***I always go back to Odessa... Anna Shusterman FIRST PLACE IN THE 8TH FREE THEME CONTEST OF THE INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION GREAT WANDERER TO THE YOUNG * The VSM Foundation Laureates page (where the work is posted) can be found at: http://www.proza.ru/2018/02/10/521 March in Bryansk is not spring yet, but it's not winter anymore... On my five-year-old feet, the felt boots (valenki) that are too big for me do this: squelch, squelch, squelch... I also squelch my nose and blow my nose into the hem of my mother's skirt. Mom's sister, who came to the funeral, is not happy with my behavior. Well, I'm not very happy with her behavior either. She's whispering to my mother about me. Eavesdropping, peeping at them like cat Vaska, but not purring crying quietly... I have to go with my aunt to Odessa, where there is the sea - the Black Sea is called. I am very sad, ask my cat he is very observant. I ask him: "Vasya should I leave o stay? To go or not to go to Odessa?" It seems to me that he wants to go to the place where the spring is shrieking all the time. - Oh, meow... Oh, Odessa... Oh, spring! - Where are you, Anechka" I hear my aunt's voice. "What a stubborn girl, just like her mother... I lurk behind the stove and trying not to sniff my nose. My favorite game of hide-and-seek, but I'm not playing now... I will not go, and that's it, let everyone talk me: my mother, my sisters, my cat! But... Tickets are already bought for the Moscow-Odessa train... All suitcases are packed, they're light, even I can lift them. My mother's sister brought all sorts of stuff in her overstuffed suitcases from Odessa, so we'll travel lightly to Odessa. My aunt's husband takes me in his arms and smacks me on the cheek. I don't want to, I don't want to !!! I want my daddy to kiss me and crawl around the house with me on his hands and knees... But he won't do it anymore, he's dead. There's a commotion in the house, everybody's looking for my valenki. Yes, yes, I hid them in the ashpit, let them look for them now! My aunt doesn't believe me when I say I haven't seen my valenki. - Liar, little liar! - whispering, so my mother did not hear, my aunt reproaches me. - It's all right," says Auntie's husband at last, "I'll carry Anechku in my arms, and in Odessa we'll buy her some shoes... The shoes were dark brown. The little holes had trouble letting the flat brown shoelaces in. Walking around the room where my aunt and her husband lived, I felt as if my five-year-old feet had been stuffed into tins-so uncomfortable were my first pair of shoes. - Don't think about hiding or throwing them away," my aunt warned me. I can see the dissatisfaction on her closed lips and on her serious face... I am afraid! My mother's sister hears what I think ? - I want felt boots, - I whimper, - I want my valenki! - So, my girl, in Odessa in the spring you don't wear valenki, soon you'll wear sandals, and in winter, if you behave well, I'll buy you a felt boots with galoshes, - my aunt explains to me. I go out into the corridor... The corridor is long and long, and leads to the kitchen, where there are three tables. - This is our table and primus. Don't touch anything on the neighbors' table, or I'll punish you", warned my aunt. Of course I touch the neighbor's primus, and even pull it on myself... "I'll punish you, I'll put you on the stove", that's what my sisters and brother used to scare me at home. But there's no oven in the Odessa communal apartment, where the older siblings put me. But there's a ruddy stove. The stove - "rude" - is glued to the wall to the ceiling... I wasn't too upset when my aunt made me stand facing the rough until I stopped crying and resisting putting on my shoes - tin cans. I touch the white tile tiles with my cheek, stroking them and licking them with my tongue... I dream that the rough is made of cubes of refined sugar, which was so delicious at my mother's house... The sandals were bought for me for a great holiday - The May Day. Why it's great, I can't figure out, but I really like the color red. The red bow is so pretty! Red balloons, red flags, red ties, red lollipop on a stick!!! Red flags carried by men and women! I look under my feet to make sure no one steps on my new, almost red sandals. The sandals have little holes in them and an iron buckle that presses and chafes my foot. But I'm not complaining, I'm a big girl, I'll be five soon! At the parade I have to hold on tightly to my aunt's hand so I don't get lost. But then someone stepped on my foot, and I cried like a little girl. Suddenly some uncle picks me up and puts me on his neck, at which point my sandal falls off my right foot and disappears under the feet of the demonstrators. I drum on the head of the man carrying me on his shoulders and show my foot without my sandal. He takes me off, tosses me to my aunt, and, pushing the crowd aside, finds my sandal. I return home happy and cheerful, with red balloons and candy, running to my aunt's husband... My aunt's husband curses her with ugly words, then throws his boot at her. And I just told him how the good uncle saved my sandal and bought me candy and red inflatable balloons... Maybe he's jealous that his wife didn't take him to the parade? My aunt yells to her husband that I'm a liar and no uncle was with us... Auntie threw the boot back at her husband... and hit him in the head. My aunt's husband's forehead was bleeding... I got scared and hid behind the couch, but then I changed my mind and ran for cotton and zelyonka. When I fall down and scratch my knees ,and they bleed, auntie rub zelyonka on the wounds and blow on them like this: fu,fu,fu I'm five years old now, and I understand a lot of things. I just can't understand how there can be a sea in a park? And why is the blue-green sea called the Black Sea? I don't understand why the men at the corner of Kanatnaya and Grecianka crawling on their hands and knees? I don't understand why my aunt won't let me in the park alone. Why does she scare me with gypsies, who take all the naughty girls and teach them to beg? When my aunt argues with my husband and calls him a drunkard, I want to run away to the enchanted park and let the Gypsies take me away and teach me to beg. My aunt said that I shouldn't ask her for anything. But I often forget that, and I beg her for pennies. If you cross the road and turn left and then right, and then cross the road again, you can get to the park, called "Shevchenko Park". No one believes me that this park is bewitched. Yard kids were born here, in this courtyard of Odessa, and I came here with my aunt after the death of my father. By the gates of the park sit grannies with sacks. In the bags there are white and black seeds, and small and large cups. If you give a granny a kopeck, she pours sunflower seeds into a bag made from an old newspaper. I have never yet been bought seeds from a large cup, and I quickly run out of the small one. When the gypsies steal me, I'll learn how to beg and buy myself some sunflower seeds from the big cup! Don't take my basin! - Allochka's grandmother, a neighbor, yells at me. - Wash your penty in your room so it doesn't stink up the kitchen. But , actually, Sigismunda Alexandrovna is nice! She treats me to the goodies she bakes in a miracle pot with a big hole in the middle and a lid with small holes... It is necessary to conjure over a pan, and from there will come out a hot pie with a hole in the middle! Sigismund Alexandrovna often argues with my aunt, especially when she makes me wash my socks and underpants in the kitchen. And I love doing laundry and making lots and lots and lots of foam in the basin, and then blowing it off on the floor! Sigismunda Alexandrovna has a husband, Srulik Borisovich. I always giggle when I hear them arguing through the wall. - Srulik, you bastard, you left your socks wherever you went! - she yells angrily. Uncle Srulik never yells at his wife or argues with her. He likes to read newspapers and mumble something in a language I don't understand. He calls me "meydale" - that's a girl in Yiddish. I tell him: I'm not "meydale", I'm a big girl! I'm five already! While my aunt is laying out food, which her husband is drenched in sweat, in huge bags, I run to the sea... The Black Sea, as naughty as I am! As gentle as the cat Vaska, who stayed in Bryansk... There is moving, thick frothy salt water, not like in a basin! The sea splashes out on the sand, and the foamy wave destroys the palace with underground passages that Fimka built. He brags to everybody that I'm his little sister,but I'm not! He is a nephew of my aunt's husband. He's going to first grade, but he hasn't learned to read and write yet! He has one eye that runs back and forth, and it's about to go up his nose, and I'm afraid it's going to stay there. I feel sorry for squint-eyed Fimka, even though he's a show-off. While I walked along the beach and collected shells, I wanted to go to the bathroom, and I ran to my aunt. My aunt took me waist-deep in the sea, and... She told me to pee! Warm water running down my legs. In the sea, by the shore, there were many, many waist-deep swimming children. Now I know why the sea is so warm! I really like salted fish! Especially, I love hamsichka, the tiny fish my dad gave me in Bryansk, when he wasn't dead yet... My dad, who was alive, used to put us in a row and open a bottle of fish oil. The sisters and brother would pinch their noses because of the smell. After a spoonful of fish oil, daddy would give everyone one salty hamsichka. I was daddy's favorite, and he gave me as many as two fish! In Odessa, I don't drink fish oil. There's a lot of fresh, smoked and salted fish in Odessa! When my aunt wasn't home, her husband took me to a beer house. It smelled like fish oil, but nobody pinched their noses. I was allowed to blow the foam off the beer. The foam from the beer was a little bitter, but delicious! My aunt's husband gave me a dry fish in his hand and showed me how to hit the table with it. I felt sorry for the fish when the uncles began to tear it to pieces. I cried and screamed: - Daddy, Daddy! Auntie's husband grabbed me in his arms, and kissed me as my father used to do. - Daughter," he whispered in my ear, "and for some reason he cried too... In our communal apartment, only the old men next door doesn't scold me or complain to my aunt about me. I fell down and broke two plates. I sit and cry in the corridor, and my aunt gets angry... -Next time put the plates on the floor and then fall down," my neighbor taught me. He has a funny mustache that tickles my nose, In his little room, I can touch anything I want! Once he was a cook on a ship. He feeds me flotsam macaroni when my aunt isn't home. And while I'm eating, he tells me all kinds of stories. I especially love the story about the little five-year-old girl whose daddy died and her mother was left with five hungry children... And how her mother's sister took her to sunny Odessa... And there she met an old sailor who told her about the sea and different countries he had been to. He taught her to read and write and to make delicious noodles with chop meat.. And when he died, she didn't cry, because you don't cry for sailors! And then she grew up and visited many, many countries, but always returned to Odessa on the ship "Nostalgia"! © Copyright: Анна Шустерман, 2023.
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