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

 

chapter 27

The same pattern

(the continuation)

     Luckily, not all the teachers in my mother's school were so awfully disappointing. For instance, her first teacher was undoubtedly good. Otherwise my mother wouldn't be able to help me so much when I was at primary school. So was her teacher of technical drawing. It's a pity I don't remember much about him. But it's obvious that he was really good, because when my 21-year-old mother arrived in the multinational oil-bearing republic of Bashkiria she found a job of a draftswoman without difficulty. Nobody could believe that she learnt the skill of technical drawing so well in her rural school. “But she is from Ukraine,” people usually said behind her back.

       These words sound so strange in today's reality when Russians are destroying our cities with their missiles and shouting fiercely at us that there has never been such a country as Ukraine. It might seem incredible to them but I learnt to be proud of being Ukrainian in their favourite country, that is in the USSR. In that country, in spite of its other numerous faults, there were Ukrainian language lessons at schools, and books, and newspapers in Ukrainian, and tuneful Ukrainian songs on every big concert broadcasted by central TV.

      That's why it was such a shock for me to discover that Russians, without any convincing reason, suddenly started to hate Ukrainians. At first I took it as a bad joke and tried not to pay much attention to it. Actually, it was easy for me because I stopped watching TV long before that unpleasant discovery and didn't know much about ridiculous tricks and twists of Russian propaganda. I understood how serious it was only after they started to send missiles on our heads. Although even then it took me some time to realize that it was not a nightmare but was happening in real life. Still, who knows, maybe I will live to see my dear country free and prosperous one day. I do hope it will never be a part of Russian empire again. As for Russians, I don't think I will ever be able to forgive them – even if the time comes when they understand what they have done and begin to repent of their present crimes.

     It seems that my anxiety about our current desperate situation led my narration in the wrong direction. So I must get a grip on myself and jump back to my young Ukrainian mother, who, 70 years ago, tried to start a new life in the northern republic of Bashkiria, where ill-assorted folk was pouring in from different parts of the USSR. Some of the people were sent into exile there, others were tempted by big salaries in the oil-extracting industry. My mother, however, didn't get much money in her design office. What was more they took her on probation at first and even she (with her bad appetite) couldn't imagine how it was possible for her not to starve.

       Fortunately, one of her room-mates had such experience. So, following her advice, my mother started to buy a bucket of potatoes a month, adding to this vegetable diet a bit of sweets with jam inside them and some salt sprats. She didn't have a lot of choice, considering that food was extremely expensive in Bashkiria. In that climate with its long frosty winters and short hot summers only potatoes grew willingly and therefore were cheap. After getting her pay rise, my mother was able to loosen her belt at last and even started to cook borsch in a small iron mug in the common kitchen. Attracted by the delicious smell of the vegetable soup all the dormitory used to gather round just to look at her. It seemed to them very amusing that she could eat her fill from that mug and even found something to give to a cat with whom she became friendly.

       I can't be sure why my mother decided to leave Bashkiria after only a year of staying there. She definitely liked her job and was promised another pay rise in six moths or so. Not to mention her popularity among young male population. My mother didn't even mind bitter cold and a lot of snow in winter. Later, she always recalled Bashkiria with warm feelings but not without a touch of bitterness caused by the uncompromising discord between her and two of her cousins. So maybe a letter from her younger sister's room-mate came just in time, giving her an excuse to leave for Odessa and help the poor girl in her predicament with her greedy friends. Anyway, at that time my mother didn't think twice after she made her decision.

       She arrived in Odessa without delay and did help her sister giving her avid friends a good talking-to. Besides, my mother found a job of a copyist in some design office soon after that. Her salary there was not high, of course. Only those who worked in privileged branches got more or less decent wages. Mostly labour and especially mental work were poorly paid in the USSR. But, on the other hand, food was much cheaper in our southern city. Here my mother could eat fruit and vegetables to her heart's content. Moreover there was fish - plenty of freshly caught fish in the markets! Even I remember that in my early childhood my young father used to go fishing to the sea at the weekend. Where on earth have all that fish got to I'd like to know? I am aware that I am old but it's difficult to accept the fact that during such a short period as my lifetime people redoubled their population and were able to do so much harm to our planet. In my mother's young days the sea and the rivers were in much better condition, of course, and were swarming with fish. She didn't like it as much as I do, though. Still, she could eat fish in stead of meat and save some money for clothes.

     At that time my mother really needed new garments because of some unpleasant episode that happened during her only summer in Bashkiria. It was a real shock for her to learn that one of her room-mates used her clothes in secret. As my mother's informant told her that girl took one of her gowns from the sack with her dirty garments every time when she had a date. What was especially infuriating was that she didn't even trouble herself with laundering – she just put it on in haste and went to meet her sweetheart. Quick in her anger as usual my mother seized the content of the wretched sack and burnt it all. Afterwards, she was told that the unscrupulous girl wept bitterly when she learnt about it. She just couldn't understand why my mother didn't give all of that to her if she didn't want to wear it any more. But it was not in my mother's nature to treat her offenders like that. I couldn't do it either. Yet, it's difficult for me to imagine what I would do in her place.

      Anyway, I don't recollect the details, but I do remember my mother telling me with amusement that she had only one summer dress when she arrived in Odessa from Bashkiria. Perhaps she bought it here, in our city, not having enough money to buy anything else. It was a good gown though and some of her ill-wishers started a rumour that my mother owned at least ten identical dresses. Otherwise how could she always look so neat and clean in her only garment? But my mother's secret was really simple. As her dress was made of some high quality fine-spun fabric she washed it every summer evening and put it on in the morning as fresh as new.

       It's a pity I don't remember anything about the colours of that gown. My son can't help me here. He remembers his grandmother's stories much better than I do but he forgot about the colours, of course. Such things mean very little to men. But a new nice dress means so much when you are a young girl. Even now when I am sixty-five I remember my own feelings at that age. Not that I often had a garment that I really liked but if I did it gave me a completely incredible sensation. It seemed it was a part of my body that turned me into a new creature, much more attractive and self-confident. Still one can't be young forever. I think my mother realized it when she was twenty-four and that was one of the reasons that urged her to accept her old friend's proposal at last. She did it just in time from a common point of view. At the time of my youth women of all generations believed that a girl, who reached the age of twenty-five, had little hope to start her own family. I think there might have been another reason for my mother's decision. By that time she had to get tired of fighting alone for the better place under the sun. She really needed someone reliable beside her and her old friend was definitely of that kind. Not to mention that he loved her faithfully since their school days.

To be continued...

(c) Anna Shevchenko

1. Festive demonstrations

2. A merry-go-round

3. The settlement in the steppe

4. The settlement in the steppe (the ending)

5. Urban life and its advantages

6. Collectivization and electrification of all the country

7. Roaming through the village and a man with two horses

8. My mother's struggle for freedom

9. A boy from the orphanage across the road

10. Living at the edge of the city

11. My grandmother's imprisonment

12. My mother's departure from the village forever

13. My mother's triumphs and mishaps in Bashkiria

14. My mother's triumphs and mishaps in Bashkiria   (the ending)

15. The last visit to the village

16. My mother's helping hand

17. The only man she ever loved

18. My father's only friend

19. My grandmother's visits

20. Cibul'ka and two little pigs

21. The forest of my dreams

22. The forest of my dreams (the ending)

23. My parents' wanderings around the country

24. The forest at last

25. The forest at last (the ending)

26. The importance of family

27. The importance of family (the ending)

28. Why did they kill him?

29. The great famine of '47
30. The great famine of '47 (the ending)

31. The informer

32. The informer (the continuation)

33. The informer (the continuation)

34. The informer (the ending)

35. Too much of a good thing

36. Too much of a good thing (the continuation)

37. Too much of a good thing  (the ending)

38. The same pattern

My mother's stories (chapter twenty seven)

 chapter 27

The same pattern

       As far as I can remember communists always proclaimed universal education as one of their greatest achievements. But, in the first place, they used it for brainwashing. In fact, it was not something new – any political regime has always exploited it for that purpose. Yet education is a double-edged sword, because it also gives you knowledge and widens your horizons. No wonder that dangerous ideas usually sprang up among the students. I remember how we used to rebel against the system. Actually, it was quite peaceful – we just laughed heartily at political jokes and at the portraits of our leaders hanging everywhere. Obviously, we felt superior, because we were young and bright and inwardly believed that we would never look like those on top, who were definitely much too old to rule our lives and seemed rather weak-headed into the bargain. What is more, their words too often didn't correspond to reality. After that they could hardly expect us to respect their dull speeches pronounced from various tribunes. Our country was the biggest but it was not the richest or the happiest place in the world as they zealously tried to convince us. That's why we laughed so much when someone told us a fresh joke about our leader or about the whole situation in the country.

       And what a bore it was to learn the teachings of Marx and Lenin at school and then again at university! The small consolation was that people in China, as it was said, always had to carry brochures with their leader Mao Zedong's quotations in their pockets. It looked like poor Chinese had to endure more ridiculous things from their authorities than we did. For instance, the notorious hunt for sparrows. The clever idea was that those gluttonous creatures ate too much grain in the fields considerably diminishing their harvests. That's why the great helmsman Mao appealed to the nation and ordered to kill them all. I was too small to remember reports about this campaign in our papers but my mother assured me later that people were even offered money for tiny bodies of the unfortunate birds. Anyway, the Chinese followed the instructions as thoroughly as they usually do and the result was disastrous. Deprived of their natural enemies, various insects, and especially locusts, began to breed uncontrollably, and a year later attacked the fields in great numbers. No wonder that later trying in a hurry to restore the subtle balance of nature, Chinese had to buy sparrows in the neighbouring countries. I remember that my mother and I found this very amusing. But it was not. All this madness with killing sparrows provoked great famine and thousands of people in China starved to death. In comparison our own leaders seemed to us more sensible. As a matter of fact, we got very little information about their blunders but it was impossible to hush up everything. For example, constant shortage of food in our shops clearly showed that there was something wrong with our agriculture too.

       I remember that only in the beginning of Leonid Brezhnev's rule - when I was in primary school - food was in abundance in our shops. Oranges, bananas, even olive oil of good quality were available for everybody. What is more, meat could be purchased without standing in a long queue and my mother used to send me to buy it. Later I always recalled that time with nostalgia. It seemed nobody knew for sure why our economic situation began to deteriorate so badly. People usually blamed some negligent managers or generous help to our “brothers”, that is to other socialist countries. Anyway, they always told us that those were only temporary difficulties and our socialist system of economy would defeat all the others in the end.

       “We were born to make a fairy-tale come true” - these words from the popular song expressed, as it seemed to me, the very spirit of Soviet school education. When I was in my teens I loved to sing along whenever I heard it on the radio. It raised my spirits a little even at the time when I already knew that there was no truth in those enthusiastic words. As a matter of fact, it was not that what was waiting for me after university. In reality, I got a dull and low-paid job in some laboratory, where most of the people just imitated scientific work. I was always ready to run out of that place an hour or two earlier, preferring to stand in queues for meat or milk and butter than to listen to idle talk of my colleagues. It was not a very good time for a young clumsy creature like me to start her career as a housewife but there I was standing in queues and not knowing that the USSR was gradually drawing to its close. Still, at least ten years of that nervous and unstable life were waiting for all of us. Not to mention those awful “wild 90s” that were going to come after that.

       In my mother's young days the situation was quite different. It was gradually getting better and all the hardships could be easily explained by the aftereffects of the recent War. Moreover good education gave young villagers a chance to escape poverty and hard labour in the fields and find a nice job in the city. Yet it was difficult to get it because the level of teaching was pretty low in the villages. My mother's teacher of Russian is a good example of that. He was likable and full of goodwill but the only task that they had ever got from him was to compose some sentences in Russian. It was not so easy for most of them as their native language was Ukrainian. But it was not really a problem because their kind teacher always turned a blind eye whenever good pupils helped the others or even wrote surreptitiously in someone else's copy-book.

       They did have a lot of fun during those lessons, knowing beforehand that their teacher would be utterly happy to give them all high marks for their sentences. Yet there was no chance to improve their Russian with such manner of teaching. And Russian as the official language was really important for those who wished to leave the village. That's why in the end my mother and some of her friends came to their headmaster and told him about their predicament. When, after the inspection, the headmaster asked their teacher why he had not taught his pupils properly the latter was not perplexed in the slightest and answered with a serene smile: “But they have been so clever! You would think so too if you read all those sentences that they composed for me”. To be honest, I am at a loss here. Was that man really as simple-hearted as villagers believed him to be or was it just a clever pretense in order to avoid his punishment?

       Anyway, it was not the only case when my mother fought for better education in her village. She came to their headmaster one more time after she discovered with a shock that it was not her younger sister's lack of ability, as she had always believed, but her teacher's fault that the child was so bad at maths. It was her teacher who couldn't solve problems and at that time when every pupil had to learn the table of multiplication by heart that woman didn't know it at all. And why should she if the wretched table was printed on the back cover of every copy-book that was meant for calculations? That or at least something like that she told the headmaster when he caught her at it. As for solving problems that teacher had her own way to reach the right answer. At first she performed some chaotic operations with figures in an attempt to achieve it. When, after numerous efforts, she failed that woman was never embarrassed. If her result was less than it was necessary she just told her pupils enthusiastically: “And now our question is what we will get if we add something to this figure”. Or she asked them to subtract something from it in the opposite situation. Surely this last step had always given them the right number that coincided with that one in the list of answers in their textbooks.

       Not knowing any other teachers for more than two years her poor pupils really believed that adjustment was the right way to solve problems. Their semi-literate parents definitely couldn't help them to notice that something was wrong. My mother wouldn't have noticed anything either if strangely long solutions of simple problems had not caught her eye when she was turning over the pages of her sister's copy-book. When the child got a new teacher at last it didn't turn out, of course, that the girl was brilliant at maths. But her marks definitely became better and she learnt how to solve problems without pleading her elder sister to do it for her.

       As for my aunt's first teacher only now it occurred to me that my mother has always used that woman as a measure of ignorance. How often I heard her saying with scorn: “Oh, them! I am sure they don't even know the table of multiplication”. People said about that teacher that she never sat for her own exams, sending instead some clever girl her cunning mother had hired for that purpose. If it was really so her examiners couldn't be unaware of it and this leads me to a frightening conclusion that at the time of my mother's youth bribes and corruption in Soviet educational system throve even more lavishly than they did in my young days.

To be continued...

(c) Anna Shevchenko

1. Festive demonstrations

2. A merry-go-round

3. The settlement in the steppe

4. The settlement in the steppe (the ending)

5. Urban life and its advantages

6. Collectivization and electrification of all the country

7. Roaming through the village and a man with two horses

8. My mother's struggle for freedom

9. A boy from the orphanage across the road

10. Living at the edge of the city

11. My grandmother's imprisonment

12. My mother's departure from the village forever

13. My mother's triumphs and mishaps in Bashkiria

14. My mother's triumphs and mishaps in Bashkiria   (the ending)

15. The last visit to the village

16. My mother's helping hand

17. The only man she ever loved

18. My father's only friend

19. My grandmother's visits

20. Cibul'ka and two little pigs

21. The forest of my dreams

22. The forest of my dreams (the ending)

23. My parents' wanderings around the country

24. The forest at last

25. The forest at last (the ending)

26. The importance of family

27. The importance of family (the ending)

28. Why did they kill him?

29. The great famine of '47
30. The great famine of '47 (the ending)

31. The informer

32. The informer (the continuation)

33. The informer (the continuation)

34. The informer (the ending)

35. Too much of a good thing

36. Too much of a good thing (the continuation)

37. Too much of a good thing  (the ending)

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

 chapter 26

Too much of a good thing

(the ending)

         It may seem strange but I still remember my mother's expression when she started to tell me about her first teacher. She smiled in some confusion, blushed a little and confessed that unlike me she was fond of that woman. Actually she liked her so much that found her very pretty in spite of that nose of hers, which was very long and slightly crooked with its tip almost reaching her upper lip. My mother thought it was really attractive and for a while she was seen walking around the village with her face oddly distorted. Perhaps people were afraid she was losing her marbles. But it was not so. My mother just wished to look like her beloved teacher and tried to bring her own well-shaped nose closer to her lips.

       There was another remarkable story connected with that teacher. I imagine my mother always watched her with loving eyes and what a shock it was for her when she saw that kind and well-educated woman going to the loo! She just couldn't believe it at first. I was seven or eight myself when I was laughing my head off after I learnt that at my age  my mother believed that adults didn't have any natural needs to go to the loo. Now it strikes me as rather odd. How could it be that she had been so ignorant in those matters? And it was not something unique. My mother's mother could tell the the same story. She was even a couple of years older when she was shocked by the sight of a priest going to the lavatory. It's a pity that owing to discord between my mother and grandmother I know so little about rural life and can only guess where the roots of this mystery lie.

       According to my mother, villagers didn't have any special toilets at that time. So perhaps it was just a clever tactics to train small children to be properly ashamed of their actions and to use secluded bushes or remote corners of kitchen gardens for natural needs. But most likely working hard since dawn to dusk, parents didn't have enough time to teach their little ones. The neglect of small children – that was what my mother could never forgive her own mother and relatives. But that was how they grew and life itself gave them their first lessons.

       When leaving for work, peasants usually locked small children up in their huts. Of course, it was not safe for such small kids to stay alone, but it was a widespread custom. My mother herself was about five when she had to look after her baby-sister. No wonder that once when they ran out of clean swaddling clothes she pushed the little one away in irritation. To her dismay being shaped like a loaf of bread in her nappies the baby rolled off the high bench-stove bouncing down the steps on its way to the floor. Luckily, her sister got off easy, paying for her fall with only one or two scratches on her forehead. What is more, it was one of those rare cases when my mother managed to avoid her punishment. She was quick enough to hide in a narrow space behind the stove where her mother couldn't reach her with her leather belt. Somehow it didn't seem right to her because she was even guiltier than her mother thought. In fact, she just couldn't resist the temptation and drank all the milk that was meant for the baby. That's why she fed it with borsch, that is vegetable soup with tomatoes and beetroot, and provoked her sister's diarrhea. Anyway, on the whole that episode had a happy ending. Yet, it was not always so.

       I think my mother was a baby herself when an awful tragedy happened in the village. Later it became a legend which adults told to their kids when they wished to remind them how dangerous it was to play with fire. If those poor children had not played with it they wouldn't have been trapped in the burning house. But nobody really knew what had happened as nobody was left to tell the story. Parents as usual locked their kids up and left for work or maybe for the market place in the neighbouring town. When the house caught fire those poor souls couldn't find their way out without outside help. But their rescuers arrived too late to save the two elder kids. Only a baby was found miraculously alive among the smoking ruins. It was saved by a wash-tub that fell over it from the wall or, perhaps, as people believed, it was the elder boy, who covered the little one with it in the nick of time.

       The entire village was shaken by that terrible accident and the authorities realized at last that they had to do something about it. Soon after the tragedy some official visited all the houses in the village, threatening with severe punishment for anyone who would lock their children up. I don't know exactly when the first kindergarten appeared in the village but in the early sixties, during my only visit to the village, I learnt that they had already had one. I was only five then but I remember this clearly, because it was my grandmother's working place.

      I must admit that my attitude to my former country changed dramatically after the Soviet Union collapsed. It's not really surprising, considering how many nasty revelations we have had since then. Still after thinking things over it suddenly came to me that there was after all something good that Soviet state had done for the peasants – for example, kindergartens and universal education. Unfortunately, it can't outweigh, of course, the disaster of collectivization or the huge bloody machine of political repressions.

To be continued...

(c) Anna Shevchenko

1. Festive demonstrations

2. A merry-go-round

3. The settlement in the steppe

4. The settlement in the steppe (the ending)
5. Urban life and its advantages

6. Collectivization and electrification of all the country

7. Roaming through the village and a man with two horses

8. My mother's struggle for freedom

9. A boy from the orphanage across the road

10. Living at the edge of the city

11. My grandmother's imprisonment

12. My mother's departure from the village forever

13. My mother's triumphs and mishaps in Bashkiria

14. My mother's triumphs and mishaps in Bashkiria   (the ending)

15. The last visit to the village

16. My mother's helping hand

17. The only man she ever loved

18. My father's only friend

19. My grandmother's visits

20. Cibul'ka and two little pigs

21. The forest of my dreams

22. The forest of my dreams (the ending)

23. My parents' wanderings around the country

24. The forest at last

25. The forest at last (the ending)

26. The importance of family

27. The importance of family (the ending)

28. Why did they kill him?

29. The great famine of '47
30. The great famine of '47 (the ending)

31. The informer

32. The informer (the continuation)

33. The informer (the continuation)

34. The informer (the ending)

35. Too much of a good thing

36. Too much of a good thing (the continuation)

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

 

My mother's stories

chapter 26

Too much of a good thing

(the continuation)

      A lot of people help their children to do their homework when they are at primary school. But for my mother this situation was special. She herself had unfulfilled ambition of becoming a primary school teacher. Who knows how often I heard the sad story about my mother giving up her education because of her mother's imprisonment? And there I was at last – her only pupil. No wonder she was so eager to help me. Who could have predicted then that my future mother-in-law would be a teacher at primary school and my husband would play the guitar with the same zeal my young father used to? It's amazing how such things work. It's true that I took notice of my future husband when he was playing the guitar but I don't think that his mother's profession added much to his charm. I just considered this a funny coincidence.

      As for me back then when I was seven I really couldn't do without my mother's helping hand as I spent too much time sitting at home with a sore throat and a running nose. So my mother had a lot of additional work, learning our homework assignment from my class-mates, then helping me to do it and at last bringing my copy-books to our quite unpleasant and arrogant teacher. I suspect I caught a cold so ridiculously often partly because of that woman as she was so rude and shouted so much at her pupils. It was just my bad luck. My mother told me once that while she was waiting for me and walking to and fro along the school corridor she couldn't help noticing that only our teacher's voice was heard behind the door. It seemed that other teachers could do their job without shouting.

      I don't remember that woman shouting at me. Perhaps I didn't give her a lot of opportunities as I was good at reading and maths. Still it was difficult to watch her abusing the others. It looked like our teacher especially disliked the boys. At least I still recall one unlucky child shrinking near the blackboard while she was scolding him and calling him a blockhead for not being able to grasp her explanation. I knew she disliked me too, because she never missed the chance to throw something offensive in my direction. Once, for example, when I began to eat a meat ball with a bit of garlic in it, which my reckless mother gave me for lunch, our teacher immediately squinted her beady eyes at me and, wrinkling her disdainful nose, asked loudly whose terrible smell it was. And I, it seemed, tried only to increase my teacher's antipathy towards me.

      It really looked like that when we got a home-task to write a composition “My favourite teacher”. Everybody grasped at once who we were expected to be fond of. And only I came straight up to our teacher during the break and asked for permission to write my composition about Tatyana Ivanovna, who worked in the class next-door. That cheerful and kind woman taught us once for a few days and I was hugely impressed by her character. It seemed like a miracle that a teacher could be so nice. We all hoped she was going to stay but not with our luck, of course.

   Still people can get used to almost anything. So in due course we got accustomed to our harpy of a teacher and even became less frightened of her. My mother's dark predictions that she would dislike me much more after my insolent request didn't come true. By our fourth year our teacher even smiled sometimes, while telling us that it was her last year at primary school too. Actually, she was a teacher of French and that was what she was going to teach after she had finished with us. Smiling slightly artificially, she tried to tempt me with her future French group, but I replied firmly that I would prefer to study English. It was impossible, of course, to learn a foreign language at an ordinary Soviet school. The whole school programme, it seemed, was created to prevent people from learning it. But I didn't know that at the time and was looking forward to my first English lesson without my first teacher anywhere in sight. It's lucky I couldn't know then that I would become more or less good at English only in my mid-fifties. Still better late than never.

      As for my last year at primary school, by that time I began to feel much more comfortable there. Now I spent more time at my lessons than at home with a nasty cold. After studies I used to come home tired but cheerful and spent an hour or two telling my mother about everything that happened during the day or about something interesting that I discovered in books. New insects or plants, or Solar system – there were a lot of things that I found utterly exciting. My mother in return would tell me about something funny or dramatic that happened in her school days.

To be continued... 

(c) Anna Shevchenko

1. Festive demonstrations

2. A merry-go-round

3. The settlement in the steppe

4. The settlement in the steppe (the ending)
5. Urban life and its advantages

6. Collectivization and electrification of all the country

7. Roaming through the village and a man with two horses

8. My mother's struggle for freedom

9. A boy from the orphanage across the road

10. Living at the edge of the city

11. My grandmother's imprisonment

12. My mother's departure from the village forever

13. My mother's triumphs and mishaps in Bashkiria

14. My mother's triumphs and mishaps in Bashkiria   (the ending)

15. The last visit to the village

16. My mother's helping hand

17. The only man she ever loved

18. My father's only friend

19. My grandmother's visits

20. Cibul'ka and two little pigs

21. The forest of my dreams

22. The forest of my dreams (the ending)

23. My parents' wanderings around the country

24. The forest at last

25. The forest at last (the ending)

26. The importance of family

27. The importance of family (the ending)

28. Why did they kill him?

29. The great famine of '47
30. The great famine of '47 (the ending)

31. The informer

32. The informer (the continuation)

33. The informer (the continuation)

34. The informer (the ending)

35. Too much of a good thing

My mother's stories (chapter twenty six)

 

My mother's stories

chapter 26

Too much of a good thing

      Nearly two years have passed since I finished the previous chapter of my memoir. I don't know exactly why but I went back to my stories in Russian. They just lay there, unpolished, as though asking me to finish my work. There were actually a few of them and they had been written at the hardest period of my life. Still, my little trips and adventures of the time shone even brighter in the dark background. But the language and the plot were far from being satisfactory. So that's what I had been doing for two years – rewriting my old stories in Russian. It was a slow work, but it was worth it. Now I like those stories much better and I can jump back to my memoir in English with clear conscience. It has been nudging me recently as if reminding me that I am not so young anymore. As a matter of fact, I am not young at all and, surely, it would be more prudent to complete my old projects before coming to something new.

      So here I am with an unfinished memoir. Sometimes I think maybe it has been a mistake to start it in English. I could definitely express my feelings and thoughts better in my native language. But I can't change it now, having so many pages already under my belt. I started them in a feeble attempt to comprehend why there has always been so much misunderstanding between me and my mother. Why did she use to step aside when I especially counted on her help or understanding? It seemed at such moments that she was watching me with cold pride as if telling me: ”You have never appreciated me as a mother properly. Let's see how you'll cope with this by yourself”. 

      Perhaps it's just my imagination playing tricks on me. But the fact is that my mother's behaviour was often a mystery to me. I understood a lot while writing these pages. My mother's desperate reluctance to visit her native village, for example. Before that I had never understood in full measure the significance of her father's execution in 1937 and its connection with my mother's loathing for her fellow-villagers. And now I have the last task in front of me. I have to try to unravel my mother's attitude towards me, her own daughter. Actually, it has always been the main purpose of these memories.

      I must admit that, having had a married daughter for so many years, I began to understand this possessiveness and this selfish desire to rule your child's life much better. You can never be free from it. It's almost impossible to erase the inner belief that “mother knows best” and allow for your children's right to make their own mistakes. I am afraid it has always worked like that in the world. So I began this part of my recollections in order to clear up not only my mother's behaviour but my own as well.

      As a matter of fact, I have been trying hard not to repeat her mistakes but mostly failed. I did manage to avoid some of them, of course, but instead I made some of my own. As for my mother, she found it was quite natural to interfere with her child's affairs even after that child became an adult. She has never realized that too much of protectiveness is not good. Surely it's not anything unheard of. But the older I became the more infuriated I felt about it. It seemed as if invisible ropes entangled my limbs not allowing me to walk free. I can't be sure even now that I entirely got rid of them.

      Nevertheless it would be unfair to blame my mother alone for my lack of confidence. It was me who was attached to her very much when I was a little one. Partly I have to blame the conditions of my early childhood for that. At that time my parents had to rent a small room where the three of us definitely lived cooped up together, sleeping in one bed. I remember it seemed to me very funny when my mother told me once how I used to wake up very early and crawl over my parents, trying to open their eyes with my little fingers. After we moved to the wet flat in the factory region we had more space, of course, but still I slept with my mother for some reason. I don't remember much of that time, but I do recall my great discomfort when she suddenly announced that she wanted me to sleep without her. I got used to it in the end but I certainly didn't welcome this first step to independence.

      I suspect I was naughty till I reached the age of five. So maybe that's why there was a time when I preferred the company of my indulgent aunt to that of my mother. The latter was very much against physical punishment, trying hard not to step into her own mother's shoes. She chose to be stern – at least it was her weapon to force me to behave. I remember it hurt my feelings a lot when my kind mother suddenly burst out with rage, her face turning ugly gray in a flash. Nevertheless, it worked and I did try not to provoke her fury too often. Surely it was not easy for me. 

    From time to time I couldn't help pestering my mother with something or other. That's how I brought on my head those two ugly episodes when she threw away my delicious ice-cream or cut my new dress into pieces. I can't be sure but maybe it would have been better for both of us if she spanked me sometimes instead. Gradually, I learnt from my mistakes. Anyway, our relationship improved a lot when I reached the age of five, the age of persuasion, that is the age when I could be persuaded to behave. My mother used to assure me that I reached my peak of intelligence and goodness at that age. Although I have a feeling that she loved me best when I was at primary school. At least as far as I can remember we were most intimate at that time.

To be continued ...

1. Festive demonstrations

2. A merry-go-round

3. The settlement in the steppe

4. The settlement in the steppe (the ending)
5. Urban life and its advantages

6. Collectivization and electrification of all the country

7. Roaming through the village and a man with two horses

8. My mother's struggle for freedom

9. A boy from the orphanage across the road

10. Living at the edge of the city

11. My grandmother's imprisonment

12. My mother's departure from the village forever

13. My mother's triumphs and mishaps in Bashkiria

14. My mother's triumphs and mishaps in Bashkiria   (the ending)

15. The last visit to the village

16. My mother's helping hand

17. The only man she ever loved

18. My father's only friend

19. My grandmother's visits

20. Cibul'ka and two little pigs

21. The forest of my dreams

22. The forest of my dreams (the ending)

23. My parents' wanderings around the country

24. The forest at last

25. The forest at last (the ending)

26. The importance of family

27. The importance of family (the ending)

28. Why did they kill him?

29. The great famine of '47
30. The great famine of '47 (the ending)

31. The informer

32. The informer (the continuation)

33. The informer (the continuation)

34. The informer (the ending)