What Belongs to You

by Garth Greenwell

  Even with all I fail to understand, living here—the half-caught phrase or gesture, the assumed meaning I can’t share—here as nowhere else I have the sense at times of the world tidying itself up for consumption, of a meaning delivered like meat already cut, strangeness of a sudden making sense. Not long ago, for instance, after the end of the whole story with Mitko, I found myself on a train from the coast returning to Sofia. I was dreading the journey as I dread all long trips, with their boredom and confinement, especially in the heat of late summer. And I was all the more apprehensive because I was traveling with my mother, her visit a tentative rapprochement after three years of near estrangement. We hadn’t fallen out, exactly, but she was part of that past I had wanted somehow to undo, a past I had felt freer without, and I was uneasy at the thought of her coming here, bringing with her so much of what I had fled. There was the added burden of being a host, heavier since it was my mother’s first trip to Europe, her first trip anywhere at all, and she felt a mixture of eagerness and anxiety I had to satisfy and allay. She had scheduled ten days in Bulgaria, most of which we had spent outside of Sofia; I wanted her to see the more beautiful parts of the country, and we were returning now from Burgas, a seaside city I had long wanted to visit. We had both been charmed by it, and as we joined the crowds walking its long piers and rocky beach, there was a vibrancy in the summer-drunk evenings I had never felt in Sofia. We hadn’t had any of the dramatic scenes I had anticipated, though we were both fatigued, I thought, by the care we took to avoid them. But the trip had not been a failure; I hadn’t, as I had feared, been cruel to her, though for a long time cruelty had been my way of protecting myself from what I saw as her grasping possessiveness, a desire to pry that infringed upon my necessary privacy. She had been careful, after our three years apart, not to impose, and she maintained a lightness of tone that didn’t quite preclude moments of closeness. She spoke of the past in a way she hadn’t before, telling stories of my father, of his early life and of their life together, for the first time speaking of him without rancor, acknowledging a happiness that was brief and had never been reclaimed. I was eager for these stories, though I was cautious, too; I knew that they might draw me back to what I had left, that they had depths I might be lost in.

  When my mother first arrived, I was shocked by how drawn and worn her face was, how thin and fragile-seeming her frame. She was unquestionably old now, as she hadn’t been before, and I saw this with a pang as she stepped through the glass doors at the airport’s new terminal, a pang I felt again as we settled in our seats on the train, arranging our bags in the unclaimed space between us. I had paid for a first-class cabin, and on our way to it we passed through six or seven cars, comfortable and European and aggressively air-conditioned, to find that our own was the sole unmodernized wagon, a rusted relic of socialism. Its claim to first-class status lay in the fact that it was divided into four eight-person cabins, each of which had a glass door that could be shut, though they all stood open now in the hot unmoving air. I was mortified by this, which I felt as my own failure, though I tried to laugh it off; only in Bulgaria, I said, and told my mother that now she would have an authentic Balkan experience. My mother took my lead, dismissing any discomfort as she arranged her things, even as her discomfort was clear, not least in how she eyed the other passengers sharing the small space. My mother has always been mistrustful of strangers, a part of the timidity or fear that at times seemed to dominate her life and that I feared I had inherited, learning from her a hesitancy, a kind of suspicion or doubt of my forces that had kept me, that might still keep me, from finding how far they could run. Anything foreign caused her alarm, as I could see in the way she grasped her purse, even when she delighted in the newness of what she had seen. She was uneasy now, too, though any sign of it was restrained by the politeness that was an imperative almost equal to her fear. I was relieved to see that our cabin wasn’t full; my mother and I were able to claim an entire side of it for ourselves, the three other passengers having arranged themselves to face forward as the train began to move. Of these three, one was traveling alone, a man in his thirties, bearded and overweight, a fat paperback open on his lap. At the opposite end of the bench, by the window, sat an older woman, very large and wrapped in layers of clothing despite the heat, and sprawled upon her, half in her lap and half in the seat beside her, apparently sleeping, there was a boy of perhaps six or seven. His face was turned toward the sun, though the woman held one hand above him so that a shadow fell across his eyes. My mother was immediately charmed by him, he was the same age as my brother’s child, but my own heart sank at the prospect of the noisy hours ahead. I wished him a long sleep as I took out my book, I don’t remember now what it was, something in English, and my mother pulled from her bag the stack of magazines she carried with her everywhere we went. We settled in to read, my mother and I and the man with his book, which made him laugh out loud every now and again. When the heat got too much for her to bear, my mother would lay her magazine aside or close it and use it as a fan, looking at me with wide eyes and mouthing It’s so hot, the peculiar drawn openness of the southern vowel clear even in pantomime. I could only shrug at this, helpless to improve things beyond the opened window and door, which allowed for the occasional draft, though the train moved too slowly and stopped too frequently for anything like a real breeze. I set my book aside often to look out at the landscape as it shifted, at the towns and villages we passed, nearly all of them in disrepair, cottages and little houses falling into themselves. The huge fields were brown and cracked with drought, though they were still worked by huddled figures with bundles on their backs, or by the rare tractor kicking up dust. As we passed these places, it was easy to imagine that we were in a different time, the buildings and natural spaces almost untouched by the modern age, except that so many of the cottages we passed, even the most decrepit, were festooned with the same satellite dishes I knew from my neighborhood in Sofia, some small and modern, others huge and tripodal, discolored with age.

  After an hour or so the boy’s sleep grew fitful; he turned and kicked his legs, then heaved himself out of the woman’s lap and sat blinking as she roused herself in turn. The boy looked around the compartment, at once shyly and openly, his eyes meeting mine briefly before shifting away. Lie back down, I heard the woman say to him, as she put her arm around him to pull him back, but he wasn’t tired, he said, and he braced both his arms against her to resist. He was hungry, and the woman rooted around in one of the large bags she had arranged at her feet, pulling out a sandwich wrapped in cellophane, which she folded back before handing it to him. He grabbed it and slid off the bench, standing at the window to watch the landscape as it passed. He was still half-asleep, his eyes glazed over, chewing slowly, mechanically, as if willing himself awake. I was looking at him more than at my book, and at my mother, too, who was watching him and smiling, smiling more broadly whenever he looked her way; but he was shy with her, not quite smiling back. He grew more alert as he ate, taking from his grandmother a bottle of airan, yogurt mixed with water, a favorite drink here. He ate more seriously as he woke, taking larger bites and throwing his head back to drink, holding the empty bottle inverted in the air, catching the last drops on his tongue. His grandmother took the trash from him, after which he held his hand in front of her, palm up, and she gave him a small piece of chocolate wrapped in foil. He ate this quickly and without any show of pleasure, and then, when the woman held out her hand for the foil he had crumpled, he made a quick leap and tossed it out the window. She scolded him for this, saying something I couldn’t catch, perhaps it was just his name, but he spun around with a broad smile, looking at each of us, as if at once surprised and delighted by his own daring. I tried to look at him sternly, to show an adult solidarity with his grandmother, but my intention gave way before his smile, which was impossibly bright, sure of itself and sure, too, that nothing could resist it for long.

  He was a beautiful child, slim and long-limbed, his skin bronzed
from his vacation at the sea. He was used to being adored, I thought a little bitterly, despite responding myself to his loveliness. We all felt it; my mother was immediately won over, and even the man across from us smiled over the top of his book. His grandmother pulled him back into his seat, still scolding him, telling him to sleep, they had a long way to go, and then, when he refused, she told him to sit still at least, she was tired, she wanted to rest some more. But he only sat still for a short time; soon enough he was casting about for diversion. The window beside him was made of two long panes, the upper of which slid down, though whatever latch or catch should have held it was broken, and we had lodged bits of paper in the corners to hold it open. He reached up, curling his fingers around the top edge, and hauled himself to his feet, standing on the bench so that his head was above the lowered pane; he stared out over the fields we passed, his view unencumbered by the clouded glass. The train had picked up speed, and his hair was pushed about in the moving air. He began playing a game, turning his head quickly and repeatedly from right to left, focusing his sight on an object and following it as we passed; it was something I had done, too, staring out of windows on long trips in the car. Poor boy, I thought, he had nothing at all to do, no toys or books, though perhaps he was too young for books, and with the prospect of many hours to fill. He turned away from the window, facing the back wall, and reached up toward the metal rack where we had placed our luggage. Then, taking the edge of the rack in both hands, he lifted himself up, his right leg striking out for the window, seeking purchase. This woke his grandmother, who grabbed the leg nearest her and tugged on it, saying Dolu, down, saying it again when he dropped to the seat but remained standing. Sit down, she said, you’re bothering these people, they want to read, and it was true that we had stopped reading, having turned to look instead at the two of them; but I didn’t feel bothered, he was more interesting than my book.

  I’m bored, he said, skuka mi e, it’s a long trip, I want to do something. His grandmother sighed. It’s not so long, she said, other children manage to sit and to be good. I’ll never sit, the boy cried, squaring his shoulders, and he repeated the word never, nikoga, separating each of the syllables, throwing them like little punches in the air. I laughed, I couldn’t help it, and the man across from me laughed too; even the grandmother smiled, it was too charming to resist. The boy looked surprised at our laughter, as if he had forgotten about us, and then he glanced at each of us in turn with his enormous smile, thrilled with the impression he had made. Only my mother was left out, and she reached urgently across to grip my arm, asking what he had said, wanting to know before the moment passed. And then she smiled too, looking first at the boy and then his grandmother, laying her hands in her lap and settling back against the bench in a peculiar way she had, as if it were all just too much for words. He’s a sweet boy, she said then, looking at the grandmother, who smiled back at her but shook her head, saying she was sorry, she didn’t speak any English. I translated what my mother had said, and the woman looked at me, a little surprised. You speak Bulgarian, she said, almost a question, and then, when I had wagged my head from side to side, Well, she said, he can be sweet and still be bad. But she was pleased, and she looked at my mother while I translated, smiling and nodding her head a little. There was a camaraderie among us now, a warmth that made us more than strangers, and the boy felt it too, I thought, so that his sense of his kingdom spread from the little seat, expanding to encompass the entire compartment. At several points during our ride, the man across from us had interrupted his reading to take a camera from the backpack beside him and step into the corridor, snapping photos through the large windows there. The boy had watched this with interest, and now, as the man took his camera out again, he went to stand before him, cocking his head a little. Do you want to see how it works, the man asked, tilting the camera so the boy could see the digital screen surrounded by switches and buttons, and the boy nodded, still shy, and then hopped up onto the bench beside him. Don’t bother him, the grandmother said, but the man shook his head at this, saying it was fine, he didn’t mind, and he and the boy examined the camera for a few minutes, scrolling through the photos, and then, with the grandmother’s blessing, they stepped together into the corridor, where the windows offered more expansive views.

  He’s my daughter’s child, the woman said to us, I took him to the seaside for a week, all he did was run and play, I thought he would sleep on the train, he usually does. I shook my head in sympathy, saying that it was a long trip, it was hard for a child, and really he was being very good. Is this your mother, the woman asked then, and I said yes, saying too that it was her first time in Bulgaria, her first time anywhere outside of the States. Her first time in Europe and you brought her to Bulgaria, the woman said, oh, she must think it is terrible here. I paused to translate for my mother, who gasped and leaned forward, Oh no, she said, it’s a beautiful country, I’ve had a wonderful time. Maybe the sea is nice, the woman allowed, but Sofia—and she cut off her sentence, wrinkling her nose. But she is your mother, the woman said, anywhere she’s with you she will be happy. When she heard this, my mother reached over and laid her hand on my arm, saying that was true, that was certainly true, and I felt something twist in me, the motion of some unthinking thing when it is gripped too hard, and I had to resist the urge to pull away. But you live in Bulgaria, the woman asked, what do you do here, and her face brightened with interest when I said I was a teacher, when I named the famous school where I work. Bravo, she said, that is the best place, and then she said that her grandchild had started learning English that year, that he had learned songs and already knew his numbers. He was a smart boy, she said, when he wasn’t being bad. This last was meant for the boy himself, who had just come back in, he and the man, the boy happy with the camera. He held it to his face (the man kept his own hand on it too), and looked at each of us, using his hand on the lens to twist it first one way and then the other, making us large and small by turns. This man is a teacher, the woman told the child, he teaches English, and she encouraged him to practice his English with me, to show me what he had learned; but the boy turned shy, still smiling but moving his head up and down, a decided no. Come on, I said in Bulgarian, just say a little bit, what words do you know, but he still refused, suddenly demure; he climbed back into his seat and laid his head on the woman’s arm. He’s shy, the woman said, but really he knows a lot. She told us about the teacher he had had that year at school, a young man, new and full of energy, who played games with the kids, so that they learned without knowing they had been taught. They even put on a show at the end of the year, she said, it was wonderful, all of the students had learned so much. The boy lifted himself up again then, suddenly unshy; I want to say an English word, he said. He wiggled himself to the edge of his seat, the toes of his shoes just touching the floor, and looked around at each of us in turn, as if to make sure we were all watching. Then he threw both of his hands in the air and shouted Kung Fu!, falling back against the seat as he held out the second syllable, turning it into a howl. The woman clicked her tongue, You know better words than that, she said, but the rest of us were laughing again, and again the boy was pleased.

  The woman pulled out more food for him then, and the rest of us returned to our reading, though I was hardly reading at all, I was watching the boy with a fascination I didn’t understand. There was something electric about him, as he sat chewing his sandwich, looking out the window, a charm beyond mere loveliness. He was still for a while, lulled by food and by the heat, which had grown more intense as the afternoon wore on, but soon he was restless again, climbing up on the bench, then onto the narrow ledge of the armrest, grabbing with both of his hands one of the metal bars of the luggage rack. Get down, his grandmother said sharply, I’ve already told you, and the boy dropped his hands, not in surrender but to have them free for bargaining. But you don’t know what I’m going to do, he protested, his voice full of the injustice of it, I haven’t even tried yet. Just wait, just let me
try, then see if it’s bad, and he made a particular gesture with his hands, curling his fingers slightly and holding them both palm up before him, a pleading gesture, and all at once and with a physical force I understood the source of my fascination with the boy, the reason I had been unable to look away. It was one of Mitko’s gestures, I realized, all of the boy’s gestures were ones I had seen Mitko use; the boy himself, his long limbs, his slenderness, the peculiar cast of his skin, might have been a small copy of the man, so that I felt I was watching Mitko as a boy, before he had become what he was now. Where had they learned it, I wondered, this repertoire of gestures that made a way of being a man, the talent for friendliness and charm that had always astonished me, with its certainty both of welcome and of the right to whatever it could grasp.

  The boy did pull himself up then, showing off his strength, and as his legs flailed in the air the woman grabbed one of them and pulled, which made the boy giggle at first, thinking it was a game. He dropped back down to the little ledge, leaning back against the wall, still smiling, and again brought his hands together in front of him, not pleading now but as if to say see, it was nothing so terrible, how silly you were to worry. But this time the woman snatched one of his hands and yanked it hard, pulling him forcibly into the seat. I said to get down, she said, and it was clear now that she was angry, really angry for the first time in the trip, and it was as much in response to this anger as to any pain she had caused, I thought, that the boy began to weep. He was shocked at first, wide-eyed as if unbelieving that his luck could have run out, and then, though I could see he tried to resist, to act muzhki, the tears streamed down. The boy kept wiping them away, using his whole palm, but there were always more, he was outsized in grief as in all other feeling. His grandmother refused to look at him, and I thought, as I had before, how difficult it must be to parent, to divine the discipline or patience by which to make the good seeds grow while plucking out the bad, though maybe there was no real telling them apart. What was charming in the child would not be charming in the man, I thought, remembering Mitko and his bewilderment at my exasperation, his disbelief at every refusal. He had been a child just like this. I glanced at my mother, who looked stricken as she watched the boy weep, her own eyes welling with tears, and I wondered, as I had so often, whether she was the source of my own discontent, whether there was something she could have done that would have made me other than I am. I considered this as I watched her watching the boy, even though I knew it was unfair, that I was lucky to be loved as she loved me.