The New York Times-20080127-Tug of War Ends in Baby-s Territory

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Tug of War Ends in Baby's Territory

Full Text (1271  words)[Author Affiliation] Chandra Prasad is the author, most recently, of On Borrowed Wings, a novel set in 1930s Connecticut.

BABUSHKA wants to live with us for a while, my husband said.

We were painting the upstairs bedroom in our house in Hamden, Conn.; our baby boy was sleeping below us. I skipped a breath but barely missed a brushstroke.

Babushka -- Russian for grandmother -- is the way we refer to my husband's mother, who lives in Ukraine. She hadn't yet met her grandson, who was then about 2 months old. She thought about him every day, my husband said, and became inconsolably weepy when she saw his online photos.

Oh, that's terrible, I replied. She has to meet him. It's not right.

I knew that Babushka's stay with us was an inevitable one. She'd been to the United States only once in the many years my husband and I had been together. She was due for a second trip, and a hotel was out of the question. Babushka didn't drive, spoke hardly any English and was on a limited budget.

She told me she already booked her tickets, my husband said. She's planning on coming for three months.

At this point I lost my breath. I had expected Babushka's visit to be a couple of weeks, not the Siberian prison sentence my husband was proposing. With effort, I calmed down and tried to stay reasonable. This was family, after all. And Babushka was, inarguably, a loving and kind person. I had met her several times, twice in her native Odessa, and we'd gotten along just fine.

Seeing my facial expression range between despair and resignation, my husband seized upon the positive. She'd be a big help around the house. I'd have more time to write. Our son would no doubt enjoy her fun personality, and of course she would adore him. Finally, the language barrier would be an asset.

How's that? I asked. I knew about 15 words of Russian. These included ones for essentials like watermelon and dolphin.

Well, at least you won't be forced to chitchat.

She'll sleep up here? I asked.

She lived under Communism. She can sleep anywhere.

She'll sleep up here, I said, intonation swiftly changing, paintbrush now held high like a scepter. I couldn't believe I was agreeing.

O.K.

A cry pierced the air. The conversation, mercifully, ended.

When Babushka first arrived, cheerful and bright-eyed, there was a brief, glimmering moment when I thought: This woman is terrific. I could become really close to her. When she and my husband took to speaking only in Russian, I found it endearing. How nice it was for him to get back to his roots. When he arrived home from work and she waited at the door for him, I saw devotion. But how quickly my interpretations clouded with hostility. Russian seemed, only a few days later, like a dangerous secret language shared between conspirators. Babushka's cute habit of waiting for her son seemed, suddenly, aggressive.

It wasn't long before I wore my disdain outwardly. Babushka returned my annoyed looks. We eyed each other crosswise, shoulders hunched, like two tigresses circling warily. We smiled at each other through gritted teeth. We took to staking out various territories. She called silent shotgun on the upstairs bathroom and the backyard, but knew not to trespass into my work space. The living room was neutral. The baby's room: also like Switzerland. The kitchen, however, was nothing short of a war zone.

Once Babushka arrived, I'd hoped she would put down her suitcase and put on an apron. She'd whip up all sorts of Russian delicacies: borscht tinted beet-purple, beef stroganoff, fried potatoes, little chopped salads heavy on the mayonnaise and dill. It soon became apparent, though, that Babushka was not the ladle-wielding domestic type. She didn't cook much at all.

I wasn't much of a chef either. Dinner in our house had always been more likely to consist of takeout or a hastily prepared salad than a long-simmering meal. The demands of the baby had only reinforced our slipshod eating habits. Yet now that Babushka was here -- and not exactly hovering around the stove -- I felt a need to prove to her that I was a whiz in the kitchen. For a few glorious days I concocted the dishes I was truly good at. And then, inevitably, I exhausted my limited repertory. This didn't matter to Babushka. She followed a strange diet whose rules fluctuated except for one: she would not eat my cooking.

Short on patience and food, I complained to my husband that Babushka ought to help out more. He nudged his mother, who finally wrote out a grocery list and fired up the gas range. Unfortunately, even when she tried to help, she got on my nerves. She spattered oil and dropped crumbs and never contended with the mess she left in her wake. She refused to believe in the integrity of modern appliances. Dirty plates piled up in the sink, but the dishwasher sat derelict.

Get her out of my kitchen! I snarled at my husband, who was exasperated with us both.

Truth be told, Babushka's real flaw was that she did not adhere to my standards of grandmotherliness. She wore tank tops and high heels. She checked for chips in her nail polish. She didn't think twice about sunbathing in a bikini in our backyard. She was loud and dramatic, with a riotously jolly laugh. Contrary to stereotype, she had neither a kerchief nor a stooped back.

The more Babushka acted like herself, the more irritated I became. We waged battle outside the kitchen. There was the matter of religion. She wanted the baby to be baptized, preferably in a Russian Orthodox church. The product of a lapsed Catholic and a nonpracticing Hindu, I wouldn't budge. There was still lingering resentment about the baby's name, too. Babushka had wanted him to be called the Russian equivalent of Andrew, my husband's father's name. I'd insisted on an Indian name.

Babushka and I jousted on the matter of who should walk the baby, and where; of which clothes he should be wearing; of how much he could eat; of how many minutes he'd been napping; of whether he was properly shaded in his carriage. We tsked and tutted on just about every front pertaining to the baby's care, yet we never argued about the baby himself. On this we could agree: he was perfect. And he was our one shot at a peace treaty.

When the two of us were with our beloved boy, an unlikely harmony took hold. It was, after all, impossible not to laugh when he made a sour expression after sampling pureed green beans. It was impossible not to coo when he giggled. Babushka called him chuda, which translates, roughly, to miracle. For once, I had to agree that she was right.

During our truces, when Babushka and I were gazing at the baby, her eyes would occasionally lift and meet mine. They would be filled with a warmth and humor I had, too often, chosen not to see. She'd give a little smile, a real smile, and I'd understand that no matter our issues, she loved this child like nothing else. She was dealing with a lot: a new country, new language, new quarters, new rules -- and me, no contender for Miss Congeniality. But it was all worth it because her grandson was here.

For a frazzled daughter-in-law, three months is an eternity. For a loving grandmother, it is not a very long time at all.

[Illustration]DRAWING (DRAWING BY ALEX NABAUM)