Helena Pobyarzhina: Valsarb

– Did you enjoy going to school?

– I liked it. One year.

And then you didn’t like it?

“And then I stopped walking.

– That’s great, just took it and stopped?

“We had to graze the cattle. Because they needed money. I learned to write and read and stopped walking.

– What did you do, that all your childhood was grazing cattle? – I fidget on a stool, I don’t know how to sit comfortably on furniture without a back.

The sharp smell of sulfur pleasantly tickles the nose, this is my favorite smell. Grandfather throws a match into the stove, a ruby ​​flame ignites at his lips, goes out, and blue smoke slowly stretches up to the glossy kitchen ceiling.

We thought I could make it. My family. I was the oldest. But then the war began.

Were there Germans here?

– Were. Both here and in our village. We lived then in the village.

They once talked about the Germans at school, during class hours, and a little in one radio broadcast, all this interests me very much, but there is not enough information, even on May 9th, the same text about the Victory is read from the rostrum on the square and does not go into details about war. When we lay flowers at the memorial of the mass grave, I try to quickly run away to the side, away, the military there for some reason fire like catechumens, three volleys in a row, and I’m not really afraid of these shots, I just can’t stand the sounds of shooting at all.

– How did you become a mechanic if you hardly studied at school?

– Don’t know. I tried it and I succeeded.

I leave my stool and sit on his lap. His eyes are acorn-colored, for a long time I mentally selected a shade in nature, until we were ordered to make a herbarium. There are almost no oaks in Valsarba, more and more willows and poplars, acorns for natural history were brought by Ulka from the last desk. You can’t glue them into a herbarium, but they are suitable for crafts in art classes.

Grandfather knows how to smile with those acorn eyes of his, only with his eyes and only with me.

So this is your talent?

– It turns out, yes.

“If you know the insides of a bus, you must be awfully smart!” But not me. I have no talent. And I don’t like going to school.

– You don’t like to work out?

There is some truth in this, I don’t like it. It turned out that the school has a lot of painfully boring subjects. And I don’t have an inquisitive mind, I’m only interested in what is connected with letters. Although it was not without difficulty that I learned to read Russian. Very

for a long time it was not possible to reconfigure the brain after a short but very fruitful Babin’s course of teaching me Polish prayers. Therefore, I read Russian fluently, but incorrectly.

Dyksi “Kpatskhaya Motskba” – almost the entire first class was written on a red box with Babin spirits, because many Latin letters are surprisingly similar in spelling, but in an incomprehensible way do not sound the same as Russian. Hearing the distorted Cyrillic alphabet, my mother ran out of the kitchen, waving a wet towel from afar and indignant at my stupidity.

When the letters were sorted out, I had a favorite subject in school: reading. And that’s it. I think everything.

— You don’t like the guys in the class?

I wonder because I don’t really know if I like them or not. Until now, I have not had time to look at anyone: at first I was sick a lot, and then it turned out that those girls with whom I managed to make friends were transferred to another class. In addition, the breaks are so short, and the math is so difficult, even now I sit at it every free minute with the teacher, and she has already said twice: you can’t be so stupid.

– You don’t like your teacher?

Perhaps we do not like each other mutually. Also, I think I’m afraid of her. Looking at me, she smiles not with her eyes, but with the corners of her lips, as if I amuse her with something, this is not a kind smile, and in her eyes there is neither warmth nor peace, like Andersen’s Snow Queen. She says that I draw badly, count badly and sing badly. This is not true, everyone in our family has an excellent ear for music, both my mother and both grandmothers, it is not known about Grandfather, but dad definitely has it. I cried when she said that my singing was no good. After all, I’m just embarrassed to sing loudly and beautifully and I’m embarrassed to say that I’m embarrassed to sing loudly and beautifully, that’s why I cried. The whole class laughed.

It was then that she said for the second time: you can’t be that stupid.

Yes, it is true. I don’t like her, she doesn’t like me, so I can’t do anything. You can’t explain all this to Grandpa. And I ask again about the Germans.

Grandfather gets up heavily, goes into the hall – a high threshold at the entrance, carefully takes out a huge envelope from the sideboard, and from the huge envelope there is a drawing depicting a man in a fur hat with a star. The man and Grandfather have the same eyes.

– It’s you?

– Its my father.

– He died?

No, he’s back. But he lived only two years.

“And I died in the war. And she was also a man. Only young.

Grandfather looks at me strangely, but says nothing. Apparently, he was embarrassed by his own impulse, and he regrets that he showed me the drawing. Perhaps he thinks that I am still an unreasonable pigalo. I can’t really talk such nonsense.

On the third day after the night of St. John, new people appeared in Valsarba. It was mercilessly hot, the air trembled with heat, and they penetrated the sun-drenched plate of the city like black peppercorns in aspic. This seasoning became decidedly too much, they poured and poured from all sides, one pea on foot, two on a motorcycle, four in an army truck. Upon closer examination, it turned out that pea people are distinguishable in space only thanks to clothing. Their eyes had no color, and their bodies were transparent and empty. The most inconspicuous wore red bands on their sleeves. They were all light-headed, and their language was like the growling growl of dogs, fearing that their food would be taken away from them.

In the days that followed, new people arrived, like hordes of cockroaches, nonstop. They climbed out of all the cracks, flooding the winding streets of the city, penetrated into houses, ruined farms, took away the first, meager harvest and brought death with them.

Colorless people adorned themselves with chains around their necks and silver stripes on their forearms, orange chevrons and eagle emblems, but they all had the same face, so even those locals with whom they lodged, those who decided that it was better to live with cockroaches, than not to live at all, did not recognize them and did not try to distinguish them. It is enough that they left their traces everywhere, that the barking voices coming from their insides, sometimes, as if through cotton wool, and sometimes, like the roar of a bell tocsin, made their bodies tremble and their palms sweat.

The bright, dark-haired natives evoked bouts of incomprehensible aggression and hatred among the newcomers. When the first corpses appeared on the streets of Valsarb, it was hard to believe that all this was really happening. Cheerful dark-haired people quickly learned to drive suffering inside, sharply realizing that it was useless to analyze what was happening, and it was pointless to think about it, since every thought was broken when you tried to approach it. People with winter hair took food and clothes, shelter and lives of their loved ones. From the diversity of the past life, the dark-haired had only yellow lilies. They were commanded to bloom, and they bloomed on their sleeves, on their backs or chests, and on the facades of their temporary dwellings.

The dark-haired still had hope. Dry as oven ash, barren as a roadside rut. No one could take it away from them, even with all the desire.

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