Everything Begins In Childhood

Chapter 21. Sunday Delights

“Mi-i-il-k! Sweet and sour mi-il-k!” A melodious voice was heard ringing outside the veranda window. It was the milkwoman Faruza, an old acquaintance. It was not even eight in the morning, but she showed up like clockwork on Sundays. Emma and I dashed after Mama, racing each other to open the door. Here she was on our doorstep, with her amiable face and dark weather-bitten cheeks. She effortlessly set down her very heavy milk cans – it must have been really hard to carry then all over our neighborhood on foot – and greeted Mama, “Yakhshi mi siz, opajon?” I loved to watch Faruza pour milk neatly into the one-liter jar provided by Mama. She did it so adroitly that a steady stream spurted into the jar, and not a single drop was spilled. The milk can seemed so light in her hands, but I knew that I would not only be unable to lift that rock but wouldn’t even manage to move it. Faruza-opa reminded me of the Bagdad oil sellers whom I had read about in a book about the Medieval Middle East. They poured oil into vessels so skillfully that a ring placed on the narrow neck of a clay jar would remain clean…

After pouring the milk, Faruza smiled tenderly at Emma and me. She loved children; she herself had many.

“Do you like my milk?”

We nodded hurriedly. We liked the milk and we liked Faruza. Her jet-black hair was plaited into many braids that hung down her dark-green velvet jacket, her bright wide silk pants were tied at the ankles, revealing slippers she wore without socks. As to her milk, Mama thought that Faruza’s cow gave the most wonderful milk. We agreed with her. Mama would boil the milk, put a pot in the fridge, and in the morning, it would be covered with a thick ivory-colored skin – cream. Nothing in the world was tastier. And how beautiful the skin was, how rhythmically it swayed on the surface of the milk. It was a pity to touch it, but acute desire surpassed pity. The cream skin was mercilessly broken and put into bowls. Ah, how fast it disappeared into our mouths along with pieces of bread.

“Shall I pour more milk? Do you want more?” the temptress asked, filling a jar. She could read perfectly well what was written on our faces. Faruza was tactful and understood everything – after all, Mama was not made of iron.

Then, the milkwoman was gone, and her milk can could be heard rattling on the next floor. “Sweet, sour mi-il-k!” echoed through the stairwell.

The door had just been closed when another knock was heard. This time it was the plumber, Uncle Tolik. Mama had asked him to fill the crack between the edge of the bathtub and the wall. Emma and I, naturally, forgot about that traitorous crack while taking a bath, and we usually stepped out of the bathtub, not onto the floor but into a big warm puddle, in the middle of which the colorful wet mat, looking like a little island in a bog, made squishing sounds.

Potbellied Uncle Tolik bent over the bathtub, groaning. Even though he was not yet forty, he was rather clumsy because of his corpulence, and he often couldn’t reach the right spot because the bathrooms were not exactly spacious. Light-haired Uncle Tolik had a very kind, round face. If Mama had asked him to get under the bathtub and fix the pipe, I thought, looking at him, he would have done it, but he would certainly have got stuck there… Uncle Tolik’s legs would stick out from beneath the bathtub, and he, lifting the bathtub on his fat belly, would unscrew the drainpipe as the puddle near the tub grew bigger and deeper. The ship of the bathtub would float, rocking on its waters. Uncle Tolik would no longer be Uncle Tolik but a whale on whose back, or whose belly, it made no difference, that ship would be sailing. Emma and I would be on that ship, asking, as we squealed with delight, “Uncle Tolik, let’s go to Africa! Please, to Africa to visit Doctor Doolittle and the hippopotamuses!”

This time it was much more mundane. Uncle Tolik fixed the crack and the broken faucet. Mama paid him.

“Soon it will be cold,” she sighed, counting out some rubles. “Will we have hot water?”

“I don’t know, Ester dear. They’re planning another repair in the boiler room.”

“In the winter?” Mama was terrified. “But does that mean we won’t have heat for two months again?”

“Does the management care? They’ll have heat.”

After expressing his opinion about the management, the plumber left. Mama called us to have breakfast.

Our kitchen was small, but a table for two fit into it. Emma and I sat down at the table, and Mama served breakfast – sweet cheese curds with raisins. Mama cooked very well, but for Emma and me, none of her culinary miracles compared to the sweet vanilla cheese curds from the dairy store. Those cheese curds were the most desirable and delightful delicacy. The smell of sweet cheese curds mixed with vanilla was wonderful. Its whiteness speckled with dark raisins was beautiful. And the taste was superb.

Mama cut the cheese curds and put them into bowls. Emma grabbed her bowl and examined its contents, comparing it with mine – what if Mama had divided it unevenly and I got a bigger part? Her inspection was successful. We ate slowly, savoring each piece, trying to prolong the pleasure.

Meanwhile, Mama appeared behind Emma holding a comb. The kitchen was certainly not a beauty salon, but it was so difficult to comb Emma’s curls that she needed to seize the proper moment to do it, like now, when Emma was enjoying her cheese curds and was willing to put up with any torture, even that one. Her very thick chestnut hair became so tangled during the night that it would have been easier to cut off some of the little knots than try to comb them. But Mama handled the comb skillfully, patiently combing out one strand after another.

“More!” Emma demanded, licking her bowl.

“Please, give me more,” Mama corrected her. “Don’t forget that you’re a big girl. You’re five.”

Emma repeated her request, and she got a second helping. There wasn’t enough cheese curd for me to have more, though I received a tender glance from Mama. It was more than a glance. That expression on Mama’s face could assuage all my sorrows and quiet my whims. The corners of her lips rose in a tender smile, her thick brows merged into a smooth wave… “She’s just a little girl, son. We must forgive her.” That was what her glance and her face conveyed, as if unifying us in our concern for Emma.

It was all right. I would be able to settle scores with my little sister later. Meanwhile, she was enjoying her second helping, and Mama ran her comb through Emma’s now obedient curls, taking fluffy little balls of hair off the comb and setting them on the windowsill. Was it possible, I thought, that Mama would style Emma’s hair in a hair bun one day? Oh no, that wouldn’t be at all becoming on Emma. Mama was a different story… And I squinted, trying to imagine how unattractive my little curly-haired sister would look with a bun at the back of her head.

They both finished their work. I awoke from my reflections and suddenly noticed that my sister was smacking her lips as she stared at me. Why was she staring? Did I look like sweet cheese curd? Oh, well, let’s do it.

It wasn’t the first time that we played the game – who could out-wink whom? Emma always lost, but she often seemed to forget that. I usually didn’t perform my principal trick right away. At the beginning, everything seemed quite innocent – first I squinted, then, quite the opposite, I stared wide-eyed so that my eyeballs almost popped out of their sockets. I followed that by glancing all the way to the left, then to the right, then up and down and finally rolling my eyes. And could she do that? Yes, Emma could, and she obediently repeated everything after me. I was about to reach my goal. I began to flutter my lashes very fast. Emma did too, but it wasn’t easy for her. And then I resorted to my foolproof move – I began to wink one eye at a time. That was what Emma couldn’t do at all. She squinted, winced, moved her nose, even her upper lip, all in vain. Oh, what despair was reflected in her face! That was what I had been waiting for. I even knew how it would end. Emma jumped out of her chair, stomping her feet and squealing. And it was quite a squeal! She didn’t just squeal at the top of her lungs. Her squealing was so loud, piercing and continuous that it must have been heard all over the building.

All little kids go to great lengths to get what they want. But my sister had extraordinary abilities. She outdid all the girls in our building with her squealing skills and her loud voice. I thought about it as I savored my victory. Of course, I felt a bit sorry for my little sister. It wasn’t difficult to quiet her down. All I would have to do was pity her, hug her, and kiss her on the cheek. She was such a sneaky thing. Did that mean it was I who had to apologize? No way…

So, I sat there as if nothing had happened. Why was she doing it? Had she gone out of her mind? Had she had too many cheese curds?

I just sat there shrugging my shoulders and looking innocently at Mama, with the smile of a tolerant grown-up on my lips, “She’s just a little girl. We must forgive her.”