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Chapter 60. Something Has Changed

There was a very simple thought that didn’t cross my mind for quite a long time. I was already a teenager, but adults still seemed a somewhat alien and quite dangerous tribe. Defend yourself, hide, adjust to different situations – that was the basis of relations. Of course, there were exceptions: Mama, for example. But Mama was Mama, and age was not the point. Or a queer bird like the artist at the movie theater whom we had visited when we were kids. In such cases, we would forget that they were adults. We separated a person we liked from the group of people. We considered such a person an exception, and that made the person one of us. But that rarely happened. On the contrary, the older we got, the… However, is it really necessary to explain how teenagers think of adults?

But sometimes our notions can change in a matter of minutes.

I was home from school. There was Mama, sitting with an unfamiliar woman at the kitchen table.

“Meet our relative from Samarkand,” Mama announced joyfully. What’s there to be joyful about? We had plenty of relatives, and here was yet another one…

“The new relative,” the stranger said with laughter, as if she had guessed my thoughts. She held out her hand to me and introduced herself, “Zoya Koknareyeva.” Naturally, I smiled, pretending I was pleased to meet her, but I wasn’t pleased at all. Instead of eating peacefully and attending to my affairs, I would have to sit listening to boring stories about relatives I didn’t even know. And this Zoya had an intense, piercing gaze, like a teacher. Would she begin to ask questions about my school progress and grades? Was it her business?

But Zoya asked me something quite different. She asked me whether I had ever been to Samarkand. I remember that I soon forgot about my soup, which was getting cold, and listened to her talk about excavations near Samarkand where archeologists had been searching for the remains of the ancient capital. And I was asking her questions, one after another… The next day – our new relative stayed overnight – Zoya and I became friends. I didn’t notice how it happened. I didn’t feel awkward or bored; I didn’t have to pretend or lie – all those things that usually happened when talking to adults. Zoya talked to me about rock-n-roll, about the Klondike Gold Rush, about books it turned out we both liked and reread often. And she talked about it all with such interest that it seemed that she was also fifteen, not between thirty and forty. We both cursed our irksome teachers and gossiped about parents who considered their grown-up sons and daughters to be little kids.

Yes, it happened very fast. It seemed that, for the first time in my life, I wanted to learn about an adult, an unfamiliar woman, Zoya, what she was, how she lived. And I also wanted to tell her everything about myself and my friends… But when could I do it? She might leave the next day. Fortunately, the new relative promised to stay with us for a week. I was glad, and I was also surprised that Father had nothing against it. I didn’t remember anyone staying at our place for even a day… It meant that Zoya had managed to find common ground with him…

When I learned that she wasn’t married, I was upset for some reason. At first, her face and her intense gaze seemed unpleasant. Only a bit later did I notice her slight sweet smile and the big birthmark near her nose, just like Mama’s. I also had two of them on my left cheek. It meant that there were similarities in our faces. In a word, I now thought that our Zoya deserved the greatest love, but she lived with her sister and mama, who was old and blind.

We sat talking into the evening. Zoya was telling me something funny. She was laughing, but I felt anxiety mixed with surprise and pity. She was unhappy, I thought. Her life hadn’t turned out right, and what is life without love? Women like her were called “old maids.” Then why was she so bubbling with life?

I couldn’t contain myself any longer and asked, “Why aren’t you married?”

“Somehow it didn’t work out,” Zoya answered. “Mama’s been ill for many years, and now she’s blind. It keeps my sister and me… very busy. Do you see?”

I nodded. Very busy – that was easy to understand. My compassion for her became even stronger. Now, I was absolutely sure that Zoya had been deprived of happiness. From what source did she draw that joy and energy? What an amazing woman!

As I was pondering her fate, the “amazing woman” tapped me on the shoulder.

“Look here… Do you have a girlfriend?”

“No… Well, yes, but… We don’t even go to the movies together.”

And here I lost control of myself. I told her everything about my long, very timid and strange love. I had never told anyone about it. I had never been so frank. And after I had done it, that barrier collapsed. After I had revealed everything, I asked this person who had become my friend, “Why is it like that? Why?”

Zoya was silent for a while, then sighed and said softly, “You know, I don’t dare to judge. Perhaps, you both were very timid, two very timid kids… And then you got used to it and couldn’t change it. You couldn’t overcome it. It happens. Ah, it’s not simple. It happens to many people. Believe me, Valery.”

I did believe her, but how could I forget about the boys and girls for whom it worked out just fine?

Here, my new friend tapped me on the shoulder again.

“Listen, perhaps you need to figure out whether you’re still in love with Larisa or if it has just become a habit for you… If you’d like, I can introduce you to a girl, a great girl… You’ll like her… Her name is Ella. She’s also my relative. You can become friends. That would be nice. Shall I?”

Well, such “matchmaking” would be considered indecent in the families of Bucharan Jews who were more orthodox than our family. In Orthodox families, young people were introduced to each other by adults with the sole purpose of marrying them off. But our family didn’t stick to the old traditions. And Zoya obviously understood that.

“Well?”

I was a little scared but glad. Even though I didn’t like any girls but Larisa in our class, girls, I must admit, engaged my imagination all the time. And now, I was about to meet a girl… if Zoya wasn’t deceiving me.

Zoya didn’t deceive me. In a few days, we approached the house where Ella lived.

I stepped through the gate into the yard and felt as if I were in our old yard in Tashkent. It was just as cozy and green. A small dense grapevine was spread over a grate above the cement courtyard. Green and dark red grape vines wound around the rods of the grate, hanging down from them. There was a clay duval, just like Grandpa’s, in the yard with tables and benches near it. A dog barked at us, just as Jack would… And the sounds of a piano could be heard from the one-story house at the far corner of the yard.

We entered the veranda, which also served as the kitchen. A young woman standing at the stove exclaimed, “Zoya!” and rushed toward her. Her face was very familiar… I remembered right away, “Oy, but she is Sveta, the hospital nurse, Sveta.”

A few years before, when I was in fourth grade, I had had to spend about two weeks in the hospital. It was called Akkavaksky Hospital after the Chirchik neighborhood. By the way, it was a nice hospital mainly because it was located near a small grove of trees. The hubbub of birds could be heard in the crowns of the trees from morning till night. When I had an agonizing headache, I would go there and made myself comfortable on a bench… At the beginning, it seemed to me that the birds, especially the sparrows, were singing, chirping, making an unbearably loud racket, so loud that I thought my head would burst. But it didn’t. The more my head was filled with that chirping, the less pain I felt; it abated, calmed down. The moment came when I noticed that the pain was gone, that my head, filled with the birds’ songs, felt light and pleasant…

I felt much worse in the ward that I shared with four other boys. One of them, Igor Savchuk, was my age. By the way, we later became good friends. The other three were high school students, the kind of overgrown blockheads that teachers can’t wait to get rid of. That trio didn’t leave us in peace day or night. What happened in our ward is what they would call “hazing” in the army. We made their beds in the morning. When they washed themselves, we had to stand by and hand them their towels. We shuffled the cards when they played. We constantly experienced fear and tension but were afraid to complain. Once Igor refused to obey their order, and they beat him up. And Igor had bad kidneys. That’s when I couldn’t bear it any longer and went to see our registered nurse, Sveta. She had been friendly and attentive, and I decided that I could trust her.

“Why have you kept quiet?” Sveta was upset.

“Lousy bastards, they’ve also harassed the doctors. All right, I’ll get them… Don’t be afraid, they won’t bother you anymore.”

Sveta gave us injections twice a day. She used a thin needle and was very skillful, so it didn’t hurt at all. The next morning, when she came to our ward, she inserted the thickest needle into a syringe, the kind used to draw blood from a vein, and approached one of the blockheads.

“Bare your butt…”

And a hoarse cry sounded right away, “Ee-ee-yoo-oo!”

Now, I don’t think it was just the size of the needle because one could also choose a very painful spot.

Sveta’s treatment proved to be very appropriate. The blockheads came to the conclusion that they should leave Igor and me alone.

* * *

That’s how Nurse Sveta rescued us once. It was amazing how we met again five years later – she was Zoya’s relative and mother of the very girl Zoya wanted me to meet.

We chatted, reminisced, and laughed, and we no longer heard the music that had accompanied us as we walked from the gate to the house. As I suddenly turned around, I noticed a short thin girl leaning against the doorpost.

“Ella, why are you hiding? Come meet Valery,” Zoya said.

Ella came up to me and shook my hand, looking aside timidly. I turned out to be bolder and even made out the color of her eyes. They were brown… I liked her eyes, her short brown hair, and her supple slender figure. And I also liked her timidity – apparently, such modest girls were to my liking. Perhaps, since I had been prepared for a “romantic” encounter, I felt… well, that it was love at first sight. And a bit later, when Zoya talked Ella into returning to the piano, I couldn’t take my eyes off her hands.

She played –it seemed to me then – amazingly softly, tenderly, easily, as if barely touching the keys, as if just stroking them. And the sounds of the music – she was playing “The Moonlight Sonata” – were so special, flowing, really like the moonlight… I had never felt before what a magic sonata it was.

“Why did I quit playing? Why?” I thought, watching her hands with admiration and envy.

* * *

It had happened long before, as I was just starting first grade. One day, Mama came running home with news: they were enrolling new students at the music school on Yubileynaya, not far away, near the Spring store next to the library. So why shouldn’t we try to get in? Her suggestion didn’t make me happy, but Mama insisted.

The small corridor was crowded and stuffy. Parents and children hung about together, waiting to be summoned. I was mostly struck by how quiet it was. Some whispers were exchanged, but they were absolutely noiseless. The door to one of the rooms opened from time to time. Someone would come out, and a voice was heard: “Next, please.” Suddenly, Mama lightly shoved me toward the door, and she remained in the corridor. I was placed on a stool and given a pencil. A short woman with curly hair sat down across from me and said, “I’ll beat out a pattern, and you’ll repeat it. All right?”

I nodded and dangled my legs, which didn’t reach the floor.

“Tap, tap-tap-tap…” I repeated the first combination of beats effortlessly, and the second one. The third one seemed long and boring, but I repeated it as well. Then the curly-headed woman said, “All right… How about this one?”

What she beat out was even longer but more interesting. I heard a tune in it. I repeated it…

The curly-headed woman smiled. She turned around – I saw that there was another woman taking notes.

“Well done,” she said. “What’s your name? Valery? Well done, Valery. Would you like to study music? Call your mama…”

Mama was told that I had perfect rhythm, that I was admitted and that classes would start in a few days.

“Do you have a piano?” Mama was asked.

Not only didn’t we have a piano, but even paying the school ten rubles a month was a problem for our family. However, we found a way. There was a family in our building that allowed me to use their piano. Their daughter Lena had been studying music for a few years. She was about three years older than I, and I learned my scales and exercises with her help twice a week. Sometimes Lena’s mother, who was a professional musician, joined us and played something for her and our pleasure. That’s how my journey into the amazing world of music began. And I quickly grew fond of that world.

After ceding her seat at the piano to her mama, Lena stood behind her and put her hands on her mama’s shoulders. She moved her head to the rhythm of the tune and sometimes sang along very quietly. I listened and enjoyed it. No matter what Lena’s mother played – Beethoven sonatas, Chopin mazurkas and polonaises – I enjoyed everything, and the way she played. A wide shaft of light coming through the window fell on the keys and lit the pianist’s long nimble fingers. Shadows moved along the keys, “echoing” the music. All that together – the sound of the music, her fingers, the light and shadow on the keys – was magic.

I studied with pleasure, diligently, perhaps owing to that musical family. I received A’s and was praised, but unfortunately it didn’t last long, just about a year. Lena’s father, who was an army officer, retired and decided to move to Moscow. I was left without a piano and the friends who had been my patrons. I missed them, was lost and gave up my music studies soon after, though four years later, my parents talked me into going back to the music school. Strange as it might seem, everything that hadn’t required any special effort before came with great difficulty then. That annoyed me. Music lessons ceased to be festive occasions, and I left the school again, this time for good.

Fortunately, I still had a bent for music. Modern tunes and performers, famous rock groups captivated me. I didn’t even recall my unsuccessful “musical career.” I remembered it for the first time as I stood at the piano listening to the way Ella played.

* * *

I was excited and happy all the way home. I was looking forward to future encounters with Ella, with Zoya’s help, of course. Even though Sveta told me as we were leaving, “Come visit us, Valery,” I wasn’t ready to go by myself. I would have done it with Zoya… I hoped that we would visit that cozy little house together before she went away. And then, I might visit them on my own.

* * *

But everything turned out differently.

The next day when I returned from school, I found Zoya in the bed in my parents’ bedroom. No one was at home. Mama and Father worked in the morning. Zoya must have started feeling bad while they were away. Her breathing was hard, and she was wheezing. Her chest rose and fell with difficulty, just as Father’s did during his fits. Yes, she was having an asthma attack. And I remembered that Zoya had once talked with Father about that damn asthma. But it turned out that she also had a bad heart. She lay there, pressing her hand to the left side of her chest. Her face was as pale as the pillow.

“Ambulance…” Zoya whispered. I rushed to the phone.

The ambulance (“Quick aid” in Russian) took a very long time to arrive, and Zoya’s breathing was getting harder and harder. She continued rubbing the left side of her chest. I was seized by fear. What if she died?

Perhaps Zoya sensed it, and maybe her kindness was greater than her fear about her condition for she suddenly asked, “Did you… write down… Ella’s phone number? Call… her… by all means… She’s a nice girl…”

* * *

Zoya spent a few days at the hospital, and as soon as she felt a little better, she went home to Samarkand.

I ended up not calling Ella. I kept putting it off. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Zoya, on whom I relied, was no longer around, so I got cold feet.

However, don’t we quite often do things that we regret years later? If I strain my memory, I can recall quite a few others besides not calling Ella…

* * *

I saw Zoya again a few years later when, right before our departure for America, Mama and I went to Samarkand to visit the graves of Grandpa Hanan and Grandma Abigai to bid them farewell.

And we visited the Koknareyevs, of course.

We went early in the morning, and no one greeted us. The door to the apartment was open.

An old woman sat on the bed in the living room, combing her long grey hair.

“Come on in, come in,” she said, smiling as soon as we approached the door. Yes, she was smiling and looking at us with her very clear eyes though we knew that she was blind, totally blind.

“Opa, it’s me, Ester,” Mama said.

“We were expecting you. Is Valery with you? I heard the steps… Sit down, sit down. Vera, we have visitors. Where are you?” She said everything so merrily, and her voice was so tender.

Vera, Zoya’s sister, tall, good-looking and also merry, ran into the living room. Zoya who had been out shopping returned almost immediately. Hugging and questions followed. Then we had tea and talked for a long time, naturally, most of all about us and our departure. I felt so nice at their place; it was so easy to breathe there. A breeze that blew slightly through the open door from the yard seemed especially gentle and mild. Now, my idea about how the life of Zoya, her sister and their mother was hopeless seemed utterly unreasonable to me. The three of them were actually very happy.

I suddenly understood that, saw it from a different perspective, and my opinion changed. As Mama and I were returning home from the Koknareyevs’, I pondered how one’s perception of another person’s life could be quite wrong. Given an opportunity to have a closer look at it, you could learn something quite different… That’s how I learned about their life that day.

Later, when we were already living in America, we learned that Zoya’s mother had passed away soon after our visit, and Zoya had departed this world soon after her. She was only forty-two.

Chapter 61. Hebrew Lessons

“Alef, bet, vet, gimmel…”

Grandpa and I sat at the table set for breakfast. The choyi kaimoki smelled delicious, and Grandpa, bent over his bowl, munched so appetizingly that my mouth was constantly watering as I pronounced the letters of the difficult Jewish alphabet rather indistinctly. It was Grandpa’s idea to teach me while he was having breakfast. He assumed that I could have breakfast later, but he had to leave for work. If he didn’t have a better time to do it, he shouldn’t have started the whole thing at all. However, it had been my fault.

“Alef, bet, vet, gimmel…”

Grandpa bent his ear with his fingers and inclined toward me, thus demonstrating his attitude about my pronouncing the letters so softly and incorrectly, without due respect for “the sacred language.” That’s how Grandpa always called Hebrew. You say you don’t hear – so take this! “Gimmel!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.

* * *

So how did it happen? Why did I agree to have lessons in a language I was absolutely not interested in? Not just the language but reading for Grandpa, who himself didn’t know Hebrew. He could read, but he didn’t understand the meaning of what he read. However, I think the fingers on both hands would be sufficient to count the Jews in Tashkent and Central Asia who were actually fluent in Hebrew in those years. And there weren’t even very many people who could just read Hebrew, like Grandpa. It wasn’t surprising that Grandpa was quite satisfied with what he knew. And if he was reproached for not understanding the subject matter of the prayers, he answered with conviction, “One doesn’t need to understand but rather to feel.”

Yura and I made fun of this quite a lot, but the day eventually came when both of us began to learn Hebrew exactly the same way.

Yura was the first. He was twelve, and, to my great surprise, I heard that my cousin was getting ready to be bar mitzvahed. That’s why he studied Hebrew with a teacher.

Of course, I knew what a Bar Mitzvah was. After all, I was growing up among Jewish relatives. I knew that when a Jewish boy turned thirteen, he became an adult and had to observe Jewish law, the commandments. Bar Mitzvah means “Son of Commandments.” However, at that time, we thought that Bar Mitzvah was the name of the ceremony, of the celebration. Even now many people think that way.

When I learned that Yura was getting ready for that solemn ritual, I was terribly amused. Yura was so childish he couldn’t sit still for a second, and he would be called a Bar Mitzvah. That was very funny. Did this fidgety prankster really study with a teacher? Did he really sit face to face with him and study diligently? It couldn’t be true! He was always doing something foolish, even in class at school. And no teacher would tolerate him at home; he would run away and not look back.

When I went to Tashkent during my fall vacation, I rushed to see Yura right away… He would be the first to welcome me in Grandpa’s yard, but, to my great distress, Yura no longer lived there. There had been a fire in their house at dawn one day in early spring. It had begun when everybody was still asleep. Unfortunately, Uncle Misha was out of town at the time. By some miracle Valya and the kids had managed to escape. Firefighters in Tashkent are not known for their speed and skill. As it had taken them time to arrive and connect the water, the house burned down with almost all their belongings inside. Made homeless by the fire, they had had to find a different place to live.

Now, during summer vacation we didn’t spend all our days from morning till night together. As it happened, we wouldn’t see each other for days in a row. Still, we had a nice summer together. Yura, as always, was tireless when it came to concocting activities and daring pranks.

However, this time I was in for a surprise. When I arrived, Yura sat at the table studying. An open prayer book and some neatly rolled tefillin were in front of him. That was amazing! But most unusual was how serious Yura was, on account of the forthcoming ritual. You really should have seen how proudly he demonstrated his achievements to me.

I had to admit that Yura read fairly well, as far as I could judge. But to praise each other for our academic achievements and good behavior was definitely against our rules. And I began to joke about Yura’s private parts, which were growing in full view. I asked him whether his teacher sat at the table or under the table and who beat whom with a stick. I also remembered to remind him about his inability to sit still for a second. To make fun of each other was our regular custom. Yura could become enraged and work himself up for a fight, which happened quite often. Today, this was a different Yura in front of me. He didn’t jump up; he didn’t start to yell. He didn’t throw a prayer book or anything else at me. He looked at me as if I were a little boy and he an adult. He smiled scornfully and shrugged his shoulders:

“You simply envy me because no one celebrated your Bar Mitzvah.”

I don’t remember what I answered, but I felt I had suffered a defeat.

It was true, my Bar Mitzvah was not celebrated, and my thirteenth birthday, in general, had not been considered a special event.

Probably, our family was the most distant from Jewish tradition, the most assimilated among all our relatives. Was it Uzbek? No, Russian, more likely. And that wasn’t surprising since we lived in Chirchik, a multiethnic city that was largely Russified. Mama cooked non-kosher: we ate lard and mixed our tea and dinner dishes. Saturday at our home was a normal day. We didn’t observe Jewish holidays. And I had Russian, Uzbek, Tatar and Tadjik boys among my friends. But Yura wasn’t just my friend; we were also related by blood. In a word, if I sometimes felt I was a Jew it was only due to the fact that I was reminded about it from time to time. And it was done rudely, and it hurt, as I’ve already written about.

When I grew up, I became more sensitive, not only to insulting nicknames but also to some small things that happened.

Once, while I was visiting Edem and Rustem, their mother addressed them in Tatar, with me around. Did it mean she wanted to tell them something in confidence? That was impolite. It also emphasized that I was of a different ethnicity. It hurt. Though I remembered right away that my relatives did the same when they talked confidentially in our language to me.

As you know, the basis of our language is Tadjik. But Bucharan Jews, having altered it slightly, consider it their own. That’s what they think. But once, after a Tadjik boy I knew heard my mama say something to me in Bucharan Jewish, he asked me, “Tell me, do you have your own language?” “Yes, this is our language,” I answered, surprised. He shook his head and objected, with a trace of reproach, “This is Tadjik, you see? And you are Jews.”

It seemed a little thing, but I was hurt again, even though I almost never spoke that language: we boys all spoke Russian among ourselves. Russian was also heard at home.

The time had come when the “Jewish issue” began to engage me more than before. Conversations about people leaving for Israel were heard more often. It wouldn’t be that bad if it happened to strangers, to people we didn’t know well. One of our relatives, Yura’s grandfather on his mother’s side, had left. And here, at last, the preparations for Yura’s Bar Mitzvah had begun.

On that day, I left him with strange feelings of resentment, envy and even anger. I didn’t know which of them was strongest. Just imagine, he seriously thought that he would become an adult at the age of thirteen. And I was already fifteen! Just look at him! He had already managed to learn to read in Hebrew. Hadn’t my Grandpa said to me hundreds of times in the last few years, “Let me teach you. You read books in Russian all the time, but you don’t know your own sacred tongue.”

That’s why I changed my mind. That evening I told Grandpa, “All right, let’s begin…”

* * *

The “sacred tongue” didn’t come easily to me. I knew two alphabets: Cyrillic and Roman, for I studied German at school. Both of them just naturally fit into my head simply and easily. And here were these letters you had to read not from left to right but from right to left while also paying attention to the dots: it turned out that dots replaced vowels. Gosh! And some people swear that Russian is one of the most difficult languages!

I later came to understand that the notions “difficult” and “easy” are very relative. A Chinese child, for example, masters the characters, and they are more difficult than the Hebrew alphabet. But those comforting thoughts didn’t enter my mind at that time.

Our lessons began. After he finished his morning prayer, Grandpa sat down next to me on the couch, adjusting his tefillin to the box. The wrist of Grandpa’s left hand was covered with deep furrows from the small strap since he wound it very tightly around his hand. The creases wouldn’t smooth out quickly since old hands swell up. Holding the prayer book in his furrowed hands, Grandpa passed his twisted finger over each line, from right to left, and pronounced the letters loudly, those same letters: alef, bet, vet and so on. After he was finished, he told me, “Repeat.” I repeated, cocking my eyes at the prayer book, which had the Russian transcription by each Hebrew letter.

By the way, only I could understand the transcription: Grandpa couldn’t read Russian. I didn’t know how he had learned to read. He most likely remembered how to pronounce the letters, syllables and words by rote. And he remembered everything perfectly – he could say a prayer without stopping. Well, and I was peeking. Grandpa got angry, “Why are you peeking? Listen and memorize!” He put his legs together, placed the book on his knees and covered the Russian transcription with his hand. Now, we repeated the letters together because I would constantly forget how to pronounce them. Grandpa naturally got angry again. I began to cheat, speaking very quietly so Grandpa couldn’t hear. He would ask me again and again, holding his ear with his hand, and at that moment I could peek at the transcription. If I remembered correctly, I yelled at the top of my lungs, and Grandpa said approvingly “hosh” which meant “all right, good” in Uzbek, also one of our native tongues.

When we switched from the alphabet to syllables, it turned out that those pages didn’t include transcriptions. I had to memorize by rote as Grandpa read for there was nothing to peek at. Oh my! I had seen the prayer book in Grandpa’s hands since I was a little child, but it had never occurred to me that it was so difficult to read. And Grandpa didn’t just remember everything, he pronounced all the prayers with emotion, in a singsong manner, swaying back and forth. He uttered those incomprehensible words as if he were saying something very important to God. It was impossible to believe that, at the same time, he didn’t actually understand the meaning of what he was reading. “You need to feel it.” But how did he feel? What did he feel?

The lessons on the couch soon came to an end: Grandpa was always in a hurry to get to work in the morning, so he decided to have our lessons during breakfast to save time. But then things got even worse. He ate noisily and spoke indistinctly. I wanted to eat. None of that contributed to my industriousness or ability to remember the Hebrew words.