Honour of Family

1920

On an unusually sunny autumn day in an old house at the central district of Paris, Lilya Andropova realized that she needed to get used to her life being a joke to God. 

She stood by an open window, light white curtains blowing at her face, escaping her figure and trying to flee to the outside world. The city underneath her feet was already waking to meet another day of music, art and Parisian love. She wouldn’t get any of it – wouldn’t allow herself to. At least, she knew the reason why she would never be welcomed at any of the city galas and parties held by ‘the golden youth’ of Paris. These kids didn’t tolerate anyone who they could label as different. And she, sure as hell, was.

Everything about her starting with looks and ending with culture reminded her of that every second she let it. Lilya knew she was nothing like thin, bony French girls she saw on the street. Her laugh wasn’t as half full of sophistication and money as theirs, even if they were poorer than Lilya. Even though her eyes were huge and blue, while her hair was shiny in its blackness, it was still in no comparison to them. Lilya knew that, and stopped pretending to be someone else long ago.

She turned around when her ears caught loud male voices coming from the dining hall. Lilya recognized her father’s voice when he slammed his fist on a table while letting out a scream.

‘These bastards! How can we allow them to throw us out like some kind of dirt?’

There were other men talking, as well, but Lilya couldn’t get their words without getting closer. Her one-second curiosity seemed more alluring than the danger of getting exposed to her father and his rage. So, she swiftly paced to the end of the corridor, her pointy rose slippers drowning in the dusty carpet. She only stopped before her head leaned out into the aperture for everyone to see her burning from worried excitement blue eyes.

All the men seemed to be distressed rather than agitated about whatever they were talking about. Their voices fiercely roared through the huge flat running after servants who hurried away before getting told off. In the air Lilya smelled a slight odeur of the old red wine, her father was so proud of. She could almost picture their reddish faces, mouths curved in anger, eyes flashing from one to another.

‘In our own country!..’

‘We owe it to the tsar, don’t we—’

‘We owe it to ourselves, not to him!’

There was one voice though, that sounded like a clear cold-blooded thunder through the rain. ‘What can we do, then?’

Everyone silenced for a moment, as if seriously considering their options. Lilya was not someone involved in the financial side of contemplating the family, yet she knew more or less that her father couldn’t risk another frank for someone else’s deed. They were barely getting on with a much smaller flat here, in Paris, compared to their abandoned estate in Petersburg. She just hoped that her father knew that, as well. 

The voices awoke again, more furious than before. Lilya couldn’t hear her father anymore under all this cacophony.

A few servants passed her, their white aprons stiffened with starch and their hands busy with trays of food and drinks. Lilya managed to stop the second small French girl to snatch a freshly baked croissant from her plate, before letting her go. The girl’s face became pale at once, as if the men in the dining hall could shoot her after learning about this stolen croissant.

‘Miss Andropova,’ she whispered in French. ‘You ought not to steal your father’s food. He will be mad at me.’

‘T’inquète, little one.’ Lilya smiled biting the end of the bake. ‘He is too busy with himself to ever notice.’

Unfortunately for her, it seemed like today wasn’t her day at all. Before the servant girl could run away, her father showed up in the corridor she was hiding in. A dangerous look in his eyes made Lilya take a few steps back before swallowing the croissant bite she still had in her mouth. 

The servant girl darted between them and disappeared in the dining hall, as Lilya was left completely alone with her father. Ironically, she thought, the voices from the room would silence his rage towards her. But, unlike all her expectations, he suddenly lost all his glare and slouched his shoulders. A loud sigh escaped his lips, as he brushed his thumb across Lilya’s cheek. She trembled a little, expecting a slap, but nothing followed. Her father just stared in her eyes, the reflection of his own, but much more alive than his were right now. Lilya thought he was too tired for a man of his age but didn’t dare to say anything.

After a few more seconds of his silent look, he turned around and walked back into the dining hall.

‘Petya!’ the men welcomed him. 

‘Petr Vasilevich! We need your guidance. Let us have more wine. Order the servants to bring cigars and cards.’

‘We shall play?’ my father said with doubt.

‘After the deal is struck, you ought to play!’

Not wasting another second, Lilya ran away from the dining hall. Her legs brought her to her small study room at the end of the hall with a window wide open to a view of la Seine. She was mad now – at her father, at these men in the dining hall, at the Russian Empire. How dared they forcing her father to play, when every last one of them knew about the situation they were in? Didn’t they have any sense of conscience? Didn’t they care about what would happen to the great Petr Andropov or his daughter? 

The next instance, Lilya realized they really didn’t. These men, standing in the dining hall next to her father, shaking his hand, calling him sweetly ‘Petya’, had no intention of helping anyone but themselves. If her family disappeared the next day, none of these so-called Russian comrades would move one finger to find them. She supposed it was partly in their cultural nature – to save themselves before saving anyone else. 

She sighed, looking briefly out the window to see a Parisian couple walking by their staircase, and sat at the writing desk. Her hand, knowing every move, lit a cigarette, as she watched the smoke go up in grey circles before bringing it to her painted lips.

The pen was still waiting at her desk where she left it – at a half-finished letter to her brother. He had left to serve in the army more than three years ago, and she hasn’t gotten a single letter from him since. Her father refused to mention the name of his son ever again in his house, because to him it seemed like he was nothing but a memory anymore. Lilya understood herself it was no good sign that she had never even gotten a reply, not even one word written in her brother’s hand. Yet, every now and then, when the world became too overwhelming for her to deal with it herself, she sat down at her writing desk and wrote everything to her Rodya. Even if she didn’t get an answer, at least she knew she had held up her part of the deal – to never forget her family.

She inhaled the cigarette’s smoke a few more times and put it down in the metal ashtray shaped as a seashell. The pen took its place in her light fingers, and she read what was already scribbled on the paper.

‘My dearest Rodya,

I know you hate it when I call you that. But since, you’re so far away, no one will stop me from calling you something instead of Rodion.

I must tell you, my life is pretty bleak at the moment. I really wish you were here to ease my boredom. Now, you’re just a ghost in these halls. I imagine what we would do in Paris, and I barely hold myself from crying. Will I see you ever again? Will I hold your firm hand again that so often cooled down my impulsive nature? Papochka refuses to talk to me about you, or about anything, really. Since there is no one else who knows your name, sometimes I feel like you have never existed. Mon сher, what have we ever done to the world that it decided to send you to the war?’

Lilya wrinkled her nose, embarrassed by her own open-heartedness. Yet, she nodded and continued writing where she left off.

‘I know I ask too many questions. It was you who reminded me time after time, when you were still with me at our house. I miss it, I have to admit. The process of leaving your home is never as hard as continuing your life in another place without any possibility to come back. I know that now. Even if I hated the weather and the snow, I still loved our mansion. It had too many memories in there – ones I couldn’t take with me, when they kicked us out.

You know, Rodya, like Papochka says, I should hate them – these communists and all. And trust me, I do. With all my heart, I do. But the sight of these shouting men in our living room, trying to force our father to lose money to them or pretending they care and our father believing them and betraying our family... I don’t know, dear, I feel like I might hate them a little bit more. 

He’s planning on leaving France now with these comrades of his. Something about protecting the honor of the tsar. As if we didn’t protect this honor by being by his side all the time, when he was struggling. Leaving, when he got arrested, was a survival’s move, and I don’t see it as cowardice or disrespect. On another hand, Papochka has always told me I am a woman and I will never understand the word honor. Perhaps, I won’t. But what I do understand is that our family has sacrificed enough for this country. I understand that if Papochka leaves now to fight with these young, cold-hearted men, he will not win either way, even if their group will succeed. 

That’s another reason why I miss you so. You were the only one in this family who could talk him out of something dangerous. I have always envied your superpower to find the right words for another person to listen. The only thing I could do was to confuse the situation even more.

But that’s enough of me and Paris. Sometimes I feel it’s stealing my life away while I wait patiently for your return. I hope one day will come and I’ll embrace you again, my dearest brother.

Your forever loving sister,

Lilya’

When she finally raised the pen from the paper, Lilya felt tears coming, but winked them away before they could fall. Surviving this without another cigarette is impossible, she thought to herself, her hands stretching out across the table for one.