Among other things, I had to take down the tulle curtain, that very curtain behind which Grandma usually hid as she examined the yard. I stood on the chair near the window, trying to remove that damned curtain from under the cornice as Grandma sat nearby, her short legs slightly spread, moaning very mournfully, demonstrating how tired she was and, at the same time, watching my work vigilantly to prevent me from tearing the tulle, which was old but well preserved and beautiful. And the tulle actually was in danger. A nail was sticking out of the wall near the cornice, and either I had made a careless movement or something else had happened, but the tulle had gotten caught on the nail, and I couldn’t unhook it. It would be easy to pull it, but to unhook it without tearing it was not an easy thing to do. I was tense, I became confused, my hands grew numb, the chair creaked menacingly – it was Grandpa’s chair – every time I moved, but the curtain remained caught. At last, after performing an almost acrobatic maneuver and almost falling off the chair, I managed to get it off the nail.
“Djoni bivesh!” Even when Grandma praised me, she didn’t forget to remind me about her fatigue and suffering. Her eyes radiated all that with such expressiveness that it seemed she wouldn’t be able to get off the chair without help. As soon as I jumped to the floor with the curtain in my hands, Grandma said, in a businesslike manner:
“We’ll wash and dry everything today.” And she stood up, groaning.
I, by the way, very much enjoyed watching how the tulle was dried. Long, almost four-meter-wide wooden frames with hundreds of little nails attached to them were brought to the yard. The edges of the curtains were attached to them precisely, centimeter by centimeter. Tulle curtains dried this way ended up completely flat, as if they had just been bought. All the curtains in the house were usually washed once a year, before Passover. Our yard, filled with frames to which tulle curtains covered with floral designs and decorative patterns were attached, looked like an exhibition of folk art.
Now, Grandma’s curtain, looking younger and prettier, was back on the window as if participating in the festivities.
There was noisy and merry argument at the table.
“Where is it? Where’s the matzo?” Akhun yelled. “Haven’t you noticed? You gawkers!”
“I saw Yura go to the yard!” Ilya shouted.
“I most certainly did not!” Yura protested indignantly.
It seemed that this time he had nothing to do with it, but Yura had such a bad reputation that no one believed him.
“It was him! He did it! Let’s go to the yard!” Yasha continued to yell.
Dinner was over. The men got up, rattling the chairs. We all headed for the yard after each of us had picked up a white towel from where they were piled, one on top of another, on Grandpa’s bed. Grandpa continued to read the Haggadah loudly, as if giving his blessing to our feats.
Night had fallen while we had been feasting. The full moon lit our old yard in its spring splendor. Gentle pinkish flowers covered every branch of the apricot tree from top to bottom. The flowers on the upper branches got lost in the dark but shone eerily and enchantingly on the lower ones. A delicate intoxicating smell surrounded the tree like a cloud.
But we were not in the mood to admire flowers. Another Passover amusement was about to begin.
I don’t know how this custom, which isn’t mentioned in any of the canons, became a part of the festivities, but in our family, apparently just as in the families of other Bukharan Jews, the search for the afikoman turned into a battle between the adults and the children. Towels with a knot tied at the end served as our weapons.
“So, where did you hide it?” Ilya drew back his hand with the towel and whacked Yura on the back. Ilya was a strong guy, and a towel with a knot isn’t exactly a harmless weapon. Yura replied in kind. Akhun fought with Robert. I managed to smack Uncle Misha, but I also got it on the shoulders. We jumped up, ran from one place to another, yelled and laughed loudly. Our shadows rushed over the ground. The towels flashed in the moonlight. Yes, we were absolutely not like a peaceful urban family in those moments. We most likely resembled our ancient militant ancestors who had fought for their place under the sun.
“I found it! I found it!!” Yura’s ecstatic shout rang out. It turned out that it wasn’t he but Yasha who had hidden the matzo in the oven in the kitchen. Only Yura had the good sense to check there. The triumphant winner demanded a reward. Sweaty, excited and merry, we all burst into the house.
And there, in the bedroom, our patriarch with his gray beard continued reading the Haggadah loudly in a singsong voice to the empty table. It seemed that he hadn’t even noticed our leaving or coming back.
All the prayers of the first Seder had to be read to the end.
Chapter 46. Little Jew
Silence can absolutely be different. It’s not the same in the forest as it is in a field. It’s not the same at sea, even when it’s calm, as it is near a river. It is very special in the mountains and even in an empty apartment. Have you ever listened to the silence of a deserted school after classes?
I stood at the window in the corridor across from the door to our classroom. The long corridor ran into the distance, its polished floor shining. There was neither a soul nor a sound here or on the stairs.
Not a sound… The school was usually filled with the stomping of feet, shouts and laughter during recesses. Even when classes were in session, the loud voices of teachers, the hubbub of children’s voices, the creaking of desks could be heard from the corridor. A ball might be heard hitting the floor in the gym if basketball was being played there. If someone ran up the stairs, the footsteps were so resonant that they echoed in the corridor.
But now, stillness was everywhere. And I could hear it.
When neither noise nor rattling are heard, it doesn’t mean it’s actually quiet. Even stillness has its own voice, and it sounds different in different places. It’s not easy to describe.
Not that I could describe it then. I didn’t even think about it. I just stood there listening. And I felt good. I liked the school the way it was: silent, free from bustle, from nervous strain, from unpleasant anticipation, “Yuabov, to the blackboard!” It was as if the school were resting, and yet it enveloped me with something inimitably familiar.
I stood at the window, and the radiator sent warm air my way. Outside was the bitter freezing February weather with its penetrating wind. The snow in the schoolyard had frozen. It had almost become ice, trampled by hundreds of feet. All its unevenness, the rises and hollows, even the small area cleared of snow seemed like a degraded mountain landscape over which I had a bird’s eye view from the fourth-floor window. There were peaks, gorges and glens divided by a frozen river that cut through it all like a winding black ribbon.
Looking beyond that miniature landscape, I could see a truly boundless panorama: the outskirts of town and beyond them the road running toward the hills, to the spurs of the Tian Shan. Their snow-covered peaks, behind which the crimson ball of the sun was disappearing, stood out against the clear blue sky. It went down until only a small part of it, a crimson crescent, could be seen.
A tiny airplane suddenly rushed up toward the peaks, as if in pursuit of it. It had taken off from the military airdrome at the foot of the mountains. It seemed so small from here but was etched clearly against the sky with its sharp predatory nose. Perhaps it was a MIG-29, a new secret airplane. Such planes had begun to take off from the airdrome recently.
The MIG shone in the rays of the setting sun for a couple of minutes. Then the sun disappeared, and the plane vanished…
Just in time I looked down and saw a familiar figure. She was Yulia Pavlovna Mekhreghina, our geography teacher, on her way to school.