The most important thing was to climb over the wooden fence. There was another fence behind it, an iron prickly one, but we moved slowly helping each other and coped. Sveta told me that the house was empty as Zoya was at the marketplace selling apples. Slowly, hunched over, we went around the rusty troughs, buckets, dirty jars, and crept to the little brick house.
Here they were like in a fairytale, under the sunshine, those rosebushes bent under the weight of magnificent maroon, purple, pale pink and white flowers. Their scent was amazingly fresh, their fragile petals were shining! Why cut them? We were standing there at a loss and looking at each other, the blue-eyed, snub-nosed Sveta and I, thin and pale, with ashen curls. We had to do what we were supposed to: smash, stomp and shatter those incomparable flowers, so we sighed heavily and began working.
The light green stems were covered with sharp brown thorns, so whatever we did, we could not break them. We even tried to gnaw them, but the mouth was filled with something bitter, and the thick got stuck in the teeth. We worked very long and wounded our fingers. In the long run, I managed to tear two roses out of the crushed rosebushes, plus Sveta’s three. Out of the blue sky, a huge dog ran towards us silently. We rushed to the fence.
Sveta was already on top of it when I suddenly fell into a stinky ditch we hadn’t noticed as it was covered carefully with dry twigs. Stained with some filthy stench, I climbed out of the pit, literally flew into the fence, fell down from it in the sand, and tore to shreds my tights and dress. My friend was not there. I barely had time to run to my house and throw the smelly rags and flowers in the tub as mother came.
Our neighbor, auntie Shura, a kind-hearted chatterbox, who I was very fond of, was with her. Mother didn’t notice anything as she looked concerned about something else. As soon as we sat down to drink tea, the doorbell rang. Unsuspectingly, I went to open the door… Zoya, her face contorted with rage, a big stick in hand, stood at the door, angry and disheveled…
It was followed by a long nightmare: mother found the roses and the torn clothes and started screaming in such a way that the windows were ringing and the cobweb shook and got torn in the corners. Then there was the most shameful thing: I lay on the sofa and mother was beating me without turning a hair with my skipping ropes, yelling, ‘Thief! Thief!’. Auntie Shura stood close by, confused, and Zoya smiled maliciously. I didn’t go for a walk since then…
There was a clothing market near the vegetable one. It was the time of great shortages, so there were even more people there. It was the only such market in the whole city. People from Ukraine and the Baltic republics brought stuff that no clothes stores ever offered. People crowded at the counters and buzzed like a beehive. Some of them didn’t buy anything, they just stood there, either in helpless confusion or just touched and inspected the things, asked the prices and traded desperately. Even the air around the multicolored rags was thick with people’s excitement. Those who found themselves inside that space got charged with that air and started circling like spokes around a glittering line.
I stood in the line for woolen tights that cost three rubles. A woman tried a pair on, then another one did, it was impossible to keep an eye on all of them; people were pushing from behind and screaming. There were only two salesgirls, two sweaty, deathly tired women.
When it was my turn at last, I picked up four pairs and nodded confidently showing that I was off to try them on. The times and manners were not like today, the movies and people were full of socialist light, naïve, innocent and trustful like little kids.
It seemed to me that no one, except that crazy old woman, stole at the marketplace. But a thief would feel a thief from far away. Yes, there were ragged little boys, but their eyes were shining so hungrily and their childish hands were so frankly dirty that it was hard for them to get to the counters. They would make a pounce like a sparrow flock, snatch whatever was close by, then run away to sit out somewhere for a long time, most likely, on the roofs.
But nobody would expect anything evil from a lady in a straw hat, a white teacher’s blouse trimmed with satin ruffles and a black narrow-waist silk skirt flowing down like big waves.
I went aside carrying tights of all colors and sizes, put them carefully in my bag… and queued up again. Even if one of the sellers looked at me, she would think that I had already paid. I had so many tights in the bag that it swelled and I had to press tight to fasten it. What next?
Experiencing inner turmoil, I got to the other end of the marketplace without holding back my eager curiosity, took the tights out and began counting them excitedly. A crowd flew over nearly knocking me down, ‘How much?’ I didn’t think long and said, in a strange voice, ‘Two rubles.’ The tights were snatched up in a minute. With my hands shaking, I took the tights out and opened them, took the money hastily, my hands shaking in the same way, and threw it in my bag without counting. My God, that’s a fortune! I hardly understood that there, in the corner of the marketplace, I said goodbye to my previous life. A lot of banknotes rustled and crunched on the bottom of the bag, coins jingled and rattled. I carried it a few steps, then stopped, slightly unbuttoned the lock, peered anxiously into the wonderful clearance that smelled and rustled indescribably.
I didn’t take any more chances that day. I just bought food and went home resolutely glorifying the fine day and almighty gods. Everything sang and triumphed inside me, life force was filling me, and I was sure that I could do absolutely everything. The most important thing was to know when to stop, even on the luckiest day. Card players must stick to that rule, all the gamblers in the world must.
My husband was surprised, but I told him that it was my mother who gave me the money. As I explained, mother had some misgivings and decided to withdraw the money from her bank account. I repeated that story several times, colorfully and convincingly, so he cooled off quickly and stared at the TV.
I used to going to the marketplace every weekend. That’s how people to go to the enemy’s rear or to a party, sit down to solve a sophisticated riddle or proceed with a new painting.
The canvass of the marketplace, saturated with colors, extended in front of me, and I, without thinking and weighing, looked for the counters that were attracting me. I was turning into a liquid and slippery mirror, which took any form easily. I clang the clothes with transparent fingers and pulled them inside like in a shell.
How long did it last? A year, two years, several months? I remember nothing, there was a hole in my memory…
Pele, a famous soccer player, once told the reporters that he could score as many goals as he wanted. If thieves were interviewed, they, I mean I, would say the same.
I bought a good winter coat for my son. I bought a cot for Alenka. I had money. I was able to buy fresh meat and cream. Cream was incredible in those times! Thick and sweet, one could dip bread in it, and it tasted even better than a cake.
Milk and cream were sold in similar glass bottles with covers made of dense silvery foil that could be easily pierced. Some covers said ‘Milk’, others said ‘Cream’. Instead of piercing the cover, you could pick it carefully and remove it, so it would remain intact. Muddled with vague thoughts, I stared at a bottle of milk…
I gathered five or six such covers and went to a self-service store. I put six bottles of crème in a cart and pushed it slowly towards the cash. While walking, I took out the milk covers so that no one would notice, put them on the cream bottles and pressed them with my fingertips so that they would not stick out. Paid successfully for milk, put the bottles in my bag and went home. At that time, cream was twice as expensive as milk.
I felt no anxiety or pricks of conscience, just crazy wicked joy.
At my mother’s work, she had an opportunity to buy a one-bedroom condo. It cost three thousand. Money was no problem as I was already an experienced thief. But there was a different kind of problem: in those times, one person was only eligible for one room. My mother was unmarried, and there were no one-bedroom apartments in that privileged building.
‘You should get married’, I told my mother and started looking for a man for a sham marriage so that she could get an apartment for me.
It wasn’t easy to find a fiancé, especially in a big city. The guy would have to check out of his apartment, which no one would agree to do, not even for ready money.
I started looking for a potential fiancé in the countryside. To convince those guys, I needed vodka. A lot of vodka.
I made a secret pocket in my winter coat. It was a long and wide brown fur coat. The pocket was big and convenient. At a self-service store, I would put three bottles of vodka at a time in my pocket. Without fussing and looking around, I would press a little bottle to my belly. It got lost in the thick wool and slid down into the right place. I had to get used to that because if there was a bottle on the bottom, it was impossible to throw another one as they would give a ring and may even break. In this case, I had to look as natural as possible and run my hand along the coat as if smoothing it and making sure that it wasn’t stained while holding carefully the invisible quartered vodka. So as not to become familiar, I had to travel around the city.
I rushed from one store to another, from counter to counter, hurrying to grasp as much foodstuff as possible, afraid of nothing. That secret passion substituted love for me…
I would hide salami and canned fish, bottles and sweets and feel pleasant load when walking over to the cash. The canned fish was called ‘Herring sardine’ and cost one ruble. It was delicious. Juicy, in fragrant transparent oil. It is not produced any more.
With a string bag full of vodka and foodstuff, I would go to see another ‘candidate’ to try and persuade him.
Lonely village guys had no idea about sham marriages. They thought I simply wanted my mother to get married. After a glass or two, they were happy to say ‘yes’, although they had never seen her.
‘It’s a sham marriage, not a serious one’, I tried to cool them off. No way. The guys would take offence, straighten their shoulders, pull up the pants and start praising their farms in every way. The hens, the geese, and the sheds, the way they baked pancakes and grew potato. I could do nothing about that.
Finally I was lucky. The village mailman grasped everything easily. He wasn’t a typical villager as he used to wash his hands with permanganic acid and didn’t take care of his vegetable garden after his wife died. He had a 22-year old son, Arkhip. That guy was smart, too.
‘Say yes, dad’, he would tell his father who would sip the free vodka. ‘You’ll buy me a tape-recorder.’
His father took his time delaying the negotiations. Free vodka and canned fish tasted great. I had to visit him many times. But, although the deal would do him no harm, he would say slowly, in a nasal voice,
‘Well, one never knows. Everyone just wants to… fool you.’
In the long run, he found a thousand rubles acceptable.
So it was a deal. I covered my terrified mother’s shoulders with a woolen shawl painted with scarlet poppies and took her to a registrar. Mother was afraid that she would be ridiculed there as the ‘fiancé’ was seventeen years younger. But everything was OK.
I paid to the ‘fiancé’ and for the apartment we moved in soon. There was a little problem though: the mailman balked and refused to divorce my mother.
‘I wanna live in town’, he said in court arrogantly. ‘With my own wife.’
Thank God, the judge was a woman whose daughter went to the daycare where my mother worked. He told the quirky mailman that he would go to jail for a conscientious sham marriage. He got scared to death and signed all the documents.
Stealing kept pulling me inside like swamp water or an unexpected curse. I admired my own courage and saw my face in the mirror, alert and evil, with a kind of hard and rapacious look in the eyes. It looked as if I had exhausted all my femininity and reached into illicit secret coffers, and I had no willpower to change it. I don’t know how it would end if not for a mere incident…
My husband finally sensed something and worried. Thinking that I had a rich lover, he began torturing me with numberless questions and threats. I decided to tell him the truth, but he didn’t believe me. Just twisted the forefinger at his temple and threatened to kill me together with my lover. So I proposed to take him to the marketplace…
It was the first time that my mother-in-law agreed to sit with the children. We had to give her a solemn oath that we would be back in an hour. Of course we didn’t keep our pledge.
It was late fall, there was a strong wind. I had nothing on my head. So I tried a light yellow hat on. My husband was by my side. This way and that, turning my head, I was looking in the mirror. The hat looked great on me. So I turned around and… went away. My husband just gaped in goofy confusion, which I could feel with my skin. It took him some time to catch up with me as I was a fast walker. At last, his breath lost, he came up running and jabbered breathing heavily and frequently into my ear, ‘Great! You are fantastic! Like a professional! Look, let’s work together, mother will be sitting with the kids. The whole thing is great, I will somehow persuade her to help us, OK?’
I wished he had beaten me on the spot. I wouldn’t resist. Maybe I just wanted someone to stop me. But instead… I saw his eyes sparkling with joy. He was shivering like in a fever and seemed to be even jumping up like a little boy. Running ahead, he was looking at me cap in hand, sniffing, unable to contain his excitement. I was so sick and felt so dirty… Although it was me who was a thief, not him.
Then I was struck by another sight: a thief had been caught. The procession was accompanied by a large crowd because thieves were unusual in those times. The young man was huge. His hands were twisted behind his back, a couple of cops were leading him. Two furious female sellers were running by his side beating him continuously with sticks and fists. As far as I understood from what they were yelling, the guy had stolen a pair of pants. The cops didn’t stop the women.
The guy was stumbling, his head low. He was alone against the indignant crowd. I was akin to him, it was me the women were beating mercilessly, and it was me who was crushed by bitter anguish stinging me in the heart like a snake. He raised his head and our eyes met. That only lasted a few moments. Prison and the loss of loved ones expected me. I became an outcast and felt fear inside me. Two episodes that followed one after another crossed in my mind like two darts of lightning. A tree flared up and burned. I suddenly woke up.
The crazy gods whispered that they would not protect my any longer. I would be caught should I try to steal again. The time somehow given to me was up.
I stopped visiting the market place. But all is not as simple as seems…
