The Education of a Traitor: A Memoir of Growing Up in Cold War Russia (11 page)

I know he is mocking me. I won’t pay attention. 

“Not a chance. You can’t even hop good,” Liosha comments, scornfully observing me awkwardly frozen on one leg. 

“Leave me alone,” I say and put my bent leg down. “I don’t want to talk to you.” 

“Eh, who do you want to talk to? Igorék? He’s gone.” 

“He’s gone? Where?” (Why didn’t Mom tell me?) 

Liosha’s bleached brows rise above his icy eyes, “Are you stupid?
Everybody
knows.” 

I look at him uncomprehending, but already something heavy begins swarming inside my chest.

“You’re stupid yourself!” I scream and push the ball under his arm as hard as I can. The ball falls on the asphalt and bounces happily down the sunlit street and away from Liosha. 

“
Idiotka
!” Liosha shouts. “Crazy Jewish
idiotka
!” And he takes off after the escaping ball.

I rush in the opposite direction. What was he talking about? What is it that everybody knows?

As I open the door of our apartment, I hear the rhythmic sounds of a knife hitting the cutting board. Mom is cooking, and potato peels are piled up on the kitchen counter in front of her. 

“Where has Igorék gone, Mom?” My heart is pounding so fast that I have a hard time getting the words out. 

Mom slowly puts the knife down, looks at me, and wipes her hands off on an apron tied around her waist.

“I’m sorry, Sveta. I should’ve told you. Igorék … he … he …” She puts her hands on my shoulders and pulls me closer. “He’s died.” 

Died? What is she talking about? I remember that he was coughing the last time I saw him, but nobody dies of that! I had whooping cough when I was little, and I had to stay at home with Grandma for a long time. Is that what Mom means? 

“Can we go and visit him?” 

“Well, he’s buried in the cemetery. We can visit him there … if you want.” 

In the cemetery? Kids don’t get buried in cemeteries. They play games, they do things! Cemeteries are for old people. Like that woman from the house next door, who died several months ago. She must have been ancient and I only saw her once or twice, but I’ve known Igorék for years!

I know birds can die. I found one once under the tree not far from our house. It was just a chick, with yellowish colors around its beak and neck. I picked it up and held it in my cupped hands. It was chirruping, turning its head right and left, and opening its beak wide. I ran home with it. I thought I would make a cotton nest for it and feed it until it learned how to fly. But when I got home, the chick no longer moved or made sounds. Its eyes were closed and its head was dangling down like the head of a broken dandelion. I dropped it to the floor and burst into tears. My father picked it up and took it outside, and I never asked him what he did with it. I didn’t’ want to know. 

But I can’t imagine Igorék with his eyes closed and his head dangling down. It’s just … just … stupid! It is so stupid that it’s even funny, isn’t it? And I start laughing. I know that it’s wrong, but I cannot stop. I am laughing and laughing, and the more I laugh, the harder it seems to stop.

I feel Mom’s hands on my shaking shoulders. She is saying something about water and going to bed. I want to answer, “No! I don’t need water and I don’t want to go to bed!” But I cannot talk either. I am still laughing and my teeth are chattering against the cold glass. 

The next day, Mom allows me to stay at home. Both Mom and Dad are at work, and Tanya and our nanny Tosja are taking a walk. I am alone. I pull “King Solomon’s Mines” from the shelf and try to read it. Useless. Even reading is no help. Without Igorék, I am as lonely down here as Laika is up there in outer space. I put the book down and go outside.

A light wind caresses the world with faint smells of grass and budding leaves. The sky is clear. I throw my head back and look up, intensely. There is a tiny dot up there, so tiny that I can only see it if I cover one eye with my hand and strain the other. 

“That must be Laika’s spaceship.” I think to myself. “Hi, Laika!” 

I must have said that aloud, because suddenly, I hear a familiar voice, “Who are you talking to
now
?” 

I shift my gaze. It is Liosha. Again. Why is
he
not in school? 

“None of your business.” 

“Did you say Laika? That dog? You’re even stupider than I thought. Wake up! She’s been dead for years. She burned!” And he pushes me, hard. 

I fall on the warm asphalt and scratch my elbow. Drops of blood appear on my skin, but I feel pain in my chest.

He’s lying! Of course, he’s lying! I won’t believe him, and I won’t cry. He knows nothing! He’s the worst student in our class. Besides, Grandma says that nobody is gone as long as we remember them. That memory gives us a hope. 

“She’s not dead, you creep!” I shout at the top of my lung, my voice breaking. “I wish you were dead! I wish you were burned! You don’t know anything, anything … I
remember
her!” 

And then tears start pouring from my eyes the way water flows from an open faucet. I cry for Igorék, for Laika, for myself, and for everybody I love who may leave me one day.

Many years later, I run into Igorék’s mother, a skinny elderly woman with a full head of snow-white wavy hair who tells me that her son had galloping consumption. Also, around the same time, during a casual conversation, I finally learn that Laika died a few hours after her launch. Sputnik 2, the spacecraft that raised her to the sky, was not designed to be retrievable, and from the very beginning, Laika’s fate was to be sacrificed for the sake of Soviet Science.

Laika                                                                                                         
photo by Bobbie Johnson, Flickr, CC by 2.0

Yet even now, both Laika and dark-eyed Igorék are still a part of me, and with all the pains and losses of an adult life, I remember them, and their vague images still come to me—if only in my dreams. Grandma was right, for as long as I live, they live, too.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

YOUNG PIONEER

It is near the end of my third year of school, and we are preparing to become Young Pioneers.

“It’s an honor,” our teacher Maria Ivanovna tells us, “And it is a very important stage in your progress toward becoming conscientious Soviet citizens!”

Everybody in my class is excited, but I feel anxious. Young Pioneers are supposed to be ten, but since my parents sent me to school a year early, I am still nine, and I may have to wait till next year. My only hope is that Maria Ivanovna will make an exception for me—that is if, as she puts it, I “take it very seriously and study hard.”

I am eager to do that. Joining the Pioneers is much more important than joining the
Octyabryata
(“Children of October,” an organization for young school children), which took place two years ago. Two classes of first-graders were lined up in the school gym—girls in festive white aprons and boys in freshly starched white shirts. The principal made a speech about the importance of being good students and how becoming
Octyabryata
was our “first step toward evolving into conscientious Soviet citizens.” Then the teachers pinned
Octyabryata
badges with a portrait of
Dedushki
(Grandfather) Lenin on the girls’ aprons and the boys’ jackets, and the meeting was over. 

This time, we are told, good and well-behaved students will get to go to Red Square, where thousands of students from all over Moscow will join the Young Pioneers in a festive ceremony. So, if I do not become a Pioneer this May, despite being a good student, I will be left behind with the hooligans and
dvoeshniki
(pupils with the lowest grades). That would be
awful, since I am already a pariah in my class.

I am the only Jew there and, as if that is not bad enough, I am a hopeless athlete. I must be the worst runner in our school’s history and the clumsiest gymnast in the whole school district. When I climb a rope, I grab it with both hands and, after a short struggle, place my feet on the knot at the end and gradually straighten my body. Then I clasp my hands above my head as far as I can reach and hang there, unable to pull myself any higher, to the roaring laughter of my classmates.

Also, every time I try to jump over a pommel horse, I land exactly in the middle of its slippery, black leather back—as if on a saddle—and make my way to the far end of the beast by wildly wiggling my whole body while wishing I had never been born. Failing to become a Young Pioneer would be my final catastrophe, from which I might never recover, even if I made nothing but A’s for the rest of my school life. 

There are many things I need to learn to achieve my cherished goal. The first is the Young Pioneer Oath, which goes like this:

“I, a Young Pioneer of the Soviet Union, in the presence of my comrades, solemnly promise to love my Soviet Motherland with all my heart and to live, learn, and struggle as the great Lenin bade us and the Communist Party teaches us.”

There are also songs we rehearse during our music lessons, like “The Young Pioneers March,” “Our Land,” and “Gaidar Marching First.” And, most importantly, we study the history of the Pioneers movement.

Much like the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of the West, the Young Pioneers wear uniforms and neckerchiefs, go on campouts, and declare the importance of loyalty, honesty, and being prepared. In fact, Scout groups existed in our country even before the Russian Revolution, and a few of them soldiered on for a short time afterward. Yet since many Scouts fought against the Red Army, their groups were quickly eradicated after the Revolution, and the Young Pioneers sprouted in their place. The goal of this new organization is to take Soviet youth to a higher level of ideological consciousness. 

We don’t learn any of this. All we learn is that the Young Pioneers movement started in May 1922, and its first member, whom our textbook calls “Hero-Pioneer of the Soviet Union Number 001,” was a peasant boy named Pavlik Morozov. Maria Ivanovna has already told us about him, and we have read a story of his short life. Now we are discussing it in class: 

“Masha, tell us what you have learned,” Maria Ivanovna says, crossing her arms across her ample bosom. 

“Pavlik Morozov lived in a small Siberian village near Yekaterinburg, and he was thirteen, and he was a good student and a leader of the Young Pioneers in his school, and he overheard his father talking to
vragi naroda
(enemies of the people), and …” Masha recites breathlessly, her two scrawny braids bouncing off her narrow shoulders in time with every “and.” 

“Very good, Masha,” Maria Ivanovna interrupts her. “You can sit down now. Seryozha, continue.” 

“Pavlik Morozov learned … that … his father hid … um … several sacks of  … wheat from … from the authorities … and … and then sold them to … to the enemies,” Seryozha slowly carries on, peeking at the open book in front of him.

“Well, Seryozha, what else?” Maria Ivanovna uncrosses her arms, takes off her glasses, and gives Seryozha a piercing glance. 

“Pavlik was a good Pioneer.” Seryozha is gaining speed now, happy to have arrived at the part of the story he actually remembers. “And he reported his father to the NKVD (Stalin’s secret police).” 

“Sit down, Seryozha. Nina, go ahead.” 

Nina gets up, adjusts her black apron, and studiously concludes the story. “Pavlik’s family were all
kulaks
. They retaliated by killing him and his little brother while they were picking berries in the woods. But later, the murderers were caught and convicted.”

Maria Ivanovna gives Nina an approving nod, and Nina sits down. 

“Well, children,” Maria Ivanovna says, slowly lifting her large body from the chair. “Do you understand the significance of Pavlik’s heroic act?” 

The room is still; only Maria Ivanovna’s eyes roam from face to face like searchlights scanning the night sky during an air strike. Then, as if shrapnel has hit the room, Maria Ivanovna’s clenched fist hits her desk, and her voice reaches its highest pitch, “Pavlik was a patriot! He sacrificed his life for the flourishing of communism and for the prosperity of our country!” 

The class breaks into a discordant, “Yes, we understand.” But Maria Ivanovna is not done yet. 

“Pavlik is an example for all of you. Being loyal to your Motherland is more important than you, or your families, or anything else! Remember this!” With that, Maria Ivanovna puts her glasses back on and sinks into her dolefully protesting chair.

There is no way we can forget this lesson. The Hero-Pioneer of the Soviet Union Number 001 is ubiquitous. His image appears in museums, on postcards, and postage stamps. Stories and poems describing his courageous and tragically short life crowd the shelves of our bookstores. Songs, cantatas, and even operas eulogize his exploits. Streets, ships, and libraries are named after him. And his bronze statue, holding a stiffly streaming banner, looks forward to posterity from a tall pedestal in the park bearing his name less than two miles from the Kremlin.

Too bad Maria Ivanovna did not ask me a question. I know Pavlik’s story by heart. I have even dreamed that
I
am Pavlik Morozov, risking
my
life by informing the authorities about enemies of the people. It happens to me often that stories I hear, books I read, or movies I watch come back to me at night as dreams. Some of them are nightmares really, like the ones about the Second World War.

Actually, it is often the same dream, which plays itself out like this: Moscow is being bombed. Screeching sirens split my head, thundering explosions raise geysers of dirt all around our house, and shrapnel flies outside our windows. I am under the dinner table, which seems to be the only safe place in this world gone mad. I try to shout. Where are my parents, where is my sister? But somebody puts a palm over my mouth, and I see a forefinger pressed to dark-purple lips, shushing me. Be quiet. Don’t make a sound.

Through blinding tears, I cannot see the person’s face; all I see is a figure hidden under a black, hooded gown. I strain my eyes, trying to discern the stranger’s features, and, to my horror, I realize that it has no face! No face at all! Just dark-purple lips floating in a gloomy shadow under the hood. I scream, loudly and hopelessly. It’s Death! Everybody’s dead! I am all alone! And then … I wake up, sweaty and moaning, to Mom’s “Wake up, wake up! It’s just a bad dream, honey.” 

My dreams about Hero-Pioneer 001 are different, though, not agonizing, but angry and decisive. I am in a two-room apartment where I have never been before. There is a group of people in the next room, whispering conspiratorially. At first, I can hardly hear them, but when I get close to the doorway, I recognize familiar voices, although I cannot place them.

The voices are talking about now much they dislike our country, our leaders, and even our school teachers, who teach children “nonsense.” They talk about “corrupt communists,” the good life in America, travel documents, and other things I do not understand. I
do
understand, though, that these people are against us! They are against my school, against our government, against everything Maria Ivanovna calls “holy for every Soviet citizen.” Who knows what could happen if these people succeed? They might enslave us, they might bomb Moscow, they might even kill us all! How dare they?! I have to stop them. I have to let somebody know!

I carefully walk out of the apartment and quietly close the door behind me. I’m going to inform the NKVD. This is my sacred duty and my destiny—even if I must die. And I think I will
die. For a little while, I feel sad about that, but I tell myself that my death will be remembered. People will write books and compose songs about me, and my statue will be erected in a city park. I wipe away tears, take a deep breath, and continue my journey to the NKVD and into posterity. 

When I wake up in my bed with my heart pounding, I feel disappointed. Although I am still alive, I am just a school girl and not a hero. Besides, it suddenly hits me, I do not even know where the NKVD is, and, if I ever need to find “the authorities,” I have to learn that first. 

“Mom,” I say casually when my mother hands me a semolina-kasha breakfast smelling of burnt milk, “Where is the NKVD?” 

“The NKVD? It doesn’t exist anymore. We have the KGB now,” Mom says. “What do you need them for, anyway?” she adds in a moment, nudging my sulking sister towards the table. “Just eat and go to school. I’m busy with Tanya. We’ll talk later.” 

Well, here are my parents in a nutshell! Do they ever have
any
time for me? No. Do they ever do
anything
for me? No. Not even
today
, the day I am becoming a Young Pioneer!
Everything
is about Tanya. Or, it’s about
them
being tired. What about
me
? Choking, I shove the kasha down my throat and moisten it with a glass of hot tea. Then I put on my new Pioneer’s uniform (a white shirt and a dark-blue skirt that Mom ironed for me last night), slam the door of the apartment, and leave, carrying with me a new flaming-red silk Pioneer
galstuk
(neckerchief) and a Pioneer
znachok
(badge). 

As soon as I find myself on the street, the May sun bestows its warm embrace upon me, and a light wind playfully caresses my cheeks. I forget about the injuries my family causes me, my angry pace slows down, and my lips stretch unconsciously into a smile. After all, this is the day I’ve been waiting for. And we won’t spend it in the classroom, but at Red Square, which, as
everyone
knows, is the most important place in the whole country and, quite likely, in the whole world! 

Even before I approach the school building, I spot two buses. We third-graders board them with our teachers, and the buses carry us from our gloomy neighborhood to the taller buildings and wider streets of the city center. Everybody is cheerful, and laughter and singing spill from the open windows like foam from a bottle of champagne on New Year’s Eve. About an hour later, we reach the red brick Kremlin walls. We get off, form two columns, and march to Red Square, where other festive columns of children are waiting to become troops of Young Pioneers. 

Red Square is the focal point of the city, and the major streets of Moscow radiate from here like arteries delivering blood to all parts of the body. Numerous visitors come to Red Square to express their awe or satisfy their curiosity, and military parades and civil demonstrations roll over its ancient cobblestones in a display of our country’s power and solidarity.

Today, the square is taken over by school children: boys and girls whose impatient hearts beat under their freshly starched white shirts. The day could not be any better: the sky is silky blue, the sun is aglow, and the air is filled with excitement and the sound of children’s voices that echo through the square and bounce
off the Kremlin walls and the marble stones of Lenin’s Tomb.

After a while, silence falls on the disorderly formations—the ceremony has begun. A tall man with a red Pioneer neckerchief and two young drummers behind him goose-step to the center of the square. 

“Today is the most important day in your life,” the man proclaims—his amplified voice soaring high above our heads. “You are becoming members of the Young Pioneer Organization of the Soviet Union. From this day on, your life is dedicated to our great Motherland!”