The Year I was Invaded by the Russians — the Russian thief

The word “thief” flooded my vision in braided cursive, thin but tight, when I first laid eyes on Bratan, Russian street slang for “brother.” I lost the ability to see anything else for a moment. Unexpected. That kind of image doesn’t happen every day but I do not attach to the first thing I see. I allow the image to evolve to assess what truth it holds. The feeling, rather, the feeling that came with it stunned me. This was an extraordinary. I mean, he was, extraordinary. I might have said that to him right away, assessing my feeling at my vanity table, my hats encircling my mirror: a pink felt brim with black ribbon, a midnight blue Panama, a tiny hard black and white one. He might not have looked like an extraordinary but I don’t know what that means looking at myself. A young man, under the radar, lean and feline, he could hide, but not from me. A gifted intuitive but so was I. And what can I say about the connections between us? Meaning, he activated me, in this way. Fine instincts, if not the finest. I turned. I didn’t know what the word thief meant, literally speaking, I was assessing all this, but soon after coming back, I was walking home from my new job. And as soon as I passed the corner cafe with the red awning, my boyfriend saw me up the block and rushed to tell me the news, innocently, from Normandy.

“Maria, you are not going to believe this…”

The cafe downstairs was broken into.

My eyes wide, “what?” I asked.

“Yeah…and it’s strange…”

“Oh?”

“They didn’t break anything.”

I looked at him.

“They didn’t take anything…”

I leaned in.

“What?!”

“I know, I know,” he shook his head, puzzling, he agreed.

“These were clearly professionals…”

“Professionals?”

“Oui,” he said without a doubt, “professionals…”

When I heard “professionals,” I knew it was him — just him. That’s what I mean about him. “Why do you say that?”

“They didn’t break an entry…”

I grained back.

“What?”

“They didn’t break anything…no one knows how they even got in…these were clearly,” his arms crossed, “professionals.”

“They touched nothing other than food.”

“Quoi?!”

“They just took food, I know, I know. That’s what I’m saying,” he was so cute, Thomas, “they didn’t break a lock, they didn’t take anything but food. Anyway,” he had to go. Yeah. We would see each other later. Yeah.

I picked up the pace in a multi-colored dream coat, unlined, vintage, passing this cafe, the police. I liked the owners. I went there, so I was angry, I guess, only food…punching the code right next door, thrown, throwing open the giant door. I couldn’t believe it, any of it, that I saw thief spelled out in my mind and it was true — literally! Pushing open the next door, what the hell happened here? Running up my steps three flights, he’s not stupid, only food? They. I threw myself into the apartment, the warmest shade of yellow.

“He’s a thief…”

The door slammed behind me.

Sonya faced the door at my kitchen table with her arms crossed.

“Yes, he is.”

“He didn’t take anything? What is he doing? Only food? Where’s the food?”

I looked around my apartment.

“There’s nothing here.”

“He distributed it to the poor out the back of a truck.”

“What?”

I sort of laughed, I had to.

“What? Are you serious?”

“Da, yes,” she was.

I took a seat at the table in a few states at once, amazed.

“This is what he does….”

“What?”

“Da,” she dipped.

“He does this.”

He steals from the rich, who he sees — she’s just telling me — as being a rich thief. That’s what he does. He gave the food to those who don’t have much. Maybe he left Sonya some salt, truly speaking.

“Who is he? Robin Hood?”

“Who?”

She squinted.

”Rob..in?”

I looked it up in Russian.

Of course.

“Gud,” I said.

“Robin Gud.”

“Da,” she said, “yes,” in English.

She nodded, regally.

“He’s truly like this, yes.”

“What happened?”

“He was upset,” she began. She calmed me down. “You are an emotional being, Marushka,” and she conceded Bratan was also like this, he can be. “It’s understandable…”

“Nothing but food…”

“Da,” she continued.

They had enough money to go out and get a baguette. He decided to stop for a coffee downstairs, thinking it would cost a euro. It ended up being much more than that and it triggered him because that’s all he had. Perhaps he felt a vibe toward him? I was feeling into this, I could understand that regardless if it was something he felt or was really there given what he did and where he was from. He got upset, yes, okay. I was following. So, he dug a hole in cement, somehow. There was no “dirt” around. He didn’t break in, he didn’t break anything. He even fixed the hole.

“No one knows how he did it,” I said. They believed he was a team of people. The professionals.”

“No,” she said, she had to laugh and go, “da,” and she said, “da da,” this is what she means. “The professionals, exactly.”

“The professionals.” I laughed. I had to.

“They think he’s a they.”

“Da,” she said. “This is who he is.”

“Okay.”

“What am I supposed to do?

I was curious to understand what “rich thieves” meant, like he only takes from them, Robin Hood, but we agreed that the situation downstairs was a slightly different event. But maybe not to him. I don’t know.

“Where is he?”

Already gone.

“What?”

“He’s gone.”

“I’m not going to turn him in. I don’t know what to do but I can’t do that.”

“No,” she said.

On top of it.

“That’s not the issue. You don’t understand.”

“He respects you.”

“What?”

“Yes,” she said.

“He doesn’t want you to know what he does. Marushka cannot know, he said…”

Her green eyes lifted toward my front door.

“He didn’t want me to turn him in, too. He’s afraid.”

“He really respects you,” she corrected me.

I appreciated that coming from him.

“He really respects you.”

I knew! I knew, I blew from the table. She gave “my emotional being” some room to express itself. She looked at me — what do you mean?

“I knew! “ I couldn’t believe that. I just couldn’t confirm it. An image came into my mind when I saw him. I didn’t know how to interpret it but I experienced this kind of image, specifically, at nine years old: secret spy. I figured it had more to do with…My mother’s escort is apparently a secret spy. I don’t think he is. I didn’t know what to say about that. She didn’t either. With a story like mine, Sonya understood that he could talk to me. She tried to get him to stay. Exactly.

I was confused.

In other words, he knew that I knew, um, no, he doesn’t want me to know, and this is what he does when he has to. You have to consider where he came from. Step one, in my opinion. So Robin Gud fights an unjust war, comes back, and his home is destroyed. He goes outside the law, which was unjust, for the sake of justice. How many movies are there about Robin Gud? He wouldn’t act like this, normally, I thought, right. He was precise in his operation. “Yes,” she said. I felt that. He wouldn’t have jeopardized his living situation, Sonya. He didn’t love her, he was devoted to her. It didn’t make sense. An emotional move. Even a touch dumb. He wouldn’t do it to me, either, right. That wasn’t naive. That checked out to me.

“He can leave this life behind,” she vouched for him as a person, but that didn’t happen overnight, as you know. This is a real world, also. I nodded. It is. It’s stupid, I said to her, “da,” to pretend like it’s not. She believed in him. I did too. He’s extraordinary, isn’t he? “Yes,” she said, “he is.” A change had already been initiated in him because of her. Would I go to lengths, seriously speaking, to turn him in for salt? For giving food to people with little money? Turning her in? What would that do, what would that do? Nothing. She agreed, nothing. We spoke plainly to one another. Besides, “cool, Sonya, cool,” she had nothing to do with this. She was staying. She wasn’t running away. This is his problem. This is not my man, which she would say sometimes. She loved him but she had three sons and two ex-husbands. She wasn’t our age. She was full of crap — okay? Also. This was her soulmate. Even I knew that. These people. I don’t know where they were at the time but this relationship was a journey.

I looked up.

He has to come back.

She shook her head.

“If I say I won’t turn him in — he won’t come back?”

“No.”

“Well, that might be hard for him to believe but maybe he should.”

“I agree with you, I tried to get him to stay, you can talk to Marushka…”

Her eyes lifted toward the door.

“This is shame.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Shame does not work.”

She shook her head.

“I told him that.”

“Nothing will change this way. My mother taught me that.”

“It’s true.”

She shook her head.

“Nothing will change, I know, I told him Shame doesn’t work.”

It wasn’t a small decision for me to lie but the question was — what can I do in this situation that will make an impact? She listened. Robin Gud. I mean, we were in our mid-to-late twenties at the time, so he was just a kid. I had an opportunity, even, a small one. Strangers went above the call of duty for me, so tell him that, tell him that, about the immorality of my mother! Even! I got up and put on my multi-colored dream coat.

“I’m going downstairs to verify that everything I heard is true…” sort of freezing there.

“This is just,” she said.

“I want him to come back, tell him I want him to come back. Shame does not work.”

She’d wait and see when he called. He would. So he’s going to call? Da, probably.

I hated lying, I really did. In the cafe downstairs, looking up the skylight since my apartment window sat above it, I inquired into this professional break-in…nothing was broken? Nothing was taken? Only food. Nodding. Micro-greens. I listened. I got a few strands of feelings, sat down at my booth, and began to project myself to a future point in a wash of white light. I was going to write about this one day, it was already part of the plan — Sonya — so we put that in motion. The cafe might be here, might not, but I pictured walking back in. Things go well for me, why not? I hoped so. I would come back, settle accounts. I believed in him that much. May it benefit everyone involved, that was my final idea. I felt that they would understand, actually, so I made the decision to perform a small clown act for an extraordinary person — a thief.

I got up from my kitchen table when he buzzed. He didn’t want to come back but agreed — good. Robin Gud. Heading to my bedroom, I was going to blow his mind. I heard the door shut. I brought myself up, like I, it was true, I was going to blow his mind. Flip the logic. I made my way to him in some small apartment floating in some corner of the universe. I stood between a most enchanted shade of yellow and a Whistler’s grey. He glowed by the door staring at the floor.

I opened my arms to him.

“Bratan…”

Sonya hung back, stood by the window, and watched this exchange.

“How could I not love you?”

Looking up at me, he blinked.

My arms open, “no shame,” I said. “Shame is never going to work.”

Sonya translated.

“Don’t run away,” I said, “stay.”

He blinked at me.

“The rest we’ll figure in time.”

“Bratan,” I said.

It made him laugh every time I said it.

He made his way to me and embraced me, slowly, looking at me like he didn’t really believe it himself.

“In time,” I said.

“Just promise that you’ll stay.”

He nodded.

Well, sitting down at my kitchen table, we were surrounded — Putin had just invaded Ukraine — by walls of the warmest shade of yellow. I often thought about the men who mixed this bucket of paint for me; this was poetry, a home, its walls. In the glow of a yellow lampshade, with a slight sheen, it felt like an oil painting at night, unctuous. But it couldn’t be too heavy, I told them, it had to hold the moment up, make it sparkle, even. Oui oui. Magique.

I smiled, taking him in, the shade complimented everyone.

“So, you’re a thief,” I said.

He nodded, a tile of a blue peacock over his shoulder.

Nothing wrong. Thieves exist.

“I’m glad you came back…”

Sonya began to translate, pointing at him and over to me — a true clown.

“Listen to her.”