Читать книгу Mummy, Come Home: The True Story of a Mother Kidnapped and Torn from Her Children - Oxana Kalemi - Страница 8

The snow cracked under the pram wheels as I pushed Sasha along the street. It was January 1994 and I was eight months pregnant with my second child. I was on my way to see Mamma in the early evening and my head was full of thoughts. So many things had happened since leaving Papa’s eighteen months before and none of them were happy.

Sergey and I had gone to the only place we could think of when we left Papa’s. He hadn’t been lying when he’d said that he’d rented out his parents’ house, so we couldn’t stay there. Instead, we moved into an outbuilding in the garden called the summer kitchen, a one-room stone building with no glass in the windows, no running water and no stove. I tried to make it a home but it was impossible: it was always cold, draughty and miserable. On top of that, Sergey obviously felt that now I had found out about his lies, there was no need to pretend any longer. His love for me seemed to have died the day I confronted him with the truth about himself and now I finally saw him for what he was—a drunk who hated work and would rather see his wife and child go hungry than give up the little money he earned doing odd jobs and bought vodka with. There were many days without food and it was hard caring for Sasha—nappies didn’t dry because the summer kitchen was so cold, his skin was raw and his stomach always empty.

Sergey and I rowed and fought all the time and one night, after a terrible fight when he flew at me with his fists, I knew I had to leave. I went back to Papa’s apartment that night, taking Sasha with me. I cried with relief when Papa welcomed us into the warmth and light of my old home. At last we were safe. Somehow, I’d start again and put Sergey out of my life.

But my happiness was cruelly short-lived. Two months later my dear father died quite suddenly at the age of only forty-six, worn out from a life of unrelenting hard work. I sobbed at his funeral, overwhelmed with sadness and guilt. I couldn’t help the awful feeling that I had killed him because of what I’d put him through. I had thrown all his kindness back in his face and it was my fault he was dead. My brother Vitalik soon returned to claim everything of Papa’s for himself. I saw enough to know he was taking drugs—he brought flowers to the house and cooked them in the kitchen, the house was full of needles and the smell of burning—and, as I looked into his empty eyes, knew he would never give me a penny. Sasha and I were alone again.

Soon Sergey found us. He had heard about my father’s death and returned, remorseful and crying, telling me that he loved me and the baby, and wanted us back. Things would be different, he promised. He’d stop drinking and find work, he’d make a proper home for us all. He loved me, he said, and was sorry for everything that had happened.

I believed him. I had to. In Ukraine, there was no help from the government for women like me so with no one to protect me, nowhere left to run and a child to care for, I had no choice. I had to trust that my husband was a reformed character. Besides, I couldn’t help loving him in spite of it all. The power of what I had felt for him once was still strong.

But within weeks I’d realised that Sergey hadn’t changed when I fell pregnant and he hated the baby from the moment it came to life inside me.

‘Who were you fucking when you were living with your father?’ he’d scream as we fought in that cold outbuilding while Sasha cried his heart out.

‘No one! I don’t want this baby either!’ I yelled back, weeping. It was true. I already had Sasha and we were living in such terrible circumstances—how could I care for another child? I decided I had to have an abortion but when the doctor told me it would cost me $15 I knew I could never find such money and realised I would have to try to rid myself of my unborn child. I lifted heavy furniture, had long hot baths and even pushed my fists into my stomach as I tried to loosen its hold on my body. But nothing happened and so I went to see an old lady who told me to soak dill in hot water before drinking it and another who gave me some tablets which she said would stop the pregnancy. Nothing worked.

But as the months passed, I gradually began to realise that my child was meant to come into the world. God wanted me to have another baby and I had to learn to love it. Deep down, though, I was scared of what it would be like when it was born. I had committed a terrible sin when I’d tried to kill my own child and was sure it would be born sick and full of anger just like me. The guilt which I felt then had never left me and even now—days before the baby was due—I still felt it.

Walking through the cold winter day, I breathed in a lungful of freezing air as I turned into the street where Mamma lived. A few nights before, Sergey had kicked me in the base of my swollen stomach before locking me out in the snow during an argument. He’d let me back inside eventually but I’d had to sleep on a chair because he said I was too fat to share his bed. It felt as if all he had done was beat me since this baby came to life inside me. Tonight I needed some food—bread maybe or eggs—and I hoped Mamma would have something to spare. I’d just had my eighteenth birthday and maybe she would feel kind towards me. The baby needed something and so did Sasha.

I put my head down as the cold wind blew into my face. It wasn’t far to go and then I would be inside. I just hoped Sasha would stay asleep and not anger Mamma with his crying.

When I arrived, I found my mother and her friends drunk as usual.

‘What do you want now?’ she bellowed, a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. ‘Look at you! You look like a sow.’

‘I just want something to eat…’I said. She grunted and I followed her into the warm kitchen where she put a loaf of bread and some cheese on the table in front of me. I ate it gratefully.

‘Why can’t that lazy oaf of a husband of yours provide for you? I knew he was rotten right from the start. How could you let him get you pregnant again? He can’t even look after one child, let alone two.’

‘He’ll beat me if I refuse him,’ I muttered.

She snorted. ‘Just don’t expect me to keep bailing you out, that’s all. I’ve got problems of my own. I can’t afford to feed you and your brats, so you might as well stop coming round.’

The food turned to ashes in my mouth. Was my own mother really refusing me help? She knew how we lived, and what it meant for the baby and for me. After a while, Mama rejoined her friends as they guzzled their vodka and, after I’d fed Sasha, I let myself out into the cold darkness, back to the icy summer kitchen.

I was almost happy when I found blood in the toilet the next day—the baby had died and I was going to have a miscarriage. Maybe it was for the best. What kind of life could I offer this child? I told myself to wait as the pain got worse throughout the night and following day but eventually it got so bad that I had to go to hospital.

‘The baby is fine,’ a doctor told me but I felt nothing.

Three days later my second son was born.