Grandpa Vlad was very surprised when his eldest daughter Ksenia called him from the United States to Moscow in an early September morning of 2022. The last time Ksenia called him was about 20 years ago, when they all lived in the USA. Grandpa Vlad last called her about 10 years ago, after he had returned to Russia, while she remained in the USA. She hadn't answered his call then, just as she hadn't spoken to him for 20 years before that, but Grandpa tried to improve their relationship and called her from time to time, each time without any success. He would have continued to call, but about 10 years ago she changed her phone number, and he could no longer call her.
When Ksenia and her American husband, David, had their son Andrei (Andrew) about 25 years ago, Grandpa was immensely happy. He tried to visit them or take his grandson to his place, and neither David nor Ksenia objected. When at the age of three his grandson started babbling in both English and Russian, Grandpa babbled with him about everything. However, this didn't last long. Grandpa was a patriot of Russia, and although he never pushed this in their babbling, the information subtly settled in his grandson's tender mind. Then when his grandson turned six, his daughter invited her American military acquaintances, and a storm broke.
A slightly drunk American colonel knowing that Grandpa Vlad's grandson had both American and Russian blood thought it would be a good idea to ask Andrei who he would fight for if there was a conflict between the Russians and the Americans. Andrei naturally after long and proper conversations with his grandpa, chose the Russians. But instead of letting it go, the colonel asked, "Why?"
And then the grandson spilled to the Yankee almost everything he'd learned from his grandfather: “The Americans can’t fight and fight only the weak; they don't spare civilians’ lives and mow them down by the hundreds; they arrived at major wars only at the end to profit.” Finally, he said something like, "The Russians will kick your duty asses, anyway," and he said those all in the most perfect kid’s English.
And although only an hour had passed since the birthday party began, the military men and the other Americans vanished immediately after those words into the thin air, as if by magic. Only one of Ksenia’s friends stayed with her. The birthday was ruined, and Ksenia knew who was to blame. The communication between grandson Andrei and Grandpa Vlad ended there.
Then, this call after 20 years of ringing silence. Ksyuha's voice was hoarse, like it had been in her childhood. She often fell ill and even had her adenoids removed. She cried then, and only promised ice cream somewhat consoled the little, unhappy, crying girl. But they didn't remove her tonsils, and she continued to have occasional sore throats and speak in her hoarse child’s voice.
Ksyuha immediately got down to business.
"Dad, I need your help," she said at once. "Your grandson Andrei, our son, has gone missing in Ukraine."
"In the Ukraine," Grandpa almost automatically wanted to correct her—that telltale sign of friend or foe, the Ukraine, Ukraine—but Grandpa remained silent.
"And what was he doing there?" Grandpa-Dad asked.
"I think you know what. But it's not important. We hope he's a prisoner of war. His body hasn't been found. I know you can find him, get him out of prison, and bring him back to us. You can do a lot. We'll send the money; David will bring it to Finland. If it's not enough, add what you need. Andrei is your grandson as well. Someone told me in confidence that he was in Ukraine under the name Kirillo Ivanov."
"I'll try to find and extract him," said Grandpa-Dad Vlad. "You could have come up with something funnier than Kirillo Ivanov. Why not Kirillo Ivanovo?"
"Kirillo Ivanov is a real person. There's nothing funny about it. Even the Russians here don't want to be the Russians."
"Alright, my daughter, I'll find and get him back," said Grandpa. "Say hello to David!" – he said and hung up.
Grandpa left for Finland to meet with David and his money, while Grandma Rita quietly began selling off all their possessions.
Upon his return, Grandpa Vlad contacted a friend of his in the FSB (Federal Security Service) and, thanks to him, found out everything. Kirillo Ivanov, a cook in the Ukrainian army, had indeed been captured and was imprisoned near Luhansk. Grandpa's FSB friend arranged everything, connecting him with the prison warden and promising full cooperation. Grandpa went to Luhansk, settled near the prison at a house of a hospitable local old woman Valya.
Both money and connections did their job. Grandpa Vlad and his grandson Andrei were given a private room for a night-long visit. Grandpa was allowed in earlier and set the table with everything he had bought and everything his wife and Valya had prepared for him. Valya had hosted Grandpa while he worked to arrange the meeting with his grandson.
He had already seen his grandson in photographs in the warden's office, but when his grandson entered the room, Grandpa froze in amazement. His grandson was practically his exact copy. A straight, long, thin nose, the same as his own, the same as Grandma Dunya's, his brother Ivan's, and the Russians in Ilya Glazunov's paintings; the same grey-green eyes, the same curly hair, but black, like his father David's. Everything about him was familiar, everything so dear and beloved. Grandpa reached out for a hug, and his grandson Andrei accepted it. They stood like that for about five minutes. Grandpa, his head resting on his grandson's chest, inaudibly cried and waited for the tears to stop falling from his eyes. "Men don't cry," he thought.
They sat down at the table. Grandpa poured half a glass of vodka for his grandson and a quarter for himself. They drank. They ate.
How are you?" Grandpa asked.
"As you see," the grandson replied, looking at his grandfather inquisitively.
"Eat the pasties; Grandma Rita made those. But the cutlets are from Grandma Valya here. I stayed at her house while I searched for you and arranged this meeting."
"How's Grandma Rita?" the grandson asked, and Grandpa didn't notice that his grandson wasn't actually that interested in how Grandma Rita was doing.
Grandpa began to tell him how happy Rita was when Vlad told her that he'd learned his grandson was alive and well.
The grandson took the vodka bottle and poured himself a quarter of a glass and Grandpa a half. He explained that otherwise, he would fall asleep.
They drank again.
It happened that they drank and ate a lot, and quite soon both fell asleep, despite it only was two o'clock in the afternoon. They woke up in the evening, around eight o'clock.
Their heads didn't hurt, but a slight hangover amused them. They boiled water and poured tea into glasses. Grandpa couldn't hold back and asked his grandson how he ended up on the Russian-Ukrainian front, and why, according to the documents, he wasn't listed as an American Andrew Coulter, but as a Ukrainian with the strange name and surname combination of Kirillo Ivanov.
His grandson explained that he'd been in Ukraine since 2018, not as an American, but as a Ukrainian from Nikolaev who had returned from the USA to reclaim Crimea and Donbas.
"So?" Grandpa asked. "Will it be possible to return them??"
"Whether it is possible or not does not matter. If you continue to fight like this, then maybe it will lead the Ukraineans to success. I'm here for two reasons. My mother, and my father too, said you're far from stupid. And I think you understand who I am, what I've done, why I'm here."
"Well, let's say you graduated from the intelligence military school in Monterey. You studied easily, because at least until the age of six you spoke Russian fluently, and on top of everything else, you probably learned Ukrainian, Serbo-Croatian, and some other Slavic language there. That's why they sent you to the Ukraine under cover. Doesn't your Russian soul resist all this crap? Slavs killing Slavs under the watchful guidance of the Americans. And you're participating in this."
"And you, Grandpa, haven't noticed that ordinary Slavs are killing ordinary Slavs. But neither your leadership nor the Ukrainian leadership is getting hit. It's a deal, Grandpa. Right?"
Grandpa remained silent. There was nothing to say. Zelenskyy struts around Kyiv, Izyum, and Kherson like it's Broadway.
His grandson continued, "Doesn't it seem to you, Grandpa, that our great Anglo-Saxon president simply asked, or ordered, your Slavic people, Putin and the Slavic-Jew Zelenskyy, to slightly reduce the Slavic population due to overpopulation and the general stupidity of Slavs? We, Anglo-Saxons, don't kill our own people. But you Slavs hate and kill each other at the first opportunity. Okay, the Slavic-Jew Zelenskyy isn't entirely Slavic, but your guy is most likely Slavic. By the way, where is one of his daughters? With us. Where is his buddy from St. Petersburg, the Slavic-Jew Chubais, with the money and state secrets? With us. Putin isn't with us yet, but he'll finish off the Slavs, divide Russia into pieces, and then come to us. And there, over dinner, they'll boast with Mr. Zelenskyy about who killed more Slavs, who destroyed more of the Slavic industry. And I'm afraid your Slavic guy will have more to brag about."
Grandpa was silent. A pause hung in the air.
"Listen, grandson," Grandpa finally broke the silence, "I'm no fan of Putin. I think he did a lot of good at first, but he's overstayed his welcome and it's time for him to retire. He's messed up a lot in recent years. He surrounded himself with thieves and idiots who stole money, filled his head with nonsense, dismantled the army, education, and healthcare. I understood this back in 2019 when he didn't defend Shchetinin's school, which his bastards closed down. We'll have another president. I hope Russia isn't short on talent. We were the first in space. We're not the last in peaceful and military atomic energy. Things aren't so bad for us. Your grandpa, if he manages to break through, can raise education to the point where we'll be the strongest again. Why aren't you with us? There are plenty of idiots among your ordinary people and even in the leadership as well. Why aren't you with us?"
"Don't forget, Grandpa, that I was only 50 percent Russian; I'm Anglo-Saxon the other 50 percent."
"I understand you're in this war partly because you want to get rid of that 50 percent of your Russianness."
"Yes, Grandpa. Imagine, with every Slav I kill, I get rid of one percent of my Slavic-ness; with every Russian I kill, I get rid of two percent of my Russian-ness. I want to become 100 percent Anglo-Saxon."
"How many percent are left?"
"Just a little – 15 percent at most."
"But what about «thou shalt not kill»? Don't you believe in Christ?"
"Well, firstly, at my age, people believe in themselves. And secondly, how did your Christ, by the way, not Russian or Slavic, kill about six million of his own people? Huh?"
"You'd better find that out in church during confession. But maybe he was angry at his people then. Jews are mostly traders, and where there's trade, there's deception. He might be angry at them again. Now, Jews practically run the world. They're in top positions in every country, but instead of peace and prosperity, they're leading people to a third world war. So, maybe God will again drive the Jews away through a painful death."
"Well, there are six million Jews, but you, Soviets, are no fewer than 27 million. What about you?"
"That's simple. We turned away from God back then; we demolished and desecrated His houses – the churches. So, we deserved it."
"Not convincing. There is no God. There is something out there, but that something constantly demands sacrifices. That's not God. That's something greater than God. I've killed about 30 of yours, and you'll soon get me out of here. Where is your God? I cut off the fingers and genitals of your people, and you'll get me out of here. I raped your women and then cut out their uteruses and breasts. And you love me and will get me out of here? And you won't kill me. Because you believe. Because you love your grandson, that is, me. You love me anyway. Although I kill yours, cut yours, cut off their breasts and genitals, cut out their uteruses. Anyway. You do love. You'll get me out. God is love."
Evening was approaching. Grandma Rita had already gone through the photos of her grandson Andrei several times. She had printed them from the pictures her daughter had sent via WhatsApp. She had bought frames and was carefully placing Andrei's photos into various frames, arranging them on the shelves. There wasn't much space on the shelves, so she first removed her and her husband's photos, then the children's photos, and then the numerous icons and small icons kept on the shelves above the television. She hadn't seen her grandson or any new photos of him since the day he'd made it clear to the American colonel that he was on Russia's side, and that Americans only knew how to fight with other people's hands, and that the Russians would definitely kick their asses someday.
Now, with this shared misfortune having struck their family, her eldest daughter had sent a huge number of photos of her grandson. A handsome grandson, with a beautiful thin, long nose, blue eyes, curly hair, resembling the Russians depicted in Ilya Glazunov's paintings.
She remembered that phone call from the first to the last second. Grandpa Vlad, surprised and happy that his eldest daughter had called, then growing gloomy at the news that his grandson was fighting for the Ukraine against the Russians, then learning that his grandson was missing, and if alive, was somewhere in a prison in Luhansk, Donetsk, or Russia.
Then there were many more calls. They collected money. They gathered over half a million US dollars. They sold almost everything except one of the apartments in Zhukovsky, which they had previously rented out. They got about $150,000. David brought another $400,000. He and his wife had also sold almost everything.
With this money, they arranged a meeting with their grandson, paid for his trial, and secured an acquittal. Now Grandpa would tell his grandson what to say, how to behave, and after the trial, the grandson would finally be with them.
This wasn't even discussed. They would take him and show him to all their relatives. They would live with him, indulge him with real Russian pelmeni, sturgeon shashlik, black caviar, pancakes with red caviar, mushrooms, lingonberry and cranberry mors (fruit drink), fried potatoes with white mushrooms and salted chanterelles, dried taranka (a type of fish), nighttime swims in the Sea of Azov, Crimean chebureki (pastries), and Crimean onions. Everything that his Russian soul surely craved.
Then Grandpa would introduce Andrei to his female students from the university where he teaches English. Grandpa has a wonderful student named Katya, and Anfisa, and Aziza, and Polina, and Nastya, and Lyuba. Grandpa should have his eyes scratched out for that, but oh well. Andrei is handsome. Girls like that kind of guys. They'll marry him off and keep him in Russia. Maybe grandparents even live to see great-grandchildren.
Grandma Rita wept with joy at the happiness that had fallen upon them because of the misfortune. She arranged the photos in chronological order, showing her grandson Andrei's growth, and peered at them, watching as his baby teeth were replaced by permanent ones, as freckles appeared and disappeared, as moustache sprouted under his handsome, long nose, as his eyes changed from grey to blue, as the boy became a teenager, a young man, an adult.
When the guards entered the room the next morning, they were stunned. A body hung from the ceiling. It was Grandpa Vlad's body. Prisoner Kirillo Ivanov was peacefully sleeping in the bed. "Wow, what a cook," thought the guard, who knew that Kirillo Ivanov was listed as a cook. His military ID also stated this. To hang his own grandfather and then go to sleep. "Those Ukrainians sure have good cooks." The guard cautiously approached the bed and nudged Ivanov with the barrel of his Kalashnikov. Ivanov didn't wake up. The guard nudged him harder, but the result was the same. The second guard cautiously approached, ready for anything. The first guard pulled the sheet from the prisoner Ivanov's face and realized he was dead. He lay on the bed like a corpse already prepared for burial. His face was clean-shaven, although he had entered with a week's worth of stubble; his arms were crossed on his chest and tied with a shoelace; in his hands was an icon depicting Jesus Christ; Andrei was wearing a fresh, clean white shirt, freshly ironed trousers, and shoes polished to a shine. The Icon of Jesus suddenly fell on the floor and under it prevous location on the chest of Kirrilo the guards saw the svastics.
Later, a fatal wound would be discovered on the back of his head, but no signs of violence would be found on Grandpa Vlad's body.
"Have you ever seen a grandpa and grandson kill each other like that?" the first guard asked the second one.
"Let's get out of here, let's get out of here…" an echo, inexplicably appearing in the now deathly silent room, reverberated.
"Listen, this room has never had an echo."
There had been no echo in this room before or after this event. But this time, there was. It was a strange, dead, one-time echo. The echo of immigration.
Instead of an Epilogue
I conceived this story about ten years ago, after living in the United States. I understood that by leaving Russia, we kill ourselves, our children, and especially our grandchildren. I don't have grandchildren and most likely never will. I deprived myself of that last and sweetest joy in life—indulging my grandchildren—by moving abroad. Even if I had a grandchild abroad, he would be a stranger to me, not Russian, not ours, not mine, not my own.
I don't have a grandson fighting on the side of the Ukraine, but my brother has a son—my nephew—who joined the US Army and has already been transferred to Poland. If ours continue to fight so ineptly, he will fight against Russia and kill the Russians.
I have an acquaintance, Kirillo Ivanov, who, having arrived from Nikolaev, joined the US army.
I teach at a university, and many students want to leave Russia. And I understand that if they do, they will kill themselves, their grandchildren, and their children. I don't like a lot of things about today's Russia, including its awful leadership, but I returned. I'm alive.