An Unusual Childhood

                                                          
           

           I seldom dream of my mother perhaps because she died in another country and being a child in a boarding school, it was  deemed unnecessary for me to attend her funeral. So in dreams I see different versions of what her life is now. Usually she lives under  an assumed identity and does not want me to know her whereabouts, it is always a puzzle.At times I get very close to touching her but never quite. Once heard she was alive but being experimented on in a desert facility. When I went to find her was told it was top secret research and was not allowed on premises. I even saw her in an old film of the 30’s in a soiree in salon in Paris. On another occasion I was in choir of a cathedral saw her sitting with the congregation below, our eyes locked as if through a zoom lens and I made my way through throng but when I reached the place I thought she sat, she was gone! Her hat and  purple veil was on a bench and underneath  in a note she scrawled, “My name is now Princess Cassimassima”. It seemed I had read  a similar name in a novel, perhaps of Henry James, of a princess from Sicily. In short it had an air of plausibility.

     She had always loved Italy and Sicily in particular, could speak the dialect  The implication of her elusiveness was that I must not disturb her new life .This was not novel, she always had her own life loosely threaded through ours. Was told she had a romance with an Italian naval officer and followed him to Italy but upon hearing that my eldest sister had a childhood  illness and fever left him and  came home to Shanghai to tend to her though she had been notoriously neglectful of her by habit.

      I was shunted from one prestigious boarding  school to another,  a privilege she assured! We were all sent to different boarding schools in several countries as she and her sisters had been as well, purportedly to further our education, learn a new language, and acquire polish.  

    Often while waiting to interview a new school director she would point out to me the marble floors in the lobby  and the oak doors, grand spiral staircase and with gloved hand stroke copper plaque with school  name at entrance. She would  make note of the number of tennis courts, whether there was a swimming pool or not, arts, ballet, music, singing not that she was musical herself being I’m convinced tone deaf, and could not carry the simplest tune.

        Even at ten I knew her concerns were farcical, I don’t want to imply she was  stupid,  far from it, just frivolous. I never heard her examine a curriculum, she was more interested in manners, appearance, surfaces.  But so clever she did not only converse in French, English and Spanish with the nuns but Latin as well, and was proud of her accent as if there was a way  of knowing precisely the accent of ancient Romans only from the vulgate Latin  liturgical chants was the pronunciation guessed.  Italian she learned because a priest inveigled her when young, she said, it was spoken in paradise; as if there was much chance she would reside there in the after-life. I beat her at  her own game though she didn’t live to see it.  I learned classical Greek and the plebeian version of Greek, Koine spoken by Christ. I also studied Sanskrit all for naught, she wasn’t around to impress. But I must admit her ability to recite Dante, all three books  was no mean feat!  I ascribed her ability to her Roma heritage which she took pains to hide but which delighted me in its exoticism.. There were other realms that she could not compete with me, my athleticism. I became more than a competent  rider broke my horses myself, while she was secretly terrified of her mounts. I’m convinced she rode in order to wear the finery from Hermes in Paris, famous for its saddles,  boots, gloves. I was also told by an aunt that comically, she could only dance in one direction? And during a memorable performance almost fell off the stage.

     She was not heartless however, she was given to great gestures of selflessness. She flew in to  give me in person news of the death of my beloved collie not bearing to simply write it in a letter. Also heard that in Shanghai she smuggled penicillin to Jewish ghetto with some peril to herself.      

     She only gave me one womanly advice to make certain that I wore immaculate underwear in case of an accident  and was examined in a hospital, and then only white cotton while still a virgin.  Never to wear cheap perfume was another of her admonitions but to select  a perfume with care as if life depended on my choice.  

      On ethics she was more vague, intelligence to be valued above wealth, but contradictorily might as well fall in love with a wealthy man than not. to show no regrets it was a second  mistake. When giving to charity not to stint but give with an open hand. She was profligate  in her generosity to charities but this also was suspect, it was probably in lieu of a bribe not to have me expelled.  This last principle she demonstrated volubly coming in at Christmas or Easter laden with gifts to Russian émigré clubs for poor children which only served I soon realised to create divisions between myself and them..   

     I really had no resentments or regrets, this is who she was. When I visited friends, their mothers  seemed so ordinary, mundane, no comparison to my brilliant mother, who was actually so very naïve for all her sophistication, a child at heart.

    I will confess if pressed to one reproach: that she stopped speaking to me in Russian too early and though she gave me a love for the language, its fairy tales , folklore, songs, she started  in my regard, to speak to me in unnecessary tongues. Her husband’s language Czech , she warned  I was not to speak ,”A pig’s language”, she said. Long after her death I would not utter a word of it, though I understood it perfectly and only once, years later to everyone’s astonishment spoke it at table…

     I am grateful she was not a prude and would let me read her novels even the erotic ones.  Her response to the disapproval of her friends was,” She’s gaining a great vocabulary!” I suppose she sent me to boarding schools because she had trouble in her busy life to keep track of me, my nannies long gone; would say to her friends about my roaming unsupervised, a white child in a South American country,” Oh I don’t worry about her being a white child that she will be kidnapped, instead of ransom they will pay me to take her back!”

      Despite these statements I knew she loved  me in her way and also feared  me for I was a ferocious child and not easily charm by her wiles. When she was dying and the family would make plans that included her she would glance at me. I was the only one who refused to join in these fantasies. I think I was then a comfort.

     On our last meeting we kissed and hugged she tried to extract promises of me and I steadfastly  refused  knowing she was manipulating me in a vulnerable moment. As the car was  revving up to take me to the airport I asked driver to stop and ran back to her for a last embrace. I felt I stole from death this moment and  she was by then, overcome by tears.

      I returned to school to Trinidad but her letters became more and more distant , unsatisfactory, I thought it was due to her cancer medication and stopped reading them until many years later. I also learned later she generously would allow the medical research team to experiment on her when she was already beyond hope. Still in the evenings she was wheeled in her bed  to converse with resident doctors  who vied for her company.

     My aunt said that she often read the letters of her lover from Australia until the end.  They were discreetly removed and stored and not included with her effects that were sent to her husband. I inherited luxurious silk peignoirs not appropriate for a girl not yet twelve and in the forbidden black and peach and I imagined I could still smell her in them. Her crystal bottles of French perfume as well came my way.  I was not impressed by a red plastic pouch and rosary beads, not ivory as I would have preferred, blessed by Pope Pius XII  in Rome ,and let a more devout sibling have it. I reveled in wearing black in mourning to the shock of my Russian relatives who considered it an alien custom.

      My mother let it be known that she wanted to be cremated so that she could be with us, but where?  We were scattered in several countries so she remains still there in her cubbyhole on the wall in Los Angeles. I only visited once and then in being denied entry on a second occasion because they were closed, I glanced  at my arms and decided there was more of her in me, body and soul than in that forsaken columbarium.

                  Antonia Baranov