by Bibish
“And I tell you: since you live here, you have to obey our traditions.”
“And if I go to Mongolia I have to live like the Buddhists, and in Italy like the Catholics, is that it? I have my own faith, here inside me, and I don’t force it on anyone. And I advise you not to try to force yours on me!”
She was very offended, she walked off, and for a long time after that she grumbled and complained to the neighbors that what I said was wrong and what I did was wrong.
Several times I went out early in the morning with a big plastic sack and collected empty bottles on the sidewalks and in the park. Mostly I found beer bottles. They smelled so terrible!
I wasn’t embarrassed at all. I collected a full plastic sack every time and brought it to that woman so that she wouldn’t be angry and try to tell me what customs to observe.
In principle she was a good person. She was just obsessed with the question of Russian and non-Russian. So I’m not Russian—what am I supposed to do, die? The way God made me, that’s what I am. People all love their own nation. I love mine too, but I’m not going to make others suffer because of it. If you think like that woman, there’ll be quarrels and resentment, there’ll be evil, and in the end there’ll be war.
But you can’t convince an old person. It’s better to put up with it.
A day went by. Early in the morning I set out for the school that Uncle Sasha had recommended to us. Yes, the school really was close to our house, and we could even hear the bell from the apartment.
In the school I was seen by the head teacher, and I told her about what had happened to my son. She said:
“All right, bring the documents, and bring the children at the same time. I’ll get to know them and assign them to classes.”
I ran to the old school for the documents, collected them, and went to the head teacher with the children. She had a talk with them and she was astonished:
“We always expect backward children from Central Asia, recently some new pupils came to us—they speak really poor Russian. We’re having real trouble with them. But your children even speak without any accent, they answered my questions very well. Where did they learn to do that?”
“My mother-in-law,” I answered, “is half Russian, and my husband graduated from the Russian school. Since they were little my mother-in-law looked after them, she sang them lullabies, read them Russian fairytales. Then my children were in the Russian group at kindergarten, and after that we put them in the Russian school, and the result is that they don’t know their own language, and they don’t want to know it, and they even scold me: ‘Don’t babble in Chukcha to us, mom,’ they say. It’s because of them that we came here.”
“Very good. Let’s go to classroom 5A, and I’ll introduce Aibek to the children, and we’ll take your second son to the office of the head teacher of elementary classes.”
We went into classroom 5A. The pupils stood up, the head teacher said hello to them and began explaining:
“Boys and girls, a new pupil has come to join you, he’s called Aibek, and not long ago something tragic happened to him. I’m warning you: no name-calling, no beatings. I hope you understand me, all right?”
And now, knock on wood, they’ve been going to that school for more than two years without anything terrible happening.
But then, after that business Aibek became absentminded. All the things that he put on for school—his cap, his jacket, his school shoes, his boots—one by one, he left them all at school, forgot them, and in the morning no one could find anything. He cried in his sleep for a long time as well. And during the day he felt weak and humiliated.
The children had to give up music. I put them in a sports club to do judo and sambo. My second son’s already doing well at everything. Aibek, as always, is lagging behind.
Those are the kinds of problems my children have had here in Russia.
Just as Aunty Lida had told me, I went to the municipal offices again—to knock on all the doors: I went into the building and set off round the offices. I opened one door, and a lot of women were sitting at computers. They asked me:
“What do you want?”
But I couldn’t explain properly. They sent me to a different office, to their boss. I went to the boss. I knocked on the door and opened it. I saw a woman sitting there. I said to her:
“If they don’t understand me here, I’ll probably die.”
She received me kindly:
“What’s the matter? Sit down, calm down, and tell me everything from the beginning. I’m listening to you.”
I told her everything: that I had all the documents, that I was a Russian citizen, but I had no resident permit and only a six-month registration. Because of that they wouldn’t give me a license, we just sat at home, the money we’d brought was running out, and so on . . . She said:
“You can’t go and die, you have to feed your children. I saw an even worse case than yours: A woman brought some petrol, soaked herself from head to foot, and wanted to set fire to herself. She had children too, a Russian woman. When she moved here to Russia from somewhere else, they stole everything she had in the train—her money and her things, there was nothing left. We barely managed to calm her down, and we helped her settle in. After that everything was fine. So stop thinking about dying. Have you been to the migration center?”
“Yes.”
“Now go there again and ask them if they’re going to solicit your case. If they refuse, come back here immediately, and then I’ll tell you what to do. Do you understand?”
“Yes!”
“Then go to the migration center and come back to me!”
I ran to the migration center and explained to them, they said:
“You have citizenship of the Russian Federation, you have nothing to do with us. Ask for everything you need from the municipal administration, we’re not going to solicit for your application!” After that answer I went running back to the woman at the municipal center. She was expecting me.
“I knew it,” she said. “I knew they’d refuse. All right, never mind. Then write an application to the chairman of the Soviet of deputies, I’ll dictate it to you.” And she dictated it.
She took me and the application and we walked round all the floors, she went into the office of the chairman of the Soviet of deputies, explained my situation and solicited for my application. (To be quite honest, to this day I don’t know what the word “solicit” means, so there you are.) We went back to her office and she said:
“There, you see, it’s all settled. Now I’ll make a phone call, and tomorrow they’ll give you a license to trade. And you wanted to die! How cunning you are—planning to abandon two children! It won’t work! Now you can go, everything will be all right for you now.”
“Thank you, I don’t know how to thank you.”
“No need to thank me, it’s my job. When I can help someone, I think it’s been a good day!”
I said good-bye to her and almost burst into tears, I was so happy.
I went dashing to the wholesale shop, and bought some boxes of candy and coffee. I went back to the municipal building and into her office. She saw me and was surprised:
“What else has happened now?”
“Nothing’s happened, in our parts they say you can’t put a thank-you in your pocket. Take these, please, they’re for you.”
She said:
“No, I won’t take them. Give them to the children, let them eat them.”
“Take them, they’re for you, with all my heart!”
“No-no, you’d better give them to the children from me, say Aunty Tonya asked you to.”
Probably I tried to persuade her for about twenty minutes, but she didn’t take my gifts. And I went back to the apartment happy. After all, I wanted to pay my taxes honestly, not like some people who take off like rabbits. I just wanted everything to be official.
And that was how my commercial activity began. After two months the management of the market allocated us a definit
e place, but before that we were hopping from one stall to another every day. In the end that was settled too. I went to Moscow every week for the goods—shoes and clothes.
Our landlord was in the hospital for exactly three months. I visited him often. Uncle Sasha had had his operation, and no longer had a tube now. And they’d taken away the bottle for urine.
“I was married twice, from the first marriage there are two children, and there are two children from the second marriage too. I used to be a boss, I had everything—money and friends. But now I’ve gotten old, I’ve retired, I’m sick . . . I’m ashamed to admit that apart from you no one has visited me in the hospital—not my friends, not my children. I still don’t really know you, and we haven’t lived together yet, and you’ve shown such concern for me. Thank you! As soon as I get out of hospital, we’ll get to know each other better, all right?”
“Alexander Ivanovich, some day we’ll get old too and we could find ourselves in the same situation, and so old people should be respected.”
But he shook his head and said:
“In your parts, in the East, it’s the custom to respect old age, but in Russia everything’s different, they treat old people with less respect.”
The children went to school and my husband and I traded, after all, we had a license now.
By the way, I met many interesting people at the market. People end up there in various ways, you know. Among the traders there are doctors, teachers, even former actors. Usually they don’t like to talk about how they ended up there. Life works out differently for everyone. But everyone has to feed their children, that’s the way it is.
At the market all sorts of funny things were always happening to me. And all because of my “knowledge” of Russian! That was why the trade wasn’t going well—before I could find the right word, the customer would walk away.
The market traders often used different Russian words like privozit’ (to bring), zavozit’ (to drop off ), navozit’ (to bring in) to mean “deliver.” And I wondered: Why do they use such long words and different forms? You can shorten the word. One time a woman came up to me and asked:
“How much is the denim shirt?”
“Two hundred and fifty roubles. Take it, it’s very good, they only brought it recently. It’s still a new delivery.” Only I used the word navoz for “delivery,” and that means “manure.”
That was what I said: “It’s still new manure.”
Another customer came up to me and asked about a leather jacket.
“A good jacket,” I said. “It costs a thousand five hundred roubles. Only one left from the old manure.”
My husband heard me frightening away the customers, and he got angry:
“What’s this you’ve been saying, for pete’s sake! ‘old manure,’ ‘new manure’ . . . As if you were trading in shit. Next time, think what you’re saying!”
One time an old woman came up to me and asked:
“Daughter, how much are your boots?”
“What kind do you want?”
“Well, so it’s easy for me to put them on and take them off.”
“Choose the kind you’re looking for. Here, I’ve got these galoshes for you!”
“Yes, but are they comfortable?”
“Very comfortable and soft. Try them on, perhaps they’ll fit you.”
“I’m size forty. Daughter, find my size for me.”
I found size 40 and she began trying the boots on. I asked the old woman:
“Well, how are they?”
“I haven’t got them on yet.”
I wanted to explain to the old woman that the boots were just the right size for her. So I used the Russian word that I thought meant “calf” or “boot top”—vlagalishche.
“You have a very big vagina,” I said, “that’s why I took out a big one especially, it ought to fit.”
She didn’t look at me, she bent down, tried to put on the boot.
I said it again:
“Everybody has narrow vaginas, but you’ve got a big one.”
She didn’t hear me or pretended not to.
“You have a lovely vagina, there aren’t many vaginas like that. My customers usually have narrow vaginas, it’s hard for them to choose boots. But you’re lucky.”
I talked about her vagina like that for about ten minutes. I praised it every possible way.
It was as if the poor old woman didn’t hear me at all. She bought those boots and went away. Then I forgot about it.
But at home, at Uncle Sasha’s place, there was a medical book. One day I decided to look through it in my free time. Suddenly I saw the word vlagalishche—and I almost fainted. Only then did I learn what it means! And I’d been using it instead of the word golenishche, which means boot top! It was a good thing the old woman wasn’t listening to me very carefully, wasn’t it!
And it was ages before I could learn that Russian word golenishche, for a long time I used to say either golenilishche or goleninishche.
Another time a young man and a girl came up to me and they asked me:
“Do you have Coffin?” They used the Russian word grob.
I was surprised:
“What do you want a coffin for, you’re so young, you should live, you still have everything ahead of you.”
“It’s fashionable now.”
“That’s strange, how can there really be a fashion like that? You should get married, you should have children, what’s all the hurry, you always have time to die!”
“Woman, I think you probably didn’t understand, did you?”
“No, why, I did. What do you want a coffin for?”
“Woman, you didn’t understand me. It’s a designer brand, and you’re lecturing me about life!”
“Ah, why didn’t you say it was a brand? Imagine that, the fools thinking up a brand called ‘Coffin.’”
In fact the shoes weren’t called that at all. It wasn’t grob, but “Gabor,” I think.
So that was how the story of that “coffin” ended.
One time another customer came up to me:
“How much are your shirts?”
“A hundred fifty roubles.”
“And do you have all sizes?”
“Yes, all sizes, choose.”
“And if it doesn’t fit, can I change it?”
“Yes, of course, I’ll give away any size.”
And she paid her money. I said to her:
“Come back if it’s too small, I’ll give away any size.”
She was surprised:
“Woman, what do you mean by ‘give away’ if I pay money for it?”
“What did I say that was bad?”
“You’re not giving it away to me at all, I’m buying it for my money.”
“And what should I say?”
“Say ‘I sell.’”
“Well, I’m sorry—it’s not ‘I give away,’ but ‘I sell.’”
“Now that’s right.”
One time I offended a trader at the market, a woman we knew. Her husband was in the army. Because of that everybody used to call her the “army woman.” They didn’t know her name. Then one day I asked her:
“Excuse me, please, what’s your name, you know when we see you we say: ‘The army woman’s coming!’”
She laughed and answered:
“My name’s Masha.”
And I remembered that for the Russians the affectionate form for Nastya is Nastenka, for Galya it’s Galochka, for Nina it’s Ninochka. I wanted to use her affectionate name too, and so I said “Mashínka,” but that’s the Russian for a small automobile.
She took offense:
“Just what kind of car do you think I am?”
“I wanted it to be affectionate, did it turn out the opposite? What did I say wrong?”
“The stress is wrong, and that made it an automobile.”
“And how should I say your affectionate name?”
“You should say ‘Máshenka’! It’s a good thing you don’t know
Russian, if you had said that knowing Russian, I’d soon show who’s the car around here!”
Perhaps she thought I meant her figure? So you see, I made a real mess even with the stresses.
But once my language really did lead me a long astray. I needed to go to the toilet, and that’s at the collective farm market, not the goods market. I was walking there and suddenly a young woman spoke to me:
“Woman, are you in a hurry?”
“No, what did you want?”
“Oh, I’m in a great hurry, could you show this old man to the bread store? He’s blind and he walks very slowly. I have to run to work, I’m late already. Will you take him there?”
“Yes, of course!”
“Only hold on to him, or he’ll fall!”
I took the old man by the arm, and then I remembered my husband. There was a phrase he liked to repeat: “Well, how did you come to such a life, my old chum?” I decided I could start a conversation with this old man with that phrase, and I said:
“Well, how did you come to such a life, old chum?”
He stopped, and even though he couldn’t see me, because he was blind, he turned toward me, he was so astonished. And then he began answering that question of mine in detail. He told me how he was born and how he grew up, who he was, where he worked and about his children, and so on. And he walked along like a tortoise or even slower. I said to him:
“But where’s your wife?”
“My wife was killed in a plane crash,” and he started telling me about her. We walked very slowly, probably for about an hour, and we still hadn’t reached the store. I still needed to go to the toilet. And I couldn’t just abandon the old man in the street. I carried on with the conversation:
“When your wife died, you probably felt very bad, did you?”
He stopped again and said angrily:
“She didn’t die, she was killed!”
I thought: What did I say that was bad? What’s the difference between “was killed” and “died”? But it turned out that “she died” is when she did it herself and “she was killed” is when it was someone else’s fault. That’s the way it is.
I barely managed to get the old man to the bread shop and from there to the trolley stop. After two hours I came back to the market and my husband.
