CHAPTER 2

Our Teachers

First and foremost, I would like to write about my first "head teacher", Emilia Alexeevna Ergle. I remember her very well: Emilia Alexeevna had a round face, small kind eyes, rosy cheeks and a turned-up nose. She was not good looking, but she had a pleasant cheerful face. Remembering her always gives me a good feeling. Emilia Alexeevna must have been a good and a fair teacher because I do not remember any incident or any sharp remark involving her. She did not differentiate between Russian, Jewish or Latvian students and she treated everyone the same fair way.

She taught us Latvian. I found studying Latvian easy as I had studied it quite hard at the German school. Her kindness has remained forever in my memory. I also remember two verses she had written in my album because I liked them both.

The first one was, in fact, a kind wishes I cannot recall accurately the other inscription, but I do remember what it had meant. I assume that it must have been something like this: "Live always as if you are living behind glass walls, so that never, even in your own house, should you feel ashamed of your actions."

Even though I was only 10 at the time, I understood the meaning of these words very well and often thought about them. I would like to note here that these silly albums, which were so widespread in girls' schools for decades, contained quite a few silly enough entries. Yet, what Emilia Alexeevna wrote was not forgotten. She was my head teacher during all the three years I had spent at Mrs. Lishina's school.

…After the war I met Emilia Alexeevna twice, absolutely unexpectedly! It was almost unbelievable: after all, I have not seen her at all since I had left school. I went to High-school No. 40 in Riga for some reason and I saw her there walking up the stairs. We recognized each other and Emilia Alexeevna even remembered my name. We later met for the second time at some teachers' conference in the Stalin-named (now October) District of Riga. We were both sitting in the presidium of the conference and we were very happy to see each other again. By that time Emilia Alexeevna was a school inspector in that district. Later I have learned that Tamara Tsebere, the specialist in pre-school education who worked in the Ministry of Education, was Emilia Alexeevna's daughter.

…Some time ago T.Tsebere came to the Editor's Office where I worked. I was afraid to ask her whether her mother was still alive, but in the end I did. She was alive! This happened on the eve of Emilia Alexeevna's 55th wedding anniversary. In April 1972 T.Tsebere sent me a picture where Emilia Alexeevna was photographed with her husband at their wedding anniversary celebration. She looked very similar to what she had looked in the past, she was just much older… It is a pity that I do not have a picture of her when she was young, as I remembered her at school…

I would like to write now about the "Batyushka" ("Little Father" in Russian), the Russian Orthodox priest who taught Russian girls Religious Education. He was a tall man with dark shoulder-length hair and a dark beard. He moved sedately around the school in his long habit with a large cross hanging on his chest. Every day there was a service at school, where he followed carefully the girl on duty who had recited the daily prayer while standing near the icon in the corner of the school hall. On the first day of each school year there was a festive religious service where the Batyushka sprinkled around holy water and everyone sang sacred songs.

Jewish girls were exempted from attending Religious Education lessons, but those who wished to listen could sit at the desks in the back. Sometimes I also sat there to listen to his lesson. The Batyuska spoke slowly, praised those who gave correct answers to his questions and never pointed out the poor students. He treated us, Jewish girls, nicely, spoke to us in a gentle manner and sometimes stroked out heads.

I have already written about Anna Ivanovna, Olympiada Nikolayevna's daughter. She taught us History. She walked around the class while telling us the lesson, carefully adjusting her pince-nez. She smiled very rarely. When she did smile, however, a dimple appeared on her cheek, just as it did on her daughter's cheek. Her daughter Tanya had a round face and dimples appeared on it quite often, while Anna Ivanovna always seemed to be concerned about something. She was strict but the marks she gave us were fair.

I have already mentioned our German teacher. I do not remember her name. Her critical attitude towards me had changed because I spoke German well and wrote it correctly. I do not remember the name of our French teacher either. I found her lessons difficult as I found it hard to remember the conjugations and once I even got a poor mark, a "3", for a test we had in class. This was the only poor mark I had during my studies in the Russian school. I was very upset. I remember our French textbook. It had old-fashioned drawings of children in a room, children in a garden, a forest, a field…

I also remember our first Russian language textbook. I still remember a short poem by Alexey Tolstoy that the textbook contained. I also remember how we learned the famous poem "The Song of Prince Oleg". Now, of course, I recall very different impressions it left on me, rather than those I had remembered when I had first heard this poem at the age of 3. Then, when Tusya was learning it by heart, I listened to her and kept repeating the text after her "with lots of feeling"…. I also liked the poem "The Drowned Man" by the poet Nekrasov included in the textbook.

I remember Olimpiada Nikolayevna's Russian lessons in our 5th year. She did not tolerate poor Russian being spoken and she repeated, almost with sarcasm, words and expressions she considered to be unacceptable. …I remember all of this very well and I still follow her rules…

Some of the Other Lessons

We had needlework lessons which did not leave any memories. I learned to knit by using two needles. (I learned crocheting before that from Mother.) We learned knitting in different styles by knitting long narrow scarves and if at first I did not do too well, somehow at a certain stage my hands started moving correctly and I learned to knit well. I was very happy about it. We also learned all sorts of embroidery stitches and after each of us had finished our samples of different stitches on a certain piece of cloth, we were told to make an apron from it. I remember using that apron afterwards. It came out very pretty.

Drawing and gymnastics were still my favorite lessons. I liked everything about the gymnastics lessons: the marching, the exercises and the dancing lessons. I was not the shortest in the class: there were still Seva Suslov, Rosa Ritov and two others after me. Gusta Shmushkin, Nina Zaits and many others made up the long row before me and I would have gladly danced with many of them.

Finally, there were the drawing lessons. I remember how we had to draw a bird by using a stuffed bird placed on a table as our model. My bird drawing came out quite well. Only Nika Ryzhkov and Nina Zaits did better. My drawing took up almost the whole page in my notebook and it was all done by regular pencil. I also enjoyed drawing cubes, pyramids and sprigs of pussy willow or the fir tree.

I was absolutely intoxicated by drawing and while doing it I forgot everything else. At that time we had a nurse, Lisa, who came to our home to look after Sashen'ka. She was not in any way interesting, but she used to draw when she had free time and therefore I treated her as a person worthy of admiration. Lisa painted birch trees, a little house with a forest nearby, all this was done in watercolors. She painted the leaves of the birch trees by very small green dots. Mother had one of her pictures framed and I had that small picture until the time when the war started.

There was not really much time left for drawing after school. I could not make up anything of my own, so I mainly tried to copy other pictures by pencil, Indian ink or watercolors. I tried to paint like Lisa did, painting tree leaves by tiny green and yellow dots. I also painted greeting cards: a fir tree branch with candles for New Year cards or a pussy willow branch with a bird on it for greeting cards for spring… I would have liked to study drawing very much but then it was simply beyond my means…

The School Play

The school was preparing for some festivities, most probably for New Year. It was decided to stage "Sadko", not as an opera but as a drama. ("Sadko" is a Russian folktale relating the invitation of Sadko, a 'gusli'-player living in the ancient Russian town of Nizhni Novgorod, by the Sea King to sing for the King's court and his daughter Volkhova at the bottom of the sea. - Tr.) I remember one of the older girls with short dark hair playing Sadko. She held the 'gusli' (a Russian folk instrument that the player holds on his lap or a table and music is produced by plucking its strings. - Tr.) as she spoke her part… The scene "at the bottom of the sea" included dances by "mermaids" and girls dressed as gold and silver fish. Raya Yakobson, a beautiful girl from my class, was one of the mermaids. I loved seeing her dance with her long plait moving along her back.

At first I was not selected for any part, but then I did not expect that I would be. However, suddenly I was told that I shall be dancing the part of one of the little "goldfish". I started taking part in the rehearsals. It was a pretty dance: two rows of girls dressed as gold and silver fish were moving their bodies as if they were carried by the waves, coming forward, moving back and making up a circle… I think I could still perform those movements. A special costume that looked like a gold-colored bathing suit was made for me. It was all covered with golden fish-scales. (Mother bought thick gold-colored paper with a pattern that looked like scales and attached rows and rows of it to my costume.)

"Sadko" was staged at the Artisans' Union hall, across the street from where the large department store stands now, and it was a grandiose spectacle. The actors wore elaborate costumes, there was a large audience and Mother also came to see it…

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