"Well, sort of unusual not to talk to your dad for years, or even know where he was. Or him you."

This made her sound so callous. She wanted to justify herself. But that required saying too much about their own past. Neither wanted to get into that.

"Sometimes I used to tell Bridget-I'm not even kidding-I told her I was working late on a case and actually snuck to Sheepshead to check on him," he said. "It's like I was having an affair. I'm the only guy in the tristate area who cheats on his wife by visiting a man of eighty-three!"

"But he knows I'm here, right?" she said. "And he wants to see me?"

"Of course. And it should be fine." Duncan paused on the stairs, uncertain whether to say more. "But still," he warned her, "you might want to brace yourself."

1988.

LUXURY CARS BLOCKED the entrance to King Chulalongkorn International School, engines snarling as a pair of sweat-soaked Thai guards checked credentials and pointed families toward the parking lots. The vast complex-elementary school, middle, and secondary, over acres of southeastern Bangkok-was on display for International Day, an annual celebration of the diversity of bankers, diplomats, journalists, shady expats, and spies rich enough to send their children here.

Once inside, the kids ran wild, unleashed by parents and yet to be harnessed by teachers, with cla.s.ses not starting till the following week. Some had arrived in school uniform; others wore street clothing, with Izod Lacoste and Polo Ralph Lauren in abundance. Childhood hierarchies rea.s.serted themselves, abandoned during summer and tweaked now according to the growth spurts, the arrival of new dweebs, the repatriation of schoolyard idols.

"Tooly?" Paul asked, as they waited outside the administrative offices for a tour. "Were you in those same clothes yesterday?"

She wore shorts from which her little legs jutted, one sport sock pulled high, the other at her ankle, deck shoes squashed at the back to allow entry without lacing, T-shirt specked with soup stains from the Chinese restaurant.

"You didn't wear that to bed, did you?"

"I don't think so."

He glanced around, a.s.saulted by high-pitched shrieks everywhere. The children segregated themselves according to gender but, since this was elementary school, the boys' voices were just as shrill as the girls'.

"You don't smell, do you?"

Before she could answer, a young teacher with ginger hair approached across the open-air courtyard.

"Let me do the talking," Paul told Tooly, thrusting his left hand into his pocket, thinking better of it, wriggling it free, then pocketing it again, lip curling upward to catch a sweat droplet. "Don't draw attention. All right?"

Mr. Priddles smiled at each of them in turn, sandy eyelashes fluttering. He had been a.s.signed to sell them on enrollment here, and led Paul and Tooly through the impressive facilities-playgrounds, band rooms, canteens, an aquatic center-describing the plethora of pursuits available.

They pa.s.sed a pond with rainbow carp bulleting through the water, and Tooly paused. A tortoise stood at the pond's edge, looking at her. "Is he alive?"

"That's our new school pet, basically," Mr. Priddles told Paul, ignoring her. "We're running a compet.i.tion to name it. Oh-excuse me, one sec." He hustled off to chasten a rowdy trio of second graders for running near the pond.

Entry forms were stacked by a ballot box, with a pencil hanging from a string. "What's a good name for a tortoise?" she asked Paul, picking up the pencil and chewing the end.

"Don't. That's not clean."

"What?"

He took the pencil. "Tim?"

"Who?"

"Tooly, pay attention. Naming the turtle: Tim."

She hesitated, disliking his suggestion but not wanting to reject it.

Two small boys b.u.mped up against Paul, like a couple of waist-high mobsters. "What's the difference between a tortoise and a turtle?" one demanded.

Paul blinked. "Hmm, is it like the difference between a crocodile and an alligator?"

"Nooooooo!" the boy howled. "Tortoise has round sh.e.l.l and turtle has flat. Turtle has web feet and tortoise has normal. Bet you don't know how old tortoises get."

"Hmm, twenty?"

"Nooooooo! Tortoises live to, like, a hundred and fifty-five years old. Bet you don't know the difference between a typhoon and a hurricane."

"One is a strong wind and ..." Paul speculated, plucking at pit stains forming on his shirt. "Or is that a hurricane? I didn't mean that. Is it ...?" He shut his eyes, rummaging for facts untouched in years.

The boys ran off.

"Is a typhoon where ...?" Paul opened his eyes, finding his interrogators gone, only Tooly before him, filling out her entry slip. He fumbled for his inhaler. "Children," he remarked, "they know facts about things. How do they know these things?"

"I don't know the difference between a hurricane and a thingy." She dropped her entry into the ballot box, having written "Jasper," which suited a tortoise. "Can I pick him up?"

"Who up?"

"The tortoise that doesn't have a name."

"We're not allowed, Tooly."

"Why not?"

"The teacher said." He'd said no such thing, but Paul often concocted regulations to bolster his authority.

When Mr. Priddles returned, he asked if Tooly wished to touch the animal. She did, and stroked its sh.e.l.l, tortoise limbs paddling slowly in air.

"Just one remaining issue, basically," Mr. Priddles said. "We received a dossier from her previous school in Australia, but it seems to be about a girl in ninth grade."

"Tooly's nine years old," Paul noted, "not in ninth grade."

"Yes, I realized when we spoke by phone. Alas, their error caused us to reserve her a place in ninth grade. We do welcome your daughter. Just not sure where to put her. Strict limit on cla.s.s size and-"

"I'm starting fifth grade," Tooly interjected, fearful that someone's mistake might consign her to a cla.s.s of teenagers doing algebra exams and cross-country running.

Mr. Priddles flashed her an artificial smile, then resumed his exchange with Paul. As the men spoke, she ventured in ever-larger circles around them, drifting farther from their orbit until she was able to spin through a doorway and out onto a playground, where she watched older girls playing volleyball. A teacher ordered them to the main field for the International Day festivities, and Tooly trailed a distance behind.

At each new school, in each new country, she presented a new personality. It crystallized during the first weeks of school, after which there was no changing-people wouldn't let you. In the end, you became what they expected you to be. At previous schools, she'd been diabolical, girly, a tomboy. But this time she had little urge to invent a new self, knowing it would be wiped away once they left. Even close friendships at her previous schools never lasted more than a few pen-pal letters after her departure, each note shorter than the last, until the responses stopped. It was just her and Paul; all else pa.s.sed.

Among new children, she always spotted the outcasts first, and had read enough novels to prefer them. Sometimes this let her down-certain kids deserved social banishment. But hidden among the losers, she suspected, were her kind. What she longed for was a person who'd say, as none ever had, "This is all so fake, isn't it? Wink at me sometimes and it'll be our sign."

The main field lacked cover from the scorching sun, so parasols were out, hats were on, and hands shaded brows. Parents occupied the plastic seats before the temporary stage, while hundreds of children sat on the gra.s.s around them. Tooly scanned the crowd. She found Paul nowhere.

The princ.i.p.al, Mr. Cutter, tapped the microphone, exhorting the kids to simmer down and take a seat. Tooly knelt on the gra.s.s, layering hair over her face to block the sunlight. After a tedious welcome, the princ.i.p.al inaugurated the International Day parade, in which kids from the fifty-two countries represented at the school tromped across the stage in traditional outfits from their homelands, sweating under headdresses, tripping in curl-toed boots, stating into the malfunctioning microphone "Welcome!" in different mother tongues. The procession-every nation in alphabetical order to avoid charges of political favoritism-concluded with the lanky daughter of Zaire's amba.s.sador, who whispered her greeting and scurried away.

Princ.i.p.al Cutter retook the microphone to announce the winner of the pet-naming contest. "After much discussion, we decided not to allow names of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Sorry, boys," he said. "Drum roll: our school pet for the year 1988-89 is henceforth known as ..." He drew out the suspense. "Her name is ... Myrtle the Turtle!"

"Myrtle?" snorted the parent of a losing entrant. "Are you kidding me?"

"A turtle?" another grumbled. "Isn't it a tortoise?"

"What's the difference?"

While this perplexing question rustled through the crowd, hundreds of kids scrambled for the picnic tables, aware that a potluck lunch was soon to materialize.

"Not all at once, you guys!" Princ.i.p.al Cutter said, to no avail.

Thai support staff distributed plastic plates and forks, paper napkins, bottled water. Many mothers and the occasional father opened Tupperware containers of homemade (maid-made) food across the tables. Tooly entered a queue at random and exited holding a plateful of parsley-flecked meatb.a.l.l.s with spicy sauce for hats, the native dish of a country she never identified.

She weaved through the crowd, attempting to appear headed somewhere, then sneaked into a building, past an Olympic pool, through the girls' changing room, down a long hallway of lockers, pa.s.sing a Thai janitor to whom she said h.e.l.lo, though he only looked down. The cafeteria was empty except for six boys younger than she, all boasting of disgusting food they'd eaten, including (they said) elephant and live snakes. One claimed to have eaten human being, though this turned out to be only his own toenails. At the presence of a girl, they fled.

Alone at the long refectory table, Tooly chased a slippery meatball around her plate, then parted her hair curtains and consulted the wall clock. A teacher had once told her that, viewed in the timespan of the universe, a human life lasts just a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a second. Her life didn't feel like a fraction of a second; things took ages. Time may pa.s.s quickly for the universe, but she had never been a universe.

When she returned to the administrative offices, Paul had still not materialized. The secretaries paged him with no result, finally dispatching a search party of sixth graders. A Malaysian girl found him locked in one of the basketball courts. "Like a labyrinth in there," he muttered in the taxi home.

"I'm not in ninth grade now, am I?" Tooly asked.

"No, no-they'll find s.p.a.ce in fourth or fifth."

"Fourth?" she exclaimed, looking at him. "Didn't I do most of that already?"

"Let's not make a fuss. There's not a huge difference."

But how could grades be compared? Each person you fought or befriended would be different, every teacher changed, your life unfolded in another way. Instead of escaping school after eight more years, she'd be sentenced to nine. An extra year of life wasted.

Being young was so unfair, and you couldn't leave. That was the difference between childhood and adulthood: children couldn't go; grown-ups could. Paul made them leave every year. Just packed up-another city. Whatever you hated disappeared.

She looked out the taxi window. "I only ..."

He waited. "Finish your sentence, Tooly."

"They named the tortoise."

"What?"

"Tim," she lied.

"That was your suggestion," he said. "Good, Tooly."

"You thought of it."

"Well, it was our idea." He reached over to shake her hand. "Let's take it as a sign-this is the school for you."

CLa.s.sES DIDN'T START till the following Monday, so Tooly found herself confined to the apartment again, though the live-in maid had now arrived. Previous housekeepers had been beloved friends to Tooly, so she greeted this woman with much optimism. Sh.e.l.ly was a Lao speaker from the northeast with a slight hunchback, possessing every skill required to endear herself to a Western household: she ironed flawlessly, kept purified water in the fridge, knew how to make spaghetti bolognese and to fry eggs, kept the floors sparkling, the surfaces dustless. Yet she proved a less-than-calming presence. When Paul or Tooly entered a room, Sh.e.l.ly bowed her head, pressed her palms together in the wai praying gesture, and hurried away as if someone had stamped at her.

To avoid provoking this distressing reaction, Tooly hid in her bedroom much of that first week, bounced on her bed, and read. When she needed food, she listened until the sounds of Sh.e.l.ly-the slop and slurp of rags squeezed into the water bucket, the scuff of flip-flops, her surprisingly sweet singing-had pa.s.sed before darting into the kitchen to eat pomelo segments. When Tooly returned, her bed had been made, dirty clothes removed from the floor, pencils lined up on the dresser table beside her sketchbook of noses.

Minutes after Paul returned from work each evening, Sh.e.l.ly tinkled a bra.s.s bell in the living room, calling "sir and madam" to dinner. Tooly bounded from her room, and the maid ran away into the kitchen. During the meal, Paul studied software manuals or lists of birds. Tooly tried to think of something to say.

He looked up. "A man from the emba.s.sy invited himself over. He's considering a move around here and wants to see the building. I couldn't get out of it. He's here for dinner Wednesday."

"I can't come, can I?"

He shook his head.

But on the day of the dinner Paul tried to compensate by returning home early with a special treat for her, a videotape of WrestleMania III. Owing to a misapprehension, Paul believed her to be a pro-wrestling enthusiast. She was not. But Tooly couldn't find a way to say otherwise without disappointing him. So they spent hours watching the TV spectacles together, always with the sound off, since he considered the commentary biased.

"Can you remind me," he asked, slotting the tape into the VCR, "is George 'the Animal' Steele on Andre the Giant's side?"

"He isn't on anybody's side," she answered. "He's part animal and helps whoever he wants."

"Where's he from, Tooly?"

"Parts unknown."

They watched in silence, Paul wincing whenever a wrestler slammed a folding chair into the forehead of a rival. "It's said to be fake," he remarked. "What do you make of that whole controversy?"

"The whole what?"

"Do you think it's fake?"

She shook her head, watching the screen.

After a few bouts, Paul consulted his watch, rose, and strode to the television, depressing the k.n.o.b with his kneecap, a scene of walloping pandemonium sucked into the center of the screen, leaving a white mark for a second, then gla.s.sy gray. "Nice?"

She nodded, thanked him, went to her room. Tooly was supposed to stay out of sight if ever he had visitors, but she left her door slightly ajar to eavesdrop.

The guest was a sun-leathered former U.S. marine with a blond mustache. Bob Burdett had fallen for Thailand eighteen years earlier when sent from the Vietnamese battlefront for seven days of R & R (rest and recreation) or, as the troops called it, I & I (intoxication and intercourse). After the war, he'd stuck around rather than return to Arkansas, and sought work at the U.S. Emba.s.sy. But foreign-service postings were above his pay grade, and, anyhow, lasted only two to three years; if they went longer, the theory went, American personnel risked identifying with the natives, an ailment known as client.i.tis. Anyone determined to remain long-term could always apply for a local-hire gig, which was what Bob Burdett had done, ending up as head of the car pool, a position with low status and low pay that reinforced his distaste for the Ivy League diplomats who sailed in and out every few years. "Don't suppose you got a beer for me?" he asked.

"Oh," Paul responded, glancing at Sh.e.l.ly-when it came to drinks, they kept only Fanta, milk, and water in the house. She dashed downstairs, returning breathlessly with six bottles of Singha as Paul concluded his abbreviated tour of the apartment, bypa.s.sing Tooly's room altogether.

Bob Burdett inquired into the building and its services, commented on the city and the characters at the emba.s.sy, mused on expatriate life in Bangkok. Most expats, he explained, fall prey to the three-year itch. "By which I mean hating the locals and b.i.t.c.hing about the help-how you can't find a good mechanic, how everything's better back home, how people actually work stateside. Don't matter how good-intentioned folks are on arrival, they turn mean within three years. In my opinion? People are the same all over G.o.d's earth. Just the food is different."

As if on cue, Sh.e.l.ly entered with dinner. Conversation stopped, only scratches of cutlery on plates, Bob Burdett's beer bottle clunking on the table. "Might I ask that pretty maid of yours to kindly bring me another of them beers?" By dessert, he'd downed five, and either alcohol or tedium had turned his talk to politics. "Quite a situation back home, wouldn't you say?"

Paul murmured agreement.

"My concern is that we backslide," Bob Burdett continued. "We're a strong, prideful nation under Reagan. Like he told Mr. Gorbachev, the most important revolution in the history of mankind began with three words: 'We the people.' Don't need another Jimmy Carter apologizing for who we are. Without the United States of America, this world falls on dark times. The Europeans? They'd be talking German now, weren't for what our daddies done. Am I right? Same for the Koreans."

"The Koreans would be speaking German?"

"You drunk on Fanta, son? I'm saying that, without us, Korea would be nothing but a bad neighborhood of Red China today. That's what I'm saying."

"Okay, I see."