57. Pillowcases—3
58. Blankets, cotton—3
59. Feather pillows, assorted—3
60. Ice skates with boots—3 pairs
61. Boots, children’s, assorted leather—2 pairs
62. Demi-boots, men’s—1 pair
63. Shoes, women’s—2 pairs
64. Galoshes, men’s—1 pair
65. Galoshes, children’s—1 pair
66. Galoshes, women’s—1 pair
67. School briefcases, children’s, leather—2 pairs, old
68. Violin, children’s—1
69. Metal box with drafting tools—1
70. Electric iron—1
71. Ties, men’s—9
72. Bowls, metal—3
73. Soup dishes, assorted—12
74. Bread box, clay—1
75. Small dishes—20
76. Pots—2
77. Milk pot, enameled—1
78. Teacups, assorted—10
79. Saucers, assorted—12
80. Vases, assorted—3
81. Shot glasses—6
82. Rinsers—2
83. Tablespoons—6
84. Forks—5
85. Teaspoons—3
86. Teapot, small, porcelain—1
87. Frying pans—2
88. Kitchen knives—4
89. Sugar bowl—1
* * *
Apartment has been sealed and all items given for safekeeping to Talkovskaya, Varvara Arturovna, superintendent of housing.
I ran my hand over the words like a blind person reading with his fingers, as if attempting to touch those shabby, precious, lost items. How quickly they returned to me in every poignant, awful, nostalgic detail. My mother’s “checkered” dress, of brown-and-green plaid, which brushed against me as, holding hands, she and I walked to the bread kiosk. My father’s aviator jacket, its collar savory with Shipr cologne. My own “mouse-colored” coat and battered school satchel, bought off another kid in the building, along with the violin my mother had maneuvered to obtain in the hope that I would become the next David Oistrakh. Even my little booties—two pairs—had been included in this criminal seizure. I could scarcely read the list without having my chest fill with the pressure of agony. Where had it all gone? The undershirts and porcelain figurines and ice skates and sugar bowl! For “safekeeping” to Talkovskaya, Varvara Arturovna, whoever the hell she was (the name brought to mind absolutely nothing). And where, then, was my mother’s jewelry—her pins and clip-on earrings and amber necklace and scarves? Where were her gloves? Pilferers! Thieves! Writing up our life like it was up for auction.
And at that instant, I was six and a half years old again, watching the two arresting officers—a man and a woman dressed in quasi-military olive-drab uniforms—opening the door of our wardrobe, running their hands over every hanging item of clothing, palpating the linings, sticking their busy fingers in the pockets before flinging every one of my mother’s possessions on the floor.
They’d taken down a framed photograph hanging above my parents’ bed, a studio shot of the three of us: my jug-eared one-year-old self seated between my young papa in his pulpy suit and my pompadoured mother, her lips cinched in a dark Cupid’s bow. They had taken the picture down to check that nothing was concealed behind it, and then, to make perfectly sure, they ripped open the back of the frame, while my mother—her face blanched and sleepless, her dry lips armored in nothing like the darkly painted heart in the picture—made some tactful imploring protest. And where was I? Seated on my little cot by the radiator, the floral curtain dividing my side of the room from that of my parents jerked open. What time was it? Four-thirty or five A.M.—the violet of the November morning just beginning to creep in through the drapes. I couldn’t move. A heavy hand was weighing down on my shoulder. It belonged to our neighbor down the hall, Avdotya Grigorievna—old “Aunt Dunya”—who cooked me barley soup after school while my mother worked. In the hubbub she had forced her way in the door and refused to leave—to intercede on my behalf, I imagine, though, given the way that trembling paw bore down on my shoulder, I might as well have been a bedpost holding her up. I was surrounded by her scent—the distillation of everything aged and sour and sleepy—while the pudgy young woman in a soldier’s uniform ransacked my mother’s closet. My bladder was held tight against the reality of this moment; I did not dare open my mouth to ask if I could leave the room to relieve myself, and instead concentrated all my focus on the discolored square of wallpaper where the photograph of my family had hung. And now the female officer paused in her scrutiny of our étagère to examine, with a sort of sardonic admiration, the small brass bust of Lenin on the top shelf. It was the same bust—I realized with a mute sense of catastrophe—that Mama took down from the shelf whenever she brought home walnuts. Where had she gotten this statuette, whose impressive bald head fit so perfectly into the curled palm of her hand while she smashed the nuts open with the base of V. I. Lenin’s thorax? Probably it was a reward for services well performed at some place of employ.
A corner of my heart had always suspected that Mama would one day be punished for her misuse of the bust of the grandfather of our nation. Moreover, I was convinced that only I could come to her rescue. I would redeem her incomplete loyalty to Lenin, just as soon as I could shake off Aunt Dunya’s leaden paw, with my full-throated recitation of the Pioneer Oath, which I had seen pasted to the classroom wall:
The Pioneer is true to the work of Lenin and Stalin. The Pioneer loves his motherland and hates her enemies. The Pioneer is honest and truthful. His word is firmer than steel! The Pioneer is as brave as an eagle. He despises a coward.
I imagined the male officer, who in his handling of our stuff seemed the more businesslike and less spiteful of the two, remarking that no one whose child could recite the oath so flawlessly could be an enemy. They’d instantly know they’d barged into the wrong apartment, would be very contrite (perhaps the man would give me his cap), and would leave us, with hearty handshakes, in peace. And then, almost as if I had willed it with the magic of my hope, the male officer, who had been sorting through a mess of papers on the table, scanned the room until his eyes fixed on me.
“Tell the kid to get up,” he commanded Avdotya Grigorievna. I stood up without prompting: It was my chance to get out from under Aunt Dunya’s henlike guard. I tried to will myself to clear my throat in preparation for my recitation. But he walked past me to the metal cot and, bending down to strip it of my flannel sheet and wool blanket, flipped the cushion mattress over to reveal its dingy bottom, overturning my pillow.
“That’s the child’s bed—can’t you see there’s nothing there?” came the warbling remonstrations of Aunt Dunya.