When a child is born, we, the parents, become the center of his little world, the axis around which his entire tiny universe revolves. He completely trusts us, believes that we will always, in any situation, definitely protect him. And then we break that belief once and for all. Masha Traub’s new book, Extra Children, is about this. We publish a fragment – piercing and poignant.
Elena Ivanovna, as she herself said, “took” Sasha Ilyinsky. Since few children went to the kindergarten, the teacher directed all her energy to re-educate Sasha. He was left handed. Even Stasik admired him. Sasha controlled his left hand better than his right. Stasik even tried to learn how to do like Sasha, and tried to write and draw with his left hand, but he did not succeed well. Sasha not only drew, but also cut with scissors, brushed his teeth and held a spoon in his left hand.
Elena Ivanovna called his mother. They whispered for a long time in the locker room, and after the conversation the teacher came out pleased, as if she had eaten a whole cake alone. The very next morning, she took out a hefty bandage and began to wrap Sasha’s left arm to the torso. Sasha’s mother stood in the locker room and silently watched the process. The son looked at his mother, hoping that she would intervene and stop the strange bandaging. But my mother pretended that everything was fine. Sasha began to struggle, to pull his hand out from under the bandage, but Elena Ivanovna pulled him back:
– Stay calm. This is for your own good.
And she continued to tightly wind the boy’s hand. Sasha turned his head once more to see his mother at the locker room door, but she had already left. All day Sasha walked with his hand tied to his side. He tried to loosen the bandages, but Elena Ivanovna did her best – she tied them tightly.
When we cut out stars from colored paper to make a postcard for the seventh of November, Sasha sat and looked at the scissors in horror, not daring to take them in his right hand.
– Cut. – Elena Ivanovna stood over him and did not go anywhere.
Sasha took the scissors with his right hand and tried to cut. Of course, he didn’t succeed.
All day he walked with an expression of extreme surprise on his face and all the time looked back towards the dressing room
– You need to be retrained. Nobody writes with their left hand. No one holds a spoon with their left hand, – Elena Ivanovna explained, – all children do it with their right. And you will too. We must try. Everyone is retrained, so you are not the first, you are not the last. Then you will thank me again.
Sasha tried. But he couldn’t. At dinner, he poured soup over himself and dropped a cutlet on the floor. Elena Ivanovna made him pick up the cutlet and eat it anyway. Sasha didn’t resist. He really wanted to do everything with his right hand, but it was his left that obeyed him, but his right did not.
He did not cry, although he remained hungry, did not resist when, after a quiet hour, Elena Ivanovna rewound his hand more tightly. All day he walked around with an expression of extreme surprise on his face and all the time looking back towards the locker room. He probably hoped that there, at the door, his mother would appear and tell the teacher not to torment him anymore. Probably, Sasha could not believe in any way that his mother gave the green light to such tortures.
Why doesn’t he argue? I asked Stasik. I terribly felt sorry for Sasha, who carved such flowers with his left hand that we could not do with our right. And he drew very well with his left hand, although he had to lay the sheet in a different way. Obliquely. But still, his drawings turned out to be the best. I didn’t understand why he was being punished, retrained, and why he didn’t even cry, didn’t break out.
“His mother agreed to this,” Stasik replied.
– So what? He’s bad! He needs help! “Feelings woke up in me that I had never experienced before. I wanted to save Sasha from torment. He certainly didn’t deserve them.
When we were going for a walk, Sasha always dressed from the left hand and put on his shoes from the left foot – he pulled the jacket on the left hand, and the boot on the left foot. Elena Ivanovna jumped up and began to talk about a bad omen – to put on shoes from the left foot. And you need to do everything with the right – it is the right foot that is the first to be lowered from the bed when you wake up, and with the right foot to step outside the threshold of the apartment when you go out into the street. Otherwise, there will be no luck.
Already in kindergarten, children stop loving their parents. Don’t you adults know this? Or have you forgotten too?
During an afternoon snack, Sasha again doused himself with jelly and dropped a casserole on the floor. Elena Ivanovna began to laugh at him – an adult boy, but eats like a baby. Isn’t it a shame? Sasha was silent. He endured all day. And the whole next one. He walked around smelly, with frozen soup stains on his shirt. He felt bad.
But Elena Ivanovna was happy – her methods worked. Sasha, from her point of view, more evenly than the day before, cut out a circle from colored paper with his right hand and less spilled soup. He ate very slowly, carefully bringing the spoon to his mouth. He leaned lower, burying his nose almost in the plate, in order to spill less. Sasha sat at the table longer than the rest of us, and the teacher stood behind him, making sure that he finished his soup. All children want to please their parents.
All children are afraid of mom or dad. Children don’t want to upset their parents. The child is ready for much for the sake of parental praise and approval. Sasha was ready to be controlled with his right hand and walk with his left tied to his side. Because his mother wanted it that way. But sooner or later patience ends even in the most obedient children.
With all the love for their parents, they just want to live and fight for survival as best they can. And it is in kindergarten that they learn to lie, and at school they already consolidate and hone this skill. Even the most honest children are forced to resort to lies. To make life a little easier. And already in kindergarten they stop loving their parents. Don’t you adults know this? Or have you forgotten too?
Kindergarten is the time of the most unexpected discoveries and the most bitter disappointments. And if you think that the child is changing because of the selected toy, then no, it is not. It is at this age – the middle or senior group of the kindergarten – that children understand that their parents have betrayed them. And if they haven’t done it yet, they will do it tomorrow or in the near future.
Yes, a very true word – betrayal. When a child thinks that a mother should intercede, save, protect, protect, but she does not. Isn’t that the worst betrayal ever? Is it possible to forget and forgive? And most importantly: children do not understand why this is happening. Why should the most terrible humiliation, insult or mockery be expected not from a teacher, nanny or other children, but from parents? Those whom children love unconditionally and who are ready to forgive a lot.
Here Stasik forgave his mother that she deprived him of his father and forced him to call someone else’s uncle “dad”. He even forgave the fact that his mother got herself a new, “normal” child. And I forgave my mother that she does not go to my performances and picks up from the kindergarten later than everyone else. But what happened to Sasha, I would not even wish Lenka Sinitsyna and Svetka Ivanovna.
Once Elena Ivanovna did not immediately begin to wrap Sasha’s left arm to the body. He stood, waiting for the execution, which did not come. Sasha smiled timidly. He probably decided in a matter of seconds that his torment was over. And he is again allowed to do everything with his left hand. He finally ate the semolina without spilling himself as he held the spoon in his left hand. But after breakfast, Sasha’s mother appeared on the threshold of the group. She was holding bandages. There were many packages.
Sasha’s mother handed the bandages over to Elena Ivanovna, and she called Sasha over to wrap herself up. I got sick. Sasha came up and habitually pressed his left hand to his body. Elena Ivanovna was wrapping the bandage, and his mother helped the teacher. I didn’t even expect this. For Sasha, this day was the most terrible in his life. He could believe that Elena Ivanovna was to blame for everything, but it turned out that his mother was also to blame. After all, she brought bandages. And not just one, but several. And she helped wrap up her own son.
The governess tightened the bandage much tighter than in previous days, telling Sasha’s mother what success Sasha had achieved in eating soup. Mom nodded. And then she left, leaving her son standing in the middle of the group with a rewound body and a free right hand, which hung with a whip. Sasha himself seemed to be blown away.
Sasha approached his mother and hit her with his free hand. Clumsy, easy, not painful at all. After that, he sat down on a chair and did not move.
The last hope for salvation, the last excuse that Elena Ivanovna was to blame for everything, collapsed at that very moment. Sasha realized that his mother betrayed him first of all. And the teacher is just a tool.
Even I was taken aback by the sight. Sasha did not cry, but it would be better if he roared. His gaze has changed. I saw that Stasik was also watching this scene. Sasha approached his mother and hit her with his free hand. Clumsy, easy, not painful at all. After that, he sat down on a chair and did not move. He no longer looked back and looked for the eyes of his mother, standing in the doorway. He suddenly became different.
It is unlikely that Elena Ivanovna and Sasha’s mother noticed this. They went to the locker room, where they whispered about Sasha’s act. The teacher offered to punish the boy, I did not hear his mother’s answer. I really wanted to help Sasha, but I didn’t know how.
– Stasik, let’s help him, – I went up to my friend.
He didn’t ask, but come on.
Stasik surprised me again. I thought he didn’t care. Or he wants Sasha to ask for help. But Stasik went up to the table where Lenka usually sat and took out her scissors, which were considered the best in the group. Ours, ordinary ones, even cut cardboard with difficulty. And Lenka had felt-tip pens brought from Poland, like pencils.
Then Stasik silently approached Sasha and cut the bandages. But so carefully that from the side it might seem that Sasha was still sitting with his hand tied. Although in fact he could take his hand out of the rewind.
When a child’s most basic suffering reaches too high a degree, the lesser troubles seem to him to be nonsense.
Sasha was still sitting, frozen. It seems that he was still thinking about his mother, who not only allowed him to be tortured, but also personally gave the governess tools for torture. If Sasha’s mother had not brought bandages, Elena Ivanovna would not have persisted in re-education. The boy sat frozen and didn’t even seem to see what Stasik was doing with his bandages. And only during dinner, having seized the moment when Elena Ivanovna turned away, he took his left hand out of the sling and quickly ate the soup.
– Well, well done! Didn’t even get wet today! – the teacher was delighted when she saw an empty plate. When Sashka cut out an even circle, Elena Ivanovna almost jumped with delight.
“I told you that you can retrain!” And you straightened up! she admired.
Sasha, who had cut the circle with his left hand, was silent. But in the evening our deceit was revealed. Elena Ivanovna began to unwind the bandages and noticed that they were notched. Her pedagogical methodology and the successes achieved have gone down the drain.
– You! How do you? Who helped you? – Elena Ivanovna was ready to hit Sasha. He felt it and leaned over.
– Confess who helped you! shouted Elena Ivanovna.
Sasha was silent. He wouldn’t give us away for anything, I knew that for sure. He didn’t care anymore. I’ve noticed this trick for a long time. When the child’s most basic suffering reaches too high a degree, the lesser troubles seem to him to be nonsense. Sasha was betrayed by his mother, he could not survive it. So the interrogation of the teacher seemed like nonsense to him.
Probably Sasha had nothing to do with it. But Elena Ivanovna got angry, yelled at us and canceled the matinee
Elena Ivanovna went into a fit of rage and in the evening, when Sasha’s mother came for Sasha, she said something to her. The next day he did not appear in the group.
– Where is Sasha? I asked because I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
– Wherever he belongs. In the kindergarten for morons. Where you will soon be, too,” Yelena Ivanovna barked.
– For what? – I did not understand.
– For all. Not a group, but a bunch of crazy people. That’s lucky, so lucky. What a good last release! And you are my punishment. Yes, you should have been sent to a special boarding school from birth!
Probably Sasha had nothing to do with it. But Elena Ivanovna got angry, yelled at us and canceled the matinee. Literally two days before the show.
“A holiday for all children, not for the elite,” the teacher said sternly, and the children who did not get sick, who continued to go to the garden, immediately felt guilty that they did not get sick, like everyone else.
What was that day for me? Everyone. Revelation, initiation, insight, maturation. I realized that there is a force more serious than gifts and agreements. Happening. Banal case. Or fate, providence. First, one case gave me a role with words, then the same case took it away. So not everything depends on the person and his actions. Sometimes luck can beckon, and at the last moment turn away.
Oddly enough, it became even easier for me. I calmed down. If I spoke with words, then everyone would remember that this is because of the quarantine and because “there is no one else.” But my mother was still not going to come to the matinee.
The Eksmo publishing house publishes a new book by the writer and journalist Masha Traub, Extra Children. The girl Rita, the heroine of this story, goes to the senior group of the kindergarten and hates adults. Rita is surrounded by people with crippled destinies: an elderly watchman, a baby with a speech therapy defect, and others. But, despite the psychologically difficult topic, this book, riddled with pain and doom, is a manifesto of hope. Nobody should be superfluous. And at the most desperate moment, help will come from an unexpected quarter.
Masha Traub is the author of many touching and emotional stories written in a lively, often ironic manner. In the book Extra Children, she tackled the difficult topic of the helplessness of little people in a world of indifferent adults. And she handled it brilliantly.
Every detail is written out with cinematic persuasiveness – the reader seems to move into a kindergarten group, smells inedible porridge, walks in formation, walks according to a schedule and learns to put a pillow in a corner on a soldier-made bed.
“Adults often say: “That year was decisive for me” or something like that. Actually a lie. Everything is decided in childhood. For me, everything was decided in the year when I moved to the senior group of the kindergarten. If I went to another kindergarten, or did not go at all, or I had other teachers, then I would become different. More precisely, like this: I wouldn’t be like that. ”
Until the last page, the author keeps the reader in suspense. The group that Rita joined seems to be doomed: all the children are strange, the teachers replace each other, and each is worse than the previous one. The cramped little world of the kindergarten becomes a model of the adult world, in which there is no mercy and sympathy. And only the manifestation of simple human participation gives support when there is no one to trust.
About the Developer
Masha Traub – journalist, columnist, writer, author of dozens of books. Based on her books, a film was made and a play was staged.