Benedikte!
(Good Luck!)
I‘m five. It`s morning time. I hear our cock crowing through the dream. It vociferates loudly, good-heartedly. But it`s so quiet still; a gentle, cool night breeze sheaves the curtains on the window. I sweetly continue sleeping.
About an hour later I smell the chicken broth. Oh, how I like this soup from our home cribs. Mom feeds dad, and then they will go to work, I think, and go on sleeping.
I arouse, when the sun stretches out its rays through an open window and wakes me up. I look out the window and sniff the morning smell of yellow high flowers, planted by mother near the house. Our nanny Frosya sleeps on the nearby bed in my bedroom. My brother’s cradle stands near it.
Mom is forced to work; earlier the maternity leave was short. There`s a new dress of crepe de Chine on the headboard. Mummy sewed it up yesterday evening, and when I was falling asleep, she whispered in my ear, “Put it on tomorrow.” I put my head in the neckline, and the dress, made of natural silk, is gently sliding over my childish body, warm after sleep.
I leave the children`s room, pass the sitting-room, drop in the kitchen, then through the corridor to the lumber-room, where mom cooks dinner on the stove in summer.
I want to check everything out. Hasn`t anything changed for that night? Hasn`t the lacquered board near the sofa stopped creaking? I step on the floor, the board kindly creaks – my house greets me!
I climb on the sofa, study the father`s geological map in detail. All the geological squiggles are in situ. My finger moves across the map. I find the word, which mom showed me yesterday – it means Kuibyshev.
I run to the inner porch there`s a glass of milk and bread baked by mom under the towel and a chicken leg on the plate on the table. The aroma and yellow chicken broth circles is the smell of childhood, happiness and peace.
I start flipping through the books, which mom brought from Kuibyshev, when she went to submit the report. I leaf through a book about textile: there are many pictures of beautiful fabric. I like the stores “Fabrics” up-to-date, like to feel, sniff, rub between the fingers silk, cotton, being convinced of the most valuable`s eternity.
I take the book about a huge whale, leaf through it. Then I sort out the new pencils, there are a lot of them – multicoloured, shiny – thus joy slowly fills my little soul.
I come up to the turntable; put the vinyl record with Chukovsky tales. I sit down next to the chair, listen to the narrator`s voice and look at freshly blown rose on the green bush, which grows in a large clay pot near the turntable.
But the most interesting place for me was a huge lumber-room. There was a trough with sunflower seeds in husks and without on the floor. But I do not put them in my mouth, they’re dirty. However, I know if mom washes and fries the seeds, I will slabber them, and I know, that the hens and a cock eat them too.
My father’s hunting dog Puljka (pellet) lies on the mat without a collar; it is a noble German breed. It has smooth brown fur and long hanging ears. Dad said it`s good at looking for ducks, which are very far, through the wood, on the lake. I sit down on Puljka`s back and try to lift its drooping ears with my soft palms to make them like neighbouring Rex has. The dog licks me – the owner`s daughter.
I walk to the bench; there in two big sifters under the gauze yellow creatures are peeping – chickens and ducklings. I begin slightly clamping yellow wads in my hands. I kiss these “furry balls”; the chickens are lemon wads and the ducklings are yellow. Having survived and again in the sifters, the chicks calm down.
Soon mom comes for dinner. I`m fed, and she allows me to walk near the house. I sit down on the bike, which stands at the front porch, it gleefully creaks under my bare feet – it’s not forgotten. I ride round a huge yard to the shed.
The only one cock stands near the entrance. It is very beautiful with green, blue and red feathers. The cock looks at me askance and regrets, that it can`t prove its prowess and peck this Mistress`s cute daughter.
I quickly get on the third ladder stair in the henhouse, and gently put my hand under the white layer. The hen starts softly clucking, as if taking offense at the check. It has already demolished three eggs, which I grope my little fingers.
Having greeted the hens, I go watching my treasure, which is a great old jewelry box with beautiful pictures, two small brooches, slides and other treasures. Then I visit the garden behind the outdoor kitchen. I pluck green currant there on the run, examine, how much the flowers have grown for the night. Then I sit down on the bike and ride to the orchard in front of the house. There I touch small unripe apples with my fingers.
We have no gooseberries, but our neighbours the Pudovkins have. I reach out over their fence and tear off an unripe berry. I look at the window to find out, whether the neighbour aunt Nyura watches me. She has been at the window for a long time and threatens me with a finger. I think to myself: “You`re greedy, Pudovkina”.
