“This is really amazing!” my father says, as if reading my mind. “We’re the first! Eto vam ne zhuk nachikhal! (This is nothing to sneeze at!).”
“Oh, sure,” Mom says, putting away breakfast plates and bowls, no trace of triumph in her voice. “I personally wouldn’t mind if things were that amazing on the ground, too. With our salaries for one thing. Apartments for another.”
“Well, Fira, you must admit. This is a great achievement! Things like this don’t happen every day.”
“Neither do the things I just mentioned,” Mom says. Then she looks at her watch. “Don’t forget that Tosja’s going out tonight, so you have to come home earlier.”
I stare at Mom. What is she talking about? What does our apartment have to do with anything? Of course Dad is right. It is great that we are first! Naturally, I am not surprised. Maria Ivanovna, our teacher, says that our country is first “in everything,” and we “must be proud” to be born here. I sure am. Yet it is not clear to me where exactly “outer space” is. In my nine years, I have never boarded a plane, although I have seen planes gliding through the silky blue sky, leaving behind slowly widening white tails. I have also seen war movies with droning bombers and screeching fighter planes—five-pointed stars painted on the wings of our planes and ugly Swastikas on Germany’s.
I guess outer space must be just above where all those planes fly—somewhere between them and the sun. Still, why is it so amazing? It’s just higher, that’s all, isn’t it?
“Dad, didn’t we already fly into outer space?”
“You’re thinking about Sputnik,” Dad says. “That was four years ago, and there was no human there.”
“Really? What was it for then?”
“Well, that was the first time anybody in the world launched a spacecraft into orbit.”
“And what did it do?”
“It flew around the earth and transmitted signals.”
“That’s all?”
“Oh, that was very important,” Dad says, “But it’s hard to explain. When you’re older, you’ll understand.”
Everything ends with “when you’re older.” I cannot wait to be older! First of all, I won’t have to go to school. I am not a bad student, but I have only one friend there, my next-door neighbor Igorék, whom I have known since I was five. Still, Igorék and I are enrolled in different classes, so we mostly meet after school anyway. Igorék is Jewish, like me, which is no secret to anybody in school, since it is written on the back of our class registers.
Every time Maria Ivanovna has to leave the classroom during a lesson, several kids spring from their desks, crowd around the teacher’s table, and quickly go through the register. At first, they check out their grades and then, inevitably, progress to the last page—the page that reveals our addresses, the names of our parents, and our ethnic origin—which in our country is called “nationality.”
In Moscow, the city located in the heart of the Russian Federation, almost everybody is Russian, so in my class of 25 and Igorék’s of 24 we are the only non-Russian children. And there is always somebody in the mischievous crowd who enjoys reading the “nationality” column aloud—as if they had not memorized it already—quickly chanting the names of Russian origin and relishing Igorék’s or mine.
Another good thing about being older is that I won’t be required to babysit my sister Tanya, since she will be older, too. Babysitting Tanya is a drag. Every time she falls and cries, it is my fault. And Tanya falls a lot! Unlike me, she is never static, and I cannot remember a time when she walked like a normal kid. It seems that as soon as Tanya learned to stand upright, she just took off like a little tornado. She is so fast that despite being six years older, I sometimes have a hard time keeping up with her.
Unfortunately, Tanya never notices sharp corners and obstacles in her way, so it is only a matter of time before she plops down howling, with her knees bleeding. On top of that, my sister likes getting into my things, and I have to tolerate that because she’s younger and, according to my parents, I “should be smarter.” It is as if my parents punish me for being born first, which wasn’t my choice!
Most importantly, when I am older, I will be able to do something exciting, maybe even become a cosmonaut! When I was little, I wanted to be a doctor, like Mom, but I had to give that up because I’m afraid of blood. Then I wanted to tame wild animals.
That started the day Mom took me to the Moscow Circus. For two hours, we watched impossibly slim acrobats in sparkling tights glide above our heads at the top of the circus dome, a magician in a black cloak pull doves and rabbits out of his top hat, and two white-faced clowns in clumsy shoes make the audience die laughing with their jokes and tricks.
Yet the act that struck me the most was a group of trained Siberian tigers. The tigers ran out onto the brightly lit stage through a cage-like passage—their large bodies moving in a loping stride, their heavy heads shaking from side to side, their sharp teeth bare, and their thundering roar bouncing off the circus walls. Behind the tigers appeared a tamer—a tall, handsome man with a whip in hand. At his command, the tigers rolled over on the stage, stood up on their hind legs, and jumped through large multicolored hoops.
At the end, the tamer put his head into the biggest tiger’s mouth, and loud drumbeats sounded from the orchestra pit, while astounded “aahs” swept through the audience. My heart began racing in time with the drums, and I closed my eyes with my hands, so, if the tiger bit the tamer’s head off, I would not have to see it. But nothing bad happened. The drums gave way to rousing music and deafening applause, and when I took my hands away, the tigers were retreating from the stage, and the smiling tamer was blowing kisses to the audience.
The tamer was accompanied by a young woman assistant who was dressed in a beautiful suit decorated with spangles and rhinestones and also sparkling high boots. So I immediately decided I would become a tamer of wild animals, or, at least, a tamer’s assistant.
All of that seemed childish now—no comparison with being a cosmonaut. Just look at Yuri Gagarin. His broadly smiling, likable face appears on the pages of Pravda (“Truth,” the main Soviet newspaper) and other newspapers and magazines, and everybody talks about him: TV and radio announcers, teachers in school, and even kids in our dvor. What could be better than that?
Of course, my dream depends on whether a girl can be a cosmonaut … but why not? Nobody says that cosmonauts have to be men. In fact, they even sent a dog into space some time ago. I was little then, but I remember. Her name was Laika. She was a Siberian husky, and everybody admired her then almost as much as we admire Yuri Gagarin now. I remember seeing her picture. She was so cute—with pointed ears and dark curious eyes, and a kind of harness put over her furry body for the flight.
“Dad, is Laika still flying?”
“Who?”
“Laika, the dog they sent into space, remember?”
“Hmm … That Laika … I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Does she still have enough food? She’s been up there for a long time.”
Dad gives me a careful look, “I guess so.”
“Do you think Gagarin brought her back?”
“Well, I didn’t hear anything, but that’s possible,” Dad says and then quickly adds, “Don’t you have some homework to do?”
Later that week, after school, I report to Igorék about my decision to become a cosmonaut. We stand in front of our building. The snow drifts that covered the ground during the long winter are sagging from early springtime melting and refreezing, and their surfaces, blackened by air pollution, look like burnt cake icing.
Not far from us, neighborhood boys are engrossed in a war game: one group pretends to be Russian soldiers, the other German—we call them Fritzes. The enemies hide behind our building from where they make short offensive charges, shouting excitedly, “Hurray!!!” or “Hände hoh!” and firing “Rata-tat-tat-tat!” into the damp air.
“Girls can’t be cosmonauts.” A boy’s voice sounds behind me. I turn a
nd face Liosha Mironov, my classmate and one of the students who enjoys reading the nationality column in our class register. Unlike Igorék, who is quiet, small, dark-haired, and dark-eyed, Liosha is loud, tall, and tow-headed, and his almost white brows curve above eyes as light and transparent as if they were made of ice.
“How do you know?” I say.
“I know. You have to be a pilot first, and pilots are always men.”
I turn away from Liosha. This could be true. Every book I have read about the last war portrays women only as telegraphers, nurses, or doctors. In fact, my Mom, a doctor, says that if there is another war, she will be drafted to work in an army hospital.
“I’ll be a pilot after school,” Liosha says and gives me a look of contempt. He does not add anything else, but I understand his meaning. He has a chance of becoming a cosmonaut while I do not. Then Liosha spits on the darkened snow near my feet and shouts to the boys playing the war game, “Hey, wait for me!” And he is gone.
Too late though. He has already spoiled my mood, and I no longer feel like talking about my new calling. Besides, Igorék is not feeling well. He keeps coughing, and soon he says that he needs to go home and leaves me alone.
I am often alone. When I come home from school, my parents are still at work and my sister and Tosja are usually out. That is fine with me, since I have the freedom to do whatever I want, which, most of the time, means reading everything I can get my hands on. The bookcase in our apartment is full. I have already read “Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,” and I even started on “War and Peace,” but it proved to be so boring that I switched to “King Solomon’s Mines.”
Today, though, I do not feel like reading. I keep thinking about Laika. Nobody says that she is back, so she must be still up there—a little furry ball of life, flying around the earth all by herself, looking through the window at the world beneath her.
“Maria Ivanovna, how long will Laika fly?” I ask my teacher the next day.
“Who? Laika?” Maria Ivanovna takes off her glasses, the way she always does when she is not happy with us, and looks at me intensely, her lips pressed together into a straight line.
“She’ll fly as long as it’s needed,” she says after a pause, and her voice sounds as self-assured and important as the voices of radio announcers. Yet she turns her gaze away from me.
“Needed for what?” I want to say, but I know better than to annoy Maria Ivanovna.
At night, I lay in bed, wondering about Laika. It’s a pity that nobody asked Yuri Gagarin to bring her back to us. If I ever meet him, I’ll ask him. But where can I meet him? Well, there is a good chance that I’ll spot him one day standing in line for groceries, as all adults do. Or Mom and I may run into him at Minaevskij marketplace near us. No, that’s not likely. Mom says that the market is way too expensive, so we rarely go there. Then, maybe, he’ll come to visit our school?
That’s it! He will come to tell us all about his flight and what he saw from his spaceship. With this happy thought, I quickly fall asleep, and, in my dream, I see sad little Laika. Her black round eyes are wet, and she is looking sorrowfully at me, as if begging for help or asking me not to forget her, still orbiting in the cold nothingness of the cosmos.
Several weeks have gone by since I talked to Igorék about becoming a cosmonaut, and I have not seen him since. He has not been going to school, and he has not been coming over to play after school either. Last weekend, Mom sent me to visit the grandparents, and after I came back, I thought that I would see him for sure, but I did not.
Every day I ask Mom about Igorék, and every day she tells me that he is still sick. This is really annoying. How long can Igorék be sick? Even my sister Tanya, who is ill often, recovers faster than he does, and she is much younger!
By now, the snow has melted and the asphalt around our house is dry. After school, kids pour outside to skip rope, kick balls, or play klassiki (hop scotch). I mope around, waiting for somebody to ask me to join, and, when nobody does, I draw hop scotch squares with a piece of white chalk and hop by myself.
“Training to be a cosmonaut?” Liosha appears in front of me, his shirt half-buttoned and a soccer ball under his arm.
I know he is mocking me. I won’t pay attention.
“Not a chance. You can’t even hop good,” Liosha comments, scornfully observing me awkwardly frozen on one leg.
“Leave me alone,” I say and put my bent leg down. “I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Eh, who do you want to talk to? Igorék? He’s gone.”
“He’s gone? Where?” (Why didn’t Mom tell me?)
Liosha’s bleached brows rise above his icy eyes, “Are you stupid? Everybody knows.”
I look at him uncomprehending, but already something heavy begins swarming inside my chest.
“You’re stupid yourself!” I scream and push the ball under his arm as hard as I can. The ball falls on the asphalt and bounces happily down the sunlit street and away from Liosha.
“Idiotka!” Liosha shouts. “Crazy Jewish idiotka!” And he takes off after the escaping ball.
I rush in the opposite direction. What was he talking about? What is it that everybody knows?
As I open the door of our apartment, I hear the rhythmic sounds of a knife hitting the cutting board. Mom is cooking, and potato peels are piled up on the kitchen counter in front of her.
“Where has Igorék gone, Mom?” My heart is pounding so fast that I have a hard time getting the words out.
Mom slowly puts the knife down, looks at me, and wipes her hands off on an apron tied around her waist.
“I’m sorry, Sveta. I should’ve told you. Igorék … he … he …” She puts her hands on my shoulders and pulls me closer. “He’s died.”
Died? What is she talking about? I remember that he was coughing the last time I saw him, but nobody dies of that! I had whooping cough when I was little, and I had to stay at home with Grandma for a long time. Is that what Mom means?
“Can we go and visit him?”
“Well, he’s buried in the cemetery. We can visit him there … if you want.”
In the cemetery? Kids don’t get buried in cemeteries. They play games, they do things! Cemeteries are for old people. Like that woman from the house next door, who died several months ago. She must have been ancient and I only saw her once or twice, but I’ve known Igorék for years!
I know birds can die. I found one once under the tree not far from our house. It was just a chick, with yellowish colors around its beak and neck. I picked it up and held it in my cupped hands. It was chirruping, turning its head right and left, and opening its beak wide. I ran home with it. I thought I would make a cotton nest for it and feed it until it learned how to fly. But when I got home, the chick no longer moved or made sounds. Its eyes were closed and its head was dangling down like the head of a broken dandelion. I dropped it to the floor and burst into tears. My father picked it up and took it outside, and I never asked him what he did with it. I didn’t’ want to know.
But I can’t imagine Igorék with his eyes closed and his head dangling down. It’s just … just … stupid! It is so stupid that it’s even funny, isn’t it? And I start laughing. I know that it’s wrong, but I cannot stop. I am laughing and laughing, and the more I laugh, the harder it seems to stop.
I feel Mom’s hands on my shaking shoulders. She is saying something about water and going to bed. I want to answer, “No! I don’t need water and I don’t want to go to bed!” But I cannot talk either. I am still laughing and my teeth are chattering against the cold glass.
The next day, Mom allows me to stay at home. Both Mom and Dad are at work, and Tanya and our nanny Tosja are taking a walk. I am alone. I pull “King Solomon’s Mines” from the shelf and try to read it. Useless. Even reading is no help. Without Igorék, I am as lonely down here as Laika is up there in outer space. I put the book down and go outside.
A light wind caresses the world with faint smells of gr
ass and budding leaves. The sky is clear. I throw my head back and look up, intensely. There is a tiny dot up there, so tiny that I can only see it if I cover one eye with my hand and strain the other.
“That must be Laika’s spaceship.” I think to myself. “Hi, Laika!”
I must have said that aloud, because suddenly, I hear a familiar voice, “Who are you talking to now?”
I shift my gaze. It is Liosha. Again. Why is he not in school?
“None of your business.”
“Did you say Laika? That dog? You’re even stupider than I thought. Wake up! She’s been dead for years. She burned!” And he pushes me, hard.
I fall on the warm asphalt and scratch my elbow. Drops of blood appear on my skin, but I feel pain in my chest.
He’s lying! Of course, he’s lying! I won’t believe him, and I won’t cry. He knows nothing! He’s the worst student in our class. Besides, Grandma says that nobody is gone as long as we remember them. That memory gives us a hope.
“She’s not dead, you creep!” I shout at the top of my lung, my voice breaking. “I wish you were dead! I wish you were burned! You don’t know anything, anything … I remember her!”
And then tears start pouring from my eyes the way water flows from an open faucet. I cry for Igorék, for Laika, for myself, and for everybody I love who may leave me one day.
Many years later, I run into Igorék’s mother, a skinny elderly woman with a full head of snow-white wavy hair who tells me that her son had galloping consumption. Also, around the same time, during a casual conversation, I finally learn that Laika died a few hours after her launch. Sputnik 2, the spacecraft that raised her to the sky, was not designed to be retrievable, and from the very beginning, Laika’s fate was to be sacrificed for the sake of Soviet Science.
Laika photo by Bobbie Johnson, Flickr, CC by 2.0
Yet even now, both Laika and dark-eyed Igorék are still a part of me, and with all the pains and losses of an adult life, I remember them, and their vague images still come to me—if only in my dreams. Grandma was right, for as long as I live, they live, too.
The Education of a Traitor: A Memoir of Growing Up in Cold War Russia Page 10
