Kitabı oku: «Everything Begins In Childhood», sayfa 17

Chapter 36. We’ll Go Visit Grandpa Tomorrow

“Three, four, five…” I counted as I tossed the langa into the air with my foot. It flew up, then down, turning in the air, doing a somersault, and I had my foot ready for it.

You don’t know what a langa is? That’s strange. You should know that every boy had that wonderful thing when I was a child. A langa is a small piece of fur with a piece of lead attached to it. You toss it up with your foot and, before it can land, you toss it again. The game seems simple, but it requires adroitness and skill. It consists of thirteen rounds and, in each of them, the langa should be tossed up in a different way, the movements growing more complicated with each successive round, and it must fly up and land in a certain way, different from the previous one.

Every boy obtained a piece of fur for his langa any way he could. Some of them traded their friends something for it. Others bought a piece of old mutton skin at the bazaar. Yet others found well-worn fur-lined boots or a torn fur collar or hat around the house. It was even simpler to get a piece of lead since scraps of wires and pieces of metal lay around factory yards, garbage dumps and even on the streets of Chirchik, just as in any Soviet city. One only needed to shape the lead the proper way. That was the most interesting part.

A big group would get together to melt the lead. They would make a small fire and hold a can filled with small pieces of lead over it using tongs. The flame heated the can, and the lead gradually came to life. It began to tremble at the bottom of the can. First, it trembled only slightly, then faster and faster… And suddenly, a thin dull layer appeared under the lead. It would spread, turning into a puddle. Bending over the can, we watched pieces of lead melt like ice cubes. It was an extremely engrossing sight. You just wanted to watch and watch.

When the last piece melted, only a silvery puddle remained in the can. A shallow pit would have been prepared near the fire, a mold for a sinker. We poured the lead carefully and evenly into it. After just a few minutes it solidified. The sinker was ready. All we had to do then was make two small holes in it with a nail and attach it to a piece of fur. That’s how we made langas.

* * *

“…six, seven, eight…” I continued to count. As I got to nine, the damned lead ricocheted against my shoe at a sharp angle, hit the side of the navy-blue mailbox and fell to the cement floor of the landing.

I was out of the game until the next round.

It was drizzling outside. It was autumn, which was as beautiful in Chirchik as, perhaps, everywhere else. The crowns of the trees became bright, lush scarlet-yellow-brown bouquets. They shone against the blue sky and gave off light even on rainy days. The water in the ariks didn’t flow bubbling and twisting at the turns but streamed slowly, stopping at small temporary dams made for watering. Hot days were rare, and we all enjoyed the coolness. Children’s voices could be heard in yards from morning till night. On rainy days like today, we could have a good time playing or chattering on the staircase landings. We could play langa, for example.

Our usual group – Kolya and Sasha, Edem, Rustem, Vova Oparin and I were playing today. After I missed, it was Edem’s turn. Today, we were all using his langa.

When Edem played, it always seemed to me that he and his langa looked alike. It was made of black fur and had long, almost straight strands, just like Edem’s hair. He didn’t like short haircuts, and his hair was straight. His langa flew up and landed especially easily, elegantly and quickly. That’s how Edem moved. He couldn’t sit still; he was always in motion. The other boys’ langas were also like them.

Vova Oparin led the game. Vova was a very good player; he knew it and liked to show off a bit. Before he began, he smoothed the long shiny fur, then tossed the langa up with his hand.

“It’s a bit too light,” he informed us. “Not enough lead.”

That was debatable. Certainly, more lead made a langa heavier and stabler in the air. That required strong feet, but even they would get tired. A light langa was less manageable, but it was easier to aim it in a desired direction. However, no one argued with Oparin. He had already begun to toss the langa.

When Vova’s turn came, everyone knew he would be doing it for a long time. You couldn’t take your eyes off of him as he tossed it up. Toop-toop – he sent the langa up. As it flew up, it looked like a fluffy little animal that obeyed the player as if he were a tamer – it knew what height it should reach, at what angle it should fly. After reaching the ceiling, the langa descended directly onto his foot, bounced off it like an athlete on a trampoline, flew up again and, after turning upside down, rushed back down again.

Pok-pok! Vova’s feet beat the rhythm on the floor as he got ready for the next kick while the langa was up in the air.

Oparin always played with amazing ease. Many of us strained our bodies during the game with both hands up in the air to keep our balance. Oparin played in a relaxed manner, his bearing erect. Even when he tossed the langa up, he didn’t lean forward. When he played, he held his left hand behind his back, and his right hand, bent at the elbow, was pressed to his side. He tossed the langa up fast and precisely, and he never missed.

It sometimes seemed to me that Vova could play with his eyes closed, that his body knew and felt everything by itself. And it sometimes seemed that it was his eyes that guided the langa, sending it special signals, radiating something. Vova’s eyes were so glued to the flying langa, so concentrated that if he had bumped into a wall, he would have gone through it without even noticing.

After finishing the stage called sis, tossing the langa up with one foot held off the floor all the time, Vova moved on to the stage called loori. Loori was a very complex stage. First, one had to place one foot behind the other and toss the langa up ten times with the foot of a bent leg, but it was even more complex than that. One had to jump while bending both legs, so that one leg was positioned higher than the other, and then toss the langa up with the leg that was positioned lower another ten times. That was pure acrobatics. To do that, even Vova had to draw his arms forward to keep his balance.

Oparin had already been handling the langa for ten minutes without missing. He was tired. His face, sunburned during the summer, was crimson and covered with perspiration. After finishing the last stage, he dried his face on his sleeve. Yes, he won, and it was clear that none of us could catch up with him. We didn’t feel like continuing the game.

“Let’s go see ‘Fantomas’” Edem suggested. “I’ve seen it twice. It’s a great movie.”

We all approved of his idea and ran home to get money.

* * *

Mama was slicing carrots for pilaf in the kitchen. I liked to watch how she did it. She would place carrots on a tahtach, a board with short legs, something like a little table. She placed a plate between its legs and the sliced carrots would fall into it. Mama pressed half a carrot to the tahtach with a finger of her left hand as the blade of a knife flashed in her right hand and thin sticks of carrot flew out. The speed with which she did it always captivated me, though it was somewhat scary, for it seemed that her finger could get under the blade. No matter how many times I watched her slicing vegetables, I couldn’t get used to it; my heart missed a beat every time. This spectacle attracted me so much that I wanted to take part in it – for example, to snap my fingers to the rhythm of the knife’s beating against the cutting board. But the rhythm was so rapid that my fingers couldn’t keep up with Mama’s speed.

Mama turned around as she heard me enter the kitchen. Her eyes were tearstained.

“Grandpa Hanan is not well. He’s at the hospital,” Mama sniffled, but she immediately dried her eyes.

Emma sat at the kitchen table eating a carrot with a crunch and staring at Mama with her round eyes. It was clear from the expression in her eyes that if Mama sniffled another time, Emma would make a scene.

“Are you going to see him, Mom? Will you go soon?”

I caught Mama’s agitation. Grandpa often didn’t feel well, and we were used to it. But if Mama was so upset and crying, it meant that he felt much worse. I didn’t want to go to the movie any longer. I wanted to see Grandpa. Today was a day off. It meant that Mama would go to see him and perhaps take me along.

“Shall we go see him, Mom?” I asked another time.

“Father won’t let me,” she whispered.

Perhaps such an answer might have seemed strange to another child but not to me, not to me. I knew too well what cruel actions my Father was capable of. It was useless to ask why he had done it and how he could possibly not to allow his wife to visit her ailing father.

I sighed and asked, “May I go to the movies?”

Mama nodded.

“Go. Here’s the money… Listen,” she suddenly asked. “Will you take Emma with you? Just hold her hand. Just be sure to hold her hand the whole time.”

* * *

The October Movie Theater was a three-minute walk from our place. The three-story brick building was located on a hill and, for that reason, reminded me of a fortress. The movie theater’s back wall faced our building. That was where the exit for spectators and the basement to which a short staircase led were located. The basement attracted us boys, no less than the auditorium with its movies.

It was a workshop, or an atelier, as its master, Uncle Petya, preferred to call it. In our opinion, Uncle Petya was the best artist in the world. He painted posters to advertise upcoming movies. We considered those posters wonderful works of art. However, it seems to me, even now, that they were expressive, colorful and detailed.

Uncle Petya was a kind, sincere person. We once stopped by his atelier by accident, and soon became habitués. As soon as we showed up, a welcoming exclamation would be heard, “Ah, guys, it’s you! Come in, come on in!” And we didn’t make him beg us. We spent long hours in Uncle Petya’s atelier, especially when it was raining. There, in the basement, days never seemed rainy and drab. It was always light and festive in that small room crammed with posters, canvases on frames and cans of paint. Our favorite characters looked down at us from the posters. Uncle Petya, brushes in his hands, worked wonders on the canvases, and another adventurer, noble knight or warrior would appear on them. We met Captain Nemo, Robinson Crusoe, a kind policeman in evil and merciless New York City, and a great number of other characters before the movies were released.

Sometimes, we became Uncle Petya’s collaborators, well, perhaps not collaborators but consultants. For instance, let’s say he was painting a poster for the movie “The Last of the Mohicans.” We stretched our necks the better to see the sunburnt figures of the Indians that appeared on the canvas. They were Chingachgook and his son Uncas.

Suddenly, someone’s voice broke the silence. “You have it wrong, Uncle Petya. They paint their faces dark red before a battle. You have them pale.” Or “Un-n-cle Petya! What about the tomahawk? There should be leather strips on the handle. Don’t you remember?”

Uncle Petya, puffing his pipe, would nod with a serious air and repeat, “That’s my boy, that’s my boy. Thank you.” And he made the necessary corrections. Perhaps it wasn’t that important, but we were very proud of our contribution to his art.

A line would appear at the box office, sometimes a very long one, as soon as a new poster went up at the main entrance. We were absolutely sure that it was Uncle Petya’s skill that brought people to the movie theater. After making ourselves comfortable on a bench in the little park in front of the movie theater, we would watch people examine a poster closely, trying to guess what impression it made on them and arguing about it. We enjoyed our superiority over other people. Just imagine, we already knew what the next poster would be! We knew, and these people didn’t.

* * *

It was almost dinner time as we returned from the movie theater, very satisfied with yet another “Fantomas.” Every episode of the series seemed wonderful. They shot, sank to the ocean depths and raced in balloons in those episodes.

As Emma and I were entering our building, Uncle Kolya, our neighbor, called to me. “Valery, listen…” he bent over the railing and spoke louder, “There was a lot of noise at your place… Your parents were quarreling again… I knocked on your door, but they didn’t let me in… If anything’s wrong, call me, or just run to our place right away. Got it?”

I nodded and, still holding Emma by the hand, entered the building. “They quarreled.” I knew perfectly well what that meant. Father gave Mama another beating. It was about ten steps from the entrance to our door, but it seemed to me that ages passed before I inserted the key into the keyhole. The key didn’t want to go in. On top of that, Emma was weighing my right hand down.

The clang of the lock and the clatter of the door seemed awfully loud in the quiet apartment. I looked around – where was Mama? But first I saw Father. He stood before the mirror in the bathroom, and it seemed to me that he was drying himself. I saw right away that the towel was covered with blood. And then, when he lowered his arm, I saw blood streaming from an open wound on his collarbone.

“What scum!” Father mumbled, pressing the towel to the wound.

“Mama!” Emma’s happy voice sounded in the kitchen. “Mama, we watched ‘Fantomas’!”

I rushed to the kitchen. Mama was sitting on a chair near the table, hugging Emma, who clung to her, with one hand, and the kafkir, the large flat spatula with another. A bright red spot had spread on it.

Mama’s face looked terrible. I didn’t want to look at it, but I couldn’t help it. Her left cheek was swollen, there was a dark crimson spot around her swollen eye, dried out blood on her lips, her hair disheveled. I rushed to her and hugged her, burying my face in her shoulder. She was mumbling, “It’s all right, son, it’s all right… Now he knows that I can do it too… Just let him try again… It’s all right, son. We’ll go visit Grandpa tomorrow.”

Chapter 37. Little Musicians and GooPoo

It may sound strange, but, when I was a child, I perceived the school as a living creature. I mean the school building itself. For example, I imagined very clearly what happened to it on the first day of the school year. I imagined that the school was at last awakened, like Sleeping Beauty, by hundreds of princes and princesses with ringing voices, after a very long hibernation, after many months of sullen, sultry, dusty stillness.

That stillness was broken suddenly. The bell was the first to end it. It continued ringing as the long corridors filled with the clomping of feet, as the thin walls began to shake with laughter and shouting, as the staircases hummed like a prairie under the hooves of bison running to a watering hole. It seemed that the glass in the windows glistening in the sunlight couldn’t wait to be shattered by a ball so that its tinkling would join in the general merriment.

That was inside the school building. And what about the outside? No, it wasn’t accidental, it certainly wasn’t, that the height of autumn coincided with the end of summer vacation. Autumn itself congratulated us on the first day of school, spreading its multi-colored carpet in front of the school building and turning the leaves fiery, clearly reminding us of the many pleasures awaiting us outside the school.

And we never forgot about them. No matter how the school enjoyed our lively return, no matter how eager our teachers were to stuff our heads with the subtleties of knowledge, the school yard was much more attractive.

Vzh-zh-zh! Vzh-zh-zh! Vzh-zh-zh was heard above the school’s round flowerbed.

A long recess. There were dozens of children around the flowerbed in the schoolyard. It was as quiet there as in a classroom in which the strictest teacher made sure no one talked. In fact, there was a kind of hunt underway near the flowerbed, and it required complete quiet.

“Little musicians” were being hunted. That’s what we called the small bumblebees. They were the same size as wasps, but hairy, and “dressed” in smart vests. There were very many of them. They circled above the yellow honeysuckle flowers, unhurriedly choosing a landing place to settle down on a pistil and get to the business of collecting nectar. There were many other insects, including big heavy bumblebees and wasps, feasting on the flowerbed. But we hunted only the little musicians. They were merry, energetic, swift and noisy. It honestly seemed to me that we and they were close relatives. It was sufficient to listen to their ringing buzz to feel that kinship. The little musicians’ melody was as clear and piercing as a child’s voice. They changed frequencies effortlessly, and that created the variety of sounds. In a word, the little musicians were our favorites. And we, naturally, had no doubt that they flew to the schoolyard especially for our pleasure.

“It’s about to alight,” I whispered.

I held a paper trap in my hands. It was a sheet of notebook paper cleverly folded to mimic the wide-open beak of a hungry baby bird that would shut tight the second its mother put a beetle in it.

Making and scrutinizing this paper trap was just one of the many technical innovations with which we boys began each school year. Practically all of us could share a story about something new we had learned over the summer when we returned to school from vacation. This new knowledge included new types of paper airplanes, boomerangs, crackers, soldiers’ caps and those very traps, one of which I was holding in my hands now. We improved some things and developed others. Parents could only throw up their hands – how could it be that a thick composition notebook recently bought was used up? They calmed down after hearing that many drafts had to be written and many clean copies made. They calmed down and were even satisfied with their sons’ diligence.

Their sons were quite diligent but in a different field of endeavor, so to speak. But was that so bad?

“It’s about to alight,” I whispered, attempting to breathe quietly.

Zhenya Andreyev, a friend from my class, and I froze near the flowerbed. A little musician, the one closest to us, glided above a yellow flower, either scrutinizing it, simply enjoying flying, or fulfilling a special bumblebee ritual. Zhenya and I didn’t just watch it, we felt as if we were gliding along with the little musician. We didn’t see or hear anything but this small creature whose buzzing sounds were close to our ears, and whose wings flapped so fast that only dull blurry spots could be seen on the sides of its little yellow vest.

Vzh-zh-zh-z… The flower quivered slightly, then began to sway… It had landed. The little musician closed its wings, extended its tiny tongue and directed it to the spot where the tastiest, sweet nectar awaited it. I opened the trap, my shoulders tensed, my muscles… Bang! It was done. It was caught. Oh, what a happy moment that was!

Yes, that’s what we were about – the ardor of the hunt was so exhilarating that every catch seemed like the first one, every bit of good luck called forth exultation.

The white “walls” of the trap vibrated in my hands. The little musician now beat against them, now buzzed. It buzzed excitedly, very loudly and clearly.

“Wow! Listen to it!” Zhenya laughed.

We brought our ears close to the trap to enjoy the concert. Now, we could brag about our luck and let other boys listen to how our little musician was singing and listen to the way their captives were doing it.

Some hunters, those who were more adroit, managed to catch two, even three bumblebees in one trap. They had a whole orchestra playing inside it. Everybody came running to listen to such a concert.

“Spit on your hand and rub it. You could also put plantain on it,” we advised Vitya Shalgin.

In the heat of the hunt, he hadn’t noticed that a little musician had stung him. Now, he had a red blister on his neck. It hurt a lot and it itched terribly. Everyone in class would watch the hunter’s agony, and the teacher… We would be having history class, and our teacher…

The bell rang loudly. Was it time to go already? Recess had passed so fast. We set our prisoners free. The lively creatures immediately resumed their flight over the flowerbed as if nothing had happened and continued their occupation in a businesslike manner. They were luckier than we.

* * *

There were thirty students in class 5B, seventeen girls and thirteen boys. We had nothing against this ratio for we had already begun to appreciate female company. And we considered our girls very likeable. Notes were exchanged, paper airplanes flew back and forth, not to mention exchanges of glances, giggling and other displays of attention in class. It happened in almost all classes except history.

Deathly silence reigned in history class. All attention, everyone’s gaze was directed at the history teacher, and at him alone, in history class. If anyone tried to break the silence or became distracted, an F for behavior was inevitable. One could also be called to the blackboard, where something quite unpleasant could happen.

History was taught by Georgy Vasilyevich, but in our class, just as in every other class, he was called “GooPoo.” That was a very exact nickname because there was something slimy about him. Add another consonant, and it will be clear what we all meant. But even without the added consonant, the name was quite expressive.

We were not lucky with teachers. There were hardly any about whom we could say, “That’s quite a teacher!”

One of the exceptions was Yulia Pavlovna who taught geography. That pleasant, calm woman seemed not to make any special efforts to captivate us. She simply loved her ancient science and took pleasure in sharing with us what she knew. And one more thing – she treated children nicely. We who had just been fighting during recess didn’t notice how we turned into knights or crossed an ocean on merchant ships, prepared for a fight with pirates or floated in weightlessness in a spaceship in her class. Of course, we remembered all that, and when Yulia Pavlovna asked questions, all hands went up. From all directions one could hear, “May I answer?”

We all admitted that Yulia Pavlovna was quite a teacher. And such recognition is not something that came easily from kids. We scoffed at our teachers most of the time, seeking out their funny features and foibles. One of them would look at his shoes all the time, removing every speck of dust from them, while another delighted in picking her nose.

Georgy Vasilyevich surprised everybody. It wasn’t any single habit. His whole person was… In a word, his nickname GooPoo was not accidental.

In class, GooPoo behaved either like a tamer of beasts in the circus or a warden at a camp for juvenile delinquents. He walked up and down the aisles all the time. His pacing had certain rules, which he observed precisely. First, GooPoo would stop in the middle of a row, standing up straight, as if at attention. Then, after swallowing saliva, he would produce a very loud sound with his lips and tongue. Tsk-tsk was the approximate sound. Then he would take a few steps, beating his leg slightly with the pointer. That polished wooden pointer was always in his hand; he never parted with it. One got the feeling that GooPoo didn’t see children’s faces in front of him but rather a herd of wild horses. Phyut-phyut – his pointer, or rather whip, whistled softly from time to time, accompanying almost every word the teacher pronounced.

“I’m not” phyut - phyut “your Flura Merziyevna… or Izolda Zakharovna.” phyut - phyut “I won’t allow…” phyut - phyut “…nonsense in my class.”

For some reason, GooPoo thought that nonsense took place in the classes of our head teacher Flura, and physics teacher Izolda.

“I won’t allow it!” GooPoo repeated, lashing his leg once again with the pointer, going up on his toes, then down, and clicking his heels. That gymnastic exercise obviously raised our teacher above our class and other teachers. Perhaps, a rooster views himself as soaring above the whole world when he spreads his wings and stretches out his neck before crowing his cock-a-doodle-doo. After that, GooPoo would scan the class with his piercing eyes and proclaim, “There will be complete attention in my class!”

And then he would turn sharply and smartly, like a frontline officer, to his next victim standing at the blackboard. Zhenya Gaag was his victim today. Thin, pale, and light-haired, he shrunk so much under GooPoo’s gaze that it seemed he was trying to become invisible. The number of freckles on his face was increasing right before our very eyes… Zhenya had never demonstrated brilliance in class. It was hardly possible he would do so this time.

“Well, what can you tell us about the distinctive features of the primeval communal system? Summarize the material.”

It was that very system and its contribution to future social systems that GooPoo was teaching us, in his usual dry, boring manner, that day. The boredom could lull anyone to sleep. Since GooPoo would tsk-tsk, tap his leg lightly with the pointer and walk up and down the aisles while he delivered his lectures, it was impossible to doze. But it was also impossible to listen to attentively and remember it. Many boys in my class, including me, really liked history. When we did our homework, we read the textbook “The History of the Ancient World” willingly, and we didn’t find it boring. It was a good textbook, with many photographs and drawings, with interesting stories about expeditions and excavations, about the skeleton of a dinosaur found somewhere in the Sahara, about a cave, the abode of primeval people, discovered in the mountains of Europe. But there were no dinosaurs nor caves nor people wearing animal hides, no smell of smoke from a fire started with a wooden stick nor roaring of a mammoth whom hunters had driven into a deep hole in our history classes. There was no life in those classes.

Poor Zhenya! GooPoo continued swishing the pointer, repeating his command, “Summarize, summarize.” But Zhenya was shrinking even more and uttering incomprehensible sounds. He was like one of those primeval people about whom he was supposed to speak. However, such similarity could hardly be considered the teacher’s accomplishment.

“Congratulations on your D grade. Take your seat.”

After finishing off his victim, GooPoo turned to the class with yet another round of exercises. His pointer whistled as it hit his leg, then was raised, the point forward as if it were ready to fly off and pierce another martyr. The class sat motionless. Who would be next?

Dr-r-r-r! the bell rang out.

Hurray! What great luck!