The Tyrant's Daughter

by Carleson, J. C.

  There’s a long pause, and Mr. Gansler watches me watching Bastien. A combination of apology and pity lingers on his face. “You don’t have to worry about him, Laila. Your brother won’t actually be responsible for anything. He’ll just be the person out front. The one smiling in the pictures and waving at the crowds. There’ll be people behind him making all the decisions, doing all the work.”

  “People like you.”

  “And people like your mother.” He lifts his hand and waves to her across the room. Her eyebrows pinch when she sees us. She doesn’t like the two of us talking.

  “And yet he’ll be the only one with a big target painted on his back. For whenever they”—I gesture around the room—“decide that maybe someone else would be better. Or when one of our cousins, perhaps, decides that he wants a turn, or—”

  Mr. Gansler holds up his hand to stop me. “Whoa. Easy there. I didn’t plan for things to work out this way, remember? Putting a seven-year-old in charge of a country isn’t my idea of a smart move, either. Even if it is just for show.”

  “Then why are you doing it? Why don’t you pick someone else?” A deep-down, childish urge to kick him in the shins bubbles up and is slow to subside.

  “It’s not as easy as that. Your country may not elect its leaders, but the people need to at least think they have a say in the matter. Besides, just look at them.” He tilts his head toward Mother, who has made her way over to Bastien. She stands behind him, resting a proud hand on his shoulder. They glow together, like they were born with some internal light switch that I was not. “They’re naturals,” Mr. Gansler continues. “Your mom is an impressive woman, Laila. She’s a lying, manipulative—” He stops himself, and I pick up the faint scent of his drinking.

  I nod, taking perverse pleasure in the fact that my mother could drive the CIA to drink. “Yes, she is.”

  “You know, it’s not lost on me that she did me a favor. She didn’t mean to, I’m sure, but she did.” His tongue has been loosened by whatever last filled his glass. “Twenty-four hours later, and I would’ve been there too. And I probably would have died.” He’s matter-of-fact, like it’s a risk he accepts every day. Or maybe he’s just liquor-brave. Probably both.

  “So what’s next?”

  My question makes him smile and shake his head. “Ask your mother,” he says. “I’m going home. I’m tired.”

  He starts to push his way through the crowd, and I call out to him. “Mr. Gansler, wait!”

  He turns and I hesitate. How much, exactly, has he had to drink? Only enough to make him human, I finally decide. “Can you give me a ride somewhere?”

  He glances at my mother before answering me. Her head is pressed next to a stranger’s—they’re both listening intently to a cell phone that the man holds between them. Mr. Gansler sighs. “Sure. Come on.”

  Neither of us bothers to say goodbye before we slip out the door.

  BLOWS

  If Mr. Gansler recognizes the address I give him, he doesn’t say so. In fact, he doesn’t say anything at all during our short car ride together. He just sweeps the fast-food wrappers from the passenger seat before I get in. There’s a child’s booster seat and a healthy scattering of crumbs and broken crayons in the back—things that surprise me more than they should. The contents of his car are uncomfortably normal.

  I start to thank him as I get out, but he waves me away. “I’ll see you soon, Laila. Take care.” He’s robotic with exhaustion.

  I’m wary as I walk up the steps of the building, but none of Amir’s horrible neighbors are in sight. My stomach gurgles acidly as I knock on the door; it feels like a volcano is erupting in my belly. I can’t remember the last time I ate.

  A familiar man opens the door. He’s been in our apartment before, and I remember him from Bastien’s birthday party. I’m embarrassed that I don’t know his name, but it seems too late to ask now.

  He knows exactly who I am, though. I can tell from the way he looks like he wants to kill me.

  For a long moment he just stares. “The doors of empty castles open wide,” he says finally, in a hissing knife of a voice. It’s an old saying from home that I’ve heard before, but it has never sounded so personal. Or so threatening. The man does not move aside. His hands open, then close into fists, and his nostrils flare. For a moment I think he’s going to hit me. For a moment I want him to hit me, to substitute physical pain for guilt. Do it, I will him.

  But he doesn’t strike. “Amir!” He barks the name and whirls around, leaving the door to swing slowly shut.

  As I wait awkwardly in the foyer, I realize that Amir’s apartment is full of people, just like mine. But even through the closed door, I can hear a difference. The muted sounds feel different. I can hear a woman crying, and I know the gathering inside is not a happy one.

  Finally, he comes to the door. Amir is dead-eyed and gray-faced, and he won’t look directly at me. “You have some nerve showing up here.” But his anger sounds anemic. Like he has no further energy to spare me—neither good nor bad. Like I am dead to him.

  “Amir, I didn’t know. I had no idea. I thought what I told you was true, I swear it.” I know he’ll hear my words as lies, but what else can I say?

  He starts to close the door in my face, then changes his mind and swings it open so hard it slams against the wall. Now, at last, he looks at me. It’s almost comforting to see the hatred back in his eyes—it’s better than the grieving nothingness of the moment before.

  His voice is a barely controlled fury. “Our people showed up exactly where you told us. But you promised there’d be one man and enough guns and money to win the war. Instead, there were twenty men, no money, and the only guns were those in the hands of your uncle’s supporters—the ones who ambushed our group. The ones who killed fifteen of my friends and relatives.”

  “Not your father …?” I can only whisper my question, I want so badly for the answer to be no.

  He doesn’t reply at first, and I fear the worst. But then he shakes his head, a sideways tilt to his mouth making the scar on his cheek deepen and crease. “No, not my father,” he finally says. “He’s still recovering from his time in prison. Good thing, or he certainly would have been there. Tuberculosis and two bone fractures that were never properly set, and still my mother had to practically chain him to the bed to keep him from going. It’s ironic, isn’t it, that injuries from your father’s people kept him from getting killed by your uncle’s people?” He laughs in a way that isn’t funny at all.

  “I’m so glad, Amir. I was so scared—”

  This was the wrong thing to say. He goes wide-eyed with incredulous anger and then grabs me roughly by the arm and pulls me into the apartment.

  I could run away. I could push him, or yank my arm away, or scream for help. But instead, I let him pull me inside, half tripping as he drags me down the hallway into a crowded room. I’m limp with dread, and I let him shove me the last few inches. Dozens of eyes burn into me as everyone stops talking and turns to stare.

  “You should know what you’ve done, Laila. There should be consequences. We did your dirty work. We killed your uncle, Laila. That’s what you wanted, right?” His voice cracks, and he’s breathing hard, but he isn’t finished. “And let me guess. Right now people are coming out of the woodwork, gathering at your home, claiming they’ve supported your mother all along, even if just yesterday they were here, supporting us. Right? Your family wins again, Laila. It always does, doesn’t it?”

  I stand in the circle of judging, hating eyes, shrinking under the weight of Amir’s accusations. His words feel like lash strokes, and it’s all I can do to stay on my feet.

  He’s not finished. His voice grows quieter, thaws with compassion. But the compassion is not meant for me. “See her?” he asks, pointing to a middle-aged woman with anguished red eyes. “Her husband died. And him?” He spins and points to a young man who looks like a taller version of himself. “His father died.” He singles out three more people. “And her,
and him, and her? They all lost someone. Each of us did. Everyone in this room lost a friend, or a relative, or a neighbor, or …” A long-haired woman comes to his side and puts her hand on his shoulder, and he wilts.

  “I didn’t know,” I whisper. I look at the floor, desperate to escape the stares. “I just thought—” I scramble for the right words, but they don’t come.

  Amir doesn’t let me finish. “I just thought there was more to you. Something that could be trusted. But I was wrong. You are your father’s daughter.” He spits the last sentence, and from his mouth it sounds like a curse.

  I’m hunched, cornered and cowed by the hate around me, and my mouth opens and closes uselessly as I realize there’s nothing I can possibly say.

  “Get out.” The voice is thin and high, but unmistakably clear. “Get out.” Nadeen, Amir’s sister, repeats herself as she steps from behind a cluster of men and draws herself up to her full, crooked height.

  I nod slowly and then turn to walk out, cringing as I wait for a blow that never comes.

  No one else speaks. There is nothing left to be said.

  POSSESSIONS

  We’ve accumulated more than I realized since we arrived here. Mother and I stand together and fold, but already it’s clear that much will be left behind.

  “Should we keep these?” I ask, holding up a stack of Bastien’s oh-so-American T-shirts. Skulls and crossbones; dinosaurs, monster trucks, and ninjas. Cheerful horrors adorn his wardrobe here.

  “No.” Mother shakes her head. “He won’t need those.” She retreats into her bedroom and then emerges with two familiar garments. She hands me one. “Will it be hard for you to go back to wearing this?”

  I chew on my lip while I consider the veil. “No. I don’t think so. It never really bothered me before, anyway.”

  She makes a face while she pulls her own veil up and over her hair. “I’ve always hated it.” She tugs it off her head and tosses it aside. “Enough packing for now. Let’s eat something.”

  But the cupboards are empty again. We’re leaving tomorrow, and life has been too turbulent to think of things such as groceries. We sit at the table anyway, neither of us bothered by the lack of a meal. My stomach is too jumpy, my nerves too electric to eat.

  “It’s not going to be the same, Laila. You know that, right?” She’s been gentle with me all week. Watchful, as if she’s worried she has broken me. “The palace has been looted. Darren has only seen the outside, but he said it looks like there might have been a fire. There’s probably nothing left inside.”

  When I don’t say anything, she continues. “I just don’t want you to be disappointed. I don’t want you to expect things to be like they were before.”

  “I don’t want things to be like before.”

  Mother tilts her head at this. Squints at me. So I repeat myself. “I won’t do it. I won’t go back to the way it was before. The lies. The betrayals. The violence.”

  Her eyes drop. We both know what I mean by this. For the first time, we both know the same things. “Your father—” she starts.

  “Don’t defend him!” I slap my hands down on the table. Hard.

  She’s still for a moment. Then she nods. “Your father loved us.” Her voice is quiet.

  “I know.” On that one simple fact we can agree. The rest is too complicated and too painful to discuss now—or maybe ever. In order to go forward, much will have to remain unspoken. It’s not forgiveness so much as it is … momentum. But I can’t resist one last question.

  “How did you know I’d do it? That I’d pass the information to Amir? That I’d even find it?”

  Mother rises from her seat across the table. She comes around and sits in the chair next to mine, taking one of my hands in both of hers before answering. “Because you’re good, Laila. Because you’re smart, and decent, and kind. Not to mention terribly nosy and a shameless eavesdropper.” She smiles at that, and her hands rise to stroke my hair. With featherlight fingers she turns my face toward hers so that I have to look at her as she speaks. “I didn’t plan it this way. I didn’t want to involve you. But you kept seeing what I hoped to keep hidden, and you kept hearing what I wanted kept secret. You learned things I wanted to protect you from, and then it was just too late. You were already involved.”

  She kisses my forehead and then sits back. “It’s for the best, really. You were the one who could be trusted. By me, and by your friend Amir.” She sees the argument on my face and continues quickly before I can interrupt. “I know he doesn’t think so, and I’m sorry for that. Maybe someday he will. Probably not. But you saw something wrong, and so you did something right. You chose the only goodness you could see. Just like I knew you would.”

  She stands up slowly, kisses me one more time on the top of my head, and then walks back to the piles of clothing and starts to fold again. “Let’s finish here. Tomorrow will be busy.” She begins to hum a tune.

  PATIENCE

  She thinks it’s over. She’s been tiptoeing, waiting for me to rage and scream. To demand answers. To erupt. And now, after a two-minute conversation, she thinks the time for that has passed.

  But it’s not over.

  My way is quieter. More fitting of an Invisible Queen.

  VOID

  Before I paid it a second visit this morning, the box under her bed contained more than just the geocoordinates. There were other numbers in there, too. Mother will discover their absence soon. Her folding, sorting, and packing should lead her there within the hour.

  “I’m going for a walk,” I call as I’m already halfway out the door. It’s better if I’m not there when she finds what I’ve done.

  REVERSAL

  The photo jumped into my thoughts last night as I drifted off to sleep. So did a memory of Mother complaining about it during an afternoon visit to Father’s office years ago. The memories were gifts from my subconscious, I think. Peace offerings from my troubled mind.

  “Darling, really?” Mother had sighed as she plucked the photo from his desk. “This is hardly the best picture of us from our wedding. I look cross-eyed, and your hair looks a little thin from this angle, don’t you think?” She’d reached over to fluff his hair playfully.

  Father pulled her into his lap, spinning them around in his chair and making her shriek with laughter. An aide walked out, frowning his disapproval. My parents didn’t care. For all their crimes, they did at least love one another.

  “Someday, when we’re old and wrinkled, my dear, you will look at this picture very differently. Your crossed eyes and my bald spot won’t matter a bit to you then.” He eased her from his lap with a kiss, then glanced at his watch. He was late for a meeting; it was time for us to go.

  It was a touching moment, perhaps. But I know my mother’s vanity. Choosing that photo, of all the more flattering photos she could have brought with her, made little sense. And I was quite certain the picture, in that ugly, distinctive frame, had always sat in Father’s office, so how could she have it here with her now? When we’d had only minutes to grab what few possessions we could from our home? And why was it hidden under her bed, instead of displayed somewhere?

  My father’s words took on new importance in my sleep-fogged thoughts, and my brain began to tease apart the mystery. Someday you will look at this picture very differently.

  He’d been under house arrest those last few days. I didn’t know that until I read about it here. Not that it mattered much—as crafty as he was, I have no doubt he’d found some way to arrange for sensitive documents and important personal effects to be brought to him at home. The week before he died had been full of nervous visits from anxious men. Did one of them bring the picture as one last favor?

  Why?

  There was only one way to know. So this morning, while Mother showered and Bastien slept, I pulled the photo from the box.

  Pulled the picture from the frame.

  And studied the writing, my father’s cramped and slanted scrawl, on the back.

  * * *<
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  Four.

  It’s the number of bank accounts in exotic destinations. Macao, which I’d never heard of. The Cayman Islands, where my parents vacationed once. Belize. They’d traveled there, too. Andorra. Duty-free shopping, Mother used to claim of her frequent visits. The internet connects the dots for me, tells me what these places have in common: offshore banking.

  On the back of my mother’s cross-eyed wedding-day face are routing numbers and passwords. Wiring instructions and sums. Dollar signs. Pounds.

  Hundreds.

  It’s the number of years we could live like royalty if the account balances in Father’s handwriting are true.

  Contact information for three shell companies and two law firms completes the list. Important numbers, indeed. I don’t know why Mother hasn’t called them yet. I don’t have all of the puzzle pieces.

  Perhaps she was waiting until she thought no one was looking. A treasure this grand would certainly be worth suffering through a few months of empty cupboards.

  But she waited too long.

  The frame sits empty now in the box beneath the bed. The picture of my parents smiling in better days—even without the numbers on the back, it would be far too valuable a thing to risk losing. I fold it small and tuck it into my bra. I need to feel it against my skin.

  Now I control the money.

  I control the outcome.

  I’ve learned my lessons well. I won’t be betrayed again.

  PROMISE

  “Is that it? Is that one our plane?” Bastien races to the window and presses his face against the glass.

  My brother is the King of Somewhere.

  He’s not a real king, and it’s not a real place. It’s a scorched and broken void, our Somewhere, but even that is better than nowhere at all. There’s hope in Somewhere. Possibility.

  Mother and Mr. Gansler are bickering on the other side of the room. She doesn’t trust him, and he doesn’t trust her.