WeWriWa—A spiritually muted Easter

Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP. The rules have now been relaxed to allow a few more sentences if merited, so long as they’re clearly indicated, to avoid the creative punctuation many of us have used to stay within the limit.

Since today, 5 May, is Orthodox Easter (quite late this year!), I’m sharing an Easter-themed snippet from A Dream Deferred: Lyuba and Ivan at University. In the snippet I shared for the Western Easter on 31 March, 22-year-old Yustina Yeltsina-Baronova made an Easter basket for a handsome former Marine named Nestor Ugolnikov. The year is 1949.

Though Nestor hasn’t been to church in years, he caved to Yustina’s invitation to spend the holiday with her family. Nestor’s parents disowned him in shame and disgust after he lost his leg at Iwo Jima.

Khristos voskrese (Christ is risen) is the traditional Russian Easter greeting. Father Timofey is a crossover character in my Atlantic City books, as Cinnimin attends his church during her 1940 birthday trip to New York and again during graduate school.

All the votive candles around the church are simultaneously lit by a special spark, and the ikonostasis doors are flung open. Father Timofey reappears, having changed his dour black robes for silver and white, embroidered with tiny gemstones sparkling in all the candlelight.

“Khristos voskrese!” Father Timofey proclaims.

Nestor sits and daydreams as the service wears on. Every so often, he crosses himself and mutters, “Indeed he has risen” in response to the constant parade of “Khristos voskrese!” so as not to seem too tuned-out. After the interminable Easter Matins and Easter Hours, Father Timofey invites all the faithful to come up for Communion. Nestor mindlessly crosses himself when Communion is brought to him. He closes his eyes and swallows the wine and bread on the spoon, feeling as spiritually detached as he usually does.

Divine Liturgy then begins, and Nestor goes back to half-heartedly paying attention. Finally, Father Timofey delivers the closing benediction and entreats everyone to forgive one another.

The ten lines end here. A few more follow to finish the scene.

Nestor stands up as quickly as possible, his candle by now having burnt down about an inch and a half. On his way to temporarily depositing it in one of the sand-filled containers used for this purpose, he averts his eyes from all the people hugging and kissing in the traditional end of Easter services custom.

Yustina approaches him, an Easter basket on either arm, right after he’s placed his candle among all the others still flickering away. “Khristos voskrese!”

Before Nestor has time to react or realize what’s happening, Yustina has set both of the baskets on chairs, jumped up on another chair, and hugged him. Before she jumps back off the chair, she kisses him on the cheek.

“Now look who’s being too friendly with men she barely knows,” Milada whispers.

Yustina hands Nestor one of the baskets, with a dark blue bow on the handle. “I made this just for you yesterday. Please don’t try to refuse it.”

WeWriWa—A last-minute Easter basket

Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP. The rules have now been relaxed to allow a few more sentences if merited, so long as they’re clearly indicated, to avoid the creative punctuation many of us have used to stay within the limit.

Since today is Easter, I decided to switch to a holiday snippet for my readers who celebrate. This comes from Chapter 27, “Emotional Easter,” of my WIP A Dream Deferred: Lyuba and Ivan at University. It’s the eve of Orthodox Easter 1949, and 22-year-old Yustina Yeltsina-Baronova is making an Easter basket for 26-year-old Nestor Ugolnikov, whom she met in St. Nicholas Park earlier that day.

Nestor is a former Marine who was disowned by his parents after he lost a leg at Iwo Jima. He just moved into Yustina’s grandmother’s boardinghouse after years in the veterans’ hospital. Though he planned to celebrate Easter alone in his new suite, Yustina insists he join her family for both services and meals.

Kolbasy are sausages. The Russian letters XB stand for Khristos Voskrese (Christ is risen), the traditional Easter greeting.

Paskha, a traditional Slavic cheese dish eaten at Easter

Yustina places a lamb mold around a chunk of butter. “Would anyone like to contribute some spare paskhi for Nestor’s Easter basket?”

“We’ve already made all the paskhi we’re going to make,” Naum says. “We only expected eight people, and we’re not in the habit of putting multiple paskhi in each basket.”

Yustina shrugs. “Then I’ll have to go out and buy one. How about extra kulichi?”

Valya points to several plain kulichi still on a cooling rack. “Have at it.”

Yustina pulls an embroidered placemat out of a drawer and sets it in the basket, which she fills with ham, kolbasy, salt, horseradish, wine, bacon, roast beef, pork, lox, plenty of colored eggs, and chocolates.

The ten lines end there. A few more follow to finish the scene.

She then grabs several cheese balls and sticks cloves into them in the shapes of crosses. After that, she places a cross mold around more butter.

After the butter is in the basket, Yustina liberally applies a mix of chocolate and vanilla icing to the three unclaimed kulichi, followed by slivered almonds, colored sprinkles and sugar, candied flowers, shredded coconut, powdered sugar, cinnamon, brown sugar, and chopped, candied walnuts. Almost as an afterthought, she ices the Russian letters XB on the side.

“Are you trying to give him diabetes?” Artur asks. “His kulichi are a lot sweeter than any of ours, and you barely left any room for the candles.”

“He hasn’t properly celebrated Easter in a really long time. Why shouldn’t I go all out for him?” Yustina places each kulich into the Easter basket in turn.

Kulichi, Copyright Loyna

WeWriWa—Inga’s first Christmas presents

Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP. The rules have now been relaxed to allow a few more sentences if merited, so long as they’re clearly indicated, to avoid the creative punctuation many of us have used to stay within the limit.

This comes from Chapter 76, “Ups and Downs of Rehabilitation,” from Journey Through a Dark Forest. It’s Orthodox Christmas 1943, and 18-year-old Inga Savvina is celebrating the holiday for the first time since coming to America last summer to meet the father who had no idea she existed. Her mother is imprisoned in Siberia.

Some of you may remember Inga from the snippets of her arrival in New York and meeting Yuriy Yeltsin, a family friend from Toronto who came to her rescue when she injured her knee and quickly fell in love with her. Inga insisted her father and grandparents open their gifts first, and now it’s her turn.

Inga grudgingly peels open her presents, more and more embarrassed at how much money must’ve been spent on her. Leather-bound notebooks, clothes, hats, shoes, books, a victrola and some records, a blue marble ink blotter and blotter paper, fancy hairpins. Her gifts from Zhenya, Mireena, Milena, and Vasilisa are more modest—embroidered hand towels, candy, tin cookie cutters, a basket lined with blue fabric and filled with basic sewing supplies.

“Now you must open Yuriy’s present. He sent it all the way from Canada just for you.” Mrs. Kharzina nudges the yellow parcel. “We’ll have breakfast afterwards.”

Inga carefully pulls away the tissue paper and opens the box. She smiles as she takes out the contents, a pure white rabbit hat with earflaps, a teddybear, a book of English poetry, and a necklace with fat blue wooden beads. When she flips open the book, she sees an inscription in deep blue ink, with a fancy, flourished script she’s surprised a modern man would use.

The ten lines end here. A few more follow to finish the scene.

Yuriy has written first in Russian, then the English translation.

20 December 1942

Happy Christmas to my best penpal. I hope you enjoy your first Christmas, even if you’re not Christian. Everyone likes presents and a nice family celebration. I know you miss your first family, but your new family treats you very well. Most families wouldn’t welcome a surprise addition with such open arms so many years after the fact.

Pozhaluysta [Please], enjoy these humble presents. You deserve everything nice in the world after you lost your mother and first family and had to go so far to a strange land. Even if you’re lonely and homesick, you can have a nice fur hat, another cuddly friend, humble jewelry, and something nice to read while you’re learning English.

Very truly yours,

Your Canadian friend Yuriy

“He’s sweet on you,” Mrs. Kharzina repeats. “A man only buys a woman fur if he cares a lot about her. It’s a serious investment in a woman, even if it’s just rabbit fur. Mishenka only started getting me fur after he was seriously interested in me. No man buys a woman poetry or jewelry if he’s just her friend.”

“You can think that if you want. Yuriy and I know the truth.”

“That depends on whose truth you mean. A good man’s worth his weight in gold, and I’ve known Yuriy long enough to know how nicely he’s turned out. Don’t be surprised if he makes his intentions known after the war. Determination can make a person do amazing things.”

WeWriWa—Inga’s first Christmas

Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP. The rules have now been relaxed to allow a few more sentences if merited, so long as they’re clearly indicated, to avoid the creative punctuation many of us have used to stay within the limit.

This year’s Christmas snippets come from Chapter 76, “Ups and Downs of Rehabilitation,” from Journey Through a Dark Forest. It’s Orthodox Christmas 1943, and 18-year-old Inga Savvina is celebrating the holiday for the first time since coming to America last summer to meet the father who had no idea she existed. Her mother is imprisoned in Siberia.

Some of you may remember Inga from the snippets of her arrival in New York and meeting Yuriy Yeltsin, a family friend from Toronto who came to her rescue when she injured her knee and quickly fell in love with her. Her father’s real name is Mikhail, but he’s only ever called Ginny.

Inga pulls on her new blue robe and pads down the stairs in her matching slippers, already seeing the distant twinkle of the lights on the tree. Ginny doesn’t have a massive tree, but it’s a respectable four feet tall, and festooned with dried cranberries, white and colored lights, popcorn strings, shiny glass bulbs, little birds’ nests, and sparkly garlands. Never having seen a Christmas tree before, Inga has no preconceived notions of its grandness or lack thereof.

As proudly atheist as Inga has remained, her eyes can’t help but widen at the sight of the brightly-wrapped presents underneath. The presents are crowding out the beautiful Russian crèche Ginny bought from Valya’s boutique many years ago, while a large miniature train runs on little tracks around the tree, away from the pile of presents.

“Do you like Christmas enough to get baptized?” Mrs. Kharzina asks hopefully as Inga plops onto a fat green velvet cushion.

“I wasn’t raised to believe in God or to see the Bible as anything but ancient literature and some verified history. But I’m happy to help you with celebrating your holiday. You have your traditions, and I have mine.”

Mrs. Kharzina scoops up a medium-sized box in yellow tissue paper, with a blue bow, and dangles it in front of Inga.

The ten lines end here. A few more follow to finish the scene.

“Your young man sent this. If Yuriy’s just your penpal who happens to be a man, he wouldn’t send you such a nice-sized Christmas present.”

Inga sets it off to the side and reaches for the present she bought her babushka. “You and Dedushka should open your gifts first. You’re my elders.”

Ginny and his parents commence unwrapping their presents while Inga watches. America still seems like a land of great material wealth, even in wartime and compared against the old money she was raised in. People in a destitute country wouldn’t have the money to afford jewelry, cameras, hardcover books, records, upscale clothes, and silverware. She wonders how many ration coupons they cost, though her grandparents have more disposable income since they only had one child, and Ginny has been a bachelor for years. Inga only had her modest income from the boutique for presents, and bought a green crocheted coin purse for her babushka, a green drinking glass with an interesting shape and texture for her dedushka, and a blue ceramic candy dish for Ginny.

“Now you must start opening your presents,” Mrs. Kharzina insists. “I always thought my grandchild would have her first Christmas as a baby, but it’s never too late to start.”

WeWriWa—Playing dreidel for prizes

Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP. The rules have now been relaxed to allow a few more sentences if merited, so long as they’re clearly indicated, to avoid the creative punctuation many of us have used to stay within the limit.

This year I’m doing a few Chanukah snippets before my Christmas snippets. They come from an abandoned story I began for a contest a few years ago, which just wasn’t coming together well for many reasons. (The substitute I switched to was so much better!) Ultimately, this material will be repurposed into a book about the younger siblings of my Hungarian characters Kálmán, Klaudia, and Csilla, whom some of you might remember.

It’s 1947, and almost-sixteen-year-old Virgil Rein and Liliana Buchsbaum, almost-seventeen-year-old Xenia Bergman, and eleven-year-old Oliver Rein and Beatrix Bergman have been living in Sweden for two and a half years. A miraculous twist of fate got them pulled out of the death line at the last minute, and they survived unbeknownst to their older siblings. Now the five of them are inseparable, and Virgil and Liliana have been a couple almost since they were liberated.

Lulu is Liliana’s nickname. Like her older sister Klaudia, who goes by Udika, she prefers a much less common nickname to stand out from the crowd.

After dinner concluded and the tables were cleared, the quintet went up to the fifth floor to play the traditional game of spinning small tops. The name of this top, like the menorah versus chanukiyah debate, was also a point of contention among the guests, depending upon where they were from. Virgil, Liliana, Xenia, Beatrix, Oliver, and the other Hungarians knew it as a trenderli; the Germans and Austrians called it a trendel; the French called it a toupie de Chanukah; the people from Yiddish-speaking backgrounds knew it as a dreidel; and the people most passionate about reclaiming the Hebrew language would only refer to it as a sevivon.

But regardless of the name it was known by, there were lots of delicious chocolates and shiny krona coins as prizes, as well as bigger, more lasting goodies like costume jewelry, books, art supplies, and marbles. Oliver and Beatrix joined the other children playing for chocolate and money, while Virgil, Liliana, and Xenia found a group playing for Eyvind Johnson’s powerful anti-Nazi Krilon trilogy, Agnes von Krusenstjerna’s controversial, racy Tony trilogy and Fröknarna von Pahlen series, Selma Lagerlöf’s epic novel Jerusalem, and leather-covered notebooks in a rainbow of colors, with matching pens included in the pocket on the spine. 

A girl in her last year of school explained the traditional rules of the game, where the letter nun represented getting nothing, gimel meant getting everything, hey stood for taking half, and shin represented putting something back into the pile of loot. She then distributed pieces of plywood to the groups playing for bigger prizes. There were squares drawn in pencil on the boards, with the names of the prizes in some of the squares. The objective was to spin the tops so they landed on one of the prizes. Unlucky players would have to give back their goodies and try again on their next turn if they landed in a square with an X drawn over it.

The ten lines end there. A few more follow to finish the scene.

Virgil spun a wooden top painted with lavender letters, which landed in an X square, and then Xenia spun. Her top landed on the square for the Tony trilogy.

Xenia eagerly grabbed the books. “If I still have these by the end of the game, Lulu, I’ll let you borrow them. Herre and Fru Lindenstrauss are so modern, we won’t have to hide them under the mattress.”

They continued spinning for the next half-hour, taking and giving back the books many times. When time was called on the end of the game, Virgil had three notebooks in green, light blue, and beige, Xenia had the Tony trilogy, and Liliana had a red notebook and the seven books of the Fröknarna von Pahlen series.

Oliver ran to show Virgil all the chocolate and kronor he’d won, while Beatrix showed Xenia her own loot. Then they rushed off to play for wooden toys, stuffed animals, and kites donated by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Celebrating holidays so far from home, with only one another, hadn’t gotten any easier, but considering what might’ve happened had Fate gone differently, they were very lucky and blessed.