Paullina Simons: Six Days in Leningrad

“I want to go to the Siege of Leningrad museum.”

“Yes, that’s at Piskarev cemetery.”

Not according to my map, but who was I to argue? My father had lived in Leningrad for 35 years of his life, not including the years he spent in labor camp. He knew better than my stupid map.

I talked to my grandparents, my father’s parents, the week before I left for Russia. It was my grandfather’s 91st birthday and they were happy I hadn’t forgotten.

“How could I forget your birthday, Deda?” I said. I had lived every summer in Russia with my grandparents in Shepelevo. Every 2 July we were together on his birthday.

I had not been equally close to my mother’s parents. My mother’s mother died when my mother was 16 and before I was born. I am named after her. My mother’s father was a Red Army man — not prone to easy attachments, certainly not to me. The last thing I remember about him was his coming to our communal apartment to talk my mother out of leaving for America. I was told to go in the kitchen, so the adults could talk privately in our rooms. I hung around the hallway, hoping to hear a word or two — with no luck. Suddenly the door opened, and he walked out, not even glancing at me as I stood in the hall. His hat was in his hands, his mouth tightly closed. He walked past me down the hall and out the front door. That was the last I saw of him. Possibly the first, as well. I really can’t recall.

But my father’s father was a different story. The man had lived through the First World War, the Russian Revolution, the Russian Civil War, the Stalin years, the Leningrad blockade, the Second World War, the Khrushchev years, the Brezhnev years and through fishing on the Gulf of Finland with me. When he turned 91, I remembered.

“Happy Birthday,” I said.

My grandmother picked up the second line. “Happy birthday, nothing. You and your father, are you planning to go to Shepelevo? He said you were.”

“Yes, Babushka, we are.”

“Plinka,” she said. “You are going to go and visit your great-grandmother’s grave, aren’t you?”

“Of course.”

She started to cry. “Because probably no one has been at her grave since we left Russia nineteen years ago.”

“We’ll find it. It’s marked right?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“It’s not marked?”

“I can’t remember. It was a long time ago.”

“Do you remember the gravestone?”

“No.”

“Do you remember where in the cemetery you buried her?”

“Not really. Somewhere on the right hand side, toward the back.”

“I see,” I said. “Okay. We’ll find it. How hard can it be?”

“Plinka.” She cried harder. “If you don’t find your grandmother’s grave then you’re no good and you’re not going to heaven.”

At this point my grandfather interrupted her, asking if I would be coming to New York any time between the 2nd and the 12th of July, “because there are some people in Russia I want you to go and visit. The Ivanchenkos. Do you remember them?”

“Are they dead or living?”

“Living, living. They want to see you very much.”

Interrupting him, my grandmother said, “I’m sure the grave has not been kept. I don’t know if your cousin Yulia takes care of it. Probably not. She probably doesn’t even go to Shepelevo anymore. Who knows? But do you remember the Likhobabins? They still live in Shepelevo—”

“If they’re not dead,” Deda interjected.

“Leva, stop it,” said Babushka. “Plinka, I want you to give the Likhobabins money. Give them a hundred dollars. You have a hundred dollars, don’t you? Give it to them and ask them to take care of my mother’s grave.”

“So you’re not coming to New York?” said my grandfather. “That’s a pity. I really wanted to talk to you about the Ivanchenkos. Now is really not a good time to talk. I’m having a birthday party.”

My travel to Russia began at 4:30 in the morning. I slithered out of bed, having gone to sleep two and a half hours earlier. We had gone to my husband’s boss’s 50th birthday bash, and because I really thought ahead, I drank seven vodka and cranberries. It could have been six or eight; not being much of a drinker, after the first two I lost my ability to perform simple math tasks.

While lack of sleep was certainly a factor in my morning paralysis, worse was the alcohol that was left over in my body from the night before. I couldn’t remember the last time I had that much to drink. I vaguely recalled my college days when, perhaps on one or two occasions, I may have had one too many. I went to sleep for twelve hours, and when I woke up in the afternoon, I was sober. Mostly.

Well, today, less than three hours after going to bed, I wake up to travel five thousand miles, and I wake up not sober.

My flight to New York-LaGuardia was leaving at 7:10 AM. We were in the car at 5:45 for the 50-minute ride to the airport.

I sat stiffly staring straight ahead — out of necessity. As Kevin drove, I asked him to please not make any right or left turns and at all costs avoid coming to complete stops. When we got the airport, I felt a bit more clear-headed. My eyes weren’t sloshing atop my brain any more.

My whole plan for catching the plane out of JFK to Leningrad depended on taking my garment bag as carry-on. My publisher had arranged for a car service to pick me up and take me across town so I wouldn’t waste time flagging a yellow cab. Even with all these precautions, it was clear I did not have enough time. When I called Aeroflot to inquire about check-in times, the woman told me in her perfect accented English that I had to be at the check-in counter three hours before departure. Since that was clearly not possible, I asked what she recommended as the minimum check-in time, explaining to her my connecting flight situation. She said, “As long as you’re there at least two hours before, you’ll be all right.”

That was good to know.

I had one hour and forty five minutes to get to JFK from LaGuardia, and only those who have battled the Van Wyck Expressway and lost understand that time was not going to be my friend.

Bottom line: my garment bag simply had to come with me.

Not according to the woman printing my boarding pass.

The first thing she said was, “That can’t come with you.”

“It has to,” I said. “I have a connecting flight in JFK at 1:15.”

I’m not sure she knew what JFK was. Certainly she didn’t care. Shaking her head, she said, “It has to be checked. See?” She flung her hand in the direction of the metal frame into which we were supposed to fit a carry-on. “It has to be that size.”

“But this isn’t a carry-on,” I pointed out. “It’s a garment bag.”

“It has to be that size,” she said dismissively, and turned away from us to fill out a gate check ticket.

“What are you talking about?” my husband said. “We’ve taken this bag with us three times and every time they’ve let us take it on the plane.”

“Uh-uh. It doesn’t work that way,” she said, and pulled the bag out of my hands.

I became suddenly endowed with the ability to see the future. I saw my future at LaGuardia, trying to find my bag, waiting for the luggage carousel, missing my plane to Russia.

The woman was clearly a graduate of an Advanced Rudeness Training seminar of the kind given in an American Airlines Rudeness night school. Suddenly a muscular young man came up to Kevin and began to assure him that everything was going to be all right because there were forty more just like him also going to St. Petersburg on my flight. Their group leader had already called Aeroflot who agreed to hold the plane for all forty until they made their way from LaGuardia to Kennedy.