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Once Upon A Time
This is a story about my grandmother Alica, a kind-hearted soul of the years past, who relived the literary greatness of her youth in the motherland through the telling of bedtime stories to her adopted grandchildren. The tale that was told was in the time when the grownups were children in their days.
****
"Once upon a time there was ghost," uttered my grandmother Alica in the slang of her speech as she told her grandchildren their usual bedtime story. No, the stories were not meant to be scary, but of the lore of her birthplace. They were rather unusual stories to be told to wee ones before the closing of the eyes.
That was the way with my granny. Children of our age were treated to fables of the Grimm Brothers or the fairy tales of Hans Christian Anderson, but these tales were not for us. Our grandmother told us stories she heard in her early years in Russia; tales which were written by Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy and so forth. These stories remained with her after her flight to the western land after the toppling of Czar Nicholas II in the revolution of the proletariat.
My grandmother Alica was a rather unusual woman in her ways. The corpulent woman, gray-haired and wrinkled in years, had a very strange history and background. She had a passion for the downtrodden and the workers of the world, which started in her early years under the boot of the czar and his Cossack horde. A passion she continued in her new life in the 'goldena medina', the USA. She had married and widowed, bore four children, but tragedy followed them in their paths and my mother was the last of her brood. That is a rather long story that would take reams of paper to inscribe.
How we children came to be cared by my grandmother Alica is another story. I could only remember very little of the happenings of the past. Probably it was a balm to the miseries that entered my life as a young boy.
It was a week after the funeral where I held the trembling hand of my little sister as the rabbi chanted the prayer for the departed. "Poor little Norman, brave little Norman," as the kin and friends spoke in sympathy to me for the loss of both my parents in a terrible train accident. The words were strange in my mind, as I was only a freckled-faced boy of eight, a scrappy little devil who was not found of books, but of the ball and bat. My little sister Ruth, a cute little toddler in her sixth year, simply shed tears when spoken to, and she called for her mummy and daddy.
It was only grandmother Alica who offered us the needed shelter; for one reason or another our other kinfolk found a way to shirk their responsibility. Our grandmother had a comfortable pension and earnings to satisfy her in her elder years; and enough to care for us. She had a small run-down dwelling in an equally run-down part of the metropolis. It was a one story gabled dwelling of five rooms fitted with a few scraps of furniture and fixtures, and filled with the junk of memorabilia. Yet my dear grandmother Alica found room for her two grandchildren; she actually cleared one room and chucked the collection of junk, and bought the needed children's bunks, bureaus and dainty items.
At the early evening hours we were snuggly covered in our warm blankets as we awaited the nightly bedtime story from grandma, which was promised to be a ghostly one. Despite the warmth we shivered in anticipation.
Grandmother Alica sat back in the hard comfort of the chair. A book of lore written in the Cyrillic script was held in her left hand as the arthritic index finger of the right hand moved along the sentences. Through her thick lenses spectacles she searched through the page.
"Ahh, there we are! Now, let's begin. Once upon a time many, many years ago there was in the land of the Russia Empire. Czar Nicholas II, the last of the emperors who ruled the land with a fair but hard hand."
Her accented English words were mixed with bits of the Slavic tongue as they took us to the capital of the empire, St Petersburg. Gran told vividly of ornate palaces and splendid buildings erected by Peter the Great that were grouped around the city squares near the river Neva; just on the banks upriver, was the legendary Winter Palace, home of the Czars. She pictured the Peter and Paul Fortress on Zayachy Island with the imposing St. Peter and St. Peter Cathedral, the burial place of the czars.
We imagined the white nights of midsummer at the Summer Gardens where romantic ballets, which were performed deftly by Anna Palova and Vaslav Nijinsky to the symphonic tone of Peter Tchaikovsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and to the other great Russian composers. Grandmother Alica waltzed us to the grand balls held at the Winter Palace were uniformed and bemedaled gallants together with bejeweled ladies in decorative crinolines danced through the wee hours of the night
"Yet," grumbled our grandmother in the slur of her tongue, "Times were bitter and hard for the common folk. Czar Nicholas and his entourage were blind to the debacle of the war and the misery that followed. "
She told of the troubles in St Petersburg that followed the debacle of defeat at the hands of the German troops in that Great War. Demo bed soldiers wandered through the city penniless and in rags, shortages of bread causing huge unruly breadlines; and that peaceful march that ended in the shedding of blood. Now, more troubles brewed with that charlatan Rasputin ruling the roost at the palace. Revolution was in the air.
The days following that Great War was the time of mystery that shadowed the defeat of the Imperial forces. A story was told at that time in the nearness of the February revolution about a strange happening on a western roadway leading to St. Petersburg. It told about a ghostly figure that was seen standing at the roadside trying to flag down the rare passing droshkies, which traveled through the late night hours. "I think it was written by Gogol or was it Turgenev,'' puzzled my grandmother.
My gran paused for a moment and stared into our eager eyes expecting a question to the Russian word ‘droshkies'. Hearing none she kindly offered an explanation in the roughness of her speech, "now, my dear children, a droshky is a open horse drawn coach, some have wheels, others have iron runners. It was quite a reliable transport in those days of cold and ice," related my grandmother as she relaxed in her chair.
We snuggled into the covers of our beds and waited the continuance of her words. I heard the groan of the chair as she bent slightly forward and continued in her storytelling.
"It was close to the bewitching hour when a certain young gentleman was driving in his carriage down the icy highway that led to St. Petersburg. The young chappy was an officer in the army of Czar Nicholas II, a fine looking officer whose husky body fitted well in the uniform of colonel of the emperor's guards. As he sat back in the droshky, he fingered his well-trimmed black moustache nervously; his craggy features were frowned with thoughts to his mission for the Little Father."
"Suddenly the carriage braked hard and the officer was nearly thrown to the floor. He heard the neighing of the coach's two horses as they reared and jumped from the sudden pulling of the reins by the driver. The officer called out to driver, "What the devil is wrong? Why are we stopping?"
"There's an uniformed figure in middle of the road," answered the driver, ‘'he is motioning me to stop."
"Blat! What the devil," cursed the colonel as he opened the carriage door and stepped down onto the road. His eyes searched out the dusk in front of him and he saw the soldierly figure, but he was strangely uniformed. From the shako on his head to the tarnished brass of his uniform buttons to his ornate, but shabby boots shoeing his feet, he had the appearance of service to that ambitious empress of a bygone era. The officer's mind was jumbled as he couldn't understand the appearance of an officer dressed in the uniform of the imperial guard of the great Empress Catherine, a ruler dead and buried ages past."
We were fascinated by her words even though it put a bit of fright in our innocent minds. She cleared her throat as she continued, "that was not an actual man but a ghost from the time of the Czarina Catherina that was seen by the colonel?"
Without a pause Grandmother Alica drifted in her thoughts, "Ohh, that woman empress was a wicked woman in her ways. In her time the peasants throughout the whole empire were waiting for a leader to lead them in revolt against her cruel laws. That revolution was short-lived as the armed bands couldn't stand against regular troops, but I won't confuse you anymore with its history. Just accept my words that the ghost was of her time.
"The horses had settled down and were snorting and stamping about, but a tug on the reins by the driver quieted them. Seeing all was calm, the colonel went in front of the coach and called out to the figure. The ghostly officer turned to the call of the colonel's voice and he called out in a whispering voice, 'The serfs are rising in revolt'. Turn back, turn back!'"
Grandmother Alica grunted a few ahems as she cleared her throat." Now where we? Ahh, yes. Well, the colonel was puzzled by the remarks of the ghostly officer and he called out for explanation from him. But the reply was only the continuing cry that the serfs were rising in revolt."
"This infuriated the officer of the czar and as he moved slowly but quietly to the shadowy figure, he saw a white bearded figure in the shabbiness of his uniform. The hands of the spirit were luminous in the motion of signaling passing vehicles; his crazed eyes were opened wide and from his creased lips, the hoarse whispering words telling of the uprising of the serfs continued."
Grandmother Alica spoke softly as her words eerily emphasized the frightening event. "The colonel neared the ghostly officer but as he came closer he only found empty space in his sight. He cursed and he put down the sighting of the apparition to the tiredness of his eyes and the lateness of the hour. Yet he thought, the coachman had also seen the shadowy spirit."
"Yes, it was a ghostly figure. Off course that what was not on the mind of the colonel as he returned to his coach, but only the finalization of his mission. His only remark to his lowly coachman was to drive on as he bundled himself in the warmth of his furs. He heard the lashes of the whip on the horses' back and the call by the driver that prodded the animals to take to a trotting pace."
"The droshky skidded along the icy road as the two horses plodded along; their iron shod feet gripped the road with each thud of their hooves, now and again slipping on an icy patch. But the driver was ever alert in his ability to prevent a fall by the animals. The sound of the clopping hooves, the jingle of the harness chains, and the soft clucking of the driver to his horses lulled the passing time. "
"The colonel's eyelids closed in weariness and before long he was leaning back in the plush of the coach in deep sleep. But rest was denied a long spell as the braking of the coach and the nervous neighs of the horses again jolted the officer. He cursed angrily at the coachman and demanded a reply to the sudden stop."
"The was no answer by driver as he was terror-stricken. The colonel looked about and saw roughly dressed men and women with weapons in their hands surrounding the droshky. He looked beyond the mob and saw red flags flying..."
Grandmother Alica closed the book and sighed. Then she looked upon me and wished me a Good Night, but my sleepy eyes were nearly shut before she uttered her words....
About the Author
the author is a former correspondent for the Continental News Service (USA), now retired..
Adding color to the cheeks and eyelids - Photoshop CS5: Portrait Retouching from lynda.com
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