Founder, Installment 10

Chapters 19 and 20

Chapter 19

Vorsen, November 2021

It’s nearly ten o’clock before the morning sun against the curtains rouses Hugh from an uneasy sleep. By 11:00 he has showered, dressed, and made his trip to The Magic Bean for an extra large Americano. He is still groggy and hungry and a little jittery from too much caffeine when he places his call to the Ministry. When Callista answers, she asks for his eight-digit case number, which he recites from memory, then she goes about accessing his file.

“Okay, Hugh,” she says after a moment. “I’ve got your claim in front of me. How can I help?”

He gets right to the point, phrasing his question as neutrally as possible. “I was wondering if the Ministry ever shares information about claims like mine.”

“Share?” she asks. “You mean outside the Ministry?”

“Right.”

“No, no,” she replies. “We wouldn’t do that unless you signed a waiver. And I don’t see one on file.”

“Wow. A guy called me a week ago and knew a lot of details from my claim.”

“Is there any chance he could have gotten the information somewhere else? Perhaps someone you told passed the information along?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Do you mind saying who it was that called?” she asks.

Hugh hesitates briefly then tells her.

“Propago?” she says. “I have no idea why they would know about your claim. I didn’t even know they do genealogical research.”

“No?”

“No. They’re a PAO, I think.”

“A what?”

“A political action organization,” she replies, “lobbyists. As far as I know, they do political work for the founding families. I can’t imagine why they’d contact you about your claim.”

Hugh is about to thank her for the information when she continues, “You know, I was just scrolling back in your file, Hugh, and noticed that you’re tagged on an inactive account. Were you aware of that?”

“Inactive?” he asks. “What account?”

“It’s registered to Amelia M. Warding.”

“That’s my mum,” he says. “She had an account?”

“It looks like she completed an AIM application in June, 2006. It’s cross-referenced here with your profile.”

“What’s an AIM?”

“An ancestry inquiry filed on behalf of a minor. It’s when a parent or legal guardian opens a file to modify or correct a child’s ancestry record,” she replies.

“What else does it say?”

Callista takes a moment before replying. “She opened the file on June 6, 2006, and registered for access to BACchus. It doesn’t look like she submitted a claim or anything. ”

“Not Figan Finder?” he asks.

“No, but remember Figan Finder didn’t exist back then. She may have done figan research onsite because she came to the Ministry several times, apparently.”

“Does it say what she found?”

“No, it doesn’t.”

Hugh sucks in his breath.

“In any case,” continues Callista, “there’s no more activity after that. ”

“That makes sense,” Hugh replies. “She died a month later.”

After ending the call, he remains on the couch, his long legs crossed, his hands resting in his lap. The morning sun has thrown a square of light on the coffee table before him, and in the slanting rays, dust motes dance idly. He gazes distractedly at the table, the dust floating like snowflakes, at Silvia’s St. Tropez coffee-table book bathed in sunlight.

…when a parent or legal guardian opens a file.

He considers what Callista’s disclosure means to this research, how it changes the narrative of his childhood. Then, when several minutes have passed, he rises and goes down the hallway to his bedroom where he opens the louvered doors of his closet. Shirts, jackets, and trousers hang neatly on white plastic hangers. Trainers, loafers, flip-flops, and boots lie in pairs on the hardwood floor; a wicker basket contains his dirty laundry. Above him, a shelf is stacked with plastic bins and cardboard boxes. He drags a wooden chair to the closet and steps up to inspect the boxes.

A clear plastic bin with stacks of spiral notepads visible inside is marked School.

Laptop and Tech, reads the writing on a Nike shoebox.

A reddish accordion folder is marked Important Papers.

Disregarding all of these containers, he identifies on the far end of the shelf a cardboard box sealed with brown shipping tape. He reaches over and takes the box down. Handwriting on the top reads, Mum and Dad. He recognizes the writing as his own—blocky and methodical, from 2008 when he organized mementoes from a past that felt already remote. Stepping down from the chair, he sits on the side of his bed and peels the tape off the box. He folds back the cardboard flaps, removes a layer of yellowed newspaper, and finds beneath it a perfume bottle in a plastic sandwich bag—Coco Eau de Parfum, a birthday gift from his dad to his mother. Hugh salvaged the bottle from his parents’ dresser the day Maggie and he cleared out the flat. For an instant, he is tempted to open the perfume and smell it, the way he did after his mother died—pitiful and sniffling—but decides against it. Setting the bottle aside, he sorts through an assortment of his parents’ belongings: his mother’s checkbook; a red and blue striped necktie in a brown paper sack; a ceramic sugar jar from Umbria containing his mother’s jewelry wrapped in tissue paper; three ticket stubs to the PSG/Bressen-United game. Near the bottom of the box he finds the At-a-Glance 2006 planner his mother kept by the telephone in the kitchen.

He takes the planner out and begins leafing through it, starting with January. Throughout each week he sees notations in his mother’s compact cursive.

Dentist, 4 PM.

Change AC filters.

Dinner with F and M.

OB/GYN 1:30.

Nothing notable appears in January. February and March look much the same. He flips forward to April, May, then June. Notations of every sort. Most he can decipher; none strike him as important or unusual. June 6th—the day his mother opened a file at the Genealogy Ministry—is blank. She must have opened the account over the phone, he decides, which wouldn’t have required a calendar entry.

He continues reading, eventually coming to Wednesday, June 14th, where a notation in pencil reads, 2:30 Min Gen.

On Thursday, June 22nd, he finds a second Min Gen notation, then another on Monday the 26th.

Three visits.

After that, nothing.

Hugh thinks for a second, then flips the page to July and locates, almost automatically, Wednesday the 12th—the day of the accident on Halendana. There, his mother had hastily written La Forêt! in smudgy blue ink.

He inspects her notations for the days after July 12—days she’d never live to see. She had a Zumba class scheduled for the following morning, and a stylist appointment that Friday evening. What must the women at the club have thought when the lady with pink trainers missed Zumba? That she’d sprained her ankle or come down with a cold? How did they find out she’d died? Maybe someone emailed The Record article about a crash on Halendana Hill, and then, over time, what began as an upsetting rumor became reality and, eventually, old news.

News

Blues

Shoes

He looks around the room—at the open closet, the window with sun streaming in, the bed with his bulky, blue comforter—and for a moment he loses himself in a familiar speculation: What if his parents had chosen a different restaurant for their celebration? What if they’d gone to a bistro in Old Town for example, and returned home safely? It’s a rabbit hole he knows well, and which Dr. B taught him to avoid.

This is where you landed, his therapist used to say.

The question is where do you go from here?

Hugh turns his attention back to the planner and, after reviewing the first two weeks of July, notices a notation he overlooked earlier. On the 5th, his mother wrote, S Vorsen, 8 PM.

Instantly, a frisson passes over him.

Vorsen.

The name sounds familiar, but he can’t place it. He takes his mobile from his pocket and Googles the name.

Vorsen.

For several minutes, he pores over the search results, then rises from the bed. On his way back into the living room, he dials Dory. When his friend answers, Hugh announces, “My mum knew about the Godor connection.”

Chapter 20

Protection, November 2021

The floor beneath his feet is black rubber matting. Above where he sits on a black bench, the exposed ceiling, air ducts, metal beams, and electrical wiring have all been painted black. Tyga’s “Taste” is thrumming so loudly on wall-mounted speakers Hugh can feel it vibrate in his chest cavity. Dory’s studio isn’t much bigger than a cafe, though the mirrors and dark ceilings give the impression of a larger space. The heavy bag hanging in the corner, the medicine balls, padded benches, squat racks, dumbbells, barbells, and kettlebells are as black as the ceiling, and meticulously organized. All the plates, dumbbells, and benches bear the white Spalding Body Transformations logo.

Across the studio from where Hugh sits, an attractive middle-aged woman in plum-colored lycra is completing a set of kettlebell squats in front of a mirrored wall. Dory stands close by her, his legs bent at the knees, his feet shoulder-width apart. As the woman thrusts upward for her final rep, she puffs her cheeks out and groans.

“Good,” encourages Dory. “That’s good.”

When the woman finishes her squat, she hands Dory the kettlebell and smiles with relief.

“Lovely set,” he says. “Time for a stretch?”

“I wish I could,” she replies, “but I have to meet some people for lunch.”

The woman hugs him, then slips into the changing room with her gym bag. Dory places the kettlebell on a rack by the wall, then goes to a nearby shelf of electronic equipment and turns down the music. He makes his way over to Hugh and takes a seat next to him. His black t-shirt is damp at the stomach and armpits. Sweat beads on his brown scalp and forehead.

“When’s your next session?” asks Hugh.

Dory wipes his head with a towel. “I’m done for today, jim.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Gesturing at a cooler against the wall, Dory asks, “Fancy a water?” He rises and retrieves two bottles, offering one to Hugh. Just then the woman emerges from the changing room, now wearing a white fleece jacket over her workout clothes. As she approaches the two men, Hugh sees that she is older than he first assumed—maybe in her mid-60s—but remarkably well tended to, with clear, smooth skin and plumped-up lips. She goes directly to Dory and, when he rises, kisses him on both cheeks. “See you Thursday?” she says.

“Thursday,” confirms Dory.

Dory and Hugh watch the woman go, both of them silent. After the studio door has closed behind her, Dory winks at Hugh. “That was Antonia March.”

Hugh’s eyes grow wide. “Yeah?”

“Signed on two weeks ago, and she’s already referring her friends to me.” Dory laughs uproariously. “They’re all getting my special rate.”

“Your special rate?” asks Hugh.

“For the really rich ones,” says Dory. “Two-fifty an hour. Yazzers feel more important when they pay a lot.” He takes a drink from his water bottle, then eases back into his chair and towels off his head for a second time. “So I looked up this Vorsen your mum knew…” he begins.

“I didn’t say she knew him,” interjects Hugh. “Just that she made contact somehow.”

“Yeah, yeah. I didn’t recognize the family name at first, you know?”

Hugh says nothing.

“So I checked Wikipedia. They’re a big fuckin’ deal, Hughie. ”

“Richest family in the Godor clan.”

“So this jimmy—Sebastian Vorsen—he’s not political?”

“No,” replies Hugh. “He’s like a cryptocurrency investor or something. It’s his dad and brother who are in politics. His father Brombold was a senator, and his younger brother Baron took over the father’s seat when he retired. Sebastian sounds like the family fuck-up…”

Dory laughs. “But he’s a rich fuck-up—and a massive anti-vaxxer. Totally eccentric.”

“I saw that.”

“And you’re sure your mum made contact with these Vorsens?”

“I don’t think there are other Vorsens…” says Hugh.

“So she got really close.”

“She did.”

For a moment, the two men do not speak. Hugh drinks from his water and looks at his reflection in the mirror on the opposite wall. Eventually he turns to Dory. “You remember I told you about my parents’ funeral?”

Dory nods.

“Well, there was this lady there, a friend of my mum’s, and she took me aside and said all this stuff about how my mum had plans for me, and how I should learn more about where I come from…”

“Yeah?”

“I think she knew my mum was looking into our ancestry.”

“No shit,” says Dory, shaking his head. “That long ago.”

Now Hugh drinks from his water and sets the bottle on the mat by his feet.

“And you remember how there might’ve been a second car on the road when my parents died?”

“Right…”

“And the Sikkies never seemed interested in it?”

Dory considers these statements for a moment and then, as a picture forms in his mind, frowns. “Holy shit…”

“Maggie used to wonder why they never bothered to track down the other car, you know? Why they just assumed my dad got distracted or something? It never sat right with me, either, but I was just a kid...”

“Right. Yeah, of course.”

Hugh looks up at the matte-black ceiling, then continues speaking as if in a trance. “My mum went to the Ministry three times, starting on June 14th,” he begins, his words following one after the other slowly and emphatically. “She had a meeting with Vorsen on July 5th. One fucking week later my parents drive off a mountain road.” Now he brings his eyes back to Dory. “And then, when my claim starts heating up, I get a call from this Eason Rint out of the blue, and a few days later I’m being followed around town by a car with Vorhol plates, right? How am I not supposed to make a connection?”

“No, right…”

“You know what’s fucked up?” Hugh continues. “For all the shit you see in this city, it never, ever occurred to me my parents might have been murdered? Never once. I still can’t wrap my head around the idea that someone would go after a couple harmless feegies over an ancestry claim.”

“I doubt the yazzers saw your mum and dad as a couple of harmless feegies,” replies Dory coolly. “They probably saw them like somethin’ out of World War Z, you know? The first few zombies to show up at the wall. Just before they get fuckin’ swarmed.”

Hugh laughs defiantly. “Good,” he says. “Then that’s what I wanna do, then—swarm the walls, and ram this claim down their yazzer throats yeah? Do it for my mum and dad.”

Now Dory’s expression turns grave, and he leans forward in his chair, elbows on his knees. “That’s fine, jim, but you gotta watch yourself. You know what I’m sayin’? You gotta take this shit seriously.”

“You saying I should back off?”

“Nah,” says Dory, his eyes smoldering. “You keep going, but don’t be naive about it, yeah? Never forget these jimmies are for real, yeah?” He is speaking more quietly now, his voice low and solemn. After studying Hugh’s face for several seconds, he asks, “You want me to get you a gun, Hughie? You know I can, yeah?”

Hugh sits back and groans, then runs his fingers through his hair.

“Just to be safe…” continues Dory. “You’ll probably never have to use it.”

“How much would that set me back, you think?”

“A few hundred bone, maybe?”

Hugh thinks for a second. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.” Then he adds, “You know how to use one?”

“Jim, I’ve had a .45 semi ever since the Delia thing. I can teach you in like ten minutes.”

“You don’t have a permit, though, right?” asks Hugh.

“Me?” says Dory, all astonishment. “They’d never give me a permit, jim. Big black jimmy with radical politics? No fucking way. And if I were you, I wouldn’t bother applying for one, either. Even if you qualified—and you wouldn’t—it’d take like six months to get through all the clearances, and then they’d have your fingerprints and psychiatric profile and all kinds of shit.”

“Alright,” says Hugh. “Let’s do it.”

Dory reaches for his mobile and taps out a text. When finished, he leans back in his chair and asks, “You hear anything from Sil?”

“I did,” replies Hugh. “She said she’s gonna keep living with Tommy.” He kicks at the rubber flooring with his toe. “But she’ll keep paying rent until the lease runs out.”

“No shit? I was sure she’d come back when she simmered down.”

Hugh had expected her to return as well. But now he’s resigned to the reality that he provoked her at the worst possible moment, when Tommy was pressing for a more serious relationship. She’s probably gone to meet the Payne-Havissoms by now, and won the whole family over. Silvia has that uncanny ability, a certain unflappable confidence, at once mystifying and enviable, that enables her to get along with people of every social rank. Yazzers never seem to treat her disdainfully, but she also fits in at the rowdiest pubs in Gloven. It’s her super power, he used to tell her, though he never expected it would lead to her living in West Gursey with a gantling lawyer.

In his more despondent moments, he reminds himself what Silvia told him back in June—that the founding families still don’t believe in marrying outside their class. And, no matter how entranced Tommy may be with her super power, Silvia’s still a feegie and their romance isn’t likely to last. But that’s a sad, desperate sort of hope; so he tells himself to move on, to respect the distance she’s established, and hope for a change of heart. He hasn’t even told her about the black Peugeot or Propago, or that he’s apparently kicked a hornet’s nest by filing this claim. And she’s not asking.

Now Dory leans forward and pats Hugh reassuringly on the knee. “She’ll come ‘round, jim. Tommy’s alright, but he’s no Hugh Fuckin’ Warding, yeah?”

Hugh smiles unenthusiastically, “I got more than Sil to worry about, anyhow.” Then, as he rises to leave, asks, “You don’t think I’m being paranoid for getting a gun?”

“Nah,” replies Dory. “You’re being practical.”