Get to the root!

What happened to my family? What led to such a sad end? - I keep asking myself this question. It is important for me to understand the causes.

And here I see a dream: I come to my sister's grave and there is a weed growing - a small yellow flower like a rapeseed. I want to pull it out, but the flower has an unusually strong stem that is rooted deep in the ground. Finally, with great effort, I pulled it out.

Then I took a shovel and went to my great-grandmother Matrena's grave, which was also overgrown with weeds. I started digging and then I noticed Grandma Luda standing next to me.

- Don't do that, - she said sternly.

I didn't listen, but the deeper I dug into the earth, the more I realized that it was useless work-mighty, branching roots that intertwined like a spider's web, entangling the grave from top to bottom-even sprouting through my great-grandmother's rotting coffin.

And when I pulled harder, it crumbled to ash, sending up a thick cloud of dust.

I coughed and opened my eyes. My grandmother was right: there is no need to dig so deep. It is not for nothing that people say: sow a thought - reap an action, sow an action - reap a habit, sow a habit - reap a character, sow a character - reap a destiny.

In the grand scheme of things, none of us is unique, we are the amalgamation of many generations, which means that you only have to look at yourself in the mirror to see your whole family up to the seventh generation.

Triangle

When I was four years old, my parents gave me to the folk orchestra of the Children's House of Culture.

The classes for young musicians were in full swing, and I joined an already established group. I didn't know how to play, but somehow I thought that the teacher would sit me down at the piano, hand me a pipe or a drum, and I would play so casually and easily that - wow!

Only it turned out that all the major musical instruments had long since been taken. All that was left were maracas - big wooden rattles, a ratchet, and a musical metal triangle. I was supposed to play them.

This state of affairs did not suit me. You stand somewhere on the edge of the orchestra, banging your triangle while all the glory goes to the other guys.

My patience lasted a week, and then I announced that I wasn't going to go to the orchestra anymore.

My parents relented - if you don't want to, that's your right. But Grandma Luda was so eager to see her granddaughter on stage, even if not with a harmonium but with a piece of iron in her hands, that she started to play a trick. She began to describe how one day our orchestra would go on tour to Moscow - "straight to the Kremlin, to the old man Chernenko - a general secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, how he would sit me on his lap and ask me to play "Evening Bell". And then the two of us could be on television all over the country.

Of course, I really want to be on television, but I don't know old Chernenko. What the hell do I need him for when I have my own old man - my grandfather. Actually, I have two.

And no matter what my grandmother says, a triangle is not an accordion or even a drum.

I left the orchestra.

Do-re-mi-fa-sol-la

Before I started school, my mother decided to enroll me in a special music class.

The audition took place in the club "Rovesnik" ("Peer"), where two stern, perfumed and pomaded ladies sat at the piano. One was writing in a notebook, the other was tapping rhythms on the piano lid with the palm of her hand, and I had to repeat after her.

My musical ear was fine, but when I learned that I would have to learn solfeggio in addition to the usual school lessons, I refused to go to a special class.

However, it was not possible to avoid musical education altogether. According to the headmaster's order, all girls from the elementary school had to join the school choir - it was compulsory.

I loved children's songs - "The Blue Coach", "Antoshka", "Let pedestrians run oddly on the street by the puddles", but from the music room, where the choir was practicing, there always came something pitiful and sad, like from the church porch. Such music made me want to hang myself!

Besides, I did not like to be in the company of composers after class, with their forlorn faces looking at us from the walls. I found the portrait of an old man named Kabalevsky particularly unpleasant. The others in wigs and coats were no better. Boredom!

Whenever the choir singers began the song by singing do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-si-do-o in their thin voices, I would almost choke on my laughter. What does a seed-o-o mean? Beans or peas? But no one is laughing but me. Okay. I squint my eyes and lift the tip of my nose with my finger, making a pig. I even grunt a little, but try not to let the teacher hear. The girls look at me curiously and giggle into their fists. In a minute, the laughter in the class is unimaginable, the singing is over. The teacher is furious.

I was thrown out of the choir in disgrace.

Boycott

In the Yuri Gagarin sanatorium in the Urals, I asked to join the choir myself.

Music was taught by a red-haired woman with such convex "minus" glasses that her eyes looked huge behind them, as if they were painted on.

I don't remember her name, I think it was Ludmila or Lyubov, and her surname was Sadchikova.

During the lessons the children and I sang songs to the accordion - about Murlyka the cat and the sheep whose tail fell off. The chorus was especially good: eh, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one!

On May 9 our choir had to go to the Distant Dacha, a small village near the sanatorium, for a concert. We spent all the days learning songs: "Victory Day" and "May Waltz". I worked my ass off - I wanted so much that the teacher noticed me, praised me, picked me out of the crowd. I spun around, pushed my friends, sang as hard as I could. I got attention, but not in the way I had dreamed.

Painfully wrinkled, the teacher puts the accordion aside. She asks:

- Don't shout like that. Sing softer. Follow the example of Seryozha and Lena.

I sniff my nose. Now I'll sing the loudest on purpose.

- Get out of here! - the teacher icily orders me after the 100th warning.

Oh, really? I call her a fool with glasses and run out into the hallway, slamming the door behind me.

In the evening, the girls demand that I go to the teacher and apologize.

No way! I can't do it. Pride gets in the way. And resentment. What should I apologize for, being kicked out of the choir? For not appreciating my hard work? No way! I'm not going anywhere!

Somewhere in the depths of my soul there is still the hope that the music teacher herself will come to me to find out why I did this. But I don't think she will. Why should she?

The teacher did not come, of course. She stopped noticing me at all.

Unable and incapable of resolving the conflict, I decide to turn it into a joke.

During the street rehearsals, I sneak up on the choir and, hiding behind the guys' backs, I meow, howl, and bark like a dog. I act like a complete idiot, and it only makes the situation worse. Everyone hisses at me, gets angry with me, chases me away. But I stubbornly go on fooling around. I feel ashamed and disgusted, but I can't stop. All I want is to be accepted back into their society. Instead, the choir members boycott me. Needless to say, the choir left for the Distant Dacha without me.

Stealing from the Museum

My needlework friends persuaded me to take a class on how to sew stuffed toys.

But I didn't stay long. I soon got bored with sewing furry hares and hedgehogs and enrolled in the "Young Leninist" Museum of the City Pioneers' Club. I organized museum exhibitions, led excursions, told stories about heroic pioneers and the Leningrad blockade. Day after day the same. I was bored to death!

The only thing that kept me from leaving the museum was the fact that at the end of the school year the best Leninists were rewarded with a trip to the Artek pioneer camp.

I secretly hoped I would get that trip, but the museum management decided otherwise.

I realized that I couldn't stand another year here, even for Artek's sake, so I left.

But there was another reason why I left the museum - I stole two exhibits from there.

They had nothing to do with Lenin or history, but with the memory of an old friend of our museum leader.

Apparently this friend was some kind of inventor, and with his own hands he made a battery-operated box in which a nightingale sang. If you turn the wheel to the right, the bird sings softly, but if you turn it to the left, it sings louder. A fascinating thing!

The box was about the size of a pack of cigarettes, and it was easy for me to take it out from under the glass, put it in my pocket, and take it home. I lied to my parents and told them that the guys from the engineering club had thrown it in the trash and that I had picked it up.

Of course, the museum noticed the disappearance of the singing box.

Our leader gathered us together and said that something was missing, but she did not specify what it was and expressed the hope that the missing thing would be in its place soon.

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She looked at all of us intently.

I was afraid that I would blush and give myself away, so I began frantically rubbing my face and ears with my palms, saying that it was hot here. But before I went home, I stole something else.

It looked like a radio receiver with a surface of organilite glass divided into small squares. It had two buttons on the sides and a speed control that activated the light.

The thing is, there was a little light bulb under each square, press one button - the lighting ran forward, press another - it froze. Cool!

I don't know why I needed this item, but my dad loved it at first sight. He immediately improved it - he removed the screen and painted squares on it with colored oil paints at equal intervals, thus turning it into a fascinating game.

Now it was necessary to stop the light not just anywhere, but on red, blue, yellow or green color, and to do it with speed, and the faster, the more fun.

I did not want to return the stolen goods to the museum, but I was ashamed in front of our leader, so I said goodbye to "Young Leninist".

My birthday was approaching, I was ten years old, and the girls with whom we went to the museum together came to visit me. My father decided to show them a game with lights and a box with a singing "nightingale". Oh, how I was frightened then, the girls had seen them before and of course they could recognize them.

I rushed to my room and hid the toys in my school bag and told my father that I hadn't found them. And in general, from that day on, I felt a kind of coolness towards them, they even began to weigh on me - what's the use if you can't share your joy with anyone, but I couldn't go to the museum and recognize myself as a thief either. I'm not like that. I'm a good girl!

Ice Cream

Actually, I've stolen before. Once the boys and I decided to go to the grocery store on Pervomayskaya Street and steal a cone. Looking around, I took an ice cream from the refrigerator and discreetly slipped it into my sleeve. But that was half the job. Now I had to get past the checker at the entrance, who watched the customers carefully (it was a self-service store) and could ask me to show my pockets and sleeves if anything was wrong. I made an innocent face, and although my heart was pounding like crazy, I made it safely past the checker.

But one of the boys who was with us was caught. His crime was then discussed at a school assembly, and the boy, I think, has a file with the police.

My classmate Ira Usacheva was also stigmatized at that school assembly. Ira was a quiet girl, but somehow she managed to steal a cake from the canteen. She was grabbed by the hand, reported to the school, and threatened with expulsion from the pioneer organization. I, like everyone else, condemned Ira, but not for stealing, but for allowing herself to be caught.

Everything for the home, everything for the family

As I recall now, our family's attitude toward stealing was ambivalent.

Children were not supposed to steal under any circumstances. If my parents found out that I had taken someone else's things without asking, I would be punished, just as they always punished my guileless sister Tanya.

At the same time, the adults completely overlooked the fact that they themselves were constantly violating the eighth biblical commandment, "Thou shalt not steal" - Dad, for example, could steal a newspaper from someone else's drawer and not return it, or take a roll of thick polyethylene from work that he used to make book covers at home, or steal "nobody's" peat from the yard for our garden seedlings.

Grandma Luda, who once dug up a bucket of potatoes in the collective field in front of us children, used to joke that "the collective farming means ours too".

Another day in a shop, with the skill of a magician, she stole a sash from a dress because I had lost mine.

And it was not considered a sin because it was done "for the good of our family.

Guided by this principle, before leaving the Yuri Gagarin sanatorium, I stole bottles of shampoo from two Latvian girls in the parallel class.

And although there was only a little shampoo in the bottle, I was bursting with pride - at that time there was a shortage of goods in the shops, you couldn't buy shampoo, and here is some kind of help for my family. The girls reported the loss to the teachers, and they even searched the children's suitcases, hoping to find the thief, but I hid the stolen bottles so cleverly that they were not found.

I don't remember what I said at home about the shampoo, but my parents believed me, or pretended to.

Slander

When did I realize that stealing is not good, that a thief does evil, and that innocent people suffer from his evil deeds?

It happened when I was slandered in Tagil.

I was studying to be a confectioner, and I and the girls were doing practical training in a canteen. Everyone there stole - from the director to the trainees.

One day our group ordered branded confectioner's hats from the tailor. I had a hat, why do I need another one?

But that day, when the hats were brought in and put in the locker room, me and some other girls went down there for something. And later it turned out that one of the hats was missing, it had been stolen.

Actually, anyone could have taken it, since there were two other groups of cooks in the locker room besides us, but for some reason, suspicion fell on me as the only one who hadn't ordered a hat.

I swear I didn't take it, and I still can't stop thinking, who was the thief?

A similar incident occurred in my third year. I arrived at the college a day late on September 2.

The day before, our group took a picture together, without me, of course.

And suddenly one of the photos disappeared from the package. Who had stolen it? And again the shadow of suspicion fell on me - I could feel it in my skin.

But why would I want a picture where I wasn't even in it?

As a souvenir of our group? It seemed logical. But I really hadn't stolen it, and I felt bad for myself and for the girls who suspected me.

Cupid

I have loved to draw since kindergarten. At home we had paints, brushes, sketchbooks, crayons and pencils everywhere.

I was six years old when the postman mistakenly put a magazine called "Young Artist" in Grandma Luda's mailbox. It was thick, glossy, with drawings and reproductions of famous paintings on every page - you couldn't take your eyes off it.

I was not bad at drawing nature, but I was worse at drawing people and animals.

But I could copy any drawing exactly - all I had to do was keep my eyes on it and draw blindly on the paper with a pencil.

When I sat down at the table, I quickly sketched the Cupid from Raphael's painting.

- Well, how similar it looks! - Grandma clapped her hands. - Oh, you even drew him a weiner!

I blushed and mumbled angrily:

- It's not me, it's the artist.

- You should go to art school! - Grandma's eyes lit up.

The praise does me good. Inspired, I copy a few more paintings - a vase of apples and a cat. But for some reason, Grandma is not impressed. She even makes some remarks to me. I get angry - what does she know! I slam the album shut.

I don't want to go to art school. Besides, they only accept students over the age of ten. Too bad!

A horse of contention

When I am sad, I like to paint landscapes - I imagine myself walking in the forest, living in a tent in the country, sitting on the bank of a river with a fishing rod.

My favorite subject - a big cottage with a Russian stove burning. The clock on the wall is ticking, a striped cat is washing under the bench, the children are sleeping sweetly in their cribs. And if you look out the window, you can see the orchard full of apples, and a little shaggy dog wagging its tail on the porch.

It's a shame that in art class at school we rarely draw what we want to draw. Mostly we draw boring still lifes and geometric figures.

The school's art teacher, a masculine woman with a rat tail on the back of her head, acts arrogantly toward us. She casually walks along the desks and laughs condescendingly at our clumsy work. We call her "Rat Larisa".

One day she gave me an assignment to draw a circus.

I immediately conjured up the image of a fearless rider. The arena, the spotlights, the burning hoop-it's nothing, it's easy to draw. But what about the horse?

I try to draw a dashing horse from memory, but I can't.

Then I resort to my favorite technique and blindly copy a horse from a book.

In the morning, the teacher carefully examines my drawing and gives her verdict:

- It's not your work!

Oh my gosh! I certainly didn't expect that.

I tell her I drew it myself, no one helped me.

- Don't lie! - Rat-Larisa angrily objects and gives me a "C" in my sketchbook.

- It's my drawing! - I repeat stubbornly.

The teacher looks at me contemptuously:

- Really? I know how to do it. You put the book against the window, pressed the sketchbook against the glass, and traced the outline with a pencil. That's not art, that's fake!

- No, it wasn't like that! - I almost scream.

I have to prove it to her. So I grab my sketchbook, sit down at my desk and, looking at the drawing, blindly copy it.

My tormentor looks at me in surprise. Then, with a wry grin, she corrects the "C" to an "A".

Revenge

The theme of the next art lesson is Zhostovo painting. These bright roses and lush bouquets folk craftsmen decorate decorative tin trays.

First I draw the tray itself, put black paint on the paper. I have a cheap watercolor, it does not dry for a long time, I can not make the paint shiny. The teacher urges me to hurry: the bell will ring soon and I haven't drawn anything yet.

In a hurry, I put an ornament on a sheet of paper that hadn't dried. The watercolor is blurred and the result is not a pattern but a kind of smudge. But what happens next is beyond my comprehension.

The teacher takes my sketchbook and carries it to the sink in front of the whole class.

She turns on the faucet and rinses off the failed drawing under a powerful jet of water. She throws the wet sketchbook on my desk. The class laughs. I barely hold back my tears. I want to scream that she's a rat, that I hate her, but instead I quietly tuck the soaked sketchbook into my school bag.

The bell rings. I run out into the hallway, shaking with silent sobs.

Cut me, but I say no!

In the fall, I had the misfortune to go to the hospital.

In those years I was constantly sick with some unknown diseases - no matter how hard the doctors tried, they couldn't make an exact diagnosis.

September 1st was declared a "health day" in our school, which turned into a month where all students had to run cross-country in the morning.

Classes started at 7:30, and in order to have time to run, we had to get up at half past six. Shivering and sleepy, we sluggishly ran laps down Karl-Marx-Boulevard.

The guys on duty made sure that each pupil ran at least three laps - a total of about two kilometers. No matter if it was raining or dry.

I hate running, especially long distances - my "breathing" is weak and my side tingles, and here it is still dark, cold and muddy. My side hurt. Overcoming the pain, I finished the cross-country, but I swore I would not run in the morning - even if you cut me!

At home, the pain in my right side intensified, I felt like I was being pierced with an awl. I couldn't huff or puff. My mother told me to go to bed and called an ambulance.

The doctor who examined me suspected appendicitis, and I was taken to the hospital, to the operating room.

On the operating table, under the blinding light of medical lamps, a young surgeon felt my abdomen with his fingers and then confirmed that the appendix was inflamed and had to be cut out.

At these words everything inside me froze - I did not want to go under the knife!

Fortunately, another more experienced doctor came in and felt my abdomen again and said he did not know what was wrong with me, but it was definitely not appendicitis. Maybe poisoning?

And I was taken to the children's infectious disease ward. They kept me overnight, did a lot of tests, and came to the conclusion that it was not poisoning. Then what was it?

To tell you the truth, while they were taking me back and forth, the pain in my side subsided and I asked to go home. But they wouldn't let me go.

"Maybe something is wrong with her kidneys?" - One of the doctors suggested. "Exactly, kidneys! - agreed his colleague. - We should give her a course of intramuscular antibiotics".

That's how I ended up in the somatic ward.

The secret of the locked room

Our ward is big, for ten people. The oldest girls are fifteen, and at night they scare us with horror stories about the Red Spot, the Graveyard Master, and the Black Sheet. It's a good thing my bed is not by the window, or I'd never get any sleep.

At the end of the hospital corridor, directly opposite the toilet, is a locked ward. From time to time, nurses enter, holding IVs and plates of food, and carefully close the glass door behind them.

Inside, the door is covered with a sheet, and you can't see into the ward from the street because there are thick curtains on the windows. "What's in there?" - The girls and I were burning with curiosity.

Once we managed to see through the keyhole a woman's pale leg hanging from the bed. After that we were afraid to go to the toilet alone.

The girls who had been in the hospital for a long time assured me that in the dark ward there was a crazy mother with a freak child, also a raving lunatic. He used to scream loudly, break windows, lunge at people, and even, they said, bite the head doctor.

After that, the nurses started tying the psycho to his bed and locking the ward.

It was probably not true. But what kind of drama was really going on behind those closed doors?

That remained a mystery to me.

While I was in the hospital, it snowed and the morning school jogging was canceled.

Although my kidneys turned out to be healthy (I think my fake illness was just that I didn't want to run in the morning), I was sent to the Yuri Gagarin Sanatorium in the Urals in the spring.

My district doctor reminded my mother that I often get a sore throat and have a poor appetite, so the sanatorium treatment will benefit me anyway. I didn't mind.

Except that I missed enrolling in art school again because of this trip.

My mother was upset because she wanted to see her daughter at the easel. I was calm because my interest in drawing had waned considerably by then.

To be continued