The more Slava, my husband, spoke, the more sharply I realized how terribly mistaken I had been about this man. His words stung like bees, and I was deeply disappointed in him. How could I have failed to see the rot inside him? Or do all lovers wear rose-colored glasses? Well, thank fate that helped me take them off.
“Grandma, why does everyone have parents, but I don’t?” — I asked this question very often as a child. — “Olya has a mom and dad, Natasha has parents, even redheaded Romka! Why don’t I have them?”
My grandmother, Tamara Olegovna, would avert her eyes and try to change the subject. Now I fully understand what it means to feel shame for your own daughter. Mom was a follower, and it was my “no-good” dad Dmitry who confused her.
When I was a little older, grandma finally told me this sad story. My mother worked as a shop assistant in our village store, where she got a job right after school. One day, a handsome guy named Mitya came into that store. He was visiting our village, staying with a friend from the army.
Mitya immediately charmed naive Nadya, my mom, and she fell for his sweet talk. Grandma says dad was a master singer, like a nightingale. They lived for a while in grandma’s house, got married, and then I was born. Then my dad took mom to the city, supposedly to do some shopping — but they never came back.
Grandma looked for them but in vain. They vanished like into thin air. Later, neighbors said they’d seen them in the city, begging for money. What drove them to that — remains a mystery forever.
“My advice for you, Tatyana,” grandma used to tell me since childhood, “if you see a guy who spouts Krylov’s fables, run from him like from fire. Windbags are unreliable and fickle.”
I nodded seriously, absorbing this worldly wisdom.
“Is grandpa not a windbag?” I asked.
“Your grandpa is a man of action,” grandma smiled. “He never once told me he loved me, but look at the house he built with his own hands. And in his youth, he used to bring me daisies every day. Silently, he’d put them in a jar and go off to the garden or fishing.”
I learned much later that women love to hear sweet words. And Oscar Wilde added a brilliant phrase: “Men love with their eyes… if they ever love at all.”
Of course, that’s subjective, but in my case, it hit the mark.
I went outside, and Grandpa Egor was chopping wood. He never sat idle.
“Grandpa!” I called. “Can I ask you something?”
He put down the axe and came over.
“Is it true you used to give Grandma armfuls of flowers?” I asked.
“She just told me,”
“Well… it happened,” Grandpa replied shortly and went back to his work. That was my Grandpa Egor — never still for a second.
Sometimes we visited my other grandma, Nastya. She was the younger sister of Grandma Tamara Olegovna and lived five kilometers from our village, in the settlement of Oktyabrsky. I liked going there. Grandma Nastya had a strong household with many animals — cats, dogs, cows, piglets. The thing was, Anastasia could never pass by an abandoned animal. She’d bring it home and keep it there. In the village, they considered Anastasia at least strange, but to me, she was just a very kind person.
I finished school, and it was time to think about what to do next. Grandma insisted I go to the city to get an education.
“I don’t want you, Tanya, to repeat your mother’s fate,” grandma sighed. “Go to the city, enroll somewhere. We, your grandpa and I, have saved money for this.”
Grandma handed me a scarf in which some banknotes were wrapped.
“You’ll live with our former neighbors, the Sychevs,” grandma continued. “They work at the local factory and rent an apartment. I arranged everything, don’t worry.”
I was simply amazed. Grandma, a simple village woman, had thought everything through like a chess player! I kissed my elders and went to conquer the city.
The Sychevs, a middle-aged couple, welcomed me warmly. They were tired of village routine, so they moved to the city, where there were more opportunities. Uncle Zhenya worked as a turner at the factory, and his wife Aunt Larisa was a nanny at a kindergarten.
I enrolled in college as a seamstress and after graduation found work at the local garment factory. This factory was famous throughout the region, specializing in business and school clothing. Without false modesty, I’ll say our products sold like hotcakes.
I met my future husband Vyacheslav completely by accident. I ran out of cheese. You may ask, what does my future husband have to do with cheese? Gladly I’ll explain.
It was that my Aunt Larisa and I decided to bake pizza. She asked me to go to the nearest store because we ran out of cheese at home. I entered, approached the counter where the cheese was usually displayed, and realized it was sold out. I sadly walked past the cashier, asking the saleswoman:
“Tell me, is the cheese finished?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” the girl replied. “Everyone seems crazy today. A young man just took the last piece of Poshekhonsky cheese.”
The young man carefully looked at his cheese, then at me:
“Miss, why do you need cheese? If I hear even one good reason, the cheese is yours.”
“Nothing special,” I shrugged. “Just that Aunt Larisa and I want to bake a pizza, nothing more.”
“How lovely!” the guy smiled. “Pizza is wonderful. My mom loves to bake pies, but she makes such a thick crust that you can’t see the filling at all. It’s like a pie made of just dough. Of course, I keep silent during the meal, but it leaves a bad taste in my soul.”
He talked so much nonsense that for a second I remembered grandma’s words about windbags. But the young man was already handing me a piece of cheese:
“Here you go! This cheese rightfully belongs to you, mademoiselle.”
I started to reach for my wallet to pay, but the guy stopped my hand:
“That’s unnecessary. We hussars don’t take money.”
“Are you a hussar?” I asked skeptically.
“At least in spirit!” the guy laughed. “Allow me to introduce myself — Vyacheslav, a graphic artist.”
I told him my name.
“Lovely!” he said. “’So, her name was Tatyana.’ My favorite female name, by the way!”
I should have returned that unfortunate piece of cheese and run as far as possible from this sweet-talking devil, but instead, I stood there, all ears, cheese in hand, waiting to hear what else this handsome guy would say.
Vyacheslav decided to speed things up:
“May I escort you?”
“Please,” I muttered.
We walked down the street, and Slava amazed me with his erudition:
“You said, Tatyana, cheese…”
“Me?” I was a little taken aback.
“That’s just to connect the words,” Slava caught himself. “So, cheese is a whole tradition, a religion, you could say. Did you know in France it’s accepted as collateral in banks?”
He spoke and reveled in his verbosity as if admiring his erudition. We parted near the entrance. I don’t know what unknown force pushed me, but I gave him my phone number.
Eight months later, we were about to become husband and wife. When I brought Slava to my grandparents’ village, they didn’t like him at first.
“Tanya! Help me with the dishes!” Grandma called. I went to the kitchen.
“I don’t like this Slava. He reminds me of your father somehow,” Grandma said thoughtfully. “Are you sure you want to marry him?”
“He’s so interesting, and we have fun together,” I naïvely said. “Yes, Grandma, I’m sure.”
“Watch out, girl, so you don’t end up crying later,” Grandma said, and those words proved prophetic.
At first, after we got married, Slava and I rented a small apartment on the city outskirts. It was very convenient for him. He took some side job painting verandas at a kindergarten. I found his profession rather strange, but someone has to paint hares, bears, and gnomes on verandas, right?
Then I got sad news — Grandpa Egor had passed away. As usual, he was chopping wood outside when he fell and never got up again.
We held all the necessary ceremonies, and Grandma decided to sell the house in the village:
“I definitely can’t manage this household alone anymore. I’m not as strong as before. And Egor is gone — why do I need all this? It just reminds me of him too much…”
We decided Grandma would sell the house, and we’d buy an apartment in the city with the money and live together — me, Grandma, and Slava. This would also solve our housing problem. Said and done. The apartment was modest, two rooms, enough for three people. My husband and I did the renovation ourselves and moved in.
I almost forgot to say, Slava was an outsider, just like me. His mother Angelina lived in a neighboring city. I saw her only once, at our wedding. She kept to herself and didn’t even acknowledge me. I found that very strange, but my husband told me not to pay any attention:
“Mom is a very peculiar person. She works as a music teacher and doesn’t really like provincial village people.”
Well, whether she liked them or not, I wasn’t going to baptize children with her either. So basically, I had a nominal mother-in-law, or rather, no mother-in-law at all.
But soon the name “Angelina” began popping up more and more in my husband’s speech. It all started with personal dislike for my grandma. She declined sharply after Grandpa’s death. Her hands began to shake, she coughed terribly, and generally made a lot of noise, which is common in the elderly.
Slava was very irritated by this:
“What manners? She behaves like she’s in a barn — all these eternal crumbs… Also, she always forgets to turn off the lights in the bathroom and toilet. I already see us going bankrupt.”
I put my husband in his place:
“Please don’t forget yourself. She’s my own family. Besides, Grandma suffered such a loss. It can knock anyone off balance.”
But my husband didn’t want to listen:
“I feel like medical staff in a nursing home. I’m tired of running to pharmacies and enduring that suffocating smell of drops! I can’t sleep because of her, pardon me, snoring, and instead of hares, I paint some devils from hell.”
All his arguments seemed ridiculous to me — but only for a while. One day at breakfast, Slava bluntly said this to me:
“We’ll take your grandma to her relatives, and instead, my mother will live with us.”
I replied:
“You must be joking, right?” I almost choked. “This apartment was bought with her money. Besides, I don’t even know your mother and why she suddenly decided to move here?”
“It’s better work-wise here. She’ll live with us, help with the household, money, and all. Her only request is to move her beloved piano and that’s it,” my husband blurted.
“No, dear, let your mother decide about her living arrangements herself. I won’t leave my grandma alone,” I said firmly.
And then my husband lost it. He started insulting me and grandma loudly. Like, we are from the sticks, yet we act like we’re someone important. I honestly didn’t understand what we were pretending to be when I’m always at work and grandma never leaves her room.
Slava painted our flaws in vivid colors — of course, he’s an artist, a specialist in hares and gnomes. And then grandma’s words about such talkers surfaced in my mind. What is he without his speeches? He hasn’t hammered a single nail in the house… When we were renovating, he was just fetching and carrying.
“Shakespeare said about people like you in King Lear: ‘Empty vessels make the most noise,’ Slavo,” I said thoughtfully. “It’s a pity I realized this too late. You’re suggesting I get rid of the closest person who raised me like a mother and father? You know what? Get out of this apartment on all fours.”
Slava turned pale, realized he crossed the line, began to apologize, but for me, it was already over. I gave him time to pack and bid him goodbye. When he left, I entered grandma’s room.
She was peacefully sleeping, clutching a photo album with our family pictures. There we were all three: Grandma, Grandpa Egor, and me going to school, them seeing me off to first grade. Here Grandma had dug a giant carrot and photographed it. And here is Grandpa Egor with his catch. How could I betray such memories for the sake of this peacock?
I’m glad I acted as I did. You cannot betray your loved ones under any circumstances.