Читать книгу REFLECTION - Michael Blekhman - Страница 7

Rosa was from stetl close to Mariupol. Later on, Mariupol was named Zhdanov. Semen came from a city called Lipawa in Latvia, which was why Samuil knew a few words in Latvian. At the marketplace in Lipawa vendors always responded if one addressed them in Yiddish and especially if one talked Latvian. Still, Yiddish was very well-respected. If one spoke Russian, however, often nobody wanted to respond.

Semen's brothers left for Uruguay right after the revolution. There, they did well for themselves, started their own businesses. Moishe was the only one who came back to visit his mother-in-law for just a couple of weeks. The war started when he was there, and he was killed close to Lipawa. Abraham, though, opened a butcher's shop in Montevideo, took good care of his children. Then, fascists came to power. They disliked Jews and Jewish businesses, to put it mildly, so Abraham had to move to Israel.

Samuil was named after his maternal grandfather. At home they called him "Mulia." Nobody in his neighborhood made fun of this nickname because they simply wouldn't dare. In the neighborhood he was known as Senia or Sema. There were no strangers on their block and everybody knew each other.

Nobody ever helped Samuil, so he learned to deal with everything on his own. He liked taking care of himself, although he wasn't always successful. He dreamed of becoming a doctor, but who had time to think of that while working as a stevedore. If he didn't do it, who would?

He liked it in Voroshilovgrad. There was a river there called Luganka. Even though it wasn't good for swimming, it was still better than nothing. The city also boasted a museum dedicated to Voroshilov, who was often discussed in class.

Altogether, school was fun, and he was a good student, almost the best. From time to time, though, when classes got boring, he felt like screaming at the top of his lungs. God only knows how he managed to keep himself from doing it.

In elementary school and even later, teachers often made students black out textbook portraits of former leaders, which was cool. There were very few leaders left to cross out by the time Samuil reached grade six.

In summer, Samuil and his best friend Grishka would go to the river-bank or cycle. They had a special kind of whistle to call on each other. Samuil whistled really well. He could do a regular whistle, a wolf whistle, a pucker whistle. He knew how to whistle using two fingers and three, or even just one – the pinkie.

Samuil and Grishka cycled at full speed across streets, lanes, pavements, anything. The went so fast that chickens fled from under their wheels, hawk-like, while horses forgot to neigh and just hiccupped, sparks not just flied but fled from the wheels of their bicycles, and passers-by called them "yobs" or other, even more unfair and meaningless names.

Once, when Grishka was cycling in his usual unflappable high-speed manner, he ran into some stupid pebble and flipped Samuil over the wheel. Samuil ended up plowing with his nose the dust between hysterical geese and a half-dead, obese pig. He was hurt and miserable over the loss of the bicycle, and it was especially annoying to have all those onlookers gather around to stare at his mishap. Of course, he got over it eventually, he always did, but his nose remained a little crooked forever, even though it wasn't very noticeable. Actually, it was pretty hard to notice, to tell the truth.

They also loved it when it snowed really hard, the snowflakes crowding like soccer fans on their way to the stadium. While it snows, you can ski as fast as you can, screaming at the top of your lungs because here you can finally do it, and nobody can tell you to stop. Besides, there isn't anybody to tell because everybody is home, except Grishka and Samuil. Staying at home on a day like this, what can be sillier?