Walking through the cold winter day, I breathed in a lungful of freezing air as I turned into the street where Mamma lived. A few nights before, Sergey had kicked me in the base of my swollen stomach before locking me out in the snow during an argument. He’d let me back inside eventually but I’d had to sleep on a chair because he said I was too fat to share his bed. It felt as if all he had done was beat me since this baby came to life inside me. Tonight I needed some food—bread maybe or eggs—and I hoped Mamma would have something to spare. I’d just had my eighteenth birthday and maybe she would feel kind towards me. The baby needed something and so did Sasha.
I put my head down as the cold wind blew into my face. It wasn’t far to go and then I would be inside. I just hoped Sasha would stay asleep and not anger Mamma with his crying.
When I arrived, I found my mother and her friends drunk as usual.
‘What do you want now?’ she bellowed, a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. ‘Look at you! You look like a sow.’
‘I just want something to eat…’I said. She grunted and I followed her into the warm kitchen where she put a loaf of bread and some cheese on the table in front of me. I ate it gratefully.
‘Why can’t that lazy oaf of a husband of yours provide for you? I knew he was rotten right from the start. How could you let him get you pregnant again? He can’t even look after one child, let alone two.’
‘He’ll beat me if I refuse him,’ I muttered.
She snorted. ‘Just don’t expect me to keep bailing you out, that’s all. I’ve got problems of my own. I can’t afford to feed you and your brats, so you might as well stop coming round.’
The food turned to ashes in my mouth. Was my own mother really refusing me help? She knew how we lived, and what it meant for the baby and for me. After a while, Mama rejoined her friends as they guzzled their vodka and, after I’d fed Sasha, I let myself out into the cold darkness, back to the icy summer kitchen.
I was almost happy when I found blood in the toilet the next day—the baby had died and I was going to have a miscarriage. Maybe it was for the best. What kind of life could I offer this child? I told myself to wait as the pain got worse throughout the night and following day but eventually it got so bad that I had to go to hospital.
‘The baby is fine,’ a doctor told me but I felt nothing.
Three days later my second son was born.
Pavel, known as Pasha, was small, with thick black hair like a cap and huge blue eyes which were so dark they looked almost black. I thought of my father as I looked at him.
‘He’ll need lots of attention,’ the doctor said as he handed him to me. ‘He has slight jaundice but he should be fine.’
I said nothing as I felt the weight of my son in my arms for the first time. Pasha stirred in my arms and I stared down at him as his eyes fluttered open. Tears slid down my cheeks. Somehow I had to find my love for him, forget the sin I had committed in trying to stop him coming into the world and the fierce beatings Sergey had given me as he raged that another child was coming. My baby needed me.
‘I will look after him carefully,’ I said as I looked up at the doctor.
But even though I was filled with tenderness for my new son, life did not get any easier. Pasha was a sickly baby and I felt scared when I changed his nappy for the first time. His skin was thin like paper, his long legs scrawny and, instead of a fat peachy bottom, his was skinny and slight. He was an unsettled baby who spat out my nipple when it was offered even though he was screaming for food and he would cry for hours on end as Sergey shouted.
‘Shut him up! I can’t stand this noise. Why is this bastard child here? Why am I feeding him, giving him a home?’
Pasha was just as I’d feared he would be—I was sure that his weakness came from the way I had once tried to rid myself of him, and I was certain that his cries were filled with grief. How could he be anything other than sick and unhappy after what had happened? It only made me more desperate to care for him and bring him to health and happiness, like Sasha. My older son was nearly two and doing as well as he could in the circumstances. I tried to make sure that he always had enough to eat and milk to drink, and he was growing big. He toddled about the summer kitchen, chatting away and playing. He even managed to charm Sergey out of his rages, though I was grateful he slept through the worst of my husband’s drunken furies.
I knew that Sasha was strong. My great fear for Pasha was that he wouldn’t be able to survive the life we were living. Even while I fed him, dressed him and kept him warm, I suffered agonies of fear that he would die; when he screamed and cried I felt sure he was telling me of his unhappiness and that he could not bear it.
‘Why don’t you just put him into an orphanage?’ Sergey would shout. ‘He’s going to die anyway so you might as well save yourself the trouble of looking after him.’
My relationship with Sergey deteriorated more every day. I despaired that he would ever be able to care for us. There was a glimmer of hope when he got a job as a labourer, earning the few dollars a day we needed for food and clothes; but he lost it after brawling with another worker. We were back to living on what Sergey stole and did not drink. But even a thieving husband and a few dollars for food was better than no husband at all.
One evening, Sergey was sitting at the table, trying to repair an old radio he had found. Sasha was playing at his feet with some of the bits and pieces that Sergey was discarding as he went. I sat as close as I could to the fire, holding Pasha in my arms. I felt more protective of him than ever because earlier that day we had been to see a doctor who’d told us Pasha had a hernia and muscular problems. I’d known my son was weak but was shocked when the doctor told me he should go to an orphanage where he could have an operation and be cared for.
‘But I can’t do that,’ I said. ‘He’s my son. How could I sleep at night if I left him?’
‘Well, it may be better for him if you did.’
I could see his disgust for me in his eyes. What the doctor really wanted to say was: ‘Why have a baby if you can’t look after him?’
I was full of shame, wanting to explain how things had got this way, but I stayed silent.
Now I looked up at Sergey as he played at fixing the radio. What would it achieve if he mended it? Would he sell it for a dollar and give the money to me so I could buy food? I doubted it. I pulled Pasha close, feeling anger rise up inside me.
‘We have to find work,’ I said. ‘The baby is sick. We need money to buy proper milk. You heard what the doctor said. We have to help Pasha become strong.’
Sergey looked at me. ‘I do my best. I find work when I can.’
‘But we have to do more. We need just two or three dollars a day to buy food and if you can’t find work then maybe I can.’
Sergey’s eyes widened. ‘Me?’ he asked. ‘Look after children while you work?’
‘Yes. It’s the only choice we have.’
‘Well, you wouldn’t need to work if we just put Pasha in the orphanage.’
Fury hardened in my stomach. Pasha, Pasha, Pasha…Sergey wanted to blame everything on him.
‘Why can’t you understand?’ I snapped. ‘We all need food and you don’t provide it. What kind of father are you? Look at us. We’re thin, sick.’
‘But I’m always thinking about you, Oxana.’
Suddenly I forgot all the lessons beaten into me by Sergey in the past. I put Pasha down in his basket and stood up to face him. ‘What?’ I screamed. ‘When do you think