Everything Begins In Childhood

When I sat down at the table, the bag was full of rusks. Now, I thrust my hand into the bag and took out the last one.

Uncle Mikhail nodded, “Kosh” which meant, “Good, that’s my boy.” “Are you full?”

I nodded, and we both smiled, very pleased with each other. Yes, it was a pity that Uncle Mikhail was away. If he had been at home, Yasha and I would have hung out near Uncle Mikhail’s old Pobeda (Victory) car after we were done with Raya’s lesson. It was usually parked in the yard. Yasha and Ilya were allowed to wash it, and they really enjoyed it. That was the beginning of the brothers’ initiation into their father’s profession. He was a chauffeur, liked his occupation and had a perfect understanding of technical equipment.

So many different incidents, quarrels, and sometimes fights took place between the brothers because of the car washing. I remember the time when Yura and I were on the way to the Shaakovs’, and after we turned into their lane, we saw the Pobeda at the arik. It was sparkling in the sun, all covered with water. We also saw the washers. Drawing water from the arik with a bucket, Ilya would douse the car, and Yasha, who stood on the other side of it, wiped the doors with a terry cloth towel. As we approached them, Ilya splashed water over the roof of the car, and the water hit Yasha, who then yelled obscenities at his brother. Twelve-year-old Yasha knew the four-letter words he had learned from his brother to perfection.

But the elder brother was indignant. “Wha-a-at? How dare you? In front of other people… Just you wait, Baldy, I’ll get you!”

He grabbed another wet cloth from the hood of the car, twisted it into a braid and rushed toward Yasha. A high-speed chase around the car ensued, during which the brothers exchanged swear words the whole time. Yura and I looked at each other, knowing perfectly well how this incident would end. The younger brother was quite agile, but the older one still managed to catch him. After kicking Yasha in the butt and hitting him on the back of his head, Ilya proceeded to the primary punishment – the arm twisting.

“Does it hurt? Say ‘Kind man, forgive this shithead!’” he repeated.

Bending over lower and lower from pain, almost on his knees, Yasha tolerated it for a long time. He groaned, tried to wriggle away, but then, when he couldn’t take it any longer, he yelled and squealed, and tears appeared in his eyes. It was agony to watch, but it was absolutely useless to interfere. Could we, ten-year-old boys, handle the huge Ilya?

Naturally, Yasha gave up. First, he mumbled something, but Ilya demanded, “Louder, Baldy! Repeat after me: ‘kind man’…” And poor Yasha repeated the humiliating apology loudly word for word.

Of course, we were sorry for Yasha, but he, when he could, tried to spite his brother. They both misbehaved now and then, but the result was that Ilya always played the part of the executioner, and Yasha the part of the executed. But he didn’t yield. It even seemed to me that both torturer and tortured enjoyed it.

I sometimes wondered whether Yasha and Ilya loved each other. Was their friendship true? I didn’t have a brother, and I regretted it. I often imagined that I had a brother who was almost my age and we were always together. We would tell each other everything, share secrets, play pranks, and when one of us happened to fight with someone, of course we would always stand up for each other.

Even though I was very attached to my cousin Yura, he couldn’t replace the brother I yearned for. Firstly, since my family had moved to Chirchik, we saw each other only in summer. Secondly, our relations weren’t that serene. Sometimes, we behaved no better than Yasha and Ilya. We fought and swore at each other, though we managed to do it without hurting each other, execution style. Sometimes, I suffered because of Yura’s pranks.

Once in summer, we walked down Shedovaya Street on the way home. We were walking slowly. Suddenly, two guys ran up to us. Before I realized what was happening, Yura dashed away. One of the guys grabbed me by the shoulder, as the other, older one asked: “What is he to you?”

“My little brother,” I answered. At that moment I heard Yura’s piercing cry, “Redhead, run away!”

But it was too late. I felt a blow to my belly that was so hard that my vision blurred, and I gasped for breath.

“That’s for your brother,” I heard as I squatted, almost falling over.

The guys left right after that since Yura was too far away for them to catch. He ran up to me and began to raise me, mumbling, “I told you to run away.”

He told me? He didn’t tell me, he yelled after he had run away leaving me alone. How could I guess what would happen when the guys I didn’t know ran up to me? It turned out that they were brothers, the younger of which Yura had either offended or tricked. The younger one naturally complained to his older brother, and… But what did that have to do with me?

In a word, sometimes it seemed to me that Yura acted in a not-quite-brotherly way.

When we told Ilya about it, he dealt with the guy who had hit me.

* * *

However, today I was in Yasha’s company. Our lesson was over, and the morning air was cool, which meant that we shouldn’t expect intense heat throughout the day. That was great because we planned to spend the whole day outside. We always had lots of interesting things to do, and some of them had already been planned.

Yasha was the first to go out to the yard. When I showed up, he was carefully tying the end of a long piece of twine around a big potato, repeating, “It’ll go off all right.”

Well-armed, we ran to Kafanov Street. We didn’t know a thing about the revolutionary combat glory of that street. However, we were about to make our own contribution to it. We chose a secluded place behind a big tree at the edge of the sidewalk. After waiting till there were neither pedestrians nor cars in sight, Yasha handed me the end of the cord, ran to the middle of the street, put the potato on a spot where traces of tires cold be seen and came back. Almost immediately after that, the noise of a vehicle was heard, and a truck appeared. Yasha had placed the potato very well. A loud shmya-k-k could be heard.

“The test was successful,” Yasha said, giggling. He pulled the cord with the remains of the crushed potato to the sidewalk, took a piece of metal with the end folded over out of his pocket and replaced the shell, so to speak.

The next project was to hunt a bigger beast than a truck – a trolley bus. Yasha ran to the roadway and placed the metal “shell” under the trolley wires.

I considered Yasha a great expert on the subject of trolley buses. He recognized their arrival at a stop by the slightest stirring of the wires. I had noticed it two years before when we were standing at a trolley stop. No trolley was yet in sight when Yasha said, “It’s coming.” I was surprised. He raised his hand and pointed at the wires. I didn’t see right away that they were stirring. And indeed, a trolley arrived shortly.

At that time of day, there wasn’t much traffic on Kafanov Street. Vehicles passed by at long intervals, and it was possible to guess by the sound of their tires what vehicle was coming. Cars emitted a light sound – vsh-shik, and the car was gone. A big clumsy trolley bus was a different story. When it was still far away, a crescendo of sound similar to wailing could already be heard. As it drew nearer, a sound made by the electrical contacts could be heard from the driver’s cabin, and sometimes sparks flew from the wires.

A big, heavy trolley bus that looked like a beast, ready to carry along everything in its path, was coming our way. Here it was, almost upon us. The front wheel missed the metal “shell.” Yasha managed to pull the twine quickly to move the “shell,” and… Crack… the shell flew off the rear wheel, hit the bottom of the trolley, ricocheted against the asphalt, and crashed into the side of the trolley. Yasha immediately pulled the cord back.

We were both ecstatic. Even Yasha hadn’t expected such success. But our ecstasy was immediately replaced by fear – the brakes went on, and the trolley slowed down and stopped. Fortunately, we were behind the bushes. The door opened, the driver got out of the trolley, walked around it, and shrugged his shoulders…

It worked out. He was gone. But we decided not to continue that dangerous kind of hunt today. Another type of hunt, no less fascinating, awaited us.

* * *

One of the advantages of Yasha’s lane was the street water spigot. The small metal column to which the spigot was attached rested on a cement stand. Water from the spigot dripped onto the stand, overflowing it. Not far from it, there was a perfect puddle in a depression at the edge of the sidewalk. The shade of the adjoining trees kept it from drying out. Besides, it was constantly being filled with water. So that puddle and the spigot were the principal delight of that lane. There, we turned into water gunners and hunted insects.

What insects? Can you imagine a big Asian city, a southern city, with its fruit gardens, bazaars where they sell fruits, meat, fish from outdoor counters, where there is no trace of refrigerators, with its garbage pails at the gates, its toilets lacking proper conveniences? Imagine all that and you’ll understand why the life of any boy in Asia takes place from early spring to late autumn amid crawling and flying insects, mostly flies of different types and sizes: houseflies, meat flies, tiny fruit flies. There were plenty of wasps, which didn’t shrink from any food. We could also play with Maybugs, rhinoceros beetles, long green mantises, grasshoppers, goggle-eyed dragonflies –all of which could be caught and tortured.

Certainly, many insects annoyed us, but we got used to them as an inevitable evil, like flies, for instance. But I and many boys I knew harbored special hatred toward wasps. It was clear why – their bites were very painful; I knew from experience. Once, Grandma Lisa was cooking dinner, and she asked me to bring potatoes from the cellar. On my way back, I noticed an almost rotten squashed apricot on the path and kicked it with my foot, but there was a wasp on the apricot. The wasp replied in kind. I heard vzh-zhik, something flashed before my eyes, and I felt a sharp burning sting on the top of my head. The pain was so sharp that I wailed, dropped the potatoes and rushed to Grandma, yelling, “A wasp stung me!” Grandma grabbed me by the arm, took me to the fridge and applied a cut tomato to the top of my head.

“Hold it, rub it in,” she said calmly. Obviously, this was not the first time she had had to deal with a wasp sting. “Where are the potatoes? Go bring them.”

My hatred of wasps was boundless after that. Just the sight of a little yellow body with black stripes called forth a shudder of disgust. I craved revenge. And the best place for revenge was the puddle at the water spigot at Kafanov Lane 5. Insects and birds flew to the puddle, as to a watering hole, starting early in the morning. Stray dogs and alley cats came running to drink the fresh water. Water spiders ran across the water, and small circles formed on the surface from their tiny feet. In a word, it was a wonderful puddle.

It was interesting that visitors to this watering hole didn’t use it all at once. It seemed that they observed a certain order. Wasps came flying in during the morning hours.

After flying in circles above the water, a wasp would find a little stone or twig, alight on it and begin to drink. Its mouth couldn’t be seen but it moved its antennae above the water and its little bottom trembled with pleasure.

“Drown, you scoundrel!” I pressed the water gun and a strong spurt knocked the wasp into the center of the puddle. At first, it moved its wings and thrashed around helplessly. After watching its agony with pleasure, I would shoot another spurt from my water gun, and the movement subsided.

“Served it right!” Yasha said. He also hated wasps, but he hated bumblebees even more. It was bumblebees he wanted to settle scores with. Yasha had a swollen eye for a long time after a bumblebee sting.

After we emptied our water guns, we ran to the spigot and filled them again. Today, we water gunners – that’s what we called ourselves – had a wonderful day. It was hard to count how many wasps we had destroyed, along with some other creatures.

Our water guns were empty one-liter shampoo bottles. We made holes in their lids, wider ones than on the sprinklers we used in our usual games when we fought with each other, so a spurt from the water gun was much stronger. Yasha and I became quite proficient at the use of this weapon. We were no worse than the heroes of the sea stories by Jack London who, I assume, could do nothing but shoot accurately. We also shot without missing.

* * *

“Greetings to the fighting men! Another children’s game?” Kirill, Yasha’s neighbor, who was the same age as Yasha, said, grinning. “I’ve been at the construction site. Guess what they’ve delivered there. Huge rolls of fiberglass. It’s so soft, jumping on them is like jumping on a trampoline. Up, and you feel like you’re flying… It’s really great.”

And after holding up his thumb to illustrate his words, Kirill walked away, limping slightly.

We exchanged glances.

“Shall we go there?” I said.

“Let’s go. But why’s he limping?” suspicious Yasha asked.

“He must have jumped too much.”

We ran to the construction site. We couldn’t possibly miss seeing those amazing rolls. It was Sunday, and there were no workers or security there.

“Wow! Look at them… And there’re so many of them!” Yasha exclaimed, as we approached the site.

Indeed, pinkish-brown rolls of a material called fiberglass – we didn’t give a thought to why it was called that – were stacked by the wall and used for insulation. They looked soft and plump. Wasting no time, we climbed on top of them. Kirill hadn’t lied. The fiberglass was so springy that we were tossed up as if on trampoline every time we jumped. Yasha was having a great time. He jumped onto the stack from the window above it. Sometimes he managed to jump smoothly and stay on his feet, sometimes he was tossed so high that he landed on all fours with his hands buried in the fiberglass. That’s why he was probably the first to feel the trouble. Yasha began to scratch his hand after he jumped down off the stack, then he bent down to his legs. My legs also began to itch strangely, and my whole body was burning.

“Yasha, what’s wrong with us?”

“What? What?” Yasha answered, whining as he took off his sandals, “Kirill is such a swine. He lured us to the fiberglass deliberately. Remember he was limping? I’ll pay this skunk back,” and Yasha began brushing the invisible splinters of glass off his feet and legs.

I was gripped by panic. We had been jumping on wool with bits of real glass. “What if it’s penetrated our bodies?” I thought. The stinging sensation, especially on our legs, intensified. “We need to wash ourselves!” I yelled, and we rushed home.

* * *

Everything, of course, ended well. I don’t remember how Yasha paid Kirill back.

As for his math, Yasha didn’t pass the test again, and he had to repeat the fifth grade. So his sister’s prediction about laughter came true.

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.