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WHITE RUSSIANS ~ by Tony Beck
CHAPTER ONE: OXFORD STREET SANTAS
As 1960 and the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower drew near their ends, 1961 and John
F. Kennedy waited in the wings. The cold war stood at an elevated level, due to the so-called U2 Spy Plane Incident, and people were privately building bomb/fallout shelters. However, none
of that concerned twenty-one-year-old Sophia Stravnova, sitting in her seat on an English
chartered bus. Her thoughts actually were of the Soviet Union, but about how returning to it
seemed a death sentence. On a sketchpad, she absentmindedly wrote 1961. After looking at it
for a minute, she showed Milla, seated next to her, that the number, when turned upside-down,
still read 1961.
As the ballet company’s hired bus turned into London’s busy Oxford Street, it met with a
solid traffic jam. On the sidewalk up ahead, a rain-washed assembly of war veterans dressed in
Santa Claus costumes slowly grew in number as the rest of the forty-four Santas filed across the
intersection. The company’s director and the English driver stepped off the bus to speak with
traffic police, and Misha, the odious security man/Communist Party watchdog, stood at the open
door keeping his beady eyes on the troupe. When the director returned, he announced in
Russian, “There will be a short delay while the rest of these undisciplined buffoons come across
the road. They will be marching past us along the sidewalk, and you will all get a good look at
these ridiculous hooligans. Don’t worry; we will be at the airport on time, and soon we will be
home.”
Sophia gazed along the sidewalk and began sketching the red-hooded men in their traditional
Father Christmas cloaks. The robes brought to mind some red velvet material in one of her
wardrobe trunks, carried in the hired lorry that followed directly behind the bus. Directly behind
the lorry, she knew, would follow a car from their embassy occupied by two KGB men. The
Santas’ beards looked to be made of makeup artist Milla’s cotton batting. Sophia’s thoughts
strayed to a trapdoor in the lorry’s wooden floor, which she and Milla had discovered while
preparing to load the wardrobe. A quick inspection of this emergency escape door had shown its
latch and hinges were freshly oiled and it opened without effort or noise. They had held it open
just long enough to see a clear path to the road below and to check for electronic surveillance
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devicesa skill possessed by most young, city-dwelling Soviet citizens. The first costume
basket to come aboard had served to conceal the trapdoor’s existence.
Nebulous thoughts that had haunted Sophia since before the flight from Moscow were now
congealing. Ten days earlier, she had pondered both her past and future while at a well-attended
state funeral held for her last living relativeher grandmother, Katarina Stravnova, a celebrated
ballerina. The family had been eight strong at Sophia’s birth, but by 1946, conquest, war,
famine, and death had spared only the youngest member, Sophia, and the oldest, Katarina.
Sophia knew she would have to forsake her romantic desires by marrying a man before some
bureaucrat discovered she had no family within the Soviet Union, and her official file would be
stamped international travel disallowed. Petty bureaucrats liked nothing more than stripping
away privileges from members of the elite professional artist class. With her influential
grandmother gone, Sophia’s position as assistant wardrobe mistress of the Bolshoi Theatre Ballet
would soon be gone, as well. She envisioned her name on a KGB to-be-watched list. With her
socio-political status so diminished, she would be lucky to find work in the garment factories of
Minsk. And so it came as no surprise when the director summoned her to his office just one day
before the company’s departure to England. However, instead of the imagined dismissal, she
received a promotion. The director informed her that Comrade Kropotkin, the wardrobe
mistress, had taken ill and could not travel. Expressing his complete confidence that Sophia
could adequately fill the position, he congratulated her, adding that he had insufficient time to
acquire a proper assistant, one cleared for international travel, so members of the chorus would
have to assist her. She would be solely in charge of wardrobe for the London engagement.
While sketching Santas from the bus, an overwhelming sense of resolution gripped Sophia.
She found herself amazed at how crystal-clear the future appeared: one possible future. With
pulse racing, she stood and approached the director. Feigning a worried look, she told him that
they must check the wardrobe, as some valuable costume jewelry may have been left behind.
The director gave his consent, and Sophia briefly returned to her seat row, placing the sketchpad
on her seat while stealthily kissing Milla on her forehead. She then set off for the wardrobe lorry
andwin or losea new year turned upside-down.
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As she had expected, the repugnant Misha walked with her along the sidewalk, persistently
making his tiresome innuendoes regarding her love life – or absence of suchpausing only
when they stopped to speak with the lorry driver. Sophia wished she had Misha’s knowledge of
English, notwithstanding all the vulgarisms he would have memorized.
As they continued alongside the lorry, she deliberately dropped a glove into the gutter, where
a stream of rainwater flowed over it. Crouching down to retrieve her glove, she quickly scanned
the lorry’s underside. While rising, she observed the side-view mirror. Her plan would work,
provided that Misha stayed true to form and did not miss the opportunity to butter up the KGB
escortthus leaving her alone with the wardrobe.
At the lorry’s rear door, the driver helped her up and handed her a torch. Misha, as counted
on, waited with the KGB men. Sophia wondered if they would be less chummy by day’s end, or
more so, having foiled her plot. The plan could still be aborted, and her inner voice of reason
begged her to do so. She recalled how each of the troupe members had sworn an oath not to
attempt defection to the West . . . how the party officials had made it clear that anyone breaking
this oath would live out his or her short life in the misery of a Siberian gulag. Yet, Sophia
pressed on, channeling her fear into action.
Despite the faulty torch flickering on and off and drops of sweat stinging her eyes, she found
what she needed. From a utility trunk she took a large pair of scissors and a handful of safety
pins. From another trunk came a roll of red velvet, and she cut off five meters. All proceeded
according to plan, but as she opened one of Milla’s two makeup trunks, a smaller case fell
noisily to the floorprompting the driver to climb up. He asked with a Cockney accent,
“Everything alright, Miss?”
“Five minutes,” she replied in her best English.
When the driver had climbed back down, Sophia quickly found a large swath of cotton
batting, cutting off a piece sufficient for her needs, and after a few minutes of extremely skillful
impromptu costuming, she stood ready before the trapdoor.
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Time now seemed suspended, for she had reached the point of no return. Up to this moment,
she could have claimed her masquerade to be a great joke for the troupe, but once through the
trapdoor, she would be “Alisa Down the Rabbit Hole”and her life would change forever.
With a pounding heart, she switched off the torch and slowly opened the trapdoor, admitting
into the silent, black interior the busy street sounds and a glowing orb of daylight, in which she
stood like a fairytale wizard.
On the bus, Milla admired the recent drawings in Sophia’s sketchbook. Suddenly, she gasped
and looked toward the Santas, who were now coming down the sidewalk. She squeezed in with
the others who were joyfully swarming the windowsand as the Santas marched past, only she
noticed the red-hooded figure scuttling from beneath the lorry to become the forty-fifth Santa.
Tears streamed down Milla’s cheeks to meet with a broad smile.
When they were well beyond the KGB car, Sophia shouted, “Political asylum!” to the others
who, she now realised, were mostly three sheets to the wind.
Several minutes after the Santas had passed, questions as to Sophia’s whereabouts were
answered. The director, Misha, and the KGB men stood in the back of the lorry looking down at
the open trapdoor, remnants of red velvet, scraps of cotton batting, and Sophia’s soaked glove,
the fingers of which she had arranged to form an unladylike gesture aimed at Misha.
When the penny dropped, the KGB men chased after the marchers, running along the
sidewalk and pushing past umbrella-wielding Oxford Streeters amidst protests of “I say!” and
“Steady on!”
But they were too late. Sophia sat in a taxicab between her two savior Santas, a former army
captain and his sergeant-major, who were escorting her to the sanctuary of the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Six years later, British citizen Sophia Star (formerly Sophia Stravnova) opened Sophie’s,
which became one of the most successful fashion boutiques of London’s famous Carnaby Street.
Two years after that, still unmarried, she gave birth to a baby girl, Katarina.
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Each December, Sophie would make ready the Santas’ costumes, and she did so until the final
parade in 1968, as the tradition gave way to more serious and sober street marches.
Sophie’s exists to this dayalthough bought out by corporate interestsand upon the wall,
as it always has done, hangs a mounted enlargement of the 1960 London Star news photo of the
marching men, entitled, “Oxford Street Santas.”
That is how my grandfather, the army captain savior Santa, recounted the story. I call him
my grandfather, but, more accurately, he was simply the biological father of my mother, Katarina
Star. Grandma Sophie had wished to remain unwed.
Mom grew up in Chelsea through the psychedelic 60s and 70s, through the Disco Days and
into the glitzy, glam-rock 80s, where she came into her own as a free-spirited, très chic party girl.
My birth slowed her down somewhat, though, and being single, she began nesting with
various artists, actors, and musicians, all of whom I would call uncleor aunt. That
environment was not what social workers of the day would call wholesome, or even normal, but
it brimmed over with fascinating people, loads of laughter, and kind-heartedness. Eventually,
Mom hooked up with Axel, a Russian-Canadian artist who legally went by that single name. We
moved to his beautiful home in Vancouver, and there, Mom and he were married. She and I
became Canadians, but kept “Star” as our surnameand we three were the happiest
Canuckleberries ever to be.
Not until I’d graduated university, did I realize we were in trouble. I’d known Axel had been
drinking more than his usual copious quantities of vodka, but I’d been unaware that it had
become a serious problem. To make matters worse, he hadn’t produced any good work in over
three years; he was going broke; and he’d taken up with one of his former models.
Mom and Axel divorced the following year. Our home had to be sold to settle multiple
mortgages, and mom went back to London. She wanted me to come with her, but I stayed on in
Vancouver, as I then considered myself an actor and wanted to make a name in Canadian theatre
before giving London a shot. Besides, my Anna was still at school.
This brings me to my sad and sordid tale.
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END OF SAMPLE
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