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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.”

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.