Journey from Russia

By Galina Briskin

“Journey from Russia” is the fascinating love story of Polina, a Russian girl growing up in Moscow in the family of a prominent Soviet scientist and airplane designer. The author presents a gallery of interesting people from the Russian elite during the political and social turbulence following the Second World War.
Many episodes from Polina’s adult years capture the evolving character of the Soviet Union between 1954-1979.
Polina’s personal and romantic entanglements serve as a common thread throughout the story. Young, shy and uncertain, Polina meets Andrey, a medical scientist, and she unexpectedly finds marriage and happiness with him.
Her dream for freedom finally leads her to America. What she experiences after that is the difficult time of adjustment and her discovery of a new inner strength that helps her to adapt to her new life. She looks at the wonder around her and realizes that her own adventure has just begun”
“Journey from Russia” is about a strong, optimistic woman’s struggle for success despite many failures and disappointments. Even when Andrey’s death leaves her grieving and major financial losses engulf her, Polina’s spirit endures.
Polina’s hard work and optimism help her to regain success and start a new happy life with the man that she eventually meets in America.
“Journey from Russia” is a fictionalized account of the author’s personal experience. Different episodes and historical accounts, presenting the facts from Russian intriguing past, cannot compare with the rendering of a real warm heart of a Russian woman. While the protagonist’s name is fictional, the author has retained the real names of many other characters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Galina Briskin
• Release date: Jul 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476318677

Galina Briskin

Galina Briskin was born in Moscow, Russia. She graduated from the Institute of Foreign Languages and worked as an Intourist guide from 1956 to 1964. For 14 years after that, she was an editor - first at APN Publishing house and then later at Meditsina. Her work as an interpreter piqued her fascination with freedom and life in America. She immigrated to the United States with her husband, medical doctor and a scientist, who was invited to work at the Salk Institute, and their two daughters. In a few years she became a successful real estate broker and opened her own company. After her husband's death she remarried. She lives in La Jolla, Southern California. Her two daughters received good education, are professionally successful and happy with their families. Galina Briskin has five grandchildren born in America. One of them is already a medical doctor, like his grandfather.

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Journey from Russia

By

Galina Briskin-Paul

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

Galina Briskin-Paul on Smashwords

Journey from Russia

Copyright © 2012 by Galina Briskin-Paul

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PART ONE

A woman’s life can really be a succession of lives, each revolving around some emotionally compelling situation or challenge, and each marked off by some intense experience.

Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor

CHAPTER 1

Paulina was seven when her brother, Yuri, was born. She heard the details of his birth from her mother who had not wanted to have another child because she had suffered from the infidelity of her husband, Alexander. Paulina overheard their nanny, a very religious, very devoted woman, talking to Mother about an abortion.

I beg you not to do it, Sofia. How can you kill the baby? It is against God’s will. I would pray for the baby. Paulina remembered the nanny saying that.

Paulina never understood why Mother still decided to have the baby. When she returned from the maternity home with a beautiful boy who looked like an angel, the nanny cried with joy and relief. Then she disappeared to her room and returned with something wrapped in a handkerchief. She presented it to Mother with tears in her eyes, thanking her for the baby. The handkerchief protected a beautiful antique garnet brooch created by a famous Russian jeweler of the nineteenth century. The brooch carried with it a very touching story. Before the revolution the nanny worked as a cook in the house of the famous Russian ballerina Kshesinskaya who was then the mistress of the Russian tsar. The tsar visited his ballet dancer lover often and usually stayed for dinner. Once, so much impressed with the Russian borscht (beet and cabbage soup), he decided to thank the cook personally. Fearing she had done something wrong when she was called by the tsar, the nanny trembled in his presence. The tsar thanked her for the borscht. Then, to the surprise of the nanny and of his lover, he removed the beautiful garnet brooch from his regal decorations and pinned it on the nanny’s modest dress. The present from the tsar became the most precious thing in the nanny’s life, yet she gave away what was so dear to her because of the birth of an angel, Paulina’s brother. Yuri grew into a very handsome boy, a favorite of the whole family, mostly of Paulina.

Paulina had a great attachment to Mother from an early age. She thought Mother was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. Mother had a perfectly shaped body and beautiful huge brown eyes. Paulina always noticed how men were fascinated with Mother’s long and beautiful legs. She was bright and smart, and her energetic personality always attracted interesting people. She had a wonderful memory and was a talented storyteller. A good mother and an ideal wife, she ruled her family. Her ability to deal with people on all levels always amazed Paulina who felt a kind of insecurity and inability to do anything by herself. She always relied on her Mother and was afraid to be far from the woman who gave her strength.

Always surrounded by interesting men reaching out for her attention, Mother never cared much for their admiration. She loved only her Paulina’s farther, Alexander. Her love was a great passion that she showed by putting up with his neglect.

Alexander loved her, too, but paid little attention to her, forgetting on holidays to bring flowers, never giving her any presents on her birthdays. He gave her all his salary and assumed that she could take care of her presents herself. Relieved from any responsibility in the house and the upbringing of the children, he busied himself at work and his hobby. His hobby was women. He cheated on Mother with many women. He was a charmer and women loved him. Paulina knew that her father’s infidelity caused her mother much pain and suffering.

Father was bright and ambitious. He started his brilliant engineering career in his early twenties when he was already the chief engineer at a big metallurgical plant in Siberia. For his outstanding achievement at the Ural Machine Building Plant, designing an automobile manufacturing system, he received his first award when he was twenty-five. The award was a car from Sergo Ordzhonikidze, Minister (who was called Narkom in those years) of the metallurgical industry.

Father always tried to stay out of politics. He was a scientist and innovator, devoted to his ideas, his work, his innovations, and the textbooks that he wrote for university students. What mattered most to him was his work, to be useful and creative. He realized that, if he lived in a free world, he would have a wonderful career and could contribute more ideas to society. He was not in love with the communist ideology that controlled much of his scientific work. He was supposed to compete with the mediocrity that occupied the higher positions in the Communist Party and was ignorant in science.

He liked to tell stories about the life before the revolution, but he recollected those moments of his life always with a smile and sense of humor as if those times were ridiculous and not realistic.

He came from a very rich family. His mother’s parents owned big breweries in the Ukraine. The famous Seltzer beer and waters have been selling all over the world. His father Alexei was from a poor but very educated family. Their marriage occurred when they were 23 years old, his mother was pregnant, and they slipped away to Germany for a honeymoon. Alexei decided to stay there and enroll in the university in Freiberg. Alexander was born six months later.

When they came back to Russia, grandfather Alexei went to work as an engineer at his in-laws factory. Grandmother Nina liked social life, charity balls and dancing parties. She was always surrounded by admirers and had little interest in bringing up her two sons. By the time they came back from Germany, they had already another son Victor.

Alexander lived with his grandmother who adored him and spared no expense in order to spoil him. When he did not want to eat, she asked him what he wanted her to do to make him eat. He asked to take him to eat at the railway station. She ordered to immediately harness horses and took the spoiled brat together with the food to the station. When he was fourteen years old, she hired pretty, young maids so her beloved grandson had safe sexual relations at home.

After the October Revolution, the family lost all their wealth. Grandfather Alexei was a good engineer, and the family moved to Moscow where he started to work for the new government for a minimal salary. Grandmother Nina was not trained in a skill and found herself not fit in the new society. She decided to be a dressmaker, but her talents as a seamstress were pitiful. Paulina remembered how her grandmother’s clients often returned their dresses for alteration because one sleeve was longer or shorter than the other.

It was a very difficult time for rich families struggling to adjust to the new regime. Many rich and aristocratic families left Russia to immigrate to France, the United States and other countries. Paulina heard from her parents about the relatives who had emigrated to France and America. It was risky for her family to correspond with them. It could ruin the careers of those who stayed in the Soviet Union, and the possibility of arrest and imprisonment loomed.

Paulina’s parents were born in the same small town of the Ukraine, called Elisevegrad and renamed after the revolution into Kirovograd. Their families knew about each other but had never met. Sofia was ten years old when the revolution took place. At the age of sixteen she went to Leningrad and started to work as a secretary for an American firm in order to help financially her mother and four brothers and sisters. She lived modestly, renting a room in a family of former aristocrats and sending the rest of her salary to her mother.

Sofia and Alexander met in Leningrad where he graduated from his second university. They fell in love with each other from the first sight. When they met, Sofia was a naïve young girl; he had a good experience with women. He had been a known womanizer in the city where they both were born. Sofia’s mother was in shock when she found out who was the man her daughter was going to marry. However, she could do nothing, as Sofia was madly in love, and nothing could stop her from marriage.

Upon graduation from two universities, Father was a good specialist in aeronautics and the mining industry.

Father was arrested in September 1937 when Paulina‘s brother Yuri was four months old. She and Yuri shared the same room. She remembered that night very well. It was two in the morning when the family was awakened by the buzzing of the doorbell and persistent knocks at the door. A uniformed stranger awakened Paulina. Her mama stood near her bed with the baby and asked her to get up.

Get up, dear. Go with me to the dining room. Mother’s voice sounded very different.

When Paulina followed her mother to the dining room, she was shocked. Her father was sitting in a chair in pajamas. He looked very pale and sad. She also noticed her nanny crying. The room was an awful mess. All the closets were open, chairs and tables were overturned, and paper and books were scattered on the floor. Four strangers in uniforms that reminded her of police officers were rummaging through their belongings, looking for something that must have been important. Paulina could not understand what happened, but she realized that it was something tragic and significant that could change her life. When she asked her mother who were the people there and what happened, Mother said that it was a mistake.

They want to arrest your father, but he did not do anything wrong. They will keep him for a few days and he will come home soon when they realize that this was a mistake, she said.

Paulina looked at her father suspiciously. She could not understand how they could arrest him when he was not a thief or a robber.

When he looked back at them the last time from the doorway, as he was being led away in handcuffs, Paulina saw fear, pain, and despair in his eyes. She remembered that look for a long time.

A week later, a man and a young woman knocked at the door and presented a paper to Mother. It was an order, as they said, to occupy one of the rooms in the house. The man was an officer of NKVD as they called the KGB at that time.

Paulina’s life changed after that. She did not see her mother much because she was away from home, seeking lawyers and officials who could influence the procedure. Her mother told her later how she bribed the secretaries, used her charm, and impressed the Chairman of the Supreme Court by her persistence and belief that her husband was not an enemy of his country. The only thing Mother asked for was a civil trial. During the Stalin years, arrests of the best people of the country netted only a few open trials. It took about a year before a trial was appointed.

Father had been the chief engineer of a mine construction project in Donbas, the famous and biggest coal deposit in Ukraine. It was a government project. Stalin personally demanded daily reports about the course of construction. The term of construction was very short and the people worked in three shifts in order to finish it in time. Stalin was supposed to be present at its opening, and successful fulfillment of the project could result in personal awards and big promotions. Alexander had been arrested a few days before the construction was completed. He was charged with allegedly organizing an explosion of the mine on the opening day when Stalin was to be present. The charge was serious, and Alexander faced a possible conviction for treason. Fortunately, the trial lawyers were able to prove his innocence by revealing that his assistant had written an anonymous letter to NKVD, which had then fabricated the case.

Alexander was a lucky man. Probably only a few of the millions of innocent people arrested received a just trial and were released from prison. Typically, old Bolsheviks and some military leaders were charged with treason and espionage and pushed to confess guilt. People were afraid to joke about Stalin or his regime in the presence of close friends because they ran the risk of being arrested. NKVD received thousands of anonymous letters with accusations of innocent people. The sender might be a coworker who wanted to assume the victim’s job or a neighbor who wanted to get a good apartment and was trying to evict the family by sending them to prison. Talented and prominent people were dangerous for the mediocrity, and Stalin suspected them to be spies for foreign countries.

It was a time when professional people lived with bags of dry bread and packed clothes, prepared to be taken to prison any moment. Stalin gave complete freedom to the secret police. The time of terror resulted in suffering of millions of people. Children were sometimes persuaded to spy on their own parents. Any child who discovered counter-revolutionary tendencies in either parent was supposed to report it.

Father returned home to his family thanks to Mother who loved him dearly and would have done anything to save him.

It was a few years later at their beautiful country house – the dacha – when the family celebrated the birthdays of three members. It was very unusual that Mother, Father, and Paulina had the same birthday on July 24, but very convenient to celebrate three birthdays on the same day. Friends and relatives usually visited them at the dacha where Mother set up the tables in the beautiful garden.

She had built the small estate situated on a huge lot. The house, garden and orchard were her pride. Father did not share her enthusiasm for gardening. Once, when she gave him a basket and sent him to bring strawberries for breakfast, he came back with an empty basket, apologizing that he could not find them even though he had honestly looked at all the trees.

These birthday celebrations always included big parties with surprises for the guests, dancing, singing, performances, games, and lots of food. Father was responsible for entertainment; he was a master of that. Mother was a master of cooking.

Paulina often felt left out of the festivities, although her parents threw the party for all three of them. The guests who came were her parents’ friends. The children who came with them were not of her age. But most disappointing was that all of the presents were brought for the parents, all the toasts and congratulations were pronounced to them as if nobody remembered that it was also her birthday.

Paulina always felt that she was an insignificant person in the family, especially after her brother was born. But she was never jealous of him because he was a doll. He never argued with his parents, but he always did what he wanted. Paulina liked to argue, trying to prove her point of view even as she did what her mother wanted her to do. Father was usually kind to her and to all of them, but he never paid much attention to children. He was busy at work or writing books, and he did not have much time to take part in their activities.

So, that day a lot of guests and neighbors, including writers, composers, and actors who lived in the same writers’ community, were invited to the birthday party. Among the guests was Mother’s brother, Arcady, a famous pilot and hero of the Soviet Union. Uncle Arcady was married to a beautiful woman, Faina. They never had children, and they never loved each other. He was a very intelligent man, very educated and the owner of a unique collection of books and art. Paulina could never understand why they did not divorce as there were no ties between them. The uncle lived most of the time abroad as he was a military attaché in China and then in the United States. He was a short man with high ambitions. One of his ambitions was to surround himself with interesting and famous people.

He came to the party with his good friend who was a Moscow judge. Arcady usually was a toastmaster at big parties. When the guests took their seats at the table, he stood up and asked the guests to fill their glasses.

I want to pronounce a toast to the happiness of my beloved sister. All my life I tried to find a woman like my sister. But she spoiled my life. I never could find one and married my wife.

All the guests laughed at this bad joke.

One of the guests, a friend of Mother’s, addressed the judge: Alexander Vasilyevich, please tell us some interesting story from your practice.

The judge, a pleasant nice-looking man in his late fifties, smiled at her request and thought about what to say. Then he said: "It was a hearing of a case of state treason. The defendant was a very talented chief engineer of a big construction project in Ukraine. The term of construction was short, and Stalin was briefed daily about its progress. One day before the end of the construction, somebody informed the organs of state security about an alleged plot and the planned explosion of the mine prepared by the chief engineer. He was arrested as a spy of the country and, of course, he could expect the death penalty.

His wife was a very brave and smart woman. She was confident that she could help him. I do not know how, but she was received by the Supreme Judge and Attorney General and convinced them to have a hearing at the trial. It was an unprecedented case for that time. I was a defense attorney in that case. Of course, it was proven at the trial that everything had been fabricated against him.

When he finished the story, he glanced at Father who was sitting in a chair not far away. It was silence in the room. Everybody was impressed with the story.

Then Uncle Arcady’s voice broke in the silence: That woman was my sister!

Yes, my friends, that heroic woman was our dear Sofia.

The guests looked at Mother who smiled at them with tears in her eyes.

CHAPTER 2

Paulina enjoyed the summer months when she stayed at the dacha with Yuri, Mother, and Katie, their German nanny. Father visited them on weekends when he could take time away from some new aircraft project. That summer of 1941 was especially beautiful. The weather was clear and sunny, and Paulina spent her days at the river, swimming or bicycle riding with the neighbors. Her favorite hobby was gathering mushrooms. It was very unusual to find the first mushrooms in June. The elderly people were superstitious about summers with plenty of mushrooms, saying that it was a bad sign for a possible war. Paulina and her friends usually got up early in the morning. It was still dark and cold, and the grass was dewy, but her heart was full of joy in anticipation of returning home with a basket full of mushrooms. It was a kind of competition between all members of the group. The group usually spread around in order to pick up mushrooms from different places. Happy shouts were heard from time to time from different places to help keep everyone together. If somebody was lucky to find a good place with many mushrooms, he remained silent in order not to attract attention while he stayed to pick up all the mushrooms.

Most of the time, Paulina and Yuri stayed with Katie. She had stayed in their house for about three years. Somebody had recommended Katie as a very good governess, which surely she was. She had come from Germany at the beginning of the century, and as was common in those days, had worked as a governess in rich aristocratic families before the October Revolution. After the revolution, however, when there were no more aristocrats or wealthy families, governesses were no longer needed. That is why Katie performed the role of a nanny or a housekeeper. However, her pride never allowed her to think of herself as just a nanny, and she did not allow anyone to call her that.

In no time at all, she became the most important figure in Paulina’s family. She did not allow the parents to interfere in the upbringing of the children. She gave the orders to all members of the family and liked to control the children’s behavior. When there were guests in the house, she would sit at the head of the table and entertain the guests. If Mother showed her new shoes or a dress that she had purchased for herself, Katie insisted on having the same. Mother felt so intimidated by this that, when she went shopping, she always remembered to buy something better for Katie. The reason why Mother was so agreeable was the fact that Katie was perfect in everything else. She adored Yuri and tried to make a gentleman of him. When he was four years old, she dressed him in long pants and snow-white shirts with a tie. He was supposed to kiss women’s hands and show good manners.

She herself overdressed every morning, using tons of cosmetics and rich black mascara on her eyelashes. However, she worked like a slave. By noon, the house was neat and clean. A delicious dinner was ready and served by seven o’clock. Paulina and Yuri were disciplined and polite. She read them books in German and they learned to sing German songs. Katie did not need instructions about what to do in the house. She took over all the responsibility, which made Mother happy.

Things were different with Paulina. She was a very shy girl who wanted attention. She felt neglected. Her brother was a favorite because he was so young that it was easy for Katie to mold the character she wanted him to be. Paulina resisted Katie’s domineering ways. She was probably the only person in the family who did so. Moreover, she learned quickly the best way to show that. She hated to speak German, so when her parents asked her to say something in German, she pretended she did not remember anything.

In spite of the fact that Katie had left Germany more than thirty years ago and never gone back, she remained German. She looked at the pictures of German officers in the newspapers and expressed admiration seeing them in military uniforms. That bothered Paulina, too.

However, the ideal life in the village was over one day when a voice on the radio announced that German fascists had invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. It was a shock for everyone as Stalin had concluded a non-aggression pact with Hitler, which the foreign ministers of the two countries had signed in 1939. The pact, however, did not keep Germans at bay for long. Stalin had refused to believe despite numerous intelligence reports about possible German attack soon after signing the treaty. The greater part of Stalin’s commanding officer corps had been arrested during the recent purge. Less than two weeks after the invasion, Stalin called on the Soviet people to create unbearable conditions in the regions occupied by Germans.

Father came to the country house the same day and said that he would go to the front as a volunteer. However, his patriotic desire soon cooled. He received an order to stay in Moscow and was appointed chief engineer at a military aviation plant. They manufactured military planes for the front. The Germans moved very fast, occupying one city after another as they approached Moscow.

Moscow was the goal set before the German armies. The Muscovites worked day and night to install powerful fortifications on the approaches to Moscow to stop German troops. Blocking the most probable lines, they put more than nine hundred miles of mined timber barricades. The entire nation rose to protect Moscow. Army General Zhukov was in charge of Moscow’s defense.

Stalin was personally responsible for major military decisions. After an initial period of confusion, he began to formulate a strategy that followed the Russian pattern of the war with Napoleon in 1812. The tactics was to withdraw, conserve strength, gather new reserves, and force the Germans to extend their lines and then pass to the offensive.

It became more dangerous to stay in Moscow. The government ordered to send all children, old people, and most of the population from Moscow to the East. It was a hasty evacuation of millions of industrial workers and their families along with machinery and equipment.

One day, Father came up with the idea that he would send his family to the city of Omsk in Siberia. His Uncle Boris lived there.

I haven’t seen him for a long time, Father said. He was a very nice man, interested only in having a good time. He was an officer in the Russian army, liked beautiful life, companies, parties, wine, and women. Actually, he was a playboy, charming, never did anything serious in his life. He was my mother’s favorite brother. You know my cousin, Sanya. Boris is his father. Later, my uncle married a daughter of a priest and settled down in Omsk.

Two weeks later, Paulina, Mother, Yuri, and Father, who came to see them off, were at the railway station among a crowd of people trying to get into the freight train. There was no order. The big sliding door of the car was open for the people to get in. Dozens of people tried to attack the steps to the door at the same time, pushing away everyone who tried to be ahead of them.

Paulina helped Yuri to get in and looked in despair to see her mother as she was pushed back. Hysterical screams filled the air. Then Paulina saw Father help Mother to get in. A new attack began inside the freight car as people struggled to get a better place. But there was no better place. All places were bad. There were two wood shelves on both sides of the car. People rushed to occupy free places on the shelf. They were supposed to lie across the shelf next to each other, with about twenty people on each shelf. The car had two small windows high under the ceiling. Paulina was lucky because she was next to the wall and could see what was outside when she was standing on the shelf. At last, the car was loaded, relatives and friends were asked to leave, and the door was closed from the outside. For some reason, the train did not move for a long time. All the passengers grew nervous. It was hot and there was no ventilation, and people began saying they thought it would be better when they would start moving. The train jerked to a start. Paulina looked through the window. Father had already left. Suddenly a big explosion shook the car and she fell down from the shelf. A German plane flew over the train. People shouted that they could see bombs falling close to their train. The train stopped. In the distance, more German planes were seen dropping bombs on Moscow. One bomb fell on the oil tank at the station. There was an awful explosion, but Paulina’s train car was several hundred feet away. Someone said a couple of planes fell and the rest flew away. An hour later they started their journey.

The trip to Siberia took two weeks. The railroads were a mess. The trains moved slowly, sometimes sitting at the stations for hours or days. Conditions inside the car were wretched. All the passengers used the same metal pail as a toilet. There was no ventilation, and the stench from the pail and sweating bodies was sickening. When the train stopped at the stations, everyone rushed to the restroom to wash and to fill empty vessels with water. Hot food was served sometimes but just on the platforms. The train might stay for hours or it might start moving without any notice. It was risky to get off a train that stopped far from the platform, especially if it was behind several trains moving in both directions.

Surprises that were more unpleasant awaited them when they arrived in Omsk. Father’s Uncle Boris, who met them at the station, was an old bald man, all skin and bones. With huge aquiline nose and small eyes, he looked ugly and unpleasant. There was no greeting smile. His face was tense and not friendly.

When they arrived at his apartment, he tried to introduce them to his wife. She left the room, however, and did not say hello. It was evident from the first moment that the Moscow relatives were not welcome in his family. It was clear why. The apartment consisted of two small, poorly furnished rooms. There was no bathroom in the apartment. The primitive toilet without flush water was in the back yard. They also used it during the cold Siberian winters. There was no kitchen. They cooked food on the portable kerosene stove. The house was heated in winter by an iron stove standing in the middle of the room. The apartment did not have plumbing or a sewage system. Water was drawn from a well located in the back yard.

Paulina had heard her father’s stories about his uncle and his extremely rich family. This place, however, showed no signs of wealth.

There were no extra beds in the house. Paulina, Yuri, and Mother had to sleep on the floor in one of the two rooms. Staying there was uncomfortable not only physically, but also emotionally because of the inconvenience that they brought to this old couple. It was a great pressure to see their angry faces all the time.

One day, Paulina was shopping at the market place, trying to find soap, which was in short supply. She asked different people whether they knew anyone who would like to rent a room to their family. A lady who sold her a bar of soap said that she had a room to rent. Paulina felt so lucky because it was a problem to find a place to live. Crowds of people arrived every day from the west.

Paulina, Mother, and Yuri moved in to the new house, but they stayed there only for a few months. Snow and the cold Siberian winter started in November. Although a stove heated the house and the owner tried to save enough wood for the whole winter, the room was still cold because there was a big hole in the wall. Mother tried to block it with a blanket but it did not help. The blanket was covered with ice. Something had to be done.

Mother devised a plan to see a local secretary of the Communist Party and ask him for help. She told her family later about the details of her mission. Elegantly dressed, she approached a secretary’s desk and said that she wanted to see Mr. Novikov. She did not know him. She had only read the sign on the door: Alexander Ivanovich Novikov, Secretary of the Communist Party of the Omsk Region. His secretary was a middle-aged woman in big eyeglasses. She looked shocked when Mother said that she needed to see her boss.

Are you crazy, miss? Look around. All these people have been on a waiting list for months. What is your name? I can put you on the waiting list if it is something serious. What is the matter?

The matter is very important, said Mother. She slipped a box of perfume under the pile of papers on the desk.

The woman’s face softened and looked more agreeable.

So, what is the problem? she asked in a soft voice.

Ask Mr. Novikov to receive me right now. I came from Moscow, and the matter is of security importance.

The secretary’s face looked pale.

Okay, she said, wait until the meeting is over and I’ll ask him.

Ten minutes later, Mother gracefully approached the desk of the head of the local government. He looked impressed with her beauty, stood up from his big chair and rushed to greet Mother and shake her hand.

Sit down, please, he said in a sweet voice.

Mother looked around. It was a huge room, typical for communist leaders, with a big Stalin portrait on the wall behind his chair. She looked at the man. He was in his forties. He looked rather pleasant for a man in his position. His smart big gray eyes looked attentively at her. There was something warm and human in his look. That encouraged her to open the conversation.

What kind of security do you want to discuss with me? he asked.

The security of my children, she said, flashing a charming smile that showed her beautiful teeth. Only you can help us. The family of a famous airplane designer is living in poverty. My children are sleeping in coats and freezing from cold in the room that is not heated because of holes in the wall. I am sure that families of specialists, like my husband, who works twenty-four hours a day at the military plant to build aircraft for the front to defend our country, deserve more.

Novikov listened to her closely, evidently greatly impressed by the unusual subject of the conversation.

I know, she continued, a couple of families of famous pilots, like the family of Valery Chkalov or Lepidevsky, who live in houses for specialists in normal human conditions.

I know this, he said.

I understand that this is war time, and my children are starving as millions of other children, but I have a question for you. Where does your wife buy food? I wonder whether your children are also always as hungry as my children.

I will answer your question. We buy food and use the kitchen facilities that cook for Communist Party leadership. They have a list of people with privileges to use these facilities. It is not only in our region, but this regulation exists all over the country.

Sorry to say this, but my husband is doing day to day more for this country than your party leaders. I expect you to share with us all these privileges.

Where do you live? he asked.

Thirty-two Lenin Street. You are welcome to visit us. But be sure to put on a warm coat, she said with her charming smile.

I’ll be honest with you. I admire your courage but even more your beauty, he said, writing something on a sheet of paper. Here is the order for a room in the house for honored professionals. In this situation of war, local families have to share their apartments with the families evacuated from the west. You will live in the family of a colonel who is fighting at the front. His children and wife live in this apartment. Here is your pass to shop in the same store and get dinners in the same place that my family uses. He handed those two papers to her. She noticed the smile on his lips that he tried to hide. And I’ll give you also some coupons to buy fur coats for you and your children. Good luck, he said, rising from his chair. If you need something else, the door of my office is always open for you. Best regards to your husband, and my compliments that he is lucky to have such a wife. He shook Mother’s hand.

Paulina’s family moved to the new apartment the next day. Actually, it was only one room in a three-room apartment. The colonel’s wife, Maria, and her three children stayed in the other two rooms. She had two children of her own, a boy of seven and a girl of ten. Her fifteen-year-old stepdaughter Tamara also lived with them. The intrusion of Paulina’s family brought a significant inconvenience in Maria’s life. Tamara hated her stepmother. As a teenager, she understood many things about adult life that Paulina was ignorant of. Paulina was surprised how many men friends visited Maria. She saw different men visiting their neighbor every evening. Maria was usually in a bad mood in the morning, screaming at her children and cursing her friends that had visited her the night before. Paulina noticed she was quite different in the evening. She usually disappeared somewhere for a while when Paulina and Yuri had a chance to play with her children in their rooms. She returned later with some man that the kids had never seen before. She was beautifully dressed, looked happily, laughed, and usually treated kids with candies. After dinner with vodka, Maria used to leave dirty dishes for Tamara to clean and retired with her new friend to her bedroom. Tamara threw angry looks at her stepmother.

I will write my father about her, she repeated every day.

What about? Paulina was curious.

About her friends that they stay here for a night, she answered angrily.

Why do they stay here? They probably do not have a place to sleep. Paulina did not understand why Tamara was so angry with her stepmother. Maria has so many friends. Where does she meet them?

She meets them at movies. She buys two tickets and when she sees a single man she likes she asks him whether he needs a ticket. After the movie, she invites him to our house.

Why does she invite them? They are strangers and they can steal something, Paulina said naively.

Because they buy food and vodka, and we have food to eat. She pays them in return.

But if she has money to pay, she can buy food herself. Paulina felt that there was some secret behind all this.

Do you know the word ‘prostitute’? This is what my dear stepmother is. I want to write about her to my father. But I am afraid to upset him. He is fighting at the front, and he has to feel good about his family. He sends loving letters to her. I better wait until he comes back.

Paulina did not understand what the word prostitute meant. She did not want to show her ignorance, but she realized that it was something bad.

Omsk was the place where the Vakhtangov Theater evacuated from Moscow during the war. The leading actors of the theater lived in the same apartment building with Paulina’s family. Members of the Moscow Circus also lived in the building. Mother socialized with all of them, which made it possible for Paulina to view their beautiful performances every night. Everyone knew her at the theater and she had her own personal seat on the steps to the stage.

Mother’s best friend was Olga Chkalov, widow of the legendary Valery Chkalov. Chkalov was famous for his non-stop flight over the North Pole to North America in 1937. He died soon after in a crash while testing a fighter plane and left behind Olga and their children. Olga was modest and shy, not spoiled by her husband’s fame. Igor, her son, was a handsome boy a couple of years older than Paulina but not interested in Paulina’s company. He showed more interest in Sofia and seemed captivated by Sofia’s gorgeous body in a swimming suit when the two families swam in the river on hot summer days.

Paulina stayed with her mother and brother in Omsk with the colonel’s family for two years. During those two years, Sofia visited Father in Moscow two times. Paulina was twelve years old when mother left her the first time to take care of her five-year-old brother. Paulina had school vacations, so she spent all her time with her brother, taking him to buy food and taking dinners out to eat at home from the kitchen cooking for the privileged people.

CHAPTER 3

Paulina’s family returned to Moscow in 1943 when the Soviet army started an offense on a wide front. The city was safe to come back to, but their lives were not the same as before they had gone to Omsk. Paulina’s family had shared their big apartment with Father’s parents before the war started. Now the apartment was split into two apartments with a common hallway. Paulina, Yuri, and her parents occupied three rooms, and the grandparents had two rooms. One big bathroom was converted into the second kitchen for Grandfather and Grandmother. Each apartment had its own toilet. One bathtub was installed in each kitchen. Because too little space had been left for a kitchen, during the day, the bathtub in Paulina’s kitchen was covered with a wood cover that served as an additional countertop for washing dishes in a basin. They also used it as a countertop for preparing food for cooking. It served also as a bed at night for a maid who lived in the house. All her bedding was stored in the bathtub under the wood cover. Only one tub, in the grandparents’ kitchen, had a water heater to provide hot water for the shower and bath. The hot water was delivered to another bath in Paulina’s apartment by a hose coming through the hole in the wall; it was attached to the hot water faucet in the first bathroom. It was impossible to take a hot bath in both bathrooms at the same time.

The situation worsened when the family of Paulina’s Uncle Victor, Father’s younger brother, moved in. He lost his state-assigned apartment because he did not pay for it during the war when his family was evacuated. Getting a new apartment was impossible, especially in Moscow. So, Victor’s family of four moved in to one of the two rooms of the grandparents’ apartment. They did not allow Paulina’s family to use hot water for a bath when they were in their kitchen. The problem was that they usually stayed there for the whole evening, cooking, doing homework, and talking on the telephone. Sometimes, it was so late when they left their kitchen that nobody in Paulina’s family had any energy to start moving the stuff from the wooden bath cover. In order to fill up the bath with water they also needed to take the maid’s bedding from inside the bath.

Still, it was better, compared to some of Paulina friends’ families who shared the same kitchen and bathroom with five or more families.

Paulina and her family spent most of their summers in their country house where they usually moved just after school vacations started. During the war the house had been occupied by soldiers and used as headquarters for the officers. When Paulina’s family returned to Moscow, they found the house in shambles. The family had no resources to restore it, but Mother found a way to do it. She sought out troops located in that area and spoke with the officers. It did not take long time for the soldiers to bring their tools and not only restore the house but make big improvements. Mother coordinated the rebuilding, devoting all her time and energy to supervise the construction, buying all the materials and even cooking dinners for the builders in order to expedite their work.

The house set on three acres. A natural ravine with a thick forest of nut-trees blocked the view of their neighbor, a poet, Alexei Surkov. The neighbor on the other side was the famous Russian composer, Isaac Dunaevsky. The neighbor across the street was the popular Russian Big Band leader and singer, Leonid Utesov. There was a very popular film before the war called Merry Fellows. It was a musical comedy. Poet Lebedev-Kumach wrote a lyric for the songs. Isaac Dunaevsky wrote the music. The director and producer was Gregory Alexandrov. Lubov Orlova, his wife, and Leonid Utesov performed two leading roles. All these people lived in the same street. And the street was called unofficially the Street of Merry Fellows.

Cheerful, optimistic films and songs were very popular during Stalin’s time. They depicted happy people engaged in the industrialization and collectivization of the country. The collectivization of the farms was a very painful and bloody process when thousands of farmers were arrested and killed, and people died from starvation. The Soviet writers and poets were supposed to show happy, optimistic people singing joyful songs in order to show all the capitalist countries that communism was the best system in the world. The favorite song of that time started with the words, How lucky we are to live in the Soviet country… Stalin’s name was present in most works of literature and art.

Paulina was a shy girl but she had many friends – mainly boys, because she preferred the kinds of activities boys liked. They had a volleyball team, and she was the only girl on it. They liked to ride bicycles, and Paulina was always with them. They went swimming together in the river. The boys treated her as a boy. They never excused her of being a girl or being weaker. She tried to do whatever was necessary to be accepted and treated in their company as an equal.

Her only girlfriend at the country house was Marina Lebedev-Kumach. Marina was two years older and domineering. Intelligent and smart, she was not kind and friendly to other kids. Her father was a popular poet, official bard, and the author of patriotic songs like Sacred War. Most of his songs were written in collaboration with Isaac Dunaevsky and glorified Soviet regime. Marina grew up in the family with two fathers. Her beautiful mother, Kyra, had actually a husband and her boyfriend living with them. Marina liked him and considered him a good friend of the family. Vastly Lebedev-Kumach did not look happy. It was evident to everyone, including him, that his Gypsy wife did not love him. She was always busy in the garden growing beautiful flowers while her husband hid in his room and avoided the rest of the family. The only person who was glad to see the children in the house was mother’s boyfriend. He was a journalist and very kind and pleasant person.

Marina had inherited from her father epilepsy. Her teachers knew about her disease and believed her when she feigned attacks at school. She did it for fun or pretending sick to avoid showing her homework that she failed to do.

Paulina liked playing games in the attic of Marina’s big house. The attic resembled a warehouse with numerous items brought from their houses for the plays they performed. Marina usually played male roles as she had a bald head. The little bit of hair that grew on both sides of her head made her look like a boy. Paulina teased her that she was perfect for the role of Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the Russian Revolution as he was also baldheaded. She did not need a wig to perform his role.

Paulina was scared once