“How can you kick an eight-year-old girl out on the street?” asked Yuri.
“That’s your fault, not mine,” said the landlady.
Of course, this was the moment that Sekou picked to deliver his bill, which he must have known we’d never be able to pay. He made it his business to know our situation. In this way, he’d crank up the pressure and increase our sense of insecurity. In other words, it was harvesttime.
Yuri got himself together and went in to see Sekou, who was holding our bill in his hand. He said, “Sekou, you know I can’t pay this right now. Maybe if you give me some time…”
“No,” said Sekou, “there is no time. Either you pay what you owe El Conquistador, or Maria has to leave.”
Then, as Yuri stood there, burning with anger, Sekou said, “Unless… well…”
“Unless what?”
“There may be another type of deal we can reach.”
Sekou opened a drawer in his desk and handed Yuri a contract.
“If you sign this,” he said, “Maria can stay and I will see to her development personally.”
“What is it?”
“A very standard agreement.”
“Can I take it home and read it over?”
“Yes, why not, but quickly. It doesn’t really matter to me what you decide. I am being very generous. Probably too generous. I have developed a fondness for Maria. But the deal will not be on the table for very long.”
My father looked through the contract as he walked back to the apartment. He read the clauses and phrases, but it was hard to follow. He was not good at reading English, and, even if he were, the pages were written in a kind of circuitous legalese you’d have to be a lawyer to untangle.
Back at home, he handed the contract to the landlady. “Can you make sense of this?” he asked.
We were not on the best terms at the moment—she’d been threatening to kick us out, after all—but she was one of the few people we could think to turn to. What’s more, if it said something about a scholarship in there, or work for my father, maybe she’d lay off about the rent. She read it at the kitchen table, carefully studying each line. You could see her lips moving as she sounded out unfamiliar phrases: “in lieu of future earnings,” “dependent on post-expense gross.” She put away her reading glasses when she finished. Handing the pages back to Yuri, she said, “You can’t sign this.”
“Why? What does it say?”
“Well, for one, it seems to say, in return for a scholarship at El Conquistador, Maria will be required, for as long as she plays tennis, to give some percentage, a large percentage, of all her earnings to Sekou. If you sign this contract, that man will own your daughter.”
“You’ve got to be wrong,” said Yuri, shocked. “I’ve had my arguments with Sekou, but he wouldn’t do that.”
“That’s how I read it,” said the landlady. “All I’m saying is: be careful.”
Yuri thought about this for a long time, sitting in the chair, staring out the window, looking at the pages, checking and double-checking the Russian–English dictionary.
What was I? Eight, nine years old? I had been playing well and it had attracted a vulture. This put my father at a crossroads. If the landlady was right, he could not sign the contract. But if he did not sign the contract, we’d be out of school and without court time or coaches, which meant I’d not stay good for long. It was a paradox. If I wanted to be good, I had to sell my soul. If I sold my soul, there was no point in being good. If I didn’t sell my soul, I wouldn’t stay good.
Yuri wanted another opinion, another set of eyes, someone who really knew the language and the law—the landlady was not a native English speaker—to look at the contract, but he did not have money for an attorney. Then he remembered the man he’d met at several tournaments, his sideline friend Bob Kane, whose son had played at El Conquistador. Bob was an oncologist, and he must have been a good doctor, because he was clearly wealthy. He lived in a house on the water in Venice, Florida, which is not cheap, and he drove a beautiful sports car.
Yuri tracked down a phone number, called Bob, and explained the situation.
“I’ll be right there,” said Bob, “and we’ll get someone to look at that contract.”
Bob picked us up later that day and drove us to see a friend of his, who handled these kinds of deals. It took this man about two seconds to dismiss Sekou’s agreement. As he read through the pages, he kept marking them with red pen, saying, “Nah, nah, nah.”
“You can’t sign this,” he finally told us. “It’s indentured servitude.”
This was the key moment. If we signed, at least we’d have somewhere to work and to train, somewhere to go. If we did not sign, we’d have no place to practice and eventually no place to live.
I give my father tremendous credit: he never lost faith, he never gave up, never took the easy way out. What saved us? What made my career possible? It was not all those times he embraced challenges and said yes. Way too much credit is given to the art or act of saying yes. It was all those times he said no that made the difference. Up to this point, yes—beyond this point, no. That was his rebellion, his revolt. He simply refused to let me be part of another person’s scheme. It was me and him and it would stay that way until he found a person he could truly trust. At the moment of temptation—by which I mean the appearance of an easier path—he always said no. And he did not despair about it. Because he’s determined, and because he believed. He believed that his dream for me was destined to come true. That’s what he saw and that’s what Yudkin had told him. All he had to do was stay on the path and take one step at a time and everything would work out. All he had to do was say no when it would be so much easier to say yes. He had a plan, after all, and it did not include selling out to Sekou.
We went to see Sekou in that little trailer on the edge of El Conquistador’s courts. He had a mocking look. He knew he was putting tremendous pressure on Yuri, who was still injured and could not work. Sekou was in tennis whites and his eyes flashed and he smiled big and phony.
He got right to the matter at hand.
“Have you signed the contract?” he asked.
“No,” said Yuri.
“You have to sign the contract,” said Sekou. “As soon as it’s signed, we can get back to business.”
“I don’t think so,” said Yuri.
He handed the pages back, signature line blank. Sekou was irritated. Yuri ignored this and told him about the people we’d been to see and what they’d said about the contract, how Sekou would own me if Yuri signed. Sekou said the people we’d spoken to were misinformed, stupid, or lying. The contract was fair—not only fair, generous. Too generous. Yuri said he was happy to hear it and suggested we sit with the lawyer we had seen—“Me and you and this man,” said Yuri—and go over the clauses and make sure we all understood them to mean the same thing. “If he’s wrong, let’s show him where he’s wrong,” said Yuri.
Sekou’s eyes flashed, then went flat, blank.