The Rascally Romance (in a single helluva-long letter about a flicking-short life)
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One day I went up the creek, as far as another village, there was an earthen dam built by that village boys to make a pond for swimming. But after that, I fell ill and was taken to the same upstream village because only there was infirmary of 3 beds.
On one of those 3 beds, I was ill almost a whole week reading The Standard Bearers by Gonchar and eating the strawberry jam brought by Dad’s sister, Aunt Sasha, or maybe it was his brother’s wife, Aunt Anna, because they came together to see me.
So we spent Dad’s vacations and returned to the Object…
~ ~ ~
Soon after our return, Mom took Sasha and Natasha with her and went on her vacations to Konotop. Again, Dad and I kept each other manly company of 2. He cooked tasty pasta soup the Navy way and explained me things about the seamen's life. For instance, on ships many commands are given by the bugle calls and those signals are not just “du-du-du-du du-du-du-du” as bleated by a pioneer bugler, when marching behind the drummer after the Pioneer Company Banner at some ceremonial line-up. The ship bugle plays a different melody for each occasion. At midday meal time the bugle sings, “Take your spoon, and your mess-tin, quickly run to the half-deck”.
The mess-tin is a pot with a lid which they fill for a sailor with his grub to eat, and the half-deck is that place on the ship where the cook ladles that grub out.
Dad taught me some sea words too. “Topmast” means the highest point on a boat. When they want to play a trick on a young sailor, they usually give him a teapot and send to fetch tea from the topmast. The greenhorn unaware, of course, where it was, walks about the boat asking how to get there. The seasoned sailors direct him from one place to another or to the engine room, just for fun…
And Dad also told that some zeks, who spent too many years in Zona, could no longer live in freedom. Because of that one recidivist, who served his term, was pleading his Zona Chief not to let him loose but go on keeping locked up. But his Zona Chief replied, “The law is the law! Get lost!”
In the evening, the kicked-out recidivist was brought back to Zona because he killed a man in a nearby village. And the murderer was yelling, “I told you, Chief! Because of you I had to take an innocent’s life!”
By those words, Dad’s eyes looked sideways and up, and even the sound of his voice changed strangely…
Some books I re-read more than once, not immediately, of course, but after some time. That day I was re-reading the book of stories about revolutionary Babushkin, which I was awarded at school for assiduous studying and active participation in the public life of school. He was a common laborer and worked for rich plant owners before becoming a revolutionary…
When Dad called me for midday meal, I went to the kitchen, got seated at the table and, eating the pasta soup, shared, “And did you know, that before the October Revolution the workers at the Putilov factory once were forced to work for 40 hours at a stretch?”
To which Dad replied, “Did you know that your Mom went to Konotop with another man?”
I raised my head up from the plate. Dad was sitting in front of untouched soup and looking at the kitchen window blinds.
I got scared, cried, and shouted, “I’ll kill him!”
But Dad, still looking at the blinds, answered, “No, Sehryozha, we don’t need no killing.”
His voice sounded a little nasal as that of the recidivist murderer who wanted to stay in Zona.
Then Dad got to the Detachment’s Hospital and for two days the neighbor woman, who had moved in the rooms of the redundant Zimins, was coming to our kitchen to cook meals for me. On the third day, Mom came back together with my sister-’n’-brother…
Mom went to see Dad at the Detachment’s Hospital and took me with her. Dad came out to the yard in the pajamas to which they change all the patients there. The parents sat on a bench and told me to go and play somewhere. I walked away but not too far, and I heard as Mom was quickly telling something to Dad in a low voice.
He looked straight in front of himself and repeated the same words, “The kids will understand when they grow up.”
(…when I grew up, I understood that some informer had sent a letter from Konotop, only that time directly to my Dad instead of the Special Department.
What for? By telling on my Mom, the rat was gaining no improvement in the housing conditions nor other amelioration in their day-to-day life. Or maybe, just out of habit? Or maybe, that was not a neighbor at all?
Some people, when not happy with their lives, think it will help if someone else does badly. I do not think it works, but I know that there are such thinkers.
And I never asked my brother or sister about the man who went with them to Konotop that summer. Nonetheless, now I know that so it was.
Mom built her defense on Dad’s frivolous behavior during his vacation the previous year, when he went alone to a Crimean sanatorium on the admission card from the trade-union. He got so light-minded there that never thought to get rid of his light-mindedness evidence, and Mom had to wash that evidence out from his underpants in the washing machine “Oka”…)
Then Dad left the Hospital and we started to live on further…
~ ~ ~
At school, our sixth grade was moved back onto the second floor in the main building. Because of uninterrupted book-reading and watching the television I had no time for home assignments but still remained a “good learner” just out of teachers’ inertia.
In the school public life, I played the role of a horse in the performance staged by the pioneers of our school. The role was assigned to me because Dad made a big horse head from cardboard and on stage I represented the horse’s head and forelegs. My arms and shoulders were hidden under a large colorful shawl, which also covered one more boy who crouched behind me gripping my belt because he played the role of hinder-parts.
The horse did not say anything on stage and appeared there only as the nightmare to scare an idler in his sleep and make him reform and study well. We performed in the school gym, and in the Regiment Club, and even went on a tour out of Zona—to the club of Pistovo village. Everywhere, the appearance of the horse sparked vivacity among the audience…