Funny Children's Stories

American Stewed Meat

The war ended a long time ago, but adults still remember about it all the time. When they get together in our room, they immediately start remembering about how things were during the war. And they talk about the same things over and over again.

Actually, no one talks about the war itself. Everyone only remembers how they lived during the war. And no one talks about the war itself because there is no one around to talk about it: some were still too young and others were too old to be drafted. And in our room, I have never seen those whose age was just right for the draft.

Only my dad could tell how things were in the war. But he says nothing to our guests. Once when I asked him to tell me, he said that it was nothing like what they showed in the movies.

Dad told me that everyone was afraid that he might be killed. Everyone had a single thought: whether or not he would be killed. On the whole, it was really scary there.

When I asked Dad whether he was scared that he might be killed, he said that he too was really scared. But he said that everyone was scared in different ways. For example, once he was put in charge of safeguarding an officer of the command staff. And as they began to walk, the officer lay down on his stomach and crawled the whole way. And Dad said that he felt very embarrassed for this officer.

I remember asking my dad whether or not he killed anyone. And my dad said that once he had a chance to kill someone. In those days, no one could be certain which buildings were occupied by the Russians and which ones, by the Germans. And it just so happened that looking down through the window Dad spotted some Germans. They were very close to him. Dad grabbed his rifle. But it was full of sand, and Dad could not do anything with it. Then Dad grabbed another rifle, but it was also full of sand.

Once Dad told me that he dragged his wounded commander to the hospital. And as Dad was dragging him, he thought that the commander got shot again. But Dad was not sure about that.

When he finally brought his commander to the hospital, Dad was highly praised and was promised a medal. Because they gave out medals for things like that. But for some reason, he was not given that medal.

Mom says that Dad was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. She says that because we have never heard of anyone coming back from Stalingrad alive. But Dad did come back from Stalingrad. But later he was drafted again.

I once heard Mom telling our guests that before the very end of the war, letters from my dad stopped coming for a few months. Mom did not know what to think. It was already May of forty-five, and still there was nothing from my dad. On the eighth of May, our neighbor told Mom that the war was over. He was angry that the whole world knew about it but we did not. Mom did not know whether to believe him or not and went to sleep.

Early in the morning, she was awoken by three doorbell rings. Three rings meant that someone was coming to see us. Mom did not go to open the door because it was still very early in the morning. At such an early hour, it could only be the milkwoman, who sold us milk.

Then Mom heard that our neighbor went to open the door. And suddenly our neighbor yelled, “Oo-ooh!” And Mom said that at that moment, she understood everything and bolted out into the corridor. That was exactly what she said, “I bolted out into the corridor.” And it was my dad.

There is another story that Mom sometimes tells our guests. She tells about the time she went to the market to sell Dad’s coat.

She went to the market to sell Dad’s coat because there was nothing left for us to eat. It was the first time that my mom went to sell something. She was very nervous. Even though everyone was telling her not to worry, “Everyone does it. It’s not a big deal.”

And so Mom went to sell the coat. She was standing there for a long time, afraid to offer the coat to anyone. And she kept repeating to herself that she should be brave because everyone sold things and no one worried.

Then Mom saw a young man. This young man seemed very nice. So, Mom found the courage to approach this young man and said, “Sir, do you need a coat? I have one for sale.”

Here, this young man reached into his pocket and showed Mom his ID. When he did this, Mom’s knees began to shake and her vision became blurry. Even though she did not understand what kind of ID it was.

The young man asked Mom harshly where she got the coat. And Mom answered that the coat belonged to her husband and that her husband was at the front. The young man said that he was assigned to keep watch on the market in order to catch all bandits and crooks like my mom.

Then he asked my mom what she would tell her husband about his coat when he returns from the front. At this point, Mom could no longer stand it and began to cry. And as she cried, she told the young man that she would somehow figure things out with her husband herself. And the young man finally let my mom go.

Later, Mom was always surprised that just about everybody sold just about everything at the market. But for whatever reason, she was the only one who got caught. After that, she never went to the market to sell anything again.

As for the coat that Mom tried to sell, it hung in our closet unused for a long time. It was only recently that Mom took it out, unpicked and turned it, did something else, and made a very fashionable coat for herself. And everyone kept asking her where she found such good cloth.

Mom also told our guests that during the war she was given two pieces of rye bread per day. She ate one piece and kept the second piece for the next day. At this moment of her story, Mom always paused. Because she knew that someone would definitely ask her why she received two pieces of bread.

And someone would ask her, and she would reply that one piece of bread she received for herself and the other for her child. “But the child did not need it because I (this my mom said about herself) – because I was nursing him (this was about me).”

So she hid the second piece of bread in our wardrobe in order to prepare a sort of feast for herself for the next day, meaning to eat all three pieces of bread at once. But after she hid the bread, she kept constantly thinking about it.

She kept thinking about that piece of bread, which she had saved for the next day. And she took it from the wardrobe and looked at it. And as she looked at it, this piece of bread began to seem uneven. So then Mom cut around the edges of the bread to make it more even. Whatever she cut, she ate and put the remaining piece back in the wardrobe.

Then Mom took it out of the wardrobe again. And again it seemed uneven and she thought that she did not trim the edges well enough. So she cut it again. And she continued doing this until she finished her second piece of bread.

There was another story that my mom told once. When we returned to our apartment after the evacuation, it turned out that all the locks on all the doors had been broken. And when Mom opened the door to our room, she saw that the room was empty. Not even a single chair was left.

And she began to cry because she did not know what to do. Then someone told her that she should rummage through other apartments in our building and see whether the neighbors had any of our furniture.

At first, Mom doubted that anyone would allow her to search through their apartment. She asked, “What am I supposed to say when they open their door? I beg your pardon, I want to check whether you have stolen anything from me?” But Mom was told not to worry too much about what she should say. In those days everyone did things like that.

So Mom went around the building to the other apartments. She knocked on the neighbors’ doors and asked them to let her in to see whether, by chance, they had some of our furniture.

I believe that in the very first apartment she went to, Mom saw our wardrobe. She asked the neighbor whose wardrobe it was. The neighbor answered, “How should I know whose wardrobe it is?” Then Mom said that it was our wardrobe. And the neighbor said, “If it’s yours, then take it.”

In another apartment, an elderly woman opened the door. Mom noticed immediately that the woman was wearing her blouse. Mom said that it was her blouse. The elderly woman took off the blouse and returned it to my mom.

This way my mom managed to salvage a lot of our stuff. However, she said that she did not feel comfortable having to go through other people’s apartments. And she especially felt uncomfortable when she found some of our stuff.

All our guests also shared many stories. They recall how they used to stoke up their small metal heater with firewood. And how they placed the exhaust pipe out the window. They recall how and where they got the firewood. And how they stoked up their heater with not only firewood but whatever else they could find.

There would always be someone who would recall how they boiled water in a glass, using two shaving blades. But because it has been more than ten years since the war ended, this someone starts to forget when exactly they boiled water with the blades – during the war or after. Once someone described how he had been taught to steal electricity. You just need to connect one wire to the steam radiator, and then nothing would register on the meter.

Most definitely, they would talk about the Germans; how cruel they were and what horrid things they did. And of course they would recall how Germans made soap out of human bodies and wrote on this soap that it was made out of humans.

Once Mom’s brother grinned and asked who would buy that soap, knowing it was made out of humans. And immediately everyone started to ask, “What do you mean? What do you mean?” And my mom’s brother replied that he meant nothing by it.

Our guests might be a little envious of those who were wounded slightly during the war since the government promised to them certain privileges for that. But if someone gets envious of the invalids of the war, then there would be someone who would say that it was better to live without any privileges than to be handicapped.

Mom’s brother once said that war veterans were being gradually evicted from Moscow so that they would not spoil the city’s scenery. But someone objected, saying that the invalids were evicted not from Moscow but only from the central part of Moscow.

Sometimes someone would say that our allies were unreliable. And everyone would start remembering when they promised to open the Second Front and when they actually opened it.

Usually after that, everyone would get quiet for a moment. And I knew what was on everyone’s mind at that time. Because someone would, most certainly, say something nice about the allies. And as soon as someone said it, everyone would immediately agree and say something nice about the allies too. They would, of course, talk about the Lend-Lease a lot. And finally, everyone would agree that without American stewed meat, we all would have died of starvation.

There would always be someone who would recall the Siege and say that during the Siege people ate cats and rats. Even though not one of our guests has ever seen anyone who lived through the Siege.

And once someone said that during the Siege mothers ate their children. And my mom’s brother said that this did not happen during the Siege but in the year nineteen-twenty-nine and again, later, in forty-six. And to that, everyone started to say “Sh-sh! What are you talking about?” And my mom said to her brother, “Don’t say these things so loud. Our neighbors might hear.”

And I wonder why it is so – the war ended a long time ago but adults still think about it all the time. Why is it that as soon as they get together in our room, they start remembering about how things were during the time of war? Why do they talk about the same things over and over again?

And here is what I also do not understand. I tried American stewed meat once. Of course it was very tasty. And this stewed meat was not at all like regular meat. It was ten times better than regular meat.

And I wonder why Americans sent this tasty meat to us. During the war, they could have sent us any old junk. So then why did they send us the tastiest food they had? They could have sent us what did not like. We would have eaten it anyway.