Example of An Organic Event
In Chapter Twenty-One of Slogans: Our Children, Our Future, the Peoples' committee of Unkuda confiscate the dacha of absent aristocrat and turn it into a school for the village's children.
* * *
The estate was as vast as its storied past. It boasted an immense yellow brick dacha
trimmed in blue with a dozen well-lighted rooms, a carriage house and an offset
summer kitchen. Several out buildings
sprinkled the rolling grounds and included a smoke house, ice shed, two barns
and even a watchman's tower. The
entrance to the grounds was guarded by a massive set of stone pillars anchoring
a seemingly impregnable wrought iron gate.
A curved roadway wound through an apple orchard and past sculptured
gardens and was designed to impress even the most jaded revelers with the
owner's diverse array of flora. At the
terminus visitors were welcomed by a squad of whitewashed Greek columns that
stood at attention across the veranda and supported a red-tiled roof soaring
more than three stories above a series of curved steps. At the top of the stairs, a thick wooden
double door, twice the width of a stout man, presented the final barrier to the
interior.
* * *
Stepha was one of those arriving the first day of school and was awestruck and humbled by a elaborate structure unlike anything he had ever witnessed.
* * *
Stepha followed the designs until they lead to a
staircase that bisected main floor and rose up to a mezzanine. From there the stairs ascended to the second
floor and spread to the hallways beyond.
Stepha craned his neck to see the chandeliers hanging high above him and
felt light-headed when he tried to grasp the immensity of the building. His eyes flitted across the ceiling and
rested on the figures of angels carved into the corners of the crown
molding. The heavenly beings looked
bewildered and stared down at Stepha and seemed to ask, “Why do you desecrate
our home?”
* * *
A few months later, Stepha's educational experience took a path similar to mine. I began first grade in 1948, a week after Labor Day. As I posted previously, I was the youngest member of our local "gang" and was eager to participate in their mysterious world called school. In the predawn hours of early November, our world came crashing down -- literally.At approximately 4:00 am, a fire broke out in our school's kitchen and quickly spread. As the town's fire department siren wailed, my father burst into my bedroom and outlined against the orange glow of the window told me to get dressed. "Your school's on fire."
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| Rockdale volunteer firemen hose down the remains of their school |
Like my father and I, Stepha and his brother Vanya, rushed to the scene of their burning school.
* * *
Accompanied by the pealing of the village bell and distant
shouts, the two hurried from the izbah straight into hell. The sky was as bright as midday and a cloud
of acrid smoke hung over the village like the morning fog’s cloak. At first, it looked as if the flames were just
outside their home, but as they ran it became apparent the fire was farther
away. They followed the beckoning
brilliance along the river to its source beyond the village's edge. The inferno's call led them to the school.
* * *
While the photo below is not that of my school, it is what I remember from that morning and the way I described it from the boys point of view. |
| Fire engines from several departments assisted the Rockdale volunteers
* * *
As they grew nearer, they could feel the heat on
their faces and hear the crackle. Fire
shot from the windows and door, and crept along the joints of the brick For a moment thick smoke billowed from the
beneath the ground floor, then erupted into a sheet of flame that forced the
onlookers to shield their faces. The
crackle became a roar and even the ground around the school was covered with
smoke and fire.
* * * |
* * *
Flashes of flame played across Simon Petr's face
and his eyes burned with a fierceness beyond the reflected light. “Yes, we will pay. But thou will pay also.
Do thou believe only the guilty wilt learn fear? No, Boris Lukavich, the innocent shalt learn
to fear the ungodly ones.” Simon Petr
then swept his hand across those gathered before him and shouted. “Perhaps thou more so than I.”
* **
The older boys told me they heard yowls from the trapped custodian's cat during the fire. Whether it was true or not, the image and sound invaded my dreams. I decided to pass this experience on to my protagonist and give Stepha restless nights.
* * *
The roaring of the flames mixed with the
imagined screams of the caretaker's trapped cats stole Stepha’s sleep for weeks
following the school fire. He huddled
on his ledge next to Vanya and tried to dispel the cries by concentrating on
the sounds of the long winter’s night: Dadushka snored with a deep rasp,
while Mati let out soft puffs and the izbah groaned from cold.
* * *
The Aftermath
When I introduced the school fire, I didn't anticipate its importance to Stepha and how the burnt ruins would become the site of many pivotal scenes. I believe my most moving scene expressing brotherly love takes place within the confines of its charred timbers.
* * *
“Here,” Vanya said taking off his own coat and gloves, “I've
warmed them up for you.” Stepha allowed
Vanya to slide his arms into the heated shoba and barely moved when his
little brother placed the rukavetsa on his hands. “I'll leave the ear flaps up,” Vanya said
after he put the ushanka on Stepha's head. “It's not that cold.”
Stepha
didn't even object after Vanya donned his own clothing and squeezed in next to
him.
“You ran very fast, Stepha.
I didn't think I could catch you.”
Then Vanya cradled his big brother in his arms and prepared to face a
long night.
* * *
 |
| Rockdale Public School Today |
Both Stepha and I continued our education in new buildings. Stepha moved over to the carriage house and my class spent several months as guests of the United Sates Navy. The Great Lakes Naval Training Center allowed Rockdale to use several Quonset huts at the reserve center. My classroom was the gunnery training facility and contained several varieties of 20 and 40 mm antiaircraft guns. Playing on those guns during recess is all I recall from those days.
Full Circle
Last week I received a photo of my vacationing grandson. He unknowingly reenacted my experience from seventy-years ago while visiting the battleship USS North Carolina. |
| Grandson manning a 40 mm antiaircraft gun |
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