My Memories – From the Very BeginningCHAPTER 8 My first memories of myself are of a very early age. Later many people did not believe that these were memories; they said that I had based them on stories of other people. Yet, I am sure that these were indeed things that I had remembered myself. It all starts with our life in Crimea. We lived in a large two-storey house with a yard on the one side and a garden with a vegetable garden on the other. We, the little children, were not generally allowed to go into the garden and the vegetable garden, but I remember the yard very well. A large gate opened into the street. There was a shed in one corner, that's where the chicken lived. I do not remember the rooms in the house, but I do remember all sorts of things we did. I remember very well how Tusya learned to recite poetry by heart. I remember her reciting one of them, "The Tale of Prince Oleg" again and again, while I, playing nearby, memorized it quite quickly. After having memorized this poem I kept reciting it with all the proper emphasis and feeling while not quite understanding some of the words and hardly understanding the contents. … I must have been asked many times to recite it and other poems because I did it so with so much feeling. I also remember something else. One day I was walking with Mother in the street while carefully "walking" one of my dolls in front of me. Two ladies (that's the way people spoke then, they said "ladies") were moving towards us and one of them said to the other fairly loudly: "This little girl recites very well. " I heard her, but the word she had used was unfamiliar, so I decided that she had meant that I was walking my doll very well. So, I started walking my doll even more diligently, moving her here and there. I must have wanted to show off very much… Here, in this picture, we, all the children, are photographed together with Mother in Crimea in 1917. Tusya is on the left, Mother is holding Zyama in her lap, with me and Benno on her right. On the back of the picture Mother wrote: "To dear Aunt Frieda. Here we all are. Have a look and write to us what you think. 15 July 1917. Alupka. Crimea. " In the picture I am holding a little stick in my hand. These were my so-called "flowers". Tusya used to tell later that I refused to give up the little stick, holding on to it day and night. She said that I would not let it out of my hand even for my hands to be washed. Years later, when I wanted something very much and simply refused to give it up, Mother and Tusya used to remind me of my so-called "flowers". They used to tease me that way. This picture was taken only a short time after the previous one, also in Alupka. I must have had my hair cut short with just a fringe left, so as to avoid the trouble of combing it. I used to think that the picture was taken near the sea, but then I realized that the local photographer must have brought some large stones into his shop and placed them against a background picture of the sea, to provide for more "exotic" surroundings. (All these old pictures were received from Frieda in Moscow. Our family photographs were left in Riga and when I came back to Riga after the war I found the albums, but all the pictures were torn out. ) I remember that there were black swans in the pond of the Alupka park and also somewhere in the area there was the so-called "chaos": some large boulders spread over a large space. When I visited Crimea in 1950 I saw it all again: the swans and the "chaos'. I also remember the cypress trees in the Vorontsov Park. I also remembered the name of another place in Crimea: the Swallow's Nest. I remembered all these places well because we had a set of postcards with sites in Crimea and a set of slides we used to see. I also remember a place called Simeiz, where at the beach there were two huge rocks with a smaller one between them. This whole composition was called "The Wonder and the Monk". During the war the "Monk" was destroyed. When in 1950 I went to Crimea together with Zyama, Fania and Zigi Skuinsh we saw all these places again. I also remember how Mother used to say for years that she would have loved to go to Crimea just once, to see it all again…
Let me now go back from 1950 to 1917. I recall how we went to the beach in Alupka and huge waves were moving towards us. The waves were dark and threatening. Somewhere among the rocks on the beach Benno found some black clay which he used for making all sorts of little figures. Another memory of that period has to do with Mother reading aloud to us. She was, in fact, reading for Tusya and Benno, but I used to sit quietly nearby and listened too. I clearly remember that she was reading "Little Men" and "Little Women" (I don't remember now who the author was. ) These were stories about boys and girls. In "Little Women" there was a younger girl called Amy and there was some sort of a quarrel between her and the older girl called Jane. Then someone felt humiliated and ran away from home. It happened in winter and that someone fell into a well and became very sick, while the girl who was blamed for what had happened felt very guilty about it. I felt as if it was all about me and I was both the victim, the guilty one and the person who became ill. And what a wonderful feeling it was when everyone made peace with everyone else… Everyone thought at that time that I had not been listening and that I did not understand anything, but I did and there was a whole whirlwind of feelings in my heart. I later read this book again when I was 10 or 11, but I remember best of all the parts I had heard when I was only 3. For many years it was connected in my mind with real life: with the relationship between me and Tusya. I remember little Zyama. He was such a happy child, always smiling, and everyone loved him. I forgot to mention before that at that time, at the age of 2, he had already chosen for himself two professions he preferred: at first he wanted to be a coachman and then a shoe-shine boy. He used to walk around the house holding some kind of a box and crying "Shoe-wax! Here is shoe-wax!" … At the same time, at the age of 3, I also had a very definite idea of what I was going to be when I grow up. When asked about that I used to state with great confidence: "A mother!" (This was the period when I asked Mother to give her next baby, if she will have one, to me "as a present". ) Ever since then I always wanted to be a mother… Among my memories of our life in Alupka there is a vague picture of a girlfriend, a Tartar girl whose name I cannot recall. She used to come to visit our house and I used to go to her house. I remember something like a 'yurt', an authentic Tartar dwelling, with carpets and unusual beds. I am not at all sure that all this really happened… The first visit of Mother's brother Zelik was also connected with our life in Alupka. He appeared unexpectedly (the town must have been overtaken by the "Reds" then, he arrived wearing a "budyonnovka" on his head (a kind of military headgear worn by Red Army troops during that period). He used to spend the night with us and in the morning he put on his boots again and left. I do not really know how we found ourselves in Crimea. It seems that the family was trying to get away as far as possible from the area of the military operations and found itself in a "quiet place" which later turned into such an area. On the other hand, I remember hearing much later that the parents wanted to take the children to a "holiday resort" and, as the saying goes, found the time and the place for it. I do not know which version was the correct one, but the "Crimean adventure" became a very interesting one, full of memorable events and emotional upheavals. We always used to recall those times at home. For me Crimea means my early childhood and Mother's dream to go back there once again… We lived in Alupka for about a year and then we moved to "Sarra", a place somewhere nearby. In the new place we had a large room for all the four children, a bedroom and a rather dark large dining room with a square table in the middle of it. There must have been other rooms as well because Aunt Basya and our grandmother, Father's mother, were also living with us. I remember very well how grandmother sat in the large armchair in the dining-room and read her prayer-book. She read in a very soft voice and we knew that she was praying. Zyama and I used to come up to her, listen quietly and ask her: "Grandma, who are you praying for?" We loved it very much that she did not stop her prayers, but pointed first at me, then at Zyama and then at the next room. All this was accompanied by her praying which we could not understand and the nodding of her head. I do not remember her doing anything else except praying. I do remember the day when she passed away. …When I got up one morning I heard someone crying quietly and some voices. When the rest of the children woke up we were all told to remain in bed. We stayed in bed for quite a while and then Tusya and Benno were the first ones to be allowed to get up. Then Zyama and I got up and got dressed. Mother came in and said: "Grandmother has died. " I did not understand the meaning of these words. There was a commotion in the house, people came and went and no-one paid any attention to me and Zyama. Later we were told that Tusya and Benno will attend the funeral, but the both of us shall remain at home. I did not understand what that meant either. Zyama and I sat near the window and looked out into the street. A very fine snow was coming down and it quickly melted. There was a small cart near the house, it was drawn by a small white horse. Snow fell on his back and the horse often shivered. Zyama and I looked out of the window for a long time and we felt very sorry for the horse: "Poor horse, it is so cold outside!" I could not understand that this cart will be carrying away the coffin of our dead grandmother. So, grandmother simply was not with us anymore, while the image of the shivering white horse remained with me all my life. We obviously were not too badly off when we lived at "Sarra's" because, as I remember, we were given all sorts of tasty things to eat there. For example, one morning when we sat down to the breakfast table there was an egg in an egg-holder in front of everyone's plate. That was very nice. Also, we were often given semolina porridge for breakfast. That was very nice too. We were usually called to eat breakfast by Aunt Basya: "Children, come to eat! Quick, quick!" and we would all gather at the table. This phrase "children, come to eat, quick, quick" was adopted by the next generation. This is how I used to call Iren and Tusya to come to breakfast and this is how Tusya has been calling Lilya to come to eat as well. This became another "standard phrase" in the family. During our life "at Sarra's" Zyama and I used to go for walks. True, these were not very longs walks, but we did walk in the street. It was a highway. I remember that we used to walk together with other children who lived near us, but I do not remember clearly any one of them. There were also all sorts of animals driven along the highway: sheep, goats, cows and horses. Zyama and I, and also some of the other children started up an original "collection": we collected the dry dung of the different animals. It was a hot summer and whatever the different animals left on the road dried out very quickly, so we could pick it up without getting dirty and put it away. It was great fun to find the different kinds of dung and then take it to our secret place, a sort of cave between the large boulders lying not far away from the highway. Our collection was, of course, a secret one since we realized that if we told anyone about it we would not be allowed to continue. All in all, it was great fun… I also remember that our landlords, Victor Stepanovich and Anastasya Ivanovna, had a wonderful garden that was full of roses. Father loved roses and his favorite kind were the "tea-roses". I still don't know why they are called that way, but I do remember what they looked like: they were of a pink-yellow-orange color. I don't think I have seen this kind of roses anywhere else. Father liked this particular kind and he also liked such a rose in his buttonhole. I remember a sad incident: the death of our landlord, Victor Stepanovich. One morning when we got up we felt that there was some sort of a disturbance at home. Later we found out that Victor Stepanovich had been "taken away" at night. Soon enough we have heard that he had been shot. I do not know who "took him away", the "Reds" or the "Whites". I seem to recall that the "Reds" were the ones who shot him and since he was an owner of a house, a "bourgeois", that must have been the case; their revenge against such people was quick. We loved Victor Stepanovich because he was a kind man, a tall fellow with a large mustache. Anastasiya Ivanovna used to say later that she had known that there will be trouble: she had a bad dream the previous night. She dreamt that she was eating fried meat-patties and according to her, if one dreamt of eating something fried that ment trouble. So, the dream was a prophetic one. (I have remembered this all my life and especially when I was a child, I used to be afraid of dreaming about eating fried meat-patties. ) This is my "watercolor" (something on the level of Lilya's painting ability) of our house "at Sarra's". On the left there is the staircase on top of which Zyama sat and asked, looking down: "Should we come down or what?" I do not know why and when we have left this place, but I do know that we went from there to Yalta. I was 6 years old then and Zyama was 4 and a half. I remember quite a lot about Yalta, so that will call for a long description… Our apartment, the garden, the street and everything around From the street one came into a large hall. There was a door on the left into a very large dining-room with another square table in the middle. Two doors were leading out of the dining-room: one lead into our parents' room that also served as my and Zyama's bedroom, and the other – into another room where Tusya and Benno slept and so did Aunt Frieda, Mother's sister. I just remembered that there was a large bed in the dining-room; it must have been Aunt Basya's. A long corridor on the right side of the hall lead into the kitchen. The kitchen was a large one, with a stone floor, and there were always people there. In the evening we used to gather at the table to drink tea and have supper. We, the children, used to have breakfast together with Frieda looking after us. Everyone else went off to work. The "Reds" were in power in Yalta then. People who worked received their daily food ration: bread and dried salty fish called "khamsa". We used to call it "khamsi-khamsa" (paraphrasing the French expression meaning "so-so"). The food rations were brought home towards supper time. Our garden was very large; it had lots of trees, bushes and flowers. There were some neighbors on the top floor. Their daughter Alyonushka became my friend. A long dark street lead from the house, one had to go along to get to the embankment. The house stood on a hill and looking one could see the part of the town that was located in a valley. The houses seemed very small and for some reason it was said that only "hooligans" lived in that part of town. I thought at that time that these "hooligans" were a large group of tall and frightening people who all lived together… Our Animals: Kotya and Kurnos Kotya was a cat and Kurnos was a large dog. I don't know if these were our animals, but they were always nearby and we, the children, got used to them. We used to feed Kurnos and we played with Kotya. His death was one of my childhood's more terrible memories. One morning Kotya was found dead in the kitchen, lying in a pool of blood and his head almost severed from his body. All four of us started crying loudly. We were told that rats had devoured him. For many years I found it frightening to recall that morning when we found our dead Kotya in the kitchen. Kurnos lived with us. It was a large dog, he was black with brown spots. Benno was especially fond of him. No-one was afraid of him and he did not bark at anyone. If Kurnos came into the room and we were sitting at the table, he used to look at us with pleading eyes until someone threw him something to eat. Dolls How Zyama and I went to the kindergarten One day Mother said that we will start attending kindergarten and soon we were taken there. I loved the kindergarten because the teacher and the children were very nice to me. Zyama and I were in different groups because of our age difference. One day after our "lessons" were over all the children were taken home and the two of us were still waiting for Mother. And here Zyama started crying. His crying was long and bitter. I tried to talk to him, but it did not help. He was given a hobby-horse to ride but that did not help either. Mother still did not come. I remember that one of the kindergarten teachers said to Zyama: "You are a bad boy. Nobody will love you if you will go on crying like that. Your mother will soon come. " She did, of course, and Zyama stopped crying. What did we do in the kindergarten? It must have been one of the new Soviet kindergartens where they paid special attention to teaching the children correct working habits. I do not remember what Zyama did, but I remember best of all how we made dolls' furniture. The boys made the little beds, chairs and tables with their saws and hammers and we, the girls, painted them with real paint. I painted a large doll's bed and later painted flowers on its front and back side. The paint was not too good, because the flowers did not come out too clearly, but it was still very pretty and great fun. We also made dresses for the dolls and the kindergarten teacher helped us (or was it the other way around?) During the first few days Mother took us to the kindergarten, but later she said that we shall walk there alone. So, we walked along that rather empty street down to the embankment and then uphill again, where there were some fine large houses or summer houses with wrought-iron fences. One of these summer-houses was our kindergarten. It was probably quite a walk from our house because I remember that we walked for a long time or did it only seem that way? One day it so happened that we were late. We were late once more and the third time the teachers told us that next time we are late they will send us home. This is when I did something wrong; probably the first bad deed in my life. The first I remember, in any case… One day we either left the house too late or walked too slowly, and when we reached the kindergarten gate I understood that we were late again. I told Zyama: "Let's not go to the kindergarten! Let's go and walk around and then go home. They will send us home in any case! And we will not say anything at home!" That's exactly what we did and the next morning it was even a bit scary to go to the kindergarten and try to explain what happened. I convinced Zyama again not to go to the kindergarten and this way we "walked around" for three days until they probably came from the kindergarten to look for us. This way everything was "uncovered" and Zyama said (stating the honest truth!) that I had convinced him to do it… I was very sad and bitter and ashamed because I was the only one to blame. After all, Zyama was little and he could not be held responsible. After all the reprimands ended we started going to the kindergarten again. I do remember my girlfriend Alyonushka who lived near us. She was also in my kindergarten group and we were great friends. I loved to come and visit her because she had lots of dolls and she even had a doll's room which she arranged on one of the windowsills. There was even a tiny key to an imaginary door which we used to "open" and then started playing with all the dolls. I did not envy Alyonushka, I just loved being there. Another serious misdeed This is about my second bad deed. I have already written about the first one. My Father smoked "papirossy" (cigarettes with a cardboard mouthpiece). I liked their smell and I also wanted to smoke. The idea of smoking really got hold of me. Father often asked one of us to bring him some cigarettes. He used to say: "Lyubochka, jump into my pocket and get me a cigarette!" Sometimes we brought him the whole packet and sometimes just one cigarette. One evening, when we were all sitting at the table, including our landlady who came in to visit us (or was it just a neighbor?), Father told me again: "Go and jump into my pocket and get me a cigarette!" The "pocket" or rather the jacket was in the next room, the room where Tusya and Benno used to sleep. There was also a small white cupboard there, where I had a special drawer for my things. Some time ago I managed to hide a box of matches there (I cannot recall how I got hold of them) and now I went into that dark room, found Father's jacket and hid one cigarette in my cupboard. I brought him the packet of cigarettes and went back into the room, lit a match and was about to light the cigarette. Suddenly Zyama came into the room. He asked: "What are you doing?" "Shush, - I replied, - Be quiet. I want to smoke. Don't you dare to say a word to anyone. " I lit the cigarette. However, being a little girl, I forgot to close the door and those sitting in the dining-room could easily see the light of the cigarette in the dark room. Suddenly Father's voice sounded like thunder in a clear sky: "Children, what are you doing there?!" Aunt Frieda came into the room and lead me and Zyama out. I managed to throw away the cigarette but Zyama loudly stated right away: "Lyuba tried to smoke!" I felt right away how angry Father was and that he was especially displeased by all this taking place in the presence of a visitor, our landlady. I was standing next to him. He took my left arm and struck it several times. It so happened that I had an abscess near the top part of my left hand and it burst because it had been hit. That very moment I cried: "Blood, it's blood!" The abscess burst and some blood and pus came out, but I did not really feel pain, not even because Father had hit me. I just "used the opportunity" instinctively to cry out. I started crying loudly, as if it was all because of the abscess that had burst. Everyone felt a little sorry for me, there was that blood on my arm, etc. and all this diverted everyone's attention from my "crime". I cried for quite a while: I felt hurt because I was "unmasked" and I was also ashamed. I was hurt because our landlady had seen it all and because of Zyama's "betrayal". For years I was ashamed to recall this incident and I still remember all the little details of what had happened… A small mark can still be found on my left hand. Funny, isn't it?. . . The grapes and the bread We must have had a hard time in Yalta. Food had to be provided for our large family and it was hard to make do with the "khamsi-khamsa" fish. We also needed bread. We did get bread but we, the children, received it… accompanied by grapes. There were plenty of grapes in Crimea and they were also, I think, very cheap then. Later, when we went back in Latvia and there were no grapes to be seen anywhere around, we used to recall that they were considered regular every-day food in Crimea. When we, the children, used to sit down at the table for breakfast or supper, we used to receive from Aunt Frieda a piece of bread each and a bunch of grapes. We eat both of them quickly enough. However, when we asked for more Aunt Frieda looked very concerned and even angry. Sometimes she gave us another little piece of bread and sometimes she did not. She probably did not have any more bread to give us. I do not seem to remember any other food we ate. I do remember well though that when Aunt Basya was suffering from a gastric ailment, some butter was bought especially for her. We did not even see any butter around in those days. One day when the "half a pound of butter" for Aunt Basya was bought and transferred from the paper wrapping into a butter dish or some other glass dish, Zyama and I quietly got hold of the paper the butter was wrapped in. We crawled under the bed that stood in the dining-room and each of us took turns of moving the finger along that paper and licking the bits of butter left on it. There was so little butter there but it was so tasty… A Frightening Encounter I already wrote that the street which lead from our
house to the kindergarten seemed to me both long and dark. Nearby
and down below was the area where the "hooligans" lived. I was always afraid that one day they will come and attack me (maybe
I had heard something that made me afraid of this). One day when
I was coming back alone from kindergarten (Zyama must have been
sick on that day), I suddenly saw an enormous fellow coming towards
me. He addressed me in a threatening voice: "Aha! Now I got
you! A Zhid, aren't you?!" I was not much of a specialist in
the "national question", but I did know that I was Jewish
and I also knew that if someone wanted to insult Jews he called
them "Zhids". Being so terribly frightened, all shaking
with fear, I lied – for the first and only time in my life – about
my nationality. Barely capable of saying something I replied: "No,
I am not. " He spoke again in his frightening voice: "Say
now: On Mount Ararat there are many grapevines!" (The sentence
in Russian has many letters "r" and since many Jews were
known to mispronounce this letter, saying this sentence was considered
an "indication" of being or not being Jewish. – Tr. ) At
that time I still mispronounced my "r"s and therefore
I just bowed my head and did not say anything. However, this must
have been one of the nicer "hooligans". He just showed
me his fist, said : "You just wait!" and slowly continued
on his way. I did not even believe at that moment that I was free
to go, that he did not beat me up or anything, and quickly ran home. I don't remember if I ever told anyone about this meeting, but both
then and later, when I was much older, I felt very displeased that
I had not told the "hooligan" that I was Jewish.
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Our
life in Yalta is connected with many of my childhood dreams, thoughts
and feelings. One of my dreams then was to have dolls. There were
no dolls at all then or maybe there was no money to buy them. So,
I used to make dolls from some rags… I remember that Mother, after
seeing my efforts, made me a doll which was, of course, much prettier
than those I had made. This was probably the time when my great
longing for dolls was born and I have loved dolls very much ever
since. Each doll that I ever had, as well as the dolls my children
or even Lilya had, were always "someone" for me. Here
I was photographed by Yoka on 24 of April 1931, and I called this
picture "Farewell to Dolls". However, I did not
part with my dolls at that time (I was 16 and a half when the picture
was taken), because I kept them "for my children". The
dolls "died" during the occupation of Riga. 