Memoir of a Russian Punk

14

The main singer, guitarist, and accordion player in Eddie-baby's life was the blond, blue-eyed, curly-haired Vitka Nemchenko. But in September Vitka's father came to Tyurenka, where Vitka was living with his grandfather and grandmother, and took him back to the Urals. It was very hard on Eddie-baby when Vitka left. He had lived in Tyurenka only two years, and he and Eddie had been friends less time than that, but he brought something into Eddie-baby's life that neither Kostya nor Kadik nor Red Sanya had given him – nature, song, the village, the peasant house, and his grandfather and grandmother.

One day last spring they were assigned a desk together, and after school they discovered that they lived in the same direction. Usually Vitka took the trolley to the Electrosteel stop and then walked the rest of the way with Vika Kozyrev, Vitka Proutorov, Sashka Tishchenko, and the other kids from Tyurenka. On the day in question, however, after a stop at Eddie's building, Vitka came with Eddie-baby past Asya's building and then to the vehicle maintenance lot and from there across the Russian cemetery to Tyurenka. When they reached Eddie's building, Eddie-baby tossed the field bag he used as a briefcase and the bag with his slippers in it up onto the balcony. As in all the other schools in Kharkov, it is the custom in Secondary School No.8 to take off your footwear and put on slippers as soon as you enter. They won't let you past the first floor in muddy boots or shoes. It may in fact be necessary to do that, since in the spring and summer the area around Secondary School No.8 is inundated with immense quantities of mud, but Eddie regards it as degrading for a man to walk around in light slippers. Deprived of your heeled shoes or your heavy boots, of that necessary weight on your feet, you are in a sense deprived of your manhood.

Once rid of the hated slippers, Eddie-baby walked Vitka home.

The apple trees were already blooming in the cemetery, so that it resembled a half-wild orchard. The kids walked along exchanging remarks, and the sunshine was so warm that the flies, bumblebees, butterflies, and wild bees were all out. Eddie even took off his black velveteen jacket with the white collar sewn on in keeping with the strict rules of the school, and went on with his shirt unbuttoned at the chest…

It was quiet and very bright in Tyurenka, and it smelled of fresh new growth and old wooden houses with chimneys billowing varicolored smoke for some reason. In faded pastels like the Impressionist landscapes Eddie-baby had seen in large books belonging to Borka Churilov, Tyurenka lay peacefully upon the afternoon hills.

"It will be Easter in a few days," Vitka said. "You see the different-colored smoke? It means our people are making home brew. See that pinkish smoke?" Vitka asked. "That's home brew from pears. Auntie Galya always makes it from pears." Vitka grinned.

Eddie couldn't really imagine what Easter was. He knew that they colored eggs at Easter, that eggs were essential, and that the kids fought each other with colored eggs at school. Each clutched an egg in his hand and tried to break his opponent's egg without breaking his own. The winner got the loser's egg to eat.

Eddie-baby's mother has recently started coloring eggs too, yellow with pieces of onion, and purple with a manganese solution, even though she doesn't actually believe in God. As Eddie's class-room teacher, the bastard Yakov Lvovich, once told him, their family is a synthetic one; it has no roots. Yakov Lvovich doesn't believe in God either, unless he does so secretly, and then in a Jewish God, although that's quite unlikely, since he's too big and too tall to believe in God. What he said about Eddie's synthetic family, however, he said as a condemnation. But is it really Eddie's fault that they only stopped transferring his military father from city to city seven years ago, and that he has hardly any relatives since they were all killed or died young?

"What's Easter, Vit?" Eddie asked in embarrassment.

"Well, it's the day when Christ was resurrected after they crucified Him on the cross," Vitka explained.

"Resurrected?" Eddie said skeptically. "What does resurrected' mean?"

Eddie knew all the details of Livingstone's journey through Africa, he could tie mariner's knots of any difficulty with his eyes shut, he could probably give lectures on the Spanish conquest of Mexico or of the Incas, he knew that when you're on a burglary job you should wear rubber-soled shoes, and he knew how to pick almost any lock, but he knew very little about God.

"'Resurrected' means He came back to life," Vitka said. "He was dead, but He came back to life."

"I'm not too crazy about God; it's boring," Eddie said, justifying himself. "I've never even been inside a church."

"I like Easter," Vitka said. "It's always warm and a lot of fun at Easter time. What are you doing for Easter?" he asked Eddie.

"Nothing," Eddie answered in confusion. "We don't celebrate. Maybe my mother will go visit the neighbors, the Auntie Marusyas. My father's a Communist, so he can't celebrate. And he's in the army. Anyway, he's away on a business trip."

"Come to our house, then," Vitka suggested. "My grandma and grandpa believe in God. They can let themselves; they're not Communists. It'll be fun. My grandmother has just brewed some new homemade beer. Do you like homemade beer?"

"I've never tried it," Eddie was embarrassed to say.