Chapter 8. On the Threshold of... What?
Everything that was told in the previous chapter was the events of several years. Difficult — and there were never any more easy ones for me — but not at all hopeless. Many other things happened in parallel. Good, important, interesting.
When the next school year began, I had new teachers — one for maths and geometry, another for Russian language and literature. By the way, a classmate once said to me with envy, "You're lucky. It's good to study at home..." I asked him how often he was called to the blackboard, and he replied that he was rarely called, maybe once or twice a month. I remarked, "Well, I'm asked in every class." He changed his face and said, "I hadn't thought of that."
The mathematician was unpleasant, arrogant and self-righteous. In the first lesson, she asked me if I liked math, and got an honest answer that it was my most unloved subject. Then she stated flatly, "Now you're going to love it!" I immediately hated mathematics even more, and carried this feeling in my chest until the very end of school. All the more so because there were no attempts to find an approach, to somehow interest the student, i.e. me. All exclusively in textbook language, in a boring manner, with a disgruntled expression on her face.
Once I asked her why I might need geometry or algebra in my life if I am fond of animals. She failed to give a clear answer. Maybe it wasn't the smartest question, but it was forgivable for a schoolboy. But it was still possible to explain the usefulness of maths, at least for general development. In the last couple of decades I regret that I know little about it, and even want to read something on this topic, re-learn at least some general basics.
The teacher of Russian language and literature turned out to be a very peculiar person. She and I unexpectedly coincided in our interests. It was the spirit of the times. A period of fascination with anomalous phenomena has come. Brochures and newspapers devoted to them were sold everywhere, and even publications on other topics published articles about UFOs, the Bermuda Triangle, Bigfoot, poltergeist and the like. I used to read all that stuff. Turns out, so was she. Therefore, quite soon, a significant part of our lessons began to be taken up with conversations on these and other similar topics. We were especially interested in aliens. We discussed in detail everything that concerned them, were sure that the contact would take place in the near future, almost tomorrow, and quite assumed that the aliens would evacuate the population of the Earth, or at least part of it. We even had an agreement: if they came for her before they came for me, then she would put in a good word for me, and if it was the other way round, then I would put in a good word for her. I realise how ridiculous it seems now. But back then, it was all serious, no jokes.
I learnt to use her passion to my advantage. I used to prepare some newspaper on the subject in advance, and when the teacher came to the lesson, I would say in the tone of a provocateur, "Here I have something interesting..." She, perked up, would reply, "Come on!", after which she would show me in the language textbook which exercises I should write down in my notebook, and she would plunge into reading. I would quietly and leisurely scratch my pen on the paper or study a literature textbook, she would read the newspaper and not bother me. Then she would take a quick look at the exercises I had done and say, "Well, as always, everything is correct", gave me a mark and left. Our classes were held so, not every time, but often.
As already mentioned, I wrote well, and therefore she did not force me to learn the rules. I did the written exercises and got my A's. Literature was even easier. I had read some of the school programme before, and what I had not read, I read willingly and with interest. Although there were also books that were boring and depressing. I will not enumerate them. When I had to write an essay on one of them, in which it was required to analyse the ideas embedded in it, to describe its significance as a literary work, etc., I simply took and copied an introductory article from the same book into a notebook, with some banknotes. The teacher caught me cheating and said, "Since you haven't done something like this before, I'll forgive you for the first time. However, if it happens again, I'll give you an F." The next time I had to squeeze all this tedious cleverness out of myself.
During the whole period of my studies, I never got grades lower than a C at all, not a single subject. And not because everything was easy for me. Algebra, geometry and chemistry were learnt with great difficulty; I could not stand them, and literally gnawed on them, straining my mind with all my might. I was just very afraid of getting an F. I can't even say why. It didn't threaten me with any special troubles, except that my parents would be upset and growl a little. However, getting an F seemed something terrible and unimaginably shameful. Therefore, I always prepared very diligently. And in high school, I did it because I didn't want to spoil my reputation in my own eyes.
...Time passed slowly, but the years flew by quickly. Before I knew it, I was sixteen, which was marked by two memorable events: receiving a passport and receiving a tape recorder as a gift from my parents. It was a modest "Belarus 302", but it seemed to me a miracle of technology. I've never had such a thing. Now I could listen to music. A little earlier, there was a case when my father borrowed a tape recorder with several cassettes from his friend for a couple of days, and I sat over it these days, literally without taking my eyes off it. On the cassettes, there was mainly a criminals' chanson, which made a vivid impression on me. Of course, I started my immersion into the world of music with it, having got my own tape recorder. Though at first, by and large, it didn't matter what I listened to. As long as something sounded. I bought cassettes of artists I wasn't interested in, but they were also playing. I also recorded everything from the TV. My friends who had tape recorders recorded something for me. In short, another dimension was added to my life.
Of course, there was music in our house before that. But it wasn't really mine. Records that we bought only occasionally and played on the record player. We are not talking about various audio tales, of which I had quite a lot. They are a completely different category. As for music, we had some Soviet pop music and a few Vysotsky records. In his youth, before I was born, my father listened to him on an ancient tape recorder. In my childhood, this tape recorder was no longer there, but the magnetic tapes were lying around at home, and I enthusiastically unwound the film from them. My father cooled down and became indifferent to Vysotsky, but he bought a couple of records (which came out rarely and were sold out) later on, apparently, because of old memory. And then I literally fell in love with the hoarse voice of the bard. I listened to his records almost to the point of complete uselessness, and I knew the songs from them by heart. It is quite understandable that with the advent of the tape recorder, Vysotsky's recordings took a prominent and honorable place in my music library.
I'm still listening to it, already from the computer. Vysotsky is with me practically all my conscious life. And I think, will be with me till the end.
At the same time, at the age of sixteen, I felt, so to speak, the first whiff of an unpleasant future. A future in which I have nothing to do. And the desire to be useful — at least to someone, at least somehow — matured, and for the first time it made itself known. It's not an easy problem for a man in my position. And it's mildly speaking. Besides, I did not like to reveal my desires and thoughts that deeply concerned me, I did not like to let anyone into my experiences, and therefore I did not share or consult with anyone, I digested everything myself. That time I thought for a long time, and then decided to follow the beaten path: to join the Komsomol. It is quite a logical step for the former Little Octobrist and the current Pioneer, in the future not excluding for himself the receipt of a party ticket. Having made my decision, I voiced it to the teacher of Russian language and literature. She was very happy, she raised the school Komsomol organisation on its feet. The Komsomol leader came and prepared me, having theoretically trained me in what was necessary. Then the procedure of admission was repeated for the third time: classmates and Komsomol activists came, accepted me, pinned my badge, encouraged me, congratulated me. My grandmother cried from the fullness of feelings: my grandson is already a Komsomol member.
What did I expect in taking this step? In general, nothing specific. I just hoped that they would tell me something there, offer me to participate in something, help me find some useful activity. Of course, I could not tell about my hopes to those who accepted me into the Komsomol. I started to probe the ground, to find out what was going on. And it turned out that there was nothing. I was a few decades late to the Komsomol. In my time there was only a loud name and a very shabby, worn out to rags image left of it. Our Komsomol organisation didn't seem to know what to do with itself, let alone with me. My life was enriched only by the fact that the Komsomol leader came to see me more or less regularly — just to chat about nothing. It was obvious that she was just fulfilling an obligation, without any willingness. In response to my question about the order of payment of membership fees, she waved away — don't worry, they will pay these two kopecks for you. That's all. That was the end of my relationship with the Komsomol.
It was annoying, and I had a feeling that I was deceived. But it wasn't a tragedy. Back then I still had a lot to do. Study, friends, books, music, various hobbies. Including new ones.
For example, publishing newspapers and magazines. The very idea of publishing something, telling people about all sorts of interesting things, was fascinating. I've always liked periodicals on their own. From the age of a year or two, my parents subscribed magazines "Merry Pictures" and "Murzilka". By the time I started to read on my own, I had already collected a number of them, which I would sit over for long periods of time. I was mesmerised by the opportunity to leaf through these pages, read about all sorts of things, and look at the illustrations. They were replaced by "Pioneer" together with the newspaper "Pionerskaya Pravda", "Young Naturalist", "Screen to Children". Our family at different times subscribed to many magazines, "Vokrug Sveta", "Tekhnika Molodezhi", "Nature and Man", "Knowledge is Power", "Ural Pathfinder", "Biology of the Sea", "Crocodile", "Vozhyk", some others. Many magazines we bought irregularly. All this I read and reread, it was a noticeable part of my life. And how many titles of newspapers were subscribed and bought, I won't even list them. Then came a flood of publications about anomalous phenomena, and a whole sea of stuff. For me, it was an expanse and a great pleasure. Not surprisingly, I wanted to try to "publish" something myself.
The first attempt was something like a wall newspaper. I have constantly encountered references to such publications, starting with children's stories about Lenin. But I had nothing to write articles about, and the idea itself was too unfamiliar. So I used to take a large sheet of millimetre paper and copy interesting notes from various presses onto it in printed handwriting. The result was a number of the wall newspaper, which was posted at home for all to see. The work, however, turned out to be ungrateful, because no one read my newspaper.
Then I approached the matter differently. A notebook of several dozen pages was made of the same millimetre paper, where I again copied notes and articles, and sometimes chapters from popular science books, cut something out of newspapers and pasted it there, redrew or pasted illustrations and photographs. I picked up some interesting big picture from which the cover was made. My mother helped me in the work of stitching and gluing. It turned out quite a magazine called "Globe". In a few months, half a dozen numbers came out, which I myself considered as a repository of interesting information and which they even took from me to read. While working on the magazine, I got a lot of positive emotions, just from the process itself. However, I quickly realised that few people needed it either, and that was a pity... I closed my publication, and postponed the idea until better times. The desire to publish a newspaper or magazine has never left me since.
Another new phenomenon in my life was that I began to write all sorts of poetry. Here I must say that as a child I read and listened to poetry with pleasure — Chukovsky, Marshak, other Soviet children's poets. Starting with the poetry included in the school programme, I stopped liking poems. I considered them boring, and although I learnt them by heart — and what else can I do if I'm given a task? — but without the slightest interest. In all my school years I liked and remembered only Schiller's "The Glove". And at some point I started dabbling in rhymes myself. Exactly "dabbling" and exactly "rhymes". Joke poems (the very first one was written, by the way, in Belarusian), humorous reworkings of popular songs, ditties, often obscene. I didn't swear like that, but in ditties and parodies I allowed myself. A lot of nonsense was written, which gave me and my friends a lot of fun. Then everything somehow came to naught.
Those were interesting times, Perestroika times. The country was transforming before our eyes. For better or for worse, it depends on how you look at it. Some people were literally praying for Gorbachev, while others were cursing him at the drop of a hat. They ridiculed him, made jokes about him. I liked it, and I happily joined the process. The highest rise of my hooligan thought in this regard was the remake of Vysotsky's song "Dialogue at the TV set", where Vania and Zina discussed new realities, simultaneously scolding Gorbachev.
The further the changes moved, the harder life became. Shortages, queues and rotten kippers to go with cheese or sausage had been around for a long time; but then it became scarce. Shop shelves were often empty, it became difficult to buy even the simplest and most necessary goods, coupons for food were introduced... However, I will not unfold a broad panorama of the social life of those times. Whoever wants to, will find a lot of information about it without me.
I will only add that I once saw a discussion of two people about that time on one forum on the Internet. One of them, remembering the past, told about the same things as I did above. The other argued with him, claiming that none of this was true. There were no queues, and no shortages either, all goods were available in abundance, Soviet citizens were well-to-do — and there is no point in lying. In the course of the discussion it turned out that both lived in the same city in the same years. And here's how different their memories are... Consider it just a small illustration of the topic.
I have a memory of a funny episode from that period, among other things.
I have to say that as a teenager I had a strange thing about stocking up on all the essentials. Or maybe not so strange. Maybe it was a manifestation of the accumulated stress, which later resulted in a panic fear of a nuclear war... I don't know. Anyway, I got a big wooden box, where I began to put all sorts of useful things. There was a stack of notebooks, several notepads, paper clips and stationery buttons, several packs of pencils, a dozen pieces of soap, several combs, several sets of sewing needles, a dozen coils of thread, a pair of scissors, half a dozen spoons and forks, two or three kitchen knives, a pair of folding cups, some boxes of matches, several screwdrivers, a hammer, a mirror, and something else that I can't remember. I bought some of this with my pocket money, confiscated something at home. My box kept its bowels closed for several years. And here came the hard times.
I thought — this is a good time to give the stockpile away. I've been collecting and storing it for a reason. It'll come in handy. But it was not interesting to give away just like that, and a bit pitiful. So I decided to organise a lottery. I cut a hundred tickets out of paper, numbered them. I divided and numbered the contents of my warehouse, adding a few toys and, just for fun, my father's old, holey shoe. 70 tickets were with winnings, 30 were empty.
At the next holiday guests gathered, and then I announced a lottery and offered to buy tickets, 10 kopecks each. The tickets were taken out of the bag blindly. At first, potential lottery participants crumpled and took them reluctantly. But when scarce threads, needles and soap came out, which was not available at that time, or which was sold by the piece in hands after standing in a queue for hours, everyone went for their wallets. The tickets were quickly sold out, and I earned 10 rubles. Of course, the raffled goods cost many times more, but it was not about profit, it was about the event itself. It was remembered for a long time afterwards. And what could have been bought with a chervonets..? Of what might interest me — for example, a couple of good books.
As for reading, by that time I had switched mainly to fiction. Then it just began to be published more, a lot of it appeared on the shelves of bookstores and in libraries. But the real gift of fate for me was our neighbor, who collected books of this genre for many years. When we went to visit his family, I was literally speechless at what I saw there. The one-room apartment was crammed with books. They were on shelves and stacked on the floor. Almost all of them sci-fi. Including a multi-volume anthology that can be seen in the movie "The Magicians". It was like an Eldorado. I'm not a jealous person. There is only one thing that has always caused and continues to cause me jealous: books. I want to possess them. And at that moment I suffered cruelly from the fact that all this wealth did not belong to me.
But it could be used. So I set to work. Sometimes swallowing a book a day, I eventually got to grips with my neighbour's library. Then I built up my own, but it was much more modest, just a few shelves. Since then and to this day, fiction remains one of my favourite genres, and I continue to read it. Here I would like to discuss the quality of modern fiction... But I won't.
In addition, my neighbour showed me a thick common notebook with the lyrics of Vysotsky's songs, many of which I had not yet heard. It had been borrowed and transcribed for me by my mother. This manuscript became one of my jewels of that time.
My friends kept coming to see me. We were all growing up, our communication was changing qualitatively. Games gave way to conversations on various topics, music, and generally teenage interests.
At that time, Aunt Svetlana was divorced, and lived in Manastyrok with her mother. Every weekend she and her sons Sasha and Dima came to visit us. My cousins were much younger than me, and they were too small to join our company. But I found a common language with them.
First of all, of course, I told them stories and retold books, from Carlson to fiction and Charles de Coster's "The Legend of Ulenspiegel". They were often the heroes of the fictional stories, which delighted them. I had a "Young Chemist's Kit", obtained with the help of Tatiana Petrovna — a box with flasks, test tubes, a spirit flask and various reagents. The cousins under my guidance performed various chemical experiments and made various interesting things, like invisible ink and developer for it. We made a real hectograph, on which it was really possible to reproduce manuscripts. We printed photographs — still from film negatives, with a photo enlarger, on photographic paper, with developer, fixer, red lamp and everything else that was supposed to be used. Collected and observed insects. Were making candy out of melted sugar and butter. And lots of other things. In general, despite the age difference, we found something to do that was interesting and educational. Often the four of us would go out together — my mother, me and them. Sometimes we even went to the collective farm orchard and stole apples there. Mum and I would walk around, distracting the attention of the security guards who appeared from time to time, and the boys would scamper through the trees.
A separate interest of ours was cinema. At that time video salons began to open, where foreign action, horrors, fantasy, films about kung fu were shown. My cousins and I were obsessed with all that stuff. We visited video salons — though it was not easy in a wheelchair, but our determination overcame everything — we discussed films, talked endlessly about actors, bought their photos in stalls, extracted negatives from such photos and printed them themselves, sitting over the photo magnifier all night long. In fact, it was mostly photos like that that we dealt with. Once we even sold some of them, and used the proceeds to upgrade our photographic equipment.
...Meanwhile, Perestroika and publicity were gaining momentum. The country was feverish and shaken by economic, political and ideological upheavals. I was already old enough to take seriously all the denunciations of the Soviet system, which were full of books and press published at that time, which were coming from the TV screen and, it seems, from everywhere. Gradually, a revolution took place in my brain, and by the end of school I had turned into a real anti-Soviet. I began to dislike the Communist Party and to feel deeply sarcastic about it. As for the Soviet Union itself, I became an advocate of its liquidation and the granting of independence to the Union republics.
Accordingly, my attitude towards Gorbachev, thanks to whom changes took place in the world, in society and in myself, changed. It became respectful and solidary from light-heartedly-jealous. Then my political differences with my older relatives began. They cursed and insulted Gorbachev, I approved and defended him.
I felt special personal gratitude to him for making detente and the end of the Cold War possible, and thereby greatly reducing the threat of a nuclear apocalypse. The memory of the recent horror was still fresh in me. Although the fear was gone, the awareness of danger remained, and it did not add to my mental comfort. Besides, nuclear war had moved into my dreams. Though rarely, but I still dream about it. And then, at the time described, when I realised that the danger was less, I was again relieved. It was different, not like the previous relief, but also important for me. Most importantly, a more optimistic outlook for the future opened up.
I believed and still believe that for this merit alone, the memory of Gorbachev deserves to be immortalised.
All this happened in the last years of my studies, about which there is almost nothing to tell. Several new teachers have appeared. They flashed on the horizon of life and disappeared, leaving almost no trace in memory. In the final class, I demanded that a foreign language be included in my curriculum, from which I had been exempted for some reason. I was given German. I was taught by a Russian teacher who knew a little German. I went through the textbook for the 4th grade, and that was the end of it, because school itself was over for me.
It's hard to describe how much I was looking forward to the last lesson. At that time I perceived studying as something unnecessary and annoying, taking time away from more exciting things, such as reading, which was much more attractive to me cognitively than the school programme. I intended to forget it immediately after graduation. In addition to biology, history, literature, a couple of other subjects. I aspired to knowledge, and very much — because they were my window to the world. But I wanted to study only what I considered important for myself. I wanted to have the right to choose. The mere fact that someone imposed a training program on me, and I had to follow it, picking at what I was not interested in and, most likely, would not be useful in life, caused indignation in my soul.
Again, from the distance of today, that doesn't sound too smart. But back then, getting rid of classes and doing lessons seemed like a way out of prison or, rather, the end of hard labour. Life after school was seen as a holiday, as a celebration of freedom. Finally, I will be able to devote all my time to my favourite activities!
On the other hand, how much could I judge what would or would not be useful in life? After all, I still didn't know what I was going to do. Or whether I would ever be able to do anything at all. The problem was quite obvious even then. But I had a feeling that everything would work out somehow. Because... Well, because. It has to work out somehow. I'd have to say goodbye to school and take a break from it, and then we'd see.
Light-mindedness? More like a state of total uncertainty, when there's absolutely nothing to hold on to. Not at all surprising in a situation like mine. Sometimes even ordinary graduates cannot decide what to do next, where to go. I had the same problem, but to the extent of itself. After all, I didn't even have approximate options.
A big life change had come. I was standing on the threshold, and I felt it. But on the threshold of what? Emptiness, maybe..?
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