Zheka

  It was a long time ago, back in our student years — a cheerful time, but desperately broke. Our families fed us and clothed us, sure, but pocket money was always in short supply. Personally, my generous parents left me my entire stipend for leisure — an entire ruble a day. As my father liked to say, “Here’s a ruble — don’t deny yourself anything.” To be fair, if you actually studied for a couple of days, by the third day you might scrape together three rubles.
  Of course, there were wealthier kids among us. With cars. And there were poorer ones — practically without pants. Those were mostly boys from the countryside. And Zheka Grinberg — oddly enough.
  His family came from a shtetl background. Usually, once shtetl folk moved to the city, they adapted quickly — their ingrained sense of limitation and faith in the ruble served them well. Free of misplaced snobbery, they were happy with bottle-collecting, sewing trousers, or a spot in any little shop — so long as there was a profit.
  But there were also relics: orthodox, scrupulously honest shtetl Jews.  Eternally poor, nauseatingly noble, they lived in a world invented by their ancestors. Their children had it harder, and Zheka’s wardrobe horrified our “jeans girls” from families of seafarers. Especially striking was his harness-like belt with a full set of accessories, from which spread the folds of trousers bought “for growth.”
  Despite all this, Zheka was a chess master of sport, the Odessa blitz champion, and possessed an irrepressible vanity.
  And then one day this bold scavenger of cigarettes — who usually didn’t have even a pack of Prima to his name — showed up at the institute with an “American” cigarette tucked into his breast pocket. In those days, for those who remember, that was an unforgivable luxury. A filter between one’s teeth was the calling card of either an ocean-going sailor or a black-market dealer.
  “Care-package?”
  “Won it in blitz?”
  “Where’d you get that kind of money?” came the questions from all sides.
  “From the forest, naturally,” Zheka replied — and was almost telling the truth. The money came from the park — from Ilyich Park. We learned that a month later, when Zheka showed up to class painted like a performer of Native American ritual dances, bruises laid out in precise geometric patterns.
  Here’s what happened.
  Idle nonworking retirees used to gather in public recreation areas around chessboards and domino tables. They played for money, small stakes. The local senile masters gave handicaps whose size had been debated for years.
  An atmosphere of provincial decorum reigned around the games: sniffling or coughing was frowned upon. And though noisy interlopers occasionally appeared, they were quickly discouraged — politely, but firmly.
  It was in exactly such an “interloper” role that our Zheka once loomed behind the players. Nestling behind someone’s hunched bald head, sighing and puffing, he began offering idiotic advice. When told to shut up, he quietly flushed crimson and disappeared.
  But he returned the next day.
  After several such “performances,” they were waiting for him. One warm October day, as soon as Zheka’s undershirt with its washed-out advertisement drifted into view at the end of the alley, several masters offered him a choice: either play immediately or vanish from their sight forever. And, clearly having conspired beforehand, they named an outrageously high stake — five rubles. And demanded to see the cash...
  A month flew by unnoticed. Zheka went to Ilyich Park like a man going to his bank, where he had an open account.
  “Prodigy!”
  “That idiot plays brilliantly!”
  “And you’d never guess by looking at him…”
  Zheka bought jeans. He discovered selfless friendship — and even love. But then, one day:
  “Wow, you’ve got Grinberg playing here!”
  “What do you mean — Grinberg?”
  “A master of sport.”
  “Our idiot?!”
  “Odessa champion.”
  “So that means… we’re the idiots!”
  And they gave it to Zheka. With chessboards. His cries about the amateur nature of sport in the Soviet Union didn’t help. Nor did appeals that beating people was wrong. They tore his jeans. And the new undershirt with the advertisement.
  Now he’s a grandmaster. Wears a three-piece suit.
  A tie.
  And doesn’t recognize us.
  At all.