A shame that not correct

“In a two-bedroom apartment grandfather and grandmother Olga loved, but for her relatives on the other hand, especially great-grandmother, watched a few down: redneck!” how memories return to us a sense of shame for the actions that cannot be corrected.

Photo: Sergey Nesterchuk / p273.startphotocontest.com

  • My grandparents
  • When my grandmother smiled
  • Why you need to write the last letter
  • Grandmother read the book of Psalms, and the cat would not leave her

Oksana Golovko

“Shame – to explain how you understand that word. Examples of” – Olga stumbled on homework graders on the basics of Orthodox culture. Deferred sheet with the question and thought. Example of lead? It easily. From searing, desperate of shame Olga not to go anywhere the last 35 years…

Olgeni parents divorced when she was five. And of three-pointers on top of the wardrobe with all the comforts Olga and her mother moved to his grandmother in the communal room. Idea of flats with a polished wall, inside of which the mirror reflected every different porcelain and crystal, with carpets on the walls and on the floor with crystal chandeliers (all of which were purchased by the grandparents on the father’s side, teachers with experience) in the cramped little room with painted yellow walls, the cramped, where is the chandelier hanging over the table “light Ilyich”…

Most Olga was frightened by the abundance of neighbors: go through the darkened corridor, and on both sides of the doors. Behind every door is a family. The people who lived behind these doors, faced in the shared kitchen or in a “place of public use”, one in ten families, which periodically flooded, broke, and all the inhabitants of the communal went for spravleniya natural needs outside, in the yard, in the center of which proudly lay the white wooden building with two holes and a deep pit.

Three-room apartment in grandfather and grandmother Olga loved, but for her relatives on the other hand, especially great-grandmother, watched a few down: redneck!

From the father occasionally she heard casual remarks – it is clear from the girls such manners, and such colloquial expression…

Yes, great-grandmother graduated from the four classes of parochial school, in the thirties from the village, fleeing from the famine, moved with her husband to the city. The war took away her husband, and she alone had to raise four children. Olga now also four, only, thank God, next to a loving husband, and time to completely different, more relaxed, calm.

It was only later, with age, Olga realized that the intelligence, the mind – stuff, not related to education. Her “uneducated” great-grandmother is one of the intelligent people with whom life brought that great-grandmother taught her to read and love books (and the ability to love people and accept them Olga, apparently I can’t reach it), and my grandfather – mom’s dad – working in their specialty, and working high class, was an obvious literary talent and a great sense of humor. It already Olga learned of the stories about him and from the few remaining quatrains: grandpa died when Olga was a year. Great-grandmother could always find a supportive word for a granddaughter, a fun game for granddaughter.

Mom tried to brighten up Olgino life got imported toys (Olga still remembers the huge German pups in the yellow jumpsuit and the purse in the form of the head bears the same inscription Made in DDR), were taken to the theaters… But Olga still from time to time, life seemed poor and miserable, and she wanted to escape to where a mirrored wall, a color TV and a separate private bathroom.

It’s like she’s been in another life, and at least some of the weekend or holidays, she wanted to forget about the communal life, including the “uneducated” great-grandmother, who all retire at 45 rubles spent on it to taste better to feed and please. Real life, where Olga went to school, periodically, like all children, sick, and great-grandmother and mother cared for her, fed drugs and custard, 22 pennies, cakes, bought and sewed clothes, and “festive” dad, do not overlap.

30 years ago when Olga was the same as now her eldest son – 10 years, these worlds have crossed. Olga a few hours was in the apartment of the Pope, or rather, his parents, and here the doorbell rang.

Great-grandmother! In her dark-blue skirt, brown wool jacket with a round collar and a rustic scarf – in a modern apartment with all the amenities! On the street had turned cold, and she’s on two types of transport, with transfers brought the granddaughter of the jacket. Not to cold, not sick.

– Come in! – said the grandmother.

Olga stood burning with shame cheeks (she was ashamed of grandparents, such as she felt, irrelevant here) and kept repeating to myself – not passed, not passed! Refused. Turn the key in the lock and the mental sigh of relief.

But Olga did not know that nasty feeling could be called anything but shame. A shame, terrible, hard when you don’t exhale, she learned later, when the grandmother did not. Here it is for all. Just saw and realized. And will not fix it, not to apologize, though I want to shout about it loudly. Can only hope that my great-grandmother, all his life giving himself to others, forgive even then. But that something is not easier, on the contrary…

 

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