‘Marta and Stanley have gone back to their place. I’d leave her to calm down a while if I were you. She’s taken it hard.’
Dmitri couldn’t stop trying though. The day after the funeral he drove to Marta’s house with Rosa’s jewellery box. Stanley opened the door but refused to let him in.
‘Please,’ Dmitri begged. ‘She’s my daughter.’
Stanley was immoveable. ‘She’s been telling me some horror stories about her childhood, about how you used to beat them both, and to be honest I’m surprised she didn’t disown you long before now. She kept her feelings to herself because she didn’t want to hurt her mother, but now she says she just wants you to leave her alone.’
Dmitri was surprised by the accusation. Didn’t everyone smack their children? ‘I’m the first to admit I wasn’t a great father, but surely I deserve a chance to explain myself? Tell Marta that her mother knew about my relationship with Tatiana – she had always known.’
‘I don’t reckon that’s going to help, somehow.’ Stanley folded his arms. ‘It don’t make it right that you went to see her before Rosa’s body was cold, when your own children needed you.’
‘I thought they were asleep!’
There was no sense in arguing with this pig-headed man, who seemed to have positioned himself as Marta’s new protector. Dmitri begged to be allowed to see her, but Stanley would not budge.
Eventually he handed over the jewellery box. ‘Will you at least give this to my daughter? She should take what she wants and send the rest to Nicholas’s wife.’
Stanley tucked it under his arm. ‘I know there are more things she wants from the house. Perhaps you could make yourself scarce while she collects them? Tomorrow afternoon, maybe?’
‘Whatever she wants, she can have,’ Dmitri agreed, and he kept to his word, going to spend the day with Tatiana. On his return, he looked around, trying to see what was missing: a few ornaments here and there, a painting, some kitchen items. He didn’t notice till much later that Marta had taken the old brown leather suitcase in which he kept Tatiana’s diary. Rosa had begun to store the family photos in there, not realising the significance of the diary at the bottom, not realising that suitcase dated from a time before he met her when he was still searching for Tatiana. Asking for its return would only inflame the situation, so he let it be.
He hoped that Nicholas might be able to intercede with his sister and placed a call to California one evening, but Pattie came on the line and said he was too drunk to come to the phone. She was worried about his drinking but supposed it was just his way of dealing with grief. Pattie promised she would have a word with Marta when she spoke to her next, but did not sound particularly optimistic.
Dmitri and Tatiana often discussed the estrangement but they could find no solution. When his children’s birthdays rolled around, he sent thousand-dollar cheques, which he was pleased to see both of them cashed. He wrote telling them he planned to sell the house, which was too big for him, and asking if they wanted any furniture, but there was no reply. In truth, he couldn’t bear to live there any more without Rosa’s warmth. In the old days, they used to gravitate to whichever room she was in, whether she was cooking, ironing, or sewing by a sunny window. She had been the centre of the home, but now it was just a series of rooms without any focus.
He moved into Tatiana’s cottage, but her garden was not big enough for Trina, a lively dog who needed a lot of exercise. One day while they were walking by Lake Akanabee they spotted a cabin for sale and straight away Dmitri wanted it. The location was stunning, at the remotest end of the lake, not overlooked by any other properties. He went to the real-estate agent and paid cash for it that afternoon. It was just four walls and a roof but he hired a carpenter to build a covered porch and a dock sticking out into the lake; he got it plumbed into a well further up the slope and had a septic tank and bathroom fittings installed. Tatiana chose a bed, a table, a sofa and armchair, a thick rug and curtains, pictures for the walls. A pot-bellied stove gave off enough heat to cook, to warm water, and keep the interior cosy. And Dmitri bought a fishing rod, planning to fish from the end of the dock.
‘Is this the equivalent of a hairshirt?’ Tatiana asked as she bathed in lukewarm water on a frosty autumn morning. ‘I hope you are not trying to do penance for your sins by coming here.’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I want my life to be simpler. I’m sixty-four years old and I’ve had enough of other human beings – apart from you, of course.’
‘I’m not sure I can stay here all year round,’ Tatiana laughed. ‘It’s beautiful, but I shall keep my cottage for the months when bugs fill the air and torment me with their bites, and for the winter when it is impossible to get warm.’
Dmitri had written to his children giving them his new address and when Christmas came around, Pattie sent a Christmas card. He telephoned from Tatiana’s house to thank her and to ask if there was any news.
‘Marta is pregnant,’ she told him. ‘Her baby is due next April.’
Dmitri was moved. ‘Perhaps, with the arrival of the little one, it might be a good time for me to try and make the peace.’
Pattie hesitated. ‘I’ve tried, but she simply refuses to talk about you. She has a very one-track approach: her mother was a saint and you were a sinner. I don’t think Stanley helps, to be honest.’
Dmitri sighed. ‘And you?’ he asked. ‘Are you and Nicholas happy?’
‘He’s still suffering from the loss of Rosa. I don’t know how to snap him out of it,’ Pattie confided, ‘but I’ll keep trying.’
‘Tell him that he still has a father and that I’m here if ever he wants me.’ Dmitri had no advice to give her because he realised he hardly knew his adult son, could see few similarities between him and the little boy they had raised. It didn’t occur to him to pass on the advice that was helping him through his own grief: solitude, long walks, and the beauty of the outdoors.
In February 1956, on the first anniversary of Rosa’s death, Dmitri wrote heartfelt letters to both his children. He described his own strict upbringing back in Russia and apologised that he had been an emotionally distant father. He had tried to be different but somehow the childhood influences were too deeply ingrained and he found himself acting in ways that reminded him of his father, for which he was sorry with all his heart. He told them about the losses he had suffered during the Russian Civil War, including the disappearance of his wife, Tatiana, and the bouts of depression he had battled ever since. He tried to explain his sorrow at having to leave his homeland. It didn’t look as though he could ever return now that the Communist regime was so firmly rooted. It was even possible that Russia and America might try to blow each other to smithereens with their deadly atom bombs.
He told them that he and Rosa had loved each other dearly and been good partners to each other for over thirty years. And he explained that she had known from the early days he was already married to Tatiana, and had accepted the situation, had even wished them happiness after she had gone. Finally, in his letter to Marta, he wrote: ‘I know I have been a failure as a parent to you, but I did the best I could. I hope with all my heart that I will be allowed to meet the grandchild you are carrying. Please know that I love you deeply and will always be here if you want anything from me.’
From Nicholas there was no acknowledgement. Marta’s letter was torn into tiny pieces and sent back to him in the original envelope marked, in Stanley’s handwriting, ‘Return to sender’.
Chapter Sixty-Two
Brno, Czech Republic, 16th October 2016