I don’t know… I was too young to ask Grandma about it. I only remember that it was somehow frightening to watch her pray. Her wrinkles looked deeper, her face was very pale and seemed to suffer in the dim morning light. Motionless, as if petrified with her frozen face, she looked like she was praying for the last time, hoping for God’s forgiveness and, after being forgiven, would collapse and breathe her last.
After she finished praying, she smoothed out the oilcloth on the chest of drawers, adjusted the photograph and, deep in her thoughts, said pensively:
“That’s life.”
She, of course, didn’t say that to me, but I decided to take advantage of the moment. The time after the morning prayer was practically the only time when Grandma softened. She might even open up about herself, her childhood. And I was very interested in that.
“Grandma, did anyone help you when you moved to Tashkent with Mama?”
“There were good people,” Grandma answered pensively, without looking at me. “There was Mama’s brother, a very kind man… May he be in the Kingdom of Heaven,” she raised her hands and looked upward. But I didn’t learn anything about her mama’s brother or how he helped Grandma’s family. No, I didn’t manage to draw her into conversation that day.
Burdened by Grandpa’s bag with his shoemaking materials, Yura and I were marking time at the gate. Jack looked at us with interest, sticking his head out of his kennel. Grandma was on the porch and Aunt Valya in the door to her veranda.
“Walk together, next to each other,” she urged us.
How else could we possibly walk if we were to carry this heavy bag together?
“When you cross the street, look around!” Grandma Lisa shouted.
“Do you have enough small change? Have you checked?”
Grandpa’s booth was an hour away from home, near the Teachers Training Institute next to Out-Patient Clinic #16. We needed to take trolley number nine part of the way. That’s why they were reluctant to let us go by ourselves, but they didn’t want to contradict Grandpa.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” Yura stepped outside the gate and pulled the bag. “Let’s go or we won’t leave till night.”
And we began walking down the lane.
“Remember Sima?” Yura nodded toward the yard on the corner, across from the house where the old man and woman who had sold sunflower seeds had lived.
“She’s leaving for Israel. Have you heard about it?”
Absolutely all the boys were in love with fifteen-year-old Sima, including our cousin Akhun, nicknamed Baldy. But the slender beauty paid no attention to any of them; they simply didn’t exist for her.
“To Israel?” I asked in surprise. “Why would she go there?”
Perhaps that was the first time I heard about people leaving for other countries. If I had heard about it before, I hadn’t paid any attention to it. And here was Sima, a girl I knew.
“Why is she leaving?” I asked again.
“Why, why?” Yura shrugged his shoulders. “And not just her. My Grandpa Gavriel is also going to leave…”
Yura, as usual, was more informed than I. But neither he, who was nine, nor I, a twelve-year-old Soviet boy from Chirchik, could understand why people were leaving the Soviet Union, which was, in my opinion, the best country in the world.
We followed the usual familiar route. Here was Shedovaya Street with its oak trees. The crowns of the giant trees met above us, except now they were covered with snow. That black-and-white arch, those mighty black columns on both sides, were so solemn that even Yura and I noticed it and fell silent. Somewhere up the alley ahead of us, at the end of the colonnade, cars and trolleys passed soundlessly, and here there was silence and peace, and an amazingly bright yet, at the same time, subdued daylight… Our oak alley was simply an enchanted kingdom.
But we managed to disenchant it.
Together we carried the bag with Grandpa’s stuff, but it was heavier for me since I was taller. Besides, Yura cheated – he barely lifted the strap on his side. When I noticed it, I lowered mine, and then Yura grumbled defiantly:
“Why don’t you hold it properly?”
“Do you hold it properly?” I snapped. “The whole load is on my side.”
“You’re taller. Is it my fault?”
“You can tiptoe,” I giggled. “It’s very good exercise.”
Yura immediately tripped me. I stumbled, almost fell down and, tossing the bag aside, attacked him.
We began to fight. The silent alley resounded with puffing and cries. First, we kicked and pounded each other, then snowballs came into use, then we ran into Grandpa’s open bag from which some of the contents had spilled out. Yura threw a rubber heel for a man’s shoe at me, followed by one for a woman’s shoe… and then it got out of control. Carried away by the fight, we completely forgot what we were using as projectiles and, pushing each other away from the bag, continued to throw, throw and throw.
We got tired, came to our senses, and, swearing at each other sluggishly, looked around.
The part of the alley where our battle had taken place looked like a wrecked shoemakers’ shop. Heels, soles, taps, pieces of leather were scattered here and there. A part of the space looked like an anti-tank zone: a sack with nails had ripped open, and they protruded from the snow, their sharp ends up.
Moaning and groaning, rubbing injured spots, we rushed to pick up Grandpa’s precious stuff. After lying in the wet snow, stomped by our feet, it didn’t look very good, to put it mildly. We were trying to place all the stuff into the bag, not helter-skelter. We were doing our best, but in vain. We couldn’t arrange everything the way Grandpa had it for we didn’t have his skillful hands. The soles and taps seemed to have doubled in number. They wouldn’t all fit into the bag, and we couldn’t close it. Wet, wrinkled pieces of leather, twisted insoles were sticking out of the bag in all directions.
We resumed our walk. Upset, looking fearfully at the bag, we reached the trolley stop. How could we explain to Grandpa what had happened?
“It’s very slippery. Get it?” It dawned on Yura. “You stumbled, and everything from the bag fell into the arik… along with you,” he added, casting his eyes over me.
The decision was made, the fight forgotten, and we were friends again.
Our trolley ride was all right, without further incident. Grandpa’s booth, nailed together from wooden boards, could already be seen near a tree. Grandpa sat on a chair halfway in the booth and halfway outside, a shoemaking claw between his knees. His legs were covered with a blanket that hung down to the ground.
As we drew closer, we heard the tapping of a hammer. Grandpa was attaching a heel to a man’s shoe. He raised his hand to his mouth to grab one of the nails he held between his teeth.
Grandpa wasn’t alone. There was a man in front of him who rocked now and then, as if repeating the movements of Grandpa’s hand holding the hammer.
“Just twenty kopecks? Well, ten,” we heard his hoarse voice as we came closer.
“Don’t be greedy! Give me some change,” and the man raised his hand threateningly as he swayed with great force.
Grandpa didn’t look at the drunk as he continued his hammering. Finally, he took the last nail out of his mouth, chuckled and raised his head:
“Aren’t you ashamed, asking money from a pensioner?” he asked without raising his voice as he resumed his hammering.
“What if he hit Grandpa?” I thought, but the drunk turned around and went away.
“What a foo-ool,” Grandpa said, hitting a nail. That was the word he usually used to end a conversation with a person who irritated him and behaved improperly. He pronounced that word distinctly and meticulously, drawing out the oo.