We entered the veranda, which also served as the kitchen. A young woman standing at the stove exclaimed, “Zoya!” and rushed toward her. Her face was very familiar… I remembered right away, “Oy, but she is Sveta, the hospital nurse, Sveta.”
A few years before, when I was in fourth grade, I had had to spend about two weeks in the hospital. It was called Akkavaksky Hospital after the Chirchik neighborhood. By the way, it was a nice hospital mainly because it was located near a small grove of trees. The hubbub of birds could be heard in the crowns of the trees from morning till night. When I had an agonizing headache, I would go there and made myself comfortable on a bench… At the beginning, it seemed to me that the birds, especially the sparrows, were singing, chirping, making an unbearably loud racket, so loud that I thought my head would burst. But it didn’t. The more my head was filled with that chirping, the less pain I felt; it abated, calmed down. The moment came when I noticed that the pain was gone, that my head, filled with the birds’ songs, felt light and pleasant…
I felt much worse in the ward that I shared with four other boys. One of them, Igor Savchuk, was my age. By the way, we later became good friends. The other three were high school students, the kind of overgrown blockheads that teachers can’t wait to get rid of. That trio didn’t leave us in peace day or night. What happened in our ward is what they would call “hazing” in the army. We made their beds in the morning. When they washed themselves, we had to stand by and hand them their towels. We shuffled the cards when they played. We constantly experienced fear and tension but were afraid to complain. Once Igor refused to obey their order, and they beat him up. And Igor had bad kidneys. That’s when I couldn’t bear it any longer and went to see our registered nurse, Sveta. She had been friendly and attentive, and I decided that I could trust her.
“Why have you kept quiet?” Sveta was upset.
“Lousy bastards, they’ve also harassed the doctors. All right, I’ll get them… Don’t be afraid, they won’t bother you anymore.”
Sveta gave us injections twice a day. She used a thin needle and was very skillful, so it didn’t hurt at all. The next morning, when she came to our ward, she inserted the thickest needle into a syringe, the kind used to draw blood from a vein, and approached one of the blockheads.
“Bare your butt…”
And a hoarse cry sounded right away, “Ee-ee-yoo-oo!”
Now, I don’t think it was just the size of the needle because one could also choose a very painful spot.
Sveta’s treatment proved to be very appropriate. The blockheads came to the conclusion that they should leave Igor and me alone.
That’s how Nurse Sveta rescued us once. It was amazing how we met again five years later – she was Zoya’s relative and mother of the very girl Zoya wanted me to meet.
We chatted, reminisced, and laughed, and we no longer heard the music that had accompanied us as we walked from the gate to the house. As I suddenly turned around, I noticed a short thin girl leaning against the doorpost.
“Ella, why are you hiding? Come meet Valery,” Zoya said.
Ella came up to me and shook my hand, looking aside timidly. I turned out to be bolder and even made out the color of her eyes. They were brown… I liked her eyes, her short brown hair, and her supple slender figure. And I also liked her timidity – apparently, such modest girls were to my liking. Perhaps, since I had been prepared for a “romantic” encounter, I felt… well, that it was love at first sight. And a bit later, when Zoya talked Ella into returning to the piano, I couldn’t take my eyes off her hands.
She played –it seemed to me then – amazingly softly, tenderly, easily, as if barely touching the keys, as if just stroking them. And the sounds of the music – she was playing “The Moonlight Sonata” – were so special, flowing, really like the moonlight… I had never felt before what a magic sonata it was.
“Why did I quit playing? Why?” I thought, watching her hands with admiration and envy.
It had happened long before, as I was just starting first grade. One day, Mama came running home with news: they were enrolling new students at the music school on Yubileynaya, not far away, near the Spring store next to the library. So why shouldn’t we try to get in? Her suggestion didn’t make me happy, but Mama insisted.
The small corridor was crowded and stuffy. Parents and children hung about together, waiting to be summoned. I was mostly struck by how quiet it was. Some whispers were exchanged, but they were absolutely noiseless. The door to one of the rooms opened from time to time. Someone would come out, and a voice was heard: “Next, please.” Suddenly, Mama lightly shoved me toward the door, and she remained in the corridor. I was placed on a stool and given a pencil. A short woman with curly hair sat down across from me and said, “I’ll beat out a pattern, and you’ll repeat it. All right?”
I nodded and dangled my legs, which didn’t reach the floor.
“Tap, tap-tap-tap…” I repeated the first combination of beats effortlessly, and the second one. The third one seemed long and boring, but I repeated it as well. Then the curly-headed woman said, “All right… How about this one?”
What she beat out was even longer but more interesting. I heard a tune in it. I repeated it…
The curly-headed woman smiled. She turned around – I saw that there was another woman taking notes.
“Well done,” she said. “What’s your name? Valery? Well done, Valery. Would you like to study music? Call your mama…”
Mama was told that I had perfect rhythm, that I was admitted and that classes would start in a few days.
“Do you have a piano?” Mama was asked.
Not only didn’t we have a piano, but even paying the school ten rubles a month was a problem for our family. However, we found a way. There was a family in our building that allowed me to use their piano. Their daughter Lena had been studying music for a few years. She was about three years older than I, and I learned my scales and exercises with her help twice a week. Sometimes Lena’s mother, who was a professional musician, joined us and played something for her and our pleasure. That’s how my journey into the amazing world of music began. And I quickly grew fond of that world.
After ceding her seat at the piano to her mama, Lena stood behind her and put her hands on her mama’s shoulders. She moved her head to the rhythm of the tune and sometimes sang along very quietly. I listened and enjoyed it. No matter what Lena’s mother played – Beethoven sonatas, Chopin mazurkas and polonaises – I enjoyed everything, and the way she played. A wide shaft of light coming through the window fell on the keys and lit the pianist’s long nimble fingers. Shadows moved along the keys, “echoing” the music. All that together – the sound of the music, her fingers, the light and shadow on the keys – was magic.
I studied with pleasure, diligently, perhaps owing to that musical family. I received A’s and was praised, but unfortunately it didn’t last long, just about a year. Lena’s father, who was an army officer, retired and decided to move to Moscow. I was left without a piano and the friends who had been my patrons. I missed them, was lost and gave up my music studies soon after, though four years later, my parents talked me into going back to the music school. Strange as it might seem, everything that hadn’t required any special effort before came with great difficulty then. That annoyed me. Music lessons ceased to be festive occasions, and I left the school again, this time for good.
Fortunately, I still had a bent for music. Modern tunes and performers, famous rock groups captivated me. I didn’t even recall my unsuccessful “musical career.” I remembered it for the first time as I stood at the piano listening to the way Ella played.