Mama

See Mamochka

Mamochka

Mamochka is Alexei's eighty-year-old mother. She is a heavy woman, weighing well over two hundred pounds and suffering the ills of advancing age, including thinning hair and false teeth. Even so, she is Alexei's sole caretaker, and her day revolves around cooking for him, making sure he does not upset the neighbors with his odd behavior, and monitoring his work constructing the cardboard boxes that net them a bit of money when she sells them to the pharmacy. Whenever Alexei is in trouble, or about to be, she is always there to save him.

The story is told primarily through Alexei's eyes, so most of what is known about Mamochka is physical—what she looks like, how she moves, what she cooks for Alexei. She is obviously, though, a woman without much life beyond taking care of her adult son. There is no evidence...