by Ilana Cohen
In the houses they lived in, there were Japanese structures the banished inhabitants had left behind. The structures had sharply slanting roofs so the snow would slide off easily. The soldiers dug a pathway in the snow for them. Little Alex carefully walked on it with little steps so as not to slide, marching in front of his mother, because the pathway was especially narrow, just wide enough for a single person to pass through it. Six feet tall walls of snow towered on both sides, enclosing the pathway. All he could see was a narrow strip of blue sky above him, and now and then he would turn back to take a look, making sure his mother, covered by a wool kerchief, was still walking behind him.
The pilot wives in the base were bored to death while their husbands were drafted to perform military operations. They adopted the habit of meeting once a week. They rented a bus and everyone, mothers and their children, would drive to the market in the nearby village, about thirty miles away. They took everything they could spare from the house, anything that might sell at the market: Surpluses of cans imported from the national republic of China, preserved meat, preserved milk, various porridges they fed the children with and the chickens that ran around in their yards. Alex’s chickens lay beautiful and delicious eggs after they had devoured baby porridge.
Equipped thus with merchandise from home, they travelled to offer it for sale at the fishing village market. To one village woman, they gave a tin of preserved meat in return for a live chicken. From another, they received a large sack of potatoes in return for a few bags of porridge. Preserved milk was traded for salted fish, packets of butter for a jar of caviar covered with ice and fresh bread. The two-pound chocolate balls were handed to the village women as bonuses, so they’d be pleased by the deals they’d made.
The pilots’ families didn’t lack good food in the island of Sakhalin. In Alex’s family’s home, there were always plenty of foodstuffs and plenty of food. At the entrance to the kitchen stood a large wooden barrel, always filled with dried fish. The kitchen shelves were always packed with jars of caviar and jam, and steamed fish was always served for lunch. Vera forced little Alex to drink fish oil before bed. Castor oil, disgusting in the extreme, a thick and foul smelling liquid that was vomited from his mouth almost as soon as it had entered it. He tried with all his might, made an effort to please his hysterical mother, but all his attempts were in vain. It proved to be an impossible mission for him, even though he tried as hard as he could. The moment the disgusting liquid would enter his mouth, he spat it out immediately. Even when he tried to swallow and drink lots of water later, he threw everything up, along with anything he had eaten that day. It was an atrocious nightmare, but his mother wouldn’t give up and he was never able to please her. She forcefully shoved the spoon into his mouth. At the end of the daily struggle, the little child would fall asleep or faint on the bed with exhaustion. “His heroic father” would run out of the house into the night, apparently unable to witness his son’s great suffering.
Many times, Alex didn’t want to return home toward evening. He would roam outside till late in the evening, then fall asleep in a hideout he had found on a tree. He was like a hunted animal. The entire world became engulfed by a thick greenish cloud of castor oil vapors, which evaporated with the suffering tears and vomit of the children of the fifties. It was the satanic nutritional discovery of their parents who had witnessed firsthand the great hunger of the Second World War.
Various events took place in the islands of Sakhalin, in which the air force base would contribute to the local people. The ocean around the shores would freeze during the winters, and the fishermen were forced to go fishing far into the ice. They drew several dozen feet away from the shore to areas where it was likely to find fish, dug holes in the ice and cast their nets in them. Many times, the ocean water would spill from the holes and soften the ice the fishermen were standing on. The islands of Sakhalin were under constant attack of strong and sudden winds, and then the sea would turn stormy and overflow with wild waves. It sometimes happened that the stormy waves would tear a piece of the ice the fishermen were standing on, and within seconds they were all swept away into the open sea, and people who were on the shore ran in panic to the base to call for the soldier’s help.
“Help! Help!”
Their calls for assistance could be heard everywhere. The base entered a state of high alert, they all joined in performing the important mission. Pilots, guards, laborers, doctors and medics – they all ran to the shore to help and support the fishermen families. Apparently, comrade Stalin wasn’t updated about the occurrences in the base, because he never would have approved putting “Douglas” cargo aircraft in the air just to save fishermen lives. During those times, there weren’t any helicopters yet. The small cargo aircraft that the Germans had left behind had remained as war booty. The allied armies had given them to the Russians as a present. The small planes transported merchandise and spare parts for the large fighter jets to the base. The pilots directed rescue boats from the air to the place in which the fishermen had been located. They stood on the iceberg that had been carried out to sea and called for help desperately. The pilots quickly threw down blankets and alcohol to the wet fishermen, so they would not freeze to death. After the fishermen had been safely returned to shore, the women of the village and the base would hurry to the kitchen and cook. They brought all the warm food and medicine in their possession to the survivors’ houses.
Yes, in the island of Sakhalin there were romantic moments as well, moments in which people would gather round the burning fire in one of the survivor’s warmed up huts. The elders told stories while everyone else drank sweet, warm tea till the late hours of the night. It had all taken place in the Far East, in the middle of nowhere, and the snow would cover it all, over and over, each and every night.
** ** ** **
The most sought after merchandise in the market was preserved milk. No amount of merchandise brought to the market could satisfy the fishermen’s wives demand for it. On market mornings, Alex would go with his friends to the base’s warehouse where he would load cartons of preserved milk boxes on skis, then carried them to the bus that drove him and his friends with their mothers to the fishing village market.
“The fishermen love drinking our preserved milk that much?” he naively asked his mother.
“You are a silly boy,” Vera scolded him as usual. “We bring preserved milk to the bears, to satisfy their great craving following their hibernation, so they won’t devour our fish and caviar.”
During the salmon fish breeding season, huge salmon-eating bears would reach the area, with the desired caviar still fresh in their bellies. A stream with shallow water crossed the village, and while the fish were swimming and lay their eggs in it, the place became an attraction for everyone. Children and adults alike would look at the stream where waters bubbled like a constant boiling. Fish that had arrived from the sea swam in it in a frenzy, rubbing their bellies against the pebbles and laying their eggs. The males showed up later and sprayed their sperm on the eggs. A short while following the only sexual activity of their lives, the salmon fish would lose their red color and expire. In order to produce caviar from salmon fish, one needed to capture them before they would manage to lay their eggs in the stream between the pebbles. The bears emerged from the forests as well, in order to eat the salmon. In the spring, following their hibernation, they were extremely hungry. They needed to accumulate fat again and make up for what they had lost during their hibernation period. They looked for the real thing with the fishermen, live food, nutritious and delicious. They competed with the fishermen in hunting for fish, but the latter had managed to outsmart the large forest animals. The fishermen of the island of Sakhalin had violated the laws of nature by throwing preserved milk boxes to the bears, before they would manage to reach the river. The tin boxes they would throw at them glinted in the sun and the bears played with them. They stuck their large claws into the boxes, and the thick yellowish milk abundantly poured from it. The bea
rs gleefully licked the rich sweet milk. In their efforts to empty the boxes, they forgot all about the fish, still carrying the eggs in their bellies, and left them to the fishermen.
Alex and his friends would also participate in the great neighborhood fishing operation. Equipped with a large stick, they went to the bubbling stream, beat the large fish on their heads until they would faint, roll on their backs and float on the surface of the water. More than once, they would miss the head and hit the fish’s body then the fish would quickly recuperate and continue with its wild swimming. They took the unconscious fish out of the water and impaled them with the large stick they had brought with them, from their fins to their gaping mouths, it was the only way that they could carry them on their shoulders and take them back home. The fish heads were close to the children’s heads and the tails swept the pathway they marched on. At home, their mothers cut the salmon’s fat bellies and transformed the precious booty into jars of fine caviar.
Chapter 7
The New City
The family relocated to Krasnoyarsk in the early sixties. When Alex was eight years old, his little sister was born. Vera had received the position of chief engineer in a new weapons factory in the area. They received residence in an apartment on the east bank of the Yenisei River. It was the start of a new building method, and the eight-story building in which they resided had been the first one to be built from bricks and mortar. Most residents were of the proletariat. During the self-righteous communist era, the terms “homeless” and “felons” did not exist. Such common people were simply called “the proletariat”, a name favored by the authorities.
They all lived in temporary earth-bound constructions, about six hundred and fifty feet long with entrances on both sides of the buildings. On the other hand, on the west bank of the Yenisei river, the heart of the city had been constructed, with hospitals, schools and a gymnasium with a swimming pool and an ice rink Alex would later visit each day after school, when he played hockey for the youth team.
These were the industrial and developmental time in Siberia and throughout Russia. Various research institutes opened next to the new factories and provided proper employment for educated people and people of the free professions: Doctors, teachers and engineers – most of them Jewish. The concentration of Jews had aroused anti-Semitism on the western bank, and Vera refused to live in the neighborhood of the snobbish Jews.
The eastern bank was inhabited by laborer families, and Alex’s family didn’t suffer from anti-Semitism problems like the educated ones in the west bank had to suffer. They were different from the other neighbors, first of all because of their last name which the Russians had found difficult to pronounce. Some rough characters resided in the building, and surprisingly enough, they had all became Vera’s friends. Neighbors would visit their family’s house to see Vera who was an impressive young woman.
“Vera Rosengardova, please help us,” the male neighbors knocked on their door with various odd requests.
“If you please, Madam, I ask you to loan us three rubles. You know, it’s still a week before payday, and we already ran out of money in the house. I have three children to feed and nothing to buy bread for my poor little darlings,” they kissed her hand and asked politely.
Vera dug into her pockets and donated with great generosity, complying with their requests without asking any questions. Everything was well and good until she met the neighbor’s wife, who was very frustrated with her.
“Vera Rosengardova, how could you do something like this to me? Giving money to my husband, to that drunk pig. What do you think he did with the money? Did he buy bread for the children? Of course not, he went to drink vodka, the swine, and wasted it all!”
At the end of the month, the heroic neighbor returned to visit the Rosengard family’s house, but this time Vera lectured him and told him things he had not expected to hear.
“It doesn’t work that way, I’m not going to give you any money, bring your wife with you and we’ll talk.”
Anyone who would approach her received an educational crash course. Russian felons did not give her any attitude but listened to her quietly, with their heads lowered, and it appeared that they obeyed her authoritative voice like little children.
“I gave you money so you would buy food for the children, and what have you done? You bought alcohol, got drunk and beat up your wife as well? You’ve left your children with their bellies empty! This is not going to work. Bring your wife, she’s the only one I’ll talk to, not you!”
Alex was proud of his wise mother who contributed both money and morals to the community. Surprisingly enough, the man did return with his wife. This time, Vera gave them five rubles – one ruble for vodka, and four rubles to the wife to buy food for her children.
The men in the building loved and respected Vera and openly protected her, safeguarded her from their friends, the other felons in the neighborhood. In the building in which the Rosengard family dwelled, lived some pretty rough characters. Alex had the honor of knowing their children; he went to school with them and played with them on the street. They conducted many bloody battles on the way home from school. There was always some psycho that would challenge him and try his hand against him. He was the smallest of the group, but very quickly taught them a lesson, that he was not one to mess with. He was different from them, but stronger and crazier than all of them. In the end, they accepted him, and he was always welcome in their houses.
At the end of the fifties, Krasnoyarsk ran out of food. The vast Russia had shrunk to include only Moscow, the capital, and the great Leningrad, the beautiful and cold. Food had rarely arrived to the far off Siberia – out of sight, out of the rulers’ minds. A world power that had conquered space and other countries ignited wars throughout the world, but left its own citizens hungry.
The nine-year old Alex used to get up early in the morning. In the darkness and cold, he ran to the store before going to school to bring home some milk and fresh rolls. He wanted to please his mother who had just given birth to a baby girl, his little sister. The mission he had undertaken was far from being simple. He would run in the barren streets in the midst of darkness and cold to be first in line in front of the neighborhood grocery store, which was still closed.
In the years in which they had lived in the military base, they never lacked food. The pilots’ families were assured of a steady supply of quality food. They were in the eastern front of Stalin’s superpower, guarding mother Russia from the great American enemy.
A small child standing in front of the line before the closed store was easy prey for the elderly people who arrived after him and immediately pushed him to the end. It sometimes happened that when the store finally opened, a muscular thug would appear. “Kid, well done, thanks for standing in line and saving a spot for me, now you can get out of here.” Little Alex was pushed outside unmercifully and found himself standing at the end of the endless line.
In spite of all his efforts to get up as early as possible to be first in line for food, there was nothing left for him when he reached the store counter – no buns and not even a single milk bottle. They told him nothing at home, Vera understood, but who could stop children from inventing patents when they’re hungry? That’s what Alex had done. He had found a way to bring home fresh food. He calculated and realized he should go to the grocery store toward eight o’clock, the time in which a truck with fresh supplies would arrive. This way, he even got to sleep two more hours. That's exactly what he had done. He would arrive late, when the line was already so long its end could not be seen, approached the truck driver and offered his generous assistance in unloading the merchandise.
“You, kid? We need to carry very large boxes, and you’re still just a little child,” answered the truck driver with a surprised expression.
“I can do anything, you’ll see,” the little one declared with pride and started to drag boxes of yogurt he had taken off the truck and placed on the road.
“How did
you get all this food?” his mother was surprised when he brought home the best merchandise that had arrived to the city that morning.
That’s the way he was. Even when he was a child, he learned that if he wanted to get things, he needed to work hard and do everything by himself.
He saved every penny his mother had given him to buy lunch at the school dining room. Instead of buying the disgusting meal that was cooked there for the children, he went to the market, where Georgian merchants would bring fruit and vegetables from the country’s warmer climate areas. He approached a stall with beautiful large apples, and poured all the coins he had tightly held in his fist into the large hand of the man behind the apple pile. In return, the merchant took out a single large apple and handed it to Alex.
“That’s not enough!” objected the little one.
“What do you mean not enough?”
“I have a small sister that I’m going to take home from kindergarten, give me an apple for her as well.”
“You don’t have enough money for two apples, kid.”
“So cut it in half, you think I’m going to eat by myself while my little sister will only watch me?” Alex had managed to impress the Georgian apple merchant in the Krasnoyarsk market. He took out another apple from the pile and handed it to him.
“Take another apple for your sister, you little merchant.”
Throughout the day, their parents were at work, and the apartments were governed by the children. “Hey, Alex, come to our place in about an hour, I’m inviting you, friend. We’re arranging a crazy party, we have girls coming as well, we’re going to have a wild time. You’ll see what a real party is, kid. You’ve never been to a party like this one!” A thirteen-year old classmate, a next door neighbor, invited Alex to a social drinking party, which would normally end in an orgy or with one of the girls being gang-raped. He had heard everything through the thin walls that separated the apartments. One quiet afternoon, while he was doing his homework, he heard the sound of a great commotion coming from next door, the sound of girls laughing and screaming and of glasses shattering. The girls participated in the debauchery parties and had taken an active and interesting part in them, but Alex always refused to participate. He always had a convincing reason: “I don’t have time for you, guys, once I finish my homework I need to run to the municipal stadium.” Those days, he had just started to play hockey for the newly formed youth team, next to the large weapons factory in which Vera was working.