2. Dimitri
2
DIMITRI
8-YEARS-OLD
Lombardy
I race around the corner and come to a screeching stop. Italian Nonna is in the kitchen. She’s perched on a chair like a giant old crow, her fingers drumming on the wood as she reads a recipe.
She scares me.
Italian Nonna always wears black, and she has an angry face. She looks like one of the ghosts from the Christmas stories my aunty likes to read around the fire at this time of year.
Here, in the foothills of the Italian mountains, snow is softly falling. It’s magical the way it covers everything and makes all the outside noises quiet and muffled. The noises in the house are still loud. Pappa shouts at the servants, Italian Nonna screeches orders, and pots and pans clatter.
Scary Nonna pushes her chair back and limps to the stove where she sticks a spoon in a pot and slurps from it, then she shouts at Margherita. “More salt, child. What is the point of us having staff if we must do it all ourselves?”
I sneak away, not wanting to be dragged into helping. I hate helping in the kitchen. When I reach the special front room, the grown-ups room, I hear voices and creep nearer.
It’s Mamma, and she’s talking to my other nonna. The Russian one. She’s not my mamma’s mother; she died and went to heaven five years ago. This lady is my real papa’s mother.
My papa is in heaven too. I never met him, but he is a hero. Russian Nonna told me so, and I have his picture. He was a handsome man. He looked like the knights in the books I like to read.
Russian Nonna is talking softly to Mamma in the old language as Mamma calls it. I understand it. Not all of it, and I can’t read it, but I understand a lot of the words and sentences. Papa hates me speaking Russian and says he doesn’t understand how I can still remember it.
“The child grew up hearing it for the first few years of his life, Anton; it’s only natural,” Mamma will say.
She’s always being nice to him, trying to make him smile, but he’s as miserable as Italian Nonna. When he’s not miserable, he’s angry, and sometimes when he’s angry he takes me outside and hits me until my bones ache. Always on my legs and upper arms. He says if I tell Mamma we will be homeless. He says if I tell Mamma we will starve. So I don’t say anything, but I try my best not to get the beatings.
I slip quietly into the grown-ups room, and Russian Nonna sees me. Her red-cheeked face looks like an apple as she grins wide.
“You are so grown,” she says in Russian. “Come here, child.”
I walk over to her, and she envelops me in a hug. She smells of roses and cake.
“Not in Russian,” Mamma says. “Anton doesn’t like him speaking the mother tongue.”
“I don’t speak Italian,” Russian Nonna snaps.
“He speaks good English.” Mama beams at me, pride in her violet eyes.
“You do?” Nonna asks me in English.
“Yes, I speak it good,” I say.
“I speak it well,” Mama corrects me.
My cheeks burn. I don’t like getting things wrong.
Why can’t I speak in Russian? After all, I don’t want to be like my new papa. When I grow up, I want to be like my Russian papa in heaven because he was strong, brave, and clever. I need to try harder.
“You’re doing well, Dimitri.” Mama pats my head. “Don’t get upset when I correct you. It’s just another way for you to get better.”
I think about that and then nod.
“Signora Amato, which wine shall I open for the meal?” A young girl sticks her head around the door and addresses Mama.
“Two of the red, two white, and a bottle of champagne to begin, but perhaps ask Anton as he is quite particular.”
The girl nods, and her cheeks turn a bright red. Why is she so red at having to go ask papa?
“Very good, Signora Amato.”
“ Amato ,” Russian Nonna spits. “Thank God the boy at least kept his father’s name.”
“Thanks to you filling his head full of tales. You made Mikhail sound like a hero and an angel all in one. The boy hero worships a man he can never live up to because he’s dead.”
“What does hero worship mean?” I ask.
“Nothing,” Mamma says with a shake of her head. “Why don’t you go and play?”
Play with who? There are no other children here. Sometimes there are if some of the servants bring theirs to work with them, but mostly there are none. I have home school four days a week where I sit and learn so I can pass my exams. Papa says it would do me good to board, but Mamma says she can’t bear it, and for once she is putting her foot down. I don’t know what that means, but I am glad Mama put her feet down as I don’t want to go away.
I run along the long hallways and race up the stairs. I’ll go to my room and find some of my new toys. I got a shiny red toy car, and I want to race that against my old blue one down the hall.
As I near my room, I hear a strange sound from above. The attic.
I’m not allowed up there as it is Papa’s study. I’m at my door when I hear the noise again. It’s a strange groan, and it isn’t Papa. Is something hurt up there? Maybe one of the cats got stuck. It could be something scary, though, like a wild animal.
Nervous, but excited that there might be a bear in the attic, I quietly open the bottom door and climb the stairs. Some creak. I’ve snuck up before to play with Papa’s pens and pretend I’m important the way he is, so I know which steps to avoid.
Careful to step over stairs four and six, I reach the top and poke my head between the wooden balustrade.
My mouth falls open. Papa has the apple cheeked servant over his desk. His pants are down, and his white, saggy buttocks are clenched as he thrusts backward and forward. The servant is making the funny sounds.
A laugh crawls up my throat. Papa looks so silly. The servant makes another sound, and Papa smacks her bottom. “Shut the fuck up. If my wife hears us, you’ll cost me a fortune in attorney’s fees.”
“Yes, sir,” she says, breathless. “She won’t hear. She’s with her mother.”
My papa shakes and groans and makes weird noises, and then he pulls away from her and pulls his pants up.
I must leave, but I’m frozen to the spot. I know I’ve seen something bad. Something Papa doesn’t want Mama to know about. It’s naughty. It looks like what the animals do in the fields. The servant girl pulls her clothes around her. I can’t see her well, but she’s pushing her skirt down.
“What are they doing?” Papa asks. “My wife and that old crone.”
“Nothing. Talking about Dimitri’s father, I think,” she says.
She’s very naughty. Doing this thing with Father, and then listening at doors. I should tell Mama, but then Papa speaks again.
“If you ever let my wife find out about this, not only will you lose your job, but I’ll have you killed and buried on the mountains in the snow where no one will find you. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” the servant says, her voice shaking.
She has wisps of straw-colored hair sticking out of her cap that weren’t there before. She looks messy now, not neat.
Father writes something in his checkbook and tears it off, handing it to her. She shoves it down her shirt. “Thank you, sir.”
“Oh,” she says. “Before I forget, Signora wanted me to ask about the wines, remember?”
Father pinches his nose and lists wines, and I take my chance to sneak down the stairs.
Once I’m in my room, I sit on my bed and think about what I’ve just seen. I don’t know what it all means, but it’s bad. Father was doing the thing I’ve seen animals do. The thing Mama says is bad, and he was doing it with the servant girl.
If I tell Mama, he might kill me and leave me in the snow, the way he threatened the girl. I stare out of my bedroom window at the mountains beyond. They look cold and lonely. I’d hate to be there all alone and no one would ever find me. I can’t tell Mama.
I must keep it a secret. I don’t want to. I tell Mamma nearly everything. One more glance at those cold, desolate peaks, and I swallow down what I’ve seen. I’ll never tell.
The rest of the day passes slowly. We eat the food, and the grown-ups drink the wine. I’m allowed a sip of Mama’s but it tastes like vinegar. I prefer my lemonade.
Then Russian Nonna says she has a special present for me that I haven’t opened yet. We did the presents yesterday, and today is the day we eat and relax. We are sitting in the big informal room. The fire is roaring, and the two cats are sleeping by it.
I get excited. “Is it a puppy?” I ask.
I’ve wanted a puppy for ages.
She shakes her head. “Child, how could I bring a puppy from Russia?” she asks in English.
Here, in front of Papa, we speak in English.
“How did you even mange to bring yourself?” Papa says, his words slurred. “It’s a Christmas miracle.”
“Anton,” Mama says with a warning in her tone. She uses that same tone with me, when I’m being naughty.
“I just meant that it isn’t that easy to travel to and from Russia.” Papa waves his hand in the air.
“It is easier now. We are freer.” Russian Nonna takes her large bag and rummages in it.
“Free to starve,” Papa mutters.
“Not with your help.” Mama gives Papa a sweet smile, but it doesn’t make her eyes crinkle the way they do when she smiles at me.
Papa merely dips his head.
Nonna comes to me and hands me a package. It is tissue paper wrapped around a box, and carefully, I unwrap it. I open the box and stare inside.
There’s a wooden shield in the box, and it is covered with pictures. I brush my thumb over it, liking the paintings. There is a unicorn, and next to it a flower, and then on the top there is a sword, and next to that a bird.
“It’s pretty,” I say.
“This, dear boy, is the Baranov family crest.”
My stepfather snorts, and Mama shoots him an angry glare.
“It is?” I ask.
“Yes. This is your birth family. Your blood. It is the crest your grandfather had, and when he died it went to your father.”
“Now it is mine?” I ask.
“It is yours to always remember who you are and where you came from. When you are old enough you can come back to Russia if you want and live with me.” Nonna has switched into Russian.
“In fucking English,” Papa shouts. “I won’t have you filling the child’s head with nonsense. He already hero worships a man who is not worth a moment’s more thought. If the boy knew what a coward he was.”
What does Papa mean?
“Anton,” Mama says. Her voice sounds like it does when she’s found me stealing cookies from the jar before dinner. “I swear one more word, and I’ll never forgive you. Don’t go there. Please. Unless you want me to leave.”
“It’s wrong.” Papa stands and points at me. “He deserves the truth, and not lies he can never live up to. You can piss off back to Russia the minute you can get a seat on a plane, old woman, and don’t come back until you can stop this nonsense. I won’t have it in my house.”
He storms out of the room. Scary, Italian Nonna who has remained silent up until now, stands. “He’s right, you know, Vera. This isn’t doing the boy any favors.”
She leaves too. Russian Nonna wipes a tear from her cheek and pulls me into a hug. “Whatever you might hear about your father in the future, Dimitri, remember this. He loved you.”
Then she pats my cheek.
“You shouldn’t have given him the shield in front of Anton,” Mama chides. “You know he gets upset.”
“He’s pathetic. Getting upset about a ghost.”
“Dimitri, go to your room and play with your new toys.” Mama sounds tired.
I do as she says. Alone in my room, I try to play with all the shiny new toys I received, but I can’t think about things clearly. My brain hurts. Why is Papa angry about Russian Papa in heaven? Why is Papa doing the bad thing with the servant? One thing I do know … Papa and Mama seem to be angry with each other, and if he sent us away, we’d have nowhere to go.
I must try to make Papa love me, for real. For that to happen, I need to stop talking about my other papa in heaven. I put the shield away in my drawer, at the bottom, underneath many clothes. I resolve to try very hard to make Papa feel important to me and Mama so we can stay.