The Education of a Traitor: A Memoir of Growing Up in Cold War Russia (8 page)

For now, though, all I can do is spend
as little time at home as possible, which is easy, since I finally start school.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

September 1st is a very special day in our country. Not because summer has already faded, and the trees have turned red and yellow. And not because September marks the enchanted time of the year we call
babskoe leto
(woman’s summer), known as Indian summer in America. The thing that makes
September 1st special is that on this day students all over the country—from first graders to PhD students—start a new school year.

Rain or shine, the streets light up with streams of school children carrying bouquets of pink, white, and purple gladiolas or sun-splashed chrysanthemums. Young children, excited and apprehensive, walk with their parents, nestling their small hands inside the adults’ big ones. Older students stride on their own, chattering, scanning faces around them, and laughing out loud. All of them move toward their schools the way brooks and rivers flow toward the sea. The rest of the school year is commonplace and dull, but the first day is fresh with expectations mixed with the fragrance of flowers—a short-lived triumph of hope over experience. 

I walk to school with Mom. She is wearing her best dark-maroon woolen jacket, which Dad brought her a year ago from one of his business trips, and I am wearing a brown woolen dress and a white satin apron with wing-like gathers along the shoulder straps.

My dress uniform for school, 1958

“Just like an angel,” Grandma sighed when she first saw me try on my new uniform. Later that day, she took me to a photo studio. There, a tired photographer, overwhelmed with energetic first-graders and their parents, seated me on a high chair and placed my right hand on the armrest and my left hand on my right elbow. Then he hid behind his tripod and said: “Look into the camera! A little bird is going fly out of it!”—and took my picture “
na dolguyu pamyat
” (as a remembrance).

Despite my festive appearance, I do not feel festive. For one thing, going to a new place, even if it is only two blocks away, feels to me like jumping into a strange lake. For another, my best friend and next-door neighbor Igorék will not be in my class as we both expected. 

“There will be two first grades,” Mom said to me when I asked her about it. “You’ll be in First Grade A, and he will be in First Grade B. I’m sorry. There’s nothing we can do about that.” 

By the time Mom and I get to my new school, the school yard looks like a small parade ground. Rows of children are drawn up on one side, a crowd of adults on the other, and officially dressed women scurry between the two. Mom hesitantly lets go of my left hand, and a strange young woman in a white blouse and black skirt immediately grabs my hand and pulls me away—as if I am a baton passed on in a relay race. I turn and give Mom a desperate look—Where is she taking me?—but Mom just waves at me and smiles encouragingly.

In a minute, I find myself in a line of other first graders. The boys in my class wear dove-gray woolen suits and white shirts, and the girls have uniforms just like mine, with large white bows clinging to their heads. Too bad Grandma cannot see us now—a flock of angels waiting for their first assignment.

As soon as I get used to my surroundings, I look for Igorék. I spot him in the group next to mine. Shriveled among other gray-suited boys, he seems thinner than usual, and his face is almost as white as my new apron. I wave at him and smile, wanting to encourage him the way Mom tried to encourage me. Igorék looks at me and casts his eyes down. I understand. He does not want other boys to think that he is a
devchatnic
(a boy who keeps company with girls). 

Several more minutes pass by. Then a small middle-aged woman in a black suit walks to the center of the school yard and raises her hands. Despite her size and civilian clothes, this woman has the presence of a military commander. For a minute or two, she studies our faces, as if trying to decide whether we are worth her effort. When the noise and excitement subside, she claps her hands and presses them to her bosom in a gesture of urgency: 

“Dear children! Today is the most important day of your lives. Today you’re joining thousands and millions of children all over the country in the pursuit of education …” 

The woman is our school principal. She talks about the importance of learning, discipline, and making good grades—not just for our future or our parents’ satisfaction but, more importantly, “for the prosperity of our country.”  The principal’s speech is long and her voice is monotonous, so gradually our attention flags, and we shift from one foot to the other. Yet just before we get openly restless, the principal’s voice raises to a high C, and she pushes her hands forward like an opera singer who is about to break into a final aria, “Remember, children, all of this is available to you because of our dear Communist Party!” 

The speech is over. Led by our teachers, we head to the school’s front door, which is decorated with a banner, “Thank You Our Dear Communist Party for Our Happy Childhood!” One by one, we walk underneath these words of gratitude and into the school building, while our parents wave at us and brush away tears. 

Before we enter the classroom where we will study for next three years, we are sorted into pairs— one girl and one boy—and told to take seats in the order of our arrival. The classroom is filled with several rows of black
party
(wooden student desks for two) with folding front panels that make loud noises every time we get up or down. In front of the room sits a teacher’s desk. Behind the desk, just above a blackboard, hang large portraits of two men: one with high temples, piercing eyes, and a short pointed beard; the other with a bold head, small eyes, and an almost simple-hearted expression on his round face.

The first man is Vladimir Iljich Lenin—or rather
Dedushka
(Grandfather) Lenin as we children are taught to call him—a great revolutionary and the most important person in the history of our country. The portrait next to Lenin depicts our current leader Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev.

I have seen numerous pictures of Lenin in my ABC book:
Dedushka
Lenin by himself,
Dedushka
Lenin surrounded with young workers,
Dedushka
Lenin giving a speech in front of revolutionary soldiers, and others. In fact, there are two more portraits of him in the classroom. On the wall to the right, Lenin, in a cloth cap, one hand in his pants pocket, is talking to a group of children. On the wall to the left, he stands on the roof of an armored car—his coat flies open, his hand points forward, and a sea of people crowd around him on all sides. As for Khrushchev, his pictures do not appear in our ABC book, but his face is also familiar to me—his photos fill our newspapers and adorn tall city buildings during government holidays.

Everybody is seated, and our teacher, a large woman with deeply-set, suspicious eyes, opens a class roster. 

“Hello, children,” she says, forcing an official smile. “My name is Maria Ivanovna and I am your teacher. Now, I need to know your names. I’ll read the roster, and when you hear your name, I want you to get up, so I can see you.” 

She goes down the list, and the children stand up one after another—some look straight at the teacher and some carefully study the surface of their desks. When my name sounds, I get up, too, and whispering sweeps through
the classroom like the rustling of falling leaves. I turn around—Is something wrong with me?—but I can see no answer. I am dressed like all the girls in my class. My hair is arranged into two coiled braids, the way many of them wear theirs. My briefcase, my cotton stockings, and my shoes are almost identical to everybody else’s. And yet, I must be different. I feel it with my skin and in my suddenly aching teeth. What is it? 

The explanation is simple, and it has nothing to do with my appearance. The thing that makes me stand out is my family name—too long and characteristically Jewish. I am not aware of that, yet, but the children in my class are. There are twenty-four of them around me. Some know each other, some do not, but all of them know that I am a stranger who will never be like them. 

Roll call is over and the class begins. My classmates open their ABC books and start repeating after Maria Ivanovna, “A—alphabet, B—babushka …” 

My heart is still pounding, and my eyes are filled with tears. I bite my lips and breathe deeply—the way Grandma tells me to do when I have coughing fits or cannot stop crying. I try to follow the class, too, but the pace of the lesson is too slow, and, despite being the youngest student here, I already know how to read. In fact, that is why my parents sent me to school a year early. That, and also Tosja’s claim that it is too hard to babysit both of us, especially now that Tanya is sick.

I furtively look around again. I know no one here, and Igorék, my only friend in this school, is in a classroom down the hall. I sigh and quietly pull a slim volume of Russian Fairytales out of my new briefcase, open it under my student desk to the page titled “Vasilisa the Beautiful,” and read “Once upon a time in a distant kingdom, there lived a merchant …” And that makes me feel better.

CHAPTER TWELVE

WHY I WILL NEVER BE A HERO

As soon as my first school year is over, we are going out of town. Despite the bad experience we had at the Black Sea, my mother still believes that, in the summer, children—especially sickly children like Tanya and me—should be taken away from the smog and dust of a big city to places where clean air, fresh milk,
and eggs will perform miracles for our health. This time, we follow Dad, whose job takes him to a distant provincial village on the border with Ukraine.

The village consists of barely twenty single-story, run-down wooden huts built along a dirt road, muddy when it rains and dusty when it’s dry. The house where we are renting a room with a
pechka
(fireplace) sits by a wide circular lawn formed by a bend in the road. Like other village dwellings, it is surrounded by a wooden fence that contains a small vegetable garden, a chicken coop, and a cowshed. One thing that the fence does not contain is smells—from the bitter aroma of garlic to the pungent odor of chicken and cow manure.

Life in this house is monotonous. Chickens kill time digging in the dirt, while a dozen cheeping chicks fuss cutely around them. A cow and her offspring spend most of their days in the pastures, and one can set one’s watch by their drawn-out bellowing, which sounds early in the morning as they leave their shed to join the village herd, and in the evening, when they come home tired from the serious business of feeding. As for our elderly
khozyaika
(proprietress), her existence is as routine as the lives of her animals: chore after chore, day after day.

My life is not exciting either. No children my age live nearby, and I spend most of my days reading books and watching the chickens. I am supposed to watch Tanya, too, but at the age of one-and-a-half, she can play on her own and does not require much attention. Nor am I willing to give it to her anyway. Tanya has passed the constantly crying stage, and she has gotten over whatever illness she caught at the Black Sea. Yet I cannot forgive her for the changes her arrival has brought into my life, and I believe more than ever that I am an adopted daughter. What else can account for my parents fussing over Tanya’s every move and not exhibiting any interest in me?

Twice a day, Mom makes us drink fresh cow’s milk. She sends me to the shed where our proprietress milks her cow. While I wait, I watch the elderly woman forcefully pull the long teats of the melancholically ruminating animal. I inhale the tangled smells of hay, milk, bread, manure, and sweat and listen to the sounds of liquid squirting into the bucket. The milk I bring home is thick and warm, and, even outside the shed, it smells like a wet cloth. The fact that it has just come from somewhere inside a cow and not from a grocery store bothers me. Yet, as usual, there is nothing I can do about that but contemplate the unfairness of life and hope that the future will be better than the present.

It is a warm summer evening. Tanya and I are sitting on a pile of sand thrown in the middle of the lawn, about fifty yards away from the house. I am reading a book and Tanya is digging in the sand with a trowel. The setting sun illuminates the tree tops of a distant grove, and the low moos of the returning cows signals their owners to get ready for the nightly milking.

By now, I am used to these sounds, and I am no longer afraid of the slow-moving beasts. For one thing, they seem to be indifferent to everybody but their cowherd and owners. For another, they are too busy chewing to be bothered by anything but horseflies and mosquitoes.

I put down my book and watch the herd gradually disperse and move toward their respective homes. There are three cows heading in our direction—one in front and another with a calf behind. The latter two belong to our proprietress, but the animal in front of them is not familiar to me. I watch the strange cow approach. It is black with white spots, while ours are solid brown. It is also bigger than them, and it is moving faster, rapidly shaking its head from side to side.

Why is it coming here? It does not belong to our house, nor does it belong to our neighbors ... Wait, didn’t Mom talk about a village bull yesterday? That he got away from the herd and gored some village kid? Could this be
that
bull?

A pang of pain tingles in the pit of my stomach. I get up from the sand and pick up my book, all the while glaring at the animal running directly towards me, growing bigger and bigger by the minute. Unsure of what to do, I take several steps toward our house, first slowly, then faster and faster, until I get to our gate. There I take a deep breath and, relieved, look back. The cow—or is it the bull?—is still galloping toward the sand pile I have just left, where—to my horror!—I see my little sister diligently digging in the sand.

My legs go limp and the rest of my body goes hot and cold. Oh, no … I forgot about Tanya! For a short time, I stand still by the gate inhaling the oxygen-depleted air. There is absolutely
no way
I want to run back to get Tanya. But … there is absolutely
no way
I can leave her there alone either! Not because
I
care for her very much, but because my
parents
certainly do. In fact, if something bad happens to Tanya, they will kill me! This thought flashes through my mind as clearly as if I were reading it written on a page. Yet this crazy cow could kill me, too! What should I do?! 

“It’s your fault!” My father’s voice sounds in my head like a kick, and I quickly look around but see no one. Then, trying to minimize the view of the approaching danger, I screw up my eyes and, with my heart pounding and my legs collapsing under me, I make one tiny step toward my sister, then another. Walking has never been so hard, and, to make any progress, I must push myself forward the way a swimmer pushes herself against a current. Still, despite my laborious movements, the distance between Tanya and me does not seem to diminish, and her small figure in a red dress appears as far away as ever. I will
never
reach her in time!

“Help!” I try to shout, “Help!” No sound comes out of my dry mouth—all my energy is spent on advancing myself.

Finally, after what seems to be eternity, Tanya is next to me. I grab her by the hand and pull her away from the sand pile toward the safety of our house. But instead of following me, she drops her trowel and screams at the top of her lungs as if
I
am the villain she needs to be protected from. She digs her heels into the warm sand and, with unexpected energy, struggles to extricate her hand from mine while I squeeze her tiny fingers with all the strength I have left and drag her through the lawn as her screams fill the air.

The cow is so close now that despite the loud wailing of my sister, I can hear its ominous breathing and the sounds of its stamping hoofs behind us. Yet—Oh, goodness!—I am not the only one who hears it now. Tanya’s cry has awoken the neighborhood. Doors and windows are opening everywhere, and I see our father rushing out of the house toward the gate. And the last thing I register before collapsing on the ground behind our gate is the crashing sound of horns hitting the fence. 

I do not remember how we get into the house or what the adults say to me or to each other. And I am glad I don’t. I do not want to relive the recent terror—not now, not ever. Not even in the safety of my urban neighborhood, where cows and shepherds appear only in pictures, and milk—watery and cold—comes from grocery stores. Also, more importantly, I do not want to admit to anybody—even to myself—that I wasn’t
really
saving my little sister. I was saving
myself
from the wrath of my parents.

In September, our teacher Maria Ivanovna asks the class to write about our most memorable summer experience, and I write about the chickens and their fussy offspring. As for the incident with the cow, I bury that memory under a pile of other things I am not proud of. It only comes alive in my nightmares, mercifully melting away at daybreak. And when I wake up in the morning, I am not even sure if the whole thing really happened, or whether I just dreamt it while dozing on a pile of sand on a warm summer evening.