Speak Memory,

Childhood memories are notoriously unreliable. They are filtered through the gauze of time and emotion. Some memories are in fact nothing but concoctions, representations of stories which have told so many times that a movie of them has to be made, if not by Hollywood then by the mind itself . I have one such memory. I am in my pram, our loyal German Shepherd , Baykal, is barking aggressively at my mother. She can’t come near me and I begin to cry. This is not a real memory. It feels completely real, visceral almost cinematic. The cinematic quality of the memory is precisely why it cannot be real. Real memories loose the color and texture of the moment, they are palpable not in the detail but in the emotional state they arouse. This memory of Baykal the valiant defender, the prams white lace trimming, the loud barking and snarling, my mothers face consumed with worry, he red lips moving, telling the dog to go away, yelling for my father, is not real. It could not be real because a thousand times, at a thousand gatherings by a thousand members of my family I was told that it happened when I was about a year old.

As the story goes, Baykal took a liking to me from the moment I was brought home from the hospital. So much so, that when my mother made a gesture which the dog interpreted as threatening to his little human brother, he began to bark and snarl and would not allow my mother to get anywhere near the pram. This obviously became an untenable situation and my fathers beloved dog had to be given away. Perhaps this was the seed of enmity sown between my father and I. My father was forced to trade a prized and fierce show dog for a son who, unlike the graceful and powerful canine protector, clung too close to his mothers skirt, like a ever smiling Pekinese lapdog, a breed my father loathed.

My first realization that childhood memories are distorted images of real events happened in 2006. I was in Moscow on business entertaining clients. A young man who worked in our Eastern European division sat next to me. As the evening progressed my Swiss and American clients were curious as to how I was fluent in Russian. I told them that I was born in Kiev.

“ You’re from Kiev” said the young man, “ so am I. Where did you live?”
“Kharkiv’ky Shosse, 16. Apartment 24”
“Oh my god. This is the strangest thing. I live at Kharkiv’ky Shosse, 18”

The odds of this are absolutely astronomical. After a few minutes of speaking about the coincidence I asked this young man to send me a picture of the building in which I gew up. It turned out to be nothing like I remembered.

Kharkiv’ky Shosse, 16 was not the first place I lived, but it is the first place I recall vividly. Situated on the west side of the busy thoroughfare the building, a gleaming white 6 story edifice is separated from the road by a hundred or so meters grass. The side facing the Shosse ( expressway) is technically the back of the building. This was where the balcony of our 4th floor apartment faced. The entrance to the building was on the west side. There was a courtyard, typical soviet design with benches, and a smaller building with a sloped roof ( if memory calls a cellar of some sort or a bomb shelter in case the evil Americantzi attacked) positioned on the west side of the courtyard. Directly to the west of the Kharkiv’ky Shosse, 16, behind the courtyard was a kindergarten, behind which another complex of buildings which had a small adjacent orchard.

If you were to exit Kharkiv’ky Shosse, 16 and travel south for a block you would see a complex of apartment buildings, number 18, a longer but slightly smaller building with its own courtyard. Taking a south eastern turn you would quickly see a large soccer pitch with a hill overlooking it, and if you continued down that path and made a turn north you would be at School 31, where in 1978 2nd grade teachers not only taught you how to read and write, they were also experts in identifying enemies of the state.

Our apartment was on the fourth floor. The landing was long and had 5 to 8 apartments on it. The furthest from us lived Aunt Maya and her son also named Gena ( Aunt as in respectful way Russian children refer to adults and in this case not a blood relative.) Between our apartment and Aunt Maya were several others apartments, one of which was occupied by my friend Sasha and his parents. As you came up the landing and made a right there were two doors. Ours was numbered 24. Entering the apartment you walked into a long corridor which terminated with the big balcony ( a fire escape really). On the left was the living room, which doubled as my parent’s bedroom and which I shared with them. My bed being a small pull out couch. Our other balcony was accessible through this room. Further down the hall and on the left was our kitchen. Followed by a small bedroom where Grandma Feige lived. Across from her was another bedroom with two beds, one for Grandma Genya and one for my sister, Maya.

The description above is all from memory with 40 years of gauze, childhood trauma and romanticism. But this I remember as an architect remembers the first building they design. All these long 40 years later I can navigate the apartment and the complex of buildings, school, hills, kindergarten as well as I can navigate the block on which I currently live. I know that my memories are correct because after committing them on paper, Google Maps confirmed virtually all the details of the neighborhood, save a few buildings which look new. The memories are correct but all the details are missing. I do not remember the color of the walls in the apartment, or the benches in the courtyard or the school, if there was grass on he pitch or not, what the roof material was on the small building in the courtyard. Not one of those details remain. I remember this place because of the moments I associate with each part of the mental map.

I remember the the grass between the building and Shosse because it was where I was told by the the the brothers Misha and Sasha from the first floor that I was stupid and can’t play soccer with them. I came home was was soothed by my mother who told me that they were just older and that I was definitely not stupid. I remember the balcony because on a freezing night my mother stood in a flowing night gown, lace curtains drifting like ghosts in the air, while my father begged her to come in. She kept kept turning away from him and I was shaking silently, less from the cold than from fear that they would divorce. I remember the entrance to the building because on late autumn night my mother and I were attacked by some drunken lunatic who tried to grab my mother and pull her away from me. She fought fiercely, with a violence I could not have imagined in her, picked me up and ran towards the entrance as the man stumbled and fell. I remember the courtyard because it was where Pavel and I were sitting on the bench and he told me that he was born because his “parents fucked” a long time ago. I listened intently not knowing what “fuck” was. But later in the day in the same courtyard on the same bench, after I lost a game we were playing, I yelled at Pavel “ ….AND I DON’T BELIEVE THAT YOU WERE BORN BECAUSE YOUR PARENTS FUCKED.” I remember the small building with the slope roof because of the day that the Germans finally won the battle in our childhood WWII weekly reenactments and I, a Messerschmidt pilot, small and under the radar, was hoisted to the low roof to celebrate with the rest of the Wehrmacht. I remember Kharkiv’ky Shosse, 18 because in 1976 a miracle of sorts happened. A Ford El Camino was spotted in the front of the building. Every boy in 5 mile radius came to see it. We all speculated endlessly whether it was American or not. I remember the kindergarten because I was the only one who did not know how to tie his shoes and had to do the walk of shame as the last one out to play, shoes tied by teacher in front of everyone. I remember the orchard because a bunch of us kids would steal the apricots and cherries growing there. One day the owner of the orchard lay in wait and attacked us by throwing objects out of a 3rd story window. I was the only one hit. With a klisma bottle ( enima bottle), by all accounts unused, thankfully. I remember the football pitch because after an errand ball I kicked away accidentally from the older boys who then became so infuriated with me that they gave chase. Thankfully an adult passing by saved me from a vicious beating. I remember the hill where sledding one day I misjudged the location of the sled, laid down on its edge, the sled tilting up so violently that it broke my nose. The snow turning crimson. I remember my school because my patriotism was at all time high having been selected to carry the big red flag. I thought I had earned it, but papa pointed out it was because I was the tallest Pioneer in the class. I remember the landing of my apartment where with all the pride of a 5 year old I knocked on the next door neighbors door in my Soviet Sailor outfit with Potemkin written across the front to show her how ready I was for the school celebration. I remember Aunt Maya’s apartment where her son and I ate several pounds of pistachios in one sitting. This caused both lots of laughs for the adults but also lots of constipation for the two Genas. I remember Shasha from a two doors down because we planned on running away at the age of 4 and 5 , but I called the trip off only because he still used a Garshok ( potty ). Carrying it around did not appeal to me. I remember my living room because I accidentally opened a wardrobe door out of which a kneeling Baba Genya was getting something. I heard a loud THUNK, but she said nothing. Her face turned red as a beet but she just kept doing what she was doing. I remember the kitchen because Grandma Feige was cooking something which not only drove our family out of the kitchen, but several neighbors out of their apartments. The smell was terrible, like feces with spices. I remember Aunt Feige’s room because it was dark and scary. I had walked in to tell her something. She had given me a coin as a thank you. I dropped the coin, it fell out of site and she cackled “ be careful there is hole under my bed.” I never walked back in her room. I remember my sisters room the night after the earthquake ( which I slept through) my mother let me sleep in my sisters bed and playfully “tied” me to the bed with scarves so that I would feel safe.

The picture I received from my colleague of Kharkiv’ky Shosse, 16 was a squat grey soviet era building, dilapidated and depressing. It had no soul. A golom edifice, unloved and abandoned to economic reality. A broken doppelgänger of a childhood home. A coffin for old memories. I deleted the picture and kept my memories.