Texts for Translation 2007:
  Michael Kerins

Mistake

by Michael Kerins

“Your mistake was in opening the door in the first place”

“Your mistake was in letting those me into the house ”

“Your mistake was saying your father was at home”

People loved to point out his mistakes, he obliged them by being too tall, too skinny, too blonde, too young, and in some ways too insecure….

A few days before his sixteenth birthday, while his father was shaving, and his brother was at school, and just as his mother was preparing a second round of breakfast, a knock rattled at the front door.

The boy opened it standing proud, in his military academy uniform. A uniform from a school where there was fifteen sometimes twenty applicants for every place, a school to build the future for Russia. Indeed there were those who said this school would build the future of the planet. The apprentice soldier took no time to recognise the situation. Men three of them – not military men, perhaps they were KGB.

The shortest and stockiest of the three spoke asked if he was his father.
“Sir”

The boy replied, there was a deep intake of his breath but he continued

“I am not yet sixteen years old and.”

He was interrupted, his part sentence hung in the air

“May we speak with him, is he at home?”

“Yes Sir, of course Sir – Who shall I say is calling”?

Instinctively knowing this was not a conversation for the open hallway of his apartment block he let them in. Once inside the flat, the small hallway became excessively crowded, as the boy, still waiting for a name showed the men through to the living room.

“Papa” he called “Papa”

At this point his mother appeared; she was puzzled and held a pottery teakettle in her hand. It was old and had been her grandmothers. Her grandfather had brought it back from England. She looked across the living room to the opposite doorway. Everyone in the room faced her and behind them her husband appeared framed in that doorway. She loved to look at her husband there. While alone she often imagined him standing there in his full military dress uniform and the doorframe would be a picture frame. The picture a massive oil painting would one day hang in an art gallery and people would admire him as she did. Even with his wet face soaped and partly scrapped; the Major had great physical and military presence.

He spoke-

“How may I help you”?

The men and the boy turned around. One of the strangers, the one who had spoken earlier spoke again and asked the Major to confirm his name and rank; and as the Major finished his statement charges were levelled against him and he was arrested.

The main charge was that he had taken bribes, cash bribes in dollars and in roubles to ensure that many young men would be able to avoid military service. His son, witnessing this, was devastated, biting his top row of teeth deep into his bottom lip, and filling his eyes up with tears. He saw the teakettle drop from his mother’s hand and smash on the floor. He never heard the break, as all was lost in the internal cacophony of the language of the strangers; bribes, family disgrace, connivance in crime, avoidance of moral duty to Mother Russia.

As the Major was taken away, and with his birthday looming the boy did not fully appreciate that it would be over a year before he saw his father’s face again. His mother would never allow him or the younger brother to visit the military prison. He saw his father leave a crestfallen man. In those few moments immediately after his father was gone with the soap hurriedly wiped from his face – half shaved, half finished, wholly gone, he leant over towards his mother. She bent down and he wondered did she bend away from him, in a deliberate fashion. She picked up the largest pieces of the broken crockery and returned to the kitchen. He followed and they stood in silence. As one by one she placed the sacrificed teakettle pieces in the trash.

The next day he touched his father’s clothes – he placed his hand in his outdoor winter coat pocket, slipped his fingers along the ridge of his empty shoes, touching his hat and scarf, tracing all the time trying to get his presence.

It too was gone?

In that year the boy’s life changed forever, the elite military academy would have nothing to do with him; then he started to puzzle over the men who hung about his yard waiting for him. They approached enticing him into their cars. He never ventured there. Sometimes an ugly man with a disgusting mouth and filthy dental hygiene would approach from the side and call

“Hey Boy”

And as the lad looked round

“Come here”

He never went over instead he waited for Mr Greenteeth to come to him. Often Greenteeth would tempt him with a ride in a fancy car, perhaps a Western car with blackened windows and beautiful lines but caution ruled for him.

Then the transaction.

“Give this to your Mother, Tell her all is well”

And Greenteeth gave the boy a one hundred dollar bill.

He smoothed it out inside his pocket keeping it flat against his leg never folding it. Silence - money, keep your mouth shut - money, no need to open the net - money, the cat stays in the bag - money.

And all the time he saw his father, yet he could not remember what his face looked like. He remembered the man not his image. He was a man of duty who had been this steadying influence for his whole life, a man who was the son, grandson and great grandson of officers. Military blueblood the bravest soldier-father a boy could ever dream of, standing framed in the doorway – soaped, half shaved, armed neither with a Kalashnikov nor a full military bayoneted rifle, but with a plastic covered safety razor. Hero Victor Man of Honour transfigured instantly to a Half-shaved Vulnerable Mediocrity.

His five birthday cards were kept hidden under his pillow they were not displayed and he looked at them secretly. He fingered and kissed his grandmother’s signature tracing the designs under his pillow in the dark. There was such a pre-occupation with events that no one wished him happy birthday until the day after the event. Not the party it should have been.

At night in bed the boy touched his pyjamas, drawing a narrow line the width of his thumb from the waist directly down the outside of his trouser leg to his ankle painting it red. Bright Red. Blood Red. Battle Red. The red of his uniform he saw in his mind’s eye. Before this family disgrace he wore those trousers with pride, every item of his military clothing had a purpose and place, but now with no uniform and no school to go to he wore these garments as his nocturnal secret. Even although it was his nightclothes he knew and felt and softly touched his uniform whispering

“My uniform”

“Mine”

He fidgeted with mock clumsiness separated and stretched his pretend socks put one on each foot. Slipped those feet into highly polished shoes. Tied the laces and they hung as a perfect pair with the loops and the loose ends each identical. Next some oversized brass buttons; they were bigger in his fantasy than they needed to be, as he fastened everyone. Then he tied and re-tied his tie and then tied and re-tied it all again. Now his make believe hat. Lying there in the dark, with dried in salt on his cheeks, and his lips narrowed and pencil thin he picked up his hat. Smoothed every crease from it. Set it on his head and looked in an imaginary mirror and cocked his head and loved the view. In the mirror his lips were not narrow but his mouth was full and vibrant and his smile wide and happy. Officer class, a military man that was for certain, but in truth there was no certainty. Not for his career the certainty that there was, was shame, disgrace: his fault for opening the door in the first place, his fault for letting them in, his fault for saying his father was at home. Everyone told him it was his fault then everyone reminded him.

“Your mistake was in opening the door in the first place”

“Your mistake was in letting them in”

“Your mistake was saying your father was at home”

The blame was his.

What a secret, what a scandal that they should not even let him finish the term. There were three prizes waiting for him and he could have scooped them all if things had gone according to plan. He would have scooped up the athletics prize a long strong skinny runner he was a natural on the field. The other two prizes; chess and debating were really more or less in the bag, chess because he thought clearly before he acted, and debating because he thought clearly and logically before he spoke. Had he been allowed to keep the clothes he would have worn them out every school day. No one in his yard would have known, and he would have walked across that yard, past the pale blue wall mounted post box near the shop. Saluted the street vendor, an old former military man, a hero of the Great Patriotic War. He would have boarded the tram shown his travel pass and ridden to make-believe college, twenty-five minutes to oblivion.

He would have been able to offer a pregnant woman a seat, help a pensioner with a heavy bag or at the very least seen his reflection in the window. But an actor needs purpose, an actor needs direction and most of all an actor needs a costume.

There would be no such opportunity.

Some weeks later Greenteeth approached him obliquely and he heard him say in a deep sinister tone.

“Remind your mother of the beauty of silence”

The boy ignored the words and the tone and Greenteeth snarled

“Did you hear me Boy?”

He heard him and nodded in affirmation. A few minutes later he was home sitting in the living room and there he gave his mother the veiled threat. How he wondered could his father have done this, a man whose grandfather’s grandfather was an officer should sell his country. This same man who, told him every day, of honour, duty, truth who one time at banya; just last summer, in preparation for manhood gave him a few grains of earth to eat, so that he would physically consume Mother Russia.

“Have her in your belly; understand why we do what we do.”

The same man who said to his younger son

“Not yet my baby, there will be no soil for you, not for some years yet, not until the last summer of your childhood”.

One late afternoon while the boy was walking back from the local shop Greenteeth again approached as usual from the side. This time he had more than money, he had gifts for the boy and his brother, and a large oversized two-storey box of chocolates for his mother. There were also two brand new crisp one hundred dollar bills.

“Congratulate your mother on a strong unbroken net. See you around sometime but not in the immediate future I think”

Greenteeth moved away from the boy and walked towards a large four-wheel drive off road vehicle and was gone. The boy never saw him again.

This creature disgusted him and of course he never opened his gift, nor did he eat even one chocolate. He wanted to eat them they looked delicious. He was unsure not at all certain what was meant by unbroken net. He was bruised, disappointed and of course completely aware of his mistakes because everyone pointed them out to him.

“Your mistake was in opening the door in the first place”

“Your mistake was in letting them in”

“Your mistake was saying your father was at home”

Sometimes in the darkness he heard the voices very clearly, he could see their mouths moving and he could identify some of his accusers. He saw his Uncle a jealous horrible man who in secret lusted to have a son like this boy. Yet he treated him with contempt and showed a total disrespect, relished blaming him, loving it. Uncle’s mouth moved in slow motion. Deliberate in his sneering disgust. The boy had no idea that the man who loved his daughter’s very much would have traded all three of them for one like him. To be able to go to his work and brag about a boy like that, his Uncle did not love him. He loved the idea of him, this kick boxer, athlete, intellectual student who was polite manly and mannerly. He wanted to have a son so much that his life was clouded with falseness. Not just any son, one like him, one like his wife’s sister’s elder boy. He sometimes thought if only I had married the other sister, the younger one, the boy maker, I could have been his father. He would have been mine, all mine.

Still lying in the darkness the boy focussed to see his mother, she was there, she was silent she did not blame him - out loud. But did she blame him in her heart? He wondered and focussed closer even her teakettle smashing on the floor was silent in his memory. Did she blame him?

Every night he removed all five birthday cards read them silently then he kissed his granny’s signature and traced his name in her ancient old-fashioned wonderful scrawling handwriting. There in the dark with his brother sleeping he replaced the cards into the safety of his pillowslip. He stripped off his clothes and went into bed naked, once there he dressed himself in the pyjama uniform from the elite military academy. Starting as always with his socks; separating them, pulling each one into place stretching the nothingness of pretend material so that it would fit him comfortably and then his imaginary underwear. After that he pulled on his pyjama bottoms traced the red line down the outside of each leg, and coloured it in. They were now full military trousers. Time for footwear, his shoes how he loved to clean his shoes he even cleaned the soles of his shoes. The uppers of his shoes shone like jet, his laces tied with military precision the left loop matching the right, hanging in tandem. On his pyjama top, there were three coloured ribbons, each signifying prestige in athletics chess and debating. He fastened the brass buttons, tied and retied his tie, adjusted his hat. Readjusted his hat, posed in the imaginary mirror and walked proudly across his yard, boarded the tram offered a seat where appropriate and delivered many other random acts of kindness to strangers. People saw not just the boy not just the uniform but they saw the man in the making. Tears ebbed and flowed and dried on his face, a silent salty tide. A symphony of bad words rose in his head, the crescendo a list of vulgarities and he mouthed a thousand complicated, long-winded, questions. Slowly the orchestra in his brain would reduce in volume and always before he went to sleep he would end up with the same three words, one simple question. He whispered to the air.

“Why Papa? Why?”

Back to Texts