Sunday Evening Exhale

by Rachel

This afternoon Byamba’s father came to negotiate about the furniture. Our new landlord, Sambuunyam, owns the apartment, but makes no claim on the furniture, so we are back to Byamba for that one.

Charlie was prepared for battle and wearing his pajamas. He was the bad cop. I was the quiet cop. Byamba’s father started by asking for $200 a month. “That is ridiculous,” Charlie scoffed. Byamba’s brother, who was translating, agreed. Charlie offered that Byamba had done an illegal thing by renting us the apartment, and while he did not WANT to go to the police he would, if this was not sorted out agreeably.

$800 for five months? $750? $120 per month? No. No. No. Finally he offered $100, which was our outside limit. We agreed. The final sticking point was when to pay. He wanted all the money right then. “No way,” said Charlie, closing his little book and putting down his pen. “Now we will pay for February, and each month at the end of the month we will pay.” He agreed this time. Charlie wrote up a contract, he signed on the line for February and we handed him $100.

Really, we like this man and didn’t want to ruin his day. This is a man without a phone, without an address, dressed in dirty old Mongolian clothes. This is an old man who can hardly see, cleaning up his son’s mess and managing his problems.

I asked if Byamba was in Japan. Apparently so. The father joked that he was going to go with us to America in July. We said sure. Then Charlie gave him some NPR swag and a Times Square T-shirt. He asked if he could wear it. Of course.

Other victories: the electrical cable was stretched down the driveway and once again brings us our power, so I made a pear cake to celebrate a happy ending, for now.