My Russian Family

by Lilia Sariecheva

  When these men approached, everyone in the queue huddled closer to the one in front and strongly gripped his or her belt or pants. No one was throwing punches or using blackjacks, but the queue was dangerous with that many people surging back and forth almost out of control. Anyone who fell down was in trouble. The stress and strain was exhausting from having to constantly hang on and being shoved off balance. The one police officer assigned to the area could do nothing. Remember, luxury items were not a government priority.

  As we approached the door, my husband and I decided on responsibilities. I would go into the store with the money. My husband would stay outside and control our rug when it arrived via airmail. The time came and the efficient guards hustled me inside while they beat back others trying to crowd inside.

  “What rug do you want?”

  I pointed and said, “I want this size and this design!”

  “We don’t have that design in this size. We have this size in that design.”

  I did not care for that design but the size was right so I said, “Yes.” I rapidly paid cash from my large stash and headed for the front door.

  Before I got there, our new rug sailed out as a door guard yelled out our name. The efficient guards picked me up and tossed me over the heads of the tightly packed crowd. I landed on my feet with a little help from numerous citizens.

  My husband was bouncing around with his hands in the air waiting to hear our name called and mentally preparing to secure the rug before someone else could claim it. He described his technique and acted it out for me later, like a hopping crow, bouncing left and right and bobbing up and down while he stared into the sky for the flying carpet. I had a mental image of an animal preparing to jump over a dangerous chasm. He told me it was proof of his undying love for me. Nikoli saw a commotion, heard an unrecognizable name yelled out, and glimpsed a huge rolled-up rug flying through the air. He made the snap judgment that it was ours based on the large size and he attacked it. When I landed, I turned around and saw my husband and several other men running toward our rug!

  My husband was sitting on the middle of the rolled up rug as I ran up yelling and screaming in a loud, shrill voice, “That is ours! Go away! Get out! This is our rug!” Surprised by the verbal onslaught, the attackers left us alone and my husband didn’t even admonish me for my coarse, unladylike actions.

  “Stay here and I will go back to Pavel’s house and get our car,” he said.

  I retorted with finality, “I will not be staying here alone for three more hours!”

  We sighed resignedly, picked up the heavy four-meter-long rug (13.1 feet) and staggered off. We hoped to find a taxi or a taxi stand, but no such luck. The large underground metro was not too bad, but the long and heavy rug on the crowded bus was stressful. People scolded us as the rug jostled and bumped them in the packed vehicle. “You must be from the provinces,” someone said. We kept silent and blissfully smiled at each other. Normally, I had a sharp tongue for these types of comments. But I was content; we had gotten out of that consumer hell and we had our rug!

  About seven that evening we finally returned to Pavel and Nadezhda’s home. One look and they congratulated us. Then we suddenly remembered that we did not have the coats and blankets that they generously loaned us. We instantly were up and ready to go back, but Pavel’s massive frame blocked the door as his huge arms spread out like a brood hen protecting her chicks. “To heck with those stupid blankets. You are not going anywhere! Forget about the coats too. I did not like them anyway. Sometimes it is nice to get rid of stuff you don’t like.”

  Nadezhda joined the conversation as she looked at Pavel, “I gave you one of those coats for a present. Now I know how you feel about me!” She made a long sad face, and then burst out laughing. A cleansing bath, a warm meal, a restful night’s sleep, and the hospitable home put us right with the world again.

  When we triumphantly left the next morning in our car with the rug tied on top, we drove by the store on the faint hopes that the coats or blankets would be retrievable. No such luck of course and it had taken us an hour and a half of driving around in terrible traffic just to find the store. The crowd was still there, larger than before. We headed back to Ryazan, about a two and a half hour drive, feeling like Kirk Douglas when Spartacus broke out of that hated Gladiator School.

  We pondered on how to repay the hospitality of Pavel and Nadezhda. We remembered that one of his daughters loved sunflower seeds better than candy or chocolate. Excellent sunflower seeds from southern Russia were available in Tula, where my mother-in-law lived, so from time-to-time she would send some to Pavel’s daughter in Moscow. This finished the rug deal, or did it?

  We installed the new rug in my parent’s apartment. We stored their old, soiled rolled-up rug in our smaller apartment. The plan was to use the salvageable parts for my son’s bedroom and the corridor where he played. No longer would we need to worry about little Andre damaging the rug. My wonderful husband promised to clean this old rug, but he didn’t say when.

  Mom really did not care for the design of the rug we purchased in Moscow (nor did I for that matter). She had an eye for fashion and hated to live with less than first class. My father couldn’t care less about fashion and when asked to accompany Mom on any shopping trip, he would give his standard reply, “I love you, but not that much! Here, take some money and buy what you need to make yourself happy!”

  Lilia and Nikoli, 1980.

  Sure enough, a few months later, one and all could admire a new elegant rug that replaced the rug we purchased so laboriously. Father did not like to “abuse his authority,” however, his main priority was to keep Marieka happy. He located a friend working in a military surplus store which had some “forgotten” rugs stored in a back warehouse. One of them was just what he wanted, mother approved the purchase, and it was done.

  The Moscow rug ended up at our apartment. I cut it up into the two large pieces that I wanted. Several years later, some of my mom’s friends came over and cleaned her old soiled rug. They salvaged some for themselves and the rest was cut up into small pieces. That night, several of our neighbors had a nice rug by their front door.

  And with that, our Moscow rug caper was concluded!

  54. The Confession

  My 30th birthday sneaked up on me. That morning, I stared into the mirror and noted with some grains of self-satisfaction that my appearance was still acceptably young and fresh. I made a funny face at myself and it put me into an even better mood. Life was joyful!

  That evening, my family members and close friends gathered in my home to celebrate my birthday. Each one gave a speech in my honor and I was listening with great attention because Russians do not compliment each other often. You have almost no opportunity to hear something nice about yourself; it only happens on your jubilee birthdays or at your funeral. Since I knew that I would not hear the speeches delivered at my grave, I tried to remember all these good words about me. These bon mots melted my heart; everyone is hungry for flattery sometimes.

  Two of these speeches were unforgettable.

  My father stated that I resembled my mother, his wife, in numerous ways and when he looked at me he saw his young wife in me and he felt young again himself.

  I was happy and felt a flood of warmth from this surprising speech.

  When my mother took the floor, I knew that it would be emotional. The stress and poor nutrition of her childhood had yielded a woman who was never in excellent health. Her latest sickness had been around for almost two years and it was debatable just how much longer she would be among us. Her speech however caused an even larger than expected thunderstorm to break out over my head. All of us became silent as we listened. My father tried to stop her by gently caressing her hand, but she said, “I have to go through my guilt and confess.”

  “My dearest daughter, you know how much I love you. Your dad and I wanted to have you very much. But I was so confused in the hospital after my labor. A young Asian woman and I had labor in the s
ame room. Even though it was my second child, the labor was very hard so I passed out from time to time and because of this, I do not remember anything. I didn’t even know if I gave birth to a boy or a girl.”

  Mother looked at me and said, “The next morning when I saw you, Lilia, it was like for the first time! Your appearance was a shock. You looked Asian. Your blue-black hair was long and thick. Narrow eyes and sharp cheekbones left me no doubt that you were either Chinese or Japanese. That is not all. We all know that a baby’s development is not uniform and that different parts develop at different speeds, but you looked freaky and ugly. First, you did not have a nose. The place for the nose was flat with just two little holes for breathing. Your mouth was almost from ear to ear and when you opened it to cry it looked big enough to swallow the world! Your ears were too small. The most scary and horrible thing was that there were two horns on the center of your forehead. They looked huge on your small head, maybe a centimeter (0.4 inches) long. When I saw that, I broke into hysterical tears. I still had not seen your body. They showed it to me later.

  “At that time, a nurse brought a baby boy in to my Asian roommate. That baby looked Caucasian. I strongly complained, claiming that the boy was mine, but the Asian woman cried out that this boy was hers. I refused to nurse you, but the Asian woman finally fed you.

  “Doctors and nurses came into the room and a long discussion followed. They were saying that the girl was mine but I did not believe them. Finally they called your father’s office. When your father arrived and saw you, he immediately claimed you as his daughter and was ready to take you home without a second’s hesitation. Father had made his point and so I stayed with you for the required six days in the hospital,” my mother said.

  It was (and still is) hospital policy that unless something is abnormal, the mother does not see the baby’s body. The wrapped up baby is presented to the mother about six times each day for nursing. There are no visitations during these six days, including fathers. They allowed my dad to see me only because there was a problem and even then, they kept me bundled up and he could only see my face as he viewed me through a large glass window.

  Mom continued, “We packed up and departed for home on the sixth day. Upon arrival, your father placed you in your bed and gently unwrapped you, giving us our first view of your body. For a second, your father and I were frozen silent, and then your brother screamed and whisked himself under the table and stayed there for a long time. He preferred to cry there and watch you from a distance. Your fingers, arms, and legs were so long and slender, they were unreal, and they waved in the air like an octopus’s tentacles descending upon prey. It looked very scary, together with your ugly face, especially when you opened your unbelievably large mouth.

  “I started to cry and was very upset. However, my husband took you in his arms, kissed you and said, ‘My daughter was born on the eighth of September on the date of the first extraordinary victory of Russians over the Tarter Mongols. She will be remarkably beautiful and bring me luck. I will be proud of her in the future’.”

  My birthday guests were sitting frozen, as if they had been struck dumb. After this painful confession, a heavy silence fell over the room.

  My son with wide-open eyes and mouth suddenly asked, “Grandma, if you didn’t want to take the baby home why did you take it anyway? You still thought that it was not yours, didn’t you?”

  My mother Marieka lifted a glass of lemonade and took a sip.

  “It was no pleasure for me because for at least three years I thought that the baby was not mine.” She reflected, “Soon, though, the black hair fell out and beautiful curly blond hair grew in.” Mom looked over at me and continued, “About eight months later, you metamorphosed like a butterfly. The horns receded, the nose and ears grew, and the mouth became smaller. You were not beautiful, but you were strong and healthy, even chubby, certainly acceptable to take the first picture of and send it to relatives. At three years, the metamorphosis was complete and you were nice-looking! You were cute, bright, and full of life. You gained weight and filled out. However, you were still small, almost tiny, with long legs and a short body. When you were about 15 you became better proportioned and at 16 you grew some more and became the beautiful woman that you are today. Your hands and feet are smallish, but everything else is just right.” Mother smiled at me with pride.

  She concluded, “I felt guilty about you my whole life, because now I love my daughter very much, and love with guilt is such a painful thing. Everybody at this table knows that I am very sick now and maybe I will be gone soon. For this reason, I decided to make my confession and forgive myself for my actions after Lilia’s birth.”

  My mother possibly did not become 100 percent convinced that I was her daughter until I turned about 16 years old. Before that, mom’s girlfriends used to say that I looked like no one in the family. Sometimes I would also complain that I had no features in common with anyone in our family. The turning point came when mom saw that I was beginning to resemble her mother Lena who had married Prince Ivan. There were no pictures of Lena available so I remained unconvinced.

  That summer I made a trip to Latvia by myself to visit my mom’s relatives. I remember asking if they had a picture of my maternal grandmother Lena. Aunt Shurra replied that she had found the last picture taken of her when she was 40 years old, just a few years before her death from starvation in St. Petersburg. The photograph that she showed me was not in good condition. Most likely there was an interesting story on just how Shurra had been able to find it after the war. The picture was black and white, taken in a plain setting and Lena was without jewelry. She was standing in full-length profile, her blond mane in an upswept hairdo and wearing a simple dress. I remember thinking that my grandmother looked much older that her actual years and I didn’t feel that I looked anything like her.

  I was young and pretty and could not relate to that picture of Lena. It was years later that I finally understood my mother’s point and agreed that I closely resembled Lena. What was striking and came home to me was the elegant, graceful manner Lena posed with her hands clasped in front, a tilt to her head, her long neck and squared shoulders, the curve of her derriere, and a proud and defiant attitude that rose above her poor circumstances. She was beautiful and the contrast with the poor background in the picture just placed further emphasis upon that point.

  This knowledge weighed heavily upon my mind as I placed my arm around my mother’s shoulders and repeated my son’s question, “Why did you decide to take me home? Was it because of Dad?”

  Marieka waved her hand, “It is a long and sad story.”

  I insisted, “Please, tell us that story. I hope that everyone wants to hear it as much as I do after your confession. Tell us anyway, even if it was very sad.”

  Marieka raised her eyes and looked around. All the guests were tense and appeared almost distressed as they waited for the story to continue.

  “All right, I’ll tell you that story, but first I want to remind you that today is the 600th anniversary of the Victory of the great battle of Kulikovo Field, where Russians were victorious over the Tarter-Mongols. Today is also the 30th birthday of my loving beautiful daughter. I am making this toast to her, wishing that she will never endure the horrible things that people went through, including her parents. My wish is that she will never know how any war looks and smells. My wish is that she will never unexpectedly lose her loved ones or her friends.”

  Cheers! Everyone drank to the toast and settled down in anticipation of the story.

  After a moment of hesitation, my mother started, “Three or four years before Lilia was born a horrible event happened at that same hospital. You know that Stalin prohibited abortions for some years. This brought many tragedies to people.

  “My husband and I knew a family with five children. They were all girls. Their father Comrade Zorin was a military officer and the mother Lydia was a housewife. She became pregnant, hoping to have a baby boy.

  “The labor
was easy and the boy was born. It is difficult to describe their happiness. When the officer took his wife and the new baby home, they unwrapped the blanket and saw a tiny, beautiful baby girl! Shocked, Comrade Zorin grabbed the baby and rushed her back to the hospital. The hospital staff probably had mistakenly switched the baby during the preparation of sending him home.

  “In the meantime, Lydia’s hospital roommate departed for home with the baby boy! During the investigation, witnesses testified that the young woman with the baby boy never returned to the factory where she worked. They found her at her parent’s home the following day, but without the baby boy. The parents of the 24-year-old woman could not believe that their unmarried daughter really had just given birth.

  “The confession of the poor creature was short. She had fallen in love with a married man. To avoid shame for herself and her whole family, the miserable single mother threw the baby into the river shortly after leaving the hospital! Authorities never found the body of the baby boy. They asked Comrade Zorin to keep the baby girl but his wife Lydia refused, saying, ‘This baby will always remind me of my own baby boy. I am afraid that I will hate this innocent girl. Give her to someone who will love her’.”

  Marieka paused for a moment, then continued, “Now you can all see why I presumed that my own baby had been switched. It is easier to dispose of embarrassments than to live with them. Even though, at the time of Lilia’s birth, abortions were legal and nobody had any reason to kill newborns.”

  My 30th Birthday Jubilee is one that I will never forget! It revealed a big family secret.

  55. Again, the Shoes

  The old family story about the wandering religious beggars in 1902 who used the ancient Greek Aesop Fables to predict the last Russian Tsar, was on my mind.

  I was always very curious about it and within our family the women kept it a topic that never slept long. The exact conditions of the prophecy were falling in line: “At the end of this century, a man named Mikhail with a rooster’s catacomb will become the last Tsar of Russia.” When I first saw Mikhail S. Gorbachev on television with the red birthmark on his head, I understood immediately that the prophecy was about him! Mother agreed with me.