She was so busy that she forgot all about her “spondulosis,” up until a certain moment. By evening, after she served supper to Grandpa upon his return from work, Grandma found it necessary to end the day with her special ceremony.
The kitchen door was thrown open with a bang. Grandma appeared in the doorway, her face a picture of suffering. She walked slowly, swaying, shuffling her slippers, her arms spread as if she were afraid of falling down.
“Valery, bachim…” Grandma’s voice was heard. It was a barely audible voice, filled with unusual tenderness, the voice of a very tired person ready to inform her relatives that she was about to part from them for good. “Valery, bachim, after Grandpa eats, take the dishes to the sink. I can’t do it. I’m so tired.”
Grandma crossed the room slowly, swaying more than before, losing the last of her energy, and reaching the television just as The Latest News broadcast began.
Grandpa Yoskhaim was having supper at the table across from the TV. I usually sat on the couch next to him for the reason I will explain. He took Grandma’s “ceremonial march” as an annoying interference – she blocked the screen.
“Pass, Lisa, pass faster,” he said impatiently, paying no attention to Grandma’s hints of tragedy.
The thing was that The Latest News, foreign news in particular, was the only program Grandpa watched and considered worthwhile.
“They show all kinds of crap,” he would often comment indignantly when he stopped for a minute or two by the TV and saw me watching a movie or something else. “Why are you watching that? You should switch to the news.” As soon as the news began, Grandpa forgot about supper. He froze, spoon in hand, halfway to his mouth, stopped chewing and held his ear with his other hand. Alas, it didn’t always help, for Grandpa’s hearing wasn’t good. That’s why one of his grandsons, either Yura or I, had to sit next to him at that important moment to narrate the news.
I was the narrator on duty during my vacations.
“Well? What? What’s he saying?” Grandpa asked all the time.
He pushed me, keeping me from hearing the news properly, and, after my muddled narration, he often argued with me, was indignant and offered his own interpretation. Grandpa assumed that he knew everything that was going on in the world better than “those fools.” He became particularly agitated when something about Israel was broadcast. That’s what he was waiting for as he watched The Latest News. As soon as “Israel” was heard from the television, and more often “Israeli militarists,” Grandpa wouldn’t rely on me. He would jump out of his chair, approach the television and listen, almost pressing his ear against the screen.
The tone used in the Soviet Union to broadcast events in Israel, how those events were distorted was common knowledge. Grandpa certainly understood that very well, but his desire to hear at least something about our ancient homeland won out over his common sense. But then he would unburden himself, cursing ‘those damn anti-Semites” with all his might.
Meanwhile, Grandma Lisa who had already reached the bedroom, was making herself comfortable, sitting on the bed and changing for the night, all the while demanding sympathy, pity and recognition of her accomplishments. Since she didn’t have an audience and, perhaps taking into account that Grandpa and I weren’t far away, she talked to herself:
“Oy, how tired I am. Should someone my age work like this? Of course not. Oy, oy, oy, it got to me again.” That was her “spondulosis” remembered most unkindly. “Oy, it stings, it stings, what a curse!”
I knew very well what would follow. As soon as The Latest News and my work as narrator were over, Grandma’s very mournful call could be heard.
“Valery, bachim, let’s have a little massage.”
And I became a masseur.
Even though Grandma Lisa often used her “spondulosis” for certain purposes she considered diplomatic, as a weapon in “civil strife,” she actually had a considerably bent spine that made her back look like a small hillock. There was a board under the Grandma’s thin mattress, for the doctor had ordered her to sleep on a firm surface. In a word, Grandma really did suffer.
Up-down, up-down, to the left, to the right, to the left, to the right… My hand, coated with lotion, slid along Grandma’s curved back like a sled, as she moaned and groaned, albeit blissfully.
“A bit higher… more… harder! That’s it… good! That’s my boy! God grant you good health. When you’re not here, no one gives me a massage…”
Only when I worked as a masseur, did I receive so much praise and gratitude from Grandma. I continued to rub, my hand gradually becoming numb, and Grandma’s back turning red. To my surprise, it seemed to me that her back became more even, that the hillock almost disappeared.
The last day before the wedding was particularly tense. Yura and I had to run small errands every now and then, and we tried to enjoy this vigorous activity as much as possible.
Mama and Valya scraped fish on the old wooden table with the carved legs near the trestle bed in the garden. Mama had arrived the day before from Chirchik after obtaining permission to miss work for two days.
There were two wicker baskets filled with big, fat silvery carp near the table. Now and then the women bent down, grabbed a heavy fish, dropped it with a thud onto the table, and large scales flew like spray in all directions.
Yura and I hung about near them waiting for the spoils.
The fish had been scraped. Now, they opened their bellies. O-one, and innards were pulled out. That was the moment we had been waiting for. Our mamas took the fish bladders out of the bundles of innards and threw them to us. A fish bladder is an oblong, pearly-yellowish container consisting of two parts and filled with air. It allows fish to stay afloat better. But we were attracted to a different quality: it was a perfect cracker. Put a bladder on asphalt, lift your leg and … pakh! Oh no, no words can express what that sounds like. One must simply hear it. It is so harsh, so booming that your ears get blocked for a second.
Bookh! Bookh! was heard from the table.
Now Mama, now Valya, and sometimes both of them together hit their knives with hammers, cutting through the sturdy fish spines, slicing the fish into chunks.
It was hard work. Their hands were stained with blood; fish scales were stuck to their hands, clothes, even faces. They were hot, and the flies that were attracted by the smell of the fish swarmed around and pestered them. But even that didn’t upset either Mama or Valya. They were very glad to be together, for they saw each other very rarely since we had moved to Chirchik.
Mama and Valya were friends. Their similar personalities, fates, even sorrows, along with being neighbors for many years, had bound them together. Valya was the only friend with whom Mama could share her trials and tribulations. She, on her part, heard out quite a few of Valya’s secrets. After marrying Father’s brother, Uncle Misha, Valya was, naturally, drawn into the whirlwind of the family squabbles. She was the only one in the whole family who didn’t take part in the hounding of Mama. Uncle Misha didn’t shun any “means of education” in trying to get his wife to join the clan. Sometimes, the pressure became so strong that the friends had to meet secretly, but their friendship endured.
Now, the two kelinkas – that’s what they called daughters-in-law in these parts – were getting ready to meet a third one. What would she be like, this young daughter-in-law? Would she become their friend? Or would she prefer to join the majority? That’s what bothered our mamas, what they pondered while their hands were busy preparing the fish for cooking.