REFLECTION. Michael Blekhman
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Stolberg ever have a bad turn?)
At home she was happy, too, even more than simply happy. Klara would come home from daycare, and later from school, which turned out to be special, as special as their Pushkin Entry. She would rush into their amazing apartment that before Vladimir Fedorovich moved in was always empty. There were lots of delicious food, even caviar, but Mom was never there. She traveled for work: to Central Asia, the Caucasus, Siberia, Lake Baikal, the Crimea, Lake Balkhash, uranium mines. Maria Isaakovna would go from one place to another on a special small airplane. She was a high-class construction engineer who never had any conflicts with those who sent the airplane to fetch her: I never let myself overstep my bounds and never told anybody what I was doing, including about the uranium mines.
At home, Klara did endless homework, which she didn't dislike. She also had stamps, coins, and a white baby grand piano. There were hundreds or thousands of books that could be easier read than counted, as well. Klara learned to read the same way Maria learned to swim. Only, she was three, not four then. That's why she always had more fun at home than outside. Everywhere but at home she felt how much she missed her parents, which was something she hardly ever perceived when she was home because there she had the aura of the yearned-for eighteenth century, stamps with haughty Queen Victoria and King George who looked neither like Queen Victoria nor like each other, silver rubles of Peter the Great's and Tsar Nicholas's times.
Then Vladimir Fedorovich came into their lives, and things got better. He smiled, was always on her side, never got frazzled, let alone annoyed (when did Vladimir Fedorovich ever get annoyed?), and helped any way he could including coin and stamp collecting, the latter especially, even though I could never understand the fascination with all these useless kings and queens. Our stamps are a lot more interesting. Well, what can you expect from a child?
He took Klara to the Shevchenko Gardens, to the Pioneers' Palace to see the New Year's tree, and for all kinds of festive occasions. At the Pioneers' Palace she was once photographed with her gift, sitting in the lap of Postyshev, a high-ranking Soviet official, and Maria Isaakovna was very proud of this picture. Vladimir Fedorovich just smiled, and even though he said nothing, he kept thinking that it wasn't clear who should have been more proud.
He kept taking Klara around – to the beautiful Gorky Park and the endless Lesopark, down the Pushkinskaya Street that kept changing with every passing year, and the Basseinaya Street that was clanging with tram bells and thumping at the rail junctures, down the dreamy Chernyshevskaya Street.
VII
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?
VIII
Vladimir Fedorovich and Klara were going to the zoo. They walked down the gubernatorial Sumskaya Street passing by the day care building and the endless Dzerzhinsky Square, by the Military Academy that proudly towered over everybody, by the pale yellow Engineering House where Maria worked and that looked like it was trying to soar over the square as a still sleepy morning sun. They walked by the solemn Gosprom sky-scraper, by the Pioneers' Palace and by Shevchenko's monument.
Vladimir Fedorovich held on to Klara's hand really hard because if you don't hold on to her you'll have a hard time catching up with her. He was wearing a white linen suit and a canotier hat. They walked slowly while Klara was telling him about the shocking discovery she had made before going out: the last Russian tsar Nicholas (the one Vladimir Fedorovich contemptuously referred to as Nikolashka) and a King of Great Britain (Edward or George) looked like two peas in a pod. Actually, they looked like a single pea. The only difference between them was that the king could be found on a stamp while the tsar was on a coin. Vladimir Fedorovich smiled while trying to steer the conversation towards Papanin's expedition. Klara, however, was as impossible to distract from her line of reasoning as Maria.
Vladimir Fedorovich, just hear this out," she prattled on. "They even have the same beard! I mean, beards. And moustaches. Everything is completely the same! How can that be?"
"Why are you so interested in their beards?" Vladimir Fedorovich smiled, looking joyfully at passers-by, proud of his erudite and sharp-eyed daughter.
"Hallo, Volodia! Hallo, Klarochka!" were they greeted by Zinovi. "What are you discussing that's so much fun?"
"Dad, get this, our tsars – ours and the British one – are probably the same person!" announced Klara her greatest, earth-shattering piece of news.
Zinovi kissed both of her dimpled cheeks and shook Vladimir Fedorovich's hand.
"What a child, this one!" smiled Vladimir Fedorovich smiled while lighting a cigarette he took out of an unusually-looking beautiful wooden box. "Since when are they ours, these guys? Tsar Nikolashka, may the devil take him, was overthrown, so to say, a long time