Mother of Russia

Crossing Red Square, I heard two women, clearly mothers, agree that they wanted their children to be happy. The fathers, apparently, wanted the children to be high achievers and that would be fine, said the mothers, so long as.

Just then, I tripped over nothing. This would not have been unusual except that spirits don’t trip. The mothers didn’t realize I had bumped into them.

They were concerned, the mothers. The boys had phoned to say their regiment was to do special training near the western border, and the mothers hoped their sons were learning well. Being competent and skilled is very important, they supposed, to the boys' contentment and happiness as soldiers in peacetime.

When my dear son was young, I had said the same thing about happy. I was glad for his grade-school class on Baskov. The class was small but not too small and I thought it good for making friends. I loved his smile upon doing a solid Judo move. He liked reading the old leaders. He seemed happy, and so I was happy. High school…law school…intelligence. He advanced in ways a father could love, yet still I just wanted for his happiness. As I walked the Square, I wondered about him. How was my little boy? You know, even when they are grown, they are still your little children.

I had been gone for 24 years; I didn't know why I was called back. Sometimes we are given a specific reason or task, but I was set down in this place and left only to my own thoughts. So I just wandered until the mothers set me thinking how I might now find my son.

In the Square, people were bundled under the early March clouds. The wind was mild but added greatly to the cold, though I could not feel it. As I moved through the Square, I tried to imagine where my son might be. I passed closely by the groups of people walking, to eavesdrop, thinking it would help to know more about these current times. After passing one group, I was startled to hear someone speak my last name. I turned, but they were talking to their friend, not to me. Five meters on, it happened again. I couldn't tell what they were saying. The third time, the person spoke a full name: my son's name. And then I heard "president."

President?! Could it be?! Had my little boy risen to be president of my dear country?! Just before I died, he had come to the city to take up an important government position, but I never imagined he would rise so far. And it would have been at such an important turning point in our history. He had told me our country went down a blind alley, from which it had a chance to emerge. What might he have done as leader? How might he have led the Motherland to peace and prosperity?

I stopped to look around the square. My joy rose as I began to pay attention to what I saw. Lenin's tomb was the same as always, and every direction still held the beauty of Russian architecture, but something was different. The old stagnation was gone. BudgetPetWorld — everything for health and happiness of the fuzzy ones Advertisement Peoples' clothes were more vibrant and varied than before. Down a street off the Square, there were stores from Europe and Asia and America. It seemed we had become citizens of the world. I wondered which of our stores might be there in New York or Paris, Tokyo or London. Russia's glory had risen. Not only had we left Lenin's blind alley, we had also left behind Stalin's fear and murder and isolation. And they said my dear sweet Vlad was president, so this was his doing! Surely the people love him for this.

My mother's dream was true! Everything I wished for! Surely he must be incredibly happy to have done so much for so many millions in Russia.

How could I learn more of what my Vlad had done to bring such beauty? How he had taken Russia from fallen pariah to now having such respect across the world?

I went to the shopping mall across from Lenin's tomb. Though the two are barely 200 meters apart, I had to smile at the great distance between them. A distance my son had guided Russia to cross. Walking inside, I felt even more the glory of Russia. Years ago, the pictures I had seen of shopping malls in America were nothing like this. The wonderful architecture outside carried straight into the mall, surrounding and engulfing the stores with our rich heritage and history. America's malls were only about the glitter, but here the glitter served to light the jewels and goodness of Russian culture. Beautifully carved stone. Intricate iron railings. Tall arches and colorful benches, painted in both classic and modern style.

I was overwhelmed with how far Russia had come, and I hovered by a bench painted with Grandpa Frost as a centaur, a little girl and boy on his back, flying before a starry night sky with a large flower in each corner. It was a striking image of Russia's power and speed channeled into the love and charity that my son had brought. The bench was in front of a Western store called "New Balance" and I thought, "Yes. That's what it seems my Vlad has done. A new balance that magnifies Russia's glory as friend and equal with the world."

It seemed odd to me, though, that in the New Balance store, the lights were off. I moved toward the store, and the door was shut and locked. Perhaps the staff were sick today. Then I saw another store, Marc Cain, also dark and closed. I could tell it was not a holiday because, on the upper level, VTB Bank was open. But it was the same with more Western stores. Closed: Lauren Vidal, Devernois, UGG. Only the Western stores, as if they had shunned Russia. Confused, I went back out to the Square. For the first time, I looked closely at the peoples' faces. They were like the stores inside. Most were closed, dark, turned inward.

I heard a faint rumbling and turned toward it, in the direction of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I could see nothing unusual, and yet the sound grew, careening off the Arsenal wall. Then, to my right, I heard the rumbling come through the arches by the Historical Museum and through them I saw movement. Soon it was coming clear: Many people were walking down Tverskaya Street and across Mokhovaya, heading for Red Square. They did not seem happy.

Some came through the arches and many more came around the Museum's farther side. The first hand-made sign I saw was "No to war!" What is this? "Hands off Ukraine!" What was Russia doing?! I saw some small children with their mothers. "Stop Putin!" What was my son doing?! What were these people doing? Why did they not appreciate the freedom and prosperity Vlad had brought them? "Stop Murder! Putin Lies!" A banner with my son's face and a blood red, dripping handprint over it.

I should have dissolved away that instant. But I had to know.

"Russians are killing Ukrainians" and then "Putin Hitler! Putin Devil!" My son, like Hitler? It could not be. I wouldn't have it. His father and I always kept Viktor's photo on the table. Vlad knew Hitler's brutality was why he never met his older brother.

I would not give up my dream. I so wanted Vlad to be happy. He couldn't be an angry, murderous devil. No. No. No.

At a noise behind me, I turned around. Immediately I saw a very different Russia. The eastern half of Red Square was filling with black uniforms and rifles, helmets and clubs. From both sides of St. Basil's Cathedral, they poured out like a polluted river. The crowd did not flinch, even when the police got near and yelled they would face charges of treason for their negative comments about Russia. Treason? For negative comments? The people only chanted louder and moved forward, toward the police.

A man stepped out ahead of the crowd and the police laid hold of him first, one on either side. He dropped to his knees and they dragged him across the cobblestones, hanging by the wrists. A woman tried to pull away and the police backhanded her, tearing her cheek. Another man fell after being struck with a club, then on the ground they kicked him. Not my Vlad. This is Stalin.

And then the children were at the front of the crowd — five of them. They couldn't yet be even teenaged, carrying flowers and their antiwar banner: Russia + Ukraine = Love. The police lit into their two mothers with an intense verbal assault. "Brave moms are you?! Rakuten Kobo sells audiobooks and e-books in partnership with Walmart Advertisement You'll be stripped of your parental rights!" They seized the mothers and a child screamed. Then they grabbed the children. The whole group of them off to jail.

I was in a shock of whiplash. So quickly had I seen my mother's dream as reality and then so quickly I realized it had not been so. How could Vladimir be happy commanding this?

And would no one stop him?

Only then did I remember that the walls of the Kremlin were no barrier to me, nor the guards. Surely that's where Vladimir must be. I found him by looking for a strong security presence, then for a stronger one after that. Soon I was in the room with him.

He was just ending some kind of television meeting with a Western leader. I wanted to know who it was, or anyway which country, but having been away so long, I was at a loss. The moment the television turned off, the stern look he had given the leader broke into a smile. "You see. I was right," he said to an official who sat off behind the television. "They won't fight in Ukraine for someone else's freedom. They're afraid for their own skin. They won't even fight to protect children. I can bomb families. I can treat the Ukrainian traitors however I want. All I had to do was act like an unpredictable madman making wild threats beyond Ukraine."

He smiled again, even more fully than before. "I'll have Ukraine before long, and then they won't be able to get it back. And Moldova will be much easier. The southern rim won't be that difficult — but I'll need to hurry with Georgia."

He thought for a moment. "The West are all like that Dutchman: 'I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it.'" His tone was mocking as he said it. "They might put up a fuss if I tread on their actual toes, but they don't have the guts to physically fight for their neighbor. They love their comfort. They're happy buying pretty things from billionaires and then complaining how rich the billionaires are.

Their words of moral outrage are far louder than their actions — except when they burn their own cities and silence their own people. They've sent more weapons to Ukraine than I thought they would, so that slows me down but not very much. Germany was a change, but they're only catching up with the others." He laughed. "So funny when they sent helmets."

"And the financial situation?" the official asked.

"Sergei, I can build around whatever they have thrown or will throw at me. It's all computers and we're good at that. And I've got China now, with its reserves and payment systems. Not to mention all the technology they've…acquired. Xi doesn't care if I level Ukraine or anyone else. It's good enough for him to halfway seem like he does. And he appreciates my lead in proving the West won't fight when he takes Taiwan."

His face suddenly switched to a stern aspect. "Enough. You got me talking more than I wanted. You don't need to know all that. Look, just get these people off my streets. They're just insects scurrying around Red Square like you stomped on an ant hill. I don't care what you do, just clean it up." The official nodded submissively and left the room in a hurry, leaving Vladimir and I alone together.

My dear boy. My child. I wished that he could hear me crying. I wished that if I held his face in my hands, he would feel it.

He leaned back in his chair and stretched out with a satisfied expression. He chuckled and blurted out, "Stupid Sergei," then smiled again.

And I knew. My dream had all along been off-center. Happiness. Goodness. What in my mind was connected as a tight circle needn't be connected at all. Watching him, I could see that my dream had, in fact, come true. And I cried yet more, because my son was happy.

---