by Mick McCoy
‘About that you are right,’ Valentin agreed, before falling quiet. ‘You know, today will be memorable not only for your magnificent award.’ He slapped his hand to his chest. ‘But also, as a result of your wise counsel and disgusting cough, I am giving up these things immediately!’ He pulled his cigarettes from his back pocket and threw them into the tray where he’d flicked his butt moments earlier. ‘No more!’
Conrad patted the big man’s shoulder before sliding back into the driver’s seat. ‘Good luck to you. I wish I had your resolve.’
The motor rattled into life at the first attempt. Conrad shifted into gear and pointed the Moskvich towards the yard’s exit. Approaching the gate, rain began to fall heavily. He slowed and glanced in his rear-view mirror to see whether Valentin would retrieve his cigarettes from the rubbish tray before they became sodden. He’d have bet a week’s wages on it. Sure enough, Valentin scuttled from his shed – as best a man of his size could – and snatched his cigarettes from the tray. Conrad honked his horn and wound down his window to wave. Valentin flicked two fingers into the air, and as soon as Conrad began to laugh he wished he hadn’t. With his lips clamped together to stifle the coughing, he got his handkerchief to his mouth too late, fine specks of pink spittle spraying across the inside of the windscreen.
He wiped his mouth and refolded the handkerchief. It would serve no purpose to worry unnecessarily. Better to laugh, even if it meant a little hacking. Besides, he’d been looking forward to this day for months, not only because of the badge. It was sixteen years to the day since he’d boarded that train at Spencer Street station and run into a swarm of locusts in outback New South Wales. Sixteen years since, in the eyes of the establishment and its lackeys in the press, he’d ceased to be a loyal Australian, or any kind of Australian, for no greater reason than he didn’t share their beliefs. And sixteen years since he’d made the first steps, if only in his mind, towards gathering up his family and leaving their home for a better life. A different life, anyway, since even he had to concede that any claim things were better in Moscow than in Melbourne depended strongly on your priorities.
They had no choice but to leave. Their country, their community, their neighbours, even some of their family didn’t want them. But the sackings, the unemployment, the thugs in the laneway, and then the guaranteed work and accommodation in Moscow – none of it was enough to convince Ruby. The final insult that changed her mind came on the dock at Portsmouth. After Conrad received a signed contract of work, they’d sold the house and embarked on a six-week sea trip to England, only to arrive and be handed a letter from his would-be employer retracting the job offer without explanation or compensation. Another letter. Not even the courtesy of a face-to-face meeting. Conrad left his bags and his family on the dock and went to the office of Portsmouth Marine Engineers, but no one of authority would see him. Ruby booked the family into a seedy dockside hotel – all that their money would stretch to – while Conrad spent three more fruitless days at Portsmouth Marine seeking an audience with the bosses, before they caught the same boat back to Australia on money Ruby had to borrow from family. The only conclusion even the least cynical person could draw was that the Australian Government had intervened again. Since they couldn’t find him guilty of espionage, they were determined to make him pay for his innocence.
Ruby finally let herself be convinced that Moscow was the best solution. She finally agreed that it was preferable to have the freedom to live honestly and openly in less comfortable physical conditions than to endure a life of stifled ideals amid sunshine and superficial prosperity. Especially when prosperity was off the table. But while Moscow had certainly delivered less comfortable physical conditions, whether it had given them their freedom and honest living was debatable. He’d never admit it to Ruby, but he’d given up on his ideals. They weren’t practical. His friendship with Valentin, as genuine as any he’d had, was testament to that.
The boys had long been homesick, even though Peter couldn’t possibly remember the place and Alex only thought he could. But Ruby was the most adamant they should go home, and the state of Conrad’s lungs had given her extra ammunition.
‘This place will kill you before you realise we should’ve gone home,’ she’d said to him that morning before he left. ‘And when it does, don’t expect us to stay.’
For Conrad, though, return was impossible. Let the sky above weigh down as heavy and grey as a Cossack’s cape, let the shops run short of eggs and meat and milk. Let the work be so dreary that only the most idealistic or unambitious of men could tolerate it. But do not ever drag him back to a place where his life was held up by his own countrymen, his own family, to be a lie. Not ever.
ALEX
His father kept a set of tools in his old Gladstone bag. The smell of the tools, sealed inside the lined leather, reminded Alex of the laundry in Type Street, where they sat on a wooden shelf under the washing trough. He was only four years old back then – his memory of the house was sketchy – but that familiar smell conjured a picture of the trough and a large wooden box with a hinged lid and a broken latch, the wood splintered either side of it, inside which the tools were kept.
He needed to tighten the binding clasp of a photo album he’d made for the photographic restoration class in his degree at Moscow State University. His father’s bag was on top the wardrobe in his parents’ bedroom. Conrad and Ruby had taken the train to Red Square for the Revolution Day parade.
He took down the bag to fish around for the tools and when he slid it back an old biscuit tin fell to the floor. Arnott’s Famous Family Assorted Biscuits, a once colourful but now scratched and faded parrot on the lid, a cracker in its claw. Inside he found bundles of photos, strung together with twine. They seemed to be sorted by year, with shots from their arrival in Moscow and further back to their life in Australia. He could restore them and include them in the project, along with photographs he’d taken himself with the family’s Leica III. After he’d done the restoration, made the folio and compiled his family’s photographic history, after he’d submitted it and had it assessed, it was going to be Conrad and Ruby’s Christmas present.
But the biscuit tin contained more than just family snaps. There were expired passports, entry visas for the Soviet Union stamped 23 May 1957 – Alex’s fifth birthday – letters of introduction to contacts in Moscow written by people in the Communist Party back in Australia, telling of Conrad Murphy’s skills and experience and fine character, and an offer of work at the State Institute of Engineering, which he’d obviously accepted. Alex felt an unexpected pride in his father, even though the letters confirmed what he already knew: that it was his fault they left Australia. That didn’t stop him from blaming his mother for the fact that they still lived in Moscow. He knew she wanted to leave as much as he and Peter did, so she should’ve been better at convincing his father they should all go back home.
There were also two birth certificates. Peter’s carried his full name, Peter Conrad Murphy, and date of birth, 25 December 1955, with East Melbourne as his place of birth. It identified the father as Conrad John Murphy, a 35-year-old engineer born in Brisbane, while the mother was Ruby Frances Murphy, nee Brownlie, thirty years old, born in Orbost. He’d never considered before that his mother was quite old, at thirty, to be giving birth, even though he was sometimes embarrassed by how ancient both his parents seemed, compared with his friends’ parents. She’d have been twenty-seven when she gave birth to him. The certificate said Conrad and Ruby had been married in East St Kilda in 1947 and it was signed by Conrad John Murphy of 22 Type Street, Richmond, in the state of Victoria. It noted that neither Conrad John Murphy nor Ruby Frances Murphy had any previous issue.
When he read those words he didn’t absorb their meaning. They seemed uninteresting.
On the second certificate, the only thing Alex recognised was his birthdate: 23 May 1952. The boy born that day, whose birth certificate was bound to Peter’s with a length of string and kept safe in a biscuit tin, together with a colle
ction of Murphy family documents and records, was named James Johnson. The father was a twenty-year-old university student, Eric Johnson. The mother, Sheila Cain, was eighteen and had no recorded occupation. Eric Johnson and Sheila Cain were both originally from Warrnambool. The entries for when and where they were married had been left blank.
James Johnson was born the same day as him.
Alex picked up Peter’s certificate again. Previous issue: None.
He sat on the edge of his parents’ bed, James Johnson’s birth certificate in one hand, Peter Murphy’s in the other. Two sheets of paper, folded and worn, thin and insubstantial.
Hidden.
James Johnson. Who the fuck is he? Alex didn’t want to think. He didn’t want to know.
I’m adopted.
The aching chill in the room did nothing to temper the sweat that beaded his palms and upper lip.
I’m adopted.
He gazed at the ceiling.
I’m adopted.
But Peter’s not.
Why?
He grabbed the tin, upending it on the bedspread and pushing around bundles of photos, letters, passports, picking them up to check that none had stuck together, concealing a vital fact that would explain all this. There must be something else. Another paper. An adoption certificate. A fucking receipt of some sort for goods received. Something that explained how he came to live at 22 Type Street and be raised by Conrad and Ruby Murphy. Something that substituted James Johnson for Alex Murphy. Reassigned him.
There was nothing.
Who am I?
Who are Eric Johnson and Sheila Cain? Why didn’t they want me? Do they have other kids? Do I have brothers and sisters? Do my real parents love them? Do my real parents hate me? Hate each other? Because of me?
And why haven’t I been told? If the people I’ve spent my life with, the people I’ve always called Mum and Dad could have Peter, why did they want me? Did they want me?
Fuck.
Where are the adoption papers? Or aren’t there papers for that? Is it all too shameful? Was I just handed over like stolen goods from one lowlife to another?
He opened drawers, grabbing bundled socks and stockings and underwear, flinging it all up in the air before slamming the drawers shut, then opening them, then slamming them shut again.
He couldn’t ask them. His parents. What should he call them now? If they couldn’t tell him he couldn’t ask. Because they’d kept it secret he would, too.
His parents. What should he call them now?
He breathed. Clothes and family photographs and papers were scattered across the bed and the floor.
‘Having fun?’ Peter was standing at the door.
‘Fuck off.’ Alex grabbed the biscuit tin and began stuffing in photos and documents, unsorted and untied, then gathered up the scattered underwear and socks and shoved it all into the drawers, mixing socks with bras and baggy Y-fronts. ‘Don’t say anything to Mum and Dad, all right?’ His hands trembled. He pressed the lid onto the biscuit tin. He didn’t want Peter to see those pieces of paper that said they weren’t brothers.
Peter leaned on the doorframe.
‘Golden Boy. Fucken Christmas Day Miracle Boy,’ Alex said. ‘You say a word about this and you’ll regret it.’
‘Okay.’
As much as he wanted to, Alex couldn’t resent Peter, couldn’t hate him, feel jealous of him. He’d done nothing wrong. He still wanted to be Peter’s brother. ‘I’m warning you,’ he said. Although he was a good head taller than Peter, he felt frail next to him.
‘Okay,’ Peter repeated, too relaxed. Too unaffected.
Alex lunged at him, shoving him through the doorway, causing him to stumble back into the living room. ‘Fucken Christmas Day Miracle Boy.’ He chased him, hands clenched into fists, and punched him in the face. It was the first time he’d ever hit anyone. The skin on his knuckles was torn. He didn’t want to know how that had happened. He couldn’t feel jealous, could he? He still wanted to be Peter’s brother.
Peter dabbed at the blood dripping from his nose, wide-eyed. Small circles of red blood fell to the linoleum floor.
‘Hit me back,’ Alex said. He shoved Peter again.
This time Peter was ready, regaining his balance with a single backward step and squaring up.
‘Hit me.’
‘No.’
As Alex raised his fist Peter flung himself forward, pinning Alex’s arms to his side. ‘No,’ he said, his mouth pressed against Alex’s chest. His breath was rapid and deep, and his blood seeped through Alex’s jumper, warm and moist.
‘Just don’t say anything,’ Alex said. ‘Don’t even think about it.’ He freed an arm and cradled his brother’s head.
‘I won’t,’ Peter said, his voice muffled.
RUBY
Ruby’s favourite part of Moscow was below ground. Leninski Prospekt, their local Metro station, was relatively new, functionality being its primary design ethic. But her compensation for having to spend the morning in Red Square at the Revolution Day parade was that she could travel three stops towards town, switch to the Zamoskvoretskaya line at Novokuznetskaya station and get off at Ploshchad Sverdlova. It didn’t rival Kiyevskaya, the construction of which Khrushchev had personally overseen, or Ploshchad Revolyutsii, but it was still beautiful, simply for the sake of it. For art, not function. The white marble pylons of the central hall were gorgeous, even if they’d been stolen from the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour after it was demolished by Stalin because he thought Tchaikovsky, whose 1812 Overture had had its debut there, was too effeminate. Art Deco crystal lamps hung from vaulted ceilings, bas-reliefs of folk musicians and dancers lined the halls, and the black and yellow panelled marble floor laid out like a chess board – Peter’s favourite – were uplifting at the beginning of what would surely be a challenging day. It was a joy to wait in such places if your train was late.
But above the station, the barren open spaces of Manezhnaya Square around the back of the Kremlin were, for Ruby, among the most objectionable parts of the city. The brick and bitumen patchwork was an outline of state oppression, with its odd-shaped shadows of former markets and taverns and hovels and laneways that had once bustled with life. So haphazardly and overtly had it been sealed, the only reasonable conclusion was that it was an intentional reminder to those who might contemplate fresh disunity. Ugly relics of bourgeois lifestyle, if you believed the Stalinist reformers, or just peaceful communities of ordinary people, reduced to rubble and then bricked over to quell the fanciful threat of some future revolt. With every step, Ruby trod on someone’s home, the spot where someone had died or was born, until the red-brick towers of the Kremlin Arsenal loomed.
Red Square itself was all bluff and swagger, superficial and easy to dismiss, except for the STATE INSURANCE sign by the huge GUM department store. It was the only neon sign in all of Moscow and no one, expats or locals, knew what it was for. There was no Department of State Insurance, no policy a citizen could purchase to compensate them should their property be lost or stolen or damaged. So what did STATE INSURANCE insure? Against which acts and incidents? For whom?
In the cold wind she pulled tightly in to Conrad’s side, their elbows locked together. His smile, she noticed, had already frozen into place. He was so much better at this than she was. They picked their way through the crowd until they arrived at the foot of Lenin’s tomb, where they showed their letter of invitation to one of the Moscow Garrison, all of whom wore heavy woollen greatcoats and white gloves, rifles at hand.
Unfurled umbrellas shuddered in the squalling wind and obscured her view of the square, but when she lifted her eyes Ruby had a clear view of Lenin’s bannered icon strung from the highest floors of the GUM department store, directly across the square. Five floors high and equally wide against a patriotic deep red background, Comrade Lenin frowned down on his own tomb. He was flanked by still more banners with urgings to the glory of the motherland. Hung from the State Historical Museum was an image of proud pa
ir of young workers, a beautiful boy and girl, the epitome of state-endorsed Young Pioneers, one gripping a hammer and the other a sickle, held high against a cloudless blood-red sky. Only St Basil’s Cathedral at the far end of the square was unadorned.
After twenty minutes of murmuring and sleet a voice came over the loudspeakers, insisting all present be silent and at ease. Conrad’s lungs crackled. Boots crunched against the cobbles of Red Square as soldiers marched robotically past Lenin’s tomb, atop which President Brezhnev waved to the various congregations of idiots, Ruby included, standing in the grey rain.
A crush of Party apparatchiks flanked the president to the left, while white-gloved generals formed a line to his right. The clock in the Saviour Tower struck eleven; the military band answered, full drums and brass as the order was given to parade! To focus left and salute! Batteries of soldiers, ranked and filed down the centre of the square, swivelled their necks as one, their bayonet-fixed rifles across their chests as rain dripped from their stiff black visors.
The Commander of the Parade, Colonel General Govorov, took up his position beside Brezhnev and placed his gloves next to the bank of microphones. The soldier delivered his speech unhurriedly from a progressively soggy pad of notes an inch thick, his voice solemn. The initial curiousity on Brezhnev’s face changed sentence by sentence to impatience. A thousand knee joints had stiffened before the Colonel General finished and the band resumed, with drums delivering salvos like heavy artillery, each shot echoing off the Kremlin walls. Orders were called over the loudspeakers and more soldiers began more ceremonial marches, red flags trembling from more fixed bayonets. Wave after wave of them, twenty deep and twenty wide, marched past the stage to Brezhnev’s weary nods of approval.
Tanks rumbled past. Ruby wondered what streets and fields and homes those tanks had laid to waste, what lives they’d ended. Flat-bed trucks followed with missiles inclined, their tips pointing skyward. Armed transporters were next, then convoys of machinery that grew heavier, louder, grimmer. More banks of soldiers marched by, more cannons, tanks and rockets were paraded until at last they were gone. The band fell silent and the snow gusted and whirled around the square. People in the crowd glanced to their neighbours, wondering if they should clap, or leave. Soldiers and schoolchildren and parents and veterans all waited. Silence lingered.