Татьяна Викентьева – "STOLEN IMMORTALITY" (страница 6)

The car started moving. Streets, houses, shop windows, people flashed by... Alexander stared out the window indifferently.

When we reached the Garden Ring, the driver asked:

-Alexander Ivanovich, can I turn on some music?

"No. Better increase the speed, Tikhon. We need to get to the lab as quickly as possible," Alexander replied.

The driver increased the speed. The streets, houses, shop windows, people flashed by even faster...

Once they left the city and started driving along the highway, Alexander stopped looking out the window. He rested his head on the back of the seat and closed his eyes.

The monotonous hum of the engine lulled him to sleep, and soon Alexander dozed off.

Past events loomed clearly through my drowsiness. Terrible events I so desperately wanted to forget! To erase from my memory forever! But they kept coming back to haunt me, both in reality and in my dreams...

The September days were unusually hot. The sun shone like it was July. The temperature rose to thirty degrees. A real Indian summer! And what a summer! It was wonderful to relax by the river or lake, swim, sunbathe...

However, the adult population of Shatalovka village wasn't happy with the weather. It was harvest time. They were picking onions, potatoes, and carrots... It was difficult to work. People were sweltering in the heat, quickly tired, thirsty, and constantly taking smoke breaks. The work was slow. This greatly irritated the chairman of the Shatalovka state farm. Furthermore, there was another problem: almost all the machine operators were heavy drinkers, often absent from work. Finding a sober machine operator, even for a single day, was no easy task, especially in such hot weather, which made all the workers sluggish and lethargic.

Only the children liked this weather. They didn't want to go to school. They barely made it through the allotted time in class and then ran outside. There they frolicked, swam, sunbathed, and played various games...

Sasha Zavidov also didn't want to go to school, even though he went there for the first time on September 1st. After two weeks, the boy was completely disillusioned with school life. After all, he had expected something different. Sasha thought school would be interesting. But it turned out...

The unattractive schoolteacher demanded that he learn letters, form syllables, solve problems, and count... Playing with the boys was much more interesting and fun. So after school, Sasha hurried outside. There he would disappear until late in the evening.

Antonina Yegorovna scolded her son, trying to instill in him a love of school. But she couldn't. Moreover, her husband, Stepan Zavidov, didn't encourage his son to show any zeal for learning. On the contrary, he set a bad example. Every day he drank moonshine, cursed, and started fights.

In the village of Shatalovka, Sasha's father was known as a hardened drunk and a poor family man. In short, a worthless person. This reputation was cemented after his marriage to Antonina Yegorovna. But before this marriage, Stepan was a completely different person. The biggest man in the village. Handsome, funny, a joker. The best machine operator on the state farm. The best accordion player in the village. Every girl liked him, without exception. But he liked only one: Natalya, the youngest daughter of the village carpenter, Yegor Vlasov. He wanted to marry her. The engagement had already taken place, and the wedding day had been set. But suddenly, the bride died. The village doctor concluded that Natalya died from poisoning by poisonous mushrooms. This was strange. The entire Vlasov family picked mushrooms in the forest. Everyone ate them, too. And only Natalya was poisoned. Rumors spread through the village that Natalya had been poisoned by her sister, Antonina, who was secretly in love with Stepan. However, there was no evidence of Antonina's guilt, and the village police officer decided not to open a criminal case. Everyone was told it had been an accident: someone from the Vlasov family had put a fake boletus in a basket instead of a boletus, which then accidentally ended up on Natalya's plate, poisoning her. However, Stepan didn't believe it was an accident and from then on, he glared at Antonina. She, on the other hand, began to court Stepan. Sometimes she'd bring him lunch in the fields, sometimes she'd do his laundry, sometimes she'd drop in late at night to visit...

Six months later, the villagers noticed that Antonina was pregnant. It was shocking news. A scandal was brewing. Yegor Vlasov quickly showed up at Stepan Zavidov's. He demanded that he marry his eldest daughter. Refusing was impossible. After all, everyone in the village knew Antonina was only seeing him. He was forced to marry. And after this marriage, Stepan was like a different person. He became completely different. Sullen, irritable, perpetually dissatisfied. He began drinking heavily. And when he got drunk, he would start a scene, beat his wife, and shout at the whole village: "My wife is a snake in the grass! She poisoned my own sister! She forced me to marry her! I hate her! I hate her!"

During such scandals, neighbors would come running, tear Antonina Yegorovna from the hands of her cruel husband, and call the police...

But neither the neighbors nor the police could make Stepan change. He continued to drink and cause trouble. Antonina hoped that with the birth of their child, her husband would settle down, become a better, kinder person. But this didn't happen. On the contrary, after the birth of their son, Stepan became even angrier. He now hated not only his wife but also his son. Many found this strange. After all, the child wasn't to blame for anything. However, Stepan believed that everyone was to blame for his ruined life. And he took out his frustration on his wife and son.

Antonina wanted to leave her husband more than once. But there was nowhere to go. No one was waiting for her at home. Her father was against her returning home and forced her to live with Stepan. So she lived with her husband, a drunkard. She worked the equivalent of two. After all, Stepan had been fired from his job when, while very drunk, he crashed a state farm tractor.

He crashed into a tree. From then on, he became a parasite, a freeloader. He lived off his wife. Antonina planted a vegetable garden of about thirty acres, kept a lot of livestock, and also worked as a milkmaid on the state farm. The hard work left her very tired and looking older than her years. But she never complained to anyone or lamented her fate. She steadfastly endured all the burdens placed on her womanly shoulders and lived with love and hope in her soul. With love for her son Sasha. With hope for his happy future.

Antonina Yegorovna wanted her son to get an education and have a good job. She dreamed of him becoming the chairman of a state farm or an agronomist—in short, a respected man in the village. That's why she prioritized her son's education. She was upset that Sasha didn't enjoy studying, that he happily ran out into the streets instead of to school. She wanted things to be different.

And so, on that memorable September day, Antonina Yegorovna started a conversation about school while feeding Sasha breakfast.

"Son!" she said. "I want you to study well. Knowledge helps a person in life."

“How do they help, Mom?” asked Sasha, chewing a sandwich and washing it down with tea.

- I already explained it to you, son. If you study well, you'll be able to get into college. And after graduating, you'll have a good job.

"Why doesn't our dad have a good job? Was he a bad student?" the boy asked.

"Our dad drinks. That's why he lost his job," Antonina Yegorovna replied, handing her son a second sandwich. "Here's another sandwich, son. Eat."

Sasha took the sandwich and asked again:

-And how did our dad study?

He was an average student. Not very good. And not very bad. But he didn't get into college. He stayed on the state farm and worked as a machine operator.

- Maybe I should also become a machine operator, like my dad?

- No, son. You should become a state farm chairman or an agronomist. And for that, you need to study hard. Do you understand?

-Mom! Why is being a state farm chairman and an agronomist better than being a machine operator?

- Well, because... - Antonina Yegorovna hesitated for a while, but then found what to answer. - Because the work of the chairman of the state farm and the agronomist is clean and well-paid, and the work of a machine operator is dirty and not very well paid.

- Ah, I get it! - Sasha exclaimed. - You, Mom, want me to be rich!

- Not rich. But well-off. So that you always live well.

-As good as those Jews I visited two years ago?

"Well, there's no point in comparing ourselves to those Jews! We'll never reach their standard of living, son!"

- Why, Mom? Why can't we ever live like Uncle Joseph, Aunt Sonya, and their son Yasha? Are we worse than them?

- No. Not worse. It's something else, son.

"So what's the matter? Explain it to me, Mom," Sasha insisted.

"It's hard to explain," Antonina Yegorovna said thoughtfully. "It's just that we are Russians. And they are Jews."