Invented Lives

by Andrea Goldsmith

  His company was in the process of putting together a new catalogue. They would be using photographs for the actual products, but they were wanting some illustrations of library scenes as well. ‘To provide a more creative aura.’ He paused to pull on his cigarette. ‘Might you be interested in doing the illustrations?’

  With the sewing patterns and her real estate job, Galina was earning enough to meet her needs and save a little as well. Nonetheless, she worried that a slump in real estate would see her out of that job, and the new computers might render her obsolete in the sewing-pattern business. So she thanked Leonard for thinking of her, told him that yes, she was interested, and arranged to meet him at his office the following Friday. Not that illustrating catalogues for library furniture, for real estate, for any merchandise come to that, was what she wanted as a career. But it was good interim work until she gained an entrée into publishing, and a return to book illustration.

  As far back as she could remember, Galina had wanted to be a book illustrator. It was the marriage of words with images in her childhood books that had first ignited her interest. There were books that were all words, and other books that were all pictures, but comparing these with the combined books was the difference between living in a kommunalka and having your own flat, or hearing a single aria as against the entire opera. She knew at a young age that she wanted the flat, she wanted the whole opera.

  Her mother never worked on children’s books, which was a great disappointment to Galina, as Lidiya was allowed to keep the books she translated. But as it happened, her own favourite picture books were those that had belonged to her mother when she had been a child, way back in the 1930s and 1940s. Some of these books had been so loved that the covers were frayed and faded, and pages had been torn; but in a way Galina couldn’t explain, that made them even more precious. On the inside cover of most of these storybooks, written in a grown-up’s hand, was her mother’s name and another name as well.

  Galina was young, not much more than three or four, when she first asked about the other name. ‘What does this say?’

  Her mother had remained silent, it was clear she didn’t want to answer, which made Galina even more curious. So she asked again. This was when she learned her mother had an older brother, Mikhail.

  ‘Where is he?’

  Her mother shook her head. ‘Gone, disappeared, a long time ago.’ And then, to put an end to the questions, she added, ‘We’ll never see him again.’

  Galina wanted to know more. She kept asking, she kept pushing, and only when she realised how much she was upsetting Lidiya did she stop.

  Some years later, when Galina’s own artistic talent was already apparent, her mother explained why these old books of hers, the picture books of the 1920s, 30s and 40s, were so special.

  ‘When I was growing up,’ she said, ‘enemies of the people were said to be everywhere — in schools, on farms, in the army, in the factories, and most especially among artists and writers.’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘When everyone’s frightened, when everyone’s suspicious, it’s very easy to make mistakes.’

  Her mother paused, and Galina guessed she was thinking about her own mother and father.

  ‘People had to be very careful, and this was the case in every aspect of Soviet life, but far less so when it came to children’s books.’ And now she was smiling. ‘It was as if anything intended for children wasn’t to be taken seriously; certainly it couldn’t do any harm to the great Soviet state. So the sort of surveillance that happened in other aspects of creative work was far less rigorous in the case of children’s books. When it became too dangerous for great writers like Mandelstam to write openly for adults, they wrote stories for children instead.’

  She gathered a few more of the children’s books and spread them across the table. ‘Many of the books I had as a child, many of the books you like best, were written by the best writers in the country and illustrated by the best artists.’ Again she smiled. ‘Writers and artists, composers too, will always find a way.’ And in the quietest whisper, she added, ‘Fairytales, fantasies, allegories can be very powerful, despite what our leaders think.’

  Everyone has days that start out ordinary and finish as exceptional, and this winter’s day in Leningrad when Galina was ten years old and learning why her mother’s children’s books were so special was one such day. She and her mother were having their whispered conversation when there was a knock on the door. The buzzers at the front entrance had been broken for months, so anyone could enter the building and make their way up the stairs.

  Her mother went to the door. Galina, still seated at the table, heard a man’s voice, she heard her mother’s voice, she heard the door slam, and then a volley of angry words. She twisted around and saw a strange man standing in front of the closed door. He was tall, and bulked out in an army greatcoat. The ear flaps of his ushanka were tied back, revealing a thick reddish-brown fur; it looked so soft and warm, it might be fox or even sable, and there was more of this plush fur on the lapels and collar of his coat. His boots were black leather and they looked new. Such luxurious clothes, and so different from the man himself. His face was bloated and covered with bristles, his eyes were red and sloppy like a bloodhound’s, and when he removed the hat, his hair was plastered to his head. He reeked of tobacco and unwashed body. His stench quickly filled the room.

  Her mother looked to be in shock. The man, however, seemed entirely at ease. He turned to Galina and walked towards her; she automatically stood up. A book fell to the floor with a loud slap.

  ‘Say hello to your Uncle Misha,’ he said to her.

  Lidiya quickly collected herself. She grabbed Galina by the arm, and held her close.

  ‘No uncle of hers. And no brother of mine.’

  She told the man to leave, she told him never to return. He did not move. Her mother then ordered him to leave. Galina thought she sounded ferocious, but the man wasn’t at all scared. He appraised the room, his gaze settling on grandfather’s old armchair. Lidiya said she could feel her father’s presence whenever she sat in it.

  ‘Some things,’ the smelly man said as he made himself comfortable, ‘some things don’t change.’ He stroked the armrest with his pudgy hand. His fingers were fat like sausages, and there was grime beneath the nails.

  A moment later, Lidiya half-pushed, half-carried Galina to the door and hurried her up the passageway to where her friend Natalya lived. Lidiya whispered that everything would be all right, that Galina was not to worry; when the man was gone, she would come back and fetch her.

  The hours dragged like days. Galina didn’t want to play with Natalya, not while her mother was shut in with the fat, smelly man; she didn’t want to eat the food Natalya’s mother prepared, not when her mother might be in danger. Every time she heard footsteps in the passage she ran to the door, and each time the footsteps did not stop. It was after supper when her mother finally collected her. She looked tired and very sad.

  Their own room was freezing. ‘I needed to clear the air,’ Lidiya said as she closed the window. There were changes which Galina saw immediately. The leather satchel that had belonged to her grandfather was gone; so too his pipe and clock. Other items from her mother’s childhood — a small painting, an enamelled dish, a silver cruet set — all things that Lidiya had said were precious, had disappeared. And so had the man.

  ‘And he won’t return,’ Lidiya said. ‘He took what he wanted.’

  He seemed to have taken something of Lidiya as well. Months were to pass before she grew the missing parts back again.

  The man did not take the children’s books. That night, her mother did not come to bed until late. In the morning, she saw that the name Mikhail had been blackened out in every single book.

  Galina had brought the picture books to Australia. She now took them off the shelf and spread them out on her work table. She was an illustrator of children’s books,
so why was she spending her time drawing houses and frocks? She owed it to herself, to her mother too, to pursue her ambitions. She would accept Leonard Morrow’s job if he offered it to her, but at the same time she would start sending samples of her work to publishers. She’d been in Australia long enough to stop treating it as a temporary stopover to somewhere else. This flitting between the abandoned past and a fragile present might well define the state of exile, but she had to struggle against it; she had to try harder.

  She worked steadily and quickly, and by two o’clock had completed the final two patterns. She took a tram to the city and dropped the finished work in to the office. She then decided to take the rest of the day off — an Australian long weekend or, given it was Monday, a case of Mondayitis. She set off through the small streets and bluestone lanes that crisscrossed the city centre. With their tiny cafés and shops, the walls splattered with graffiti, and the smoke-stained bricks — some still punctured with iron rings for tethering horses, with their metal delivery chutes tunnelling down from the pavements, and wafts of delicious food mixed with the stench of rubbish bins and stale urine, these lanes revealed a life stretching way back to when the city was first established. ‘Marvellous Melbourne’, according to the histories she had read.

  It was still marvellous to her. These narrow streets and lanes with their jostling life reaching back through the centuries were, she was thinking, a collage of history and memory. And an image came to mind, a picture showing cars and trams and modern pedestrians hovering over a past of horses and coaches and people in period dress. Perhaps there was an illustration to be done, or a series of illustrations. Or perhaps, and the thought was immediately enticing, there might be a book here, a book about this city so different from Leningrad. The stories a city can tell. When Melbourne meets Leningrad, what each might disclose to the other about their landmarks, their housing, their food, their celebrations. What, for example, might Leningrad’s waterways and the Gulf of Finland have to say to Melbourne’s brown Yarra and Port Phillip Bay? And what about the different music and street life, the different weather, the different vehicles, the sports and clothing? It would be a project to bring her past and present together, a picture book: When Melbourne Meets Leningrad.

  The following Friday was pleasantly warm. Leonard Morrow’s business was located in a light-industrial area about three kilometres from the saddlery, and with just a small folio to carry, Galina decided to walk. She felt vastly different from the caged squirrel of a few days back. She had already sent off samples of her work to two different publishers, she’d compiled a list of features comparing Leningrad to Melbourne, she had even completed some sketches for the project. She arrived at Leonard’s factory feeling refreshed and relaxed, but well aware of her priorities. This job, if Leonard decided to give it to her, would be a one-off.

  She gazed up at the building — no mistaking she was at the right place. Stretched across the roof in large capital letters were the words MORROW & SON. Had Leonard so counted on Andrew to join the business that he’d cemented it in the company name? And if this were the case, Andrew’s fight to be an artist had been a struggle against far more trenchant parental forces than a simple argument about making a living.

  Leonard’s factory was situated on the corner of a lane. It was a two-storey, cream-brick building at the front, with a single-storey addition behind. A smallish concern, she thought — but small compared with what? Soviet industry, where all the factories were gargantuan? How long would it take, she wondered, before she acquired new standards of comparison? Not that she wanted to lose her Russian experience, she just didn’t want it to dominate. She wanted to choose when to apply it. And why not? Choice was, after all, one of the West’s major gifts.

  A small laugh escaped: a little self-mockery would save her from being a miseryguts. And with this came another snort of laughter. She loved the blunt, irreverent Australian additions to stiff-upper-lip British English. ‘Miseryguts’ was a favourite, and, she noted with satisfaction, perfectly executed in the present context.

  She smoothed her hair and straightened her dress — the same dress she had worn to the Morrow dinner, she suddenly realised, but nothing she could do about that now. She entered the building and followed a sign directing her upstairs to the office. There she was greeted by the receptionist, a good-looking woman of about forty. She wondered if Sylvie minded Leonard having such an attractive assistant, then quickly dismissed the thought: she’d never seen a closer nor more compatible couple than the Morrows.

  As the receptionist picked up the phone to buzz Leonard, Winston Yeung appeared. He approached with his hand outstretched.

  ‘Welcome to our world,’ he said with a smile

  He smelled heavenly, an aftershave cologne more floral and less piercing than Australian men tended to favour — not that she would complain about any cologne: she loved the way men smelled here. As she shook his hand, she breathed him in.

  ‘Leonard apologises. He was planning to show you around himself, but he’s running behind and asked me to do the honours instead.’ Winston checked his watch. ‘By the time we’ve finished, he should be free.’

  Regularly when she was growing up, Galina, like all Soviet children, toured factories to witness firsthand the power and might of Soviet industry, but Morrow & Son was the first privately owned factory she had ever seen. It was so clean, both the building and the machines; even the workers looked clean. Different areas were designated for different functions, including an entire section for welding. As they walked through the factory, Winston revealed his familiarity with the workers by asking one man about his wife, another about a forthcoming baby, and a third — Asian, like Winston, but maybe one of the new Vietnamese she was yet to meet — whether his family had joined him yet.

  ‘It’s a big enterprise,’ Winston said, indicating the scene before them. ‘Ten times larger than when Leonard took it over.’

  ‘And the son?’ Galina asked.

  Winston laughed. ‘A mythical beast. Australians like family-run companies. Grandfathers, fathers and sons all working harmoniously together.’ He paused a moment. ‘Although, for many of us, this company does feel like family. Most employees, both in the office and on the factory floor, have worked for Morrow’s for years. I’m one of the new boys.’ And again that sweet smile. ‘I’ve only been here a decade.’

  Galina was interested in his background; all newcomers to Australia interested her, particularly those like Winston, who appeared to have adjusted well. She learned that both he and his brother had been sent overseas for their university studies, the brother to America and Winston to Australia. ‘It was insurance for the future,’ he said, and explained about the return of Hong Kong to China. ‘At that time no date had been set, and while many Hong Kongers hoped it would never happen, my parents thought it best to be prepared.’ His expression was serious and suddenly he looked a good deal older. ’And they were right. We now know Hong Kong will be returning to the Chinese in less than ten years. That we don’t want to be part of mainland China doesn’t matter one jot, it’s been taken out of our hands.’ He shrugged. ‘Actually, it was never in our hands.’

  Since the announcement of the handover date, there had been a massive exodus of businesspeople, as well as lawyers, doctors and other professionals. ‘It’s been a significant loss,’ Winston said.

  ‘And your parents?’

  ‘They’re still in Hong Kong, and that’s where they’ll remain. They’re too old to move now. But they visit here, and they visit my brother in Chicago, and of course we go home regularly.’

  ‘Australia is full of exiles,’ Galina said quietly.

  ‘No. No.’ Winston shook his head. ‘I don’t see myself as an exile. I go back to Hong Kong whenever I want. I could go back and live there if I chose. But the life here suits me better.’

  And that was the crucial difference. She didn’t have a choice. When she received her e
xit visa to leave the Soviet Union, she forfeited any right of return. Ever. But there was something else. Imprinted in the semantics of exile was a desire to return, and the assumption that when things had improved, you’d be permitted to return. She’d seen refugee camps on TV, huge tented cities established for people seeking sanctuary from persecution for a few months, perhaps a year, before returning home. But ten years, even twenty years on, there was a second generation of displaced people in these camps, and they, like their parents, dreamed of a time when it’d be safe to go home.

  Perhaps you stopped being an exile when you no longer wanted to return home because you were home.

  ‘Where is home for you now?’ she asked Winston as they made their way back to the office.

  He did not hesitate. ‘At the moment it’s here, Australia. But as soon as I return to Hong Kong, my home is there.’

  They arrived back in reception just as Leonard exited his office. He greeted her with a kiss. ‘Have you eaten lunch?’

  She hadn’t, but neither did she want him to feel obliged to buy her a meal. He silenced her protests. ‘We can talk business over a sandwich at my local café.’

  It was indeed local, only about twenty metres up the street. Leonard ordered his ‘usual’ — a hot roast-beef sandwich with English mustard — and she settled for a home-made meat pie with tomato sauce. She’d taken a great fancy to the Australian meat pie; so Russian in consistency, carbohydrates and salt, she suspected that the original recipe had come from the kitchen of a Russian Australian.

  The business was settled quickly. She had thought she was to be interviewed for the job, but Leonard simply flipped through her folio, pausing at some of her work for Merridale Graphics — ‘I occasionally see Ralph Merridale at the commerce club’ — asked a couple of questions, and the job was hers.

  Leonard laid out the roughs for the catalogue, and took her through what he was after. ‘Four pictures,’ he said, ‘painterly, and portraying a variety of library users sitting at our desks, in our carrels, browsing our shelves, searching in our catalogue drawers. And one of the pictures needs to feature teenagers in school uniform as we want to increase our penetration into the private-school market.’