Grandpa and I stroll along the main alley past the skating rink and the ice-cream kiosks. We breathe the invigorating cool air, admire the graceful skaters, and enjoy the music, accented with the crisp sounds of skates cutting the ice. Our route is well established. Not far from the rink, behind a patch of tall pine trees, sits a small beer stall surrounded with a crowd of men even on cold days. This is where we part. Grandpa joins the enthusiastic crowd, and I head to a playground by the pine trees.
Today, the playground is empty. Everybody has moved to an amphitheater nearby. There, in the middle of the stage, towers a tall fir tree—we call it elka—topped with a large shiny red star and decorated with multicolored garlands and shimmering glass balls. In front of the elka, stands a live white-bearded Ded Moroz (a Soviet version of Santa Claus) in a long red coat and a red hat. He leans on a long magic staff, and a large sack hangs over his right shoulder.
Next to Ded Moroz poses his granddaughter Snegurochka in a sparkling blue coat with a white furry collar. A pointed ornamental kokoshnik (a traditional Russian woman’s headdress) crowns Snegurochka’s straw-colored hair, a thick braid falls down to her waist, and a white puffy muff hides her mittenless hands. I stop, rooted to the spot. This is the first live performance I have ever seen, and I am immediately drawn into its magic.
Despite the decorated fir tree, this play has nothing to do with Christmas. We live in a country of atheists that does not celebrate religious holidays. Our festivities are secular or political, and the only holiday we celebrate in December is New Year’s. As for the elka with the star on top and the burly Ded Moroz with the sack of presents, these are a mixture of Russian legends and the long gone traditional Russian Christmas, which the Russian Orthodox Church and its few elderly followers celebrate on January 7.
Of course, nowadays the old symbols are given new meanings. The fir tree no longer evokes the Christian faith, but symbolizes New Year’s. The star on top does not recall Bethlehem, but represents the Soviet flag; and, in fact, the summit of the Kremlin’s main tower, whose chiming clock heralds the arrival of a new year, is also crowned with a large red star. Santa Claus becomes Ded Moroz, and presents—mostly fruit (a rare delicacy at this time of the year), hard candy, and small toys—are just presents. For what parent does not enjoy a smile on his child’s face?
The story unfolding before my eyes is a standard New Year’s tale. In it, Ded Moroz and Snegurochka are making their way from the frigid vastness of the North Pole to Moscow on a troika (a sleigh drawn by three horses). They are in a hurry. They carry New Year’s presents for the children, and, more importantly, Ded Moroz and Snegurochka must light the elka, which sits on the stage entwined with numerous strings of unlit bulbs. If they are late, the new year will never come; and, although nobody ever explains what that would mean, all children understand this would be a catastrophe.
As the performance progresses, Ded Moroz and his granddaughter get separated, and they face countless obstacles and Russian folktale villains on their long and dangerous journey to us. The story is breathtaking and full of suspense. Will Ded Moroz and Snegurochka find each other? Will they deliver the presents? Will they light the elka on time?
Ded Moroz looks down at his anxious audience: “Children, help me!”
We jump up and down and shriek and shout: “Oh, look, Baba Yaga is just around the corner! Don’t go there! Don’t go to the other side either! A wolf is hiding behind the tree! Ru-u-u-n!!!”
I strain my voice in the cold crisp air. My freezing breath merges with the breath of other excited children and hovers above our heads like steam from a geyser.
Ded Moroz and Snegurochka finally reach the elka. “Children, do you remember the magic word?”
The frantic crowd explodes in mighty unison, scaring off every wild creature left in the park: “One, two, three, yelochka gore-e-e!!!” (Pine tree, light up!)
A myriad of little stars spark in the thick greenery.
“S novym Godom, children!” (Happy New Year!)
And then … the story is over.
The crowd breaks into small fragments and recedes from the amphitheater, like the tide ebbing from the shore. Ded Moroz, Snegurochka, and the other characters pick up their props, load them on the sleigh, and start moving.
“Is this the last performance today?” A young woman with a bellowing toddler asks.
“No, we just started,” Ded Moroz says.
To my surprise, his voice sounds young, younger than my father’s and much younger than his silvery-white beard implies.
“There’ll be several more. Not here, though. We’re going to another stage.”
“Don’t cry,” the woman turns to the toddler, “We can watch it again!” And they trail behind the fairytale group.
As if pulled by an invisible cable, I follow them, too; all my emotions focused on the anticipation of more magic. Together, we reach another amphitheater, and the performance starts all over again—less suspenseful than the first one, but no less exciting. In fact, it is even better, because now I do not have to worry about the evil forces!
I do not remember how many times I move from one stage to another. Twice? Three times? I am not sure, and I do not care—until, suddenly, the rules change, and instead of starting a new act, all the characters walk toward a small wooden building and disappear inside it.
I wait. In a little while, several strange men and women come out of the building with large string-bags in their hands, animatedly talking to each other. The tallest of them, a young man with somewhat familiar gray eyes, locks the door, and then they are gone.
I am still waiting. No sound comes from the wooden building. This is strange. Where are Ded Moroz, beautiful Snegurochka, and ugly Baba Yaga? I shift from one foot to the other and look at the sky. The sun, now low on the horizon, is ready for its evening dive, and shadows spread their blue wings on the snowy ground.
Suddenly, I remember—Grandpa told me to wait for him on the playground! But … where is the playground? Where is the beer stall? Where am I?
“Grandpa!” I try to shout, but my thin voice barely penetrates the chilly air, while quick tears rise up to my eyes. I look around—a few people still walk along the darkening alleys. I follow them, hoping somehow to end up in a familiar place. Useless. People scatter in different directions, none of them recognizable.
Tears begin to roll down my cold cheeks, and a lump in my throat sends a shock of panic down to my weakening legs. Also, icy needles tickle my fingers inside the mittens, and my feet feel painfully numb. I am like that poor stepdaughter from a Russian folktale. She was sent by her wicked stepmother to the “wide, wide fields in the crackling frost,” where she would have died if not for the help of Morozko (a younger version of Ded Moroz). If I do not find Grandpa soon, I will freeze to death here, and no Morozko will save me …
“What’s wrong?”
I have never before seen this woman in a gray wooly kerchief bending over me.
“Are you here alone?”
“I don’t kno-o-o-w,” I sob loudly. “I lost my grandpa-a-a. Ded Moroz and Snegurochka went into the house and never came out … And Baba Yaga, too … And I don’t know where my grandpa is ...”
Through my tears, the woman’s face is blurry and sallow. Her kerchief is pulled down to her brows, from under which peer deeply sunk pale blue eyes.
“What’s your name?” She says.
“Sve-e-t-a-a-a …”
The woman gives me a triumphant look, as if somehow she knew that all along.
“Didn’t they just call you over the loudspeakers? Listen!”
Distant metallic sounds cut through the quiet of twilight:
“Sveta, your grandfather is waiting for you at the main entrance. I repeat. Sveta, your grandfather …”
“It’s me! It’s me!” I shriek and tug at the woman’s sleeve so frantically that she shrinks back. I don’t care. Grandpa is waiting for me! At the main entrance! Then another wave of panic washes over me. Where is
the main entrance? I look around the darkening haze and start weeping again.
“Well,” the woman says, straightening her back, “Let’s go and find your grandfather.”
She takes my hand and pulls me along a darkening alley, all the while questioning me.
“How old are you? Where do you live? Where are your parents?”
Her questions fall on me like rain drops, quick and unnerving, and I am too exhausted to answer. The woman stops and looks at me disapprovingly.
“A girl your age shouldn’t be in the park alone. I bet your grandparents are gonna teach you a lesson!” I say nothing. No punishment can be worse than this.
Another turn around a corner and—oh, miracle!—I see my grandfather pacing back and forth between the glowing globes of the street lamps marking the park’s entrance.
“Grandpa!” I scream as I yank my hand from the woman’s grip and run towards him, stumbling and falling in the snow and picking myself up.
“Sveta! Dankn Got! (Thank God! Yiddish) Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick!” Grandpa folds me in his arms, and I smell beer and tobacco on his breath. Even through his thick coat, I can feel his racing heart. Or is it mine? I don’t know. I am flooded with tears of relief.
Grandpa carries me through the dark streets dotted by window lights. He puts me down only when we reach our house.
“Don’t tell anybody that you got lost. Especially your grandma. Okay? It’ll be our secret,” he says.
“Okay,” I exhale, relieved that nobody will punish me for my misadventure.
CHAPTER SEVEN
CAVIAR
I do not know what other parts of Moscow look like at the end of the 1950s. All I know is our new working class neighborhood Marinaja Roshcha, which is gloomy all year round but especially in the spring, when dirty snowdrifts stubbornly cling to the ground, sometimes until May, and in the fall, when ubiquitous puddles reflect a morose sky endlessly drizzling rain.
We now live in a two-family wooden house. On the outside, the house is weathered by frequent rains and winter storms, and on the inside, it is rotted from old age, dampness, and the misery of its occupants, past and present. Still, here we have our own room. The other room belongs to a family of three, an elderly woman with a married daughter and her husband. Between the rooms are a communal toilet, a sink, and a kitchen where several kerosinki saturate the air with thick smells of food.
Most of our furniture comes from the grandparents’ place. The new additions are a bookcase and a dining table. The bookcase is divided into three clearly defined areas. Technical books for Dad are perched on the top shelves, medical books for Mom fill the middle, and picture books for me are placed on the bottom, where I can easily reach them. The dining table, covered with a flowery vinyl tablecloth, sits in the middle of the room. It also serves as an ironing board and a desk.
The room is so crowded that when my parents get angry with me and send me v ugol (order me to stand in the corner—a common way of punishing small children), the only corner they can use is the one with a coat rack. For this punishment to be fully effective, the corner is supposed to be dark. Yet that would require turning off our only light which dangles from the middle of the ceiling and, at night, paints fleeting circles of light on the dining table beneath it. When that fixture is off, my parents are in the dark, too, so the best they can do is make me face the drab pile of coats and think about my plochoe povedenie (bad behavior).
I never think about that, though. Instead, I brood about how unjust my parents are. Often, they put me in the corner because of my “terrible” eating habits, which are definitely not my fault. The food Mom gives me is gross. Mannaja kasha (semolina boiled in milk) is covered with a wrinkled skin of burnt milk. Chicken soup is coated with yellow lumps of grease and thickened with pimpled chicken skin. And gogol-mogol, a concoction of raw eggs beaten with sugar and diluted with boiled milk—a supposedly nutritious drink—makes me sick to my stomach even as I watch Mom make it.
My other problem, according to my parents, is that I am sluggish, and it requires “the patience of a saint” to wait for me to dress. Yet there are so many layers I have to put on before walking out in the cold! Grandma always helped me, but Mom does not. She says that I am “a big girl,” and I have to learn how to do things on my own. Also, she adds, she is not feeling well, and she cannot squat down the way she used to.
Nobody has explained to me that she is pregnant, so I do not understand why she gets impatient with me while I am squatting on the floor, putting on heavy wool socks, valenki, and galoshes. Besides, it is not my fault that she’s always in a hurry!
Mother and me before my sister was born
The way I see it, the only reason my parents are so mean to me must be because they are my adoptive parents. And if I have learned anything from Russian folktales, stepparents—and especially stepmothers—never love their stepchildren, no matter how good they are. (I firmly believe that I am good.)
Every time I find myself in the corner, contemplating the events that brought me there, I come to the same conclusion: these parents will never love me. I spend some time grieving about that and then, inevitably, arrive at another conclusion—my life is not worth living, and the only solution to my suffering must be my early death. I am not sure how I should die, but that never stops me. I quickly skip over that detail and concentrate on how sorry my parents will be when I am dead.
I lean against the rough fabric of the heavy coats, inhale the dusty smell of the old wool and moth balls, and, in my mind’s eye, watch a small coffin being carried out of our house. The coffin is open and, inside its shallow interior lined with puffy white blankets, I see my slim body in a dark-blue dress. My hands are crossed on my chest, my face is morbidly pale, my eyes are shut, and my feet are covered with a pile of artificial flower wreaths.
A small crowd of grieving relatives surrounds the coffin: my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and all my cousins. Everybody is dressed in black, and a small military orchestra plays heart-rending funeral marches. These details come from the only funeral I have ever seen, the funeral of one of our neighbors, an elderly naval officer whom we never met when he was alive and whose funeral procession was departing from the house next door as my family was moving in.
All my relatives are wailing, especially Grandma. She pulls a black kerchief off her head, points her index finger at my mother, and exclaims, “What did you do to my poor bubala? I babysat her for years, and she was just fine!”
Here my mother screams, “I didn’t want her dead! I am so so-o-o-r-r-y-y!” and faints into the coffin beside me, while my dad mumbles, defensively, “If only we had known ….”
I work myself up to such a profound sense of grief that soon I begin sobbing in my corner—first softly, then loudly. Unfortunately, I never know how to end the funeral scene in a satisfactory way, for I never can figure out how I—motionless and silent—can let my parents know that I will never forgive them for their cruelty. This makes me cry even more, and my weeping—which my parents perceive as a sign of repentance—finally attracts their attention, and they let me out of the corner, still reprimanding me for my transgressions.
Today is one of those days. Mom has just bawled me out for not eating my dinner. Yet instead of sending me v ugol, she rummages in her large bag and pulls out a tiny tin can with a bright label that depicts a fat fish swiveling its tail over a small pile of reddish grains. My heart sinks. This is caviar, a true Russian delicacy. Mom opens the can, cuts a thick slice of white bread—her knife hits the cutting board with the mournful sound of a hammer driving nails into a coffin—smears it with caviar, and hands it to me.
“This is good for you,” She says. “Make sure to eat it till posledni kroshki (the last crumb)!”
I fix my gaze on the sandwich. I hate caviar! When I bite into its colorful pellets, their skins break with a tiny pop and thick reddish liquid seeps out of them like the mushy innards of a squashed caterpillar. And the taste … it is
bitterly salty, whereas the only taste I like is sweet. Besides, if caviar is so good, why don’t my parents eat it themselves?
I sit in my chair and count the tiny eggs, wishing that they had been given a chance to metamorphose into young fish and swim effortlessly into a vast sea far from our house. Also, it occurs to me, these tiny red balls might still possess the power of life, and if I slip them into a glass of water, one by one, they may turn into tiny slippery minnows and fill the glass with their aimless swirling.
“Are you going to take a bite?!” Mom’s voice breaks through my daydreams.
I stare at the sandwich as if it is going to bite me. I am powerless. Life is awful when you are a child. Behind me, Mom explodes, “Take your sandwich and go eat outside. I can’t see this anymore. Ti mne vse nervy istrepala!”(You have frayed my nerves!) Then she adds, “And don’t you dare come back before you finish the sandwich!”
This is not good. Mom believes religiously in the positive effects of fresh air, but it is April, and it is still cold. Besides, we just moved into this neighborhood, and the world outside our door is largely unknown to me. With a heavy heart, I leave the table, put on my warm clothes, and, holding the wretched sandwich in my bare right hand, cross our threshold.
Immediately, my lungs choke from a gust of cold air, and it takes me a minute to recover from coughing. After I do, I timidly look around. Our house is one of the six shacks crowded around a circular dvor (courtyard) connected to a city street by a narrow entrance. There is a bench in front of every house, but only one of these outposts is occupied at the moment. There, two middle-aged women in woolen kerchiefs and winter coats with rabbit-fur collars—one gray, the other black with white spots—are chatting excitedly under the weak sun of early spring. In the middle of the courtyard, several kids are making a snezhnaja baba (a snowman).
The Education of a Traitor: A Memoir of Growing Up in Cold War Russia Page 4
