The Summer of 1923CHAPTER 12 During the summer of 1923, when Sashen'ka was one and a half, Zyama was seven and I was almost nine years' old, we lived near the sea, in Bilderlingshof (later Bulduri), on Line 1. The summer house was a typical example of home building at the time: a two-storey house (there was a slanted roof, I think), with a couple of bedrooms upstairs while the ground floor had a darkish hall, two or three small bedrooms connected with the hall and a veranda. The kitchen was on the left side and a passage way lead outside into the yard. There was quite a large space in front of the house and that was our garden, that's where we always played. … There were other summer houses nearby that housed families with a lot of children. This is where I first met Rusya and Misha Zolotonos. Rusya was about 14. He was a serious, "mature" boy and he became friends with Tusya and Benno. (He used to visit Tusya for years. During the war he was in the army. I met him in Kirov in the winter of 1942, after he had been badly wounded. After the war Rusya got married, he worked in the "Tzinja" and the "Padomju Latvijas Kolhoznieks" (Latvian newspapers). He had two sons who are adults now. When they were still boys I saw them at Uncle Azya's "dacha" in summer. Sometimes Rusya used to come there with them or with his wife. Rusya's brother, Misha, was about 10 or 11 at that time. He was a very good-hearted boy and, what surprised me most, he readily played with us, the smaller children. What was even more unusual was the fact that he played with me and my dolls! We looked after the "baby", "bathed" other dolls and "brought them up", while Misha "went away on business" as he was the father. (I met Misha Zolotonos after the war. He is a musician and an artist. He worked as an arts teacher at school and he also gave music lessons. He wrote some humorous pieces for our magazine and he illustrated his works. ) Rouva Kovnat was another visitor, he probably lived nearby too. His mother, Nina Kovnat, became very attached to Yoka and Tamara. During that summer we played all sorts of games. One was a ball game that went as follows: someone throws a ball up and calls out someone else's name. That someone tries to catch the ball and when succeeding, calls out "Stop!" Everyone stops. He then throws the ball at someone else and if it is a hit – he wins. After ten such hits he leaves the game. There was another game we loved playing during that summer: croquet. How wonderful it was to hit the ball through all those single, double and triple "gates"! Every player had balls of a different color and the little mallets were also marked with different colors. What an interesting game it was! Such a pity that it is not around anymore… Both children and adults used to play it. That summer, like the preceding ones, was full of games. In bad weather we used to play "Geographic Lottery". Mother played with us too. I usually chose Italy while Zyama – Sweden and Norway. I liked it that my map looked like a boot, while Zyama's map looked more like a dog. Suddenly I heard terrible news: there was an earthquake in Italy and a volcano had erupted there, many people died. I was so scared that I did not want to look at the map of Italy anymore. Now when we played, I chose England. This map looked like a sitting girl with a giant ball in front of her. This was very pretty! A Word of Honor Like other children we used to give each other the word of honor when we wanted to convince someone that we spoke the truth, that we shall not divulge a secret or that we shall do what we promised. One day I decided that there was something wrong with it. What is a word of honor and what is not? If I did not expressly state that this is a word of honor, does it mean that I am stating a lie?! I came to the conclusion that using "a word of honor" was unworthy of a really honest person. (I was only about 9 then. ) One day I refused to give my word of honor, stating that "every word I say is a word of honor, a word of truth". If I was told: "Give me your word of honor that you will not tell this to anyone", I replied: "No, I am not going to do that. If you want to tell me something, do that. If you don't want to tell me, don't!" Little by little everyone accepted my point of view. If there were some misunderstandings or doubts about something having happened or not, they used to say: "Ask Lyuba, she will tell the truth!"… This principle remained with me all my life: I never used "a word of honor". I taught my children and I am now teaching Lilin'ka that there is another "guarantee" – the word "truth". If you tell the truth you shall earn the trust. Winter at the Seaside For some reason I do not remember much about Tusya and Benno during that winter. Maybe they stayed with Sonya? They did go to school in town. Or maybe they just came home late. They did not have much to do with me and Zyama. Zyama and I spent the fall at home and in the garden. The garden had a large flowerbed in the middle that had a stone-tile border. We used to go shopping with Mother and we all went for walks. When the snow came we used to go sledge-riding. We had a wonderful time. I remember that during that winter Father went to Berlin on business and he sent us beautiful postcards. I therefore imagined Berlin to be full of beautiful buildings and lit up by lots of lights. When I first visited Berlin in 1968 I was rather disappointed. Another Bad Dream While living in Mayori I had another one of my bad dreams that I have remembered all my life. I dreamt of some frightful gypsies. The dream started with Zyama and me being home alone. The door bell rings and when I open the door all of a sudden a whole crowd of gypsies, men and women in bright clothes, appear in the kitchen and then in our room. All of them are shouting, there is a lot of noise, they come and go from one room into another while I cannot say a word, I cannot stop them and I am very frightened, not so much of them but of something that was supposed to happen. It was because of that something they burst into our apartment. I am seized by fear, I want to scream and cannot do so and then I do scream…and I wake up. I am very frightened… Learning to Play the Piano During that winter Mother decided that I should start learning to play the piano. A rather unusual teacher was found for me. There was a church (a Russian Orthodox one, I presume) that stood between Mayori and Dzintari…There was a little house right behind the church where the "Father" (the priest) and his wife, the Mother (or "matushka" as she was called in Russian), lived. She became my piano teacher. Since that winter I started twice learning to play the piano and last time I took lessons when I was about 20, but of all the pieces I had learned I only remember that single little piece "played with both hands" that I learned that winter with "matushka". Whenever I sit at the piano that's the piece I play…. Lenin's Death Now I understand that Lenin died two days after Sashen'ka's birthday. The two dates are not connected in my memory. After all, I did not know anything about Lenin then, but suddenly his name appeared from somewhere and there it stayed. Someone said loudly: "Lenin has died". I must have asked who Lenin was but I do not recall having received a clear answer. I remember having thought that Lenin was in Russia. After a while I encountered this name once more. I used to collect stamps and someone gave me a stamp that had Lenin's portrait surrounded by a black border. Did this really happen or I have just imagined it? Was such a memorial stamp ever issued? I must check that. A memorial stamp was issued (and not just this one) and I found out about it recently from A. Vlasenko, an old Bolshevik and a stamp collector. I wrote about him in the paper I worked for (the issue of 7th of November 1972). My Pen Drawings I remember that I could sit for hours drawing my little pictures. I do not remember where I got the ink and the special pen for drawing, I must have asked Tusya or Benno to give me one. I do remember how proud I was when I saw that these drawings were coming out nicely. "My First Book of Poems" I would like to write about this book because I have memorized many of the verses it contained and I recited them many times to Iren and Tusya, my daughters, and years later I recited them to Lilya. The book contained, for example, the well known Russian children's verses "The Grass is Green, the Sun in Bright", "Nightingale, Why Don't You Peck at the Seeds?" "Children, Who Loves You So Much", "Sleep, My Beautiful Baby", my favorite lullaby "Sleep, My Child, Sleep Tight", some poems by Pushkin and other classics. All these poems have accompanied me all my life and I later met them all again, in Tusya's books and later on in Lilya's books. I was always glad to meet those "old friends" again. I remember that during evacuation time, when I could not find any children's books for Iren, I wrote down many of these poems from memory in order to read them to her. I have not come across the text of my favorite lullaby in any of the books and I am therefore writing it down here. My Lullaby Sleep, my child, sleep tight, Call for sweet dreams. I have asked the wind, the sun and the eagle To guard and protect you. The eagle flew home, The sun vanished beyond the mountains, The wind stayed for three nights And went back to his mother. The mother asked the wind: "Where had you gone and disappeared? Have you been counting the stars? Have you been driving the waves?" No, I was not driving the waves And I did not touch the golden stars. I was guarding the child And rocking his cradle. We Are In Mayorenhof. Going to a German School The time had obviously come for me and Zyama to go to school. There was no Russian or German school in Mayorenhof (there may have been Latvian one) and there was no Russian school in the area at all. There was a German school in Dubbeln (later Dubulti) and Mother decided that Zyama and I will attend it. We were taken there in the middle of the school year and Zyama was registered for 1st grade while I was supposed to register for 3rd grade. However, after the teachers interviewed me they told Mother that my German was not too good and I might find it hard to attend 3rd grade. It was therefore decided that I will attend 2nd grade. I remember that I was a bit offended, but I quickly became reconciled with this decision since I saw that I would really have troubles in keeping up with the German lessons. Soon enough I managed to improve and did not have any difficulties with my German lessons except once. I shall write about that later. I remember only one of all our teachers: the one who taught us Latvian. I don't remember his name but I still remember his face. He never smiled. He had a long yellowish face and was always very strict. He did not tolerate any noise, always gave us lots of homework and was very demanding. We, second-graders, had to memorize a whole page of text from the textbook and at the lesson we either had to recite it by heart or write it down from memory. I had a good memory and I carefully prepared all my homework, so I learned Latvian very quickly even thought I never knew it until then. My first "public appearance" took place during that year at school: I was chosen to take part in gymnastics exercises that were to be included in a special concert. I had to practice on stage, together with other children, all of us holding little flags, doing all sorts of movements. It was especially enjoyable to take part in that performance that we had practiced for. I was placed at the right end of the first row on stage and from there I could only hear the piano playing and see the dark hall. I could not see anyone but it was very nice to perform, together with the others, and to know that the audience made up of parents, children and teachers was out there. Of all the children at school I only remember a single girl that went to my class. Her name was Gerda (like the Gerda in Andersen's "Snow Queen") and even though she was only a little older than me, she was much taller. She was a pretty girl with a lovely face, dark eyes and beautiful wavy hair that came down to her shoulders. We shared a desk in the middle row, in the back. I always enjoyed her company, she was a kind-hearted quiet girl and I always felt comfortable next to her. It seems that she was the first kind stranger that I had met in life. I remember her also because of the first bad mark, a 2, that I received in my German class. This bad mark was one of my worst experiences of that year. This is what happened. We were given an exercise in the German class, where we had to write in the articles before a series of nouns while the articles were to correspond to the gender of the noun ("der", "die" and "das"). This was, of course, an easy matter for someone who knew German well, but for me it was all pure Chinese. It was also my bad luck that Mother went to Riga on that day and could not help me. What could I do? I even asked Zyama's advice but what could he tell me? I decided that I had no choice and I still had to do that exercise. Since I could not do it correctly I decided to put "der" before the first noun, "die" before the second one, "das" before the third one and so on. I did that and I was, of course, very uneasy. The next day we gave our notebooks to the teacher and when we got them back my exercise was all marked up in red and the mark I received was a 2 (a "poor"). I knew this was going to happen, but I still felt hurt and felt that I was not to blame. I took my notebook from the teacher and went back to my desk on the verge of tears. This was my first bad mark ever (and it was to be the last one too during my schools years) and this was the moment when I encountered Gerda's kindness. Her dark eyes were so full of compassion (while I thought that she would look at me with scorn because she was the best student in class) and when I returned to my desk she said: "Don't take it so hard, you could not have done that exercise. You will fix that mark. " These might not have been her exact words, but this was what she meant. I felt better right away. During the lesson we discussed all the mistakes and Gerda helped me to write everything correctly. When Mother came home she was not at all cross about my bad mark. She knew that my German was not good enough to select the articles correctly. After all, there are no rules for that in German…
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We
did not go back to Riga at the end of the summer, but moved to Majorenhof
(later Mayori), where we were supposed to spend the winter. I remember
someone saying that we had been unable to find a suitable apartment
in Riga. Maybe Mother just liked the idea of spending the winter
with the children at the seaside? I became 9 in the fall and therefore
remember quite well both our apartment and the various details connected
with it. 
Drawing
became my great passion. I did not draw all that well, but I loved
it. No-one at home ever taught me, neither our parents not any of
the other children ever did any drawing, but I suddenly developed
this desire to draw. I had a book called "My First Book of
Poems". I still remember many of the poems and some of the
small drawings depicting forests, meadows, little houses, birds
on a tree, children at play, etc. that accompanied the poems. I
got the idea of copying these little drawings. I took little pieces
of nice cardboard (of a visiting card size) and copied from my book
some of the illustrations. I later used these cards for birthday-cards
or presents. During that winter Father went away on business and
when I wrote to him, I enclosed these cards in my letters. When
he came home he praised me for it. That was a rarity in itself and
to receive praise for my drawings was very nice too. I was indeed
surprised to know that my drawings were "worth something". Here is my attempt to recreate one of these little drawings. 