Free The Invention of Exile by Vanessa Manko Page A

hardly matter, amount to the same in the end, and he can nearly hear the feet on the stairs—clomping, loud and furtive voices. “He’s here. This one.” The knock on the door. And why not? If not now, then one day soon. Three clear knocks, a rapping on the door. Any time may be appropriate. Bang, bang, bang. They may crowd into the room, demanding, “Your name? Your papers.” And what then? He has none from any country. Then it will be over and then why not? Well, fine, he thinks, I’ll hand myself over instead, get it over with if they’ve come this far. And then what? Deported, repatriated back to Russia, a more official way of stating he’ll be sent straight to Siberia. He can nearly feel his fingertips stinging from the strike of an ax on frozen wood.
Knock
.
Knock
. Let them come then. Fine. Take me away, he thinks, as he blinks once, twice, shakes his head and finds himself after all this time staring out the window, his arm raised halfway to the blinds, arrested in motion, the ache along his muscle, mouth agape like someone shocked into a statue. No. He will not pull the shades down, not bring attention to his window. But now he is being ridiculous, or is he? Never mind, never mind, he thinks, shaking his head, frowning, disappointed with himself for letting his mind go so far astray, to have followed such a path when he’d begun the afternoon, quite harmlessly, about to set to work; oh the places his mind goes to sometimes, to where he stands now, in silence, in the quiet of his rooms, waiting for the knock on the door that will never come. Maybe.
    The man breaks into a smile as a woman approaches. She takes his arm and they dash into the doors of the apartment building. Austin feels foolish, though it takes a moment for his heart to settle, to stop racing. Is there now something like envy flooding up in him? To have smiled so warmly toward another, he thinks, wondering if the couple are lovers—most likely.
    He walks into the bedroom. Small, tidy. The bed sits in the middle of the room, a wool blanket of faded stripes—orange, blue, red—lies tight across the thin mattress. The sunlight arcs along the dresser’s oval mirror. He stands before it now, chest high. He opens the first drawer, feeling for the slim goldenrod envelope no larger than a two-hundred-peso bill. He walks to the worktable, and the photographs fall into his palm. He places each one onto the table, his fingers graze the corners of the photos, a task that procures a faint flicking sound, squares and rectangles in a line along the tabletop. In the first year when they believed it would be just that—one year, one of letters, telegrams—he’d kept their photographs on display. Little shrines for each image. A lock of hair tied by red ribbon, a sewing thimble, an earring. No longer.
    Here, Austin and Julia, the largest of the photographs, square, a thin rim of tarnished white. Seated side by side, unsmiling, holding hands, torsos inclined. Faces set squarely toward the camera. Julia’s hair is off her face. Two plaits swept down over her ears. She stares out at Austin now with that same direct stare—unabashed. It was what first drew him to her, a look on the stairs, a mistaken brush of hands as they passed—she going up, he down.
    And here is the house on Seaview Avenue, Connecticut, 1917. A house like the others, lined in a row—white with one bay window. A three-story house with its small front yard, grass in little tufts. The final photo is a family portrait, taken later, in Cananea, closer to the time of parting. No trace of their travels, nor their impending separation, and so a poignant image. A moment captured. A family assembled. Would there be any others?
    Julia is seated, hands folded in her lap. The children on either side of her. She is wearing a dark dress, a shawl draped over her shoulders. Her boots are black, ankle lace-ups with a sturdy heel, the