Front Matter - Part 02

The time to go to school was soon approaching so I expected Aunt Raina to be here at any moment. When she did arrive she was accompanied by a woman in her thirties whom I didn’t know. I quickly said goodbye and ran off to school because it was late;

without knowing who the other woman was and what she was doing with Aunt Raina at our house.

When I came back from school my father was sitting alone with Eli.

Eli was becoming more and more talkative, if only one had time to listen to her. I looked carefully at my father’s face and, I don’t know why, it seemed to me like there was some change in him, that he was hiding something from me. At that moment I thought of Aunt Raina and the woman with whom she’d come before I left for school.

“How was school today?” my father asked like he always did. He knew I was a good student but asked anyway almost out of habit. I thought about what to ask about the woman who’d come with Aunt Raina this morning but nothing came to mind.

Finally, when we sat down to dinner, I quietly said, “Aunt Raina came here this morning with a woman I didn’t know. Was she looking for you and did she find you?” I asked but didn’t look at him.

“Yes,” he said after a short pause.

My father rarely said much and now words had become a real rarity for him. Usually we saw him only in the evening, when we had a lot of work to do, so his silence didn’t bother me.

I didn’t understand anything from the answer my father gave me but it was clear to me that I would have to wait for Aunt Raina to return tomorrow to ask her.

“Aunt Raina, who was that woman with you yesterday?” I asked the moment she appeared at the door.

“One of my neighbours… I happened to meet her here on the street.

She was coming back from work, so I asked her to have coffee with me. She works as an editor, there where the books are printed; you know what the place is called. Your father knows her from there.

Her answer reassured me a little but at the same time the old woman couldn’t always be trusted. She had no problem with making up a story.

A few days later as I was coming back from school I heard someone behind me yell, “Hey, little girl, do I know you from somewhere...?” I looked back and indeed this woman’s face looked familiar. I thought for a moment. It was Aunt Raina’s neighbour, the one who’d come to our house. I remembered her even though I’d only seen her for a moment.

“You’re that woman who came to our house with Aunt Raina?” I said.

“Yes, that’s right...” she said and stroked my hair. Somehow instinctively I didn’t want to make friends anymore and hurried away. But she followed me.

“Why don’t you and your little sister ever come to your Aunt Raina’s place?” she asked.

“We don’t have time,” I said. “I go to school as well as look after my sister.”

“Don’t you ever play?” I just remembered that I hadn’t played on the street for a long time but I didn’t want to admit that to a stranger.

“Yes I play…” I said with a slightly uncertain tone of voice as I hastened my pace, moving away from her. I wondered why she was asking me all these questions A few days later we met again at the same time and almost in the same place. I thought she’d been waiting there for me on purpose.

“Oh Hristina,” now she knew my name. “Is your bag heavy? Let me carry it for you…” It was unusual for me and a little inconvenient for her to carry my bag but before I could say thank you and refuse her offer, my bag was already in her hands.

“You’re poorly dressed,” she said while she hugged me around my shoulders, as if wanting to warm me. “The evenings are cold now and you should wear warmer clothing.” Then, like she’d remembered something she’d forgotten, she took a chocolate bar out of her pocket and handed me half of it. She ate the other half. We parted company in front of our shed. I considered inviting her into our house but then changed my mind.

As I walked towards our front door I thought I saw my father at the window but the next moment he was gone. I wasn’t sure if he’d seen me with the woman. If he had I figured he would ask me but he didn’t say anything about it during the entire evening. At the same time it seemed to me that he was in a better mood and more talkative. Holding her in his lap, he told Eli a story. He also praised me for the two A’s I got in Macedonian and mathematics. He also made some kind of pudding for dinner. In general, all three of us had a good time that entire evening: Dad, Eli and I...

Almost ten days had passed since I’d last met the woman and I was convinced that those two times were completely coincidental. What need would a woman like that have to meet me on purpose? I must have imagined it all.

Marina accompanied me home. I already knew she had a little brother named Liupcho. I don’t know why but it seemed to me that Marina still wasn’t happy even though she visited her father more often now; to see her little brother of course. I thought that maybe the baby would bring her closer to the other mother. It could have been different for Marina had it not been for the baby. It was now the three of them - the father, the other woman and the brother. This seemed special for Marina, different, which made her feel even lonelier.

Aunt Raina and Eli were waiting for me at the door.

“Your father will be late. He had to attend a meeting at work. He asked me to tell you to come to my place. He ‘ll come and pick you up there.” Because I had become a real doubter lately, what might otherwise have seemed quite ordinary to me before now seemed a little strange. We went to Aunt Raina’s so rarely that I thought that there must be a good reason for going there.

I left my books at home and we left after we locked the doors.

Aunt Raina’s house was a single storey house; small, almost completely dilapidated. It was a real miracle that it hadn’t fallen during the earthquake. Even though she was alone she wanted to continue living there. I was pretty sure my father had suggested that she move in with us. She was widowed more than fifteen years ago and had no children. But it seemed she didn’t want to leave the house where she’d spent most of her life.

Since I rarely came here, to her place, there were many interesting things for me to look at in the house and the yard, as it is in almost every old house. There was an old wooden loom in a separate room in the yard about which I used to annoy Aunt Raina for hours with questions about the names of each part of the loom and how they worked. I found it interesting to go through every drawer in the credenza looking at various objects that had not been used for a long time.

Aunt Raina often yelled at me, scolded me not to disturb her or ask silly questions but that didn’t stop me. In the end, I would go into the chicken coop. There were always a few chickens there and often an egg or two, which was a real joy for me to find and take out of the nest. Also, during all this time Eli would be asking: “What is this, what is that,” or demanding: “Give me this, give me that.” That kid got really annoying sometimes but I couldn’t get mad or yell at her. Every time I lost my patience with her I would immediately be reminded of how lonely she was without Mom and I would forgive her for what she’d done.

Aunt Raina was also very patient with her, as she was with me.

Often when I gazed at her almost completely aged wrinkled face and small, blue, but still bright eyes, I was seized with great and unusual tenderness. I wanted to hug her hard, hard... You don’t know how much she meant to us during those terrible days... She was irreplaceable... I often wanted to tell her that but didn’t know how to express it well. Who knows how painful it was for her not to have children. I often thought to myself that when I grew up I’d look after her in her old age...

After peering into every nook and cranny and almost getting tired of it, I would sit down with her. She would be knitting some short woolen socks on five needles, with the yarn running over her neck.

She often knitted socks like that and probably gave them to someone to sell.

“Aunt Raina, where does that woman who came with you that time live?” I asked and noticed that she was surprised. Then it seemed to me that she was pretending not to know which woman I was asking about.

In the end she said, “Here, down the street.” It seemed to me that she didn’t want me to ask any more questions about that woman and changed the subject.

“Did your father buy you new pants and shoes?” she asked and immediately after that gave me her dilapidated glasses, which who knows when and which doctor had prescribed, and said, “Clean them for me…” I did that but they were so badly scratched that nothing helped.

“Why don’t you ask my father to take you to an eye doctor so you can get a new pair of glasses?” I asked and handed them back to her.

“Why? Well your father is busy most of the time. Besides, I don’t need them for anything other than knitting or sewing.” Someone knocked on the door. I thought it was my father and ran to greet him.

“Oh, Hristina,” said the woman, very surprised.

She hugged me.

“Come in Vera,” said Aunt Raina. “Are you coming back from work?” Aunt Raina left her glasses and knitting behind and came over to the door.

“They let you out very late, how come?” she added looking like she wasn’t expecting her.

“Yes, I work later now. We work two shifts. It was better for me before but not anymore. Maybe I’ll change jobs. I think I’ll apply to the school board. I’m also a qualified teacher. I’m hoping a new teaching position will open in the second semester.” “For a woman to work as a teacher is the best job one can have,” said Aunt Raina. “Women understand children best…” Aunt Raina brought out several apples and put them on the table.

Vera peeled a couple and handed me one and the other to Eli. Vera picked up Eli and sat her on her lap. Eli was quite friendly and quickly took to becoming friends with almost anyone.

For some reason I wanted Vera to leave. I wanted her gone before my father came by. I didn’t want my father to see this woman. Not here and not again. But of course this could have all been arranged in advance.

In the meantime Eli had freed herself from Vera’s lap and, without meaning to, turned over her purse spilling its contents.

It was very awkward for me but I yelled at Eli rudely. Vera forgave her and pulled her close to her. After collecting her things and shutting her purse, Vera showed us two children’s books that she carried with her. She got them from work, where she worked as an editor. She worked at the place where those books were printed.

This made me think. If she worked at the printing house how could she have known Dad from her work when he worked at the cigarette factory? All this was unclear to me and tormented me. Aunt Raina offered no explanation.

Vera started reading to Eli from one of the books. She took her time explaining things to her, which led me to believe that she had no intention of leaving any time soon. On the other hand, I was interested in how my father and Vera would react when they met again and if this meeting had anything to do with the conversation between Aunt Raina and my father, which I’d overheard during the evening.

“Dad still isn’t here,” I said while looking at Vera.

I noticed that she wasn’t surprised that we expected my father to come here. So there definitely was something cooking I thought.

And Vera also seemed to me to be quite dressed up to be really coming from work. She was wearing a very formal green dress, with white cuffs and a white collar, black patent shoes and a black bag.

Her hair was especially nicely done, black with a nice shine.

“Hristina, why don’t you come to my place sometime, I’ll show you all the children’s books I have and how beautiful they are. I have many.” I wanted to tell her that I didn’t know where she lived but of course it would be very easy to find out. Aunt Raina would have told me or even taken me there. It suddenly occurred to me that she might be married and have children of her own... Then all my stupid assumptions about her would turn out to be false and I would feel ridiculous. I also found it hard to believe that she wasn’t already married at her age.

When I heard my father’s footsteps I became excited but somehow it was a different kind of excitement.

“Good evening,” he said and extended his hand to Vera. I didn’t take my eyes off his or her face, not even for a moment.

Vera looked at him very reservedly, almost shyly, but only twice.

He immediately took Eli in his arms and she hugged him as usual, like she always did when he came home from work.

No one said anything for a while.

“Dad, shall we go home now?” I asked, unable to hide my impatience. I wanted to go home as soon as possible.

“Why are you in such a hurry?” asked Aunt Raina and motioned with her head for me to sit down.

I sat down obediently and didn’t say anything more about going home. Eli had settled in Vera’s lap and was trying to turn the pages of the book by herself; attracted by the colorful pictures. Eli getting so close to Vera seemed to bother me. I wished we had gone home.

There I would be helping my father prepare lunch for the next day, setting the dinner table, eating dinner, preparing the beds for sleep...

Then suddenly, as I was thinking about all that, I realized that my poor father had no time at all to himself, to rest or to go out somewhere.

In the meantime, I began to listen carefully to the conversation my father was having with Vera. I heard him telling her about the meeting he was in earlier that day and what they talked about there.

Vera listened carefully, paying attention to every detail. That suited me fine, and why not, my father was an economics graduate and worked at some important job at the factory.

When Vera got up to leave I immediately felt relief but then my father got up and followed her out the door. When they left Eli began to cry. Why? We didn’t know but most likely because he’d left without us. From her crying and confusion deep down in my soul, I felt I would soon be crying too.

At that point Aunt Raina took out the zelnik she’d been keeping warm in the oven and gave us each a piece. She had been kneading and working on that zelnik all day. Eli immediately took her piece and started to eat it. She was obviously hungry. As for me, I couldn’t even open my mouth. Not now. I had never been as angry as I was at that moment. It seemed like an eternity before my father returned. Why did he have to escort her when supposedly he didn’t know her that well? She wasn’t even his friend. Even if it was inconvenient for her to leave alone she shouldn’t have agreed to him escorting her. On top of that, he was gone for quite a while. Didn’t she live close by? I felt like running out into the street but I knew that wouldn’t do anyone any good.

All that time Aunt Raina tried to talk me, to divert my attention to something else, but when she saw that she wasn’t succeeding she stopped trying. Once again she tried to get me to take some zelnik but I stubbornly refused.

When my father came back I thought he wouldn’t be able to look me in the eye, so I avoided looking at him. Aunt Raina, of course, deliberately went out to the other room and quickly called for him to go there. She probably needed to tell him something in private, so that I wouldn’t hear. Wouldn’t it be horrible if Eli’s and my fate were being decided there and then at that very moment?

When we arrived home I didn’t want to help my father like I did other evenings. I didn’t have the will, so everything I did I did by force.

“Hristina, you seem to be very tired tonight,” my father said in a soft voice after we’d had dinner. “You should go to bed.” “No Dad, I’m not tired,” I said even though I really wanted to go away, cover myself with the quilt and hide my face. I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen to Eli and me if my father decided to bring another mother home? It would be a great misfortune to bring another woman to replace Mom! It seemed to me that my father was incapable of doing such a thing. I would be losing him too, as I had him in my soul.

As it happened Aunt Raina stayed with us well into the evening, later than usual, in the following days. I was told that my father had to work extra hours in the factory but I didn’t believe it. Why was all this happening now? Sometimes I felt like kicking Aunt Raina out of our house. I thought she was to blame for all the things that were happening to my father.

None of the things that were happening to him lately could escape my eyes. He started to wear new clothes. All the time after the earthquake he wore a grey coat and dark trousers, which were worn out from wearing them for a long time. He bought himself several new shirts and nice shoes. But what confused me more than anything was the change in the expression on his face, which didn’t in the least resemble the former one. It was brighter and more open… This made my soul stiffen more and more. Didn’t he feel sad about Mom anymore, like he used to? Maybe all this was my imagination and I was accusing him unfairly of things he hadn’t done… I didn’t know for sure.

At times I blamed myself for meddling in the affairs of adults. I was only a child and, of course, it wasn’t right for children to judge their parents. That, unfortunately, didn’t lessen my pain. My father must have sensed my negative thoughts and me not being happy with him. But he had only himself to blame for that since he never told me what Aunt Raina and he were talking about secretly and what they were hiding from me. Again I envied Eli. She was too young to understand any of this.

Just as the second school term started and the break was over, I saw Vera in the corridor of our school. She had a school book in her hands exactly the same as all the other teachers. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Would she be a teacher in my school? I wanted to avoid running into her but it seemed unavoidable. I went to the other side of the yard pretending to look for someone, but suddenly I heard footsteps behind me and felt a hand on my shoulder. I felt uncomfortable but mostly because of the other children seeing me with her.

“Hristina, as you can see I’ll be working here at your school. If you need anything let me know...” I wanted to tell her I didn’t need anything, especially from her, but of course I kept my mouth shut.

“My work as an editor at the old job took a lot of my time but I think I’ll have more free time working here. I always really wanted to be a teacher, this was my old profession.” “What does all that have to do with me?” I wondered. The more I wanted to escape from this woman, the closer she got to me.

“Which grade will you be teaching?” I asked, unable to resist asking.

“First grade for the time being,” she said and smiled slightly, looking at me with her big black, kind eyes.

The school bell rang. I broke away from her arm that was hugging me and ran to class. It was awkward for me to look at any of my classmates, who I assumed had seen the new teacher hugging me.

“How do you know the new teacher?” Marina was the first to ask.

How should I answer her? What should I say?

“She lives near one of my relatives…” I said quickly in a rough tone voice, so that she would understand that I wasn’t in the mood to be interrogated by her.

As a result of all this I was distracted and unable to pay attention in class, to the lesson that was being given by our teacher.

I wondered if Vera’s transfer to my school was somehow also contrived. Or maybe it was a complete coincidence because she lived in this area. I was lucky she wasn’t teaching me. And why was I so lucky?

I was hesitant to tell Dad about this right away… if he didn’t already know. Of course he knew, she must have told him, I thought.

“Dad, did you know that Vera, who lives near Aunt Raina, is a teacher at our school?” As I suspected, he did know so I had nothing more to ask him. From that I understood that he was in a permanent relationship with her, unless Aunt Raina had told him.

In subsequent days at school, I avoided going outside during our breaks to avoid running into Vera. At times I thought that it wasn’t nice of me to do that and that maybe the woman was decent and didn’t deserve to be avoided.

Some days I was curious to know what kind of teacher she was and how she treated her students but I couldn’t get much from the first graders; they were too young.

Her presence in the school, however, was felt in other ways. The school began to revitalize extracurricular activities like drama, reading, literature, etc. Also preparations were being made to celebrate the school holiday. Vera, it seems, was involved in almost every extracurricular activity where groups of children gathered around her asking her about various things.

There was a strange defiance in me which wouldn’t allow me to get near her and I didn’t try, not even once. But she was persistent. No matter how far I was she never missed calling on me and asking me something, anything. I noticed that after each time she was in contact with me, she looked upset, even sad. Or was I imagining things? It was a kind of passive struggle for me not to let her get too close.

I participated in the drama section. I had been doing it since second grade and didn’t want to miss rehearsals, despite how I felt about Vera.

I couldn’t help but notice that from the moment I entered the room she had a sincere wide smile which attracted all the children, almost without exception. She had a warm calm voice, cordiality, intimacy and bright smiling eyes. The children loved her so much that they wanted to physically touch her. She patiently explained things to us and brought life to the characters we were supposed to portray. She even helped us to properly pronounce words.

After spending many hours with her, despite the conscious resistance that kept me at a distance from her, I began to discover I had new feelings for the woman. I became more and more attached to her, although I made great efforts to hide it both from her and from myself.

One day when I returned from school and found Aunt Raina at home, I felt that I could no longer hide what was bothering me so I asked, “Aunt Raina, is Vera, the teacher married?” Aunt Raina looked at me. She was bit confused. Then she said, “No, she isn’t married.”

“Does she live with anyone?” “Yes, with her mother and father...” I wanted to ask why she still wasn’t married but I realized that wouldn’t be appropriate so I didn’t say anything.

“Do you see her often at school?” she asked immediately afterwards.

Without waiting for an answer she said, “How good is she? How good is she as a teacher...?” I didn’t answer her. I just went into the other room to do my homework.

The day of our performance was getting close and I wanted to practice my role. I thought of Vera again and again, even though I wanted no part of her. My ability to practice, for some reason, wasn’t going well. I put my forehead on the glass window and stared at the street. There were many children coming home from school, as the sixth class was dismissed.

Among the children I saw Vera walking down the street. She was surrounded by them on both sides. I quickly hid behind the curtain so that she couldn’t see me but I could still see her. As she passed right in front of our door she turned towards me, smiled and waved.

I was surprised because I was sure that she couldn’t see me behind the curtain. Then she came inside and went into the other room. My father was standing at the open window.

I immediately left the room.

The next morning after my father left for work, I went into his room and quickly focused my eyes on the picture of Mom. I don’t know why but lately I’d been thinking that one day I wouldn’t find that picture there, and I wanted to move it more and more to the room where Eli and I slept. Of course I didn’t dare without asking my father but I didn’t have the courage to ask.

On the day of the performance we were all happy and wearing new clothes. In the last two days leading up to the performance everyone was talking about getting new clothes: my mother bought me a new dress, my mother sewed one for me, my mother knit one for me, my mother this, my mother that... You don’t know how many times I wanted to run out of my class so as not to have to listen to them bragging about their good, loving and kind mothers. There wasn’t a moment that those good and sincere friends of mine, carried away by the joys of life, could guess how painful it was for me to listen to them and hide the pain that burned my soul. But I wasn’t angry with them for that. How could I be? And of course, I had been like them before the terrible disaster struck my family. Before that I never once thought there could be someone who wasn’t as joyful as me and not carefree.

Dad and Aunt Raina prepared everything for me but I never once told anyone in my class that they had done it...

When parents started arriving in the hall, all decorated with flags and flowers, the excitement grew even more. I kept looking, expecting my father to be there anytime now. Each time I saw a new person enter I expected it would be him. Would he come or not?

Someone from my family should be there to give me support when I was called to go on stage. I would be happier if more eyes were upon me when I did my recital. At the same time something else was bothering me. Even though I loved to see my father in the hall I was worried about Vera. Since Vera was the one welcoming all the guests at the door she would probably greet my father in a different way… And everyone would see that. Everyone would see that Vera greeted my father differently...

The hall was almost full. We kept peeking through the slightly open door which led to the stage. I still hadn’t seen my father. I often looked at Vera and to me she looked like she was in a bad mood…

perhaps because my father wasn’t there. She was lacking the usual shine she projected with her face and lit-up eyes. She was dressed in a light blue dress and her hair was shiny like gold in the sun.

The director opened the performance. He was a tall thin man, with little hair on his head. He wore an unusual pair of glasses which often slid down his nose. Otherwise, he spoke beautifully so it was a real pleasure to listen to him.

After that Vera led us to the improvised stage to perform the vocal songs. And because I was in the second row, I had to stand on my tiptoes to see if my father had arrived. Let him come now, I thought.

I’m not sure if we were singing well but I saw him quietly enter the hall when we were in the middle of a song. He sat in the front row.

Vera seemed to follow my gaze and saw him too. It seemed to me that she now looked more cheerful.

I wanted to do my role from the one-act play and my recital the best I could, better than anyone because my father was there. As I was doing my recital our eyes met several times. I found moral support, joy and pride in his look. Almost half of the people present in the audience were mothers. I looked for my mother. Oh, you don’t know how much I missed her... My eyes were so full of tears I could hardly last until the end. As soon as the applause started, I ran off the stage. Vera was there to welcome me into her arms. At that moment I felt that Vera knew everything... both about tears and emptiness... and for the first time I let her hug me freely. I felt that hug, really heartily, sincerely, but quickly after that I got out of her arms and ran out to the street, and in my ears I could here my voice, like it was someone else’s, yelling - Mom, Mom...

When I came back inside the performance had ended and everyone was being congratulated, especially Vera. On top of being congratulated Vera was also given flowers. No one could dispute that she was the main organizer of this entire program. Many of the young students also congratulated her, giving her big smiles and sincere warm looks.

“Teacher, wasn’t the performance great? Let’s do it exactly like that the next time,” yelled one child from the group of children that had gathered all around her. Some still hung onto her hands and didn’t want to let go.

“Of course children, of course students,” she kept saying with her energetic voice from time to time. You could feel the smile on her face even without looking at her.

As I thought, my father also came over to congratulate Vera. I didn’t want to look because I didn’t want to see how he looked at her.

When he shook her hand, which was okay by me, unlike the others I quickly walked towards the exit door, being certain that my father would wait for her and that they would go home together. The other children had already joined their mothers and fathers and were leaving and having cheerful conversations and getting praise.

“Hristina,” I heard my father say, which surprised me. He called me at that very moment when it seemed to me like he was the least preoccupied with me. He immediately caught up with me and threw his arm over my shoulder. He gave me a warm hug and we headed home. I don’t know why but it seemed to me that Vera had told him to do that. But despite wanting to hug him here in front of everyone and cry on his shoulder, I proudly walked next to him and had the feeling that my father was the best and most handsome man of all.

Aunt Raina greeted us at the door. She had set the table for lunch.

Today our lunch had to be more festive and richer also.

While my father was washing his hands, he was praising me and the entire event in front of Aunt Raina and Eli.

Eli blabbered that when she grew up she would also speak in a show.

“I’ll say things better, won’t I Aunt Raina?” “Much better dear and how…” said Aunt Raina with a mechanical tone of voice and stroked her hair.

I heard footsteps on the sidewalk and looked out the window. It was Vera carrying a huge bouquet of flowers. She was coming to our house. My father immediately found himself at the door and opened it. It was obvious, from his confusion, that he wasn’t expecting her.

All red in the face, Vera handed the bouquet to my father and said, “I got so many flowers that I can’t take them all home and Hristina really deserved them. She recited and acted very well.” I looked down at the ground shyly. My father and Aunt Raina almost took her inside by her arms. A plate was immediately set for her at the table. Even though she refused and really felt that she wasn’t comfortable, she sat down to eat lunch with us.

I knew that it would be a great joy for any of the students to have Vera as their guest today... Why couldn’t I feel that way?

“Next year, we’ll enroll Eli in a nursery school,” said Vera after we finished lunch, then stroked her hair. I thought that was an odd thing to say.

Eli was beaming with joy. She was always impatient and constantly asking, “When will I go to school?” As soon as they finished their coffee, Vera got up and shook hands with everyone in turn. My father again went to send her off. Just like the day when we were at Aunt Raina’s. It seemed to me that Vera was talking to my father only when they were away from me and I couldn’t stop them.

“If the children are lucky...” I heard Aunt Raina whisper, without thinking that I might hear her. She was probably wishing that my father and Vera would get married. What I didn’t understand was why we were “lucky”? Didn’t Aunt Raina understand how I felt?

I went to my room and found the book with my mother’s picture in it, along with pictures of the others who had died in the earthquake. I cried for a long time, holding it to my chest... my mother, my poor mother; no one could replace her...

When my father came back, I was lying on my bed but I wanted him to think I was asleep. He turned on the light and asked me if Eli and I had had dinner.

“Yes, we had dinner,” I said even though I only fed Eli. I didn’t eat a morsel.

When he sat on my bed, I knew he wanted to tell me something.

He sat there and said nothing. He was silent for a long time.

I had an idea of what he wanted to tell me and that’s why it was difficult for him. I wished we didn’t have to have this painful conversation tonight but I realized that in the end it wouldn’t matter.

“Hristina, you aren’t so young anymore,” he said, “you are even more mature for your age than most. I know how hard it is for you without your mother. It’s even harder for you than for Eli, precisely because you are older. You also know that it has been terribly hard for me too. But there is nothing we can do about that... We can’t exist for too long alone and without another mother.

The very words “another mother” were unacceptable to me. How could there be “another mother” other than the one who’d given birth…?

Stepmother, I would have accepted the word stepmother. I wanted to tell him, ‘Father you want to bring home a stepmother’. I wanted to tell him that rudely but at that moment Vera’s face appeared before my eyes and, I don’t know why, I couldn’t see her as a “stepmother”. A stepmother, I thought would be some other woman, completely different in looks and character. On the other hand, I thought that Vera herself would never agree to be just a stepmother.

Fear began to fill my heart. I was afraid of the kind of stepmother Eli and I would have to take into our home. We would have to take her the moment my father decided. We would have no choice and nowhere to escape.

“You Hristina, you see,” my father continued, “I’ve been at work all day every day and Aunt Raina has been looking after you. But she is getting old and sick. Soon she won’t be able to come here and look after you. And you Hristina, you need to study, you should study a lot. You can attend higher education, even university…” I kept quiet. I wasn’t convinced that these were good enough reasons to make my father think about marrying someone. Like everyone else, he probably didn’t want to be alone, with just me and Eli.

I remained stubbornly silent.

“You Hristina, you shouldn’t be afraid. Everything I do I will do to make things easier and better for all of us. That’s the way it will be.

I promise you that. You trust your father, right?” How could I not trust my father? I only had him. Only him. It would be terrible if I lost trust in him... But this, which he talked about with me tonight, was very difficult for me. I knew that there was nothing I could do to stop him if this was what he intended to do. I felt helpless.

“Oh Father, Father,” I cried and threw myself on him. I hugged him while crying and all the time thought that this might be the last time he was free like this and only mine...

“Tina, Tinche (short for Hristina) calm down,” said my father. He was also crying. At that point I realized how difficult it was for him too. Everything was difficult for him… this conversation we’d had… what happened to our family… These were painful things for everyone...

“Tina, everything will be fine, trust me, I’m your father,” he said quietly through his tears, so as not to wake Eli up and scare her.

Then he put me back on the bed, gently covered me, stroked my hair and, after turning off the light, went to his room. He didn’t eat dinner that evening.

Sometime later I wanted to ask Marina why she didn’t stay with her father and stepmother but I was afraid of making her sad. Almost every time she wanted to see her little brother, she asked me to go with her. I felt that she didn’t want to go alone. Her little brother’s mother greeted us with the usual restrained expression on her face. I wasn’t sure whether she wanted us to come and stay or come and leave right away. Marina didn’t know what to say to her, nor she to Marina.

She would usually ask, “How is your grandmother, Marina? Or “How is school, Marina?” Those were the most common questions her stepmother would ask, to which Marina would usually reply with one short word: “Okay.” She rarely ever served us anything.

After visits like that Marina became even more withdrawn. I wondered if her stepmother had told Marina and her grandmother to move into the other apartment, or maybe Marina’s grandmother couldn’t stand to live with the woman her son-in-law had married after losing her daughter. How had Marina’s father agreed to all this, I wondered. How could he give up on his own child? Then I remembered the first time I saw Marina’s father with this new woman and how I was then convinced that my father would never be like that... do something like that.

Now everything was different. Now that my father had openly declared to me that he had such intentions, I wondered if the woman he would marry was Vera. Or was I making it all up in my head?

Maybe he’d already chosen someone completely different?

That frightened me. If it had to be that father married someone, then Vera seemed to me to be the best candidate. And if Vera was pretending to be a goody-goody just to win over my father, then what would she be like after she had?

I should have asked my father or Aunt Raina a long time ago which woman my father was thinking of marrying. Why I hadn’t I don’t know.

Vera used to come to visit us almost every day. She didn’t hesitate to help me with lunch and feed Eli, dress her and check my homework. I began to resist her less and less.

I noticed my friends looking at us with interest every time we left school together and watched to see if Vera came to my house. They were also curious when they saw us coming to school together.

In the evenings, when Vera stayed late with us, my father would escort her and spend time with her. Sometimes a long time... This became routine for them. Did they walk the streets, or did they go to her house? That I don’t know. I sometimes wanted to follow them but that seemed so low and inappropriate. So I didn’t.

One day when Aunt Raina came earlier than usual and Eli was playing in the yard, I asked, “Aunt Raina isn’t it scary to have a stepmother?” I then began to cry and buried my head in her lap.

“Tinche, you’re not a little girl anymore, what’s wrong with you? Sit here with me for a while,” she said and pulled me onto the couch next to her. I wiped my tears and sat down.

“Your father and mother loved each other very much. That’s why they decided to have a family. You were born and then Eli. Even though you are young, you remember very well what a beautiful life you had, how good it was and how happy your mother and father were. But unfortunately misfortune struck and took your mother from us. The other mother, if your father decides to marry again, won’t be able to be like the one who gave birth to you. But she can still be very good and you will love her because she will look after you and raise you to be a good person. You know that your father is a firm and serious man and he won’t rush to marry just anyone.” I was just about to ask her if my father had decided to marry Vera, when Aunt Raina said, “Why can’t you love her, or at least get used to a woman like Vera?” Still no clear answer… Again I felt the same as when I’d talked with my father – in all these struggles of mine – if it had to be someone then let it be Vera. Even the very fact that I had reconciled with her as a second mother seemed to me like a kind of betrayal towards my late mother... I didn’t know what to think about the fact that Eli was happy… She was so young and all this didn’t torment her.

Aunt Raina looked at me with interest, waiting for an answer.

“She is a very good person,” I said and at the same time tried to imagine her as my other mother. Again I didn’t know how and why but in my mind it seemed impossible. If the character of Vera, the teacher, for whom I had warm feelings in my heart, didn’t mix with the character of Vera being my stepmother, it would be something completely different...

“Aunt Raina are you just saying that about Vera, or is it true?” Aunt Raina fell silent and I felt like she wasn’t sure how to answer me.

“It could be,” she said quite vaguely and went to the washroom, as if wanting to end the conversation there.

So it must be right, I thought. I’m not dreaming up things. I tried to imagine her as a housewife in our house. I just couldn’t. I’d just have to get used to it, to call her Mom… No! I wouldn’t be able to!

Eli hardly remembers Mother, if at all, and it would be easier for her, if only Vera was as good a person as she appeared to be.

Many things hinted to me that Vera might soon move in with us. I became more and more restless and more impatient. I became aware that life in our house would completely change. Aunt Raina would certainly come less often. My father and I would have less common things to do around the house and we would be less involved in household chores. And who knew how it would actually be?

I was constantly haunted by my desire to take my mother’s picture from my father’s bedroom and put it in our room. But I was afraid to do it without asking Dad. What if I just took it? So what? So what if he scolded me? How much could it hurt? But I knew it would hurt him. He might think that I no longer respected him, that I considered him unworthy of having Mom’s picture above his bed. And really, how would that look? Surely she, the new mother, wouldn’t be comfortable with Mom’s presence, even in a picture. Is that what would happen, or was all this just a figment of my imagination?

Maybe my thinking was completely wrong.

Anyway, I moved the picture. I could barely reach it because my legs were sinking into the quilts and pillows of the bed. I’d made my decision to take it the evening before and couldn’t wait for my father to go to work. I didn’t want to tell Aunt Raina because I knew she wouldn’t let me. I managed to take down the picture and press it against my chest, like a thief stealing something precious which they had long dreamed of appropriating. After I went to my room, I hesitated for a long time as to whether I should hide the picture for now or hang it on the wall. I decided on my second choice. My sweet mother, I don’t know how many times I kissed her picture before I decided to hang it up on the wall. I was so happy I cried.

Now she would be closer to me and I would be able to look at her all the time, especially in the evening before falling asleep. She seemed more secure to me here and no one would dare remove her from this place.

“Mama,” yelled Eli when she came into our room. She was happy to see Mom’s picture above our beds. That made me cry. When she saw me crying she squealed loudly, probably because I was crying.

She didn’t understanding why. I hugged her and lifted her into my arms, like I had when she was very little. I knew that I would always be closest to her like a sister and a mother all at the same time. She quickly calmed down when I smiled and managed to compose myself.