Work Text:
Ilya’s Mama died on a good day.
They did not have good days very often, but that day was a good day. So was the day before that and the day before that and he had high hopes for the day after that too.
Papa had gone to St. Petersburg and he had taken Alexei with him. Alexei was at the age where he could learn the business of men so Alexei was spending more time with Papa. Ilya had not envied him. Ilya and Alexei were never particularly close, but the shape of that distance has changed. Before it was indifference, annoyance at most when Ilya was being particularly needy for attention, but Alexei was different now. More like Papa, who never needed a reason to criticize Ilya but looked for one anyway and he never had to look for too long.
So, as soon as Papa’s car had driven out of view, Mama had called up Ilya’s school and said that her poor, precious son was terribly sick - listen to how he coughs, show them Ilyushenka! - and he cannot go to school for the entire week! So terrible to miss such important lessons, but it must be done.
Ilya was quite certain that the school is not so heartbroken about his absence. Georgiy will surely be lost without him and he can picture Sofiya’s pouting face so clearly in his mind a shiver goes down his spine, but his teachers? They may throw a party. He thought about asking his Mama to return to school on Wednesday, just to see everyone’s reactions to his miraculous return. Would they cry? Scream? The idea of it made Ilya giddy, but then it was time for the seals to be fed at the Moscow Zoo and Ilya and his mother had more important things to worry about.
His mother had dismissed all the house staff for the week and she took Ilya with her to the store. She bought all sorts of treats and candies that she had not been able to eat for a while - Papa had forbidden it, saying it was not healthy - and all the ingredients to make her and Ilya’s favorite cakes.
They spent the whole rest of that day baking together, enough sweets for the whole week. Cakes with every meal! Sometimes the meal was cake. Ilya was bouncing off the walls and his Mama was bouncing with him. He has not seen her this happy in so long, smiling so wide her eyes closed, laughing so much she got hiccups.
On Tuesday, they went to a museum. She brought paper and colored pencils in her bag and said that they were going to steal something, but first they must make copies of the art they wanted.
“We must copy them exactly, Ilyusha,” she said solemnly, not bothering to lower her voice. There were a few other people wandering the gallery, but as far as Ilya was concerned, it was only him and his Mama that existed in all of the universe. “If it is not exactly the same, then the guards will notice that the art is missing. But I am the greatest artist of all time, and you are okay too, so I’m sure it will be fine.”
They spent the whole afternoon in the galleries. Ilya had tried his best to make a good forgery of a painting with two clowns, but it was not to his Mama’s standards.
“No, no,” Mama insisted. “It is beautiful, perfect. Much better than the original, but the thing is, Ilyusha, I hate clowns. They are very scary and your drawing is so realistic that I am afraid they are going to jump out of the paper and do something scary like juggle or weep at this life they never thought they would have to suffer.” She had shuddered and Ilya had laughed. He snuck the picture in her sketchbook and instead started to copy the poses he saw in the paintings and sculptures.
Did the people in the paintings really have to pose for them the entire time? There was a very skinny boy balancing on a ball. Ilya could barely stand like that for a minute - okay, thirty seconds - without getting bored. Maybe that’s why the boy in the painting was so skinny. The man watching him looked strong. He should give that boy a sandwich.
Mama had spent a long time in front of a painting of the Virgin Mary and her little boy. Was that the painting his Mama wanted to steal? He might have to say no to this one. It might be sacrilegious to say it, but the Mary in this painting was not very pretty and Ilya was not a fan of how her little boy had his thing out. He knew this was the past, but did they not have diapers back then?
At a certain point, Ilya noticed his Mama had stopped drawing and he tugged at her long skirt. She startled and looked down at him. Her face had shifted from its usual blank expression to the look of happiness that appeared whenever she looked at Ilya. So when Ilya was very small, much smaller than he was now, he decided that Mama should be looking at Ilya all the time.
“Oh, Ilyusha, I was thinking maybe this painting was the one we would take home with us, but the lady in the painting is not so pretty and she is not taking proper care of her cold baby so I made some improvements.” She knelt down and showed him her sketchbook. “Look, it’s us!”
In her sketchbook was a clumsy sketch of Ilya and his Mama in the same pose as Mary and her cold little one. They had the same smile and yellow hair surrounding their heads like a halo or a cloud of hay. His mama was prone to exaggerating and she’s not so great an artist - something Ilya maybe would not have noticed if they hadn’t spent a whole day in a museum - but the little picture made him feel something warm in the center of his chest, or somewhere deeper inside, and so he threw his arms around her so that maybe she could feel the warmth too.
On Wednesday, they went to the zoo and watched the zookeepers feed the seals. On Thursday, they had a picnic in the park. On Friday, they spent the whole day watching movies.
Today was Saturday, meaning they had only today and then tomorrow before Papa and Alexei returned from their trip. Ilya was young, but he had learned that he needed to savor this time, let it sit on his tongue and melt in his mouth rather than crush the time between his teeth. On Sunday, he will feel the spectre of their return biting at his heels and that will make the day not as happy as it could be.
But today? Today, Mama woke him up before the sun started considering peeking up over the horizon. They had fallen asleep on the couch, watching a movie his Mama had loved as a child. He slept peacefully, cradled in her arms, and he wished it could be like this all the time.
(Ilya doesn’t know this, but he will never feel that warmth again.)
Mama had been different lately, but not different in the way Alexei was different. She was more tired and sad. She was always trembling, like she was cold or like she was afraid. This week, it was like he had his Mama back. She returned after so long away Ilya had started to worry that maybe his Mama only existed in his memory, that maybe the memory was disrespectful to his Mama now.
It was Saturday, so they needed to get to the park early before all the other families came on their days off to ruin the ice for them. For two hours, they were the only two people at the pond. Ilya was wearing regular skates, not hockey skates, and he tried to out skate the thought of what was going to await him once he starts going back to practices on Monday. His coach would have something unkind to say about his absence. Mishka had come to practice once barely able to stand and the lashing he received for vomiting on the ice - for being so weak as to lose control of himself in such a manner - made Ilya’s ears ring.
But that was a Sunday thought so he tried to spin and jump on the ice like he was a figure skater and pretended to be outraged when his Mama skated literal circles around him.
“When I was your age, I wanted to be a figure skater or a ballerina. All girls my age wanted to be a figure skater or a ballerina.” She had told him this story many times before and she was telling it to him again today, but Ilya wanted to hear it anyway because there was something so achingly true about this story and the way she told it. His Mama was not always true. “But I liked skating better because it felt like flying. Sometimes, when I jumped, it felt like I would never come back down. Maybe I would spin up into the sky and I would just float up in the clouds and meet the angels.”
And then his mother would look down at him and give him a smile that he was sometimes scared would split her face into two. She would pick him up and spin around with him in her arms and whisper into his hair, “But I do not need to go to the clouds to find an angel. I have one with me right here and I am his Mama so that makes me better than an angel. So who needs to be a figure skater?”
She did that today too, but Ilya was maybe a little too big now for her to carry him anymore. She did it anyway.
Ilya asked her once why she never became a figure skater. He sometimes sees the girls and boys practicing at the rink and one of the older girls has a child and she’s not doing too terribly. She should be retiring soon, but she can still skate. She went quiet for a moment and said, “I met a man. Or maybe a man met me.”
Ilya never asked about it again.
His Mama dropped him off at the edge of the pond. “I think I still remember a routine. Watch me, Ilyushenka, and give me a perfect score.”
“I will if you earn it,” Ilya said solemnly.
“Ah, I see, I will need to bribe you then. Bribe you with my perfect skating.”
Her skating was as clumsy as her drawing after so many years out of practice, but there were a few moments where Ilya’s Mama seemed…possessed. Like the ghost of her past - or maybe the ghost of some future she had never lived - had taken control of her body.
And then she would fall down like the ghosts were saying, “What? There’s only so much we can do. We are ghosts, not saints.”
(Ilya will not remember the routine and it will kill him that he will not remember, but sometimes, when he is not paying attention, he will hum the song she was singing.)
What Ilya does remember is that he ran to her when she had finished. She had lied back down on the ice, breathing heavily and red in the face, and he threw himself into her arms. He muttered into her soft hair that smelled like flowers, “A perfect ten. Russia will send you to the moon.” He pretended not to notice that she was crying too.
That night, they ate the rest of the honey cake with their dinner. Mama had made all of Ilya’s favorite foods, which she said were her favorite foods too, and she played music on the record player she bought from a shop this week. His Mama was not a good artist or skater, but she had a lovely voice and she had sung him to sleep on the couch.
“My Ilyushenka,” she whispered sometime later, shaking him on the shoulder. “It is time to go to sleep. Sit up, please. Let me look at you.”
Ilya sat up, blinking the sleep from his eyes. He had no idea what time it was, but his body told him it was late. His Mama was cupping his face in both hands, a look on her face so tender that it scared him, but he didn’t know why.
“Here,” she handed him a glass. “Drink and then we’ll get ready for bed.”
He wasn’t thirsty, but his Mama told him to, so he drank anyway. Or he tried to, but then his Mama suddenly jerked and knocked the glass out of his hand. His mother engulfed him in a massive hug. She hugged him like she thought he was much smaller than he actually was, like she could cover him completely, put herself between him and the world.
She was crying, massive, heaving sobs. She cried with her whole body, saying things like I’m sorry so sorry forgive me, Ilyushenka, my beautiful boy, my little angel, God in heaven forgive me I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’msorryi’msorryi’msorry.
His confusion shocked him out of whatever lingering tiredness he felt from his nap. She had startled him, yes, but she had not hurt him. His Mama had never hurt him, not the way Papa had. He didn’t even think she touched him, just the glass.
“I am not hurt, Mama,” Ilyu assured her. “I am fine. You didn’t hurt me.” But nothing he said seemed to get through to her. Eventually, he was the one who had to lead her to the bathroom and help her get ready for bed. It had been nice while it lasted, but his happy Mama was gone again and his sad Mama returned and he had to take care of her.
“Ilyushenka, Ilyusha, Ilya, my Ilya,” she said once she was finally in her bed. “I left my water in the living room. Could you bring it to me?” He went to give it to her and she held his hand while she drank the entire glass. “I love you more than anything. My wonderful boy, you are my heart so please be gentle with it.” She kissed him on the forehead. “Go to bed now, my little angel.”
He went to bed, but it took him a bit to fall back asleep. When sleep finally took him, he realized something.
His mother’s cross was around his neck.
…
“Mama? Are you awake?”