Jacob's Ladder

19 First Grade

Fingernails

(1982)

Nora bought a bouquet of asters next to the Arbat metro station. It was the last one the old flower-vendor had—a bit wilted, too big, and too bright. Nora looked at it disapprovingly and calculated that the two dangerously red blooms she could toss out, the three yellow ones she would take home for her own enjoyment, and the white and purple ones she would give to Yurik. Tomorrow she was taking him to school: his first day in the first grade.

She was trying to prepare him for this profoundly life-changing event as though it were both a serious and a joyous occasion, but she herself was full of dark presentiments about it. It was already clear that his skills and his abilities were in part insufficient, and in part exceeded the basic requirements. He read fluently, but didn’t know how to hold a pencil or a pen correctly. He couldn’t write at all. He gripped a pencil tightly in his fist, and Nora had been thus far unsuccessful at teaching him to hold it differently. He wasn’t left-handed; rather, both hands showed an equal lack of dexterity. A good doctor, whom Taisia had recommended, said that a defect in the abductors in his hands was preventing him from learning to write properly. He was sedentary and patient when he did something he liked: he would play chess with Vitya for hours on end, until Vitya was too tired to continue.

Yurik hated new clothes. He didn’t like to change them. He didn’t know how—or didn’t like—to tie his shoelaces. He sobbed when he had to put a hat on; he couldn’t bear anything to touch his head. Cutting his fingernails was a herculean task for Nora. He loved any kind of construction set, from the metal planks with holes fastened together by nuts and bolts to the wooden blocks meant for younger children; he could busy himself with these things for hours. But it was impossible to force him to do something he didn’t want to do. He refused point-blank to engage in any sports, to draw, or, recently, to play music; though when he heard music being played, he would freeze, with a strange, dreamy look on his face expressing rapt attention mixed with suffering. Nora’s attempt to enroll him in music school the previous year had turned into aversion to the very word “school,” and she had a hard time persuading him that the school he would begin on September 1 was another kind altogether, and that he would like it.

“It stinks there, it’s really stinky!” he insisted. Nora couldn’t understand how he knew about school smells, since he had never been there. In her heart, however, she had to agree with him. She had completely forgotten about the experience of taking Yurik to music school, and she was oblivious to the smell of the music teacher’s perfume, which had so distressed him. Her olfactory experience of school was associated with food smells from the cafeteria, chlorine, and the sweaty stench of the gym, which hung in the air constantly.

Two days before the first day of school, Nora tried to trim Yurik’s fingernails. She did everything she could, maneuvering this way and that. She told him that germs were living under his long, broken nails. She drew multi-legged and multi-horned monstrosities on a big piece of paper to illustrate her argument; he laughed, but refused to let her cut his nails.

She tried bribing him—it went so far that she promised to let him bring back Chura, his favorite Chinese crested chihuahua mix, from Grandma’s. Yurik looked down at his nails and said with a sigh, “No, only for a German shepherd.”

Honest Nora shook her head no; she would only allow him to keep a small dog. She wouldn’t agree to anything bigger than a cat. But Yurik didn’t want a cat. In the evening, after he had gone to bed, Nora managed to trim two nails on his left hand; but while she was working on the third, he woke up and began to howl.

On the evening of August 31, Nora put Yurik in the bathtub. He played and splashed around in the water for a long time. Then Nora, tense and ready for battle, said in a firm, bitter voice, “And now we are going to cut your nails.”

Yurik clenched his fists. Nora tried to pry them open. Yurik spat in her face. She lost control. She dragged the screaming child out of the water, clamped his left arm under her armpit as if in a vise, and somehow or other, with great difficulty, managed to cut his nails. Both of them were bellowing. He: “No! No! Don’t cut them!” She: “Yes! We have to! We have to cut them!”

When she had twisted his right arm around, he began to weaken and give in. The operation was completed. At first Nora even felt a sense of triumph. Yurik, pale and wet, his fists balled up, left the bathroom and walked slowly, his body hunched, to his room. And then Nora felt the horror of loss. Their relations would never be the same again. He would never forgive her this violence.

Her moment of triumph—a pile of nail clippings on the floor—in fact signaled her defeat. She placed these paltry scraps in front of her, and began to weep. She wanted to hug the boy tight, to ask his forgiveness, but she was afraid to enter his room. She lit a cigarette. Thinking that she had never felt so wretched, she lay down on the floor on her back, her arms spread out like a cross, and moaned: “God, oh God, help me! I’ve done something terrible! What should I do now? Help me!”

Then she stood up and smiled. I’m losing my mind … I’ve never done anything like this before. She finished another cigarette and opened the door to Yurik’s room. He lay on a striped rug in the middle of the room, just as she had been lying a moment before—his arms outspread like a cross. He was small, naked, and very white in the dusky twilight. Nora sat down beside him, but he seemed not to notice her.

“Yurik, I’m sorry.”

“You wrecked my life,” he said quietly.

Nora realized that he was right. And she had nothing to say. “Forgive me.”

“Nora, I don’t love you anymore,” he said solemnly, in a grown-up voice.

No, no. We are not equals. I am thirty-nine, and he is seven. I am responsible for him. What to do?

“What can I do? I love you.”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, all right, then. This is how we’ll live from now on. I’ll love you forever. I love you more than anything in the world. And you don’t love me. But you’re still my son, and I’m your mother.”

Last year, he had asked, “Nora, when did you born me?”

“At night,” she said.

“Mama, I’m sorry I woke you up.” And also, “When I was in your tummy, I wanted so much to sing.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“It was very tiny in there, and there was nothing else besides me—no plates and dishes, nothing … But it was nice.”

“I’m going to run away,” the boy said now, not looking at her.

Nora gathered him into her arms. “Of course you will. All children go away when they grow up. But we still have a long time to live together.”

“I really don’t want to live with you anymore.”

“Fine. We’ll decide later. But now I’m going to make you some custard.”

“Are you trying to butter me up?”

“Yep. Here’s a towel. Dry yourself off, and I’ll go make the custard.”

Then Yurik ate the scalded-cream delicacy—still warm, without waiting for it to cool off. It didn’t taste as good as it usually did. But both Yurik and Nora had cooled off, and he came to sleep with her in her bed, as he did when he was sick. They hugged. Nora kissed his still-damp hair. His hair was so thick that it always took a long time to dry. Then, when he was already falling asleep, he said, “Nora, good things always come to an end. And after that, things aren’t nice at all. At first it’s really, really nice, but just when it’s really, really nice, you fall from heaven into hell.”

How does he know that? Nora thought. He can’t possibly know that already …

The next morning, it seemed all was forgotten. Dressed in his new blue uniform, his bright, thick hair shining on his large head, holding a bouquet of asters, he mingled with the crowd of other seven-year-olds on their first day of school. Nora watched them attentively, musing that inside each one of them was a secret being, wise beyond its years, who knew things that grown-up people could no longer remember.