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
