My mother's stories
chapter 8
chapter 8
A boy from the orphanage across the road
It was only the female part of population in the village who disapproved of my mother. She was popular among the boys and one of the teachers even asked her to marry him. And it was not surprising. I remember my own impression when I saw her old photographs. I felt rather a pang of envy when I was looking at her nicely-shaped brows and eyes under a crown of thick, wavy hair. These photos were taken a few years after she left the village and she had an expression of a beauty who was well aware of her attractiveness. My own hair didn’t have any curls and I have never been so pretty, of course, but it took me almost 50 years to understand I was not bad-looking either and my daughter was not wrong when she praised my old photographs. It was just my up-bringing. My mother thought it was bad for a young girl’s moral to think she was attractive. So I didn’t. And it had its advantages – when the time came and my youthful attractiveness began to wane it didn’t become such a big tragedy for me as it was for my mother.
Anyway neither my mother’s good looks nor her success at school improved her mother’s attitude to her. It had a rather opposite effect. Her mother never attended school herself. She was taught to read and write at some short-term courses and was not very good at it. And her elder daughter with her excellent memory was the best pupil at school and was always chosen to recite some long poem at the festive concerts. Everybody was clapping when she was descending from the stage and she was always given some present for her performances. Usually it was a package of sweets and cookies, but once it was a pair of mittens. All the girls were so impressed and envious. Adults couldn’t imagine it was possible to buy such garments for children. It was just a waste of money! Nevertheless, after my mother’s triumph with the mittens several most prosperous fathers bought them for their daughters. Especially warm feeling my mother cherished for the famous Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko, who lived at the time of serfdom. They used to have a big performance on his birthday and, of course, it was she, who recited one of his long poems with vivid pictures of slave labour and poverty against a beautiful background of Ukrainian nature. Her reciting always drew tears from the most part of the audience. The poet himself was a surf till the age of 24, so no wonder his verses were so touching. My mother learnt most of them by heart from a thick volume she inherited from her father.
My father’s surname was the first thing that attracted my mother when she met him. He was just a boy, several months younger than her, from the orphanage across the road. But he shared his surname with her favourite poet. She even told me once that she chose my father among the other suitors because he had no relatives and she loved his surname. When she was in a more sentimental mood she could tell that he was her devoted friend through all her teens.
It was a really hard time for her. Although her mother didn’t attack her with her fists any more she could never be insensible to her fits of fury with her eyes flashing and her mouth spitting curses. My mother always lost her appetite after those ugly scenes. Maybe this emotional pressure that she had to endure and the great famine in 1947, when she almost starved to death, caused the serious problems with her health. Her heart was racing painfully, she couldn’t eat and sleep. Her excellent memory began to fail and she couldn’t be the best at school any more.
At that time when my mother was sure her life was not going to last for long the boy from the orphanage across the road started to come and look after her. He chopped firewood and brought water from the well and then, while my mother was cooking, her new friend was playing the guitar. She always slept well after his little concerts. I believe the guitar accompanied them as well when they were going for a walk. I remember a post-card that I found once among the old photographs. A young couple was strolling there through the blooming fields. A girl had flowers in her hands or maybe a garland of flowers on her head – I forgot the details. But I remember the inscription made by my mother’s hand: “It’s just like us, darling. Only we would have your guitar with us for company”. My mother used to tell me she had never been in love with my father but it looked like their friendship was gentler than she wanted me to believe, for some reason.
Was she trying to keep me from having close relationship with a man? This instinctive desire is especially strong in those mothers who are attached to their children too much and don’t want them to grow up, as it was in my case. Anyway, although I couldn’t remember my father playing the guitar, as I was pretty small when he played a lot, but I have always been extremely sensitive to its sound. And was it really so strange that when I took notice of my future husband he was playing the guitar? Yet it was not until our third year at university together! I think our marriage lasted so long in spite of all the disagreements that we had because my husband loved playing the guitar and I loved to listen to him playing.
As for my father it was a great blow for him when working at some dangerous machine at his plant he lost two fingers on his left hand and couldn’t play the guitar any more. All his friends and coworkers assured him it was possible to learn how to press the strings with another hand. My father tried hard but didn’t manage it and smashed his guitar into pieces in the end. I suppose he had another instrument too because I remember myself finding an old guitar, half cracked, lying in the distant corner of the shed. I was really astonished when my mother told me that my father loved playing it and that there was a cat, who always came and sat beside him listening. This animal even tried to join the music with its mewing. I just couldn’t imagine how it was possible for a cat to sing. However, especially surprising for me was that after the end of the concert the cat liked to jump onto my father’s lap and take sweets straight out of his mouth. As far as I can remember I never noticed any affection for the cats from his side. He usually had some hobbies but I don’t think he had ever had a real passion for anything since he lost his fingers. He had definitely loved his wife but it was not the same feeling that he had when at the age of eighteen he had to say farewell to her.
To be continued…
(c) Anna Shevchenko
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This is just a short announcement for those who’ve been reading “Five favourite things since my childhood” more or less regularly. I decided to divide my story into two parts. At first it was supposed to be five short stories united under the title “Five favourite things since my childhood”, but when I reached the fifth story “Travelling” I couldn’t start it properly for a long time. Maybe it happened because there was no travelling in my childhood – only dreams about it. So I started to write about trips and walking tours with my husband and children and my story moved forward easily enough. But gradually I noticed that I couldn’t stop writing and the story about my love for travelling turned into an actual travelling through time. After some search I found the place where “Travelling” should be finished. The following story I called “My mother’s stories”. Actually, it’s my stories too – just a mixture of them, an attempt to understand why everything in my family and in my country was going on as if people had a goal to spoil their life as much as they were able to.
