I Have a Brother Named Zyama
CHAPTER 5
I
must have already mentioned that Zyama was born a year and nine
months after me, on the 23rd of June 1916. Here in this picture
he is about 2 years' old. The picture was taken in Crimea in 1918. Mother wrote on the back of the picture: "To dear Frieda
from Zyama". Frieda received the picture when living in
Moscow. I took the original from Zyama in order to make a copy of
it. Zyama was born during our "refugee"
period in Vologda, where we had moved from Vitebsk. Tusya and
Benno were inseparable and so were Zyama and I. Therefore, the expressions
"Tusya and Benno" and "Lyuba and Zyama" became
every-day expressions at home. From the age of 5 and until I was
about 9 I used to look after Zyama: I looked after him and tried
to teach him whatever I had already learned by myself. For example,
I tried to teach him how to button his trousers and how to pronounce
the letter "r". (I learned how to pronounce it correctly
only at the age of 6. I shall write about that later. ) Yet, sometimes
it happened that I felt like teasing him. He was a small and a weak
child for his age. Sometimes, because of some childish cruelty,
I started running away from him and he found it very difficult to
keep up with me. He even cried. I cannot understand what was the
source of this cruelty. After such incidents I felt very sorry for
him and kept kissing and hugging him. Later when I grew up I felt
very much ashamed of myself.
We also had some very funny fights: I preferred pinching and he
was better at scratching. I used to "torment" Zyama during
these fights. I kept saying: "You can beat me and scratch me
and bite me!", but did not run away, showing that I can stand
the paint. He kept attacking me, but I did not run. Why? I don't
know. True, these fights were rare enough. We simply could not live
without one another and I used to tell Zyama all my secrets (which
he promptly revealed as he obviously did not understand that they
were secrets).
…I suddenly remembered something else I wanted to mention. When
I grew up a little I found myself becoming upset because Zyama and
I had sometimes quarreled and even fought. I was not only upset
by this but I even felt ashamed. (I had this feeling once again
when I was 13, in a very different situation, but more about that
later). So, I started thinking how could we avoid such quarrels
and came up with the following idea. I made an agreement with Zyama:
whenever we start fighting about something one of us must remember
that it is wrong to quarrel and that we should stop it. Whoever
will think of it first has to say "Miaow!" (which meant
that we shall make peace and be as friendly as two kittens). The
method proved to work like magic. We used to say "Miaow!"
and it was a signal for the quarrel to stop and for a peaceful change.
From a very early age Zyama was a friendly and a cheerful child. When he got a bit older, at the age of 3 or 4, he always said amusing
things and some of his "statements" remained part of the
family history. There were lots of Zyama's funny sayings, but I
remember only a few. One of them was "for later, for tomorrow". Despite the fact that through all his life Zyama never showed any
trace of a sense of ownership, he was quite a stingy child when
he was little. Maybe because these were years marked by hunger and
there was very little of anything at the time, but when we were
given breakfast or supper and Zyama (who was about 3 then) could
not finish some food, he would never allow anyone else to finish
it. He kept saying : "This is for later" or "This
is for tomorrow". He also used to check whether the food had
been put aside for him. As a result, the phrase "for later,
for tomorrow" came to signify being stingy. Following all this
someone called Zyama "Plyushkin!". Zyama loved the unfamiliar
word, or rather name, and he kept repeating it again and again and
laughed away happily. Who knows why he loved it so much. (Plyushkin
is a character in Gogol's "Dead Souls" who keeps collecting
all sorts of odds and ends that he comes across "just in case
they might be needed later" – Tr. )
Another of Zyama's phrases that became part of the
family folklore, (by now used by the younger generations too) was:
"Do we come to your place or what?" This is how it came
about. At that time we were living in Crimea, somewhere between
Alupka and Yalta, "above Sarra" (more about that later). We lived on the second floor of a house, while the couple owning
the house lived on the ground floor. There was an outside staircase
that connected our floor with that of the owners. The owners, Victor
Stepanovich and Anastasiya Ivanovna, were very nice to us, children,
and often, when we came to visit, they offered us all sorts of treats. We even sometimes drank cocoa there, a great rarity in those days. One morning Zyama got up and said: "I dreamt that we have been
invited to Victor Stepanovich. What do you think, should I go down?"
"I don't know, - I said, - ask them!" Zyama went outside,
sat down on the top step of the outer staircase, waited until Victor
Stepanovich came in sight and shouted: "Do we come to your
place or what?!" Everybody laughed and we were invited to come
down. Thus, the formula for inviting ourselves to visit someone
was known at home as "do we come to your place or what". I see Zyama sitting on that top step of the staircase as clearly
as if it happened yesterday.
And there was also "too few dishes". This also took place
"above Sarra". The food was not always plentiful those
days and one day, at dinner or at supper, there were not too many
dishes on the table. Zyama screwed up his little face, said slowly:
'Too few dishes here!" and started crying. Everyone burst out
laughing and tried to make him stop crying. The expression remained
part of the family folklore and decades later, when the food on
the table was not too fancy, someone at the table pronounced in
a slow and disappointed voice: 'too few dishes here!" Or Mother
simply told us before dinner: "Tonight we shall have too few
dishes here!" Thus, Zyama's sayings were remembered by everyone
in the family….
Here is another little story connected with Zyama, this time an
almost tragic one. It had also remained in the family history. Zyama
must have been almost 3 at the time. We were living in Alupka, Crimea,
(before having moved "above Sarra"). The control of the
area kept changing from the "whites" to the "reds"
and back again and each change of rule led to a new wave of searches,
arrests and shootings. One day a group of military (I don't remember
whether they were "reds" or "whites") came to
us to conduct a search. While they were looking through our things
one of them asked little Zyama: "Does your dad have a thing
like that?" Zyama replied very confidently: "Yes, he does!"
And what was the thing he was shown? A gun. The search party looked
for a gun for a long time and found nothing. Father was "taken
away": arrested and driven away somewhere. I remember that
time as a terrible and a depressing period in our family history. Mother used to go out daily to see all sorts of officials or others
in order to beg them to intervene on Father's behalf. She came home
tired and left again. I do not remember how long all this lasted,
two months or two weeks, but somehow she succeeded in securing Father's
release. The next morning Father put on his pince-nez, pointed its
case at Zyama and said: Boom-boom!", just as he used to do
every morning. And suddenly everyone realized why Zyama was so sure
that Father had a gun, why he was so confident about saying it. This could have cost Father his life: the times were tough and no-one
cared much about people who had been arrested. It was really a miracle
that Father had survived this incident. And it all started with
a little joke which Father invented to amuse little Zyama who later
nearly "betrayed" him.
I shall tell more about Zyama's early childhood when I will write
the family history in a chronological order because our childhood
went along parallel lines.
Zyama learned to read when he was 6 and later, when he was a young
man, he kept teasing me that even though I had learned to read when
I was 3, he still read much more and more quickly than I had. At
the age of 9 to 11 he read a lot, partly because he was often sick
and had to stay in bed a lot. His illness had something to do with
his lungs. Mother fed him raw vegetables, nearly raw meat and barely
fried liver. He also had to eat garlic and nuts. He needed fresh
air, so the window in his room was left open.
Zyama's reading differed from mine. I remember we used to borrow
books from a private library "Shneider & Shir" on
Dzirnavu St, between Leona Paegle St. and Gorky St. Zyama used to
go through the large and thick catalogues and chose numerous books
by one author ( Mayne Reid, Jules Verne and others) and only then
borrowed books by another author. I could not do that. (I did manage
to read all the books by L. Charskaya). I was always amazed by Zyama's
"stable" interest in his choice of books. I think Mother
taught him that. She also taught him arithmetic, managed to get
him interested in geography and bought him the well-known encyclopedia
published by Brockhaus and Ephron. When we all left home Zyama rightfully
received the encyclopedia into his possession and kept it until
the beginning of the war. The bookcase specially ordered when the
encyclopedia was bought was later "divided" into two and
it survived long after the war ended…
For many years Zyama was a short and thin boy and he grew taller
much later, when he was a young man. During certain years, when
I was considered a "grown-up" and he was still considered
"little", we did not have much to do with each other,
but when he grew up and we both started taking part in underground
activity, our lives were again running along each other.
Zyama joined the underground later than I but he did not join the
Komsomol, as I did. He became active in Krasnaya Pomoshch (Red Help,
a sort of a Red Cross organization for political prisoners – Tr. )
and the MOPR (the International Society for Assistance to Revolutionaries
– Tr. ) same as Benno. (The choice of joining this or that section
of the Communist underground was often quite accidental in those
days). I knew that Zyama was active in the underground and he knew
that about me, but we never discussed it. We did have a secret place
(and a very good one too!) where we used to hide out illegal stuff. I think it was Benno who showed Zyama that place.
I remember one incident from Zyama's underground activity history. He came home late one night and Tusya noticed that the lining of
his coat was all smeared in red paint. Everyone at home was well
aware of what was going on and, of course, we all tried to find
out where did Zyama get the paint and what he needed it for, even
though it was clear enough that he was doing "practical work",
i. e. that he was painting slogans on city houses or was involved
in printing something. However, Zyama did not admit a thing and
kept repeating that he "just bought some red ink and it got
spilled in the coat pocket". Even though everyone understood
what had happened and Zyama realized that, he still kept repeating
his version of the events and did not admit a thing. This was what
conspiracy rules were all about.
In the summer of 1937, when Iren was born, Zyama stayed with me
at the "dacha". It was then that he started calling me
"little girl" (I still don't know why) and little by little
he turned from a younger brother into an older one. He still calls
me that and many people think that he is indeed older; after all
he now has grey hair and I do not!
When Iren was a little baby it took him time to get used to her:
he found it strange that I have a child. Yet, he loved her dearly
and kept making up little ditties for her. …When at the age of 4
or 6 weeks Iren started to cry, Zyama did all sorts of tricks to
calm her down and sang the little songs he made up for her. In
the same year 1937 Zyama got married. Here, in this photo Sasha,
Zyama and Fanya are with little Iren on the beach in Dzintari,
where I lived then. I had Iren's hair shaved off because it was
supposed to be good for their growth. Zyama, Sasha and Fanya came
to visit us. At the time when the Soviet rule was established
in Latvia, Zyama was in Elgava, doing his practical training as
a chemistry student at the Riga State University. I did not mention
it earlier that Zyama had graduated from high-school by a correspondence
course because he had been expelled from his last year in high-school. He was accused of having participated in "disturbances"
that took place at his school following the scattering of some leaflets
there. Zyama was accused of having "hit a teacher on the head
with a key" (the teacher was planning to call in the police). Zyama denied the charge and persisted in denying it, but he was
nevertheless expelled. Mother again did her rounds, visiting the
relevant officials, appealing that Zyama be allowed to sit for his
high-school examinations despite the expulsion. This was 1933 and
the pro-Fascist government was not yet in power, so it became possible
to obtain such permission. Zyama did well in all his exams, of course.
He succeeded in entering the University only on his second attempt
(we both did not get sufficiently high marks in Latvian composition
when we applied for the first time). Once he became a student he
did very well. Thus, the events of 1940 found him at some chemical
factory in Elgava, doing practical training. He quickly joined the
Komsomol activities and become some kind of a "big wig"
in the regional committee. After a while he came back to Riga and
started working in the newspaper "Jaunais Komunars". He
even asked me once to write an article about the Young Pioneers
movement. This is how Zyama became a journalist. Then
the war started. I don't remember how he managed to leave Riga,
how he reached Gorokhovets, the town where the Latvian Division
of the Soviet Army was formed, and how he was sent to the front. I received his first letter from the army much later, somewhere
in October 1941, when I was living in a "sovkhoz" in the
Yaroslavl district. Zyama was a private, then he became a "politruk"
(someone in charge of political instruction) and later he started
working in the army newspaper "Latvieshu Strelnieks". Here Zyama was photographed in 1944. He sent me the original
picture, a much smaller one, from the army. This enlarged one was
used much later when he wrote an article for the book "Reiz
Celas Strelnlieks Sarkanais" ("Once a Red Guard Rose").
During all the war years Zyama wrote to me regularly and every month
he also sent me money. In all his letters there were usually some
parts meant for Iren. Many of these letters survived: I have kept
some of them and Iren has some too…
Here are some excerpts. From a letter to me in 1942:
"Now when you have found yourself in the real backwoods, I
have lost all hope of getting Iren's picture. I would like so much
to see what she looks like, especially now when you write about
her. I hope that she will fell well in the children's home". And there are also a few lines for Iren: "…How do you like
it in the new place? I also move often from place to place. I like
moving very much. Do you? I am sending you three of my little rhymes
("yekhali-poyekhali" was a game he invented). Ask Mum
and she will give them to you. I am now living in a home where there
is a small black dog. I am writing and she is trying to bite my
finger off. Even though she is small, she barks very loudly. So,
I cannot write anymore. "…
Here is an excerpt from another of Zyama's letters from the army
dated 4 January 1943:
…"Tell your postwoman that I will have her arrested for 5 days
for having lost the key. That's really a crying shame: after all,
I have received today – after a 10-day's brake – four of your letters. One of them, by Iren, was especially interesting. It was read by
all my friends here and everyone loved especially the way she wrote
"fellas". …I wanted very much to draw something for her
but I am no good at it. What a shame! By the way, I am going to
be promoted soon. However, I hope I will not have to wear the uniform
for much longer, I will be soon be able to wear civilian clothes.
Yesterday we received some parcels from the Molotov District: they
contained dry sausage, butter, honey, biscuits, gingerbread and
sweets. If you could come and visit me, I would have entertained
you the way they do in Riga (almost). I would have liked very much
to entertain someone or give presents, but there is no-one here
like that. I have started saving some stuff for a present for Dida's
birthday on 16 January: some shampoo, a few bars of soap, a small
bottle of eau de Cologne. I will also send her my officer's ration
which I am due to get on the 15 January. After I add to that a few
notebooks, it will be quite a nice present. For you, little girl,
I would have come up with something even better, but you are too
far way… Zyama,your brother. "
Zyama always wrote a lot about his comrades, about people he had
met in the army and through his work (he was the Komsomol secretary
of his regiment, then the 'politruk' and then he worked in the army
newsapaper). Sometimes he wrote sad stories, about the death of
his friends. A few times he wrote briefly how death had passed him
by. I remember the following three cases: how, for example, a bullet
"brushed" his ear. On another occasion he wrote that he
had remained alive by miracle. There were 17 of them who went off
somewhere and there were only 2 or 3 of them when they came back. There was also another occasion: everyone was sitting in a shelter
and so was Zyama. There was nothing suspicious around. Zyama and
another man went outside and that very moment the shelter was destroyed
by a direct hit. All those inside were dead. About the fourth time
Zyama wrote me more or less the following: "A piece of shrapnel
killed Babris. He was not wearing his helmet. Zenta Ozol died the
same way. So, I started wearing my helmet. I got hit by a shrapnel
too, but here I am still alive"… I used to get Zyama's letters
when we were living in the children's home and all the children
were waiting for them together with me. They were happy when the
letters came. I was forever waiting for his letters, always worried
and then, when the letters arrived, I cried of happiness. After the war ended Zyama was not discharged right
away. His regiment was located in Lankstini, near Riga, and I went
there several times to visit him in the summer of 1945. Once I even
took Iren with me. Zyama asked me: "Whom did you come to visit,
me or Futlik?" Both of them, I suppose…
I
also saw Zyama when he came home to visit Fanya, his wife. Zyama
was "rich". I remember that he took me and Iren to the
big department store and bought us cakes that were sold there at
a price some ten times higher than everywhere else. Zyama also bought
me a cooking pot, an expensive one. It is still in existence: it
is the thick one with a black "button" on its lid. Soon our paths joined again: we both started working
in the newspaper "Padomju Jaunatne" in Riga. Zyama started
working there when I was already there; he was not yet discharged
from the army and was still in uniform. He later graduated from
the university, something he did not manage to do before the war
started. In this picture we were photographed during some party
in the Editor's office. The photographer did not know that we were
a brother and a sister and said that he'll make the picture "so
that your husband should be jealous".
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