A Skeleton in the Closet

 

I have to write about this. I can’t not write about it. The pain is unbearable. It dulls my thoughts, paralyzes my life, and won’t let me think or feel anything else.
Americans have this saying: "a skeleton in the closet." It means there is some family secret, some shameful thing hidden away from prying eyes, something seen as an embarrassment, if not an outright disgrace.
So, what’s my skeleton? I’ll tell you…

My sister called and told me to come to our father’s apartment first thing in the morning. He’s ninety-five years old now. He’s been living alone for the past eleven years since our mother died. He’s practically blind and never goes outside. My sister brings him groceries and cooks for him. Old age is no picnic, but it’s unavoidable.

Honestly, I didn’t want to even set foot in that apartment. I didn’t want to see my father. It wasn’t just a passing thought; I couldn’t bring myself to do it. But my sister practically shoved me in there. I entered, silent as a ghost. My father couldn’t see me, but I didn’t want him to hear me, either.

I slip past him into the smaller adjoining room. The place is a wreck. It’s not for the faint of heart. There's no dirt, no filth—it’s just empty. The wallpaper’s peeled off the walls, leaving only a few tatters clinging on. Two crooked reproductions of paintings by Shishkin and Repin hang on the wall. Back when he was young and could still see, my father painted these copies of the classics. If you put them in the Tretyakov Gallery, most people couldn’t tell the difference.

There is no furniture in the room. There used to be some decent stuff—a bed, a sofa, an armchair, a china cabinet, a kitchen cupboard. It was just a regular apartment. He even had these shelves for dishes that he built himself—he always was good with his hands. He knew how to use tools. Now everything’s gone. He chopped it up, hacked it apart... If he couldn’t get the hang of something, he would throw it out.
My father was driven by one burning obsession his entire life: everything around him had to be just right. If something wasn’t to his liking, it lit a fire inside him—a rage that couldn’t be tamed. He was a country boy, and he despised the city and its lazy city folk. Drafted into the army as a teenager during the war, he burned with hatred for the fascists and was desperate to go to the front. But he was never sent. The boys in the last reserve weren’t thrown into battle.

After the war, he worked himself to the bone at the factory. He was contemptuous of his coworkers, calling them drunks and loafers. But he worked like a madman. The bosses respected him and hung his portrait on the factory’s wall of honor. They even gave him a medal for his relentless dedication. But he had no friends, no close buddies. The idea of him hanging out with the guys after work, playing dominoes, or grabbing a beer on the weekend was unthinkable. He was a different breed. "I’m a peasant, not a freeloader!" he’d say, then set about doing some kind of public service, whether it was putting up a small fence around the lawn to keep it from being trampled, fitting a shade over a light bulb in the stairwell that someone kept unscrewing, or reinforcing cracked staircase railings. If my father didn’t do it, it wouldn’t get done. None of the other residents in the twenty apartments you could get to through his entryway would take the initiative.

He tackled every job like it was a mortal enemy he had to defeat, completely and without compromise. He had to be victorious. And he treated objects the same way, as if they were living beings challenging him and threatening all humanity. Hatred gave him strength; it was like an elixir powering his body.
He gleefully knocked down a partition he’d built himself when he first moved into the apartment, just to make the tiny hallway a little bigger. In his need to vent his boundless fury, he destroyed everything in the place. Everything, without exception. I left personal items behind when I moved out to live with my wife—books, photo albums, chess sets, even these unique little wooden toys I had as a kid: wooden mushrooms you had to learn how to pick up with a stick and a ring. I’d love to pass those toys on to my grandkids now, but their great-grandfather destroyed them in his blind rage.

I don’t really miss the sofa I bought or the armchair where I used to sit and watch TV. What I do miss are the postcards I’d hidden under the seat of that armchair, a set of illustrations called Heroes from Favorite Books. It was an amazing gift my neighbor Volodya had given me when I was seven years old. He sent them from Kyiv while he was serving in the army. I grew up with those cards, and they’d always been part of my life. Everyone has little things like that, trinkets that mean nothing to others but are precious to their owner.

Now, I’ve got nothing. All those mementos of my childhood are gone.
While my mother was alive, there was some semblance of order and humanity in the apartment. She tried to make it cozy, to keep it nice, like a real home. But my father shot down her efforts at every turn. No need for a TV. No need for a fridge. And an alarm clock? Forget it. "I’ll get up when I need to; I never oversleep," he’d say. "In the village, we didn’t have alarm clocks, and we got along just fine." There was no reasoning with him. If you tried, he’d blow up, his language turning crude and vicious.

It was only following years of stubborn resistance, after every neighbor had already acquired a TV and a fridge, that we finally got those things ourselves. After all, they weren’t the most useless of gadgets. My mother brought the fridge from Moscow almost fifty years ago. Father grudgingly accepted it, because even he had to admit it was a necessity.
In his mind, a real man—especially a peasant like him—needed only the bare minimum. Anything more was frivolous, unworthy of a real man (and he was a real man, of course). Living with him was an ordeal. And as for my mother, I can’t even imagine how she coped. Actually, I can. I saw it with my own eyes, their endless shouting matches, the constant battles. My mother, kind and sentimental, wasn’t the type to back down. She’d stand her ground to the bitter end, which only made things worse. For my father, her defiance was like a red flag to a bull, driving him into fits of rage. He could even get physical if she kept pushing.
My relationship with my father? Let’s just say it’s complicated—or rather, it’s almost nonexistent. Starting at the age of twelve or fourteen, I started to distance myself from him. When I got into college, I practically vanished from his life. I would spend all my time on campus or crashing with friends in the dorm. Being around a man who treated me like I was nothing and was ready to tear me down over the slightest thing was unbearable.

Still, I kept up some minimal level of contact. I’d call him. I’d stop by the apartment. I even thought I’d be the one to take care of him in his old age when the end was near. But after each visit I left shaking, on the verge of a breakdown.
Then one day, my sister called again: "Come over. There’s been another incident."
I went, took one look around, and was in shock. I wanted to grab my father by the collar, yell, "What the hell have you done?!" and throw him out of the apartment. But my sister got between us. "Don’t," she said.

My dictionaries, textbooks, books, and notebooks were scattered all over... The bookshelf stood upside down with a broken leg. Ilyish’s Theoretical Grammar of the English Language, the two-volume German dictionary by Lepping, my notes on Arabic, Larousse’s encyclopedic dictionary that I bought on my last day in Cairo... all had been tossed around the apartment.
My eyes glazed over.
“What have you been doing?” I asked.
“What do you need this shit for?” my father yelled.
“This is my job. My life! Why did you do this?”
“Why the hell do you need so much? And in foreign languages at that? You've cluttered up the whole damn apartment! Get out it the fuck out of here!”
I couldn’t breathe...
“Fine. I’ll take it. But this is the last straw.”

I hired a moving van, bought some bags in a store, packed up my books, and took them home. Our house is small and cramped. I had to put the bookshelf in my son's garage. After that, I didn’t see or hear from my father again...
And yet here I am, standing and listening to him from the next room. As usual, he’s holding forth on how life should be lived. How everything used to be right under the Communists in the Soviet Union, and how (insert some unprintable words here) things have become now.

I look around. My father had hung family photos on the wall in a big homemade frame, in a country-style arrangement. I don't know what prompted me to do it, but one day I took a thick stack of family photos home with me. As it turned out, I did that just in time. My father cut up and tossed out most of the photos I didn’t take, because he didn’t approve of some of the people in them. He used the remaining photos—ones that had his approval—to create that collage behind glass.

He included a picture of his mother (my grandmother Sonya, small and frail, her hands twisted from constant work in the village). His father (my grandfather Afanasy) was there, too. I have a vague memory of him. He was the chairman of the village council, a respected man, president of the village. When the Germans were approaching the village, he refused to evacuate despite the mortal danger they presented. How could he leave his people? It wouldn’t be right. The villagers didn’t betray him.

Here’s his middle brother, Nikolai. Uncle Kolya was the kindest soul, a shepherd. He taught me how to crack a whip and made me little whistles. He had diabetes and didn’t live to collect his pension.
And there’s his youngest brother, Volodya. He was a jokester, a wit, the life of the party. He loved electronics and all sorts of gadgets. Uncle Volodya was like a real father to me. He was killed by a drunk driver. I was devastated with grief. Decades have passed, but the pain still lingers.
In the lower left corner is a slightly yellowed photo of my father’s oldest brother, Vasily. He died on the front lines. All we got was an official notice. He died like millions of other Soviet boys (and girls). Grandmother Sonya grieved until the end of her days.
I chanced on something about him only recently while wading through the Ministry of Defense’s archives. According to a record I found, platoon commander Lieutenant Vasily E_, a member of the VKP(b), "armed with an anti-tank rifle, crawled to the enemy’s front line and destroyed a machine-gun position." So, he actually did the same thing that Hero of the Soviet Union Alexander Matrosov did. My father doesn’t know about this. None of our relatives knew at the time—or know even now.
My father is brave, too. Once, shots were fired outside our window at night and he rushed outside in his underwear. He saw a disheveled, blood-covered policeman pressed up against a wall, firing his pistol into the air to warn off some thugs who were advancing on him. My father charged them without a second’s hesitation...

What am I doing here? My sister said a social worker was coming to talk to my father and try to persuade him, as a war veteran, to accept fifty thousand rubles to improve his living conditions. On the eve of a jubilee anniversary, the state decided to allocate a decent amount of money to every WWII veteran (there aren’t many left). My father refused the money. He was probably the only one to do so. And now an official representative is coming for a face-to-face talk.

I head for the door to leave. I don’t want to meet the social worker. What will I say to him or her? That my father is difficult?
Suddenly, the door opens, and, to the amazement of my sister and me, people start filing into the apartment through the tiny corridor. One, two, three... About twelve or thirteen people, mostly women. What a delegation! There have never been so many people in our apartment. They’re still in their outerwear, but I can see that some have public prosecutor's insignia under their coats. The women vary in age from young to middle-aged. Wow! Russia sure has some beautiful women, even in administrative positions!
Leading the procession is a hefty man in his fifties, with a pasty, arrogant-looking face. He’s clearly the big boss. He pulls a portable video camera out of his pocket and starts filming, as if that’s what he came here to do. Some women take out their phones and begin filming too.
“Who are you people? What are you doing?” my sister asks in surprise.
“We’re doing our jobs,” answers the man with the pasty face, sweeping his camera across the shabby walls.
“Who gave you permission to film in someone else’s home? What right do you have?” I say.
“I represent the authorities, and I have the right,” replies the Big Boss. “But apparently you don’t know your obligations.”
He turns to my father.
“We’ve come to offer you financial aid as a war veteran.”
“And who are you?” my father asks.
“We’re the administration. Government representatives. We want to help you.”
“I don’t need anything.”
“Come on, living in conditions like these, you...”
“I live the way I want!”
“Maybe you could use some help? Think about it,” says someone in the delegation.
“I have everything!” my father exclaims, walking over to his fifty-one-year-old miracle refrigerator. Using some tricks only he knows, he opens this iron box that is covered in felt and held shut with springs, hooks, and levers.
“Look, I have sour cream. Here’s some boiled chicken. Eggs. I’ve got honey in the pantry. Potatoes in the cellar. Real, good-tasting potatoes. I get them only from my district. And what do you feed people with?”
“What else? With food, of course.”
“I know all about your food. I wouldn’t eat it. It’s all chemicals. That’s why people are dying like flies. Why do you think children are born sick? It’s because their parents eat poison!”
“Tell us then, why won’t you accept the money?”
“I don’t need your money! Where does it come from? From the banks? Those crooks! They make money out of nothing. You have to work, produce food. What have you built? What did you do to the collective farms? The factories? Everything's been destroyed. There’s nothing but banks, offices, and crooks everywhere. And nobody wants to work!”

How can I describe the scene? Standing in the middle of the room is a ninety-five-year-old blind old man, dressed in a bizarre outfit that only Gogol’s character Plyushkin would wear. He looks like a human blight. And this is my father?! Surrounding him are officials with sour expressions, listening with indifference (or rather, not listening) to his geopolitical lecture while casually scanning the room with their cameras. And here we are— the skeleton is out of the closet! What a nightmare.
Is this really happening in my room? Is this the same room where I would use the bridge position to train my neck for wrestling, or pace back and forth during exam time with a textbook on scientific communism in my hands? And now the room is packed with strangers. It’s hard to believe.
My blind father realizes that no one is listening to him. The visitors don’t care about his opinions or rationales. He understands that they only want to give him money.
“What, you're not interested in what I’m saying?” my father bursts out. “You don’t want to listen?”
Their silence tells him they don’t.
“Get out!” my father screams, stomping his feet. “Get lost! You ruined the country, and now you come here with money? And you don’t even want to hear the truth from me? Get out! And don’t come back!”
The crowd, followed by my father's screams, exits the building onto the street. Wow! They came in a whole fleet of expensive cars.

“All right,” the Big Boss says to my sister and me. “I’m ordering you to send your father to a medical facility and get the apartment in shape in three days. We’ll provide you with the funds. And on Monday, I expect you to come to my office. Report back to me and we’ll talk.”
“How am I supposed to send a healthy person to a medical institution against his will?” my sister asks.
“Didn’t I make myself clear?” says the Big Boss. “If you fail to comply, the police will deal with you. I’ll make sure of it. It’s obvious that the only thing you what from your father is money. You don’t seem to like the authorities either. I’ll also involve the prosecutor's office.”
The car doors slammed shut, and off they went, leaving my sister and me standing at the entrance to the apartment building. Up to this point, she’d been holding it together, putting on a brave face. But now she broke down and started to sob.
"Why? Why is this happening to me?" she cried.
I tried to calm her down. "Don’t cry. It’ll be okay. We’ll figure something out." (What and how, I had no clue.) "Maybe we should find a lawyer, or even go to the police right now."
"Police? Are you serious?" she snapped. "They’re all in on it together."
"Maybe not all of them," I said, trying to sound hopeful. "There have to be some honest people out there."
We headed back up to the apartment, where our father, who seemed to be running on pure adrenaline, was still raging like a typhoon.
"Sellouts! They ruined the country and now they think they can buy me off with their filthy money… To hell with them all!"
I went home, my nerves completely shot. I found the number for the Department of Social Services, gave them a call, and got through to the right person.
"Yes, yes," a woman's voice answered. "I was on the committee. I saw and heard everything. It’s a difficult situation."
"You realize he's been like this his whole life, right? All he cares about is his principles—being right, justice. Can you imagine what it was like for his wife and us as kids to live with that?"
"I can imagine," she said. "But try to understand our position. There aren’t many war veterans left. And this year’s a big anniversary. Just imagine if our governor decides he wants to congratulate your father personally and shows up at his place. What do you think will happen?"
"It’d be the same thing that happened with you guys. He doesn’t care who it is—it could even be the president himself. He’d face down a tank for his principles."
"Exactly. And what are we supposed to do? If we mess this up, our heads will roll. And we have families, kids, mortgages... How are we supposed to live?"
"We’ve all got problems," I said.
"Sure, but why live with problems if you can avoid them?"
"How do you mean?"
"Well, we had another guy like him once. Very belligerent. We put him in a hospital room for a few days, gave him a couple of shots, and suddenly he was as calm as a lamb. Walked around smiling all the time. He became happy and stopped making trouble for us. It was like magic."
"No, no, that won’t work for us."
“What are you going to do then?"
"I honestly have no idea."
***
When the appointed day arrived, my sister and I went to see the Big Boss. We waited for about an hour and a half, but he never showed up. He probably had bigger fish to fry.
Not long after, my sister got an official notification from the police accusing us of robbing a veteran of World War II. So now we’re going to be investigated. What our punishment will be, I have no idea. But as they say, if they want to find something to charge you with, they always can.

Translated by James McVay