The Russian Wife

That time in the kitchen was the first time (and one of the very few) when I allowed my man to bend me "forcibly" to his will ("forcibly", so to speak: I was "bent" on my own already...). Usually, when I said "no", it meant "no", and he knew that. But that time, he was so scared, so in crisis, that it had been too nice to see him becoming the man I knew again, to reassure him that I was and wanted to be his wife... at the cost to be "raped" in the attempt (please mind the quotation marks: "raped", so to speak...)...

That was also the only time my man doubted of my serious commitment with him. He wanted to give me a lifeboat, just in case I wanted to leave the Titanic. But there was no Titanic to leave, for me. And now he knew that for sure.

On the other hand, he did not take me for granted, after that morning, at least in the sense that he was not less attemptive, caring or respectful after that.

He gave me gifts for every Russian holiday, as he did when we were in Russia, even before we married. Then he gave gift for my family, something my father or my mother liked, but was hard to find. Nothing excessive, he did not want to embarrass, let alone to humiliate them: he asked me what he could give under these conditions. And we too gave something to him, sure, something "ours", Russian. He liked that, and anyway, he could give it to someone else. Who has ever resisted to the temptation to ask a "Matryòska" to an acquaintance who went to Moscow, or even lived there?

There were many holidays, in Russia: old- and new-new-year's eve, the 1st of May, day of peace and work (in the USA it's in september, and there's a reason why...), the 23rd of February, day of the Red Army (then it became the "day of the defenders of the country", but basically, the unofficial "men's day"), the 9th of May, the "day of the victory", the 7th of November... and of course the 8th of March, which was both the "women's day" and my birthday... And for any of these holidays (yes, EVEN the 7th of November) , my man did or gave me something special. Always in his no-frills, "bearish" way. You know, "rude is the speech of mine", or something like this...

In a nutshell, we had already a "modus vivendi", and there was no reason to change it. He was as he was, and I... averse to argue (but able to do it, if it took...), sexually quite available (even because he knew how and where to touch me, kiss me, grope me... "helluva man"...), ready to cook his favorite dishes, when he did something I liked... And he knew that I could be so, until he acted as it takes. But I could become something totally different in the opposite case...

So he kept acting as it takes...

But when the problems were serious, where the dark clouds really came ("from the borders come the gloomy clouds..."), then he did not just "act as it takes". Then he was really "tòchka opòri", the foothold, the rock to lean on, the guy to go on a patrol with... As when I lost my parents. Or when I lost my child.

It was all right, till the last days, when I was at the hospital already. All of a sudden, a terrible pain, I fainted, and when I woke, there was nothing to do anymore. The docs had had to chose in a matter of minutes, to save me, or to save my child. Or to lose both in the attempt to save him. They told me this later, that is, my man told me that. But when they told me that my child was gone, there was no time for explanations. I got mad, in the real sense of the word. I tried to assault them, and they had to sedate me on the spot with something strong. Very strong.

When I woke up again, I was in a bed, and there was a nurse sitting close to me. She asked me if I wanted to drink, I shook my head no. She said my man was outside the room, and asked me if I wanted to see him. I kept quiet, and he took it as a "yes". He let my man in and left us alone.

My man came to my bed. He seemed awkward, and I was too. He wanted that child, just like me and more than me, and that's all said. But he was not angry at me. He would have liked to do something good for me, but he did not know what. I too did not...

"I'm sorry." I said, eyes downcast. As if it was my fault. Well, so I felt. Surely it was not his one...

He shrugged, came closer to me, his arm around my neck. I let him do.

"It could be worse..."

I look at him.

"How could be worse than this?"

I saw his eyes and I understood. It could be. I could have died...

"It could rain..."

I snorted. He got to make me snort, in THAT moment... I knew he would have NEVER told me what he thought, and I knew that he thought... He was afraid to tell it, even to THINK it...

"You mean... I could... " I asked, just to check. He nodded.

"Do you know "The devil's alternative"? One must die. Or both, in this case."

"Both..." I muttered. He nodded again.

"Very likely. If they would have tried to save our son."

"They could try... I was even willing... You know, someone had decided so... this way..."

"These are things you can say NOW. Because you are alive." he said. "You could have decided nothing. It's not your fault. And they did their job. To save as many lives as possible. And to risk as less lives as possible."

He spoke as a soldier, as my father could have done. Sure, blunt, but frank. No use to sweeten the pill.

"It's not you who have said to do that... it is?" I asked, looking in his eyes.

"No, They had no time to ask the permission of anybody. But I have approved their choice, when all was said and done already. I will never sue them. They did the one and only possible thing."

"But you wanted this child..." I knew he wanted. "You were so happy, you were fancying so much..."

"Yes, I was happy. And now I'm sad. Very sad. But when something costs too much... It costs too much. I did not want to lose you... Even if you will hate me for that, and you will leave me... You will be alive. That's the point for me."

I smiled, sadly, but smiled. Yes, he was happy that I was alive, even if this meant to lose a son. He had no doubt. But I had. No, I did not hate him, why should I? But...

"Are you sure it's not my fault? Maybe I had to stay more in bed... I walked too much, back and forth..."

"No. You did nothing wrong. It was just chance, something unpredictable. It happens, and it's happened to us. This time things went so. "Kosh ty dièlay"...

I snorted again. "Kosh ty dièlay", what can you do, what do you want to do... It was countryside Russian. There was a writer who used that: Shuskin. He had read something of him... And I liked him too. He was not pathetic, even when he talked about bad events, deads, etcetera, Things that happen. Talks of soldiers, or the like. "Davài zakurim, tovàrish, po odnòy", come on, buddy, let's smoke...

"Could I have... other children?" I asked. He shrugged.

"That's what the doctors say. Nothing ruined."

"And... If I would not want them?" I asked, looking in his eyes. He kept silent for a while.

"You risk, you decide."

"Really?" I asked. He nodded.

"You do the bulk of the job. So you have the last say."

"And you?"

"I will smash whoever will argue about what you want..." he smiled, with a "bad boy" face.

"Your mother would have liked another grandchild. I'm sorry..."

"I will talk with her. It's up to me."

"Even my father wanted some grandchildren... He thought we would have taught them to... Love Russia..."

"It's not your fault, He would understand, I'm sure... Some you win, some you lose... "Sudbà"..." he said. Destiny...

"But without children... what will remain of us?"

"Is it so important for you? The children live their lives, not the second part of ours..."

"Yes but... something remains, in this world..."

"Genes, chromosomes... Have you ever seen one of them?" he said, snorting and shrugging. I smiled. Yes, it was a VERY relative immortality, after all... "And however, you are still young, there is time to decide..."

"But I've almost decided. I am too scared, now... I don't want to try again... Excuse me..."

"Never mind... It must have been terrible..."

I nodded, eyes closed. Yes, really terrible. I can understand, now, what my father felt, in war... risking his life, day by day... and knowing he had to risk it again... How many times? For me, one was enough...

But, my man? I looked at him. A male a "samez", beautiful, clever, healthy. A nice, wonderful potential father. And not only biologically. A man who could raise men like him, and be a model of man for his daughters, like my father was for me. Had I REALLY the right to deny him a son, a daughter? Forever?

"You deserve a son... But... I don't know..."

"No worry... That's the last of the problems. I can always become a donor... Imagine how many sons..."

"Really?"

"Really. And If you change your mind, I'll be ready. "Vsiegdà gotòv"!" he said, greeting me militarily, with his smile...

Indeed, "Vsiegdà gotòv", always ready, was the motto of the "pioneers", the Soviet boy-scouts, and their greeting was a bit different from the classic military one, but he was not obliged to know it... I hugged him, all the same...

"You really are not angry at me?" I asked.

"I would have been angry if you would have died. I would have killed you, then!" he said.

I snorted again. To laugh for not to cry... Well, it was working... He had a plastic bag with something inside.

"What's that?"

"Well... do you remember all those talks about the post-partum depression?"

"Oh... Yes, I remember..." I muttered. That weird feeling... All is done, you have a child, and you are sad...

"So... I had collected some books of mine, old, new... I guess now you need them even more..."

"That is? Meditation? Spiritual exercises? I don't like that stuff..."

"I know, I know... It's not that... It's... Woody Allen, Yiddish tales... "

"You mean... something comic? Humor? Yiddish humor?"

"Yes... I know, it's stupid... But I could not think anything better... "

"Why "stupid"? Always better than psychiatric drugs..." I said, looking the titles of the book...

"Right..." he said. The nurse came in to say the visiting time was over. My man told her to wait. "Listen, I had spoken with the docs. If you want, I can sleep here..."

"No, no... go home..." I said. Sleep there, with no pyjamas, no toothbrush, nothing, "kak soldàt na frònte", like a soldier on the front line... For not to leave me alone, I knew... "Really, go..."

"Okay..." he sighed. He made some steps toward the door and look at me again: "Oh... Don't make shit, please..."

"What shit?" I asked. I looked in his eyes and got it: THAT shit. The end... He was worried that I could...

"Please..." he said. Like that song, "Pojàluista, niè umirài", please don't die... I smiled, showed him my fist, with the inch between the index finger and the middle finger: the Russian equivalent of the middle finger... You know...

He smiled too, and went away.

I started reading the books, before the bad thoughts could come. They were really amusing, and however they were all my man could do for me in that moment. Now, I thought, he could relax, tell himself that after all, I was alive, and it's easier to make another child than to find another loving wife...

Yes, maybe this was his consolation: I was still in this world, and all for him... I thought how he could react if I had died and the child would have survived. Sure, his mother could take care of him, of both of them, very well, and he could have thought to work, and to find another woman... But he would have lost ME! Would have been the other woman as good for him as me? Who knows?

Yes, maybe he thought so. He thought to himself too, and so he thought, yes, things could be worse... But was it so bad? He was a man, not an angel, not a saint. And I knew that from the beginning. What would I have preferred? A man who hated me because I had lost "his" son? Death before that!

Yes, I was important for him. More than a son, more than his offspring, more than everything in this world. Was it wrong? Was it "egoism"? Please, give me a break...

Yes, he was sorry for his son, for OUR son. He was ready to be a father. But he thought as a man: "brown stuff" happens, right? And since it happens, let's assess the damages and go forth.

What he had thought, if he had remained with a son and without me? Yes, rationally, he could understand that his son had no guilt in my death. But inside of him, maybe, he could have even hated him... He was not a computer...

In a nutshell, he had forgiven me for to have lost our children, and I had to forgive him because he preferred my life to the child's one. Or for what he could have thought and done to the child if he would have lost me.

And I did it.

I came back to the books. And slowly I forgot all the rest, and started to smile, to snort, even to laugh... Maybe someone thought that all the sorrow and the shock I had undergone had got me mad. But nobody went and checked. And it was better off that way...

At night, when they suggested me to sleep, I remained for a while in the bed, my arms akimbo, looked into the darkness, calm. I had a man, strong, good, working, affectionate and faithful. I had a nice house, in the nice city of the nicest country in the world. I was still young, I had a good in-law, almost a second mother, some good friends, and soon I would have been physically fine too. The casualties: I had lost my child, not voluntarily, and maybe I would have never had the nerve do give birth to another. Or maybe yes. Who knows...

Well, you know... You can't always get what you want...

Indeed, physically talking, I recovered very quickly. Emotionally, of course, it was another deal. My man, this time, could not take a vacation to stay close to me. He do what he could to help me, but, the job is the job. "Yèsli nàdo, snacit nàdo", if it takes, it takes...

In the hospital, I met a girl from Belarus. He helped an old patient, and we start speaking Russian: she liked it, and she had not so many chance to do it. She was a "prikojànka", a regular attendee, of the Orthodox church which was in the center of Florence, and she invited me to visit it. After the loss of my relatives, and now the loss of my child, my relations with God were at a quite low level, but she insisted: that was the moment when I needed Him more, and the "batyushka" of the church was so good, so clever...

So I went there. I expected some priest who looks straight through you if you don't know all the rules, when to kneel, when to bow, the sign of the Cross and when and how and how many times you have to do it...

Wrong. He was really a good "bàtyushka", just a bit older than me, sensible... And nice. My new girlfriend from Minsk was maybe half-in-love with him, even if she treated him with the due respect. And of course, Batyushka had a wife on his own already: a thoroughbred Russian "Màtyushka". And it was clear that he never would have cheated her: not only because he was a priest, but even because she was beautiful. Very beautiful... And he looked at her as only a besotted man can look at a woman...

My girlfriend introduced me to Batyushka, and told him what "problems" I had met. The kind of "problems" that make you lose your faith, surely not find it. Batyushka nodded. I was a difficult case. We started to walk together on our own, while my girlfriend started talking with "Màtyushka" about some problems of the "obshìna", the church's community.

"Batyushka" ask me what a priest had to ask: since when I was in Florence, why had I not come there before, why did I not marry my man in church. And I answered as if I was under oath: only the truth. I had not come before for the same reason why I did not marry my man in a church: I was at loggerheads with God after the loss of my parents. I knew they were not immortal, but so soon, so quick, so... He nodded. Even Job had passed that trial: losses in the family. And then he too had argued with God...

"And now? Are you at loggerheads yet? Why have you come here?"

"Yes, I am quite at loggerheads. But maybe... I want Him to help me to bear that thing. No matter if He sent me that or not..."

"And who have helped you to bear the loss of your parents, if you were so at loggerheads?"

"My husband." I smiled. He seemed surprised. "He has played the role of a father for me, just a father, for 6 months. Even of a "dukhovnìk"..."

"A "dukhovnìk"?" wondered Batyushka. A "spiritual father", more or less a colleague... I nodded, and told him "vsyò ot o dò", all the details. Even the "failed vocation" of my man, the fact that if he would have been born in an Orthodox country... who knows...

"Hm! I guess he would have been a good brother. And you, a good "Màtyushka"..." he smiled. We walk silent for a while. "But now that you are here... Why don't you marry him in church? Is he averse to change religion?"

"Oh, not at all... He would have changed it even in Moscow, for me... We have tried to marry in a church, there too... Before my parents..." I breathed, he nodded: he had got the picture... "But we have found so many problems... Maybe we asked to the wrong "bàtyushka"... Is it so hard for a Catholic to become Orthodox? Or the point was that he was a foreigner? I don't know..."

"It depends... It's not a fast thing, "ras-dva-tri"... I must talk with him. I have to know if he is serious... A wedding is not a play for children, the crowns, the candles... Yes, that is beautiful, but it's not all there... Do you understand?"

"Sure... Ah, by the way... I'm baptized, yes... But I went to church quite seldom, you know... I don't know how... how to act..."

"Are you afraid to meet a "slàya bàbushka"?" he smiled again.

"Well... Yes!" I admitted. It was quite an institution: the "slàya bàbushka", the "bad granny", more that bad, intrusive, who felt himself entrusted and entitled to "train" the newcomers as a sergeant: a "pràporshik"...

"No worry: there's no such thing here... We are a little USSR, we have Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Khazaks, Moldavians, people who come from the Baltic States... Mostly young people, all emigrants, no "babushki" at all... They come here because they are Orthodox, but even to feel at home, to speak Russian. They are happy to meet countrymen, or countrywomen. And nobody cares if you know all the rules or not."

"And as for the rest... "when in Rome, do what the Romans do"... right?"

"Elementary, Watson!" he said, in English language, smiling. "If you had doubts, look at what the other people do. You will learn. And your husband too..." He looked at me. "Because he will come to the services. Right? Not only for the wedding..."

"Of course." I nodded. I knew my man very seldom went to the Catholic services, he never went to the Catholic cathedral in Moscow. He had had enough of it in his childhood days, and now he found the rite extremely boring. But Orthodox rite is another thing... It's long, you have to stand up, but "boring" is not the word...

"Now I have to ask you a very delicate question. It is my duty as a priest. Are you ready?"

"Do you want to know if I WANTED to lose my child?"

"Yes." he said, looking in my eyes, seriously. "Please, speak "kak na dukhù"..." he stressed. It meant "as if you are confessing".

""Kak na dukhu": no, I did not want." I said, looking in his eyes. I knew it was his duty, and he did it in the most sensitive way. I don't think he would have chased me off the church if I would have done it (because "to want" was an euphemism for "to do": to abort...). He would have asked me if I repented about it, we would have talked about it, sincerely as we had started to do. He was a really good priest. But I did not want. And he understood it was the truth. He just wanted not to be fooled.

And I understood him. Very well.

I come back home and asked my man if he would have still agreed to marry me in the Orthodox Church. He agreed, maybe thinking that I needed the help of religion to overcome the loss of my child. So he went and spoke with Batyushka. I don't know exactly what they told each other, but two months later we were in the church, each with a candle in the hand and a small crown on the head.