Moscow, Revisited

Sofia has been at home in the 14^th floor high rise apartment stroking her daughter Anna’s hair while idly watching the evening when she saw the news story about her mother had been arrested by the Russian government. She could barely believe it when she saw the photo of her mom flash upon the screen. This had been the woman who had banished just a few years ago and kicked her out of her home as a teenager. There was no denying that this was her mother though.  The news station had used the photo of her dressed up as “Elsie the clown” – her alter ego - for optimal effect.

Her mother’s real name was Natalia and Sofia remembered her as a no-nonsense woman but she had heard through relatives – much to Sofia’s confusion – that her mother had trained to be a medical clown in the last year and she had taken to visiting sick and dying children in local Moscow hospitals.  Why wouldn’t they use the medical clown photos, after all? It makes for a better story – a better visual for television. Here was her mother and she had recently found herself in trouble under the infamous Russian “propaganda law.” Her daughter, Anna, recovering from a respiratory infection, sucked on her juice bottle, had no idea this was her grandmother as the Moscow newscaster blandly told the story of how her mother had been subject to public harassment over the last few days due to her actions.

Who had her mother become?  Sofia did not even know anymore. Her mother left her father some years ago after enduring 23 years of an abusive marriage. Sofia and her mother had been estranged since she was 19 – right after she had revealed she was pregnant by Max who was a local university student who had done the right thing and married her. For two years they had been living in a small Moscow apartment while she had been taking online courses trying to earn a teaching certificate. It had been over two year since they had spoken and now here she was confronted with the knowledge that her mother was in trouble.

If not for the newscaster she would know very little about her mother right now. The memory of their last encounter rose up inside her and she felt that familiar pain of anxiety that made her want to run into a different life. She remembered a mother who was frequently overwhelmed and seldom had time to listen to Sofia’s teenage concerns. And now her mother had been at the funeral of a 16-year-old who had been ill with bone cancer who eventually succumbed – as they most often do – to leukemia. The newscaster relayed the facts: Her mother had gone to the unnamed boy’s funeral and had been asked by the family to give the eulogy. She couldn’t even imagine her mother having the courage to speak in public – much less do what she was about to do.

According to the newscaster, the 16-year-old boy had confided in her that he was gay. Sofia let this fact settle in for a moment. Here was her mother accepting public harassment to speak up for a young boy when she had failed as a mother and abandoned her when she was in need of a mother. Sofia was in shock. Not only was it not like the mom she knew, but didn’t her mother know better than to do such a thing? Of course she would get harassed and perhaps arrested for doing such a thing in such a public space.

She did some internet searches and found the Facebook profile for what appeared to be Matvey’s mother based on what she could piece together from the news story. After a few messages, Matvey’s mom finally agreed to talk to Sofia by telephone.

“How did this happen? What do you know?” Sophia asked. “This sounds like someone very different from the woman I know as my mother.”

Matvey’s mother, Elena, said that Matvey and Natalia had formed a bond while he was in the hospital. Matvey had thought he was too old for her clown routine but always smiled when he saw her come in with her big red hat and red nose along with her giant clown shoes that she used mainly on the younger children. Over the course of a few weeks Matvey had confided in her that he was dying and he had wished that before his death he could reveal himself to his father. Elena had said that she had known her son was gay for several years but she had reluctantly helped shelter her son from his dad’s anger should he ever find out.

“What happened after he found out?” Sofia asked.

Elena quietly told the story of how her son had connected with her mother, Elsie the clown. When her son Matvey had shared his own struggles over fearing losing his father if he found out he is gay, Sofia had quietly listened. Matvey had asked what had driven them apart. “My failure to love my daughter when she needed me most” is what she said to Matvey in that moment, according to Elena. “Elsie the clown” came to visit her son every day toward the end and she looked forward to the teenager telling her how corny she looked in her costume each day but quietly looking down as he said it and being secretly pleased that she was there.

Elena drew in her breath as she continued to tell the story. As the end drew closer, and his body got more and more frail, he told her how much he wanted to be true to himself but he didn’t know if he had the strength. The days went by and Elsie did what she could to comfort him on the days when the treatment had worn his body down and he had little energy. One day after he finished his tapioca pudding from the hospital cafeteria he asked her if she would tell his story at his funeral if he hadn’t found the courage to do so by then. Could she do that for him? He was 16 and didn’t fully understand the potential consequences, of course, but Natalia told him that she would be true to his wishes.Elsie said she could do that. She didn’t know how she would find the courage to do so, knowing that the event would be recorded and available for review if it made anyone angry enough to report her for supporting him in a public space, but she would do it for him.

Elena quietly said that one day over coffee in the hospital cafeteria Elsie had confided in her that she had failed her daughter and not been there for her in her time of need and this is why her daughter no longer spoke to her. Here was the hospital clown in her giant red hat and red nose telling her the saddest part of her life over a cup of instant coffee in the hospital cafeteria. She had said that No matter the consequences she would do this for Matvey.

Elena quietly told how Elsie had quietly told the crowd at the funeral of Matvey’s struggles with his understanding that he was gay to a shocked crowd. Some had probably suspected, his mother said, but to say it in such an public way was unthinkable in Russian society. Matvey’s father sat ther with a stony silence. After the funeral, he had walked outside in the gently falling early spring snow and refused to speak to his wife. In the end, it was her husband’s brother, Sergei, that had reported her to the police providing cell phone video as evidence. He had felt that the family honor was at stake and had decided that Elsie’s words were slander to the family name.

This was how Natalia became Elsie the clown in jail on the Moscow evening news. Her Facebook profile had been inundated with hateful messages with people saying vile things to her. Sofia had been angry for over two years at her mother and had assumed that their estrangement would continue on as Anna grew up. Sofia was only 23-years-old now. Her mother had abandoned her when she was pregnant with Anna and said that she had brought shame on the family with her unintended pregnancy.

Sofia found it difficult to believe that enough had changed in her mother. After all, who was this woman who was now a medical clown for dying children. Not so long ago, she was the woman who some days couldn’t get off the sofa from depression. But when she did, Sofia met a side of her mother that was desperate and out-of-control. This was not the woman that Sofia remembered.  She thought back to when she first told her mother that she was pregnant at 19 and her mother had cursed her and said she had brought never-ending shame upon the family. Her mother had cried and said “how can you bring such shame upon the family?” Sofia had never known her mother could be so cruel, and she had spent the last three years fending for herself and her baby and her young husband alone, and now her she was defending this young boy – someone she hardly knew mot seems.

Sofia unblocked her mother’s phone # on her phone and sent her mother a text.