«Oh, that’s a whore! From you to me! " – my little hand grabbed the edge of the pillow and in an instant a soft projectile, describing the arc in the air, sank to the sheltered head of Lenya. The blanket flew open with lightning speed. Lena’s wide- open black eyes stared at me.
«I’ll give you some,» said her face. And in return, Leni’s pillow flew to me. The fighters stopped the hurried steps behind the door. When Aunt Olya entered the room, the picture that appeared before her seemed, did not disturb the sleepy atmosphere. The tutor examined the sleeping ones anxiously. When her gaze settled on my bunk, there were faint flashes in her eyes. I lay on the crumpled blanket of the crib with my feet toward the pillow. The head was lying where the legs should lie. My eyes closed treacherously for centuries. With all his might trying to make a dream, I tried not to blink for centuries. However, in vain, treacherous eyelashes with their trembling spoiled pretense. Strict aunt Olya already and so she understood everything. She quietly went out and in a moment appeared again. In her hand, swaying with a long stem, the gift of Leni Ochkolyas, squeezed in her right hand, nettles. She is coming up to me «sleeping» and began to drag nettles over my bare stomach. The eyelashes of my closed eyes fluttered desperately, but the body lay motionless. Lenya Ochkolyas watched with emotion from his «hiding place» behind what was happening. He was very flattered that the nettle, which he so lovingly chose this morning on the road to kindergarten, did not fade in vain. Thus ended my preschool childhood…
Chapter 7
My grandmother met me at home.
«Tomorrow is Sunday, we’ll go to Buzovaya Farm, to the bazaar.» – My grandmother Eugenia Lavrentyevna solemnly informed me.
The bazaar was far away, six kilometers from Spitec. Local residents called this place «Bazaar on Buzovaya». The settlement of the Buzovaya hamlet is located from Kiev on the thirtieth- thirty first kilometer of the Brest- Litovsk highway.
Grandmother announced this news and with a pleased look added:
– Maybe I cannot go next time. I’ll go for the last time…
Early in the morning, I woke up from a light grandmother’s touch.
– Get up now it’s time. She leaned over me in a white clean kerchief and stroked my head.
I rubbed my eyes. He rose, drowsily went to the kitchen. There on the stool stood a bucket of water and a mug, and next to it, near the stool, a garbage can. Having scooped up a mug of water, he took it in his mouth, then poured water from his mouth into his hands over the garbage can. And, soaping his wet hands with soap and soap, he washed himself. For the grandmother came two middle- aged women.
They were two aunts in white colorful handkerchiefs. One distant relative, Aunt Manya from the neighboring village Lychanka. And the other, my grandmother’s eldest daughter, Aunt Maria, or, as everyone called her, was also Aunt Many. They were like my grandmother in white kerchiefs. Aunt Mate from Lychanka is wearing a red woolen skirt and brown shoes without heels. And aunt Manya from Spitec is dressed in a light long and spacious cotton skirt in gray- brown peas. She has sandals on her legs. And my grandmother wore soft home slippers, in which, as she said, it would be convenient for her to go the country road.
The sun touched the tops of trees with its rays, coloring them gently pink. Dew glistened on the grass. Potatoes in the garden blossomed with white flowers. There was a lull in field work. That time, when the harvest absorbed moisture, fertilizer and heat – ripened.
The peasants could make a break. End of July, beginning of August. Then, to gather strength and harvest, stock up for the winter.
The road slowly swam under the unhurried steps of the women. With curious eyes I peered into the surrounding world, so amazing and huge, full of the incessant singing of birds and the chirring of grasshoppers. The screams of scurrying swallows and the blue- blue sky. The day promised to be hot. Behind the coolness of the village the road turned into a field. Then my grandmother took off her slippers and went on barefoot. The women followed suit, saying that they would reach the bazaar and put on shoes. Slowly walked the field road through the space towards the bluish sinuous line of the horizon. The sun had not yet risen to its hot splendor, and it was easy and pleasant to walk, although soft sand underfoot. On Smolianka, on the way to the bazaar, we met a teenage girl Katya. Smolianka, this place has acquired this area from time immemorial, when in the place of the old Lybyd river bed, now covered with lush grass, spacious river flowed along which fishermen’s boats swam. On the bank of this river there was a fishing village, and a place where the fishing boats were crooked and were washed down. And this place called Smolianka. Now it was a good place for grazing cows. Here Katia drove out Shpitkovo herd to Smolianka. She ran up to us and cheered with greetings. Just two kilometers from Spitec, Katya kicked out a herd of cows early. Grandmother, having found our Zorka, looked in her direction. Zorka stopped grazing and raised her face, and she began to hum down granny. Evgenia Lavrentyevna commanded her detachment:
«Come on, let’s go soon, or else they’ll follow us.» – Quickly saying goodbye to Katya, we moved on. It was nice to meet a fellow tribe so «far» from home and see us too.
Through the field passed, when the sun was already palpably warming our backs. But the first trees at the roadside sheltered the walkers with a shadow, and it became easier to walk. The grandmothers decided to rest and sat down under the tree on the grass, at the same time and put on their shoes. Buzovaya, with its bazaar, was across the highway. It is enough to pass another two hundred meters. The noise of the trading crowd, the grunting, the mooing and growl of the animals, merged in the remote homonym of the already close bazaar.
In the market aunt Manya from Lychanka bought a pig. And he hovered in the bag with wild yells. With this pig, endlessly screaming in the bag, we walked through the bazaar, attracting everyone’s attention. They traded everything here, horses, cows, puppies, kitchen utensils, shoes, clothes, animal feed, seeds and so on…
I could not understand what my grandmother was looking for. But when aunt Manya of Lychanka approached a woman holding a school uniform in her hands, she began to haggle, I understood everything. Grandmother made me wear a tunic. All at once approvingly nodded their heads, and the form became mine for ten rubles. The pig in the bag, then calmed down, then again yelled violently at the whole bazaar. And only when Aunt Manya of Lychanka left with a fellow villager who traded fodder, we got rid of the pig’s shrill screech. She went on a cart with her fellow villager. And we came the same way late at night home.
Have come. How nice it was after a hot sunny trip to plunge into the pure coolness of the house. Our mother met us in a white kerchief tied in the manner of Bolshevik red kerchiefs. It’s nice to see her friendly smile, which was extremely rare.
«Well, did you buy the uniform?» – when she saw the purchase, she asked grandmother with pleasure. And my grandmother unrolled the knot. And got out the school uniform from there.
– And you tried on? – asked anxiously Mama, – Come on, Valik, put it on.
I put on a school uniform, a cap with a cockade and looked like a little boy from a sailboat, only the tunic was not marine, but a school jacket.
– Well now you can go to school. «From nowhere,» Nyuska’s voice rang out.
Nyuska was considered a cousin, but behaved as if she were an older and own sister, allowing herself various educational attacks in my direction. She was of medium height; she was sixteen years old. She was distinguished by her venomous manner of talking and now she tried to yelp:
«You’re like a minister in uniform!»
She lived with Olga Andreevna and was the daughter of Aunt Theodosia or, as her mother, Olga’s sister, Aunt Fedosya called everything. During the war Fedosya Andreevna, the fascists were driven to Germany. The