Book Excerpts

Introduction
Chapter Two: "Remembering Makes The Treasure"
Chapter Six: "The Human of the Future"
Chapter Eleven: "New York, New York"
Chapter Thirteen: "The Partisan's Daughter"
Chapter Sixteen: "You Cannot Read a Stranger's Soul"

Introduction

Dear Readers, this book is about love. It is for lovers, for sisters who have not spoken in five years, for daughters who can't make it through the day without calling their mothers, for fathers who have lost their sons, for cooks who remember the magic of the feast, for husbands who have not forgotten the power of gentle words, for sons who revere their mothers, for men who make wonderful soup for their wives, and for friends who still bring each other flowers.

I have told these stories about love to Charles Fleetham, my co-author. He helped me shape them into a book. As you read, you will find three languages: the language of love, my broken English, and the Midwest voice of Charles, trained in creative writing at Michigan State University. I hope this mixture does not offend you. As you can understand, I wanted to make the language perfect for your eyes. But my friends told me many times, "Don't take away your own voice. The reader needs to hear it." I hope you share these feelings when you read my book as well as when you put it down.

Perhaps, you would like an explanation of why I call this book "Asya's Laws". What does this title have to do with love? As you will see, my life has been a basket of decisions about love. To help with these trying judgments, most of which I made alone, I developed a set of laws. Dear Reader, I don't mean for these laws to be like medicine for your heart troubles! But, if even one law brings you more love, I will feel great happiness.

Chapter Two
"Remembering Makes The Treasure"

The best medicine in the world is a mother's understanding. I carried my heart problem to her, and she listened patiently to my long story of love lost. We sat together on her couch. Nearby was a weathered wooden desk, stacked with the books and papers of dedicated teacher.

My mother had a gift of listening. She never filled the spaces between your words with her own thoughts. During World War II, she had learned that one mistaken word could mean life or death. Yet, despite all the troubles she had seen, when I think of her, I think of the quality of peace - plain, sweet, natural peace. She dressed in solids and pastels, the colors of calm rooms. She never wore any makeup. She never interrupted anyone, and she never raised her voice at me, not once. Really.

"I walked away from Ivar at the park without looking back. Crying, of course. And that's how it ended up. Mom."

I loved her deeply. Her face had much sympathy for me. It was not classically beautiful, but the strength of her character made it so. Do you have this kind of feeling for your mother? She swept her hand across the side of my head. We had a relationship of strokes and caresses, not of laughing hugs and kisses. Those had come from my dad, a man who could make a good laugh. In that way he was very Russian, but my mom didn't have this Russian gene for joke telling. She was very accurate in her communication. Maybe this was why I had not confided in her much as a girl. Stories poured out of me like a waterfall, and I was self-conscious about overwhelming her patience.

"I know that your heart is in pain," she finally replied. "But maybe it is better like that. At least he was honest. You know, Asenka (this was her gentle nickname for me), life is never easy or simple."

My mother had come by herself to Riga when she was fourteen from Sasmaka, a village in rural Latvia. The sixth of seven children, her dad was a shoemaker who had struggled to put bread on the table for so many mouths. She had made her way to a friend of family and had gone to work sewing clothes, not afraid to jump over the chasm.

I felt bad. At age of fourteen, as now, I had been in my family's cocoon and had no thoughts of leaving. Now, I sat up to listen closely.

Chapter Six
"The Human of the Future"

I probably should have told you that I was pregnant on my wedding day. My country attached no shame to this condition. I informed the Professor a few weeks before the wedding, and he responded with much happiness. He wanted a family and the sooner the better. I loved him for his positive attitude towards children. Thanks God, this never changed.

Not long after the wedding, I learned that Luda was also pregnant. While shopping for the clothes, she complained about her size. I asked her where the pounds came from; she looked at me, put together her lips, and said, "From the same reason as you."

"Oh, really." My understanding came slowly, but in a moment I got it. I was delighted that my best friend would be sharing this experience with me.

Our friendship has been long. Luda and I met on September 1969, a date we still celebrate as our anniversary. We were standing in line at the student center, waiting for entry medical examinations for the university. When we began talking, we realized we shared the same classes. The next week, like all first-year college students in the country, we were sent in a group of twenty-five girls to a collective farm to harvest flax. We worked all days in the fields and each night fell asleep in exhaustion on a schoolroom floor. But we were young, and couldn't help having fun away from home.

The best part of the experience, other than my joy at being outdoors, was building my friendship with Luda. I can't explain why we became so close, but in a very short time, we easily finished each other's sentences. Maybe it helped that, like me, she lived in communalka.

If the art of making and keeping friends became an Olympic event, Luda would win the gold medal. She cannot say hello without warm words. She cannot meet me without a hug and a smile. She can wait a year for me to explain a bad feeling. She can trust me with the deepest secret of her life yet warmly keep a chapter from my eyes.

Best friends say things that change your life. During the first year of our friendship, we were walking along the beach next to the Baltic Sea. We loved the sea. Whenever one of us felt bad, the other would say, "You know what, I feel bad, let's go to the sea."

"We have spent many hours together," said Luda as we held each other's hands. "It has been so much fun with you. We never fight. If I was with one of my other friends, I would have at least four fights."

"Really? Do you mean it?"

She nodded her head with energy.

"Thank you so much," I replied.

"Asya," she said. "You are the human of the future."

You can imagine how much I liked being called this by Luda. She saw deep into my personality, embraced my individuality, and appreciated me for who I was. When I looked at Luda, I knew I had a friend who would never ask me to change for her. What a relief! Her words settled into me as we stepped across the shore waters, and they have given confidence to my ears ever since.

Chapter Eleven
"New York, New York"

The next morning, Peter asked me to come with him to buy breakfast food. First, we bought fresh bagels in a bakery. How interesting! People did not stand in line. They took numbers and stood by the wall, not bothering each other. Cool.

Next we drove to a grocery store. I don't remember the name. It might have been a Kroger, but I do remember getting dizzy when I stepped inside. Peter took my hand. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, thank you." I tried to shake away my dizziness. I had never seen so many foods, so many beautiful-looking fruits and vegetables, so much of everything! I had found the answer to one of my questions about America: the streets were not paved in gold; all the gold was in grocery stores.

"What do you want for breakfast?" Peter asked.

"Cheese and maybe some meat." My imagination could go no further than the rationed products of my country. Peter took me to various places in the store to find these items, and I was shocked to see at least twenty different kinds of cheese. I was accustomed to finding two varieties at most in Riga. I saw ten different choices of meat and hundreds of kinds of bread, muffins, rolls, buns, and so on.

I could hardly breathe. I was catching Peter's friendly and sympathetic glances. The last thing we needed was coffee beans. When we stepped into the coffee aisle, I came undone. I could not even count the many different kinds of coffee, teas, cookies, and chocolate bars. I could not help myself, and I started crying. I was thinking about my children, how they could not even dream of this pleasure. I thought about how in Latvia we had to produce food stamps for just the necessary things. We were always working, creating, building, doing, and shoving from one disaster, crisis, and temporary economic problem to another.

Now I wondered where all the products went that our people produced. The storm of these thoughts overwhelmed my mind. The Soviet government had been taking advantage of the great endurance and patience of our people for decades and decades.

Peter hugged me over the shoulders as I cried, and silently we walked away from the coffee aisle.

Chapter Thirteen
"The Partisan's Daughter"

The plane flew from Roma to Riga too fast. I needed more time to shift back and forth the guilty feelings on my shoulders. It was the summer of 1996, and I was returning with my lover, Pavel, from a weeklong secret getaway. Should I even tell this tale? Should I give such frank proof of a good girl gone bad?

Maybe it was my mom's fault for giving me dangerous courage. Or, maybe it was Gera's fault. He is Luda's husband. During a now long-ago visit, when Luda and I were discussing my marriage, he asked me what ingredients I put in my borscht.

"Why do you want to know?" I asked with surprise. "This soup has so many ingredients."

"Just tell me. You know how much I like your soup."

I smiled with the praise. I had always liked him. "All right . . . I will try . . . meat, hopefully beef, beets, carrots, potatoes, cabbage, onion, salt and pepper, tomatoes, a little sugar, sweet pepper, an apple, and greens like dill and parsley. What have I forgotten?"

"How much pepper do you put in your soup?"

"Of course, a little."

"So, put a little pepper into your marriage."

"What do you mean?"

"He means you should be a little bitch to him whenever you feel like it," said Luda, with laughter.

Chapter Sixteen
"You Cannot Read a Stranger's Soul"

When it comes to moving to a new home, Russians have a cute superstition of allowing a cat to step in first for good luck. So, before I left Riga, Luda gave me a stuffed white cat. I loved this cat. It hugged me whenever I was lonely, even though it did not get to step first in the house - the honors and luck went to Pavel and his mother, who made up the home for us before we arrived.

Yes, they set their luck first. Maybe this was why darkness started to form underneath the happiness. The first trouble came shortly after we arrived, when Anna and Simon were raking leaves under the supervision of Pavel and his mother. While my new family collected leaves, I fried pork chops, one of Pavel's favorite meals. Suddenly, Anna ran into the kitchen.

"Mom, I think I did something terrible." Her face was confused and red.

"What happened?" I asked, immediately concerned.

"I said something to Pavel's mom."

"What did you say?" My knees felt ready to slide to the floor. I didn't want anything to spoil our fairy tale. I have to admit that I really wanted Pavel's mom to like me. I had felt a couple of clicks that made me believe we had major differences, but my goal was to overcome them. Then Anna told me what had happened.

"When we were raking the leaves, Pavel's mom said that Simon left a lot more leaves unraked than me. I told her that our mom never compared us when we were doing something together. She got mad at me. She made an angry face. What should I do?" Anna was seventeen years old and always quick to protect her brother.

"Thank you for defending Simon and me, but I think, you have to apologize," I said.

Anna quickly agreed and ran outside to say she was sorry.

Five minutes later, Pavel walked into the kitchen with a pale face.

"What happened?" I asked, further frightened. I remember his answer as though I heard it this morning.

"Your daughter just gave a lecture to my mom on how to raise children."

"But she apologized?" I asked with hope in my voice.

"I don't know," he answered.

Dear Readers, I trusted that Anna could straighten out this situation, but I was wrong. Pavel's mother did not return to our house for six months, and this first trouble turned into a deep conflict between the two of them and, eventually, me. Slowly, Pavel and his mother put Anna into the shade of the family. I tried to make peace and to keep the light on Anna, but I failed.