Chapter 30: 27.

- Amet Aduleav won't be serving us anymore. I fired him.

I nodded, although I doubted my father noticed it from where he stood across the viewing room. I knew not to ask why—knew that his calm demeanour was a trap.

- It's only fair don't you think? Someone who's unable to keep time yet eats my money, my time, shouldn't be allowed near my property, let alone have my name in his mouth. I should have fired him a long time ago.

I felt his gaze crawl up my spine; a thousand tiny fires, scattering his intensity like cluster bombs across my back. For each second that passed, his carefully orchestrated snare tightened around my neck, smothering my effort to assemble a response that would placate him. Every word, every movement I did or didn't do, was being monitored. My silence was a test.

- I spoke to him, he continued. - He was crying, begging, naturally. Not that it helped him, you know how I feel about grown men crying.

- He told me he had two daughters in school. Did you know that? One as old as you, if not a year younger, and the other is just finishing up high school. The school fees are, as you know, not something Mr Aduleav is capable of paying off without a job.

- I told him...No-, I could hear the satisfaction in his voice, - I want you to guess what I told him. What do you think I told him, Ru?

My father was a hunter; the only way to evade him was to lay motionless and hope he lost interest. But he wasn't hunting for sport—not that afternoon. He demanded answers, and to deprive him of the joy of seeing me writhe against his noose would only make the inevitable that much severer. I released the peacock tail feather I had been using as a distraction and turned around to face him.

It wasn't that Stefan Konstantin was tall (he was of average height at one-seventy-seven centimeters), rather he calibrated himself to everything around him—his posture; his back straight, his hands folded in front of him; his clothes, half the layers of a three-piece suit and his very own line of alligator-leather oxfords—making himself appear grander than the zoo of taxidermied animals around him. People often threw the word stature around when they spoke of him. I can't count how many times I've heard people say, "he's a man of great stature," and I've never been able to discern if they meant his height or his importance. Somehow with my father, the two meanings seemed to conflate.

He was smiling, more so in the top half of his face. Doubt weighed the words aggregating on my tongue and made them too awkward to take flight. His smile widened. He cocked his head to the side like an inquisitive bird. His eyes were copies of my own, and I hated that I could recognise that in him. A part of me was him. This man of "great stature".

- I hope silence isn't your answer.

Just like that, the mirth was snuffed out from his eyes. He slicked back the greying hair at his temples with a clawing hand—a testament to the violent outburst brewing underneath his tailored cool.

- You told him...you...you said he couldn't have it back, I said.

- And why would I do that? My father's eyes were razor-sharp. I could feel myself losing my footing and sliding further into his snare.

- Don't you think he deserves to send his daughters to school? He's been our driver for sixteen years, Ru. Way before you were born.

- I–I...I don't—

- I told him-, he cut off, - that he would have to speak to you. Apologise. Now tell me, is that what you'll say when he's sobbing into the receiver, begging on behalf of his sick mother and his studious daughters? Will you tell him he can't have his job back?

- No.

A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth as he drew closer. His footsteps on the chequered floor were a tenth of the speed of my palpitating heart.

- No? What would you tell him then?

When I said nothing, my father's voice dipped an octave. It wasn't until he spoke that I understood that the guttural noises proceeding that had been his attempt to practise the accented vowels of our driver.

- My daughters, he said, pantomiming a caricature of our driver, - my daughters...please think of my daughters. Without a job, they'll end up caged in brothels, or working the streets. My mother will die—her medicine, her hospital fees...what will I do?

He stopped three meters away from me, close enough that I saw the lines on his face rearrange; soften, smooth out, erase. An anti-wrinkle-commercial playing in real-time.

- I'm Mr Aduleav, begging you, what do you tell me? His eyes twinkled with rekindled mirth.

- I'd tell you that...that you've worn our pride for too long. You've taken us for granted.

You don't live under the same roof as Stefan Konstantin for fifteen years and not learn strategies pivotal to your own survival. He's always had a way of skewing obedience into complacency, of making evil seem good because it appeared as the lesser of two evils. It was either me on the other side of his barrel or Mr Aduleav, who despite whatever I said wasn't getting his job back.

What's to say my father had actually fired him? For all I knew, this entire conversation could have been a ruse to make me play into his hands. At least, that's what I hoped when I said, - He wears our name like a coat, yet dares to disregard our time. He doesn't deserve to work here.

My father's grin was radiant. - Is that so?

- Yes, I said, nodding. The warmth of his approval settled in my stomach. It was so easy, at that moment when his crow's feet deepened and he seemed genuinely proud of me, to buy into my own distorted narrative. To blame our driver. If he hadn't been late last night, I wouldn't have met those Brommian guys, and if I hadn't met them, then I wouldn't have met Yuri. I wouldn't have slept on his bed, or kissed him, or eaten at his house.

I wouldn't have made Eline cry.

Cognitive dissonance wrapped itself around my mind. Snug and uncomfortable at first, but the more I tugged and pulled the less it strained my conscience, and the more inclined I was to accept the view with fewer consequences.

- It's a shame, I said, - It really is. I considered him family, we all did. Like Petra, Uncle Amet was...he was...he was family, but...but we're the house of Konstantin.

- And what does that mean? My father asked. His eyes bore into mine.

- It means-, I didn't like the way his eyebrows pinched together; the way his jaw clenched when he swallowed and never relaxed. - he's not us.

- No. He stepped closer. - What does it mean?

I had seen that exact expression enough times to have it imprinted behind my eyelids. It had been there, staring at me from amongst a row of entertained parents at every piano recital; after every quiz at every party my parents hosted when I was younger. It had been there when I had returned home from taking pictures in Yuri's backyard and told him I wanted to be a photographer when I grew up. Unlike those other times, I knew exactly what to say, and how to say it to appease him.

I just couldn't.

- Speak! He bellowed. I don't think I had the time to flinch, let alone come up with a reasonable comeback before he closed the distance. Every millimeter of him was taut. He was bone and muscle, and nearly no skin.

- Shall I bring Marta up here so that she can speak for you? He yelled. - Have you got no shame in your bone? Fifteen. You're fifteen and you're still hiding behind your aunt's skirt. Do you never learn?

He yanked me by the upper arm with enough force to tear a limb. I gulped his aftershave; my lungs filling with cedar and violence before I digested that I was pressed into him—tête-à-tête. His dark irises reflected my wide-eyed terror, and it fueled him. That cruel part of him that dug his nails deeper into my flesh—unrestrained—while his expression remained unchanged.

- Are you worse than a dog? He seethed in my face. - Are you? His hand clenched harder against my attempt to twist free from the pain shooting through my arm.

- You teach a dog a trick enough times, and eventually, it learns; are you stupid? Is that it? You've got an undiagnosed retardation and that's why you're so adamant?

- Why can't you say it? Speak! He yelled. Pulling away from him was no option, his grip was welded out of iron, so instead, I gave into gravitation and sunk, down to my knees. He wasn't expecting it, or he couldn't be bothered to exert the same energy. Either way, I was scrambling away from him; all four limbs propelling my butt in the opposite direction.

I saw his expression the same second the peacock fell to the floor. I would be lying if I said I didn't catch a glimpse of it, too. Hues of turquoise and green flashed in my peripheral vision. But more so than seeing it, I felt it. First when my spine met its wooden perch, and then when the crash reverberated inside my chest.

My father wasn't an exploder, but rather an imploder. Everything was sucked inwards into the very core of him and disappeared down a cavity where I imagined he stored his feelings; his disappointment, his frustration, his love.

His expression went completely blank, and I knew he had surpassed anger—he was livid. The stuffed peacock, its neck fashioned so that it looked to its side, stared up at the chandelier with lifeless glass eyes. Its train, dotted with eyespots, was sewn tucked to its body. It was beautiful, despite being so obviously dead, and at that moment, resembling a feather-duster more than an actual animal.

A silence so silent, to drop a pin would have sounded like a thunder, diffused over the room.

My father's eyes flicked between me and the bird. His attention lingered longer and longer on the bird's body until finally, he moved. His footsteps echoed inside the spacious room, out of sync with my hammering heartbeat. I gauged the distance to the double doors. The idea of escape shattered under a sudden, ice-cold shower of dread that glued my bottom to the limestone floor.

- Did you know? He asked, his emotions concealed behind a gossamer-thin veil. - Blue colour in animals, particularly the vertebrae, is almost always made through structural colouration. It's rare to find its pigment in nature. He squatted next to the fallen bird, and picked up a lone tail feather that had slipped past my notice.

- Millions of years of evolution...condensed right here, in the structure of this tiny feather. He twirled it between his thumb and forefinger, showcasing its luminous blue and green iridescence.

- Makes you realise, doesn't it? Why the struggle matters. Why we live-, he looked at me, - why we fight for our existence. It's so that something beautiful might precede us. Do you think the peacock philosophies on why it has so many ocelli, or why it's so decorated? It doesn't. It just knows that if it isn't, its chance of passing on offspring is significantly reduced.

- This, he said, twirling the feather again, - is evolution answering the question: how can I increase my chance of survival? You can't see it with the naked eye but embedded in this feather are crystal structures that refract the light in wavelengths that correspond to this lovely shade of turquoise and blue.

- Here, see for yourself.

He shifted closer and handed me the feather, and hopeful as I was, I took it, not thinking anything of it until his hand clenched my jaw. Fingertips digging into bone. One second, my eyes were on the pine needle-like feather, pulling it closer to decode what, in fact, proved to be his trap, and the next, I was staring up at him, wide-eyed, my head angled unnaturally and painfully close to his sinister face.

I clenched my teeth against the moan threatening to escape, knowing that it would only egg him on.

- Next time you so much as try to defend Amet Aduleav, he hissed at my ear, the force of his hand almost crushing my jawbone, - you think of how your ancestors struggled for you to live the way you do. He retrieved the feather that had slipped out of my grasp and twirled it in my face.

- They did not fight and have their blood spilt for you to disrespect their house. And you're stupid, he sneered, his breath hot on my face; his expression as cruel as his hand around my jaw, - if you for one second believe that he, a Brommian, would do the same for you. What is he? What is he to you for you to be defending him over the honour of your name?

He tossed my jaw back, pushing me with enough force that I had to prop myself back up with my elbow. He rose and I scooted away from him, expecting him to land a kick the few seconds it took to get my bearings back, but he stood back and brushed a hand through his slicked-back hair.

- Pull that grimace off your face, he chided, towering over me.

- History remembers us, not Abduleav. Us. We who saw land and cultivated it, built empires and castles, filled it with music; Stronszak, Ebemalije-, he counted our greatest musicians with his fingers, - with literature, and art, and a reign of leaders the world still looks up to till this day.

- You're fifteen, your not a child anymore. You had those years. I was generous enough to give you fourteen years with endless play and no consequences; is this how you repay me? Sneaking around behind my back to that degenerate filth, showing up looking like a ruffian, dragging my name through the mud, making your mother cry—

- Eline is not my mother.

- And that whore is? He growled. - What has she done for you? Nothing. Nothing but abandon you. Five years-, he held up his hand, - what are five years compared to fifteen? I raised you for fifteen years, where's your loyalty to me? She couldn't even be bothered to breastfeed you. What kind of mother does that make her, huh?

I opened my mouth to refute him, - One that's—

- Shut up! He yelled.

- She's nothing! Her brain is like an infant's. She can't take care of herself, how do you think she can take care of you? What mother sends her child home in the middle of the fucking night—that's right, one that only has alcohol, and partying, and all kinds of filth on her mind. Her brain withered years ago, all those sedatives her ape of a husband feeds her...she's not even a real human anymore, she's so far gone.

- And you dare compare her to Eline-, he stretched out his arms and pivoted on his heel, bringing attention to the mannequins displaying Eline's creations in the background. Look, his expression seemed to say, does she come close to this? This was a naked mannequin wearing a bird of paradise as a hat; this was a silver-fox fur boa coiled around a glittering evening gown of the same colour. This was him, collecting dead things from different corners of the world, and her tailoring them into expensive, haute-couture pieces. You couldn't find a couple more suited to each other if you so tried.

I had the chance to say something when he bent down and picked up the peacock. I wanted to. I wanted to defend my mother's honour, which was mine as much as it was hers. But when it came to words, I was no opponent against the man whose job was to cajole people to invest their hard earned money into his services.

I watched him; the words washing down my throat in a stream of rage. I was David facing the Giant, only my hands were empty. I had no stones, no clever plan, just grains of sand from the floor cutting into my palms.

- You think I'm being harsh, he said, turning to me once the peacock was upright on its perch, - I, too, was fifteen once. I was arrogant, defiant. I thought I knew the world inside out. Years from now, when you're older, you'll look back on this and see it through a different lens.

- My father, he said, his eyes dimming. - He had his own pedagogy. When he taught you a lesson, he made sure he seared it into your brain.

He blinked away the memories fogging his expression, - I'm kind. I do this out of love. I don't expect you to understand now, but there will come a day when you realise all the sinful traps I steered you clear of.

- I raise you as a Konstantin so that everything you do reflects your forefathers' moral standing. I did not baptise you with my great-grandfather's name for you to do whatever you want with, it's been lent to you for a set time until you pass it on, untarnished.

- Did it not occur to you? He asked, his voice rising again, - what they might say about your family when you walked around town with your face battered like an ox?

- Who are we? He yelled. - What do we live for? The veins in his forehead bulged and forked into streams whose paths disappeared into his flushed skin.

His words bounced off his domineering expression; why was it that I knew what he would say even before he said it? My father coveted repetition. He liked to home it in, to rub the salt into the skin, preserve the lessons passed down from his father, as much a reminder to himself, as to me. It filled him with purpose, with drive. It was the one flaw he wasn't aware of, and the one I had silently been hoping would free my immobile body from underneath his scrutiny.

- We're the sum of our choices. Nothing more, nothing less, he said.

The tension in my shoulders levitated, and I took what felt like my first, full breath since he had summoned to the viewing room. I knew this. I knew how to navigate this conversation back to shallow water.

- We take none of this with us, he said with a nod to our background; the paintings, the rugs, the pottery, the taxidermied animals.

- All that's left of us when we die are the impressions we leave in other people's minds. Their thoughts and opinions of us. Our intentions mean nothing. They have no substance. They're not seen. The outcome of our choices are. Everything our ancestors have fought for can be ruined by a single careless choice. Don't you understand that?

I nodded, a practised calm coming over my face. This was my weapon, listening; fashioning my expression so that it appeared like I was hanging on his every word.

- You're not like them, he emphasised, - you're not. That whore is trying to drag you down to the same level as her bastard. She's trying to degrade your name by association. And then, when you die, you'll be forgotten, along with their immoral souls. Their name will not go into the history books—ours will. We're Konstantin. Dronesk is ours. We were born to leave a mark on this earth. To advance our community.

- They only waste space. They pollute this earth with filth. You're better than them. I raised you better, he spat. His fervour intensified his wrinkles as his face soured into a grimace. His wide, frantic gesticulations, and his constant back and forth across a patch of four by four black and white squares, had disordered his slick-backed hair. Gelled tendrils fell down over his ears and his forehead. His gaze never strayed from mine, not even when he brushed them back.

- My title will be yours to bear—alone. That's the burden of our privilege, but it's one we must carry so that something beautiful might precede us. So that the struggle isn't in vain. So that our house lives on. That's what it means to be a Konstantin.

He watched me; a hawk, judging me from my soul outwards. And I had a feeling that he was determining if I was worth birthing in the first place.

His nose scrunched up in contempt.

- When Mr Abduleav calls, he said, adjusting his cuffs, - I want you to tell him to make a visit to my office; where I expect you to fire him.

I said nothing, those were the rules of self-preservation. Say nothing. Be nothing. If needed, stroke his ego. Agree. Survive. Do it over and over again.

- Do I need to repeat myself? He asked.

I swallowed, - No.

His shadow slithered closer on the floor; I fought the urge to scoot further back.

- He'll arrive expecting a second chance. He'll grovel, of course—beg. Draw it out. Let him talk, see how he tries to squirm out of his predicament. And then cut him off. Swift—no stammering. You'll see, he said, - I did dozens of these exercises when I was your age. My father used to make me lay off maids, cooks, priests...employees. It'll make a man out of you.

- Get up, he ordered, and while I heaved myself off the floor, my face aching, my head pounding, he said, - I expect you to apologise to the woman who raised you, who took to you as her own son, and who's gone through hurdles for you that your own mother wouldn't. Say whatever you want—kiss her feet if you so will, I don't care. After the lunch we had today, I expect a civil, relaxed dinner as a family.

He stepped closer while I was dusting myself off and grabbed my shoulder. Squeezed, freezing me to the spot.

- This conversation isn't over. Remember my generosity, Ru, because, from this moment forward, I will raise you like my father raised me. You take me for a man I'm not, but I'll prove to you the man I can be-, the pressure on my shoulder intensified, - do not test me.

He leaned in, enveloping me in his cologne, and placed a kissed on my cheek, millimeters away from where his fingerprints still pulsated.

- I'll see you at dinner, he said leaning away, - close the doors on your way out.