Rise & Fall of Great Powers (9780812995725) by Rachman Tom

Author:Rachman, Tom [Rachman, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9572-5
Publisher: Random House Digital
Published: 2014-06-09T16:00:00+00:00

1999

DUNCAN HAD BEEN LIVING at 115th Street for months before his parents visited. Naoko urged her husband to go, but Keith left Connecticut only grudgingly. Finally, she prevailed—it was this or invite their son’s new girlfriend to Darien for the holidays. So he agreed to tolerate New York for one day, attending a midday Christmas concert at the Met, then scheduling a drop-in at Duncan’s apartment to meet this female. At each metropolitan inconvenience Keith encountered—holiday shoppers, the impossibility of parking, the accent of a garage attendant—he turned irritably to his wife, as if she were to blame for the world.

In the week before their arrival, Duncan had considered tidying his room but opted for passive rebellion. His defiance dissolved when Naoko called from a phone booth outside Lincoln Center to say they were on their way. He spent the next twenty minutes stuffing soiled laundry under his mattress, wiping down the bathroom basin with paper towels, hiding dirty dishes in the cupboards.

“I can offer you white wine or …” Tooly said, hands clasped before her, looking from Naoko to Keith, then back at Naoko, who presented the more sympathetic countenance. “Actually, white wine is all we have. That okay?”

“Plus, we got three types of chips,” Duncan added.

Keith, an unblinking lump of middle-aged Scottish clay, looked askance at the sofa, where his wife invited him to sit. “I only drink if I’m getting drunk,” he said. “And I’m not getting drunk with my son.”

“I’ve gotten drunk with him,” Tooly said, “and I can recommend it.”

Duncan gave an embarrassed cough.

“Diet soda,” Keith ordered. “Can we get the TV going?” He did the honors, switching to NBC Nightly News, which was broadcasting a segment on New Year’s security measures after the arrest of an Algerian caught with explosives at the border, possibly for a terrorist attack in Los Angeles.

“Wrong,” Keith told the television, when the anchor spoke of the upcoming Year 2000 celebrations.

“What is?” Tooly asked, handing him a soda can.

“The Year 2000,” he said. “If the counting starts at one A.D., you don’t reach the millennium till 2001. Not like there was a Year Zero. How hard is that for people to understand?” He looked at the TV again, which now showed footage of Bill Clinton joshing with a foreign dignitary. “Can this guy just go?” Keith said, meaning the president.

Naoko’s wandering gaze suggested that it wasn’t the first time she’d heard such laments.

“It’ll take industrial cleaners to get this guy’s stench out of the Oval Office,” Keith continued. “It’s time to restore dignity to our country.”

“I like hearing such patriotic American views delivered with a Scottish accent,” Tooly said, offering a smile.

“Give me one iota of evidence changing anything I just said to you,” he said, glaring at her.

Late that night, Tooly lay in Duncan’s bed, thinking about his father, who, during a hundred hectoring minutes, had not once looked at his son. While Tooly knew it to be unfair, she couldn’t help but like Duncan slightly less for having this man as his father.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.