The Tyrant's Daughter

by Carleson, J. C.

  This library is cavernous, four times the size of the school’s, and the computer area is far more crowded. I feel like an intruder, and I skulk and eavesdrop pathetically until I understand how the system works. I wait until someone abandons a computer without logging off and then slide into the still-warm seat. Perhaps the woman in the parking lot was right to think me a thief.

  My fingers hover over the keyboard—what dangers lurk in foolish searches? But today my quest is simple. I just want news from home. Facts and data, the less personal the better.

  The news will have to be impersonal, since there’s no one for me to contact. My barren email in-box is a cruel reminder of how few connections I have in the world. Everyone I ever knew seems to have either died, vanished, or betrayed—in many cases I’m not even certain which. Not that anyone would ever feel safe sending an email anyway—not from my country, where the internet is a small and closely watched place.

  Without anyone to contact, I have to rely on filtered, stingy news reports. Recent updates are few; the media is content to let my country’s past describe its present. It seems that not many people in the world care about a far-flung country with too many guns. Not as long as its citizens are only shooting each other, that is.

  I scan and skip through pages I’ve seen before. Was it only weeks ago that I first read them in the school library? It feels like ancient history now. I take small comfort in the fact that the few new articles I can find struggle with what to call my uncle. His title tap-dances from “prime minister” to “commander in chief,” and from “newly installed” to “disputed.” The last one gives me hope.

  One title is noticeably lacking. There is no “king.”

  There never was. It’s not a surprise, of course. I’ve known this now for weeks. But here in this overchilled library a world away, it seems cruelly obvious. My stupidity laid out in black and white. My family’s royalty was a myth I believed for far too long—a fabrication woven for a child’s ears.

  A small part of me understands. How does a parent tell a child a truth like my father’s? And some of the lies were at least close to truths. Like royalty’s, my family’s status was passed down from father to son. Like a king’s, my father’s rule was absolute. The only real differences, I suppose, were that my father had no adoring empire and that his was an authority based more on bloodshed than birthright.

  Did it start out as a joke? Did my parents concoct a silly bedtime story that went too far? When were they going to tell me the truth?

  I push away from the computer. I’m too distracted to focus. My eyes feel jerky and untethered, and the skimpy information online isn’t enough to hold my attention.

  As I stand up, I see a familiar face. Ian.

  He’s leaning against a bookshelf, looking at me. He lifts his hand hesitantly, as if he hasn’t made up his mind whether he wants to talk. “Laila, hi.”

  I smile at him. I’m glad he’s here—a reaction that surprises me. We’ve barely spoken, but there’s something about him that makes me curious. He seems somehow more perceptive than the other American boys I’ve met here. Of course, it might just be those hazel lion’s eyes—I wonder how many personality traits people incorrectly assume from this simple biological quirk.

  “Hi. What are you doing here on a Sunday?” It comes out sounding like an accusation—not what I intended. Fortunately, he doesn’t seem to notice.

  “Hiding out.” He grins and ducks his head a little. “My parents think I’m at a church youth group meeting. I’ve been coming here every Sunday for months now.”

  The fact that he’s also hiding out makes me want to confess my own fugitive status. “I’m hiding too. This is my first time. My first time here, I mean. But why are you avoiding your church? I thought you were religious.”

  He shrugs. “My parents are. I don’t know what I am. But I do know that I’ve spent enough hours in churches all over the world to justify a free pass when I feel like skipping out.”

  He says this with a lightness I envy. Here is someone who feels no guilt for his escape.

  “What about you? Are you religious?” We simultaneously step out of the busy computer area as he asks this.

  I shake my head. “No. My parents aren’t, so I suppose that I’m not either by extension.” I cringe as I catch myself using the present tense. I don’t have enough practice yet speaking of my father in the past tense. “Religion has always been a sensitive subject in my family. One of my uncles is very religious, very conservative, and he blamed a lot of problems on my father’s lack of faith.” I don’t know why I’m telling this to Ian—I’m sure he doesn’t care.

  But he surprises me again. “Your uncle, he’s the one they call the General?”

  “How did you know that?” My muscles tense at the mention of a name I thought I’d escaped.

  His cheeks flush. “I read up a bit on your country after Emmy introduced us,” he admits. “I have plenty of time every Sunday to do research. It beats crossword puzzles.” We share a smile as he gestures toward a table occupied by four old men with a stack of newspapers and pencils in hand.

  “I wanted to say—” Newly serious, he pauses. “I wanted to say that I’m sorry about your father. I can only imagine how hard it’s been for you.…” He’s watching for my reaction, treading lightly.

  I react by turning into a puddle. My eyes swim with mortifying tears, and the spines of the books around us go wavy. I’m embarrassed by my reaction but powerless to stop it. It’s the first time anyone has spoken to me like a girl who has lost her father. Until now, everyone has treated his death like a headline. Unemotional. Institutional, even, as if a building or a bridge had been destroyed, instead of a man. Aside from a single anguished moment when she thought no one was looking, even my mother has remained stoic and silent on the topic.

  Poor Ian looks so stricken by my reaction that I force my grief away. I’ve lost control over everything else in my life; I can’t lose control over myself.

  “Do you want to get out of here? Maybe grab a cup of coffee or something?” His lion eyes hold mine.

  I nod and follow.

  SIMPLICITY

  Ian leads me to my second Starbucks. It’s the identical twin of the one I’ve gone to with Emmy, down to the upholstery on the chairs and the placement of the sugar packets. It’s creepy in its familiarity, like it followed me here. I wonder if I’ll ever get used to the aggressive sameness of chain stores.

  At the counter I stare up at the menu, trying to remember what I ordered before. My eyes are still raw from tears, and the choices are blurry and overwhelming.

  Ian rescues me. “The green tea lemonade is good.” It’s a gentle prompt. I nod, and he orders two.

  There’s only one empty table, and we twist and contort our way through baby strollers and scattered shopping bags to get there. Ian starts to pull my chair out for me but then stops abruptly. He steps back too quickly and bumps into someone behind him. He’s sweetly uncertain as he sits down in his own chair. It’s nice. Here, now, he’s just a boy, and I’m just a girl. We’re just a girl and a boy sitting at a table drinking lemonade, and nothing could be simpler.

  But then he makes it complicated again.

  “So, I’m curious. Who was that guy you were with at the dance last night?”

  I recognize the forced indifference in his tone, and I focus on my straw wrapper, my drink, my napkin, before I answer. I assume he means Amir, but he could also mean my nameless dance partner. I don’t want to discuss either, but for very different reasons.

  “I know it’s none of my business, but I was kind of worried about you. It looked like you were in the middle of a fight or something, and he was practically dragging you out of the gym.”

  Amir, then. Part of me is relieved, or at least less embarrassed. “He’s just a family friend. He’s a bit … traditional, and he was concerned about me. It’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Traditional, huh? He seemed pretty upset when he saw you out there
dancing. I thought maybe he was jealous.”

  So, Ian spotted that, too. My face grows warm, and I shake my head and look away. I shouldn’t care that he saw me dancing, but for some reason I do. I start to explain, to defend myself, but then stop. I see no judgment in his expression, and I hear no shame on his tongue. Their absence unsettles me, and I change the subject. “Does your family have plans for any more grand journeys overseas?”

  He frowns. “My parents talk about it. A lot. But I think they realize that they like the adventure more than they like the religious part. They’re having a hard time justifying another mission to themselves, but they’re trying.”

  “And you?” I ask him. “Do you want to go again?”

  “No,” he says with the finality of someone whose mind will not be changed. “But I don’t exactly get a vote. I’m trying to stay out of it for now. No sense using up all my fight if they never even decide to go. Only a couple more years until I’m in college, anyway. Then they’ll have to go without me.” He starts to tie his straw into a knot. “How about you?”

  I’m distracted by his straw origami—he’s making a stick figure, or maybe an airplane. “What about me?”

  “Are you going to stay in the U.S.? Do you want to stay here?”

  It’s a heavy sack of a question that he drops into my lap, and I wish he hadn’t asked it. I have no answer to give him, but I speak so as not to be rude. “I honestly don’t know. I don’t know what I want. It doesn’t matter anyway—going back isn’t an option right now. It may never be.” I blink fast—I don’t want Ian to see me cry twice in an hour.

  He notices. Of course he notices. Those pale eyes of his are like flashlights. “Emmy was right,” he says. “We do have something in common.”

  “Do we?”

  “Neither one of us has control over our future. Neither of us has a vote in where we may end up.” He cringes at his own words. “Sorry about that. This conversation isn’t going quite the way I’d hoped.… I mean, it’s not that I’m not enjoying talking to you. I am. It’s just—”

  “It’s okay. I know what you mean. But perhaps next time we should go see a movie together. That way we can’t talk.” I smile to let him know I’m teasing.

  He laughs. We stay another twenty minutes, but now we’re mindfully unmindful—our conversation all banter, controversy-free. Beneath the lightness, though, lies something newly solid. A connection. And then it’s time to leave. We stand up together, again as if our steps were choreographed. He puts his hand on the small of my back as we wind our way through the crowded maze of tables and chairs. It’s the lightest of touches—he probably doesn’t even realize that he’s doing it—but I feel it like an electrical current. I’m too aware of him, too distracted by his physical presence.

  When he takes his hand away, I’m even more bothered by its absence.

  “Can I walk you home?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “No. Thank you, but no.” I don’t want to refuse, but old lessons remain strong in my mind.

  “Then maybe I’ll see you at our hideout next Sunday.” His voice drops to a near whisper as he leans in, his lips grazing my ear. “I like being your accomplice.” And then he walks off, his words still hanging in the air and his touch still buzzing on my skin.

  DEFINITIONS

  Mother is sitting in the same spot as when I left, but something has changed. Her ever-present teacup has turned into a glass.

  I recognize the amber liquid inside. Liquor is technically forbidden in our country, but the law is ignored by people who have enough money. This is the first time I’ve seen Mother drinking since we came here, though, and I wonder if the open bottle I spot on the counter is yet another double-edged gift from Mr. Gansler.

  “Where have you been, Laila?” Her tolerance for alcohol is low, and her words sound soft around the edges.

  “The library.” I keep my voice neutral and she nods absently. She has greater concerns than my whereabouts.

  I go to my room and sink down onto the unmade bed—all three of us struggle to remember that we are now responsible for our own menial tasks, and the apartment is perpetually cluttered.

  Bastien is sitting on the floor reading an American comic book. What does he want? After all, he is the best adapted here—in fact, he has the most to lose, whichever direction our fate takes us.

  “Bastien, do you miss home?”

  He wrinkles his nose at me. “Sure.” His gaze drifts back down to his reading, but he must sense that the disruption isn’t over because he sighs and puts it down.

  “But it seems like you’re happy here.”

  He shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.” For him there is no discrepancy between his answers. In his six-year-old mind, it’s still possible to be equally happy in two worlds.

  I’m envious. And irritated. A wicked part of me, the bullying-older-sister part, wants him to have to choose. “But where would you rather live?”

  Finally, he gives this question some thought. “I guess back home.” He grins. “I want to be King.”

  “Bastien, you know there’s no such thing there, right? That you’ll never be a king?” I’m brusque, mean. I’m too impatient to let him down kindly. Why should he be indulged when the rest of us are not?

  He gnaws on his thumbnail, and at first I think I’ve upset him. But he’s only thinking. “I know,” he says at last. “But I’ll be able to tell people what to do, right? And they’ll have to do it? And we’ll live in the big house again, right? The palace?” He doesn’t wait for me to respond. “That’s close enough to being a king.” He picks up his comic book, and I am dismissed for a second time.

  How can I argue with his child’s logic? In his mind, he is a king—he’s been told so his entire life, and the details do seem to support the myth. I start to ask him what this makes me, but I stop myself. It’s better that I answer this question myself.

  COMFORTS

  It’s after school and we’re in Emmy’s room again. The faces in the pictures—her floor-to-ceiling monument to moments past—are starting to feel familiar. I’m part of the collection now. The photo from the night of the dance stares at me from the lower right corner of the wall. “Laila in Disguise,” it should be captioned.

  Emmy has her ear pressed against the door, though that really isn’t necessary. I can hear her parents’ argument perfectly well from the opposite side of the room, where I’m making a show of carefully examining the pictures, pretending not to notice the shouting coming from the kitchen. I think Emmy appreciates this, my little token gift of discretion.

  The photos are arranged by theme. Here, near the window, is a section devoted to Outdoor Emmy. I see evidence of a camping trip with friends. Canoeing with one boy, hiking with another. A cluster of girls toasting marshmallows over a fire, everyone looking young and prettily windburned. I recognize a longer-haired Morgan in the background.

  The next section is less wholesome and slightly more recent. Emmy is a stranger with too much eyeliner and a bleached streak in her bangs, but she’s still wearing the same huge grin. Boys on skateboards flash hand signals and scowls at the camera, all early-teen angst and swagger. The other girls have rows and rows of earrings, five hoops to an ear, and some have studded lips, eyebrows, tongues. A boy in baggy jeans wears one of the X’s across his face.

  “When was this taken?” I ask Emmy, but she holds a finger to her lips. The argument has grown quieter, and she’s struggling to hear.

  I move on. Here is Athlete Emmy. This must be last year, because she looks much closer to the way she does now. I didn’t know she played tennis, but there she sits in a team photo, her smile and her skirt matching those of the other girls. The boys in this section wear uniforms: baseball and soccer. In one picture, Emmy and a boy sit poolside, wearing swim goggles and making funny faces at one another.

  The section that includes my photo is clearly the most recent. There doesn’t seem to be an obvious theme, though. Not yet. International Emmy, maybe? In addition to m
y foreign face, this part of the collage also includes several postcards from other countries.

  A door slams somewhere in the house, and Emmy throws herself on her bed. “Aaaah!” She screams muffled frustration into her pillow before rolling onto her back. “How embarrassing. I’m so sorry you had to hear that. My parents suck.”

  “Are you okay?”

  She doesn’t answer, just scrunches up her face, then picks a crumpled shirt off the bed and throws it to the floor. “My room is a disaster. I can’t even stand to be here. Let’s go to your house instead.”

  Now I don’t answer.

  Emmy sighs and flings her arm across her face, covering her eyes. “They’re separating. My dad’s moving out. You know what they were just fighting about? Which one of them is going to tell me. Like the entire neighborhood doesn’t already know, with their constant yelling. God, I hate them!”

  For a long moment I can’t do anything but stand mutely. I flush warm with guilt as I realize that I’ve thought of her as a paper doll of a friend, one-dimensional and picture-frame perfect. That she might also have things to escape never occurred to me.

  I step closer to her bed, and when she scoots over to make room for me, I lie down next to her. Side by side on our backs, both of us stare up at the ceiling in silence. “I’m sorry,” I finally say, feeling awkward for not knowing the right way to comfort her. Do we talk about it, or is it better to offer up distractions? Does she want to laugh about it or cry about it? So many subjects never covered by my tutors; I’ve never felt quite so alien as I do right now.

  She’s quiet at first, but eventually she turns her head to look at me. “Please don’t tell anybody else.”

  “I won’t,” I say. “I’m good at keeping secrets.”