The Education of a Traitor: A Memoir of Growing Up in Cold War Russia

by Svetlana Grobman

  “Don’t come here, you idiot! Go home!” I want to shout. But I keep quiet, as does Ira and several more kids who have not yet left the icy battlefield.

  In a minute or so, Naúm appears in front of us in a new, good quality coat with a dyed rabbit collar and matching fur hat with dangling ear-flaps. Also new are his sparkling eyeglasses, which make his eyes look large and vulnerable. Had Naúm not been a neighborhood scapegoat already, these glasses alone—a mark of “wimpy intelligentsia”—would make him a target. But coupled with the perfect outfit that none of the other neighborhood parents can afford—least of all Igor’s alcoholic father and hospital-janitor mother—Naúm’s appearance is an open invitation to bullying.

  “You, ochkarick (four eyes),” Igor begins, “Go ahead, try!”

  “He can’t,” I whisper to Ira, careful not to attract Igor’s attention. She glances at me, “I know.”

  Once again, it becomes very quiet.

  “So? Are ya goin’ to try or should I kick your fat ass?” Igor growls.

  Naúm makes several small steps back and then clumsily runs forward, attempting to gain speed. Yet just before he reaches the slippery edge, he slows himself down and instead of gliding, he skids for hardly a yard and stops, puffing.

  “Try again,” Igor says.

  “I don’t want to,” Naúm mumbles under his breath and hunches his shoulders, so the top of his collar and the flaps of his hat blend together.

  “Sure you do. It’s fun. Try again,” Igor bellows.

  Naúm moves backwards. “I’d better go home.”

  “The hell you’ll go home. Try again!” Igor shouts, shoving him.

  Naúm jerks and his pressed lips start to shake, while his new glasses grow misty. He turns his head toward a small crowd of spectators and looks at me with the expression of a homeless dog asking to be taken in.

  I tug at Ira’s sleeve, “Say something.” She does not respond. I turn to her, “Ira …”

  But the Ira standing next to me is not the Ira I admired a short time ago. Her courage and her newly awakening female power seem to have left her, exhausted possibly by the cold or recent excitement, or by the recognition that this is no longer her fight. Whatever the reason, the pendulum swings the other way, and instead of Joan of Arc I see a scared teenage girl.

  As if on cue, Igor grabs Naúm by the shoulders and starts shaking him—Naúm’s thick body swaying in Igor’s hands the way a jelly fish sways in the waves. Not meeting any resistance, Igor swings his right arm and clips his victim on the back of the head, sending Naúm’s fur hat into the air.

  “Leave him alone …” My voice is as soft as a sigh, and I am not sure that anybody hears it.

  “Be quiet,” Ira’s mitten covers my mouth, its rough threads prickling my lips.

  Something begins screaming inside me, and I inhale deeply, preparing to let it out. Yet somehow, it is already out, loud and demanding:

  “Leave him alone!”

  I expect Ira to pull me away, but she does not. In fact, with her mitten still raised to my face, she is staring past me at something to my left. I look, too, and realize that it was not me screaming at the top of my lungs. It was small, scrawny Lida.

  “Leave him alone!!”

  Too late. With all his strength, Igor pushes Naúm onto the ice. At first, Naúm slides a little, but his feet stumble and he falls down. His bare head hits the ice with the sound of a crackling bottle, and his glasses jump off his nose and land by Igor’s feet.

  “Oh, look. Whose glasses are these? Does anybody know?” Igor says mockingly, while pressing the glasses into the snow with his right foot. Then he turns towards Naúm: “Hey, ya. Get up. We’ll try again.”

  Naúm does not move.

  “Get up an’ pick up your fucking glasses!”

  No response. Naúm lies on the ice with his face up—his eyes are as immobile as the buttons of his coat, and his arms are spread out on the ice.

  “You must’ve killed him!” Lida screams and snatches Igor’s sleeve like a watch dog attacking a thief. And as if she were a dog, Igor pulls his sleeve from her grip and throws her back onto a pile of snow so deep that she almost disappears from our view.

  “Ira …” I stammer, my eyes focused on the dark parody of the crucifix in front of me. “We should do something …”

  “What? What can we do?” she whispers.

  I take my eyes from the ice and fix them on Ira. Her hair is tousled, her lips have lost their bright color, her shoulders have sagged, and she no longer appears foolhardy or even pretty.

  “He needs a doctor …”

  Did I say that or did somebody else? No matter, for these words pull me from my stupor and give me something to do. Finding a doctor is a concrete task. It is also my only way of redeeming myself for not helping but just standing there watching. Naúm needs a doctor, and my mother is one.

  The next hour of so is a series of fragments, like a book I read in a hurry, skipping pages and whole chapters just to get to the end. I run through the deep snow, stumbling and gasping. My mother, home from shopping, opens the door and grabs her bag with medical instruments. Two paramedics carry Naúm on a stretcher while somebody picks up his lifeless hand and lays it across his body. And finally, the ambulance speeds away leaving behind a line of idle spectators and silent snowdrifts.

  The days that follow are also vague in my mind—some memories have been buried under the weight of passing years and some have been purged, for we tend to discard shameful memories the way we discard spoiled food. I do remember, though, that, one day, Naúm’s mother comes to our apartment, and my mother pulls me out of the bathroom where I have been hiding and orders me to tell the woman what happened. When Naúm’s mother finally leaves—her large eyes are red, her lips colorless, and her usually tight clothes hang loose—she no longer looks like a walking cello but a shapeless, old woman.

  For some time, I avoid everybody who has witnessed the incident, including my best friend Ira and especially that girl Lida, who also lives in our building. After school, I mostly stay at home, which is why I miss the news that Naúm has moved out of our neighborhood.

  I do a lot of reading. I finish the book about the Nobile expedition and learn that the North Pole claimed even more lives. The Meteorologist Malmgren perished in its sparkling vastness, killed by indifferent nature or by his companions Mariano and Zappi. Amundsen, who rushed to save Nobile and his men, disappeared, too—only the wreckage of his seaplane was spotted from the air some time later.

  Yet Umberto Nobile, the cause of all these deaths and suffering, survived—the Swedish pilot Lundborg airlifted him from the tiny red speck of his tent. Lundborg did not take anybody else, though, and it would take Nobile many years to restore his reputation, damaged by the abandonment of his men in their ice prison. He would live under a cloud of suspicion, ashamed and disgraced, just like me.

  By the time I reach the end of the story, spring begins its annual assault on winter. At first, tiny streams trickle from the caked snowdrifts. Then, their sagging piles crumble into pieces and slide down the streets like miniature ice-floes. And finally, one day, there is nothing left on the ground but shallow puddles, where sparrows take quick baths and kids stomp with renewed energy.

  Once again, Ira and I spend time together: doing homework, talking about our changing bodies, classmates, new teachers, and other things important to girls of our age. But we never talk about Naúm. And why should we? He is not our brother or our friend. He is no longer even our neighbor.

  As for what happened, would it be better if Igor had thrown Ira or me on the ice, and Ira had had a concussion, or my head had been fractured? Would that have helped Naúm? Surely not, just as it did not help Umberto Nobile and his crew that Amundsen died somewhere in the unfathomable vastness of the North. And yet, pitiful Naúm still separates Ira and me, for because of him we have explored our own limitations and have learned things about ourselves that we would prefer not to know.

  When, severa
l years later, my family moves to another neighborhood and we say our “good-byes,” I do not expect to see Ira again. But I do. We are both college students by then—she studying to be a chemist and I an engineer. We run into each other in a little café, popular with the budget-conscious student crowd since the only things on the menu are cheap coffee and ice-cream. We both come with friends, smoking cigarettes and laughing with the boldness of the young who believe that nothing will ever hurt them.

  “How are you?” Ira says.

  “Good, and you?”

  “Great!” she answers, while a young man next to her looks at her attentively and admiringly, as if trying to memorize every feature of her beautiful face.

  “Are you still living in our old house?” I say.

  “No, but we didn’t move far. Sometimes, I see our former neighbors. Those who are still there.”

  “Do you ever see Lida?” I say, immediately regretting my question.

  “Lida? Who’s that?” Ira raises her eyebrows—her sparkling gray eyes are clear and thoughtful.

  “That girl from the first floor. You must remember her.” I say, now desperate to hear the answer.

  “Should I? Well, I don’t. One cannot remember everybody. Right, Vovik?” She turns to her male companion, who, to my surprise, suddenly breaks into laugher, as if Ira has said something funny that only the two of them can appreciate.

  For a moment, I study her, animated, confident, at peace with herself and the world. She must be right. Life goes on. People come and go. We cannot remember them all. Perhaps I still recall pitiful Naúm and skinny unattractive Lida because of the book I was reading at the time—about Nobile and Amundsen, and a Russian ice-breaker that saved the rest of the Nobile crew. That story was so sad and courageous, and romantic—people risking their lives to save others. As long as I was only reading about it. But in life … well, life has its own rules. Forgetting is one of them, and Ira has just taught me that.

  I smile at her, “Good seeing you.”

  “Call me!” she says.

  “I sure will,” I say. But I never do.

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  THE GAME OF CHESS

  Eight years have passed since we left my grandparents’ apartment. By now, the birch seedlings that my parents planted in front of my grandparents’ building when I was born have turned into tall bushy trees. The stone staircase of their house, so challenging for my toddler’s legs, no longer seem steep, and a family of four has replaced the old invalid who used to live across the landing—she died several years ago. Yet, as far as I am concerned, the biggest change of all is that Grandpa has retired and spends most of his time at home.

  “I’m too old to work every day,” he laughs when I come to visit—his eyes sparkling like sunrays on rippling water. “I can only work when the weather is nice. The rest of the year is for the young, like you.”

  “I cannot work yet, Grandpa,” I say, peering into his screwed up eyes, not sure whether he is joking, as he often is.

  “Well, I’ll have to do it for you then,” he says. “Your grandma doesn’t want me to sit around the house all day long, so I’ll sit in Sokolniki and collect tickets at the Exhibition Center.”

  “You’ll work at the Exhibition Center?!” I say, impressed. “I wish I could work there with you!”

  The International Exhibition and Convention Center is still a new thing—for me anyway. It is located in my favorite park, Sokolniki, and it is open only in the summer. The first time I go there, I feel as if I am transported into the future. The building itself—a large dome structure with a multifaceted aluminum roof that scintillates in the sunlight—looks like a space station from a science-fiction book. Inside, the building is divided into multiple areas—the way, I imagine, a space station would be—and every area represents a different foreign country and its products.

  And what products they are! Sleek Western furniture fires our Muscovite imagination. Novel kitchen appliances tease our senses. A multitude of awe-inspiring objects leave us guessing about their origin and purpose, and glossy brochures describing the places where all these treasures come from (and where Soviet visitors are not allowed to go) leave us dizzy and exhausted.

  People walk around the Exposition Center with big eyes, while keeping vigilant watch for the time when the foreign staff—all dressed like Western movie stars or, at least, high-ranking Soviet officials—give away chewing gum (known to us only from American movies), colorful plastic bags (no comparison to our string sacks!), and other small souvenirs that seem to be made on another planet, if not in another solar system.

  And now my grandfather is going to work there as a ticket taker! This means I can go to the Exposition Center any time I want to, and I won’t have to wait in line for two hours.

  “Well, I’ll work there only twice a week,” Grandpa says, winking at me. “I have to leave enough time for playing chess, you know.”

  This time, even without examining Grandpa’s eyes, I know that he is joking. Grandpa does not play chess. Sometimes, he and I play cards, and I have to admit that he is a much better player than I am. Ten or so minutes into the game, he begins fidgeting in his chair, tapping with his heels, and singing to himself in Yiddish, “Bub-litchki bagelach bub-litchki…” (Bagels, hot bagels), which is a sure sign that, for me, the game is over.

  More often, though, Grandpa plays dominos with other men in the park. They sit on benches around a long, weathered wooden table—usually not far from a beer joint—slapping the boards with their dominos and with their raucous voices frightening away begging pigeons, promenading babushkas, and young mothers pushing baby buggies.

  Yet today when Grandpa and I enter the park, Grandpa stops by two men playing chess. The men sit at a table across from each other. Their faces are fixed in deep concentration, and their demeanor suggests a total rejection of bodily pleasures in favor of those of the mind. Unlike the domino players, who bang their dominos against the table as hard as they can and then break into triumphant laughs, the chess players take turns tapping a timer and falling into a state of temporary paralysis. They must be good players, though, because several other spectators have gathered around to watch their game.

  Chess is very popular in our country, and it is common to see people—mostly men and boys—play chess in city parks and alleys, or study chess matches in magazines and newspapers. In fact, the current world chess champion is a Soviet citizen, Tigran Petrosian, or “Iron Tigran,” as he is known in chess circles. He is so famous that even children recognize his pictures. Yet I get quickly bored with the game.

  “Let’s go, Grandpa.”

  With a warm late summer wind propelling us forward, we walk across the lawn, which is dotted with wooden tables and benches occupied by people engrossed in chess—their bodies bent forward, their eyes locked on the board, and their hands clutching their temples.

  “Everything matters in chess: castles, kings, queens, even pawns.” I hear Grandpa mumble under his breath. “Not like in life ...”

  “What are you talking about, Grandpa?”

  “Nothing. Just an old man talking to himself.” Grandpa’s lips move into a show of a smile, but his eyes lack their usual spark, and his lips are crooked, more like a grimace than a smile.

  “Grandpa, do you want to learn how to play chess? I can play with you,” I say, not sure what Grandfather is upset about but trying to make him feel better. “I know the moves. Father taught me.”

  “Too late for me to start,” he says, examining the grass under his feet.

  “Father says that nothing is too late, you just have to work on it,” I say.

  “Sure. Nothing is too late. For you. But, some things are too late for me. I’m old, you know.”

  I stop and stare at my grandfather. His face is crisscrossed with cracks and crevices, his eyes are like wilted autumn grass, and the hair on his head is so thin that I can almost count the individual strands. Why have I never noticed this before? Something sad begins creeping
into my chest. Grandpa is standing next to me, but his eyes are distant. This is not the Grandpa I know—the one who tells jokes, drinks Pertsovka, plays the guitar, and sings Yiddish and Ukrainian songs.

  I grab his hand and squeeze it as hard as I can. “Grandpa, you won’t leave me, will you?”

  “Of course not,” he says. “Not now. We have to get you to the exhibit first!” His usual sly smile flickers over his soft features but quickly melts away. “But, you know, everybody leaves ... eventually.”

  Several months go by. The weather turns cold, the bright colors of summer fade, and people put on warm coats.

  Once again, we are visiting my grandparents. Dinner is over. My older cousin Sima and I collect dirty plates and take them to the kitchen, where Mother washes them and Aunt Raya and Grandma dry them. Little Tanya runs in circles around the apartment, and my cousin Roma reads The Last of the Mohicans on the small couch that used to be my bed. The plates tinkle in our hands, water gurgles in the sink, and the women quietly talk about domestic affairs. Only the men are still sitting around the table, red-faced and agitated.

  “And now Khrushchev’s retired! Just a couple of days ago the newspapers wrote that he was on vacation, and today they say he’s retired. Why so suddenly? What happened?” I hear my father’s voice.

  “It’s always the same. They feed us lies. We’ll never know what happened,” Abraham, Aunt Raya’s husband, replies.

  “What difference does it make? Khrushchev, Smushchev. They’re all the same. For us, anyway.” That is my Grandfather.

  “You don’t know that. Remember Stalin? Things can always get worse,” Father gives his usual pessimistic line.

  “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it,” Grandfather says.

  “They play their own game, and in that game, we don’t matter. Never did. Pawns matter only in chess.”

  I look at Mother. “They say Khrushchev’s retired. Why?”

  Mother—an apron around her waist and a wash cloth in her hand—busies herself with the wet plates and says nothing.