The winner would be determined after the battle, when the casualties were counted. Of course, that’s when arguments would arise, and it wasn’t always possible to determine the truth.
Now, we needed to decide which group would stay near the tower and which would go on the offensive. We did it by coin toss, which was our substitute for the medieval warriors’ custom of having a duel between two bogatirs (Russian epic heroes) to determine which army would begin the offensive.
Our bogatirs, Kamil and Ahmad, who was as tall as Kamil, with dark hair and a weather-bitten face, stepped forward for the coin toss.
A coin shone in Kamil’s hand.
“Which do you choose?” he asked Ahmad. “Heads or tails?”
“Heads,” Ahmad answered.
It was assumed that the winning side would stay at the tower. It was easier and more advantageous to defend than to sneak up on the enemy.
Another of Kamil’s abilities was tossing a coin as skillfully as a juggler in the circus. He could toss a five-kopek coin so that, after flying high in the air, it would land on a table on its edge and spin for a long time, like a top, in one spot.
The coin flew straight and high. Kamil caught it, slamming it onto the back of his hand.
“Tails,” our leader stated calmly, showing Ahmad and the rest of us the coin on his hand. “All right, after you leave the grove, count to one hundred and… Forward!”
“Hide! Camouflage!” Sergey, a boy from the CentCom building, said. “We’ll win for sure.”
Sergey would always get angry about all sorts of trivial things.
We deliberated on how to hide while Ahmad was taking his army away.
“It would be great to climb up there,” Sasha said looking at the tower. “Why did they have to board up the door?”
“Why… why… Of course, they store arms there,” Slava, Sasha’s elder brother said. “Otherwise, they would have turned it into a museum long ago, wouldn’t they? It’s a relic from the past. Why board it up?”
We were naïve, and we couldn’t imagine how many ancient churches, monasteries, mosques, and other wonderful relics of the past had perished all over the country, how many of them had been neglected, destroyed, boarded up, turned into warehouses for gasoline or storage for potatoes…
We stared at the tower thinking about the wonderful arms that might be hidden there.
“A Mauser cartridge holds twenty-five bullets,” I sighed. “You can shoot and shoot, and you’ll still have lots of them left.”
“A Mauser is heavy. A Luger is a different story. I saw one at the museum. That’s quite something. It’s light, and they say it’s not loud…” Slava began his story. But Kamil interrupted him, “Enough about Mausers, guys. Load your shotguns. Take your places. Hurry up, hurry up!”
It was really time to get ready. We could hear from the distance, “Ninety-five…” as we were splitting, camouflaging and hiding behind the wall of the tower.
I squatted with one knee pressed against the ground behind an oak. Not far from me, Kamil and Yura puttered about in the crown of a tree, settling in the branches. It grew very quiet. My finger was tensed, holding the clothespin. A cherry pit couldn’t wait to fly out.
I scrutinized the thick green foliage, trunks and branches till my eyes hurt. It seemed that someone was to my right… Branches stirred. A figure dashed to the next tree but failed to hide.
“Ouch, ouch! My head!” The runner yelled. “You’re not allowed to shoot at the head!”
But it wasn’t just his head, he was also holding his knee. It meant he was out of the game.
Yura’s laughter was heard from the tree. A pit hit the bark of my oak, and another. I had come under fire. I bent down and ran to the nearest thick tree trunk, reloading my shotgun on the run.
As I made myself comfortable, something hit me on the head and fell to my feet… It was a green apricot. I looked up and saw Yura’s laughing face among the branches of the apricot tree. He was a person who could have fun under any circumstances. I shook my fist at him.
“Look behind you,” Kamil’s restrained whisper was heard. Just in the nick of time. I looked over my shoulder. Ahmad was aiming as he ran toward me. He had managed to come up from behind us.
Everything that happened after that occurred at incredible speed. Something happened to my eyesight. It seemed to me that it wasn’t Ahmad but rather our beloved Uncle Robert, running with a piece of hose in his hands. Ahmad’s face was distorted with the same absurd fury that had distorted our uncle’s face as he chased Yura. The only thing that was missing was Robert’s moustache.
Three shots rang out in quick succession. A pit whistled by my ear, hit the trunk and ricocheted into the back of my head.
Yura’s and my shots turned out to be more successful – the enemy leader was wounded twice. I saw him bend down, hold his stomach and curse. Well, two cherry pits weren’t just a flick on the nose.
I didn’t manage to enjoy my achievement for very long. I felt a sting on my hand, groaned and dropped the shotgun, so unexpected was it. The battle was over for me.
“Valery, how are you?” Yura yelled, his voice anxious.
I had no time to answer. Someone started shooting at the apricot tree, perhaps not even seeing Yura but shooting at the spot from which his voice emanated. He fell out of the tree like a ripe fruit and began hopping on one leg in a strange pose – he held his stomach with one hand and his bottom with another. One would have thought that an enemy’s bullet went right through him.
Actually, as we later learned, a pit had cut into Yura’s tender bottom with such force that Yura pulled his trigger accidentally. His own bullet hit a branch with such force that it ricocheted treacherously into his belly.
After jumping up and down, Yura maliciously cursed his absolutely innocent shotgun, which was lying under the tree, and hurled it against the brick wall of the tower with all his might.
Fortunately, Yura’s and my “deaths” didn’t do the enemy any good. While they were shooting at us, Kamil, Slava and Sasha defeated them completely.
The survivors triumphed. The defeated gradually returned to their senses.
“So, Sergey, who defeated whom?” Slava asked proudly.
“Next time…” a gloomy Sergey promised.
I don’t remember why, but the next time never arrived.
That was a pity. The tower, at least, must have missed our childish combats, echoes of previous real battles…
Chapter 32. A Wedding Is a Serious Affair
If you examine the way people prepare for an event, it’s usually possible to determine their attitude toward that event and the significance they attach to it, particularly if it’s a traditional kind of event. Families of Bucharan Jews do their utmost not to be worse than others in such cases, though this is probably not only true of Bucharan Jews. It may be the attitude toward such customs all over the world.
The preparations for Robert’s wedding, which had been going on for many days, assumed frightening proportions by the end.
The house, along with the yard, looked like an anthill. There was cleaning, washing, chopping, frying, steaming, nailing things down, fixing, painting from morning till night, day after day, but, as Grandma Lisa put it, “there is no end of work to be done.” She, however, supervised the whole thing with enthusiasm. Her voice could be heard all the time, valuable instructions flying to right and left. She gave assignments to the professional cook, to all the women who had arrived to help, as well as to the members of her own family.
“There’s not enough salt… Add some water, it’ll boil down… How come you haven’t cut it yet? Hurry up, hurry up, it’s time to add it… Take it to the yard… Get it from the fridge… No, another one!” Those and similar commands sounded without a break, giving Grandma’s “team” no chance to relax.