The Invention of Exile (3 page)

Austin left the Hitchcock Company and made his way through the rows of factories that dotted the shoreline. He crossed the railroad tracks into the residential neighborhoods, with their white sidewalks and storefronts of frosted glass. Here and there he could see lights on in the apartment buildings.

He was late. He could make out the others—a blurred image through the foggy windows of the church basement, all seated around octagonal tables or leaning against walls. Austin's eyes were on his step, the tip of his leather boot caught the light so that he could see the water droplets, the granules of slush forming like a string of beads. His footsteps were soft on the snow-covered cement stairs that led into the basement. The room was lit low, the green sconces lining the perimeter offered the only feeble light. The heat from the radiators and corner fire embraced him. There was dampness too. Mold mixed with tea leaves. A trace of incense, pine resin, and frankincense. Someone was speaking into a microphone.

“Kuchinsky, Marov, Matushko,” the secretary read off the names, “Michailoff, Nikitin, Petrenko, Romanovich, Saloff, Svezda, Vinogradov, Vorinin, Voronkov—”

They were a sorry bunch, the aliens (that's what they'd been called) with their Russian language, all hard angles and swallowed vowels. He could see the others, their eyes sunken and gray, purple around the rims. Bruised. Some had gashes above the eye, on the brow, the bridge of the nose, blood turning black as it dried, rising over an eyebrow, along a jawline.

They were not the only ones, though he didn't know it at the time, lined up as he was, forbidden to talk. He was in the private recesses of the mind, panicked and uncertain. But across the city and in other towns along the eastern seaboard, even the cities of the plains and far out west to places he'd never go, the police squads had come for them—the Reds. Men in overcoats, felt hats. Men in police uniforms with their clubs and blackjacks. Men in black or brown suits, men doused in bureaucracy, an officious air as if ordained. They'd raided, entered, and destroyed; rounded up men in church basements, tore into social clubs' back rooms and mutual aid societies' meeting halls. They broke up New Year's Eve dances in school gyms, dances where wives in wool skirts, velvet headbands, brooches, encouraged husbands in the fox-trot—the efforts of immigrants. They stole into private parties, gatherings in boardinghouses, three to the wall. Dinner parties.

He didn't know all this yet. He had arrived late to the Russian Social Club meeting. And then the sound. It was like the sound of a thousand raindrops, like the batting wings of a startled flock. Austin had seen them first though—in the already snow-filled streets, through the still falling snow, the black figure was gliding. It was an image he was used to seeing. A sleigh. Snow. He did not stop to wonder at the incongruity; in America, grown men did not glide through the streets at night on a sleigh. That was a sight he was accustomed to seeing in Russia, not here. And then he saw the men dismount, a line of them running, their bodies held tight and low to the ground. The rush of boots on the stairs, like a crashing wave. They had filled the room. These men in uniforms, some in overcoats and felt hats.

“What is this?”

“No one move!”

“What is going on here?!”

“Quiet! You are under arrest.”

“What? There is a mistake!”

“You are under arrest for alien activities against the United States government.”

“We have no activities against this country.” A policeman struck the shouting man with his club. The man clutched his shoulder, falling to the ground. Chaos erupted.

“Bolshevik pigs!”

“Please. Where is your reason?”

“Shut up, if you know what's good for you.”

The sound of skin on skin was unmistakable. A blackjack to forehead, to backbone. Amid the shadows cast by the low green lights, within the staggered jumble of coats, arms, Austin could make out the coal black of guns.

The blow was hard, fast. He was on the floor. He could taste the metallic flavor of his own blood. He'd bit his tongue. Soon he was hoisted up with the others, all shackled now, wrists, ankles. A policeman led them up the cement stairs, every once in a while came another blow from a club, a blackjack. Sometimes too the firm press of a pistol. The shackles made it impossible to climb the stairs. They had to hop. Humiliation on a dark night.

 • • • 

H
ABEA
S CORPUS
.
To produce
the body, to present the body. To draw the body out of thin air, to produce it bruised and broken. His body was not presented. His body was in a cold, damp cell of a deep January winter.

Later, he would remember those cells the most. A block of darkness that held his body incommunicado. He learned to communicate with the other prisoners using a code they had developed. It involved series of taps on the walls.

What did they want to know? If you were a Communist. If you were an anarchist. If you belonged to the Industrial Workers of the World, the United Federation of Russian Workers, the Russian Mutual Aid Society, the Russian Social Club, the Communist Party, the Socialist Party. If you read the
Farewell Call
,
Pravda
,
Novi Mir
.

What they wanted? Names. Confessions.

He wanted to step outside his body, his mind. He wanted to send his thoughts and words to Julia. For her, his body had vanished. That was knowledge he could not handle. A compassion for her despair. His body could not take it. He shook with rage, or cold, he couldn't tell which.

He believed in the individual. He believed in the power of science too, that its laws could govern society, save society. He did not know that such ideas could be construed so that they aligned with a kind of anarchism. He was twenty-six years old, new to the language still. Anarchism. He hardly knew what the word meant. In later years, he would see. The idealism of his youth, his vanity, his proud nature—all of these things were traits that made him an enemy to himself.

The one thing he had not been told, the one thing he had not learned through the taps on the walls was the phrase, “I decline to answer.”

 • • • 

T
HEY
HELD
HIM
for
two weeks. Incommunicado. On the fifth day, they came for him. The men led him through white cinder-block corridors lined with gray metal doors. No windows. He was desperate to know the time. He'd lost track of day, of night.

His hearing would be conducted over three days. He sat in a windowless, low-ceilinged room. Small. No larger than a broom closet. He sat facing the metal desk. A blotter and a green lamp sat on the desk. The lamp's brass chain rattled as metal doors slammed along the hallway. His ankles were shackled to the chair. His hands were cuffed.

A man who smelled like morning, like shaving soap, questioned him. Another served as a translator, though Austin wouldn't need him. Another man sat in front of a small typewriter recording his words.

His inquisitor leaned across the desk, elbows spread to either side. He bowed his head, sighed, and something about the gesture seemed too practiced, Austin felt. It was an inherited gesture, one not his own, a stolen gesture, borrowed by a boy. Austin looked straight into this man's eyes, the honey brown of them soft, young he'd felt. He tried to show in the gaze that he knew the man was acting.

“You understand how this works?” the man said. His voice was quiet, tired. Austin wondered if it was late in the evening rather than early morning. The man's eyelids were puffy. Large circles.

“Do you speak English?”

“Yes.”

“All right then. You understand how this works. I ask you a series of questions and you answer. Got it? Good.” Austin was desperate for the time. He tried to look at the man's wristwatch, but he was not wearing one. If he knew the time he could follow Julia through the hours of her day. He could tell her in his mind that he was okay. That was a light out of this trap, he'd felt. If he could only know the time he could be in sync with her, running in parallel with her life, even if, for the time being, they were separated.

“What time is it?” Austin said.

“You don't need to know the time,” the man said. The light vanished, any frame of reference gone. Erased.

 • • • 

DAY 1: JANUARY 19, 1920

Q.
What is your name in Russian?

A. Ustin Voronkov.

Q.
In as much as you do not believe in God, will you affirm to tell the truth?

A. Yes.

Q.
What is your address?

A. 116 Locust Street, Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Q.
How old are you?

A. 26 years old.

Q.
Where were you born?

A. Province of Kherson, Alexandriyska, Ulesd, Bokas Volost, Village of Varvarovka.

Q.
Of what country are you now a subject or citizen?

A. Russian subject.

Q.
Are you married or single?

A. Married.

Q.
What is your wife's name?

A. Julia.

Q.
Where is your wife now?

A. She lives in Bridgeport on Locust Street.

Q.
Have you any children?

A. No.

Q.
When were you married?

A. There was no ceremony.

Q.
In other words you were never married to this woman religiously or civilly?

A. There was no ceremony.

Q.
How long have you lived with this woman?

A. About one and one half years.

Q.
Why have you not married her according to the laws of this country?

A. Because we live with her family.

Q.
Do you keep house?

A. No.

Q.
How many rooms do you occupy?

A. One.

Q.
One bed between you?

A. I occupy one room by myself.

Q.
Does she sleep with you?

A. No.

Q.
Why did you say that you were married?

A. Because we gave an oath together.

Q.
And you state that you lived with her for about one and one half years?

A. Yes.

Q.
Where does she live?

A. The same house as I live in.

Q.
Does she sleep in your room?

A. No.

Q.
Did she ever sleep in your room?

A. No.

Q.
Did you ever have sexual intercourse with her?

A. Not officially.

Q.
How long have you lived in the United States?

A. About six years.

Q.
When did you arrive in the United States?

A. August 18, 1913.

Q.
Do you remember the name of the boat you came on?

A. It was called
Trieste
, and came from Trieste to New York.

Q.
In what month?

A. August 1913.

Q.
Did you pay your passage?

A. Yes.

Q.
Since your arrival in the United States have you ever taken any steps to become a citizen of this
country?

A. I intended to take out papers, but I could not speak English at the time.

Q.
Do you belong to any organizations?

A. Russian Inspectors.

Q.
You mean that you are employed by the Russian Commission?

A. Yes.

Q.
Where?

A. In Bridgeport.

Q.
What factory?

A. Remington Arms.

Q.
What is your occupation?

A. An inspector.

Q.
Of what?

A. Arms.

Q.
Did you have any preliminary work anywhere that fitted you for this position?

A. I am a mechanic and engineer there.

Q.
Do you belong to any other organizations?

A. No.

Q.
Ever belong to the Union of Russian Workers?

A. I didn't belong.

Q.
There is such an organization as the Union of Russian Workers in Bridgeport?

A. There was.

Q.
There still is?

A. It seems they made it better, but the Union of Russian Workers has an automobile school in Bridgeport.

Q.
What is the name of the automobile school?

A. The Russian automobile school.

Q.
Was it known as the Soviet Automobile School?

A. No.

Q.
We have information that this school was run and conducted under the auspices of the Union of Russian Workers. Did you know that?

A. I don't know anything about this. I think the soviets started it and then the pupils took it over for themselves.

Q.
You mean the Union of Russian Workers started it?

A. No. The soviets of Bridgeport.

Q.
What do you mean “the soviets” of Bridgeport? We have no “soviets” in this country.

A. It was called “soviet.”

Q.
Have you an automobile?

A. No.

Q.
Did you ever have an automobile?

A. No.

Q.
Why were you interested in automobiles?

A. Because I was in the automobile business.

Q.
Were you financially interested in the automobile business?

A. I am interested in every kind of knowledge.

DAY 2: JANUARY 20, 1920

Q.
Mr. Voronkov, you have been to meetings of the Union of Russian Workers, haven't you?

A. No. Only when they have lectures.

Q.
You have been to business meetings?

A. No.

Q.
How many lectures did you attend?