It’s his turn for the floor routine. The kid behind shoves him forward.
He pulls his shoulders back and raises his arm to the gym master, nice and straight. First is a forward roll. He likes these. The secret, he has found, is to bend your knees really low and to look straight ahead. He rolls to the end of the mat, feeling the particular kind of head rush that comes from turning your brain upside down, over and over, the cool, white swirl that spirals down from the top of his skull.
Now a backward roll. He has never quite understood the moment when you have to lever your bum over your head. Sometimes, when he’s getting frustrated with it, he’ll tuck his bum over his shoulder rather than his head. It means he’ll be crooked when going backwards, but it’s always quicker. Sometimes the gym master gives out to him for it, and sometimes not. Yevgeni senses that the gym master doesn’t really care what he does anymore.
Yevgeni makes it to the end of the mat, and the next kid stands up. He makes his way to the back of the line. He really needs a drink of water, but they aren’t allowed to bring water into the gym. They can have water after the session, but there’s always a long line at the fountain and by the time he gets a drink he’s already late for the next class.
Yevgeni scratches his bum and, as he does so, he realizes that one side of his shorts, the side with the bad rip, flips up behind him. He looks down and realizes just how serious the situation is. Now, they’re torn almost all the way to the top. He looks at the clock on the wall. There are only ten minutes left of class. If he times it properly, he can tie the laces on his gym shoes and move straight away to the back of the line and then take his chances with the warm-down exercises. He’ll have to untie his shoes without anyone noticing and then tie them again. He might still have to run laps, but the situation is getting desperate. Why does he have to do gym if he hates it so much? Adults don’t have to do gym. His mother isn’t forced to go on the vaulting horse or the trampoline, although he has to admit that it might actually do her some good.
A blast of the whistle.
“Line up before the ropes.”
He hates the ropes. The ropes are the worst thing he could be asked to do in his current predicament. There are five ropes hanging in a line, and there’s usually a race between five pupils at a time. Yevgeni isn’t very strong, so he usually loses. Everyone sprints towards the ropes, and the gym master looks at him. He can’t fake the shoelace trick now.
“Yevgeni, go to the front of the line. You can give us a demonstration on how it’s done.”
A titter around the class. If you’re in charge, you’re always funny. The gym master could give them a lecture on how to manufacture a gym mat and everyone would still laugh. Yevgeni wishes he could refuse, wishes he could run out of the door, but he isn’t suicidal. He’d prefer the class to see his raggedy underwear than face the gym master after an episode like that.
He walks towards the front of the nearest line, his lips pursed in defiance.
“No walking,” the gym master shouts.
As he reaches the front, Yevgeni is struck with a moment of genius. He’ll run to the other side of the rope and climb up facing the queue. This way the tear in his shorts will be nearest the wall, the side opposite side to the gym master.
Why has his mother not bought him a new pair? He has asked her. She said she would. And he knows that when he goes home and tells her what happened she’ll scold him for not reminding her. “I can’t be expected to remember every tiny thing,” this is what she’ll say.
The gym master blows his whistle and Yevgeni sprints forward. He reaches the rope, runs around the other side of it, and begins climbing. Already the other kids are laughing at him, but it can’t be helped. What he’s done is still the best option.
The gym master looks at the queue of kids and tells them to be quiet and, while he does so, the bottom falls out of Yevgeni’s world. The worst thing that can possibly happen happens. Arkady Nikitin, the sweatiest boy in the class, is climbing beside Yevgeni and is even lower down the rope—due to his sweaty hands—and so he sees the tear in Yevgeni’s shorts and sees the gym master looking away, and so he tugs hard at the shorts and Yevgeni hears the rip and looks down to see his shorts floating to the ground away from him, taking his scraggy underpants with them. And then the whole class sees this. They look up and see Yevgeni stopped in shock, almost at the top, his grey underpants lying sprawled on the floor in full view of everyone, like a rat that has lain in the middle of the road for weeks, entrails spread out in opposite directions.
A gale of laughter, the whole class dissolving, and Yevgeni can see the gym master laugh too, briefly, and then he starts to shout at Yevgeni to get down at once.
The gym master has a bald spot, which can be seen clearly from up here. Yevgeni stays frozen, clutching the rope, and the longer he holds on, the more irate his gym master becomes. He can see the man’s face turning red. Yevgeni clamps his feet around the rope, the way they’ve been taught, and closes his eyes. There’s no way he can come down now and face the embarrassment, the rage. He seals his lids shut and hums the beginning of Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude, the notes dropping their peace on him. The sound of rain ticking on a glass windowpane; leaves rustling with falling water. The notes caressing him, refreshing him, sweet Chopin drenching him. He can feel the rope swaying wildly: the gym master is trying to shake him down. But Yevgeni isn’t moving—if he wants him to come down, he’ll have to climb up to get him. Yevgeni clings on for his life, ten metres in the air, the rope burning his fingers, chord sequences pattering along his shoulders.
Chapter 16
Two hours later Maria leaves the principal’s office. She walks past Yevgeni as he slumps on a chair outside, and when she passes he picks up his bag and scurries after her. She moves quickly when she’s annoyed. So he can tell she’s annoyed.
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“I didn’t mean to cause trouble.”
“Well, you’ve caused it. You had me leave work early. I do this two times a year, maybe it’s okay. How many times is this?”
“I don’t know.”
“I know. It’s four. I’ll be lucky if I’m not fired.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re not sorry. This is not good, Zhenya, especially not now.”
It isn’t fair to blame the child for her problems at work. But still, he did call her. He could have called his mother. So maybe he deserves it.
“You could have called your mother.”
She realizes he’s not responding. She looks to her side, but he’s not there. He’s stopped. She’s the one walking quickly. She’s the one who’s angry. He’s the one who should be keeping up. She stops and looks back. He’s standing there with his bag around his ankles. They’re in the playground by now, in full view of how many hundreds, if not thousands, of kids, and yet Zhenya has no qualms in putting down his bag, causing a scene, his hands clamped to his head, holding clumps of hair in his fists. No wonder they pick on him—the child is a gaping wound. Maybe this is to do with not having a father, or with too much mothering, with the women being too indulgent because of his talent. Who knows? Let Alina deal with it. He’s not her child, after all, and she’s not in the mood for it today.