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Comprehensive Book Translation Services Matt Sundakov: Creative Writing in English |
You Are My
Music, You Are My Art!
(this little poem is dedicated to
my wife Michelle)
All my life
I was dreaming
About a wife
Not for cleaning,
But for love and respect,
For understanding and tenderness
Who will not judge but accept
Me without prejudice.
We should be equal in rights
Not dominating but sharing.
Together we face any plights
Giving support and caring.
We share together joy,
We share together laughter
Together we smile and enjoy
Life now and beautiful years after.
My dreams did come true at last:
You gave me your soul and heart,
You gave me your love and your trust.
You are my Music, you are my Art!
*********************************************************
(this work is based on my own
childhood and through my eyes gives a seriously-humorous insight into the life
of my generation)
INTRODUCTION: WORLD ACCORDING TO ME
I remember
myself clearly from the age of seven. At that age I began to realize myself as
an individual who is me and nobody else. Until then I had only a few
fragmentary, though bright, pictures in memory related to one of the most
difficult periods in the history of my native city - Leningrad (which was built
nearly 300 years ago by the most famous Russian Tsar Peter the Great).
For example,
I remember vividly how my mother was sitting with me in her arms at our dining
table covered with an old oilcloth. There is nothing on the table except crumbs
of bread. I am leaning forward and carefully pick up these crumbs using my
right forefinger, and then slowly drag them toward my hungry mouth. (Later my
mother told me that it was during the siege of
Apart from
this and some other colorful pictures engraved upon my memory forever, the war
fortunately passed me by. By the time I turned seven and had to go to school,
My mother
worked in a large supermarket. She left for work at
He was a
scandalous person. He yelled at me when I tried to play my modest children's
games in our living room, because it distracted him from his music. I just did
not have any other place to go, because our family only had one room in a flat
shared with two other families. "Bastard," he shouted at me,
"Will you keep quiet? Otherwise I will throw away your miserable
toy!"
Probably my
toy was indeed miserable: a primitive, small (about five centimeters long) car,
which could not even sound a horn, and forced me to provide this facility
instead. Insulted and humiliated, I kept quiet ...... for a while.
My brother,
who was nearly five years older than me, was much more confident and sometimes
tried to argue with this honorable musician, when the latter made similar
remarks toward him. Fistfights followed; I tried to intervene verbally,
persuading my stepfather to be fair and stop beating a child who was certainly
weaker than he. Sometimes it worked, and I wondered why I protected my brother,
who himself was often quite cruel and ruthless toward me.
Hearing the
noise of fights and arguments coming from our flat, a mob of young thugs used
to gather under the windows. They laughed, shouted abuse and even threw stones
at us.
Coming home
from school, before I could play with other children outside or do my school
assignments, I had to go to the shops and buy what my mother asked me to buy in
her note left on the dining table. Shopping had to be done each day because we
did not have a fridge, let alone a car. Everywhere there were queues,
everything was rationed, and sometimes I had to spend up to five hours just to
buy half a kilo of sugar or flour. People in the queues were unfriendly and
embittered. From time to time they exchanged verbal insults, which in turn
could easily grow into a nasty fight.
The world
around me was cold and hostile. I could not understand why. I felt that people
do have their reasons to be angry and frustrated; indeed everyday life was a
constant struggle for survival. Too much time and effort was spent in order to
satisfy just the very basic needs. Too little space was left for happiness.
Still, it was
difficult to understand why people so often pushed and insulted each other instead
of trying to help. Why could not they have imagined themselves in other
people's places? Why could not they have appreciated how a defenseless child
feels, or a helpless old woman? Why did my elder brother treat me as his slave
instead of trying to help? Why did he never share our house duties with me? Why
did I need to do all the shopping and cleaning myself? (I knew that if I
objected, he would give me a good hiding.)
I realized
that most people complained if somebody was unjust to them. But they forgot
about justice when it concerned others. If they felt stronger than you, they
would threaten you with their force, unless you did whatever they wanted.
God only
knows how much I suffered and cried, feeling extremely vulnerable and helpless
nearly everywhere: at home, at school, on the street. Too often unjustly
humiliated and abused, I probably may have eventually become an evil,
aggressive and vengeful teenager. Fortunately, it did not happen.
There was
something in me which always resisted all this injustice. I kept telling
myself: "I will never behave as these cruel people do. I know what it
means to be abused, I know too well a physical and
spiritual pain. I do not want my future children to go through a similar
experience."
I knew that I
would be different, that in spite of, or thanks to, my own sad experience I
would always have a positive attitude to life. I would try to be the best in
everything: as a son, as a friend, as a husband and as a father. To be able to
do this, I would try to gain a good education and be a good worker. I would
always try to improve myself as a person. I would always try to do something
useful. I WOULD ALWAYS TRY TO DO MY BEST!
I think this
positive attitude and motivation worked as a good engine which drove me through
life more or less successfully. On my way I had many obstacles, I made quite a
lot of mistakes, sometimes I failed completely. But I never gave in. I never
stalled - I always tried to move forward.
But it was
not a movement in the dark. I always had a goal. Sometimes, especially in the
early part of my life, a goal chosen by me was wrong and naïve. But as soon as
I realized this, I tried to find something else to live for, and threw myself
forward again.
Not all I
wanted I managed to achieve. But I worked toward my dream until I had at least
one chance in a million. Only when I felt that I had practically explored all
avenues and still to no avail - I accepted my defeat and quickly began to look
for another worthwhile goal.
As everybody
else, I had my own "ups and downs." But I never allowed myself to be
put down as a person. I continued to climb toward my personal summit.
Trying to
achieve our goals or just going through the routine of everyday life, we often
can fulfill only a small part of what we intended to do. It happens not only
because of our physical and mental limitations, but also because we all depend
on the actions of other people - and these actions cannot always be predicted.
Life would
certainly be much nicer and easier if all peopled followed just one very simple
rule: TREAT OTHER PEOPLE AS YOU WANT TO BE TREATED. We need to recognize that
each of us is a small but very complex world and when a person is abused, a
whole world is abused.
Children and
teenagers are especially vulnerable. While their feelings are very sharp, their
ideas and perceptions of the external world are quite often extremely naive. I
remember that I often thought about the universe. We were taught in school that
the universe is infinite both in time and space. I could easily imagine this
infinity in space. In my dreams I used to fly along an endless corridor with
wide glass doors on both sides. Through each door I could see a star, a bright
shining star. I tried to count them, but it was quite a useless undertaking: I
could never reach the end.
Talking about
infinity in time, I could agree with a postulate that the universe would exist
forever. Why not? Even our own planet possibly could exist forever if its
inhabitants did not try so hard to destroy it as soon as they could. However I
could not comprehend a theory that the universe always existed, that it did not
have any beginning. I could not understand this sort of infinity probably
because my own brains were quite finite, and not because I believed that the universe
is God's creation. "Okay," I argued with myself. "I understand
that the universe began many millions, maybe billions, of years ago, but there
was, there had to be some beginning!" It seems to me that now many
scientists have accepted my point of view: their Big Bang theory is nothing
more than a confirmation of my own charismatic vision.
Another
subject of my thoughtful considerations was Death. I could not accept this
meaningless thing. The thought that one day I must die, as everybody else, was
absolutely revolting: other people will still live, trees will continue to
grow, buildings will stay as they are, grass will remain as green as ever - and
all this without me? No, no, no! It can't be so, it is absolutely impossible.
I was
prepared to make some concessions: well, I can die. But one day after this sad
event (maybe in a thousand years) I will be born again in a new body and with a
new mind. I-new will not remember me-old, but I will live, and this is most
important. But, Never Again - it was too horrible to
accept. These ideas have also become very popular among
the world's population, who invented a beautiful name for my theory:
Reincarnation.
However,
since this theory has not been proved yet, we shall assume that we have only
one life (which distinguishes us from cats, who as one knows have nine lives).
In these circumstances it would be extremely unreasonable to waste the only
opportunity we have in this world of not doing our best. If during our life we
were useless or, even worse, harmful creatures, we would most certainly feel
great remorse, shame and misery when the time came to say farewell to this
world (which perhaps is not exactly a Hollywood dream, but still an exciting
and challenging place to be).
Life, to a
big extent, is a lottery. When, where, to what kind of parents you were born -
all this does not depend on you at all. For you as an individual it is all a
matter of chance. Your sex, your appearance, your physical and mental
abilities, your temperament and character - everything seems predetermined for
you by a blind chance.
Nature is
obviously not democratic. On the contrary, it is very much arbitrary and does
not give you any choice at all. Some people get everything from their birth:
born in a prosperous, democratic and stable country to wealthy, kind and
educated parents, they are also beautiful, talented and healthy. At the other
end we can find people who are deprived of everything: poor, ugly, physically
and/or mentally handicapped, growing up in the middle of constant violence,
brutality and hatred.
You can do
nothing about it. You are chosen by fate at random for better or worse. If you
received an unlucky ticket, you could complain and wonder why it is you who is
so unfortunate and miserable, why, for example, you could not be born to a
royal family instead. But it does not change anything at all, does it?
Certainly if
you enjoy your misery, go ahead: cry, complain and curse - you will soon reach
the bottom of your unhappiness. But if you have a positive, constructive attitude,
if you have enough will and energy, if you are prepared to put in a lot of
effort in order to change your life, you can achieve absolutely amazing things,
even if you have had the most disadvantaged background.
Desire to
learn and creative thinking should be developed from very early childhood. In
this case it would actually become part of you for the rest of your life.
Conversely, if you were not used to this when you were young, it would be much
more difficult to develop at a later stage of your life.
This can be
compared with the learning of a foreign language. If you were brought by your
parents to another country at the tender age of a pre-school child, you would
start to speak the new language fluently in a couple of months, just playing
with the local children. Your transitional period would be quick and nearly
painless.
If you
arrived in a new country at the age, say, of between ten and fifteen, you would
need, probably, about one year or so before you could feel yourself as
"one of them." Yet, your complete rebirth would still be possible.
Gradually you would even lose your native accent.
However, if
you started a new life in a new country at a more mature age, the learning of a
new language would become the most laborious task for you: it would take years
and years before you started to feel confident enough. The time would most
probably never come when you could say that now you know your adopted language
as well as your own. The older you were when you started to learn another
language, the less hope you have to ever achieve this task. Even though your
accent may become less noticeable with the passing time, you would never, ever
lose it completely.
Human life is
a constant struggle for survival. Of course, the extent of this struggle can be
quite different for different people in different places at different times.
Quality of human life ranges from a great happiness and full enjoyment to a
complete misery and absolute horror. But even the luckiest people in the world
do have their problems.
Certainly
everything is comparative. Problems of wealthy and healthy people shown to us
in many soap operas, e.g. "Dynasty," "Dallas," "Falcon
Crest" etc., mean absolutely nothing when we think about the millions of
people starving in Sudan or fleeing for their lives from Rwanda.
Still, we can
find some common ground for all human problems. The majority of them are caused
by people themselves. The history of the world is the history of wars. People
have always had great difficulties in communication even within the family.
Problems of interpersonal relationships have existed in all ages and have been
analyzed in countless novels and true stories.
In this
respect, my book is no exception. What makes it unusual can be described as a
3-D factor: different people with different backgrounds in different
circumstances.
Different from whom? From most of the people who are now reading and hopefully enjoying
this book....
MY FIRST SCHOOL YEAR
I remember
that I did not like kindergarten and asked my mum many times to send me to
school instead. However, when the time did come to go to school, I was more
than disappointed. The beginning of my school years coincided with the time
when my consciousness woke up completely after seven years of its slow
development from a half-sleepy state to a blurred awareness of this crazy and
brutal world.
Each morning
when our large and ugly alarm clock began its seemingly unstoppable scream, I
wondered why I was born. I hated the thought of getting out of bed and facing
yet another cruel day. However, I realized early enough that in most cases I
would have no other choice, that I needed to do not
what I wanted but what was expected of me by other people.
Going to
school was the first compulsory thing expected from all children who reached
the age of seven. But I did not feel myself belonging to such an abstract
category as "all" because I was just me, not anyone else. I felt
myself being special, different from other people, certainly not an ordinary
child whatever other people might think. My uniqueness was even reflected in my
name because translated from Hebrew "Matvey" meant "sent by
God" or "a present from God."
However no
special conditions were applied to me; and I could not regard my life as
extremely comfortable, even though living conditions of my family were quite
normal for those times when destruction left by the war was still fresh and
signs of this destruction could be seen nearly everywhere.
We lived in a
normal "communal" flat. In such a flat the kitchen, bathroom and
toilet were called places of common use. Indeed, they were common for all
families living in the same flat. Each family had only one room of their own,
where people were eating, sleeping, raising children, having parties,
quarreling and making peace afterwards, preparing for exams and watching
television - in a word, they lived.
Our flat was
a small one - only three families. Many people lived in much larger flats. One
of my school friends lived in a flat where the door plate listed fifteen surnames!
Against each name, it recorded a doorbell code, e.g. to call Ivanov, press the
button five times: two short and three long rings; to call Petrov, also press
the button five times but in this case the other way round: three short and two
long rings.
Just imagine
what would have happened if you made a mistake and pressed the button, say,
only four times, and all the rings were short! In that case the door would have
been opened not by Ivanov and not by Petrov but, let's say, by Sidorov. It is
possible this Sidorov had just returned from his evening shift and was very
tired. He was lying on the bed, counting your rings. Your mistake made him get
up, get dressed, and leave his room to open the door. After all this, do your
really imagine he would be polite to you? Especially if he
could not stand both Ivanov and Petrov.
As the great Russian poet Lermontov wrote, "All this would be
funny if it were not so sad," though obviously he meant something
completely different: in those days communal flats had not yet been invented.
Communal
flats lacked not only living space and privacy but hot water as well.
Therefore, once a week we visited a bathhouse. A bathhouse in
Well, at this
point I anticipate a question from a curious reader: "Why did these people
continue visiting a bathhouse when they could enjoy a bath or take a shower at
their own place, in their own bathroom?" A strange
question. First of all, this is a tradition. The second reason: many
Russians like to steam, which is only possible in a bathhouse. Lastly, a
bathhouse is not just a place where people wash themselves. It is a kind of a social club, where people meet each other,
exchange news, philosophize - I would say, give relaxation to their mind and
body.
Because of
such great importance attached to that Russian institution, let me describe the
process of visiting a bathhouse in detail.
Once in the
hall, one will proceed to the cashier's window and buy a ticket to the general
public division. (Many bathhouses have additional, more expensive divisions: a
division with a swimming pool, a shower division, a private bathroom for a
family or for one person only.)
Then (still
in the hall) people will leave their overcoats in the cloakroom (people usually
call it "veshalka" = hangar), which is served by male or female
attendants.
Nearby you
will see the buffet, where you can drink a glass of kvass or beer (or if you prefer, a glass of aerated water). However, the majority of
people would rather have their drink after visiting the baths. So, let us enter
the dressing room - a large premises where each person
is able to sit, undress, and neatly put his clothes on the seat or hang them in
a tidy manner. All this looks quite comfortable now.
....However,
in those long past years of my childhood, the dressing room was filled with
little wardrobes mounted along the walls. Each wardrobe had a padlock. The key
was held by the woman in charge (oh yes, that was not a slip of the tongue:
woman attendants worked in the division for men).
Why women? In order to attract more visitors? Of course not! There were
more than enough visitors all the time. Before you could enter the dressing
room, you would have to stand in the long queue. Remember, that was still the
time when very few people lived in self contained flats with hot water and a
shower. Besides, all these women (as far as I can remember) were old and fat.
In their white, worn out robes, they always seemed to me as sexless and
shapeless creatures. So, we can hardly talk about any hint of female attractiveness.
I anticipate
your next question: "Why then was it that women did the job and not
men?" Probably, because not many men survived the war .
Those who survived were busy doing more important and serious jobs. What kind
of job did the dressing room attendant do? Do you really want to know?
Any man in a
state of undress (with his clothes and shoes already being put in the wardrobe)
had to call the attendant "Please, close...." (here
he announced his wardrobe number). The woman in charge would approach, glancing
at the naked man with such a blank look as though she did not see him at all,
and hang a small padlock on the wardrobe door.
Then she
would give him a tag indicating the wardrobe number. This tag, naturally, had
to be carefully kept while washing, and after that returned to the attendant;
otherwise the man would not get his clothes back.
But where
could a naked person keep that tag? The tag (usually referred to as "a
little number") was looped with a piece of rope. Everything else depended
on your own ingenuity: for example, you could wear the tag around your neck, or
tie it to your hand or a washtub.
Does it sound
amusing? It would have seemed to you even more amusing, if you had read the
humorous short story "A Bathhouse" by Mikhail Zoshchenko. At least in
my time tags were made of metal. In Zoshchenko's story they are made of paper.
Just imagine what can happen to a paper tag affected by hot water and soap.
However, let
us continue our description of what is happening next. Undressed and equipped
with a sponge, a piece of soap and, of course, a besom, one is now entering
"The Soap Room," that is the room, where people soap (and
consequently wash) themselves.
What does he
see here? A huge hall with rows of benches where people are
sitting and washing with the help of washtubs. The hot and cold water
taps are installed along the walls.
First of all,
he should find a spare washtub. Then he will try to find a vacant place on one
of the benches. After that, for hygienic reasons, he will carefully wash the
tub which he has just obtained, using hot water and soap; then he will pour
several washtubs of the nearly boiling water down onto his part of the bench.
Then the only thing he has left to do is to repeatedly fill his washtub with
clean water and wash himself until he is fully satisfied.
In the end,
he will pour some cool water from the tub over his whole body. Now he is ready
to go to the steaming room.
Well, he is
now inside the room. It is hot here, but not hot enough yet. He is going to throw
some water on the heated stones in order to produce more steam. No sooner said
than done. Now he can mount polok i.e. wooden steps. The higher he climbs, the
hotter it is.
Not everyone
would be brave enough to climb to the very top: he could literally get
breathless up there and his heart may fail.
Now he will
use his besom to thrash himself. The more he does this, the better he feels. Do
you know why? Because, as a result of hitting with a bundle
of birch twigs (in combination with the high air temperature) his skin
capillaries are expanded and filled with blood. Not going into further
medical details, I can only say that all this causes improvement of one's blood
circulation and increases the metabolic rate of the heart.
After
steaming, people usually take a cold shower (in winter time, some people living
in the country roll in the snow instead: and it seems that by doing this they
achieve ultimate bliss).
When a person
feels he has had enough, he will go out to the dressing room. There he will have
a rest, ask an attendant to bring him a glass of kvass
or beer. Later he can repeat the whole cycle: the steaming room, a shower,
relaxation and rest. Then again, again and again... Or
he will sit in the dressing room a little bit longer, exchanging news with the
attendant or with the other visitors, discussing with them his personal and
world problems, and checking his weight on the large bathhouse scales.
When
eventually time comes to go home, he feels an extraordinary lightness and
cheerfulness in his body; and the outside world does not seem so unfriendly and
cruel any more.....
However, I
should return back to our communal flat. As I mentioned before, our flat
accommodated three families. The most privileged of them was the Makarov
family. This family included a solo mum with a boy of approximately my age, her
brother Victor and the boy's grandmother, who never smiled and always grumbled
and reprimanded whoever was in her sight. She did not like me (I doubt if she
liked anybody, anyway) and I did not like her, calling her
"Makarikha" behind her back. By deliberately distorting her surname,
I made it sound like the nickname of a witch.
Unlike the
other two families in the flat, the Makarovs had two good adjacent rooms plus
another small windowless room where Victor used to sleep. Victor was the most
pleasant person of the family. He was polite, kind and quiet. He was a bachelor
in his thirties and seemed to be happy with things as they were.
In his spare
time, he enjoyed playing the piano. Our rooms were separated by a thin
partition only, so I could hear any sound coming from there. I liked very much
how he played and what he played. It was his own
improvisations, which seemed deep in thought and sad in feelings. He said once
that he did know himself what he played, that these tunes began to sound inside
him when he was still a prisoner of war.
Another
family sharing a flat with us, the Volkovs, lived in
much worse conditions. They had only one very small room (not more than twelve
square meters) with one window looking at our dirty backyard. It is difficult
to believe, it seems absolutely incredible, but still it was true: five people
(in fact, three different families: a husband and wife, their elder son with
his wife, and yet another son - younger, but nonetheless a grown up person)
lived together, shoulder by shoulder. It was not surprising that the Russian
language does not have an equivalent to the word "privacy."
If the
Makarovs (apart from the family matriarch Makarikha) were quite benevolent people,
the Volkovs were as pathetic by nature as by their living conditions. The head
of this family was a chef at a factory's cafeteria - the fact which helped him
and his family to comfortably survive the
His wife did
not work and, like Makarikha, spent most of the day by the kitchen stove
cooking borsch, frying pancakes or washing dishes. It seemed that their only
mission on earth was to provide food for their respective families - at first,
spending hours and hours in queues, and then, even more hours in the kitchen.
Both senior
Volkovs (he-Volkov and she-Volkova) have always been undisguised anti-Semites.
But their hatred towards us became even more aggressive after my mother,
clutching me and my elder brother by our hands, had returned to
When my
mother rang the doorbell, surprised Volkova let us in. "I did not expect
you would survive," she said, accompanying us along the corridor towards
our room.
"How
long I have waited for this moment!" my mother exclaimed.
"I am
afraid you will need to wait a little longer," Volkova snorted
sarcastically.
"What do
you mean?" asked my mum still thinking that it was some kind of stupid
joke.
"Do you
see this padlock?" Volkova now laughed cheerfully.
Yes, we all
saw a huge padlock sitting on the door of our room like a fierce bulldog
preparing for an attack.
"Please
give me the key," pleaded my mum.
Volkova
inquisitively looked us over and seemed to melt for a moment. She took a key
from her pocket and opened the door. "Look, all your things are still
here. Only a sofa has been destroyed by a shell."
"Oh, it
is nothing," replied my mum sincerely. "Thank you for keeping my room
in good order."
"It is
not your room any longer," Volkova literally pushed my mum outside the
room and hung the padlock back. "I need this room for my married
son."
"But
where will I stay with my two little children?" pleaded mum desperately.
"It does
not bother me," barked Volkova. "You have a place to go!"
"What
place?" Tears were running from my mother's eyes and seeing this I started
to cry myself.
"Your
place is in
We were
sitting in the kitchen - crying, desperate, miserable.
I could not understand why we were not allowed to stay in our own room and why
we were told to go somewhere else. The word
We would
probably spend the whole night in the kitchen if not for Victor, who came and
said we could sleep in his dark room while he would stay overnight
somewhere else. Of course we accepted his offer with huge gratitude, and since
then I have always believed that even in the absolute darkness there is always
a ray of hope.
Next morning,
my mum took us to her sister's place where we stayed for some time, while her
husband Samuil, a Soviet Army major, tried to help us win back our room.
Samuil, whom I called Uncle Mulya, was a real example for me in everything.
Simply, I adored him and tremendously envied my three cousins, Mark, Gennady
and Boris, that they not only had a father (and I did not) but also that their
father was one of the most wonderful people on earth. I felt this way then, and
I still feel this way now - more than 50 years later...
For me, he
was always a perfect human being. Uncle Mulya was well built and he was really
handsome: a hat of very thick beautiful hair, extremely expressive and clever
dark eyes, a noble "Roman" nose, and a strong chin. He was also an
exceptionally intelligent, knowledgeable, and skillful person. It seemed there
was nothing he did not know or could not do. And if our family had any problems
or if we were not sure in something, we always could rely on his encyclopedic
knowledge, on his experience and his abilities combined with a desire to help.
When he
talked, you wanted to listen. He was a very articulate person. When he spoke,
you felt that he knew exactly what he was talking about. His explanations were
detailed and vivid, his voice was deep and clear, and his diction was
immaculate. He sounded as a very good teacher (and indeed, after serving as an
artillerist in many hot spots of the Great Patriotic War for four years and
being severely wounded, he taught future officers in the
And indeed,
his personality was truly remarkable. He sincerely believed in the idea of
communism. But he hated any kind of oppression, brutality or corruption. He was
so honest, that in his younger years he nearly lost everything because of this quality ...
He was in his
late teens when he entered a military academy. He was a very capable student
and could expect an excellent career in the Soviet Army. However all this came
to a hold when one day he discovered by chance that he has somewhere, in
another city, a distant relative who was accused as a Trotskyist, i.e. a
supporter of Leon Trotsky who was once an outstanding revolutionary but later
was cursed by Stalin as the arch-enemy of the Soviet people. Uncle Mulya did
not know that relative of his, had never seen him, but still he decided to
follow his duty as a Communist Party member and report the findings. So he did
and was immediately "rewarded" for his honesty: he was expelled both
from the Communist Party and the academy. With such a record, he was not able
to find any job apart from sweeping the streets.
Fortunately,
some months later after he wrote a personal letter to Kliment Voroshilov, one
of the most famous heroes of the 1917 October Revolution and the following
Civil War, he was reinstated in all his rights and privileges.
Uncle Mulya
was also a caring and loving husband to my mum's younger sister Anna, an
excellent father to their three sons, and a very good friend to our family. My
mum told me later that she, Uncle Mulya and my father Yefim, when young, lived
with their families in the same provincial town of
Mum liked
both these boys - they were attractive and clever. But secretly, she has always
loved Mulya, who was a really handsome, smart and easy going teenager. However,
her extreme pride did not let her show to Mulya her genuine feelings. On the
contrary, she was often rude and arrogant toward him. And Mulya, who at first
was also attracted to Rosa (her parents actually called my mum by a beautiful
Jewish name Rokhke-Mirim, which could be regarded as an equivalent to Rose
Marie in English-speaking countries), gradually started to pay more attention
to Anna, who was more playful and approachable girl than her older sister.
Anyway,
coming back to the insolent seizure of our room by Mrs Volkova, I shall say
that thanks to the goodwill of Uncle Mulya and his personal qualities (not
least his ability to present himself and his cause, confidence and
persistence), justice was restored and the room was returned to us. And soon after
that, on
My first year
in school is not clear for me. I remember that I was often confused and from
time to time did really strange things. For example, once the teacher of a
subject which was called "chistopisanie" (literally translated as
"a tidy writing") gave us a home assignment: to fill in one whole
page of an exercise book with the word "lipa," which means lime tree.
For a reason understandable only to that teacher, "lipa" had to be tidy
repeated as many times as possible, as though this word was the most important
in the world and frequency of its repetition would have determined the future
of the whole class.
At that time,
I had not yet heard about such a tree. However, I knew that people often showed
their disregard for something false by calling it "lipa." I also knew
that "lipa" used in this context was not exactly a literary word and
therefore while doing my homework I spontaneously decided to change it to a more
formal synonym "lozh" (lie).
Next day,
when I presented one full page of "lozh" to our teacher, he quickly
looked at my work and to my great surprise and disappointment crossed it out
with red ink. Then he slowly drew from the top to the bottom of this page an
absolutely enormous mark "1" (one) which could only mean one thing: exceptionally
bad (quite opposite to a marking system commonly accepted in English
speaking countries, "1" in Russia is the worst mark and "5"
is the best one).
This mark was
really ominous. As it turned out, the mark had become a
foreshadow of an exceptionally bad time for me.
The whole
class laughed and teased me. I cried, feeling completely
humiliated. This continued until the end of the school lessons. Then I
went to the main hall where I usually waited for my brother Mark who attended a
year five class.
Standing
there, I realized that already the whole school knew about my miserable
downfall. Nearly everyone smiled while looking at me, many laughed, some made
abusive comments.
I went
outside but was immediately surrounded by four boys. "Hi, lipa-lozh!"
said one of them.
"What do
you want?" I murmured.
"You’re
a hero now," said the same guy who was obviously the leader of this group.
"You should be very proud of yourself," he continued. "You’re so
witty and probably are very brave as well."
"Leave
me alone," I pleaded and tried to break the ring.
"Oh no! You said you are
brave so prove it."
"I did
not say anything."
"You
did. Well, are you telling me that I am a liar? Are we all liars? And who is
telling this? You - the lipa lozh, the whole page of
lies?" They were gradually contracting the circle around me
demanding that I should fight one of them - my choice.
The problem
was that I actually had no reasonable choice at all. I did not like to fight, besides each of the boys was much bigger than me - I
guess they were from a year three class.
I hesitated.
"Are you
scared little Jew?"
I knew that I
was a Jew - as were my mum, brother and probably even our cat - but I did not
understand what it actually meant. But whatever it meant (good or bad) I
realized that by calling me "Jew" they wanted to insult me as much as
they could.
At this
point, I decided to fight to defend my honor. I was not brave, I was not strong
but I always had that great feeling of human decency which sometimes worked
against me. So, with this feeling in
mind, I pointed my finger toward the main abuser.
"Do you
chose me for fighting?" he roared. Then he punched me in the face and I
fell to the ground.
The very next
moment, however, the abuser himself was knocked to the ground by my brother.
Mark appeared just in time to save me from a further beating. He was often
absolutely ruthless toward me himself but would always try to protect me from
other attackers as though he regarded the cruelty against me as his personal,
exclusive right.
Mark helped
me to get up and holding the collar of my coat led me outside the school yard.
I was grateful to him - but not for long. He began to curse and swear at me.
"Idiot! How could you do
such a silly thing? The whole school is talking about this. I feel ashamed
having such a stupid brother as you."
When we came
home we found a note from Mum where she had asked Mark to buy milk. He
immediately passed on this note to me and ordered me to go.
After such a
hard and frustrating school day, I would have preferred to stay home. However I
did not dare to argue with Mark. I took a three liter milk container and the
money left by mum and off I went.
The nearest
shop where I could buy milk was actually not so near to our home. I needed to
take a tram and then after three stops catch another one.
I managed to
get to the shop relatively quickly and after spending just half an hour in the
queue, I was already riding a tram on my way back home.
Approaching
the stop where I had to change trams, I could see through the window that the
other tram that I needed had just stopped ahead of us. I did not want to miss
this opportunity and then wait for ten or so minutes in the cold for another
tram to come. As soon as the automatic doors of my carriage burst open I went
straight out.....
Unfortunately
when I did this my tram had not stopped completely. Sure enough I fell down and
began to slide across an icy street. During this unplanned ground trip , my milk container,
quite independently, rumbled in front of me with milk literally pouring out.
When I eventually managed to catch the container, it was empty .
Somebody
helped me up saying that I was lucky not to be run over by a car. Lucky or not,
I was in pain even though in one piece.
I certainly
missed that tram which I had tried to catch and, even worse, the last coin
which I held in my hand to pay for the tram ticket had disappeared.
I walked home
in an intensifying cold and thickening darkness. Surrounded by huge grey
buildings, I perceived myself as a miserable dwarf among powerful and
evil-minded giants. When I reached home, I was physically and morally
exhausted.
However, Mark
did not seem to be worried about state of my mind or body.
"Give me
a glass of milk," he commanded.
"I spilt
the milk."
"What? I
cannot hear you."
"I spilt
the milk accidentally," I repeated sobbing and shivering and tried to tell
him what happened to me.
"I do
not want to waste time on your new adventure. I have had enough of you for
today. Go back and don't return without the milk." With these words, he
approached me in a threatening manner.
"I will
not go!" I screamed desperately. "I am tired and I don't have any
more money ."
"Do you
dare to disobey me - your elder brother?" For a moment, he seemed to be
very surprised. Then he started to hit me with his fists all over my body. I
cried and screamed and howled. I thought he was going to kill me.
Fortunately,
rescue came while I was still able to cry and plead. Suddenly, the door of our
room burst open and Volkova rushed in. "Stop it immediately, thug!"
she yelled. "Otherwise, I will call the police!"
If a Siberian
tiger jumped from the street inside our room, we would probably be less
surprised than seeing the arch-enemy of our family, anti-Semitic Volkova,
acting as a good Samaritan. Both the predator and the
prey abruptly finished what they were doing so enthusiastically until that
moment: Mark stopped beating me and I interrupted my screams.
Using this
unbelievable opportunity, I ran out from the flat. Cold, hungry, without money,
I walked to the House of
When at last,
approximately in three quarters of an hour, I reached that store, I needed to
find my mum in one of the 40 or so cashier boxes scattered throughout all three
levels of this huge trading house. All the cashiers working in the store were
moved around each and every day, so the only way to find my mum was slowly
going from one cashier box to another, floor by floor, and carefully checking
who was sitting in the box. This procedure could take from five minutes to half
an hour.
This time I,
fortunately, found my mum very quickly and, strangely enough, there was no
queue to her box. I came in from the side door and began to cry and talk at the
same time. I tried to pour out all the pain, all the suffering, all the anguish
of my heart.
Mum made me
sit down on a large suitcase which was used for taking money to the Chief
Cashier in the evening, after the doors of the store had been closed for the
customers. She gave me a large red apple and stroked my head saying in a sad
voice, "My poor little child. You need a father. Why did your father die
so early? He was so young - just 35 years old..."
Listening to
my mum, I could not understand why she said that my father died young - at that
time 35 for me sounded as 100 would sound now. But I felt sorry for him and
even more for myself because I believed that my father could help and protect
me if he was still alive.
I was afraid
to go back home without Mum and continued to sit on my mum's suitcase till a
loud bell began to ring.
"The
store will be closed in ten minutes," Mum explained. "Everyone,
except people working here, shall leave as soon as possible. You should go
too."
"And
you?" I asked in desperation.
"I will
come in an hour approximately, because I still need to count money and take it
to the Chief Cashier."
I began to
cry again. But she said that I could wait for her in a
urgent pharmacy which was situated just five minutes of walking distance from DLT,
on the corner of
I went there
and while sitting on a long pharmacy bench I fell asleep. Suddenly, I felt that
somebody was shaking me by my shoulder.
"Boy,
wake up! You should go home to sleep."
Next moment,
I was standing outside the pharmacy lifting my head toward a dark threatening
sky. Trying to catch falling snowflakes with my mouth, I wished to catch a
severe cold and then quickly die so that I would never face another day of such
pain, sorrow and bitterness ...
MY FIRST STEPFATHER
I think it
was spring of 1946 when my mum came home from work accompanied by a man with an
accordion. He introduced himself as Natan Borisovich Vilchur, musician.
Mum offered
him a cup of tea and he was drinking it in a very concentrated way, using for
this important operation the most part of his face. His far too long nose,
which made him look as Cyrano de Bergerac, was deep inside the cup. It seemed
to me that he used his nose as a pump to suck the tea from the cup. I heard a
loud rhythmical noise and saw the water disappearing with a lightning speed. I
was puzzled and impressed at the same time.
After he had
finished this curious tea pumping process, he took an accordion and began to
play various popular songs. I liked these songs and I liked how he played them.
Gradually, I
immersed myself in the world of music completely and even began to like Natan
Borisovich's face in spite of its piece of engineering. Therefore, when he
eventually stopped playing and my mum suddenly announced that she and Natan
Borisovich had decided to get married, I felt happy. Especially
when Mum explained what it meant.
"Natan
Borisovich is going to stay here and will play for us each day. He will be your
daddy and his mother will be your grandma."
I was
absolutely delighted: how often I envied my school friends who were lucky
enough to have both parents and possibly grandparents as well.
"At
last, I will be like them," I told myself feeling really good for the
first time in my life.
I was dreaming
about my future life which shall be filled with joy and pleasure. Alas, real
life turned out to be completely different...
In the
beginning of this story, I mentioned that my stepfather was a scandalous person
who was able to abuse me and Mark both verbally and physically. As far as my
mum was concerned, he did not treat her badly. However, he never became her
real friend either. All the burden of everyday life was on her: she worked,
cooked, looked after the family - he just played accordion preparing himself
for a big day, which certainly never came.
For a very
long time, Mum forgave him anything and everything. She felt sorry for him
because of his extremely traumatic past.
During the
recent war, Germans occupied their town in
Some people
tried to escape. But many decided that they would have a better chance for
survival if they stayed where they were.
"Where
will we go?" they argued. "We have sick old parents and young
children. They will die on their way. On the other hand, why should we be
afraid of Germans? We are not soldiers, we are not
fighting against them. Besides, the Germans are a cultural nation. They did not
touch civilians during the first World War. Why should
they be any different now?"
Unfortunately,
as everyone soon found, these were different Germans. All Jewish people, who
comprised the majority of this town’s population, were detained and killed.
After the war, Natan Borisovich learnt that his wife and two very young
children were buried alive...
Reference to
the tragic fate of his family and enormity of his personal loss helped Natan
Borisovich on many occasions when Mum, tired of his irrational behavior and the
abusive treatment of her children, showed him the door. His passionate pleading
to understand, be compassionate and forgive him for the last time melted Mum's
heart: he was allowed to stay.
However after
several quiet days, the history repeated itself. Then again,
and again, and again...
But once,
after an especially terrible scandal when Natan Borisovich opened a window and
threatened to push Mark out or jump down himself (to the great satisfaction of
a rowdy gang of about 20 teenagers assembled on the street below and throwing
stones at our first floor flat), Mum decided to make his expulsion final and
irreversible.
"Rosa,
Rosochka, please forgive me one more time!" Natan
wept next morning. "I am so sorry for what I did. I just could not control
myself. I was like a bundle of nerves. But you know what horror I went through.
Do you? You are right, it does not excuse me at all. I
need to learn to control my anger. I will arrange an appointment with a
specialist tomorrow. I am ready for any medical procedures - even injections. I
will do everything you say. Just do not send me away!"
But this time
Mum was really determined to get rid of him once and for all.
"Nathan,"
she began sadly, "when you asked me to marry you, you promised that you
would treat me as a lady and my children as your own. I hoped that I would feel
the warmth of a loving man capable of sharing not only the joyful moments but
the hardship of everyday life as well. I also hoped that you would become a
father to my children.
"However,
what have I found instead?" she continued. "I work as a slave - you
play. I don't have time for rest - you, on the
contrary, do not know what the word 'work' means. In addition, you are rude, aggressive,
and abusive to my children."
"I know, you are right. I
was disgusting." He made his last attempt. "But I can change. Please
give me one more chance!"
"Enough
is enough. Go away! I am giving you three hours to pack. I am going out and
will be back by
"Where
shall I go? I don't have anyone but you."
"Oh, you
always can stay with your mother. Anyway, it is not my concern any more."
"I will
kill myself if you don't forgive me. I cannot live without you!"
"Rubbish!"
Mum snorted. "You will never hurt yourself because the only person who you
truly love is yourself."
These were
the last words I heard before leaving for school.
When Mark and
I returned home about
On the dining
table we found a syringe with a needle and a basin with water. Just above the
table, where we used to see a chandelier, we found only a large ugly hook with
a white bed sheet firmly tied to it. The chandelier itself for some reason was
sitting on the floor beside the table.
Completely
confused and perplexed, I was standing in the middle of the room and kept
asking Mark, "What happened? What is happening? What happened? What is
happening?"
"Shut
up!" he yelled at me. "Don't you see, I am thinking."
I looked at
his tense face and immediately imagined how the thoughts were slowly flowing
through his brain. It seemed that this process would take a considerable period
of time .
"Why are
you staring at me?" he yelled again. "Check with the neighbors."
I hesitated:
I felt shy about asking them, but at the same time I knew what would follow if
I did not comply with Mark's demands.
Fortunately,
somebody briefly knocked at the door and then entered the room. It was Victor.
He told an unbelievable story that really shocked us: Natan Borisovich tried to
commit suicide by hanging himself. When Mum came home she discovered that the
door of her room was locked from inside. She knocked at the door. There was no
answer. She knocked again and yelled, "Natan, open the door immediately!
Open the door!" Nothing but silence...
"Then
she called me," Victor continued his nightmarish tale. "She sounded
really hysterical. She sobbed and kept saying that Natan Borisovich threatened
to kill himself. I grabbed an axe to break the door. After the first strike, we
heard some noise coming from the room - as though something had fallen down,
and then we heard that frightening choking sound...
"The
door gave in after the second strike of the axe, and we rushed inside the room.
I quickly put the chair back under his feet, released his neck and put him down
on a bed (he was unconscious but still breathing). In the meantime, your mum
called the ambulance.
"The
ambulance arrived literally within five minutes. They worked on him for some
time here and then Natan Borisovich was taken to hospital. Your mum is now with
him."
Mum returned
home later in the evening. She was shocked as we all were at the time. Everyone
felt sorry for Natan Borisovich, everyone seemed to forget what a nasty person
he actually was, and when in a week he was discharged from the hospital Mum
felt that she could not show him the door.
So he stayed
with us, and it took just one more week before he was able to demonstrate that
nothing had really changed, that he was still same Natan Borisovich as we knew
him before: not a husband, not a father, not even a friend - just a user.
In addition,
Mum gradually began to realize that it was no coincidence that Natan Borisovich
jumped from a chair with a noose around his neck only when he heard that
somebody tried to break the door. He carefully planned this
"suicide." For him it was just a show to make Mum feel sorry, forgive
him and let him stay. As it turned out, his calculations were absolutely right.
Natan
Borisovich certainly did not want to kill himself. Otherwise, he would not wait
until Mum came back home and Victor began to break the door. And he would
probably use a coarse rope instead of a very soft sheet. It seemed that he
acted as a character from a popular 'Jewish' anecdote:
"Haim,
what are you doing?"
"Can't
you see? I want to commit suicide by hanging myself."
"Very
well, but why in this case are you putting a noose around your waist and not
around your neck?"
"You
know, I've already tried your method."
"And?"
"I felt
suffocated and gasped for breath. If I didn't stop that experiment at once, I
would die."
But even
completely understanding the true nature of Natan Borisovich, Mum forgave him
many more times before she was able to make her final decision. After
struggling with him for nearly three years, she eventually found the strength
not to take him back in spite of all his apologies, requests and promises.
Many years
after these events, I had an appointment with a dentist, a young woman whose
surname sounded for me rather familiar: Vilchur. There was only one person with
this name who I knew before. Therefore, I decided to ask her if she knew Natan
Borisovich.
"Oh,
yes," she replied. "He is my father."
"How is
he doing?" I asked again. "At one stage, he happened to be my
stepfather."
"My
mother divorced him long time ago. Since then we have not heard and don't want
to hear anything about him," she said abruptly.
I did not
want to upset her by further questions because I knew nothing which could be more scary than an annoyed and angry dentist ...
MY SECOND STEPFATHER
When I was 12
years old, mum's close friend Sonya - a cheerful, constantly laughing woman -
introduced us to her recently widowed brother. After that, Mikhail Zakharovich
Lebedev, who was nearly ten years older than my mum, became our frequent guest.
He was a
serious working man, and visiting our place nearly each evening he tried make
himself useful repairing or fixing various things in our not very exemplary
household. He also helped Mum to cook and generally tried to make her life
easier.
He was not a
very interesting or intelligent person, nor he was
properly educated. He did not read books, did not like theatre, museums or
poetry, and basically everything that I enjoyed was beyond his scope and vice
versa. However, I could see that he really cared about Mum and I respected him
for this.
I even asked
her once, "Mum, why are you and Uncle Misha not getting married?"
"Will
you approve?"
"Of course!" I
answered enthusiastically. "He will be a good friend to you."
"I feel
the same. Actually, he already asked me to marry him. I said that I need to
talk to my children first. What do you think about this, Mark?"
Mark just
shrugged his shoulders and continued to read a book.
Spring came
early that year. The sun was shining, the air was warm, trees blossomed, and
birds singing could be heard nearly everywhere.
"Let's
go to Lakhta on Sunday," Uncle Misha suggested. "When the weather is
so good, it is certainly much better to spend a day off among nature."
Mum smiled
but both Mark and I looked at him perplexedly. Then he explained that he lived
in a suburb of
Next Sunday
morning we all went there. Uncle Misha's old little wooden house was built on a
quite large section in such a way, that you could enter the section through a
gate from one street and exit it through another gate to a parallel street. As
it turned out, it was a major inconvenience because people living around did
not worry about the privacy of Uncle Misha and his family; and to shorten their
own way, they just walked through without asking.
Actually,
Uncle Misha owned only a half of this house and section. Another half belonged
to another family. This house, like most other suburban or country houses, was
built with thick logs which helped to keep the warmth during often severe
Russian winters.
The house did
not have any corridor and you just went through one room to another. The first
room was not for living. It was just an interface between not always benevolent
elements and a warm house. In winter time, this cold room could be used as a
huge refrigerator. In addition, this was a general storage area.
The next room
was quite small but served two purposes at the same time: it was a family
kitchen/dining area which at night was converted into a bedroom for Uncle
Misha's 22-year-old son - also Misha (to avoid confusion with his father, I will call him in the future not by the name he chose for himself, but by a name given him at his birth and
which was routinely used by all his relatives, namely: Monya). The room also had a wash-stand which was used instead of running water taps - the luxury available only in the city
multi-story buildings.
The third
room was relatively large and also served two purposes: a lounge and a bedroom.
In the middle of this room there was a modestly sized table always covered with
a white cloth, with four simple chairs around it. Along the opposite walls,
separated only by the table and chairs, there were two double beds: one for
Uncle Misha, and the second one for a recently married couple - his daughter
Bronya and her husband Lyonya.
The fourth
and the last room was a kind of a conservatory with its three glass walls. In
the warm season (usually from April to September), people of the house could
enjoy not only their fruit and vegetable garden, but also much more
accommodation space and privacy. Bronya and Lyonya were able to move their bed
into the glass room. Monya felt much more comfortable in a spacious shed
which, after it was cleaned and wallpapered, had become a cozy sleepout.
Given a
choice, most people would probably prefer in a cold season (typically from
October to March) to live in the city (even if they had just one room in a
communal flat).
The
lack of modern conveniences was not so noticeable when the weather was warm and
pleasant. Because in return you would have more space and enjoy your own garden
with trees and flowers, with apples and cherries, strawberries and raspberries,
black and yellow currants, tomatoes and cucumbers, potatoes and cabbage, radish
and carrots, etc. and so on.
You could
enjoy the vastness of the
Taking a cane
basket, you could go with your friends to a beautiful forest combining a
pleasant walk with gathering mushrooms or very tasty wild berries.
These and
other charms of life in the country in summer time (or even in late spring and
early autumn) when you really could enjoy peace, beauty, warmth and tranquility
of nature, more than compensated for lack of running water and sewerage.
However,
these slight inconveniences turned into major problems during winter. The water
in street fountains was often frozen, and you could see people walking around
with all kinds of barrows housing large containers. Their wanderlust in very
cold conditions had one common reason: they were checking all the street
fountains and wells in their suburb trying to find a still working source of
drinking water.
With
temperatures below -20oC, even such mundane things as using the
toilet could also become a quite hard task - just think about people forced by
nature to go outside in these atrocious conditions (especially by night) to
visit that frozen wooden box standing alone on the section covered by a half
meter deep snow.
However,
let's come back to that warm and sunny day when Uncle Misha brought us to his
place. He introduced Mum as his wife to be. The reaction of his children was
quite different.
Bronya smiled
and politely said, "Nice to meet you. I hope you and Dad will be happy
together."
On the
contrary, Monya snorted and exclaimed, "Why do you bother to tell
us about this at all?"
"I told
already both Bronya and yourself that I was going to get married and promised
that you would meet
"Also I
wrote a letter to Zinochka." (We knew already that his elder daughter Zina
had been living in
After dinner,
which was accompanied by Lyonya's vulgar jokes and his loud nearly non-stop
laughter, Bronya's polite talking and Monya's acid comments, Uncle Misha
suggested we listen to his collection of records with Jewish songs.
I remember
that I was listening with pleasure to those sad and cheerful songs even though
I understood only those Yiddish words which were similar to German ones (we
studied German in our school as one of many compulsory subjects - needless to
say, all school subjects were compulsory).
However, when
the turn came for the music full of life and fire played on Jewish weddings,
Monya rushed to the record player and angrily switched it off.
All others
were taken aback. For a moment, everyone kept silent.
Then Monya,
not giving anyone a chance to protest or at least make a comment, exploded with
a tirade which possibly could honor the pen of the great Shakespeare himself,
"The blood of my mother did not have time to cool yet, and you are playing
the wedding music! Let shame fall on your heads!"
He ran out
from the house, jumped on a bicycle and disappeared.
I began to
cry saying through the tears, "Mum, they don't like us. Let's go
home!"
"Don't
jump the gun, Matveyka," Bronya said gently and embraced me. "I do
like you and your mum."
Uncle Misha
took Mum's hand and said, "
"But he
was so outraged when he ran out from the house," Mum replied. "I am
worried he will hurt himself."
"Oh,
don't worry!" Uncle Misha protested. "Even though he is my son, I can
hardly feel any sympathy toward him. He would never hurt himself, rather he
would hurt others."
"But
where did he go now?"
"I am
pretty sure that he rode to a holiday home in the neighboring suburb of Olgino
where he used to play table tennis or billiards, dance and pick up girls."
As it turned
out, Uncle Misha was absolutely right about nature of his son. However, when I
had grown up I began to understand that Monya was then crying for attention
because he could not accept that his father seemed to care more for my mum and
myself (who for him were certainly strangers and outsiders) than for his own
son.
NEW RELATIVES DISCOVERED
These two
suburbs mentioned above (Lakhta and Olgino) were destined to play a very
important role in my future life. Beginning from 1951, my family and I spent
summer after summer in that area .
But before
this chain process started, I got an opportunity for the first time in my life
to visit another city. (Forced evacuation of our family
during the Great Patriotic War from besieged
This
opportunity emerged in June 1950, when Mum learnt by chance that someone she
knew was going to travel to the city of
Anyway, my
travel was prearranged and organized to the highest possible standard. When,
after 18 hours on a very slow steam train which seemed to stop by each
telegraph pole, I arrived at Velikie Luki, I was met at the local railway
station as a very important person. Each member of a large and colorful group
gathered at the station solemnly introduced himself (or herself, of course) to
me.
I will not be
able to recall all of them. But I will do my best... So, this group included:
Auntie Nina, a hard working woman with black hair, huge black eyes,
boisterous temperament and very warm heart; her twenty-something-year-old
daughter Sarah, an accounting student; and her 13-year-old son Misha.
Auntie Lisa who had significantly impaired
hearing. Because she could hear other
people only when they yelled, she automatically yelled in response. Therefore,
when she talked to someone the impression was that these people perform in
opera and do their best to be heard even in the most remote corner of a huge
theatre.
A young family who consisted of a quite large woman in her late
twenties or early thirties with a good-natured smile and a rather unusual name
Ronya (as it turned out she was the eldest daughter of Auntie Nina), her
cheerful husband whose name was either Misha or Grisha (he was an engineer, but
having a good voice he also from time to time sang in a local musical theatre),
and their 3-year-old daughter Galya.
Uncle Aron with his wife Tsilya and their son,
who had the same first and last names as myself but was older than me by about
ten years or so.
Auntie Pyenya - the youngest and prettiest of all three sisters, she
was also a well-balanced, calm and obviously in full agreement with life in
general and with herself in particular; her second husband Mikhail Pavlovich
Veligdanov, an ethnic Russian; and Auntie Pyenya's 17-year-old daughter Rosa -
a pretty and smart girl who had just finished secondary school and began
preparation for competitive examinations required for enrolling in one of
Leningrad's technical institutes.
Mikhail
Pavlovich was the kind of a person who attracted people naturally to himself
without making any special efforts. He laughed, made jokes and seemingly was
telling everyone around, "I am happy. So, please be happy too." And
people usually would feel easy and relaxed, when talking or just spending time
with him.
People told
me later that five years ago, when Auntie Pyenya married Mikhail Pavlovich, a
lovable and successful transport engineer, her normally nice and quiet
Rosa not only
finally accepted Mikhail Pavlovich himself, she also adopted his surname and
recorded her middle name as the derivative from Mikhail. At the same time, she
adopted his ethnicity as well. Thus, Rosa Grigoryevna Averbukh, a Jew, was
absolutely voluntarily converted to Rosa Mikhailovna Veligdanova, a Russian -
which was appropriately recorded in her internal passport.
By doing
this, she killed two birds with one stone. On the one hand, she emphasized her
love for Mikhail Pavlovich and completely acknowledged him as her father (she
even began to call him Papa in a very tender way), on
the other hand living in such an anti-Semitic state as the
Whatever
people would say, all three of them were really happy together. And many,
myself included, envied them with the most white and pure jealousy. Even now I
still think that they were the happiest family I have ever met.
Anyway, let's
come back to that triumphal meeting at the railway station. Each member of the
motley crowd competed in hugging and kissing me. I was squashed and squeezed
until they noticed that I was getting pale. Then, they made me sit down on a
bench and began to ask questions.
"From
physical assault to mental torture," I thought, fending off their
questions as a tennis player parries a ball sent by his rival :
"How old
are you?" - "I will be 12 on July 31."
"Why are
you so small for your age?" - "Because we were starving during
"What
year in school have you finished?" - "Fifth."
"Do you
have good marks in school?" - "Very good
indeed."
"How old
is your brother?" - "Sixteen and a half."
"What
year in school is he doing?" - "He will do year 9 from
September."
"Are you
friendly to each other?" - "As a cat to a
mouse."
"Has
your mum got married again?" - "Not yet. But
I think she will do it eventually."
"Do you
like
"Are you
happy that you have come here?" - "I am not sure yet."
"With
whom of us would you like to stay?" - "With Auntie Nina, because my
mum said she lives in a cinema; and I would be able to watch movies every day ."
Auntie Nina,
indeed, lived in a building which housed one of the local cinema theatres. To
get in her room, she needed, at first, to come inside a large foyer where the
general public were waiting for the beginning of the next screening. (Like
members of her own family, I was issued with a special pass allowing me to
enter the foyer without buying a ticket.)
Auntie's room
upstairs was small, had very simple furniture and generally looked quite
unattractive and poor. But the foyer was a great attraction to me. I liked
slowly moving around to look at numerous large pictures hanging from the wall.
These were photographs of famous actors and actresses and scenes from the
movies in which they were starring.
I also could
spend considerable time by the cinema's buffet watching people buying aerated
water, ice cream, chocolate bars, and various sweets. Auntie Nina was kind but
poor, so she could not give me much as pocket money.
But even five
spare kopecks in my pocket were a good reason for celebration, because it was
enough to get a glass of aerated water with raspberry syrup, which made me
happy while I was drinking it. Ice cream, affordable only on rare occasions,
put me for a while in a state of bliss. But chocolate bars were always beyond
my dreams, though I was maintaining some hope for a remote future if and when I
would become a pilot. (I heard that pilots receive plenty of free chocolate.)
The general
public were allowed in the foyer one hour before the beginning of each session.
Quite often during this time of waiting, people could enjoy a concert, an
interesting lecture or other forms of entertainment. I was happy to join them
on many occasions especially when I had a magic ice cream in my hand.
However, my
greatest pleasure was (after finding a spare seat in the cinema itself) to
watch a movie. Many movies shown at that time were trophy films taken by the
victorious Soviet Army from
There were
adventure films, musical films, tragedies, dramas, and comedies. I tremendously
enjoyed all of them, and for an hour and a half I myself was a hero of the
movie. I not just watched - I lived on the screen.
During this
time I would completely forget the real uncompromising world and my hardly
noticeable participation in it. I lived in a different world and I was not any
longer a timid little boy. On the contrary, I was then an exceptionally
handsome, strong and confident man.
I could do
absolutely everything: I could ride a horse along narrow and dangerous mountain
paths; I could easily defeat a dozen frightening enemies, tie their hands and
make them walk uncomfortably and reluctantly behind my horse but still yelling
with adulation, "Amigo! Amigo! Amigo!"; I
could even sing with a beautiful velvet voice in Italian, Spanish, German or
English - it really did not matter!
I lived in a
very beautiful house surrounded by luxurious nature. I had a stunning wife who
had looks of Catherine Deneuve and sang as Ella Fitzgerald. Certainly, I had
children too: three or four - all of them were just perfect; plus a large,
strong and beautiful dog!
What a
beautiful, wonderful life I had sitting in the cinema! But suddenly the lights
went on, and I returned to that miserable room upstairs, to that real life
which had nothing to do with the world where I continued to stay in my thoughts
for some time afterward.
However, my
real life was not so bad either. Each day I spent a lot of time at the local
river with Auntie Nina's son Misha and his friend Robert. Regardless of the
weather, temperature of the water and temperature of my own body (which at
least on one occasion was abnormally high), I went there with a
self-established task: to learn to swim.
The most
difficult part of my self-training was lifting both my legs while lowering my
body on the water. When I had eventually achieved this, I tried to swim.
Gradually, I increased the distance of my swimming marathon from 0.5 to 1.5
meters. After that, I regarded myself as a nearly accomplished swimmer.
At this
point, I decided that the time had come to try diving. Together with Misha and
Robert, who were much more advanced in sport than myself
(I was actually a quite retarded boy in this sense), I scrambled onto one of the
three diving pedestals. Then we jumped. They dove head
first; I, as a beginner, selected a "soldier" jump.
As it turned
out, it was very wise on my part because I quickly reached the bottom of the
river (I think the depth at that particular spot was about two meters). So, the
very next moment, I was standing under the water (fortunately, on my feet and
not on the head) trying to walk to the shore. I remember that I desperately
tried to walk, but, alas, to no avail.
I tried to
lift my head above the water, but managed only to produce air bubbles which
indicated my location to Misha and Robert. They pulled me out but, instead of
expressing any sympathy, swore and cursed at me saying that they did not want
to be responsible for my drowning.
Well, not
wishing to make them or anyone else responsible for my inability to surface
after submerging, I never in my life tried diving again.
After that
near miss incident and close encounter with the mysterious world of the dead,
all my concerned relatives held an emergency meeting where it was decided to
move me to the much more decent and caring home of Auntie Pyenya. During that
meeting, it was noted that Auntie Pyenya's family lived in much better
conditions than Auntie Nina's family; that unlike Auntie Nina, Auntie Pyenya
did not work and therefore was capable of supervising me properly; and that
17-year-old
That was no
sooner said than done. I was immediately transferred to a lovely cottage in a
lovely fruit and vegetable garden - all this was Ministry of Transport property
given to Mikhail Pavlovich as one of its senior managers. The house was very
comfortable and all the members of the family were very charming. Especially
Soon I found
that I could not think about anything else but her. I followed her everywhere,
though she did not like this. I tried to take her hand - she pushed me aside. I
tried to initiate "clever" talk about movies or books - she was not
impressed. I suffered - she did not notice .
I was waiting
for some special attention from her on my birthday - she did not even
congratulate me. When later in the evening, I awkwardly tried to give a hint
that it was a special day for me, asking her if she knew how old I was, she
carelessly replied, "Of course, I know that you are 12 today. So what? You
have already received your present from my mum and dad, haven't you?"
I was
saddened. She did not realize that the trousers which I received from her
parents as a present meant nothing to me. Her kind word and, even much better,
a kiss would mean everything.
I could not
sleep that night and, lying in the bed, was dreaming about
I felt tense
and anxious, part of my body obviously misbehaved, and my mind was filled with
a strange vision of the naked
I was taken
back to
Eventually, I
fell asleep and my head inadvertently finished up on
When I
arrived home, I felt as a new, much more mature person. Behind me was the first
half of my school years, and I had already experienced the languishing of my
first love and the awakening of my body. I felt more confident about the years
to come...
MY FIRST BIG FRIENDSHIP
I was a shy
boy. It was very difficult, nearly impossible for me to begin conversation or
initiate a game - at least until I felt that I was completely accepted by the
other children with whom I wanted to talk or play.
I remember
how envious I was toward boys and girls playing in the backyard of our
fifth-story apartment building. This backyard was not particularly big and did
not have any facilities even remotely resembling a children's playground. Instead,
it was crowded with little sheds where residents stored firewood prepared for
winter time. (Each room of a communal flat had a large stove in which this wood
was burned until it turned into charcoal; the latter was able to keep the
warmth in the room for hours after the stove chimney was shut off.)
The only
other "facility" of this backyard was a huge, but still always
overfilled and therefore outrageously stinking, rubbish bin. The bin was not
removable (it was just cleaned from time to time) and took a permanent position
in the very centre of the backyard, as though it was a sparkling fountain.
The ground
between the sheds and the rubbish bin was dusty, muddy or snowy depending on
the season and the weather. But it was the only place where dozens of young
children living in the building could play, and they played there joyfully and inventively, and certainly had a very good time.
I was
standing by a staircase window, looking down through it and tremendously
wanting to take part in their games, to share their shouts and laughter. But I
was so scared of being rejected! It took weeks before I finally found a
solution.
One day, when
they were in the middle of a hide-and-seek game, I came down and offered myself
for a role which nobody wanted to play. "Can I be the seeker?" I
asked them indecisively. As I hoped, they immediately agreed.
Since then, I
became part of the team. In spite of the miserable conditions of our backyard,
we always enjoyed time spent there. We played numerous games - mental and physical
(including spending some time on the top of the sheds, running and jumping from
one roof to another and eventually back to the ground).
We even
organized our own open theatre where we all were directors, producers, actors
and audience at the same time (with the roof of the biggest shed being chosen
as our grand stage and rows of logs on the ground as seats for spectators).
Later, in the
evening, we were often sitting on these logs all together, telling scary
stories in turns about witches, ghosts, vampires, flying coffins, etc. The
night after that, lying in the bed, I was afraid to move, let alone to get up
and go to the toilet. Any sound would signal the presence of some supernatural
and most probably evil creature in the room. Still all this thrilled and
excited me.
Once when we
were sitting on the logs telling our already traditional scary stories, a very
large gang of older teenagers (there were at least twenty of them), who were
known in the area as troublemakers and hooligans, suddenly inundated the
backyard.
All my
friends made a dash for safety and within seconds disappeared in their flats. I
was left alone. I did not run not because I was very brave. On the contrary, I
was scared to death. But I had too much pride to demonstrate my cowardice.
In a minute,
I was surrounded by the gang. Their leader, known by a rather operatic nickname
Silva, took a stinking, rusty pot from the rubbish bin and put it on my head.
This crude act caused laughter and loud approval of his followers.
Feeling absolutely
humiliated and disgusted, I quickly took the pot off and threw it away as far
as I could.
"Bring
it back, you - Jewish bastard!" commanded Silva.
"No!"
I replied defiantly, even though they could easily notice that I was shaking
like a leaf. "I'm not your slave." (I think that my voice at that
moment sounded like the squeal of a little frightened mouse caught by a huge
nasty cat.)
"Aren't
you?" he asked sarcastically. "I usually kill those who do not do
what I tell them to do." Saying this, he quickly pulled a knife from the
pocket of his fancy jacket. "But I am very kind today, and therefore I am
giving you a choice: either you are becoming my eternal slave or I am sending
you to eternal hell." Now he held his absolutely terrifying knife at my throat.
"Well,"
he said after waiting for a minute among frightful, absolutely numbing silence.
"This young man is obviously tired of life. However, we can help
him."
I knew that
he was imitating a colorful criminal from the popular movie about Kotovsky, a
hero of the Civil War. But I also knew that he was not joking, that he was able
to kill.
All kind of
thoughts and emotions rushed through my head. "I wanted to die
anyway," I said to myself recalling how sometimes I hated my life and
thought about committing suicide. But now I suddenly realized that it did not
matter how frightening was life - to die was even more frightening...
I really
believe that it would have been my last thought, if Victor by chance had not
looked through the kitchen window and immediately realizing what was happening
yelled in a shrill voice: "Police!"
The gang
dispersed with an incredible speed. They just vaporized as though they had
never been here.
But the
fright which I received continued to stay with me for many more days. I hated
Silva, I wanted very much for something terrible to happen to him. Therefore,
when one day I heard that Silva was accidentally killed when he found a live
hand grenade in a forest and started to play with it, I was really glad. I felt
avenged for my frightening experience, for my humiliation.
Several other
members of his gang were injured during the explosion. This event made a great
impact on the gang. They not only lost their leader, but they also suddenly
realized their own vulnerability, the danger of being killed or mutilated if
they continued the gang's risky way of life. This realization, and also the
fact that police began severe crackdowns on similar groups throughout the
country, demoralized this gang and by 1950 it ceased to exist as an entity.
All the
children with whom I played in our backyard were my mates, but none of them was
a really close friend to me. We played and had a lot of fun together, but we
never shared our secret thoughts, doubts or ambitions, and we never helped each
other.
Still I
always wanted to have a genuine great friend with whom I could spend most of my
spare time, with whom I could prepare my homework, with whom I could go to a
cinema or discuss a book which we both had read recently, with whom we could
dream together.
But it was
not until year 6 in school when such a friend suddenly appeared in my life. His
name was Yurka Vinogradov. We attended the same class for some time but did not
talk much until that day when I, at first, experienced a great triumph and then
a cruel humiliation.
For some
reason (or without any reason at all) I felt a special inspiration as soon as I
came to school that morning. Our first lesson was mathematics, and I was very
active during all the 45 minutes given to this subject. Whatever a question was
addressed to our class, I was the first to answer it, lifting energetically my
stretched hand as close to the ceiling as I could. In the end of the lesson,
the teacher praised me and said that I certainly deserved the highest mark
possible, and he put a large '5' ("excellent") in my school journal
where one individual line was assigned for each and every lesson.
The second
lesson was literature where I emotionally read in front of the class (by
memory, I mean) a very beautiful piece from the famous Gogol novel "The
Dead Souls." The result was another '5' in the journal.
Three
followings 5's were for three following subjects, namely: history, geography
and German language; and each of my new 5's announced by each corresponding
teacher was met with the continuously intensifying and loud approval of the
delighted class.
By the end of
the fifth lesson, it seemed I had become a hero of the class. Even the teacher
was undoubtedly impressed by me.
"Five
5's earned for one day! I think we are witnessing the best achievement in the
history of this school ever. Well done, Sundakov!"
After the
teacher left, most of the children stayed in the class for some more time
discussing my success. Two pupils, Yurka Vinogradov and Kirka Sergeyev, stayed
longer than others.
Unlike the
majority of the class, Sergeyev was obviously not pleased for me; rather he was
upset and jealous. "What do your 5's prove?" he asked sarcastically.
"Everyone can cram this stuff."
"Why are
you not doing the same then?" I quickly repelled his acid attack.
"Because
I am not a Jew," Sergeyev said clearly demonstrating his hatred and
contempt toward the Jews in general and to me in particular.
"So what?" Yurka
Vinogradov suddenly intervened in our not very pleasant dialogue. "It does
not make him worse or you better. In fact, I would prefer to have a friend like
Jewish Sundakov, than like Russian Sergeyev."
"Even now?" Sergeyev
suddenly punched me in the nose with all his force.
While I tried
to stop the gushing blood and Yurka, taken by surprise, seemingly did not know
what to do or how to react, Sergeyev leaped out of the class door.
"Enjoy
your bloody Jewish friend!" he yelled laughingly (obviously addressing
Yurka and referring to me ) and disappeared.
Yurka
composed himself in a fraction of a minute and ordered me to lift my face up so
that the blood would stop running like a waterfall. Seeing also that my
handkerchief had completely changed its color from white to red, he gave me his
own.
I was still
bleeding when we left for home. He lived within five minutes of walk from the
school, so he suggested I go with him. "Come over! My mum will quickly fix
you."
His family
lived on the last, fifth, floor of a typical, old and grey multi-story
apartment building. What was unusual was that they had a three-room flat for
themselves. This "luxury" could probably be explained by two reasons:
first of all, his father held some senior position in one of the state building
companies, and his company was involved in major works in this particular area
of Leningrad city; the second reason was the sheer size of this family - eight
people.
Yurka had
three sisters - one was just a year younger than he, but two others were grown
up girls in their late teens or early twenties. He also had a five-year-old
brother and a grandma.
Yurka's mum
indeed fixed my nose very quickly, offered me some
pancakes with strawberry jam and talked nicely to me asking about my family and
about Jewish festivities.
To my shame,
I could not answer the latter. The only thing I knew about Jewishness was that
belonging to this made my life much more difficult. Both my language and
culture were Russian, and the only festivities I knew were the Soviet ones.
Even my mum
and Uncle Misha did not know much about Jewish traditions, even though they
sang Jewish songs and often talked to each other in Yiddish.
When they did
so, I did not understand them; but from time to time I could catch the meaning
of some of their expressions because many Yiddish words resembled their
equivalents in German, which I studied at school.
My brother
Mark was not so proficient in German and, therefore, he could easily confuse
even the most frequently repeated Yiddish expressions. So, it was no surprise
when his first and only attempt to speak in public in Yiddish was less than
successful...
Long before
that event, Mark noticed that when someone of our relatives sneezed, they would
be told something in Yiddish which sounded approximately like "Emos
genossen!"
The Russian two-word response in similar circumstances - "Bood
zdorov!" - meant "To your
health!" or "Good health!" or "Be healthy!" (whatever you prefer). However, Russian people used exactly
the same expression while sitting around a festive table and proposing a toast
to one's health.
Thinking
logically, Mark drew the conclusion that Yiddish "Emos genossen!"
should mean the same and could be used in similar circumstances. So, once at a
birthday of our mother, when a dozen of her friends and relations gathered
around our dinner table, he slowly got up on his feet, stretched his hand
holding a glass of some drink (presumably a non-alcoholic one) and solemnly
pronounced, "Emos genossen!" - the
expression which Jewish people interpret approximately as "Your sneezing
is confirming what I have just said."
Obviously,
Mark's toast was met with roar of laughter and caused no small embarrassment on
his part.
Anyway,
coming back to Yurka and his mother, I can say only that at that time it was me
who was embarrassed - embarrassed by my complete ignorance where it concerned
my identity and background.
However,
Yurka's mother, noticing how I blushed searching for a correct answer, said
quietly, "Don't worry. How could you possibly know this if nobody taught
you?"
Not only
Yurka and his mother but everyone in this family seemed to be very friendly to
me. Thus, it was quite understandable that I began to spend a lot of time with
Yurka after school.
We were
preparing homework together, and here I was a big help to him because his
abilities to comprehend, analyze and remember were rather not too outstanding.
With my help, he was able to finish his school assignments significantly
faster; and then we both could embark on our adventurous undertakings.
One of our
adventures combined with doing something useful for the household was bringing
firewood from a backyard shed. This seemingly plain task deserved the status of
an adventure, because in practice it was not so simple and to fulfill this we
had to be innovative and cope with sometimes unpredictable events.
The shed
which belonged to Yurka's family was elevated in the very end of a long and
narrow basement. More often than not (for reasons which I could not explain)
the basement was flooded and turned into river about 50 meters long, 2 meters
wide, and up to 0.5 meters deep.
To keep
ourselves in a more or less dry state while doing our business, we nailed two
long boards together and, thus, became the owners of a very primitive but
floating raft, in which we could move along the "river" to the shed
and then back with a sack of firewood. Instead of oars, we used our arms
pressing the walls of the basement.
When
eventually we returned to the ground floor hall of the apartment building with
our heavy sack of wood, we needed to choose a method of lifting this load (and
ourselves) to the fifth floor. Obviously, we had two options: either to walk
upstairs dragging the sack behind us or take a risk using the ancient, slowly
dying lift.
The first
method was long and very tiring but reliable, because by walking the stairs we
could be sure that eventually (even though completely exhausted) we would reach
Yurka's apartment. Riding a lift was certainly much easier when it worked. The
trouble was that this lift had a choleric temperament and its behavior was
absolutely unpredictable. We could be rushed to the top with lightning speed
without any problem at all except experiencing weightlessness as though we were
in a spaceship. At another time we could be stuck just after take off, hanging
motionlessly half a meter from the ground for a couple of hours.
When it
happened, we would certainly try everything: we would press each button in
turn, we would press various combinations of two, three or four buttons, and at
last we would press all the buttons together. Typically, the lift did not
react. But sometimes after that, it began to shake and convulse as though it
had a fit. Then it would start to move absolutely erratically up and down,
stopping for a moment and moving again.
If we were
lucky, it could even reach our floor. At this point, we had to act quickly and
decisively, opening the lift door and jumping out in the manner of highly
trained commandos, before this horrible machine began its freefall down to the ground .
Inspired by
our success, we often continued our military operations from Yurka's flat. We
achieved significant skills in manufacturing water bombs. It took no more than
five minutes for us to make a cube from a large sheet of paper. Every cube had
a hole on its top through which we poured the water inside the container. After
that, the bomb was ready for use - we threw it from the kitchen window down to
the backyard.
At first we
manufactured small bombs. Gradually they were becoming bigger and bigger. The
last one was our swan song. This bomb was produced from a very thick, solid
paper and had a really intimidating size. After filling it with water, we both
carefully carried our monster to the window and let it go, not even looking
first at what we were going to bomb .
Seconds
later, we heard something which resembled the roar of a lion. Instinctively, we
looked from the window to see the source of this roar. This was a huge mistake.
We should not have done this. I mean not throwing a bomb but looking out after
the event: right under our window, we saw Nikolai, who was feared by most
children living in this apartment block. He was wet and he was absolutely
outraged by the fact that somebody dared insult him.
He noticed us
and yelled back with the most colorful words and expressions of great Russian swearing.
For a long
time after that, we were very careful trying to avoid any close encounter with
Nikolai - especially when there were no other people in the vicinity who could
provide us with physical or at least moral support.
We spent so
much time together playing and enjoying ourselves, that
I decided to stop my piano lessons which I had begun just three months earlier.
My mother was against this saying that she herself always wanted to learn to
play piano but unfortunately she did not have any opportunity for this. She
hoped that at least I would do it.
"You
have everything for this," she said. "Fortunately, our piano survived
the war. I am paying a music teacher to teach you at home - you do not even
need to go anywhere. Plus, you have the ability: the teacher praises you!"
However, I
insisted that I was very busy with my school assignments, which I did together
with Yurka, and that she was forcing me to choose between school and music.
Eventually I managed to persuade her but in later years I often regretted that
I lied to her and that my mum was not more persistent, because I missed the
opportunity to learn properly what I have been enjoying all my life - even
though I was able to play by ear some popular songs and from time to time
improvised on piano imitating the style of Victor, our benevolent and talented neighbor .
WHY MY MUM DID NOT HAVE A CHANCE TO PLAY PIANO
When I asked
Mum about this, she told me a story of her life. That story touched me
profoundly - maybe just because she was my mother. Maybe, her experience would
not have been seen so unusual by many other people of the old
My mother was
born in the small Russian town of Nevel on the 8th of September 1907. Actually,
this settlement could be called Russian only because it was in the territory of
the Russian Empire. The population of this provincial town consisted mostly of
Jewish people, who were prohibited from living in the big cities by a decree of
the tsarist government.
As I
mentioned in this book before, the girl was given a beautiful Jewish name,
Rohke-Mirim (the equivalent to Rose Marie in English). The beauty of the girl
matched her name, and her parents, who adored their daughter, called her
"our Little Rose."
The
relatively sheltered life of Rohke's early years came to an end rather too
soon. The first world war and then the communist October Revolution of 1917,
followed by a four-year-long civil war, changed dramatically the peaceful
atmosphere of her sleeping town, which was now filled with all kinds of
marauding gangs.
The death of
her father Mendel Oskotsky in 1919 finally shattered all family hopes for a
good stable future. Working successfully for the world famous company
"Zinger," Mendel had provided a relatively comfortable life for his
wife Bronya, Rohke and her younger sister Anna. However, with his sudden death,
the family lost not only a breadwinner but also a very gentle, kind and caring
person.
After Mendel's
death, Rohke's mother, who had never worked before, opened a small chocolate
business, which was not profitable but still helped the family to survive
through these difficult times. Thus, Rohke had to divide her time between
studying at school and assisting her mother with her house and shop duties.
In 1926
Rohke's family moved to
Ironically
the 1930s, years sadly famous in Soviet history as the period of Stalin's
terrible repressions, were the happiest years in Rohke's personal life. She
married her old school friend Yefim, who by that time had become a successful
engineer. Both working, my parents became so financially comfortable that they
even managed to buy a piano; if not for Rohke, then for their future children.
The first
child, Mark, arrived sooner rather than later after that event; and Rohke
realized that she would not have time for learning to play piano. With my birth
some four years later, Rohke's chances to find spare time for piano lessons
diminished even more. Nonetheless, she was happy and optimistic about the
future.
Her
happiness, however, did not continue for long. On
The beginning
of 1942 added new dimensions to the suffering. German troops completely
surrounded the city, hoping that continuous bombings, combined with the
unusually severe frosts (the air temperature fell down below minus 30oC)
and hunger, would bring Leningraders to their knees.
This did not
happen but at a great cost. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed under
air attacks or artillery fire. An even much greater number of people died from
starvation during the 900-day siege of
When the war
started, my father volunteered to the front but was left in
If people
fell on the street, there was usually nobody around who could render any
assistance to them, and numerous impersonal skeletons just slowly passed by
those of them who completely exhausted their energy and were dying (or had
already died) lying in the snow. Their relatives (if any were still left alive)
usually did not have any clue where their beloved died and where they were
buried (if at all).
My father was
fortunate to reach his plant before he fell unconscious. He was placed in the
plant's hospital where he could have more or less normal meal. But this abrupt
transition from an ordinary citizen ration, which included only 125 grams of
bread a day, to much better nutrition produced just an
opposite result. His digestive system could not cope with such a radical
change: he began to bleed heavily and soon died at the age of 35 leaving his
starving wife with two little starving children.
After my
father died, his plant tried to help in arranging evacuation of his family from
Some time
later, our family was put on a train which had to take us to one of the Soviet
Central Asian republics. However, soon after our departure from
After they
managed to do that, people began to return to their carriages only to be told
that rails had been bombed out both ahead and behind our train, so that
everyone had to take their belongings and walk for about ten kilometers back to
the city.
I really
could never understand how my tiny mum loaded with suitcases and burdened with
her two little kids managed to get back to
Only the
third evacuation next winter through the frozen
After many
days of traveling by train which stopped almost by each telegraph pole, we
eventually arrived in a large industrial city which was named after a long
serving Soviet minister of foreign affairs - Molotov.
We lived in
that city in one small room for more than two years, which were very long and
lonely for my mother, who worked very hard to provide for the family. But at
least people did not starve there, did not suffer from bombs or shells and
could enjoy more or less normal life - even going from time to time to a local
theatre.
Even after
our return to
Racing far
ahead of my school years, I shall say that Uncle Misha suddenly died in 1970
from a heart attack. Once again Rohke became a widow.
Ten years
later she found herself at the other end of the world, in
At the age of
85,
Her body was
small and fragile. She could hardly walk and often suffered from angina
attacks. But her judgment was good, her desire to learn new things was
absolutely wonderful, and her motivation to never give up was truly
exceptional...
PLEASURES OF STUDY
I always felt that school gave me quite
a lot. The famous Russian writer Maxim Gorky once said, "Everything which
is good in me should be credited to books." I can also add to this my
school - especially the last three years of my schooling. Both the school and
the books gave me not only knowledge but formed me as a person in a much better
way than my family did.
Actually,
even now I am grateful to the Soviet education system which did everything to
give all the children a thorough knowledge in any school subject. As much as I
love my adopted country
Living in one
of the Soviet cities, you would have certainly sent your child to a school
nearest to your home. It was quite natural: the children did not need to get up
early, they were able to go to school and back by themselves, and what was not
less important, their school friends were most likely to live in the same area,
i.e. they also had an opportunity to spend some time together after school.
Besides, you knew that each and every school in the
So, when time
came to take my daughter to school at the first time (by then we were already
living in one of
She looked so
confused that I immediately tried to correct my mistake and talk about
something else. "Have you got any homework?" I asked. Now this was
not just a mistake, it was a blunder: the innocent face of my daughter
puckered, and she started to cry. Only after that I realized that my questions
were outrageous for a normal pupil of a normal school.
So, after
that I decided to go to the school and see my daughter's teacher. Before I had
any time to explain my doubts, that lady assured me that everything was fine,
that she was pleased with my child, and there was absolutely nothing to worry
about. "Don't worry, be happy. She'll be all right," concluded the
teacher.
However, I
was not so sure and tried to explain my doubts. I said that I appreciated that
the school provided a healthy, comfortable atmosphere for its pupils. However,
as strange as it might sound, I would expect that school children should not
only play various kinds of games and be entertained by a teacher; in my
opinion, I continued, a pupil should do some study as well.
I explained
that I was used to a much more demanding Soviet educational system. From the
first year in school (mind you, Russian children began their school life at the
age of seven) all pupils should do their daily homework, which would be checked
by a teacher on the following day. There was always a possibility for any pupil
to be called to a class blackboard, so that they would explain to the whole
class how they did their assignment and what they had learned. Being
continuously controlled by their teacher and not wishing to be humiliated by
their bad performance in front of the class, most children would try to do
their best. Besides, parents would have usually checked how their children had
prepared their homework.
The teacher
was impressed and promised that from now on she, making an exception for my
daughter, would give her homework each and every day. But I did not live
happily ever after because the teacher's promise has never eventuated.
This
development - or, more precisely, absence of any development - prompted me and
my wife to look for another school with emphasis on giving knowledge rather
than on playing games. As a result, we chose a private school in
Yes, that
choice was difficult and not only for us. It was also difficult for our
daughter, because now she had to get up much earlier to travel with her working
parents to
However, in
spite of having been under constant financial and physical strain, neither we
nor our daughter have ever felt any regrets at all. This new school not only
gave knowledge to their students - it was teaching them to think, and think
creatively. Ability to think creatively is one of the most important of a
person's abilities because it opens his/her mind for new, fresh and
constructive ideas - whatever he or she is doing. I think, any parents who
really want for their child a bright, rather than a dull, miserable future,
will support this attitude.
But even in
private western schools, children's development is limited by the narrow-minded
educational system. In senior classes, children are allowed to choose five or
six subjects and do not care about anything else. Do you have problems with
mathematics? So, do not take this subject. Even if you cannot
count properly? Who cares? You can always use a calculator. You are a
typical young American who is even not aware about the existence of such a
small country as
Soviet
schools, no doubt, were much more broad-minded and they prepared broad-minded
people with a good general knowledge of both the exact sciences and humanities.
Russian language (i.e. the country's official language), foreign language;
literature, history, geography (the last three subjects gave an insight not
only into politics, economics, culture and everyday life of the former Soviet
republics, but also in those of many other countries of the world from ancient
times till nowadays); arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry; physics,
chemistry; anatomy, and astronomy - all these were separate and compulsory
subjects. And I reckon this is how it should be.
One can ask
me, "What's the point of, say, a future poet tormenting themselves with
mathematical or physics formulas?" But I think that even a famous poet, if
he or she lives in the real, and not a dream world, must be able to count and
have at least a general idea of the basic laws of physics. And a great
physicist will make his spiritual life considerably richer if he does not limit
himself by the reading of scientific books only.
Now you can
see that a pupil in a Russian school had to learn during the same period of time a
significantly larger number of subjects than their peers in the West. But how
deep and systematic was the knowledge of Soviet pupils? Their knowledge was
typically deep because each subject was studied quite thoroughly and usually
over many years. Their knowledge was also systematic because pupils logically and
consistently studied all the lessons of a textbook - from the beginning to the
end. In addition, the depth and systematic approach were achieved through a
system of constant and strict control.
This system
was not a brutal one (for example, Soviets schools never practised corporal
punishment), but it was strict and consistent. Each day, beginning with the
first year in the school, all pupils got homework (also called home
assignments). After coming home from school, pupils, as a rule, had their dinner,
spent a couple of hours outside playing with other children, and then started
to do their lessons. In primary schools, time required to prepare homework was
usually insignificant. However, as time went on the pupil needed to work at
home harder and harder.
You can ask
what would happen if a pupil did not prepare his or her homework? As I
mentioned before, in Soviet schools it was customary to call pupils to the
blackboard so that they could demonstrate in front of the whole class how they
prepared their homework. During each lesson, a teacher invited to the
blackboard three to five pupils - one by one. Each pupil could only guess when
he or she would be called next time.
It was, therefore, better to be ready for each lesson - just in
case. Especially as a mark for the blackboard performance was recorded in a
diary which was checked by parents on a regular basis. In addition, according
to the results of such performances, an overall mark for a quarter of a year
was put down in the school report. Depending on the subject's marks for each
quarter of a year, an overall mark for the whole year was recorded at the end
of the year. And when the study of any particular subject was completed, then
the mark for that year was included in the school-leaving certificate...
I can talk
about school (as well as about my teachers) quite a lot. However, I am aware
that the reader of this book could become bored with too many details, and
therefore on a more humorous note I am going to describe you only one and the
most unconventional of all my teachers.
He was the
most unusual teacher I have ever met in my life. Indirectly, it was he who
inspired me to write. His lessons seemed to be so funny, that I just could not
resist an urge to share my sense of humor with other people.
He was a
mathematics teacher during my last three years in school, and I was one of his
capable but not always very diligent students.
He was quite
a presentable man in his late thirties: not very tall but shaped like a Roman
gladiator (even his pointer directed to the blackboard resembled the sword of
an ancient warrior). His clothes were a bizarre mixture of an extremely elegant
businessman's suit with the uniform of a paratrooper. For this reason we often
called him between ourselves General Markus (his real name was Mark
Moiseevich).
His face as a
whole was strong and even attractive, but if you tried to analyze each of his
facial features separately you would not find any really worth remembering. But
the most interesting thing about him was his theatrical manner of conducting
the lessons and his speeches filled with magnificent tirades.
In the first
act of each lesson, which continued approximately for a quarter of an hour,
General Markus was usually in a very good mood: he joked, told us various stories
from his colorful life, and even sang.
But after
that, time came for the second, much more dramatic act which he described as
"The
"Mister
Sundakov, sir," he began playfully, "would you be so kind to explain
to us how one can calculate the volume of a pyramid."
It was our
homework, which, unfortunately, I did not bother to prepare. But I could not
surrender without a fight, so I started to talk extensively about pyramids in
general (with emphasis on world famous Egyptian pyramids).
General
Markus was patiently listening to me for a while, as though he wanted to check
whether I was a genuine idiot or just pretending to be one. I saw how his face
was gradually losing its color. Finally, he rose from his chair and directed
the pointer to a distant and dark corner of the classroom. "Count the
dishes," he said very slowly. "How many dishes are there?"
I was sure
that there were no dishes in this room. Still his voice was so compelling that
I turned in the shown direction. The whole class did the same.
"How
many dishes are there?" he asked again with a hardly concealed anger. I
tried to find any trace of those mystical dishes, but soon I gave up.
"There
are no dishes over there," the teacher concluded, causing me and the class
to sigh with relief, "and this is not a lesson of architecture or
history."
I immediately
realized my mistake and tried then to use some mathematical terms. But everything
now was in vain. The storm of his tirades relentlessly hit me again and again.
"What do
you multiply by what? A bulb by the ceiling? You
should use your head, not your shoes when you think. If you don't have any
brains, don't talk; just show with your fingers: this, that and that!"
General
Markus was becoming really hysterical, yelling, jumping from one end of the
classroom to another and making thrusts with his pointer. Faced with such
terrible mathematical ignorance as mine, he was not able to control himself any
more.
"Sundakov,
you are a shame to the whole world." He pronounced this with a great
sadness in his voice. "I cannot teach such a stupid student. Not to be
able to calculate the volume of a simple pyramid - impossible!
"Sundakov,
listen to me carefully. You know that Mark Moiseevich never tells anything but
the truth. So, please remember my words. From now on I will call you to the
blackboard each and every day until you learn to respect mathematics - 'The
Greatest Science of All Times'. You can fall to your knees before me, you can
weep and cry 24 hours a day, but I will never change my verdict."
This was his
final and decisive blow. It was like a mental knockout. Feeling confused and
dizzy, I stumbled and fell on the floor.
It did not
move General Markus at all. Showing no mercy, he directed his pointer-sword at
me and ordered to the class, "This ignorant body must be removed immediately !"
FRIENDSHIP WHICH I WAS REALLY PROUD OF
After seven
years in the same school, I needed to make a change because this school did not
have senior classes of a so called complete secondary school, which provided
all ten years of studying required to gain a so-called "Certificate of
Maturity" or, in other words (more understandable to a western reader),
University Entrance.
Moving to a
normal (or complete) secondary school not only gave me an opportunity to extend
my schooling years with the vision of a higher education at the end of the
school tunnel, but also made a great social impact on me. It was like a
launching pad for a continuously accelerating rocket in which my personality
began its incredible transformation from an ugly, timid, awkward and generally
miserable duckling to a much more confident, cheerful, humorous and even quite
nice looking swan. (I know that this comparison with a swan does not sound too
modest but I just refer to a famous fairy tale.)
From the very
first moment, I loved my new school. I loved its name - this old school was
somehow associated with the youth of the greatest Russian poet Alexander
Pushkin and was therefore proudly named after him. I loved the school's wide
corridors and its huge assembly hall decorated with beautiful chandeliers and
larger than life mirrors in their carved gilded frames. I loved its little garden
and its location on the corner of magnificent Kirovsky Prospect - the glorious
avenue with which I became so familiar, spending so much time there and walking
so many enjoyable kilometers with my new school friends.
There were
three of them and they seemed to be the most interesting boys in the class.
Alik Glazunov
was a serious, quiet youth with whom I had many things in common. We both were
of more or less the same height, we both enjoyed reading and philosophical
discussions, and even our temperaments were similar: we could talk and could
listen, we tried to be helpful to anyone who needed our help, we would not hurt
anyone, we both were open and approachable but usually too shy to initiate a
new friendship. Even our home life was to some extent similar: I grew up with a
stepfather, he with his stepmother.
Slava
Ivanovsky was completely different. He was very tall (compared with Alik or
myself, he was a real giant) and much more relaxed in spite of a stuttering
problem. He was very good natured, witty and cheerful. He often laughed, and
his laugh was always genuine and very contagious. It was a real pleasure to
share his company and exchange jokes and funny stories with him which were amusing but never acid or sarcastic.
It is
interesting how different people create a completely different atmosphere
around themselves, and seem to be able to change your own personality in a
quite dramatic way (like different registers of an electronic organ make it
sound like totally different musical instruments). With Alik I was serious,
pensive and quiet, while with Slava I was rather gregarious, bubbly and funny.
As much as I
liked both of them and enjoyed their company (though usually not at the same
time), my real hero was Andrei Rotinov. As soon as I joined my new class, I
knew that I wanted to have Andrei as my friend. He was so different from
everyone else, but not in a way that people usually differ from each other. He
was like a god among simple mortals. He even looked like a god - especially
when he was training in a gym. His tall athletic figure with conspicuous, but
never ugly bulging muscles evenly spread around his whole body and beautifully
playing when he very skillfully worked on horizontal or parallel bars, was the
subject of genuine envy of all the boys in the class. Mind you, his incredibly
muscular body and its precise, beautiful movements were a product not only of
his marvelous genes but also of a special sports school which he attended on a
regular basis.
He was
blonde, his eyes were certainly blue, and his face reflected the strength of a
naturally born leader. He was always relaxed and very confident in anything he
was doing or talking about. And even though he sometimes willingly demonstrated
his superiority over others, he did it in a charming, friendly way - so nobody
would have felt insulted or humiliated by him.
He seemed
everything that I was not but would like to be. He was not only a talented
sportsman (in addition to gymnastics, he could beautifully ride a horse, swim,
ski - you name, he could do it). It seemed that he had a talent for anything
and everything. He confidently played the piano attracting crowds of other
students into the school hall, especially when he suddenly detoured from his
classical repertoire and began to perform exhilarating jazz improvisations. On
these occasions he acted not only as an entertainer but also as kind of a
dissident, because politically it was a period of struggle against
cosmopolitism and western decadence.
All foreign
names were replaced by Russian words - sometimes in an absolutely ridiculous
way. For example, the English word "time" was commonly understood by
each and every Soviet citizen enjoying extremely popular soccer games. All of a
sudden, it was replaced by a long winded expression in Russian which could
literally be translated as "half of the game." Or even worse, a
cinema, which was named "
Jazz music
was denounced as a sample of decaying bourgeois culture and its performance was
forbidden. Even if on some rare occasions one could find in a music store a
record of a fox trot or a tango, these western words would have been carefully
interpreted as "a fast dance" or "a slow dance"
respectively.
Thus, as soon
as Andrei began playing a blues tune or an absolutely outrageous boogie, the
school principal felt obliged to rush toward the source of this obscenity. His
eyes were flashing with anger - he reminded us of Peter the Great when the
famous tsar led his troops against the Swedes; and only Andrei's charm and
popularity saved him from sharing their fate. He was just seriously reprimanded
for his antics.
Andrei was an
incredibly versatile and harmonious personality. It seemed there was no
activity where he did not have a gift. But probably his biggest talent was in
the sphere of visual arts. The walls of Andrei's large room at home were
covered with many imaginative pictures and paintings which could foretell his
brilliant future.
Not less
important about Andrei was that all his achievements seemed to come naturally
without much effort from him and did not make him arrogant or pompous. He was
very confident in himself (which was quite understandable),
however he was an extremely sociable and approachable, cheerful, interesting
and easy going youth. So, it was no surprise that he was hugely popular among
other boys and admired by many girls (which was especially noticeable from the
beginning of our last school year, when for the first time Soviet schools
became mixed ones). Oh, girls simply adored him! He had no problem organizing a
party with a bunch of pretty girls who would have all competed for his
attention.
Soon after I
began to attend this new school, I realized that our class was blessed with
some unique personality, that Andrei was not like
anyone else, that I desperately wanted to become his friend. I was watching
him, I envied him, and I looked for any opportunity to fulfill this dream.
After the
first quarter of the year and the following short winter break, our class was
moved to another, more spacious room. As a result, everyone who was quick
enough to make his mind and then move his body in the right direction had an
opportunity to choose a desk and arrange a new neighbor willing to share this
desk with him.
I quickly
occupied the central desk in the second row and called Andrei, who had just
entered the room, "Andrei, would you like to sit with me?"
To my great
surprise, this born under a lucky star charmer, who had always had dozens or so
options, immediately agreed. "Actually, I wanted to suggest the
same," he smiled.
Sitting with
Andrei, I got my chance to win his friendship by showing him my best and most
interesting qualities, to show him that I could offer something which he might
need. I wanted to be useful to him. And indeed I was, because in the sense of
academic achievements I certainly had an upper hand: it was an area where I was
a kind of a superman in the class. As much as I admired Andrei's looks and his
versatile talents, he appreciated my abilities and knowledge in almost each and
every school subject. Not in the least, he appreciated my constant readiness to
share this knowledge with him.
Quite often
Andrei did not bother to do his homework and asked me to explain to him what it
was about. So, during a break between two lessons, we would walk along the
school corridor - his head towering above me, his arm extended over my
shoulders - and talk. More precisely, it was me who would talk, giving him
valuable information related to the next lesson and Andrei would listen,
skillfully consuming and memorizing most of this stuff.
I did not
mind that he used me this way. I always enjoyed helping others. I really felt
good when I was able to make someone happier. This feeling of being helpful to
someone and their "thank you" proving that my participation made
their life a little bit easier was all I needed to feel "high." And,
certainly, it was especially true with respect to Andrei, my deity. I felt really
happy doing something for him, being very pleased that it was not just me who
needed him - he needed me as well.
And indeed,
he liked my company not only when he wanted some quick compensation for the
lack of his own diligence in school. We spent a lot of time together beyond the
school walls and outside of anything associated with this institution. He
enjoyed listening to stories I had experienced in real life, read in books or
seen in movies. He appreciated my sense of humor, my ability to give colorful
descriptions of people and events which were funny and philosophical at the
same time .
Soon my dream
came true: we were very good friends and our friendship was getting stronger
each day. Once, I asked him why my friendship was so important to him when he
had so many other friends both in school and outside.
"You
know, Mottel," he began. His unusually serious tone and affection shown in
the name itself - he borrowed this Yiddish equivalent to my name from Shalom
Aleichem's fascinating story 'Adventures of Mottel, the Cantor's Son' -
demonstrated his ultimate sincerity in what he was going to say. "You are
a person from a different world. You are so unselfish, honest and pure that I
would like to put you in a frame and carefully remove the tiniest specks of
dust from the glass.
"But
answering your question: yes, I have dozens and dozens of friends. However,
they are here only while I am on top of the world and they can have a good time
with me. But if I am ever in trouble, they will reject and betray me. All of them. I have no illusions about this. The only person
whom I can completely trust, who will always stand by me, is you."
His words
filled me with pride and satisfaction. Such a wonderful, interesting person
like Andrei not only accepted my friendship but saw something unique and
special in my personality. It did a lot for me, it
gave impetus to my self-esteem and confidence.
Gradually
(even very slowly) I began to understand that I should stop continuously
comparing myself with Andrei. "Don't feel sorry for yourself,"
he once said - and he was right. All my sufferings, all my thoughts why I was
not like him, why I was so inadequate and miserable - were absolutely useless.
Even if I spent my whole life trying to be like him, it was not going to happen.
I will never look like him, I will never have his abilities, I will never
become Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, I will always be a
kind of Shalom Aleichem's Mottel.
Well, after
many sleepless nights and self-torturing useless thoughts, I decided that Maxim
Gorky was right: "One who is born to crawl cannot fly." But realizing
my limits and accepting my crawling life, I still needed to try to improve
myself as much as I could: if I was born to crawl, at least I had to do it with
grace and dignity.
Since then, I
always tried to improve myself as a personality. I made a habit of analyzing
each day of my life before going to bed. I praised myself for everything which
was good and ruthlessly criticized myself for all mistakes and faults which
could be attributed to me. My day was finished with the preparation of a plan
for the next day.
I did not
like many traits in my personality. In the past I could really suffer because
of this; I envied other people, felt sorry for myself, made myself miserable
and sulky, and even cried. Now, trying to follow Andrei's advice, I gradually
learnt not to sit and suffer but think what could I do about this, how can I
change myself, how can I alter the course of my life. And then I began to
concentrate on this day by day, week by week, month by month trying to achieve
what I wanted. By doing this, I gradually overcame my extreme shyness and even
started to walk holding my head high instead of stooping and looking
continuously down under my feet.
Feeling
respect of my friends, I began to respect myself. Gradually I learnt not to
emulate anyone (even Andrei), but instead try to become Someone; try to achieve
what I wanted but not to cry if it proved to be unachievable. I learnt to crawl
with dignity and sometimes even with grace...