“You’re so eager for everything America has to offer, but there are other… considerations,” he said. “I was hoping to have this conversation when you’re a little older, but it seems I’ve run out of time.”
Father paused. He looked as though he was about to dive into a cold pool.
“Our family has collected books for generations.” Father nodded at the overloaded shelves along the wall. “We are driven to it from a young age and dedicate our lives to obtaining and reading the best thoughts mankind has put down on paper. And as our collections grow, so does the peace and prosperity in whatever shtetl or town our family makes its home at the time.
“I know this may be difficult for you to believe in this age of science and logic, but it’s true. Our neighbors would always benefit, even in the worst of times, even during the pogroms, and the revolution, and the Great War. People living near our home would always fare better, the worst of conflicts and strife passing them by. The bigger the book collection, the larger physical area it seems to protect.”
Father paused, as if waiting for me to protest, to refute his superstitions. I said nothing and he smiled meekly.
“Call it magic or luck or a blessing, but it has worked for over a hundred years. I am able to keep the people of Belgorod safe, simply by doing what I love. But I shudder to think what might happen to them if we pack up and leave.”
I thought hard about the implications. It’s very easy to accept the idea that you’re somehow exceptional, at that age. What child doesn’t yearn for a superpower, or a door to Narnia, or some other confirmation that he’s extraordinary? But the idea of Father, so ordinary and familiar, being the one who’s special, acting as some sort of a wizard who protects his domain, that was far more difficult to process.
I was a quiet, bookish child, with few close friends and relatively little attachment to my homeland. Beginning a new life somewhere different and far away appealed far more than carrying on Father’s legacy of caring for people who didn’t care all that much about us.
“You don’t owe them a thing,” I said. “What have the townspeople done for you in return? We don’t have a lot of money, or respect. We don’t even have a car.”
“We may not be wealthy, or famous, but you can see for yourself that life in our town is fine. It’s not anything like what mom portrays it to be. And we do have a bit more money now that other engineers from the office and I have formed a cooperative. We can buy a car, and a VCR player, if we stay. Wouldn’t that be good?”
But my mind was already made up. I couldn’t wait to go to the land of Twain and Asimov and O. Henry.
“Come on, Dad,” I laughed. “Everyone in America has those things.”
We traveled to Moscow by train. Mother was right—things were pretty bad out there, compared to our quiet, civilized town. Even the capital itself appeared worn down by the winds of change.
My mother spent the entire trip preparing us for the interview. We had to make our case for refugee status, talk about how much we felt persecuted for being Jewish in Russia. Her network of friends and contacts suggested that mentioning the casual anti-Semitism of the Soviet system wasn’t enough. Specific examples were needed. I was coached to talk about getting my nose broken in a fight in first grade, and how the other kid picked on me because of my ethnicity.
Father grumbled at the long list of slights, real and perceived, but didn’t refuse to cooperate.
The interview was brief and mundane, almost a letdown after all the nervous anticipation. A bored woman who spoke Russian with a strange accent met with us for all of five minutes. Our faces must’ve been a blur, just one among the long line of families with interchangeable stories and dreams, seeking her permission to enter the Promised Land.
I dutifully recounted the time a bully punched me in the face. Did he really pick on me because I wasn’t Russian? Mother’s reasoning was persuasive but I wondered if the embassy official could see doubt and discomfort in my father’s eyes as I stumbled through the account of how it happened.
When his turn came, Father spoke of being held back at work, of Russian engineers promoted ahead of him, and of unkind words casually spoken at the office when his co-workers thought he couldn’t hear. Whatever reservations he had about moving to America, he didn’t try to sabotage the interview. And although he never complained about such things at home, it was clear to me that he was telling the truth.
We celebrated getting approved with a visit to the country’s first McDonald’s restaurant. There was a forty-five minute wait to get in, but we braved the long line in order to sample the exotic tastes of our future homeland.
Divesting a lifetime’s worth of possessions wasn’t easy. We sold some stuff, and gave away a lot more to friends and family. Books were among the last things to go.
At least a dozen people were coming in every day, and most of them left with large stacks of books. The empty gaps on our shelves were disquieting, even more so than the impending journey overseas. Father did his best to keep up a cheerful charade but whenever someone would leave, hefting a duffle bag full of Pushkin and Bulgakov, I could see the sort of sadness in his eyes one might experience when saying goodbye to their child.
Life in our town was getting significantly worse. Crime rates skyrocketed, people lost jobs, and prices of everything climbed relentlessly, surging upward nearly every other day. Father blamed himself and the diminishing book collection for these troubles, but news reports confirmed that all of Russia was experiencing similar upheaval.
I expected an “I told you so” from my always outspoken mother, but she only hugged Father tight whenever his gaze would linger too long on the empty bookshelves.
The trip across the ocean was almost a blur. I slept for most of the ten-hour-long flight aboard the Pan Am jet.
We arrived in New York City with nothing except several hundred dollars and a few suitcases full of clothes. It was less than a month before the August Coup and tanks rolling down the streets of Moscow. The Soviet Union was formally dissolved four months later.
My father cried on my thirteenth birthday.
We had been living in New York for almost a year then. Mother, who already spoke almost-passable English from studying it in Russia, was adjusting well. I was picking the language up quickly via a steady diet of action movies and afternoon cartoons. The new language did not come easily to Father, though. He found a menial job to support us while Mother undertook a computer programming course, but he wasn’t happy. Mother did her best to cheer him up but privately shared with me her fears that he was slowly sliding toward depression.
He scraped together some cash and bought me a beautiful volume of plays by Chekhov at a Russian bookstore in Brighton Beach.
“Happy birthday,” he said. “I remember how you told me you wanted to read these plays, not long before we left Belgorod.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll read them sometime.”
“Sometime?” Father frowned.
“I’ve decided not to read anything in Russian for now,” I said. “It’s to give me the extra time and incentive to learn English better instead. But it’s not forever. One day, when I’m bilingual, I’ll tackle Chekhov and Dostoyevsky and anything else I wasn’t old enough to enjoy in Russia.”
This was the first time I ever saw him break down and cry.
“It’ll be all right, Dad,” I told him, trying to offer some awkward comfort. “You’ll get used to this new life. We all will.”
“It’s not me,” he said, wiping his eyes with a sleeve. “By uprooting you and bringing you here, your mother and I have robbed you of your legacy.”
Not knowing what to say, I gave him a hug, brief but firm.
“Back in Belgorod,” he said, “we added a little bit of good into the world simply by collecting and reading great books. And now I broke up my collection and transplanted you here, away from a nice selection of Russian books and away from where you could do the most good for those around you.”
/> He trailed off, not crying again, but staring past me, no doubt dwelling on things lost.
“Dad,” I spoke quietly. He focused on me and I continued: “Who says they have to be in Russian?”
I took him by the hand and walked to my room, where a cardboard box housed the meager beginnings of my collection.
I showed my father a dozen well-worn paperbacks. Books by Heinlein and Hemingway, and authors I’d never heard of but couldn’t wait to try, bought for a quarter each at yard sales and Salvation Army stores.
“I can’t read them yet,” I told him. “But my English is getting better every day, and it won’t be long now.”
My father stared at the books, his fingers running gently along their cracked spines.
“I saved a little more money,” he finally said, “for your birthday. We should go and buy you a bookcase.”
We came from the country that no longer exists, on an airline that is now defunct. There’s no going back. Immigrants always make sacrifices in exchange for a chance at a better life, and some give up more than others. But I knew things were going to be OK. For the first time in months my father’s face was lit by a genuine smile.
This story originally appeared in Daily Science Fiction.
The opening line is a mini-homage to Ken Liu’s “The Paper Menagerie,” which does a brilliant job exploring some of the same themes. If you haven’t read it yet, put this book down, google it, and read it immediately. I’ll wait.
This is, by far, the most personal story I’ve written. My family emigrated from the former Soviet Union, just like the protagonist’s did. I was a couple of years older than the narrator and lived in a city rather than a small town, but many of the scenes (the US embassy, the father attempting to convince his son to stay) took place almost exactly as written in this story. And although the book magic I experienced as a child wasn’t literal, I dedicate this story to my late father, Yefim Shvartsman, and thank him for nurturing my lifelong love of reading.
THE EPISTOLARY HISTORY
#1
1/9/12
Hey Cat,
We finally did it! The time machine works. The blokes are talking about trying to sell it to some big technology company, but I have a better idea.
A quick and easy trip to grand-grand-grandpa Oskar’s machine shop in 1890 Weimar, a couple of sketches and a sample left on his desk, and presto: Oskar invents duct tape and builds a fortune in Germany; enough of it gets passed on to my branch of the family a century later that we don’t need any vulture capitalists grabbing the lion’s share of the time-travel tech profits. Besides, with a little one on the way we can use the extra dough.
So I’m e-mailing to let you know that I’m staying at Oxford to work on this tonight and might miss dinner. On the bright side, if things work out how I expect them to, we’ll be dining on caviar instead of pizza.
#2
September 01, 2012
My Dear Cathy,
Yesterday was the happiest day of my life. I finally perfected my invention, but the news of your pregnancy is a miracle that outshines any achievements of mere science.
I couldn’t sleep last night, thinking of the world our son or daughter will be born into. England ravaged by seventy years of total war and the constant Nazi air raids — it’s not the sort of place in which I want them to spend their childhood.
With a working prototype of the time machine in hand, I have both the means and the moral responsibility to fix the mistakes of the past. I’m going to travel back to 1930, and kill Hitler.
If all goes well, you’ll wake up and read this note in a far better world.
#3
Cентябрь 01, 2012
Dear Katya,
My comrades at the Oxford Universitet and I have finally perfected the device. We’re scheduled to present Project “Machina Vremeny” to the Politburo in the morning.
When you shared the great news last night, I couldn’t sleep, thinking of the world our children will be born into. I can’t stand the thought of them living in constant fear of nuclear annihilation that is hanging over all the free people of Socialist Europe.
I possess the means and the moral authority to prevent seventy years of the Cold War. I’m going to travel back to 1930 and kill Roosevelt.
If all goes well, you’ll wake up and read this note in the better world, one where communism has already been achieved.
#7
First day of September in the year of our Lord two thousand and twelve
Dearest Catherine,
I received your kind letter a few days since and am dreadfully sorry that the fertility infusions are not yet working. I direct this letter to you in hope that my own fortuitous developments shall cheer your heart and improve your disposition.
The Chronomat device I’ve endeavoured to design is finally complete. My lifelong dream of single-handedly defending Her Majesty’s Empire against those belligerent ruffians from the American colonies is within my grasp. Two centuries of combating the rebels have sapped our resources and surely delayed technological process. By God, we don’t even yet have the steam-powered flying carriage, the invention of which the fictioneers of old have predicted to occur back in the 1970s.
The world would have been a better place had the civilized man never ventured into the Americas, and thence I shall presently activate the Chronomat and use it to prevent Mr. Columbus from undertaking his journey.
By the time this letter reaches you at the clinic, we shall all be living in a better tomorrow.
#14
Haab: 12 Mol. Tzolkin: 10 Muluc
Dear Diary,
Once again, I failed to meet a suitable partner today.
I dragged myself to the drinking hall, but there were few single women there, and none of them interested in my advances. Instead, I found myself drinking alone and listening to a pair of inebriated Maya who were apparently anxious about an impending end of the world.
Their main argument seemed to be that the ancient Christian calendar extended no further than 2012. As if the priests of an extinct Eurasian cult possessed the scientific knowledge to predict some future catastrophe. Absurd!
I went home, alone. I couldn’t sleep, lying in bed and imagining what it might be like to invent the means of changing the past. How different would our world be if the Mayan explorers had never arrived at the shores of Europe all those centuries ago? What sort of culture and science could the pale-faced tribes of this continent have developed if they weren’t wiped out or subjugated by the superior Western civilization?
We’ll never know. Traveling back in time is a silly fantasy I conceived of only due to imbibing too much balché yesterday evening.
I shall purge such thoughts from my mind, bathe, rest, and prepare myself. Tomorrow I shall go out and try again. Somewhere out there is a woman who is destined to be my soul mate. I haven’t met her yet, but I remain an optimist.
This story originally appeared in Nature.
Time travel is sure fun to play with. Like so many of my flash stories, this combines elements of actual history, humor, and just a touch of darkness. This story was inspired, in part, by Desmond Warzel’s excellent “Wikihistory.”
A SHARD GLOWS IN BROOKLYN
One by one, I set off car alarms.
I walked along the curb and methodically gave each parked car a gentle kick, just hard enough to trigger the siren. Behind me, a dozen violated vehicles already blared out of tune.
The prospect hung back, sullen and quiet. He was having a tough week, and my erratic behavior wasn’t helping his mood any. With each siren adding its voice to the cacophony, the prospect got a little twitchier. To his credit, he hadn’t cut and run. Yet.
“Philippine Energy Beetles are nasty critters,” I lectured him as we walked, straining to be heard over the noise. “They nest by the power lines and feed off the electricity. Those flickering lights the power company says are caused by faulty wiring are often caused by an infestation.”
&nb
sp; Having finished with the cars, I fumbled with the lock on the front door of a vacant house.
“This place is lousy with beetles,” I explained. “We’re gonna have to fumigate.”
“That’s just great,” said the prospect. “I can’t stand bugs. Now you tell me the Watch is in the exterminator business? This couldn’t possibly get any worse.”
But, of course, it could. He hadn’t seen the beetles up close yet. The prospect’s problem with insects was part of the reason I had brought him to this place. I needed to know, when push came to shove, that he’d be able to handle himself. I needed him to overcome whatever phobias and preconceived notions he’d been living with, before he learned about any of the really bad things that are out there.
“Relax,” I told him. “There’s some good news. These critters hate loud noise.”
The lock finally surrendered to my ministrations and the door was forced open by the pressure from the inside. Hundreds of fully grown beetles burst out of the house. Each of them was two to three feet long and stood at least a foot tall. The entire swarm rushed past us and toward the sewer, trying to get as far away from the roar of the sirens as they could. The prospect turned white as a sheet, but he didn’t run. This one just might be a keeper.
“They are . . .” the prospect gulped, “enormous.”
“This is New York,” I told him. “We don’t sweat the small stuff. You should see the size of the troll under the Verrazano Bridge. Come on.” I took a careful step inside.
“Shouldn’t we go after them?” the prospect called after me. “That brood will infest half the city.”
“The beetles we’ve scared off can’t reproduce on their own and won’t last a week outside of the nest,” I said while examining the foyer. “The root of the problem is in here.”The house was a mess — foul smelling and covered with greenish goo. Dozens of semi-translucent eggs, each the size of a golf ball, hung from the walls and ceiling like ornaments, cradled in the slime. You could almost see the larva gestating inside.
Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma and Other Stories Page 5
