Time goes by, first slowly, like a panting freight train, then faster and faster, like a high-speed express. Babskoe Leto passes its colorful torch to the late fall, which extinguishes it with winds, leaden clouds, and drizzle. With the onset of winter, my life returns to its usual order. My teachers, overwhelmed by bad students, miserable salaries, long lines for simple necessities, and the difficult duties of promoting healthy Soviet morals and principles, begin to forget my sins. My peers recognize my utter sexual ignorance and treat me the way they used to. My overworked parents slowly fill up our bookcase.
The question of who should oversee my reading is still unresolved. And gradually, my troubles become another memory, firmly pressed under the layers of time and the piles of early snow. Even my tingling sensations, the reason for all this turmoil, suddenly vanish, like grass and flowers, chirruping birds, and frothy dark amber liquid kvass. Until next summer.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
TRAITOR
This year I have a new best friend, Ulya. She is very short—shorter than I am! Puffy clouds of unruly light hair surround her sunny face with big dark eyes. A slightly large nose curves gently above her full lips, and her arms and legs are as plump as a baby's. Ulya and I attended the same music school for years, but since she plays the violin and I the piano, we barely knew each other—until one day, our respective teachers decided that the two of us should play together at an annual end-of-the-year concert. That concert marked the beginning our friendship.
We were the last students to perform that day. When we finally appeared on stage, we were so worn out from nerves and the long wait that we failed to start our piece together. During rehearsals, Ulya always waited for my nod, but at the concert, when I lifted my chin from the piano and looked at her, I realized that she was already playing, and if I wanted to be a part of our number at all, I had to catch up with her.
Unfortunately, I could not figure out how far along in the piece Ulya already was, so I started from the beginning—several bars behind her. Had this been an athletic event, a judge would have declared a false start and we would have been given another go. As it was, nobody told us to stop, and we played on until the end of the piece—with Ulya crossing the finish line first and me second.
Later, our teachers told us that they had never been so ashamed in their “entire lives” and that it was the worst number at that concert and, quite possibly, “in the entire history of our music school!” After our teachers left us alone and we had exchanged several rounds of “It was all your fault, you dummy!” we looked at each other and began laughing—mostly from relief and embarrassment, but also from the recognition that we would never be good musicians; therefore, there was nothing to fight about.
We laughed and laughed, until Ulya said, “Let's go get some ice cream.” That turned out to be an excellent idea, because it gave us a chance to discover that we had lots in common. We both liked the same kind of ice cream—eskimo-na-palochke (Eskimo pie). We were both poor athletes who hated PE. We liked reading books far beyond our age level, and we were both Jewish.
To be precise, Ulya was half-Jewish—her mother was Jewish and her father Russian. In a country like Israel, where ethnicity is defined by one’s mother, that would have made her one hundred percent Jewish. Yet in Russia, where paternal relations are more important and where being “Russian” is imperative for success, she was registered as Russian. However, all of Ulya’s Russian relatives—including her father—died before Ulya was born, while all of her mother's relations were alive and actively present in Ulya’s life. So we both decided that for all practical purposes, Ulya was as Jewish as I was.
After we had successfully dealt with the Jewish question, we revealed to each other that we were not popular in our regular schools, we had very few friends, and we worried about being unattractive. Of course, when we got to that topic, we both said, “Oh, you're much prettier than me,” but neither one of us believed the other.
When the ice cream had become a sweet memory, I told Ulya about my past infatuation with my physics teacher, and she confessed to me that she was hopelessly in love with a boy in her school. Together, we reached the grievous conclusion that true love is always unrequited and life in general is not fair. After that, our friendship was cemented forever.
Ulya and I live about an hour away from each other, so we don’t spend much time together. We don’t talk on the phone either, since our families, like all the families we know, have no telephones. We usually see each other on weekends or at the music school—we linger after classes until it occurs to one of us that she has been expected at home a long time ago.
Most of our conversations are about books, movies, and love. Other topics include our families and our future. The latter is a special favorite with Ulya who, unlike me, is practical and focused, rather than a daydreamer. Perhaps this is due to the early deaths of her relatives, which taught her at a young age that time is limited, or perhaps her present does not inspire her, whereas the future promises an escape that she yearns for.
It is a cool weekday, lit by an anemic early-spring sun and fanned by a damp breeze. Ulya and I are taking a stroll in a small city park not far from our music school. We have already discussed burning questions of the heart in general and Turgenev's story “First Love” in particular, and we have sworn never to get involved with the opposite sex but to dedicate our lives to our careers instead.
There are few others in the park. A couple of dry-faced babushkas watch little children launch ships made of newspaper down the stream of melting snow, a hunched old man on a bench pokes the thawing ground with his cane, and a young couple walks furtively holding hands.
“Have you noticed that pretty girls are all dumb?” Ulya says.
This thought has never occurred to me before, but as it comes out of Ulya’s mouth, I immediately recognize its wisdom, and I can hardly believe that I never figured this out on my own.
“Sure,” I say, fixing my eyes on the couple: a young pimply-faced soldier in a gray wool uniform and his companion, an attractive blue-eyed woman with unnaturally long eyelashes and perfectly drawn eyebrows.
“If I had to choose between being smart and being pretty, I'd choose being smart,” Ulya declares, and I nod in not-very-sincere agreement.
For a moment, we enjoy our newly-achieved sense of superiority and we almost feel sorry for the blue-eyed woman in front of us and others like her who are pretty but dumb. We do not want to be dumb, and if being ugly is the price we must pay for being smart, we are happy to pay it—not that we have a choice anyway!
Also, none of those gorgeous creatures who bathe in the glow of male attention will be attractive forever. By the time they are old—twenty-five or thirty—their charm will disappear, and everybody will see how shallow and self-centered they are. As for us, even twenty years from now, our intellect and wisdom will continue to shine.
We look at each other satisfied with ourselves. “What school are you going to next year?” Ulya says, picking up a stick and throwing it at a crow cawing behind us.
“The same one I've been going to since we moved to our apartment. Why?”
“If you want to go to a good college, you need to transfer to a better school,” Ulya says, stopping in her tracks and bringing her face close to mine, as if revealing an important government secret. “Mother says that if you don’t have svyazi (connections), you need to start preparing now. I’ve decided to go to the University (Lomonosov Moscow State University, the best school in the country). Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know,” I say, my sense of self-worth shrinking. Maybe I am not as smart as I thought I was a couple of minutes ago; surely not as smart as Ulya!
“The University has more than twenty applicants for every place,” Ulya says, and her dark eyes become as round as the buttons of her coat. “Mother says that to get in I’d have to study with tutors or transfer to a good school, like that one by Minaevskij Marketplace.”
“Will your mo
ther hire you tutors, then?” I say.
“No, we have no money for tutors. I'll transfer to that school. What about you?” Ulya says. “Wouldn't it be cool if we both went there?”
The school Ulya is talking about opened a year ago, and it is one of those rare “special” schools that are sprinkled unevenly throughout the city. In addition to the regular curriculum, these schools give their students advanced training in certain subjects, usually foreign languages or hard sciences. The foreign language schools rarely admit students with no connections, no matter what the students’ abilities. Hard sciences, however, are less popular among the “connected” families, so admission to them is based mostly on merit. The school by Minaevskij Marketplace is one of these.
“I don’t know,” I say, surprised by Ulya’s purposefulness—after all, college is still two years away! “Everybody says that school is tough. And you have to pass an entrance exam.”
“You make good grades. Surely you’ll pass the exam,” Ulya says brightly, as if she is a government official delivering a speech about the unlimited possibilities of our great country.
I say nothing. True, I am one of the best students in my regular district school, but will I be good enough for that school?
“You do want to go to college, don’t you?” Ulya says, sensing my reluctance.
I do not answer. I have never doubted that I would go to college. Both of my parents are professionals and both of my older cousins are already college students. I would be the black sheep of the family if I did not go. Yet do I have to change my life now? It is still early, isn’t it? Besides, unlike Ulya who has already decided that she wants to be a geologist, I am not clear what I want to do with the rest of my life, besides writing romance novels based on my own and Ulya's experiences and traveling to the North Pole, that is.
“You'll need it even more than me,” Ulya says averting her eyes, and I immediately understand her hidden message.
Wherever Ulya’s true sympathies may lie, she is registered as “Russian” and I as “Jewish.” This means that my admission to college will be affected by a Jewish quota. Depending on the prestige of the college and the number of candidates, that quota varies, but invariably, more Jewish students must compete for fewer spaces. I have heard my relatives talk about this many times; I just never realized that one day this would apply to me.
“Do you think I could pass an entrance exam for the University?” I ask my father at night.
“Probably not,” Father says, not lifting his head from his book. “Of course, you need to go to college, but it doesn't have to be the University,” and he turns the page.
“Do we have svyazi, Dad?”
Father puts down his book and looks at me.
“No, we don't,” he says, stressing every word. “That's exactly why you need to make good grades. Any more questions?”
I turn to the dark window and away from Father. This really sucks. More times than I care to remember, I have heard people say that Jews have connections “everywhere.” How come my family doesn’t? What’s wrong with us? Like everybody else, we stand in long lines at grocery stores, and Mother and I freeze our butts off to buy Tanya and me a pair of winter boots, or anything else for that matter. We don’t have much money, we don’t own a dacha, and we live in a small communal apartment.
Yet, apparently, admission to a college will be tougher for me than for my Russian peers, while going to the University is out of the question altogether. Why? And where are those sly, well-connected Jews who have everything on a “silver platter”? I don’t know any of them! Do they really exist? And if they do, why don’t we belong to that exclusive group? Nobody likes us anyway, so shouldn’t we, at least, possess something that will give people reasons to dislike us? Yes, Ulya is right. I need to go to a better school. I turn to my father again.
“Dad, I want to transfer to the special school by Minaevskij Marketplace. Ulya wants to go there, too.”
Father closes his book. “Um. That’s an interesting idea,” he says and looks at Mother, who is ironing linen on the dinner table. Mother puts down her iron, neatly folds a freshly ironed bed-sheet and returns his glance.
“We’ll think about that,” Father says. “You know they have an entrance exam, right?”
The exam takes place at the beginning of June. By that time, the school year is over and so is my music career. On May 15, after months of rehearsing, Ulya and I, and fifteen more music school students perform our final exams. We play our numbers with hands cold from nerves and hearts heavy with the fear of failing. A panel of teachers evaluates our accomplishments, while famous musicians look upon us mournfully from their framed portraits. In a week or so, we receive our music diplomas and our parents frame and hang them on the walls of our respective apartments.
When I leave the freshly painted classroom where one unsmiling male and two unsmiling female teachers interrogate me with a variety of math and physics questions for what seems like forever, I feel weak and lightheaded. The school hall is packed with potential students: those who are waiting to be tested and those who have already gotten through the purgatory of the exam and now lean against the walls, exhausted. Some kids wear glasses and have an intellectual air about them and some look ordinary. Also, contrary to Ulya's statement about the stupidity of pretty girls, several girls in the hall are rather good-looking.
Ulya rushes toward me from the other side of the hall—her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkling with the enthusiasm of a sure winner, “How did you do?”
“I don’t know. The questions were real hard,” I say, trying to keep my voice even. “I think I flunked.”
“I’m sure you did just fine,” Ulya says, containing her excitement and lowering her voice. I say nothing. Ulya looks at me with concern, “Do you want to grab some ice cream?” And we turn and head silently to the exit.
The results come three days later. I have passed! Both of us have passed! I stare at the students’ roster in utter disbelief. There is it—my name, in black and white. Next to me Ulya is jumping up and down, “I told you! Didn’t I tell you?! You’re such a pessimist!”
The smile on my face must be as wide as the great Russian river Volga, and my body feels so light that it would not surprise me if my feet separated from the ground and I found myself floating in air. It’s over! Well, actually, it is just the beginning of what must be my bright and wonderful future. Just one thing, a little footnote at the bottom of the roster states that all students should deliver their previous schools’ records within a week.
“Mom, could you ask our school principal for my records?” I say to Mother as she leaves for work next morning.
“I can’t get off work until late. You have to do it yourself,” she says.
“What about Father?”
“He's leaving for a business trip. He has no time,” Mother says, and the front door slams behind her.
“I can go with you,” my sister Tanya chimes in. “You’ll talk to your principal and I’ll wait for you in the hall. And then we’ll go and get fizzy water with …”
“No, you can’t,” I say. Taking Tanya with me is the last thing I want to do. She will ask how hard the new school will be and what I will do if I do not like it. But I cannot answer these questions even for myself. Besides, doubts about my abilities still churn in my stomach.
“You wait for me here. I’ll come back and take you out for fizzy water,” I say and rush outside, rehearsing what I am going to tell the school principal.
“What? What did you just say? You want to leave our school?” The principal Elizaveta Vasilievna, a small woman with unnaturally black permanent waves, dark piercing eyes, and a shadow of mustache above her upper lip, bends her head to one side, as if looking at me from that angle allows her to see something inside me that she would not spot otherwise. “Why do you want to leave?”
“I want to go to college, and I need to be better prepared,” I mutter, carefully avoiding the principal’s stare.
Elizaveta Vasilievna rises from her desk—her face red and her bosom heaving. “Are you saying that our school is not good?!” I step backwards and stumble on a chair behind me, while she continues, “That we don’t prepare our students for college?”
My hands go cold. Not that I expected the conversation to be pleasant exactly, but I am not prepared for such animosity either.
“I just need my records,” I say in a small trembling voice. “That's all.”
The principle puts her hands on her hips, the way a Soviet saleswoman does when she prepares to reprimand a demanding customer, and steps even closer. “Look at her! Our school is not good enough for her!” she sneers. “Who do you think you are?” Then she brings her face next to mine, and her pale twisted lips and gold-crowned front teeth appear at my eye level. “You can forget about college! I won't give you your records!”
The floor begins waltzing under me. This cannot be happening. After all, I did not do anything wrong. I just asked for my papers. This must be one of my nightmares. I need to wake up. I shut my eyes tight, hoping that when I open them again, I will find myself in my bed—sweaty, scared, but safe. Then I open my eyes. Nothing is changed. Right before me stands an adult, a teacher, with undisguised hatred on her face, eager to destroy me.
I clench my fists. What should I do? Retreat? Forget about Ulya’s plan and the roster with my name, and go home? Or should I fight? But how? We children are taught never to argue with adults, even with strangers, not to mention the head teacher. I cannot do it, can I?
“You have no right!” My voice is breaking and my fingernails are piercing my skin, and I gather all my will power to keep from shaking and crying.
“Rights? I'll show you rights!” Elizaveta Vasilievna sput-ters—her breath heavy and vile, like the breath of a hydra-headed monster from a fairytale. “You're a traitor, and traitors have no rights in our country! I'll report you to the authorities!” And she raises her hand as if for a blow. I recoil.
The Education of a Traitor: A Memoir of Growing Up in Cold War Russia Page 23
