May By Saniya Syzdykova
The 1st of May is the best holiday.
Little Ainur will be sitting on her Daddy’s shoulders holding a balloon in her hand. Her daddy is big and strong and always knows best, better than everyone else. That’s why he is the boss of all the workers who’ll be walking with him down the long high street. And those workers will be holding up many banners ‘Peace!’, ‘Labour!’, ‘May!’. And this year, Ainur will be full of pride, because their group is going to be at the head of the whole procession. They deserve to be there. They worked really hard and beat the five-year plan. Socialism has won again.
This parade will be even better than any New Year’s Eve party. Sadly, last year, Father Frost didn’t have time to visit their New Year’s party at the kindergarten. And Lidiya Pavlovna pretended to be Father Frost herself. And nasty Rita’s snowflake costume was awarded first prize out of the ten who entered. That just wasn’t right. Ainur’s costume was the best, because her Daddy had sewn a big snowflake made of tin foil onto the front of her white ballgown. And Daddy always knows what’s best.
But on the 1st May, after the procession, Mummy will bake a honey cake. She will cover each layer with a big plate and trim the uneven edges. But that’s fine, Ainur is going to eat the discarded bits. She likes honey cake, not for its sweet taste (which Ainur is actually not that keen on), but because you wouldn’t find that kind of cake in the shops. And when the aroma of a freshly baked cake fills their small, one-bedroom apartment in the decrepit two-storeyed building on Komsomolskaya, 12 Street, that signifies a feast. Absolute happiness.
When Mummy hasn’t baked or when there aren’t any cookies or other sweat treats in the shops, Daddy and Ainur end up making their own dessert. One of their favourite puddings needs butter to be thickly spread across slices of bread, before covering them with sugar. Mmm… delicious! But when the shop finally has some gingerbreads to sell, Daddy and Ainur will each take one of the mini cakes, cut it in two, and spread each half with butter. Everything is so much tastier with butter.
Mummy and Ainur will often stand in queues for a very long time, maybe to get some butter or other essential groceries and commodities that have been finally been stocked in their local shop. When Mummy’s and Ainur’s turn to be served eventually comes, the shop assistant will first ask for Mummy’s ration book. This always makes Ainur smile. Even adults can play imaginary shop too, but instead of ration books Ainur and her friends exchange leaves from the trees. But Mummy will also argue with the shop assistant because they don’t want to sell her and Ainur any sugar, apparently ‘there is a deficit in the country’. And if there’s not a sugar deficit, then it’s a paper deficit, a textile deficit. Everywhere you look there is a deficit. It doesn’t even need a description now. There is just a deficit in the country, full stop.
Mummy will then tell the shop assistant that she knows she is hiding the sugar under the counter, and then the people in the queue behind will shout at, and berate the shop assistant. Ainur will then pull Mummy’s hand because she wants to leave, because she doesn’t like queueing. The people in those queues tend to become very aggressive for some reason.
It reminded her of the time when Mummy and Ainur were standing in a queue to buy shampoo and soap. Mummy left little Ainur on her own, and a Russian lady grabbed Ainur’s hand, pulling her towards herself. Ainur fought back, but the lady shouted that she needed Ainur to pretend to be her daughter for a short while. Ainur couldn’t understand why, she already had a mummy, who fortunately returned just in time to save her from that crazy Russian. And when they got to the front of the queue, they were given a bottle of shampoo and a piece of soap. One for each member of the family. Ainur will never forget that Russian lady.
When they get home, Mummy is going to call auntie Aiman who works in ‘Universam’, a big shop that sells anything and everything. She is the family friend. Auntie Aiman will promise to put some sugar aside for them, as soon as it is delivered. Everybody wants to be friends with auntie Aiman.
After hanging up the phone, Mummy will ask Ainur to take a new school notebook to their neighbours in the next apartment block. She was saving it for when Ainur starts school in the autumn. Ainur will be confused as to why Mummy wants to give the notebook away, since, according to her own words, it had been really difficult to get hold of. Ainur will give the notebook to the neighbour’s daughter. And that girl, who will look similarly confused, will give Ainur a box of sugar cubes. How are you supposed to sprinkle over a slice of bread and butter?
In the evening Daddy will take the newspaper and ask Ainur to read it out loud. He taught her to read when she was four. He probably won’t have noticed that the front page will be about the murder of some random girl. When Ainur starts reading, Daddy will get annoyed. ‘There is no crime in the Soviet Union!’ he will say firmly. And Ainur will believe him, because Daddy always knows best. He is a boss after all.
He will switch on the colour TV just as The Time programme begins. Ainur doesn’t like The Time. They always show something boring and incomprehensible. Gorbachyov – the first president of the USSR, he’s the one with a funny spot on his forehead – will probably talk about Perestroyka again. Perestroyka. The word is so vague, yet so magical! Daddy and Mummy, the neighbours and auntie Aiman will always smile, when they hear this word. ‘Our lives will get even better!’ Daddy will say. And Ainur will believe him. Daddy always knows best, better than everyone else.
Daddy and Mummy will rejoice when the TV shows the nose cones of big rockets being dismantled. And soon Ainur will learn that she has spent all this time living behind the Iron Curtain.
When The Time finishes, Mummy will turn to Channel Two. A strange, moustached gentlemen, wearing women’s clothes, will be pushing a hoover whilst singing in a strange language. Oh, that’s what’s hidden behind the Iron Curtain! This is all new. Ainur has never seen anything like that before. Daddy will rush over and change the channel. But there will be a technical intermission on the other three channels.
In the evening their little family and the other inhabitants of their two-storeyed apartment block on Komsomolskaya, 12 Street will go outside with dustbins and will wait for the rubbish truck. The neighbours, Daddy and Mummy – they all work at the same plant, the one where Daddy is the boss. But once outside the plant’s walls nobody talks about the arguments they’ve had at work. Everyone lives in peace. Ainur will play with the other kids and the adults will discuss the situation in the country. Daddy will be laughing at Baba Galya, one of the local old ladies, as she tries to secretly examine the contents of each dustbin. Baba Galya lives to the right, immediately next door to Ainur’s family with the thinnest of walls separating them. Once, when eavesdropping on Ainur’s family, she broke the glass that she had been holding against that thin wall.
In the apartment next door to the left lives uncle Kolya and auntie Roza. When the neighbourhood committee next meets, they will again reprimand uncle Kolya for alcoholism. This will make auntie Roza cry and she will threaten to leave him. As usual, uncle Kolya will promise to behave himself, but within a week he will get hold of some vodka, even though it is prohibited to sell vodka anywhere. He will even share a glass with Daddy. But Ainur’s Daddy doesn’t drink much, he even has a blue badge identifying him as a member of the Society Fighting for Sobriety.
One day soon, Mummy will come home from wherever she has been, look at herself in the mirror and with an enigmatic smile declare that she is pregnant. The news will make little Ainur jump up and down. She’s dreamt of a little sister for so long! But Daddy won’t be so happy about the news. Mummy and Daddy will disappear into the kitchen and talk for a long behind the closed door. Daddy will shout that the «country is living through hard times, we should wait for a better time». Mummy will answer that ‘the times of change are always hard, but we have to continue our lives no matter what’. What is the ‘times of change’? What is it that’s going to change?
In a few months from now Daddy will leave to become the boss of a plant in a different town. And in another few months Mummy will give birth to a little brother for Ainur. Once the baby has grown a little, the three of them will go to their Daddy and live in a new town. They will leave their small one-bedroom apartment in the old two-storeyed block on Komsomolskaya, 12 Street. Forever.
Nobody will know what the future holds. Even Daddy. All Ainur will know is that they just need to continue to live their lives no matter what. Everything will be alright…
But for now, little Ainur needs to fall asleep very quickly. She is off to school early the following morning. The state anthem will blast out from the radio on the wall of their bedroom in the morning waking her up.
Unbreakable Union…
Unbreakable Union…
Judges Comments
Written from the point of view of a child, Ainur, Saniya Syzdykova's winning story May paints a vivid, immediate portrait of everyday life behind the Iron Curtain.
Set against a backdrop of monumental world events, the close third person narrative shows Ainur's concerns are those of children everywhere. We relate to her as she talks of her family life, and understanding the similarities makes us able to 'read' clearly the aspects of Ainur's life that would be very different for a child growing up in the late 1980s in the West: no food queues, for a start; no rations books; no 'Russian lady' trying to borrow a child so she can gain shopping privileges. There's nothing sensationlistic about Ainur's experience of these aspects of her life; they are (except for the Russian lady!) ordinary; it is left to us, the readers, to interpret how out of the ordinary this life seems to us. Because the child's point of view is so well created and convincing, it enables Saniya to concentrate on the texture of daily life.The voice is so naturalistic and well-created that the world Ainur lives in – her everyday world yet in our understanding a life under a repressive regime – feels real and believable.
An added dimension is given to May by way details of the wider world, and the political events that overshadow Ainur's everyday existence, are woven in to the fabric of the tale. We understand that her adored Daddy upholds the party line and believes that under Perestroyka life will improve. We discover the impressions of the West that filtered through the TV channels, and referencing Freddie Mercury in the video for song titled I Want to Break Free adds an additional layer of meaning to a story of life under a repressive regime, even if the track isn't mentioned by name.
At the end of May, the third-person narrative voice becomes more distanced from its subject matter, informing us of the way life will change for Ainur and her family shortly after the time these events are set. It's a literary device that works to turn May from a vivid recreation of a time to a piece of writing with the weight of conveying the 'signs of the time' - the significance of what was lived through and the cultural markers of a particular time and place.
Runner-up in the Sign of the Times Competition was Ellen Grace, London E17, whose story is published on www.writers-online.co.uk. Also shortlisted were: Ros Collins, Felixstowe, Suffolk; Alan Flitcroft, Putney, London SW15; Andrew Hutchcraft, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire; Susan Piper, Bordon, Hampshire; Fran Tracey, Ruislip, Middlesex; Jennie Tucker, Chester.