I had been dreading Babby’s reaction to leaving but she was surprisingly upbeat, handling it as if it was just a short term goodbye, in contrast to the others who cried buckets, hanging over us with keening moans. Babby tends to be easy with her feelings. I envy that about her sometimes.
Just a bit of daylight left as we drove to the airport, groves of white birches and clusters of dachas dotting the snowy fields. Looks like I’ll have to save the troika ride for another visit. I was looking forward to the long flight so I could think. Just think. But glancing over at Babby, who didn’t look at all sleepy and, instead, ready to talk, I realized it might not be a quiet journey back.
Wednesday, December 18, 1991
Tuesday, December 17, 1991
chapter 8 - a kind of ending
When I got back Babby and Auntie Galina were all still at it. Amazing. Can it be Babby has found her match? Actually, it was more a duel of monologues than a dialogue. Her accent has deepened, more Russian, less Danish. The thing I will remember most of this trip is the sound of two old gals in the kitchen talking and singing away before breaking off in a peal of girlie giggling.
Without thinking further I put in the call, even though I could feel my courage waver and my stomach flutter.
“Oh Dad, hi, it’s me. I just wanted to let you know about Babby’s flight times.” My relief was overwhelming. I could just pass on the message to Dad and deal with Mom another time.
“I’ll put your mother on.”
“Wait, I could just tell you… Oh. Hi Mom.”
“Your father said you’re calling about the flights. What’s happened? Has something changed?”
“No, no the flights are the same. Everything’s just fine. I’m just confirming.”
“Oh. Well.”
“You won’t be late will you? Babby will be tired after the long flight and will want to be met right on time.”
“Why do you always make such a fuss about being a few minutes late? It’s not like I can predict traffic.”
“Just - give yourself lots of time and get there early.”
“And pay extra for parking? Do you know how expensive airport parking is? Do you think we are made of money? You never appreciated the value of money.”
“Mom!”
“Yes, yes, all right don’t fuss. We’ll be there on time. How is the old dear?”
“Babby’s fine. I think she has had a really good visit.”
“Of course she has. She hasn’t made a nuisance of herself has she? Not said anything embarrassing?”
“Everyone loves her. But I’m sure she’s looking forward to coming home to see all of you. And her dog, she misses Binky”
“That beast has been nothing but trouble. The cat is completely traumatized. That dog widdles on the carpet, and yesterday it widdled on the sofa. How could anyone miss it? You haven’t changed your mind about coming back with her have you?”
“Mom I have a job to get back to.”
“Oh yes. Of course. We all have to work.”
“Mom, I …. " I swallowed hard and plunged in. "Mom, I do miss you.”
“What?”
“I said I miss you. I do. Really. I’ve learned more about the family on this trip and I feel so far away.”
“You are far away. You live far away.”
“I know. But I can still miss you all.”
“Well then ok, but whose fault is that?”
“Mom, why do you have to be so…?” I stopped, breathed deeply and started again. “Look, why don’t you consider coming to London in the spring? We could go shopping, out to a nightclub, a concert. It would be great to spend time with you. And you’ve never seen my flat.”
“You’re not the only one with a job you know. “
“You could take some time off, I’m sure. You have holiday time banked and you’ve always said there are less funerals in spring. And your understudy could use the opportunity I’m sure.”
“Won’t you have to work?”
“Yes, but I could take a few days off. Or I might even be between jobs then. And there are evenings and weekends. We don’t have to spend every minute together. You could explore London.”
“On my own? Wandering around that great big city alone?”
“No not alone. You don’t have to do anything alone. I could go with you. I’ll take time off. I told you.”
“What would I pack? I have no clothes.”
“You have a black dress. Bring that. No one wears anything but black in London anyway. And we’ll buy you more clothes.”
“I’d have to ask your father. He might think it’s a bit extravagant. Going off to London on a whim. It will look flighty. What would people say about me just going off to London?”
“Mom you’ve never asked Dad about going anywhere before. That’s a cop out. If you don’t want to come just say so.”
“I am not going all that way just to be left on my own in a strange city.”
“For goodness sake, I’m not going to leave you alone. My God Mom what are you afraid of?”
“I’m afraid of ….being….
“What? What is it Mom? Just say it.”
“….invisible.”
Well, I wasn’t expecting her to say that. “Invisible!”
“You’ll spend all your time with your friends and your job and your life. I’ll just be there in a corner, invisible and ignored. Now don’t get huffy, you always ignored me, whenever I was out with you. You always did. You never gave me one jot of attention whenever I was with you. Whenever I took you anywhere you wanted nothing more than to say goodbye and get away from me. I don’t want to come all the way to London and end up being the invisible mother.”
“Mom is that what you think? It’s not like that. It was never like that. Invisible! My goodnss, that's what I wanted to be most of the time myself. You always made such a fuss, always getting me to classes late, always making me so embarrassed. Fixing my clothes, telling me what to say, what everyone will think of you if I do something wrong. Talking too loud. I didn’t want the attention. I hated all the attention. Why did you always try to put so much more attention on me than on the others?”
“Sidney and Sam were different. They were fine, they had each other, they were like each other. But you were mine. I saw me in you. Everyone said so. Didn’t you see it?”
“Me? Like you? I’m nothing like you. You’re beautiful. Ok, I guess we both have brown hair and brown eyes, but I never…. I never thought…. How can you possibly use that as an excuse for being so overbearing? I felt trapped – it was so intense. You never left me alone. ”
Mom was continuing, talking quickly, as if she couldn’t stop herself. “You stayed in your own world, never letting anyone else in. Never letting me in. I tried to get a reaction from you. Something, anything. You never reacted about anything. Never told me what you really thought or felt. Just turned and walked away. You walked away as a child and then when Andrew died and even after. I wanted you to know, but I didn’t want to hurt you. Didn’t want you to think it was my fault. Didn’t want you to go even further inside yourself.”
I answered. “I was always afraid of being told I was wrong, or stupid, or different. I felt like such an outsider. An outsider in my own family.”
“All tied up in knots. And there was no way you would let someone help untangle them.”
“But the more you tried to get me to react the more I retreated.”
“All I wanted was, what is it you kids say these days? Validation. If you just validated my presence I’d have been happy. Well, satisfied anyway.”
“Oh Mom. Don’t. Don’t cry. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t know. I just saw you making a fuss of me and I wanted to get away from it. I never knew what to say. I was awkward. Felt awkward. Shy. So I guess I said nothing.”
“And I saw you, my child, the child most like me, the child I needed most, hating to be anywhere near me.”
There was a long pause. I could hear her breathing through a handkerchief and imagined the mascara runs, and my heart hurt. I’d been sitting and now I stood up.
“May is the most beautiful month in England. Come in May. I need to talk to you. I want to ask your advice about something. About a guy. And a new job. And to talk about other things. I want to know everything. I’ll call you as soon as I get back to London and we can start planning. I promise. I’ll call you as soon as I get back. I promise. Bye Mom, bye.”
I was a bit dazed as we finished the last of our packing. My heart felt full. Looking at Babby I wondered if she knew what I now know and decided that even if she does know, it is something between my mother and I to discuss. And I need time to process it all before I talk to Mom.
Without thinking further I put in the call, even though I could feel my courage waver and my stomach flutter.
“Oh Dad, hi, it’s me. I just wanted to let you know about Babby’s flight times.” My relief was overwhelming. I could just pass on the message to Dad and deal with Mom another time.
“I’ll put your mother on.”
“Wait, I could just tell you… Oh. Hi Mom.”
“Your father said you’re calling about the flights. What’s happened? Has something changed?”
“No, no the flights are the same. Everything’s just fine. I’m just confirming.”
“Oh. Well.”
“You won’t be late will you? Babby will be tired after the long flight and will want to be met right on time.”
“Why do you always make such a fuss about being a few minutes late? It’s not like I can predict traffic.”
“Just - give yourself lots of time and get there early.”
“And pay extra for parking? Do you know how expensive airport parking is? Do you think we are made of money? You never appreciated the value of money.”
“Mom!”
“Yes, yes, all right don’t fuss. We’ll be there on time. How is the old dear?”
“Babby’s fine. I think she has had a really good visit.”
“Of course she has. She hasn’t made a nuisance of herself has she? Not said anything embarrassing?”
“Everyone loves her. But I’m sure she’s looking forward to coming home to see all of you. And her dog, she misses Binky”
“That beast has been nothing but trouble. The cat is completely traumatized. That dog widdles on the carpet, and yesterday it widdled on the sofa. How could anyone miss it? You haven’t changed your mind about coming back with her have you?”
“Mom I have a job to get back to.”
“Oh yes. Of course. We all have to work.”
“Mom, I …. " I swallowed hard and plunged in. "Mom, I do miss you.”
“What?”
“I said I miss you. I do. Really. I’ve learned more about the family on this trip and I feel so far away.”
“You are far away. You live far away.”
“I know. But I can still miss you all.”
“Well then ok, but whose fault is that?”
“Mom, why do you have to be so…?” I stopped, breathed deeply and started again. “Look, why don’t you consider coming to London in the spring? We could go shopping, out to a nightclub, a concert. It would be great to spend time with you. And you’ve never seen my flat.”
“You’re not the only one with a job you know. “
“You could take some time off, I’m sure. You have holiday time banked and you’ve always said there are less funerals in spring. And your understudy could use the opportunity I’m sure.”
“Won’t you have to work?”
“Yes, but I could take a few days off. Or I might even be between jobs then. And there are evenings and weekends. We don’t have to spend every minute together. You could explore London.”
“On my own? Wandering around that great big city alone?”
“No not alone. You don’t have to do anything alone. I could go with you. I’ll take time off. I told you.”
“What would I pack? I have no clothes.”
“You have a black dress. Bring that. No one wears anything but black in London anyway. And we’ll buy you more clothes.”
“I’d have to ask your father. He might think it’s a bit extravagant. Going off to London on a whim. It will look flighty. What would people say about me just going off to London?”
“Mom you’ve never asked Dad about going anywhere before. That’s a cop out. If you don’t want to come just say so.”
“I am not going all that way just to be left on my own in a strange city.”
“For goodness sake, I’m not going to leave you alone. My God Mom what are you afraid of?”
“I’m afraid of ….being….
“What? What is it Mom? Just say it.”
“….invisible.”
Well, I wasn’t expecting her to say that. “Invisible!”
“You’ll spend all your time with your friends and your job and your life. I’ll just be there in a corner, invisible and ignored. Now don’t get huffy, you always ignored me, whenever I was out with you. You always did. You never gave me one jot of attention whenever I was with you. Whenever I took you anywhere you wanted nothing more than to say goodbye and get away from me. I don’t want to come all the way to London and end up being the invisible mother.”
“Mom is that what you think? It’s not like that. It was never like that. Invisible! My goodnss, that's what I wanted to be most of the time myself. You always made such a fuss, always getting me to classes late, always making me so embarrassed. Fixing my clothes, telling me what to say, what everyone will think of you if I do something wrong. Talking too loud. I didn’t want the attention. I hated all the attention. Why did you always try to put so much more attention on me than on the others?”
“Sidney and Sam were different. They were fine, they had each other, they were like each other. But you were mine. I saw me in you. Everyone said so. Didn’t you see it?”
“Me? Like you? I’m nothing like you. You’re beautiful. Ok, I guess we both have brown hair and brown eyes, but I never…. I never thought…. How can you possibly use that as an excuse for being so overbearing? I felt trapped – it was so intense. You never left me alone. ”
Mom was continuing, talking quickly, as if she couldn’t stop herself. “You stayed in your own world, never letting anyone else in. Never letting me in. I tried to get a reaction from you. Something, anything. You never reacted about anything. Never told me what you really thought or felt. Just turned and walked away. You walked away as a child and then when Andrew died and even after. I wanted you to know, but I didn’t want to hurt you. Didn’t want you to think it was my fault. Didn’t want you to go even further inside yourself.”
I answered. “I was always afraid of being told I was wrong, or stupid, or different. I felt like such an outsider. An outsider in my own family.”
“All tied up in knots. And there was no way you would let someone help untangle them.”
“But the more you tried to get me to react the more I retreated.”
“All I wanted was, what is it you kids say these days? Validation. If you just validated my presence I’d have been happy. Well, satisfied anyway.”
“Oh Mom. Don’t. Don’t cry. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t know. I just saw you making a fuss of me and I wanted to get away from it. I never knew what to say. I was awkward. Felt awkward. Shy. So I guess I said nothing.”
“And I saw you, my child, the child most like me, the child I needed most, hating to be anywhere near me.”
There was a long pause. I could hear her breathing through a handkerchief and imagined the mascara runs, and my heart hurt. I’d been sitting and now I stood up.
“May is the most beautiful month in England. Come in May. I need to talk to you. I want to ask your advice about something. About a guy. And a new job. And to talk about other things. I want to know everything. I’ll call you as soon as I get back to London and we can start planning. I promise. I’ll call you as soon as I get back. I promise. Bye Mom, bye.”
I was a bit dazed as we finished the last of our packing. My heart felt full. Looking at Babby I wondered if she knew what I now know and decided that even if she does know, it is something between my mother and I to discuss. And I need time to process it all before I talk to Mom.
chapter 8 - the white stuff
The party post-mortem continued this morning, so after everything was tidied up I made my escape to the Izmailovsky market, taking the Metro. If everything in Russia ran like its Metro, this country would take over the world. And deserve it.
The market sellers were as determined as any in any market anywhere in the world. “Look, very fine. And cheap. Cheap at half the price.” ‘Of course it’s cheap at half the price’, I wanted to say – ‘it’s half the price. What you mean to say is it’s cheap at twice the price.’ But of course I didn’t say anything. I’m beginning to see that really is a problem. How can I expect other people to understand what I think if I don’t say anything? They can’t all be as intuitive as Hamish. Hamish understood me so well.
At each platform there is a clock indicating when the next train will arrive in increments of seconds. And it does. On the second! The trains are large, clean, fast, and cheap. Stations looks like halls in a beloved art gallery instead of venues of mass transit. Marble floors, chandeliers, sculptures, mosaics, curved ceilings, soft lighting. Never have I been so impressed by a subway in all my life.
I emerged somewhat dazzled, both from the amazingly beautiful travel experience, and because a sheet of white greeted me. Snow! At last! It’s very thin, not nearly enough for a troika, but it’s snow none the less. The teeming market was abundant with Russian handicrafts. I bought a tea glass like the ones I have been using every day, a thin glass set in a decorative metal holder.
A wonderful embroidered shawl for Mom and a set of matryoshka nesting dolls depicting famous Russian scientists for Dad. Things for Sidney and Sam and all their progeny, canine and otherwise. I was in danger of getting completely carried away. I realized I hadn’t really seen or talked to any of them in years. Not really. I have stayed alone and disconnected. Distance does that. But I’m beginning to suspect geographical distance isn’t the only culprit. I felt homesick for the first time in, well, maybe forever!
I emerged somewhat dazzled, both from the amazingly beautiful travel experience, and because a sheet of white greeted me. Snow! At last! It’s very thin, not nearly enough for a troika, but it’s snow none the less. The teeming market was abundant with Russian handicrafts. I bought a tea glass like the ones I have been using every day, a thin glass set in a decorative metal holder.
A wonderful embroidered shawl for Mom and a set of matryoshka nesting dolls depicting famous Russian scientists for Dad. Things for Sidney and Sam and all their progeny, canine and otherwise. I was in danger of getting completely carried away. I realized I hadn’t really seen or talked to any of them in years. Not really. I have stayed alone and disconnected. Distance does that. But I’m beginning to suspect geographical distance isn’t the only culprit. I felt homesick for the first time in, well, maybe forever!The market sellers were as determined as any in any market anywhere in the world. “Look, very fine. And cheap. Cheap at half the price.” ‘Of course it’s cheap at half the price’, I wanted to say – ‘it’s half the price. What you mean to say is it’s cheap at twice the price.’ But of course I didn’t say anything. I’m beginning to see that really is a problem. How can I expect other people to understand what I think if I don’t say anything? They can’t all be as intuitive as Hamish. Hamish understood me so well.
Monday, December 16, 1991
chapter 8 - partytime
Still no snow. Will I never get my troika ride?
Babby came with me for my walk today. We walked slowly past the Goodwill Games Sport Stadium and a pretty little convent, its gold tiled spires in the now familiar onion shape dazzling in the grey light.
“Thank you dear,” Babby said suddenly.
“Thank you for what?”
”For bringing me here. I know how busy you are, and how tiring it must be to travel with an old lady.”
“Oh Babby, believe me, it has been no trouble. I’ve loved being here with you, meeting your family, finding out more about your history. It’s context for me. I think this was absolutely the right thing for me to do at this time in my life. After all…. ”
“After all, I won’t be here much longer?”
“That was not what I was going to say! I was going to say, after all, I am the one with the least commitment to family or other people, and the one with the most travel experience.” I wanted to say more, about how I treasure her friendship, her enthusiasm, her easy way with showing affection, but I couldn’t make it sound the way I wanted. I can never make it sound the way I want.
After walking in silence awhile Babby turned to me. “Tomorrow you must phone your Mother.”
“Oh yes I suppose I must confirm what flight you’ll be on when we part in London.”
“That’s not quite what I meant dear. I think you need to talk to her about other things. And I know she needs to talk to you. She’s wanted to for a long time now. You are both needing each other. And if you wait until you go back to your home it won’t happen.”
I said nothing but walked head down, kicking bits of gravel, feeling like a child. We returned along the Komsomolsky Prospect passing the enormous insulated pipes that carry Moscow’s water. I took a deep breath before reentering the apartment to help with preparations for our last night. Auntie Galina has pulled out all the stops; tons of food, decorations, even hired entertainment. By 8pm a legion of people had arrived, none of whom Babby knew so I could see this would be an exhausting time for her, despite her protestations of loving it. I made her sit down at every opportunity, and tried to do the same with the pregnant and stressed out Svetlana. Auntie Galina the cyclone wore down even Arkady. He looked wild eyed and concerned every time someone’s glass was even partially low in case Auntie Galina would see it and growl. The only calm ones were Vasily and the dog, who both blissfully slept through it all. Either these people don’t entertain enough or they entertain too much.
After two hours, everyone left and the evening really began.
“So and so didn’t touch my blinis.”
“Do you think so and so liked it better than the last party at so and so's?”
“Did so and so even try the cake?”
“I hope so and so didn’t notice the decorations were the same ones used at the summer party.“
“Our entertainment was ever so much more professional than that pathetic magician at so and so’s party in September.”
“Did you see that dress so and so was wearing? It’s so unfashionable. And unflattering now that she’s gained all that weight.”
“And she needs to colour her hair. She looks fifty.”
“Fifty! She must be fifty-five if a day!”
Etc. etc.
Babby came with me for my walk today. We walked slowly past the Goodwill Games Sport Stadium and a pretty little convent, its gold tiled spires in the now familiar onion shape dazzling in the grey light.
“Thank you dear,” Babby said suddenly.
“Thank you for what?”
”For bringing me here. I know how busy you are, and how tiring it must be to travel with an old lady.”
“Oh Babby, believe me, it has been no trouble. I’ve loved being here with you, meeting your family, finding out more about your history. It’s context for me. I think this was absolutely the right thing for me to do at this time in my life. After all…. ”
“After all, I won’t be here much longer?”
“That was not what I was going to say! I was going to say, after all, I am the one with the least commitment to family or other people, and the one with the most travel experience.” I wanted to say more, about how I treasure her friendship, her enthusiasm, her easy way with showing affection, but I couldn’t make it sound the way I wanted. I can never make it sound the way I want.
After walking in silence awhile Babby turned to me. “Tomorrow you must phone your Mother.”
“Oh yes I suppose I must confirm what flight you’ll be on when we part in London.”
“That’s not quite what I meant dear. I think you need to talk to her about other things. And I know she needs to talk to you. She’s wanted to for a long time now. You are both needing each other. And if you wait until you go back to your home it won’t happen.”
I said nothing but walked head down, kicking bits of gravel, feeling like a child. We returned along the Komsomolsky Prospect passing the enormous insulated pipes that carry Moscow’s water. I took a deep breath before reentering the apartment to help with preparations for our last night. Auntie Galina has pulled out all the stops; tons of food, decorations, even hired entertainment. By 8pm a legion of people had arrived, none of whom Babby knew so I could see this would be an exhausting time for her, despite her protestations of loving it. I made her sit down at every opportunity, and tried to do the same with the pregnant and stressed out Svetlana. Auntie Galina the cyclone wore down even Arkady. He looked wild eyed and concerned every time someone’s glass was even partially low in case Auntie Galina would see it and growl. The only calm ones were Vasily and the dog, who both blissfully slept through it all. Either these people don’t entertain enough or they entertain too much.
After two hours, everyone left and the evening really began.
“So and so didn’t touch my blinis.”
“Do you think so and so liked it better than the last party at so and so's?”
“Did so and so even try the cake?”
“I hope so and so didn’t notice the decorations were the same ones used at the summer party.“
“Our entertainment was ever so much more professional than that pathetic magician at so and so’s party in September.”
“Did you see that dress so and so was wearing? It’s so unfashionable. And unflattering now that she’s gained all that weight.”
“And she needs to colour her hair. She looks fifty.”
“Fifty! She must be fifty-five if a day!”
Etc. etc.
Sunday, December 15, 1991
chapter 8 - revelation
My last day in St. Petersburg. Weak sunshine and a cold, blue sky. I can’t bear my own company so joined a tour in the morning. Two earnest students led seven of us, myself, three Swedes, two Germans and a Dutch man. We saw Dostoyevsky’s familiar haunts among city sights; the apartments he lived in and places he wrote about. We passed Lion Bridge and so many canals I lost track, oddly satisfied to keep my map in my pocket and just let someone else lead.
At the end of the tour we piled into a café near St. Isaac’s Cathedral and shared a meal of mushrooms in cream sauce, pelmeni with dill, basil and cucumbers, all washed down with pepper flavoured vodka, which was so hot it made me feel I had steam coming out of my ears, like some cartoon character. Walking back along Nevsky Prospect I passed fur clad matrons, beautiful men that looked like ballet dancers or figure skaters, and disheveled indigents drinking home brewed vodka out of yogurt cups.
A rather in depth discussion with my student guides confirmed the feeling I have that Russia has lost its way a bit. The Cold War had given it a sort of cache, strength and power cloaked in mystery, but now it’s more like the Wizard of Oz, still the same underneath but decloaked. Surface disposition at odds with its inner character. It needs to reinvent itself – no – rediscover itself perhaps. Inflation, haywire budgets, war in Chechnya – new troubles and old still unresolved. For many, the old troubles at least offered some security, enforced servility guaranteed life’s essentials; everyone was impoverished but at least it was everyone. There’s a visible gap now, and it’s widening. ‘Russia is always defeated but never beaten’, an old Russian saying Babby told me. I wonder how often Russia has been defeated from within. The gap between rich and poor is perhaps inevitable in a country going through great change.
At the hostel I packed up my things and took advantage of one more glorious shower before heading out to catch the train back to Moscow. Arkady met me at the station. It’s lovely to be met. I am always returning from my trips to a cold and silent flat. I asked him questions during the ride home, barely getting more than one word answers but satisfied just the same. Back at the flat, all three ladies were just as I’d left them, sitting, playing cards and talking over tea, talking over each other, Svetlana now as lively as Galina, making all the usual family small talk about who has died, who was dying, and who should be killed. Babby was drinking her tea in the Russian way and I wondered if that would last once she got home. I briefly recounted my trip to Auntie Galina’s peppered questions then heard about their upcoming party plans. Auntie Galina has decided that all the decorations will be red because if her sainted husband had still been alive it would have been their 40th wedding anniversary.
That reminded me of last summer, for Mom and Dad’s 40th anniversary, when I hunted out photos of their courting days to enlarge for decorations and found one of the first party they attended together. Acting out their roles even then, Dad in a corner with another serious looking geek and Mom in a crowd whooping it up, glass in hand and arms flung up, overshadowing all the gray ladies, her familiar smile radiant and aggressive even then. A woman who got what she wanted only to find it wasn’t enough. She’s always needed to be noticed, more and more as she has grown older and there are less parties. Maybe that’s why she is consistently late, it’s the only way she has of making others notice.
Later, I told Babby my thoughts and she replied “You know, you are more alike than you realize. No, it’s not about being late. Your mother was just as insecure when she was younger. She didn’t know what she wanted either.”
My surprise was palpable. “What do you mean? I know what I want.”
“No you don’t. You think you do. Your job, career, all your travels, friends. All those men you tell me you are seeing but never tell me anything more about. But are you happy dear? Are you completely happy?”
“Well no not completely. Is anyone completely happy?” I asked glibly.
“Oh my goodness yes. People are completely happy with the most awful lives.”
“Well I am certainly happy enough. “
“Happy enough for what? You’re so guarded, so afraid of being hurt that you never really let anyone in. This friend you saw the other day. How often do you see her? Of course she’s the perfect friend for you, she lives a thousand miles away! You always seem to be looking for something. And getting upset with people because they can’t provide it.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Your mother. You expect her to know what’s in your heart, but you never tell her. She longs to be included in your life. You never ask for her advice.”
“I don’t need to ask. She gives it all the time.”
“Oh but that’s not the same thing at all. She wants to be asked. The others ask her things all the time, but you never do. You’ve no idea. She misses you terribly you know.”
“She does? Mom misses me?” I was genuinely surpirse. Our phone calls were always brusque affairs that she terminated early.
“Oh my yes she is always rereading your letters and postcards. Wondering what you are doing. Afraid to call because you might not want to talk.”
“But she talks enough for both of us. Always telling me what she would do if she was me. What to do, how to do it, who to do it with, what will happen if I do it wrong.”
“Well now, if you don’t ask her how else is she going to tell you?”
“She’s always so much harder on me than the others.”
“She was harder on you because you mean so much to her. It’s her way of avoiding playing favourites. I think you are your own worst enemy dear. Forgive me for saying something so harsh, but if you just accepted some things like you accept others it all might go a little easier for you.”
“Well, I always thought accepting each others’ differences was part of life’s challenge, and also its reward. But I never thought I’d be the one who was close minded.”
“Not closed dear. Just not quite open all the way. Sort of…ajar.”
At the end of the tour we piled into a café near St. Isaac’s Cathedral and shared a meal of mushrooms in cream sauce, pelmeni with dill, basil and cucumbers, all washed down with pepper flavoured vodka, which was so hot it made me feel I had steam coming out of my ears, like some cartoon character. Walking back along Nevsky Prospect I passed fur clad matrons, beautiful men that looked like ballet dancers or figure skaters, and disheveled indigents drinking home brewed vodka out of yogurt cups.
A rather in depth discussion with my student guides confirmed the feeling I have that Russia has lost its way a bit. The Cold War had given it a sort of cache, strength and power cloaked in mystery, but now it’s more like the Wizard of Oz, still the same underneath but decloaked. Surface disposition at odds with its inner character. It needs to reinvent itself – no – rediscover itself perhaps. Inflation, haywire budgets, war in Chechnya – new troubles and old still unresolved. For many, the old troubles at least offered some security, enforced servility guaranteed life’s essentials; everyone was impoverished but at least it was everyone. There’s a visible gap now, and it’s widening. ‘Russia is always defeated but never beaten’, an old Russian saying Babby told me. I wonder how often Russia has been defeated from within. The gap between rich and poor is perhaps inevitable in a country going through great change.
At the hostel I packed up my things and took advantage of one more glorious shower before heading out to catch the train back to Moscow. Arkady met me at the station. It’s lovely to be met. I am always returning from my trips to a cold and silent flat. I asked him questions during the ride home, barely getting more than one word answers but satisfied just the same. Back at the flat, all three ladies were just as I’d left them, sitting, playing cards and talking over tea, talking over each other, Svetlana now as lively as Galina, making all the usual family small talk about who has died, who was dying, and who should be killed. Babby was drinking her tea in the Russian way and I wondered if that would last once she got home. I briefly recounted my trip to Auntie Galina’s peppered questions then heard about their upcoming party plans. Auntie Galina has decided that all the decorations will be red because if her sainted husband had still been alive it would have been their 40th wedding anniversary.
That reminded me of last summer, for Mom and Dad’s 40th anniversary, when I hunted out photos of their courting days to enlarge for decorations and found one of the first party they attended together. Acting out their roles even then, Dad in a corner with another serious looking geek and Mom in a crowd whooping it up, glass in hand and arms flung up, overshadowing all the gray ladies, her familiar smile radiant and aggressive even then. A woman who got what she wanted only to find it wasn’t enough. She’s always needed to be noticed, more and more as she has grown older and there are less parties. Maybe that’s why she is consistently late, it’s the only way she has of making others notice.
Later, I told Babby my thoughts and she replied “You know, you are more alike than you realize. No, it’s not about being late. Your mother was just as insecure when she was younger. She didn’t know what she wanted either.”
My surprise was palpable. “What do you mean? I know what I want.”
“No you don’t. You think you do. Your job, career, all your travels, friends. All those men you tell me you are seeing but never tell me anything more about. But are you happy dear? Are you completely happy?”
“Well no not completely. Is anyone completely happy?” I asked glibly.
“Oh my goodness yes. People are completely happy with the most awful lives.”
“Well I am certainly happy enough. “
“Happy enough for what? You’re so guarded, so afraid of being hurt that you never really let anyone in. This friend you saw the other day. How often do you see her? Of course she’s the perfect friend for you, she lives a thousand miles away! You always seem to be looking for something. And getting upset with people because they can’t provide it.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Your mother. You expect her to know what’s in your heart, but you never tell her. She longs to be included in your life. You never ask for her advice.”
“I don’t need to ask. She gives it all the time.”
“Oh but that’s not the same thing at all. She wants to be asked. The others ask her things all the time, but you never do. You’ve no idea. She misses you terribly you know.”
“She does? Mom misses me?” I was genuinely surpirse. Our phone calls were always brusque affairs that she terminated early.
“Oh my yes she is always rereading your letters and postcards. Wondering what you are doing. Afraid to call because you might not want to talk.”
“But she talks enough for both of us. Always telling me what she would do if she was me. What to do, how to do it, who to do it with, what will happen if I do it wrong.”
“Well now, if you don’t ask her how else is she going to tell you?”
“She’s always so much harder on me than the others.”
“She was harder on you because you mean so much to her. It’s her way of avoiding playing favourites. I think you are your own worst enemy dear. Forgive me for saying something so harsh, but if you just accepted some things like you accept others it all might go a little easier for you.”
“Well, I always thought accepting each others’ differences was part of life’s challenge, and also its reward. But I never thought I’d be the one who was close minded.”
“Not closed dear. Just not quite open all the way. Sort of…ajar.”
Friday, December 13, 1991
chapter 8 - a long way from Delphi
We spent all day at the Hermitage Museum. It’s far too big to take everything in on one visit, but we tried. Room after room of treasures. We managed to see a bit of everything, walking quickly and talking constantly. How much more can there be to tell each other? Me talking and her nodding as if she already knew what I was saying. Her lecturing me. Both remembering some long ago connection. Hours and hours. Now our fleeting visit is over, over in a blink. How many years before another? She clasped my hands and looked hard into my face, into my very soul, not letting me squirm away. “Find your happiness and hang onto it. Make it part of your life no matter how hard it is and how miserable it makes you. Or you will regret. And regret is like poison.”
Then, like the oracle she sometimes convinces me she is, she waved herself away in a careening taxi back to the ferry and her chaotic but happy life.
Then, like the oracle she sometimes convinces me she is, she waved herself away in a careening taxi back to the ferry and her chaotic but happy life.
Thursday, December 12, 1991
chapter 8 - too many men and not enough either
This morning I went down to the showers located in a stone cellar, hot and steamy. There were only two in the women’s section for this entire building - what a nightmare it must be during high season! Fortunately I was the only one there and so was able to take my time figuring out how to work the archaic plumbing. Once it got going, a large showerhead high above shed hot, strong water gushing straight down onto the crown of my head. I stood there in ecstasy. Without doubt the best shower I’ve ever had anywhere in the world. Maybe I should do a best of list, the best shower, the best bed, the best hike, the best interaction, the best museum - no that one would be too difficult.
Connie’s boat was in, baggage unloaded, and minutes felt like hours until I saw her. Then hugging in a wonderful flood of pure joy. I cried buckets – I am so much more emotional than I used to be, crying at movies and plays, even sporting events. I put it down to a kinder gentler me. Mom says I am just getting old. We got Connie's things loaded into a taxi and to her hotel. I had thought she might stay in the hostel with me, but obviously her trekking days are over.
She had already arranged for soup, a sort of strongonoff and bread as a sort of room picnic, which we ate on the floor talking a mile a minute. I felt like a little girl staying over at a friend’s house and sharing secrets in her bedroom. Everything unleashed. How our lives have changed since we met almost ten years ago! Amazing how close two people who have actually seen each other only three times can be. Meeting kindred spirits while travelling heightens the relationship, as if so much has to be discovered with so little time to spare. I hardly know this woman really, yet I can tell her everything.
She said she wanted to know everything that was happening in my life starting with the most important, so when was the last time I had sex? I told her about the dates I’d had over the last year and she howled with laughter. She's the only one not shocked at my sleeping with a dozen or so men in a dozen or so cities this year. I kept getting their names mixed up but that didn't faze her either. Such a relief - there' no one else who I can talk to about this Laughter subsided to smile as asked me pointedly when was the last time I’d felt truly connected, both physically, emotionally and spiritually to anyone, man or woman, and I paused before telling her about Hamish. For some reason it was easier to tell her how and where I'd slept around than about my last real relationship. She was sympathetic. At first.
“Maybe you need to find someone who is not British. I hear they are terrible at sex.”
“Well, I don’t know about all Brits but that Brit certainly wasn’t lacking.”
“So what’s the problem? Was he ugly?”
What’s with the ugly thing? Why do people find this important?
“No he wasn’t ugly. Not that that would matter. It’s just that, well, it was hard work. You know, he wanted to do things that I didn’t sometimes. And he was messy.”
“All men live like pigs.”
“And he made decisions and wouldn’t tell me.”
“Like what kind of decisions? What sort of things?”
“Like going back to school.”
“So?”
“In Germany.”
“Ah.”
“Exactly.”
“So going to Germany was his way of getting out of the relationship without a confrontation. Men are such cowards!”
“Well, no he didn’t really want to leave the relationship.”
“He had another girlfriend in Germany. Bastard!”
“No, there is no other girlfriend.”
“Then why go to Germany?”
“The course he wanted to do was there. It’s the best place for his kind of training. What he does.”
“Oh. So what - he wasn’t coming back?”
“Oh yes he was. Is. At least he said so.”
“Did he not want you to visit him there? Was he hiding something?”
“No. No, he invited me to come and stay anytime I wanted. He still does.” I felt my argument weakening.
“So he writes to you?”
“He phones. Sometimes.”
“So he still wants you.”
I stammered, “Yes.”
“Ah I know! He wants you to stay in England so that when he comes back you will stay there and never leave. Englishmen never want to leave England anymore. Ok, Scottish men too - they are all the same, cold and pastry in the face. Not pastry? Pasty. Ok, pasty then! They make their woman stay when it suits them, trapped in a country of rules and bad food. They are idiots and bastards!”
“Well, actually Hamish is rather keen to leave Britain. Getting this degree would help him do that. Be more competitive worldwide I mean.”
“He likes to travel. To travel as you do? Carrying everything you own on your back, staying in filthy huts, eating local food no matter how awful it is? That kind of travelling?”
“Well, yes.”
“Ok so now I am confused. Is he a bad boyfriend or what? Were you tired of him?”
“No, I …”. I drifted off a bit. How could I explain? Everything I said sounded weak and unconvincing even to myself. “I just found it hard to deal with someone else. Who had plans of his own.”
“Even if they included you.”
“Um, yes.”
She looked at me in a way that made me feel totally small and pathetic. “It sounds like you are in denial. Inside still too much alone. Set in your ways. Not willing to change. What do you call it? A sponster.”
“I think you mean a spinster.”
“One of those women who have mouths like chicken’s bottoms, and look over their glasses at you if you laugh or have an idea. My god you can’t turn into one of those! I will never speak to you again if you do. From this moment. Our friendship is over. I’m speechless!”
“Oh Connie, don’t be so theatrical.” What is it about me that seems to attract such highly dramatic women friends? And relations? Mom, for instance. Hmm, I may have hit on something there. “Ok I admit I’m not used to being with someone else. Living with someone else. Having to adjust my life to include someone else. Someone with faults.”
“Do you think you can find a man without faults? It’s impossible.” Then she looked at me sharply. “You are not trying to find a replacement for that dead boyfriend of yours are you? Because he is dead. And because he is dead he has no faults. You have forgotten his faults. If you live with such a memory you will always be alone. And you would deserve to be. You will die an old lady with no friends. At least no friends who live in Sweden. I mean me!”
“Please, let’s talk about something else.”
“This is not going away you know. We will talk of this more. Much more.”
“I thought you were speechless.”
“You are making fun of the only friend you have? The person who is going to tell you the truth about yourself? Never mind your apologies! Now I will tell you about my life and you are going to listen to me for a change, to someone who knows how to live, how to really live.“
Despite her tantalizing words I found Connie has settled down, well, at least as settled as Connie will ever get. She lives with a man in Stockholm who has another live-in girlfriend in Helsinki, going between the two, which suits Connie just fine, as it leaves her ‘time off’ to pursue other interests and other men herself. I discovered she now has three children all under four, but won’t allow either children or their fathers to intrude on her self-exploration, enlisting the help of her neighbours and young language students who all act as casual nannies. “A child can be so cloying.”
“Connie – but you have three.”
“Yes. I love them but I can’t stand being with them. Thank God their fathers do.”
“Fathers? Plural? How many?"
"Three. One per child."
"Are they all still around?”
“Oh yes they come by to see their flesh made real, but who can stay with a man after you’ve had a child with him? It changes men.”
Well, at least Connie will not be one of those people who consider marriage and motherhood as interchangeable necessities. Her latest craze is acoustical massage therapy and she is setting up a studio at home. She has decided to write her memoirs “which will be fascinating, but so many people do not want to see them in print. I will have problems with the censors but my story must be told!”
I long to hear more about her children. What would they grow to be like I wonder? She showed me photos and told me about their characters, remarkable for someone who seems to spend absolutely no time with them. Her eyes have a certain light when she talks, a sort of softness and twinkle both at the same time. No matter how disparaging she was of this one’s poor concentration or that one’s lack of artistry, you could tell she was deeply in love with them all. I felt a pang, a longing for a whole mess of children – a noisy, messy, chaotic mess of little bodies to inspire and conspire.
She asked about my own work but when I told her I was considering an offer with the Royal Geographic Society but was worried it might be a little staid, she interrupted me to say “I know, you must take up photography. There’s a lot of money in photography. I know someone who takes photos for magazines who makes over $200,000 American dollars a year and has three homes in three different countries. That would be perfect for you.”
Thankfully I didn’t have to answer as Connie went off on another tangent. Talking about Hamish had brought him even more to my mind. I hae tried so hard to put him away in some dark recess, and thought I'd been successful but now find he springs back fully formed in my memory. He would have loved hearing Connie flit through her life in 200,000 words or less, and would have caught my eye during a few of the more colourful episodes. He always understood exactly what I was thinking. We could get going on a subject, any subject, and talk about it for hours. We seemed to spend all our time talking or laughing. Oh, yes, Hamish’s laugh. It started in his eyes then erupted in a whole river of pleasurable gurglings before he’d shake his head and make a sideways smile, as if the laugh didn’t want to depart his face. Oh I miss that laugh.
Andrew’s laugh is harder to conjure up. Connie’s comment made me wonder whether in fact he and I would actually have anything to say to each other if we were to meet now. I still read his poems, but they don’t seem as amazing as they used to. Is it them or me? Would Hamish and Andrew be even remotely alike? What would they think of each other?
Well, I know Hamish would be accepting. Right from the start, when I was feeling guilty and worried about how I could possibly be with Hamish without thinking about Andrew, Hamish just sort of invited Andrew's ghost into our relationship. He asked to see the photos and hear the stories. At first I had thought I had to choose either one or the other. I didn’t realize it could be all three of us.
And now I don’t have either.
Connie’s boat was in, baggage unloaded, and minutes felt like hours until I saw her. Then hugging in a wonderful flood of pure joy. I cried buckets – I am so much more emotional than I used to be, crying at movies and plays, even sporting events. I put it down to a kinder gentler me. Mom says I am just getting old. We got Connie's things loaded into a taxi and to her hotel. I had thought she might stay in the hostel with me, but obviously her trekking days are over.
She had already arranged for soup, a sort of strongonoff and bread as a sort of room picnic, which we ate on the floor talking a mile a minute. I felt like a little girl staying over at a friend’s house and sharing secrets in her bedroom. Everything unleashed. How our lives have changed since we met almost ten years ago! Amazing how close two people who have actually seen each other only three times can be. Meeting kindred spirits while travelling heightens the relationship, as if so much has to be discovered with so little time to spare. I hardly know this woman really, yet I can tell her everything.
She said she wanted to know everything that was happening in my life starting with the most important, so when was the last time I had sex? I told her about the dates I’d had over the last year and she howled with laughter. She's the only one not shocked at my sleeping with a dozen or so men in a dozen or so cities this year. I kept getting their names mixed up but that didn't faze her either. Such a relief - there' no one else who I can talk to about this Laughter subsided to smile as asked me pointedly when was the last time I’d felt truly connected, both physically, emotionally and spiritually to anyone, man or woman, and I paused before telling her about Hamish. For some reason it was easier to tell her how and where I'd slept around than about my last real relationship. She was sympathetic. At first.
“Maybe you need to find someone who is not British. I hear they are terrible at sex.”
“Well, I don’t know about all Brits but that Brit certainly wasn’t lacking.”
“So what’s the problem? Was he ugly?”
What’s with the ugly thing? Why do people find this important?
“No he wasn’t ugly. Not that that would matter. It’s just that, well, it was hard work. You know, he wanted to do things that I didn’t sometimes. And he was messy.”
“All men live like pigs.”
“And he made decisions and wouldn’t tell me.”
“Like what kind of decisions? What sort of things?”
“Like going back to school.”
“So?”
“In Germany.”
“Ah.”
“Exactly.”
“So going to Germany was his way of getting out of the relationship without a confrontation. Men are such cowards!”
“Well, no he didn’t really want to leave the relationship.”
“He had another girlfriend in Germany. Bastard!”
“No, there is no other girlfriend.”
“Then why go to Germany?”
“The course he wanted to do was there. It’s the best place for his kind of training. What he does.”
“Oh. So what - he wasn’t coming back?”
“Oh yes he was. Is. At least he said so.”
“Did he not want you to visit him there? Was he hiding something?”
“No. No, he invited me to come and stay anytime I wanted. He still does.” I felt my argument weakening.
“So he writes to you?”
“He phones. Sometimes.”
“So he still wants you.”
I stammered, “Yes.”
“Ah I know! He wants you to stay in England so that when he comes back you will stay there and never leave. Englishmen never want to leave England anymore. Ok, Scottish men too - they are all the same, cold and pastry in the face. Not pastry? Pasty. Ok, pasty then! They make their woman stay when it suits them, trapped in a country of rules and bad food. They are idiots and bastards!”
“Well, actually Hamish is rather keen to leave Britain. Getting this degree would help him do that. Be more competitive worldwide I mean.”
“He likes to travel. To travel as you do? Carrying everything you own on your back, staying in filthy huts, eating local food no matter how awful it is? That kind of travelling?”
“Well, yes.”
“Ok so now I am confused. Is he a bad boyfriend or what? Were you tired of him?”
“No, I …”. I drifted off a bit. How could I explain? Everything I said sounded weak and unconvincing even to myself. “I just found it hard to deal with someone else. Who had plans of his own.”
“Even if they included you.”
“Um, yes.”
She looked at me in a way that made me feel totally small and pathetic. “It sounds like you are in denial. Inside still too much alone. Set in your ways. Not willing to change. What do you call it? A sponster.”
“I think you mean a spinster.”
“One of those women who have mouths like chicken’s bottoms, and look over their glasses at you if you laugh or have an idea. My god you can’t turn into one of those! I will never speak to you again if you do. From this moment. Our friendship is over. I’m speechless!”
“Oh Connie, don’t be so theatrical.” What is it about me that seems to attract such highly dramatic women friends? And relations? Mom, for instance. Hmm, I may have hit on something there. “Ok I admit I’m not used to being with someone else. Living with someone else. Having to adjust my life to include someone else. Someone with faults.”
“Do you think you can find a man without faults? It’s impossible.” Then she looked at me sharply. “You are not trying to find a replacement for that dead boyfriend of yours are you? Because he is dead. And because he is dead he has no faults. You have forgotten his faults. If you live with such a memory you will always be alone. And you would deserve to be. You will die an old lady with no friends. At least no friends who live in Sweden. I mean me!”
“Please, let’s talk about something else.”
“This is not going away you know. We will talk of this more. Much more.”
“I thought you were speechless.”
“You are making fun of the only friend you have? The person who is going to tell you the truth about yourself? Never mind your apologies! Now I will tell you about my life and you are going to listen to me for a change, to someone who knows how to live, how to really live.“
Despite her tantalizing words I found Connie has settled down, well, at least as settled as Connie will ever get. She lives with a man in Stockholm who has another live-in girlfriend in Helsinki, going between the two, which suits Connie just fine, as it leaves her ‘time off’ to pursue other interests and other men herself. I discovered she now has three children all under four, but won’t allow either children or their fathers to intrude on her self-exploration, enlisting the help of her neighbours and young language students who all act as casual nannies. “A child can be so cloying.”
“Connie – but you have three.”
“Yes. I love them but I can’t stand being with them. Thank God their fathers do.”
“Fathers? Plural? How many?"
"Three. One per child."
"Are they all still around?”
“Oh yes they come by to see their flesh made real, but who can stay with a man after you’ve had a child with him? It changes men.”
Well, at least Connie will not be one of those people who consider marriage and motherhood as interchangeable necessities. Her latest craze is acoustical massage therapy and she is setting up a studio at home. She has decided to write her memoirs “which will be fascinating, but so many people do not want to see them in print. I will have problems with the censors but my story must be told!”
I long to hear more about her children. What would they grow to be like I wonder? She showed me photos and told me about their characters, remarkable for someone who seems to spend absolutely no time with them. Her eyes have a certain light when she talks, a sort of softness and twinkle both at the same time. No matter how disparaging she was of this one’s poor concentration or that one’s lack of artistry, you could tell she was deeply in love with them all. I felt a pang, a longing for a whole mess of children – a noisy, messy, chaotic mess of little bodies to inspire and conspire.
She asked about my own work but when I told her I was considering an offer with the Royal Geographic Society but was worried it might be a little staid, she interrupted me to say “I know, you must take up photography. There’s a lot of money in photography. I know someone who takes photos for magazines who makes over $200,000 American dollars a year and has three homes in three different countries. That would be perfect for you.”
Thankfully I didn’t have to answer as Connie went off on another tangent. Talking about Hamish had brought him even more to my mind. I hae tried so hard to put him away in some dark recess, and thought I'd been successful but now find he springs back fully formed in my memory. He would have loved hearing Connie flit through her life in 200,000 words or less, and would have caught my eye during a few of the more colourful episodes. He always understood exactly what I was thinking. We could get going on a subject, any subject, and talk about it for hours. We seemed to spend all our time talking or laughing. Oh, yes, Hamish’s laugh. It started in his eyes then erupted in a whole river of pleasurable gurglings before he’d shake his head and make a sideways smile, as if the laugh didn’t want to depart his face. Oh I miss that laugh.
Andrew’s laugh is harder to conjure up. Connie’s comment made me wonder whether in fact he and I would actually have anything to say to each other if we were to meet now. I still read his poems, but they don’t seem as amazing as they used to. Is it them or me? Would Hamish and Andrew be even remotely alike? What would they think of each other?
Well, I know Hamish would be accepting. Right from the start, when I was feeling guilty and worried about how I could possibly be with Hamish without thinking about Andrew, Hamish just sort of invited Andrew's ghost into our relationship. He asked to see the photos and hear the stories. At first I had thought I had to choose either one or the other. I didn’t realize it could be all three of us.
And now I don’t have either.
Wednesday, December 11, 1991
chapter 8 - northern venice
I’ve always been able to sleep deeply on trains, and at 6am I was jolted awake with a loud broadcast of music. “Ballroom Blitz” blared out and I felt completely disoriented. Am I back at high school? Horrors.
St. Petersburg was not yet alive when we pulled in, the sky a dusky, grey, early morning sort of light. I walked through quiet streets past black windows and silent aspects. Buildings are on a much more human scale here than in Moscow, 3 or 4 storeys tall, graceful if rickety and decayed. Canals and bridges. Easy to see why Goethe nicknamed it ‘Venice of the North’. The hostel confirmed the similarity. A dark hallway opened into a sort of lobby filled with dusty echoes, stone flagged floor and bare walls, old paint and mould. It’s low season so I had my pick of rooms, all containing six narrow cots, six night tables and one lone light bulb hanging from the middle of the ceiling. The room reminds me a bit of Building Number 6 in Hangzhou. I sighed at the memory.
Eager to explore I set out along the Nevsky Prospect, ducking into every place that looked interesting. Despite shops being tiny and virtually empty, there were always at least three people working, each with their own distinct role. One stood behind the counter and showed me what I asked to see. When I made my choices I am sent over to the second person, a bored woman knitting. Upon paying for my items, I was given a slip of paper and directed to a different counter. The third person exchanged my payment slip for the merchandise, now wrapped. Of course this all took ages, despite my being the only person in there. It was the same thing everywhere, in kiosks and tiny green grocers, three people (at least one of them always a bored woman knitting), handling the purchase of a single apple.
I tried to get an early lunch at 11am, but 11am is coffee and cake time, and that’s it. It reminded me of my first trip to England when after supper I asked for tea instead of coffee and received the curt rebuff “The coffee lady won’t allow it”. Northern Europe is proud of keeping its rules, just as Southern Europe is of breaking theirs. Ok, so I’ll have coffee and cake.
I took in the Admiralty and the outside of the Winter Palace, two bridges crossing to the Petrograd Side, the market and a roundabout where I’d heard the best spit roasted chicken was sold. I ate some in a bare little park with no trees and no grass, two girls of about eight years old raking the soil. A lanky boy walked by whistling. He looked a bit like Hamish. Back over another long bridge through the Summer Garden and Resurrection Cathedral, stepping around canals and electric trolleys to return back completely exhausted.
St. Petersburg was not yet alive when we pulled in, the sky a dusky, grey, early morning sort of light. I walked through quiet streets past black windows and silent aspects. Buildings are on a much more human scale here than in Moscow, 3 or 4 storeys tall, graceful if rickety and decayed. Canals and bridges. Easy to see why Goethe nicknamed it ‘Venice of the North’. The hostel confirmed the similarity. A dark hallway opened into a sort of lobby filled with dusty echoes, stone flagged floor and bare walls, old paint and mould. It’s low season so I had my pick of rooms, all containing six narrow cots, six night tables and one lone light bulb hanging from the middle of the ceiling. The room reminds me a bit of Building Number 6 in Hangzhou. I sighed at the memory.
Eager to explore I set out along the Nevsky Prospect, ducking into every place that looked interesting. Despite shops being tiny and virtually empty, there were always at least three people working, each with their own distinct role. One stood behind the counter and showed me what I asked to see. When I made my choices I am sent over to the second person, a bored woman knitting. Upon paying for my items, I was given a slip of paper and directed to a different counter. The third person exchanged my payment slip for the merchandise, now wrapped. Of course this all took ages, despite my being the only person in there. It was the same thing everywhere, in kiosks and tiny green grocers, three people (at least one of them always a bored woman knitting), handling the purchase of a single apple.
I tried to get an early lunch at 11am, but 11am is coffee and cake time, and that’s it. It reminded me of my first trip to England when after supper I asked for tea instead of coffee and received the curt rebuff “The coffee lady won’t allow it”. Northern Europe is proud of keeping its rules, just as Southern Europe is of breaking theirs. Ok, so I’ll have coffee and cake.
I took in the Admiralty and the outside of the Winter Palace, two bridges crossing to the Petrograd Side, the market and a roundabout where I’d heard the best spit roasted chicken was sold. I ate some in a bare little park with no trees and no grass, two girls of about eight years old raking the soil. A lanky boy walked by whistling. He looked a bit like Hamish. Back over another long bridge through the Summer Garden and Resurrection Cathedral, stepping around canals and electric trolleys to return back completely exhausted.
Tuesday, December 10, 1991
chapter 8 - riding the rails
Arkady helped me put in a call to Connie. She has returned home from another of her cruises, full of storms and fifty-foot waves. Her trips are always so dramatic. After hearing her familiar exuberant tones, I can’t wait to see her again. Our last meeting in Stockholm three years ago (three, I can’t believe it’s been that long!) was too short and she’s a terrible correspondent. She will take a ferry into St. Petersburg the day after tomorrow to meet me. Perfect, there’s a train I can catch tonight. She started to give convoluted directions to where her boat gets in but I stopped her, “It’s ok, I have a map, I’ll find it.”
“Oh yes, you and your maps. I forget. My God! It has been too long since I have seen you.”
This works out well. Babby can spend time reuniting with her family and I can see a bit more of Russia, something she isn’t keen on anyway, at least that’s what she says. “Now you will be alright? Are you sure?” I ask her sincerely.
“Oh course dear. I’ll be just fine here. And I promise I’ll avoid fish. And sleep. I mean I will sleep, not avoid sleep. Oh now don’t look at me like that. You look just like your mother. You go off and see your friend and explore and I will be just fine. Galina’s going to have a tea party in my honour tomorrow and I will meet her friends. I’m going to get my photos in order tonight so I can tell them all about Canada.”
‘Good luck, Galina’s friends’, I think.
At the station I got that travel thrill again. Someplace new to go to. It’s been awhile now, a year and a half I guess, ever since China. I don't count European cities that I visit for work. I spend all my time in airports and museums and offices. The museums are fine, but the rest could be anywhere in the world really.
It took me awhile to find the right train and carriage. I felt like a child learning to spell as I stood in front of the sign slowly working out the Russian Cyrillic script, but its similarity to Greek helps. It’s nice to find I can still remember my Greek from all those years ago.
I suppose early December is not a popular time to travel, as I had a compartment all to myself. The cot sheets are stiff and white, topped with several thin blankets. Despite the cold outside, I probably won’t use many, for the inside of the train is just like the inside of every building here, stiflingly hot and humid. A little hunched lady sits at the end of the carriage by a steaming samovar; does she really sit there all night? I asked in halting Russian if I could get some tea and she wordlessly brought me a glass in a decorative metal holder filled with hot tea. She also brought a spoon full of dark red jam. I tried it as the Russians do, but decided I prefer my tea jamless.
After an hour or so I was surprised to hear a weak knocking at my door whereupon the same little lady presented me with a box of dinner. Individually wrapped rolls of slightly stale bread, greasy cheese and meat slices, a limp salad, cake, cookies and fruit along with a bottle of orange drink. A veritable feast!
“Oh yes, you and your maps. I forget. My God! It has been too long since I have seen you.”
This works out well. Babby can spend time reuniting with her family and I can see a bit more of Russia, something she isn’t keen on anyway, at least that’s what she says. “Now you will be alright? Are you sure?” I ask her sincerely.
“Oh course dear. I’ll be just fine here. And I promise I’ll avoid fish. And sleep. I mean I will sleep, not avoid sleep. Oh now don’t look at me like that. You look just like your mother. You go off and see your friend and explore and I will be just fine. Galina’s going to have a tea party in my honour tomorrow and I will meet her friends. I’m going to get my photos in order tonight so I can tell them all about Canada.”
‘Good luck, Galina’s friends’, I think.
At the station I got that travel thrill again. Someplace new to go to. It’s been awhile now, a year and a half I guess, ever since China. I don't count European cities that I visit for work. I spend all my time in airports and museums and offices. The museums are fine, but the rest could be anywhere in the world really.
It took me awhile to find the right train and carriage. I felt like a child learning to spell as I stood in front of the sign slowly working out the Russian Cyrillic script, but its similarity to Greek helps. It’s nice to find I can still remember my Greek from all those years ago.
I suppose early December is not a popular time to travel, as I had a compartment all to myself. The cot sheets are stiff and white, topped with several thin blankets. Despite the cold outside, I probably won’t use many, for the inside of the train is just like the inside of every building here, stiflingly hot and humid. A little hunched lady sits at the end of the carriage by a steaming samovar; does she really sit there all night? I asked in halting Russian if I could get some tea and she wordlessly brought me a glass in a decorative metal holder filled with hot tea. She also brought a spoon full of dark red jam. I tried it as the Russians do, but decided I prefer my tea jamless.
After an hour or so I was surprised to hear a weak knocking at my door whereupon the same little lady presented me with a box of dinner. Individually wrapped rolls of slightly stale bread, greasy cheese and meat slices, a limp salad, cake, cookies and fruit along with a bottle of orange drink. A veritable feast!
Monday, December 9, 1991
chapter 8 - generation games
I’m amazed at how many Russian words have crept into Babby’s vocabulary even though she never lived here. She is even starting to sing snippets of old Russian folk songs, childhood tunes she must have learned from her father. She tells me stories about her siblings, people who are mostly just names on Christmas cards to me, people who become real, with family faults I see in myself and my sisters. Dad sounds like the carbon copy of her brother Dimitri. Serious, conscientious, concerned about what the world thinks of him and his family, everything logical, even his sock drawer methodically colour coded.
My father, a man who would spend hours learning the rules of some board game but who never enjoyed playing it. Who thought nothing of explaining some difficult math problem no matter what time of day or night but who never asked why it was important to solve that particular problem, as long as a teacher or a boss said it was important, it was. A man who had no time for newfangled things but who would spend hours hovered over the latest catalogue of new bean varieties to grow each year, memorizing attributes and parentage. A man who judged himself and others by social convention, always comparing himself to the world, but never changing. Always finding his children lacking. A man who tried to understand my love of maps but never the love of travel behind it.
Babby is loosening up and enjoying herself. This must be what she’s like in Reno, her favourite holiday place. At home she’s quite abstinent, denying herself even simple treats because she couldn’t let go of the lessons learned during two world wars and the Depression and what she hears in the news. Yesterday she surprised me by declining sour cream, saying “I am worrying about my cholesterol.” I almost spat up my blini. 84, tiny as a doll and healthy as a horse! ‘Have the sour cream’, I wanted to say. ‘Have a tub of it! You’re 84 - deny yourself nothing.’ I didn’t have to say it though. She snuck a spoonful when she thought no one was looking.
Myself I am enjoying seeing how life revolves around baby Vasily. He is a poppet, a smiling Buddha, fat, good natured and bland, but you’d think he was king the way his every desire was anticipated. Seeing his mother’s curly hair and his father’s pointy ears together in one new little body, I suddenly miss Sidney’s kids, now in Edmonton, and even Sam’s dogs, which I have to admit do actually look a lot like her. I think it’s the eyes.
I had never really worried about having children myself seeing as there has never been any real opportunity. But now, my great age of 34 seems to be a green light for everyone to tell me how important, how necessary it is to be married and have children. I see Vasily smile at me and for the first time wonder what it would be to have such a smiling piece of oneself.
My father, a man who would spend hours learning the rules of some board game but who never enjoyed playing it. Who thought nothing of explaining some difficult math problem no matter what time of day or night but who never asked why it was important to solve that particular problem, as long as a teacher or a boss said it was important, it was. A man who had no time for newfangled things but who would spend hours hovered over the latest catalogue of new bean varieties to grow each year, memorizing attributes and parentage. A man who judged himself and others by social convention, always comparing himself to the world, but never changing. Always finding his children lacking. A man who tried to understand my love of maps but never the love of travel behind it.
Babby is loosening up and enjoying herself. This must be what she’s like in Reno, her favourite holiday place. At home she’s quite abstinent, denying herself even simple treats because she couldn’t let go of the lessons learned during two world wars and the Depression and what she hears in the news. Yesterday she surprised me by declining sour cream, saying “I am worrying about my cholesterol.” I almost spat up my blini. 84, tiny as a doll and healthy as a horse! ‘Have the sour cream’, I wanted to say. ‘Have a tub of it! You’re 84 - deny yourself nothing.’ I didn’t have to say it though. She snuck a spoonful when she thought no one was looking.
Myself I am enjoying seeing how life revolves around baby Vasily. He is a poppet, a smiling Buddha, fat, good natured and bland, but you’d think he was king the way his every desire was anticipated. Seeing his mother’s curly hair and his father’s pointy ears together in one new little body, I suddenly miss Sidney’s kids, now in Edmonton, and even Sam’s dogs, which I have to admit do actually look a lot like her. I think it’s the eyes.
I had never really worried about having children myself seeing as there has never been any real opportunity. But now, my great age of 34 seems to be a green light for everyone to tell me how important, how necessary it is to be married and have children. I see Vasily smile at me and for the first time wonder what it would be to have such a smiling piece of oneself.
Sunday, December 8, 1991
Chapter 8 - theatrical day without drama
Blinis and coffee for breakfast then we all went off in the car, a rattly Lada, squashed and pressed against the windows except for baby Vasily who had an entire seat to himself. We went to see ‘Pinocchio’ at the famous Obraztsov puppet theatre, a modern looking place full of children dressed in their best. Of course I couldn’t understand any of the performance, but that didn’t diminish the pleasure. Afterwards there was an appearance by ‘Papa Frost’, the Russian equivalent to ‘Santa Claus’ or ‘Father Christmas’. I quite like the name ‘Papa Frost’. Vasily, who has been saying nothing but “Papa Frost” all day suddenly turned red and started howling, clinging to Svetlana’s skirts and screaming. Auntie Galina gave him a smack about the head which of course made him howl even louder. I picked him up and carried him off to look at pictures of puppets on the walls, whispering endearments until his sobbing stopped. Nothing dries quicker than a tear at his age.Squashed trip back home for a big bowl of soup and then the others rested while I went out to explore the Novodevichy cemetery. Austere and crowded with bodies cheek by jowl, large tree roots have raised the slabs under which decades of Moscow’s citizens lay. Black and white marble indicated final destinations for Khrushchev, Chekhov, Gogol and Prokofiev. And Stalin’s wife, her husband now suspected of her supposed suicide. Chaliapin, whose citizenship was stripped whilst touring in France, his remains only returned to ‘mother Russia’ a dozen years ago. Rubinstein, Shostakovich, Stanislavsky, Tupolev, Ulanova – Russia’s artists and scientists row on row. Crows flew and rustled overhead. Somber birds, crows. They flapped in the bare trees and rasped down at me through black branches. I love trees in winter. Anything can look lovely decorated with leaves and blossoms, but nature’s true beauty is in her bones. I thrill to the sight of a naked tree against a grey sky – graceful, fluid, proud, real. A raw breeze slithered around me and I shivered. Still no snow.
I managed to get tickets for ‘La Boehme’ at the Bolshoi, thinking it would be a treat. Arkady said nothing, but then he rarely does. When Auntie Galina had left the room to make tea Svetlana said to me “Opera. How dull. You can return my ticket at the box office. I’d rather stay home.” Auntie Galina caught the end of her comments as she returned to the room, and said of course Svetlana was going to go, her relative had bought the things without anyone having a say in it and so the only polite thing would be to go and make the best of it. Then she told me I had nothing appropriate to wear and ordered Svetlana to give me one of her dresses. It was a hideous green colour, but I didn’t have any say in the matter. Svetlana didn’t look entirely happy about it either. But I was determined to enjoy myself this evening.
At the theatre I took everyone’s coat and then had a terrible time trying to find the cloakroom in the labyrinthine halls. How many times as a girl did I dream of being at the Bolshoi? Of course back then it was to be on the stage but it’s much better to watch and listen with joy. It’s nice not to feel the need to perform anymore. In the intermission I got Babby a bar of chocolate, a selfish act as I quite like Russian chocolate myself.
Babby was unusually quiet and I asked her if she was having a good time. “Oh yes dear, the singing is quite lovely.”
“And the theatre? Isn’t it wonderful to be someplace so historic and famous?”
“Yes, it’s somewhat like the Municipal Theatre at home isn’t it? Although I think I prefer the Municipal Theatre.”
“Well…” I foundered. How could she compare the two, this veritable palace and a square modernist block built in the 1960s? “The Municipal isn’t all that old you know.”
“Oh yes, but it’s so much bigger. And it has carpet.”
Saturday, December 7, 1991
Chapter 8 - First sign of trouble
Tonight we all went out to a concert held in an old wooden building down a dark lane, lit with bare light bulbs and one unprepossessing leaded glass window. The performers were dressed casually, most definitely amateurs but terribly earnest. After the concert we were taken to a French restaurant obviously meant to impress us, which worked for Babby who declared it “quite posh”. It was filled with well-to do people that Auntie Galina whispered to us were black market mafia. I wondered if others whispered the same about us. Everyone is beautifully dressed in exquisite, delicate fashions, probably because in here, like everywhere in Moscow it is extremely well heated. Too well heated – I sweltered in my wool dress.
We drank cranberry flavoured vodka and ate well. I guess what Svetlana calls “boring old Russian food” is passe for locals now that new cuisines have become available after ‘glasnost’. Except for German cuisine, I suppose not so surprisingly. Galina hates anything German. Babby is not so keen either and they both start badmouthing a country they know nothing about and to which they have never been, all due to a war that ended fifty years ago. I couldn't stand it. “Germany is not just about the Nazis. There’s more to it than that, thousands of years more.”
“You don’t have to tell me, dear,” Babby said. “I’ve seen The Sound of Music.”
I laughed. It sounded like something Mom would say. Then I caught myself. If Mom had really said something like that I’d be rolling my eyes but with Babby I just laugh. I wonder why we are harder on the generation that brought us up. Especially our mothers. Women are so hard on their mothers.
What I really wanted was “boring old Russian food”, which wouldn’t be boring to me at all, but it might be hard to sell the others on this. Auntie Galina is a bulldozer, knowing what everyone wants without taking the time to actually find out. “Arkady, you know you can not have the lamb. You always want the lamb and then say how bad it tastes. So you are not having the lamb. Have the salmon instead. Svetlana, don’t squirm. The baby will not sleep through the night if you squirm. Arkady, our young guest is almost finished her drink! Order another one right away. What will she think of us if we allow her glass to go dry? I noticed this morning your bed was wet. Are you wetting the bed again?”
“That was the dog. And what do you mean ‘again’ Mama? I haven’t wet the bed since I was eight.”
Svetlana sits quietly with a miserable face as her mother-in-law tells her what to eat and what to wear, then she leans over the table to whisper conspiratorial criticisms of every other woman in the room to me. Getting her own back I guess. I guess it's not confined to mothers - women can be so often mean about other women.
Svetlana asked me why I wasn’t married yet and wasn’t it unfair to my parents who no doubt want grandchildren. Before I could answer Babby got in there. “She's sowing wild oats these days by the bushel full. And needlessly! She had a perfectly good opportunity she let slip away. A lovely young man. Perfectly well suited husband material.”
“Babby!” I said disturbed at the blush I could feel, “That was over a year ago and you never even met the man.”
“I spoke to him on the telephone. You can tell a lot from voices.” She said with as haughty an air as a 4 foot high chatterbox in a voluminous orange shawl is able to produce. I was about to silence them all and take the focus off the subject by saying this perfect man of Babby’s had chosen Germany in which to study, but I was too slow.
“You didn’t get all modern on him did you?” Auntie Galina asked. ”Young girls today, feeling they are worthless unless they drive men away with their independence. Working themselves out of marriage. Putting off having children until they are too old and tired to be good mothers.”
“Oh he was perfectly willing to let her work,” piped in Babby.
“Well what’s the problem then? No money?”
“He had a good job, and was studying to get even more education. I don’t think money was really a problem was it dear? He gave her lovely presents. An enormous globe, the biggest I've ever seen, full of countries I've never heard of. And books. Anyway, things she wanted.”
Who's 'she' I want to shout - the cat's mother? I'm sitting right here!
“Was he ugly then? It is very hard to be with an ugly man but when the lights go out they all look the same. And even an ugly man is better than no man at all.”
I jerked into the conversation. “Excuse me, but if I could get in one sentence about the topic of my life, I would like to say that I am perfectly able to choose my own partner if I even need one at all, which is debatable. Besides what happened between Hamish and me is my business.”
Babby patted my hand and soothed, “Of course it is dear, we only want to see you are happy and looked after.” Then, hastily, after seeing my response “I mean, not lonely.”
Auntie Galina had to have the last word of course. “I think it is disgraceful for women these days to think they know so much better than their mothers and grandmothers what life is.” She looked, no, glared, at Svetlana who shrank into her seat and I felt like kicking the old shrew under the table. But of course I didn’t. I’d like to think it’s because I’m a polite house guest but I suspect I’m merely a coward.
We drank cranberry flavoured vodka and ate well. I guess what Svetlana calls “boring old Russian food” is passe for locals now that new cuisines have become available after ‘glasnost’. Except for German cuisine, I suppose not so surprisingly. Galina hates anything German. Babby is not so keen either and they both start badmouthing a country they know nothing about and to which they have never been, all due to a war that ended fifty years ago. I couldn't stand it. “Germany is not just about the Nazis. There’s more to it than that, thousands of years more.”
“You don’t have to tell me, dear,” Babby said. “I’ve seen The Sound of Music.”
I laughed. It sounded like something Mom would say. Then I caught myself. If Mom had really said something like that I’d be rolling my eyes but with Babby I just laugh. I wonder why we are harder on the generation that brought us up. Especially our mothers. Women are so hard on their mothers.
What I really wanted was “boring old Russian food”, which wouldn’t be boring to me at all, but it might be hard to sell the others on this. Auntie Galina is a bulldozer, knowing what everyone wants without taking the time to actually find out. “Arkady, you know you can not have the lamb. You always want the lamb and then say how bad it tastes. So you are not having the lamb. Have the salmon instead. Svetlana, don’t squirm. The baby will not sleep through the night if you squirm. Arkady, our young guest is almost finished her drink! Order another one right away. What will she think of us if we allow her glass to go dry? I noticed this morning your bed was wet. Are you wetting the bed again?”
“That was the dog. And what do you mean ‘again’ Mama? I haven’t wet the bed since I was eight.”
Svetlana sits quietly with a miserable face as her mother-in-law tells her what to eat and what to wear, then she leans over the table to whisper conspiratorial criticisms of every other woman in the room to me. Getting her own back I guess. I guess it's not confined to mothers - women can be so often mean about other women.
Svetlana asked me why I wasn’t married yet and wasn’t it unfair to my parents who no doubt want grandchildren. Before I could answer Babby got in there. “She's sowing wild oats these days by the bushel full. And needlessly! She had a perfectly good opportunity she let slip away. A lovely young man. Perfectly well suited husband material.”
“Babby!” I said disturbed at the blush I could feel, “That was over a year ago and you never even met the man.”
“I spoke to him on the telephone. You can tell a lot from voices.” She said with as haughty an air as a 4 foot high chatterbox in a voluminous orange shawl is able to produce. I was about to silence them all and take the focus off the subject by saying this perfect man of Babby’s had chosen Germany in which to study, but I was too slow.
“You didn’t get all modern on him did you?” Auntie Galina asked. ”Young girls today, feeling they are worthless unless they drive men away with their independence. Working themselves out of marriage. Putting off having children until they are too old and tired to be good mothers.”
“Oh he was perfectly willing to let her work,” piped in Babby.
“Well what’s the problem then? No money?”
“He had a good job, and was studying to get even more education. I don’t think money was really a problem was it dear? He gave her lovely presents. An enormous globe, the biggest I've ever seen, full of countries I've never heard of. And books. Anyway, things she wanted.”
Who's 'she' I want to shout - the cat's mother? I'm sitting right here!
“Was he ugly then? It is very hard to be with an ugly man but when the lights go out they all look the same. And even an ugly man is better than no man at all.”
I jerked into the conversation. “Excuse me, but if I could get in one sentence about the topic of my life, I would like to say that I am perfectly able to choose my own partner if I even need one at all, which is debatable. Besides what happened between Hamish and me is my business.”
Babby patted my hand and soothed, “Of course it is dear, we only want to see you are happy and looked after.” Then, hastily, after seeing my response “I mean, not lonely.”
Auntie Galina had to have the last word of course. “I think it is disgraceful for women these days to think they know so much better than their mothers and grandmothers what life is.” She looked, no, glared, at Svetlana who shrank into her seat and I felt like kicking the old shrew under the table. But of course I didn’t. I’d like to think it’s because I’m a polite house guest but I suspect I’m merely a coward.
Friday, December 6, 1991
Chapter 8 - Moscow observations
As the others prepared to talk, or rather listen, to the stories I’ve heard hundreds of times before, I took myself outside, using Anastasia as my excuse to take a long walk. We started along the Moscow river, passing under the gaze of the not quite finished colossus Peter the Great. I silently thanked the man who, desiring a more exact knowledge of his eastern territories, initiated his Great Northern Expedition to explore and map Siberia. Such a remote part of the world charted not for expansion but for knowledge itself. That didn’t happen often.
Anastasia and I took a detour through a deserted Gorky park. Dilapidated with rickety shanties and rusting equipment. I saw one lone man ice fishing in a tiny frozen pond. There were a couple of kiddie rides up and running although no one was around. The loudspeakers at the entrance broadcast lively, blaring music. Anastasia did not approve of the loud music I could tell. She turned her head to look up at me with pain in her old dog eyes. ‘Are you a reincarnation of another Anastasia?’ I asked her with my thoughts. She blinked. I took that to be a yes and picked up her poop with a bit more reverence after that.
I turned in at Red Square to see the Kremlin and St. Basil’s Basilica looking like some mad Arabian dream and zigzagged back through streets and lanes, always within sight of renovation cranes hovering over Christ the Savior Cathedral. Peeked inside the famous GUM department store, a multi-leveled glass arcade housing several stores that all sell the same things. Moscow is dilapidated and magnificent, everything on a massive scale. Buildings take up entire blocks, square and solid in red brick and grey stone with little decoration. Streets are wide, in many case six lanes wide, although it is evident that the lanes do not restrict, for cars pitch and weave across the road at will. I saw u-turns completed right in the middle of the street without even slowing down.
The men are somewhat colourless but the women of Moscow are impressive. Very smartly dressed in furs, impeccable makeup and stylish shoes. How they can manage to look so groomed in polluted air and muddy streets I don’t know. The December air is cold and the skies are grey but I am surprised not to see snow. Disappointed too, I want a ride in a troika sleigh.
When I returned I encountered one of Auntie Galina’s neighbours, a well dressed man accompanied by two guards armed with Kalashnikov rifles. He motioned me to join him in the elevator but I smiled him on, pretending to be waiting for someone else. I did not fancy standing in a glass elevator glass next to someone who needs two armed guards. Back in the flat everyone was resting, so I read “Crime and Punishment”. “Such a troubling book” Auntie Galina said with a sniff when she saw it, but I have always felt connected with Dostoyevsky somehow.
I was frequently distracted by the landscape out the window however, the river off to the left, and one of the so-called “Seven Sisters” in the distance. These are wonderful old Soviet buildings that look like severe wedding cakes, tiers topped with a communist star. I placed my hand on the shiny window pane to feel the ebbing sun’s weak warmth. Light reflected on the top layer of creamy white paint, showing off long ago brush strokes by some unknown painter.
Thursday, December 5, 1991
Chapter 8 - homesteading in Moscow
We were both bleary-eyed this morning. Our night was interrupted often; Babby’s because of the jet lag and mine because of Babby tottering off to the toilet at what seemed a constant shuffle. When she did sleep she snored loudly and robustly.
Babby always was talkative, but travelling with her really puts it in the spotlight. As I write this she is going on and on about a mish mash of things – politics, birds, how pale Russian fruit is, her garden back home. No one else has said anything for twenty minutes, nor even really looked at her as they go about their chores, but she carries on cheerfully and undaunted. So different from her son. I now wonder if Dad is so silent because he never got a word in edgewise.
“Of course I don’t need to talk to you about the war. I wonder what Stalin was really like. I bet he didn't eat enough fruit. The apples we get at home are so red they’re black, these must be a winter variety. No scabs though that’s a blessing. I would have killed for fruit during the depression. Vegetables too, other than potatoes. Did you have fresh vegetables here then? Or maybe you didn’t have a depression the same as we did. Terrible drought. Our chickens dying left, right and centre. Oh look! A lovely little thing just flashed by. It has a white flash on its wing now what would that be? I have a chickadee at home that knows me – he always comes to eat the gumps out of the porridge pot. I call him Chucky Dee, Dee, Dee, Dee, Dee! Chucky Dee, Dee, Dee, Dee, Dee! I’ll call and there he is, hungry as anything.”
A silent Arkady sloped off to work early this morning and the rest of us enjoyed a leisurely breakfast. Babby offered to cook and I am happy to say Auntie Galina wouldn’t let her near the kitchen. Babby’s cooking is and has always been abysmal, worse even than Mom’s. Cookies like rubber. Tea thick enough to stop a bullet. Boiled meat. I remember hearing the story of when Sam was born, and Babby stayed at our house to look after the rest of us. Mom’s boss gave her five porterhouse steaks as a celebration gift. Five beautiful steaks. Steak was an expensive treat in our house and my mom sat in the hospital trying to decide how and when to cook those precious and rare bovine gems. But as soon as she stepped over her threshold with baby in arms, Babby patted her on the arm and said, “Now don’t you worry about that meat that was lying around. I boiled it up so there’d be no germs.” My mother’s heart turned cold at the sight of five grey, desiccated slabs sitting on a platter in the fridge. Dad always said that’s why there are only three of us kids, Mom couldn’t bear the thought of Babby in her kitchen ever again.
Far better she should sit and talk about old times, growing up on the prairies, her early life with Grampa, a traveling salesman during the depression who sold household items nobody wanted and no one could afford. His death, literally on the road, his heart stopping as he walked from one house to another, goods spilled out on the sidewalk like scattered weeds. Then her and all her children moving to the tiny farm she called the homestead. I always liked that word. ‘Homestead’ sounds so cosy. But I imagine in reality it was anything but.
Babby always was talkative, but travelling with her really puts it in the spotlight. As I write this she is going on and on about a mish mash of things – politics, birds, how pale Russian fruit is, her garden back home. No one else has said anything for twenty minutes, nor even really looked at her as they go about their chores, but she carries on cheerfully and undaunted. So different from her son. I now wonder if Dad is so silent because he never got a word in edgewise.
“Of course I don’t need to talk to you about the war. I wonder what Stalin was really like. I bet he didn't eat enough fruit. The apples we get at home are so red they’re black, these must be a winter variety. No scabs though that’s a blessing. I would have killed for fruit during the depression. Vegetables too, other than potatoes. Did you have fresh vegetables here then? Or maybe you didn’t have a depression the same as we did. Terrible drought. Our chickens dying left, right and centre. Oh look! A lovely little thing just flashed by. It has a white flash on its wing now what would that be? I have a chickadee at home that knows me – he always comes to eat the gumps out of the porridge pot. I call him Chucky Dee, Dee, Dee, Dee, Dee! Chucky Dee, Dee, Dee, Dee, Dee! I’ll call and there he is, hungry as anything.”
A silent Arkady sloped off to work early this morning and the rest of us enjoyed a leisurely breakfast. Babby offered to cook and I am happy to say Auntie Galina wouldn’t let her near the kitchen. Babby’s cooking is and has always been abysmal, worse even than Mom’s. Cookies like rubber. Tea thick enough to stop a bullet. Boiled meat. I remember hearing the story of when Sam was born, and Babby stayed at our house to look after the rest of us. Mom’s boss gave her five porterhouse steaks as a celebration gift. Five beautiful steaks. Steak was an expensive treat in our house and my mom sat in the hospital trying to decide how and when to cook those precious and rare bovine gems. But as soon as she stepped over her threshold with baby in arms, Babby patted her on the arm and said, “Now don’t you worry about that meat that was lying around. I boiled it up so there’d be no germs.” My mother’s heart turned cold at the sight of five grey, desiccated slabs sitting on a platter in the fridge. Dad always said that’s why there are only three of us kids, Mom couldn’t bear the thought of Babby in her kitchen ever again.
Far better she should sit and talk about old times, growing up on the prairies, her early life with Grampa, a traveling salesman during the depression who sold household items nobody wanted and no one could afford. His death, literally on the road, his heart stopping as he walked from one house to another, goods spilled out on the sidewalk like scattered weeds. Then her and all her children moving to the tiny farm she called the homestead. I always liked that word. ‘Homestead’ sounds so cosy. But I imagine in reality it was anything but.
Wednesday, December 4, 1991
chapter 8 - ties that bind
We had a quiet evening listening to some music on the radio while Babby wrote postcards. I wonder she has anything to impart having been here all of three hours, but she tossed off several before willing to call it a night. She’s amazing. I’m hearing her faint accent anew – that weird combination of Danish, Russian and Canadian. I guess she comes by it honestly. I remember her mother, just barely, as I must have been four when she died. She only learned the rudiments of the English language. I never met my great-grandfather but I know he never learned a word of English, a fatal omission as it happened.
It must have been some life. Setting up home in the flat plains of a new country, a fisherman who had to learn how to be a farmer, providing for a family of nine children. Babby was the youngest but one. There was also a cook and a ‘girl who did’. Babby once told me how each child had been instructed to save a particular family treasure in case of fire. Hers was an enormous samovar, an object as tall as she and twice as heavy. Thankfully her strength was never put to the test. What a thing to put on a child!
They never had money, but after the eldest sons grew old enough to taste a bit of the outside world and earn, they got a horse to make life easier for the father who had always pulled the plough himself. Three days later, still not used to my great grandfather’s touch, the horse bolted, reins tangled up in arms and legs. Every command the middle aged man could muster was shouted as he was dragged over the fields for miles, his body becoming a bloody and then a silent mass, but the horse would not heed. Of course not. Canadian horses do not understand Russian.
It must have been some life. Setting up home in the flat plains of a new country, a fisherman who had to learn how to be a farmer, providing for a family of nine children. Babby was the youngest but one. There was also a cook and a ‘girl who did’. Babby once told me how each child had been instructed to save a particular family treasure in case of fire. Hers was an enormous samovar, an object as tall as she and twice as heavy. Thankfully her strength was never put to the test. What a thing to put on a child!
They never had money, but after the eldest sons grew old enough to taste a bit of the outside world and earn, they got a horse to make life easier for the father who had always pulled the plough himself. Three days later, still not used to my great grandfather’s touch, the horse bolted, reins tangled up in arms and legs. Every command the middle aged man could muster was shouted as he was dragged over the fields for miles, his body becoming a bloody and then a silent mass, but the horse would not heed. Of course not. Canadian horses do not understand Russian.
Chapter 8 - Babby's homeland
Travelling with an 84 year old has some real benefits; we got seats right at the front of the plane and received the most attentive service. Babby was glued to the window the whole trip, telling me about icebergs and cloud cover for 14 hours. At one point she asked me to get her a hankie out of her capacious handbag and I got to see what was inside:
· six hankies
· one pair of wool socks
· cotton neckerchief
· four little boxes of Chicklets gum
· notebook decorated all over with pictures of kittens
· pocket diary promoting a brand of greeting cards on every page
· plastic rain cap - gold
· two full decks of cards and a spare joker
· three rolls of Life Savers (butterscotch, rum and butter, grape – her favourites)
· Paper serviettes
· a roll of toilet paper
· a silver plastic candelabra in two pieces that fit together with a snap.
The last item in particular had me stymied. I could only hope it was a gift.
Auntie Galina met us with enormous fur-coated hugs and a car, driving us to her apartment right in the centre of Moscow. Though dark, I could see the streets were crowded, and we took more than two hours to get what seemed a relatively short distance but Auntie Galina says this is a normal rush hour. Imagine having to do this every day!
The apartment is larger than I expected. I guess my reading material was pre-perestroika and so my views of what to expect were skewed. We are at the top of a nine-storey building with a glass elevator that rides up the outside to get to our floor. Auntie Galina’s daughter Svetlana, a carbon copy of her mother except pregnant, silent son-in-law Arkady who looks to be at least 9 feet 6 inches tall, and toddler Vasily met us with hugs and kisses all round. A dog named Anastasia met us with a more lugubrious expression. “Just like my Binky at home”, Babby cooed to it. A fabulous display of smoked trout, caviar, salads and wine awaited us. Babby professed she only wanted a cup of tea but far be it from me to pass up such a feast.
While we ate Babby kept up a non-stop chat interspersed with showing photos. “Betty came west because her dad had a bad stroke and was not expected to live. Pearl lives next door. Her husband has a little greenhouse but she is a few sandwiches short of a picnic if you catch my drift. Don’t the potatoes look good? I must spray them for flea beetle next year. Mogen’s wife Violet came from Saskatchewan. She dove into the beach at Jericho at low tide and died of head injuries. She wasn’t used to the ocean. No low tides in Saskatchewan you see.”
I’m sure no one was really taking in any of it, but that doesn’t seem to deter her. Or to matter. It will all get repeated, no doubt, several times during the next two weeks. It’s good to see her happy, seeing the family she’s never seen while she can still see. I am struck by the family resemblance. Second cousins once removed, but she and Auntie Galina have the same chins. And the same girlie laugh. I’m used to it from Babby, but it doesn’t seem to match Auntie Galina’s formidable personality. I asked Arkady to show me how to put in a call home as I knew Mom and Dad would want to know we’d arrived safely.
“Was Galina there to meet you? I’d heard she was unreliable. Was she late? Did you have to wait?”
I didn‘t rise to the obvious. “No Mom they were there on time and got us here just fine.”
“Have you eaten? Are they feeding you?”
“Yes we’ve just eaten a lovely meal. Caviar Mom.”
“Oh, well no doubt it’s as common as beans there. I hope you’re not letting your grandmother eat caviar. You know what fish does to her insides.”
“Don’t worry, she just ate bread and salads.”
“Salads? Do they have salads there then? Are they washed properly? Do they know how to wash salad properly? Is the water clean?”
“It wasn’t that kind of salad. It was cucumber, peeled. And potato. Cabbage. Everything is well cooked or peeled or pickled.” I rolled my eyes. Here she is commenting on others when she is always notoriously late and hasn’t eaten a vegetable that wasn’t in a can or frozen in decades.
“Good. You make sure she gets enough to eat. But don’t let her near fish. And make sure she gets to bed on time.”
“I will. We’re just having a cup of tea. I’ll give you the number here so you can contact us.”
“Oh my goodness don’t bother. It will be so expensive to call all that way and I know we couldn’t work out the numbers anyway.”
“Oh, so we’ll just call you then. On Auntie Galina's phone. The one who is hosting your daughter and mother-in-law." I tried to sound pleasantly acidic.
“Much better.”
Curses! She always wins!
· six hankies
· one pair of wool socks
· cotton neckerchief
· four little boxes of Chicklets gum
· notebook decorated all over with pictures of kittens
· pocket diary promoting a brand of greeting cards on every page
· plastic rain cap - gold
· two full decks of cards and a spare joker
· three rolls of Life Savers (butterscotch, rum and butter, grape – her favourites)
· Paper serviettes
· a roll of toilet paper
· a silver plastic candelabra in two pieces that fit together with a snap.
The last item in particular had me stymied. I could only hope it was a gift.
Auntie Galina met us with enormous fur-coated hugs and a car, driving us to her apartment right in the centre of Moscow. Though dark, I could see the streets were crowded, and we took more than two hours to get what seemed a relatively short distance but Auntie Galina says this is a normal rush hour. Imagine having to do this every day!
The apartment is larger than I expected. I guess my reading material was pre-perestroika and so my views of what to expect were skewed. We are at the top of a nine-storey building with a glass elevator that rides up the outside to get to our floor. Auntie Galina’s daughter Svetlana, a carbon copy of her mother except pregnant, silent son-in-law Arkady who looks to be at least 9 feet 6 inches tall, and toddler Vasily met us with hugs and kisses all round. A dog named Anastasia met us with a more lugubrious expression. “Just like my Binky at home”, Babby cooed to it. A fabulous display of smoked trout, caviar, salads and wine awaited us. Babby professed she only wanted a cup of tea but far be it from me to pass up such a feast.
While we ate Babby kept up a non-stop chat interspersed with showing photos. “Betty came west because her dad had a bad stroke and was not expected to live. Pearl lives next door. Her husband has a little greenhouse but she is a few sandwiches short of a picnic if you catch my drift. Don’t the potatoes look good? I must spray them for flea beetle next year. Mogen’s wife Violet came from Saskatchewan. She dove into the beach at Jericho at low tide and died of head injuries. She wasn’t used to the ocean. No low tides in Saskatchewan you see.”
I’m sure no one was really taking in any of it, but that doesn’t seem to deter her. Or to matter. It will all get repeated, no doubt, several times during the next two weeks. It’s good to see her happy, seeing the family she’s never seen while she can still see. I am struck by the family resemblance. Second cousins once removed, but she and Auntie Galina have the same chins. And the same girlie laugh. I’m used to it from Babby, but it doesn’t seem to match Auntie Galina’s formidable personality. I asked Arkady to show me how to put in a call home as I knew Mom and Dad would want to know we’d arrived safely.
“Was Galina there to meet you? I’d heard she was unreliable. Was she late? Did you have to wait?”
I didn‘t rise to the obvious. “No Mom they were there on time and got us here just fine.”
“Have you eaten? Are they feeding you?”
“Yes we’ve just eaten a lovely meal. Caviar Mom.”
“Oh, well no doubt it’s as common as beans there. I hope you’re not letting your grandmother eat caviar. You know what fish does to her insides.”
“Don’t worry, she just ate bread and salads.”
“Salads? Do they have salads there then? Are they washed properly? Do they know how to wash salad properly? Is the water clean?”
“It wasn’t that kind of salad. It was cucumber, peeled. And potato. Cabbage. Everything is well cooked or peeled or pickled.” I rolled my eyes. Here she is commenting on others when she is always notoriously late and hasn’t eaten a vegetable that wasn’t in a can or frozen in decades.
“Good. You make sure she gets enough to eat. But don’t let her near fish. And make sure she gets to bed on time.”
“I will. We’re just having a cup of tea. I’ll give you the number here so you can contact us.”
“Oh my goodness don’t bother. It will be so expensive to call all that way and I know we couldn’t work out the numbers anyway.”
“Oh, so we’ll just call you then. On Auntie Galina's phone. The one who is hosting your daughter and mother-in-law." I tried to sound pleasantly acidic.
“Much better.”
Curses! She always wins!
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