Kitabı oku: «Everything Begins In Childhood», sayfa 10

Chapter 25. “Just Look at Her!”

Grandma Lisa’s father, Nataniel Kozi was considered a prominent businessman in the Uzbek town of Chinaz early in the twentieth century. That’s how one would refer to him in contemporary language. He was a rich man, a bigwig, a factory owner, in the language spoken in old Russia. Nataniel owned a cotton mill. His son Rahmin Simhayev was in the business of sewing women’s apparel.

“He was very stingy,” Grandma Lisa once told me about her father, when she and I stood at the chest of drawers looking at the big photograph. “Oy, oy, so stingy! My mama left him… She took us along, four children, and moved to Tashkent… That was very long ago, in 1914. I was a little girl.”

“She left him…” I imagined a heart-rending scene: my great-grandma Emma abandoning her native home with two small children in her arms, and another two tagging along… Apart from Grandma Lisa she had another two daughters, Sonya and Rena, and a son, Abram. And still she found it necessary to part with her husband… She wasn’t afraid. A divorce was something unthinkable for Asian women; it was considered a shame, a crime.

Great-Grandma Emma… I only saw her in pictures. She had died the year I was born, ten years before. But I heard about her often. Everyone who had known her remembered her warmly and respectfully. She was blessed with a kind and sympathetic soul. She helped many people. Almost all her children took after her, all but one daughter…

And that very daughter, my Grandma Lisa, would go up to the chest of drawers where the big photograph of her father stood in all its splendor, and it was there that she said her short prayer every morning. On top of that, she quietly expressed her thanks to him… For what, one may ask, did she thank the person from whom her mother had escaped with four children, including her? It’s hard to comprehend.

As I entered the kitchen that morning, I could already predict in great detail what would follow.

“Good morning,” I greeted her.

“Morning, morning,” Grandma answered as she continued to bustle about. “Wash up quickly.”

Grandma wore her usual pale, patterned housedress and white-trimmed slippers. Her left hand was behind her back as if she were ready to rub the sore spot at the moment she would choose to complain about her “spindileeze.” She held a shiny, well-polished pot in her right hand.

One of Grandma Lisa’s unquestionable merits was her marvelous cleanliness. She kept the house in perfect order and demanded the same from everybody else. The cleaning woman Grandma employed was exhausted from her instructions and quibbles.

“You either clean or you don’t!” Grandma exclaimed, pointing her finger at another corner which was not quite licked clean. “There’s so much dirt there!”

I would turn out to be that “not quite licked clean corner” every morning. The sink was in the kitchen. The procedure of washing took place under the observant eyes of Grandma, and it would begin with the morning class in hand washing.

“No, that’s wrong! That’s absolutely wrong! Rub here,” Grandma would pat the outside of her wrist. “Now wash it off… And now soap them up again. Rub! Rub harder!”

I washed my hands like most children. Just think of Tom Sawyer. I would just wash my hands with water or use a little soap and rinse it off right away. But I couldn’t get away with that when Grandma was around. I had to fulfill all her requirements. And still a grimace would distort Grandma’s face.

“Oy, oy, oy, the water is so dirty! Soap them up once more.”

At last I would be granted permission to dry my hands. Then Grandma would start groaning again:

“Look how dirty the towel is! From just one use!”

I don’t know what to call the character trait that wouldn’t allow Grandma to permit any trifling thing to happen around her without receiving her attention and supervisory directions. Perhaps she was exerting her leadership, for which she had never found an outlet. One way or another, everything that entered her field of vision had to be corrected, adjusted and improved.

Grandma sometimes managed to give her instructions calmly, but she would normally get nervous right away. It took nothing for her to fly into a rage and start shouting. This was also one of her character traits.

Grandma looked quite funny when she got upset. She would shake her head in such a way that her silk headscarf would stand on end and slip off her red hair. Her eyes would widen and her eyebrows rise abruptly. With her legs spread wide and her right hand raised, Grandma would accompany her words with expressive movements of her index finger, like an experienced orator in front of a big crowd.

It was interesting to watch Grandma, but certainly not when I became the object of her attention.

After fulfilling all the requirements, I could at last step away from the sink. The torture was over… until dinner.

Then Grandma Lisa was again bustling about the stove.

Grandpa’s favorite drink, choyi kaimoki, was prepared in a pot on the stove. It was an old Asian drink.

Milk was poured into strong boiling tea. That mixture was slightly salted and left to boil for some time. The amount of milk, the time it took to prepare it, both before bringing it to a boil and after, were very important, for the taste of the choyi kaimoki depended on it. Besides, one had to stir it now and then. Grandma Lisa would dip a bowl into the pot, fill it and pour it back into the pot. The unique aroma filled the kitchen.

“Vale-RY, get the teapot quickly!”

Unlike Grandma Abigai, who pronounced my name softly and melodiously,

“Va-le-ry,” always smiling tenderly, Grandma Lisa called me, and everyone else, seriously, sternly, stressing the last syllable of my name, “Vale-RY”, almost shouting “RY”.

“Get kosis, please.”

Grandma would point toward the lower shelf where big bowls were kept so that, God forbid, I didn’t pick up the wrong bowls.

Dishes were organized in a strict order. Milk dishes, as directed by Jewish law, should not be mixed with dinner dishes. They were never washed together. And if Grandma, after retiring to her bedroom to take a nap after dinner, heard the clinking of dishes, she would wake up immediately and give instructions loudly or dash to the kitchen to make sure that everything was done right.

The choyi kaimoki was ready. Grandpa and I sat down at the table. Grandma served breakfast. She would usually have hers alone later.

We were having breakfast at the living room window, which faced a neighbor’s garden. It was strange that I couldn’t figure out whose garden it was, though I tried many times as I walked around the adjoining lanes.

That garden was a mystery to me. It was very small, no wider than our living room, but longer. It was surrounded by the walls of neighboring houses, so it wasn’t clear to whom it belonged. Perhaps it was no one’s, but a red rose bush grew in that garden; it was the only one there, and someone tended to it.

"There were no other windows in the living room, and my favorite yard was not visible from there.

Grandpa Yoskhaim had bought the plot on which his house now stood for one thousand rubles in 1933. It was a garden without any buildings, planted with sweet cherry trees. Grandpa attended to the construction of the house himself. He sometimes told me about it, though rather sparingly. And I listened with great interest, even agitation. I could vividly imagine Grandpa, barefoot, his pants rolled up, trampling the clay mixture with his feet to make a kind of adobe mixture.

The clay was viscous heavy, and wet, and one had to trample it for hours. Here, the walls appeared. Then Grandpa, together with his friend, lifted and placed a crossbeam to support the roof.

Gosh, how very difficult it was to do! Their faces became bloodshot, and the veins on their necks and arms bulged.

I was very proud of Grandpa, and I thought: what a strong, patient, skillful person he must have been to build his house himself".

* * *

“Well, what are you dreaming about? It’ll get cold. Watch how I do it,” Grandpa commanded.

Steam was rising from the bowls into which Grandma had poured the choyi kaimoki. A thin trembling layer was forming on top of the milk. Grandpa scooped up a spoonful of butter and put it in his bowl. Then he crumbled a piece of small white flatbread, put it in the bowl and mixed everything. Now, the surface of the milk was covered with a layer of butter in which pieces of the flatbread floated like little rosy islands. After checking that there was enough of everything, Grandpa dipped his spoon into the bowl and scooped it up.

“Khoop,” Grandpa produced that sound in a special way. It seemed as if he tried to inhale as much air as possible, along with the food, to cool it down. His face looked very serious as he did it. It grew longer, his eyes narrowed, his brows came together. He stretched his neck as he bent his head over the bowl. It seemed his snow-white beard was about to dip into the bowl, but it froze a millimeter away from the buttery steaming surface as if it knew exactly where it needed to stop.

Grandpa Yoskhaim would always eat the same breakfast: choyi kaimoki with one piece of flatbread, butter and strong green tea. He ate his breakfast, just as he did everything Grandma cooked for dinner, with an excellent appetite. It wasn’t accidental that my mama, trying to feed me, would always say, “You peck like a hen. That’s why you’re just skin and bones. Look at Grandpa Yoskhaim: he eats well. That’s why he’s so healthy.”

That was true. Grandpa was very seldom ill. And if he was, he never stayed in bed.

It was rumored that there was a bullet in Grandpa’s back that had got stuck there in the long-ago days of the revolution and street riots in the Old Town. The doctors couldn’t make up their minds about removing it, so he lived with it till the end of his days. It never caused him any particular trouble.

He was amazingly industrious and durable, so Mama must have been right.

After Grandpa Yoskhaim finished his breakfast, he pushed the empty bowl away but stayed at the table. He fidgeted on the squeaky chair to make himself more comfortable and to sit more firmly.

Poking my spoon about in the bowl, I looked at him with sympathy. I knew very well what the next scene would be. It was invariable. But I watched it every time with the same keen interest, like a fan watching a fight between two wrestlers.

“Lisa,” Grandpa called loudly. “How much money should I leave?”

As he asked the question, Grandpa would stretch out his right leg, put his hand into his pocket and produce a tightly packed brown leather wallet.

Grandma Lisa, however, wouldn’t appear. Pots were clanking and water was running behind the closed kitchen door. This part of the scene was called “I can’t hear you, my dear. I’m very busy. Call me one more time.”

Grandpa would raise his eyebrows and sigh. He knew better than anyone that Grandma had perfect hearing. She could hear any rustle, even through the wall of a neighboring room. Yura and I, for example, never talked about our affairs if Grandma Lisa was nearby. She could hear everything, even if we whispered, and she could learn all our secrets.

Grandpa would call her again, louder this time.

At last, the kitchen door would swing open and Grandma would appear in the doorway.

Oh, she was a great actress. She never tired of playing her part and finding different nuances each day. It was impossible to replicate the extent of fatigue expressed in her face.

Rubbing her lower back with her hand, she made her way slowly to the couch, sat down and, after adjusting her headscarf, said loudly, “Inam shood.” With this saying, which literally meant “and that’s finished,” Grandma, evidently reminded her dear husband that she had been toiling since early in the morning to feed him, and now she was terribly tired, and she thanked God that she was still alive after all that work.

Grandpa Yoskhaim wouldn’t look at Grandma. He’d examine his wallet closely. It was sufficient to hear her tone as she uttered “Inam shood” for him to know how much money she would demand for expenses, so he wouldn’t wait for her to specify the amount before launching his defense.

“I gave you money yesterday.”

“Nothing’s left,” Grandma interrupted him immediately. “Today I need to buy…” and she would begin to enumerate foodstuffs, ticking them off on her fingers, “…rice, bread… Sugar’s almost gone… We need fish. Little flour left…”

“Flour?” Grandpa interrupted her, raising his thick brows. “You bought flour the day before yesterday.”

“You can’t be serious. It’s been three weeks. You ate pirozhki, didn’t you?

At that point Grandpa’s patience would be exhausted. It should be mentioned that it was very difficult to upset Grandpa, but Grandma invariably managed it. I couldn’t guess which grocery item would feed Grandpa’s indignation, but I knew perfectly well how he would manifest it, and I was looking forward to that final scene.

“Just look at her!” tormented Grandpa would exclaim, almost leaping out of his chair.

I don’t know when or why Grandpa began to use that rather inoffensive expression to express his highest degree of surprise and indignation at his interlocutor’s impudence. Obviously, the point was not the words themselves but the meaning and coloration he attached to them.

Grandpa’s indignation never produced any menacing consequences. To my disappointment, that was how their daily duel usually ended or, to be precise, the verbal part. What followed was what Grandma had been fighting for – the mild-mannered issuance of cash.

After expressing his indignation once again, this time in a whisper, “Just look at her,” Grandpa at last opened his wallet and counted out a bunch of cash. He did it shaking his head slightly, as if surprised at Grandma’s fighting abilities and his defeat. Perhaps, he still hoped to win one day.

Distressed, Grandpa returned the wallet to his pocket and shuffled out. He was, for some reason, more upset than usual.

He always left some cash for me on the chest of drawers to buy ice cream. I didn’t remind him about it today, out of compassion. After all, we were both men…

Chapter 26. The Maybug

Grandpa threw his knapsack over his shoulder, crossed the yard, shuffling his feet, and disappeared beyond the gate, off to work.

I made myself comfortable by the apricot tree to enjoy the morning coolness and solitude. Yura, my cousin and friend, hadn’t shown up yet. He might still be asleep for it was too quiet behind the windows of his house.

It was wonderful to sit like that in my old yard, doing nothing. After the long school year, after the rush and tension, the constant worries about homework, grades and other unpleasant things, it was so nice to relax, to feel that all those worries were in the past, not to think about anything, not a single thing, just to sit there allowing laziness to grip me, to envelop and lull me… And I didn’t want to ponder anything, nor could I. All thoughts seemed to have dissolved and vanished, and I felt a blissful void in my head. But I also felt a drowsiness. I absorbed everything that was going on around me in the yard with the utmost delight. It was non-stop life unfolding before me with exceptional clarity, in all its details.

Why were the hens cackling so loudly? Aha! There was Grandma Lisa entering the henhouse to feed them. The henhouse was not far from me, along the same wall as the trestle bed. I could see everything that happened there from where I was sitting. White hens, five of them, walked about restlessly, jumped up near Grandma, pushing each other away and quarreling. The rooster, unlike the hens, was a dark-feathered fellow, deep brown streaked with gold, who stood apart from them for some time. The rooster, whose legs looked like thick twisted twigs, with calloused toes and powerful claws, watched the quarrelsome hens with disdain. After observing the domestic quarrel, that sultan began to peck the grains scattered near him, shaking his red beard and moving closer to his silly wives.

The rooster considered his conjugal duties so important that he didn’t hesitate to perform them in the public eye. Now, his only concern was making the proper choice. With him, like any true sultan, it depended either on his mood or which of his wives seemed particularly attractive to him, or on more practical considerations: which one was closer to him and had no time to escape. Who knew? But I was sure that he made choices rather than relying on luck.

A spurt, a jump… What an insolent creature! I looked around quickly to be sure that none of the adults could see what I was watching. The yard was empty. Well… what’s going on there? I was curious, and I found it funny at the same time. The hens, startled by his attack, scattered in all directions, but as soon as the rooster overtook one of them, they calmed down and continued pecking their grain. The rooster… I couldn’t even imagine what the rooster experienced though I wanted very much to know. He looked extremely businesslike. His lucky chosen one seemed absolutely unmoved and, the moment the rooster jumped off her back, rejoined her pecking “girlfriends” without wasting a second.

Such family scenes would create confusion in the well-oiled feeding operation. When Grandma saw it, she would get angry. Waving her hands and exclaiming “Get out! Get out!” she would try to call the insolent creature to order. Sometimes, she realized that it was useless to fight the rooster’s amorous urges. She mumbled something quietly and waved her hands, admitting her helplessness, as if to say, “what can I possibly do about it.”

But the most interesting thing about roosters wasn’t their conjugal directness. Sometimes, there were two roosters in Grandma’s henhouse, and then Yura and I had a new entertainment: cockfights.

Even the very beginning of a fight was a wonderful spectacle. Standing opposite each other, the roosters seemed to exchange curses and become fired up as they took their fighting stances. They would act all high and mighty, their feathers on end. They held their necks perfectly erect, first pressing their heads to their chests, then stretching them out, beaks always facing the opponent. Then they would lift and bend one claw… Their weapons were primed for the fight.

And how they would fight! They flew up, their wings flapping, tearing at each other with their claws! How mercilessly they used their beaks, picking at the most vulnerable spots! How they crashed their chests together, now falling down, now flying apart!

The shrieks of the fighters and the flapping of their wings would echo through the yard. Feathers would fly in all directions… It was quite a spectacle! Yura and I would express our delight by yelling louder than the roosters and waving our hands as they did their wings.

“C’mon, c’mon! Be brave!”

“Let him have it… one more time… again!”

In short, we behaved like inveterate fans at a stadium. It was a pity Grandma Lisa was strongly against cockfights. She thought that they not only affected the roosters’ health, since they could injure each other, but also that of the hens who might get so scared they would stop laying eggs. So, as soon as Grandma heard a suspicious noise, she would run out to the yard and order Yura and me to put a stop to the fight. We had no choice but to thrust a long stick through the chicken wire and separate the fighters.

The roosters enjoyed our respect due to those fights; after all, they were athletes. And in general, a rooster was quite a noticeable figure in the yard. It was a rooster who informed us of the arrival of a new day, and it was after a ringing cock-a-doodle-doo that everyone woke up.

Each inhabitant of the yard welcomed the morning in its own way. Jack, for instance, would start his canine morning exercises right away, which in fact were an appalling demonstration of laziness. He first yawned for quite a while, sticking out his long red tongue. Then he stretched blissfully, becoming a long stick ending in an outstretched tail. Then he sat up and began to scratch his ear. He did it so fast that his paw and ear, if you were watching from a distance, merged together and looked like the rotating propeller of an airplane. As he did this, Jack’s chain would beat quickly and rhythmically against the asphalt, producing the sound of a machine gun blazing away.

It was my opinion that Jack shouldn’t scratch himself so simple-heartedly in front of people and the other inhabitants of the yard. When he did so, he looked like an absolute simpleton, a fact he himself admitted openly.

“I’m a simpleton,” Jack declared, brushing his ear with a paw. “I’m quite a simpleton,” he admitted, as he began scratching his ear faster. “I’m the biggest simpleton,” he proclaimed when the propeller started to turn. “You can’t find a bigger simpleton than me.” Jack, obviously, didn’t care about anyone’s opinion; he just wanted to feel good.

* * *

Meanwhile, it had become noisy in the yard. Little flocks of sparrows were flitting about the bushes and trees, making an incredible hubbub. Sparrows were always agitated and in a hurry. The tender cooing of turtledoves could be heard. I was always surprised that turtledoves were the ancestors of beautiful, snow-white domestic pigeons. They are so unattractive with their dull brown feathers, but it’s true that these wild ancestors sing beautifully, a tender, slow, mysterious cooing. When a turtledove would perch among the branches and begin its long quiet gur-gur-gurrr, it would burrow right into your soul.

Gnats and flies were the most unpleasant inhabitants of the yard, the big green flies in particular. The moment you entered the yard, they sensed you and rushed toward you. As you made yourself comfortable in the shade, they would whiz by your ear, vzh-zh-zh. All you had to do was brush them away. If you stood gaping, a fly might land on your nose or forehead, or in your hair. I even envied the sparrows and other birds who could snatch flies skillfully in midair. Gnats also had to be chased away, but they didn’t usually touch anyone. They would circle in the air, as if dancing a waltz in a ray of sunlight that was forcing its way through the crown of an apricot or cherry tree.

* * *

My idle bliss was interrupted by Yura’s cry:

“Look, it got stuck there!”

I had lapsed so deeply into daydreaming that I hadn’t noticed Yura enter the yard. He stood on his stoop near the cherry tree, his nose almost touching its trunk, scrutinizing something. Yura was always detecting or examining something. His eyes knew no rest. They were always in search of something interesting, and not only things that engaged children’s attention. No, my cousin’s aspirations were much broader. He craved adventures that were sometimes not safe for him, or those around him.

“Hurry! Are you asleep, Redhead?”

No, of course, I wasn’t asleep. I was simply – at least externally – Yura’s complete opposite. Nothing was ever “burning” for me. I didn’t like to hurry. But it was impossible to linger now. Yura was jumping up and down near the cherry tree. He wore shorts and a white T-shirt, the light color of which emphasized the militant expression on his tanned face. “What has he detected there? What will we need to destroy?” I tried to guess as I was running up to him.

A huge Maybug stood motionless on the trunk of the cherry tree, exactly where Yura’s head was. Those insects, whose backs were covered with a shiny green shield that revealed black wings when they opened it, like the two parts of a door, often visited our yard, particularly at the end of spring. They would speed in over the top of our fence, buzzing like bombers, flying around the yard along unpredictable curves as if they wanted to inspect it closely, and then disappear in the thick foliage.

It was one of those Maybugs that was sitting in front of us on the cherry tree trunk. It was neither asleep nor taking a rest. It didn’t even pretend to be dead, which is what beetles usually did when they sensed danger. The poor thing had got stuck in the clear yellowish sap that was seeping from the tree trunk. It must have either bumped into the trunk or sat on it without noticing the danger. It was a very careless Maybug. If only it had known what lay ahead for it.

The Maybug gave a start, its green shield opened, its wings began to flap: the prisoner made an attempt to escape. In vain! The natural glue was very strong.

“Hurry!” Yura yelled, his eyes sparkling. “Hurry! Bring twine. No, wait, I’ll get it myself. Watch the Maybug!”

He ran away, and I covered the Maybug with my palm, just in case. Yura was right. Maybugs gave us a lot of fun.

My cousin came running back with a spool of black thread and a small knife. Holding it by the back, we tied the thread tightly around one of its hind legs. God forbid the thread should come untied, so we tied a double knot. That wasn’t easy to do. The Maybug sensed that something bad was going on, that it was being tinkered with, and not exactly for a noble purpose, so it resisted, pulling on its hairy legs as much as the sap allowed.

“All right… Now scoop it out,” Yura gave me the knife. At that moment, I realized that I would never be a surgeon. As I tried to dig its front legs out, it ended up getting its antenna-like whiskers stuck in the sap. The Maybug was so tired that it couldn’t resist any longer.

“It’ll suffocate!” Yura suddenly panicked. He snatched the knife from my hand and performed the surgery himself. The Maybug was liberated, losing only one leg.

“Hurry!” Yura shouted as he ran to the apricot tree. The space there was more open, more appropriate to form the runaway of our airport, so to speak. The Maybug was to become an airplane, and airplanes, as everyone knows, take off from airports.

We set the Maybug carefully on the asphalt that covered the ground. At first, it stood still, and we couldn’t do anything about it for it would not move an inch until it was sure it was safe.

Yura and I stood nearby, completely still. I was holding the spool, after winding off enough thread so that the Maybug wouldn’t feel the tension as it flew or crawled. At last, it began to crawl somewhat slowly and hesitantly. Perhaps, it felt that one leg was missing.

We were terribly impatient.

“C’mon, bug! Stop that nonsense!” I repeated, shaking the thread slightly to remind the Maybug that, after all, it had to work. At last, it understood what it was expected to do, opened its shield, spread its wings and took off… slowly, with great effort, but it took off.

“Wind off! Wind off!” Yura yelled, concerned and agitated.

Our airplane gained speed, trying to fly as far as possible, but we couldn’t let it fly to the part of the yard where the thread would become tangled in branches. That meant that unwinding too much thread from the spool would be dangerous. We needed to guide the Maybug like a kite. The thread was long enough, but it was strained, and now the Maybug was flying in circles, a bit higher with each one. Mesmerized, we stared at it. We were blissfully happy as, looking up, we turned around in the center of the yard, the spool in our hands. Perhaps, guiding the flight of the Maybug wasn’t such a great feat, but we felt like mighty, all-powerful rulers.

The end came unexpectedly. The poor Maybug, tired of fighting the strained thread that burdened it, came tumbling down. That was it… We thought that our airplane had crashed as we ran up to it, but the Maybug was alive. It simply needed a break.

Certainly, we could have kept it for future flights, but we were magnanimous and felt sorry for the invalid. That was enough. It had worked and fulfilled its duty. We would let it fly away… if it could.

“Shall we let it go? Let’s toss it up into the apricot tree.” Yura cut off the thread at the Maybug’s leg, jumped and tossed it up into the thick branches. After making an arc, the Maybug came tumbling down. We cried “ah,” but just before it reached the ground, it suddenly spread its wings and flew upward, buzzing. Another moment and the Maybug had disappeared in the sunlight that was breaking through the rich greenery of the tree.

Yura and I stood there looking up. We weren’t sorry that we had set the Maybug free; we were a bit sad for a different reason. We didn’t say anything to each other, but it was clear that we both felt the same. Our feet stood on the asphalt of the yard, but our souls soared up high over the roof of the house, over the cherry trees laden with ripe cherries, glowing among the leaves, the sweet cherry tree near the trestle-bed, with its juicy yellow cherries, over the pigeon house with its hungry baby pigeons, their mouths wide open, over the apricot tree, over the whole yard, over the entire neighborhood.

Ah, how great it would be to fly like our Maybug, with no thread attached, and without the adults even noticing. Height in itself is beautiful, but we could also have so many nice adventures up there.

“Well, let’s go,” Yura sighed. “Let’s go. I’ll show you something.”

What a pity we couldn’t fly, but the two of us did enjoy ourselves in the yard.