4.4 Olga Meets Family

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4. Arrival

Stepping off plane, Olga feels happiness and awe, which her tight control suppresses. Boris takes her hand and walks beside her to the nearby building. Stopping before entrance that has white hammer & sickle on red background, she stretches and inhales. “Ooh, Boris love! What clean, fresh fragrant air! And so warm too! I thought Siberia is freezy cool?”
   “Olenka, this is not even south Siberia, and summer is warm but cooler than Tokyo.”

   They enter and a young woman sitting at desk in brown uniform looks up unsmiling. “Good evening, comrades, passports please.” When she sees Olga's Manchukuo passport, her eyebrows elevate. The observant Boris leans over and says something faintly in her left ear, then hands her a small document. She scans it and, still unsmiling, stamps the passport, hands it to Olga and indicates customs inspection inner door.

   Olga does not know what it is all about but it confirms for her that her Bo is a very special diplomat with an ‘in’ in high place. She inwardly smiles.

   Two young women in uniform do customs inspection. Then Olga follows Boris through shiny metal doors and sees a small crowd waiting. A 10-year-old girl in wide red necktie of Young Communist League Pioneer steps forward and hands Olga white roses, and then a middle-aged man in double-breasted blue suit and rows of colorful medal ribbons over chest steps forward and Olga offers back of right hand and gets it kissed. Then he embraces Boris. He is the local commissar.
   Quietly standing behind the greeting group is an older couple that Olga at once knows are the parents of Boris. Eyes meet and Olga relaxes from an anxiety that Boris's parents would be hostile to a Eurasian White Russian daughter-in-law.  
   What she sees in their eyes is intelligence and recognition that in Olga's outward appearance and manner of conducting herself they recognize the qualities of an acceptable wife for their son. After brief formalities, Boris and Olga, and the 2 oriental-looking Manchu porters with valises, follow his parents to a model T Ford.    
   Strangely, no introduction is spoken, because Boris's family does not show outward emotion or engage in small talk. His parents’eyes meeting Olga's acknowledge each other as what might be termed ‘our people’ and Boris has not missed the interchange. They sit, Boris in driver seat, Olga on his right and parents in rear. Boris turns so he faces them. 
   “Beloved Mama and Papa, please meet my Olenka. You know her from letters and photos. Olga Ivanovna, please meet Alexei Stepanovitch and Vera Nikolaevna.”
   Boris is following Russian custom of formal and familiar use of given name and patronymic. In English it is equivalent to “Olga, Ivan’s daughter”, the feminine -na differentiating daughter from masculine -itch, ‘son of'. In friendly settings, Russians enjoy using given names and as sign of affection. Their preference for given names extends even to members of family so Boris in formally introducing Olga to his mother says ‘Vera’

   Vera herself is 55, tall with handsome nose. Her high cheekbones and face of faded beauty might remind of Greta Garbo after the Hollywood movie, Anna Karenina. She wears inexpensive and well-used brown flannel coat and brimmed straw hat. Shoes are simple-laced flats, made in Moscow, which is to say on the shabby side.
   Vera Nikolaevna is well educated, of Jewish lineage, but as with Karl Marx her father gave up Judaism for Christianity when Vera was age 5. Her interests lie in psychology, she has doctorate in the Frenchman's Binet's work with IQ and that was her specialty when she met Alexei. Now she is more housewife but still teaches. She is a goodhearted practical woman who loves art. And she knows how to evaluate a person quickly. And what she now sees tells her: This is a gem perhaps too bright for my Boris; let me get to know her for my own delight.
   She says “My dear Olga I hope you will forgive my boy that he has not remarked your art but it happens that singing in popular style – the songs of Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Noel Coward – frowned upon here because the people have been too busy building our new society – is of great interest to a heretic like me.” Vera laughs at her daring word. “I happen to be a dilettante of the vocal style – the chansons of France, the Billie Holidays of America and I have your recording of Blue Moon, your Russian version.” Vera pulls a recording disc in glossy paper sheath and shows it to Olga who bends over the backrest to inspect the evidence of her recent debut as international recording artiste. She smiles in happy surprise on hearing Vera's interest in her art, having envisioned Vera as a grotesque Soviet mama and now finding her to be a warm cultured lady with somber, mature beauty.
   Olga signs the recording then extends right hand and grasps Vera's. “Madame, I cannot say anything. I am overwhelmed by you – my dearest Boris's mama – being so kind at first meeting and I hope I can be what you say. Please receive my wholehearted thanks.”

   “But call me ‘Vera,’ my soon daughter-in-law.” Vera squeezes Olga's hand and – in an unusual gesture – leans forward and hugs Olga, kissing her left cheek then turns to her husband who has been following the interchange attentively, “And here is Alexei, my life partner and I shall give him center stage.”

   Alexei Stepanovitch is shorter than his wife and his face reminds of Emile Zola the great French writer. Stocky with hair color slate-gray and the clipped short-and-thick, still brown mustache, his pince-nez glasses give a scholarly look that fits his being an astronomer drafted by the government as research rocket scientist. He is in the Russian Far East because Chairman Stalin, from his Soviet-spy reports of the Nazi secret rocket works, recognizes the need for Russia to develop rocket research.

   Alexei is dressed in a near shabby suit. It is blue serge and he wears it with old-fashioned high-collar. Definitely the professor type probably absent-minded and Olga imagines him looking all over for his pince-nez eyeglasses and Vera walking in and finding them swung up behind his neck.
   Alexei is brief. “Olga Ivanovna it is an honor to make your acquaintance. As you see, I am not given to effusive vocabulary and emotions so allow me simply to say I pride myself on viewing stars in the sky so I know when I see one on Earth. Welcome to our world, we think it adequate but of course you do not have to agree.”
   He extends right hand and Olga shakes it vigorously. Feeling the warmth of his life-force in his hand she thinks, “Here is another of my people, a real human, no bullshitter.”

   Introductions completed, Boris turns back to attend to driving. He twists ignition key and engine growls, sputters and catches, giving steady purring rumble as he allows it to warm before stepping on gas pedal. And they are on the way with first stop the Parus Hotel. They drive along without talk, a surprise to Olga so used to making conversation. And as she realizes that with Vera and Alexei such talk is as unnecessary as it is unexpected, it gives her a quiet satisfaction. Here are family who do not expect talk to entertain or put up a false front; here she is just Olga daughter of Ivan and fellow country woman, fiancé of oldest son and soon new daughter-in-law and hopefully mother of grandchildren. She settles back and looks out window on her right as Vera points the more interesting sights.
   To read the next, click 4.5 Soviet Saving Time on Streets of Khabarovsk