The Mascot Read Online Free PDF

opened the envelope and slowly withdrew a small photograph. He gripped it firmly, grimacing as if in pain.
    I drew closer to him and gazed down at the photo. Although the image had discolored with age, it was relatively sharp. I saw a small boy no more than six or seven years old. Dressed in a military uniform that must have been made especially for him, he was posing proudly in front of a gaily decorated Christmas tree.
    My eyes focused on the uniform, and for a moment I caught my breath. On the lapels and sleeves of the high-necked jacket the uniform bore the lightning insignia that identified the SS. The boy was a miniature version of the stereotypical Nazi one sees in war movies. It was my father.
    I scanned the image of the boy-soldier, my father, beaming at the camera. What was my father doing dressed like this? What sort of people would let a child dress in this fashion? Who took this photograph? When was it taken? And why take a photograph like this? Myriad questions ran through my mind at once. Where was it taken? In Russia? In Latvia? Was it connected to Koidanov or Panok? It didn’t make sense. My father had never mentioned being a soldier. Only a Boy Scout of sorts.
    I began to move even closer to my father in order to scrutinize the details. But before I could, he abruptly shoved the photograph back into its innocent white envelope. He slid the envelope back into the brown case. “It’s awful, son,” was all he managed to say.
    â€œIs this why you’re here?” I asked. “Is that what you’ve been hedging around all week?”
    He avoided my eyes. “It’s a complicated story. We’ll talk another time.”
    â€œWhere did it come from, Dad?”
    â€œIt’s from the war.” He said nothing else.

    The photograph my father showed me in London in 1997.
    At that moment my feelings about the case, my so-called inheritance, shifted. I resented it and felt an inexplicable disgust toward it and even toward my father. I shrank away, wanting to escape from both. I wondered what else the case might contain. Was there something even darker, if that was possible, than what I had just seen? I found myself questioning how much he’d left out of the stories he’d been telling us all our lives. What hadn’t he told me, or my mother, or my brothers about his childhood? I began to see the battered case as a Pandora’s box: now that it had been truly opened, it might never be shut again. I couldn’t help wondering whether he’d be quite as protective of it now that he had intimated what secrets it might contain.
    It seems absurd now, but instead of pressing him further I looked around me, worried that someone nearby might have caught sight of the photograph and identified my father as the boy in it—or indeed observed any resemblance to me. But nobody had noticed anything. The family on the neighboring bench were chatting happily among themselves. I began to act as if nothing had happened. I glanced at my watch. The afternoon was almost gone. “C’mon, Dad, you’ve got a plane to catch. I’ll take you to the subway.”
    I grasped his free hand and rose, barely giving him time to secure his case, and headed off in the direction of South Kensington station.

    The platform was crowded with commuters. The train appeared suddenly.
    The doors opened directly where we were standing and passengers began to pile out. I eased my father out of their way and to one side of the carriage doors. By now, his head had dropped forward, making him seem even more dispirited than before, almost lifeless. I feared saying anything at all to him, even a simple good-bye or a bland “Safe journey, Dad.”
    In a flash, however, his listlessness evaporated. Above the din of the platform he shouted at me breathlessly, “It was Lobe and Dzenis—something they wanted me to do years ago—Dzenis made me do it—Dzenis said, ‘Tell