THE SOUND OF
OLD GHOSTS
By Willow
Runningwater
An old brown photo
fluttered to my feet as I pulled some papers off the shelf of my desk. The
photo was printed on a postcard, as was the custom those days. I picked it
up and turned it over. It was taken in Latvia, the country where my parents
came from. Someone had cut the edges, possibly to make it fit into a photo
album. The postmark was still faintly visible; a faded shade of blue, now
turned pale purple. The photo itself retained its strong image of dark
sepia, refusing to give up, even though it was now seventy or more years
old.
I have carried this
photograph with me everywhere I have lived. These people, my grandmother,
grandfather, and an uncle; I never met any of them.
I sat down by the
window, still holding the photograph. Outside the snow continued steadily.
It had been snowing for days, and the man who plows our driveway was having
a hard time finding a place to push the mounting snow away. There were high
walls all along the driveway. I opened the window and felt the snowflakes
bouncing against the screen, splattering through with a soft wet force
against my face and arms. I looked out at the fir trees, white shadows
lurking in the fading daylight.
Night approaches
early here midwinter in Maine, and I thought of the long winter nights of my
forebears. This scene could look much like a scene in Latvia. I wanted to
ride the wind and snow across the Atlantic, go back in time, and be with my
forebears. I have been robbed. I have never met a single relative and have
only these old, faded photographs as part of my heritage.
I shut the window and
looked closer at the photo. My grandparents sat on a Victorian sofa and my
uncle stands behind them. In the background is a worn double door, possibly
the entrance to their country house. My grandparents were old, around my
age. Their faces looked Russian. I could see their hands; gnarled from hard
work, somewhat like my mother’s were, and mine are now.
My
grandmother wore a dark dress that buttons to the waist. Her hair was parted
in the middle and pulled back. You could see the high boots on my
grandfather’s feet. He wore a dark jacket and a knit Cossack sweater. My
uncle was dressed in a white shirt and tie. He had on a pullover sweater and
a dark jacket. The room looked very old and worn like a farmhouse.
I
knew that my grandfather’s first name was Ustin and my uncle’s name was
Anthony, but I never knew my grandmother’s first name. Their last name was
Milosh. My grandmother had twelve children yet there was only one in the
photograph.
My
own parents moved to this country when they were in their twenties and never
saw any of their relatives again. There were wars and the fear of political
upheaval in Latvia, which became occupied by the Soviet Union. My parents
were afraid to go home for a visit for fear that they might not be allowed
to come back into this country. The years passed, and one by one, their
parents, brothers, and sisters died, leaving them no reason to return.
I
don’t know how old my grandfather was when he died, but I do know that my
grandmother lived to be ninety-nine years old. I remember the day my mother
got the letter telling her that her mother was dead. She was sad and upset.
After that she stopped telling stories about her family.
Our
household was very Eastern European. My mother had such a strong accent that
most people could not understand what she was saying. My brother’s first
language was Polish. I came along nine years later, and I spoke Latvian. I
often wondered why, since my mother’s language was not Latvian, but
Lithuanian. The hometown where her parents lived was near the Lithuanian
border on the Dvina River. I never did find out why my brother was taught
Polish, and I was taught Latvian.
My
grandfather was a land baron. He dealt in real estate and owned the whole
village where he lived. He traveled a lot for both business and pleasure. He
made many trips to the Black Sea, where he would soak in the famous mud
baths to relieve the pain in his bad knee. My mother talked of how he
suffered. The bad knee was one thing my mother inherited from him and has
now been passed on to me.
I
remember a story about my grandmother that was told to me when I was little.
My grandparents farmed and had animals for meat and milk. They also raised
pigs. When company came my grandfather would slaughter a piglet to eat. One
day when my grandfather was traveling and my grandmother was home alone, she
received a message that friends were arriving the next day. Distances were
far, and dinner was always served for guests. She decided that this time she
would slaughter a piglet by herself. She enticed it into the dining room
where she could capture it easily. She had sharpened a knife and was
prepared to slaughter the piglet.
At
the time my mother was in another room, when suddenly, she heard her mother
screaming. She ran into the dining room to see what was happening. My
grandmother was standing on top of the table, yelling at the top of her
lungs while the piglet ran circles on the floor. It had a knife embedded in
its back and was very much alive.
They
had chicken for dinner the next day.
I
learned that the beds were made of straw and that the straw was changed
every spring, for fresh bedding.
In the winter,
because of the cold snows, everyone wore footwear similar to that of Eskimo
mukluks. They were very thick, lined with fur, and kept their feet warm,
especially when riding in the horse-drawn sleds.
The three-horse sleds
were called troikas. On special occasions, the horses were dressed up with
bells and could be heard for quite a distance away. When my mother talked
about a fine horse, it was always white, which was the color of the horses
owned by royalty.
Horses were the means of travel in those days, and my mother told stories of
adventures that she had with her sisters and brothers. They would sneak out
of their bedroom windows during the summer evenings, quietly get the horses
out and go bareback riding in the moonlight.
On
horseback, they were safe from the wolves that were in the forests
everywhere and often followed people. My mother talked about how the family
dogs were brought in at night because they would be killed if left outside.
She said that she grew up with the sound of wolves with their eerie howling.
I
turned to the photograph once again and looked at the immortal faces in
front of me. After all of these years they looked familiar, as families
should look. In my mind I reached out for those familiar warm hands and held
them in my own.
I
looked out of the window again. The snow was coming down in larger flakes.
That usually meant it would stop soon. I heard the coyotes yipping in the
distant field. Something stirred in my mind like the sound of old ghosts. It
was too early in the evening for their hunt. Could they be the childhood
wolves from my mother’s past, disguised as coyotes?
