Meeting the Family
1616 Words
Natia froze on her steps. She had no idea who that man was. And Aleksandr didn’t mention any other man coming on the trip. He doesn’t appear to be part of the crew either.
He had light brown hair and blue eyes, not too tall- maybe a little shorter than six feet, and his skin, a light tan. He was elegantly dressed in a suit and appeared to be in his forties. Who was this person?
He was smiling in their direction.
“Dobryj dyen’!” He said.
“Dyadyushka!!” The enthusiastic voice of Aleksandr from the back told her he was someone close to him.
“I didn’t know you were coming!!” Aleksandr passed her and went to hug the other man.
“Well. Surprise!” The other man returned the hug with the same enthusiasm.
These two were close; she could tell.
He then turned to her and lifted an amused eyebrow.
“Itak, eto vnebrachnyy rebenok Andreya!” The man murmered. Natia felt it was more of a self-talk, even though she didn’t understand a thing.
He then took a step towards her.
“Davaj poznakomimsya!”
Natia just stared at him confused. When she didn’t say anything, he glanced at Aleksandr.
“This is my uncle Valentin Sergeevich Alekseev.” Aleksandr introduced. ‘Oh! So, this is his maternal uncle.’ Natia thought.
“And uncle, this is Trinity Maria Andreyevna Orlova.”
“Uh, actually it’s Trinity Maria Chen-Orlova,” Natia said. ‘He couldn’t even bother to learn my name but he wanted me to be so formal with his name! No way, I am calling him Aleksandr Andreyevich.’ She thought.
“Really?!” Aleksandr asked her. But she ignored him, went forward to Valentin and extended her hand.
“Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too.” Valentin pleasantly shook her hand. He then turned to Aleksandr.
“You have been with her since the morning but didn’t even learn her name?”
“Papa handled all the paper work!” Aleksandr replied.
‘He really has some strange cryptic way of giving explanations and excuses,’ Natia thought.
Valentin shook his head and turned to her again.
“So, you don’t speak Russian?”
“No.”
“But, you plan to move to Russia?”
Aleksandr snorted at that. “Good luck with that," he said in a very chirpy voice.
Natia gave him a look before replying to Valentin. “Yes. Next year. After my graduation.”
“Don’t mind him,” Valentin said, pointing his chin at Aleksandr. “We Russians are friendly to foreigners. It’s better to learn the language though, when you are planning to settle there. You will be fine with English in the cities. But in other areas, it will be a little difficult.”
“What he is trying to say is you will have to stick with a google translator all the time.” Aleksandr commented.
“I plan to learn the language.”
“Good,” Valentin said. “By the way, you can call me ‘dyadya Valya’.”
Aleksandr lifted an eyebrow at that. Disbelief on his face. Valentin just smiled and winked at him, to which he shook his head muttering something inaudible. Aleksandr clearly didn’t approve of it, whatever it meant.
“Dyadya means uncle.” Valentin offered, seeing her confusion. “And Valya is a short name for Valentin.”
“Oh, okay.” Natia said. “You can call me Masha. Papa calls me that.” She added immediately. There was a derisive snort by Aleksandr at that. But, Valentin smiled and nodded to her.
“Is that her?!” Someone asked from the side.
Natia turned to face the owner of the voice. There were two women standing there. One appeared to be in her thirties and the other was younger, who seemed to be in her late teens or early twenties. Both of them had much similarities in appearance that you could easily tell they were related.
Both were tall and had a heart-shaped face with almost similar features, including their bluish grey eyes. The younger woman, who must be Sofia, had warm beige skin and dark blonde hair. She had a haughty expression on her face.
The other woman, who she assumed must be Vera, had a lighter skin tone and light blonde hair. She seemed to be assessing Natia and looked cold and calculating. When she noticed Natia was looking at her, she offered her a smile. But, instead of getting any warmth, Natia shivered from the chillness of it.
“Since you guys are very close and all now, you will be fine doing the introductions; right, dyadya Valya?” Aleksandr asked Valentin with a clearly mocking tone at the end of the question. Valentin only shook his head with a smile at that.
“Tyotya Vera, Sonia” Aleksandr nodded to the other two in greeting.“I will go and take some rest now.” Saying that, he walked past them.
“Bratok, Are you sure you got the right one? I mean, she looks nothing like me.” Sofia asked him when he got near her. Aleksandr didn’t answer her though. He just shook his head in disapproval and walked past her.
“Now, I am not so sad that I wasn’t allowed to bring friends.” She muttered.
Natia flinched a little at that. It was not the first time someone was reacting to her like that. People frowned, acted scared and disgusted upon seeing her; especially the first time. And she has experienced it a lot, since she changed schools often. She was bullied at her schools because of how she looked. She was aware that she had never got a babysitting job due to her appearance. Some parents were afraid their kid would be scared, while some others worried about her giving infections to the child even after she explained it was genetic and not contagious.
She doesn't know why she was feeling a little hurt upon hearing Sofia. She had learnt to not feel anything upon hearing such comments for sometime. Maybe because she was experiencing such a reaction for the first time from someone family? 'Oh come on Natee, it's high time you stopped feeling hurt by such comments, whoever it may come from. If she is rude to you, just return the favour.'That was her mantra nowadays; 'Give what you receive.'
“Sonia! Don’t be rude.” Chided the other woman.
“Apologize to your sister.” That was Valentin.
Sofia doesn’t seem apologetic though. She scowled at the other two for chastising her and walked to Natia. She had a challenging look on, which Natia returned.
“Are you bothered by what I said?”
“Not really,” Natia said. “I have been hearing people say worse things about me, since I was little. Now, I have grown too big to care about what some impudent air-heads have to say to make themselves feel good.”
She could feel intense gazes on her. Not only from Sofia, but the others too. She wasn’t sure how a head to head verbal combat with Sofia would affect her, but she wasn’t going to let herself get bullied silently. If she let it pass in the beginning, it will only get worse later. Years of experience taught her that.
“You think I am an air-head?”
“I think you are impudent. I haven’t reached a conclusion on air-head yet.”
Sofia had a faint smile now. Natia squinted her eyes. ‘What was she playing at?’
“Well, I am impudent. So, don’t expect me to be nice.”
“I already got that.”
“And I didn’t really want you to hear that earlier. But, neither would I give it as an excuse, nor would I apologize for saying that.”
“Okay?”
“What’s with your skin?”
“It’s a genetic condition.”
“It’s not contagious?”
“No. Hereditary though. Both my mother and grandmother had it.”
“Were they both short people too?”
“Yeah... Grandmother was shorter than me.”
“Hmm.. You will look good in strawberry red.”
“WHAT?!”
“Nothing. So, you are Maria?”
“Trinity Maria. Trinity Maria Chen-Orlova.”
“You don’t have a patronym?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“ Maybe because the name would be too long then?”
“Russian names are always long.”
Natia just shrugged at that. She doesn’t know why she wasn’t given a patronymic middle name like 'Andreyevich' in 'Aleksandr Andreyevich Orlov' or 'Andreyevina' in 'Sofia Andreyevna Orlova'.
“I will call you Manya. Does anyone call you that?”
“Um..No?”
“It’s fixed then. You can call me.. hmm..”
“Sophie?” Natia offered.
“Unimaginative! But, fine. Whatever. It’s your choice.”
“Okay!”Really?! What the..
“Hug and reconcile?”
Natia lifted an eyebrow at that. “Do you really want to do that? Hug I mean.”
“No. I will see you later.”
Sofia then turned to Vera and Valentin. “I think we will get along just fine.” And she walked away.
“Is that how young girls get acquainted nowadays?” Valentin had an amused expression on his face while Vera just sighed.
“Well, Masha,” Valentin continued. “This is Vera Dmitrievna Orlova, your stepmother.”
Vera just nodded at her and walked away.
‘Well, that was all the introductions. But, WHERE WAS PAPA!’
- Writer
