Free The Invention of Exile by Vanessa Manko

Sometimes a letter would not reach him and so the next letter he received would refer to events he was not aware of, a cause of much confusion, and sometimes a letter he sent would take two months, others two weeks, so their communication was nonlinear, circuitous, fragmented—letters sent like skipping stones over water.
    She couldn’t come back to him, they both knew it. With a last name connected to an anarchist Russian—if she were to travel to Mexico, they certainly wouldn’t ever let her back into the States. And the children—they would grow up to be Americans, that had been the agreement, no matter what. But, despite all this, there was a part of him that secretly hoped she’d come for him.
    He steps to the window, places his hands in his pockets, and rolls back on his heels, surveying the collection of small cacti and succulents he has arranged on his windowsills. They require little care, but still he is diligent—water once a week, full morning sun, gluttons for sun, really. The aloe and agave, the ghost and amethyst plants, the prickly pear and blue myrtle. Every so often one will bloom. When that occurs, always like a small miracle, he’ll sketch the flower into his notebook of faded pages—elongated petals, alongside his blueprints, numbers, and symbols. He likes the amethyst plant the best, the rounded, plump leaves like moonstones. He runs a hand over the smooth surface of the leaves and then moves his palm above the ghost plant, feeling the slight prickle of needles like iron bristles.
    Out the window, pedestrians amble by, some loping, others with a vigor in their strides. One man walks back and forth in front of the apartment building across the street. The man is waiting, it seems, and Austin watches, his pacing as balanced, measured as a metronome. He cannot make out the man’s face; the hat shields the eyes and the sun casts a shadow along his lips and jaw.
    During all aspects of waiting or stillness—on lines, watching out windows—moments return. It could be a look or word passed in the street, a trigger. A scent of winter and snow, something clean and cold, or sometimes too the heavy, thick incense of a ceremony or a chanting, cheering, and he is back there, in the church basement. The secretary reads off names . . .
Voronkov
. The lights dim. A winter night, early in the new year of 1920. It’s a point he returns to, circles around and delves back into in a second, the memory of it a hinge—of a door, of his life really. In what amount of time—it took maybe twenty minutes? The rush of boots on the stairs, the blackjacks and guns, shouts and shackles . . .
You Communist pig. Anarchist . . .
And in Russia, the shots echo through his mind, speaking to Julia,
do not look, do not look
, he’d told her. The insolent stupidity of the Bolsheviks with their dirty, filthy hands, more like animals than men, Julia had always said. Her words come to him, “. . . when I think of all our adventures and you the only person who knows as well as I, I miss you. . . .”
    It’s when one least expects it really so Austin is always hyperaware. He grabs the cord of the blinds, tugs it to the right to lower them, and then thinks better of it—best not to bring attention to his window. He lets out a little laugh. Ridiculous. The man is simply waiting. It is hard to shake the habit though, watching, waiting. He remembers the other windows—a church basement window, a window beyond a lace curtain, and the men that had stood on the other side of each of those panes—worlds apart. Still, he wants to see the face; he’ll be able to spot a Russian in a moment—one eye lock is all it will take and a whole world’s worth of animosity, suspicion, and betrayal will be exchanged. An American too, one of these FBI agents he’s hearing about. Square jawed and broad shouldered. The distinctions