Trip to Kazakhstan

               
When we first went to Kazakhstan, to relatives, I was six. I already watched Fantomas and knew the letters, uppercase and lowercase.

I especially liked the capital B, I drew her different hats, folded it up, or lowered it down, and then the letter seemed offended, and when I twisted it up, it was funny and even a bully. Mom had such a hat, she also lowered it in different ways, "according to her mood," said mom. Once the hat flew away, and quickly ran along the shore, and Olezhka and I ran after her, hands, and she seemed to play, laughing at us. We ran so far that mom and aunt Luda and friends turned into points, these points moved, probably they waved at us.

“Look, these are snake houses,” said Olezha.

There were indeed many holes in the yellow vertical mountain.

“If you spray it, they stick their heads out,” Oleg said.

I already imagined a small slippery head peeking out of a snake house, as Uncle Andrei appeared in the distance, he waved his hands and ran straight at us.

“This is a sight, they are not dangerous,” said Uncle Andrei, out of breath, looked into the hole and something whistled into it ...

Probably, he liked the melody, because after a moment a small shiny head appeared from a hole, throwing us around its careful snake gaze.

- Did you see? - jumped with joy Olezhka.

- We saw a snake! We saw a snake! - We told adults, but they only smiled, and continued to eat and laugh.

“Don't go there anymore,” Mom put on a runaway hat. Today she was especially beautiful, her curls fluttered, and her eyes sparkled.

We wandered with Olezhka along the bank, its rough line, wet our feet, threw flat pebbles into the river, counted circles, small, absolutely happy children.

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We walked long. Adults have already made a fire, and even danced under the transistor.
I felt olezhin’s palm, it was hot, I liked that it squeezed mine. In the evening, I told my grandmother that I love Oleg. Grandmother laughed, but a little, and said that we are a brother and sister and can not marry.

“But I don’t have a brother!”, I was indignant, and tears were falling right on my grandmother’s fingers - she was combing my hair. No matter how much I asked my parents for a brother, my mother always only laughed!

In the morning, I was unwashed and sleepy came to my parents with a question.

“Cousin,” my mother said, and laughed .. Her eyes shone again.

Dad smiled and smoked.
Cousin is a funny incomprehensible word. It looks like a blacksmith, or a sonorous iron tank.
Why are they all these adults?


All the next morning we were on the river, roasted in the sun, in Kazakhstan it is very bright.
Parents were playing some strange adult catch-ups, and Uncle Misha was catching up with mom, and mom was running away and laughing out loud.
It seems that I burned down, and in the afternoon my grandmother put me to bed, spreading kefir.
Olezha saw me in his underpants and in "kefir", and I was ashamed.


In the evening, Olezhka offered to play Fantomas. He was a “brave journalist,” and was saving his blonde girlfriend, with white lips, from a blue villain.
I really liked her.

“This is Milen de Monjo,” said mom.

In the evening, I pulled mother-of-pearl lipstick from my mother’s purse.

I wanted to be like Milen de Monjo.

We prepared: in the bushes laid out boards, bricks, and made a "move". They covered the bushes with an old tablecloth, it turned out very mysteriously, like in a movie.
A transistor with music was placed on an old chair.


“Go, climb,” said Olezha.


I climbed, lay down, and my heart was beating. I wanted Olezhka to save me. And when he crawled up, funny hooking on the tablecloth, she froze because she saw two of his eyes above her. An old tablecloth covered us, and I smelled his hot skin.
Probably, my mother-of-pearl lips burned at dusk, because Olezhka was embarrassed and blushed.

“Save it,” I said, and blushed too.

He touched his hand, a little higher, where the strap from the sundress, and where it was not tanned, and slightly pushed it away. I felt hot.
Olezhka suddenly burst into tears.
I also cried, we cried together, in the bushes, a pile of bricks and a faded tablecloth with yellow fringe.


In the evening, my temperature rose, and my grandmother "laid".
She was probably afraid that I was bitten by a snake.


“Overheated in the sun,” my mother said.


I could not sleep for a long time. In the summer kitchen we walked and sang. I saw my mother’s hair, the guitar in Uncle Misha’s hands, and thought about Oleg.

                --------------------------------------------

Then the Artemyevs left, and I I don’t remember anything, only from the words of my grandmother - “she cried, cried, but fell silent”, and in first grade - in silence. Not even the "bombing" on golfs that I had dreamed about helped.
Then, vaguely - doctors, drops, "Good books for the night." Positive emotions.
Resort Alushta. Water.
I already finished the second class with excellent marks.
And then a pioneer, a Komsomol, graduation ...
Then my grandmother died.
Then the country was gone.


After a lot of time, already almost an adult, I tried, spinning at the mirror, a funny old hat, found somewhere in a closet .. 

- Mom! This is your .. Do you remember? Well then ... When were we in Kazakhstan?

- Ah .. I remember .. Artemyevs ... "The seventh water on jelly," - said my mother and somehow grunted ugly.

It seemed to me that this memory was unpleasant to her.

And I remembered a running hat, a whistle, a small shiny head, and for a moment I felt her bite ... Somewhere in the shoulder area.
I even lowered the sleeve of the dress, my shoulder burned.
I did not understand how this could be.
As if someone was whispering in my ear, persistently - take your time, look around.

I looked around: with two hot palms of Olezh embraced my burned back, and unfamiliar, childish agony stood in the boy's eyes.


The straw hat is falling apart in my hands.


“Misha, the car has come, drive Oleg,” I hear.

- What do you mean no ?? Look in the bricks, says Aunt Luda.


 But our house is already gone - the bricks are piled in the barn, and the tablecloth has been thrown ...

Uncle Misha plants Oleg, taps him on the shoulder approvingly, and my grandmother lets me down, but we are silent.

The hem of my mother’s dress flickers.


“I will push,” Uncle Andrey rolls up his sleeves, pushes the car and winks at me.


The car starts, roars, but does not signal.

I see Oleg’s ear.


We are going down. I step on the flowers.


“They left, and for the better,” the grandmother says in a riddle.


We also left the next day, circled the river for a long time, until we reached the main road, and were silent.

- Look, snake! - Suddenly, my mother screamed.

But no one reacted.
There are a lot of them.

“You don’t smoke like that,” grandmother says to dad, fights off smoke with his hand.

Dad is silent.

And I look at my mother - she has a red tip of her nose.



Sometimes I wanted to find out Oleg’s address, find him, but in a hurry again, I didn’t look.

I didn’t look back ..

But we no longer saw the Artemyevs, and we didn’t go to Kazakhstan. Now this is a foreign country, and distant relatives, for some reason, no longer appeared in our lives.

But when I remember this summer, my hand burns, a little higher, where is the shoulder, where is the strap from the sundress, from my childhood.


© Copyright: Marina Arzhanikova , 2020
Certificate of Publication No. 220013100359
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