And then Dad got somewhere a real bike for me. Yes, it was a second-hand machine but not a bike for ladies or some kind of “Eaglet” for grown-up kids.
One evening after his work, Dad even tried to teach me riding it in the Courtyard, but without his supporting hand behind the saddle, I would fall on one side if not on the other. Dad got weary of my clumsiness, he said, “Learn it yourself!” and went home.
In a couple of days, I could already ride the bike. However, I didn’t get the nerve to throw my leg over the saddle and perch up properly, instead, I passed my leg thru the frame and rode standing on the pedals, which caused the bike to run askew.
But then I got ashamed seeing a boy who, though younger than me, was not afraid to race along with his bike, step onto a pedal and flung the other leg over the saddle to the second pedal. His body length did not allow to use the saddle without losing touch with the pedals so turning them he rubbed his crotch against the frame which also served him for sitting upon with his left or right thigh, alternatively. On such a brave shortie’s background, riding the bike “under the frame” was quite a shame…
And at last, after so many tries and falls ending both with and without bruises or scratches, I did it! Wow! How swiftly carried me the bike above the ground, no one would ever catch up be they even running! And—most important—riding a bicycle was such an easy thing!
I rode it non-stop driving along the concrete walks in the Courtyard, orbiting its two wooden gazebos until, a bit warily, I steered out to the road of concrete slabs surrounding the two Gorka blocks…
Later, already as an expert rider, I started mastering the bikerobatics— “no-hand riding”, when you take your hands off the steer and pilot the bicycle by feeding your body weight to the side of your intended turn. And the bike understood and complied!.
Another achievement of that summer became keeping the eyes open when under the water.
The dam where I once slipped off the slab was restored to bring about a wide bathing pool which attracted numerous beach-goers.
Among us, boys, the favorite game in the water was “spotting” where the “it” should catch up with and touch anyone of the fleeing players. Your speed when walking thru the water is slower than that of fleeing swimmers so you have also to swim which reduces your visibility. Besides, a player can take a dive and sharply turn down there, so it’s hard to guess where he’d re-emerge for a breather. Ever before, when plunging in the water, I firmly closed my eyes but that way you cannot catch a glimpse of flicking white heels that kick full ahead underwater.
True enough, in the ever-present yellowish twilight beneath the surface, you can’t see very far, yet sounds there turn more crisp and clear if you are sitting and knock, say, two gravels against each other, possibly because the water cuts off all unrelated noises. However, you cannot sit underwater for a long time— the air in your lungs pulls you up to the surface and there’s no other way to resist the upping but use your hands for counter-rawing which makes you drop the gravels…
~ ~ ~
Our parents’ leaves did not coincide that summer so they went for their vacations in turn. First, Dad visited his native village of Kanino in the Ryazan Region. He took me with him there, but strictly warned beforehand that on the way I should not ever tell anyone that we lived at the Atomic Object.
At the station of Bologoye, we had a long wait for the train to Moscow. Leaving me seated on our suitcase in the station waiting room, Dad went to punch the tickets. On a nearby bench, a girl was sitting with an open book in her lap. I got up and neared the girl to look in the book over her shoulder. It was The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne.
I read a couple of paragraphs of the familiar lines I liked so much. She kept reading and didn’t pay any attention to me standing behind the bench back. I wanted to speak up to her, but I did not know what to say. That that was a good book? That I had also read it?
While I was looking for the right words to say, her adults came and announced that their train was arriving. They grabbed their trunks and went out to the platform to board the train. She never looked back…
Then my Dad returned with the punched tickets. At my request, he bought me a book from a bookstall about a Hungarian boy who later became a youth and fought against the Austrian invaders to his homeland. When the ping-ponging echo from the PA loudspeaker announced the arrival of our train, we went out to the platform. A ten-or-so-year-old boy passed by.
“See?” said Dad to me. “That’s what poverty is!”
I looked after the boy who walked away, and noticed the rough patches in the back of his pants…
In Moscow, we arrived the next morning. I wanted to see the Capital of our Homeland from its very beginning and kept asking when Moscow would, at last, start, until the conductor said that we were in the city already. But behind the pane in the car’s window, there were running the same shabby log huts as at the stations of Valdai, only much more of them and closer to each other, and they did not want to end in any way. And only when our train pulled in under the high arc of the station roof, I believed that it was Moscow.
We went on foot to the other station which was very close. There Dad again punched the tickets but that time we had to wait until evening for the train, so he handed the suitcase over to the storage room and we boarded an excursion bus going to the Kremlin.
Inside the Kremlin walls, they warned that we shouldn’t take any pictures whatsoever. Dad had to demonstrate there was no camera in the leather case hanging from his shoulder but his homemade radio which they allowed to keep, only now I had to carry it on.
There were white-walled houses in the Kremlin and dark Fir-trees, but too few, although thick-trunked and tall.
The excursion was brought to the Czar Bell with its chopped out wall. It happened when the Czar Bell fell from the belfry and couldn’t ring ever since, which is a pity. And when we came to the Czar Cannon, I instantly climbed the pile of the large polished cannonballs under her nose and shoot my head into the muzzle. It looked like insides of a huge pipe with lots of dust on the circular wall.
“Whose kid is that?! Take him away!!” cried some man outside the cannon, running up from the nearest Fir-tree.
Dad admitted that I was his and, until we left the Kremlin, he had to hold me by the hand, though the day was hot.
When the bus returned to the railway station, Dad said that he needed to buy a watch, although he did not have much money. So, we entered a store where there were lots of different watches under the glass in the counter top, and Dad asked me which one to buy. Remembering his complaint that he was short of money, I pointed at the cheapest— for 7 rubles, but Dad did not accept and bought an expensive wristwatch— for 25….
In the village of Kanino, we lived in the log hut of Grandma Martha, made up of one large room with 2 windows opposite the wide-and-tall Russian stove.
Behind the hut, there was a lean-to of logs attached to it. The windowless lean-to was empty, strewn with stray wisps of old hay, and smelled of dust. There I found three books: a historical novel about the general Bagration in the war of 1812 against Napoleonic invasion, a long story of how they established the Soviet rule among the Indians in the Chukchi Peninsula chasing the Whites in dog sleds, and The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
Once, my Dad’s brother and sister came to visit, they both lived in the same village but were too busy at the collective farm, kolkhoz. Grandma Martha cooked a round yellow omelet for the occasion; I don’t remember the meals on other days…