The Letter Opener

by Kyo Maclear

  Lesson #1: The Perils of Wayward Desire

  Lesson #2: Sodomy as Treason

  The boys learned their lessons quickly. Years before their first sexual experiments, they understood that to be gay was to be morally deficient—and horribly treated.

  The lesson was so powerful that the first time Andrei was called a faggot, he experienced a surge of revulsion. A student he hardly knew—they had been on the same swim team as children—punctuated the epithet by spitting on Andrei’s desk on his way out of the class. A white bubbly patch stared back at him like a wrathful eye. Yet it was not that which wrenched his stomach. Disgust was wiped away with his handkerchief, but what remained was a feeling of selfloathing. He fought against it, yet he could feel the hatred entering his heart, lodging there.

  Wherever he went, he sensed people staring, gangs of prying eyes and busy minds that concocted fantasies about his depravity. The village always seethed with gossip of some kind or other, but now he was the cause célèbre, and in his dreams his persecutors were constantly waiting in ambush.

  The first, tentative winds of change were beginning to blow through the cities and towns of Romania. One could hear rumbles of dissatisfaction by eavesdropping by the market stalls, in the factories, on the street. It was obvious that the country was overwrought and angry, and in this climate, fearful of authority despite the poverty and corruption, people turned on one another.

  The first rumour was tame. That Andrei had brought Nicolae gifts: a bag of Hungarian sweets, a bottle of homemade plum brandy.

  But they became more sinister as the fall of 1983 wore on:

  That Nicolae collected postcards of naked boys…

  That the two friends were peddling contraband condoms…

  That they carried a disease…

  Andrei played the role of a disgraced man, though it was not entirely an act. He kept silent around strangers. He was not proud of himself for bending to the humiliation. A braver man would have extended his arms and pushed all obstacles aside. A bolder man would have rejected the fear that had overtaken the town—crackling fear that ignited into open cruelty at the slightest inducement.

  But Andrei was not a brave or bold man. At least not in his own estimation. The last thing he wanted was to call more attention to himself. After some months of this, as winter came, he sought to distract attention by avoiding Nicolae in public—not realizing it was too late. By now his love for Nicolae adhered to him as totally as his own skin. It was impossible to shed.

  Then rumour had it that the Securitate was coming for them.

  Nicolae was summoned for a series of interrogations in late February of 1984. They didn’t meet again until several weeks later. During those lonely weeks, whenever Andrei saw Nicolae in class or on the street, his lover was barely recognizable. He had the appearance of a man who had just emerged from years of darkness into an overlit world. The impression he gave up close was even more disconcerting. He had lost so much weight that his clothes now sagged loosely on his thin frame. But more disturbing were Nicolae’s eyes. They wouldn’t rest: they twitched nervously around his chalk white face as if tracking an enemy. Andrei took on Nicolae’s torment as well, blaming himself for not being more protective.

  The next time they made love was joyless. It was sex for consolation, not pleasure. Andrei touched Nicolae tentatively, as though Nicolae’s pale body were lined with tiny bruises and contusions that required delicate handling. He held back tears as Nicolae moulded himself child-like against him. Every rustle of wind sent them into high alert.

  Andrei leaned nearer, put his face into Nicolae’s neck. “They’ll soon tire of us, you’ll see. Just hang on,” he whispered. “Tomorrow, in a week, in a month…life will get easier.”

  They drew up a wish list full of sumptuous and mundane things: an apartment of their own, a refrigerator, a stereo, delicious cakes and tender cuts of fresh meat.

  They began to speak in a language of glowing prospects, open dreams, luminous possibilities—the language of the persecuted and oppressed, for whom happiness denied defines their lives. Tomorrow’s people.

  And so time passed for them, fed by imagination.

  Eighteen

  I treasure the photograph taken of me and my mother a year ago. Though I have always preferred stealth shots to posed portraits, I have come to see that life is too short to wait for candid moments. My criteria for album-worthiness has relaxed considerably with my mother’s illness. I now take what I can get (her clear eyes, her engaged grin) and do not dwell on imperfections (in this case a beige blur in the corner, where Roy Ishii’s finger accidentally covered the shutter).

  I remember that the basement of Grace Church, which provided temporary shelter to the evacuated residents of Sakura, was simple and uncluttered. The furniture, what little there was of it, was clean and utilitarian. The walls were white. Near where my mother sat there was a tall bookcase, filled with Christian books. As we waited to hear what arrangements were being made for the night, I stood up to browse through them. Among a row of dark blue Bibles was a book titled Object Lessons for Young People’s Worship. The cover showed Christ surrounded by small children. I opened it to the first page.

  Don’t forget: a good object lesson is divine. There’s no better way to impart a lasting moral lesson. Just remember Jesus with the mustard seed or Jesus with the fish and loaves and follow his example with interactive, point-making object lessons designed for young worshippers.

  The book contained fifty-two object lessons, one for every week of the year, based on texts from every book in the New Testament. I scanned the contents list—eggs, umbrella, lightbulb, pencil, et cetera—and randomly flipped to a page near the middle of the book.

  T-shirt Label Lesson

  Props: a T-shirt, scissors

  (Remove label while explaining to the children)

  Here is a label that lets us know what kind of T-shirt we have purchased. It tells us where it was made, what it was made from. On occasion, you may find that people place labels on those around them. They may label people with names like dumb, dirty or criminal. Such name-calling has no place among those who follow the light of the Lord, our Saviour…

  As I stood by the bookcase, I glanced over at my mother. She looked rumpled and tired. Pieces of hair kept falling out of her bun. Her lips were chapped and pale. I went to get her another orange drink box and left her with the book. When I returned, it was still closed in her lap.

  My mother didn’t need the book. She had her own object lessons—non-religious, perhaps, but no less wise, if she could articulate them:

  There is a comfort and constancy in objects. If you buy a toaster oven, you know you won’t go down to the kitchen the next morning and find it has transformed itself into a blender.

  Collecting objects teaches patience and perseverance. A collection is a step-by-step endeavour.

  Objects can be multi-seasonal. An umbrella will keep the sun off when you’re hot and keep you dry when it rains.

  Objects are discrete. It is usually possible to tell where one thing ends and another begins.

  Half an hour later, the book was back on its shelf and I was sitting cross-legged in a chair, looking at my mother, who was removing her necklaces one by one. Someone had recently given Roy Ishii a new camera and he was taking the opportunity to test it out. He walked by, then stopped and crouched.

  “How about a picture,” he said, squinting one eye and raising the camera to the other one.

  I uncrossed my legs. My mother raised her index finger, gesturing for him to wait a moment, and proceeded to replace the necklaces. She composed herself slowly, forming her picture face. I noticed that Roy’s thighs had begun to tremble from squatting.

  “Say ‘chee-zu,’” Roy said.

  I reached up to fix the collar of my shirt.

  The shutter clicked.

  “Picture perfect. You both look lovely,” he said, standing, ready to move on to his next subjects.

  As I watche
d other people put on their picture faces, I wondered what our pose had conveyed. How easy it would be to adjust the mood. I tried to imagine a different picture—one with our heads touching, or my arm around her shoulder, or her face turned toward mine—but the images didn’t cohere.

  Andrei had only two photographs of himself and Nicolae together. Back in Romania, they had been taped to the inside of his closet door. Once they made the decision to escape, he had taken them down and set them aside, with the hope of preserving them for the journey. In the first picture, they are standing in a garden. Andrei is grinning widely at Nicolae, his head turned in profile, as if unaware of the photographer (Andrei’s mother). The second one is an overexposed photo taken on a breezy summer day. They are standing shoulder to shoulder in the grass, both of them smiling up at a camera held in Nicolae’s outstretched hand. Their hair, lifted by the wind, covers the sun, creating a blurry halo of light above their heads.

  I knew this second photograph well. The photos did end up travelling with Andrei. Taped to his leg in a waterproof pouch, they survived his swim across the oily Bosporus and the weeks he spent in Turkey, miraculously arriving in Canada with very little damage—just a few folded corners and a bit of buckling easily corrected by an iron. That first afternoon that I visited Andrei’s apartment, he retrieved the second photo from his desk. His eyes began to moisten as he held it out for me to see. He blinked back tears.

  “It says something different now,” he said, pointing to the light above Nicolae’s head. A vision of afterlife. Nicolae, an angel in heaven.

  After Andrei disappeared, I found myself remembering that picture. I hoped I would see it again; perhaps Andrei had left it in his apartment. I wanted a chance to pore over it for clues, any sign of their disengagement. In photos of my parents before their separation, the signs are there: the distance between their bodies, their coaxed smiles, the awkward bend of an arm placed around a shoulder. In the way they look distracted, dutiful, bored, I know they are already halfway gone. If one looks carefully at a photograph, there is usually some intimation of the future.

  Andrei and Nicolae. Nicolae and Andrei. How fragile the bonds of intimacy if not daily renewed. What, in the end, did Andrei retain of his friend and former lover beyond a couple of photographs?

  By the time Andrei reached Canada, many new images crowded out his memory of Nicolae. Nicolae’s presence needed to be reinvigorated. Nurtured and revived. Andrei began telling me things about him, personal details as well as extraneous asides that surprised me. How Nicolae liked to drink but always excused himself before he became too sloppy or sentimental. How he disliked most sports but enjoyed walking, preferred night over day, was fascinated by the idea of faith but detested religion. How he collected vintage postcards but showed no interest in photographs of places or people he knew. He told me about Nicolae’s love of chess and his inability not to gloat when he won. How Nicolae always signed his letters with a cartoon rather than his name.

  One afternoon when Andrei and I were alone in the kitchen at work sharing lunch, I decided to ask a question that had been weighing on my mind. It had occurred to me that I was the only one who knew about Nicolae and Andrei and their relationship. If others knew, I thought, perhaps I would feel less accountable, less responsible. I feared that I was not a wise enough confidante. Maybe I was seeking reassurance.

  I asked, “Have you shared this with anyone else? Am I the only person you’ve told about Nicolae?”

  For a moment, Andrei said nothing. He ran a hand over his bristly jaw. Then he smiled uncomfortably. He finally answered, his voice subdued.

  “I told my fiancée.”

  THREE MONTHS BEFORE HIS escape from Romania, Andrei was betrothed to a woman from his village. It took everyone by surprise. No one expected it.

  It was his brother Eli’s idea.

  One evening shortly after Nicolae had been summoned by the Securitate, Andrei’s brother slipped into his room. Andrei was lying on his mattress drawing in his sketchbook, making tiny notes in the margin. Eli stood by the bed and looked at his brother intently.

  “I’m going to put this as bluntly as possible because we’re brothers and I don’t think it will help matters to be vague or polite about it.” He sat down on the bed. “Everyone’s talking about you and Nicolae.”

  Andrei kept sketching, pressing harder, carving the page with his pencil. Eli continued.

  “I’ve known you two were very close, but now everyone else seems to know. Can’t you be more careful?” His voice was direct but kind.

  Warmed by his brother’s tone, Andrei closed his sketchbook and looked up. “I wish they’d just leave us alone. What harm do we do anybody? It feels like we’re being hunted.”

  “That’s just it. You are being hunted. It’s time to create a diversion,” Eli said.

  “But how?”

  “Stop acting like a target. I promise in a few months they’ll forget about you. You just need to fit in a bit more.”

  “Just tell me, how?”

  Eli considered Andrei for a moment. “Listen. There is a girl I know…”

  When he had finished telling Andrei about Ileana, he touched him lightly on the arm. “Don’t worry, we’ll turn things around. You’ll see.”

  The significance of what Eli was proposing didn’t sink in right away. When it began to settle in Andrei’s mind, he was stunned that the solution to his problems could be so straightforward, so ordinary: a very open courtship could redeem the most fallen of men in the mind of the village. He would be reinstated—a reformed citizen, a born-again patriot.

  Five days after Eli’s visit, Andrei agreed to meet Ileana.

  She was the eldest daughter of a music teacher who played the bassoon with the Baia Mare symphonic orchestra. Ileana had inherited his sense of rhythm and ear for music. When she was only nine, she had shown an aptitude and intensity for swing guitar that had people open-mouthed with delight. At eighteen, however, her joyous enthusiasm elicited only sneers of disapproval. Whereas before people had seen a charming prodigy, now they saw a boyish young woman with a guitar perched across her splayed trouser-clad legs (“Like a whore!”), a grimace of concentration distorting her otherwise pleasant face (“So mannish!”).

  In truth, Ileana’s face was not altogether pleasant. At least not by the usual standards. She had been born with a disfigurement. Where her lower lip relaxed into an attractive pout, the upper lip bore a severe cleft. This birth defect, however, served to rid Ileana of any pretensions of beauty, liberating her from the self-scrutiny that afflicted many of the village girls. Unlike other women her age, who were conditioned to watch themselves being watched as they walked down the street, Ileana paid little regard to her own appearance. She showed not the slightest trace of self-consciousness or, for that matter, self-doubt. Her only nod to femininity, the product of negligence rather than vanity, was a thick brush of black hair that fell to her waist on the rare occasions when it was untied.

  Unlike Jenica, her voluptuous younger sister, Ileana was thin. Not just her ankles and wrists, but her hips, her chest, her shoulders. “You’ve got no bum,” her father would say unhelpfully, adding that men liked padding on a woman. Every time she prepared to sit down at the dinner table, he would rush over with a cushion and pretend that he was trying to save the chairs from being scuffed by her bony backside.

  Ileana was punished for her self-reliance and for not caring for her looks. By the age of twenty, she had gained a reputation as a garçon manqué who dressed like a factory boy and played music like a gypsy. She was an easy target for disdainful remarks that threatened to tar the entire family. Magyars! Papists! Hebrew-lovers! Even strangers knew of the denunciations, prompting a family friend to suggest a remedy: Ileana should get married as soon as possible. Given so much hysteria, nothing less than a public wedding would bring acceptance. A marriageable woman who chose to remain alone only courted trouble. Ileana’s family took it upon themselves to find a husband for her. They made the annou
ncement one evening over dinner.

  The idea of giving up her freedom flooded Ileana with panic. The prospect of an arranged marriage contradicted everything she believed about independence and choice. Yet she assumed her fate calmly, going along with her parents’ wishes in a dissociated manner, resolving to make the best of the situation for the sake of her family.

  It was around this time that Andrei stepped into the picture.

  Two outcasts: a derided tomboy and a scandalized homosexual. Their destiny was a marriage of wile and utility. With Andrei, Ileana would find a freedom she could never have with another man. With Ileana, Andrei could erase the infamy associated with his recent past.

  Andrei was sure Nicolae would not regard this new arrangement as infidelity. He convinced himself that Ileana’s presence could only offer benefits. Under cover of hollow matrimony, his stolen moments with Nicolae could be fuller and more frequent.

  Andrei and Ileana went walking every night for two weeks. They wandered around and around the town square, arm in arm, at a slow, easy pace. They were careful to be seen. They both wanted witnesses. In the early evenings they sat on the stoop of Ileana’s house. Whenever they saw a curtain shift across the street, they squashed up close like a couple caught in a private moment. They flaunted their courtship with perverse relish, exchanging bouquets of flowers, small gifts and “love” letters. They enjoyed the conspiracy, the satisfaction of a wellplotted deception.