This is a Romanov. She is strikingly beautiful. Though she is not the woman whose photograph would later captivate me, when I saw this image of Princess Olga and she took my breath away...I felt she was a good way to convey how I felt the day I DID see the visage of the stranger on the other end of the phone.

Dear Ether,

Somewhere in Odessa there is a photograph of me.  It might be stored away gently in a envelope.  It may be crudely covered in rubble in a dump.  But somewhere…..somewhere in the Ukraine there is a snapshot of me taken when I was in my mid 20’s.

The original keeper of the photo was a woman I never met.  She spoke no English and I no Russian.  My glossy print sat on her mantelpiece for about 5 years in her modest studio flat.  It shared space with images of her grandchildren, husband and daughter and a few tattered black and white photos that survived the war.

English gent is half Russian.  His mother is this woman’s daughter.  To me she was only known as Babushka.

I only spoke to her a few times on the phone.  I muttered foolish statements that English gent had taught me.  “Ya Loo-Bloo Tibia” (I love you).  She laughed with good nature into the phone and repeated. “Ya Loo-Bloo Tibia Tour-Jah” (I love you too).  It felt sad that I was crippled by language and couldn’t communicate with a woman who I knew had a tremendous history and warmth.  I had never been handicapped by language before—in fact, it was something I was so good at.  I always handed over the receiver feeling like a puppet who’d just done her job entertaining.

One day, I asked to see her photograph during a visit to English gent’s house.  His clan are a family of pale, fair-haired, light eyed, slim people.  Babushka was in her twenties in the photo I was shown.  She couldn’t have been more than 5 feet tall.  She had coffee-colored hair and brown pupils. I know it seems crazy, but I felt a sudden closeness to her.  I felt she was from my stock.  That English gent’s genes had all come from his father’s UK side (and even his mother was shockingly fair—she didn’t resemble Babushka at all).  Though I’m much taller, we were both the dark horses.  I asked English gent’s mom if I could send Babushka MY photo.  I felt if that made me feel a connection to her where words couldn’t, maybe my photo could create the same spark.

When she received my photo, Gent told me she cried.  That she “understood.”  She loved my dark looks—and it made her so happy that he was with someone who reminded her of her heritage.  After that, I made sure no longer to be a marionette on the phone but to have a translator and convey true feelings across the line.

But, as we all know, time is a harsh enemy.  And she was not young.  She no longer could speak on the phone or read letters.  And then she died.  When English gent’s mother went to her flat for the last time, she said she noticed my photo immediately.  It stood out more than the others and looked as though it had been fingered the most.  It was slightly dog-eared and had many fingerprints on its finish.  I like to think that she passed it around for many to see.  By the time Gent’s mom came back to clean the flat, the mantle had been tidied and to this day, those pictures have never resurfaced.

Though we never got to know each other, when we looked into one another’s eyes from so far away, we had an understanding.  I often wonder what my photo got to see in her little flat?  I wonder what aromas surrounded it as she cooked her traditional meals?

Wherever I am in Odessa, decaying in a landfill or safe in a drawer, at least I can say for a moment in time a picture spoke a thousand words for both of us.

Dedicatedly yours,

—One of 365