you?”

Before she could answer, a young teacher with ginger hair approached across the open-air courtyard.

“Let me do the talking,” Paul told Tooly, thrusting his left hand into his pocket, thinking better of it, wriggling it free, then pocketing it again, lip curling upward to catch a sweat droplet. “Don’t draw attention. All right?”

Mr. Priddles smiled at each of them in turn, sandy eyelashes fluttering. He had been assigned to sell them on enrollment here, and led Paul and Tooly through the impressive facilities — playgrounds, band rooms, canteens, an aquatic center — describing the plethora of pursuits available.

They passed a pond with rainbow carp bulleting through the water, and Tooly paused. A tortoise stood at the pond’s edge, looking at her. “Is he alive?”

“That’s our new school pet, basically,” Mr. Priddles told Paul, ignoring her. “We’re running a competition to name it. Oh — excuse me, one sec.” He hustled off to chasten a rowdy trio of second graders for running near the pond.

Entry forms were stacked by a ballot box, with a pencil hanging from a string. “What’s a good name for a tortoise?” she asked Paul, picking up the pencil and chewing the end.

“Don’t. That’s not clean.”

“What?”

He took the pencil. “Tim?”

“Who?”

“Tooly, pay attention. Naming the turtle: Tim.”

She hesitated, disliking his suggestion but not wanting to reject it.

Two small boys bumped up against Paul, like a couple of waist-high mobsters. “What’s the difference between a tortoise and a turtle?” one demanded.

Paul blinked. “Hmm, is it like the difference between a crocodile and an alligator?”

“Nooooooo!” the boy howled. “Tortoise has round shell and turtle has flat. Turtle has web feet and tortoise has normal. Bet you don’t know how old tortoises get.”

“Hmm, twenty?”

“Nooooooo! Tortoises live to, like, a hundred and fifty-five years old. Bet you don’t know the difference between a typhoon and a hurricane.”

“One is a strong wind and …” Paul speculated, plucking at pit stains forming on his shirt. “Or is that a hurricane? I didn’t mean that. Is it …?” He shut his eyes, rummaging for facts untouched in years.

The boys ran off.

“Is a typhoon where …?” Paul opened his eyes, finding his interrogators gone, only Tooly before him, filling out her entry slip. He fumbled for his inhaler. “Children,” he remarked, “they know facts about things. How do they know these things?”

“I don’t know the difference between a hurricane and a thingy.” She dropped her entry into the ballot box, having written “Jasper,” which suited a tortoise. “Can I pick him up?”

“Who up?”

“The tortoise that doesn’t have a name.”

“We’re not allowed, Tooly.”

“Why not?”

“The teacher said.” He’d said no such thing, but Paul often concocted regulations to bolster his authority.

When Mr. Priddles returned, he asked if Tooly wished to touch the animal. She did, and stroked its shell, tortoise limbs paddling slowly in air.

“Just one remaining issue, basically,” Mr. Priddles said. “We received a dossier from her previous school in Australia, but it seems to be about a girl in ninth grade.”

“Tooly’s nine years old,” Paul noted, “not in ninth grade.”

“Yes, I realized when we spoke by phone. Alas, their error caused us to reserve her a place in ninth grade. We do welcome your daughter. Just not sure where to put her. Strict limit on class size and—”

“I’m starting fifth grade,” Tooly interjected, fearful that someone’s mistake might consign her to a class of teenagers doing algebra exams and cross-country running.

Mr. Priddles flashed her an artificial smile, then resumed his exchange with Paul. As the men spoke, she ventured in ever-larger circles around them, drifting farther from their orbit until she was able to spin through a doorway and out onto a playground, where she watched older girls playing volleyball. A teacher ordered them to the main field for the International Day festivities, and Tooly trailed a distance behind.

At each new school, in each new country, she presented a new personality. It crystallized during the first weeks of school, after which there was no changing — people wouldn’t let you. In the end, you became what they expected you to be. At previous schools, she’d been diabolical, girly, a tomboy. But this time she had little urge to invent a new self, knowing it would be wiped away once they left. Even close friendships at her previous schools never lasted more than a few pen-pal letters after her departure, each note shorter than the last, until the responses stopped. It was just her and Paul; all else passed.