After finishing the stage called sis, tossing the langa up with one foot held off the floor all the time, Vova moved on to the stage called loori. Loori was a very complex stage. First, one had to place one foot behind the other and toss the langa up ten times with the foot of a bent leg, but it was even more complex than that. One had to jump while bending both legs, so that one leg was positioned higher than the other, and then toss the langa up with the leg that was positioned lower another ten times. That was pure acrobatics. To do that, even Vova had to draw his arms forward to keep his balance.
Oparin had already been handling the langa for ten minutes without missing. He was tired. His face, sunburned during the summer, was crimson and covered with perspiration. After finishing the last stage, he dried his face on his sleeve. Yes, he won, and it was clear that none of us could catch up with him. We didn’t feel like continuing the game.
“Let’s go see ‘Fantomas’” Edem suggested. “I’ve seen it twice. It’s a great movie.”
We all approved of his idea and ran home to get money.
Mama was slicing carrots for pilaf in the kitchen. I liked to watch how she did it. She would place carrots on a tahtach, a board with short legs, something like a little table. She placed a plate between its legs and the sliced carrots would fall into it. Mama pressed half a carrot to the tahtach with a finger of her left hand as the blade of a knife flashed in her right hand and thin sticks of carrot flew out. The speed with which she did it always captivated me, though it was somewhat scary, for it seemed that her finger could get under the blade. No matter how many times I watched her slicing vegetables, I couldn’t get used to it; my heart missed a beat every time. This spectacle attracted me so much that I wanted to take part in it – for example, to snap my fingers to the rhythm of the knife’s beating against the cutting board. But the rhythm was so rapid that my fingers couldn’t keep up with Mama’s speed.
Mama turned around as she heard me enter the kitchen. Her eyes were tearstained.
“Grandpa Hanan is not well. He’s at the hospital,” Mama sniffled, but she immediately dried her eyes.
Emma sat at the kitchen table eating a carrot with a crunch and staring at Mama with her round eyes. It was clear from the expression in her eyes that if Mama sniffled another time, Emma would make a scene.
“Are you going to see him, Mom? Will you go soon?”
I caught Mama’s agitation. Grandpa often didn’t feel well, and we were used to it. But if Mama was so upset and crying, it meant that he felt much worse. I didn’t want to go to the movie any longer. I wanted to see Grandpa. Today was a day off. It meant that Mama would go to see him and perhaps take me along.
“Shall we go see him, Mom?” I asked another time.
“Father won’t let me,” she whispered.
Perhaps such an answer might have seemed strange to another child but not to me, not to me. I knew too well what cruel actions my Father was capable of. It was useless to ask why he had done it and how he could possibly not to allow his wife to visit her ailing father.
I sighed and asked, “May I go to the movies?”
Mama nodded.
“Go. Here’s the money… Listen,” she suddenly asked. “Will you take Emma with you? Just hold her hand. Just be sure to hold her hand the whole time.”
The October Movie Theater was a three-minute walk from our place. The three-story brick building was located on a hill and, for that reason, reminded me of a fortress. The movie theater’s back wall faced our building. That was where the exit for spectators and the basement to which a short staircase led were located. The basement attracted us boys, no less than the auditorium with its movies.
It was a workshop, or an atelier, as its master, Uncle Petya, preferred to call it. In our opinion, Uncle Petya was the best artist in the world. He painted posters to advertise upcoming movies. We considered those posters wonderful works of art. However, it seems to me, even now, that they were expressive, colorful and detailed.
Uncle Petya was a kind, sincere person. We once stopped by his atelier by accident, and soon became habitués. As soon as we showed up, a welcoming exclamation would be heard, “Ah, guys, it’s you! Come in, come on in!” And we didn’t make him beg us. We spent long hours in Uncle Petya’s atelier, especially when it was raining. There, in the basement, days never seemed rainy and drab. It was always light and festive in that small room crammed with posters, canvases on frames and cans of paint. Our favorite characters looked down at us from the posters. Uncle Petya, brushes in his hands, worked wonders on the canvases, and another adventurer, noble knight or warrior would appear on them. We met Captain Nemo, Robinson Crusoe, a kind policeman in evil and merciless New York City, and a great number of other characters before the movies were released.
Sometimes, we became Uncle Petya’s collaborators, well, perhaps not collaborators but consultants. For instance, let’s say he was painting a poster for the movie “The Last of the Mohicans.” We stretched our necks the better to see the sunburnt figures of the Indians that appeared on the canvas. They were Chingachgook and his son Uncas.
Suddenly, someone’s voice broke the silence. “You have it wrong, Uncle Petya. They paint their faces dark red before a battle. You have them pale.” Or “Un-n-cle Petya! What about the tomahawk? There should be leather strips on the handle. Don’t you remember?”
Uncle Petya, puffing his pipe, would nod with a serious air and repeat, “That’s my boy, that’s my boy. Thank you.” And he made the necessary corrections. Perhaps it wasn’t that important, but we were very proud of our contribution to his art.
A line would appear at the box office, sometimes a very long one, as soon as a new poster went up at the main entrance. We were absolutely sure that it was Uncle Petya’s skill that brought people to the movie theater. After making ourselves comfortable on a bench in the little park in front of the movie theater, we would watch people examine a poster closely, trying to guess what impression it made on them and arguing about it. We enjoyed our superiority over other people. Just imagine, we already knew what the next poster would be! We knew, and these people didn’t.
It was almost dinner time as we returned from the movie theater, very satisfied with yet another “Fantomas.” Every episode of the series seemed wonderful. They shot, sank to the ocean depths and raced in balloons in those episodes.
As Emma and I were entering our building, Uncle Kolya, our neighbor, called to me. “Valery, listen…” he bent over the railing and spoke louder, “There was a lot of noise at your place… Your parents were quarreling again… I knocked on your door, but they didn’t let me in… If anything’s wrong, call me, or just run to our place right away. Got it?”
I nodded and, still holding Emma by the hand, entered the building. “They quarreled.” I knew perfectly well what that meant. Father gave Mama another beating. It was about ten steps from the entrance to our door, but it seemed to me that ages passed before I inserted the key into the keyhole. The key didn’t want to go in. On top of that, Emma was weighing my right hand down.
The clang of the lock and the clatter of the door seemed awfully loud in the quiet apartment. I looked around – where was Mama? But first I saw Father. He stood before the mirror in the bathroom, and it seemed to me that he was drying himself. I saw right away that the towel was covered with blood. And then, when he lowered his arm, I saw blood streaming from an open wound on his collarbone.