Roots

Roots - Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Boxes, Secrets, and Lies

Ever since yesterday's visit with my great grandmamma, my mother hasn't stopped talking about how weird the conversation had been.  To be honest I couldn't stop talking about it either.  I mean why couldn't I research her history, my father's history?  Who is she to say that I can't, when she doesn't even know me?  The more and more that I kept on thinking about it, the more and more I became upset.  Even at school Mandy and Eric noticed how on edge I had become.

"What is it with you today Lisa? You look like you are about to go punch something or someone." Eric asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, did you get in another argument with your mom?" Mandy added in to the list of questions.

I looked up from my tray of untouched food to see the concern and weird looks from my two friends, and let out a loud, long sigh, as I pushed my tray to the side to rest my head in my hands.  God, did I have the hugest headache from all of this or what.

"Sorry, but yesterday my great grandmother just really ticked me off, who is she to tell me that I can't research my family, huh? I mean why can't I know about where she comes from, where my father, my own father, her grandson, was from and his history. I have a right to know." I spat out with a frustrated tone.

"Wait she actually spoke to you?" Mandy asked with a curious voice.

"Ugh yeah, finally after eighteen years of knowing me she talked to me and you know what her only mission in her conversation with me was? Not, 'Oh, I'm so glad you're my family'.  Not, 'So, how was your day, your week, and since we haven't spoken in over eighteen years… how are you?  No, it was, 'no you shall do no such thing', as in 'no I can't research my Russian side of family history.'"

"Really? Man, why does she not want you to research?" Mandy asked with a sad and confused look.

"I have no flippin clue, that's what is making me mad; she didn't give me a single clue or reason as to why.  And my mother even told her that I have to do my project, but my great grandmamma just wouldn't listen.  I mean really what is the big deal; is what I want to know." I said as I stood up not even bothering to take my full lunch tray to the trash.  I just had to walk, move, do something other than just sit here and get more upset.

"Hey Lisa wait up." Mandy called out as I headed for the doors to exit the cafeteria.

"Look, I'm really sorry for being such a grouch, just what Nunna said, it's really not fair, and ridiculous.  I mean really why doesn't she want me to research?" I said as I went to sit down on a bench, waiting for the bell for my next class to ring.

"Or another question is what is there that she doesn't want you to find?" Eric said as he sat on the other side of the bench.

"Yeah, think about it, if your great grandmother doesn't want you to research, there has to be a reason, and if she won't tell you, then it must be really important…." Mandy trailed off.

"So important to hide it and keep me from researching the truth, you mean?" I finished where she left off.  This was all making more sense, yet at the same time causing my head to hurt so much more, because of all the additional questions that were now flooding my mind.

"Well, I'll see you after school, and don't worry, I'm sure her reasons aren't anything bad." Mandy said as she stood up and started to follow the sea of students heading for the school doors.  I had been so caught up in my thoughts that I hadn't even heard the bell.

"Yeah okay." I said, as I head towards my Calculus class.  As I passed the library to go to my class, it was if my mind was spinning around and around and suddenly just clicked in place.  I knew right then in there I had to find some answers.  I turned back around and headed into the library towards the computers.

I looked all around me, making sure my teacher or anyone that I would know, wouldn't catch me skipping class, even if they did, this was more important than going over another day about integers and negative integers.

As soon as I logged on to the computer, it was if my fingers had a mind on its own.  Before I knew it I was typing in Vasiliev and then Vasilieva, Russia, early nineteen hundreds, and Russian immigrants in the Google search engine.

Yet, what surprised me was that there wasn't a single bit of information about anyone with the name of Vasiliev or Vasilieva.  It was as if the name never existed.  Once I tried searching it on other search engines I gave up and headed towards the librarian.

"Um, sorry, but do you have any books about Russian History?"  I asked softly.

"Sure dear it's in reference section with the call numbers nine hundred seventy-eight thru nine hundred ninety-four." She said softly, point me in the general direction of the library and handing me a piece of scrap paper with the numbers on it.

As I started looking through some of the books, I noticed they really didn't have tons of information about family names, immigration, etc.  They had a few that were repeated over and over like about the Royal family in the early nineteen hundreds was killed by communists and such, but they never had any other common or uncommon Russian names mentioned.

"Lisa? What are you doing in here? Shouldn't you be in class?" I heard a male voice say on the other side of the bookshelves.

Oh crap!  I thought to myself as my eyes focused on my teacher Mr. Poloski.

"Um…well yeah, but I had to look something up." I said nervously, as I started to put back the books.

"Ah I see, Russian History? Is this for my class?" He asked as he picked up one of the books I had just put back on the shelf.

"Yeah…for the class project." I quickly stated.

"Oh you have family from Russia?" He asked, as he put back the book and looked at me with interest.

"Yeah my father's side of the family are all Russian." 

"Really? How fascinating.  My mother's side is also Russian.  Where is your family from in Russia?" He asked as he started to walk back towards the computers.

"I really have no clue Sir.  That's why I was trying to search for my great grandparents' names, but I couldn't find anything."

"Very interesting. What were their names?" He asked as he went to go sit in front of the computer.  Is he really trying to help me? I wondered.

"Well my great grandparents' names are Vasiliev. And my grandfather's last name was Peterson." I told him as he typed in the names in the Google search.  Did he really think I didn't do this already?

“I’m assuming your great grandmother’s name is Vasilieva, with an A, correct?” He asked as he kept typing in words on the keyboard. As soon as nothing came up, he started typing the url address of another website.

"Alright, let's see about this website.  If it's Russian then it will be on here.  This website has everything about Russia in one location such as, dates, names, places, events, objects, everything." Mr. Poloski said as he typed in my family's name.

"Huh, not found." He said softly, "Are you sure their last names are Vasiliev?"

What? Was he really serious? Of course it was….wasn't it? I started to ask myself.

"Yes, at least I think so. I'll have to double check the spelling when I get home." I said quickly.  My mind was going a gazillion miles per second with questions.  Is my great grandmamma's last name really Vasilieva?  That's all we've ever known and was told, but what if it had been changed?  Yet there was another part of me that wanted to just believe that there was no secret to the fact that my family's name wouldn't show up, it was just a misspelling.

"Yeah do double check, because I actually majored in Russian History in college and I've never heard of that name ever in my entire life." Mr. Poloski said as he stood up and started to escort me to my next class.

"If you'd like, I could bring in some of my personal Russian books and you can take a look at them and see if you can gather any additional information about your family.  Do you speak or can you read Russian?" He asked as we approached my Chemistry classroom door.

"Yeah I know some, I'm not as fluent as my great grandmamma or my mother, but I know enough to be me by."

"Oh that's excellent, because a lot of the books I can let you use are written in Russian, but good I won't have to worry about translating for you. Well, I believe this is where we part, now that I know you aren't skipping any more.  Oh you may need this…" He said as he took out an excuse slip.

"Thanks Mr. Poloski, see you on Monday." I said briefly as I took the paper and walked into my last class of the day, which went by pretty quickly.  Before I knew it the end of the school day bell rung and the announcements came on and I quickly hurried out the door to go see Mandy.  I just had to tell her what I found…or more importantly what I didn't find.

"Really? Nothing? And Mr. Poloski caught you skipping?" Mandy said with disbelief in her voice.

"Wait, hold up, rewind, you skipped a class Lisa, wow I didn't think you were into all that?" Eric said surprisingly, as he walked up at the end of Mandy's sentence.

"Yeah, I had to try to find some things for that history project."

"Yeah, and most interesting enough is that there's not a single trace of the name Vasiliev." Mandy added in.

"Of course there isn't because someone is hiding something. I bet your great grandmother was a Russian spy and kept changing her name around so people wouldn't ever know who she was." Eric said with a huge grin on his face.

"Yeah maybe, but wouldn't she have her real name on some kind of Russian document?" Mandy asked.

"Maybe, who knows, you're not really going to know unless you find a photograph with names or just ask your great grandmother yourself." Eric stated.

"Yeah maybe, I'm going to look in the attic today when I get home.  Oh there's my mom, I'll see yall later." I hurried to the car and waved back at my friends.

"Wow you're here early this time, Mom." I said as we drove towards home.

"Yeah well, I didn't have that much to do today.  Anyways I figured we could go home and I could help you look through some of the things in the attic…if you want.  You know for your project and all." She said while she focused on the road.

"Yeah that will be cool, because I tried to do some research today about Dad, but the search engines and some other sites didn't recognize the last name Vasiliev.  Even my World History teacher tried to help me."

"Oh that's strange, well I'm sure we can find some things.  At least you already have the information from one side of your family." She smiled over at me. I thought about last night during dinner she talked all about our English side of the family.  We discussed how her family had come over to America on the Mayflower, and how at one point they were plantation owners down in Charleston.  I quickly found out that I was related to three different presidents of America, and that the former Miss United Kingdom was my long distant cousin.  Cool right? Yeah I thought so too until I realized I only had half of my project information and I was basically verbally banned from seeking the other half of the information for my project.

As we started going through the boxes in the attic all I really saw were old books and clothes.  No pictures, nothing.  Until I saw the boxes labeled D. Peterson which stood for "Dimitri Peterson"…my father.

"What's in these, mom?" I asked as I went over to start moving the boxes off of one another to try to open.

"Ah, those might have some things.  I put a lot of his photos in them."

As I opened one box after the other my hopes were really starting to disappear at finding any information about my father and his side of the family.  The first box was filled with just old photos of my dad and his parents and then a lot with my mom.  Several boxes were of his army clothes and several other things from when he served, as well as a folded American Flag.

"Ugh, there's nothing useful here, Mom." I called out.

"Sorry hunny, I thought there would've been something up here. Oh wait here's another box." She said as she walked over and handed it to me.

I took a deep breath, mentally crossing my fingers and toes for this box to contain some kind of information.  As I lifted the newspaper wrapped objects I began realizing that these were filled with silver, gold, and very expensive looking jewelry.  But it was an egg shaped object that caught my eye the most.  Perhaps it was because it had a large red coat of paint on it, with gold designs etched throughout the object, or perhaps it was because I knew, somehow that this was what I had been searching for.

"Hey mom, come check this out." I said loudly showing my mom the objects.

"Oh my goodness, I forgot about all of this.  These belonged to your grandmamma and your great grandparents." She said as she sat down beside me and went through and inspected the objects.

As I kept digging through the box I came across some old newspaper clippings as well as very old photographs.  Most were of men dressed in military uniforms, but there was one photograph that caught my eye.  As I unfolded the newspaper clipping and took out the photo that had been stuffed inside, I noticed a pretty young girl, maybe the age of seventeen or perhaps eighteen, definitely around my age, standing beside a cluster of men in uniforms. There was no date or names on the photo, but as I studied the picture I knew that it was very old.

"Hey mom, who’s this?" I handed her the photograph.

"Oh, wow, this is very cool Lisa.  Um let's see, they look to be English and French officers."

"No, I mean who's the girl?" I pointed out the pretty, young, dark headed female towards the end of the row of officers.

"Oh well, judging by the clothes and guessing the time, I'd have to say that would be your great grandmamma."

I looked at the picture more closely, the female was small, short compared to all the men, and very pretty. Her clothes were a white cotton Victorian dress and her long dark hair was braided and hung over her shoulder, but what drew me in was the pair of intense, sad, but beautiful eyes that stared back at me.  I knew then that it was the same stare that Nunna had given me yesterday.  Who are you Nunna? What's your story?  What are you not wanting me to find out about you? I thought to myself.

Just as I was going to put back the objects and the photographs I finally noticed another photograph along with another ripped newspaper clipping.  The clipping read "Russia Bleeds Red", it was a similar clipping I had seen in one of the Russian History books about when the Imperial family at that time had been killed.  Why did Nunna want to hold on to something so sad and depressing? I asked myself as I picked up the other photograph that I had found.

In the photograph was the same young girl, yet much older, Nunna, holding hands with man in a different soldier uniform while the man had a baby girl on his shoulders.   The little girl couldn't have been more than two or three. However, as I flipped the photograph over I noticed that this one had words written on the back with almost unreadable script.  I could've sworn that the woman in the picture was my Nunna, but this pictured said: "Mr., Mrs., and Miss. Bolshevik." Was this woman really my great grandmamma?

"Mom, look at this picture, isn't that Nunna?" I asked, making sure my eyes weren't tricking me.

"Yeah it looks like it; aw this must be of your great grandfather with your grandmother." My mother said as she studied the photograph.

"Then why does it have the name Bolshevik on the back?" I said as I flipped over the back of the picture and showed her.

"Hmmm, that's really weird.  I don't know sweetie, but that is definitely your great grandmamma. You may have to show this to her and ask her yourself."

"Yeah I guess, but why would she change her last name?" I asked out loud. 

Could my great grandmother have something to hide? If so then why lie about her name, why the secrecy?  Most important question of all just who is Mrs. Vasilieva?

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Author's Note:  Hey Yall, I hope you enjoyed Reading!  Please take a moment to click the orange VOTE button that's on the left hand side of the screen.  Thanks so much for all your support.

This chapter is dedicated to the wonderful BlazePierre for creating the amazing book cover now located on the side of the chapter.  Thanks again so much for it.  =)