Part One – There
(Eastern Hemisphere)
CHAPTER SIXTY – THE WEDDING
I remember the New Year holidays in my first year of medical school very clearly. Apparently, my mood was higher than ever. In the summer, my ship abruptly changed its course, and now it was making a new unprecedented roll in the sea of my life.
Everyone were accepting Lilya and me as the bride and groom, and that’s what we were. We radiated happiness, and those who knew how to rejoice basked in its rays.
In those days, New Year was the best Soviet holiday. It didn’t mean anything other than “new happiness.” It was a celebration of hope for a better future, and Lilya and I hoped for it more than ever. I was just a little sad that Sasha was not here to share my joy and be the witness at our wedding ceremony. I once dreamed that not only we, but also our wives and children would be friends, but now this future friendship was temporarily postponed. At that time, only Sasha and six months later my aunt Leah and her family left for America. The initiator of the departure was the husband of her eldest daughter, a watchmaker-Armenian. He said,
“What kind of Jews are you? You have a chance to get out of this country and don’t go!”
And his determination has worked. My cousin didn’t even take the final exams – she gave up on a diploma from a pedagogical institute, packed up and left. And the whole her family left with her.
But my friends stayed close. There was someone to meet and spend time with! Before the New Year we went to festive parties. Someone got tickets to the House of Actors or the House of Writers. A small group: Eli, Kolya, Asya and Lilya and I went there for a youth ball. During the quiz, you had to guess who owned the poetic lines, “Like dwarfs we are on the shoulders of the ancients, and we see further than them, only because they saw…”
Eli, as an expert in world literature, said,
“Without a doubt, this is Francois Vignon!”
Nobody dared to object. And then, to my surprise, my modest Lilya suddenly raised her voice,
“This is Pierre Blois, I recently read his poetry in French.”
“Really? Am I confused? How could I?” muttered the confused Eli, and Asya laughed sarcastically,
“Well done, my friend! It’s not all for you guys to collect laurels!”
Even though I didn’t consider myself a woman, I mentally collected laurels. Know ours!
We celebrated the New Year in a big company with my friends. It was a wonderful night, full of good feelings and magical hopes.
The next day, January 1st, Lilya flew home. On the second, on Friday, she had to show up at work, and on Monday she had to go to Leningrad on a business trip. I promised to send Lilya with the Santa Claus a fabulous gift, but I myself, unable to sit at home, flew to Moscow the next day followed my bride. I wanted to surprise Lilya and also to show myself to my new relatives.
I knew my former neighbor, Aunt Anya, even before I knew her daughter Lilya. I saw Anya’s husband and Lily’s dad, a military engineer, now a colonel, a couple of times in my life, and now I was going on Saturday-Sunday to reintroduce myself as a future son-in-law.
Two problems bothered me a little. Firstly, I have always avoided having a military father-in-law. This point was a weak point in my beliefs. On the one hand, I met many smart and educated military men. I grew up in a pioneer camp, and a lot of my friends had dads like that. But, on the other hand, I saw a lot of idiots and opportunists who chose a military career only because of the salary, which for the military was twice as much as for civilians. But the propaganda brainwashed them twice as much. This gave rise to my “secondly”. I was thinking about emigrating and would like to have more like-minded people in my family.
However, all reasonable arguments give way to biological instincts. In a word, the next day I was already in Moscow. I called Lilya at work, called her to the phone in a voice altered by a strong Georgian accent, and said that I had brought her something from Nick and would give it to her at work. Lilya explained in details how to find her office. Imagine the surprise of her colleagues when she screamed and threw herself on the neck of a shaggy, bearded stranger like a Santa Claus with an armful of flowers! This was my fabulous New Year’s gift.
We were greeted warmly and hospitably at home. They reread my letter with approval at dinner and drank to the health of the young people. I became convinced that my future father-in-law was an intelligent man working as a director of a military plant in Moscow. But this, alas, did not mean – like-minded person! He was carefully probing to see if I was planning to leave the country? I wasn’t going to lie.
“Life will tell us,” I said, “In any case, not until a few years later, when I graduate from medical school and receive a diploma.”
Was the colonel satisfied with this answer? I didn’t think so. No one in that country wanted to have adventures on their own… head, but the son-in-law is a serious thing as well.
Lilya was sent to her grandmother’s room for the night, and in the living room they made a bed for her brother and me on the sofa. Soon, when the parents went to bed, the brother and sister quickly exchanged places. And then everyone fell asleep…
In the morning we were woken up by moans and tirades from parents’ bedroom. Despite the weekend, my father-in-law, out of established habit, got up at five in the morning and checked the rooms to see if everything was in order (like in a military factory). And, oh horror, the wrong heads were snuffle on the sofa pillows in their sleep! What could he do? He returned to the bedroom and gave his wife a dressing down! It turned out that while he was increasing the combat effectiveness of the Motherland, his wife was raising her traitors. Of course, the quotes were entirely from a Short Course on the history of the CPSU, published by Stalin. Lilya had to be saved! I knocked on the bedroom door.
“I don’t want to see or hear both of you,” he barked.
“We invite everyone to the table for breakfast. Latecomers are admitted and will not be deprived of their opportunity to speak.”
I must say that this was not the most pleasant breakfast of my life, but it was necessary for restoring the peace. It’s clear that there was no point in driving us out of paradise (what if I really would have been offended?), but the colonel, was also not averse showing who was the director of the plant, even at home.
Of course, the different worldview was annoying, but I was optimistic about the future. Colonel Joseph Malinik grew up in a good family: his father, Yuda, was a businessman and a believer, and his relatives from Odessa had long since moved to Los Angeles. Yuda and his wife (the same grandmother who tried to match me to her granddaughter Lilya) raised the children of her sister, who died with her husband in the war, as their own. All this was much more important than our temporary disagreements and the “Russian factory pseudonym” – Osip Yuryevich.
In a word, everything settled down, and I returned home to take my first exam session in the Medical School.
As you might guess, the session, even though it was the first, could not be compared with my matrimonial adventures. I must say that I don’t really remember anything interesting about these exams at medical school. Over the years I had forty-four A’s and three B’s. If the grade book tells me something interesting, I’ll describe it later.
The main event in the first year of study was our wedding.
We submitted an application to two registry offices – in Moscow and Tbilisi, and in the meantime we were thinking about how to make everything more convenient for a whole bunch of people, loved ones, relatives and friends. In the end, we decided that I have friends in Moscow, but Lilya does not have them in Tbilisi, and in order not to deprive her of the support of her friends, we will get married there, and then finish out our celebrations here!
I remember that before the wedding I told my mother,
“Now I will have my own family, and I will work for it. But everything that I put off until today, I divide equally between the three of us.”
This “total” amounted to six thousand. Two for my mother for unforeseen needs, two for my sister as a gift for her future wedding, and two for our wedding: gifts for the bride (from each family member separately – that’s what I wanted), wedding rings, gifts from me to my mother and sister; our outfits, tickets for everyone there and back and Georgian products for Moscow.
“That’s OK,” I thought, “There will be new students and there will be new income!”
Dad also came to Moscow to congratulate us. He had already been released, married Rima and began working as an assistant director of the Salon of Folk Art. The creativity there was not bad: dad gave Lilya beautiful Dagestan jewelry – blackened silver, which sometimes flashes on her even now.
I have chaotic memories of the wedding: the outwardly beautiful side of the ceremonies makes less of an impression on men, but there was a lot of hassle. For example, wedding rings. It was not easy to buy them in stores in our city; they rarely went on sale, as they were instantly and outright snapped up by the population, like currency – cheap high-grade gold. But still, rings were sold in the capital, in central jewelry stores.
We stood up in a huge line in the morning, but didn’t have time to get inside before the lunch break, even though we had already approached the entrance to the store. I was worried that I would have to stand for another hour without moving until the doors were opened again. But experienced buyers quickly compiled a waiting list and, slobbering on a chemical pencil, wrote serial numbers on everyone’s palms. The calmed crowd dispersed. Nearby in the square there was a toilet in an underground passage. Lilya and I went downstairs and headed in opposite directions.
In the men’s toilet there were suspicious characters scurrying about, looking into every urinal. Seeing me, a man of dystrophic build circled around, dancing and singing, “What a miracle has come to us, what a miracle!”
Just in case, I went into the booth, but then I heard knocking on the door and a plaintive whine, “How ruthless everyone is! They hide in the booths, they don’t let you look or touch them.”
I realized that I was in a hotbed of gays.
“But across the road, I suppose the same type of girls are pestering my Lilya!” I thought with horror and rushed straight to the women’s toilet to save my bride.
“Here you go, damn faggots! You’ve already gotten into the habit of using our toilet!” the woman’s stern shout sobered me up, “It’s for you!”
Opening the hem of her wearied out fur coat and lifting up the hem of her skirt, the woman in a frenzy pulled the elastic band of her pink flannelette underpants down, showing off her saggy belly and some tufts of straw sticking out from under it. Her companions waved their heavy bags threateningly. It would be easy to get hit in the forehead with a tin can. But then my betrothed appeared and saved me from the mob’s rage.
Of course, we bought rings, but the most memorable thing was the bathroom break.
Another funny episode happened on the way to the electric train. We were going to Moscow to go shopping. I asked Lilya if her dad, the director of a military plant, could get delicacies for the wedding table, for example, imported (Finnish) sausage.
She frowned and said that Russia is not Georgia, they don’t do business here, dad won’t look for speculators, and in general he won’t ask anyone for sausage.
“You said that Russia is not Georgia! Where does Finnish sausage come from in Georgia? Does it grow like grapes? They’re bringing everything from the capital – Moscow! You just need to look around.”
“If everyone is dragging sausage, then look for it too. Do you know where to look for it?”
I did not know. But… I looked around. Believe it or not! A middle-aged woman was walking towards us from the station, wearing felt boots, and large sticks of Finnish sausage were sticking out of her bag.
“Woman,” I said, according to Moscow custom, “Will you sell the sausage to me?”
“Why not to sell it? I will!” she answered.
“That’s how simple it is!” triumphantly, I declared to the stunned Lilya, although I myself could not believe my eyes or my ears.
I understood that Moscow is full of speculators and businessmen, but like this, right under our noses?! We bought a stick of soft (boiled) sausage and a stick of hard (smoked) sausage…
When Lilya told about what had happened at home, they looked at her with suspicion – the influence of her Tbilisi son-in-law was obvious! Well, who in their right mind would believe that at a station near Moscow, women in felt boots are selling Finnish cervelat (salami)?
Wedding…
“Tired Roses looking frozen
Married couple’s tender doses…”
The words of the touching song by Filatov and Kachan are a summary of my memories.
Despite the spring, it was quite cold, and clearings of black earth were visible from under the melted gray snow.
Everything was spinning in the bustle of ceremonies and, most importantly, the banquet. Friends, neighbors, guests from Georgia, buying, cooking, rearranging furniture, setting tables! Or maybe the influx of emotions turned all my memories into a wedding whirlwind?
I remember that a neighbor, a colleague of Osip Yuryevich, gave up his apartment to us, the newlyweds, for the night, and he and his wife went to spend the night with their adult children. My father-in-law and mother-in-law actually had a dormitory – all slept side by side. Everyone was magnetized.
My father-in-law managed to quarrel up with me again. Apparently, under wine influence, he decided to intimidate me and said, calling me aside,
“Live long and happily! But know that if you are planning to take my daughter abroad, I will go “where’s necessary” and say “what’s necessary” about you!”
“When you go to “where’s necessary”, start by admitting that the director of a military defense plant has been secretly corresponding with his uncle in America for ten years. “Where’s necessary” loves this very much and believes in sincere family feelings.”
It was a harsh and painful response. The father-in-law grabbed his chest and went to the kitchen to take pills under his tongue and drink stinky cat drops, called valerian.
What to say? When I look at our photo taken in the old style, I feel both happy and sad…
After the wedding, I really wanted to give Lilya a gift. The engagement ring was for the bride, and I was looking for something valuable for my wife for later life. But Lilya, brought up in modesty, refused expensive jewelry. And in search of something, we don’t know what, but good, we came across a sale of crystal. Of course, imported. It was impossible to buy Soviet goods, that is, of course, it was possible when there was nothing else around. Supposedly good Soviet goods were branded with a star in a pentagon – a sign of quality. But there was no hint of quality there! There was even a joke – The Question: Guess what “It buzzes, but doesn’t go in the ass”? The Answer: “This is a Soviet, with a quality mark, buzzer for getting into the ass!”
We were lucky with the crystal, but only two boxes were given to the hands, that is, to one person. We liked the flower vase, the fruit boat and two types of glasses, large and small, of which there were six per pack, and I naturally wanted to take twelve. We had to look in line for those who took only one thing and agreed to take the second for us. But all these glass objects still delight us with their crystal ringing on the days of happy and sad events…
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