The Invention of Exile (2 page)

Soon, they had an agreement, a routine—he and Julia. Favors create a bond.

“If you get me some sugar for my tea, I'll get you a pair of shoes,” he told her, still unsure how exactly he'd approach the man from work who patched together makeshift shoes out of collected leather scraps. It was April, the thaw begun in earnest. The days were getting longer. After dinner Julia made tea. The others, Austin included, sat in the dining room with the windows blue, turning to black. At that hour the city hushed, and it was easier to hear the trolley cars in the far distance, creeping and creaking along the streets, and far beyond that the mournful bellow of the ferryboats as they moved in broad arcs along the sound.

“Really. New shoes. It will be just between us,” he told her.

They had a system. During the pouring and passing of tea, they would find reason to be close, she pressing the stolen sugar into his hand, which he'd then curl into his fist before dropping it into his teacup. It was their secret. A minor transgression, but in a house with no privacy a “just between us” moment was something to be treasured. Later, Julia told him that she was surprised by what a man could make one do.

 • • • 

W
HEN
M
AY
AND
J
UNE
of that first year came, they rushed from work to meet in the park. Beardsley Park. Austin waited for Julia, he always the earlier of the two because she had the longer way to walk. He paced and when he recognized her gait—fast while on the sidewalk, slowing as she stepped into the greenness expanding overnight—he took off his hat. She had once told him she liked to see his full face as she approached, stepping up to him as he extended his hand. They followed the park's outer perimeter, always moving in the opposite direction of others. Austin wanted to see people as they came toward him. He was not at ease with the idea of someone at his back. As they strolled, sometimes holding hands, sometimes not, he would describe ideas for inventions, his voice growing low and halting just in case he could be overheard. Julia had to step closer to him then, straining to hear, which made him turn his head and lean down to her slightly, their shoes nearly scuffing, shoulders touching.

He had other ideas too. A house. In time. The implication was that it would be for them and she nodded, just barely—a dip of chin and then she smiled, a quiet delight that she seemed to savor within because she was shy at the prospect of a house; it meant other things that they had not spoken of yet. He liked to lead her to a bench halfway around the park. They held hands then, she kneading his palm like a worry stone.

 • • • 

A
HEA
VY
THUNDERSTORM
.
In
early July. Austin was delayed at the factory. The force of sudden rain flooded a section of the warehouse basement and the men stayed on, trying to keep the water from damaging the machinery. In their minds, water in the gears, moss in crevices, mold within wires, and wetness causing corrosion meant days with no work and no work meant no pay. They divided into groups of five, passing buckets of water down six different lines that ran from the interior of the basement to the nearest window or door. Austin sloshed through inches of the rising water, his boots then socks absorbing the wet until he felt the chill on the soles of his feet and then the hunger too, his whole being aching for hot food. He was eager to be home, in dry warmth, but disappointment tugged at him too, sad that he wouldn't be meeting Julia for their time alone in the park, knowing that, in this weather, she'd certainly go straight home. When he was free to leave the factory, he didn't stay with his fellow workers who wanted to wait out the rain in the neighboring bar. Instead, he walked with shoulders curved forward, crouching away from the rain. When he entered the house, he was grateful for a moment of stillness and to have the sound of the downpour dulled as he stood in the front vestibule.

Julia was not there. Her mother sat alone under the grim kitchen light, twisting a napkin into a coil. The sister was out looking for Julia, who had not returned, the mother said expressionless, which had an anger of its own. He left at once and ran to the park, where he found her before their bench, umbrella in hand, though it hadn't done much good because she was soaked. The rain had tapered off just enough so that the blossoms of the linden trees could give off their soap and honey scent, the ivory yellow blooms fierce and fresh against the wet leaves. He embraced her. She was shaking. He drew his arms around her. It was the first time he'd touched her so fully and she gasped.

“You need to get warm,” he said. “Come closer, I'm warm here.” He could feel her chill through her clothes, along her neck and wrists. Her cheeks were both feverish and damp and he brought his own cheek to hers.

“I waited for you,” she said.

“I should've come here first,” he said by way of apology.

“What happened?” she murmured into his chest.

“Flood at work. We all stayed. Had to clear four inches of water out of the basement. I thought for sure you'd go home.”

“You went back to the house?”

“Yes. Come, we'll go now.”

“Does Mother know?” She pulled away from him, her face slick and shining white for a moment in contrast to the drab wet gravel pathway, the rain-darkened wooden benches and the trees hanging low and weighted above her.

“No. I just turned around and left as soon as I knew you weren't home.”

“She surely suspects by now. Did you tell her where you were going?”

“No.”

“I'll go in first,” she said. “I'll make up some excuse. You should come in later.”

“You'll make me stay out in this? You'll be sick as it is and then I'll be next.”

“If we go back in around the same time she'll guess.”

“Well, let her. We have to tell her at some point.”

“She'll throw you out of the house, you know.”

“So?”

“I don't want you to go.”

“But it's not going to be like this forever. We'll have to tell them. I've been saving. It'll be soon.”

“You say all this, but you know I worry about how they'll manage without me.”

“She can let another room, get another boarder.”

“But it's not near the amount that I make at work.”

“They can't be your concern forever, you know. You must have your own life.”

 • • • 

“
Y
OU
AND
ME
.
We
will marry,” he had told Julia a full year after he'd moved in. It was his attempt at a kind of official proposal. Till then, it had been talk around the subject—that he was saving, what his plans were, how she might fit into that picture he was drawing out for her, with the whispers of a house. Now he'd made his intentions known.

“And how are you so sure?” she had asked, teasing and falling back from him for a moment. The park growing more crowded as the weather softened into full summer and passersby had to filter between them, turning their heads at the abrupt way Julia had stopped.

“It's inevitable,” he said. “We will give each other an oath.”

“An oath?” She was enraged. She was thrilled.

“Yes.”

“What kind of oath?”

“An oath to live together, to be.”

“Marriage.”

“Yes. I will pass all my belongings to you. All my property.”

“You don't own anything.” She stepped beside him then and they continued on.

“I own a typewriter.”

“And what am I going to do with that?”

“I have a farm. I will inherit a farm.”

“But that's in Russia. What good will that do me here?”

“Will you take the oath with me or not?”

“How do we take the oath?”

“We just say it.”

“And then?”

For Austin, who still practiced the old customs and rituals, marriage meant kissing the icons, kneeling together, pressing lips to the Bible. Then you were husband and wife, it was merely an oath between a man and a woman. That was all. She'd agreed to it. It was a violet evening in August. The Russian Social Club's summer dance was held in the cool basement of the stone church. She was in a lace frock, borrowed shoes with a fake rhinestone buckle; he in a navy suit and a white collarless shirt.

“A Cossack. You look like a Cossack,” friends from work and the club teased him.

The heavy light of August, the late afternoon light of summer's last month, fell through the windows like ship portals. Some of the windows were stained glass so that here a circle of rose, there the blue of a star, the yellow of a leaf anointed the faces, the bodies moving.

“My cheeks hurt. From smiling,” she'd told him. They'd come separately. She with her sister and he with some of the men from work. When he spotted her, he watched her among the crowd and he could tell she was struggling to keep focused. She half listened, nodding as she searched the room for him. Each, though, was aware of the other's movements—she through a handful of women gathered like a bouquet at the edge of the dance floor; he tracing the back wall to greet a just-entered friend, each smiling faintly when within each other's gaze. “My wife,
zhena
,” Austin mouthed to her across the room. She blushed and turned her eyes away.

The day's mist and light rain was like an effervescence. They were eager to move into the future days awaiting them like pristine windows strung in a long row.

 • • • 

J
ANUARY
2, 1920.
We
all carry dates within us, flash cards, silver-plated, perhaps engraved. We carry them in us like the memory of those long dead, tucked like the pages of a book, dog-eared. January 2. This was Austin's date. His days hinged here.

It started in rumors. Things one would hear. Nothing definite, just a sense to be watchful, aware and—to get rid of anything from Russia. Books. Newspapers. “They are taking Russians.” “They don't do that here.” “Yes, but they are taking them.”

He ignored all the talk. The ones who were saying it were old. He thought they were simply prone to paranoia. But he started to hear things. Anarchy, socialism, communism, proletariat, revolt. To him, they had a clanking, rattle sound, like a chain-link fence in strong winds.

“Better throw out anything from the fatherland,” that was the advice. He removed all the Russian books from his shelves. He still had some of them—
Science and Society
,
Aspects of Engineering
.

 • • • 

“
T
HEY
'
VE
ROUNDED
UP
OTHER
Russians.” Julia was wringing her hands. She is standing at the door as Austin walks in. The house is warm, but he brings in the cold, rubbing his hands, taking hers in his own.

“How did you hear?”

“I've heard them talking at work. They are holding some in Hartford, others in New York.”

“I know. I'm not involved in any of it.” He removed his hat, his coat.

“Please, do not spend these evenings out anymore. Come straight home.”

“Most of the things I go to are harmless—music, English courses, history.”

“It's dangerous now.”

“Don't worry yourself, Julia, my jewel. I'm not a worker. I'm more advanced. They don't want men like me.”

“Please don't go anymore,” she says, handing him the day's late-edition paper. He reads the headline:

PLAN FOR
RED TERROR
HERE
—Program of Organized ‘Russian Workers' for Revolution Revealed—General Strike First Step—Then Armed Revolt and Seizure of all Means of Production and Articles of Consumption Criminals to be Freed—Blowing up of Barracks, Shooting of Police, End of Religion, Parts of the Program.

He bristled, but hid it from Julia. He came home straight from work as she requested. They took walks after dinner, once, twice around the block and then back inside. He'd begun to look over his shoulder, stopped taking the newspapers from the men on corners. He didn't stop going to the Russian Social Club though. Here, he sang in the choir, sometimes played the zither. And once or twice a treat of elderberry liquor or someone was traveling back to Russia and could send parcels, letters, postcards home. There would be no harm in going to such gatherings. He'd long ago ended his association with the Union of Russian Workers. He didn't believe that workers and trained engineers were equal. He, with all his learning. He'd taken the courses and studied and he did not come to America to be considered equal to the mere worker, the mere assemblymen who had no design or drafting skills, no knowledge of how physics fit part to part. The workers did not know how to calibrate and compute, measure and cut to make the actual engine, gun, carburetor. Still, he read the article. The Americans were scared. He was scared. The whole country was in a panic. He practiced his English, tried to form words in his mouth without the trace of an accent. It didn't work. He avoided speaking to strangers. He placed all his reading materials in an empty canvas bag, hiding it under the bed. Just in case.

 • • • 

T
HE
CITY
IN
WINTER
.
1920. A fog shrouded the warehouses and bridges, lending an ethereal quality to the night. It was opalescent almost. The mauve sky with a dark mass of clouds encroaching. It wasn't the usual bitter, dry cold. It was damp; moisture on the air like there'd been a little bend in winter. A crack. It was snowing still. It was nice to taste the flakes on his tongue.