My parents met one night at a party.
My father, Viktor Mihaylov was a famed scientist. My mother, Rozalina Kravec was the daughter of a banker. They fell in love at once, so they say. For five years, they had to wait for me, their Tatyana Veronika Mihaylov. I was born apparently on a night when the winter had stayed for an extra-long period of time, and my mother said that there was a power outage that caused me to be brought into the world by candle light. All of my family celebrated the first daughter to be born to the Mihaylovs in three generations, and it seemed like the world was perfect then.
It wasn't.
Even I'm not sure the exact reason why we left, but my parents and father's parents and my mother's mother and grandmother managed to escape Russia with me. It wasn't easy and there were close calls, but we all got out of there alive and well.
I'm told that the moment we got to America, I asked my mom (I was five at the time) if I could go back to Russia to get my other dolls.
"Net," she had answered me softly. "We are in the land of free my daughter. We must begin anew."
And they did. My father didn't work as a scientist anymore, but my grandfather got a position at a bank and we were sort-of as well off as we were in Russia. My mother was a seamstress for a time before she became a receptionist by luck. My grandmother Nadia and great-grandmother Polina stay at home knitting and talking about 'mother Russia' and their lives. Sometimes there's a story or two, my favorite is about the Witch Babayaga. But mostly they just miss their motherland and refuse to speak anything but Russian.
My grandparents on my father's side are a bit different. My grandfather Sasha is a real penny-pincher, and lives by Benjamin Franklin's saying 'a penny saved is a penny earned', meaning my allowance has to be sneaked by my grandmother Valentina. Yes I know I have a large and complicated family. Bear with me please!
My life is comprised of baseball, borscht and Bruce Springsteen's song 'Born in the USA'. I can sing it in both English and Russian, which is cool in my turns. The problem is the growing tensions between this country and my 'homeland'. People don't trust me because I'm Russian, and to them that means I'm a sleeper agent or something crazy like that. Me? I'd laugh since I'm so skinny that I could be blown over by a good gust of wind.
Anyways, trouble really began just the other day, when I was in school. And I did something I should not have done:
I spoke Russian.
Yes it's not a major crime but it's still a family rule that when out in public to be respectful of the land we now live in and speak English. And boy-oh-boy, did my dad have some things to say when he overheard me teaching one of my friends a new language.
"How could you Ana?!" He was ranting in our car as he drove me home. "We have specifically told you zat talking in original language is forbidden!"
"Mne zhal'." I apologized, looking down at my Mary Janes.
He sighed aloud. "Mne zhal', chto moya doch' tozhe. It is just that we are afraid for your safety."
"Will I get grounded?"
"Net. I think your mother's borscht is enough of one."
I groaned aloud, and my father chuckled. He's a handsome man, my father. He had dark brown, wavy hair, a sculpted body and a moustache. He could be formidable to any boy that came over to see me, but he was a really big softy. We pulled up to my house and armed with schoolwork, I trudged in. Our house opens up into a porch and then into this large living room with a coloured TV, a large floral couch and two pale green sitting chairs. That's where my Babushka (grandmother) Nadia and Prababushka (great-grandmother) sat, knitting as always.
"Privet babushke!" Here, I was free to speak Russian or English. "Privet prababushka!"
"Dobryy den' moy podarok." Babushka Nadia greeted me. She calls me 'her gift' since I'm her only granddaughter. She clasped my hands tightly, letting go of her knitting. Her hands are soft and she smelled like cinnamon.
"Have you been baking again?"
"Da." She smiled up at me. "Good food. Much good food!" They don't speak much English, and what they do it's stilted. They're always insisting I speak Russian to them, which I do. "Sweets for moy podarok."
"Tatyana is that you?" My mother came in. She's a very unique woman, let me tell you that. She can bounce from being strictly Russian to openly American in one hour flat. She lets me listen to American music but insists that at home I stick to my roots. Even though I was five years old when we left Moscow. "There you are! Come, do your homework, and do not go onto that run-boy until you are done!"
"Er, you mean my walkman?"
"Yes, your walking man." Like I said, Russian. "And remember, you have to practice!"
"All right mom." It's best not to argue with her.
My room is small, but it's really nice. It's painted a light dusty rose, with my father's old oak desk, a side table with my ALF lamp and alarm clock on it, and my bed. My room, compared to my friend Liz's is actually pretty old-fashioned and 'juvenile' compared to hers. I don't have any neon colours (really, why give myself the headache?) except for a few pieces of fabric of the patchwork quilt Babushka Valentina made for me on my tenth birthday and some jelly bracelets I wear when I go to the mall.
In here also is where I keep my stash of tapes, a radio and my walkman under my bed, along with some Seventeen magazines that I would get in deep trouble for even bringing into the house (mom literally thinks that it's only for Seventeen-year-olds).
I'm not too bad at my homework, and actually I'm the teacher's pet in my Grade 9 science class so that easily takes care of my homework. However today I was completely distracted, over some of the gossip I had overheard in the girl's room.
It's everywhere nowadays. America just finished fighting in Vietnam, but now it's in a stand off against the Soviet Union, which is Russia. People all saying it's a Cold War, all based on nuclear missiles and bombs and the like. And looking around my room, at the Michael Jackson and E.T. posters hung along with the dried roses and the Russian texts brought to the country, I know that without a question of a doubt I'm caught between a rock and a hard place. I don't remember Moscow, I speak better English than Russian, and I love playing baseball and eating ice cream. However, I also speak Russian more than English, I (reluctantly) eat my mother's borscht, and I practice the kalinka dance, all for the sake of remembering the 'good things' about Russia.
I definitely am caught between two separate countries, it feels like somedays. But what's there to argue? I am still American, through and through even if I was born in the Soviet Union. So, case closed for now.
Once finished my homework, I decided to turn on one of my tapes -my usual favorite- Bruce Springsteen's 'Born in the USA'. Once the music began to pound out, I found myself swaying to the beat as his strong voice blasted through my speakers and I couldn't help but sing along.
"Born down in a dead man's town,
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground!
You end up like a dog that's been beat too much,
Till you spend half your life just covering up!
Born in the U.S.A.!
I was born in the U.S.A.!
I was born in the U.S.A.!
Born in the U.S.A.!"
I swung myself to the left, twirling and letting myself move around my bedroom, singing into my hairbrush.
"Got in a little hometown jam,
So they put a rifle in my hand!
Sent me off to a foreign land,
To go and kill the yellow man!
Born in the U.S.A.,
I was born in the U.S.A.!
I was born in the U.S.A.!
I was born in the U.S.A.!
Born in the U.S.A.!"
Good old music, you sure as heck do speak to me. I may have probably sang a couple bad sour notes but I just kept going, pretending it was actually me who was singing this song, in front of a crowd of thousands.
"Down in the shadow of penitentiary,
Out by the gas fires of the refinery!
I'm ten years burning down the road,
Nowhere to run ain't got nowhere to go!
Born in the U.S.A.!
I was born in the U.S.A.!
Born in the U.S.A.!
I'm a long gone daddy in the U.S.A.!
Born in the U.S.A.!
Born in the U.S.A.!
Born in the U.S.A.!
I'm a cool rocking daddy in the U.S.A.!"
The music began to fade and I finished with a bow, and then-
"Tatyana!" My mother walked in. "It is time for practice!"
I couldn't help but sigh. Sometimes I could never understand why I wasn't allowed to go to regular dance, instead one of the very few Russian families in this area taught me and two other girls, ages ten and eleven who don't speak a word of Russian themselves our cultural dance.
So, come an hour later I was strung up in a white blouse, a home made patchwork vest, blue skirt with floar trim, white stockings and red dance shoes, my brown hair pulled back and pinned up in a bun hidden beneath a red scarf. In all honesty, the dance is pretty fun, once you know all the steps. Unfortunately, I don't know all of them, so I practically look like a chicken with it's head cut off.
Okay maybe I don't know what one looks like but I'm pretty sure I fit the description. One minute, the music is slow, and then it goes fast, then slow again. It's tricky to follow and unless you know exactly where someone is going to be and where you're going you'll end up-
*WHAM!*
"OWWIE!"
Crash.
"Come on! Up now! Up! We start again!" Madam Krushuc instructed us as the two girls -Paulina and Opal- and me picked ourselves up off the floor with groans.
"Watch where you're going!" Paulina snapped at her younger sister.
"Me?! Watch where you're going you-"
"Dostatochno! " Madam Krushuc barked "Enough! We start again from top, no more arguing!"
That's like asking dogs and cats to get along, but who am I kidding? We started again, heels clacking against the floor below as the music began to play. We kept twisting, twirling, kicking, and weaving, but eventionally-
*WHAM!*
"OUCH!"
We were not getting anywhere any time fast. "All right, that is enough for today. Dismissed!" Madam Krushuc waved us off. With relieved sighs we raced into the little room off to the side to get changed, and while Paulina and Opal dressed themselves in neon, trendy clothing, I only wore my white blouse, jeans and my slip-on Vans. Hair freed of it's confines and half of it pulled into a gold scrunchie, I packed up my kalinka dance outfit and took off. I always walked home on one of these days, when the air was warm and I didn't have to head straight home. You eat borscht cold too you know (though it's a little gross).
However today, something just didn't... seem right. I felt like I was being watched. Paranoid, I looked around, but all I saw were cars parked everywhere. I passed by a yellow 'punchbuggy' as my friend Liz called it and paused again, feeling something still tailing me. Worried, I began a quick stride and glanced behind me-
There. A black sudan was going a little too slow for my liking. I began to run, fast, definitely not wanting to even begin to think of what sort of people were in that car. I just ran, zig-zagging back and forth, until finally I arrived a few blocks from my house. I looked over my shoulder, and saw no one. Okay, good.
As I approached my house, I couldn't help but notice that yellow punchbuggy was near my house... but no one was inside.
OK, weird. Enough, I told myself as I walked into my house. And guess what? Cold borscht was waiting for me. Oh joy.