I knew PS 19 as well as my own school. Father began working there when the school had just opened. In summer, during vacation, he often went there to prepare for classes, and he took me along. I remembered the empty gym, the neglected yard overgrown with weeds and prickly bushes. Now, any sports society would have been proud of that yard, which had cinder tracks, soccer goals, and basketball and volleyball courts. The gym was also equipped with every necessary kind of sports apparatus. And all that equipment had been obtained by Father.
Every school in the Soviet Union was a public school so they were supposed to be supplied equally with all the equipment necessary for studies. Well, supposedly… In practice, everything they needed had to be obtained through persistent ordering, by utilizing various personal connections and methods. In other words, if a school had an energetic principle, director of studies, maintenance supervisor and teachers, that school would have either a great physics lab and workshops, or, let’s say, a zoology room and quite decent furniture. If the school didn’t have such energetic people…
PS 19 was lucky: its few teachers were energetic, including P.E. teacher Yuabov. Father was a go-getter; nothing and nobody could stop him. Soon, one could invite spectators to the school’s sports fields.
Father was also a successful teacher, but he was particularly good as a coach. Two of his students became Olympic athletes. The school was famous for its basketball team.
Sometimes, I attended his training sessions. I would sit on one of the benches in the gym, which was big and light with a very high ceiling. About ten high school students began warming-up at the coach’s whistle. They ran around the gym with balls, passing them to each other, dribbling them around the floor and trying to shoot them into baskets. The dribbling sound was constant with muted echoes as the ball moved from one student to the next. The sound of its bouncing reverberated through the air, mingled with other sounds. Sneakers squeaked and tapped. The backboards, to which the basketball rims were attached, quivered and rumbled slightly. The windows rattled. And the loud, overbearing commander’s voice rang out over that symphony: the voice of the coach, my father.
After a few minutes of that, it would seem to me that I was in the thick of a battle, with cannons thundering, and a brave general, fighting alongside his soldiers, commanding them. And that voice, of which I was so afraid at home – and sometimes even hated – that disgusting, rude, quarrelsome voice sounded quite different here. I just wanted to keep hearing it. I rejoiced. I was filled with pride. Yes, yes, I was proud that he was my father. Was it just vanity or were there other feelings dormant in me? Was it a need for love?
Father managed to comment and direct almost every movement of the players. He shouted through hands shaped into a megaphone, not stopping for a second.
“Hot Dog, where are you going? Go to a different corner… Hairpin, pour it, pour it! Pot, drown it, quickly! Okay, okay! Saucepan, draw it! (In Father’s jargon “pour it” meant “throw the ball into the basket.” “Drown it” meant “attack, steal the ball.” “Draw it” meant “give that ball away, pass it.”)
The veins on Father’s neck became taut and blue, dense nodes of bulging veins. His face was almost motionless, very concentrated but not too tense. All the tension seemed to be focused in his eyes. However, sometimes, if someone committed a very serious blunder during a game, Father’s face would become flushed. And then Hot Dog, Pot or Saucepan, whoever was the guilty party, would get it.
The nicknames Father gave to the players were, for some reason, related to gastronomy and the kitchen.
The town authorities praised the school for its sports achievements. The basketball team distinguished itself not only in our town but also in the Republic. The more it was talked about, the higher Father’s prestige rose. The school principal, an elderly Korean, Nikolai Lukich, satisfied all Father’s requests and turned a blind eye to many of the deeds of the school “sports leader,” for which he would not have forgiven another teacher. It was not merely that Father’s demanding attitude toward his students bordered on rudeness, but he was capable of insulting anyone. Well, perhaps not anyone, but those who were inferior.
Recently, Father had, with great difficulty, obtained some rolls of wire mesh to fence off the sports fields in the schoolyard. A few rolls were stolen one night. The rumor was that they had been stolen by the janitor with the help of some high school students. Father reacted without delay.
“I kicked her in the butt,” he informed Mama with satisfaction that evening. “And I told her exactly what I thought of her.”
“But she’s an elderly woman,” Mama was horrified.
“That didn’t keep her from stealing.”
However, when Father trained his basketball players, he behaved in a restrained manner and rarely lost his temper. Most probably it was because he selected the members of the team very carefully. He had an amazing talent for recognizing whether a boy or girl had the makings of a good athlete. He harshly and ruthlessly filtered out those whom he considered lazy, clumsy or, in a word, without prospects. And then he persistently and patiently molded a united team out of his chosen players. He strived for proper teamwork and iron discipline. He made them understand that basketball was a team sport. And he had enough patience for it because he rarely lost his temper with them. And even his fits of temper worked here. When he punched someone who had broken his iron rules in the face, that student would either leave the team or remember the lesson for good.
Among the students he selected for the team were those whom other teachers were glad to get rid of. They behaved like hoodlums at school and on the street, drank alcohol, smoked weed. It was sometimes rumored about one of them that the thug was about to go to jail. The reputation of potential players didn’t bother Father. His conversation with such guys was short, simple and businesslike.
“If you stop being involved in all kinds of crap, I’ll make a good athlete out of you.”
He was good when he gave instructions during training. He was also good when he demonstrated moves. He would take the ball from one of the guys, dribble the ball three times, raise it over his head, squat a little, then straighten up gracefully, almost flying up, and toss the ball. The ball would glide through the hoop as if it were weightless, as if it weren’t a ball at all but rather a soap bubble. He did it one more time, and it worked again.
Training was what Father did best of all; it was his vocation. Even when he didn’t feel well, when his asthma overwhelmed him, if he could move around without having difficulty breathing, he would drag himself to school. He felt better during training sessions. He couldn’t talk loud enough, but he mostly gave instructions with his hands, like the conductor of an orchestra.
I still wonder how the players learned to understand those commands. He let neither the ball nor the players escape his field of vision, even for a second.
That’s how it was during basketball practice, but not in the classroom. Father didn’t stand on ceremony with his regular students. Classroom studies were not as interesting for him. Students in class gave him more grounds for irritation. And they developed hostility toward the rude, unfriendly teacher.
My Grandpa was usually called Yoskhaim, abridging his actual name which was too long – Yusup Khaim. Father used the first part of Grandpa’s name as his patronymic, Amnun Yusupovich. That’s how students addressed Father, but they referred to him differently among themselves.
The blood rushed to my face and my breathing became difficult when I heard Father’s nickname for the first time. I heard it from Emma. I was either hurt or ashamed, or a bit of both, but for whom? Myself? Father? Both of us?