понедельник, 11 декабря 2023 г.

My mother's stories (chapter twenty eight - the continuation)

chapter 28

The study in dark colours

(the continuation)


      It's such a pity that I forgot all about my father playing the guitar. I can't even say that my memory is that bad because I remember a lot of little episodes from that time when we lived in the factory region. It looks like I was especially receptive to nice colours. No wonder I still remember that fine piece of fabric that my father brought for my mother from his business trip. It was lilac crepe de Chine with an unobtrusive tracery of dainty catkins scattered all over it. I was not forgotten either and got a bright yellow stuffed ostrich that was taken away from me by some child on that very day and my mother had to run somewhere to get my toy back. I completely forgot if she was successful in her quest or not. I think I was about three then and it seems I was not attached to my toys too much. The appreciation came a bit later and after that my mother had a real trouble pulling me away from a counter behind which dolls of different sizes and shapes were sitting or standing on the shelves. At that age I couldn't share my mother's feelings when she was telling me with a note of pride in her voice how I treated my very first doll. I was slightly shocked to hear that I cut its head open as soon as I managed to grab a suitable tool with my little hands. “Why!” my mother exclaimed in disbelief. “Don't you get it? You just wished to see what was inside its head.” That was so typical of my mother. Being non-trivial herself, she always thought highly of originality in others.

      To my mother's luck, by the age of four I had already understood the meaning of toys and loved to play with a couple of tiny plastic dolls that were really cheap. So it was not a problem to buy a new one if I lost or broke one of them. It's amazing how easily I can withdraw them from my memory. The slightly bigger doll named “Ballerina” was quite pretty. Although its brown curls were just engraved on its plastic head, its blue eyes were surrounded by real eyelashes. And, what is more, its tutu was made from real fabric despite its small size. As for the smaller doll, it was rather homely and naked with short crooked arms and legs. Yet I found it even more fascinating because it came with a nice open-work bed, red or blue. Surely I couldn't accept my mother's explanation that my little doll was just a baby in a cot. So I always urged her to sew a long skirt for it to hide those bandy legs. Every girl desired her doll to look like a little princess! It was so captivating to dress and undress it, especially if you had some pretty clothes for it in stock. I remember once one of my playmates shook my imagination when she showed me her own baby doll in a bright red swimming costume, which she painted herself right on her doll's body, borrowing in secret her mother's nail polish. That was definitely an unusual approach.

      As for real babies, I found them rather frightening, with that habit of theirs to start shouting all of a sudden. That was the price for being the only child in the family, I suppose. Sometimes I could observe our neighbour's trouble with their baby but I didn't have the slightest desire to cast a closer look at it. The reek that was coming from their front garden was too overwhelming. My reluctance to approach that little creature only increased when I learned from my mother's acid remarks that the stink was wafted to us from its wetted swaddling-clothes, which its lazy parents didn't want to wash and preferred to dry in the sun instead. As if we hadn't had enough foul smells in our yard even without them. However my main problem was not that - but my inability to find my place among all those children who were playing in our yard or running through the intricate labyrinth of yards that formed our surroundings. I was afraid of babies and found those who were two or three years younger than me rather stupid. Most of them couldn't talk properly and their drawings seemed to me just laughable.

      I remember my surprise when we once visited my parents' acquaintances and their little boy showed me his sketch-book scribbled all over with incomprehensible twisted lines. To my bewilderment he hastily drew two more lines with a wry loop on the top of each and informed me proudly that those were his mum and dad. I just couldn't get it but his parents only smiled warmly at their so-called portraits. My mother assured me that the boy would draw much better when he grew up a bit but I could hardly believe it. Actually it didn't really matter whether I could or not because in our yard most of the children were older than me and it was a much bigger problem. I don't know exactly why I provoked those children's aggression. Was it only my stubborn refusal to hold my tongue and inability to defend my convictions with my own fists? Perhaps I shouldn't have boasted that my parents never used beating as a punishment to force me to behave. Wasn't it rather natural that all those children were inclined to make up for that deficiency in my up-bringing?

      As far as I can recall, mostly I got it from that girl, just a year older than me, who lived on the opposite side of our yard. It seemed that she could attack me without any reason at all. It definitely looked like that when I was once standing, surrounded by other children, telling them an idea for a new game. Funny, I still remember that most of the children were taller than me and that meant that they were also older as I was not too short for my age. Yet all of them were listening attentively to my little speech. Suddenly that fiend of a girl jumped out of nowhere and pushed me to the ground. If I did say something that infuriated her I wasn't aware of it because her attack took me completely by surprise. I remember it was a painful fall as there was some sharp stone just where I landed. But that time I didn't run home in tears as usual because the others persuaded me not to, telling me a scary story about that girl's fierce parents who would beat her for certain with a leather belt if they learnt that she attacked me again. I believe they threatened her with that after my mother, having lost her temper at last, banged against their gates, shouting that she would kill anyone who touched a hair on my head. I'm afraid it was the only way to protect your child at that place, where I started to learn what “the law of the jungle” was.

      I can't say I was completely friendless at that time. In fact, when I was five I even had a suitor – a curly-haired boy of three. My mother loved to tell me later how persistent that little fellow was in his desire to marry me as soon as possible. He wished me to move to their flat or else was ready to live with my parents. In the end, we started to build our own house from shell rock debris, some boards and tin-plates that were piled up in our yard. For me it was just a game, but I think my little friend really believed we were going to live there. To our resentment every morning we found our house destroyed by an angry woman who took care of our yard. In response to our complaints my mother advised us to be quiet and consider ourselves lucky that our parents weren't fined for our willfulness. A year or so later my little friend's desire to marry me evaporated of course. It's a usual story with men. Nevertheless it's nice to remember that once I met a suitor, who believed that marriage was a necessary institution.

To be continued...

(c) Anna Shevchenko


32. The informer (the continuation)
41. The study in dark colours
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среда, 20 сентября 2023 г.

My mother's stories (chapter twenty eight - the continuation)

chapter 28

The study in dark colours 

(the continuation)

       After some reflection it suddenly came to me that I was not the only one who had a hard time during those five years in the factory region. I was not so little not to remember anything about my parents' sufferings at that time. Yet I can't find even a shred of recollection about it. Perhaps it is still hidden somewhere in my subconsciousness and that's why I always had that sensation of dark colours that prevailed in the picture when I was thinking about that period of my life. Who knows, maybe I didn't understand then what was really happening. Later, of course, my mother told me a lot of stories about those misfortunes that unexpectedly fell on their heads. Besides I still have our old black-and-white photographs that only confirm her tales. For instance, a picture of my father with his chin unshaven lying in a hospital bed, or our family standing in front of our shabby dwelling made from unplastered shell rock: father in his military uniform and mother with me in her arms looking so thin with her cheeks sunken.

       I was five when my father had an attack of appendicitis. I have no recollection of my own about it but my mother used to tell me in detail how in spite of keen pain and high temperature he stubbornly refused to go to hospital. When he got there at last his surgeon told him that his operation had been done just in time to avoid peritonitis; the complication that even now, with all the variety of antibiotics, is considered life-threatening. So my father was really lucky in this case. Still, he had to endure a lot of pain because at that time such simple operations were usually done only under local anaesthesia. No wonder he so desperately delayed going to hospital.

       But it was not that incident that traumatized my father most of all. I believe it was the loss of two fingers on his left hand that changed his character forever. By that time father had already started working at the machine-building plant in the model workshop where they made models of the machine parts from wood. In the old photo taken there he is actually smiling, evidently showing his coworkers how easily he can work with a chisel in his right hand, helping himself a bit with his mutilated left one still in bandages. At that moment he didn't know yet that although he would work with wood as skillfully as before, he wouldn't be able to play his beloved guitar any more.

       And, indeed, no matter how hard my father tried, he couldn't play the guitar properly after that accident. Following his friends' advice, he tried to change his hands while playing it - but in vain. His right hand simply was not able to do the job of the left one. It's a mystery for me but I don't remember anything about my father playing the guitar. It's especially incomprehensible because I have always had a soft spot for its sound. According to the inscription at the back of the photo, where his left hand is still in bandages, I was almost seven then. But all that I can remember it's the finding of an old half-cracked guitar in our shed and pestering my mother with questions. To my astonishment she warned me not to upset my father with questions about it and then told me with some reluctance that it was my father who used to love playing it. However, some time after his accident, he smashed his favourite instrument in a fit of anger. 

      I asked my son if he remembered anything else because I knew his grandmother couldn't skip such a tale while recounting her endless stories to him. He was sure it happened soon after we moved to our settlement at the edge of the city. But apart from that my son could only recall that when thinking about that episode he always imagined his grandfather sitting with his guitar on a tree-stump in our yard, trying again and again to press the strings on the finger-board with his right hand. And then suddenly jumping to his feet and smashing it against the stump. Now we will never know how exactly it all happened and how many weeks or maybe months passed before my father admitted defeat.

       My own achievement in this area has been limited to ”A grasshopper sitting in the grass”, a popular song from a Soviet cartoon, that I used to play on two strings of my husband's guitar. Perhaps for that reason I have never really understood in full measure why his inability to play the guitar became such a blow for my father. As far as I can remember from my mother's tales, he never even took part in any amateur concerts. He just loved to come home from work and play with gusto all his favourite tunes - exactly as many years later my young husband would do. As for my father, it reminded him, I think, of his teen years, when he and my mother used to stroll around the village or through the fields with his guitar for company. And it was not just some warm reminiscence for him but a real passion for music. One of my mother's stories undoubtedly shows it. 

       I remember her telling me with amusement how they once went to the small town of Savran'. It was at a ten-kilometer distance and they could hardly expect that someone would give them a lift. So they had to get up at the crack of dawn to get to the local market in time. But it was worth it. They spent a few exciting hours there and there they heard a new tune on the radio that fascinated them both. My father loved it so much that when they were coming back home, he asked my mother's permission to leave her half-way to the village and then ran to his orphanage just to grab his guitar and play that marvelous tune while he still remembered it. My mother even gave us the name of the tune - “The smith's dream”. It's a pity that my son couldn't find it on the Internet. I haven't tried to check it myself, thinking that maybe it was for the better. It would be really disappointing if it turned out that I didn't like that music as much as my father did in his teens.

       I understand, of course, that the change of my father's character was not aroused only by his failure with the guitar. One can't be young and cheerful forever. As a rule, the older we become, the more pressure we have to endure. My father's new job at the plant was much more tiring than his military service. Especially with only one day-off per week at first, that is until communists finally decided to give people another day-off to have proper rest. Unlike white-collar workers they still had to work one Saturday a month though. Black Saturdays they used to call them. Hard work and constant lack of sleep – that's how I remember my father's work at that damn plant. In addition, he spent part of his evenings studying at a technical secondary school. No wonder he became more irritable and much less cheerful.

       Nevertheless, I believe my father's failure with the guitar was a crucial point. I can't call it “the last straw” because it meant much more than just “the straw” to him. It was one of those cases when you suddenly find yourself deprived of something that gave you joy and support in life. Surely, he could still listen to music on our record-player. I remember his favourite singer was Robertino Loretty, a boy with an unusually clear and strong voice. But listening was not the same as eliciting music from the strings with his own fingers. Haven't I felt the same when I had to say farewell to my cycling trips through the fields because of the problems with my legs? It seemed nobody could understand then why it was such a big tragedy for me.

To be continued...

(c) Anna Shevchenko

32. The informer (the continuation)
41. The study in dark colours

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пятница, 30 июня 2023 г.

My mother's stories (chapter twenty eight)

 

chapter 28

The study in dark colours

       I suppose I was slightly older than a toddler when my mother got her own piece of land at last or - to be precise - it was my father who received it from the state as an orphan. Although, the idea was definitely my mother's – she learnt about such an opportunity from some woman, who advised her not to miss it. When I think about the beginning of our settlement among the wild steppe I always imagine a lot of fresh fragrant air and abundance of thick motley grass. Naturally, there was no electricity or water-pipes back then and only a few people here and there were building their first temporary dwellings and digging their wells for imported water. Yet, I believe my young parents were happy there, on that first plot of their own, and were full of plans for their future house. Who knows, maybe that's why I have always loved camping so much? I mean that it took its origins from my early childhood when my first impressions from wild nature were intensified by my young parents' elation.

       In any case, our first dwelling was hardly much more reliable than a tent. It was a small hut that my father built using wooden boards which he hastily put together. Later he managed to get some kind of a trailer where we could even risk to spend the oncoming winter. I don't remember anything about that time, of course, but I clearly recall my parents' warm reminiscences about it. There were no children in the neighbourhood and my only friend at that time was a red dog named Silva.

       She was completely useless from my mother's rural point of view. It seemed incredible but that kind creature never barked at anybody who crossed the boundaries of our plot. Who would like to feed a guardian like that, especially taking into account that we didn't have any fence for a while? So my mother was determined to get rid of the poor animal sooner or later. I am glad I forgot how she did it in the end. Somehow Silva disappeared from our lives, but she left a few tales connected with her behind - something amusing to replenish my mother's considerable amount of stories.

       One of them started when our neighbour came to our trailer and looking at our amiable dog vigorously wagging its tail asked if it was a bitch. Sitting on my mother's lap, I seized this new word at once and uttered enthusiastically: “Bitch, bitch!” Our neighbour started, rolled her eyes in horror, and shook her finger at me: “You mustn't say this word! It's very bad.” It was an unfortunate remark. It only egged me on and I started to shout with relish: “Mummy a bitch! Daddy a bitch!” In vain that woman tried to admonish me. The more she persisted the more delightedly I continued to shout. My parents did have some trouble with me on that day – as soon as I saw one of them I began to shout my favourite new phrase. They were clever enough not to pay any attention to that and only when it became too much for them did they run out of my hearing to find some secluded corner where they could laugh to their hearts' content.

       When autumn came my father was offered a flat in the factory region. It was very tempting to him because it was situated near the sea and he really liked fishing and swimming. My mother didn't like that place at all and especially the flat, which was wet and shadowy. On the other hand, winter was approaching and she wasn't sure that it was safe to live with such a small child in such conditions when you had to walk forty minutes to the nearest tram-stop, and it took even more time to reach any shop or pharmacy. Not to mention that in the USSR more or less abundant snowfall was always a big problem on the roads. Actually, it could be a real disaster in our southern parts where we seldom had a lot of snow in winter. Yet my mother loved her new place among the wild steppe so much that she hesitated in her choice for some time.

       It was Silva who helped my mother to make her decision in the end. At least I remember her telling me that she chose the factory region at that moment when she noticed that playing with our dog I tried to follow her on my fours and sniff the ground. “Definitely children need children!” she thought in panic. But my mother shouldn't have worried because of that. Many years later who knows how many times I saw my dear grandson jumping from our sofa and galloping on all fours with apparent ease to the next room. Obviously, it was an easy task for him while he was so small and light. Our boy tried to do it even when he was nine but couldn't do it properly at that age. There was nothing wrong in that – he just liked our cats and tried to imitate them.

       Anyway, in my early childhood my mother decided to move to the factory region and there I spent five miserable years. They say a person's memory usually turns pink in due course. It was not so with those five years as well as with other dark periods of my life. I know that my mother was right – children need children to learn how to find their place in human society. I'm afraid I have never been good at it. As for those five years I can't even say that everything was so gloomy then. After all, there were multicoloured festive demonstrations that I loved so much and visits to my dear aunt's dormitory where all her room-mates seemed to like me. 

       Still, I hated the very place where we lived: the abundance of gray colour and lack of greenery, the great heaps of garbage and a revolting public toilet at the back of the yard. And, in addition, a variety of foul smells coming from the nearest factories. Incredible but some of those odours I even liked and still do. For instance, the smell of hot pitch. Or the strong odour of seaweed drying in the sun in large quantities that was later used in production of iodine. I am sure there was something else that I found nice there. As an unspoilt child I needed very little to amuse myself. Yet dark colours always prevail when I begin to recollect my life in the factory region. I believe it's because of the children. There were too many of them at that place and unlike my dear kind-hearted friend Silva they were aggressive and always ready to fight. As I was not ready for such relations and could never hold my tongue even at that age I often got it in the neck and ran home in tears. But only by the age of seven or eight, that is when I started primary school, did I learn the skill to fight back.

To be continued...

(c) Anna Shevchenko

27. The importance of family (the ending)
32. The informer (the continuation)
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воскресенье, 16 апреля 2023 г.

My mother's stories (chapter twenty seven - the ending)

 

chapter 27

The same pattern

(the ending)


       After sending a letter with her consent my mother left Odessa for Georgia where my future father served in the army as an extended-service man. They got married in the small town with an exotic name of Manglisy. I used to love my parents' stories about Georgia and its beautiful nature. It was so exciting to listen how my reckless mother, being already pregnant with me, used to climb some dangerous path in the mountains just to see some breath-taking landscape from there. I deeply regretted that I had never seen all that beauty with my own eyes. Yet Georgia was out of reach for me. As I knew from my own bitter experience, there was no hope to persuade my parents to visit any place that was further than the center of our city. My young pregnant mother, as I suspect, was glad to leave Georgia. She was fond of its beautiful nature but local folk's attitude sometimes spoilt her pleasure. I could hardly believe some of my mother's stories.

       For instance, that story about a shop assistant in the local grocery – he was supposed to like my mother as she was young and good-looking but he didn't. He never looked at her and made every effort not to serve her. It was just ridiculous - as soon as my mother reached him at last after standing in a queue he went to the opposite end of his long counter and began to serve other people there. When my mother approached him for the second time that adamant man repeated his trick and she found herself standing in the end of a long queue again. If some kind soul hadn't helped my mother to deceive that salesman, she wouldn't have bought anything on that day. This story seemed to me completely incredible. Shop assistants in the USSR were rarely friendly or polite but in that case it was undisguised hostility. I just couldn't understand why that man with his southern temperament didn't like my young mother so much if she was as pretty as her old photographs clearly show.

       My mother was sure it was her nationality that caused all the trouble. This explanation seemed to me out of place too. I was brought up to believe that our country was a big happy family of friendly republics. We were taught this at school and of course our books, films and TV programmes always tried to show us that it was truly so. I remember how I loved those big concerts on our TV where skillful actors in national costumes performed dances of different republics. They followed one after another and I was always eager to discuss whose dance and attire I liked best. Girls from Central Asia with a lot of plaits seemed to me most appealing. They looked so exotic in their embroidered skull-caps and light wide trousers. And what a pleasure it was to watch those girls dancing with their numerous plaits flying behind them! In spite of my pleading, my mother didn't allow me to grow my hair long enough for plaits. She had too much trouble with her own long and thick hair when she was a child. All that combing and braiding took so much time. It was even worse when she was too little to do it herself - her harpy of a mother used to braid her hair so tightly that she thought her eyes would pop out of her head.

       My mother was right, of course, saying that I was not industrious enough to take care of long hair. So inspired by those oriental girls I just took some darning thread and made a wig with several plaits for my favourite doll. Something still worried me though. Finishing the story about that Georgian salesman my mother told me that people from eastern republics disliked Russians. It meant Ukrainians too as we looked so similar. How could it be true? It didn't correspond too much with the idea of international friendship that was cultivated in our country.

       Nowadays it seems really odd that in my young days so many Ukrainians didn't distinguish themselves from Russians. We seemed so brotherly. Maybe that's why now there are so many elderly people who still can't realize the fact that Russians spat at more than thirty years of our independence and crossed our borders in a malicious attempt to bite off as much of our territory as they were able to. I can do it, thank God, and the story of that Georgian salesman became clear in my mind at last. Surely, he disliked my young pretty mother so much because she was a wife of a military man who was an occupant on his land. It's natural to hate occupants. And did it really matter to that man if they were Russians or Ukrainians?

       By the way, I had the same experience in Poland when I was twenty. At that time it was not so easy to visit other country even if it belonged to the socialist camp. But to our luck there was some exchange programme between universities. That's why, in spite of the “iron curtain”, I went abroad and stayed in Polish city of Katowice for three weeks. At first I felt a bit depressed because of my boyfriend who was not allowed to join our group. He was very irritated that I didn't cancel my trip for his sake and didn't even see me off. It was rumoured later that he and his friend were had been struck off our list because of their zeal to tell political jokes and ask provocative questions during our lectures on political economy. And what else could it be, considering that they were both excellent students? 

         My close friend's young man was not with us either for some reason. Maybe it was also for his tongue because he was a great lover to joke, inventing nicknames for everyone and everything. So we both were rather upset but soon we felt better going with other girls through all the shops. It was so exciting to buy things that could be found only in the black market in our own country. Moreover we discovered a cosy cafe where we could taste delicious strawberry ice-cream and whipped cream with various fruit. When we were leaving Poland all the girls sighed not so much for the shops with cheap tights, pretty knickers, and abundance of cosmetics, but for that cafe with its wonderful desserts.

       As for people's attitude to us I can't be really sure. We weren't spoilt by our own authorities' or shop-assistants' consideration and wouldn't have noticed anything even if there had been some frostiness in the air. Our student-guides seemed friendly enough, accompanying us almost everywhere, and only an old porter in our hostel seemed to hate us. He had never looked at us, exactly like that Georgian salesman in my mother's story. What is more, he tried very hard not to give us our key, pretending he didn't understand Russian at all. Being stubborn too, we learnt how to pronounce 188 in Polish. It sounded similar enough to the Russian version, but in vain we repeated in turn the number of our room. The old man only muttered something under his nose, not looking at us as before. So we gave up in the end and just started to write our number on the piece of paper.

       That settled the matter at last but one question was left unanswered. Why did that old Pole dislike us so much? Here we had again the contradiction between reality and the nice picture that was drawn for us at school. They had always told us that people from Eastern Europe were very much obliged to the USSR for being freed from German occupation. So it didn't even occur to us that those people could perceive our country as another occupant or at least something close to that. It was not actually a secret that the USSR kept countries from the socialist camp under its thumb. Yet you can't understand such things when you have lived all your life in the great empire. We would say of course that they lived “under our protection”. It's amazing how the choice of one word can change the whole meaning of the phrase.

       I don't think my young mother understood all of this at the time. She was just glad to leave Georgia for Odessa. Here she was at home. “Odessa welcomed me warmly,” - she used to tell me, describing her first impressions when she came here from Bashkiria. I am sure she felt the same when she returned here from Georgia. Here, in this southern city of Ukraine, I was born. I can't say I have ever felt at home in Odessa, but I have always loved its surroundings: wide fields, the sea and our estuary with its salt as brine waters. I think my mother was also fond of the land in the first place. She came from a family of peasants after all, and that's why she has always cared for gardening so much.

To be continued...

(c) Anna Shevchenko

27. The importance of family (the ending)
32. The informer (the continuation)
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