Tom Rachman - The Rise & Fall of Great Powers

“The whole what?”

“Do you think it’s fake?”

She shook her head, watching the screen.

After a few bouts, Paul consulted his watch, rose, and strode to the television, depressing the knob with his kneecap, a scene of walloping pandemonium sucked into the center of the screen, leaving a white mark for a second, then glassy gray. “Nice?”

She nodded, thanked him, went to her room. Tooly was supposed to stay out of sight if ever he had visitors, but she left her door slightly ajar to eavesdrop.

The guest was a sun-leathered former U.S. marine with a blond mustache. Bob Burdett had fallen for Thailand eighteen years earlier when sent from the Vietnamese battlefront for seven days of R & R (rest and recreation) or, as the troops called it, I & I (intoxication and intercourse). After the war, he’d stuck around rather than return to Arkansas, and sought work at the U.S. Embassy. But foreign-service postings were above his pay grade, and, anyhow, lasted only two to three years; if they went longer, the theory went, American personnel risked identifying with the natives, an ailment known as clientitis. Anyone determined to remain long-term could always apply for a local-hire gig, which was what Bob Burdett had done, ending up as head of the car pool, a position with low status and low pay that reinforced his distaste for the Ivy League diplomats who sailed in and out every few years. “Don’t suppose you got a beer for me?” he asked.

“Oh,” Paul responded, glancing at Shelly — when it came to drinks, they kept only Fanta, milk, and water in the house. She dashed downstairs, returning breathlessly with six bottles of Singha as Paul concluded his abbreviated tour of the apartment, bypassing Tooly’s room altogether.

Bob Burdett inquired into the building and its services, commented on the city and the characters at the embassy, mused on expatriate life in Bangkok. Most expats, he explained, fall prey to the three-year itch. “By which I mean hating the locals and bitching about the help — how you can’t find a good mechanic, how everything’s better back home, how people actually work stateside. Don’t matter how good-intentioned folks are on arrival, they turn mean within three years. In my opinion? People are the same all over God’s earth. Just the food is different.”

As if on cue, Shelly entered with dinner. Conversation stopped, only scratches of cutlery on plates, Bob Burdett’s beer bottle clunking on the table. “Might I ask that pretty maid of yours to kindly bring me another of them beers?” By dessert, he’d downed five, and either alcohol or tedium had turned his talk to politics. “Quite a situation back home, wouldn’t you say?”

Paul murmured agreement.

“My concern is that we backslide,” Bob Burdett continued. “We’re a strong, prideful nation under Reagan. Like he told Mr. Gorbachev, the most important revolution in the history of mankind began with three words: ‘We the people.’ Don’t need another Jimmy Carter apologizing for who we are. Without the United States of America, this world falls on dark times. The Europeans? They’d be talking German now, weren’t for what our daddies done. Am I right? Same for the Koreans.”

“The Koreans would be speaking German?”

“You drunk on Fanta, son? I’m saying that, without us, Korea would be nothing but a bad neighborhood of Red China today. That’s what I’m saying.”

“Okay, I see.”

“I’m a student of history, and I can tell you one thing about these Soviets. You look at the great powers in history, you find there’s only one way to defeat an evil empire: on the battlefield. The Spaniards and their empire? Brits knocked out the Armada, and that was it. Napoleon? Overextended in the Russia campaign. Ottomans? Beaten down in the Crimean War, finished off in the Balkans. Austro-Hungarians? Kaput because of the First World War. You eliminate evil through war, not peace. Trust me. I’m a marine, and nobody hates war more than a man who’s seen it. But it’s a fact. We overcome these Soviets with force. I’m telling you now, you’ll hear all manner of hooey at the embassy about perestroika and glasnost. By God, I hear a lot of it. But now is the time to act. You strike when your adversary is weakened. That’s right now. Can’t sit around and wait for the Communists to build back up. Goddamn term limits — what we need is Reagan for four more years. You with me?”

“I don’t know that much about—”

“Don’t say you’re voting Dukakis. Do not tell me that.”

“Uhm, actually, I probably won’t vote.”

“Not for nobody?”

“Just, I haven’t lived in America for so long now,” Paul said, sniffing. “Seems wrong for me to pick who’s in charge.”

“Ain’t you alone doing the picking, son — rest of us get a say, too! It don’t matter how long you been overseas. We’re always Americans, wherever we end up. And you’ll move back sooner or later. Plus, I bet you go stateside pretty regular on home leaves.”

“I don’t really take home leave. I have too much work.”

“Don’t take it ever ? Your momma and daddy back home, they don’t mind?” he asked, adding hastily, “Excuse me — I’m assuming your folks are living. That’s impertinent of me.”

“No, they are.”

“And they’re good with that?”

Paul said nothing for a moment. “Actually,” he said, “I heard some troubling news about my father’s health a few days ago. Something serious. I …” He cleared his throat.

Tooly held her breath to hear better.

“He’ll be in my prayers,” Bob Burdett said. “That’ll take you home quick, I guess.”

“I’ve got things here. It’s not possible right now.”

They ate in silence.

“I never asked if you served,” Bob Burdett remarked.

“Served?”

“The armed forces.”

“I didn’t really consider it, to be truthful.”

“Where’d you go to college?”

“Berkeley.”

“Hell’s bells. You mixed up in them protests?”

“I was just studying computers.”

“Guys studying computers can’t be subversives?”

“I never really knew those people.”

Bob Burdett slurped his beer. “Your housekeeper’s a little cutey.”

“Maybe don’t say that so loud, please.”

“Don’t matter if she hears — probably likes it. You stay out here a while, son, you’ll find everything’s for sale in that department.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Paul stated softly.

The conversation stalled; rain pattered outside.

“I was going to ask you,” Paul resumed, as if working up to something crucial, “about the rainy season.” He cleared his throat. “Do you know when it formally ends?”

“Formally?” Bob Burdett chuckled. “Not sure they got no official ceremony.”

“Humidity’s bad for my asthma.”

“You picked the wrong city, son. All we got out here is humid. Maybe you ought to turn right round and go back to the U.S. of A. — except, kind of seems you don’t like the place.”

“What do you mean?”

“Heck, if my daddy was ailing and—”

“I have things I’m trying to deal with here,” Paul said. “Doesn’t matter what I’d like to do. This is what I have to do.” He took a breath from his inhaler.

“Guess you got a real important job,” the guest conceded. “That’s top priority for people these days. I’m from another era. If my people were in need, I wouldn’t be out here doing no car pool, I promise you that.”

“It’s … it’s … it’s not like I’m out here for fun,” Paul said. “Okay?”

Tooly — hearing his unsteady voice, his dry mouth — clutched the hem of her T-shirt.

Bob Burdett persisted. “Maybe that’s what they teach you in college: put yourself first. You can wait out here till your daddy’s funeral, I guess. Or you not going home for that, even?”