The Invention of Exile (26 page)

“We can't risk his becoming a ward of the state.”

“We won't let that happen,” Leo said. “Besides, he can work. He's an engineer. We can provide for him if it comes to that.”

“That's not a guarantee.”

He watched Leo and Vera talking with the clerk, bodies tilted forward on an angle, pointing, looking at each other, to him. Leo sprang back in anger, prowling, muttering in disgust. Vera kept pleading.
Anything to be done? Anything?
he heard her say. They were only two, three feet away from him, but their words were garbled and distant. Suddenly, there was more conferring, whispering. The senior clerk was speaking in a low, nearly muffled voice. A tone of graveness. Then their eyes, all of them, turned to him. He recoiled, averting his own gaze out the window to the bricked wall, each edge of brick fitting neatly into the others.

“There is one thing,” the clerk began, and then looked to Austin and gestured for Vera and Leo to step out of the room and into the hallway. More low voices. Austin still sat drinking the glass of water. He was not sure if he should follow them outside, or stay where he was. He stared out the window, again the bricks sat in their tidy formation. Footsteps began far down an unseen hallway and he could hear them approaching. Under the door a line of light, shadows of movement, whispers, low voices. All voices talking about him, no doubt—planning, colluding. To what end? For what purpose? His own children now siding with these clerks? He no longer knew what to think.

The clerk walked back into the office with a purpose. No more of his vague, vacillating stance, his unwillingness to assist, to listen. He was making phone calls. Vera leaned over him, bent toward him in a gentle way, talking to him. “Another glass of water, Father? The man is preparing for you to answer some simple questions, yes?” Was that all right with him? Well, it had to be, Austin thought, nodding his head. “We will be right outside, just right here,” Vera said, as she and Leo left the room. Yes. He understood. Fine, fine, he nodded. He took a sip of water and set the glass down.

Soon, a different man was ushered in to sit behind the desk. He wore a tweed jacket and a maroon shirt whose buttons were like opaled seashells. His mustache was black, but his hair was graying and he had large black eyes set far back into his head.

“Mr. Voronkov. Are you ready to begin?”

“Yes.”

“I will present you with a series of images here on these cards and you then tell me what you see. The very first thing that comes to mind.”

“Yes. All right.” He sat up straight. The young man before him presented a flash card. An enormous black butterfly lingered on the page, and the butterfly morphed into a face. Two eyes, there in the empty section and the features forming—nose, mouth, the cheekbones—and then it melded back to its insect form, wings, antennae. The next card similar, though as he stared, seeking out some image, any image, it seemed to crack, a split down the middle, turning black and dark, some terrible, horrifying darkness of nature, beguiling and yet dangerous. He could hear the pencil faintly scratching along the page as the doctor wrote his responses. Next, a mouth. Wide, open, its smile malicious and, at one instant, benign. The next one, eyes hovered above, red and pulsing, demonic in their stare. Clouds came next—threatening, treacherous clouds, violent as if they would touch down out of the sky causing havoc like gods wrapped in pastel colors. He spoke in a fast spurt of words, the doctor goading him on.
Say the first thing, the very first thing that comes to your mind
, he scribbling furiously, taking down what he said, no doubt, to use it against him, Austin suddenly thought. The cards flashed before him, first one and then another. Some black and gray. Others colored—a light pink or red, gentle watercolors with a strange, eerie wickedness about them.

“Who are you and what do you want from me?” Austin asked, rising now. The door opened, Vera and Leo stood in the hallway. Austin looked to them and they were walking toward him. He cowered back and then shouted, “Who are you and what do you want?” They were coming closer, and behind them others had gathered in the doorway, had stopped in the hallway to peer into the office, all staring at him as if they might take something, some fiber of his being, something crucial, and he felt the floor giving out from under him—a sudden rush. He had to sit down for a moment, just a moment and he fell into the chair, grasping its sides, knuckles white. The men gathered in the doorway were clerks, all with manila files, suits, and hair combed back. The light from the hallway white and monotonous now and their feet like his own, caked with the insistent dust of Mexico City.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a man walking far down the hallway, past the men who had stopped to look at him seated in such a vulnerable, unforgiving state. His walk was familiar, a kind of calm, nonchalant stroll amid the commotion of those crammed in the doorway and hallway, all peering deep into him. That pace, that gait! Austin knew it. Jack! His suspicions had been right after all. He grew silent, his breathing calmed. He looked blankly at Vera and then to Leo, each stood on either side of him now. Leo was talking to the clerk still, papers spread out on the desk. Austin saw his satchel leaning up against the side of the chair and in one swift move he lunged for it, tucked it tight under his arm. He stormed out of the room, excusing himself among the people lurking around the door and down the hallway. He could hear Vera now clattering behind him, other voices close and then distant. The bastard was still walking down the hallway, oblivious and nonchalant. When Austin stepped out of the room, he could feel hands on his arms, but he threw them all off. My God, his designs had never even reached the ambassador! He pushed past the men who tried to block his way, pressing, pushing, and passing until they finally gave way and he tore down the hallways, slipping for a moment, dipping down before he caught his balance, grasping for the wall, steadying himself, all the while hearing the commotion at his back, voices—
Mr. Voronkov, Father, Father, Mr. Voronkov
—but they faded as he now made his way back out to the vast lobby with its lines and shuffling papers, clicking of the typewriters and murmurings, the din of simultaneous speech. He kept running until he found himself outside on the embassy steps, the cars flashing by. The park sat calmly before him, people strolling amid its delicate lanes, the dark green glossy in the sun. No Jack. Austin raced down the steps and crossed the road, the traffic screeching to a halt. He walked into the park, looking left and right, his satchel beneath his arm. The damn thief, taking his designs, ensuring they'd never get to the ambassador. It was unconscionable and he'd confront him and say, “Look here, you cannot do this to a man! You cannot torment him so, disrupt the natural course of his life and ruin all his chances,” for that's what had happened, Jack appearing in his life as a reminder, a deterrent. The bastard. He'd tell him though, and they'd all soon see. He was Austin Voronkov, inventor. He was not an anarchist.

 • • • 

L
EO
SAT
WITH
HEAD
BOWED
, the weight of it all, picking over what had happened. The
pulquería
was dark. The broad shadows of the maguey and palms fell across the narrow sidewalk and through the open windows whose shades were pulled only halfway down. Overhead, fans whirred through the intermittent clink and clatter of glasses passed, pulque poured.

Drinking, he could feel layers unearthed. One atop the other. Whole countries turned over and he felt gratitude. He stood on the man's shoulders. The old man had unknowingly sacrificed his life for their lives and oh he'd make something of himself. He'd get out of this terrible, wrenching situation with a mother who cried anytime his father's name was mentioned, and a father who'd
worn down his mind
in Mexico City.

Damn them. He had been in the service—the Navy—and this is how he'd been thanked? Unable to bring his father to the United States. Part of him wanted to hit the man, hit it out of him, make him see clearly, make him realize that they could go, that no one would bother with him, no one would come for him, and then the opposite urge to offer sympathy and some semblance of comfort, but how, how? This old, thin man raving about his inventions. Damn it. They were useless.
Scribblings by an old stateless Russian
, he'd said, regretting it now, but, well, it was true. He'd spell it out, draw it out right there and say they were no use. And he would then put the man in the car himself, put him in and drive up to the border. Put him in against his will if he had to. Drive up through the states of Mexico—Sinaloa, Sonora. And they would cross, like any Americans going back after a good time below the border, or to renew their tourist visas. Or they'd get him a fake passport. Yes! That was an option too. And then he saw the scene in his mind, it bloomed before him, the place he'd go—a small room downstairs, a basement one entered from the street or back alleyway. A postage stamp of a room. A small half door and a man seated over a desk with one of those magnifying glasses affixed to his eye, hunched over papers, fake seals. The intricate, painstaking work of forgery. And then damn the U.S. Embassy! It had all been too much for his father. Why had they put him up to it, to face it? How had they not realized he wouldn't be able to handle it? An appeal seemed all well and fine if it worked, but why had they believed coming in person would work, when all this time their mother's letters were simply futile attempts, amounting to nothing?

His mother's letters. Where were they? Who had they gone to? Missives sent into some abyss was how he saw it, but there she had sat over the years—the old cumbersome machine, teaching herself to type, more point and peck. But she'd done it, and she'd written so many letters pleading their case, their family's case. And his father's damn inventions, drafts sent to patent agents. Pay the price and they'd handle the administrative hassles—a waste! Oh, but one had to break the rules in this life, one had to at least have more moxie, more willingness to not always toe the line. One had to break out, take some kind of active stance. Once he was with them all, once his father was back home, Mother would take care of him. He'd come around then, he'd find rest.
Worn down his mind
. It was true, but they would put him to some kind of work—a mechanic maybe, or working as an engineer, maybe at the Sikorsky plant. Surely, they'd take him. He could do numbers and figures, understood all the mechanics of engineering. He had excellent drafting skills, that Leo could see from the designs, the precise measurements, all these fractions scribbled in the margins. They'd take him. It would work.
Worn down his mind
. And then, well, he'd be an upstanding citizen of America as he'd always wanted to be. He'd decided. He'd put the man in the car himself, if it came to that. And he'd drive, he'd be the one to drive.

 • • • 

I
T
IS
LATE
.
It
is early. It is 2
A
.
M
. Austin can hear the thunder in the distance as he nears his boardinghouse. He has walked from the cantina, a dull numbness in his feet as if his steps are upon not concrete, but soft felt. He walks to the stairs, holds the banister, and struggles up the steps. He falls. It is the fall of a child, tottering, but not bracing, more collapsing, limbs pliant. He is muttering, his tongue thick in his mouth.

“Mr.
Voronkov, can you tell me where you are from?”

“Where were you born?”

“In what country do you have citizenship?”

“Where do you work?”

“On what street do you live?”

“What is your permanent address?”

The thunder grows louder as it moves over the mountains, encroaching upon the city.

“These men and their power and position,” he mutters to himself, “with their stamps and papers.” It is in rolling succession, the words come, phrases streaming through his mind.

“Are you an anarchist?”

“Do you have anything against the government?”

“What is your country of citizenship?”

He stares around him, startled, dazed. He has reached the top of the stairs, his chest tight from exertion and now releasing as he stumbles for the door to his rooms. Darkness. The thunder louder now, closer, and then a sudden downpour like the far-off cheering of a swelling, enormous crowd. As his eyes adjust, he can make out the gray-white rain forming a veil over the window. He walks to it. The taxi still parked at the end of his street in all its sinister stillness. He is drawn back to his room, can now see the table, and in the next room, his bed, dresser, and a flash of light in the oval mirror. He is suddenly unsure how he got here, standing in the middle of his room. The wind outside is strong, strong enough to shake the windows. He is sweating. He races to his table. His drafting papers lie scattered. He begins to take the designs—under the floorboard, the bed, next, behind the dresser. He gathers them, laying them out on his table. Such definite marks—points connected, measurements taken. Something would be made out of them, something tangible, of worth. He grabs his satchel on the floor and places it on the table. He gathers the designs into a tight bundle and stuffs them in his satchel, fastening the buckle, struggling with it, bent over it, pulling and tugging. His head swirling as he stands upright, placing the satchel snug under his arm and taking a deep breath, waiting for the room to steady, bracing himself on a chair, then on the doorframe. In a moment, he is out of his rooms, racing down the hallway, taking the stairs two at a time.

Outside, there is nothing but the rain and wind, which, when it barrels down the street, creates havoc—trees bent, leaves damp and strewn, the wheezing, whistling is incessant until the wind calms for a moment, silence resuming except for the now steady pelting rain. The rain is cold and already his hair is drenched, his shirt too. His shoes begin to rub his bare heels, the water seeping through the soles, he conscious of a sting, knowing the skin has chafed and torn. No matter, he thinks, walking, his satchel beneath his arm still. He holds it tight, close to his body as if the wind might snatch it away from him, its contents strewn over the Condesa, blown away on a terrible gust and lost. No cars. No lights. The streetlamps black. He stops at the corner of the Parque México in its glossy green oval of trees, wet in the rain, benign and lush amid the blackness and damp around him.