Part One – There
(Eastern Hemisphere)
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE – HIGH SCHOOL
When Kolya returned to our class after three or four years of illness, we studied somewhere in the seventh or eighth.
That summer, a tent was set up in Kolya’s yard, which the neighboring children really liked, and they willingly climbed into it. While Kolya’s mother was telling everyone about a friend of their family – the pilot Kokkinaki, Kolya came up with different games that could be played in a tent without being seen by adults. The game of “White Dwarfs” became especially popular in the yard. When we, Kolya’s classmates, were interested in how it was played, he confusedly explained that they simply told fairy tales about little dwarfs to younger children.
Once I went to visit Kolya and found him in the yard, escaping from a neighbor’s mother, who was swinging a carpet beater.
“I’ll show you such dwarfs that you won’t recognize yourself!”
It turns out that she quietly crept up to the tent and looked into it to check what her fifth grade daughter was doing with the older boy. To the mother’s horror, it turned out that her daughter was raising up a “white dwarf” for the neighbor Kolya!
Then she pulled her daughter out of the “disorderly house” and rushed for the carpet beater.
“I’ll hit your “white dwarf” on the “red hood” that hard, he’ll fly away from here like the pilot Cock-in-ache, E-e-e!”
A next story connected to Kolya happened in high school. Once he and me wandered the slopes of the mountain, almost on the edge of the city, where his parents built their new cooperative house. A lot of vegetable gardens were planted around, and we, the city boys, were attracted by some tubers or cucumbers.
Suddenly a peasant appeared with a rifle and arrested us. It was very unpleasant. Firstly, the charge of salt was threatened our behinds, and secondly, we were ashamed of the possible consequences. Fortunately, Kolya’s dad, a local deputy or legislator, noticed our absence, discovered “the prisoners” and, waving a red deputy ID book, freed us back from captivity, threatening to complain about the illegal use of weapons. As a result, the farmer frightened out and let us go with a bag of vegetables as a token of reconciliation. But it was not enough for me that they let us go, I wanted to be sure that my namesake Kolya (Nick) would not blather anywhere about our shame. At that time, it was customary to rat out to homeroom teacher on schoolchildren. Someone’s parents did it, retelling children’s secrets. But Vera Aramovna attributed deductive abilities to herself and always declared: “Know that I know everything about you! I should work not at a school, but in the KGB!”
Apparently, it was considered an honorable job…
And I took action. I knew that you couldn’t get a word out of Kolya’s dad anyway, but Kolya’s grandmother, a friend of John Reed and Kolya’s mother, a friend of the pilot Kokkinaki, can easily share the story with friends. Just for the sake of intrigue, and there, you see, the informant will turn up. I warned Kolya that if he tells something at home, then our friendship will be over! It doesn’t matter if he shared it at home, I think – not, but, in any case, the myth of Vera Aramovna’s detective talents was dispelled!
About the tall Vova in high school, I remember that among schoolchildren from ordinary schools at the city Mathematics Olympiad, only he and I scored the maximum points. The team for the All-Union Olympiad was formed based on the results of the second – City step (there was no time for the third – Republican step). We were called for an interview, I passed it successfully and flew to Kyiv to defend the honor of the Republic.
I can’t say that I performed successfully. Out of six problems in two days, I solved one problem, and went in the right direction in the other one, but did not finish the calculation – the time was up.
I received a commemorative diploma for participation, but not a diploma of the third degree. It was required to solve at least a third (two) of all problems to earn it. But what was important: I realized that the soviet approach “It’s okay if there are no resources, products, specialists, knowledge. If to strain ourselves, we’ll fulfill everything!” is nonsense and propaganda for fools. An inspiration and a second wind is just an extra luck in addition to the careful preparation!
It’s nice to recall the Math Olympics itself. Firstly, when they give you travel money for a trip at school, you feel like a man. Secondly, it’s very nice to be on the team. I met and became friends with the top ten young mathematicians of the Republic of that year. And Kyiv is very good in spring.
Our leader Konstantin Ivanovich, or simply Kostya, a math teacher from the Republican Mathematical Boarding School, told how he served time in the camp because of his big mouth and taught us: “Think a lot, but talk a little!” He took us to Khreshchatyk (Kiev’s main avenue) to a restaurant introducing Ukrainian national cuisine. The first dish was okroshka soup: we caught all sorts of things in the bowls and imagined how it got there. It was very funny. On the second were Kiev cutlets. Half of the team sprayed out hot liquid butter on themselves, when they had stuck their forks into the cutlets; the other half – when it died laughing at the first half.
At home – and we were settled in a boarding school during the spring break – one expert in chemistry, Valya Shumeridze, offered to arrange fireworks. We bought manganese permanganate from a drugstore, put it in an aluminum container out of a Havana cigar, poured nitroglycerin on top, screwed on the lid, threw it down the drain, and rushed out of the toilet. Just on time! The dull sound of an explosion echoed in the empty boarding school, and sewage hung on the ceiling. When our hysterical laughter subsided, we realized with anguish that now, at the risk of our heads, we would have to use not the cleanest toilet in the world…
The next day we were told that Easter and passion procession would start at night, and that we should not go anywhere. Naturally, as soon as it got dark, we left our quiet harbor and went to the Vladimir Cathedral, where the service was going on. I have never seen such a large church crowd in my life. We made our way to the altar, just in time for the beginning of the procession. Who knew that people around would rush to kiss the cross? Mathematicians barely got out free against the counter flow of people.
The most memorable was the visit to some school. Why we were taken there, where schoolchildren came from during the holidays, and why they were all girls in solemn white aprons – I can’t say.
The headmistress with a group of school matrons, standing behind her, read a welcoming speech about the role of the Communist party in the education of young mathematicians. You can’t say more stupid!
We, the young talents of ardent Caucasian bloodlines, were lined up in two rows in front of the podium, and behind us, beautiful blue-eyed and blond creatures of fraternal Ukraine gathered in a flock. At the risk of being apolitical, I, hiding behind the tall guys from the front row, cautiously turned to face the pretty girls and bowed. This caused a storm of delight and thunderous applause of girls. The headmistress bowed her head flatteringly and developed the course of the Communist party. I, inspired by my success, entered into the socialist competition, bowing, sending air kisses and curtsies to girls. It sounded like this,
“Our party and government…”
[My bow, the applause of the girls, the headmistress’s nod of approval]
“…work tirelessly, introducing higher mathematics into the secondary school…”
[My air kisses to the snub-nosed girl and the one with the bangs, exclamations of the girls, “Bravo! Bravo!” and bows of the headmistress]
“…under the personal guidance of Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev himself!”
[My curtsy, the girls chant, “Well done! Well done!” and headmistress remarks]
“See, what a free country we are living today in, fearlessly saying to its leader “Well done!
“But it’s true, in Stalin’s time one may have been imprisoned for a ‘well done’ to the leader,” I thought, and turned myself back to the headmistress: at least something in the headmistress’s words turned out to be true.
“Weren’t you ashamed to turn your back on a woman?” Kostya asked me.
“I were,” I replied, “But I was ashamed to stand with my back to the girls.
“Well, this time it passed,” said Kostya, “Go and reap the rewards.”
“What? Rape what?” I asked in dismay.
“The crop that you have planted,” Kostya admonished me.
And I went. I made five dates with five girls for myself and four teammates. One girls’ parents left, and after an unforgettable walk around spring Kyiv, we arranged an evening of real freedom…
When I returned home, our English teacher, a recent graduate of Institute for Foreign Languages, a nice guy, almost my namesake, Zhorik Neimyan, asked right at the lesson,
“Well, did you find out how it is done in free countries? Tell us!”
I was embarrassed and briefly described the business trip. And he smiled, patted me on the shoulder and said to the class,
“I tell you guys like a man with a little larger life experience than yours. If you want to ride for free, eat, drink and make love – study like Nick!”
He was, indeed, a good guy, who left our world unexpectedly early.
Low Vovka, I must say, in the senior class, and especially at the institute, grew a lot and became tall. He smoked, drank, and was a bully. Once he brought to school a bottle of homemade wine, plugged up not carefully, and put it in the desk. We were sitting in a physics lesson, and suddenly a strong wine smell was going through the room. The teacher, tall skinny man, began sniffing intensely, but suddenly… it poured, as if someone had urinated on the floor.
“Lost for nothing!” the teacher said and forced Vovka to immediately wash the floor so that there would be no problem with sensation lovers during the next lessons.
In the first or second year of college, Vovka’s father suddenly died – he went to a resort and fell off a cliff. We came to the wake and, according to the ritual, drank seven glasses of wine, but did not eat – a piece did not go into the throat. And after that we entered the nearest cellar-restaurant and refreshed ourselves with fried potatoes with mushrooms, washing them down with vodka. When we were returning home, holding hands and occupying the entire sidewalk, I remember that I walked against the wall and stepped on it with one foot – there was no room.
Looking ahead, I will say that Vovka never wanted to leave the country, but he was forced to. His business partner stole goods bought in credit and fled. Bandits ran into Vovka and tortured him with a hot electric iron. Exhausted from pain, Vovka grabbed the guard’s pistol and shot himself in the chest, hoping to end the torment. The bandits got scared and threw the body on the side of the road. A kind person found the body and took him to the hospital. And then Vovka was bought out by brothers from Israel. Although he did not meet me there – he had no mood for memories – the end was relatively good, it could have been worse…
Jean did not study for long in our class, and I did not meet him for years until, during my practice, I discovered him as a doctor at the city venereal dispensary. Even after becoming a doctor, he remained a bilious person and wondered how there are some people still not prostitutes and not syphilitics.
I remember a few stories about Misha. In high school, it was not easy for him to compete with classmates, especially in pursuit of a medal (to be a valedictorian). In fact, it’s funny why Misha needed it, when in fact he was an intelligent student, and he was guaranteed admission to the medical institute because of his parents’ connections. But it’s funny only to me – the owners of luck know why they need regalia that look unnecessary… Alas, he failed to get a medal due to not very good performance at the Math Olympics, but I think it was just a slight flick on his nose.
By the way, about ten people in my class received excellent certificates, but without medals, for various reasons. For example, a new rule was applied to me, adopted as usual in the USSR in violation of the retroactive effect of the law. The medal during my high school graduation year supposed only to those who were also excellent students in the ninth grade. I would like to ask, “Who could know it?” However, as I. Ilf and E. Petrov noted in their “The Golden Calf,” – “One should have known!”
Once, in the senior class, Misha did not prepare for a test. He decided to scratch his hand and take time off from class. In search of a sharp object, he broke the razor blade into pieces, one of which accidentally stuck into the desk and cut Misha’s entire forearm with the opposite end. The case ended in a hospital with twenty-six stitches.
Misha successfully graduated from medical school, married a foreign student, and lived well both at home and in France, until he got hooked on the needle. His wife and daughters left him, his parents died. He lives alone in his parent’s apartment…
Once my school bought educational films, and “for an experiment on high school students” it needed school projectionists. In addition to Garik, who had been familiar with the film projector since childhood, they chose Vitaly and me. Vitaly had a penchant for mechanics and machine tool building and continuously drew car models in class. Kolya begged out these drawings for his growing collection, but Kolya’s younger brother stole and sold them. Concerning myself, I suspect that I was chosen because of my grandfather’s labor genes.
We had trained showing films and we were periodically taken away from lessons to play movies in different classes. I was soon fed up with this apparently interesting activity, but unexpectedly once I opened up a new world.
The fact is that our drawing teacher, Dagmara Leonovna, received a gift from France, a documentary film about Picasso. In those years, art albums with reproductions of contemporary artists were the regalia of another world. And in this case it was the whole movie. The treasure!
The kind woman-educator decided to arrange a viewing for teachers. The head teacher called me and assigned me a responsible job. It was necessary to secretly return to school in the evening and show the film to the teachers, without telling anyone about it and without discussing possible nudity on the screen.
“For this service,” said the head teacher, “you may not prepare homework for tomorrow.”
I usually didn’t have any difficulties with the lessons, and I decided to bargain.
“I will learn the lessons, but I need an assistant (here I said something technical about gluing up the damaged tape) and I ask you to allow Elizar Maaravi to watch the film. It will be easier for the two of us not to tell anyone anything.
Apparently it was the right argument. The head teacher agreed, and I rushed off to warn Eli.
The viewing was top notch. The tape was never torn, and for an hour and a half the teachers sat motionless, like first-graders, holding their breath, watching from the screen the tempting foreign life and incomprehensible modern art. As the head teacher predicted, nudity also was present on the screen. Dagmara Leonovna delicately translated, no one knew that she spoke French. Probably the first time in my life I saw a piece of the real West. But what struck me most of all was that the physics teacher, whom I respected very much, bowed to the hostess of the evening after watching and said,
“Thank you very much! It’s a real vomit powder!”
Dagmara Leonovna turned slightly pale.
“I sincerely regret that I could not treat you to something better,” she sighed.
I was killed. I realized that intelligence does not include culture at all. Of course, I didn’t think about ideology and propaganda, which turns even a cultured person into a categorical one…
Garik entered the Polytechnic Institute. Apparently, he still had problems with his studies, because he graduated somewhere in Donetsk and acquired the specialty of a mine surveyor or markscheider. Classmates joked, “Here is how Garik-dzhan became a Jew!”
Afterwards we rarely met. The last time I saw him was when he stopped by Sveta to see me off in America. Life has already become abnormal, Garik worked in the police, and on the street a “Black Maria” with a prisoner was waiting for him.
“Is it possible…?” he nodded towards the street.
“Of course!” everyone understood at a glance, and Sveta brought a plate of delicacies from the table to the car.
“You should have seen the happy eyes of the prisoner,” she said.
But work is work, and “after having a snack and drinking a little,” Garik-dzhan said,
“I want to say goodbye with one fresh anecdote. A hussar asks a friend, “How do you have so many girlfriends?”
“I usually go up to a woman and ask directly: may I screw you?”
“But you can get a slap in the face for that!”
“Sure, I receive slaps! But more often I screw them!”
Everyone burst out laughing at such a juicy version of the old joke, but Garik added,
“This is my good luck wish to you, Nick. Of course, you will get hit in the face more than once, but hold on, brother, and screw them!”
Soon Garik died of a heart attack. There left a daughter, an inconsolable mother, Aunt Lyusik, and a giant suitcase of amateur pornography…
Zhorik studied in our class all the years. He was not fond of physics and mathematics, but sports. He graduated from medical school, married a Muscovite, also a doctor; they got two daughters… Once during our school years, an aunt from France came to visit his family. Zhorik, like all of us, being a patriot of our city, asked,
“Is it true that our city resembles Paris?”
His aunt answered,
“Alas, young man, it resembles a dump.”
Zhorik, and with him our entire class, was offended by the arrogant Frenchwoman. At that time, we simply did not assume that in civilized countries, garbage is not thrown directly onto the streets.
Edik studied somehow in high school and was fond of the plan (marijuana). He used to sit in class with his eyes closed and humming the tunes of a caravan, carrying smuggled hashish. But he was never a real drug addict.
Misha, unlike him, dabbled of cocaine and morphine, and sooner or later finished badly. Edik entered the Polytechnic Institute, eventually graduated something and replaced his father as the owner of a glass factory. Once he made for me matte shades from transparent ones for a chandelier using a sandblasting machine. Of course, he didn’t do it himself, he just ordered it to a worker while we smoked outside.
Knowing Edik’s penchant for partying, his parents married him early. The girl was very pretty, graduated the University, and worked at a research institute, but our playboy brought train station prostitutes to classmate parties.
“Sorry guys. Well, I didn’t finish off my bachelor life,” Edik justified himself and visited from time to time Jean in the venereal clinic.
I can’t tell you anything about Tina in high school, as she studied at a music professional school. Acne on her face began to disappear, instead student boy-friends appeared, and she happily married one guy from our school. I had thought that with Tina’s need or desire of a comprehensively developed person, with her constant tests for education, like, “Quickly name the seven wonders of the world!” a realistic and common person would not be a match for her.
It seems that she had an affair with Vovka-tall, but this was only later, after he studied in one or two years at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, was dismissed out of there, served in the army, returned home and began to pursue women.
Well, he was the prominent, stately guy, and I remember, after Moscow, he shared with us the methods of seducing ladies. Tanya’s advice of the fifth grade was taken into consideration, but drowned in more subtle ways – from reading Yesenin lyric in girls’ ear to blowing smoke (preferably of specific type) from mouth to mouth. But something didn’t work out with him and Tina…
Vova married an employee from the radio factory, and Tina was conquered by Kesha, who, in disgust for the Polytechnic Institute, immersed himself in the “classical guitar” and eventually began to teach playing guitar. Aunt Vera, Tina’s mother, said about the unexpected marriage, “They both just flew away …”
Unfortunately, landing after many years turned out to be very painful, at least for Kesha. He was left homeless, and lodged with Kolya.
Kolya after two or three divorces considered a bachelor, lived in an old apartment, where “white dwarfs” inhabited in the yard. Do you remember them? He lived on the income from renting a “new” apartment, where the farmer had once arrested us, and wrote novels about the eternal things…
Once, in a physics lesson in the senior class, our teacher asked, “Who can give an example of inertia in everyday life?”
Usually these questions related to that part of the mathematical class that was preparing to enter technical universities. They didn’t pester those who didn’t need math and physics and learned biology, literature and history. And they didn’t spoil certificates of such students. But suddenly Zhanna raised her hand. Activity in the school is always welcomed.
“Please, Yablonskaya.”
Suddenly Zhanna has confused.
“I better not,” she said, “You will laugh at me.”
“In no case!” the extremely intrigued teacher assured, “Do not be shy, speak, Yablonskaya.”
We froze. Zhanna got up.
“When the cutlets are fried, they sizzle on the frying pan.”
The silence was deadly.
“And when the frying pan is removed from the heat, the cutlets hiss out of inertia.”
We collapsed onto our desks, laughing hysterically.
“You deserve a highest mark!” said the teacher, barely holding back laughter himself.
In high school, we had a club (α + β). Zhanna was its president. Every month seven people prepared the show. We arranged amateur performances and had fun as best we could in the classroom, after the lessons were over, under the supervision of Vera Aramovna’s, our “class mother”. It had nothing to do with mathematics, except for the formula on the triangular flag. For the duration of the event, the flag was hoisted on a mast, into which our “automotive designer” Vitaly turned a heating pipe by adapting to it blocks and ropes for laundry drying. But planned in advance events was too little for us. We wanted independence. And once in a warm spring time, we decided to run away from the lessons. By the whole class!
This decision came not easy. We argued, swore, realizing that such an action could have bad consequences if it was not covered in silence. But what kind of silence could we talk about if the whole class disappeared, the lessons were disrupted, the salary was paid in vain or… would not paid (somehow we didn’t think about it then). Plus, what an example this gives for other classes, if there is such anarchy in a best mathematical class of the school! But young recklessness won, and we agreed to meet in the morning at the stop of the bus leaving the city, where the famous route to the low mountain Udzo began. A “tree of desire” grew on the mountain, on the branches of which gullible tourists tied colorful shreds, for good luck. We decided that we come, tie nice shreds and everything will be fine.
But the enterprise had a flaw – too many participants arguing too loudly for the whole school. I had no doubt that the “local KGB”, represented by Vera Aramovna, would not even have to involve her informants (neither schoolchildren – which I strongly doubted, nor their parents – that’s for sure!) What remained to be done? To wait reactions, reprisals and learn homework well! We didn’t have a telephone at home, so I couldn’t even discuss my worries and plans with like-minded people. I just sat down and studied all evening until late at night, since I could not fall asleep. At home, I haven’t said anyone anything, I just scraped together a little food suitable for a hike. So imagine to yourself a scene…
Early in the morning I was collecting a modest breakfast in the kitchen for the road, boiling more eggs then usually, when suddenly there was a knock on the door.
Edik was standing outside and looking at me with a look of a beaten dog.
“Come to school, Nick. Vera is aware, a terrible bummer! And I ran to the others, I was ordered to go everyone around.”
At nine in the morning, all classmates were at their desks, in their places, with the exception of Vitaly, who lived in a new suburb district without a telephone.
Vera Aramovna, was furious with just wrath, briefly described what kind of pigs we were, threatened “not to leave it without consequences” and handed over the place to the teacher…
I don’t remember the order of the lessons, but out of six, four were tests, which I wrote perfectly, one was an oral questioning – also five (highest score), and the math lesson went to reproaches and repentance.
At the end of the second lesson, Vitalik’s astonished head popped into the classroom. He entered with peals of laughter, thinking that this was a prank especially for him.
Of course, everything ended peacefully. We did not disrupt the lessons, the deuces for the failed tests did not go anywhere, but were used as an instrument of psychological pressure. All conversations were reduced to memories of how X was coming to Y in the morning, while Y was boiling eggs in ignorance…
We tried for a long time to determine who betrayed us, but how? I think there are many sources.
And the next weekend, we still climbed Udzo, without taking any teachers or parents with us. It was a senior class, it was time to grow up.
Many years later, on the ninety-fifth anniversary of Vera Aramovna, Edik asked her directly,
“Who betrayed us then?”
The highly experienced teacher chuckled,
“Do you think that at 95 I no longer remember that one should keep one’s word?”
We must pay tribute to her tact and dignity. And to her memory too. At her age, she is still pulling up great-grandson Pavlik in mathematics. The school teacher marveled at his success and asked:
“Do you have a tutor?”
“No,” Pavlik replied, “My great-grandmother helps me.”
The teacher pursed her lips and phoned to his mother:
“I have always respected Pavlik for honesty and directness, and he scoffs at me – he says that his great-grandmother teaches him mathematics.”
Yes, sometimes the truth looks more unrealistic to us than fiction…
I ran into Anatoly at a medical examination at the military registration and enlistment office. He became a tall, very thin young man, about whom classmates joked that the thighs for him begin below the knees. But despite his thinness, he turned out to be completely healthy and served nicely in the army after school, and then graduated from the aircraft maintenance school.
They found some kind of heart murmur in me and sent me to the cardiology department for examination. There I spent a week under the supervision of a cardiologist, Uncle Omari Mgeladze, who had already become a doctor of science (double PhD). As a result, I was declared fit for non-combatant service, but in the hospital I encountered two new for me phenomena: experimental medicine and mixed wards for adults and children.
The first one was quite interesting – I was allowed to be present at Dr. Somov’s surgeries on dogs (the creation of artificial heart defect). He even let me to hold the surgical tools.
The second one was even more interesting! The men in my ward told day and night stories about unheard-of sex and their genitals, of fantastic strength and size. Especially struck me Zachary’s story. He allegedly hung a kettle full of water on his penis. My complexes grew until I got bolder and asked Dr. Somov about this phenomenon. He, without thinking twice, took the medical chart and read me that Zachary was treating here his endocarditis, earned while self-treating impotence and unsuccessful attempt to lengthen his penis. Of course, giving away the patient’s secrets is not a method, but a kind of psychotherapy in mixed wards for young creatures and old satyrs.
Anya, the only one in our class, thanks to her talent and diligence, received a gold medal (Cum Laude), in addition to an excellent certificate. But she didn’t stop blushing in high school.
The reflex was already working, and not the swear word itself. It was enough to recite: “Oh, purp …” Even a piece of the word “purple” was enough for Anya to blossom – everyone in the class knew very well that this was part of the expression “purple dickhead”, with which Kesha christened everything red. He never called Anya that, and had nothing against her, he simply uttered these words and watched Anya’s reaction with laughter.
Kesha was a talented prankster who moved into our class in the ninth, when the class officially became math. He was good at math, worse at physics. He studied unevenly, loved to play the guitar and, neigh like a horse at his own jokes, such as “Oh, purp..!” He usually called out the word “purple” and quietly whispered the rest. But sooner or later a failure happened. He whispered “purple” and roared “dickhead”! Elderly and very stiff, always in black, biologist Milena Morisovna, just went berserk,
“Listen boy!” such an appeal spoke of her anger, “Are you out of your mind? Get out of class!”
“Of course I will go out, but the color won’t change,” Kesha answered.
Anya almost got an apoplexy stroke.
We had a couple of funny cases concerned biology. One of them was in the seventh grade when we studied zoology.
Maya was called to answer the topic “Reproduction of frogs”. She was a physically well-developed girl, and thanks to Misha’s father-gynecologist medical books, which sometimes appeared in class, she was well versed in surgical cases of defloration. But she had very scarce knowledge about frogs, which, alas, she gained in “Thumbelina”. However, thanks to her general knowledge about sex, she decided to get out, believing that fertilization in frogs is internal, like in humans. She went to the blackboard and said,
“Even frogs love sex.”
Both all students and Milena Morisovna immediately became alert.
“You, Maya, want to say that sexual reproduction is inherent in amphibians?”
“Yes,” Maya confirmed, “Because there are men and women among them.
“Females and males,” the teacher corrected.
“Yes. Females have a hole and males have a member…”
Milena Morisovna was still trying to prompt. Apparently, the word oviduct (an egg pass). She said:
“Egg…”
“Yes,” Maya supported the hint, “A member with balls, I mean eggs.”
“Girl, you have some perverted ideas!”
“What perversions are you talking about?” Maya was indignant, “Frogs don’t even have an anus for perversion, just a one hole. And HE SHOVES there!”
For persuasiveness, she folded her left fist into a tube and depicted the international sign of copulation with her right index finger. We were dying of laughter.
“Sit down, girl! Very bad! F!”
“You just don’t like sex, but frogs do!” the loser lashed back.
Milena Morisovna had an old mother who died one day. Our entire class, headed by Vera Aramovna, went to the memorial service to express condolences. According to the customs of our land, the coffin stood on a low ottoman covered with a carpet. Relatives and the elderly were sitting around it, along the walls. Visitors in a chain made a loop around the coffin with the deceased and shook hands or kissed Milena Morisovna, depending on their proximity to her. After that they went out onto the balcony or down into the yard or street.
For each of us to go first was somehow uncomfortable; no one had a clear idea of what exactly should be done in the case of a closely familiar teacher, and the guys pushed each other to the leader’s place in order to simply repeat the ritual after him. When we had entered the room and stepped on the straight pass along the coffin, Zhorik was pushed out to go first, and he had already nowhere to retreat.
Now, after so many funerals, I see it as a simple procedure, but in those years, Zhorik, inexperienced like all of us in public ceremonies, suffered not sure what to do. He hesitated, shake the hand or kiss the teacher, and he could not determine the degree of closeness.
And then he found a compromise – to kiss the teacher not on the cheek, but on the forehead. However, the large bangs covered her the high forehead. Then Zhorik went for broke. He hit the bangs on a tangent with the edge of his palm, shifting it to the side, and smacked a kiss to the woman’s forehead. Well, after him all of us repeated the same.
Milena Morisovna was stunned! Each student gave her a kick on the head, and then kissed her. She was touched, and we barely endured until exit the room with the coffin and burst into saving hysterical laughter then…
With Svetlana, Yulia and another girl, Olya Andreeva, who came to us in the eighth grade, we attended the historical club or circle. I’ve loved historical adventures since my childhood. For several years we helped to glue the pithos. It was brought from the Black Sea by our history teacher, Maya Nikolaevna Teliya. Despite her Mingrelian surname, she was a Slavic type like her mother, and her husband, our geography teacher Vasily Stepanovich Krepko, was also Slavic. They were friendly guys, if I may say so about my teachers, youthful, enthusiastic about their work, but alas, childless. And both cherished their circle. I mean history circle. It was correct to call it an office or even a museum, in which it was transformed later. However, it all started with very pretty stands and posters, made together with artists from Dagmara Leonovna painter’s club.
The pithos came to us the following way. Maya and Vasya went to underwater excavations in the Crimea. Some kind of huge amphora was pulled out from under the water, which on the shore, in front of the eyes of archaeologists, fell apart into a thousand pieces. The couple guessed to receive this “trash” as a gift and carefully transported it to our school. The decision was correct: for several years, young trackers and detectives, working like ants, folded large pieces of pithos, and then the entire vessel. A rare school has a vessel of such antiquity (two thousand years BC).
But that’s not what advanced the museum. In the seventies, it became popular to restore the history of the country, more precisely, the past of its forgotten warriors. Our researchers dug out the routes of the revolutionary armies and our countrymen – partisans in Europe.
For example, I wrote a report on the memoirs of my grandfather David. The storming of the Winter Palace, in his vision, as usual, surprisingly resembled chronicle movies. I also needed documents about the Menshevik uprising in Georgia. I couldn’t think of anything better than to go to the library of the Institute of Marxism and order a folder of newspapers about the uprising. The librarian broke into a cold sweat. Even words about a successful anti-Soviet rebellion could threaten with Kolyma, and here… the documents! They called in an important gentlemen who asked whether I was a graduate student of the University Department of History. But I honestly answered that I was a student of the eighth grade and I was writing a report based on the memoirs of my grandfather.
“Well, write young man, write!” he said politely, “Whatever Grandpa says, it’s just his memories, sometimes reflecting true, sometimes – not. And everything in the Menshevik newspapers is a solid lie, I know it for sure.”
“Probably, he published them himself,” I thought, and since then I have become distrustful of the political press.
Let me tell you that we sent stands about the capture of Transcaucasia by the Eleventh Red Army, and about Georgian partisans in Italy, to the All-Union competition. And our stands and posters won. But our circle members, Svetlana, Yulia, Olya, and I were not taken to a rally in Leningrad. Political authorities decided that the school would be awarded without us. The district committee of the party grew wiser in three or four years and did not add Georgian children to the children from the Russian school. We were just cut off. Maya and Vasya, of course, went to Leningrad, rattled badges and pennants, but in their conscience they decided that the children should somehow be compensated for this shameful behavior of the district party committee. Maya took the girls to the North Caucasus, to the mountains, in the summer. I was absent in the city, I lived in a pioneer camp in that summer. But in the fall I received my compensation.
A free ticket for the trip to the hero cities of Kyiv, Minsk, Brest and Moscow was sent to the school for the secretary of the Youth Communist Committee. For ten to twelve days. At that time, our secretary was a girl from a religious family of Georgian Jews.
“How?” they said, “Two weeks without kosher food is a big sin, even for a young communist,” and they didn’t let their daughter go to the trip.
It was then that a vacancy appeared, which Maya Nikolaevna immediately took advantage of. She contacted the district party committee.
“How?” they said in the district committee of the party, “He’s a Jew!”
“And who do you think was a girl with a Georgian surname, the school secretary of the Youth Communist Committee?”
“But your candidate will miss two weeks of classes!”
“Would your secretary miss less classes?” Maya counterattacked.
In a word, they yielded to her, and in the crowd of the same lucky ones of fate, I drove on a journey under the romantic clatter of train wheels.
There was a lot of charm in the journey through the hero cities. Oddly enough, I don’t remember any secretary of the Young Communist committees in the group. All were simple guys and girls who got on the tour, because their parents just bought them tickets, and I got a free one, originally intended not for me at all. Again the people cheated the party!
We saw a lot of interesting and historical things. I really liked it. After all, it is one thing that the mouthpieces of propaganda are blowing into your ears, and another thing is what you see with your own eyes, hear from witnesses. There were some overlays too.
Kyiv was beautiful, green, with a wide Dnieper and many ancient relics. In Kyiv, we were shown a tank on a pedestal.
“This is the first tank that broke into Kyiv,” the tour guide expressed himself vaguely.
Naturally, everyone asked:
“German?”
“Joke carefully, guys, otherwise you will end up in the tallest building in the world from which one may see Siberia,” he politely warned.
Minsk seemed gray and boring. The days, however, were rainy. There I received an interesting literary lesson. The guide spoke about the successful terror act on Gauleiter Kube,
“Exactly at midnight, there was an explosion of a mine planted in the bedroom of the German governor, and parts of his body were scattered around the room.”
Immediately, several people asked,
“Did the governor remain alive?”
I don’t remember Brest itself. I remember only the citadel. Amazing perseverance and courage! And at this time (not during the war, but during the excursion), the Georgian boy from our compartment remained on the train, referring to malaise. However, this was a planned action. Dad gave him money to become a man, and he decided that the best and most heroic place for him was Brest. The very first woman at the station, to whom he offered two hundred rubles (mad money for paid sex for that time), tortured poor guy sexually so much that he really fell ill and was limped in Moscow, like a defender, who had survived after the defense of the fortress. However, his own citadel fell…
Moscow. It was my first time in the capital, but I met not with Pop, but with Lenin. I do not mean the Pope of Rome, but my own Dad, who was hiding somewhere nearby. But then I knew nothing about this, and we went to see Lenin in the mausoleum without a queue. No clue how it happened, it seems we were confused with the Italians, just as incomprehensibly and temperamentally screaming and gesticulating. Standing in an endless line to look at the small, doll-like head of the leader in the reddish lighting would make no sense. In my opinion, such a display only debunks the supposed greatness. But I liked the Kremlin. It was no longer a dollhouse for a dwarf…
With Alma, or rather with the Zurabov family, I have such an adventure. After the trip, I came to visit Palma to talk about my impressions, and unexpectedly two fat policemen dragged two boxes filled with confiscated weapons to her father.
“Here, choose what you like, while everything is ownerless, and then we will pick up the rest and describe it.”
“All right!” said Colonel Zurabov and went to take the bath.
“Want me to make coffee?” Palma asked me and went to the kitchen.
And I realized that this is a rare opportunity. I took the black polished out Walter, which fit comfortably my palm, and with a calm movement lowered it into my trousers pocket, and then I went to the kitchen to watch that the coffee foam did not run away. For many years then I kept this weapon in my house, immured in the kitchen wall. Good thing I never needed to use it.
Another adventure was connected to Alma. This time, it was not mine, but her adventure. One day both Vovkas were on duty in the classroom. They asked Palma to help them, or rather, to guard the classroom equipment while they would go to the canteen or to smoke. She, of course, agreed and lingered in the classroom. All classmates left, and then the two Vovkas returned. They locked the door from the inside, squeezed Alma from both sides at the desk, and… the “debauchery” began. No, there was no sex, but they did not let Alma go home until the evening, until the parents rushed to look for their daughter. The incident, of course, was hushed up, but it pretty much spoiled everyone’s nerves.
About Masha and Ira. Both of them entered the institute immediately after school. Masha quickly fell in love there and got married. The husband, our peer, a nice guy, joined the company that gathered at Zhanna’s house, as in a club. But it’s strange, either at the college senior year, or soon after graduation, they divorced, and Masha stayed with her daughter. Soon she found a huge fat rugby player who hit first for Tanya, then for Zhanna, and then stopped at Masha. He lived a happy but short life with her. His heart failed him. Masha has three daughters.
We walked at Ira’s birthday party shortly before high school graduation. Fruit and strawberries with whipped cream were served on the still full table. Eli tried eating it with fried chicken and praised it a lot. The others followed him. More and more voices sang the praises of the new dish. I was the last one who hadn’t tasted it yet. Finally, all eyes stared at me, “Come on, try it already!”
I tried it and grimaced, fried chicken with spices combined with sugar is disgusting! Rumbles of laughter accompanied my grimace. Eli laughed the most – he built such a pyramid!
And Ira entered the faculty of cheese and dairy products. Incredibly simple and vital solution. She lost weight, got prettier and traveled half the world, living lavish lifestyle. Husband, two daughters – both live in Germany…
I can’t ignore Borya Bichikashvili. A very calm and pleasant guy. He came to our class, which became a math class, along with Kesha. Both of them studied at a different, weaker school, but both got accustomed to us well. In the tenth grade, once before the lessons, Vera Aramovna announced,
“There was a severe flood in the city at night. The old district of Pesky is flooded, there are casualties. Not you dare to go there after school!”
Borya and I looked at each other and nodded to each other. Both noticed a logical error “after school”! We waited for recess, slipped out of the school, and about half an hour later we were already standing on the shore of the lake in the middle of which the roofs of flooded houses stuck out. People had already been removed from the roofs, and several motorboats were slowly spinning around, looking for more victims. Boys on punts offered to ride cheaply, but they were already threatened from a police boat. In a word, the picture of the disaster was “idyllic” – no swollen corpses, no marauders with scuba gear. Borya and I stood for ten minutes for decency, as if at a memorial service, and rushed back. Even our friends did not really believe us that during a lesson and two recesses we managed to visit the natural disaster zone and return to the classroom as if nothing had happened. But we not even insisted…
From Boris always breathed some kind of philosophical calm. He was the very first of us to enter the Institute of Film Engineers in Leningrad – small number of Republic’s high school graduees (so called Nation’s reserve) were accepted there a month before the exams in most of the country’s universities. But tasty Leningrad beer did Borya a disservice. Still phlegmatic, he first learned to drink sixteen pints of beer and pee them out without getting up from the table, then dropped out his college and finally returned with a pregnant wife ten years older than him.
Kesha was beside himself. He said, “Borya, understand, when you grow up, she will grow old.”
But Borya was, as always, calm and unruffled.
We spent half of graduation celebration without Boris. On the second day, instead of a banquet at Misha’s dacha, he went to Leningrad to enter the Institute of Film Engineers. But the first solemn evening Borya was with us.
Smart graduates, their parents and teachers gathered in the assembly hall of the school. My mysterious invisible dad sent me a gift, a black suit, my first suit in all my school years, in which I felt dramatically matured. I also got a bunch of compliments from the girls.
We were all presented with a book as a keepsake, and, remembering the camp tradition of collecting wishes on a pioneer tie, I immediately turned my politically correct book into a commemorative album. All evening we made each other “love notes” in these impromptu albums.
“Don’t forget, don’t forget, don’t forget!” the pages of my worn memorial book whisper to me in many different handwritings. But I’m not forgetting…
A month later, the entrance exams began.
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