From Russia, with Love

“I… need to tell you something.”

I leaned further forward in my chair and took Gramma’s hand. It was papery and thin, the veins standing out like mountain ranges against her pale skin. She hadn’t been outside in a while.

“What is it?” I said, my voice gentle. She disliked loud noises.

Gramma coughed and I instinctively reached for the pitcher, but she placed her hand on mine and patted it. “No, it’s fine. We don’t have much time, child. Please, come closer.”

I shuffled my chair closer to the bed and leaned in again, the smell of lavender talcum powder mixed with ammonia became stronger. I resisted wrinkling my nose in distaste.

Gramma pushed herself up in her bed, the effort seemingly monumental despite her diminutive frame. I tried to help, but she batted my hand away, clinging to her independence even still.

“What is it, Gramma? What’s so important?” I searched her face, noticing again how pale her eyes had become. What if she simply… disappears? One moment she is here and then the next, bleached by life, she fades into non-existence.

Gramma clutched her bedclothes. They were faintly patterned with daisies and roses, the set she was gifted when she was first married. The covers were worn thin from age and washing, but they were also soft and comforting. No duvets for Gramma.

“I need to tell you, but child, please, please… you don’t understand what it was like… ” she whispered, looking around anxiously.

I frowned. “Gramma, what are you saying? I don’t understand.”

She took my hand and grasped it, almost painfully, and fear flickered across her face. “I need to say it… I can’t go to the Lord without telling someone. Without letting someone know…” her eyes darted around the room.

“Gramma… you’re scaring me. What is it?”

Gramma looked at me directly. “I took her.”

She slid back down the bed, pulling the covers to her eyes, childlike.

I frowned. “What? Gramma… what are you talking about?”

She peeped out. “I told no one. No one knew, except Aleksandr, of course.” Gramma’s eyes flickered to the silver-framed picture on her nightstand. My Grandfather, who had died before I was born.

“Gramma, you’re going to have to start at the beginning. I don’t understand. Can you tell me from the start?” I was unsure whether encouraging her was a good idea, but I’d never seen Gramma so… agitated. She was meek, mild, gentle.

Gramma nodded, but she was still anxious. “It was just after the war, you see. Mother and Father would not allow it, so I signed into the Auxiliaries without them knowing.”

Gramma smiled a small, sad smile, distracted by the thought of her parents. “It’s not too long now until I will see them again, is it?”

The hope in Gramma’s eyes was heartbreaking for an atheist. She fingered the gold cross at her neck and I smiled, attempting reassurance.

“This is how you met Grandfather. I remember,” I said, bringing her back to the story.

Gramma nodded. “Yes, you know this tale. It used to be a favourite of your mother’s, you know,” she said before something flashed across her face again. She groaned.

“Shall I call the nurse? What do you need?” I started to rise.

“No, NO! Tasha, no. Please. I’m okay. I don’t want to sleep. I need to tell you!” Gramma said, her agitation palpable. She grasped at her sheet again.

“Shh… It’s okay. I won’t get her. Please, Gramma, carry on.”

I’d heard this tale a million times, both from Gramma and Mom. As a child, I thought it was terribly romantic… Gramma, an American auxiliary nurse, marrying a handsome, Russian Doctor who loved her so much he moved across the world for her. Their love story was family legend and we all wanted to find the love that Gramma and Aleksandr had. We wouldn’t settle for less.

Gramma cleared her throat. “When we married, everywhere was rebuilding… Everything had been destroyed. My Aleks was working in the hospital and I was helping, but…” Gramma paused to catch her breath. “It was exhausting, Natasha, and the money was so little. I desperately wanted to come home.”

“I can’t imagine,” I said, gently, because I really couldn’t imagine. My life and childhood had been this whitewashed farmhouse, fridges and bellies full, warmth and comfort a given, not a privilege.

Gramma smiled as she remembered her husband, but then a darkness crossed her features again. “We had been married three years when we finally left. It took three years of scraping by. Three years of no fuel for the fire.” Gramma held up her hand to show me three shaky fingers. “We were cold and starving, but then, finally, my parents sent us money for the tickets home. We never would have made it without them, you know.”

“I remember Gramma. You came here to America with my mom, didn’t you? She was only tiny. You were so brave, making the journey when she was so little.”

Tears began rolling down Gramma’s cheeks and I sat back, mortified that I might have upset her.

“What is it? Did I say something wrong?” It was so rare to see Gramma cry.

She shook her head, eyes wide. She pulled up her covers again. “She wasn’t mine to take.”

“Who? Mom? Of course she was! You couldn’t have left her in Russia!”

Gramma shook her head. A moment passed and as I looked at her, thin and frail beneath her covers, realisation settled on me like a dark, damp blanket around my shoulders.

“She wasn’t yours, was she?” I whispered.

Gramma shook her head again and I moved in closer, conspiratorially.

“Gramma, tell me. What did you do?”

She shook her head but lowered the covers enough to answer. “I can’t. I can’t say it.”

“Gramma. You tell me right now what happened.” I used my best ‘Mom’ voice. I’d used it before when she was refusing showers and food. It worked then, and it worked now.

She took a shaky breath. “I was working in the maternity ward. And we had been trying for so long … so long! I was convinced it wouldn’t happen. But then… there she was, just lying there, blond hair and blue eyes, just like Aleks…”

I breathed in deeply, trying to remain neutral. “And you took her?”

Gramma nodded again, eyes wide and terrified. “I just walked out with her, wrapped in a blanket. No one stopped me. And then the next day, we set off for home, to come back here.”

I sat back in my chair, stunned. “Wow. I … I don’t know what to say. What on Earth did Grandfather do, Gramma? How did he feel?”

Gramma frowned. “He was furious. But what could we do? if I returned her, I’d have been in the most awful trouble…”

“But of course you would, Gramma! I mean… You’d have been arrested!”

Gramma paled a little, but carried on. “Aleks didn’t say anything, didn't tell anyone, and so we came here and everyone presumed she was ours…she was such a sweet thing. Such a good baby.”

I put my head in my hands, the ramifications sinking it. After a few moments, I lifted my head again. “So you’re… you’re not my Gramma, are you?”

Gramma didn’t answer, she just looked at me.

“And Mom… she has a whole different mother and father out there somewhere. Brothers, sisters perhaps… “ I closed my eyes for a second. “Oh Gramma, what a mess.”

She grabbed at my hand. “I had to tell someone, do you see? So I can be forgiven, so I can see Aleks again.”

“I honestly don’t know what to say, Gramma. That poor woman! You took… no, you stole her baby, Gramma! Oh my…” A wave of sadness washed over me as I thought about that desperate woman in a Russian hospital, searching for her baby that had gone far, far beyond her reach.

Gramma just looked at me.

“Are you going to tell Mom?” I breathed, knowing for certain that I would not want to be involved in that conversation. Mom had Grandfather’s short temper. It was legendary. No wait... She didn’t. She couldn’t have.

“No! You mustn’t… she must never know!” Panic began to rise in Gramma's voice as she sat upright in bed.

“But…”

“No! Never. Promise me, child. No one can know.”

I sighed and made a promise, more to soothe her than anything. My mind raced as Gramma laid back against her pillows.

Maybe it’s not true…

But then I looked at Gramma’s hair and her eyes, and that of Aleks’ in the grainy picture and thought of my mother. There were similarities in colouring, but nothing else. They shared no facial features, bone structure, or even height.

There was a knock on the door and I was startled out of my reverie.

“Knock knock, just me!” Mom bustled into the sunny room, blissfully unaware. She began replacing the flowers on Gramma's nightstand.

“Would you like to go out today, Mamma? Sit in the sunshine?”

It was a pointless question, Gramma always refused.

I looked to Gramma but she had drifted off to sleep, the rise and fall of her chest comforting. Mom took the seat next to me and patted my knee.

“How’s she been today, sweetheart? Any updates?”

I looked at my Mom and studied the lines of worry and anxiety that were carved into her careworn face.

“No,” I said. “Nothing to report.”