Day 1, Aug 28: Framingham, MA – Hubbard, Oh

My heart jumped so fast it made me lean on the corner of the house next to the open garage door.  The big day was here and it excited and in the same time scared me.
The lazy late August sun painted white streaks on my shiny car and I could sense the crisp coolness of the fall in the morning air.
As always, sleepy morning of an early autumn reminded me Septembers of my college years when a bittersweet smoke of the dying fires drifted slowly above foggy Ukrainians fields.
Colleges and Universities started their academic years by sending students to the local collective farms to help with the crops. Since then, a dim September sunrise, a cool prelude to the fall, always took me back to 1960s and a city girl lost in the sad endless fields.
My heart jumped once more and returned to a slow trot. We were leaving; the car was packed and Felix just came out of the garage.  We were at the start of the adventure of our lives.
“I did it, I did it!” I was singing soundlessly.
We planned to drive from Massachusetts to Northern California   visiting National Parks and Monuments on the way, then  turn South onto Pacific Highway to Santa Monica  and  from there drive back to Massachusetts by the south route visiting more Parks and places. We planned this trip around family wedding in Kansas, a visit with our son and Grandchildren in California and, the most of all, our Golden Wedding Anniversary. We planned to travel one day for each year of our life together; it would be a long drive!
I looked at our car packed for the trip and thought about the anniversary, how did we get to this point?  How did we manage to stay married for almost fifty years?  How did our marriage survive a life packed with curve balls and high seas?  How rocky was our boat through the emigration, a language barrier, culture shock and penniless beginning?
Yet, on this beautiful August morning, I carefully navigated my X5 out of our circular driveway with an island full of blooming flowers to Mass Pike brimming with early morning traffic.
Our route mapped out, we left Massachusetts behind at no time.   We headed to Kansas for a family wedding and planned to stop in Ohio for our first night on the road.
Steamy downpours hit us somewhere in the hills of New Jersey but we were on our way across America; what could a little rain do?  I looked at sleeping in the passenger seat Felix.  He was still weak and pale after double pneumonia. He opened his eyes as if feeling my concern.
“How are you doing, Victoria? I feel better; I think I can drive for a while.”
From the passenger seat, I watched the road and stared at the wet windshield.  It became chilly in the car.        

*****

Dmitry: Kiev, Ukraine 1960s

Victoria was wet and cold. Light rain seeped through her skin and chilled her to the core. She was standing in the shallow water of the river that just killed her husband.
She stood there for the last forty minutes that felt to her like an eternity. She just stood there, water to her knees, looking at the river. She was not frightened or sad. There were no thoughts in her head; she felt only wet and numb.  She just wanted to survive.
She could not leave the river!  Like a killer returning back to the scene of the crime, she needed to be there, in the water, where it all happened.
She felt a kick in the stomach and brushed the feeling aside.  Who, the hell, cared?  Dima was dead! The river just took him and now she was all alone.
If not for a Good Samaritan on a small boat, who had jammed an oar into her hands threshing violently in the water, she would not be here as well. May be it would be better. She felt a kick again.  The baby made it out of the river with her.  However, it was not a comforting thought right now.
Only this morning, they were so happy.  Victoria felt the first kick of the baby and Dmitry thought this kick was his personal achievement.  Well, in a sense, it was. Their four-month wedding anniversary became very special with this tiny tap from the inside world.  
The hybrid of a radio and a record player, their wedding gift called “Radiola” jumped, spewing a loud western song and they danced and jumped with the music.
Her Mom knocked on their door. “Vika, you will lose the baby, if you behave like that,” she warned her crazy kids.
Only this morning they had agreed on the names, one for a boy and one for a girl, just in case. When was it?  Not this morning, it was hundred years ago, in a different life, the bygone life. The life that river took forever.
   It all started last year, on a sunny cool November day, the holiday of the Great October Revolution.
“Only idiots could celebrate ‘October Revolution’ in November,” thought Victoria. The streets were ablaze with red flags and portraits of the Communist Party leaders. After playing all day at the parade, amateur orchestras headed home and faint music was descending from downtown. Crowds were happy with a free day and a good weather. Holiday dinners were waiting at homes.
Victoria spent the day on a blind date with a young man from out of town. Earlier, when they met, Victoria planned to show him the city, however many streets were closed by “militia” for the parade and they were tired walking all day. She decided that she had enough; enough of sightseeing, Dmitry’s stupid jokes and even his good looks.
She was a senior in Medical School and graduation was looming in a few months. Instead of being excited, she worried, she was afraid that after graduation she would have to leave Kiev and go to practice medicine in some remote area of Soviet Union. It was the school’s right to decide where she would have to go. However, she did not want to leave the city of her youth, her beloved Kiev.
She grew up on these green streets with old elegant buildings and beautiful parks, she went to the kindergarten and school here and her family and friends were here.  The only thing that could save her from an exile to a remote village somewhere at the end of the world was a marriage. She urgently needed a husband who lived in this city and had a stamp in his passport confirming that. Then, the School would let her stay and to find a job by herself.  She was about to graduate from the same Medical School as both of her parents did and they had plenty of friends in the medical world who would be able to help.
However, they could not help her to find a husband. She had plenty of blind and other dates but no good prospects to marry and she felt old at twenty-two. 
Dmitry annoyed her, he was boring and provincial and his good looks did not appeal to Victoria. Moreover, he did not live in Kiev.
  She returned home, to her small room in a grand imposing building, where she shared kitchen, bath, and toilet with two other families.
Before Revolution, it was probably a lovely five-room apartment, but now these five rooms accommodated three different families. Each had a small table in the kitchen, a small shelf in the bath and a small handmade pocket with neatly cut newspapers or old textbooks in the toilet room. The toilet paper did not exist yet in the Soviet Union. 
The Snisarenkos occupied two beautiful rooms with two large very entertaining bay windows into the courtyard. They could see all the activity in the yard, who was coming to visit or going and to catch the mailman with a large blue linen cross body bag full of newspapers and letters.
A long time ago, there was a fountain in the middle of the courtyard, but, for all the years Victoria had lived here, the fountain had never worked and its cement border had become a favorite place for the seniors. They would sit on cold cement, watching people, gossiping and making nasty remarks, yelling at the children and complaining to the parents.
Victoria was about twelve years old when she moved to this apartment with her parents. Her Dad, the doctor, got a job at the River Navigation Administration. The position came with a perk, two rooms for his five-person family; it was a great improvement in their living arrangements.
Back then, the Snisarenkos was a family of three, parents and their daughter Elizabeth. Every summer, papa Snisarenko meticulously cut Elizabeth’s textbooks from the prior year and stashed them in their toilet pocket embroidered by mama Snisarenko. Strangely, that was one of the reason Victoria had all A’s in school. That, and her photographic memory.
Lizzy and Vika, as their parents lovingly called the girls, attended the same school.  While using the toilet, Vika who was two years junior preferred to put four small pieces of paper from Snisarenkos’ pocket together, to restore the page and to read Lizzy’s school textbook rather than Soviet newspaper stored in her family’s pocket.  When two years later she caught up to Lizzy’s grade, she knew the textbook by heart and got “A’s” as a result. 
By the time Victoria was in Medical School, her family moved out of the apartment and her Dad managed to bend his employer’s rules and to leave one small room to Victoria.
The Snisarenko family grew to four when Lizzy got married and her husband moved in. The third neighbor, a riverboat captain with his wife, added Victoria parents’ larger room.
All seven inhabitants of the apartment cooked on the same gas stove, bathed in the same bath, and sat on the same toilet. Everybody knew exactly what was cooking in every pot, what was hanging in every closet, who was visiting and who was staying for the night. There were no secrets in this communal living, and even though Victoria loved her small room, she hated to share her life, her habits, and her secrets with her neighbors, the well-known strangers.
She closed the door and looked at her room; it was the first her own home and she loved it.
A small elegant vanity desk with a flip top that hid a large mirror and her makeup stood under the window. The two-door wardrobe stored all her belongings and it was on the left, next to the piano, the gift from her late Grandmother. The old, left by her parents, bookcase was in the right corner next to the window and something orange called “Recame,” a sofa bed, which Victoria and her sister shared for many years, stood along the right wall. A piano stool and one chair completed the furnishing; it was all that room could accommodate.
Victoria was about to pull out a book, when suddenly she noticed a piece of paper with an address on the table. She remembered running into her schoolteacher Mrs. Levin last week and her surprising invitation for a holiday dinner.
Mrs. Levin taught history for years. In the middle school, it was ancient and world history and Victoria loved it. However, by high school, History of the Communist Party of Soviet Union was not among her favorite subjects. She finished school almost six years ago and she saw her teachers only at the annual reunion.
When she met Mrs. Levin on the street, she did not expect the invitation for a dinner. “May be she invited me because she is Jewish and I was the only Jewish girl in her class,” contemplated Victoria. Not that it mattered to her; she did not feel she was any different. In the school, she had one single advantage, her Dad returned home alive from the war. Only two other kids in her class had fathers who survived the war.  The rest lived with theirs Mothers and envied anyone who had alive male in the family, even uncle or a grandfather.
“Hmmm,” she suddenly felt a hungry roar in her stomach and remembered smiling face of Mrs. Levin.
“Dinner is not such a bad idea.” She looked at the address and saw that the teacher lived only two blocks away.
“The book could wait,” decided Victoria. “The holiday dinner and the company would be good for me, especially after this stupid blind date”. 
Then, she remembered the boots. Last summer she had begged her Dad for two hours to give her money for the new boots and she stood in line for another four hours to get these, still-in-the-box boots. She was dying to wear them and now she had a reason.
“What a great opportunity to ventilate my boots,” she smiled.
She coated her lips with a lipstick, took an enamored look at her feet now encased in the tall stylish boots and walked out into the early dusk of the familiar city.
Cold November wind tossed her hair and Victoria wrapped her scarf and coat tightly around her; she was late. 
She rang one of the six buttons on the door and heard the bell somewhere in the distance. A drunken man in a torn sweater opened the door and silently pointed to one of the doors in a dark hallway. There were piles of coats, bikes and shoes under every door. The smell of food floated in the air.
Large holiday table was too big for a small room.  Plump Mrs. Levin hovered around the table while her husband and two daughters sat around. There was one empty space on the sofa and everybody had to get up to allow Victoria to her seat. Mrs. Levin made the introductions and suddenly Victoria realized why she was invited. Next to her on the sofa was a young man, Mrs. Levin’s nephew.
She could almost imagine the matchmaker-aunt’s pitch, “Victoria is young and single, she has her own place and just about to graduate from the medical school.” May be she even shared the info about the family, “Her father is a prominent doctor and her Mom is also a doctor at the local clinic.” 
The conversation at the table interrupted by Victoria’s arrival was about her neighbor on the sofa who had moved to the city recently and stayed with the relatives.  Just then, Victoria realized that his name was Dmitry.
“Please, call me Dima,” he said.
“Another one,” thought Victoria bitterly. “They are all the same; they even have the same names“!  She swallowed a shot of vodka and ate silently.
A great variety of Russian, Ukrainian, and Jewish dishes were on the table.  The mandatory salad “Olivie”, just the fancy French name for a mayonnaise covered mixture of potato, peas and mortadella;  herring, pickled tomatoes and cucumbers, boiled potatoes, and the crown of any holiday table, “holodnoye”, which meant “cold” and was simply  beef in gelatin, were on  a proud display.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Levin was reciting Victoria’s achievements at the school. It is turned out, she was also Victoria’s Dad’s patient for many years, and she could not say enough about him “the great doctor and, by the way, a very handsome man”.
Dima had dark curly hair and a warm smile.  His shoulders were wide and he looked stocky. He had a very pleasant slightly high-pitched voice that made Victoria think about singing. He saw to her glass and plate being full, asked about Medical School and her parents, told her a little about himself, and was generally smiley and soft spoken. He seemed like a nice guy. 
She did not know what made her hot, her warm new boots, a few shots of vodka, or his not seizing attention.   Dmitry, Dima as his aunt called him, was clearly so taken by her that Victoria allowed herself to have a good time. She was pleased when he volunteered to walk her home.   He was funny and old fashioned; he did not ask to come to her apartment, but rather gallantly asked for her phone number and permission to call her.
That night Victoria could not sleep, trying to figure out when he would call; she felt young and beautiful.
The next day was a very busy day at school. Between lectures, sitting next to Ellen, her best girlfriend, Victoria was about to burst with the news.
“He is not very tall but, definitely, taller than I. He has the cutest dark curly hair! He graduated from Leningrad Politech and the famous Director of the Kiev Computer Institute invited him to work here.  He is so smart and funny! He plays violin!  And his name is Dmitry but he prefers Dima.” 
After spending with him a mere two hours at the holiday dinner, it seemed to her that she knew him all her life and she wanted to know so much more.
Ellen was puzzled, “Dima? I though you did not like him. You said he was boring and you hated to show him the city.” 
“This is a completely different Dima, Ellen,” Victoria could not sit still. The lecture was just about to start and she had so many things to tell her girlfriend. 
“Look, what is there not to understand? I said good-bye to the first Dima after showing him Volodya Hill and then went to see my old school teacher, who introduced me to her nephew. By coincidence, his name was Dima as well. Although, the name was the same, he was a very different man. He walked me home, took my phone number and he promised to call.”
Ellen could not recall the last time her girlfriend was so excited about the date. “What if he would not call, Vika?”
Only family and close friends could call her Vika. She was born during the Second World War and was named Victoria for the victory. She was also born right after her Grandfather Volf died and, by the Jewish tradition, she was named after him as well. She was not just Vika; she was Victoria, for sure.
“You only saw him once, Victoria, do not get so excited,” cautioned Ellen. She was a year older and much more practical in a dating game than enthusiastic Victoria who bit her lip and clenched her teeth. She was not ready to confess even to herself that she hoped he would call tonight.
Victoria canceled a planned dinner with her parents and after school went straight home. She was not hungry, she was afraid to miss his call.  Thirsty, she stopped in the kitchen to get a glass of water. Pregnant Lizzy Snisarenko was cooking dinner and wanted to know what Victoria did for the Holidays.
In any day, Victoria would be happy to chat with Lizzy, but not today; the telephone could ring any minute and the hallway to her room was long. She got a glass of water and hurried back. She put the glass inside her vanity desk and examined her face in the mirror.
“May be twenty two is not that old yet,” she hoped. “I probably do not look that bad if he wanted my phone number right away”.
The telephone rang and startled Victoria; she jumped to pick up the handset and the flip top of the desk closed with a sharp crack. The large mirror fell on the glass of water and both shuttered.
“Hi, Dima,” said Victoria cheerfully.
She looked with the sheer horror at the drawer where shards of glass and mirror sparkled, mixed with water and her makeup. It was a bad sign; she felt it deeply inside.
“But I am not superstitious,” she tried to be optimistic and not give in to old women‘s tales.
“I will be ready in ten minutes,” she heard her own voice.
Her mirror was broken and her hands were shaking, but he called and that was all that mattered.
November wind blew without mercy making street lamps to bow to it gracefully and submissively as they were walking cold streets of Kiev. Light rain, mixed with the first snow of the season, cruelly attacked Dmitry’s glasses. Every few minutes he had to take them off   trying to clean them clumsily with his fluffy wet scarf.
“This is terrible,” thought Victoria. “I did not wait all day for the cold shower.”
Dima’s black curly hair was glistening under the rain.
“Tea,” finally broke down Victoria “I can make us a tea.”
To have her own room was a big convenience, especially on the night like that. 
His lips were warm and soft and his hands were cold and gentle. They forgot about the tea, they did not need food. They were falling in love.

*****

Felix was driving west to our first stop in Ohio.   The rain stopped and sun was low, so low that the visors did not help.  He was holding his hand up, blocking the sun with his palm.  The last rays of sunset warmed the car and I shed my light sweater. Through his glowing hand Felix took a sideway look at me.
“Are you dreaming of somewhere hot, Victoria?” he asked.
I did not answer.  I was not dreaming. I was somewhere long time ago on the cold winter,  in the heat of the night, in a very small room in Kiev. With Dima…

• Update #5 - All the good thing are eventually coming to the end, but for you, the journey is just about to start Sept. 24, 2018

  Dear friends, family, neigbours and supporters,

  The first  printed book of “Double Exposure” was shipped to me today! And, in spite of being in Europe at …

  ---

• Update #4 - It's been 4 months since we finished campaign and... Aug. 6, 2018

  it is still an update instead of the book! I can only imagine how tired you are of these.  It took me three years to write  the …

  ---

• Update #3 - Patience is a rare virtue! July 14, 2018

  And I hope you have plenty as I am lacking one . Here is  the update on a slow process of publishing. After dragging my …

  ---

• Update #2 - Update title June 7, 2018

  Here is yet another update for my loyal readers and friends.  Last month I signed publishing agreement with a very  popular  Lulu Publishing.  "It will …

  ---

• Update #1 - Update title March 6, 2018

  Dear friends! What an exciting time! I am working with 2 publishers; difficult choices and a lot of business decisions, time and money constrains. It …

  ---