CONFISCATION OF PROPERTY
Sara Bukin |
 |
I.
THEY WERE TAKING THINGS OUT OF THE HOUSE. GRANDMA QUIETLY WEPT
in the corner. Mom swallowed a handful of pills and lay on the sofa with a wet towel over her forehead. Yuri stared at the girl--so graceful in her bright kimono and sticks protruding from the immaculately coiffed hair, so fair, so familiar...
Yuri liked talking to her. She was unlike any other thing in the house--enigmatic, different. Grandpa carried the figurine all the way from Germany after the War. He brought many things with him back then, but over time they either broke or were lost. Only the Japanese girl remained intact.
She stood behind the glass on the hutch's lower shelf, examining Yuri with her narrow porcelain slits. He never touched her. When he was little, the glass door was off limits, and afterward it never occurred to him to open the door and break the spell. Why complicate the relationship? He was content just looking at his porcelain friend, talking to her about the events of the day, and sharing his dreams and fantasies.
. . .
It would be hard to pick two more different people than Yuri's neurotic, introverted mom and worldly, carefree dad. Yet their marriage denied predictability--as much as she hated his stray cat ways, she could never survive the Soviet realities without his practicality. He made money, knew the ins and outs of the system, and was the kind of person with whom one feels safe and at ease. He grounded her. She helped him reach for the sky.
Dad was always "in business": trying to organize this, get that, and make a profit here and there. Strange men came into the apartment; they smoked, drank, whispered in the kitchen, and shook hands. Sometimes Mom threw a fit, and they would all go away.
Yuri vividly remembered the day Mom came home and collapsed into the chair without taking off her high-heel shoes. He stared at her shaking hands and glazed-over eyes; his heart sank. Grandma came home. The women spent a long time whispering in the kitchen; they both cried. Yuri could not get answers to his questions--he was only eleven, after all. Maybe when he grew up...
In the evening Mom packed the books. She put them in large, stretchy bags, and as soon as the darkness fell, walked out, bending under the heavy load. Yuri fell asleep waiting for her to return. She loaded up the books every night after that for two weeks. Yuri noticed large dark circles under Mom's eyes; she lost weight. Mom was growing old right in front of his eyes. Dad disappeared.
"Something happened to my dad," Yuri whispered to the Japanese girl. "I am not a little boy anymore, you know. They should tell me. But they won't."
He tortured Grandma with incessant questioning. Finally, she gave in. Fighting tears, she told Yuri that Dad had run into problems with the law and would most likely go away for a few years; most of their possessions would be taken away. It was called "the confiscation of property." The criminal had to return everything he illegally acquired back to the State.
However, the rare book collection had nothing to do with Dad; he barely read them anyway. Mom, Grandma, and Yuri's late grandpa had gathered these books over the years. The law enforcement people did not care. When a judge ordered confiscation of property, they took everything of value. Mom was taking the books to various relatives--she could part with her jewelry or the fur coat but not the books. Yuri couldn't tell anyone, under any circumstances; otherwise, they'd take his mom too.
Yuri missed his dad--his jokes, his off-key singing in the morning, their chats about life... Mom had no time or energy for him now. His friends all left for the summer, so Yuri spent his days inventing stories--about foreign lands, ships, pirates, treasures--and relaying them to the Japanese girl. She was a captive audience.
. . .
The men already removed the piano from the living room. Yuri closed his eyes. When he opened them he saw a short, wiry fellow standing in front of the hutch, checking something against his list. "China," thought Yuri. Indeed, the man opened the glass door and started taking out cups and saucers. Grandma's 12-person set with its uneven yet elegant edges, finely curved handles, and yellow dragons scattered across the thin porcelain. The set was made in Germany at the turn of the century--a reminder of paradise lost. Nobody had attempted to hide the china--Mom saved only the books and the paintings.
The sinewy man looked at his list one more time, then suddenly grabbed the Japanese girl and headed out of the room.
"No!" Yuri jumped at him.
He tried to pry the Japanese girl away. He scratched at the man's face and bit the hand pushing him away. Two assistants heard the commotion and came running into the room. They tried to pull Yuri away, but he propped himself against the door frame, kicked them, and screamed at the top of his lungs.
"Get your little rat in line, lady!" yelled the senior one, "or I'll do it."
. . .
At school everyone already knew. His schoolmates did not tease or even ask questions; nobody was eager to talk to Yuri. They left him alone and, for the most part, averted their eyes. Only Sashka, his best friend since the second grade, continued calling him and often stopped by to offer support.
"Listen, Yurka, your Dad'll come back. I've heard he only got five years, which means he'll return in less than three. No biggie, really. Things'll be cool again. Keep the spirits up."
"Yeah, I know, thanks..."
Every day Yuri came home, threw his backpack on the floor, lay on the couch, and stared at the empty space on the hutch shelf until his eyes were itchy. Action scenes, fantasy novels, or pirate adventure stories no longer crowded his head. Nothing. Just the emptiness behind the glass. Yuri could not invent stories just for himself--he wanted to share.
II.
They were taking things out of the house. Yuri watched indifferently as the movers carried out the wardrobe where he kept his clothes for 18 years, the bed on which he slept for the past 10, and the hutch where... He preferred not to go there.
They'd have to spend a couple of nights in sleeping bags and sit on the suitcases. The day after tomorrow they would be going to the airport. A new country, a new life--it was silly to feel nostalgic for a hutch. Most importantly, they managed to get the paintings out of the country. What would they do without Dad with his connections and friends at the customs?
Yuri couldn't help but admire his father who came home after almost four years in jail looking as if he had never set a foot there. Mom aged twenty years over the same time. It was hard to tell, without knowing, which one of them enjoyed freedom all this time. Immediately, Dad went back to his old ways. However, the times had changed--capitalism knocked at the door, and the government no longer jailed businessmen.
If Dad lived in America, with his enterprising skills he would've been a millionaire by now , thought Yuri.
Even Dad couldn't do anything about the books. Some of them were great-grandfather's, published in the nineteenth, early twentieth century, with the old alphabet. Emigrants could not take anything made before the 1950s out of the country.
The shelves were empty, the books neatly stacked in the cardboard boxes on the floor. Yuri fondly traced their spines, recalling how, at fifteen, he spent hours admiring the old prints. He learned the prerevolutionary alphabet and could read the texts with remarkable fluency, not even noticing the differences in spelling.
His favorite book was devoted to ships: it had descriptions of various sails and masts, explanations of the navigational terms, and fascinating stories about major sea battles. It even had a chapter on the Titanic . Yuri remembered every page. While reading the books from his great-grandpa's library, he resumed inventing action sequences and fantasy stories. In the ninth grade, Yuri wrote a novella about treasure hunts, pirates, and sailship chases. In the tenth grade--a whole novel, although Mom called it an imitation, a cross between Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading and Kafka's The Castle . Yuri thought his novel was unique and had it all--mysticism, fight against the System, loneliness among the people, and some romance thrown in for good measure.
The library was his main inspiration, his ticket out of teenage despair. And now somebody came to take it all away. The petition to allow Yuri's family to bring their old books with them was denied, and the library was too large to hide in the baggage. Dad sold the "refusnik" books for a good price.
Another short, wiry guy came to their house and took his time flipping through the pages and touching the jackets, all the while mumbling something under his breath. He didn't look particularly bookish--why would he need a library of this caliber?
Yuri took his favorite book about ships from the top of the pile and sat on the floor in the corner of the room. He would prefer sitting on a chair, but the chairs were long gone. Yuri browsed his favorite chapters, engrossed in memories. He knew the text almost by heart. More than anything, he wanted to disappear into the wall, to be forgotten amidst the turmoil. Maybe they'd leave him this one book. Could he convince Dad to smuggle it into the US through one of his connections?
"Yuri! You should be ashamed of yourself!" Mom tore the book out of his hands. "Aleksey Petrovich's in a rush; he needs to go."
Mom put the book back on the top of the stack. Aleksey Petrovich picked up the box as Dad grabbed another one. On his way out of the hall, Dad almost collided with a mover who was dragging a large floor lamp. Yuri looked out of the window--his favorite book was still on top; he could still see it from the second-floor window. The men set the boxes on the sidewalk. Aleksey Petrovich searched his pockets for keys, then opened the trunk and put in the boxes. He shut the trunk. Yuri moved away from the window. He was blinking--something must have gotten into his eyes.
III.
They were taking things out of the house.
Bitch! Yuri could hardly restrain himself. He was fine until the moment this nimble Mexican lifted the painting off the wall. An original. A priceless piece of art. Grandma's. Damn it! Yuri punched the heavy, solid wood desk as hard as he could. The sharp pain in his hand did not abate the pain in his heart.
With his idealism and love of classical Russian literature, Yuri had a hard time adapting to the realities of life. The more he wished to be like his dad, the more he resembled Mom. Girls came and went; Yuri fell in love a couple of times, but the relationships burned out. By the time he met Judy during his senior year of college, he was tired of the dating shuffle. His new girlfriend radiated stability and comfort--Judy always knew what she would do in five, ten, twenty years. Yuri didn't. In college he majored in philology and wrote short stories as well as novels. Judy studied management and accounting and planned on taking over the financial side of the family dry cleaning business upon graduation. She picked the restaurants on their dates and the destination of their trips, rented an apartment when they decided to live together, and arranged the move.
Yuri wanted peace and quiet, an opportunity to write his books without worrying about rent and tax forms. His girlfriend, for her part, was delighted to find a decent, easily domesticated guy. Both were content with the arrangement. Their only source of conflict was Yuri's impracticality. Judy hoped for help with the business matters, so she persuaded Yuri to study accounting after college. He could assist her during the day and write in the evenings.
After five years of peaceful, orderly coexistence, Judy gave Yuri an ultimatum: they would either get married or break up. She knew the answer. Inertia took over Yuri; least of all, at the age of twenty-eight, he wanted to leave a woman who made his life so predictable and comfortable and start over again. He was not going to look for a pie in the sky--the eternal love. A marriage of helpless romanticism and earthy practicality worked for Mom and Dad, after all. Yuri hoped his marriage would mimic that of his parents, sans prison time.
. . .
A baby came, then another. Absorbed by the demands of motherhood and career, Judy had a hard time understanding her husband's nightly scribbling at his desk. Here he was, writing another silly pirate novel rather than helping her with the kids and household chores. Fatigue followed by indifference, followed by rejection...Yuri no longer remembered what was so appealing about their union.
Every night he stared at the sad young woman on the wall above his desk. He remembered how Mom took the canvas out of the frame, carefully rolled it into a thin tube, then put it on the bottom of a large bag. She covered the roll with some rags and took the bag to Aunt Zeena. Grandma took the nail out of the wall. A hole remained, clearly visible in the middle of a dark square of discolored wallpaper. The next day Grandma bought an ugly poster and affixed it to the wall where the painting used to be. Grandma's hands refused to obey her and shook as she tried to tear off the right size strip of the Scotch tape.
The painting spent a few years in Aunt Zeena's apartment until Dad came home and, as the first order of business, recovered all their belongings. The whole family stood around as he ceremoniously hung the picture on the same spot; they even drank to this, to the return of the old life .
The second time the painting came off the wall was when they left the country. Mom didn't roll it then. She carefully laid out the canvas in a large suitcase on a piece of cloth, placed another piece over it, then piled some clothes on top and packed the rest of the empty space with random items. A man came to their apartment that evening, took a stack of money out of Dad's hands, and walked away with the suitcase. This time nobody bothered covering up the dark square or the hole in the wall.
They unfurled the painting in Chicago, and Mom cried again, saying it was the only thing remaining from Grandpa and Great-Grandpa.
It was a sliver of childhood, the only remaining piece. It helped him write. It calmed him down after fighting with Judy. It reminded him of Mom who died of cancer a couple years back. It was his muse, his source of inspiration. He even talked to it.
. . .
After the divorce Yuri found a job at a major accounting firm and finally finished his novel. Judy released such claws during the divorce proceedings that Yuri now found her physically repulsive; they were barely on speaking terms. Still, life wasn't bad: he saw the kids every week, made good money at his new job, and could write all he wanted without having to listen to a litany of accusations. His new girl, Anyuta, was everything Judy wasn't--shy, tender, and in awe of his writing talent.
When the corporate scandal broke, Yuri, along with thousands of others, found himself unemployed. The economy tumbled; finding a new job was almost impossible. Nevertheless, Yuri diligently paid child support. He spent his savings and lived off credit cards. Meanwhile, recession hit Judy's dry cleaning business, and her social life was at a standstill.
She asked for more child support. In court Yuri told the judge he was unemployed and paid child support out of the last savings, his credit card debt rapidly growing. Judy's lawyer interrupted him. As far as he knew, Yuri had a painting at home worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more. An early twentieth century original by a well-known Russian master could fetch up to a million on an auction.
"This is my grandma's painting!" Yuri yelled. "We smuggled it here from the USSR. I can't sell it."
The judge did not increase the amount of his child support payments but did not reduce it either. Yuri's debt mounted; he had to declare bankruptcy. He found himself, like his mother years ago, rolling up the canvas, hiding the roll deep in his knapsack, and taking it, in the dead of the night, to his dad's house in another town. The white wall of his rented apartment betrayed no trace of the removed painting--he just had to pull out the nail.
The tricks that worked in the USSR did not pass muster in the USA. The ex-wife called the creditors. The bank lawyers politely informed Yuri he would face criminal charges if he did not turn over the painting. It had to go--the proceeds would cover his debts as well as child support for years to come.
. . .
Anyuta noticed Yuri's tight jaw and clenched fists as the man took the painting off the wall. After the men left, Yuri stared at the nail for a long time, then yanked it out. Anyuta half sang, half whispered:Yuri remembered the song -- it used to be popular in Russia when he was a kid.
Maybe a trace was indeed enough.
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