Papa

I had been meaning to write since yesterday, but could not think of a title. Yesterday I saw a lifehack on how to tie a man’s tie quickly. Anyway “with a light movement of the hand” we get a beautiful knot! For the Norwegian locality a man’s tie is for a very, very special occasion. Norwegian men “don’t bother” with details. And thank God! But from my childhood life I remember a major quarrel of my parents because of this tie. I have written a lot about my mama. She sewed beautifully and always had wonderful dresses “for going out.” I remember myself as a little girl, about five. Mama and papa are getting ready for the theatre. I watch mama: she has a dress of tender lilac colour of natural silk, a shawl collar fastened with a huge most beautiful mother-of-pearl button, little pump shoes on a modest spike (papa was a stocky man, so mama tried to wear a moderate heel so as not to tower over him; in those times it was not accepted to be taller than a man). ...

I wrote such a heading because when I became a teenager, Papa was no longer for me the beloved, dear one whom I could not wait for from work, did not sleep if he came late… All that remained in childhood. I already had a sister. At that time she was considered a “late” child. She was born when Mama was 36 and Papa 45. Before her birth they “improved” our housing conditions. We moved into a separate one-room apartment, bathroom combined with toilet, on the fourth floor. And the hardest moment of that life was Papa’s going on pension. Or rather, “they went him” or as they say now “they set him up.” This affected our material situation, and Mama’s attitude to Papa, how shall I put it more softly now… changed…. not for the better. Well, and I took Mama’s position and “struck the same pretentious poses as she did!” (Lord! If you knew, those reading these lines, how ashamed I am now, how bitter, how hurt I am at my stupid behaviour!) ...

Papa came home from duty very late. I rarely fell asleep before he arrived. I waited for him… that is where “owls” come from. From childhood! I was a typical owl. Mama could not take it — she went to bed before me. The thing is that I did not go to kindergarten, so I had a free schedule. I could not “settle in.” In the morning Mama would take me there all starched and ironed, and in the evening she would pick me up with a high temperature. ...

In our officers’ barracks there were two front entrances. In each entrance lived five families. Each family occupied one room, regardless of the size of the family. There was a long shared corridor; along the corridor wall stood (at this point I can barely keep from laughing!) well, what could have stood there? By the door of our room stood a wooden table, probably knocked together by someone, an old stool, and at the end, along the other wall, there was a small niche where Mama put the green basin with black speckles. ...

It is time to tell about my papa. Aleksandr Mikhailovich married late and swiftly, at the age of 35. I think he fell in love with Mama at once, at first sight. And he was ready, morally and materially. An officer, a captain. At that time officers had a good salary. If only there had been somewhere to spend it! He had been called into the Army even before the war, served in the Far East, took part in the war with Japan. After the war he bought a house in Blagoveshchensk and brought there his elder sister and niece from a village in Smolensk province (everything there had been destroyed during the war). And so the elder sister ran the household. And suddenly my papa brought a wife… ...