That day Edik had to go to Bubi Yar alone, and she stayed in the room, continuing to think about how it all could happen to her.
She remembered the big dacha in Pushkino, which the family rented for the summer. At the time, everything seemed simple. Mom always invited a lot of guests.
She remembered the big dacha in Pushkino, which the family rented for the summer. At the time, everything seemed simple. Mom always invited a lot of guests. The Semenovs had fun. It was fun, easy, though it wasn't a big deal... However, maybe it wasn't so cloudless even then.
Sisters Katya and Masha sat on a huge light veranda and chewed sandwiches. Dad and Mom fought on the second floor. Sandwiches were lying on a pile on a plate in the middle of a round, peeled table. The sandwiches were of three kinds - cheese, cooked sausage, and herringbone oil. Weaving away the sausage, which she cleverly picked up from the bread with her tongue, Katya seemed to have forgotten about everything in the world. A strong food instinct. As for Masha, she was carefully licking herring oil from the bread and listening to the scraps of evil phrases that came from the second floor. She tried to make a whole impression of the conversation. It was a secretary who worked in Dad's notary office. Mom was very angry. Mom warned Dad that if this continued, she would divorce him.
- And you won't see me again, Liquid! - My mother shouted.
- Antisemitism! - Daddy fought back almost kindly. - A loudspeaker!
Little Masha said to herself that there was no mention of them or the children. Masha was ready to roar. Where would they go, kids? This question tore the child's soul apart. She was afraid of the appearance in the lives of some notorious secretary - a sinister character like a witch or a woman Yaga.
Masha looked questioningly at Katya, but she was too keen on eating slices of cheese, which disappeared in her mouth with amazing speed. What does the older sister mean? That's probably why juniors almost always grow up to be frozen. Then it was the turn of the herringbone butter sandwich, which Katya started to eat methodically from all sides so that it soon left only a small circle, on which Katya admired for some time, as if on a work of art, and then sent after the rest.
- Katinka," Masha whispered, "do you hear?
- I hear, why? - She replied by putting the rest of the sandwich in her mouth and pushing it inside with her index finger.
Looking at her, it was hard to believe she was capable of feeling anything. And if she is, she probably has very specific feelings.
None of the sisters could calm or cheer the other one up, because nobody taught them that.
Mom ran away from the second floor when Katya was finishing her compote and Masha just started a sausage sandwich. Daddy fled after Mom too.
- Schizophrenic! - he was yelling.
- Mommy, darling! - Masha immediately cried out, jumping up and down.
Blinding from bitter tears, her mother ran towards the cherry orchard - without even looking back at her daughter, and her father sighed next to the children at the table on the veranda. Sister Katya, as if nothing had happened, skillfully started a conversation with him about her own needs. Well, that's the way they do it - each for himself.
- I've grown up, Dad. I need a new bike.
- Okay," Dad said embarrassedly.
But Masha intervened. She still didn't understand the intricacies of gender relations when she was seven.
- Why are you and your mother fighting? - She asked her to the forehead.
In her seven years, she still did not understand all the intricacies of gender relations.
- Why are you and your mother fighting? - She asked her on the forehead.
- And we're not fighting at all," Dad said. - It's just that sometimes parents need to figure out the relationship.
- And what is a schizophrenic? - Masha insisted.
- She was schizophrenic," he answered without hesitation, "so she was just nervous.
Masha shook her head with doubt. Even at the age of seven, it is difficult to enjoy such a rough answer. She kept silent but did not believe her father. It was only years later that she realized she was wrong. That's the fact that adults often have to figure out the relationship, and the epithet "schizophrenic" - for men such as her parent - really means something like a nervous woman.