Right away. Walk where people can see you. Don’t say anything, just do it. Now, Mama.”
Then, above the buzz of static, he heard the jingle of a bell and the closing of a door.
The next time he phoned his mother, the call was intercepted. After several loud clicks, the line went dead. That was his last call. After that, his only contact with her was through his letters, which he knew were vetted, and through the letters she dropped into a blue mailbox everyfew months. On rare occasions, obliging tourists smuggled out missives filled with small talk and the most innocent details of her life. But for the most part, her envelopes arrived covered in censor markings and resealed with brown tape, their contents black-pencilled by the letter opener of the Central Post Office. But it made no difference. Sarah could have sent squiggles and ink blots. Her love was uncensorable.
Dear Andrei,
The walls are bright again. I thought you’d want to know. Eli has painted them with a fresh coat of canary yellow, which will take a day and a night to dry. He wanted to finish the whole room in time for my birthday, but he ran out of paint before he reached the ceiling. I could see he was frustrated, but he laughed as soon as he saw how surprised I was. The living room walls are still glistening as I write
Six
M y conversations with Andrei gradually became more intense. At times, words seemed to spurt from him. Sometimes he moved wildly off course, speaking in surges, sometimes remembering things partially, sometimes stopping abruptly as though overcome. If something excited him, he would gesture in the air until, embarrassed by his own exuberance, he would lock his hands between his knees as if to subdue them.
Yet, as I listened, I sensed that some part of his story remained unreachable, like a dark, cold stone that sat at the depths of a distant ocean floor. While everything else around it drifted and swayed, shifted and resettled, this core remained impervious.
In June, Andrei was sick for a week, and I tried not to think about him. But through the sprawling hours of the day, stories and scenes he had recounted came tumbling back. I thought of calling him, butthat wasn’t the kind of relationship we had. I didn’t even know if he had a phone. Then I recalled Baba telling me once that Andrei lived downtown in an apartment in Parkdale. That weekend I called Paolo and convinced him to take a stroll with me through the west end to look at used furniture stores.
When we got off the streetcar, the streets were filled with the sound of summer construction, a bulldozer beeping in reverse, a pneumatic drill pounding up the pavement. Sturdy-legged women chitchatted past with armloads of groceries.
Paolo was in a cheerful mood, happy to face the world on his own intermittently engaged terms. He smiled at a baby in a stroller and played hide-and-seek with his face behind his hands but withdrew impatiently when the child’s father addressed him. He stopped to pet an affectionate terrier while barely casting a glance at the owner.
We passed by apartment buildings, and now and then a door would open and someone would emerge. I imagined that, wherever he was, Andrei probably lived on the bottom floor—maybe it was a remark he once made about a fear of heights—so I casually searched the first-floor windows. I didn’t tell Paolo what I was up to. I began to feel ridiculous. The prospect of running into Andrei suddenly seemed embarrassing. How would I account for my presence on his street?
Paolo and I must have spent two hours walking through Parkdale, weaving along every street east of Ronscesvalles. The sun was baking the tar on the roads and the flowers drooped in the heat. Paolo had taken off his cotton jacket and there was a dark sweat patch between his shoulder blades. My feet were throbbing, so when Paolo pointed to a small Vietnamese noodle shop, I quickly agreed to stop for lunch and aborted my secret search.
Until Andrei came
Then, above the buzz of static, he heard the jingle of a bell and the closing of a door.
The next time he phoned his mother, the call was intercepted. After several loud clicks, the line went dead. That was his last call. After that, his only contact with her was through his letters, which he knew were vetted, and through the letters she dropped into a blue mailbox everyfew months. On rare occasions, obliging tourists smuggled out missives filled with small talk and the most innocent details of her life. But for the most part, her envelopes arrived covered in censor markings and resealed with brown tape, their contents black-pencilled by the letter opener of the Central Post Office. But it made no difference. Sarah could have sent squiggles and ink blots. Her love was uncensorable.
Dear Andrei,
The walls are bright again. I thought you’d want to know. Eli has painted them with a fresh coat of canary yellow, which will take a day and a night to dry. He wanted to finish the whole room in time for my birthday, but he ran out of paint before he reached the ceiling. I could see he was frustrated, but he laughed as soon as he saw how surprised I was. The living room walls are still glistening as I write
Six
M y conversations with Andrei gradually became more intense. At times, words seemed to spurt from him. Sometimes he moved wildly off course, speaking in surges, sometimes remembering things partially, sometimes stopping abruptly as though overcome. If something excited him, he would gesture in the air until, embarrassed by his own exuberance, he would lock his hands between his knees as if to subdue them.
Yet, as I listened, I sensed that some part of his story remained unreachable, like a dark, cold stone that sat at the depths of a distant ocean floor. While everything else around it drifted and swayed, shifted and resettled, this core remained impervious.
In June, Andrei was sick for a week, and I tried not to think about him. But through the sprawling hours of the day, stories and scenes he had recounted came tumbling back. I thought of calling him, butthat wasn’t the kind of relationship we had. I didn’t even know if he had a phone. Then I recalled Baba telling me once that Andrei lived downtown in an apartment in Parkdale. That weekend I called Paolo and convinced him to take a stroll with me through the west end to look at used furniture stores.
When we got off the streetcar, the streets were filled with the sound of summer construction, a bulldozer beeping in reverse, a pneumatic drill pounding up the pavement. Sturdy-legged women chitchatted past with armloads of groceries.
Paolo was in a cheerful mood, happy to face the world on his own intermittently engaged terms. He smiled at a baby in a stroller and played hide-and-seek with his face behind his hands but withdrew impatiently when the child’s father addressed him. He stopped to pet an affectionate terrier while barely casting a glance at the owner.
We passed by apartment buildings, and now and then a door would open and someone would emerge. I imagined that, wherever he was, Andrei probably lived on the bottom floor—maybe it was a remark he once made about a fear of heights—so I casually searched the first-floor windows. I didn’t tell Paolo what I was up to. I began to feel ridiculous. The prospect of running into Andrei suddenly seemed embarrassing. How would I account for my presence on his street?
Paolo and I must have spent two hours walking through Parkdale, weaving along every street east of Ronscesvalles. The sun was baking the tar on the roads and the flowers drooped in the heat. Paolo had taken off his cotton jacket and there was a dark sweat patch between his shoulder blades. My feet were throbbing, so when Paolo pointed to a small Vietnamese noodle shop, I quickly agreed to stop for lunch and aborted my secret search.
Until Andrei came
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