The Invention of Exile (17 page)

“Here. Give that to me,” he says. He takes the knife and apple, holding both firmly in his hands, and, in one even motion, he peels the skin, coiling. She laughs and then cuts the apple into pieces. She offers him a slice before eating most of the apple on her own.

He begins to draw lines, arcs.

“Oh, you with all your measurings and these drawings. Look at all these marks, all these equations. They own you, you know that?” she whispers, slumping back into the bench. He watches her now, her profile and pouting lips. Could he relinquish his fight, let it all go, simply stay here, live in Mexico City, allow gravity to do its work? He turns from her, unable to let his thoughts settle on that idea. It feels like the deepest form of betrayal—not only of Julia, but of his very self.

 • • • 

T
HE
LETTER
ARRIVES
ON
a Thursday in early May. A thin rectangle of blue, postmarked from the United States. The handwriting, a fine, legible print, is not in a hand that he recognizes. It is clearly not the letter he is expecting.

On this late afternoon he had walked through the Alameda, across the Zócalo and hurried into the post office, near closing hour.

“Voronkov,” the clerk had said, “Austin Voronkov?”

“Yes. That's me.”

“Letter,” he said, and then had dropped the thin envelope on the counter, passing it toward Austin with a nudge of two fingers. He did not pick it up at first. He stepped back for a moment, looked down at his shoes, behind him once, twice, and then stepped forward to make sure that it was indeed addressed to him and not some mistake. He placed his palm across the letter and slid it off the counter, slipping it into his pocket. He wouldn't open it here. He'd wait. The letter resting in his coat like a heartbeat. He left the window at once as if he feared the postal clerk, realizing his mistake, might take it back from him. Ridiculous, he knew. Was it not addressed to Mr. Austin Alexandrovich Voronkov?

He stands now in the middle of the lobby. Hands at his sides. People passing him—bumping him. Why do they have to come so close, sideswiping him in such a way? He then nearly propels himself toward a corner, hand over his coat pocket as if such a gesture will be able to mute what shouts within. He can wait no longer. He removes the letter from the front interior pocket of his blazer. He tears open the back flap, but not before reading the address—known by instinct and yet remote, like a language one used to know. He wavers back and forth between the two extremes of near and far as if he is examining it beneath a telescope, aiming to get it all into focus, though his eyes are now blurred by tears.

Dear Father,

I wanted to write myself so that you'd have it from me and not indirectly from mother, but I'm writing with very good news and can only hope that you actually do receive this letter. You know, we are never sure when we send things off to you and simply cross our fingers and hope for the best. But the good news—I'll be coming to Mexico City for six months. Father, I'm so happy to write to you with this news and mother is overjoyed that I'll be going. You will just have to wait a month and I'm sending this early to give you warning and to prepare yourself. In the meantime, sending much love and I will write again once I arrive, which will be on or about May 15.

Love,

Vera

Words written—facts. For two, nearly three minutes he cannot move. Austin lingers on the name and what it is about to do. Vera. Arrival. It is difficult to contemplate. She'd written it herself clearly, she'd stated that. Vera, his daughter, will be coming to Mexico City. His mind races in all directions. He tries to gather his thoughts, focus them, but thinking of Vera now, he sees a young girl, wondering how she can come all this way by herself. He is wracking his mind to race up to her years. He folds the letter, following its two marked creases. He slips it once again into the envelope and inserts it into his front pocket. He leans against the wall, staring at the people traversing the lobby—some halting before moving on, others performing a dramatic about-face, still others a relaxed pivot as if they have misplaced a thought and had to step back to retrieve it. After a few moments, he draws the letter out once more.

May 15. My God, he has no idea what day it is. He looks up for some sign of a calendar. Of course he knows it is Thursday, yes, but the date. Is it nearing the 15th? It seems just a handful of days ago that it was the first so the 15th, well, that is surely near, isn't it? Or maybe it has passed, he thinks in horror. But no, that's impossible. When did she mail the letter and how long had it taken to arrive? One never knows in this country, one just never knows. He scans the envelope for the postal date, difficult to read from the faded ink. The date must be written somewhere in this official building. He cannot find a single calendar, not even a polite little triangular cardboard calendar, quietly indicating the month, day, and year. Ludicrous for there not to be a calendar in a post office. He starts back for one of the postal windows, passing the line, excusing himself among the customers.
Just need to know the date
, he mutters to himself.
The date
. He hears himself asking, his voice coming to him loud and perhaps too overexcited so he checks himself, speaks softly again.

“Excuse me. Sir. Can you kindly tell me the date? I know it's Thursday, but what is the date?”

“May 12.”

“May 12.”

“That's right. May 12.”

“Thank you.” Okay. It's May 12. My God, May 12! She will arrive in three days. There are so many questions he nearly falls to the ground, his mind spinning. But now he has to get a hold of himself, calmly go about the rest of his days as if her looming arrival is the most natural thing in the world and not an occasion that to him sounds off in his mind like a trumpet, so that as he leaves the post office his thoughts stream ahead in counterpoint—at once tranquil and meandering, the next moment a blasting explosion of joy.

 • • • 

T
HURSDAY
TURNED
TO
F
RIDA
Y
.
Friday to Saturday, Austin's busiest day. Then, Sunday—long and spacious Sunday. For Austin, most Sundays lay before him in long vacant hours filled by a well-ordered routine that had not been disturbed since his first months in Mexico City. He would rise at 6:12
A
.
M
. Not at 6
A
.
M
. sharp. Too inhuman an hour. He would then set the water on to boil. As he waited, he took his aspirin bottle from the shelf above the stove and removed one pill. Next, he'd search for the X-Acto knife in his rectangular box of tools, cutting the aspirin tablet in half. He'd learned the precise pressure needed so that as he pressed on the knife, one half would not, as it often did, project across the room, falling into a crevice behind the counter, where, if he were to ever peer down with a light, he'd find a series of half-moons that had never risen, trapped amid dust and cobwebs. He'd then take a spoon from the sideboard—one of three spoons in total—crushing the half tablet with its curve. A fine powder. The chalky bits left, which he'd stir into a glass of water, drinking it on an empty stomach. In twenty minutes, the dull ache in his hands would disappear.

When the water was ready, he would make his coffee and a cup of tea and drink from each intermittently. He now preferred the dark, rich taste of coffee over the more mild, barky flavor of his tea, but he didn't give it up. He would then take both cups—cups of clay, an indent the size of a thumbprint on the handle—and, sitting at his table—for drafting, for eating—place each cup in front of him. His papers in the early morning light, white like alabaster. He drank from first the coffee, and, as the tea grew lukewarm, the tea. The morning continued caught between sips. In an hour, two hours, his drafting papers would slowly fill with his arcs and equations and notes scribbled along the paper's perimeter. Sundays would continue like this for hours. Then, he'd rise, a bit stiff in the legs, and take his late-afternoon walks in the Alameda.

Though on this Sunday, he is now in a bewildering situation. He reads the letter over as a reminder. A reassurance—Vera would be coming to Mexico. He reads it sometimes once. Most days two or three times. It is too difficult to fully contemplate. How will he get through the next few hours, never mind the next few days? How will he contain himself, this expansiveness? He feels as if he is standing in sight of the ocean. My God, he hasn't seen the ocean in years! But never mind that now. Her pending arrival lifts his spirits, which are rising and threatening to float away. He has to check himself, do a kind of mental pivot and not forget his looming predicament. He aches for a walk. To walk and dwell on the idea of Vera's arrival. Where will she stay, for instance? He can assemble another bed. But he must remember Jack. He cannot run into him with all his taunts and persecutions. His presence sits in his mind like an irritating head cold, a faint pressure that he cannot locate, but that always makes its presence known—when he looks up from his work, when he turns his head too violently, when he yawns. And now all this sudden excitement. How much easier if he can simply sit before his papers, unaware of coming evening, disappearing within, drifting along on his ideas, for who knows what such hours preoccupied with other thoughts may force him to give up—a solution to a design issue?

It is already the in-between hour. Daylight descending, evening rising. He stands before his desk now, the window a gray square silent and still in periphery. His paths out in the city awaiting him. He wonders in a ridiculous moment if the Alameda would miss him. He dresses now, is somewhat grateful for a place to go, even if it is only the cantina down the street. A plate of food with each tequila purchased. He doesn't mind eating alone now. An old, forgotten self abhorred it. On Sundays in particular. Sometimes those afternoons the first years in Mexico City return to him in all their dry and brittle hours. Now, he has learned to contend with eating in solitude, he's resigned himself to it.

He stares into the mirror, shaving. The stubble along his jawline the color of iron. His eyes though still hold their sapphire blue. He draws his hand along his chin. In the Sunday afternoon's near silence he can hear the lonely sputter of a truck, the dripping faucet.

He dips the razor into the basin. In the mirror the window's reflection, and within its frame, the sun is the color of tiger lilies. He draws the razor across his face in careful, even strokes. The blade is sharp, cool. His thoughts without his realizing it turn to Anarose—drawn, like stepping toward a place of warmth. A moment of sun along an arm. A pocket of possibility, something to mull over every now and then. A palliative. She'd surprised him so, she with her broken clock, her scent, her smile. Determination, bashfulness too as if she'd thrown something to him and then had been unsure of herself, clamoring back to fetch it. He had to admit, she was distracting. In her red, T-strapped shoes, in her yellow blouse with blue flowers. Light material—silk, crepe. Something as soft as a petal. The slight flush to her cheeks, the dampness along an eyebrow.

When with Anarose, he'd taken an almost guilty pleasure in the fact that he could, for a moment, forget the years' yearnings, but it came with a price he knew. His vigilance lagging and his ideas vulnerable to anyone free to intuit his thoughts, to Jack and his persecutions, his seeming omniscience, watching. And then a flood of remorse—if he did not continue his unrelenting pursuit to get back to Julia, to get to America, what purpose would the years have served here? For an instant he feels them crumble in his hands . . .
In your loneliest moments, know I have them too, that I long for you to be with me, dear, and oh the children, they long for you as you long for them. . . .

 • • • 

T
HE
CAN
TINA
'
S
TURQUOISE
doors
hang off the darkness. He does not like to use his hands to press them open. He's gotten one too many splinters from that action and had offered to sand the doors down, polish them too, but Miguel would not have it.

“What's the point? Anyone coming here will not feel the splinter when they leave.” True, Austin thought.

He uses his shoulder to step into the cantina. Empty, save for the regular domino players with their shouting or laughter, the crash of wooden chips. The scent of onions stronger. Glasses white and clear, clinking as the waiter walks, balancing the tray, arms pulled in close to his sides.

Austin sits at a small round table in front of an open window. From here, he can see the bamboo trees that sway in the night. It is darker out now—navy, intense. The breeze with its insistence of a chill. A table erupts into laughter like plates clattering to the floor. Large platters of food line the bar. There is fruit salad, chopped papaya and watermelon. Beans and peppers. A small bowl of cilantro. Tortillas in their covered earthenware dishes. He has his first tequila and then rises to wait in line behind the others, workers mostly. Austin is careful to take only one serving, knowing he will return, ordering a second glass, taking two servings when no one is apt to notice.

“Austin,” he says his name like a reprimand. Austin recognizes the voice at once. It can be heard over murmuring, quiet conversations. It is the same loud, grating voice, slightly gravelly, veering on a metallic abrasiveness. He stands in the narrow green frame made by the open jalousie doors.

“I will sit with you, if you don't mind,” he says. Austin does not move. He feels he should leave now. Without a word, turn and walk fast down the street, across the avenue.

“I will get a plate of food first and then I will join you,” he says. Austin turns to go back to his table near the window.