Grandpa Hanan was one of those wonderful people referred to as “queer birds.” Fortunately, there were quite a few of them among the Jews. He was so kind and generous that he would give the shirt off his back to a person he felt sorry for. He often caught hell from Grandma for doing that because it was she who had to figure out how to feed the family. Even into old age, Hanan was capable of working up enthusiasm for the most unexpected things, such as, for example, shashmakom.
In a word, Uncle Avner received a wonderful inheritance from his father, which included, apart from lofty emotional qualities and an understanding of beauty, a love for shashmakom and a collection of old records. It’s no wonder that Uncle Avner’s elder son Boris became a musician.
But let’s return to Grandma Abigai’s illness. I don’t know what doctors Uncle Avner consulted about Grandma’s illness, but he hoped that her bent, practically petrified knees could somehow be brought back to normal.
On one of our visits from Chirchik, Grandma was being treated royally to massages, thermal treatment, medications and, among other things, a terrible procedure resembling medieval torture, which I saw with my own eyes on that day.
As Mama and I entered the house, heat hit our faces. Grandma had always been afraid of catching cold, and she saw to it that there was no draft in the rooms. But now it was unbearably stuffy in the house, particularly in the kitchen. A woman in a white gown stood at the stove and, bending over a pot, dipped a long strip of fabric into it. A strange smell rose from the pot along with heat, as if dozens of paraffin candles were burning. The woman in the white gown, a registered nurse, was preparing paraffin bandages to warm Grandma’s knees.
Grandma, pale and exhausted, sat in her bed. I had not seen her look that way before. Her bare gaunt knees stuck out like two solitary toothpicks. She nodded to us and whispered to Mama:
“Cover my legs, cover them… I’m cold.”
The nurse entered the room, carrying the pot and began to bandage Grandma’s knees with hot, soft paraffin strips. Uncle Avner and I went to the porch. That’s when I learned that he and Mama needed to leave to attend to some urgent business, and I would have to stay with Grandma for an hour, but not just stay. Grandma’s legs would be tied to a board after they were warmed up. I would need to unbandage them in fifty minutes.
That was the torture I was watching now. Yes, yes, I felt like a warden, an executioner. It seemed to me that I had read about similar tortures in historical novels, where people’s feet had been stuffed into “Spanish boots.”
Grandma kept groaning and pleading, “Untie them, untie them.”
And I repeated, “You’ll just have to bear it. It won’t be much longer.” And terrified, I glanced at the clock: there was nothing of “not longer” about it. The minute hand seemed not to move at all.
I tried to distract myself by looking around.
Disorder is particularly noticeable in a sparsely furnished house: a table from which dirty plates hadn’t been removed… a worn, sooty kitchen caldron… a chair pulled away from the table standing askew… trash littering the floor… scattered things… Every trifle emphasized the desolation. That’s how neglected Grandma’s unlived-in room, previously so cozy, seemed to me now. Since she had taken to her bed, there was no one to take care of the house. Grandma’s bed was the only place where order prevailed, the territory accessible to her, so to speak. The pillows were fluffed, the blanket spread out neatly. Small towels and rags were arranged in a neat stack on the chair near the bed. And the cord of the telephone receiver there had been straightened out, even though it was twisted and tangled in almost every house.
Grandma fell silent, her eyes closed. “Has she fallen asleep? That would be good…”
But she looked so worn out. Her dark headscarf was pulled down to her eyebrows, her eyelids had become swollen, and her lips were dry. She kept licking them…
“Something to drink. Valery, give me something to drink…”
I leaped to my feet. Here was the thermos. I poured hot tea into a bowl. Grandma drank everything hot because she was mortally afraid of catching cold. She had a warm dress on with a wool cardigan over it, even warm socks in this hot weather. And her felt boots stood near the bed. Why would she need felt boots now? Perhaps to walk to the bathroom… How could she stand such hot weather? I, in my summer clothes, sat there covered in sweat.
“Oy, Valery, untie it… I can’t stand it… Djoni bivesh. Untie it. What do I need this for? I’d rather die…”
Grandma was looking up at the ceiling, perhaps through the ceiling, at the One she addressed, to whom she poured out her soul. And she kept mumbling something. She spoke, as usual in Bukhori, the Bukharan Jewish dialect. And even though I didn’t speak it, I could understand Grandma. It came across to me in a somewhat incomprehensible way that Grandma was asking God why he had sent those tortures to her, and her appeal, couched in subtle Eastern turns of speech, and with Biblical wisdom and tragedy, was woven into it.
From whom and how had Grandma absorbed the colorful speech of our forefathers? I didn’t know. I wouldn’t be able to translate what she was saying word for word, but I was listening to her with agitation. During those moments, I felt for the first time – perhaps vaguely, but still I felt it – how tragic old age was.
Grandma’s voice broke as she began to groan again, hoarsely and slowly. Tears began to flow from her lowered eyelids and roll down her hollow cheeks.
I bent over her and shouted, “Just bear it a little longer! It won’t be long!”
I shouted because she couldn’t hear with her right ear, and she didn’t hear well with the left one. But maybe I shouted because I felt terrible and wanted to do something to help her, something, at least.
Grandma opened her eyes slowly. They were so cloudy and full of suffering. Her lips moved. From the way they moved I understood, “Joni bivesh… untie them.” I looked at the clock… How much longer? Another twenty minutes? Well, that’s enough! That’s it!
I clenched my teeth, threw the blanket aside and began untying Grandma’s legs.
Chapter 57. The Star of David
“All right… So today we’ll repeat what we studied the day before yesterday…”
Georgy Georgeyevich walked, shuffling his feet, between the rows of desks. He raised his clenched left hand to his mouth and coughed intermittently. He didn’t have a cold. It was his habit. He had a pointer in his right hand, which he waved and tapped on the floor. Oh no, not like GooPoo. Georgy Georgeyevich, our auto-repair teacher, was the nicest, most good-natured person. He was a bit funny, short and potbellied. He had light hair with streaks of grey, a bald spot on top of his head, an upturned Slavic nose and puffy blueish bags under his eyes. Georgy Georgeyevich liked to drink. He drank regularly, and he didn’t even try to conceal it from us high school students. According to him, he didn’t drink but “took” it as a preventative measure, in order to prevent the common cold and other ailments. In other words, he didn’t do it for fun; he had to take it to protect his health.
We were informed about these preventative measures by the smell Georgy Georgeyevich gave off. Our teacher began each day in the same fashion, with a hundred grams of vodka. And we had a double auto-repair class in the morning twice a week. That was our type of school, its specialization. We studied auto repair in earnest as we inhaled a thick aroma of alcohol in the upper grades of high school. Some other smells were added to it – perhaps pickled herring or sour salty cucumbers. But on the other hand, our teacher was always vigorous and merry, though he couldn’t quite remember exactly what we had covered in the previous class.