Bloodlines (4 page)

As I sit here writing, I am wearing an often washed, once sky blue oxford shirt, open at the throat, with sleeves rolled up to the elbow. Chino pants, khaki colored, with an old leather belt. Running sneakers too well used to run in. Not important, I suppose, but my wife, who is a journalist and knows such things, tells me that revealing these details makes the tale seem real and give it immediacy. Besides, she says, when we’re gone and our great grandchildren are reading this, they’ll want to know something about the ancestor who told the tale.

She makes this kind of statement in all seriousness, with her dark eyes wide, heavy eyebrows furrowed in concentration, and a somber expression on her face. Her Russian accent is still thick, and while some of her words sound as if they’ve been strained through honey, others seem to emanate from the back of her throat, somewhere between a sexual moan and a guttural growl. Her skin is fair and smooth, her wavy hair, brown with reddish highlights, is cut short and falls to cover the tops of her ears. The counterpoint between her appearance and her speech is like sugar and spice; sweet melody set off by the excitement of a drumbeat.

Dariya loved my father, perhaps in part because he made the decision when I was a child to leave the African continent for safer shores. The relationship they established was good for them both, and I appreciated it because it relieved some of the awkwardness that sometimes crept into the interaction between my father and me. As grown men, we had developed a kind of reticence with each other that was a natural outgrowth of the way he raised me. Once my father discharged his paternal responsibility, he disconnected. There was no animus, anger or bad feeling—we became independent of each other organically, in the way lion or bear cubs or other warm-blooded wild animals do. It was as if he recognized that at some level his job was done, that I no longer needed him, and that it was time for each of us to make our own lives.

Over the years, we met once a week for lunch at a little Greek restaurant near the apartment. When Dariya and I married, he occasionally came to our home for dinner, and Dariya, lacking parents or family in the US, adopted my father as hers. Although he cut me loose to live my own life, he recognized that others might need him. Dariya needed to be a caring daughter, and he had responded in kind. And once our children were born, I watched with amazement—and perhaps some resentment—as he turned into a warm, interested and loving grandfather.

When Sally was six, he sat at her little play table and had a tea party with her as if it were the most important event of his week, drinking pretend tea from tiny cups and taking little bites from an Oreo cookie as if were a serious French pastry. And then, not to be outdone, Greg, who was two years younger, insisted that Grandpa throw a ball with him. I watched my father throw a rubber ball to his four year old grandson with a gentleness and patience that I would have sworn were absent from my own childhood. As it turned out, very little of what I believed about my childhood was accurate.

My father’s life seemed to me uneventful, if not downright boring. For forty years he was a professor of engineering who only traveled outside Massachusetts when he was invited to lecture elsewhere. He had few visitors and fewer friends, and I knew virtually nothing about his past.

He was an only child; his mother died before I was born; his father, my grandfather Papa Mischa, died shortly after we left South Africa. His closest relatives had been his father’s two sisters and their families in Moscow, whom he had never met. Even the existence of family in Russia had come to light only when, as a teenager, I discovered him weeping over a letter he had received from Moscow, reporting on the death of one of his aunts.

For as long as I can remember, he was unwilling to discuss anything to do with the past, burying the details of my mother’s living and dying. Now, in middle age, I’ve made my peace with his secretive nature. No matter how curious I might once have been, I realized that unearthing his story, with all its bones and baggage, would have meant reliving much of the pain of his separation from my mother and the difficulty of the years that followed.

I wish that he had tried to share his story with me while he was alive. It would have been a fascinating journey, and I might have confronted him with questions whose answers I can now only imagine. But it was a journey we didn’t take together because he never raised it. And when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he didn’t share that with me, either, until his disease was so advanced that he could no longer deny it, and by then it was too late for any treatment.

I wept at my father’s grave, which surprised me; but what surprised me more was that the intensity of my grief continued for months.

Most of the issues I had as a child and as a teenager had been resolved years earlier, and I accepted anything that remained unresolved as the limitations that were a part of every relationship between adult children and their parents. Or so I thought. But my response following his death was an indication that much between us had remained unresolved, and my grief was made up of many strands. I felt that he had died, as did my mother, leaving me alone; and, like her, he left unanswered questions in his wake.

The truth is that he did want to share his story with me, but I could never have imagined why.

Shortly before he died, he told Dariya that he had left a bulging file in a drawer in his desk. He wanted to make sure that after his death, I would sit down and go through the folder, and she assured him that she would make it happen.

In the folder were several yellow, lined pads covered with notes. There were photographs and newspaper clippings, and a carefully wrapped pile of old letters. And there was the manuscript, in three parts. The first was neatly formatted and printed; the middle, also printed but unedited, must have been written when he was still well, but feeling the pressure of time. Then there was the final section, written in bed with his laptop on his knees, which he had left in the file folder on a flash-drive.

I was surprised by the quantity and variety of what he had left me, but I was not yet ready for it. I needed time to settle the estate, go through his personal effects, give his clothes to charity, and sell his condo. And I needed time to grieve.

Several weeks after my father’s death, before I had begun trying to read the file again, I answered the phone to an unfamiliar voice that addressed me as if we were lifelong friends. It was obviously a long-distance call, but I could make out a voice that was remarkably slow and clear, the English strongly accented in a way that was unfamiliar to me. It was the South African accent I was accustomed to, with the addition of something far more exotic.

“Hello. Do I have the honor of addressing Steven Green?”

“Yes, this is Steven. Who am I speaking to?”

“I’m so glad to hear your voice, Steven.” The voice was deep, and slow, and it contained a hint of warmth and humor, almost a teasing quality. “Finally. You may not yet know of me, but my name is Mandla. Mandla Mkhize. I am called Khabazela by my friends. There was a time—not an easy time—when your parents and I knew each other well, and we worked together for the same cause. I’m so sorry to hear about your father. I would have liked to see him again.”

“You knew my mother?” I asked.

“It is a complicated story,” he said, “Which I hope to one day share with you.” There was a long pause. “Yes, I knew her.”

“I’m afraid my father never mentioned your name to me. How can I help you?”

“I think it’s more about how I can help you.” He paused. “Tell me, Steven,” he said warmly, “how are you?” His voice was deep, and there was gentleness and knowing in his tone that put a lump in my throat. I was silent a long time, but he waited patiently.

“I was very sad to hear of your father’s death. I had hoped to put the past behind us and to reconcile with Lenny, but he has preempted me.” He paused. “I will have to reconcile without him. But we South Africans have become used to asking forgiveness from—and forgiving—those who are no longer among us.”

“Yes,” I said. I had no idea what he was talking about. “Did you and my father quarrel?”

He didn’t answer my question, but after a moment he continued, his voice calm and even.

“I have known of you always, Steven, while you have just discovered my existence. I have hoped for many years that we would have occasion to speak. We will meet soon, I am sure, and I have no doubt that we will have much to say to each other. I am eager to see you again.”

He was a stranger, yet he spoke to me with warmth and even affection, as if we had some deep and meaningful connection. I didn’t understand it, but I felt as if we had known each other forever. I had no way of responding to his words, and I was silent.

“Your father told you nothing about me,” he said. It was as much a question as it was a statement.

“My father never spoke about his life before we left South Africa,” I said. “But I’ve discovered that at the end he apparently had a change of heart, and he spent the last months of his life writing a document for me to read.”

“And has this document raised any issues that you might want to discuss?”

“I’ve been too busy concluding his affairs to read it yet,” I said, “But what makes you think there would be issues I want to discuss with you?”

In answer he chuckled deeply.

“Please don’t take offense at my laughter,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for your questions for decades—but I’m laughing because they reveal so clearly that you have not yet read your father’s history. Some things will be resolved as you read, and when we meet, I will be happy to answer any that are not.”

“I can’t imagine why you’re so sure that our paths will cross,” I said, “although I’d be happy to meet with you. Perhaps you can tell me about my mother—my father never spoke about her. And if you have any insights into him, I’d be interested in those, too.” I paused. “My father didn’t have many friends. To be honest, I’m a little surprised to hear from you.”

He chuckled again. “I thank you for the invitation, if that is what it was. But it is not as simple as getting together to drink coffee—I live in Soweto, just outside Johannesburg.” When he continued, his voice took on a serious tone. “At this precise moment, you have no interest at all in meeting me. But that will change. All I ask of you, Steven, is that you suspend judgment until you finish reading what he left you. And when you have finished reading, I invite you to call me.”