If We Exist

27.

- No.

A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth as he drew closer. His footsteps on the chequered floor were a tenth of the speed of my palpitating heart.

- No? What would you tell him then?

When I said nothing, my father's voice dipped an octave. It wasn't until he spoke that I understood that the guttural noises proceeding that had been his attempt to practise the accented vowels of our driver.

- My daughters, he said, pantomiming a caricature of our driver, - my daughters...please think of my daughters. Without a job, they'll end up caged in brothels, or working the streets. My mother will die—her medicine, her hospital fees...what will I do?

He stopped three meters away from me, close enough that I saw the lines on his face rearrange; soften, smooth out, erase. An anti-wrinkle-commercial playing in real-time.

- I'm Mr Aduleav, begging you, what do you tell me? His eyes twinkled with rekindled mirth.

- I'd tell you that...that you've worn our pride for too long. You've taken us for granted.

You don't live under the same roof as Stefan Konstantin for fifteen years and not learn strategies pivotal to your own survival. He's always had a way of skewing obedience into complacency, of making evil seem good because it appeared as the lesser of two evils. It was either me on the other side of his barrel or Mr Aduleav, who despite whatever I said wasn't getting his job back.

What's to say my father had actually fired him? For all I knew, this entire conversation could have been a ruse to make me play into his hands. At least, that's what I hoped when I said, - He wears our name like a coat, yet dares to disregard our time. He doesn't deserve to work here.

My father's grin was radiant. - Is that so?

- Yes, I said, nodding. The warmth of his approval settled in my stomach. It was so easy, at that moment when his crow's feet deepened and he seemed genuinely proud of me, to buy into my own distorted narrative. To blame our driver. If he hadn't been late last night, I wouldn't have met those Brommian guys, and if I hadn't met them, then I wouldn't have met Yuri. I wouldn't have slept on his bed, or kissed him, or eaten at his house.

I wouldn't have made Eline cry.

Cognitive dissonance wrapped itself around my mind. Snug and uncomfortable at first, but the more I tugged and pulled the less it strained my conscience, and the more inclined I was to accept the view with fewer consequences.

- It's a shame, I said, - It really is. I considered him family, we all did. Like Petra, Uncle Amet was...he was...he was family, but...but we're the house of Konstantin.

- And what does that mean? My father asked. His eyes bore into mine.

- It means-, I didn't like the way his eyebrows pinched together; the way his jaw clenched when he swallowed and never relaxed. - he's not us.

- No. He stepped closer. - What does it mean?

I had seen that exact expression enough times to have it imprinted behind my eyelids. It had been there, staring at me from amongst a row of entertained parents at every piano recital; after every quiz at every party my parents hosted when I was younger. It had been there when I had returned home from taking pictures in Yuri's backyard and told him I wanted to be a photographer when I grew up. Unlike those other times, I knew exactly what to say, and how to say it to appease him.

I just couldn't.

- Speak! He bellowed. I don't think I had the time to flinch, let alone come up with a reasonable comeback before he closed the distance. Every millimeter of him was taut. He was bone and muscle, and nearly no skin.