The Russian- Part One
“Who was that?” I asked my mother after a stranger answered their phone.
“Vika,” she replied, her tone suggesting it should have been obvious.
“Vika?”
“You remember Vika. You met her at Thanksgiving a few years ago. Dad’s student? From Russia?”
Hmmm…. I think back, trying to remember. We had hosted many students for Thanksgiving over the years. As the Director of International Programs at the local college, we had a revolving door of foreign students, particularly on Thanksgiving Day when the college was closed, and they had nowhere else to go.
“She peeled potatoes,” Mom added, as though that would jog my memory.
“You made a Russian woman peel potatoes? That seems like stereotyping,” I joked. “Why is she answering the phone?”
“She’s staying with us. We told you that.”
My parents had a long history of thinking they had told me things when they hadn’t. We were not the best communicators in the best of times, but now that I lived across the country, I didn’t have the benefit of the community grapevine to catch me up.
“I must have missed that somehow,” I said, biting my tongue as I took the blame, not wanting to go tit for tat about whether or not they had told me. Trust me. They hadn’t. “How long is she staying?” I asked, curious. My parents had never invited a student to stay with them before. Perhaps now that they were empty nesters, they felt it wouldn’t be an imposition on their kids. Or maybe they were lonely; but that was unlikely. Both of my parents were workaholics who were far too busy to be lonely.
“Oh, I don’t know. As long as she needs,” Mom answered, unconcerned.
I tried to picture this Vika person in my head. Tall? Short? Blonde? Brunette? I couldn’t remember, so I gave up and changed the subject.
“What are you up to today?”
“Vika and I are headed to the outlets to go shopping.”
“That’s nice.” Bargain hunting was one of my mom’s favorite pastimes. It was something we used to do together. It was nice that she had someone to go with her.
As the conversation moved to other topics, thoughts of Vika were pushed from my mind. We ended the call, and I went about my life, forgetting, until I called home again, that a Russian was living with my parents.
Weeks later, while speaking with my grandfather over the phone, background noises caught my attention.
“What’s going on there, Afi?” I loudly articulated into the phone to accommodate for his near deafness.
“Vika is here cleaning.” He sounded excited. Happy. I heard a woman’s muffled voice, then my grandfather held the mouthpiece away from him while saying, “It’s Sonja on the phone.” More muffled speaking followed. Then, “Vika says hello.”
“Hello, Vika,” I replied, still trying to picture her face. Wait. Had she lived in my other grandfather’s house? Maybe I did remember her. I scratched my head, puzzled. No matter. At this moment, I was particularly grateful for her. When I had moved away, one of my biggest fears was the care of my grandfather, who was my best friend. A one-in-a-million kind of guy with a magnetism that drew in all creatures, human and animal alike. He resided in the carriage house apartment adjacent to my parents’ house and had lived alone since my grandmother’s dementia had forced her into a nursing home.
Like many men of his generation, he had never learned to cook or clean and didn’t show any interest in doing so now as he pushed eighty years old. I’m not sure if my mom was too busy or somehow had blinders on, but he needed help. He managed to keep things somewhat organized, but with two cats and a dog living with him, the pet hair alone was enough to require regular vacuuming. The place was filthy.
“It’s awfully nice having her here,” he gushed. “She’s been helping me get this place cleaned up. And she brought me dinner! How about that?” Afi was nothing if not whole-heartedly enthusiastic about the simple joys in life. I imagined him pulling Vika into a ferocious hug while raining kisses down on top of her head, his signature move.
“That’s great! Don’t let me interrupt,” I bellowed into the receiver, then ended the call so that Vika could start the vacuum. I went about the rest of my day with a sense of calm I hadn’t felt in a long time.
My parents never told me the reason for Vika’s housing need, and me being a self-absorbed twenty-something, it didn’t occur to me to ask, but over the coming months I was kept informed of the Russian and her exploits. I heard of her spending considerable amounts of time with my grandfather, undoubtedly staving off some of his loneliness. She was a companion to my parents and, in an effort to earn her keep, did a tremendous amount to help them around the house.
I became used to her answering the phone, and we engaged in short conversations, mostly small talk, as we felt each other out. She was now working two jobs in the village and had begun dating the son from a family we had known for decades. As it happened, he spoke fluent Russian.
Vika was included in all family events, major and minor: holidays, my grandmother’s funeral, my sister’s baby shower, the annual family campout. Little by little, our relationship developed, and our comfort level increased. I respected her work ethic, her loyalty to my family, her conscientiousness. She was smart, funny, stubborn, and braver than anyone my age that I knew. I marveled at how she had left behind her family, her home, how she was here with no safety net, all to pursue greater opportunity.
When she moved to Vermont with her boyfriend, I thought that maybe the time of the Russian would fade; but when I returned home for Christmas so did she, and not as a guest. She acted like another one of my parents’ kids. I observed how she moved comfortably around the house, helped herself, washed dishes, tidied up the clutter. She even bickered with my dad. My parents and grandfather seemed just as excited to see her as they were me. It didn’t bother me, per se, but it was a paradigm shift. Was this Russian always going to be around? Was it going to be weird?
On Christmas morning, Vika presented my parents with the totally normal gift of handmade leather underwear: a leather thong and bra for my mother, a leather thong for my father, and some sort of tasseled whip to go with it. That’s right. Welcome to my family, folks. While working at a leather goods store in Burlington, she had custom-designed and created these items for my parents in honor of Jesus’ birth. That was the moment of clarity for me; the moment that I realized she got it. She got us, and our quirky, irreverent, goofy ways. No one felt like they had to be polite, or careful. We could speak freely and stupidly and inappropriately without fear of judgment or offending. The gag gift showed me just how well she knew my parents, and that she embraced and (gasp) maybe even shared our unique sense of humor.
The following summer my father gave Vika away at her wedding. I wasn’t invited, but I didn’t mind. Vika and I were still getting to know each other; but I had come to accept that my parents now had another daughter.
I remember at one point my father asked me if I was ok with Vika and her insertion into our lives. Did I feel jealous, or threatened, or competitive? Did I think she was taking time and attention away from me? My honest answer was no. There was always enough love to go around. My grandfather had taught me that. I didn’t know what my parents’ relationship with Vika meant relative to me and my sister, but it was starting to settle in: Vika was here to stay.