The Dictator Read online

  His father, like the Queen, came from Europe. He’d landed in Canada after the war and become a small-time developer, part of the post-war passion for tearing down history, both natural and man-made, with ferocious abandon. Forests and farmland were felled and paved to make way for new suburbs. Old, venerable buildings in the city centre were ripped out like rotten teeth, replaced with something too shiny and straight. His father had no instinct for the past, no interest in it; he just happily bulldozed it down.

  His father had once—and, so far as Aaron could recollect, only once—taken him to one of the construction sites, walking him across the chewed-up land that sprouted dead lumber instead of trees. Aaron would always wonder what his father had wanted to show him. The visit was not to instill pride in his father’s achievements. His father was too serious for simple boastfulness and too purposeful in the way he’d smacked down the miniature hard hat on Aaron’s head with his clenched hand. He must have wanted to show Aaron something but seemed too distracted to follow through, repeatedly leaving him alone while he consulted with men on the site. Perhaps that was the lesson—that a man was always alone? That he couldn’t depend on anyone, even his father? Especially his father.

  While standing there on his own, Aaron had discovered a bird floating in a pool of muddied water. He’d taken off the hard hat Karl had dropped on his head and used it to scoop the bird out, hoping to revive it.

  “It’s dead,” Karl said when he returned, even as it twitched in one last effort at survival. Aaron wanted to take the bird home and mend it, but his father saw there was no hope. “It’s just a bird,” he said, and at that moment, Aaron felt his father had been responsible for its death.

  England, and the Europe his father came from, was once again convulsing. Refugees were streaming across borders, and no one knew who belonged and who did not. Senior policy advisers weren’t supposed to float romantic notions in front of their eyes, and certainly not in front of the eyes of the ministers they served.

  LONDON’S STREET FURNITURE always impressed him, the way, for instance, the black median poles separating street from sidewalk were all perfectly erect and scuff-less. The park benches and barricades, the airport-grade signage and street lights didn’t look as if they’d been purchased from the cheap discount stores of North American cities. Before Aaron knew it, he’d walked himself down to the river.

  It was the heart of rush hour, the road choked with blocked cars and whizzing bicyclists, although fewer of them than he’d have expected for such a sunny day. It would have taken too long for him to return to the hotel, and so he followed the blue strip of dedicated bicycle lane toward Embankment and his morning meeting. He arrived a bit early, sat down on a bench and took in the Thames. It was said that salmon now spawned in the river. Embankment was more than a roadway running alongside the river. Beneath his feet ran one of the great sewer pipes of the world, built to clean up the filth and muck that had plagued the city for centuries. There’d be no more flooding from the Thames, no raw sewage splashing into the septic waters, causing cholera and chronic disease. Instead there’d be an elegant boulevard with gas lamps, monuments, balustrades, and now, bike lanes.

  The group of city planners, political operatives and small contingent of media that he met took him through the routes planned for the city, the projected costs and decisions made on a financial and political level. They spoke of the extensive feasibility plans for traffic management, future ridership numbers, greenhouse gas reduction figures, and Aaron absorbed what he felt might be useful for his ambitions.

  “You look a little stunned.”

  The woman who said this was a member of the media. She’d been following along with the sort of smile that in his mind made her dangerous. He’d done his best to avoid her.

  “I must be a bit jet-lagged,” he said. “I got up too early this morning.”

  “Good. I thought it was because you believed in all this shit.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Do you believe in it?”

  “Sorry, I don’t think I should be talking to you.”

  “I’m off duty.” The woman raised her hands to show they were devoid of notepad and phone recorder. “And even if I was on duty, it’s just a small community paper.”

  That should have been the end of it, but he found himself walking beside her. “I’m going back to my hotel,” he said, retracing his steps along Embankment, which, though it was long after rush hour, was still jammed with cars.

  “These lanes have already caused massive gridlock,” she said. “Pollution levels have skyrocketed. Police and ambulance can’t get through. It’s all one big vanity project set up by the former mayor. You know what we call the bicyclists? Lycramen. They don’t commute, they race. Mainly fit young men, a few women, all holier than thou, morally superior arseholes.”

  “There are always going to be a few problems,” said Aaron.

  “So you are a believer. That must account for the stunned look on your face. But that’s okay. I like believers. Are you hungry?”

  Aaron hadn’t eaten breakfast and was starving but unsure of the situation. What was actually happening here? It occurred to him that she was having a bit of fun at his expense but also flirting with him.

  “Where’s your hotel?” she asked.

  Aaron told her it wasn’t far, and as they walked through Green Park and then down Piccadilly, he wondered at what point they’d stop for some food and why he felt their movements toward the hotel were unstoppable. There was a promise of flesh, and Aaron had a sudden urge to be with a woman; it was the urge of a bachelor, the first since he and Isobel had split up. But it was still vague, the woman before him unknown, the conversation about bicycle lanes unimaginable. Yet there it was, he thought, the tug toward a new life, even though the very thought of finding another person to share a life with seemed exhausting. All that work, all that learning, all that retelling of one’s stories in order to convert a stranger into a spouse. But he was getting ahead of himself, far ahead.

  Even as they passed through the lobby and stepped into the elevator, the thought of what they were possibly about to do seemed improbable. He decided they were going up to his room to order room service.

  His room was still flooded with light, and Aaron wanted to close the curtains, though that would seem bold and obvious. But then, what was she doing here with him? And he with her?

  Just then, the phone rang. He looked at the screen. Home, it said.

  “Don’t answer it,” she said.

  “I have to.”

  “Kids?”

  Dad.

  He let it ring, staring at the illuminated word, momentarily unclear how his father could be reaching him; it was as if the man possessed a rubber arm that had stretched around corners, down city streets, across oceans and then grabbed Aaron through the sunlit window. His head throbbed. He’d forgotten about Petra and the fact she hadn’t texted him back.

  “Hello?”

  “Mr. Kaufmann?” It was the nurse.

  “Yes,” said Aaron.

  “Mr. Kaufmann, your father has disappeared.”

  Aaron checked the time. It was half past eight in the morning.

  “Is everything okay?” the woman in his hotel room asked, after he hung up the phone.

  No, thought Aaron. It wasn’t. Jet-lagged, he’d been thinking about wounds and birds and other things that strangely tore at him and that no bicycle lane was ever going to solve. But there was someone in the room with him who might be able to help, and so he picked up the remote and commanded the curtains to close. He’d give himself a few hours before catching the first flight for home.

  2

  KARL KAUFMANN LISTENED TO THE DISCORDANT and extremely irritating pips emanating from the crosswalk and wondered why the blind, if they’d already managed to penetrate this far into the heart of the city without any aural assistance, would need it now, at this particular juncture, to guide their movements across one small patch of asphalt. He believed the p
ips were meant not for the blind but for the sighted, who vandalized the air so they could loudly demonstrate their compassion for those less fortunate than themselves. It was like that nowadays, all public compassion and showy safety.

  Karl looked down at his watch, its oversized numerals compensating for his failing eyesight, and saw that it was a little past quarter to three. He had somewhere to go, a meeting of some sort, and though he wasn’t exactly sure why, he felt certain that he would be late if he didn’t get on his way.

  And then he forgot where he was.

  He stood there, not taking a single step forward or backward, listening to the pips from the crosswalk, certain, though he could not say why, that their repetitive message was meant for him, and he told himself that he was lost, that he did not recognize the street corner or the buildings because he’d never been here before. But he wasn’t sure if that was true, and, far worse, he wasn’t clear where he’d come from or where it was that he needed to get back to, which meant that he wasn’t lost at all, because for that to happen, you needed to be lost in something. There needed to be a point of comparison between what you knew and what you didn’t. It was as if he were holding onto a map that was burning from the centre out, until there was nothing left but blazing fragments scorching the edges of his fingers.

  He needed to escape, to find somewhere quiet, so that he could remember.

  “Are you all right?”

  Karl quickly answered “Yes” without looking at the man addressing him. He was fine, although he realized that he was staring down at the pavement, at his shoes, which were burgundy and a little too scuffed for his liking. Had he selected them himself?

  “Do you want help crossing the street?”

  “No.”

  “Where are you going?”

  It was the sort of intrusive question that the strong can ask of the weak. Karl knew that the great advantage of health was the distance it allowed you to keep from other people.

  “Bitte, verlassen Sie mich allein.” Karl discovered that he spoke German.

  “Are you a tourist?”

  No, he wasn’t a tourist. That was another scrap of information he could hold onto, though he’d forgotten where he was.

  “I’m from here,” said Karl, and, because that was the truth, he walked away and kept on walking, until he turned a corner and found a patch of shade beside the doors of a commercial tower whose air-conditioned chill flowed over his body like a cool stream. It was warm out, but Karl was dressed for cooler weather. He was sweating but refused to take off his wool blazer. There was a row of trees planted along the sidewalk whose leaves were curled and turning, and the sky had a faded brightness about it, like a shirt left out in the sun too long, which informed Karl it was the beginning of autumn. His name was Karl Kaufmann, it was hot, this was home, he knew German but spoke English, and he didn’t know where he was. He was scared.

  But he’d been in situations much worse than this, of that he was sure, and he consoled himself, while enviously eyeing the purposeful strides of office workers advancing in and out of the air-conditioned building, that he’d always come through, as he would again this time. The important thing was to keep one’s head clear, although the problem was that his head was clear, drained like a kitchen sink, with only a few pieces of food scraps to remind him of what he’d had for supper.

  He decided to move on for fear that someone else might approach to offer help, so he walked along the street, emulating the quickened pace of those who knew where they were. The road was a long line of heated, venting metal, waiting for the lights to change. Maybe he had driven here and had parked the car. It had happened to him before, losing his car. And forgetting names. That had happened too. One minute he’d be talking to some acquaintances, and the next minute he’d forget not just their names but who, exactly, they were. He’d carry on talking for a minute or two, crossing his arms, trying to recapture their identity, but if that failed, he’d let them speak, while he nodded with unearned sagacity until it came back to him, which, thankfully, it had always done.

  There was a lot of construction: cranes, jackhammers. Farther up, a helicopter arrogantly staked out a patch of sky. Down below where Karl was, there were stores selling shoes and suits and kitchen appliances, in bright new shops that wouldn’t look the same in six months time. And as Karl walked on, he began to suspect that he wasn’t the only one who didn’t know where he was, that everyone was like him, pretending. Every building along this road was either new or touched up, and all were ready to be torn down again and replaced, a ceaseless act of insolence that the living visited upon the dead, who no longer had a constituency, a voice, to croak in protest. Karl sensed his present circumstances were a symptom, a premonition, of what was to come: he could no longer remember what others had already chosen to forget.

  Fair enough, thought Karl, as he ducked inside a store that sold furniture, but what he needed was a solution for what was happening to him right now. He was tired and needed to rest, so he walked himself over to a quiet corner of the store. He sat down on a chair, became enveloped in its buttery scent of new leather, and closed his eyes, trying to call up precise images of his home.

  It was on the tip of his tongue, like a mislaid word, this place—his home—that he couldn’t recognize; he felt a certain hatred for it, which was promising, because there was a measure of intimacy in hating something, and Karl wilfully attempted to bring the emotion into fuller existence. He was angry too, but the anger seemed more general, less precisely tied down to any one place, hovering like the helicopter he’d seen outside.

  “May I help you?”

  Karl opened his eyes. A young attractive woman stood over him. Actually, youth and attractiveness had become synonymous for Karl. He briefly wondered, before answering her, at the pointless and rather exhausting distinctions of beauty he’d once made when he too was young.

  “I’m just resting here for a moment.”

  “You can’t really do that.” As cover for her embarrassment, she offered Karl a commercial smile. He would have to go.

  “I will buy something,” he said and noticed immediately how pitiable he sounded.

  “There’s a Starbucks next door, if you’d like to sit down and rest,” she said.

  Karl nodded, wishing that he could close his eyes for a few more minutes and be back home in his own living room, where no one would interfere with his decision to rest, because the chair would be his, and the light, at this time of the day, would be streaming through the back window, illuminating the newspaper, which he would be holding in his hands, and he could, if he wished, stand up and get himself a cold glass of water from the kitchen, or some cranberry juice watered down with an abundance of ice. His fridge made ice—he’d always thought it a small miracle—and sometimes, when he was sitting in his chair, in his living room, he heard the rattling deposit as another batch of cubes skidded across the tray.

  And then Karl saw it, from his chair: the fireplace to his right, with its triptych protective grille, and the brass fire utensils—shovel, brush and poker. The potted plant. The couch that sat in front of the bay window. The hallway and staircase to his left. The kitchen with the double sink.

  Karl lifted himself out of his chair and instinctively accepted the assistance of the young woman’s outstretched arm. He felt pleasure being so close to her. She smelled like the furniture, new, unused and ready to be placed in the right setting, and it was only when they reached the exit and she’d let go of him that he once more mislaid his sense of direction.

  The image of the living room was burned off by the afternoon light. Back out on the street, he tried to fasten onto it by repeating the details—fireplace, plant, couch, hallway—while staring straight ahead, seeing nothing before him but the details of his home. And then he heard the pips. The sound frightened him, and he turned away. He was heading in the opposite direction when a taxi pulled up in front of him, which surprised Karl, until he became conscious of the flagging motion of his
arm. He climbed inside the car and offered an address before being asked, then leaned back and watched an unknown world slip past him.

  The radio was on, not music, but baseball, a lethargic-sounding announcer calling the game, and Karl remembered the first time he’d been introduced to the sport as a young man, really still a boy; he recalled the tropical field, the Dominican boys throwing the ball to one another beneath a bright, hot sun, with only six mitts to be shared among the impoverished group. The mitts and bat had been donated to them by the Jewish charity in New York, but it was the Dominicans who’d been more interested in playing. Karl would sometimes join them, because he would take the centre field position, and he liked the way it felt to be part of a team and yet on his own, deep in the backfield, on the edge of the clearing, where the crack of ball against bat took a second to reach him through the humid air.