Chapter 18
At the end of May 1944, Kim received a letter from his mother, in which she informed him that the time had come when he could finally move in with her and that she was really looking forward to it. This news was very good for the boy because for several days he had been in a bad mood. The reason for this was that Kim had been unable to pass his final mathematics exam with his class and he was scheduled for a retake in August. The head teacher and the teacher were very unhappy about this circumstance, which worsened the final results of the academic year, and hurtful reproaches and accusations came down on Kim, as well as on the other defaulters. So he rejoiced terribly at Braina’s letter, which promised relief from the consequences of his embarrassment.
Reading it over and over again, Kim swore that he would behave himself in Namangan so that nothing of the kind would ever happen to him again. After all, no one could know better than he himself that the failure at the examination was not accidental, but a natural result of his negligent attitude to education. Nevertheless, it was annoying and very unpleasant for Kim to be listed among the losers and slackers.
When he arrived in Petrovsk a few years ago as a diligent student, having completed four classes with certificates of merit, he could not have imagined that he would soon start skipping classes. It did not at all happen because he became lazy overnight. The half-starved existence of orphans, caused by the war’s hard times, forced the boys, instead of studying all day long, to scour the city in search of food. Malnutrition, which turned into a feeling of constant hunger, gradually subjugated all the thoughts, desires, and actions of eleven-year-old Kim. Even his favorite pastime, reading books, which always helped him out, more and more often could not distract him from the inexorable plague.
The meager food in the orphanage canteen only irritated one’s appetite, not satisfying hunger. The basic ration was bread, the daily norm of which was 500 grams, which was divided into three rations: a morning and an evening ration of 150 grams and a lunch ration of 200 grams. As a rule, one of these rations almost every day had to be “voluntarily” given to Kultyapy. In the evenings, when hunger was especially acute, Kultyapy, like an experienced and ruthless blood-loaner, would take a 150-gram ration out of his stash and divide it into three parts, offering to exchange each piece for a whole morning or lunch ration on a “voluntary” basis. And there were always the unfortunate ones, fascinated by this bait. From time to time, Kultyapy’s henchmen would go to the market to sell the children’s rations or exchange them for sugar, potatoes, bacon, and cigarettes. On such days, after lights out, Kultyapy would hold a feast for his cronies in the vestibule, locking the doors of the house and curtaining the windows beforehand. While they chewed loudly, slurping tea and praising their master, the other occupants of the lodge, covered with blankets, scolded and cursed them, almost weeping with hunger, resentment, and hopelessness.
The heating season began in October, and every day, toward evening, the housekeepers on duty preheated the stove under the supervision of Kultyapy. All the tenants liked to gather around the open stove door, watching the wood burn with sparks, turning to flaming embers. The stove, built-in in early October ’41, was only used for cooking food and tea by Kultyapy or others who wanted to fill their stomachs with at least some boiling water.
But by late October, to Kim’s surprise, bowls and kettles of cooked peas, grains, or even plates of dried potatoes began to appear regularly on the stove. Satisfied eaters made no secret of the fact that they could earn, beg, or steal these foods from the local cannery, grain elevator, market, or food warehouse during the very hours when simpletons like Kim were attending classes with hunger rumbling in their bellies.
When Kim learned where and how to obtain something edible, he simply could not resist the temptation to act immediately. Overcoming doubts, qualms of conscience and fears of possible unpleasant consequences, he soon dared to escape from his last class for the first time and headed straight to the territory of the cannery, surrounded by a wooden fence. Through a gap in the fence, he could see that a van was being loaded at one of the shops. Not far away there was a hole in the fence, covered with some sort of wire. Kim braced himself, squeezed through it, and timidly made his way to the shop. The woman-loader noticed him and started scolding and threatening him with the police, but when she found out that the boy was from the orphanage, she quieted down, took his cap from him and quickly filled it with dried potatoes from a large stall marked “rejects” located by the workshop wall. Handing the hat back to Kim, she ordered him to disappear immediately before the guard showed up.
That same evening, Kim, not hiding his pride, boiled his mashed potatoes on the stove in a pot he had borrowed from its owner for two handfuls of dried potatoes. Then, together with his bunkmate Ivan Basko, they ate to their heart’s content, treated some more of their buddies, and for the first time in many days went to bed full and happy.
Since then, Kim regularly visited the “bread” places of the city every two or three days, sacrificing one or two school lessons for this purpose. The first three lessons could not be missed, because after them, during the big break, all the pupils present at school were entitled to a school snack, which consisted of a small piece of bread and a portion of hot stew. Therefore, all absences fell only on the last classes.
There were times when one had to return from such “field” expeditions with nothing, but more often than not there were happy days when one could work to load or unload transport, clean the ‘warehouses, and clear the grounds and roads of snow for a tasty reward. “Payments” were usually made with potatoes, beets, carrots, oilcake, lentils, and peas. The vegetables were often frozen or rotten, the peas and lentils were half littered with garbage, but these “minutiae” did not overshadow the joy of luck.
Gradually, almost all the inhabitants of the house where Kim lived got involved in the daily search for provisions, and in the evenings, when the oven was stoked, there was not enough room on the stove for everyone who wanted to cook their own brew. So when the wood was burned and the embers raked away to the back wall, the pots and pans of those who did not have time to use the stove were placed in the empty space inside the stove.
To avoid arguments for the best spots on the stove and in the stove, it was decided that in the mornings it would be necessary to establish a line for the evening cooking. The signal for the beginning of this procedure was the morning arrival of the tutor. As soon as Evgenia Agafangelovna opened the door to the bedroom, from all sides there were eager shouts: “On the stove!”, “On the stove second!”, “Third!”, “Dibs on the first stove!”, and so on. Moreover, even those who had nothing to cook yet took the line in the hope of possible good luck of the day. And if there was no luck, one could give up his turn for a small bribe in kind to the one who was luckier that day.
In time, however, the adolescents became more and more inclined to thievery than to peaceful and harmless labor earnings. The most desperate would sneak into warehouses and storehouses under cover of darkness, stealing whole crates of produce. Some came back bruised after encounters with the guards, one of the unlucky ones even ended up in the hospital with a gunshot wound to the back. Kim, aware that these nocturnal “affairs” were dangerous crimes, never agreed to take part in them, but in broad daylight, he often participated in group raids on grain transports.
Grain of different cultures from the collective and state farm storages was regularly delivered to the elevator. At its gate, where the driver presented documents to the guards, the trucks would stop for a while. As soon as the next transport stopped in front of the closed gate, a gang of three to five boys, hidden beforehand, rushed from different directions. Everyone tried to scoop up the cherished booty from the cargo hold with a metal cup or bowl as quickly as possible. The person guarding the cargo, who was usually in the back of the truck, was tangled in a long coat and tried to get rid of the attackers, who scattered to the nearest alleys after a lightning raid. Those who managed to get some grain or peas in this way feasted in the evening, while the losers were silently envious and hoped that tomorrow they would be luckier. Constant malnutrition paralyzed Kim’s immature will. At school lessons, he could not bring himself to concentrate more and more often, so that he could not actively absorb new material like he used to. His head was now almost constantly occupied not by lessons, but by thoughts of possible ways of obtaining food, and from the fifth grade on he gradually stopped listening attentively to the explanations of the teachers, and he preferred to copy off homework from a classmate, not even going into the essence of the matter.
This attitude inevitably led to wide gaps in his knowledge, and soon Kim had to sharply feel that he had become a lagging student. One day in math class, he suddenly found that he could no longer understand the teacher’s explanations. Kim got very upset, reproached himself mercilessly, sincerely repented of his undignified attitude to learning, which he had just recently recognized as his most important duty, and vowed to mend his ways. But this mental impulse was barely enough for a few days. The more the boy withdrew from his studies, the more unbearable his presence in class became for him. School attendance became a burdensome duty, which had to be borne under compulsion, under the strict control of the administration of the orphanage.
Nevertheless, in the fifth, sixth, and the first half of seventh grade, Kim was still among the prosperous students. His natural reading comprehension and good memory allowed him to cope successfully with dictations in Russian, essays, and compositions even without knowledge of the rules of grammar, and to find good answers to questions on geography and history. Botany, chemistry, and especially mathematics fared worse. Mediocre grades in these subjects were achieved with difficulty by cheating and the use of hints. But the benign connivance and sympathy of his teachers allowed Kim to advance from fifth to sixth and then to seventh grade.
In those days it was a graduating class of incomplete secondary school, which ended with obligatory examinations in Russian language, mathematics, and history. They were accepted by a commission from the regional department of public education. The presence of the committee made every teacher extremely interested in the successful outcome of the examination in their subject, and therefore in the second half of the school year, the school began intensive preparation of pupils for them. Frequent checkups at the blackboard and on-the-spot closely supervised written work that made cheating difficult, quickly revealed Kim’s glaring mathematics deficiency and his neglected chemistry and history. He began to get “F’s” and the orphanage learned about it. The kindly Evgeniya Agafangelovna was seriously worried, more than once had heart-to-heart talks with Kim, and assigned for constant help to him a strong student from the eighth grade. Kim, realizing the seriousness of his situation, did not flinch, did his best, got positive marks in all the subjects, and was allowed to take the exams.
He passed Russian and history, but the math exam was a complete embarrassment. After reading his version of the exam paper, Kim was embarrassed and ashamed to find out that he could not cope with it even with the help of cheat sheets and timid hints from his teacher. The retest was scheduled for the end of August. For this reason, Kim was left without a certificate of completion of lower secondary school.
Such was the logical result of his neglectful attitude toward his studies during the three years he lived in the Petrovsky orphanage. During this time, a dramatic change occurred in Kim’s character too. From the kind, obedient, sincere, and inquisitive boy who arrived in Petrovsk in 1941, Kim gradually turned into a reserved, distrustful teenager, silent and suspicious. All this was the result of years of exposure to the dual morality of the peculiar system of upbringing that had developed and flourished in the life of the orphanage.
In the daytime children were routinely educated on the basis of official Soviet pro-communist morality, while in the evenings the morality of a semi-blat life, which existed illegally in groups of children living in isolated small houses, had a far more powerful corrupting effect on them. During the day the educators and teachers methodically inculcated in the minds of the pupils the conviction in the justice of the Soviet power, in the existence of equality, brotherhood, and mutual assistance of Soviet people of different nationalities. Without end, they talked about their selfless patriotism, boundless devotion to the homeland, the Communist Party, and, of course, the great leader of the working people of the world, Comrade Stalin.
For a few years now the fierce Patriotic War had raged, with inflammatory patriotic appeals, stories, and films about the heroic deeds of the Soviet people at the front and in the rear that evoked a warm response in the hearts of young listeners. The heat of passion often reached the point that among themselves they repeatedly discussed the possibility of sneaking to the front and into the battle with the Nazis to give their lives for their motherland and their beloved Stalin, following the example of the heroes.
Kim, too, often experienced spontaneous bursts of enthusiastic patriotism and boundless devotion to the leader of the peoples, but no matter how inspired his mood was during the day, by evening it was invariably replaced by anxiety over the inevitable coming evening meeting with Kultyapy and the fear of once again becoming a victim of his unpredictable insolent behavior. This anxiety did not disappear until Kim fell into a sound sleep, and before that, under the oppression of a confined madman, had to endure several grueling hours.
As soon as the guard on duty finished his obligatory evening rounds, the doors of the house were bolted, the windows were shut, and the behavior of Kultyapy and his entourage was instantly transformed. The masks of obedient, conscientious disciples disappeared from their faces, Kultyapy tried to look like a tough and unceremonious “boss,” and his entourage carefully pleased him.
First of all, Kultyapy began to deal with the penalized “debtors”. Sitting on his bed with a menacing and impregnable look, he would cast judgment upon the dutiful and frightened boys who stood before him. One of them was unable to part with their ration of bread which they owed to Kultyapy; another was at fault for Kultyapy being reprimanded for a poor cleaning, as head of the house, by the director.
After threatening the culprits with cruel reprisals and enjoying repeated humiliating requests for forgiveness, Kultyapy graciously agreed to limit himself to a light punishment for the first time: ten flicks each. That was the name given to the slap on the forehead, which, when masterfully executed, caused sparks to fly from the eyes.
When he had finished dealing with the debtors, he checked the candidates for those who intended to cook food for themselves that evening from the food they had obtained. According to tradition, which had not been established without the intervention of Kultyapy, everyone was obliged to give him a “treat”, and he strictly tracked it. If he did not like any of the “treats,” he would give them to one of his assistants or occasionally “gift” them to one of the weaker boys, thus achieving, without much effort, the fame and prestige of the most generous and magnanimous “boss” in the eyes of the orphans.
In the evenings, Kultyapy conversed with his entourage in a gibberish lingo that abounded in foul language and various derivatives of the word “Jew”. “Jew, kike, yid, yid-like, don’t be a yid, don’t yid-ize” – these and other similar expressions were habitually used when speaking of greed, meanness, cunning, cowardice, and deceit. Gradually, with the active influence of Kultyapy, this jargon began to be used by the rest of the tenants of the house, causing Kim to feel anguish and despondency because by kikes they meant only Jewish people. Even when he was in the Ukrainian orphanage, he realized that many people had a grudge against Jews. But Lena was there with him, and she convincingly explained this phenomenon by the low level of culture of some of the people and assured him that in time it would inevitably disappear.
In Petrovsk, however, Kim had to experience not just dislike, but vicious intolerance and hatred of everything connected with the Jews, their customs and habits. The condemnation of the Jews was a favorite theme in the harangues of Kultyapy and his gang. The most shameful human qualities were ascribed to Jews. They made fun of their appearance, circumcision, accent, goatee, big nose, slovenliness, cowardice, and greed. Kim heard for the first time from Kultyapy that Jews do not fight at the front, but hide from the war in Tashkent, that they are all peddlers and profiteers from the people’s misfortune, and that some of them even serve the Nazis in the occupied territories…
Kim was the only Jew in his group, and Kultyapy treated him with disgusting deference, ostensibly for confirmation of his vile anti-Jewish fabrications, while calling him a “yid for real”.
At the time, Kim could not yet know that part of humanity had been practicing antisemitism for centuries, displaying an animalistic irreconcilability with the Jews, their way of life, their customs, their language. Naively believing that someone had simply misled Kultyapy, Kim was eager to counter his false, foolish accusations. After all, in his memory and heart, there were bright remembrances of his father, mother, sister, relatives, and acquaintances, of many kind, intelligent, cheerful, fair, and sensitive people surrounding him in his childhood. None of them in the least resembled the disgusting kikes about whom Kultyapy was propagandizing. Kim wanted to tell him this calmly and convincingly, not knowing that it was useless and dangerous to change the mind of the hardened antisemite Kultyapy, as it was useless to try to tame a seasoned wild wolf.
When Kultyapy, after habitually calling Kim a “kike for real,” suggested that he confirm that Jews kill Christian children on some of their holidays, Kim objected. He stated that Jews are not kikes, not bandits, and do not kill children, that it was all inventions of illiterate and uncultured people, and that there were many bandits among Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians. He himself was not a kike either, but a Jew by nationality.
After a short moment of confusion, there was a reaction to this unexpectedly bold statement. The gang, led by Kultyapy, surrounded the teenager in a tight ring. With fists, slaps, and punches, to the accompaniment of foul language, they began to tell Kim that only Jews and no one else are “rotten kikes,” and whoever was unlucky enough to be born a Jew should thank his kike-mother! After this “convincing” lesson, Kim never openly objected to Kultyapy again, silently enduring his mockery. The other kids, to please Kultyapy, began to alienate themselves from Kim, stopped meeting with him in the evenings to read books, and then stopped talking to him altogether.
Feeling rejected, lonely, unjustly wronged, Kim more than once thought of running away from the orphanage to wherever his eyes looked upon. In this dreary, hopeless situation, the only saving support for him was a small, carefully kept picture of Braina. Unnoticed by everyone, Kim for a long time gazed into the calm, young, spiritual face of his kind and infinitely dear mother. Having seen her to his heart’s content, having once again comforted himself with the hope of their forthcoming meeting and having hidden the photo card in a safe place, he fell asleep peacefully.
On one late winter night in 1943, there was a careful knock on the window shutters, and a man’s voice demanded that Kultyapy come out into the yard immediately. Soon he returned, accompanied by three unfamiliar guys.
They were escaped convicts from a penal colony. Kultyapy, who owed them something, agreed to shelter them temporarily. While they were eating their lavish refreshments in the vestibule, Kultyapy woke up all the boys and warned them menacingly that whoever willingly or unwillingly betrayed his cronies who the cops were looking for, would not be left alive. He had a pistol in one hand and a Finnish knife in the other. The fugitive convicts spent several days in the attic without giving themselves away. Kultyapy provided them with everything they needed and stoked the stove to keep them warm by the chimney. Then, deciding that the danger had passed, the fugitives began to leave their shelter periodically for a day or two. As a rule, they returned at night, laden with fabulous products such as butter, honey, bacon, apples, potatoes, and moonshine. Despite their fearful appearance, rough manners, and foul language, the convicts did not harm the orphans unnecessarily, even treated them fraternally. They gave the leftover food after their meals to the kids for free, which clearly did not please Kultyapy, who would not have minded making a profit on it.
After drinking moonshine, the convicts usually settled down on their beds and began humming the same dreary prison songs about freedom and slavery, thief-atamans, bitches, cops, and, of course, Jews, whose murder was always approved of in these songs. The anti-Jewish theme also dominated their “philosophical” discourse on life and death, their jokes, anecdotes, and memories. Listening to their conversations, Kim feared that the discussion might turn to him. And it did.
One of the convicts inadvertently asked if there were any kikes among the guys present. Kultyapy readily pointed to Kim and, laughing, clarified that he recognized himself only as a Jew, but not as a kike in any way. The convicts, having nothing to do, immediately, without delay, proceeded to sort things out. After questioning and “deep” reasoning and interpretation, they came to the conclusion that since the kid had not been circumcised, was not a secret employee, and had been in orphanages since he was 6 years old, there was no reason to consider him a kike.
In general, as chance would have it, Kim was unexpectedly “exonerated” by the escaped convicts. But for Kultyapy the opinion of these “authorities” was indisputable, so even after the convicts disappeared without a trace from the city after robbing the orphanage food warehouse, he no longer dared, as before, to mock Kim. The other tenants of the house obediently followed his example. Kim, with renewed spirits, began to settle the conflict with the guys in his group. The unreasonable general boycott they had given him had hurt him, of course, but he was much more scared by the possibility of being alone forever.
Kim was willing to do anything to become “one of the boys” again. After all, this group of boys, with all their messes, arguments, and fights, was his only real family, any other place in life for him simply did not exist. However, the group’s attitude toward him was still hostile. Realizing that the reason lay in his nationality, Kim bravely began to “educate” his comrades. He was at that time unfamiliar with Jewish history, but it was not too difficult for him to compose a suitable story on the subject.
While deliberately not disputing Kultyapy’s claims about the “kike” crimes (in order to avoid known consequences on his part), Kim convinced the guys that all this had happened long ago, during Tzarist Russia. But the October Revolution and the Soviets ruthlessly dealt with all the enemies of the common people, including the kikes. But the unkind memory of them survived, and many people still mistakenly believed that the discussion was about all Jews indiscriminately. Therefore, although there were no kikes in the Soviet Union now, innocent, honest citizens continued to be attacked for their Jewish nationality.
These unexpected, rather lucid explanations made a good impression on the boys, and their attitudes toward Kim began to improve. In order to get even closer to them, Kim had to overcome his distaste for the Judophobic and obscene language that was widely used around him. Avoiding uttering such language made Kim look like a “white crow” among his peers, in connection to which he was often subjected to harsh taunts. Even when he submitted to the circumstances, he hesitated for a long time before he uttered the offending words. In time, however, the habit did its work, and he began to do as well as anyone. The toxin of antisemitism gradually poisoned Kim’s consciousness, dictating to him uncharacteristic rules of behavior. And fate, as if on purpose, provided a new occasion for this.
In the spring of 1943, an evacuated Jewish family — an elderly couple with a mentally underdeveloped son — moved into a private house on the hill adjacent to the orphanage, just across the street from the house in which Kim lived. It was not difficult to see that the landlady, a lean, slouching, unattractive woman, was used to keeping the men in her complete submission. In a loud, shrill voice, she would continually scold either her husband Chaim or her son Moses.
In the spring and summer, the family spent a lot of time in the vegetable garden. She usually left the house in the same dirty robe, but having become overheated from her work, she threw it off, leaving only patched pantaloons and a frayed bra. Again and again, she scolded the men angrily for their inept, awkward actions, calling them in Russian and Hebrew parasites, klutzes, slackers, and bloodsuckers. The lame, sickly husband and the taciturn, dejected son habitually endured the reproaches, occasionally objecting to their surly tormentor, but sometimes, in powerless anger, they unobtrusively made faces at her or exhibited “figs” signs in her direction.
Such scenes took place in front of the orphans, and they, inspired by Kultyapy, did not miss a chance to make fun of the “kike family.” Vulgarly breaking down and mangling Jewish names, strainedly trilling, the boys interrupted each other to mimic each of the neighbors while showering them with mockery and foul language.
Kim likewise did not sympathize with the hapless neighbors. Their unsightly behavior contradicted his idea of a Jewish family, and his neighbor’s constant rudeness and despotism undermined his naïve belief in good and cordial Jewish domestic relations. And after seeing his neighbor in broad daylight without the slightest embarrassment appearing in plain sight in disgusting patched pantaloons, causing yelling, whistling, and laughter from a gang of boys, Kim felt nothing but disgust and contempt for her.
Very soon the regular peeping into the behavior of the neighbors, with the obligatory mimicking of their habits, became a favorite pastime of the orphans. From time to time Kultyapy even encouraged the most vulgar improvisers with prizes in the form of slices of bread. Kim, forced to be present at these performances, was always horrified at the unanimity with which the children’s group demonstrated not just their negative attitude, but a kind of vicious animosity toward their “kike” neighbors. With all his being he felt an inexplicable hatred, and was gripped by an animal fear that this was about to fall upon him too.
The behavior of the unfortunate neighbors and the violent antisemitic reactions of the children had tormented Kim so much that he increasingly concluded that the saving grace was to renounce his unlucky nationality. If he had agreed to be registered as a Belarusian when he entered the orphanage, he would not have had to humiliate and suffer for belonging to a Jewish nationality that was rejected by everyone. Before, such a suggestion from the employee who had processed his documents had seemed completely incomprehensible and unacceptable to him. But now, after a year and a half in the company of Kultyapy and his associates, Kim’s opinion had changed. The temptation to put an end to his humiliating and dangerous position among his peers overcame the doubts and twinges of his conscience, and Kim decided to assert everywhere that his father was Belarusian and to consider himself Belarusian on this basis. Kim did not look like a typical Jew, which he had heard about more than once from people around him as a compliment, and therefore he did not doubt that he would be believed.
And indeed, his sometimes inappropriate statements on the subject were received quite calmly by the staff and students. Apparently, the caretakers understood the reasoning behind it, and the children did not care. On the other hand, this simple trick, not even documented, gave Kim confidence in himself, and helped to get rid of insoluble moral problems, including the oppressive feeling of his national belonging with his tired neighbors. To further establish himself in his new capacity, Kim even interrupted a long-standing good relationship with the orphanage librarian, an elderly, single Jewish woman who had always shown him special attention and care, because Kultyapy had repeatedly maliciously reproached him with this friendship.
Kim now used Judophobic language more boldly and more frequently than before, and when he encountered Jews in the street, he looked at them with a sense of superiority. The neighboring family almost ceased to bother him, and he was able to participate equally in the fun that Kultyapy continued to have.
By May 1944, when Braina finally decided to invite Kim to her house in Namangan, his consciousness was already seriously affected by Judophobia and he preferred not to talk about his Jewish origins. The orphanage provided Kim with the necessary documents, food for the journey, a small sum of money, and a train ticket to Namangan. He was given ceremonial clothes: an insulated captain’s jacket with big shiny buttons, wool pants, a nice cap, and good boots.
After saying goodbye to the children and the principal, Kim, accompanied by his teacher, went to the train station. On the reserve track, they found a passenger car with the sign “Petrovsk-Tashkent,” which on certain days went to Saratov, where it was joined to the train bound for Tashkent.
After bidding a warm farewell to his mentor, Kim stepped into the carriage and climbed onto the top shelf. He was happier than ever! After all, he was going to the remote, mysterious Namangan, where he was to meet his dearest and closest person and realize his dream of a bright home environment of mutual trust, care, kindness, and understanding! The joy of his impending meeting with his mother filled his entire being, he felt a burning need to take care of her, to help her in everything, to be her reliable and faithful friend! With these thoughts, he fell asleep unnoticed, and when he woke up, the wheels of the wagon were already gently tapping on the joints of the rails, carrying him further and further away from Petrovsk, from the orphanage, from Kultyapy…
Three days later, at night, the train arrived in Tashkent. At the train station, Kim found out that the train to Namangan would leave early in the morning. He did not have long to wait, he found an empty bench in the hall, but had barely settled on it when two boys, slightly older than him, joined him and immediately started a conversation. Having found out who he was and where he was going, they excitedly told him that they were his fellow travelers and were also going to Namangan to visit their relatives. One of the boys took out a loaf of cornbread and divided it among the three of them. The bread was very helpful, for Kim had run out of food during the day.
His new pals persuaded him not to wait for the train to board. It would be better to get on the train in advance and get the top shelves so they could sleep, otherwise, they would have to sit for almost a whole day. Kim agreed, and together they went out onto the platform and headed toward the warehouse building, behind which the silhouettes of the wagons could be seen in the darkness. As they neared the warehouse, Kim’s companions suddenly grasped his arms firmly on both sides, and at the same moment, a third teenager appeared from somewhere behind, a knife in his hand. He put the knife to his stomach, ordered him on pain of death to keep quiet, and together with his companions drove him into the thick bushes behind the storehouse. There they stripped and undressed the deeply shaken Kim, leaving him in only his underpants, and the man who had threatened him with the ax changed into his clothes, leaving behind his dirty, tattered pants, slippers, and padded jacket.
Then the young bandits, after a short discussion among themselves, gave Kim back his documents along with his train ticket and, laughing, wished him a safe journey, and disappeared into the darkness. Kim staggered back to the station. On the platform, a man on duty in a red top hat strolled by alone. Kim told him about the robbery. He was obviously distrustful of the boy, who looked like a homeless vagrant, but nevertheless advised him to go to the traffic police.
At that time, the Namangan train was boarding. In the carriage, under the suspicious glances of the passengers, Kim climbed onto a vacant luggage shelf and without food spent almost twenty-four hours there, reliving in every detail the recent horrible adventure.
But as soon as he stepped off the train in Namangan, his spoiled mood vanished in anticipation of the long-awaited meeting with his mother. After finding out how to get to the center of the city, Kim took the only street adjacent to the station square.
Namangan immediately struck him with its oriental flavor. Men in colorful robes on donkeys, women covered from head to waist in impenetrable black netting, an abundance of fruit trees hung with fruits, monotonous low houses with flat roofs behind low mud fences, and an endless number of ditches with babbling water. All this was unusual, but Kim was not in the mood for it; he was getting more and more worried.
After walking for nearly an hour, he found himself at the gate of the city market. Here he was told how to get to the right address, and in a few minutes, he was at his destination. There was an Uzbek mosque in front of him, whose vast courtyard was surrounded on three sides by barracks. Kim made his way to the longest of them, about fifty meters behind the mosque. In front of the barrack, in a deep ditch covered by a bridge, a stream flowed.
As he ascended the bridge, Kim looked around, and as soon as he moved toward the nearest apartment, intending to knock on the door, a woman’s head appeared in the open window. “Boy, are you looking for someone?” the woman asked. Kim gave the address he wanted. “Your name is Kim?” she asked in a shaky voice. Kim answered in the affirmative.
There were agitated exclamations and noise in the apartment, the door swung open, and an old woman appeared on the threshold, thin, toothless, bent over, wearing patched pantaloons and a decrepit bra. Her face was wrinkled, and her blue eyes burned feverishly. She rushed to Kim, shouting, “Kimochka! I’m your mother!” Kim was so frightened that he almost ran away. For a moment he thought that the spiteful and untidy neighbor who had annoyed him so much in Petrovsk had somehow miraculously surprised him here in Namangan. If Baba Yaga or Barmaley were to pop out of the apartment now, Kim would not be more dazed!
Without stopping to repeat, “Kimochka, son, I’m your mother!” — Braina stepped forward, trying to hug Kim. And he stubbornly pulled away from her, retreating step by step and whispering to himself: “No, no, it can’t be, you’re wrong! …”
The boy’s mind refused to recognize in this deformed, unkempt, beggarly, old Jewess in disgusting pantaloons the kind, intelligent, the only one in the world, the ideal woman from the old pre-war photographs, for whom he had always held sacred in his heart the cherished, the dearest word — Mother!
Kim’s behavior confused Braina, and she was at a loss, not knowing how to act. At that moment, another woman appeared at the door of the apartment, whom Kim easily recognized as his aunt Genya, who had visited him and Lena in the Darievsky orphanage before the war. It was only after that, with deep disappointment and frustration, that Kim realized this absurd woman who was such an alien to him, was really his mother.
Breaking the awkward silence, Genya invited everyone into the house and introduced Kim to her five-year-old daughter, Raechka. The squalid furnishings of the apartment, the lack of electricity and running water further aggravated the unhappy impression of the meeting. Gradually a conversation began, and explaining the reason for his strange appearance, Kim told them what had happened to him in Tashkent. The women were horrified and immediately realized they didn’t even have any food to offer their guest. Genya hurried to the orphanage where she worked as an educator, taking Kim’s documents with her. Three hours later she returned with lunch and clothes for Kim.
The director of the orphanage kept her promise and enrolled Kim among the children. For Braina, who had no money for Kim’s clothes, this was a stroke of luck. And Kim, washing in the muddy water of the ditch, wearing shabby clothes, eating runny porridge from the orphanage, more than once regretted that he thoughtlessly ignored the advice of his mentor — not to move in with his mother forever, but just to visit her at first.
One after another stretched the vague, melancholy, joyless days of Kim’s “home” life in Namangan. Trying not to be alone with Braina, he left early in the morning for breakfast at the orphanage and often came back only after dinner, spending the day in the library or playing games with new buddies. Braina took her son’s aloofness hard but did not miss an opportunity to have a frank conversation with him. Life experience told her that Kim’s behavior might be caused by a peculiar form of Judeophobia, which had served him as a protection against antisemitism in the orphanage. Braina understood that it was very important for Kim to learn as much as possible about his people, their history, and their tragic fate.
One day, when Kim was at home, she unobtrusively initiated a conversation about ancient Israel. Kim listened to her story with interest, and since then the conversations on the Jewish theme were repeated more and more often. For the first time, Kim learned about discrimination against Jews in Tsarist Russia and other countries, about the more than 100 years of “Pale of Settlement” and prohibition of many professions, about rampant antisemitism, the Beilis case, Black Hundreds, and bloody Jewish pogroms. As a result of what he heard, Kim’s mind gradually began to reevaluate the distrustful attitude toward Jews acquired in the orphanage, and sympathy and respect for his people arose.
Braina sensed that her son was undergoing a beneficial change, and she hoped that it would soften their personal relationship. But still, whenever she tried to approach and touch Kim, he immediately withdrew and moved away. The boy could not get used to her plain, almost beggarly appearance, which was so far from the image of his mother created in his imagination.
Genya also tried to influence her nephew. Hoping to awaken warm filial feelings in him, she worriedly reminded him of the tragic fate of Braina, spoke of her great motherly love for him and Lena, which had helped her to endure the inhuman conditions of the camps, drew attention to the kindness, honesty, modesty, loyalty of Braina.
Genya’s touching remarks moved Kim to tears, he felt guilty and sincerely confessed that he did not give up his duty to love Braina, but could not yet bring himself to call her mother, but would try not to upset her with his behavior. To this Genya only helplessly shook her hands.
A few weeks passed, but the relationship between Kim and Braina did not improve. In addition, Kim was badly adjusting to the Central Asian heat; he had lost weight and became gaunt. One day, when he was sitting by the ditch, feet down in the water, lonely and sad, Braina could not stand it: “That’s it, Kim — what you call out, you will hear in reply! Enough of us torturing each other! If we can’t get along, ask to go back to the orphanage. Maybe they’ll let you come back.”
The suggestion did not come as a surprise to Kim; he had thought of the same thing more than once himself. The letter to Petrovsk was sent without delay. And just at that time, there was an outbreak of malaria in Namangan. The disease did not bypass Kim either. During treatment, in addition to swallowing wormwood-like bitter pills, he received four doses of medicine injected into his buttocks. For some unknown reason, for Kim they hardened rather than dissolving, and all four of the injected places began to ache. He had just dared to tell Braina about it and to go to the doctor when he received a reply letter from Petrovsk with the official permission to return to the orphanage. Kim began to prepare to leave immediately, hoping that the sores would gradually go away. However, not only did they not go away, but they became more and more painful and by the morning of departure had turned into four incessantly aching boils that made it difficult to walk.
What was to be done? To let Braina know about it would mean to give up for a long time the fully prepared return to Petrovsk, which had become unusually desirable. So Kim decided to endure his affliction in silence. From a piece of gauze and absorbent cotton, he made a primitive but convenient bandage and secretly, choosing the right moment, applied it to the sore spots, and in his travel bag, he prudently hid a bottle of iodine. Braina insisted on her desire to escort Kim to the train, and he had to show a brave gait all the way to the station, while the pain in his legs and back became more and more intolerable. By the time they reached the station, the train boarding had already been announced.
Mother and son said goodbye without hugs or kisses. Braina only put her hand on Kim’s head, and this time he didn’t pull away. She spoke worriedly, “We’re parting ways with you now, son, but not forever. Remember that you have a mother who is always ready to help you! Write to me, and I hope the time will come when we will meet again, but in a different way!”
Kim didn’t answer; he could barely stand, he was shivering, his temples were pounding and his mouth was dry. Barely shifting his legs from step to step, he went into the carriage, climbed with difficulty on the top shelf, and laid down on his stomach, utterly exhausted. Through the window he could see Braina, looking sadly at the same window, hoping to see him, but he simply could no longer get down from the shelf on his own. Braina, on the other hand, could not know about it and waited until the train departed without moving.
When she returned home filled with bitter tears, she complained to Genya about how cruelly Kim had hurt her when he left, not even waving her out the window. At that moment her son was lying half-conscious on a shelf, his arms and legs bound by excruciating pain and fear. He was fortunate that the carriage he was in had a direct route to Kuibyshev via Saratov. This circumstance freed Kim from a layover in Tashkent, which could have caused him even more trouble.
Kim spent nearly a day lying motionless on his stomach, and only in the early morning, when all the passengers were sound asleep, decided to get off the shelf and go to the bathroom, taking clean absorbent cotton and iodine with him. Fortunately, there was a mirror above the washbasin, in which Kim could see his swollen buttocks with round, coin-sized boils, which oozed a brown liquid.
He was in severe pain and began to squeeze out the pus and treat the wounds with iodine. A day later he repeated the procedure. On the third day of the trip the pain subsided, his temperature dropped, his appetite appeared. The transfer to Saratov went smoothly, and upon arriving in Petrovsk, Kim was able to get to the orphanage on his own.
There he finally sought help and was immediately placed in an isolation ward. When the doctor examined him, he wondered how he had managed to avoid blood poisoning with such barbaric treatment. As soon as Kim recovered, he was summoned by the head of the educational department and told that by the decision of the teachers’ council he would be sent to study at the railway school in Atkarsk.