Itsy Bitsy Spider—The Age of Lost Innocence—Book One
Only the unbreakable ones made it out of the Red Room alive. Out of the marble two figures were carved whose lives would forever become twisted in a tangled web of lies, murder, and deceit.
A/N: Forewarning that there is some violence toward the end of this chapter.
When Josef Stalin died in 1953, it is said that 1.5 million people crowded the Red Square where his body was put on display, entombed in the renamed Lenin-Stalin Masoleum. The crowds were so large that many people were crushed to death. Many of the people were there by order of the state; there was no love lost when he died. The exact number of lives ended on the dictator's account was in dispute, but there was no doubt that that figure ran into the millions. It was a tragic irony that even as Stalin lay cold and unmoving in the square, he was causing death.
However, there were many others who regarded the man as a hero—the man who saved the U.S.S.R. from the vice-like grip of the Nazi regime, who stood firm when Hitler moved against them. For them, his death was truly a loss, for there would surely be no leader who could match his legacy. The day Stalin died marked the beginning of the decline of the Soviet Union.
Nikita Krushchev would become first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on September 14, 1953. For several years, he remained locked in a power struggle among those with whom he shared power, but after his February 25, 1956 "Secret Speech," denouncing Stalin's purges, he emerged victorious, and thus began the Krushchev Thaw, which ushered in a less repressive era in the Soviet Union.
Those who remained loyal to Stalin lamented this, but did not act, for in 1964, Krushchev was removed from power and replaced by Leonid Brezhnev. The de-Stalinization of Russia was halted during the Brezhnev period. The Stalinists became complacent, and during Brezhnev's tenure, the global influence of the Soviet Union grew dramatically, in large part due to the expansion of the military. And while the Era of Stagnation, a period of little to no economic or social growth, began under his rule, opinion polls in Russia would later show Brezhnev to be the most popular Russian leader of the 20th century.
The beginning of the end began when Mikhail Gorbachev took office. While Gorbachev's political initiatives were positive for freedom and democracy in the Soviet Union and its Eastern bloc allies, his economic policies gradually brought the country close to disaster. By the end of the 1980s, the war-time system of distribution using food cards that limited each citizen to a certain amount of product per month was re-introduced. August of 1991 would bring the Soviet Union coup d'état attempt, and on December 26, the day after Gorbachev resigned from office, Boris Yeltsin became president, the Soviet Union flag was lowered from the Kremlin one last time, and the Soviet Union was no more.
The declaration of the dissolution of the Soviet Union acknowledged the independence of the former Soviet republics and created the Commonwealth of Independent States and with it the disbanding of the KGB, the Soviet Union's main security agency… or so we thought.
Natalia Alianovna Romanova was born to Sergey and Anastasia Romanova on November 22, 1984 at 00:13 (or 12:13am) in the small town of Budyonnovsk in the south of Russia. It was a night of a blood moon.
Sergey's and Anastasia's childhoods were spent under the Stalinist regime. Their parents had both been staunch supporters of the dictator and it was a passion that they would pass onto their children—and their children's children.
Natalia's childhood started out normal enough—her parents would dote on their only daughter and praise her as the future of a better Russia—but all that began to change with the economic crisis of the late 1980s. Food and money were hard to come by and much of the country was in dire straits. Her father worked at the lumber mill and her mother tended a large vegetable garden at home, selling the produce at the local market. Both of them lost a lot of business, and they really felt the strain of the failing economy. Even to this day, Natalia could recall—of what little she could of this period in her life—her parents cursing Mikhail Gorbachev's name. Though too young to fully understand, her parents saw Gorbachev as everything that was wrong with the country, while Stalin had represented everything that was right.
Tensions were rising within Mother Russia and across the Eastern bloc and it was only a matter of time before things boiled over.
In December of 1991, the Soviet Union was dissolved, but the damage of the economic crisis and the U.S.S.R.'s crippling of the non-Russian/Armenian/Ukrainian populace had already been done. Undeclared civil war broke out in the Chechen Republic in 1994. The conflict would spill over into Russia in what would later be called the First Chechen War and wouldn't end until almost two years later in 1996.
On the morning of 14 June 1995, Anastasia Romanova was taking Natalia's temperature. The little red head had woken up with a small cough and sore throat, complaining that she was not feeling well.
Anastasia pulled the thermometer from her daughter's mouth and frowned. "Hmmm. It looks like you've got a bit of a fever, Голубушка," 1 then she smiled softly and leaned down to whisper conspiratorially, "Would you like to stay home from school today?"
Natalia looked up at her mother with tired green eyes, but nodded enthusiastically, afraid talking would make her sore throat worse. It wasn't that she didn't enjoy school; on the contrary, she was very bright and excelled in all of her subjects, but for that very reason, most of her classmates did not hold her in high regard. Learning was both a joy and a secret agony, something that seemed to come much easier to her than to the rest of her schoolmates.
Anastasia jerked her head in the direction of Natalia's room. "Okay. Why don't you go lie down and get some sleep, and I will make you some soup, huh? Go on then." Natalia didn't need to be told twice and softly padded to her room to climb under the sheets. Warmth enveloped her and her eyelids fluttered shut; soon enough the gentle swell of sleep swept over her and carried her off into slumber.
Natalia woke later in the afternoon thirsty with the smell of her mother's soup wafting into the bedroom. Her stomach let out a small growl alerting her to the fact that she was hungry as well. She shuffled into the living room blinking profusely as her eyes adjusted to the light. Her mother had the TV tuned into the national news. Anastasia stood behind the couch with one hand on her hip and the other brandishing a spoon with a scowl on her face as she took in the latest on the Russian-Chechen conflict. As soon as she heard Natalia enter the room, however, she turned her attention to her daughter, her expression softening into one of concern.
"Ah, my sleeping beauty awakes. Did you sleep well?" Natalia nodded. "Are you hungry?" The young girl's head bobbed more vigorously. "Well let's get some nice, hot soup in that tummy. Take a seat; I'll get you a bowl."
Natalia sat down at the kitchen table, her attention fully focusing on news on the television. President Boris Yeltsin was delivering a speech at the Kremlin, promising the Russian people that he was going to bring the First Chechen War to a swift end.
Her mother set a steaming bowl of the aromatic soup and a cup of water before Natalia before her attention too was drawn to the announcement. Natalia could sense a rant coming on and sure enough, she was right: "Would you look at that Дурак2—promising things he can't deliver on. Just as bad as Gorbachev, but at least Yeltsin didn't tank the economy. It really is a shame that your generation will never know how great Russia used to be." Natalia absorbed her mother's words, but said nothing. Anastasia reached over the table and grasped her daughter's chin between her thumb and forefinger, a far-off look on her face. "But I have high hopes for you, Голубушка. I just know that you're meant for something great. You are Russia's future."
Natalia ate the rest of her meal in silence and when she was finished her mother took the dirty dishes to the sink to wash. The young red head contemplated her mother's words. It wasn't the first time her mother had said something like that, but for some reason, on this day, she really felt the heaviness of what she had said. Her ruminations were cut short when the phone rang. A glance at the clock told Natalia it was 14:12. Was it the school calling to find out where she was? She pricked her ears so she could hear what her mother was saying.
"да?" 3 her mother answered the phone. A pause and then, "This is she. What's happened?" Silence fell through the house as the person on the other end spoke; a chill fell down Natalia's spine that had nothing to do with her illness. Her mother spoke again sounding alarmed. "Is he all right?" Pause. "He's just been admitted?" Pause. "I'll be right there." The clack of the phone in the cradle told Natalia that the phone call had ended and she turned toward her mother expectantly and immediately her dread compounded. Her mother suddenly look like she had aged ten years, her eyebrows puckered in worry.
"Grab your shoes, Голубушка. That was the hospital just now; your father's been in some kind of accident. We're going down there to meet him."
Despite the mental fog that Natalia had woken up to, she bolted to her room to do as her mother asked, her body now on full alert. Was her daddy hurt badly? Shoes on, she rushed back into the living room where her mother was already waiting by the door. Anastasia gave her daughter a quick glance over before nodding her approval and ushering Natalia out the door. The hospital was a twenty-minute walk from the house and as Sergey took their only car to work, her mother set a brisk pace for the duo.
"I'm sorry to do this to you when you're sick, Nati," her mother looked down at her as she spoke, "but I can't very well leave you alone in the house."
"It's okay, Мама," 4 Natalia whispered, grabbing her mother's hand to offer what little comfort she could.
They reached the hospital at 14:40 and as they entered the hospital doors, it was only then that Natalia realized that she could hear heavy gunfire in the distance, toward the city hall. She didn't have much time to get too concerned as her mother dragged her into the reception area and toward the front desk.
"Excuse me?" Her mother queried in a worried tone. "I'm looking for my husband, Sergey Romanova. I received a call that he's been admitted here?"
The receptionist looked up at Anastasia with a bored expression on her face, placing a clipboard with forms on the counter. "Fill these out for me. Your husband Sergey came in about thirty minutes with a deep laceration in the forearm. Looks like it got caught up in one of the saws at the mill. They're doing some blood work now to test for tetanus and hepatitis and the like and he'll need stitches, but other than that, he'll live," the receptionist stated in a deadpan tone.
Anastasia visibly relaxed and looked at Natalia before starting to fill out the forms. "Did you hear that, Nati? Your dad's going to be fine. He's just got himself a nasty cut." Natalia nodded but glared the ten-year-old version of daggers at the receptionist, who naturally paid her no heed. Her daddy was hurt and she was bored? The young girl's attention was diverted when she heard a commotion outside, but like before was not given long to question it before a nurse came out to show them back to the emergency department where Sergey was being held.
"Come along, Natalia," her mother called out to her. "Your father is going to want to see you."
Natalia gave the hospital doors one last inquisitive look before jogging to catch up to her mother. "Мама, did you hear that?" She asked, voice scratchy.
"Hear what, Голубушка?"
"All that noise outside. I started hearing it when we got here, but now it sounds like it's closer."
"I'm sure it's just an ambulance that's just arrived. Come on, this way." Anastasia led them into a room with several beds in it separated by curtains, and sitting on one of the beds, looking impatient, was Natalia's father Sergey, right arm wrapped in bandages right up to the elbow. Anastasia rushed to her husband to give him a hug and a kiss, while Natalia hung back. "Oh Sergey, how did this happen?"
"Calm down, Лапочка," 5 Sergey groused, his good arm wrapping around his wife's shoulder. "I was showing the new guy the ropes when one of the machines malfunctioned. Cut myself on the damn thing trying to fix it." At that moment the doctor on duty, clipboard in hand, came in and Sergey turned his attention to him. "Well, doc? Am I going to live?"
It was immediately after this moment that several things happened at once. Screams started to rent the air as Chechen rebels stormed through the halls of the hospital guns drawn. The doctor turned around to see what all the commotion was about and before he could get a word out, one of the rebels stepped into the doorframe, raised his gun, and shot the doctor straight through the head. Blood splattered on the family and Sergey quickly grabbed his daughter and pulled her and his wife behind him. Anastasia was screaming and the Chechen rebel pointed his gun at her head.
"Quiet, Шлюха!"6 the man growled in Russian. "Or you're next."
Natalia was numb; her ears were ringing with the sound of the gunshot. From behind her father she stared wide-eyed as the doctor's blood pooled around his head as he lay prone on the floor. Was this it? Was this the end?
1 Голубушка [ga-LOO-boosh-ka] my dear
2 Дурак [durak] a fool
3 да [da] yes
4 Мама [mama] mom
5 Лапочка [[LA-poch-ka] darling, sweetheart
6 Шлюха [shlyoo-huh] whore