The Recipient

  Though her smiling face appeared welcoming, Casey detected a hint of suspicion in the older woman’s eyes. Raelene continued to stare, then she gestured toward the sofa.

  “Have a seat. Lesia’s in good spirits this morning. You’ve caught her on a good day.”

  Casey smiled and then sat as Raelene turned toward the hall. Suddenly, the clickity-clack of metal on timber sounded and Raelene stopped in mid-stride as a painfully small figure rounded into view, armed with a walking frame that she hefted with audible gasps and grunts.

  “Speak of the devil,” Raelene observed mischievously.

  Casey stood up instantly as Lesia Andrutsiv issued a bell-like laugh, bobbing her head as she entered the room. Negotiating her way around a coffee table, she made for her armchair.

  She was bent over the frame, her spine deformed by the cumulative effects of arthritis. Despite this, she moved into position and deftly effected a ninety-degree turn, then flopped herself down in the recliner.

  “Good morning! Good morning!” Mrs. Andrutsiv greeted through a fit of coughing. She spoke in a lightly accented voice that ranged between a squeak and a whisper. “It is so lovely to have a visitor to my home.”

  Casey shifted in her seat and glanced sideways at Raelene, who folded her arms and leaned against the door frame. She continued to stare intensely as Casey resumed her seat.

  Mrs. Andrutsiv raised a gnarled hand and clicked her fingers.

  “Tea! We must have tea. You will join me—yes?” Her elfin eyes beamed at Casey. “Would you be a dear, Rae, and fetch us a pot?”

  “That would be nice,” Casey nodded quickly, watching as the nurse slowly retreated into the hall.

  The elderly woman squirmed in her seat, adjusting herself until she was comfortable. Casey turned her attention back to her.

  Mrs. Andrutsiv’s thinning salt-and-pepper hair was tied back in a ponytail that hung all the way down her back. Her eyes were uncharacteristically bright, and twinkled with mischief through a pair of ancient spectacles. There was an undeniable wisdom in them, the sum of a long life and experience. Her face, though heavily lined and sporting prominent jowls and liver spots, seemed to take in Casey with a sense of childlike wonder.

  “You said your name was Winnie, yes?” she asked curiously, shaking Casey from her silent observation. Casey nodded, noticing the old woman looking her up and down.

  “That’s right.”

  “Hmmphh. You don’t look like a Winnie,” Mrs. Andrutsiv remarked unexpectedly, looking at Casey over the rim of her spectacles.

  If you only knew, Casey thought ruefully, trying not to react to the probing observation.

  If there had been any doubt about the sharpness of this woman’s mind, it had been trounced in that moment.

  Casey nervously picked at the folder in her lap.

  “I’m a student from Monash University. As I explained on the telephone, I’m involved in a research project looking at families of individuals who’ve been organ donors. I understand that you volunteered your details some time ago. They were given to me in confidence so that I might ask you a few questions about your granddaughter?”

  The mention of Saskia seemed to make Mrs. Andrutsiv’s demeanour brighten and though she smiled broadly, Casey did notice the old woman’s eyes mist over.

  “Ah yes,” Mrs. Andrutsiv sighed wistfully. “My dear Saskia.”

  Reaching into the neckline of her dress, Mrs. Andrutsiv lifted out a gold chain with an oval charm hanging from it. Leaning forward, she worked her arthritic fingers along the edge of the locket until it snapped open, revealing a tiny photograph inside.

  Casey leaned forward to inspect the photograph. It was a portrait of Saskia, a high quality, studio shot that had been shrunken to fit inside. She lifted her hand to hold the locket and felt a surge of electricity crackle through her chest.

  “She had so much life ahead of her,” Mrs. Andrutsiv said. “And she had already lived through so much.”

  Casey opened her folder and took up a pencil, ready to begin writing. For her part, Mrs. Andrutsiv relaxed back into her chair and nodded at the notepad.

  “Tell me about this project of yours. What would you like to know?”

  “Ah, anything really, Mrs.—”

  “Lesia,” the elderly woman interrupted. “Call me Lesia, please. You make me sound positively ancient.”

  Casey smiled and cleared her throat.

  “My project is about the people behind organ donations. These anonymous heroes who give such a priceless gift. I want to tell their stories. These donors are sometimes the forgotten ones in this journey.”

  Lesia Andrutsiv raised her brow with interest.

  “A worthy study. I am pleased to help as much as I can, though, I don’t know very much about the medical things.”

  “That doesn’t matter so much,” Casey said. “It’s…their personal stories that I’m interested in. Of course, everything we discuss will be treated confidentially.”

  Lesia nodded. Her eyes drifted beyond Casey out through the window.

  “Saskia came from my homeland. She lived with her mother and father in the east just outside of Kharkiv. They did not have much but they were a proud family and they worked hard. Her mother was a teacher and her father served in the Ukrainian military. Very early on, Saskia displayed a gift for learning. As a young child, she read and read. It was said that you could not pull her face from a book. She had a hunger for knowledge and she loved language and art. That is why she came here.”

  Casey looked up from her notepad.

  “Art?”

  “Yes. Art history. The great painters. The great periods. Saskia was obsessed with them. She took after her grandfather—my husband. He was an art history professor. We came to Australia so that he could teach. Saskia devoured languages too. Studied them religiously. She could speak three languages by the time she was ten years old. It was her dream to study both art and language. She wanted to visit all of the great galleries of the world and to become an art curator.”

  “And she came to Australia?” Casey asked.

  Lesia nodded slowly. Her expression become sombre. “Yes. Though how she came here happened out of rather tragic circumstances.”

  She paused and looked down at her hands cradled in her lap.

  “Her father—my son—was a soldier in the Ukrainian Army. He was stationed on the border with Russia.”

  Lesia raised her hand thoughtfully and smoothed her skin on either side of her mouth.

  “He was killed in an accident while on a patrol. They never fully revealed to us how it happened. In the aftermath, her mother feared they would be pushed into poverty. Her mother and I talked and we decided it would be best for Saskia to come to Australia. If she were to have any chance at a better life and to further her studies, we agreed she would come and live with me and go to university here. Together, we did everything we could to make that happen. Her own talent helped. Saskia was awarded a scholarship and she was able to come here on a student visa.”

  “When was that?” Casey asked as Raelene appeared from the hallway armed with a tray upon which sat a teapot, cups and a plate of cookies. She set it down on a little side table and began pouring a cup for Lesia and Casey.

  “It was seven years ago,” Lesia replied and nodded at the realisation that so many years had passed. “I was so happy to have her come and live with me. Since my husband died, I have lived in this old house on my own. I actually thought about returning home to Kharkiv until we began talking about Saskia. She b-brightened this place so much.”

  For the first time, Lesia faltered. Her emotions bubbled up, her lip trembled.

  Raelene stepped forward this time, and knelt next to Mrs. Andrutsiv’s chair.

  “Lesia,” she said concerned. “You don’t have to do this.”

  Lesia brushed her away with a wave of her hand as she composed herself.

  “I am fine. I am happy to do this,” she said, sitting straighter in her chair. “Saskia
was admitted to the University of Melbourne. She was nervous at first, of course, having come from so far away, but in time, she came into her own. She made friends. She was very happy.”

  Lesia’s voice drifted away to silence and she lifted her cup to her lips and sipped softly from it.

  “You obviously made her feel very happy here,” Casey offered nodding toward the photograph of Lesia and Saskia together.

  Lesia smiled and her cheeks flushed pink. Then, suddenly, as if a switch had been tripped, Lesia’s eyes lit up and she drew her cup away swiftly.

  “Would you like to see her room?”

  Casey blinked in surprise and worked her jaw impotently. “I ahh…”

  “I kept her room just the way it was the day she left it,” Lesia continued, becoming more animated. “I could not bring myself to touch it. It was her…haven. Come, let me show you.”

  Raelene sucked in a breath as Lesia lurched forward, grasping the handles of her walking frame with her gnarled fingers.

  “Come, come,” she grimaced, pushing up and rising to her crooked standing position. “It will be good for it to have some air and to be visited again.”

  Lesia shuffled her way past Raelene who was clearly uncomfortable, though she held her tongue as Casey followed close behind. The two exchanged glances; Raelene’s full of suspicion.

  She knows, Casey thought ruefully.

  Lesia paused at an open doorway at the end of the hall that led into a large, open sunroom at the rear of the house. Tastefully decorated, it looked out onto a back garden that, like the front, had been lovingly maintained. Lesia raised a hand from the walker and pointed to the right, at a white timber door in the far corner of the sunroom.

  Approaching it, Lesia hesitated, resting her hand on an ancient brass knob. She glanced sideways at Casey, then turned the handle, struggling momentarily with the mechanism.

  Casey gulped as she stepped inside. She felt dizzy and had to place a hand on a small desk to steady herself.

  The room held a sense of familiarity even though she had never been here before. It was tidy and, like the sunroom, it had been furnished with a modern, feminine touch. Though it had not been occupied in over three years, it felt light and airy, with sunlight from outside filtering through a large window that faced onto the garden.

  “She loved this little room,” Lesia beamed, noticing Casey’s languid gaze out through the window. “And the garden. She tended to it nearly every day. Saskia used to say that she felt safe there.”

  Casey turned her head towards Lesia. “Safe?”

  Lesia leaned against her walking frame and shrugged. “Saskia did not like large, open spaces, or unfamiliar places. You could say that she struggled with them. Saskia used to suffer from awful panic attacks. She much preferred to stick to her own home.”

  Casey stifled a gulp, feeling painfully self-conscious.

  A tall bookcase stood against one wall. It boasted a large selection of titles ranging from fiction to text books: art and art history, linguistics and dictionaries of several languages. Next to that was a wrought iron bed with a floral quilt underneath another, smaller window that took in the morning sun. A white wardrobe with a decorative border stood adjacent to it, facing the bookcase. A rucksack hung from one handle. Positioned between the bed and the wardrobe was a matching dresser and, above that, was a framed picture that took Casey’s breath away.

  She gasped, as though she had been punched in the stomach.

  It was Jeanne Hebuterne, the same Modigliani portrait that hung in her own apartment.

  Lesia tilted her head. “My dear, are you all right?”

  Casey did not answer. She stepped forward, her eyes fixed upon the portrait she knew so well, her thoughts and emotions spiralling.

  It couldn’t be.

  Lifting a hand to the portrait, Casey touched the cheek of Jeanne Hebuterne.

  “You know Modigliani, child?” Lesia ventured with a hopeful lilt.

  “Yes,” Casey responded without turning around. “I do. His work is very beautiful.”

  “Saskia brought that print with her from Kharkiv. It is—was—her favourite. She was particularly drawn to the story of Modigliani’s lover, tragic though it was.”

  “Jeanne Hebuterne,” Casey whispered. “She was his muse, his principal subject. She devoted her life to him. When he died, she could not bear the loss.”

  Quiet lingered between them. As Lesia looked from the print to Casey, she could see a sadness betrayed in the young woman’s features.

  “You know her very well,” Lesia remarked.

  Catching herself, Casey looked away and her eyes wandered over to the dresser. Here, too, were postcard-sized prints ranging from Van Gogh and Rembrandt to DaVinci and Picasso. Among these were items of jewellery, earrings, handcrafted necklaces with fancy charms and coloured beads. An ornate hairbrush sat, as if in wait, and Casey noticed strands of hair still caught between the bristles.

  Finally, she turned towards Lesia who was holding a tissue in her outstretched hand. Casey blinked, realising her eyes were moist with tears and she quickly took the tissue.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, embarrassed.

  Lesia smiled. “I understand, my dear. To walk into such a place—one that still has so much life—it can have a powerful effect.”

  Casey lifted her folder and opened it, reminding herself of the pretence she had to maintain.

  “May I ask how was it that Saskia decided to become a donor?”

  Lesia shrugged her shoulders. A visible lump rose in her throat.

  “She made the decision when she first arrived in Australia. Saskia had a deep sense of responsibility, felt that it was an important thing to do. Of course, I never believed that her wish would ever be carried out.”

  A pall of sadness descended over Lesia. Her eyes drifted away and into her memories.

  “It was a terrible decision to have to make.”

  Casey gulped softly, building up the courage to probe deeper.

  Though she did not need to confirm it, she felt she had to hear it.

  “Could I ask you what happened?” she ventured, trying to hide her nervousness.

  Lesia turned to the desk and pulled out the chair.

  “It was an accident, a terrible accident. It happened just after a particularly difficult period for us both when we were just beginning to see some sunshine in our lives once again. Saskia had been studying so hard and she had been under a lot of stress because of my illness. I was very sick from the chemotherapy I was having. Even worse, Saskia had had some trouble with her student papers.”

  “Her papers?”

  Lesia nodded absently as she struggled to recall the events.

  “She kept a lot of it to herself. She did not want to worry me while I was in the hospital, but there had been a misunderstanding over her student papers. She’d had to make an appeal to the authorities. She had to sort most of it out on her own.”

  Lesia caught herself and stopped speaking. She averted her eyes, fidgeting nervously for several moments.

  “Anyhow, it was a very trying few months,” she resumed, more hesitantly. “When it all settled, her friends treated her to a weekend at the beach. A music festival, it was one of those big parties you young people love so much. It was called Pleasant Music, or something like that. Such an interesting name, isn’t it?”

  Casey moved to the bed and sat down on the edge of it, careful not to disturb the quilt. Lesia did not seem to mind.

  “Saskia had such lovely friends. They cared about her a great deal. Especially Shelley.”

  “Shelley?” Casey echoed softly.

  “Her best friend,” Lesia answered, a wan smile returning to her features. “Shelley was the first school friend Saskia met and they quickly became inseparable. They did most everything together. It was Shelley who took her to the festival. They were going to camp down there on the beach for the weekend with a group from the university, enjoy the music, then return ready for cl
asses refreshed and recharged.”

  Turning to the desk, Lesia lifted a photo frame and passed it to Casey. Inside the patterned frame was a photograph of Saskia and another young woman posing together. They were both dressed formally in flowing dresses. They were surrounded by revellers of a similar age on a dance floor, suggesting that it was taken at a university function.

  “This is Shelley?” Casey pointed to the pretty young face in the picture.

  Lesia nodded then, all at once, she faltered. Her shoulders slumped as though a great weight had descended on them. Her emotions threatened to overwhelm her, but she sat straighter in her seat and composed herself, refusing to let them prevail.

  “I remember they left on a Friday morning. They were excited, yet even to the very last moment, I had to push her to go. Saskia worried about leaving me, worried about being somewhere unfamiliar but I wanted her to have some fun, especially because it was by the seaside.”

  Lesia retrieved a tissue from inside the sleeve of her cardigan and dabbed her dripping nose.

  “That was the last time I saw her,” she said, her voice shaking. Her hands shook in her lap and a single tear welled in her eye before it ran down over the deep lines in her face.

  “They told me she had been hit by a car in the night. On some lonely road, far from the beach. I could never understand how it happened that way.”

  Lesia’s voice cracked and faded to a whisper, but she was determined to finish.

  “She fought for four days to live. But they told me her injuries were too grave. Another doctor came to see me. He talked to me about giving her organs to people who were very sick, who were close to death. I had to make a decision quickly, or else those others might not survive.”

  Casey sat in stunned silence at the elderly woman’s brave recollection. In that moment, Casey felt sick with shame at having so blatantly intruded into Lesia’s little home, into the tragedy of her granddaughter.

  “The pressure on me to decide was so great.” Lesia held her hands out and shrugged her shoulders. “But I said yes. I have struggled with that decision ever since. Even though I know that she lives on in others—that they have been given a second chance, my Saskia has been taken away from me.”