Author's note: From « But Let It Go » arc.
Second story with a title from « Anastasia » but today is the anniversary of the deaths of the Romanovs, and my sister and I watched that film since she'd apparently never seen it but it's one of my favorites. I've always pictured in my mind Vanya going to see « Anastasia » with his daughter and eldest grandson when the film came out. It's such a simple, non-historical film but it has a happy ending and I really believe he would have loved that, just to think it could have ended better.
So here you go, Anya and her father's dealing with their deaths.
Journey to the Past
Papa's always gotten quiet around the middle of July. When she was younger, no one would tell Anya why: Mama would smile and Auntie Irunya would give her a hug and Uncle Gil would lift her high and carry her far, far away from her father. Everyone would seemingly avoid Papa in those days where the sun was high and Anya always somehow managed a sunburn on the tip of her nose.
At night she would sneak out of her room quietly to peak around the corner, to see Mama holding Papa and kissing him. They'd disappear into their room and Anya would put her ear to the door, hearing quiet breathing and gasps of, "Vanya!" before there was silence followed by gentle words of, "They wouldn't want you to be upset; they'd be happy to see you with a family."
During those days, Papa wouldn't call Anya Anya; she'd be called instead by her very proper name, Anastasiya. And if she did what Mama said she wasn't to, which was to go seek out Papa even though nothing could make him happy, then Papa would lift her up and hold her tight, hugging her without saying anything beyond, "Anastasiya. My beautiful, perfect, little Anastasiya."
One time when she was seven Papa cried and so Anya kissed away his tears. He'd laughed and kissed her sunburnt nose and made her promise to never leave him. Anya swore she never would.
In Paris, just after Francis's birthday, the Frenchman had asked about her father and what he did in the middle of July.
"He gets quiet," Anya had murmured. "No one would ever tell me why."
Francis had sighed and handed her an article clipped decades earlier from the paper: the death of the Romanovs.
"You were named for that one," the man had whispered, pointing to a young girl in a beautiful dress. "Anastasiya. She loved your father most; she was his last hope."
Now Papa is trying to smile through the pain his daughter knows he bears, sitting on the couch with an energetic Martie on his lap chatting up a storm.
"He looks like his father," Mama says softly to Anya, Nika on her lap eating a piece of cheese. Sitting the younger woman looks at her sleeping baby in her arms, smiling. "I wonder who your girls will grow to look like."
"Mama?" The name sounds childish to her ears, what her children call her, but she cannot call her mother by any other name. When she was pregnant with Martie her parents had sat her down to have a conversation about their family, about how her parents wanted to always be there, that Anya was their blessing and they took that very seriously. Then they had said Anya could refer to them by their given names, Vanya and Erzsi, but she had insisted she couldn't. They were Papa and Mama, even if now at thirty-three she was seemingly ten years older than them.
"Yes Anya?" The Hungarian woman smiles sweetly.
"Mama, is he fine with this? Really? I don't want to upset him–"
"He's gotten better," her mother cuts in, understanding immediately her daughter's words. "He can freely mourn them, speak about them, read about them. He's working on a timeline," and Mama smiles. "About their last days. Vanya is the only one left to record it in such details, and I think that gives him some sort comfort, to know that he is telling their story."
"Was he there?" Anya mouthes but her mother shakes her head.
"You should hear about that from your father, not me." A hand reaches across the table to hold her wrist. When Anya's green gaze meets her mother's, the Hungarian smiles. "He will tell you everything you ask of him. You are his daughter; you are his everything."
Her husband stays home with the girls, Anya kissing him at the door. "Have fun," he murmurs in Hungarian before stealing a second kiss, Martie tugging on his mother's arm.
"Less kissing, more walking!" the boy demands, making his parents laugh. As they move to rejoin her parents, Papa scoops Martie up, kissing his cheek with a solemn face.
"Come on," Mama says happily, taking Anya's arm. "Let's go or we'll be late for the film."
"So excited!" and Martie keeps chatting the whole way there: down the block, two stops on the métro, then another block to the theater. "I hope they have wear the fancy dresses with their crowns and jewelry. Oh and maybe they'll have accents like Déduška's! Déduška, Déduška, do you remember what it was like?" Martie buries his face in his grandfather's shoulder, Anya looking over her shoulder to see her father's face fall.
"I remember."
They settle in, Martie between his mother and grandmother, Mama explaining how he'll have to be quiet and if it's scary, he isn't to worry, Déduška will protect them.
Looking to her left Anya watches her father settle in beside her, seemingly uncomfortable as he constantly shifts. Finally he pauses and Anya lays her head on his shoulder, wrapping her arms around one of his and kissing his cheek. "Thank you for coming with us," she whispers in hushed Russian. "Martie can't do anything Russian without his Déduška."
An arm is wrapped around her shoulders, Papa kissing her forehead and hugging her strongly. "I love you Anastasiya," is all he says.
Martie is now permanently on her lap, hugging her mother close and gasping as the film nears its conclusion. Mama had moved down to take the empty spot, Papa still sitting with his arm around Anya.
At the end Martie stands, shouting, "Woo!" The women laugh and even Papa manages a chuckle, lifting his grandson high into the air and joyfully kissing him, the lights coming on.
"You liked?"
"Déduška, is that the tsar I've seen you in pictures with?" Anya casts a weary glance towards her mother, expecting her father's face to fall. Instead the Russian nation smiles wide.
"Do you want me to tell you about him and his family when we get home?"
"Yes please!" and Martie throws his arms around Papa's neck.
In the living room Papa sits on the floor with his scrapbook of photos, quietly explaining in simple words for Martie who each person is and what he remembers about them. Nika sits on the couch looking over her grandfather's head. Baby and father sit at the kitchen table, Mama helping Anya make dinner.
And when everyone is fed and put to bed, her mother and husband sitting out on the balcony to discuss Hungarian economic policies, Anya curls up on the couch beside her father with his scrapbook still out.
"Shall I tell you about them too?" the Russian asks, smiling bittersweetly.
Anya nods.
"They were my family," Papa starts. "This was my brother, this, my brother's wife." Fingers trace fondly over the pictures. "This was my nephew, these were my nieces. I loved them more than I'd ever loved anyone.
"They made me whole."
Her husband is the first one up to feed the baby, Anya shortly joining him. Yet on her way to the kitchen she passes her yawning companion who kisses her joyfully. "I've been relieved of duty," and with that he disappears back into their bedroom.
At the kitchen table, taking in a large photograph with a baby cooing in his arms, sits her father.
"Crêpe?" Anya asks quietly and when her father's purple eyes look up he's smiling wide.
"That sounds wonderful."
In silence she prepares the batter, setting it aside in the fridge to chill; Francis had always said that was the trick to making them perfectly. "What are you looking at?" She comes to stand beside her father, wrapping her arms around his neck and bending down.
"I wanted you to have this," Papa says, gesturing to the photograph. "I've always intended on giving it to you, but simply never found the day before this one." In the black and white picture a young lady in a simple but sweet dress stands behind Papa, her arms wrapped around his neck much the way Anya has hers, the way she has ever since she was tall enough to do so at his chair in the dining room back in Gorky. And her father's arms, they're holding an array of wild flowers that Anya can imagine this girl picking; perhaps they later made the flowers into a crown to wear. "When I think of her, I think of this day here," and the Russian taps the photograph's corners. The woman understands he means that this is Anastasiya Nikolayevna, for whom she was named.
"I still have their ribbons," the Russian continues and Anya watches him speak, reaching down to rest a hand on her baby girl. "The ones from the balls that they gave me, they form a rainbow of colors. I have the drawings they made me, photographs of the girls around me, or me out and about with Alexei. Nikolay always said something about Alexei reminded him of me." Papa chuckles.
There will be time, Anya knows, for the stories, for details, for history lessons. There will be time for Anya to learn all the names and faces, before Papa teaches her children, and then one day her children's children.
For now though, the woman kisses her father's head. "I will have it framed tomorrow." Then she stands to make the crêpes.
"Anastasiya?" her father calls after her and turning she sees him smile wide.
"Yes Papa?"
"Thank you." Maybe next year he won't be so quiet around the middle of July, Anya thinks.