in all its glory. I had to wait for a couple of hours and then, when I had almost reached the front of the queue, I lost my nerve, turned around, and left.
The next day, my counsellor caught me by the hand and marched me back to the dentist. She put me in a chair and asked me to open my mouth. It was already scary, but bearable. But when they put cotton wool on one of my teeth, I started to panic and ask her not to hurt me. I sat there for a minute and the kind woman promised that it would not hurt. She pulled out the cotton wool and I began to stutter on about injections, drilling, and so on. When I was really nervous, that lady showed me the cotton wool, upon which lay a baby tooth.
I couldn't believe my eyes, so I asked, «Is that all?»
«That's all!» Said the lady, calmly and even a little sloppy. And off I went…
1994. Kitten of dreams
But prawn, bikes, and milk teeth… That's nothing. Here's a very serious tale that got out of hand. Everything else pales into insignificance and seems like childish fun by comparison…
Ever since I was a child, I had dreamed of having a kitten. A small, fluffy, grey kitten. One day we even got one, but it cried all night, and my stepfather insisted on returning it to its mother.
I was about eight or nine years old. One day, out on another one of my walks, I was walking down some stairs and, through the broken window between the eighth and ninth floors, I saw the kitten of my dreams on a windowsill. I calmly came up to him and stroked him. And what do you think I did next? Did I take it home? Did I take care of this kitten? No. I threw it out of the window onto the street…
Yes, that's right, through the window. You know, those apartment blocks have these little openings for various kinds of needs. I guess this was one of them…
What happened next was even stranger. I almost immediately forgot about it. I calmly continued about my business, slowly planning my new day. I realised what I had done only when I went outside. The kitten was coming towards me, meowing and limping. I, in my childish naivety, had been sure that it would just have splatted into a flat cake – and that's all… So that's how it happened… I felt ashamed and ran away.
А lot of things happened in my life. But I am not as sad and ashamed of anything as for what I did to this kitten. Even making corrections for childish stupidity and curiosity, I can find neither an explanation for the act, nor an excuse for myself. If I had the opportunity to correct just one episode in my life, it would definitely be this one.
1996. Gorodki and a gas mask
Yeah, that was a pretty serious mistake to make. But life goes on and so does my moderately criminal track record. Now let's switch from pets to items. It was summer, I was at a sanatorium in Stupino, outside of Moscow, and I was in a bad crowd.
Well, they weren't that bad, but they did force me to climb into someone else's shed. It fit snugly against the fence of the sanitorium. So I broke in, and heroically retrieved one gas mask and Gorodki set[13]. The gas mask was lost quickly – hidden under a pillow and successfully seized by unidentified persons. But we played Gorodki for ages. When the adults asked where we got it from, our official story was «I got it for my birthday».
So, yeah, they tricked me again but I recovered quickly. When I was getting ready to go home, I started to gather it up to take it with me. The band of lads started pressuring me to leave it behind for others. Of course, I was hardly going to do that. It was a matter of principle! I said: «It's my birthday present, why the questions? Do you want to discuss it with the adults?» And as a result, I took it home, which I am still childishly happy about.
At least one lesson was learned from this. Later, I realised I could smell bad crowds a mile off and always avoided them, not getting involved in any confrontations.
1996. But I don't want to go to school!
Hooliganism was later replaced by social protests. Perhaps the latter logically ran from the former. In the sixth grade, when I was about 12, I gave myself a holiday of disobedience. I'd told my mother that I would not go to school that day. And, would you believe, I really didn't go. With mum's permission, of course!
In fact, I was surprised by my mother's sensitivity and the understanding with which she accepted this riot of mine, because everything happened spontaneously and in the moment. There was no apparent reason for this behaviour. No tests or exams were scheduled for that day, I hadn't fallen out with anyone in my class. It was an unexpected whim. Or really, I needed to be alone and think about something.
Quickly getting my bearings, my mother gave me a list of chores for the day and rushed off to work. After spending the whole day doing household chores and having worn myself out, I'd knocked some sense into myself. I never acted out like that again. No wonder they say that hard work ennobles a person…
2001. Smoking on the first day back at school
Not going to school is one thing, but to let down your class leader[14] on the first day of school is quite another. After all, in Russia, we all go back to school on 1st September and line up in the playground. It's all quite a spectacle for everyone involved. I couldn't miss it.
In those days I smoked quite often. It was trendy, cool and new. I still steal a cigarette every now and again, although much less often, maybe five or six a year. Smoking is no longer new or fashionable, but it still looks cool. Especially when it's not often.
So there we were, first day back, 1st September. People were rushing around, running here, there, reading this, reading that. Why not to go for a smoke? Why not, I thought, and started smoking in the back row. In a flash, my eyes met those of the class leader…
I still wonder at Mr Yuriy Yarkin's restraint that day, it was solid, soldier-like, like that of a Lieutenant Colonel. In fact, he had been in the military before becoming a schoolteacher. I'd like to have even a fraction of that kind of restraint. He didn't even say anything to me: his eyes did the talking. They said, «You, my boy, are making a mistake…».
I didn't argue with him – if said I was in the wrong, I was in the wrong. I wasn't a baby anymore, I understood everything indeed…
Chapter 5. 1990. First Disappointments amp; Grievances
1990. «I want to be able to fly!»
Frustrations and resentments are a subtler matter than just mischief and messing around. Disappointments bring down one's inner world, and resentments distort it, deforming your personality. At the age of five or six, I had been lied to. It was a big lie. And it was my family who did it.
One day, I told my mother all about my dream: «I want to fly!» The new school term was coming up and my mother «explained» to me that «if you want to fly, you first need to read 30… no… 50 pages per day…» So, I read 70 or even 100 pages.
Before I knew it, I was starting to be able fly. Very quickly there was a feeling of lightness and airiness, as if I was floating, but for some reason I just couldn't get off the ground. Apparently, I read a lot, but not carefully enough, I thought. I pushed a little harder. Time passed, and I never learned to fly. Well, what can I say? A young boy getting first place for reading speed in primary school is very rare. It was a point of pride for me, and all good things, as you know, have to be paid for…
1993. «It wasn't me!»
These disappointments were just the beginning, and the next serious one was waiting for me at the end of my first year at school, when I was about eight. An ABC book for a first grader is what the Bible is to Christians. And one day my copybook had two pages glued together. Where the Russian letter «Щ» is, which sounds like «Shch». It had a picture of a puppy, in Russian «Shchenok». When they had been glued together and how – I had no idea. The mystery remains until this day.
Our first lesson was reading. My turn came, and I needed to read the text from the pages that had been stuck. I asked the boy sitting next to me, Edik, to help me. «No,» he said, «use your ABC book.»