Chapter I : Babushkas
The door of the hut creaked mournfully and slammed shut with a heavy thud.
— Oh, here comes his majesty! Let’s see, are we going to make it to bed tonight? What’s this silence, my lord, why are you being quiet? Come on in, don’t be shy! What a prince! So, which kingdom are you a prince of?
Grandfather muttered incoherently, trying his best not to fall. He was heading towards his dirty mattress in the corner of the kitchen. His legs were tangled, he swayed heavily from side to side. Babushka Tonya was sitting on a stool, peeling potatoes into a bucket, her elbows propped on her widely spread legs. She was observing Grandfather's movements from under her brow.
— I’m telling you, it’s stormy outside today, huh? “The storm covers the sky with snow whirls spinning…” No? So, what kind of dance are you performing for us here? Show us, and we’ll dance together, shan’t we? Huh? Look, only look at his majesty, crawling on his eyebrows. No need to support the walls, they are just fine. They’ll stand forever, boss, as it’s not you who built them. Holy mother of God… Come on, tie yourself down, already, captain of long voyages! – Having finally dragged his tired body into the corner, Grandfather collapsed onto the dirty mattress and curled up into a ball. – Damn, what a scoundrel, just look at this…
Scenes like this weren’t rare neither in this household nor in any other household in the village of Sokolovka: all the men drank awfully, all without exception. And all the women, also without exception, confiscated their husbands’ wages to make sure they are not "blown away on vodka." Wives would then allocate them very moderate sums of money for cigarettes or lunch at the factory canteen, and husbands united by a great purpose, would pool their money to buy moonshine from old ladies of the village and still get dead wasted. Therefore in Sokolovka, no one was surprised at the sight of an unconscious man deposited, say, under a fence. The man would be instantly recognized and handed over to the righteous wrath of his wife.
Babushka Tonya's second and only living husband, Nikolai Sergeyevich, was, as you may have understood, no exception. Lean, of a knotted complexion, with a gray wrinkled face and watery colorless eyes. His presence triggered in me the deepest primal fear, so during these evening ceremonies, I always stuck close to the despotic Babushka Tonya; it was the only way to enjoy her flow of witty scoldings thrown at the Grandfather. Babushka Tonya acknowledged this and always tried to find new original ways to upbraid him, sometimes making me laugh so hard it gave me cramps.
These ceremonies were our only shared moments of joy. Otherwise, the rest of the time I was afraid of Babushka Tonya as well. It was hard to catch her in a good mood, a grimace of suffering stuck to her tired face forever. She spoke rarely, mostly to scold her husband or give instructions. Her long career as a construction crane operator and regular work in the garden had given her chronic backaches, and she moved around the house constantly sighing and limping.
In her traditional Ukrainian mazanka (house), everything was covered in a layer of some greasy yellowish dust. Bags, pots, and jars with pungent mysterious contents occupied every horizontal surface. I particularly enjoyed the huge bag of poppy seeds in the barn – I would discreetly plunge my arm in there as deep as I could, when no one was around.
Most of Babushka Tonya’s day was spent in a field that was half a hectare big. On this plot grew vegetables, tobacco, and poppies, to later be sold on the market. However, eventually Babushka had to remove the poppies – local opium addicts had taken to sneaking into the garden at night and pulling up the plants. Babushka did everything by hand and without chemicals. She couldn’t bear idleness and immediately told me that if I expected to eat in this house, I’d have to earn my bread. However, nothing too difficult was assigned to three-year-old me: I had to walk through the rows of potatoes, collect the Colorado beetles and their larvae from the leaves into a glass jar. She would then pour the swarming beetles onto the ground, and with delight and crunch, would stomp on them with her dirty boots: "Damn pests... Whether you crush it or not – tomorrow it’s all over the plants again…"
After the beetles, I could go tease the geese in the barnyard or play with the dog. There also was Valera, Babuska Tonya’s son, a young copy of Nikolai Sergeyevich. Valera mostly drank, smoked Grandfather’s tobacco, and lay on the bed until Babushka would arrange some workplace for him. He would inevitably be fired soon after, for his arrogant know-it-all behavior. And so it went. Sometimes he would bring a collective farm horse from his workplace, and we would gallop on it through the village streets that smelled of cheap melted tar. Babushka grumbled, of course, but secretly she was happy to get rid of me for a couple of hours. She was especially happy towards the end of the week, when it was time to send me off to the other, "city" babushka – Varvara. Babushka Tonya would prepare her bicycle – a sack of potatoes, canisters of fresh milk, boxes of eggs – and, thus loaded, would set off to hand me over to Babushka Varvara in Vershi, a town of five thousand residents, six kilometers away.
The handover took place at the bread factory, where the radiant golden-haired Babushka Varvara was employed. The village babushka would leave me in the care of plump aunties from the factory canteen and go off to sell her goods at the market. The aunties would treat me to chebureki, dumplings, various homemade pickles, and exclaim, “Look how tiny she is, but eats for four!” Under the pressure of the aunties, I once even had to try pickled watermelon, and its sour taste was so sharp and unpleasant that it has "activated" my childhood memory. Who knows, had it not been for that watermelon, I might have never remembered what happened at that bread factory or at this period of my life at all. While Babushka Varvara finished her shift, the aunties would take me to watch how the bread was poured into the molds, how it swayed as it moved toward the oven, and how, on the other side, the golden, steaming loaves emerged.
The smell of fresh bread announced the start of a good week. I could bathe in a foamy tub with rubber toys, watch television, run around the yard with city friends as much as I liked, and only run back home for a minute, to grab some water or a buttered toast.
Compared to the mazanka, the apartment in Vershi felt like the apogee of civilization. All the walls and floors were covered with red and brown persian rugs. The rugs also covered the sofas and armchairs. In the living room, along the walls, stood huge lacquered cabinets with glass doors and mirrored backs; one could catch a glimpse of their reflection through the numerous tea sets and crystal collections. These sets were never used, but were put on display for everyone to admire as items of great pride – candy vases, herring dishes, glasses, tea sets from the Leningrad factory, and, of course, the rainbow-hued "Madonnas" from GDR (East Germany). The plump tv set, sitting on a stand in the corner of the living room, was covered with a lace doily, apparently to protect the cathode ray tube from fading, and was crowned with a heavy crystal vase from the Czechoslovakian Moser factory. The vase was filled with lush artificial roses that I was very fond of, because I could scrape off the little plastic drops of dew from the petals when Babushka Varvara wasn’t looking.
Beside the rugs, the tv set, and the roses, this apartment was also inhabited by Anatoly Fedorovich – Babushka Varvara’s second husband. Naturally, I had a hard time understanding why everyone had a second husband, where all the previous ones had gone to, and overall, whether this whole procedure with multiple husbands was mandatory. But I had no doubt that there had to be at least a husband. Moreover, I already started looking around.
Even as a three-year-old bald girl – bald, yes, because the adults around me firmly believed that shaving my head would make the hair grow thicker – I was certain that I would have a better husband than Babushka Tonya or Varvara. The latter one was simply the city version of Nikolai Sergeyevich: his wage at the Vershi factory was higher, his clothes cleaner, and his drinking softer. Anatoly Fedorovich was kind-hearted and would often bring me a small red "Korona" chocolate bar from work. Or a big one, if he was drunk. But what amazed me the most was how Babushka Varvara silently guided the drunk husband by the arm, with such meekness and care, how she would accompany him to the room, and gently change him into pajamas before putting to bed. It was some kind of silent agreement, a universal veto right for men over alcohol. Such episodes shocked no one, and no one brought this issue up in either family or broader social circles.
This was the reality I lived in, but having watched the VHS of Titanic movie with my city Babushka, I firmly decided that my husband would be none other than Leonardo DiCaprio. To that, I dedicated a secret confessional corner in the city apartment, where I would hide from time to time and whisper, “Jack, I love you and I will marry you.”
I was at Babushka Varvara’s the morning a package arrived from Moscow. Bored of waiting for Babushka’s usual morning check of my sheets for dryness (that she would normally reward me for), I ran into the living room. On the couch was neatly laid out a small red felt suit with leopard print cuffs. The pockets of the suit were filled with chewing gum and candies, and at the top of it sat a real Barbie. New, in a cardboard box with a transparent window, two spare dresses, and a hairpin. Babushka Varvara sat quietly next to the gift and watched some tv show.
"Mamma!" – the thought rushed through my mind first, and I ran around the apartment searching.
“Irka didn’t come, don’t look for her”, Babushka said, when I came back to the living room perplexed. “The conductor passed everything to me.”
The gifts were wonderful, and it was great that they were so many. They were probably meant to dull the feeling of longing and anxiety for my tiny mamochka, that dwelled alone somewhere far away in the unknown Moscow. But no, they only exposed the loneliness I felt in the separation. Moscow was something very unattainable and barely realistic. It could just as easily have been on Mars. I ate the candies and reverently admired the doll.
“Take care of your toy, don’t mess her up. She most certainly cost a fortune, and Irka’s probably starving now. She can’t even afford warm tights. Oh boy, does she pamper you…”
The image of my hungry mother, trudging barefoot through the storm, sent a spasm down my throat, and I decided to save the last two chewing gums dangling in the pocket of the suit to make mom’s presence last. And that’s where they stayed until Babushka Varvara washed them along with the jacket.
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