TATIANA
AND THE
RUSSIAN
WOLVES
Stephen Evans Jordan
To my parents, Edwin and Marguerite,
for encouraging my literary pursuits.
And to my wife, Susan, for being my
cheerleader and Jill of all trades.
Tatiana and the Russian Wolves
©2018 by Stephen Evans Jordan
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
Published by Clovercroft Publishing, Franklin, Tennessee
Edited by Christy Callahan
Cover and Interior Design by Suzanne Lawing
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 978-1-948484-10-7
PROLOGUE
The stories of Russia my mother told me as a young boy were like fairy tales, verging on the grotesque but fascinating too. So I read about Russia and discovered the mysticism that joins Russians to the land they call Rodina—Motherland. In my young mind’s eye, Russia became a supernatural force in a woman’s form—with a troubled past and the darkest of secrets. As an adult confronting my mother’s shadowy past, I would discover that her secrets and Rodina’s were layered so that each held yet another.
In 1941, Adrian Mikhailovich Romanovsky and Alexander Valentinovich Trepoff left Paris and returned to Russia. The older man must have been seeking vengeance; the younger might have been escaping. I’ll never know—both men perished in Rodina’s frigid embrace. Against the backdrop of World War II, their fates were unimportant, but returning to Russia was so consuming, so headlong that they deserted my mother in German-occupied Paris. Years later in California, and forsaken once again, her past consumed her, and she abandoned me—her only child.
Memories of my mother often take me back to the garden behind our home in Berkeley, where we took afternoon tea and considered my Americanization. Her advice was simple: “Do what you have to do.” She was preoccupied; my adjustments impeded our wanderings. We were travelers. Art books and museums were departure gates. Her incredible imagination allowed her to walk into paintings, explore the settings, and talk to the subjects. When I was a boy, I followed her; but after she died, I put away such make-believe.
CHAPTER 1
JUNE 1985
MOSCOW
My first trip to Russia started on a bright summer day. I was drawn to Red Square, the Kremlin, and the massive Spasskaya Tower, its electric red star dominating Moscow’s evening skyline. Below the Kremlin’s walls, St. Basil Cathedral’s multicolored onion-shaped domes were more vivid than I had imagined, their gold Russian crosses shimmering in the summer light. Perhaps reflecting Russia’s recent past, Spasskaya Tower seemed to glare down at St. Basil’s standing its ground in ancient serenity.
The Russia I had imagined as a boy did not stand up to the Moscow I encountered as an adult. A few blocks from Red Square, the buildings were shabby and needed a good scrubbing; broken windows were replaced with plywood and cardboard, and broken concrete showered down from the exteriors. The people were shabby too: their clothing was often dirty; some smelled of old food and older sweat; stumbling drunks were common any time of day. Dressed in an American business suit, I stood out and felt watched.
Late one afternoon, I was outside the Bolshoi Ballet looking at the posters when an old woman—a street sweeper, babushkas they’re called—and three of her friends approached. They were dressed worse than most Russians, with traditional kerchiefs (babushkas) over their heads and lumpy sweaters in warm weather.
The approaching woman had once been tall but was now hunched; her glasses were mended with black tape, and she was still wearing winter boots. She asked, “Why are you here?”
I shrugged as if I didn’t understand.
She winked at her friends. “You, all dolled up like that, we’ve no use for you people.” With a shooing motion, she said, “Get out of here. Now. Understand?” As I walked away, she called me a vulgar name.
I turned and said in Russian, “Why, you horrid old creature. Tell me, did you kiss your mother with that filthy mouth of yours?”
She was surprised. Her friends shuffled in their boots.
I stepped toward her; she didn’t retreat. “I was minding my own business, not bothering a soul until you strolled up and called me the foulest name.”
She seemed amused.
“Why don’t you and your friends just totter off and leave me alone?”
“Where are you from?” She grinned. “Where did you learn Russian like that?” She bowed a little. “Come on, tell me.” She looked to be at least seventy, but Russian women of her type looked older; it was the endless drudgery. What teeth she still had were bad, her skin was splotchy from exposure to the cold, and years of vodka hadn’t helped either. I admired her, a tough Russian.
“I’m an American, but Russian is my first language.” I smiled at her.
I could smell the onions on her clothes and alcohol on her breath as she stepped toward me. “Your family ran away after the Revolution?”
“Otherwise they’d have been shot or sent to the gulags.”
She agreed with a nod. “Your Russian’s old-fashioned and southern.” She cocked her head. “Buy vodka for my friends and me? What do you say?”
Poor thing, what she had lived through: the Revolution and the Civil War; the forced collectivization of the farms during the late ’20s and early ’30s and the resulting famines; Stalin’s purges of the late ’30s, the horrors of World War II, followed by more of Stalin’s infinite brutality. Surviving all of that, she ended up a street sweeper. Well, God bless her; I gave her enough rubles for a liter of vodka and then some.
Taking the money, she said, “You’re a gentleman, a real gentleman. Sorry for the name I called you.” Backing away, she added, “Olga, Maria, Anastasia, and I will drink to your health.” She paused. “To do so, we need your name.”
“Alexander.”
“All three, please.”
“Alexander Andreivich Romanovsky.”
“God bless you, Alexander Andreivich,” she said, waving the money to her friends.
“Your name?”
“Tatiana,” she said over her shoulder. I didn’t catch the rest.
Tatiana was my mother’s name. “God bless you, Tatiana,” I shouted as she faded away.
Thinking about our exchange, I wondered if Tatiana was somehow connected with my feeling of being watched. If I were being watched, giving an old woman money for vodka was harmless, even in Russia. After all, I had been told for several days that Russia was changing for the better; perhaps it was. Or maybe I was sensing the fear that ran throughout Russian history and still stalked the people.
***
Earlier that year, I had been promoted to Vice President and Eastern European Area Manager at Universal Bank. Based in San Francisco, it was one of the world’s largest commercial banks. Soon after my promotion, the Soviets invited the world’s leading banks to Moscow to discuss financing a natural gas and oil pipeline to Western Europe. I spoke Russian and French as well as English, and Universal had sent me to kick the project’s tires. An easy assignment, since Universal’s