The Education of a Traitor: A Memoir of Growing Up in Cold War Russia Read Online Free Page A

the floor. Then she grabs another white ball—with the same result. Feverishly, she squishes one paper ball after another, mumbling to herself, “Empty, empty, empty ...”
    As the last piece quietly falls, Uncle Abraham rises from his chair. His face is red, his eyes are like bonfires, and his white hair stands on end, which makes him look a head taller.
    “Can you explain this?” He growls to his son, whose face has taken on the color of the wrapping paper that now covers the floor like snowflakes. 
    Instead of answering, Roma starts shrinking before our eyes. When he reaches the size of Hans Christian Anderson’s Thumbelina (he never becomes as cute as her), I turn to my mother and whisper, “Where are the chocolates?” 
    “Good question,” my uncle says loudly. “Where are the chocolates?” 
    “I don't understand,” Aunt Raya says, perplexed, gazing from one face to another and finally stopping at her husband’s. “Who gave you this box?” 
    “What don't you understand?” My uncle barks. “I think it's rather clear!” 
    I pull my mother's sleeve and whisper again, “Is this a magic trick?” 
    “This is a trick, all right,” Uncle Abraham announces to his quiet audience, and an ominous expression flashes across his face. “Let's ask the magician how he did it. Tell us, you, louse!”
    At this, Aunt Raya emits a weak “Ah!” and slumps into her chair. My mom emits a loud “Ah!” and jumps to her feet. Uncle Abraham cries, “I'll show you!” He pushes his chair away and, with the speed of a cobra striking its prey, grabs his son by the collar with both hands and begins vigorously shaking him, as if hoping that the vanished candy would fall from Roma like ripe apples from a tree. “How dare you eat the chocolates?!!” 
    The room explodes. Everybody is pushing chairs and shouting. “What’s the world coming to?” “Abraham, that’s enough! It's his birthday!” “If I did something like this when I was young, my parents would’ve killed me!” And, over all that chaos, I hear Roma's wounded-rabbit-like scream, “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I’ll never do it again!”
     

      Roma, 1959
     
    “How did Roma eat the chocolate?” I ask my mother on our way home, still hoping that some of the long-awaited candy could be recovered. “Wasn’t the box tied with a ribbon?” 
    Mom sighs, “Well, he took the ribbon off, I guess, and, at first, he ate just one piece. He thought nobody would notice. Then he ate another piece, and then another, and before he knew it, he finished them all.” Here Mom stops, crouches in front of me, and says, looking straight into my eyes, “Let that be a lesson to you. This is what happens when children start doing bad things. They think that nobody will notice, but it never works that way. The best you can do ...” 
    I stop listening. I understand the only thing that really matters to me. There is no hope of getting any chocolate . Not today, not tomorrow, not the day after tomorrow. Not until New Year's. And that is a long wait.
     
     
     

 
    CHATER FOUR
    HOW MANY LANGUAGES DOES ONE MAN NEED?
    “… Gai kaken oifen yam !”  (Go shit in the ocean, Yiddish.) 
    “ Shvaygn , Raphail!” (Be quiet.)
    “ Zi farshtey dos nit .” (She doesn’t understand.)
     
    Both of my grandparents grew up in the Pale of Settlement (where the Jews in imperial Russia were required to live), in a Ukrainian shtetl (village) called Monasterishche. The place was relatively prosperous. It had two plants—one produced sugar and the other plows and other agricultural equipment—two synagogues, two orthodox churches, several Jewish schools, and a gymnasium. Half of Monasterishche’s population was Jewish and the other Ukrainian or Russian, but almost everybody knew Yiddish. The Russians and Ukrainians worked in the nearby fields or at the plants, and the Jews—who were forbidden to own land—as shoemakers, tailors, tinsmiths, and such.
    My grandfather’s father had a