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When Ekaterina first entered the world, Katya had held Goncharov’s attention for a precious few minutes - longer than he had offered her in the previous nine months, longer than any amount of time the two had spent in each other’s company since their marriage.
Obviously, she hated it.
Immediately after the birth, with Katya slick with sweat and mucus between her doll-like thighs, he had held the two of them. Katya and her daughter, a set of nesting dolls set within Goncharov’s massive frame. It should have inspired warmth within her. Indeed, there were months in the aftermath of their wedding where the current scene was all she ever wanted. And there was some: his skin acting as their only protection from an unusually cold winter in Naples. Katya’s head rested gently against her husband’s collar, too weary to be held up independently.
But soon he was gone, as was his habit, and Katya was left to the nurses. They fumbled over her, most no younger than sixty, and their hands shaking wildly when they so much as tried to hand her a cup of water. She had requested vodka on several occasions, but either her Russian accent blunted her words or they had ignored her entirely. But the water would materialize without so much as a dry cough on her part - in pitchers, on carts, in glasses on her nightstand when she woke up. A whole ocean of water came and went within her throat. And still, Katya felt an unquenched thirst.
To her credit, the baby behaved herself. She had cried loudly upon exiting Katya, and the young mother knew exactly what her newborn was experiencing - it was the pain she felt when Gorncharov had moved them to this godforsaken city to begin with, far away from the familiar comfort of Saint Petersburg. Her first act as a mother was to deny her child its birthright. While Katya knew that it was healthy for a newborn to cry as loud as Ekaterina did, she couldn’t help but feel a sharpness to her baby’s tongue - as if it knew it didn’t belong here. But afterwards, an immediate silence fell upon the creature.
This silence was not born from a lack of need. Katya did little in the way of comforting the child, not out of neglect but ignorance. She had never been around children, being an only child. Furthermore, she had been guarded from knocking elbows with laymen by way of her family’s extraordinary wealth, until Gorncharov plucked her from their treasure trove. He was her introduction to the “real” world, and so far, there wasn’t a single part of it that Katya enjoyed. Childbirth included. So the baby largely sat untouched in a cradle, facing the Naples skyline via the hospital room’s generous balcony. Perhaps it mistook the hulking volcano as its mother - both shared the hot anger bubbling imperceptibly below their surfaces.
Occasionally, Katya was moved to join the infant on the balcony, usually accompanied by a cigarette (the nurses having no problem with the practice). The two would sit in shared silence, only occasionally broken by the sound of Katya’s retreating heels when she had her fill. Ekaterina did not seem to mind being left to her own devices. Not once did she cry out for her mother.
On a few lucky days, Ekaterina would be greeted by two bodies, one that she had finally begun to discern as “mother”, and the other, a stranger. His great big hands enveloped her small frame, and still, she did not cry as other infants would. She sat in Goncharov’s hands like a rock, heavy and unmoving. He began to call her his ciottolo .
Neither Katya nor Goncharov regarded this behavior as unusual - Goncharov gone too often to notice a pattern, and Katya fully unaware of children. And if the nurses knew anything, it was lost in translation. Katya had never bothered to learn Italian. Part of her saw this as evidence that she would not be living in the city for much longer, and that bit of hope was just too precious to let go.
There was a day where Ekaterina and Katya shared the balcony, and Katya had traded in her usual cigarette for a fine Italian cigar. Cigars tended to be Goncharov’s domain. They proved to be an easy sign of his wealth and connection when meeting with clients. Katya considered herself less flashy. But she had woken up that morning to discover a box of them left on the floor by her bedside - clearly, her husband had made a midnight visit and dropped them in his rush to leave - and decided to take advantage of the occasion.
It was after Katya had prepared the cigar and had set it aflame that a strange urge overtook her: she should hold her child. She looked at the cradle, and then her slender hand, still wrapped around the cigar. Her desire felt instinctual, perhaps even primitive, and it frightened her. So much around her was already unfamiliar. To have her thoughts take a similar turn was unforgivable. And in an effort to banish them, she scooped up the child with her free arm and continued to drag the cigar, hoping that the pattern of inhale-exhale would regulate her pounding heart.
As she self-soothed through puffs, gentle clouds of ash settled on Ekaterina’s head, first aiming for her cheeks, and then, the bridge of her nose. This should have been unbearable for a child to endure. And yet, she was still. Ekaterina stared at her mother, whose gaze had been turned to the skyline.
Ekaterina then closed her eyes, silently accepting the fallen ash as it left welting kisses on her skin. It was the first time she had truly known her mother’s touch.