Stefan Stoykov is a film student in Frankfurt, Germany. He spends his days watching, reading and listening. He considers himself a lazy perfectionist.
My Grandfather Who Never Came Back
I was named after my grandfather- Stefan. For all my life I had heard stories about him. He was for me the living legend I thought I would never get to see. I had heard about him fighting with the militia because they didn’t let him have his picnic in the park. I had heard about him smuggling rock vinyls and adult movies over the border. I had seen his photo in my grandmother’s apartment- tall, thin, bushy eyebrows and although it was in black and white I could recognize the bright blue eyes. Just like mine.
One rainy October day in 1985, when I was 15, my grandmother came bursting through the door with a smile on her face as wide as the Berlin Wall. “They are letting him go. He’s coming back.” Could it be true? The man who spent more time locked up in a labor camp than me being alive is finally free? I felt uneasy. I was damn straight afraid. I was afraid to meet the man I knew from the letters, the pictures and the collective conscious of my relatives and their friends. The man with no fear, the man with the quick feet, the man whom I had to impress. He surely knew about me, his eldest grandson, but what had he heard? He had never seen me, and I had never seen him. Were we all that alike as the stories suggested?
One sunny day in May of 1968 a group of young men and women came marching on the streets holding hands and raising banners of freedom and love. They were walking in unison and shouting in one voice the words one man was directing to them through a loudspeaker. That man was my grandfather. That sunny day in May of 1968 was the last he saw as a free man.
And so the groundwork for his return began. For two days straight my grandma took no seat. Her heart was beating ever so faster with every room she cleaned and every dish she prepared- potato salad, spinach meatballs, stew and herself to see her husband once more. The poor old lady. What had she seen throughout the years? Nobody dared to ask. My dad and his sister, my aunt, got their stories straight. They had so much to tell him. How would he recognize them? How would they fit the 17 years he was gone into one single story to bring him up to date with all of the new members of the family? How would my aunt explain to him how she turned into a full grown woman and how would my dad tell the tale of me and my brother being born?
Of course, bad things had happened in his absence too; his brother had died of stomach cancer and grandma had to move from their old house to the cramped little apartment on the fourth floor in a building in a newly constructed part of town. The theater he once loved so much had burned down and no money was found to restore it.
The day came. Grandma, her sister, my grandfather’s sister, all of their kids, my aunt and her husband, my mom and my brother and me were all seated at the table in the living room, waited for my father to drive the man back to his home.
The bell rang.
My grandma jumped with the athleticism she had long lost and opened the door. From my spot I could see my father entering and behind him a dark figure in scruffy clothes. Grandma threw herself in his arms and we all watched them in silence. Quiet, like a dead man, he walked in. Everyone stood up and greeted him. Hugs and kisses all around. When my turn came he shook my hand, firmly and said “are you the one named after me?” A silent “yes” was my retort. I could see myself in him, but he was different from the photo. He seemed not as tall as I had imagined. His back was hunched and his bright blue eyes were nailed to the floor. They seemed dim and uniterested.
All the people in the room were on him like worms on a corpse. Gently and swiftly, he paid attention to everyone, finally sitting on his chair at the end of the table.
“How does it feel to be back on the outside?”
“I can tell you it’s better here” he replied.
“Did you make new friends?”
“The friends you make in a labor camp are like army buddies, forever.”
“Did you try to escape?”
“No.”
“Did anyone try?”
“Yes.”
I sat across the table from him and listened to this one-sided cross examination. I noticed he didn’t eat anything despite my grandmother’s attempts to make him taste the pork chops. I noticed he did not look anyone in the eyes. I noticed him fiddling with his fingers. I noticed the years spent away by the wrinkles on his face. So many things came to my mind that I could ask him, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know where to begin. Did you get beaten? What did you eat? Why did they let you go, after all? What are you going to do now? Where do I fit in your world view? I felt it wasn’t the right time. I felt he wasn’t comfortable with all the attention. Soon the rest of them came to the same conclusion. They let him breathe.
“I beg to be excused.”
My grandfather stood up and left the room. We were left in silence. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the things I wanted to hook out of him. I stood up and walked out a few minutes after him. He wasn’t in the bathroom or the bedroom. I opened the kitchen door, and there he was- the one man who had turned into urban fiction. The fierce and restless legend was sitting alone by the kitchen table eating soup in the silence of his own company. The image struck me. I couldn’t believe he would run away from his family. Who does he think he is, I thought. I believed he would be this magical figure filled with stories of adventure and suspense, and what do I have in front of me- a blue, emotionless old man. There is a great deal of power and sadness in the image of a once great man quietly throwing pieces of bread in a bowl of soup.
I stepped out before he could hear me. I was disappointed. I was angry. I’ve been lied to. I didn’t want him to be like me. I didn’t want to be like him. I went back to the living room where the rest of my family was and sat down next to my father. I didn’t speak for the rest of the day, trying to hide my discontent. When he came back I didn’t even look at him. I could see him clearly now. No longer could any story about him excite me. No longer was I a child.
Three years later he died. He died in a hospital bed from a brain hemorrhage. We didn’t bury him. His wish was to be cremated and scattered over the valley where the city was. And so we did. We climbed to the highest peak of the mountain and held a wake for him. Hundreds of people came by, and everyone had a story to tell. My grandma told the one where she met him. My dad and my aunt about him punishing them by making them perform Chekhov plays in the living room, his sister about his energetic and eventful childhood, and his labor camp buddies about how he helped them stay alive and motivated during tough times. When my time came, I told the crowd I had no tales of wisdom, adventure or greatness. This was the first time I told the story of him eating soup alone in the kitchen. That was how I remember him to this day- a fallen idol in the dirt.