by Mark Tiro
And then I lay down on the couch. It was still warm from where Gael had been.
I lay down, pulled the covers over me, and I was out like a light.
4
Four
A few hours later, and I was up again. Gael was gone. My mom still hadn’t gotten out of bed.
I was sitting at my kitchen table, staring at a mostly empty milk container, deliberating what I’d wished was the biggest decision I’d have to deal with. There was just enough milk for either the cereal or the coffee. I had never been one to go in for black coffee, but in my entire life, I had never eaten cereal without milk. As I sat there, holding the milk carton, deciding where to pour the precious last few drops, I looked down and saw the last note Rhys had asked me to deliver. Before the blowout, before the betrayal. Before her.
Betrayal. That’s what it felt like now, the morning after. I looked down at the message, but I didn’t open it. Not this one. But I did look at the address on the front. It was intended for the general’s daughter, sure enough. And the address on the front was the general’s. I fixed my eyes on it, memorized it.
That’s it. I made my decision. Then I went to the closet, took my coat out and laid it on the table next to the door. I pushed my hair up and pulled my cap on over it.
Then I sat down to eat. I poured out a bowl of cereal and ate it dry. Then I took a long, slow swig of my coffee. Black.
The milk, I left in the refrigerator for my mom. She was going to need it more than me.
When I’d finished breakfast, I put on my coat.
On the way out, I detoured into my mom’s room. She was sleeping, or pretending to sleep. Either way, I leaned over and gave her a kiss on the back of her head.
Then I walked through the door, and out into the city.
For perhaps the most wanted man in the nation, the address where the general was staying was remarkably easy to find. Not exactly the type of place you would expect to find the man people were calling ‘the Father of the Nation’. But nondescript enough so that the Father of the Nation wouldn’t be found and killed here either. I pulled my cap down, low over my eyes, slipped quietly thorough the gate, and headed across the exposed, open space towards the door.
I didn’t have to knock. The door opened as soon as I got to it. I didn’t see anyone there to greet me. I went in, turned to my right, and looked behind the door.
Behind the door. There he was, standing quietly behind the door, in a big, oversized bathrobe.
The Father of the Nation.
He was wearing house slippers on his feet. He looked down at my feet, beckoning me to take off my shoes. I did, and we walked inside, into the heart of the house.
“Oh child, I wasn’t expecting you. I was expecting they’d send someone, but not someone so… so… young. Oh, child come sit down here.”
In another life, he could have been my grandfather. I don’t know what I expected from the Father of the Nation. But I definitely did not expect him to be standing here in a bathrobe and house slippers. It occurred to me just then that he looked more like the Grandfather of the Nation than the Father of the Nation.
Still, here he sat, across from me, in those slippers while I sat here with my shoes off.
“I would offer you coffee,” he said. I started to politely decline, seeing how I’d just had my first cup of black coffee in my life before I’d left the house. But he cut me off with what I would remember for the rest of my life as the sweetest, kindest smile anyone had ever given me. “But I don’t know if you’re old enough to drink coffee.”
He put a hand on my shoulder, took a deep breath, and looked at me with eyes that said clearly, unmistakably, only one thing: ‘I’m sorry.’ But he didn’t say ‘I’m sorry.’ He didn’t say anything sad at all. And then, just like that, his sadness broke and fell away. “Well, you’re here now, and I’ve been waiting. So thank you for coming.”
“Uh, thank you,” I stammered, not sure what I was thanking him back for. I wasn’t nervous at all. I mean, I was. Here I was, standing in front of the Father of the Nation. Alone. The truth was, I was too nervous, or scared, or… I don’t know what… to even look up at him. Whatever it is that makes you look at your shoes instead of taking a deep breath, and looking up, into the eyes of the person in front of you—I had that going on. Truth was, it wasn’t him I was scared of. It was myself now. The whole business with Rhys had made me want to just let go. Of everything.
When I finally did look up, into the eyes of the Father of the Nation, whatever it had been, the nervousness or whatever had been stopping me—it was gone. I felt completely comfortable here, with this man.
I trusted him implicitly.
I had a brief flash of something. It was something powerful and strong. Something wonderful… but… what? I wasn’t sure. The flash passed just as quickly as it had come.
He seemed very kind, and I did my best now to focus on what he was saying. He was talking strategy. To me. Like I was an equal. His equal. And it seemed completely normal. Natural.
Around him, I felt completely comfortable.
“I know Rhys is a scoundrel,” he said.
“Scoundrel?” I thundered, surprising myself by the intensity of my reaction. I hadn’t realized just how angry I still was at Rhys. “You are much too polite. He’s a bastard!” I said, before I remembered who I was talking to, and quickly stammered “sir.”
“I’m sorry if I touched a nerve. I know no one talks like that anymore. But listen, he’s a bastard who would no sooner stab you in the back than buy you a drink. I knew that as soon as I met him. He has charisma, I’ll give him that. But he’s so smug about it, so proud. Like he’s the first one to ever be so charming, so clever. Was clear as day, the second I met him.”
“May I ask you, sir, when exactly did you meet him?”
“For the first time, a few months ago,” he answered, quietly. “Around the time when it had become obvious, at least to me, that the Committee was trying to wrest control over the Assembly. Trying, and, more importantly, determined.”
“A few months ago?” I repeated in stunned disbelief.
“That surprises you?”
My mind started running in frantic circles. I couldn’t stop picturing him talking to her. Her! Her. She, it had turned out, was the general’s daughter. How long had it been? I thought they’d just met. He told me they’d just met! That liar! He’s been with her for months? And he just kept playing me like… like… aarrrggghhh!
“So why did you keep talking to him if you knew he was, was… a… a… a scoundrel?” I asked him, repeating the word. I think I actually growled it. That was the best I could do to keep from exploding.
“Why? Well that’s easy. Rhys may be a scoundrel. But I am also a dad. Rhys was not much more than a kid when I met him. His head was so into ‘the people’ and justice and all those stupid things kids believe in—the same things adults use to manipulate them. It should have been obvious to him then. But of course, never underestimate the mind’s power for self-delusion.”
I stared at him in silence, not sure what he was getting at. He went on.
“So I can forgive him. The kid probably didn’t even realize it himself—though he should have. Someone like him, with ambition that is. I’m sure he realizes his own power to manipulate, even if it’s not fully under his conscious control just yet. Still, it was more than obvious—to me at least—that he wasn’t a true believer.”
“I’m sorry, I’m new to the resistance thing. I only got in because of…” I realized I was about to say ‘Rhys’. That’s when I stopped abruptly.
“Was it because of him?” he asked. “Was it because of that boy?”
Damn! I thought. I guess it was obvious, even if I hadn’t said his name or finished my thought.
“I’m sorry as well,” he went on. “You must have been through… Did you?” he hesitated, then asked delicately, “Did you love him?”
“No!” I blurted. “I did not! Absolutely not!” But I t
hink I started crying. “I did not love him!” I denied it again, more forcefully. Which, of course, made me cry even harder.
“I’m sorry child,” he said, gently touching the side of my shoulder with his hand. And then he looked at me and began to laugh. It was so genuine. And it wasn’t at me that he was laughing either. I couldn’t help but lighten up. “Well, it looks like you dodged a bullet there,” he said lightly.
Well, yeah! That did lighten things up a bit, and I found myself laughing a little too. I felt a little better now.
“What did you mean, ‘I’m a dad’,” I asked him.
“I meant this: I have a daughter, not much older than you, I’m guessing. It was obvious, to me at least, what was coming with the Committee situation. Maybe not exactly what was coming, but I’ve seen enough of this to get a good sense that it was probably going to be bloody. I decided then that I would get my daughter out of the country, to somewhere she’d be safe. That’s when I came across Rhys.”
“A few months ago?”
“Yes. Back when the resistance was just starting to come together, if I recall. I knew he was the one, though. I knew as soon as I met him, even if he didn’t know. Yet. My daughter happened to be in the house that afternoon. She’d gotten back from school, and came in, to where your friend Rhys and I were talking—”
“He’s not my friend!” I snapped.
“She came in to where… we… were talking,” he went on, ignoring my outburst. “When they saw each other for the first time, it was—”
I cut him off again. “It was love at first sight? Was it?” I asked, pushing. Insisting. I was angry again.
“Please, you asked a question. Now let me give you an answer.”
That deflated me. “Sorry,” I said, sheepish.
He went on.
“No, it was not love at first sight. Not for me at least,” he smiled. “For my daughter? Well you’d have to ask her, I guess. But having been around politics my whole life, I can tell you—it was charm at first sight. He charmed her. He had that kind of charisma that gets people to look at you—to want to be you. If you want to be pulled in, that is.”
“You?” I asked.
“My daughter,” he answered. “I’m old remember?” Now it was his turn to flash me a charming grin, and I wasn’t sure if it was natural, or if it was his parody of Rhys. “See, if I died today, helping an old lady to cross the street—I think I’d be content. That would be a meaningful way to go, don’t you think? That’s the kind of thing you think about when you’re old like me. It’s not in the great swaths of history where you go to find meaning when you’re my age. It’s in the little things. Still, I had my daughter to consider. I was responsible to protect her. Me, and no one else.”
“So you weren’t ready just yet to sacrifice your life to help an old lady cross the street?” I asked, maybe a little flippantly.
“My version of that would be trying to do something about the Committee’s usurpation of the Assembly’s power. I’m in a unique position to do something about that. I’ve built up a lifetime of goodwill and I’m responsible—at least to try. But before I could think about that, I needed to make sure my little girl would be safe, no matter what happened to me.”
I gulped, but other than that, didn’t make a sound.
“Anyway, this Rhys boy met my daughter here that afternoon for the first time. And just like an afterthought it seemed—for no other reason than to test the limits of his own strength I’m sure—he started to flirt with her. It was like watching a wild animal play around with its prey while it’s still alive—without even hurting the creature—before it tires of the game and ends it by ripping out its victim’s neck. She fell for this animal. Just like that.”
“And you let him? With your daughter? You let her?”
“I said she fell for him. I didn’t say I fell for him. But like I said, I knew what was coming with the Committee. The nation was coming into dark times. I also knew the power that girls like her can have over boys like him, when they hang just out of reach.”
“That doesn’t sound nice either,” I said.
“My daughter has a certain pedigree,” he explained, “to someone like him. To someone ambitious. How many times do you think I’ve seen people like him come up? Come up and seize power, or come up and be cut off at the knees. It’s the ambition, and the charm. But you know what? He might be smart, but I’m smarter. And I had the one thing—the one advantage—he didn’t have.”
“What’s that?”
“I just didn’t care. I’ve lived my life. I’m done. My only goal is to get my daughter safely out of the country. Which should be done here in just a few hours. See, he wants to rule the world, or some small part of it. I, on the other hand—I could give a shit at this point whether I live or die.”
“So you used him?” I said, a glimmer of understanding coming slowly.
“Not exactly. It’s always dangerous to think you can use someone like him. I’ve made that mistake before. I’m actually very lucky to be ‘retired’ now. I could just as easily be dead instead, from any one of a whole bunch of mistakes I made when I was young.” He sighed, then took a deep breath in.
“Subtly, so he wouldn’t know it, we planted the seeds in his mind that she was the one, she was the key to him getting a real seat at the table of power. Her, through me. But that she was unattainable for him, because I didn’t think he was good enough for her. Then just to throw him off balance even more, I made sure I told him how much I liked him personally. I told him that I really wanted my daughter to be happy, and he seemed like a fine boy. But you know how girls are these days—what with their own independent minds and all.”
“Sure,” I nodded, not really sure whether to laugh or cry or just be plain horrified.
“I was open for him to persuade me, I told him. Maybe if he could help me out—you know, maybe show the Father of the Nation that he was sufficiently capable, then maybe I’d push her for him to become part of my family.”
“You manipulated him?” I stammered. “You… you… you used him?”
“I did. And my daughter did too. After he had gone, we had a long, long talk. A lot of long talks, actually. About the history and politics, About war. About the Committee.”
“And about him?”
“About him too. Especially about him. Or more to the point, about people like him. I knew there was always the danger she could fall for him just like that. I also knew that he was only really in it for himself, and that at some point he would struggle against her—or get tired of her, or both. And that then he would move on. We’re living right on the edge of dark times here though. And the time had come for me to make the last, best play I had in me. I was, after all, Father of my daughter. First and foremost. And that boy Rhys was my last play.”
“Your last play?”
“My last chess move. The one person who, at this point, can get my daughter out of the country. My highest goal is to give her a chance to live a long, uneventful and boring life. But alive. Safe from the dangers she would face if she stayed here. She would be a target of the Committee here the second I was no longer of use to them. She’d be disappeared and never heard from again in the blink of an eye.”
“You must be under a tremendous amount of stress. I’m sorry—”
“Oh no. But thank you. I’ve been through enough to know that everything tends to work out okay, one way or another. I’ve played more chess moves than any person is entitled to in one lifetime. This boy, he was the most important though. With the other ones, the worst that could happen was that I could die. This time, it’s my daughter who could die if I make a mistake.”
Now I was transfixed. This was a million miles away from my life at home, from taking care of my mom, from breaking into the network for what I was thinking now wasn’t much more than a child’s prank.
He went on.
“See, I made her just out of reach enough to him. And my daughter—she made him just enough… of the
right kind of promises. To string him out and keep him hooked. She was enticing enough, and forbidden enough too—though still attainable, if he played his cards right and did this one little thing.”
“This one little thing? It was to smuggle her over the border, wasn’t it? That’s it, right?” As I said it, I found myself getting angrier than I’d ever have expected. Something in having the screen pulled back to reveal all the details on his political machinations made me feel dirty, even if just by association.
“You see now—it’s true love, no?” he retorted with a wry smile.
“You used him! Both of you did!”
“That’s true. You do realize, child, that this is a matter of life and death though, do you not?”
“Well, sure… but… what about true love?” I stammered, but I wasn’t really able to gather up my thoughts. And so instead of arguing with him, I listened instead.
“Rhys is a scoundrel, sure. But none of this is personal, and I’m not doing any of this to hurt him. If anything, him being out of the country might actually prevent a lot of people from being killed on Sunday—including him. Like I said though, I’m a father first. And for however long she has to, or wants to, stay abroad with this scoundrel, she’ll be safe. Abroad. Where the Committee and the Revolutionary Guard can’t get to her. It was the only good move to play—better that my baby should live in exile, in the arms of a scoundrel than die in her homeland, in a purge of innocents.”
I was stunned. I didn’t utter a sound.
“She is innocent. She’s done nothing wrong other than to be born with me as her dad. That was her death warrant as well. Fighting for her life is my life’s most important work.”
“I don’t think I like this world. I know I don’t like these games. These are people’s hearts.”
“I did what any father would do. To keep his baby safe—I’m looking to protect her real heart, the one that’s actually physically beating inside her chest; not the one that dreams about princes and princesses who never come.”
