May 18th. I keep wondering if this day will always be associated for me with my Grandmother’s Birthday. She would have turned 82 this year. Лия(Liya) Удалова (Волконовская after the marriage). She was the daughter of Виктор (as far as I know he was a professor. He wasn’t Russian by blood, but Tatar) and Надежда (at some point she was an actress, but I think that wasn’t her main occupation through the life. I remember her pretty well - she used to teach me and my sister Krilov’s fables and I recall singing for her guests on one of her birthday parties, where I managed to embarrass myself by misunderstanding and thus altering some words of the song to the whole party’s amusement. She was also the one who bought us the piano so we can learn how to play).

Liya was born in Saratov and was the only child. This is pretty weird, considering that my great-grandmother was married numerous times after my great-grandfather died as a victim of the Stalin’s regime. I don’t know too much about her childhood and she didn’t like to talk about her youth. She used to tell me that she was very stubborn kid. She hated Stalin, because of her father’s arrest and death and used to tell me that when Stalin died she bought a cake and was celebrating.

I remember her smoking a lot. Always the same brand - Belomorcanal. I think she is the reason why neither me, nor my sister never tried to smoke. Grandmother picked up that bad habit during World War II and couldn’t give it up. She had 2 strokes and her left hand and leg were paralysed (she was walking slowly and was very good at using her right hand).

I think she was beautiful. Even after strokes, even when she aged. Her dark brown eyes always had that mischievous flame inside. Oh, I miss her so much. I still do.

She used to read a lot. One of her favourite books was … “Count of Monte Cristo” by Alexandre Dumas. When she was in pain it always seemed to lighten her up. One of the habits I picked up from her is reading while eating. She kept that special little book stand near the kitchen table and very often was reading something during dinners. And she also loved Gerald Durrell (as me and my sister do now).

She used to make wonderful yeast dough pies. Almost every time I was visiting her she baked a couple of open style pies with cherry plum or black currants preserves. Mmmmm… I never learned how to bake them myself. Maybe, I was too little (I was 12.5 years old when she passed away) to learn, maybe I just didn’t realise that we could lose her so easily.

Grandmother Liya was my father’s mother. He died when I was only 2 years old. She asked to be cremated and buried in his grave. She couldn’t talk about him without tears.

Her favourite flowers were Lilies-of-the-valley. We always used to buy them for her birthday.

1

Ёла says:
May 19, 2006 @ 16:29

Привет.
Очень интересно. Спасибо за рассказ.
Ёла

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