I am 23. The oldest of my students is 16. I am afraid of him. I'm afraid of them all

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Svetlana Komarova has been living in Moscow for many years. Successful business coach, headhunter, career consultant. And in the 90s, she worked for eight years as a school teacher in remote Far Eastern villages.

Far East. Every autumn of unearthly beauty. Golden taiga with dense green spots of cedars and firs, black wild grapes, fiery magnolia vine brushes, delightful smells of an autumn forest and mushrooms. Mushrooms grow in glades, like cabbage in a garden bed, you run out for half an hour behind the fence of a military unit, you return with a basket of mushrooms. In the Moscow region, nature is feminine, but here it is embodied brutality. The difference is huge and inexplicable.

On Dalniy, everything that flies bites. The smallest creatures crawl under the watch bracelet and bite so that the bite site swells for several days. “Ladybug, fly to the sky” is not a Far Eastern story. At the end of August, cozy, spotted cows gather in flocks like mosquitoes, attack apartments, sit on people and also bite. This muck can neither be swatted nor shaken off, the ladybird will release a smelly yellow liquid that cannot be washed off. I fell out of love with the ladybirds in eighty-eighth.

All biting falls into hibernation at the end of September, and heaven on earth comes until the second week of October. A cloudless life in the literal and figurative sense. In the Far East, there is always sun - showers and snowstorms in episodes, there is never a Moscow nightmare for many days. The constant sun and three weeks of September-October paradise are irrevocably and firmly tied to the Far One.

In early October, we celebrate Teacher's Day on the lakes. This is my first time going there. Thin isthmuses of sand between transparent lakes, young birches, clear skies, black sleepers and rails of an abandoned narrow-gauge railway. Gold, blue, metal. Silence, calmness, warm sun, peace.

- What was here before? Where does the narrow-gauge railway come from?

- These are old sand pits. There were camps here - gold, blue and metal immediately change in mood. I walk along sandy isthmuses between reflections of birches and clear skies in clear water. Camps in the middle of birch groves. Calming landscapes from the windows of prison barracks. The prisoners left the camps and stayed in the same village where their guards lived. The descendants of both live on the same streets. Their grandchildren go to the same school. Now I understand the reason for the irreconcilable enmity between some local families.

That same October, I was persuaded to take an eighth grade class teacher for a year. Twenty-five years ago, children studied for ten years. After the eighth, those who did not make sense to teach further left the schools. This class consisted almost entirely of them. At best, two-thirds of the students will go to vocational schools. At worst, they go straight to dirty work and to night schools. My class is difficult, the children are uncontrollable, in September they were abandoned by another class teacher. The headmistress says that maybe I can come to an agreement with them. Just one year. If I don’t give them up in a year, they will give me first grade next September.

I'm twenty-three. The eldest of my students, Ivan, is sixteen. Two years in the sixth grade, in the long term - the second year in the eighth. When I enter their class for the first time, he meets me with a glance from under his brows. The far corner of the classroom, the back of the classroom, a broad-shouldered, big-headed guy in dirty clothes with bruised hands and icy eyes. I'm afraid of him.

I'm afraid of them all. They are afraid of Ivan. Last year, he beat a classmate who swore at his mother in blood. They are rude, boorish, embittered, they are not interested in lessons. They ate four class teachers, did not care about the entries in the diaries and calls the parents to school. In half of the class, the parents do not dry out from the moonshine. “Never raise your voice to children. If you are sure that they will obey you, they will definitely obey,”I hold on to the words of the old teacher and enter the classroom like a cage with tigers, afraid to doubt that they will obey. My tigers are rude and bickering. Ivan sits silently on the back desk, his eyes down to the table. If he doesn't like something, a heavy, wolfish gaze stops an unwary classmate.

The district was encouraged to increase the educational component of the work. Parents are no longer in charge of raising children, it is the responsibility of the class teacher. We must visit families regularly for educational purposes. I have a lot of reasons to visit their parents - half of the class can be left not for the second year, but for lifelong education. I'm going to preach the importance of education. In the first family I come across bewilderment. What for? In the timber industry, hard workers get more than teachers. I look at the drunken face of the father of the family, the stripped wallpaper, and I do not know what to say. Sermons about the high with a crystal ringing crumble to dust. Indeed, why? They live the way they used to live. They don't need another life.

The houses of my students are scattered over twelve kilometers. There is no public transport. I run around families. No one is happy to visit - the teacher in the house to complaints and flogging. In order to talk about good things, they don't go home. I go to one house after another. Rotten floor. Drunken father. Drunk mother. The son is ashamed that his mother is drunk. Dirty musty rooms. Unwashed dishes. My students are embarrassed, they would like me not to see their lives. I would also like not to see them. Melancholy and hopelessness overwhelms me. In fifty years, the great-grandchildren of former prisoners and their guards will forget the cause of genetic hatred, but they will still prop up the falling fences with their slugs and live in dirty, squalid houses. No one can escape from here, even if they want to. And they don't want to. The circle is complete.

Ivan looks at me from under his brows. Brothers and sisters sit around him on the bed amid dirty blankets and pillows. There is no bed linen and, judging by the blankets, there never was. Children keep away from their parents and huddle up to Ivan. Six. Ivan senior. I cannot say anything good to his parents - he has solid deuces, he will never catch up with the school curriculum. It is useless to call him to the board - he will come out and be painfully silent, looking at the toes of old boots. The Englishwoman hates him. Why say something? It doesn't make sense. As soon as I tell how Ivan is doing badly, a scuffle will begin. The father is drunk and aggressive. I say that Ivan is great and tries very hard. All the same, nothing can be changed, even if this sixteen-year-old sullen Viking with light curls will not be beaten in front of me. Mother flashes with joy:

“He's kind to me. Nobody believes, but he is kind. He knows how he looks after his siblings! He does both the housework and the taiga … Everyone says - he studies badly, but when should he study? You sit down, sit down, I'll pour you some tea,”she brushes the crumbs off the stool with a dark rag and rushes to put the dirty kettle on the fire.

This embittered taciturn overgrown can be kind? I refer to the fact that it is getting dark, say goodbye and go out into the street. My house is twelve kilometers away. Early winter. It gets dark early, you need to get to dark.

- Svetlana Yurievna, Svetlana Yurievna, wait! - Roly runs after me down the street. - How are you alone? It's getting dark! Far away! - Mother of God, he spoke. I don't remember the last time I heard his voice.

- Wan, go home, I'll catch a ride.

“And if you don’t catch it?” Who will offend? - “Offended” and the Far East are incompatible things. Everyone here helps everyone. They can kill in a domestic quarrel. To offend a companion picked up in winter - no. They will be taken safely, even if not on the way. Vanka walks next to me for six kilometers until a ride happens. We talk all the way. Without him it would be scary - the snow along the road is marked with animal tracks. With him I am no less scared - before my eyes are the dull eyes of his father. Ivan's icy eyes did not become warmer. I say, because at the sound of my own voice, I’m not so scared to walk next to him at dusk in the taiga.

The next morning, in geography class, someone snaps at my comment.

“Hold your tongue,” a quiet, calm voice from the back of the desk. We all, having fallen silent from surprise, turn towards Ivan. He looks around everyone with a cold, sullen look and speaks to the side, looking into my eyes. - Hold your tongue, I said, you are talking to the teacher. I will explain to those who do not understand in the courtyard."

I have no discipline problems anymore. Silent Ivan is an indisputable authority in the class. After conflicts and bilateral ordeals, my students and I somehow unexpectedly managed to build relationships. The main thing is to be honest and treat them with respect. It is easier for me than for other teachers: I teach geography with them. On the one hand, no one needs the subject, knowledge of geography does not test the area, on the other hand, there is no neglect of knowledge. They may not know where China is, but this does not prevent them from learning new things. And I no longer call Ivan to the board. He does assignments in writing. I diligently do not see how the notes with the answers are handed over to him.

Political information twice a week before lessons. They do not distinguish Indians from Indians and Vorkuta from Voronezh. Out of hopelessness, I spit on the editorials and party policies, and twice a week in the mornings I retell them articles from the Vokrug Sveta magazine. We are discussing futuristic predictions and the possibility of Bigfoot's existence, I tell you that Russians and Slavs are not the same thing as writing was before Cyril and Methodius. And about the west. The West is here called the central part of the Soviet Union. This country still exists. It still has space programs and fences propped up by crooked logs. The country will soon be gone. There will be no timber industry and work. Remaining wrecked houses, poverty and hopelessness will come to the village. But so far we do not know that it will be so.

I know that they will never get out of here, and I lie to them that if they want, they will change their lives. Can I go west? Can. If you really want to. Yes, they will not succeed, but it is impossible to come to terms with the fact that being born in the wrong place, in the wrong family, blocked all roads for my open, sympathetic, abandoned students. For life. Without the slightest chance to change anything. Therefore, I lie to them with inspiration that the main thing is to want to change.

In the spring they flock to visit me: “You were at everyone’s home, but you don’t invite to your place, it’s dishonest.” The first, two hours before the appointed time, comes Leshka, the fruit of the mother's vagrant love with an unknown father. Lesha has a thin, thoroughbred oriental face with high cheekbones and large dark eyes. Leshka at the wrong time. I'm making meringues. The son walks around the apartment with a vacuum cleaner. Leshka gets underfoot and pesters with questions:

- What's this?

- Mixer.

- Why?

- Beat the protein.

- Pampering, you can knock down with a fork. Why did you buy a vacuum cleaner?

- Vacuum the floor.

“It's a waste, and you can use a broom,” he points a finger at the hairdryer. - What is this for?

- Leshka, this is a hairdryer! Dry hair!

Stunned Leshka chokes with indignation:

- Why dry them ?! Don't they dry themselves ?!

- Leshka! A haircut ?! To make it beautiful!

- This is pampering, Svetlana Yurievna! You are mad about fat, you are wasting money! Blanket covers, over there - the balcony is full! Translate the powder!

Leshka's house, like Ivan's, has no blanket covers. Pampering is bed linen. And the mother needs to buy a mixer, her hands get tired.

Ivan will not come. They will regret that Ivan did not come, gobble up a homemade cake without him and grab a meringue for him. Then they will find another thousand and one far-fetched reason to once again flop on a visit, some one by one, some with a company. Everyone except Ivan. He never comes. They will go to the kindergarten for my son without my requests, and I will be calm - as long as the village punks, nothing happens to him, they are the best protection for him. Neither before nor after have I seen such a degree of devotion and reciprocity from the students. Sometimes Ivan brings his son from the kindergarten. They have a silent mutual sympathy.

The final exams are on the way, I follow the Englishwoman with my tail - I persuade not to leave Ivan for the second year. The protracted conflict and mutual passionate hatred do not leave Vanka a chance to graduate from school. Elena pricks Vanka with drinking parents and brothers-sisters abandoned with living parents. Ivan hates her fiercely, is rude. I persuaded all subject students not to leave Vanka for the second year. Elena is unbending, she is enraged by an overgrown wolf cub, from which she smells of a musty apartment. It also fails to persuade Vanka to apologize to Elena:

- I will not apologize to this bitch! Even if she doesn't talk about my parents, I won't answer her then!

- Van, you can't talk about the teacher like that, - Ivan silently raises heavy eyes at me, I stop talking and again go to persuade Elena:

- Elena Sergeevna, of course, you need to leave him for the second year, but he still won't learn English, and you will have to endure it for another year. He will sit with those who are three years younger and will be even angrier.

The prospect of tolerating Vanka for another year turns out to be a decisive factor, Elena accuses me of earning cheap prestige among students and agrees to draw Vanka's one-year troika.

We take exams in the Russian language with them. The whole class was given the same pens. After the essays have been submitted, we check the work with two pens in our hands. One with blue paste, the other with red. In order for the essay to reach the top three, you need to correct the devil's cloud of mistakes, after which you can tackle the red paste. One of the guys managed to sneak a fountain pen for the exam. No exam passed - we couldn't find any ink of the same color in the village. I'm glad it's not Ivan.

The results of the exam are announced to them. They are proud. Everyone said that we would not pass Russian, but we did! You passed. Well done! I believe in you. I fulfilled my promise - withstood the year. In September I will be given first grade. Those of mine who came to study in the ninth will give me all their bouquets during the line.

The beginning of the nineties. First of September. I no longer live in the country in which I was born. My country is no more.

- Svetlana Yurievna, hello! - a well-groomed young man calls me. - You recognized me?

I feverishly go over in my memory whose father it is, but I cannot remember his child:

- Of course I found out - maybe, in the course of the conversation, the memory will let go.

- And I brought my sister. Remember when you came to us, she sat on the bed with me?

- Roly! It's you?!

- I, Svetlana Yurievna! You did not recognize me, - in the voice of resentment and reproach. Overgrown wolf, how to recognize you? You are completely different.

- I graduated from a technical school, I work in Khabarovsk, saving up for an apartment. As I buy, I will take all my own.

He went into the nineties like a hot knife in butter - he had great survival practice and a hard, cold look. In a couple of years, he will indeed buy a large apartment, marry, take his sisters and brothers and break off relations with his parents. Leshka will get drunk and disappear by the beginning of the two thousandth. Several people will graduate from institutes. Someone will move to Moscow.

- You changed our lives.

- How?

- You told a lot. You had beautiful dresses. The girls were always waiting for what dress you come in. We wanted to live like you.

Like me. When they wanted to live like me, I lived in one of the three houses of the killed military town near the village of the timber industry. I had a mixer, hairdryer, vacuum cleaner, bed linen, and Around the World magazines. I sewed beautiful dresses in the evenings on a machine presented by my grandmothers for a wedding.

A hairdryer and pretty dresses can be the key to unlocking doors that are tightly closed. If you really want to.