Episode 3
Isolation
A simple mistake marks the beginning of the end of Debbie’s dreams in Russia. Jake gives his mum some much-needed good news.
Transcripts
Finding Natasha, Episode 3
Jake Warren Hey, Olga. How are you?
Olga Kuzmenkova Hey. How are you?
Jake Warren Olga called me again just two weeks after she said she'd tried getting in touch with Natasha. I was feeling a little anxious when she said she wanted to talk to me. But also...
Jake Warren Excited.
Olga Kuzmenkova That's the good thing, because I do have some great news,
actually. Um, Natalia, uh, got in touch with me.
Jake Warren Only then, I realised that Natasha is actually the anglicized version of the Russian name Natalia, which is why you’ll hear Olga calling her that in all our conversations. I also realised that I say “wow” a lot when I'm excited.
Jake Warren Wow.
Olga Kuzmenkova Yeah.
Jake Warren Amazing.
Olga Kuzmenkova So, um...
Jake Warren Wow.
Olga Kuzmenkova Yeah. So, she wrote me an e-mail and, uh, it says that she still remembers your mum and that she would be happy to connect with her.
Jake Warren Wow. That's so exciting. That’s fifty years of, um, not knowing my mum is – is over, I guess.
Jake Warren I was excited, but I also started feeling nervous about what my mum's reaction to the news would be. It could be overwhelming for her. What if she wasn't ready to confront her story? But at this point, I'd gotten too far not to tell her.
Anyway, Olga managed to find Natasha on Facebook and she wrote to her. Olga Kuzmenkova But she didn't respond to my message.
Jake Warren Next, she got in touch with the Vaganova, the ballet academy where Natasha teachers.
Olga Kuzmenkova So, I wrote them an e-mail.
Jake Warren Explaining the someone she's working with in London is trying to find
Natasha. First, she expects to hear back from the school.
Olga Kuzmenkova And then, there is just an e-mail coming from Natalia.
Jake Warren Natasha said, yes, of course, she remembers Debbie Gayle, that they were friends back then, and that she would be happy to talk to her again.
Jake Warren In a very short space of time, we've gone from “Oh, I wonder what happens to this woman” to finding her Facebook to her actually getting in touch and e-mailing you to saying she remembers my mum and she, you know, knows she's up for talking. And you've done it about two weeks what we couldn’t do in fifty years, Olga. So, you’re much smarter than us.
Olga Kuzmenkova Oh. Don't say this. I don't know how to react to this kind of stuff.
Jake Warren Oh, sorry. I won't. Okay. You get back in touch with her. I'll tell my mum in the first stage that, you know, we found her. And – and then, we can figure out how the hell we’re gonna do this.
Olga Kuzmenkova Sure.
Jake Warren From Message Heard, I’m Jake Warren, and this is Finding Natasha,
which I guess we just did.
So, back in 1974, my mum was still in Leningrad. At that point, Natasha wasn't an echo of the past yet. She was a new friend who made life a little easier for her. The two of them, along with Natasha's friend Jenya, used to spend a lot of time together. They’d drink coffee together, talk about how they all fancied Mikhail Baryshnikov.
Debbie Gayle There were two girls who were just warm and friendly to me. Sandra Ferrari So, you’re a part of something?
Debbie Gayle I felt part of something,
Jake Warren But like back home, her life still mostly revolved around ballet. Her main focus was becoming a world famous ballerina. She was dancing with the Soviet Union's best young dancers and she was meant to be one of Britain's best. She believed it, too, until, little by little, she started realising that it wasn't going to be that easy.
Debbie Gayle I was struggling. I... The biggest shock was I went into the classroom and the floor was raked. That was a big shock. The floors in Russia, unlike in the West, they're raked, which means they're slanted.
Jake Warren Basically, the floor was sloped, meaning it was slightly higher up at the back of the stage than it was at the front.
Debbie Gayle So, your whole balance, you have to readjust your whole balance. That completely threw me. I don't think I could even stand up very well to start with. If you're trained on it from child, obviously, it's completely normal. And the – the stages of all the Russian theatres were raked. So, the dancers were used to it. They grew up with it. They can then adapt to a flat floor easier. But if it's the other way round, it's very difficult, actually. Um, so, that was the first shock. The second shock was the realisation that I, although had some talent and aptitude, obviously, I was absolutely out of my league. The dances were exquisite. Because I was now in Russia, it was the ultimate. It’s like being a movie star to get to be a ballet dancer, to be, you know ... It’s a huge thing in Russia to be in the Kirov or the Bolshoi. So, they had the crème de la crème and they took the absolute best. You know, there was a reason that the Kirov produced these amazing dancers. And, um, I could not compete. I – I was seventeen. I hadn't had the previous training of that level. And in all brutal honesty, I don't believe I had the ability to have made up for lost time. And, um, and that was a terrible shock. So, there was a lot of shocks and a lot of huge reality checks. And although I was seventeen, I sort of became like a lost seven-year-old in mainly floods of tears from morning ‘til night. I felt like I was drowning, because not only was my dream being shattered, I was being forced to take a very stark look in the mirror at my own abilities or lack of them.
Jake Warren So, even though she had the comfort of Natasha's friendship, things were tough. She had already had to face rejection once as a dancer after being denied by the Royal Ballet Academy. In her mind, Russia was her last chance to prove herself. But at the Kirov, ballet stopped coming so easily to her. And it wasn't just the sloped stages that turned dancing into an uphill struggle for her. Mum wasn't eating well. The Soviet diet was worlds away from the food she knew from home. And she started to get ill as a result.
Debbie Gayle I very quickly lost a huge amount of weight. I became desperately homesick. And it's – it’s the overwhelming shock of... It's really difficult to – to – to describe. But, um, nothing prepares you for the grey. The greyness of it. It's dusty. It was – it was – it was shocking. The best way I can describe it is, when I came back, I remember being quite overwhelmed by the
color. Everything was so colorful. Everything was so bright. It almost hurt my eyes. But, of course, you know, the young people I was with, they knew no different. That was the world they were born into. So, they were chattering amongst themselves. They were working out. They... Of course, most of them had families or loved ones or support. But there was always that underlying atmosphere of distrust and secrecy. And, you know, I could never be part. I could never join in. Even if I had spoken perfect Russian, I would not have been accepted.
Jake Warren My mum recognised this feeling. She'd felt like an outsider before. But this time it was more intense despite having Natasha. It was magnified by language, culture, and losing ballet as an escape. And very quickly, things got even worse. More on that after a quick break.
[MIDROLL]
Debbie Gayle I started to get sick after about three months. And I believe it was from drinking water. Um, I remember going into the bathroom, actually. Ugh, one of my biggest horrors where their toilets, which were just in a long line. There was no divider, no door. And I remember I couldn't... I just couldn't go. I found that very difficult. That was very strange. That was pretty standard Soviet stuff. And the basins, that's where I drank the water, I remember, because the water that came out with the basins on the other side of the bathroom was a really suspect color, brown color. And I did drink it.
Jake Warren Even today, it’s not totally safe to drink water from the taps in Russia. And it definitely wasn't safe back then. There was a whole bunch of different diseases you can get from drinking unsanitary water—cholera, diarrhea, dysentery, or hepatitis —which, to be fair to my mum, she had no way of knowing. No one had warned her, whether before she left the UK or after she got to the school. So, on she went and drank from the tap in the school toilets.
Debbie Gayle That's when it started. I started to get stomach pains and fevers and night sweats. And I – I didn't tell anybody. I had no one to tell other than Natasha. I think she knew I was starting to get sick. I didn't know what to do. And then, I went downhill very quickly and I got incredibly weak. And I remember, one morning, I literally could not get out of bed. And bed, that's a laugh. It was a wire thing. But I remember lying on this hard bed thing and I just remember thinking, I cannot, if my life depends on it, get out of this bed. I was just... I felt so ill.
Jake Warren Mum must have been doing so badly that Natasha told someone at school.
Debbie Gayle That night, and it was in the night, some men and women came into the room where me and the other four girls were sleeping. And this big, sort of Russian babushka lady, she woke me. She said to “put on this dressing gown and boots,” and I was told to go with them. And she helped me, I remember. And I do remember going down the stairs, out through the main doors, just in this dressing gown and boots. And these two guys in uniform, medical uniform. And I was helped into an ambulance. I kept asking where I was going and why this was happening. And I – I, as usual dissolved into tears. Um, and I was taken to a isolation hospital just outside the city of Leningrad. Um, that's when the nightmare really began.
Because in those days, Soviet hospitals were pretty terrifying places, at the best of times, and they didn't know what was wrong with me. I was very, very sick and, uh, had a fever and various other symptoms. And they put me in a room and they locked the door. And it had a huge window, so I could look through the window and they could look at me. There was one bed, one table, and a door that led into a small toilet and basin.
And I remember just feeling overwhelmed or relieved that I was able to lie down. And they must have given me something to make me sleep, because I think I just lost all track of time. But I remember waking up for the first time properly and looking through this big glass window into the corridor and banging on the window, because, obviously, the door was locked. And that was the first time I felt really scared. Really scared, because I thought, “What – what's gonna happen?” And they were only giving me water to drink, ‘cause I ... Oh, I think they thought it was best to starve it out of me.
Jake Warren It's tough hearing this, not only because of how terrified she must have felt then, but also because of how lonely it must have been to keep this part of the experience to herself in all the years since. It upsets me that she was treated this way. Well, not treated, really.
Debbie Gayle These two sort of large Russian nurses would come in, and they were very sort of sweet in the sense of they would stroke my hair and I'd cry and plead with them and they would gabble in, rushing at me. But they always locked the door behind them and they never gave me anything to eat. And I kept making gestures that I was hungry and... But they... I just couldn't get through to them.
Jake Warren One question I keep asking myself is: Where was the British Embassy while all of this was happening? Their complete lack of support was the final ingredient to the perfect storm of nightmares that this cultural exchange had become.
Debbie Gayle That’s a very good question. They didn't know that I'd been taken ill. And, obviously, they hadn't played a proper part, anyway, because there was no embassy in Leningrad. There was only a consulate. And, uh, afterwards, when all this came out, there was a bit of a stink, because the consulate was actually away skiing for the first, I think, month that I was there. So, nobody came to the school or... They obviously had been told that there was a young English girl in the school, but nobody visited me and, certainly, nobody knew I'd been taken to this hospital.
Jake Warren In the hospital, the days and nights became interchangeable for mum. Time became discernible only through the isolation ward’s vague patterns. The nice nurses would visit mum's room every now and then, comfort her a little bit. But otherwise, she was just locked in there alone for days.
Debbie Gayle I remember becoming fascinated by my hip bones, because they protruded more and more. There was nothing to read. No work. No one. There was nothing. I just remember in this room and I remember thinking, I could die here, and no one's even gonna know. And the nurses would come in three, four times a day. I would cry, and they would smile and stroke my hair and make noises to me. But nothing changed. And then, one day—I don't know how many days down the line—I was sitting on the bed, and then, it was like a vision. I saw her, Natasha. I saw her face through the glass. I thought it was a mirage. And she put a finger to her mouth like that. She went shush. Like, her finger to her mouth. She knew what a crybaby I was. And I squealed and jumped up and down. I started banging on the window. And I see her sweet face now with her finger like that. Shush, shush, shush, shush. And then, I realised, Well, this is a problem, because the door's locked. But luckily the door was locked from the outside. And Natasha opened it and she came in. And I have never in my life been more relieved the moment when she came and put her arms around me. And she gave me an apple. I've always hated apple since then. But anyway, and, uh, she said, “Don't cry. Don't cry.” And I, of course, immediately started saying, “Oh, Natasha. I'm so scared” and blah, blah. And she just put a coat around me. My boots were in the room. She put my bare feet into the boots. I put the coat on. She wiped away my tears. She said to me, “Be quiet.” She took my hand. We went through the door. We walked down the corridor. There was no one and nothing. And when we got to the end of the corridor and there was a fire door. You know, one of those big bolts. She pushed it. And the door opened, and we went out. We were straight out on to a snowy field.
Debbie Gayle Hi.
Jake Warren Hi. There we go. We’ve got it working.
Debbie Gayle Sorry?
Jake Warren I said we’ve got it working. How’s it going? Can you hear me?
Debbie Gayle Uh-huh. Yeah. I haven’t got anything working. I don't know what you're talking about. Nothing works.
Jake Warren No. No. I’ve got it from my end. But you can hear me okay is what I’m saying. Okay. Just one
Debbie Gayle Can you see me?
Jake Warren No, no. I can't see you. We're just doing a [CROSSTALK].
Debbie Gayle Good. ‘Cause I look awful. Huh?
Jake Warren That’s all right. We’re not – we’re not doing a video call. We’re just doing into your mobile.
Debbie Gayle Good.
Jake Warren But anyway, um, I've got, um, I've got some good news. Debbie Gayle Yeah?
Jake Warren Um...
Debbie Gayle I could do with some. ‘Cause my life is absolute shit.
Jake Warren Mum, shut up. Stop being weird. Um, so, I have ... Well, not just me. You know, me and – and my team. When lockdown started, you know, we've been looking into... I’ll just come out and say it. We found Natasha.
Jake Warren My mum's reaction and the next part of her story are coming up in episode four of Finding Natasha, which is ready for you to listen to right now in this feed. Finding Natasha is a Message Heard production. It's hosted by me, Jake Warren, and produced by Sandra Ferrari and Jake Otajovič. Edited by Jake Otajovič and exec produced by Sandra Ferrari. And a huge thank you for her help with actually finding Natasha goes to Olga Kuzmenkova. The theme music is by Matt Huxley.
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