Ancient Furies

by Anastasia V. Saporito

  A few years older than Father, General Skorodumov had seen service and combat in wwi fighting against Germany. At some point after the start of the Revolution, he joined General Wrangle’s White Army in the Crimea. Perhaps he joined the mass emigration of Wrangle’s followers from Ukraine in 1920 and came to Yugoslavia just as my parents had. All of our close family friends were known and addressed by me as Uncle or Aunt So-and-so or by their name and patronymic, a proper Russian form of address, but General Skorodumov was always addressed as General! General Skorodumov’s influence on me was particularly memorable on two occasions. When I was about five, he brought me a particularly thoughtful gift on Easter, and about two years later he taught me a lesson, rather traumatically, at a special dinner held to welcome Mother home from a trip to America.

  The General’s younger brother, Nikolai Fedorovich Skorodumov, was just the opposite in appearance and demeanor. He too was tall and quite handsome, but carelessly casual, almost sloppy in dress, and totally negligent in manners. I was permitted to address him, more familiarly, as Uncle Kolya. Nikolai Fedorovich was an accomplished actor in Russian theater abroad.

  Boris Stepankovsky had served with Father in the White Army, but was the antithesis of a soldier. Dyadya (Uncle) Borya was a very quiet, gentle, almost meek person, very artistic, with a slender build and gliding, graceful gait. He was always in our home. He was simply always there whenever I returned from school or running errands with Kristina. He often sat quietly for hours, doing embroidery, a hobby I believe he had adopted to help heal the traumas of war. Our calico cat, Triska, was always in his lap to have her ears rubbed endlessly. When Uncle Borya wished to return to his embroidery, he would simply drape the cloth over the cat and Triska would purr contentedly for hours. He had apparently seen enough fighting and bloodshed. He held absolutely no interest in war, revolution, counterrevolution, or the endless dreams and plans that preoccupied the majority of our Russian émigré circle. He had only two interests, his embroidery and lovely women. He seemed always to have a pretty young woman fluttering about him.

  Baroness Andersen was an eccentric lady in her late eighties or early nineties. She had snow-white hair, always with a diadem of precious stones and topped with a black lace mantilla. Her mantilla extended over a corseted, heavy brocade blouse with pearl embroidery, fitted at the waist to meet a wide black hoop skirt, which seemed to hover above black slippers also adorned with pearls and semiprecious stones. Her carefully manicured hands were seen through mesh gloves that extended almost to her elbows. When greeting someone, she would extend the tips of her fingers, aloofly keeping the person at arm’s length.

  One of the most colorful of the stories that emanated from and about the Baroness was her claim that she remembered so fondly the time she bathed in champagne with Napoleon. I must have been about eight years old when I first heard her relate this tale to someone. I was advanced in school enough to know that Napoleon Bonaparte had ruled France and was defeated in Russia in 1814, and I simply dismissed what I heard as the eccentric foolishness of a very old woman. The Baroness was old, I thought, but not over 120. However, Napoleon’s son, Napoleon iii, ruled France from 1852 to 1870, and his son, Napoleon Eugene, was proclaimed Napoleon iv following the death of his father. He was soon exiled to England and died in 1879. The Baroness, who had also spent time living in England, probably would have been about nineteen or twenty when Napoleon iii died—old enough for a liaison with either father or son—and she never indicated otherwise. The truth is now gone forever, as perhaps it should be.

  Aunt Lyalya, a close friend of Mother’s, was considered by most to be flirtatious and frivolous. In truth, she was simply and completely uninhibited in social situations. At that time she had divorced husband number four and was seriously looking for number five, which may be the reason I seem never to have known her full name. I was always excited to see her because she dressed in the latest styles, with bright colors and knee-length skirts. I thought she was an extremely warm, affectionate person. I could speak to her without curtsying and could hug her at any time. She was so very different from the stiff, correct, and impeccable characters of most of our friends. If anybody criticized her, she would immediately collapse in a dead faint, and someone would rush for the smelling salts to revive her. Lyalya was also my mother’s favorite among all our friends. I’m certain that she felt both affection and admiration for Lyalya. I believe she secretly envied her uninhibited good nature.

  All of the people who attended Mother’s formal weekly dinners were close family friends who monitored my development as much as my parents. General and Mrs. Nazimov (Aunt Nadia) were the only family friends who had children, which probably explains why they did not always attend Mother’s dinners. They are the only friends whose home I remember visiting with my parents. The General was a serious, solemn person, but far more approachable than General Skorodumov.

  General Nazimov and Aunt Nadia had two sons, Kolya and Yura. Kolya was about five years older than I, and Yura was perhaps three years older. Both boys attended military school, a sort of prep school outside of Belgrade. The boys were always home on school holidays and spent a lot of time in our home, where they tolerated my company and agreed to play quiet games with me—but always at a price. Father had given me a copper and steel bank, which was kept on a table in the living room. All our friends would smile at me as they entered our home and drop in a coin or two, jokingly saying that it was for my dowry. Father, too, frequently dropped in coins with a wink and a smile and the same comment. I liked to jiggle the bank to listen to the coins inside. Father kept the key somewhere in his desk. The two boys felt that it was a chore for them to play the “childish” games that I favored and decided that they were entitled to compensation for their efforts.

  “Kolya,” I would say, “let’s play Parcheesi.”

  “Wel-l-l,” he would always reply slowly. “All right, but it will cost you money.”

  While Kolya kept watch for any approaching adults, Yura would use his pocket knife to jiggle coins from the bank. I don’t know if Father ever wondered why the bank didn’t fill as fast as he expected, but I was delighted to have someone around who was at least a bit closer to my own age.

  My day always began when Kristina awakened me at 7:00, bathed and dressed me, and prepared my breakfast, which always included hot cocoa—a treat which, over the years, I would learn to truly dislike and which would play an unfortunate part in a later episode of my life. Weather permitting, after breakfast I went outside to the courtyard to skip on the cobblestones, listen to the birds, and look at the flowers.

  At 9:00 I was called back into the house, usually greeting my parents as they were finishing their breakfast, to begin my lessons in reading, writing, and basic arithmetic. Home tutoring was central to my life beginning at age three. Two tutors, Volodya and Zhora, both university graduate students, came to the house five days a week.

  Volodya, who I remember as a very mild and pleasant young man who had enormous patience with my often stubborn and uncooperative nature, arrived to begin my lessons at 9:00, while Zhora began at 10:45 each morning.

  Zhora tutored me in the same subjects but entirely in French. After lunch each day I was expected to read a children’s book in Russian, Serbian, or French and to write a brief report in both Russian and Serbian for Volodya and in French for Zhora.

  It seems so strange to remember this today. Surely the childish scrawl that first year was meaningless to both my parents and tutors, but my memory is clear concerning the pride I felt in surrendering my scrawls for review. The benefit, of course, is that the process quickly became routine. I simply have no memory of ever being able to speak only one language. My formal lessons ended at noon except for three afternoons each week when Zhora returned to give me piano lessons. Mother insisted on the piano lessons. She frequently filled the house with music.

  Every two weeks Volodya and Zhora would arrive together and polish the parquet floors by removing their shoes, placin
g soft cloths under their feet, and skating throughout the entire house. These parquet days were my favorites because while studying my lessons for both, I could listen to Volodya as he skated through the rooms and sang Russian folksongs. He had such a beautiful tenor voice.

  January 30, 1933: Adolf Hitler of the Nazi Party was elected chancellor of Germany; accepting the chancellorship, he announced the Third Reich, which he predicted would last 1,000 years, and gave orders that the Nazi swastika flag would be flown beside the German flag.

  March 22, 1933: The Nazi Party opened a soon-to-be infamous detention camp in the lovely south Bavarian village of Dachau.

  March 23, 1933: The Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, effectively granting dictatorial powers to Adolf Hitler. By July 14, 1933, all German political parties except the Nazi Party had been outlawed.

  In 1933 a very close friend or a relative passed away, and Mother, Father, Aunt ’Lyena, and I went to church for the funeral. As was the custom in the Russian Orthodox Church, my parents approached the casket together; first Mother and then Father stepped to the dais and slowly bent to bestow a final kiss on the face of the lady who lay in the casket. Aunt ’Lyena helped me up to be face-to-face with the body. I looked at the lady lying in the casket, eyes closed, hands folded across her chest, looking as if she were peacefully sleeping.

  Aunt ’Lyena gently pushed my head toward the figure and told me to kiss her. I placed my lips on her cheek, and a shudder went through me. Her cheek felt icy cold, damp, and the candlelight playing on her face made me think she moved. My face and lips felt clammy, and my whole body felt slimy cold as I cried out loudly. Father lifted me quickly from the dais and held me tightly against his warm chest. It was a terrible, frightening experience that I would never forget.

  October 17, 1933: A young German physicist named Albert Einstein, fleeing Nazi persecution of the Jews, arrived in the United States.

  August 19, 1934: Berlin: A Plebiscite approved the vesting of “sole executive power” in Adolf Hitler.

  The summers in Belgrade were extremely hot, and Mother automatically disappeared during the worst of the heat, going off to the Swiss Alps to find some relief for a few days. I was allowed to go with Kolya and Yura and their parents on all-day excursions to Gypsy Island. To get there we had to take a trolley to the Danube and then take a small boat to the island. The island itself was isolated and very large, or so it seemed to me. It had a large, sandy beach and was half pine groves and half swampy areas with lots of water lilies, cattails, and interesting wild flowers that could not be found in Belgrade itself—wonderful for exploring. Gypsy Island became a very important part of my childhood and adolescence.

  TWO

  School Days

  At the age of six, in September 1935, I was enrolled in the first grade of the Russian Girls School operated within the Russkii Dom. With the start of school, ballet lessons were added and German was introduced to my home language instructions. At the same time, Mother began a home “language calendar”—a large calendar on which she wrote a language for each day of the week and hung on the wall in my room. A different language, Russian, Serbian, German, or French, was written in for each day, Monday through Friday. She made a game of it, with each of us—Mother, Father, Aunt ’Lyena, and me—required to speak only in the language of the day, and with a small forfeit or penalty to be paid by any of us who made a mistake by speaking in a different language.

  There were always many laughs when someone, usually Father, used a Russian word in the middle of a conversation in French. Weekends were a family favorite. Everyone was free to mix words from any of the languages listed on the calendar in any sentence or conversation. I thought it was great fun, and it kept me on my toes. Father, of course, enjoyed the weekends the most.

  September 15, 1935: The Nuremberg Laws adopted by the German Reichstag deprived German Jews of citizenship and made the swastika the official symbol of Nazi Germany.

  One day in 1935 I suddenly developed a sharp pain in my side that grew more intense. Kristina, concerned, made me lie down, but nothing seemed to help. By the time Mother and Father returned home, the pain had grown severe, and I lay doubled over on the bed, now perspiring and complaining of nausea. Mother and Father, obviously concerned, called a taxi to take me to our regular family doctor. The doctor immediately diagnosed appendicitis and instructed my parents to take me directly to the hospital where he would meet us. At the hospital, we were met at the door by a nurse with a small wheelchair, which Father placed me in before following the nurse to a room. Father lifted me onto the bed, and he and the nurse undressed me carefully, replacing my clothes with a hospital gown, while Mother looked on with a worried expression. Then Father looked directly into my eyes.

  “Now, Asinka, the doctor has decided that you need a small operation to take away that pain that is bothering you. I’m going to take you down to the operating room, but I’m not allowed to go in with you. When we get there, the nurse will take you into the room and the doctor will be there waiting. He will be wearing a small white mask, but that’s just part of his uniform that must be worn in the operating room. You know the doctor, and you know what a nice man he is. Most important, you must remember that there is nothing to be frightened of. Now look at my eyes. Look closely. Do you see yourself there? Of course you do. That’s because you are a part of me, and I am a part of you. You must remember that you are a Russian and that you are my daughter, and you know that we Russians are never frightened of anything.”

  I looked carefully, and there I was, magically reflected in his eyes.

  “Yes, Papa,” I replied solemnly, no longer afraid. “I remember.”

  Suddenly the pain seemed to go away as Father lifted me from the bed, placed me in the wheelchair, and began to push the chair out of the room with the nurse in attendance. Father kissed the top of my head as we reached the door of the operating room, and the nurse took over to push me through the doors. I saw the doctor waiting in the mask just as Father had told me. He stood next to the operating table and looked at me kindly. He said, “Hello, Anastasia. We are going to put you up on top of this table now. Are you a little frightened?”

  “No, sir,” I replied, rising from the chair and starting to climb up on the table. “I’m a Russian, you see.”

  The doctor stopped me until the nurse provided a step stool, and then allowed me to continue my climb, although now with a little help. He then explained that I would be awake during the operation, but that he was going to make sure that it didn’t hurt. The spinal tap, of course, ensured that there was no pain, and the doctor held up my ruptured appendix in a little bottle for me to see when he had removed it. I drifted off to sleep soon after that, and when I awoke, it was to see myself reflected in Father’s eyes as he bent over my bed, anxiously looking at me. In a week or two I returned to school, armed with a greater sense of who I was.

  At the end of that first school year, Mother announced that I was to spend part of summer vacation at a place called Hopova. My summer of 1936 would set the tone for several summer vacations and would prove to be a source of many cherished memories. Father and I boarded a train in Belgrade for the relatively short trip.

  The Fruska Gora, a hilly, wooded region between the Sava and Danube Rivers, is home to many monasteries dating from the 1690s. One of these monasteries, Hopova, was founded during that period and had become a convent operated by an order of Russian nuns who offered a summer program for Russian children. The Mother Superior during my summers at Hopova was Matushka (Little Mother) Varvara, a Russian princess who had entered the convent after losing her husband during the 1914–18 fighting.

  Hopova was a large stone three-story structure with two single-story wings enclosing a cloistered courtyard. The first floor had a huge kitchen, a large dining hall, and an ancient chapel adorned with icons and frescoes. A squeaky wooden door led from the kitchen into a large garden—rows of vegetables in the center, surrounded by brilliant flowerbeds. Beyond the gardens a formal
ly landscaped area provided a place for the nuns to walk and to meditate, the silence broken only by the exotic calls of the many peacocks that strolled throughout the lawns.

  A short walk through orchards and small flowerbeds beyond this area led to a grotto—a large rock outcropping within which a niche held a glassencased icon. Water continuously poured from a spout protruding from the rock face below the icon into a large stone basin. We were given strict instructions that this was a sacred place that was to be revered. We could drink from the grotto when thirsty, but were never to play with it or near it.

  The second floor of the main building held Matushka Varvara’s office and sleeping quarters, the tiny cells that were occupied by the nuns, and several rooms that held religious artifacts. The third floor was a dormitory, a long room with a wide center aisle and beds on each side. Dormer windows, which had deep sills providing wonderful perches from which to view the courtyard and grounds below, separated the girls’ beds. A narrow, winding staircase led to the monastery’s bell tower.

  Next to the main entry to the dormitory, a raised platform held a small cot and a tiny table and chair where a nun remained during the night to watch over her sleeping charges. Above the nun’s cot an icon hung on the wall just above a small shelf which held a flickering oil lamp. A candle lit the tiny table in front of the nun on duty and cast mysterious shadows on the wall. The girls watched and waited patiently for the nun’s head to nod, when they would begin to whisper and giggle over the events of the day until the nun stirred and all would grow silent again.

  The days in Hopova were glorious and carefree. We rose very early and dressed in native costumes—an ankle-length skirt of green, red, and dark blue plaid, a white cotton blouse with puffy sleeves, a matching plaid vest, and a matching plaid babushka-style kerchief. We formed a single, orderly line, hands folded reverently, and followed a nun as she led us into the chapel for morning prayers and then to the dining hall.