I went to the living room. Emma was sitting on the couch with a red box in her hands.
“Look at the medal Mama’s been given. It’s s-o-o-o beau-ti-i-ful.”
I sat down next to her, and we began to examine the box closely. Red words shone on the beige silk lining: “Order of Labor Glory.” I read them to Emma. I also read what was below them, “For outstanding achievements in the field of labor”, and another long inscription, “By the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet… Moscow.” Wow! Moscow! That’s how important our mama had become. The order was heavy, with its embossed image of a factory whose tall chimneys gave off smoke. The order was attached to a small bar with a safety pin on its back. I wanted Mama to pin it onto her dress as soon as possible.
We had seen quite a few medals and orders. We even collected badges ourselves. Holders of orders often visited our school for various meetings. And they often spoke on television. Honors were accorded to them. They were given flowers. Perhaps, we would soon see Mama on television, maybe even during a parade.
I imagined the city parade on November 7th or May 1st – our school always attended parades. There would be honored guests, important officials, the military, and other prominent people on the reviewing stand. And our mama would be among them. There would be flowers, flags, balloons, music – a brass band would be playing. And people would be marching past the reviewing stand, thousands of people! They would carry slogans and streamers – “Glory to Labor Heroes!” They would be laughing, singing, waving their hands. Emma and I would be floating in this human sea. We would also be shouting something, waving to her, to our mama. We would tell people proudly, “That’s our mama over there.” Obviously, I was also not immune to pride, even vanity, but mine, it seemed to me, was more unselfish that my father’s.
The veranda was the coziest place in our apartment on warm autumn days. It was light, with wide windows and a wooden floor. Summer seemed to continue there even into the fall. And now, the veranda was filled with the aroma of apples, and with steam. Mama had been canning apple compote for winter since early morning. Yes, she had, instead of visiting friends and relatives to inform them about her achievement, to hear congratulations, to rejoice and be proud of it. Mama got busy with the chore she had already planned for this Sunday – home canning.
While Father and I were at the bazaar, Mama peeled and sliced apples. Now the apples were cooking in an enamel bucket in the kitchen, next to the veranda. Water was boiling in a large pot. Clean jars were placed near the stove. Washed with baking soda, they were impeccably clean. Mama transferred apples from the bucket into a one-liter jar just as quickly and skillfully as she worked at the sewing machine. Then she put the jar carefully into boiling water, took it out with metal forceps and carried it to the veranda where she twisted a lid onto it. Emma and I sat on the veranda enjoying Mama’s company, the cozy atmosphere, the general feeling of emotional comfort and peace in the house, and we asked Mama countless questions.
“Who brought it to you? Where did they get it? At a store?” Emma asked.
I pushed her, “Hold on. Don’t ask all kinds of nonsense. Mom, tell us how it happened. How did you learn about it?”
“Well, everybody got together at the factory…” Mama answered, chuckling, with a look of embarrassment.
“What do you mean ‘everybody got together’? What about the work?”
“Well, a break was announced…”
“A break? Because of you?”
All the humiliation, injustice, all the hypocrisy of the Soviet way of life, which I felt, learned about and understood later in life, did not erase those moments of pride and ecstasy from my memory – the factory took a break to congratulate my mama!
“Was another woman also given flowers?” I asked, because there were two women at Gucha who had been awarded orders.
Mama, who was closing a jar that stood on a chair, straightened up, rubbed her lower back – she had had radiculitis for a long time – and uttered:
“Ah…”
Mama was a person of few words, but I understood her language well. Her “ah” meant “when will you quiet down?” I was surprised – the conversation about the order seemed not to interest her in the least.
“You’d better help me close the jars. Do you want to try?”
Of course, I wanted to! Mama canned vegetables and fruits every autumn, and she did it so thoroughly that we couldn’t always finish the supplies of preserves, compotes, eggplant and squash “caviar,” and various types of pickles during the winter. So, we were not afraid of winter. Mama would also take part of our supplies to Grandma Abigai’s in Tashkent.
The last few years, Emma and I began to participate in the process, which seemed very absorbing to us, as long as we were spectators. But it turned out that it required skill, attention and patience, which we often lacked.
Mama gave me a device that I called a “twister.” It was a round metal thing that you had to put on a lid, press down and turn its handle at the same time. This “at the same time” didn’t come easily to me. Khirk! Khirk! the device grated when I pressed it to the lid, but when I began to turn the handle, for some reason, I couldn’t press down the lid at the same time. I became angry, I got tired. I couldn’t understand what we needed this device for. It would be easier to cover the rim of the jar with glue. It would hold firmly.
“Wait, wait, bachim,” Mama moved me aside. “That’s wrong…”
She pressed her left hand to the round cover of the device and turned the handle with her right hand. After one turn, she pursed her lips and pressed the cover harder. Then she made another turn, this time faster. The handle was harder to turn, the cover was harder to press down. At last, Mama straightened up and rubbed her lower back again.
“Well, this one shouldn’t pop this winter.”
Emma and I liked it when cans “popped.” Sometimes, during a winter night, the wind could be heard howling. And, suddenly, bang, as if a gun had gone off. Before I could get scared, I would realize that it had been a lid flying off a jar. And in the morning, I would hurry to the veranda, take a chair up to the shelves where canned vegetables and fruits were stored, and look for that jar. What was not on those shelves – cherry, apple and quince preserves, and many other things. It certainly wasn’t fun when a jar of vegetables or pickled grape leaves popped.
“Ester, are you done with canning?”
That was Father out on the veranda. He had peered out at the veranda just about every minute, demonstrating increasing impatience. He wore a smart shirt and was clean shaven, a newspaper in his hands. He waved the newspaper and exclaimed:
“Just five people have been awarded orders in the whole town.”
“I’ve heard about it,” Mama said.
“Stop tinkering with these jars. Let’s go outside. You should let people see you.”
Mama winced.
“Should I? I haven’t cooked dinner yet.”
“I see…” Father coughed. “I’ll go for a walk. It’s so stuffy here because of your jars.”
He folded the newspaper neatly and left.
Mama raised her eyebrows, chuckled and began working on another jar. But soon we heard, “Ester! Where are you? Come to the window!” Mama went to the window. We ran along with her. Valentina Pavlovna was looking down from her balcony above us. Dora sat on the bench at the entrance surrounded by a group of tenants. Father could be seen not far from her, walking back and forth, holding the newspaper in his hand behind his back.