My Mother & Nikolyà

My Mother

Ever since the war in Ukraine started,

my mum refuses to admit she’s Russian.

She found a play by Camus featuring my great-grandfather

and phoned me,

happy to confirm that one grandfather was a Ukrainian nationalist

and the other had blown up a governor.

She’s learning Ukrainian

and plans to apply for a Ukrainian passport

Mum, I think Ukrainians have enough to deal with

without Russians trying to apply for Ukrainian passports,

I say, calling her on my way to work.

She agrees but nonetheless stresses that she’s Ukrainian.

I ask my Ukrainian friends what they make of this

They think it’s cute but then again, they haven’t met her

I notice that they introduce me to other Ukrainians

as their Belgian friend

I suppose my mother doesn’t have the luxury of

dual citizenship

In another conversation with my mother, I say

I don’t know how many Russians are real Russians

by your definition.

Most Russian families probably have some heart-wrenching

story of exile and displacement

‍ ‍so maybe just get on with it.

She agrees to avoid an argument because

I’ve taken to hanging up the phone when conversations grow tense.

Her Ukrainian is getting better

sometimes she texts me in Ukrainian

She is taking a course on decolonising Russian literature

and urges me to take it with her

I say I take enough courses already,

I’m doing a master’s for fuck’s sake

I visit her in Belgium.

When I tell her I’m in a Ukrainian singing group,

She starts singing Chervona Ruta

I wonder, had she not been my mother, if I would have found it

endearing and quirky

Being her daughter, however,

I ask her to stop singing in the middle of the street.

Nikolyà

My mum has baptised my dad Nikolyà,

with the emphasis on the final syllable

and after 26 years of marriage,

she still hasn’t learned how to pronounce his name properly.

I don’t think she really cares,

although she’ll try to say it right sometimes as a joke

with the mild sarcasm of someone asked to do something beneath them.

On the other side of Belgium, in Hasselt, where I live now

I hear a woman call to her son

Nicolas!

pronouncing it in her perfect Flemish accent.

for a moment, I wonder if my dad

misses being addressed by his actual name

But then, considering he’s been

with my mother longer than

without her

I imagine this Eastern European version sounds

as much his

as the name my grandma gave him.