Eugene Kernerman - The Big Green Tent – we under it. Reflections and Comments

By this description, Mikha is the true “Christ of Our Time”. Later we shall see his “Revealing to the People”.

“In the sixth grade, Victor Yulievich Shengeli, a literary teacher, replaced the Russian teacher whose name no one could remember. From the very first day he captured the attention of the entire school: he walked briskly down the hallway, with the right sleeve of his gray striped blazer pinned shut just below the elbow, his half-arm dangling inside. In his left hand he carried an old briefcase with two copper locks – far older than the teacher himself, from the looks of it. And, by the end of that first week, he already had a nickname: the Hand.

He was fairly young, with a handsome face, almost like a film star, but excessively animated. He was in the habit of smiling for no discernible reason, then breaking into a frown, then twitching his nose or lips …He was improbably polite, addressing everyone with the formal “you”; but he could also be very caustic…

Within three months, all of them, including Ilya, Senka Svinin, and, in particular, Mikha, thought the teacher could do no wrong. They clung to his every word, twitching their lips and furrowing their brows in perfect imitation of him…

Half of the class did not quite understand what the literature teacher wanted from them. The other half clung to his every word. Victor Yulievich tried to treat everyone equally, but he did have his favorites – Mikha, emotional intense and sensitive to a fault; Ilya, energetic and capable; and Sanya, polite and self-contained. The inseparable trio…”

Quoted from – https://www.amazon.com/Big-Green-Tent-Novel/dp/0374166676

The author devotes this part of the novel to the enabler of minds and souls of three inseparable friends whose boyish union of hearts, “the trio”, grew under the mentoring of their teacher into a school club “Lovers of Russian Literature” or LORLs. Every Wednesday, when Victor Yulievich’s class was the last of the day, he brought his boys to “nature”, on a tour of memorable places of literary Moscow.

“We are learning literature, he explained repeatedly, each time announcing as if it were news. Literature is the greatest possession of humanity, and poetry is its heart, the concentrate of the best that humanity finds in its world. Solely they are the food for the soul. It is up to you if you are to evolve into human beings or remain on the primal level.”

Quoted from – https://www.amazon.com/Big-Green-Tent-Novel/dp/0374166676

But now comes March 1953. The death of Stalin…

Victor Yulievich asks his disciples not to leave their houses. He himself goes out for groceries only on the third day after the funeral of the leader…

“…The streets were almost deserted. Trucks were still lined up. The scene that greeted him was reminiscent of the aftermath of St. Petersburg’s infamous flood: crushed shoes and hats, briefcases, forever parted from their owners, broken lampposts, smashed-in first-floor windows. By the archway to a building, there was a wall covered in blood. A trampled dog lay in front of it…

Just there, on a lane a good distance from his home, Victor found a little shop that was open. The stairs led down into what was nearly a cellar. Several women were talking with the proprietor in hushed voices, but went silent when Victor entered. It’s as they they’ve been talking about me, Victor Yulievich said to himself, amused.

One of the woman recognized in him as a teacher, and peppered him with questions.

“Victor Yurievich, what happened? People are saying that the Jews were behind the stampede, that they organized it. Is it true? Maybe you’ve heard something about it yourself? Do you know anything about it?”…

“No, sweetheart, I haven’t heard anything like that. We’ll down a glass or two this evening for the repose of the soul and then get on with our lives. Why single out the Jews? They are people just like us. Two bottles of vodka, please, a loaf of white bread, and half a dark. Oh, and two packages of dumplings’”

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