Slava Brodsky: Funny Children's Stories

And someone would ask her, and she would reply that one piece of bread she received for herself and the other for her child. “But the child did not need it because I (this my mom said about herself) – because I was nursing him (this was about me).”

So she hid the second piece of bread in our wardrobe in order to prepare a sort of feast for herself for the next day, meaning to eat all three pieces of bread at once. But after she hid the bread, she kept constantly thinking about it.

She kept thinking about that piece of bread, which she had saved for the next day. And she took it from the wardrobe and looked at it. And as she looked at it, this piece of bread began to seem uneven. So then Mom cut around the edges of the bread to make it more even. Whatever she cut, she ate and put the remaining piece back in the wardrobe.

Then Mom took it out of the wardrobe again. And again it seemed uneven and she thought that she did not trim the edges well enough. So she cut it again. And she continued doing this until she finished her second piece of bread.

There was another story that my mom told once. When we returned to our apartment after the evacuation, it turned out that all the locks on all the doors had been broken. And when Mom opened the door to our room, she saw that the room was empty. Not even a single chair was left.

And she began to cry because she did not know what to do. Then someone told her that she should rummage through other apartments in our building and see whether the neighbors had any of our furniture.

At first, Mom doubted that anyone would allow her to search through their apartment. She asked, “What am I supposed to say when they open their door? I beg your pardon, I want to check whether you have stolen anything from me?” But Mom was told not to worry too much about what she should say. In those days everyone did things like that.

So Mom went around the building to the other apartments. She knocked on the neighbors’ doors and asked them to let her in to see whether, by chance, they had some of our furniture.

I believe that in the very first apartment she went to, Mom saw our wardrobe. She asked the neighbor whose wardrobe it was. The neighbor answered, “How should I know whose wardrobe it is?” Then Mom said that it was our wardrobe. And the neighbor said, “If it’s yours, then take it.”

In another apartment, an elderly woman opened the door. Mom noticed immediately that the woman was wearing her blouse. Mom said that it was her blouse. The elderly woman took off the blouse and returned it to my mom.

This way my mom managed to salvage a lot of our stuff. However, she said that she did not feel comfortable having to go through other people’s apartments. And she especially felt uncomfortable when she found some of our stuff.

All our guests also shared many stories. They recall how they used to stoke up their small metal heater with firewood. And how they placed the exhaust pipe out the window. They recall how and where they got the firewood. And how they stoked up their heater with not only firewood but whatever else they could find.

There would always be someone who would recall how they boiled water in a glass, using two shaving blades. But because it has been more than ten years since the war ended, this someone starts to forget when exactly they boiled water with the blades – during the war or after. Once someone described how he had been taught to steal electricity. You just need to connect one wire to the steam radiator, and then nothing would register on the meter.

Most definitely, they would talk about the Germans; how cruel they were and what horrid things they did. And of course they would recall how Germans made soap out of human bodies and wrote on this soap that it was made out of humans.

Once Mom’s brother grinned and asked who would buy that soap, knowing it was made out of humans. And immediately everyone started to ask, “What do you mean? What do you mean?” And my mom’s brother replied that he meant nothing by it.

Our guests might be a little envious of those who were wounded slightly during the war since the government promised to them certain privileges for that. But if someone gets envious of the invalids of the war, then there would be someone who would say that it was better to live without any privileges than to be handicapped.

Mom’s brother once said that war veterans were being gradually evicted from Moscow so that they would not spoil the city’s scenery. But someone objected, saying that the invalids were evicted not from Moscow but only from the central part of Moscow.

Sometimes someone would say that our allies were unreliable. And everyone would start remembering when they promised to open the Second Front and when they actually opened it.

Usually after that, everyone would get quiet for a moment. And I knew what was on everyone’s mind at that time. Because someone would, most certainly, say something nice about the allies. And as soon as someone said it, everyone would immediately agree and say something nice about the allies too. They would, of course, talk about the Lend-Lease a lot. And finally, everyone would agree that without American stewed meat, we all would have died of starvation.

There would always be someone who would recall the Siege and say that during the Siege people ate cats and rats. Even though not one of our guests has ever seen anyone who lived through the Siege.

And once someone said that during the Siege mothers ate their children. And my mom’s brother said that this did not happen during the Siege but in the year nineteen-twenty-nine and again, later, in forty-six. And to that, everyone started to say “Sh-sh! What are you talking about?” And my mom said to her brother, “Don’t say these things so loud. Our neighbors might hear.”

And I wonder why it is so – the war ended a long time ago but adults still think about it all the time. Why is it that as soon as they get together in our room, they start remembering about how things were during the time of war? Why do they talk about the same things over and over again?

And here is what I also do not understand. I tried American stewed meat once. Of course it was very tasty. And this stewed meat was not at all like regular meat. It was ten times better than regular meat.

And I wonder why Americans sent this tasty meat to us. During the war, they could have sent us any old junk. So then why did they send us the tastiest food they had? They could have sent us what did not like. We would have eaten it anyway.

Endless “Freeze!”

Closer to summer time, the streets begin to dry from snow and rain, and we can play many different games. Girls love to play Jump Rope, with one rope and with two. They play Hide and Seek, Tag, and Freeze Tag. But I never look at what the girls play and how they play.

And if I happen to see them play, I immediately walk away because I have no interest in their games. If I were interested in that, I would be teased mercilessly and that would be pretty much the end of my life in our yard. That is why I am not interested in what and how they play.

But they are always playing. They love to play different games with a ball: Dodgeball and “Freeze!” They love Hopscotch and another game similar to Hopscotch, one that I could never understand.

But we have our own games. And all of them are pretty brutal. If you are “it” for the first time, it is very likely that you will be “it” for a long time. Maybe even several hours in a row. And you cannot just quit. If you do not get out of being “it” but just quit and run home, then you will be teased for at least a few days. Other boys would shout at you, “Are you out, ugly snout?” and other things like that.

And they might even beat you up. Someone might sneak up on you from behind and throw some rag over your head. And then everyone would start to beat you and then run away. And you would not even know who did that to you.