The Umbrella of Clairvoyance: And Other Family Stories of Imperial and Soviet Russia and America Today

By Galina Tregubov

The most intriguing puzzle in the world is the journey of human life. The author lets readers solve many puzzles for themselves by introducing different characters in the process of navigating through entertaining and captivating plots. These stories, gracefully illustrated by the author, make it clear that virtues, vices, sadness, and silliness are universal features regardless of language, geography, and the century during which one lives.These lively and stirring multigenerational tales of two families bring us from czarist times in Russia, take in the whole breadth of Russia from Moscow to Shikotan Island and, after an abbreviated sojourn in Europe, finally settle us in the present-day hills and valleys of New Hampshire. The use of "us" is intentional, for the author's style--her inspiring faith, understated humor, and unerring kindness shine through on every page--welcomes readers into this singular family home.--G. John Champoux, translator of works of several leading French philosophers and author of The Way to Our Heavenly Father (Kettering, OH: Semantron, 2013), a book of commentaries and meditations on the Lord's Prayer

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685264864

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Preface

1: A Soft White Damn

2: I Am Hangry

3: Sticks vs. Stones

4: Never Falling Leaves

5: Roses on a Thorn Bush

6: A Renaissance Man

7: The Lady of Shalott

8: The Hand of the Giver

9: Silver Eagle and Spurs

10: I.W.B.A.

11: Vodka-Tsvetkovka

12: Tonie's Peace

13: Noopie Forever

14: Spooky Story

15: A Door to Romance

16: A Cameo Named Lola

17: A Gun on the Wall

18: Vanity Bait

19: Chana the Amazing

20: What Is Truth?

21: A Stump Career

22: Job Peek-a-Boo

23: Three Youths in a Boat, Not Counting a Dog

24: Crocodile Memories of Shikotan

25: Baba Vera

26: Rowan Tree's Slender Daughter

27: Space for Freedom (part 1)

28: Space for Freedom (part 2)

29: What Now?

30: How Thoughts Work

31: What Titans Are Made Of

32: A Secret Toolbox

33: Honghuzi in Town

34: Yes, God!

35: Poco Moto

36: The Attractive Nuisance

37: The Umbrella of Clairvoyance

38: Secretive Pierre

39: A Local Guy

40: An Atypical Hostage Situation

41: A Sketch

42: Send Me a Thank-You Note

43: Wheeling 'N' Dealing with Dementia

44: Under the Influence…of Art

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The Umbrella of Clairvoyance

And Other Family Stories of Imperial and Soviet Russia and America Today

Galina Tregubov

ISBN 978-1-68526-485-7 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68526-486-4 (Digital)

Copyright © 2022 Galina Tregubov

All rights reserved

First Edition

Book design and illustrations by Galina Tregubov

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

To my dear family—present and future

Own only what you can always carry with you:

know languages, know countries, know people.

Let your memory be your travel bag.

—A. I. Solzhenitsyn

Acknowledgments

My sincere gratitude to my wonderful editors and advisers—Ann, John, Olivia (!) and Tim, Anna and Nika; to my first reader of fifty years—Andrew; and to my dear parish family for their unwavering support.

Foreword

Memoir has been a popular genre worldwide for at least several decades now. While the success of any memoir depends partly on the inherent interest of the experiences recounted there, the ones that really stick with us, I propose, do so because of the personality of the memoirist. There are plenty of compelling experiences recounted in The Umbrella of Clairvoyance, like being courted as a teenager by a KGB spy in training or working in a fish canning plant on a disputed Kuril Island or meeting Russian giants like Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn or theologian Alexander Schmemann. Still, the reason readers will plow through these pages recounting the lives of Galina Tregubov and the numerous ancestors, relatives, and friends who make appearances there is Galina herself.

Fortunate enough to know the author, I can confirm the authenticity of the voice that narrates this memoir. The impish child who crawls over her sleeping Grandpa Misha to complete his map and rather spills red ink all over it and who ties her caretaker to her bed while she is napping does so with an ingenuity and determination that will help her negotiate foreign countries, languages, and customs during her emigration as a young adult and scare off would-be robbers as a parish priest's wife. It turns out humor helps one get through not only the barbarities of a totalitarian regime, but also the chaos of New York City. Though Russian by birth, Galina becomes a good disciple of Socrates in knowing herself. Or to put it otherwise, this memoir aids us in admitting to our own tomfoolery because we laugh with Galina about her attempt to try out her womanly wiles as a teenager in frilly pajamas or have a vacation on a river so flooded that she and her fellow adventurers' rubber boat floats over a garbage dump treacherously filled with barbed wire. Without self-pity or nostalgia, our memoirist demonstrates through many episodes her ability to take away something positive from even tragic, dangerous, or frightening situations. Readers have to deduce, for example, the ultimate loss of the old family residence in the city center or the death of Elena, Galina's beloved mother. Galina's appreciation of and gratitude for animals of all types, the beauty of the natural world, and the generations of strong women who raised her also become the basis for developing a true love of God—something that was certainly not planted by her early life in the Soviet Union, where children were made to walk on icons of the saints on their way into school.

Or was it?

Galina talks about the noblesse oblige of her ancestors, but I think we can count their behavior as truly Christian when the winter coat to keep one's own child warm in the frigid temperatures or a favorite doll are given to strangers who have even less. Ultimately, I believe this memoir enacts the import of Maya Angelou's favorite sentiment expressed in hundreds of formulations over her lifetime, loosely quoting Apostle Paul. You've been paid for. Others' sacrifices should render us humble and grateful, causing us to pay it forward as the contemporary saying goes. Galina Tregubov knows she's been paid for, and she lives by that knowledge. In getting to know her better, we can be inspired to do the same.

—Irene Kacandes, professor of Comparative

Literature and German Studies at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire

Note: She is the author or editor of nine books and has published about memoir in addition to herself writing one. She is a parishioner of the church where Galina Tregubov and her husband V. Rev. Andrew Tregubov serve.

Preface

Ancient wisdom proclaims: Bloom where you are planted. But that doesn't work for everyone in every place. My husband and I couldn't bloom. Our environment was too thorny and harsh. The Soviet Union was—and Russia still is—a wild rosebush, growing mostly thorns to threaten and pierce. It is cruel even to its own flowers.

So forty-five years ago, with my husband, Andrew, we fled the country, and after an exciting adventure that took us through Austria and Italy, we found a new place to grow our roots.

This collection of stories started as letters to our teenage granddaughter, Nika. It continued as family tales for our adult kids, Timothy and Anna, and their families. In the end, the other stories emerged to entertain our friends.

I enjoyed writing these vignettes and illustrating them. I have tried to recall events, places, and conversations as I remember them. Although most of the names are authentic, I have changed the names of some individuals to maintain their privacy. I used original family photographs for illustrations and added some minor details.

Our memory tends to favor the most interesting and distinctive moments from the past. But like the old photographs, they fade with time and lack many details—only their outlines remain bright and solid. This explains the style of my illustrations.

I hope you will enjoy walking through these stories together with me.

1

A Soft White Damn

How do we talk to kids about what is good and what is evil in a country that deprives people of fundamental freedoms and keeps them in fear of punishment for normal human behavior? In a country where your mother could lose her job if your teacher at school spots a tiny baptismal cross on your neck and reports it to the authorities. Why can't you wear what you like or believe in what you love? Is it only because this inhuman ideology demands your blind obedience? It was hard in the Soviet Union to tell kids the truth about what was going on, and not many adults could do it. In my childhood, kids grew up like little barn mice. We sensed some undefined danger behind the barn walls, but were still happy in our small, cozy home. We played and laughed until suddenly some of us became exposed to the scary world outside of our comfortable space.

I was a typical five-year-old and stayed at home with an older live-in nanny called Auntie Arisha. She was friendly and kind to me, but she didn't fancy the rest of the family. My parents were divorced, and my mom and I lived with my grandma's family that consisted of my great-grandfather, his other daughter, and her daughter, who also had a child, a few years younger than me. Altogether it was five adults and two children. The adults had to work to make ends meet and because work was required of everyone.

So when I was born, neither my mom nor grandma could stay at home with me. They had to hire a nanny, even though they paid her the same salary that my mom, a young MD, was making by working full-time at a city clinic. Each time my mom brought home her monthly salary of 600 rubles (approximately $40), she gave it to Arisha. And nobody in our family questioned the logic of such nature of things, except for one small child. But who would listen to me?

I don't know why exactly, but I didn't like Auntie Arisha much—maybe because she never played with me, and I considered her boring. But when Arisha was younger, healthier, and lived in her village, according to the story she told my family, she had had twelve children, and eleven of them died in infancy from intestinal diseases. Just think about that—as many as a whole soccer team died! Amazingly, this story didn't alarm my parents and didn't stop them from hiring her. I guess I was lucky when after two years of her babysitting, I successfully lived through a severe intestinal infection followed by an appendectomy. When I returned home from a month in the hospital, Arisha was very happy to see me and said she had been praying hard for my health. This made me the second child in her life to survive her tender care. Whee!

To be fair to my old nanny, I should point out that she was the only churchgoer in our educated family. She didn't care about the official repression of religion; she simply followed all Orthodox feasts and fasts as she had done all her life, faithfully attending services in the few, mostly empty, nearby churches. She also was acquainted with a couple of priests still left in our district. The rest of the priests had been arrested or sent into exile.

The final winter that Arisha lived with us was very snowy. The wide driveway between two neighboring apartment houses became narrow, squeezed on either side by giant snowbanks. It was a wonderland for kids. Dressed in many layers and heavy coats, we looked like clumsy Ewoks from a Star Wars movie, and just like them, we were cheerful and busy. We built caves, tunnels, and forts; we hiked the snow volcanoes, and we sledded down the snowy mountains. It was so much fun!

On one afternoon, a few of us Ewoks had been building a snow castle for the princess doll I had brought outside. It was a unique doll, a present from my aunt, who, being a musician, obtained special permission from the authorities to visit foreign countries. Ordinary folks were not allowed to go beyond the Iron Curtain¹ around the borders of the Soviet Union.

The stunning doll was from Germany, and everybody who looked at her held their breath. The doll wore a pink nylon dress that was shiny and crunchy like a candy wrapper. She looked like a big candy herself—rosy, sweet, and crystallized in a perpetual smile. I was very possessive of her; none of my friends had anything like it. This doll was the perfect fairytale princess when she sat patiently in the snow castle and allowed us to serve her.

We were preoccupied with our game when suddenly we heard Auntie Arisha's loud cry, Watch out, kids! A truck is coming!

She ran to me and grabbed me, and I grabbed my doll. Both Arisha and I held each other tightly.

The big, rusty truck backed up into our white wonderland like a dark part of the Death Star that had broken away and accidentally fell onto our street.

My silent but urgent barn mouse senses told me that I should stay close to my nanny and be quiet because of some unknown danger, though Arisha probably knew what it was. She sighed and whispered to herself, Oh no, they are coming for someone again…

As in the movie, we watched as dark figures came from behind the truck like minions of the Dark Force. Their faces were stiff, and obeying orders, they moved around rapidly in contrast with the slowly falling white snow. The snow that doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches.² Their silhouettes were surreal and scary.

The minions disappeared, one by one, into the unlit entrance of the neighboring apartment house and soon returned carrying household items. They quickly started to load the truck with furniture and some bundles and bags, which looked carelessly packed.

What was that? I noticed that one big bundle in the truck was moving and making whimpering noises. Auntie Arisha had seen it too. She swore under her breath and called out a name. The bundle answered. It was a child, a girl of my age. I had never met her before, but Arisha recognized her. From their quick and quiet dialogue, I gathered that her father was a priest from the nearby church, and the authorities had simply given the order for the whole family to be sent into exile far away. Where exactly—the girl didn't know.

It was getting darker, and the streetlights turned on. The girl started to cry. She was sitting alone in the truck's back, between bags and bundles like one of these things herself. She was waiting for her parents, who were supposed to join her at any moment. They had all been thrown from their apartment like useless old castoffs. I felt confused and didn't know what to do or how to react. I was getting tired, cold, and just wanted to go back home, where I could hide from this disturbing scene.

No-o! Wait! I screamed unexpectedly.

But it was too late. Like an enormous pink snowflake, I watched my beautiful princess doll fly into the air and land on the lap of the crying girl. My nanny had pulled her out of my hands and threw her into the truck.

Through that moment's snow squall, the small voices of two girls could be heard—one with joyful welcome, another with sad farewell. I was crushed and devastated by my loss. My beautiful candy doll! What would happen to her? I opened my mouth wide, ready for one desperate, loud cry, but the swarm of cold snowflakes immediately landed on my tongue and shushed me.

Now, when I recall that evening, I think that Auntie Arisha was right: she had acted out of compassion for the priest's family and the little scared girl. She simply gave the girl a comforting farewell gift from what was at hand. If I had had my big plush teddy bear with me, she would have given it instead. But she didn't have time to switch the toys or to convince me to be generous. So she did what she could. But why, later, at home, did none of the adults talk to me and explain to me what had happened? Why was giving my precious doll to a stranger the right thing to do? My grandma was the only one who patted my head in passing and confided, Good girl!

Today, I know why they all kept silent. Everyone was scared. Very scared. Because the rusty truck already had come once for Great-grandfather, and it could come again—for our family.

Agafia, the author (on the left), and village kids

2

I Am Hangry

In the picture album of my memory, I have a few snapshots from when I was between five and seven years old. When I was a bit older and first able to look back at these pictures, I felt like a little girl stuck in time—my emotional traumas were still all too vivid. But writing about them today—as an adult—and observing them from a lifetime of distance, surprisingly the traumatic intensity of these memories has faded away. Taking one snapshot at a time, I now see nothing to be afraid of, nothing to cry about, but only some meaningful stories to share.

Snapshot 1

I am walking in circles around the dinner table like a stray dog and, staring at a cast-iron pan heaped with fried potatoes, I am repeating the same phrase, Agafia, I am hungry, please let me eat…

No, replies a woman at the table, chewing. Her voice is dull. You misbehaved, now you'll go without dinner.

Story 1

Agafia became my new live-in babysitter after my old babysitter, Auntie Arisha, stopped working for us and returned to her village, due to her declining health. Agafia was half Arisha's age, but twice as mean, dishonest, and physically abusive. She didn't believe in anything and didn't have any compassion—such a program had never been installed in the computer of her heart. She ignored me most of the time and punished me when I disturbed her peace. Her punishments were as blunt as her nature; she just locked me in different places or didn't give me food. As a result, I was continuously on a warpath against her. I was like a little Native American girl, hating a mean invader of my territory and fighting for my freedom.

Snapshot 2

Hey girl, where are you? Let's go for a walk!

I hear my aunt Kira's voice coming from outside of a tall and deep wardrobe where I am sitting in the company of my stuffed animals beneath the hanging clothes.

I am here, in the wardrobe! I shout back to her.

The lock clicks, and the door opens. I see a surprise on Kira's face and hear the dreary voice of Agafia from behind her.

She just wanted to play hide-and-seek.

But why did you lock her in?

No answer. Kira takes my hand and leads me away. I leave the frozen land of Narnia and can be happy for a while.

Story 2

In the beginning, when Agafia first began locking me in the old wardrobe, did I scream and make noise? Yes, I did. But no family members were home at those times, and my loud protests had the opposite effect—as a punishment, Agafia didn't feed me afterward. Therefore, it was easier for me to be quiet and doze off in the wardrobe's cozy, dark space filled with the smell of mothballs. My incarcerations didn't last long because my scientist great-grandfather Michael stayed at home more often. He didn't feel well and couldn't go to work. In his presence, I felt safe and protected. But unfortunately, after a heart attack, he was admitted to a rehabilitation clinic for many months, and this was when Agafia came back into power.

But this time, her favorite trick didn't work as well as she expected. Before going to the clinic, Grandpa left me his flashlight. With it, I was even glad to hide away in the wardrobe from my monstrous babysitter. I could read books with a flashlight, play with toys, and munch on some snacks I brought with me. I enjoyed my time alone. And so, facing defeat, Agafia stopped abusing me this way—she couldn't gloat over my distress anymore.

Snapshot 3

I am standing in the corner of the dining room, biting my fingernails and sniffling. I have a cold and feel miserable. My mom sentenced me to this corner for my rude and inappropriate behavior toward Agafia. When all the adults had returned from work, and while we were having supper together, I made a show of blowing my profusely running nose into Agafia's new dress left on a chair. I had committed a crime! But what no one knew was that she started it first: today, she didn't give me a handkerchief on purpose, and she shoved me out of her way so hard that I hit the doorframe with my shoulder. Now it is black and blue and hurts.

How long have I stood in the corner? It's getting late. My grandma sneaks in quietly and brings me a small kid's chair. Now I can sit.

If you apologize to Agafia, your mother will forgive you, and we all could go to bed, whispers Grandma.

But I am too tired, too sleepy, and can't think straight. And I don't feel sorry at all. So I sit there, dozing off. The next time I wake up, I am still sitting in the corner, and my mom, covering me with her soft bathrobe, tucks it around me. Her face looks concerned. She doesn't know what to do with me. But I feel comfortable and continue sleeping.

In the morning, I awake in my bed. And everybody around me behaves as though nothing happened. Was it a dream?

Story 3

I wish it were a dream. But no, it wasn't. The battle with my babysitter continued, and sometimes, inadvertently, it involved the whole family. During one particular battle, our family dynamics resembled the histrionics of a soap opera.

That day, Agafia again didn't give me my dinner, except for a piece of bread, and soon I was very hungry and very angry or hangry³ like the new word suggests. When she decided to nap before the adults came home from work, I couldn't resist seeking revenge. While she was sleeping, I grabbed my grandma's sharp sewing scissors, quietly approached her bed, and cut off a thick strand of Agafia's hair, right over her ear. Ack! The spot looked so ugly and noticeable that I got scared. But it was too late!

That evening, our family supper occurred in dead silence. Afterward, my mother took me to the living room and gave me a long, scolding talk. I tried to explain the reasons for my actions, but my mom was tired after a long day of work, and she didn't listen. Maybe because it was also a full moon? On a full moon, people act unreasonably and nervously, more like wild creatures than humans. From the kitchen, my grandma overheard the scolding and my crying, and she lost her cool. Grandma was on my side, so she came in and started to yell at her daughter, blaming her for all the wrong choices she had made in her life. I guess one of them was marrying my father and another was picking Agafia as a babysitter for me.

The quarrel hadn't yet reached its peak when Grandma's sister, Vera, and her daughter, Kira, stormed into the room. They both screamed that if we didn't stop all this shouting immediately, we'd wake up Grandfather. They were so agitated that they didn't even notice that Grandpa was already in the room. He sat in his easy chair, looking undisturbed, and reading the evening newspaper. My mom and grandma got their second wind, and together, they attacked the other two for intervening in what was obviously none of their business.

I should mention here that each of these women had a unique style of emotional outburst. My mom's and her cousin's techniques were similar and traditional—one arguing in soprano, the other in alto. But both old ladies were superb! My grandma was a contralto, and she loved to accompany her loudly proclaimed statements with the sound of dishes breaking as she threw them across the room. On the other hand, her sister worked as a radio host and had a well-trained voice; therefore, she could impersonate any villain, and her repertoire of curses was endless.

Over the noise level that that these four ladies generated, nobody could hear the neighbors from two other apartments knocking on the door. The late-night quarrel had woken them up, and they had come to investigate the source of the disturbance. Agafia let them in with her ruined hairdo covered by a scarf.

And then, in our small living room, the soap opera scene began to unfold—a group of people yelling at each other for assorted reasons, having forgotten the cause of the problem! But I—the cause of the problem—was sitting calmly in the lap of Great-Grandpa, feeling safe and even somewhat amused.

Snapshot 4

I am sorry I am sorry! Let me out! I hate you!

This time, Agafia locked me down in the root cellar. It's summertime; I am barefoot and dressed in a swimsuit. In the dim light filtering through a tiny vent window, I see the small space around me—the earth walls and floor, a few jars of milk, a small pile of potatoes, and crooked wooden steps leading to the trap door in the ceiling. Brrr, it's so cold in here! But I know my grandma will be home soon; she'll let me out. Just be patient and wait. I can even drink milk from the jar. Hunching on the wooden steps, I try to cheer myself up and begin reciting some children's poems:

On the floor lies tiny Teddy,

Half a paw is gone already.

He is tattered, torn, and lame.

Yet I love him just the same…

Story 4

That summer we lived in the country, about an hour from the city by train, in a small rented house that looked more like a shack. My mother and grandmother continued to work, and every morning, they would take a train into the city and come back every night. Agafia didn't care what I was doing during the day, and I had the happiest time. I joined a small flock of village kids in all kinds of summer activities—bike riding, fishing, berry picking, playing with farm animals, etc. My stomach generated the only schedule I followed. A couple of times per day, I would show up on the steps of our shack, quickly eat a sandwich with a cup of fresh milk from our landlord's goat, and disappear again for many hours. This blessed, natural lifestyle supported a truce in my war with Agafia. I think that a sense of freedom makes people more kind to each other!

But if that was the case, how did I end up locked in the root cellar? What was that punishment for? I should admit that it was my fault—though not entirely; I had gotten lost in the beauty of time and space in nature. My stomach alarm clock was broken too, and that's why I didn't return home for the whole day. That day, the village kid gang went swimming in the bogs, located deep in the woods.

First, it was farther than we thought, and we got lost on the way there. Second, we munched so much on wild berries and green hazelnuts along the path that we were not hungry. And third, we had so much fun swimming in the warm, dark water of the bog that we didn't stop until we were utterly exhausted. Then, to recover, we plopped down on the turf right there and slept until the sun started to set. Boy, we had to run like crazy back home, but still didn't succeed in calming the adult villagers who had begun to worry about us and were ready to start searching the woods.

That evening, I think everyone from our gang got some punishment, and so did I. That's why Agafia locked me in the root cellar. My parents let me out and didn't scold me at all for being lost in the woods. After dinner, I heard them commenting to each other about how healthy I looked.

Snapshot 5

It is Sunday afternoon. The whole family is gathered around Agafia in the dining room. The women are standing; I am sitting next to her behind the table, holding her hand. She is crying bitterly in great distress. Instead of feeling angry, afraid, and hurt in her presence, I feel very sorry for her, and I don't know why. Between sobs, Agafia repeats her story again and again, as if hoping that through these repetitions, she will find a way to reverse her misfortune.

Apparently, she had been saving money to buy a fur coat all the time she worked for us. You know, like the ones real ladies wear! Finally, today, putting all her saved money in her purse, she went to the State Department Store across from the Kremlin. She picked and tried on a dream coat but couldn't pay for it because her purse was empty—all her money had been stolen.

Waa-a… I will never get happily married… Waa-a! No decent man will marry me if I don't have a fur coat!

I am listening carefully, and I almost agree with her because I want her to get married and leave us, but the rest of the ladies around Agafia take a dim view of such notions. Though all of them used to have fur coats in better times, none considered themselves happily married. They are sighing. But Agafia doesn't care about their opinions; she is not even looking at them. At that moment, she wants only my support.

And strangely, I feel real compassion for her, as though she had never been cruel and abusive to me. I suddenly feel myself being powerful and wise, and I know for sure that from now on, my war with Agafia is over! Now it is she who is weak, miserable, and needs my help. I can't let her down! I jump from my seat and run to my great-grandpa's room.

He already knows what happened and reacts calmly to my anxious demands.

Okay, okay! I'll see what I can do. I don't think I can compensate her the whole amount, but maybe a part of it.

Oh, how I love Great-Grandfather! Now I feel happy.

Story 5

After this incident, Agafia's babysitting career took a plunge. I was seven years old and had started my first year at school. Every day, she walked me to school and came back after classes to pick me up. But her attitude toward me had changed radically; she became friendlier and more caring. She even tried to do my homework for me, but because her handwritten letters and numbers had some extra silly curlicues, my teacher quickly figured it out and sent a note to my parents. It put an end to Agafia's help and my laziness.

Then one of my mother's colleagues gave her a disturbing report: she had seen Agafia and me standing with a group of men