Summary
Kolya was in third grade, and his teacher was Anna Nikolaevna, who was especially appreciated for her “commander’s mind.” She never lectured, but she taught valuable life lessons that were etched in the children’s memories for a long time.
It was already 1945, and every day the radio announced another victory of the Soviet troops over the fascist invaders. These days, Kolya was overwhelmed with conflicting emotions - “a presentiment of joy and anxiety for his father,” who fought at the front.
All schoolchildren were given coupons for additional meals in turn. This time it was Kolya’s turn - Anna Nikolaevna gave him a coupon so that he could have lunch in dining room No. 8. Despite the fact that “his mother and grandmother tried their best” so that Kolya would not go hungry, he constantly experienced a “feeling of insatiability.”
*
Canteen No. 8 “was set up specifically for all the schools in the city,” and only children dined here. The food here was mediocre: sour cabbage soup, oatmeal and a glass of milk, but Kolya “ate everything - that’s how it was supposed to be, even if the food they give is tasteless,” because that’s what his mother and grandmother constantly taught him.
*
The next day, the food in the canteen “turned out to be worse than yesterday.” Kolya hardly forced himself to eat two-thirds of the oatmeal soup, after which he began to eat the cutlet. Suddenly, a boy appeared nearby with a “yellow, almost dead face.” He asked in a whisper for permission to eat the rest of the soup and swallowed it in an instant. The boy was not alone, but with his younger sister, who was also begging for leftover food from the schoolchildren who were having lunch. Kolya learned that these guys are called “jackals” here.
*
The thought of hungry children, ready to “finish other people’s pieces, lick other people’s plates,” haunted Kolya. Secretly from his mother, he stole a piece of bread from the cupboard and put it in his briefcase.
*
On this day, there was real pandemonium in the dining room - “two or maybe even three shifts came together.” Kolya had to face a real gang of high school students who smelled horribly of shag. The leader of this gang was a big-nosed big man, to whom Kolya gave the nickname Nose.
Kolya learned that “jackals” often stole food right from the table. There were real raids on them, but nothing helped. Soon Kolya witnessed how yesterday’s yellow-faced boy stole bread from a little girl.
*
Kolya heard Nose persuade his comrades to teach the “jackal” a lesson. Surrounding the yellow-faced boy, they “looked like a pack that had driven an animal.” A fight began, and unexpectedly for everyone, the “jackal” clung his hands to Nose’s throat with all his strength and began to choke him. Nose's friends fled in fear.
*
The yellow-faced boy lost consciousness, and Kolya ran to the dining room for help. The wardrobe attendant gave the boy sweet tea, and he came to his senses. Kolya found out that the “jackal” had not eaten for five days.
*
Kolya met a yellow-faced man - his name was Vadka, and his sister’s name was Marya. He learned that their father died at the front, and their mother was in the hospital. The children, having lost money and food cards, were starving, but did not tell their mother about this, not wanting to upset her.
*
Kolya saw that his new acquaintances were “unwell and lonely,” and desperately wanted to help them. Vadka said that they need to somehow survive until the end of the month, and then they will receive new cards. Kolya decided to give the guys his jacket.
*
Kolya’s mother, having learned about Vadka and Marya’s troubles, invited them into the house. The grandmother fed the children a delicious brew with butter, and they, having eaten their fill for the first time in a long time, fell fast asleep.
*
Kolya’s mother decided to help the children and asked them to come to them in the evening. For the sake of his new friend, Kolya skipped classes and, together with Vadim, wandered around the city in search of food. That day they managed to beg some cake from the creamery.
*
Vadim told Kolya how mentally difficult it was for him to be a “jackal,” but otherwise Marya would die of hunger. He also told about local punks who take food from children in canteens at knifepoint.
*
Vadim brought Kolya to the market, which he “considered a serious place in terms of food,” and told him about the methods of obtaining food. The boys looked under the counters in the hope of finding the dropped potato, but they found nothing.
*
After the market, the guys went into Vadka’s apartment. Kolya had never “seen such wretchedness” before. Vadim said that after his father’s death, his mother changed a lot and began to behave strangely.
*
Kolya’s mother told the school about the hungry children, and the director gave them coupons to the canteen, and the teacher collected some money. Vadim was very happy that “now there is no need to act like a jackal.”
*
In the dining room, one of the punks took food from Marya, threatening her with a razor. The boys stood up for her, and the bully hastened to hide.
*
On the way home, a hooligan from the dining room caught up with the guys and cut Vadim’s coat with a razor - “now you can’t sell it.” Marya began to cry bitterly.
*
Kolya and Marya went to the typhoid barracks to deliver a letter to their sick mother. Kolya was horrified to learn that the patients here were openly starving. He left the hospital as a completely different person. Only now did he realize what a terrible misfortune his new friends were facing. Kolya felt like “a green brat compared even to Masha.”
*
In the evening Vadim came with food that was given to him at school. He said that the director suggested that they temporarily live in an orphanage until their mother gets better.
*
Kolya’s mother insisted that Vadka go to the bathhouse. Marya admitted that Vadim once took her to a men’s bathhouse, she was terribly ashamed, and she would never go there again.
*
When the brother and sister left, my mother began to scold Kolya for skipping school. He said that he and Vadka were looking for food, and then my mother began to cry. “The worst kind of torture is a mother’s tears,” and Kolya felt very bad that he had upset his mother.
*
On May 9, the long-awaited victory over Germany was announced. Everyone around was rejoicing. Anna Nikolaevna gathered the children in the class, congratulated them on their victory and said that they, children of war, should never forget it - this is the only way to preserve peace on earth.
*
After school, Kolya visited his friends and learned about a terrible grief - their mother died. Soon they were taken to an orphanage, and Kolya and Vadka’s friendship ended - from now on they lived as if in different worlds.
*
The war ended, and Kolya quickly forgot about it. He was already finishing fourth grade, but the eighth canteen was still inhabited by “jackals” - “small, hungry, innocent children.”
Albert Likhanov - The Last Cold
1 …
Albert Likhanov
Last cold weather
I dedicate it to the children of the past war, their hardships and not at all children’s suffering. I dedicate it to today’s adults who have not forgotten how to base their lives on the truths of military childhood. May those lofty rules and undying examples always shine and never fade in our memory - after all, adults are just former children.
Author
Remembering my first classes and my dear teacher, dear Anna Nikolaevna, now, when so many years have passed since that happy and bitter time, I can say quite definitely: our teacher loved to be distracted.
Sometimes, in the middle of a lesson, she would suddenly rest her fist on her sharp chin, her eyes would become misty, her gaze would sink into the sky or sweep through us, as if behind our backs and even behind the school wall she saw something happily clear, something we, of course, did not understand , and here is what is visible to her; her gaze became misty even when one of us was stomping around the blackboard, crumbling the chalk, groaning, sniffling, looking questioningly at the class, as if looking for salvation, asking for a straw to grab onto - and then suddenly the teacher became strangely quiet, her gaze softened, she forgot the respondent at the blackboard, forgot us, her students, and quietly, as if to herself and to herself, she uttered some truth that still had a direct relation to us.
“Of course,” she said, for example, as if reproaching herself, “I won’t be able to teach you drawing or music.” But the one who has God’s gift,” she immediately reassured herself and us too, “will be awakened by this gift and will never fall asleep again.”
Or, blushing, she muttered under her breath, again not addressing anyone, something like this:
– If anyone thinks that they can skip just one section of mathematics and then move on, they are sorely mistaken. In learning you cannot deceive yourself. You may deceive the teacher, but you will never deceive yourself.
Either because Anna Nikolaevna did not address her words to any of us specifically, or because she was talking to herself, an adult, and only the last donkey does not understand how much more interesting the conversations of adults about you are than teachers’ and parents’ moral teachings, or perhaps all this taken together had an effect on us, because Anna Nikolaevna had a military mind, and a good commander, as we know, will not take a fortress if he only attacks head-on - in a word, Anna Nikolaevna’s distractions, her general’s maneuvers, thoughtful, at the most unexpected moment, reflections turned out, surprisingly, to be the most important lessons.
In fact, I almost don’t remember how she taught us arithmetic, the Russian language, and geography, so it’s clear that this teaching became my knowledge. But the rules of life that the teacher pronounced to herself remained for a long time, if not for a century.
Perhaps trying to instill self-respect in us, or perhaps pursuing a simpler but important goal, spurring on our efforts, Anna Nikolaevna from time to time repeated one apparently important truth.
“This is all it takes,” she said, “just a little more - and they will receive a certificate of primary education.”
Indeed, colorful balloons were inflating inside us. We looked, satisfied, at each other. Wow, Vovka Kroshkin will receive the first document in his life. And me too! And, of course, excellent student Ninka. Anyone in our class can receive - what's called - a certificate of education.
At the time when I was studying, primary education was valued. After the fourth grade, they were given a special paper, and they could complete their studies there. True, this rule did not suit any of us, and Anna Nikolaevna explained that we had to complete at least seven years of education, but a document on primary education was still issued, and we thus became quite literate people.
– Look how many adults have only primary education! - Anna Nikolaevna muttered. “Ask your mothers, your grandmothers at home, who graduated from primary school alone, and think carefully after that.
We thought, asked questions at home and gasped to ourselves: a little more, and it turned out that we were catching up with many of our relatives. If not in height, if not in intelligence, if not in knowledge, then through education we were approaching equality with people we loved and respected.
“Wow,” sighed Anna Nikolaevna, “about a year and two months!” And they will get an education!
Who was she grieving for? Us? For yourself? Unknown. But there was something significant, serious, disturbing in these lamentations...
* * *
Immediately after spring break in the third grade, that is, without a year and two months of being a primary educated person, I received vouchers for extra food.
It was already the forty-fifth, ours were beating the Krauts in vain, Levitan announced a new fireworks display on the radio every evening, and in my soul in the early mornings, at the beginning of a day undisturbed by life, two lightning bolts crossed, blazing - a premonition of joy and anxiety for my father. I seemed to be all tense, superstitiously averting my eyes from such a murderously painful possibility of losing my father on the eve of obvious happiness.
It was in those days, or rather, on the first day after spring break, that Anna Nikolaevna gave me coupons for supplementary nutrition. After classes I have to go to cafeteria number eight and have lunch there.
We were given free food vouchers one by one - there wasn’t enough for everyone at once - and I had already heard about the eighth canteen.
Who didn’t know her, really! This gloomy, drawn-out house, an extension to a former monastery, looked like an animal that was sprawled, clinging to the ground. From the heat that made its way through the unsealed cracks in the frames, the glass in the eighth dining room not only froze, but was overgrown with uneven, lumpy frost. Frost hung like a gray fringe over the front door, and when I walked past the eighth dining room, it always seemed to me as if there was such a warm oasis with ficus trees inside, probably along the edges of the huge hall, maybe even under the ceiling, like in a market, there lived two or three happy sparrows who managed to fly into the ventilation pipe, and they chirp to themselves on the beautiful chandeliers, and then, emboldened, sit on the ficus trees.
This is how the eighth dining room seemed to me while I was just passing by it, but had not yet been inside. What significance, one might ask, do these ideas have now?
Will explain.
Even though we lived in a rear-facing city, even though my mother and grandmother sat down with all their might, not allowing me to go hungry, the feeling of insatiability visited me many times a day. Infrequently, but still regularly, before going to bed, my mother made me take off my T-shirt and bring my shoulder blades together on my back. Smiling, I obediently did what she asked, and my mother sighed deeply, or even began to sob, and when I demanded to explain this behavior, she repeated to me that the shoulder blades come together when a person is extremely thin, so I can count all my ribs It’s possible, and in general I have anemia.
I laughed. I don’t have any anemia, because the word itself means that there should be little blood, but I had enough of it. When I stepped on bottle glass in the summer, it gushed out as if from a water tap. All this is nonsense - my mother’s worries, and if we talk about my shortcomings, then I could admit that there is something wrong with my ears - I often heard in them some kind of additional, in addition to the sounds of life, a slight ringing, really , my head was lighter and I seemed to think even better, but I was silent about it, I didn’t tell my mother, otherwise he’d come up with some other stupid disease, like hearing loss, ha-ha-ha!
But this is all nonsense on vegetable oil!
The main thing was that the feeling of insatiability did not leave me. It seems like we’ve eaten enough in the evening, but our eyes still see something delicious - some plump sausage, with rounds of lard, or, even worse, a thin piece of ham with a teardrop of some moist deliciousness, or a pie that smells of ripe apples. Well, it’s not for nothing that there is a saying about insatiable eyes. Maybe in general there is some kind of impudence in the eyes - the stomach is full, but the eyes are still asking for something.
In general, it seems like you’re eating a lot, an hour will pass, and if you have a feeling in the pit of your stomach, I can’t help it. And again I want to eat. And when a person is hungry, his head turns to writing. Then he’ll invent some unprecedented dish, I’ve never seen it in my life, except maybe in the movie “Jolly Fellows,” for example, a whole piglet lies on a platter. Or something else like that. And all sorts of food places, like the eighth dining room, can also be imagined by a person in the most pleasant way.
Food and warmth, it is clear to everyone, are very compatible things. So I imagined ficus trees and sparrows. I also imagined the smell of my favorite pea.
* * *
However, reality did not confirm my expectations.
The door, scalded with frost, gave way to me from behind, pushed me forward, and I immediately found myself at the end of the line. This line did not lead to food, but to the locker room window, and in it, like a cuckoo in a kitchen clock, a thin woman with black and, it seemed to me, dangerous eyes appeared. I noticed those eyes right away - they were huge, half the size of the face, and in the uncertain light of a dim electric light bulb, mixed with reflections of daylight through the ice-covered window, they sparkled with coldness and malice.
1 …
