10.

For the sake of bread – there is no trace

of pity, as much of good or evil.

If people live for only bread on Earth –

let’m take my half as well forever.

 

              The line, however, doesn’t proceed.

              The first building is, actually, completed, and people have already occupied them. One day, my father comes home and claims that we never get any apartment in the second house, either. It is decision of the Local Union Committee.

               My reckless till imprudence mother swaddles me more firmly and comes to a lawyer.

               “You are a woman like me. You ought to understand me…”

               The woman like her is lounging in an armchair and looking coldly indifferently above her glasses.                 Mama, whom are you explaining to?

               “Why do you give birth to children if you don’t have proper condition for raising them?” the most compassionate answer was chosen.

               Hell! You see, my little daughter, we are not allowed even to have children!

               “But she already is. And I can’t push her in back.”

               Mama shoves me into her hands.

               “You, surely, have the proper condition for raising children. Go ahead!” and she bangs the door.

               I feel terribly left behind and burst into cry. Loudly, exigently!

 

               ...In six months, we, happy, will occupy our new 1-bedroom apartment at the comfortable townhouse in the south suburb of Minsk in the village Kourasoŭshyna, a former estate of the former landowner Kourasaŭ. There, my brother and I will have grown at our kindergarten, placed in the cute White Cottage; and in this townhouse located directly in the old maple park, in the Oak Valley among five-hundred-year oaks; by the Myshka-creek (“little mouse”) with the even in summer cold clean springs; by the Bald Hill, an ancient unknown-thousand-year old huge kourhan* (I’ll get aware of it is kourhan only matured), playing with dolls made from cobs in the Institute’s experimental cornfields placed directly around our house, drinking fresh milk from the near collective farm, collecting birch sap, picking apples in the numerous unsecured farm’s orchards. Later, we, “first settlers”, semi-urban our-own-masters, will watch how the fast growing city will swallow the nice piece of country land, replacing the orchards and groves with its buildings.

​

*Kourhan – a high hill, an ancient noble’s burial mound, tumulus.

​

                In this apartment, I’ll learn how to walk, how to read and write; here I’ll graduate from school and university; here, I’ll return after my sport adventures; here, my son will be born and learn how to walk, write… This apartment, will I sell to get money for our leaving for the other side of the world.

 

 

                11.

                I don’t have any name, yet.

                My parents are still considering and arguing. Everybody calls me what he wants. Not paying attention to anybody, my brother calls me not otherwise, but only “our little daughter”.

               Every morning, he runs to my cradle to make sure how “his little daughter” is doing today. His duty is watching my dummy and giving it back to me when I spit it out. It’s not such simple thing to do, by the way; so he is full of honor and responsibility. The princess, falling to his lot, is quite obstinate, though – she draws the line under sucking an unsweetened dummy. There is only one way – to dip it into honey. This works, however, only for three minutes.

               Once, our parents, coming home after leaving us alone for two hours and watch such a scene: Sasha is standing on the stool in front of my cradle, waiting patiently. Then the dummy flies up; immediately, a scandal bursts: I badly swear, crying. Sasha grasps the damn dummy, gets down from the stool, drags in haste his valionki to the kitchen table, climbs on the next stool, dip the damn dummy into a jar of honey – and then the reverse journey… In such a way, it has been happening for entire two hours.  

               I’ve gotten a responsible brother.

 

I will alight onto a snowed up station

that’s hidden in the remote woods,

the station with its title, tender:

“I’ll carry You as far as heaven’s blue…”

– No such names can be, – in such a way,

will that one say who’s not appraised of You.

 

               …When he is 8, and I – 5, he’ll make a surprise for our parents: some why they’ll be unlucky to procure a New Year Tree – so he’ll decide to go to the nearest forest, so as to fell and bring a fir-tree home. Otherwise, how can we get the gifts from Dzed Maroz*? Where will he put them if our valionki don’t stand under the decorated fir-tree?

​

*Dzed Maroz (Bel.) – fairy image, similar to Santa Klaus. Maroz – Frost. 

​

              He takes me with him for such fascinating gaining of the New Year Tree.

              The trip, however, proves not so easy as it had seemed. We have to go off of the roads through snowdrifts.  Some are our height. We climb hard through the snow. We get tired and sweat, but still are inspired. We choose a beautiful fir, and Sasha manages to fell it down. He looks like a real little woodcutter: the big-eared fur hat, big mittens, valionki, the ax behind his belt. And so do I: wound around with my shawls and scarves, I’m decisive and reckless (like my Mama, I hope…).

              The inspiration leaves us while still quite far away from our home… I’m getting cold. My legs refuse to paddle the interminable snow anymore. I want to take a rest, but Sasha doesn’t. He goes and goes ahead. Soon, it became dark. And windy, and snowing. I deadly want to sit down into the soft snow, hide myself from the wind and take a sleep, but I’m afraid to remain here alone and I drag behind my brother.

              “Sasha, let’s stop! Just for a while.”

              “It’s impossible! You know? We must go! Otherwise, we can be frozen to death.”

              “I don’t feel cold anymore! I just want to sit down to shake out the snow from my valionki and sleep a little bit.”

              “No! You mustn’t sleep! It’s illusion! You can die here in the snow forever! We must go!”

              “Nasty, wicked boy! You hear me? I can’t go!” I stop. Sasha grabs my hand and drags me. I continue to climb. The snow, our lovely beautiful downy snow, which is so nice and absorbing to play with, entices to itself, lulls to sleep in…

              Sasha will bring the fir-tree, ax and me home.

              Young, will he already value Life.

 

 

             12.

             In the mornings on Sundays, Mama takes me in her bed. Sasha forms up nearby. Mama unswaddles me, and we begin our lesson. Sasha teaches me to read…

 

             Our Sasha is an infant prodigy.

             He learned the alphabet when he was two. He did it on his own. Nobody paid attention to his “studies”; nobody apprehended it seriously. “No matter, how a child amuses himself as long he doesn’t cry”. Never getting apart with his new child ABC, he loafed around home, bothering his always-busy parents who worked and studied at once and the landlords with the “what’s this letter?” “My little son”, hardly cried Mama, “once you go to school – you will learn everything there.” But, Mama, how is it possible to wait for this indefinite ‘once’!  …Only with the last letter was it really awkward. In Cyrillic, it coincides with the proper pronoun, the same way like ‘i’ in English. It was that Dad happened to say to Sasha this letter’s name quickly and brusquely: “This is ‘ya’.” Still long, told Sasha then everybody his knowledge in alphabet: “This is ‘a’… this - ‘pe’… this – ‘te’… this – ‘Dad’.”     

              At the age of 3, he can already read. After a year, he will subscribe to the Institute’s library and take books home. Again, he will do it on his own: a neighboring boy of the school age will help him to do it. No wonder that the workers will trust him: in our small “Institute’s village”, all they will be our neighbors and know our Sasha a well-raised intelligent boy…

              Books and reading will become his real fetish.

              Not only books. Everything concerned with learning and knowledge will be of his preference.

              Being so small stature, sitting at the first desk in classroom with his huge blue eager eyes, the light-haired boy must look tidy and better than the others. He always does everything in the best way. It is in his nature. He must be the first. For his first grade, Mama will specially sew him a suit, a school uniform, because there will appear no such small-sized standard uniforms in stores at all, and he will have worn it, looking like a new one, for three years until he has outgrown it. Going to school wearing an unironed shirt will be out of the question. All his text- and notebooks will be tidily covered and incredibly clean. Once, at a parents’ meeting, his teacher will show them an experiment with his finished writing notebook: she’ll put it into a pile of new ones and take up the pile by its edge, making them a fan: “Can you find Sasha’s old notebook among them?” Nobody will be able to.

             He will struggle for every of his innumerous ‘red stars’ getting into his notebooks (an invented by his teacher “excellent” mark) and cry about every rare “four”-mark. “Lord,” will grieve Mama over him, “my little son, the ‘four’ is good mark also!” “Is it good for you – you get it!” …Actually, he will hardly have problems with his homework: everything will come easily to him. And he will try to get more knowledge and read about more things even than the kids of the older grades will do.

The teachers will say: “Our Varabei will fly as an eagle out of our school!”*

​

*”Verabei” is “sparrow” in Belarusan.

 

 

             13.

              …Sunday morning.

              We are lying on pillows on Mama’s bed and studying the alphabet. 

              “Irynka, last time, we learned the letters ‘a’ and ‘b’…”

              I present him my happy smile and clap my hands clumsily.

              “Don’t be naughty, Irynka! Let’s repeat the lesson. Look at this. You remember? This is ‘a’. Repeat after me – ‘a-a’…”

              I sing something, probably, delightful, in my own language and show him my tongue.

              “Well done! …Now you should say - ‘b’. …Well, say!”

              “Say ‘b’, my dear; really, you said it last time!”

              I purr loudly and let out a saliva bubble.

              “Now you are talking! Mama, did you hear? She said ‘b’! …Really, she said ‘b’! …Irynka, that’s my girl!”

              Giving a hoot to the interminable parent’s argument, Sasha calls me with this name. Only by this heavenly name (the same one like her, the same little but a bit older, cousin’s) be such beautiful princess, who ‘his little daughter” is, named.

​

              …Mama will have to sew me a school uniform also. Since I will go to school one year before the proper age, there will be found no suitable dress for me, either. …When my kinder garden and neighbor friends who some why happen to be one year older than me go to school, I, being ashamed with this bitter fact, will refuse to go to the kinder garden and will have been arranging a domestic scandal for three days till Mama brings me to the school. They will be forced to accept me: I will already know, thanks to my brother, how to read, write a little bit and calculate. …In such a way, it will happen that the festival, with huge bouquets and white pinafores, First School Ring will be out of my life.

 

              My day does not tie into the plot...

 

              He will teach me to read...

              Though, first he will teach me to walk…

              Then to build snow frontiers and tunnels in our snow drifted Valley… And how to find mushrooms in forest; but as for him – mushrooms, some why, will run out themselves onto the path he walks. …Then to swim. I don’t know who’ll teach him, but he’ll do it perfectly like everything he does. And just his uncommon method of teaching swimming, I’ll use in my future job. …He’ll teach me to draw: his, unknown how and where acquired, expert sense of colors and lines and his advice will help me in my attempts. As for him, his drawing will be at the level of graduate master, but he’ll never be interested in it at all. I, however, will be always busy with Pioneer and Komsomol wall newspapers at school, university and summer camps. …He’ll teach me to play chess, and I’ll win competitions…

              And skis…Skis will become our common great love. It seems I’ll be taught skiing before walking. Nevertheless of any frost, some hours of every single winter day will be dedicated to our іудўмув snow-covered Oak Valley and Bald Hill. I’ll make a first ski-track along the valley after every snowfall, but Sasha will prefer these prodigious jumps and flights down from the giddily steep Bald Hill (actually, we’ll proudly call it “mountain”, because nothing higher and steeper is in our land at all). Equipped with just plaine narrow skis, attached to his valionki simply with rubber ribbons (there will be no other stuff, though, at that time), he will be the boldest and craziest little jumper in our area.

              He will teach me to …fight, and I’ll defend …him against the “big bad boys”… It will be mutually, though. And even against our mother: recklessly, will he hold up his arms and shoulders under her menacing belt, shielding me, a naughty kid, from her just ire: “Mama, she is small, you see, she will never again!” … Later, we’ll, however, catch it both for our crazy pranks: spoiling dishes by preparing new kinds of candies, playing soccer in the apartment, invention of gunpowder…

              Our milieu will be amazed with such sibling friendship. Well, we will be amicable, cheerful and full of charging energy, presenting our joyful life play to all around us.

 

Let’s go together walking on the creek

And lead behind the wind tied up with tiny string

Around the berried-up valley

And eat raspberry in a friendly manner… 

   

 

               14.

               And sometimes, will be this:

               He drags me (pre-school aged) into home by the collar of my snowed up fur coat:

               “Here she is!” reports he to Mama.

               “What’s happening?” comes Mama from the kitchen.

               “There is. She was playing with Dima. Again.”

               “So what?” asks Mama.

               “Yes,” I rip off his hand down from my collar. “He’s my fiancé.”

               “I had ever told you! …You still don’t understand: only in those families where there are either two boys or two girls, they have to get married! But in those where – boy and girl are, they mustn’t. When we grow up, we will simply make a wife and husband.”

               Charming childish naivety…

               When we will be of high school age, in our home here and there, I will happen to come across different published stories about sibling’s marriages from around the world…

               When he is in the Army, we’ll write each other long-long letters of a whole notebook’s length, written with a very small hand. Well, they’ll be just our thoughts about Life. About its Sense. About the sense of living in such ticklish and dissolute, such intricate World. “You know, my sister,” will he write to me, “I feel great power of my individuality. And I won’t leave my way…” Mama will be little bit jealous and so curios, trying at least to glance at them over my shoulder…

              Being in the Army, he’ll learn how to play guitar and will bring back home few his poems and songs. We’ll slightly play with them; I even will write a periphrasis to one of his poems.

              Verses… Actually, non of us, the parents or me, will apprehend seriously his poetic endeavors.

When he begin to study at middle school, the hope of “flying up as an eagle out the school” will just gain a foothold – it will prove that our Sasha is very talented: he is phenomenally gifted in Math. During his entire studies at middle and high school, his teachers will be staggered at his unique abilities. And so will his university’s teachers. There will be much noise and great deal of talk about that… Meeting me, the teachers will great me with: “O, you are a sister of that mathematical boy! Probably, you are talented also. Aren’t you?” Perhaps. But far not as brightly as he is.

              You are brilliant, my little older brother.

​

             …We continue inspiringly our Sunday lesson, and I am glad to go to the next “v”, …but some sudden discomfort happens to me, and we pass to a washing procedure.