– Wash your hands and sit down at the table.
I washed my hands with soap and water, wiped with a towel and sat down at the table. Grandmother at this time fussing at the stove. And the kitchen room was filled with the fragrant smell of freshly cooked borsch. Soon on the table there was a bowl of steaming soup.
– Buckwheat noodles do not want? – I asked the grandmother, pulling out of the oven another pot with more choice- grain buckwheat. Porridge smelled delicious, making a delicious flavor, and I took wooden spoon porridge and poured it into the soup. Hesitated, and then put another. Borsch overflowed the edge of the bowl; a round red denoting a stroke, cast golden sequins fat.
I ate their fill. Belly became elastic, like a drum, and my grandmother kept saying:
– Take bread, and eat. The school running about?
I ate meat and bone with fat on it left in the bowl.
– Why do not you eat bacon? – Strictly asked grandmother. – Here Ochkolyasy so all eat!
– So Ochkolyasy identity. – I replied and got up from the table.
– Go for a walk, – said, and left.
Lessons are given, because in school I was only twice. It was four o’clock in the afternoon. In the garden, in the crown of high- pear wildings, leaves rustled lazily chirping sparrows. On the road outside the fence sleepy wagon he thundered, raising a cloud of dust. The atmosphere was spicy scent of autumn. Yellowing leaves on walnut fluctuated breeze, calling for the collection of the fruit. In most nuts cracked, it’s time to collect the fruit. There’s a branch in walnut crown flashed orange lump. I looked and saw a red squirrel, nervously hopped from branch to branch.
I threw into squirrel walnut. My journey ended in the garden, to the grandmother returned soon.
– Take a shovel and dig potatoes! – Commanded grandmother.
I said in response:
– No I cannot. I’m so had eaten that will be intestines volvulus.
– Here’s a quitter! – Complained grandmother scolded me – Then go and of my eyes.
I quickly walked away from the garden.
The next morning, on the way to school, I was again faced with the girl. In her form as little governess. This form I had seen in the pre- revolutionary books with pictures that are found in the attic of the house.
White apron on a brown dress is particularly suited to her two pigtails with bows. She was carrying a large briefcase.
– Good morning! – A small voice, imitating the adults, she greeted.
– You Valik name? – She asked.
– Valik, and you name like? – I’m in the school heard her name, but did not remember.
In the class I noticed that she was sitting near the wall with red- haired girl.
– My name is Alex, – she said, looking at me with huge gray and slightly slanting eyes. Her beautifully defined eyebrows were long and sensual, slightly swollen lips broke into a friendly smile.
– So are you in school? – I asked authoritatively.
The girl lowered her eyes and squeaked:
– To school.
– Well, then we go together.
Before the school walked in silence. Near the school the boys saw us together, and away we go:
– The bride and groom, boiled- boiled dough, the bride and groom!
I Alex reddened up to his ears. Each of us is determined to no longer go to school together.
Morning. Sunday. My mats are left with apples on the market in Kiev. The grandmother, as usual, hovered near the stove.
Sun bright pink rays penetrates even into the room. On my soul sad and lonely.
Alas, the village has turned away from me, or rather half of it. Complete boycott on the part of the children, because there are rumors; Olga A. that the house built for the money the collective farm; «… And was born bastard.» Though it feared and respected at the same time, but the kids to be friends with me did not want to. Friends were not. Morning, longing, I want fun and games with their peers. And I decide to go on a visit to his cousins. I got up, put on his unchanging corduroy shorts with a harness- tightening. Shirt and jacket on one button, slippers, and told his grandmother:
– I go out to Bbchenko Koli.
– Tell aunt Ghana to feed you there! – Strictly ordered grandmother. Mom Bbchenko Kohli was the middle daughter Eugenia Lavrentevna, and I had an aunt Ganey, so it was called the familiar children her sons Bbchenko Kohli and younger Shura. She worked on the farm as a milkmaid, and today, on Sunday she had a day off.
I went out into the street. The sun was shining right in your face, a song resounded on the radio: «Get up the country since the dawn of the meeting of the day…»
And the sun and the song, and the joy of being chased away melancholy loneliness, and with them and instill faith in their own strength. Poured all my being inexpressible vigor and energy. It seemed that the road passes by the majestic buildings of the Kieva Street. And this morning, and dawn, and the song was so close I think that has arisen suddenly, the mood, which is particularly acute, I share your feelings with your friends, who did not. I want to share with friends who would understand me and shared with me a sense of joy and harmony of life, but life makes its own adjustments are not insurmountable. And I’m not even tempted in the vicissitudes of life obstacles had to sort out the chaos of relationships between people, children and adults, men and women, living life…
Gathering dust and sand road, almost dust was still pink from the sun early morning sun. Pink road in the smells wafting from anywhere rich ripened harvest, I walked this road in the dark… I like this uncertainty, and even though it was in the imagination, but in reality almost seemed true.
That gate cousins. It was very early. I opened the heavy gate and heard the frantic barking of the dog yard, sitting on a chain next to his booth. On the bark of a dog ran aunt Gan – the mother of Kolya and Shurik Bbchenko, the sister of my mother, Olga Andreevna. She was not bogged down exasperation told me:
– Guys do sleep. – And he threw out of the pelvis, right at the doorstep, the dirty water after washing potatoes.
I realized that he offered to leave. And frowning, I said:
– Well, I’m leaving. – And I shut the gate. A lump of resentment stepped up to the throat, and I decided to go a little further, just next to the house Babchenko, just across the road, lived cousin Olga Shevchenko or relatives and the children call her Leska, she is the daughter of Aunt Manya.
– «Go to Leska.»
I walked through the gate. On the threshold I met Aunt Mary, or at home, Manya, the elder sister of my mother, Olga Andreevna.
– You’re the Valik? And Mom, what does?
– Mom in Kiev. – I answered
– What drove, really apples?
– Yes, apples.
– Grandma, what does?
– Cooks food in an oven.
– And it is not he is going to his brother; Gregory grandfather go?
– No, I do not know. Not going.
– What do not you know? What she did not tell you that he was going in Pereyaslav-