The calm before the storm smelt like cod liver oil and herbs. Like my aunt's home, like childhood. The landscape was a tug of war between mind and matter against a background of knitting needles scraping against each otherâat interludes overshadowed by Viktor's rendition of Bach's Fugue in C major on the Bosendorfer in the living room.
- You used my shampoo, didn't you?
Adriana's latest attempt to bring me out from inside my head, from the awareness of time itself, was to get a rise out of me. It was working.
- Ouch, I grunted when her oily fingers, carrying the stench of the herb-scented squalene, slid across my bruised cheekbone. I pulled away from her hold on my jaw.
- The green bottle is mine-, she flicked my hair from my forehead, - you smell like bubblegum. Why on earth didn't you use Viktor's?
Not a second of sympathy was spared for the tears that were welling up in my left eye from the pungent ointment, or the bruises that she was exacerbating rather than healing, which was the whole point of her smearing fish oil on my face.
- I used your toothbrush, too. Now get off, I snapped. I rubbed my jaw where I still felt her nail marks pulsating in sync with my pounding headache. I leaned away from her torso and glanced up just in time to catch her triumphant grin.
She laid a hand on her cocked hip. Her white tank top, which she wore under a snug, lime green cardigan, hiked up her stomach, exposing the slants and curves of her lower belly. She wore flared jeans which she had accessorised with a blunt-studded, white belt. Her whole outfit, though not the least bit unusual in Dronesk, toed the line of immodesty. I could only imagine the row she must have had with her mother that morning. It seemed like every time Adriana returned from her boarding school in the East Villages, she did so with an attitude tenfold her usual.
I should have said something about the way she dressed. Everything from my aching bruise to her defiant smirk taunted me to do it. I was sure that if Mikhail Konstantin's larger-than-life portrait on the wall could talk, he would have commanded that I pull myself together and act like a brevidije mal. But what was it I could have told her which couldn't be directed back to me? I was hardly the person to be taking advice from.
- Get off, Adri. I'm not joking, I said. I tried pushing her back, but she wouldn't budge. Had I put an ounce of effort into my movements, she might have taken my threat for what it was. Instead, she batted my hands away and moved closer.
- Oh, come on. Cheer up. What's the worst he can do this time around? Her big, hazel eyes were begging me to crawl out of my anxiety and talk to her.
The inside of my head was filling with cotton balls that were sucking up cerebrospinal fluid, closing the gap between my brain and skull. My brain felt like one of the Vizslas' toys; a ball caged inside a bigger ball. Bouncing against its confines. Ringing.
There was no way out.
I slumped back against the backrest of the leather sofa. The cushion next to me sighed under Adriana's weight.
- Tell you what, she said, - if your dear papa takes yourâ
I lifted my head to pin her with a look, - Papa? Really?
- What? It's en vogue. Get with the times. Anyway, if he takes your phone away, I'll let you have mine while I'm away at school. Two weeks tops, what do you say?
- Assuming he has it, Petra remarked. - He doesn't. He lost it. The last sentence was uttered with disgust that she normally reserved for when she was asked to throw out edible left-overs. Adriana's head oscillated between the two of us; me next to her, and Petra seated in the armchair to our left. At first, I mistook her silence for being taken aback by Petra's tone. I quickly realised that that wasn't the case. Adriana had been spared Petra's half an hour-long tongue-lashing in the dining room earlier. This was new information to her.
Her neck pulled back and she regarded me in disbelief for a long second.
- You didn't.
- But you just got it, she exclaimed when I said nothing.
- What happened?
- What usually happens when that Karamov gets involved, Petra quipped. - The boy loses his wits and becomes a puppet. Suddenly the one thing he's been obsessing over for months, begging his parents to buy for him, cradling like a child, ceases to exist.
- There are no working telephones in Dronesk. Imagine that!
- Not once did it get through that thick skull of yours to phone home. To think of your poor aunt, your uncle...me.
She lowered her needles into her lap with a sigh that spoke of her exhaustion louder than the bags under her eyes ever could. Her face scrunched up, accentuating the wrinkles around her mouth. She sunk lower into the leather chair, and it swallowed her bony frame.
- I lost it!
It wasn't my voice. It couldn't be, something so guttural. Vulnerable. It wasn't mine until I saw Adriana flinch. Until my head felt like it was cracking open, discharging molten lava that trickled down the right side of my forehead.
My grandfather's stoic face stared back at me from inside a frame that was worth as much as the Benofs's villa. On the piano, Viktor had stopped butchering his rendition of Fugue no. 1, and now both he and his tutor, Madame Kurkianiâto whom I owed a chunk of my childhood nightmaresâwere watching me, their silhouettes washed in sanctimonious light that streamed in through the French doors behind them.
- I-I lost it...on the train...maybe on the way over. My eyes panned back to Petra, who had taken my shouting with her usual, impenetrable, no-nonsense expression.
- It was dark, and they were there! They were walking their dog...it was late. And...and I fell asleep.
I saw the moment my explanation fell short of reassuring her. Her eyes dimmed and she dismissed me with a click of her tongue.
- I hope you have a more convincing lie for your father.
The room fell silent to the rise and fall of the piano notes. Petra picked up her yarn and resumed her irate scraping and knitting. Adriana was capping and uncapping the cork on the vial of fish oil. I slid down on the sofa and pushed my head into the plush cushion until my damp hair covered my ears. EverythingâAdriana's attempt at conversation, the knitting needles, even the piano, became reduced to white noise. My ribcage felt like it was closing in, cinching my thorax inside a body held prisoner by anxiety.
- How's Yuri?
My heart sputtered awake.
- Remember when we were younger, Adriana said, unaware of the way my heart was reeling from the mention of his name. He who didn't belong inside these ornate walls, in the presence of Mikhail Konstantin whose fixture on the wall was like God himself berating me. I swivelled my head to look at her. Her eyes were distant as she gazed into memory.
- Remember how we would tell Katka to watch the door, while Anja, you, me, and Yuri tried to look for the key to the attic that Aunty always hid from us. Or-, sneaking a glance at Petra, she leaned in and whispered, - that time we stripped her mannequins and tried to replace their clothes with yours and blamed Mjinska whenâ
- Remember Millin Ibranov? I asked.
I knew what she was doing, and I didn't want it. I saw the olive-branch in her hand, her gentle coaxing, yet I swatted it away with an off-hand comment. My anxiety was all consuming beast that wouldn't even allow a moment's peace. It wanted my attention rooted to the fear of the moment my father burst through the double doors.
Adriana was coming to from my verbal whiplash, blinking away her confusion. And the worst part wasn't the silence, but the empathy in her eyes. The understanding in her expression. I didn't want to be understood. I didn't understand myself.
She opened her mouth to say something, and I remember rising from my seat and her inching back into hers, almost afraid. She clenched her hand around the translucent vial.
- I'm going to find aunt, I said. - I have a headache. I'm going to go sleep it off.
- But the ointment. She turned around and followed me with her head as I rounded the sofa; the vial raised in my direction.
- She's in the prayer room! She called just as I exited the living room.
- You need all the prayer you can get, I heard her mutter.
The Bosendorfer's upbeat notes followed me out into the dimly lit hallway. The Benofs's villa, unlike my home, consisted of two buildings: one low and one high connected by a glass walkwayâthe veranda. They had once been two separate buildings. One had been a dacha, reserved for the twenty-something help who had once worked in Ljerumlup, and the other, a brick chapel built a decade before the Bolshevik invasion.
Neither building was big enough on its own to function as a residential home, and they lay too close to be effectively remodelled into a bigger home. The easiest solution was to demolish the dacha and build a proper villa in its stead. When the State gave the building permit, my aunt, who had always been fond of the chapel, had it connected to the side of the house, and so it became known as the prayer room.
I followed the scent of incense as I made my way through the door in the dining room leading into the veranda. Once inside the glass walls, the only barrier between me and the former chapel were a few potted plants and some reclined leisure chairs. The door to the prayer room stood ajar. I hesitated at the entrance. The thought of waiting outside struck me, and for a fraction of a second my mind was ready to retract my steps, but then I heard soft murmurs carried by a draught. My aunt's prayers. I froze. I would like to say that it was out of fear, but it was shame. And perhaps a bit of longing.
Outside, the northern sky had burgeoned into a darker shade. The trees surrounding Ljerumlup were shaking off the last of their browning leaves. I craned my neck to follow the birds flying above the glass roof and simultaneously caught the chapel's golden dome. Some point in my life I went from loving the sightâthe golden spectacle we called it at homeâto not being able to stand it. It started with skipping morning prayer, and before I knew it, I was avoiding looking out the windows on the east wing for fear of revisiting the guilt that would gnaw at me at random points during the day.
I wanted my aunt's devotion. I wanted to pour unwaning patience into a God who never answered my prayers. I ached for the innocence I had outgrown.
All the vigil lights in front of Christ's image were burning with a steady flame that cast shadows onto the walls. The censers, hanging suspended from the ceiling, swayed with soft movements, dispersing wisps of incense throughout the room.
I crossed myself and bowed before I stepped over the threshold and strode the short distance to the icon table where my aunt was kneeling, prayer rope in hand. I stepped back and let muscle memory guide me through the motions of venerating the icons and the cross. My aunt didn't react once, not at the sound of my footsteps and not when I came to kneel beside her. Her fingers worked the knots on the prayer rope. Her head was bowed, her murmurs loud enough to decipher as the Prayer.
My eyes started wandering to the arch on the icon wall, to the fresco paintings there. The angels. The twelve apostles gathered around Christ. Memories of me as a child, sat on the very same carpet, gazing up at the wall, weaved in and out of my mind's eye. Like everything in Ljerumlup, these paintings were a fingerprint left in time. An incessant alarm reminding you of your place, your duties.
- Pray, child.
My aunt wasn't the sort of person inclined to smile. However, she had a face that was easy to read. The calm I saw there prompted me to say, - I'm heading home. I need the keys to the house.
Her mouth twisted. - If there's one thing you got today, it's time, so pray.
The light from the oil lamps flickered, elongating and retracting the shadows on the side of her face. The permanent lines around her mouth rearranged as her expression fell in line with her tone. I was going to prayâno debate about the issue.
I crossed myself once more before I bowed my head in supplication. With my palms pressed together and my hands raised, I recited the Trisagion Prayer by heart. My aunt listened.
- And the Lord's prayer, she added when I finished. I lowered my head again and went into the second prayer, asking the Exalted for mercy and protection. I tried being receptive to the prayers, but once they left my lips and rolled around in the folds of my brain, I saw them for what they were. Words. Elegant, cryptic words. Their real power lay in their potential to move the soul, only my soul was congested.
A part of me wants to trace back to the exact moment God's word lost its reverence, but there's a bigger part of me that's afraid of the possibility that it's never been there in the first place. I'm afraid that I might peel back the last layer of truth and discover that all these years, I had mistaken fear for veneration. Fear of my aunt, my father. Fear of the unobtainable ideal of having been fashioned in God's image when in fact, I was vile. I thought vile things and desired them. If God saw all things, then surely He knew it too. He would have known I had enjoyed it, that I had wanted it more than I remember wanting anything else. Praying for protection from sin when it was the very thing I had wanted. Who was I to think I could lie to the All-Seer?
- I should have kept you in bible school.
My eye had fixated on Christ's icon, the biggest one in the room and the center of the deeisis, as I digested my thoughts. My aunt must have mistaken my blank stare for interest. She reached over the table and grabbed a small bottle; the content of which was lost to the dimness.
- But that wife of his had other plans for you, she said, and tipped the content into her cupped palm. She massaged the fragrant oil, warming it with her touch before she reached over and anointed my bruises.
- Look where it's gotten you.
- Here, drink-, she handed me the bottle, - it's oil from the lampada of Elder Gavriil's grave. It will heal you within days, God willing.
- Not minutes? I asked. The oil sloshed inside the plastic bottle, viscous. I brought it to my nose and sniffed. Olive oil infused with rosemary and mint.
- I could really use something to fix this-, I pointed to my black eye, - before Father returns. St. Gavriil was a miracle worker, wasn't he?
A ghost of a smile found its way to her lips. She shook her head, almost to herself, and dried off the excess oil on her skirt.
- You know, she said, turning to me, - I used to be so sure about you. Her eyes softened. I couldn't place the change in her mood, but there was an ever so slight change. A distance in her voice, contrasted by the melancholy in her eyes.
- You were a chatterbox when you were a child, a curious little boy, and I used to boast to everyone that you would grow up into a worldly man. We were all so sure, with all the books you were reading, and the big words you were using at such a young age, not to mention the trivia games you and Adriana used to play in Sunday school. They were so clever. You were such a bright child. And then, she said, her face hardening, - you dragged that scoundrel into our home, and in that instance, you decided that the church didn't matter, and your family didn't matter, and you shut us all out. You turned inwards into yourselfâbecame so secretive. So quiet! She hissed.
- I looked at you and I don't even know what you're thinking anymore. I don't have a clue.
- Every time you hop on that train to that whore, I see that picture of youâthat childâfading, and in its stead is this...this Ru who's dressed like a s'ka. She made it a point to grimace at the faded blue swirls at the center of Yuri's shirt.
- I'm angry, she said, - but I can't bring myself to be angry at you. I prayed...and-, she glanced up at the center of the deeisis, at Christ, - and the Lord showed me my errors. I only have myself to blame. I shouldn't have allowed him into our house.
- Who's Vitja going to look up to, huh? Have you thought about the example your setting? He only has you to look up to, Ru. And now you're...you'reâ
- So, this is about Vitja? I asked.
Of course. Of course it fucking was.
- No, this is about you, child. This is about you being a brevidije malâan example. You know how much he looks up to you.
I clenched my teeth and turned to the iconostasis because I knew if I so much opened my mouth, or showed the frustration etched on my face, whatever civility still remained of this conversation would come crumbling down on our sheads. You had to choose your battles, and this wasn't one I was willing to take on. I wanted none of this. I'd had enough berating and scolding to last me a lifetime. I just wanted the keys to Ljerumlup. I wanted the cotton balls in my head to stop pressing down on my brain. I wanted out of my skin.
My aunt pulled on my arm, forcing me to face her.
- Are you proud of this? She asked, pointing at her eye. Her brow furrowed, and the longer she kept staring at me, the lines around her mouth pointing at me like darts, the less rhetorical her question seemed.
I said nothing and she tsked.
- One of these days he's going to shave your head and ask you to steal and pickpocket, and you'll readily go along with it.
- Is that what you believe of him? To be a thief? I spat.
- What name is Karamov? She asked, and this time her disdain was unmatched.
- Karama? Karam, what does it mean? Where does he stand? Which house is from? He's from none! None!
- Does it matter? Is he less? Now, I too was shouting, giving in to the anger beating against my skull.
- Is he less? I asked.
My aunt wasn't expecting it, wasn't expecting me to defend him, let alone persist in my defence.
- He's notâ...He's not us. He's not like you, and he never will be. He doesn't know what it's like being you. He has no idea what it's like being a brevidije mal. What it's like being the son of Stefan Konstantin, and the grandson of Mikhail Konstantin.
She sighed as her echoes faded into silence. Her words sedimented in my fingertips and overflowed my heart. They stung like needles in my tear ducts. I blinked. Each snapshot erased the harsh lines in her face and mellowed out the heat in her eyes.
She took my clenched hands into her own and pulled them into her lap, cocooned them in the folds of her skirt.
- The beauty of kinship is that we share the same language, the same history, the same God. No words need to pass between us for me to understand that you're hurting. I see it. Your pain is not void of meaning, child. You're just searching for its definition in the wrong place. It's here. It's right here. Ask me what it's like to grow up in your father's shadow, or under our father's belligerence. I know.
- I know what it's like to feel like you'll never live up to his expectations. To be scared of the man who birthed you. I know.
Her hands clasped around my fists as I clenched the fabric of her skirt. I pursed my lips, hardened my face, exhausted all my defences to stop the tears from forming on my lower eyelids. I blinked, blinked, blinked, yet one tear escaped, carving a path for the fountain that ensued.
- He'll never understand you like your family does. She caressed the hair at the nape my neck. Her hand trailed over my jutting vertebrae down to the space between my shoulder blades. She massaged her words into me, and my head sunk lower and lower.
- I'm afraid that he'll drag you to a wasteland and desert you there. What does he fear? Tell me, Ru, what does he fear? Say he does break the law, there's no fear of bringing shame on his house, for he hasn't got one. There's no shame of tainting his future and the legacy of his ancestors. You live on different planes of existence.
- You didn't grow up on the same advice, the same morals. You don't pray to the same God. He's your friend now, but remember that the Serpent disguised himself as an ally. It's always the duped who pay the heaviest price.
- Where is he? Where is he now? He certainly isn't here to protect you from your father. Where is he when you need him? That's a Brommian for you. Ask me how I know, child.
Tears dripped onto my sleeve, and it was that instance, the act of seeing the physiological manifestation of my heart fragmenting that undid me. I crumbled under her words, succumbed to their nature, their truth.
- Shhh, child. Come, come here, she crooned. She folded herself over me, cradling my hung head into her bosomâembalming me with her rich, floral perfume.
The room filled with the sound of my whimpers until the walls were reciting back the language of my broken heart. We fed off each other, one amplifying the other in an ever-rising crescendo of misery.
It hurt. Thinking hurt. Everything hurt. I just wanted it to stop.
- I'll speak with your father, she soothed while moving her hand in circles on my back.
- Don't worry, child. I'll have a word with him. I'm here for you. I'll always be here for you. But you have to promise me to never go near that family again. I never want to hear the name Karamov, and God forbid I ever have to walk back to that dacha.
In my adolescent mind, the source of my anguish was my father. And there my aunt was, telling me that the consequences would lessen if I promised her this one, small thing. The pillar of truth I had been leaning against my whole lifeâeverything I knew to be trueâbent and became mailable under the influence of her words.
Self-preservation is instinctual. When my aunt's arms circled around my frame and pulled me tighter into her, yielding to her will felt as innate as a fight-or-flight response. She was my aunt, she would keep me safe. Yuri Karamov would notâcould not.
- I promise, I said, though I doubt she heard me over the snot running down my lips and the tears, sandwiched against her tunic.
- I promise. I promise, please. Please.
- Good. Shhh. Shhh. I'll speak to him. I will. Now stop crying.