NOT AN EASY LIFE

by Ludmila Karkhu

Svetlana and I have known one another for a long time, since our student days at Leningrad University. Her friend and future husband, Herman, was in my class in the school of journalism, while Svetlana studied in the department of philology. Nice-looking, always tastefully dressed, she was elegant in any setting and at the same time surprised one by her modesty and desire not to stand out among others. Already then, she seemed wise in life experience and could do a lot of things. She could sew herself a new outfit, redecorate her room, prepare classy food out of nothing. She attracted people by her quiet pleasant manner of communicating, and her attitude to her fellow students had a certain motherly concern. It seemed then that life would be easy on her and in my thoughts I wished Svetlana well. But life took its own path. Rarely did I rejoice for her and very often I was amazed at her strength in with standing the blows of fate and at her firm character, patience and endurance. These had become the classic traits in Russian women of any generation including ours, whose youth and maturity came during the so-called "years of stagnation" [the late l970's and early l980's -- editor] followed by perestroika. As so often in Russia, the daughter trod the same life path as her mother. This particular Belorussian family lost its breadwinners during the war -- father and son killed on the front. Their house burned down. The widow was left with four little children including the one who would become Svetlana's mother. As a girl, she wanted so much to study, but the war got in the way. She married a fellow from the neighboring prosperous village and went with him to the construction sites of socialism to rebuild the war-torn country. They returned home when she was in her ninth month of pregnancy. Unexpectedly she heard her mother-in-law reprimanding her son for his choice of a bride from a poor family, and she silently gathered her belongings and went back to her own village. No matter how much they later tried to persuade her -- and the father came over many times after Svetlana's birth -- she did not return to his house. A year later she married a second time and the family went to the far north of Russia. Svetlana was an able student and an activist in the Pioneers and the Komsomol [the Communist Party sponsored youth organizations -- editor]. She loved both math and literature. After graduation it was all the same to her where she went to continue her studies. Friends told her after the graduation dance that they had an extra train ticket to Leningrad and she went with them out of a feeling of companionship and community. Her mama thought it was useless to aspire to a Leningrad higher education, that she wasn't up to it, but after a stormy conversation, she put some money on the table and said, "Do what you want!"The competition was very stiff to get into Russian language and literature in the philology department of Leningrad University. Svetlana lacked half a point. She remembered that as a child she had corresponded with a girl from Czechoslovakia, and so she chose the Slavic section and in particular Czech language and literature. Those student days were the best, Svetlana says. We had wonderful teachers. Our little group was like one family. More than 20 years have passed and we still get together. And Leningrad won our hearts, we will always love that city. After university Svetlana and Herman could not stay in Leningrad; they were not registered there and without that you couldn't get work or housing. Herman was assigned to Murmansk [ in the Soviet period in return for a free education, students were assigned to their first jobs, often in remote places -- editor]. Svetlana, just as her mother had done, went with her husband to the far north. Is this not a sacrifice? You set out for an unknown place with no guarantee of work, but knowing that it's hardly likely that in Murmansk they'll be needing a specialist in Czech language and literature. "What do you mean, a sacrifice," Svetlana says, genuinely dumbfounded. "I went with my beloved and if I were starting over, I would do the same thing. I was trained as a military translator and if I had chosen a career instead of Herman, I would have gone to Czechoslovakia where our soldiers were then stationed under the Warsaw Pact. What awaited me there? To be someone's potential wife. I knew that even if I myself didn't want that, they would organize it for me. And that's not in my character. If I had gone such a route, that would have been a sacrifice. And for what? For the sake of our army or the highest echelons of Soviet power? I did what I wanted because I believe the saying that "heaven can be in a cabin, as long as your soulmate is with you." Murmansk turned out to be an intermediate stop for the young couple. Soon Herman was obliged to transfer to Monchegorsk, a provincial city with a population of 70,000, to work for three years as a correspondent for the regional newspaper. As a communist he had to do it because this was the party's decision. Sveta understood that there it would be even harder for her to find fulfillment professionally, but she and her husband hoped to return to Murmansk after three years, and then she would find a job to her liking. Although not happy about being exiled to Monchegorsk, they were not depressed. Sveta found work in the school library and Herman through his reporting illuminated the construction projects that were underway. A second daughter was born. Life was rich and full-blooded. Svetlana did not expect anything bad, although she knew that Herman had an ailing heart. He died at 3l, a month before a planned operation in a Moscow clinic. At 27 Svetlana was a widow with two children. "I didn't realize at first how lonely my life had become. I hadn't had friends of my own, just Gera [short for Herman in Russian -- editor] and his friends." She did her daily tasks, getting up at 6:30, dressing her daughters and taking them to kindergartens at different ends of town, then to work in the library. A school library is like a conveyor of textbooks and by evening she was exhausted, yet she still had to rush to the store, to the kindergartens to pick up her daughters, to prepare supper and put the children to bed and wash the dishes and the clothes by hand (she still doesn't have a washing machine) and prepare the children's clothes for the morning. At a certain point, internally she stopped altogether being involved in this race. Inside was emptiness. Like a robot, Svetlana had been mechanically carrying out her tasks and was not even noticing people. Her mother came and saw how she was living and said, "You are losing the children." At that, Sveta regained consciousness. She understood that she had to change her job so as to have strength and time to look after herself and her children. She transferred to the library of the party's city committee, thereby taking a loss of nearly half her salary. Svetlana was never guided by ideology or religious dogma. She acted from everyday considerations, and she knew that in the party's library the pace of work was less stressful, and that's what attracted her. To her great surprise she discovered that there were some interesting and educated people working in those party offices, and it was personal contact with such people that she had lacked since the death of her husband. Her new workplace was very satisfying. She handled her work with ease. The library's collection was varied, there were books that interested her. The staff there at the party committee liked her and genuinely wanted to help. She managed to pick up the girls from school on time, to feed them and take them to extracurricular activities, and in the evening to assist them with their homework. A thought then came to her: "It's not natural for children to be in a single parent family. They see mama doing everything herself and they'll grow up convinced that a man isn't need in the home." Her second marriage did not come out of strong emotions. Svetlana simply wanted to get out from under her feeling of loss, of incomplete family. She didn't set very high standards for a second husband: not an alcoholic, someone honest and decent who stood by his word. Thus did Uncle Volodya come into the family. And her problems grew tenfold. Her new husband had lived alone for a long time after his first marriage and he had to be readapted to family relations. Besides, it turned out he was in bad health. She thought her library position was secure, but it wasn't. The party committee got a new leader, and every meeting began with the comment that a non-party woman was working in the party library. Then in l99l the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ceased to exist and Svetlana was unemployed. She got work of the lowest rank in the savings bank, as the comptroller's student-assistant. Then she became comptroller herself and head of the section. She took a course at the Financial-Economic Academy in St. Petersburg and did an internship in a bank in Finland. She worked for a few years in a government office at a job she tired of, because it was just carrying out instructions with no part in decision-making. She then became the accountant for a private firm where the salary was higher and she had more independence in her work. This firm helps pay her daughters' education in St. Petersburg. Besides, says Svetlana, "I really appreciate that the men directors here understand that I have an old sick mother and my husband's parents who are over 70. If something happens to them, I know that at this workplace they will help me." When I was writing this piece, Svetlana and I spent several evenings talking and trying to answer the questions, "Why did life go this way and not some other way? and "Is she a victim or a victor?" "I never set high goals for myself. What was required of me came quickly and easily, things fell into place. The right people appeared at the time they were needed. I understand that professionally I am capable of more, but in a small city it is hard to find professional fulfillment. That's why I want my daughters to have big possibilities for fulfillment. Still, the main thing for a human being is family -- one's support in joy and grief. It's your salvation when you are old and sick and lonely. Both my marriages were normal ones, though they came out of very different considerations and impulses. Of course marriage is a heavy burden. The mentality of the Russian woman does not permit her to burden her husband with everyday home matters. Moreover my husbands both turned out to have poor health. But no one is insured against illness, and to leave a sick person helpless is betrayal," Svetlana said in conclusion. She gets to work by nine and returns toward nine in the evening. She has to deliver the accounts to the boss on time, keep up with payments for the girls' education, procure a hard-to-get medicine for her husband, telephone to another city to look after her mother's health problems. Her life goes on as responsibility and duty to her near and dear ones. Monchegorsk