Profile of an Invisible Person

Phone rings. “Hello M, how are you? I am sorry but I have to cancel our appointment for today. My mother-in-law passed this morning,” says the firm, yet polite voice on the other side of the line.

My apology with an offer to postpone to a later date is quickly dismissed. “Don’t be. This is better for her. She suffered a long time and is now finally at peace,” says the voice, not showing a flicker of grief. We arrange to meet the next day.

Fifty-six-year-old Svetlana Sharapova, is the proud owner of the dusty pink house down on Seminole Avenue in Waltham. An aesthetician by profession, she has diligently cleansed and massaged hundreds of her client’s tired faces for the last 27 years.

“Do you know what they call a High School Diploma in Russia?” “Atectat” or the “Affidavit of Maturity!” she quips. A ‘formally-trained’ nurse from Ufa, the capital city of the Republic of Bashkortostan, Svetlana, got much of her education back when one needed a medical degree to be an aesthetician and Russia was still a part of the Soviet Union.

“I decided it was my mission to make people look and feel good.” she says, as she hands me a cool, glass of water: a welcoming respite from the beating afternoon sun.

Her mother-in-law, who toiled for fifty-six years in hospitals, after the Second World War, took the then 20-year old ill-educated daughter-in-law under her wing and swore to make Svetlana a nurse in her image. “My husband dropped out of college and I remember Mama Nina furiously telling me, ‘If I can become a nurse, so can you! There should be at least one graduate in the family,” she recollects, gazing at the roof of the low-hanging basement salon as she proceeds to gently wipes my face.

As the nursing education was about to come to an end, along with it came the news of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. “Times were tough. We had run out of money and the government aid for child support was always late,” says the mother of two.

Thereafter, nationally-owned hospitals and educational institutions, where Svetlana continued to train as an aesthetician, quickly exchanged hands with private entities and people like her were left at the mercy of those who were their new “owners”.

“When I walked in to collect my certificate, the lady who bought the institute refused to give it to me. She said the department I had made the payment to, did not exist anymore.” Desperate to make ends meet, Svetlana reached out to her mother.

Her mother with whom the family of four lived had saved two pieces of leather in the hopes of getting a coat made for herself and her daughter, gave one of them to Svetlana to sell in exchange for the certificate. “I said to myself, ‘do you want to stay warm or do you want to work,’” she shrugs.

Getting the required credentials was just half the battle as she soon discovered that jobs were suddenly scarce and people often got “beaten and thrown out” when they went asking for a job. “We needed to survive. So, I decided to continue to be a nurse,” she says peering through a pair of tired, grey eyes.  

The memories of the hospital which functioned from a “rotten barrack” where Svetlana worked for three years as instability ensued in Ufa, are the ones she loathes to recollect. “I worked under some of the old nurses who served during World War II. I scrubbed soiled floors, sterilized medical equipment while the flies buzzed around me. It was such a depressing time. A lot of families with children were either fleeing the country or committing suicides and there I was just grateful I could feed mine.”

 “I never really got to become an artist,” she nods as the subtle warm hues in the greys of her eyes slowly start to glisten.

Determined to make it back or face the fear of “forgetting” everything learnt, Svetlana decided to give it one, final attempt. After selling the second piece of leather, she reached out to the department that issued business licenses.

“The lady at the department that issued cosmetology licenses said she had never heard of such a thing as an aesthetician.”

The next day Svetlana was one of the first few people in the country to walk out of the government office with a license that allowed her to practice what she calls her “passion” and before you know it, she was packing her family for a journey to the promised land.

Svetlana and her family finally reached the United States as Jewish refugees from the former Soviet Union. “It was 2 a.m. on May 8, 1998 when I arrived in Boston,” she says. “We all remember the date we came here.”

Walking me outside she stands staring a moment at the fresh bloom of roses in her well-tended garden. Another “love” she picked up from her mother-in-law. “If she were alive she would be proud,” she says as she disappears behind the door to prepare for her next arrival. 

Svetlana is the owner of 'A-Skin Care Salon' in Waltham, MA.

-Manasa Joshyam