REMEMBRANCES

By Monica Finley

Each day before dawn, Larisa Alexandrovna stuffs sturdy, blunt feet into blue sandals and clutches a penguin-print robe to her shoulders (dawn doesn’t wash the stained concrete towers before 9 a.m. now), and flicking on a single light, she shuffles to the kitchen. She pours crushed grains into a small pot of water over the gas flame, securing a mismatched lid over the simmering gruel (kasha is the unabashed winner of the morning breakfast relay). The cracked china indifferently accepts the generous avalanche, and silently bears the weight of the solid mash (I’m tempted to call it oatmeal, but that doesn’t do it justice). And this is when I enter the room, bleary-eyed, wincing at the overhead light, and Larisa Alexandrovna adjusts my chair in front of the little kitchen table (a table set right in the kitchen makes the food taste better). She fills the chipped blue mug to the brim with kakao--a heaping spoonful of cocoa powder, sugar, and steaming milk (no, it’s not called hot chocolate; they have another word for that). “Esh’, esh’ na zdorove, dorogaya,” she says forcefully, then she pushes back wisps of home-curled hair and shuffles back to her bedroom, closes the door, and goes back to sleep.

A homeless man lives on Nalichnaya Ulitsa, a man with bulges of filthy clothing pouring forth from a rope belt, a man who wears a torn rucksack, a man who sometimes stands on the side of Nalichnaya and urinates on the passing cars which zoom past, drivers’ teeth gritted shut. Larisa (naively? cluelessly? confidently? optimistically?) repeats, every day, that there are no homeless people on Vasilievsky Island, although I tell her often of this street-worn itinerant. On weekdays, he slumps against the light post to the side of the sidewalk, spreads a display of dirty glass bottles on a plywood plank on the burnt grass, and sits, patiently watching people pass with vague interest. Sometimes the rucksack alone curls up next to the bottles, and the man moves down the sidewalk to draw cryptic chalk circles and Greek letters on the sidewalk, which passersby step around and glance down at with a mixture of curiosity and disgust. One day, the man gone but the empty bottles a monument to his existence, a mother grips her young daughter firmly by the hand and they warily approach the display. She reaches down, dips a slender finger into the neck of a bottle and removes a coin, urging her daughter to do the same. The pair collects several rubles before glancing around nervously and hurrying into the vestibule of their building. Later that day, the entire display is gone. I wonder whether Larisa Alexandrovna would believe me if I told her this, but finally decide not to say anything.

I come home one day in mid-October, and something is different. Oh, here it is, it’s the couch. Without warning, a new couch and armchair have appeared in the living room to replace the worn-out predecessors, which were residents of this home for more than 20 years. Well, the green faux-fur throw is still here (there’s a red one in my room too), and the hand-made doggie pillow, and the neat stained carpet, but the poor old guys are gone. “What happened today?” I ask, as the new couch and chair have appeared wholly without warning in the living room. “Well, I’ll tell you,” Larisa says, proudly looking at her new children. “I went with Nina to the furniture store, and she said, &lsquoYou’ve had that couch and chair for 20 years! You should buy a new one!’ So I looked around and said, &lsquoYou know what, Nina? I’m not leaving without these!’ And so I bought them, and they arrived the very same day!” We finger the crushed velvet fabric with satisfaction. “Yes, very pretty,” I respond. I feel somewhat guilty, because they remind me of pieces culled from the waiting room of the Sizzler in the early 90s. Pastel seascape crushed velvet. But how did they get here? We live on the eighth floor after all, and the only elevator is about four by three feet. She throws her hands up exasperatedly. “I paid two nice young men 550 rubles to carry them upstairs. I mean, what other options did I have?” Considering that Larisa Alexandrovna makes less than thirty rubles per hour as a retired speech therapist, I’m touched that she was willing to fork over 550 rubles to get a couch upstairs. But her simple explanation aptly describes the situation...what other options did she have? “Congratulations,” I smile, and the new residents quickly become part of the fabric of my own life as well.

Well, this is strange. Bizarre, even. By late-October, I can safely surmise that Larisa has left me home alone less than three times. And yet, on this mild and damp autumn morning in Saint Petersburg, she’s gone. There’s a quick note jotted next to the sugar bowl: “Monica! Reheat the blini, take smetana from the fridge, there’s jam there too. Boil water, there’s already Nescafe in the cup. I’ll be home later!--Larisa.” After a struggle with the gas stove, I sit down to breakfast alone in the apartment, gazing through the window at a long-winded construction site. I’m meeting Becky at the Hermitage in two hours...and with a start, I realize: finally, an opportunity to wear the forbidden shoes! The cheap canvas flats that I smuggled in my suitcase from the USA and stuffed in the back of my closet will finally see the light of day! Rushing through breakfast, I quickly pull on a skirt, tights, and a sweater, jot a quick note to Larisa, and hurry downstairs. My feet are blissfully free of heavy boots and cotton socks, acutely aware of the rough pavement under my happily unsupported heels. Skipping slightly, I trot off down Nakhimova Ulitsa... straight into Larisa Aleksandrovna. “Monica! Where are you going?” She smiles suspiciously. “Just to the Hermitage with Becky, but I’ll be home for dinner...” I try to sidle away, excusing myself for rushing off so quickly. She looks down at my feet with horror. “What are you thinking? Those are slippers!” She squawks in a horrified tone. “Well I thought they’d be ok to wear today... it’s pretty warm out...” She shakes her head decisively. “It’s a good thing I saw you. You could catch your death wearing shoes like that. What could have happened if I hadn’t seen you? I don’t want to think about the consequences!” Gripping my elbow lightly, with a final admonishment about the dangers of flimsy shoes in wintertime and the ensuing possibility of freezing my innards, we march back to apartment 82. Only after I change back into the thick black leather boots under Larisa’s watchful eye does she allow me to set off again for the Hermitage, and this time, there is no skipping.