CHAPTER 6

Even Tusya, my daughter, had heard of Harry Finkelshtein some time ago. He was two years older than I, was a rather poor student and came from a well-to-do family whose members spoke German. He was a tall and a handsome boy with large grey-blue eyes and dark eyebrows. He had fair hair and to me, at the time, he looked like a film star. Maybe he did, in fact, look like one. When we went to visit our classmate, Medalye, he used to come there too sometimes. At school he participated in school concerts and class events together with everyone else.

It was a custom in class "to be friends with" and "to fall in love" and our head teacher knew about these relationships. She used to hold heart-to-heart talks with these "couples", she advised them and explained to them what was right and what was wrong. This method of education was considered a progressive one: since boys and girls at the age of 13-15 usually fall in love, it was considered advisable to provide them with guidance. Thus, I, as someone who had no plans to fall in love, had been more or less "guided" towards the idea that this could happen, and Harry Finkelshtein became the "object" of such a development. So, the little spark that found its way into my heart in the past, started to grow. I fell in love with Harry Finkelshtein and our head teacher, Freulein Rozenfeld, made sure that he should notice me too. We started studying together often and since by then it was already springtime, we sometimes went for walks together. Sometimes he came to our house and we did our homework and talked. No-one at home minded these meetings, while in class Harry and I became a commonly acknowledged "couple", a "couple" approved by the class as a collective body.

…So,here I am, taking a walk with Harry Finkelshtein. We walked away quite far, towards the outskirts of the city where one could see the regions beyond the Daugava River. We walked at a distance of two paces between us, as was the custom. It was getting dark, the stars had appeared and it was getting cold. Yet, I didn't feel that I was cold. I felt so good that I wished this would never end…

Harry started getting much better marks. My happy days passed on one after the other, filled with homework, the biology study group, my lessons at the drawing studio, longs talks and games in our school yard, where I ran as fast as a wind, better than many of the boys, fell down and got bloody knees, but never gave up the game and kept running…

The time of the exams came and I passed them all with excellent marks. Then came our final school ball when, according to tradition, we all together, as a class, walked around the whole night, until 6 in the morning, when the sun rose and the birds started singing. Tables with refreshments were prepared on the evening of the ball (the refreshments were much more modest than what they have today!) and then we started dancing. We danced the Krakowyak, the Pas-de-Espaigne, Pas-de-Quatre, the waltz, the polka and the Hungarian dance ("Vengerka"). I danced with Harry the whole evening and felt around me the approving glances of our teachers. I was so happy! It was a carefree evening, full of light-hearted joy. I felt that I could dance away like that with Harry Finkelshtein forever, that I will never get tired and never get bored. The ball ended and we all walked to the Czar's Garden ("Viesturdarzs" as it is called in Latvian), I walked along with Harry and the distance between us was not those two paces it had been in the past…

What a Strange Summer - My First Suffering

The very special period of Form 6 has ended. The summer vacation came and that year our family did not, once again, move to the seaside for the summer, but I wanted very much to go to the seaside because Hanze Slovin lived in Mayori and Harry lived in Bulduri. Therefore, Mother arranged it with Aunt Basya that I should stay with her during the summer, help her with the children and get some rest. Aunt Basya lived in Mayori, but not in the centre, like Hanze's family. She lived further away, closer to Dubulti. This small distance that could be covered in ten minutes was, of course, a trifling matter.

I was very glad to be able to live at the seaside, even though staying with Aunt Basya was not very interesting. Little Rachel (or Rokhochka) was about 3 at the time and little Leah (or Leechka) was a little more than 1. I was supposed to look after the latter before noon, after she had been fed in the morning. She was funny when she ate: if she found the food tasty she used to gurgle contentedly. (Nowadays little Lilya does the same when she enjoys her food and each time this happens I cannot help remembering my little cousin Leah who perished during the war.)

Thus, after breakfast I took the little girl with me and went to a grassy clearing on the way to Dubulti. She played in the grass next to me and I read a book. Harry Finkelshtein often came there too. The word "often" is probably wrong as he came there maybe three times and each time the conversation between us did not go well. What a wonderful summer it was! The sun was bright, the pine trees rustled nearby, we sat on the grass and all I saw was Harry's eyes. They seemed to be so clear and so blue that I could have looked into them forever. Yet, he was always in a hurry to get home, for some reason he was usually short of time. I grew sad. I had a feeling that every day I have been waiting for something to happen, that I have been standing on the verge of the unknown…

I came to Aunt Basya at the end of June. Then that terrible day came, Thursday, the 12th of July1928. Isn't it funny that I remember the exact date?... I met Harry after lunch in the forest between Mayori and Bulduri. Harry hardly said anything, he was walking alongside and looked gloomy. I also kept silent. Then we sat down under one of the pine trees and Harry suddenly said, hardly looking at me: "Lyuba, we aren't going to meet anymore!" I just asked: "Why?" To which Harry quickly replied, also without looking at me: "I don't know… I don't know anything…but we aren't going to meet anymore." I started crying while Harry, having mumbled quickly his "good-bye", got up and left. My tears by then turned into a real river. I was lying there on the ground and crying bitterly for a couple of hours, maybe even more… Then I got up and as I was, covered with tears, started walking home. It is funny, but I also remember that I did not even have a handkerchief to dry my tears and blow my nose. These tragic moments became connected in my memory with this prosaic detail. I am using the word "tragic" here intentionally because it was my first very real and very deep suffering. I am not sure whether I have ever suffered so deeply afterwards. In any case, I cannot remember something similar.

While I walked home I saw before my eyes a few scenes that had made me think in the past. Our school shared the same building with another school, School No. 4. A very pretty girl, Sarra Zavelevich, went to Form 6 in that school. All the boys liked her and so did Harry Finkelshtein… During the summer there were rumors claiming that in the evenings Harry walked along the beach with older girls who were all dressed up and "painted over"… My only pretty dress was the same one I wore at my birthday and at our final ball: it was a short cornflower-blue silk dress with frills…

Three days later, on Sunday, the 15th of July, Harry drove his bicycle from Bulduri to Hanze's summer house, where everybody used to gather, with Ida Shapiro on his bicycle bar. Ida Shapiro wore a white skirt, a white jumper, a white beret on her head and white tennis shoes with little white socks. She had a good tan, a dimple on her chin and a black fringe… Everything became clear!

The rest of the summer was just a continuation of my suffering. If I did not see Harry, I suffered, and if he did appear at the meetings of our mutual friends, we behaved like strangers and I suffered again. His appearances at our meetings became rare. Later on someone told me that his relationship with Ida Shapiro was "something different" and that I was still "too young", that he found the "older girls" much more interesting. I understood what this was all about and found it hard to bear.

The summer passed quickly. Every evening I met with Hanze and we used to walk along the beach "from Point A to Point B and back again". I wore my blue dress and she wore her dress she had work at the class ball, a light blue one, made in a more "adult" fashion. We wore flesh-colored shoes and same color stockings. I had long fine plaits. We once had our picture taken at the beach and it came out very pretty….

Hanze taught me how to look after my clothes, how to mend them and clean them well. Even though she was only six months' older, she was more mature. She helped a lot at home and sometimes she worked, on her own, in the little shop her parents kept. I thought that I matured quite a lot that summer. Hanze and I used to talk for hours, these were heart-to-heart talks about friendship, about love, about human nature.

One day I spoke at length with Rachel, Aunt Basya's relative (who was about 17 or 18 at the time) and she looked at me with amazement, saying: "You know, Lyuba, you are very mature for your age!" I smiled and said to myself: "You know very little of what had happened, of what I felt and what I thought about. You only see a young girl, but you don't know how much I had suffered!" I made a promise to myself that summer: I shall never forget that this was not a childish attraction, but a great deep real love. I shall never doubt that a 13-14 years' old girl can have such feelings and I shall remember it all my life. I have kept that promise: my love for Harry Finkelshtein was real love.

A Brief Trip Back into Childhood

This is the "Red Church" on the road between Bulduri and Avoti. During the summer of 1928 we walked many times from Mayori to this church. "To go to the Red Church" was a customary route for us and I walked there with Harry Finkelshtein too during that memorable summer.

The picture was made on the 21st of August 1972, when I went to some of the seaside places where we once lived, looking for our old summer-houses.

This picture of our outing was taken in September 1928 on a trip to Mezhapark (a large green residential and recreation area near Riga - Tr.). The girl in the white dress in the top row is Roza Chernobrov (she is still alive) and it is me in the row below her. Hanze Slovin is on my left and Nyura Gordin is on my right. Lyuba Fishberg is standing next to Nyura. Lyalya Vinograd is sitting in the centre of first row. Harry Finkelshtein, wearing a white blouse and a beret, is in the second row. Ida Shapiro's head can be seen right behind him. I remember this Mezhapark outing very well: it took place soon after "that" summer ended, after we had just started our first year in high-school.

I received this picture from Nyura Gordin in December 1973, 45 years after it had been taken.

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