that it was me who had to fetch those lumps of clay onto the bank. A mere thought of entering that dark water in the dusk of still lingering night threw a shiver up the spine, but a good ride deserved a good dive. I undressed and, on the advice of the elder, took a headlong dive into the river.
Wow! As it turned out, the water was much warmer than the damp morning chill on the bank! I dragged slippery lumps out of the river and Uncle Tolik broke them ashore to pick the larvae out from the tunnels drilled by them for living in clay. When he said it was enough I even didn’t want to leave the engulfing warmth of the stream…
Still and all, it was an instance of unmasked exploitation of adolescent labor and that same day I got square with him for the molesting misuse…
Uncle Tolik preferred a spinner to a fishing rod and, with a sharp whipping thrust, he could send the lure to a splashdown almost halfway to the opposite bank of the wide river and then started to spin the reel on the tackle handle zig-zag pulling the flip-flap flash of the lure back. Predatory fish, like pine or bass, chased it and swallowed the triple hook in the tail of the lure, if the fisherman luck would have it.
So, by noon we moved to another place with a wooden bridge across the river and Uncle Tolik walked over to the opposite, steep, bank to go along and throw the lure here and there. I remained alone and watched the floats of the two fishing rods stuck in the sand by the current and then stretched out in the nearby grass…
When Uncle Tolik walked the opposite bank coming back to the bridge, I didn’t raise my head above the grass about me and watched him struggling thru the jungle of knotgrass and other weeds I lay in. In the movie-making business they call this trick “forced perspective” by use of which he acted a Lilliputian for me. Up to the very bridge…
Once Aunt Lyouda asked if I had ever seen her husband entering some khutta during our fishing trips. It gave me no qualms to give an absolutely honest direct answer that, no, I hadn’t. As for that one time in the Popovka village, when he suddenly remembered that we had set off without any bait and dumped me in an empty village street to wait while he would quickly ride to someplace—not too far off—to dig up worms and be straight back, all what I saw around was the soft deep sand in the road between the towering walls of nettles and the blackened straw in the roof of the barn by whose side I was dropped off but no entering, nor any khuttas whatsoever. That’s why I safely could say “no” to my inquisitive Aunt…
There happened falls, yet just a couple of times. The first one while riding over the field along the path on top of a meter high embankment with the tall grass flying by on both sides from the bike. I guessed it was an embankment because the tall grass was lower than our wheels, but what purpose could it serve for among the fields? The question remained unanswered because the embankment broke off suddenly among the tall grass concealing the pit into which “Jawa” nosedived after a long jump thru the air, and the hard landing threw us both far ahead over the bike.
The other time we had hardly started along Nezhyn Street when the motorbike got tripped by a piece of iron pipe piled nearby someone’s khutta's foundation so that vehicles would not go too close by and splash at it the dirt and water from the puddles developed in the road…
However, both times we got no injuries except for bumps because on our heads there were white plastic helmets. It’s only that after the fall in Nezhyn Street, the ride had to be canceled because “Jawa's” absorber started to leak oil and needed an urgent repair…
~ ~ ~
Square of the Konotop Divisions, was called so to commemorate the Soviet Army units that liberated the city in the Great Patriotic War, aka WWII, and were honored for that deed by the city’s name in their respective denominations.
For me, it, at first, seemed the end of world because it took eight streetcar stops to get there from the Station. Square of the Konotop Divisions was as wide as three roads put side by side, and it had a slight south-west slant along all of its considerable length.
At the Square’s upper right corner, there stood a metal openwork tower like the famous one in Paris, yet more useful because the Konotop tower held a huge water tank on its top adorned with “I love you, Olya!” in jerky splotches of paint brush strokes over its rust-smeared side overlooking Square of the Konotop Divisions. Beneath the tower, behind the high wall carrying neat dense rows of barbered wire along its top, was the city prison.
In the upper left corner, opposite the tower, the tall gate opened to the City Kolkhoz Market which, technically, was outside it and in Square itself the gate served the starting point for the line of small stores going down the gradual slant – “Furniture”, “Clothes”, “Shoes”…
At its right lower end, Square was delimited by a tall two-story building with more windows than walls—the Konotop Sewing Factory—followed by a squat house with more walls than windows— the City Sober-up Station, yet the facility stood already in the out-flowing street which led to the dangerous outskirt neighborhood of Zagrebelya. Its hazardous nature was established by nasty scumbags who intercepted guys from other city neighborhoods, brave enough to see girls of Zagrebelya home. The valiant were made perform their version of rooster cry, or measure with a match the length of the bridge to Zagrebelya or just got a vanilla beating from the villains…
Square of the Konotop