The Education of a Traitor: A Memoir of Growing Up in Cold War Russia (9 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

BEETS

In the fall, my family moves again—this time to a four-story apartment house made of unpainted cement blocks, not far from our old apartment. Our new building is an exact replica of countless other faceless gray boxes that have sprouted all over Moscow during Khrushchev’s era. In fact, that is what we Muscovites call them—
Khrushchevki
.

Our new apartment has been granted to us by the furniture factory where Mom works at the medical clinic. Housing is still scarce, so some institutions try to improve their workers’ living conditions. The catch is that the workers are plentiful but construction is limited, so it takes years of waiting to “receive” a new place.

To be put on a waiting list, a person has to be in good standing with the authorities, and he also has to prove that his family has less than two square meters (about two square yards) per person in his current location. These requirements are less stringent for members of the Communist Party.

My parents have waited for their new apartment since I was born, and, if not for Tanya’s arrival, they would have been waiting still. Yet, here we are, in a place that, to me, is as grand as the castle where Cinderella met her prince and as desirable as the prince himself.

Of course, unlike the royal couple, we occupy only half of a two-room apartment on the fourth floor without an elevator. The other half belongs to our new neighbors with whom we share a kitchen and a bathroom. Still, everything here is new, with no signs of mold or smell of kerosene. In fact, we now have a gas stove, a toilet, running water, a heavy metal bathtub, and only two strangers to share this luxury!

Our new neighbors are a middle-aged couple: Klavdia Petrovna and her husband Naúm Vasilievich. Klavdia Petrovna is large, with flabby cheeks, cascading double chins, and a skinny gray braid coiled on top of her head. Naúm Vasilievich is also large, with a wisp of light baby-thin hair and the cheeks of a drinker, red enough to strike matches on their burning surface.

Klavdia Petrovna and Naúm Vasilievich do not have children. At first, I expected this to change any day, since, in my limited experience, women as big as Klavdia Petrovna were about to give birth. Yet four months later, Klavdia Petrovna’s size remains constant and, in fact, the number of people in our apartment diminishes. Tosja, our old nanny, finally leaves us for good.

Whether Klavdia Petrovna has anything to do with it, I cannot say. I did notice, though, that Tosja and Klavdia Petrovna became very friendly, and I once overheard Klavdia Petrovna telling Tosja that “it is a shame for a young Russian woman to wipe Jewish asses.” Whatever the reason, one day, Tosja packs her cardboard suitcase, tells my parents—in the old-fashioned Russian way—“Forgive me if I did something wrong,” and walks out, leaving Mom in a quandary over my sister’s childcare.

“I found a new nanny for Tanya,” Mom announces after dinner, while collecting dirty soup bowls and plates to take to the kitchen. “Her name is Zoya Ivanovna. She’ll come here in the morning and stay with Tanya until you come home from school.” 

“Fine,” I say indifferently, pulling my textbooks and writing pads out of my briefcase and settling down to do my homework.

After Tosja’s departure, Tanya had gone through two babysitters. The first one agreed to look after Tanya together with three of her own grandchildren. Unfortunately, the woman was so overwhelmed with four children to mind that, on her first day, Tanya slipped out of the woman’s third-floor apartment and, being her usual over-energetic self, tumbled down a steep staircase. When Mom came to pick her up that night, Tanya’s knees, elbows, and forehead were bandaged sloppily, and her face was scratched and bruised.

The second babysitter, a reticent childless woman of uncertain age, was taken to the hospital at the end of Tanya’s second week with her. Not being there myself, I cannot say for certain that there was a connection between my sister’s unpredictable behavior and the poor woman’s stroke, but the thought definitely crossed my mind. 

Zoya Ivanovna, then, is Mom’s third attempt to keep Tanya at home until her turn at a daycare center comes up. The wait was not supposed to be long—the daycare is run by Mom’s factory, and her boss, the head of the factory’s medical clinic with whom Mom is on good terms, promised to
zamolvit za neio slovechko
(put a word in for her). However, two years later the daycare still has no space for her. 

The next morning, two sharp rings announce the arrival of Tanya’s new babysitter, and I rush to open the door for her. A gaunt woman in black walks in. She is tall and flat, with no hint of a bosom or other features of female anatomy. She is also the oldest woman I have ever seen. Her narrow lips reveal a toothless gaping mouth. Her thin white hair covers her scalp like cobwebs, and her deeply wrinkled face resembles a dried mushroom wasting in the woods. In other words, Zoya Ivanovna looks like a mummy I once saw in a museum; the main difference is that instead of peacefully lying in her sarcophagus and contemplating eternity, Zoya Ivanovna walks among the living with small and unsteady steps. Mom must have been desperate to hire this shadow of a woman. Surely, this babysitter will not last long. 

I am wrong. Three months later, Zoya Ivanovna is still around. When I come home from school, she is the first person I see. Her shriveled dark figure stands out against the doorway, her coat is buttoned up, her headscarf hugs her ancient face tightly, and her pale eyes, hidden under beetling white brows, are filled with the eager anticipation of a soldier waiting to be relieved from her watch.

“Good day, Zoya Ivanovna,” I say, holding back the urge to click my heals and salute her, like one service man to another, for I know firsthand what her time with my sister must have been like.

“Well, I think I’ll go now,” Zoya Ivanovna replies—her shuffling feet already polishing the cold stones of the staircase behind our door.

I never blame her for the quick retreat. I wish I could go, too. In fact, I am amazed that Zoya Ivanovna has tolerated this long Tanya’s mercurial temperament and her rare knack for getting into trouble. It is difficult even for me, and I must be a hundred years younger than Zoya Ivanovna.

One morning Zoya Ivanovna does not come. Instead, Mom takes Tanya to her place. After school, I go to pick up Tanya from Zoya Ivanovna’s house—a decrepit structure near my school. I ring the bell of her apartment, and my sister opens the door to a dim, cave-like room.

A strange smell stops me in my tracks. I look around. Everything in the room is old and worn out, including its owner, who is sinking into the sofa, looking ominous with exhaustion—as
Baba Yaga
might look near death. For a minute I stare at Zoya Ivanovna’s wasted figure, trying to identify the source of the odor. Is it mold? Spoiled food? Or Zoya Ivanovna’s body? I am used to modest circumstances, but it suddenly hits me that this is true
poverty
. This is what it must look like, and this is what it must smell like.

But it cannot be! Not according to my teachers, my textbooks, or our radio and TV. Poverty is a sign of rotten capitalism, and it does not exist in our country! Our slogan is “From each according to his ability to each according to his needs.” As for old people, every school age kid knows that they deserve a “happy old age”!

I am staring at Zoya Ivanovna. Her face shows no signs of happiness. As for this smell, I do not know what “rotten” capitalism smells like, but it cannot stink any worse than Zoya Ivanovna’s apartment. And, despite everything I have heard and learned in school, despite all the slogans, I realize that poverty, unvarnished and ugly,
does
exist in our country. What else pulls Zoya Ivanovna off her broken-down sofa and makes her babysit my fidgety sister? The little money she gets from my parents makes her struggle for survival easier, if not bearable. For what can be bearable about living on a miserable pension after long years spent serving one’s people and country?  

I help Tanya put on her coat and we head home. “You’d better listen to Zoya Ivanovna, Tanya,” I say to my sister who is paying as much attention to my words as she does to the clouds in the sky. And when we walk into our apartment—which suddenly seems as luxurious as the Russian tsars’ palace—I feel as lucky and privileged as I have ever felt. 

Two weeks later, I get sick, and Mom takes Tanya to Zoya Ivanovna’s once more. When they come home at night, Mom’s cheeks are flushed and Tanya is trailing behind her, whining.

“Tanya, don’t bother me now and don’t bother your sister either,” Mom says very loudly, elaborately sucking air through her dilated nostrils. Ordinarily, this statement would make me very happy, but there is something in Mom’s voice that does not feel right. Besides, she does not look at me, does not put her medicine-smelling hand on my forehead in a gesture of concern, and does not ask me if I feel any better.

“Is something the matter?” I say, but Mom just glances at me—her face like a storm cloud about to erupt with lightning—and goes to the kitchen. Soon, I hear the loud staccato of a kitchen knife hitting the cutting board with the fury of a guillotine chopping. 

Not until Dad comes home do I learn—overhear, really, for how can I not hear my parents whispering four yards away from my bed?—what has happened. Both Mom and Dad sit at the table—Dad eating his dinner and Mom, next to him, talking.

“I left early today,” Mom starts, first slowly, visibly looking for words, but then faster and faster. “And I thought that before I picked up Tanya from Zoya Ivanovna’s, I’d go get some cabbage for
shchi
(soup made of green cabbage). So I go to the vegetable store on the corner, get in line, and look around. And who do you think I see?” Mom takes a deep breath, as if she is about to dive into unfamiliar waters. “I see Tanya! She’s standing at the counter next to a woman buying beets and potatoes, just as if she were that woman’s daughter.”

Dad’s spoon freezes in mid-air, “What was Tanya doing there?” 

“That’s what I want to tell you!” Mom bursts out, forgetting to whisper. Then she lowers her voice and continues. “Tanya’s standing there, but because she’s short, the saleswoman can’t see her on the other side of the counter. The woman customer is busy arguing with the saleswoman over spoiled potatoes and trying to take them off the scale, and everybody else, you know, is watching them.” 

“Did you call Tanya?” 

“Well, I opened my mouth to call her, but she suddenly stretched out her hand, grabbed a beetroot from a pile on the counter, and hid it under her coat!”

Dad’s spoon swoops into his bowl and splashes the vinyl tablecloth with bits and pieces of his dinner. 

“I thought I’d fall through the floor!” Mom whispers theatrically, leaning toward my father who looks as if he is about to follow her on her way through the scratched planks of our wooden floor to the core of the earth. 

“And where was Zoya Ivanovna?” Dad says after a pause—his angular face distorted and his thick eyebrows knitted together.

“That’s the thing!” Mom exclaims, throwing up her hands and, once again, forgetting to speak softly. “She was right there! Standing in the corner and
waiting
for Tanya to give her the beetroot and who knows what else!” 

Here Mom looks around and notices me, half-thrust out from under my blankets with my ears pricked up. “And you’re supposed to sleep off your cold and not eavesdrop on the things that have nothing to do with you!” She says. Then she turns back and continues talking in a hushed voice, while the expression on her face speaks loudly of her feelings. 

Insulted, I pull back. It’s not
my
fault that Tanya steals beets from the store, is it? Why is Mom angry with me? My parents keep whispering for some time, but all I can decipher is “just like an experienced thief!” which Mom accompanies with a jerky movement that, apparently, imitates Tanya’s grabbing the beetroot. I turn toward the wall, and soon heavy dreams transport me into a kaleidoscope of feverish scenes in which Tanya and I are running from an angry crowd headed by a saleswoman in soiled over-sleeves and a dirty apron. 

My sister spends the next couple of weeks at the grandparents, and when she comes back, Mom tells me that Tanya’s long-awaited turn at the daycare center has finally come up. 

I never see Zoya Ivanovna again. She disappears from our lives the way wilted autumn leaves disappear into the void, swept by the cold winds of the winter. For a while, I keep asking Mom about her. What is she doing now? Why did she teach Tanya to steal? Was she a bad person or was she just hungry?

Mom’s only answer is “Stealing is stealing. They can put you in prison for that. And don’t you talk to your sister about Zoya Ivanovna. Understood?”

Several months later, I do break Mom’s ban and ask Tanya what Zoya Ivanovna told her to do in the store and what else Tanya stole for her. Tanya looks at me under her long eyelashes and tilts her head to one side, the way she does when puzzled,

“Who’s Zoya Ivanovna?”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

LIFE LESSONS

Another summer announces its approach with a show of pop-up showers, washed blue skies, and flowers in city parks. School is over and, once again, we follow Dad to his summer job—this time in a provincial village located near the old Russian city of Novgorod, some 500 kilometers from Moscow.

The village is bigger than the one we went to last year, but life here is still nothing like it is in Moscow. No street cars or buses run along its main drag, which is bordered by one-story wooden shacks. No Metro stations wink at pedestrians with their neon signs. And the only sounds that disturb its provincial quiet are produced by hoarse dogs, farm animals, clamorous domestic disputes, and, once in a while, trucks and farm machinery that strain their engines in a fight with the ubiquitous mud and ruts in the road.

The trucks and machinery belong to the local
kolhoz
, where peasants work together, and where profits are divided equally among them—that is, after the lion’s share has been sent to the central government. Another vehicle that rumbles through the village, raising clouds of dust or splashing mud, is the jeep of the
kolhoz
chairman, who is also head of the local Communist cell. The rest of the time the road is empty, for nobody here—as in any Russian village—has any personal transportation, not even a horse.

There are no grocery stores here either, and the residents have to take a bus to the next village to buy baking flour, salt, sugar, vodka, and matches. Anyone whose needs stretch beyond these basic necessities must travel to the nearest town. As for delicacies like bologna, mayonnaise, herring and such—not to mention clothes nicer than
telogreika
(a working-style padded jacket) or 
rezinovie sapogi
(black rubber boots)—these require a journey to a regional center or even to Moscow.

The bus stops here only twice a day, so Mom, when she has to buy groceries, does not even ask me to come along. This is fine with me; I hate standing in lines anyway. And the lines are very long in 1960. The country is at the height of Khrushchev’s corn fiasco. Everybody talks about it: people in grocery store lines, babushkas (old women) on the benches by our house, and, of course, my parents at home.

From what I gather, last year, our leader Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev traveled to America, a country located so far away that no Soviet high official before him had ever been there. During his visit, Khrushchev learned that corn grows everywhere in America—which, apparently, is a great thing. Nikita Sergeevich was so impressed with all that American corn that when he returned home, he set his heart on increasing the corn production in our country. Before his trip, we mostly grew corn to feed cattle, but now we were going to feed corn to people, too, and every collective farm was given a command to plant more corn.

I do not know much about growing corn. In truth, I do not know much about growing anything besides medicinal
aloe vera
whose bitterly stinging sap Mom uses as nose drops. I do not know much about America either. I only see it on the map in my geography class, and that map does not show anything growing there anyway.

Most of my American knowledge comes from Mark Twain's
Adventures of Tom Sawyer
, which never mentions growing corn, but painting fences, getting lost in a cave, and other things like that. It is a great book, though, and when I first heard my parents talk about Khrushchev's visit to America, I immediately asked them if he had met Tom Sawyer, which would be the first thing I would do had
I
gone to America. My parents said that they did not think so and asked me to find out if Tanya needed my help. 

In any case, something went wrong with Khrushchev’s corn project. Unlike our
aloe vera
that needs little attention—we just water it once a week and watch it sprout its prickly branches over our windowsill—corn needed something that most of our country could not provide: hot summers. As a result, the corn that did so well in faraway America stubbornly refused to do the same in our northern country. That happened to be very bad news indeed, since by the time our authorities realized their mistake, the collective farms had already eliminated a lot of wheat—which does very well around here—to increase space for corn.

To make a long story short, this disaster resulted in Khrushchev’s earning the ironic nickname “
kukuruznik
” (the corn man) and in severe food shortages. The one exception is an abundance of canned sweet corn, turrets of which fill the shelves of our otherwise empty grocery stores as monuments to Khrushchev’s ingenuity. Dad put it this way: “You reap what you sow.” This, I thought, was a strange thing to say, since we surely sowed much more than we reaped. Yet Dad never explained to me what he meant. 

The food shortages, which are bad even in Moscow, are especially bad in the provinces, where lines for flour, macaroni and such—never mind meat and other delicacies—are almost as long as the distance between our country and the corn fields of America. In our village, many are unhappy with Khrushchev, and everybody is suspicious of “capitalist America” which “must have planned” the whole thing all along to undermine our country.

The good thing is that, unlike city dwellers, the peasants have something going for them. Outside their collective farms, where they work long hours for very low pay, they are allowed to plant vegetables and fruit trees in their small yards. Had they owned some land, they could have grown wheat or other grains, too. That, however, ended a long time ago with the collectivization of Soviet agriculture, during which small farms were eliminated and their owners—my textbook call them
kulaks
—were imprisoned or shot. Now peasants have to buy flour, buckwheat, and other grain at a store, the same way town folk do.

They
are
allowed to keep a few farm animals, though. Our proprietress Evdokia Nikolaevna has several chickens and two mean geese, which I am told to watch “
v oba
” (vigilantly) since they might attack Tanya. She also has a cow that I watch
v oba
on my own account because I am terrified of cows after my misadventure last summer.

Once, Grandma, who stayed with us for a couple of weeks, took Tanya and me for a walk in the woods, and we ran into several grazing cows. The only thing that kept me from fleeing and possibly never seeing my grandma and sister again was that I was scared of running into even more cows that might have been grazing nearby.

Grandma, on the other hand, stayed very calm. “There's nothing to worry about,” she said to me when one cow started trotting toward us. Then she picked up a long twig lying on the ground and fearlessly shushed the cow away. That was the most impressive thing I ever saw her do—almost as impressive as a magician swallowing fire at the Moscow Circus. And during the rest of our walk, Grandma talked about
her
parents (Grandma had parents, too!) who lived on a small farm by the Black Sea and had a vegetable garden, chickens, a horse, and two cows.

“If not for Stalin,” she said, her voice quivering, “You could've been born there.” 

“Grandma, were your parents
kulaks
?!” I said. 

“Nonsense,” Grandma said, “My parents had a small piece of land and they worked it themselves. My younger siblings helped them, too.” 

“You had siblings, Grandma? How many?” 

“Six, but let's not talk about that.” 

I could hardly believe this. Not only did Grandma have
kulak
parents, but she also had
six
brothers and sisters I never knew anything about! How can I not talk about that?

“Where are they?”

“Passed away,” Grandma said, averting her eyes. 

“How? Did they have whooping cough?” I said.

“No,” Grandma said, speeding up her pace. “Two of them were killed during a pogrom, and one died later of typhoid fever.” 

“And the others?”

“One brother died before you were born, and one sister died of an illegal abor… Well, you don’t need to know about that.” Grandma said, her voice trailing off.

“Grandma, what happened to the sixth?” I insisted, having done quick math in my head. 

“Well, one sister left for America, but don't you tell this to     anybody!”

That she did not have to tell me. What kid would like people to know that her great-grandparents were
kulaks
, the very “enemies of the people” every school child is taught to hate? As for relatives in capitalistic America, that is at least as bad, if not worse! 

Tanya and me (front row);

Grandma and Mom (back row)

“How did
you
survive, Grandma?” I said, suddenly realizing how little I knew about my grandparents. 

“I had no choice.” Grandma smiled a sad smile. “I
had to
survive so one day I would have grandchildren.” Then she looked straight into my eyes and added, “We’re all survivors,
bubala
. You, too.” 

Here, Tanya began whining that she wanted to go home, and we turned back to the village. I kept questioning Grandma about her family and about why we are all survivors, but she never explained that.

Another farm animal found in this village is rabbits. In fact, they are as common around here as badly groomed cats and dogs. Our proprietress has rabbits, too. They are fascinating to watch—fluffy, with large watery eyes, twitching noses, and a sweetly apprehensive expression on their little faces. Evdokia Nikolaevna keeps them in a rabbit-hutch that is divided into several sections.

“Just like a miniature apartment house,” Mom says, but to me the hutch looks like a rabbit prison.

For one thing, the rabbits are never allowed to go outside; for another, nobody comes to play with them. True, Evdokia Nikolaevna brings them food, cleans their cages, and gives them water, but she never stays with them for long or speaks to them in a baby-talk voice. I am the only visitor the long-eared inmates ever have, and I do my best to compensate for that. I, too, bring them fresh grass and push it inside through the wire netting. I give them names and tell them about the events of the day while they move their long ears, blink their dark eyes, and wiggle their whiskers—always interested in what I have to say, more so than my own family. 

The more time I spend around the rabbits, the more I am mystified with their lives. Some days Evdokia Nikolaevna keeps them in cages in pairs, while other days I find them alone. Pairing the little animals makes a lot of sense to me—clearly, everybody needs a playmate. Yet she never keeps them together for long. Also, the “temporary” playmates are always the same, as if Evdokia Nikolaevna does not have enough space for them in her rabbit-hutch, so she has to move them from one cage to another.

Gradually, I notice that the rabbits that lose their temporary playmates grow fatter, until one day I find four tiny bunnies in a cage with a formerly obese rabbit. 

“The rabbits have babies, too!” I report to my mother at night. “They're the cutest little things you ever saw. Would you get me some?” 

“I don't have the time for rabbits,” Mom says. “With all this housework, I hardly have the time for the two of you.” 

“I'll help you, Mom,” I beg. “I'll take care of the rabbits myself. I'll spend more time with Tanya, too. Mom, please! Just two!” 

After a lot of beseeching and promising on my part, Mom finally gives up, and a cage with two rabbits appears next to a strawberry patch that I have solemnly promised to weed every other day. I rush to the cage and something inside me melts, as if I have swallowed a whole box of chocolates in one go. Not only do I have two wonderful creatures all to myself (Tanya does not count, she never pays attention to anything for more than a day), but also
my
rabbits are the most beautiful rabbits in the whole rabbit world! Their puffy coats are snow-white, their long ears are exquisitely-translucent, their glimmering eyes are full of naïve curiosity, and best of all—something that Mom does not yet know—they are going to bring me the cutest rabbit babies known to man!

The next week must be the best week of my life. Every morning, I run to the fields to gather fresh grass and clover. In the afternoon I beg Mom to spare some of our cabbage and carrots for my rabbits, and every evening I clean the rabbits’ cage. I also take care of our strawberry patch and play with my little sister—all without getting tired or bored.