Not funny, but touching.

My beloved Jewish mother.

My father is Chechen and my mother Chechen. His father lived 106 years and was married 11 times. With his second marriage he married a Jewish woman, Sofia Mikhailovna. She and only her I always call Mom. She called me Moshe. “Moshe,” she said, “I went to exile only because of you. I am sorry for you.

This was when all Chechens were relocated to Central Asia. We lived in Frunze. I spent all day with the boys in the yard. and Moshe! She was screaming. Go here. What is Mom? Go here and I’ll tell you why you’re so thin. You never see the bottom of the plate. Cook the soup until the end. And then you go. “Good mixture with Moses,” they said in the yard, “mother is a Jewish, father is a Hitler.

The Chechens were considered fascists. My mother didn’t eat it, she gave it to me. She visited her Odessa friends, Fira Markovna, Maya Isaakovna—they lived richer than we were—and brought me a piece of straw or anything else.

Moshe, it is for you. Mom, have you eaten? I do not want.

I began to lead a circus at the meat combine, taught me to dance ballet and western dances. For that I got a bag of horse bones. Mother ripped out pieces of meat from them and made cakes half with bread, and the bones went to the bouillon. At night I threw the bones away from the house so they didn’t know they were ours. She could make a delicious lunch out of nothing. When I started earning a lot, she was cooking chicken necks, cimes, she was cooking silk so that you could go crazy. My friends at the Kyrgyz Opera and Ballet Theatre still remember:

and Misha! How your mother fed us all!

At first we lived very poorly. Mother said, “Tomorrow we’re going to Melomed’s wedding. There we will snack hefilte fish, goat squashes. We do not have that at home. “Don’t be embarrassed, eat more.”

I already danced well and sang “Varnekees.” It was my mom’s favorite song. She listened to it as the anthem of the Soviet Union. And Tamara Hanum loved it for singing “Varnekees.”

My mom said, “At the wedding you’ll be asked to dance. Dance, then rest and then sing. When you sing, don’t turn your neck. You are not a giraffe. Do not look at everyone. Stand up against me and sing for your mom and the rest will listen.”

I saw the rabbit, the bridegroom, and the bride under the dress. Then everyone sat at the table. Music was played and dances began. Mother said, “Now Moshe will dance.” I danced five or six times. Then she said, “Moshe, and now sing.” I stood up against her and began: “You don’t me, you don’t me, you don’t me?...” Mother said: “Look, what a talent!” and she was told: “Thank you, Sophia Mikhailovna, for raising a Jewish boy correctly. Others, like Russians, know nothing in Jewish.

She was my mother-in-law and a Gypsies. She taught me to guess, to steal at the bazar. I was very good at stealing. She said, “Judeen, go here and we will sing.”

I was admitted to the Kyrgyz Opera and Ballet Theatre. My mother attended all of my shows. My mother asked me, Moshe, tell me, are the Russians the people? Yes to Mom. Are the Spanish people too? The people, Mom. And the Hindus? and yes. Are the Jews not the people? Why, Mom, the people too. And if it’s the people, why don’t you dance the Jewish dance? In “Eugenia Onegina” you dance Russian dance, in “Lakma” – Hindu. “Mommy, who will show me the Jewish dance?” I will show you. She was very heavy, weighing probably 150 kilograms. How will you show? with hands. And the feet? You will invent it yourself.

She sang and showed me Freyles, which is also called Seven Forty. At 7.40 the train departed from Odessa to Chisinau. Everyone danced at the station. I worshipped Shalom-Alehem and made myself the dance "A Junger Schneider". The costume was made as if of the material that remains at the cutlery. The trousers are short, but the back is made of other materials. I beat it all in the dance. This dance became a bite for me. I repeated it three or four times.

My mother said, “Daddy, do you think I want you to dance a Jewish dance because I’m Jewish? No is. The Jews will talk about you: Did you see him dancing Brazilian dance? Or the Spanish dance? They will not speak Jewish. But they will love you for the Jewish dance.”

In the Belarusian cities in those years when Jewish art was not very promoted, Jewish spectators asked me, “How did you get permission for Jewish dance?” I said, “I allowed myself.”

My mother had a place in the theatre. They said, “Here is Mishina’s mom.” My mom asks me, "Moshe, you dance the best of all, you are the most beaten, and why are all wearing flowers and you are not wearing? “Mom,” I said, “we have no relatives. Isn’t it the people wearing it? and no. The relatives.

Then I come home. We had one room, a iron bed stood against the door. I see my mom with her head under the bed and something is whispering there. I say :

Go out immediately, I’ll get what you need. “Mosheh,” she said from under the bed. I can see your feet, so do so that I can’t see them. go out. I left, but I saw it all. She pulled out the bag, out of it took out the worn old valley, out of it - a cloth, in the cloth was a pack of money, bound by a beech. “Mom, where do we get that money from? “Son, I’ve put it together so you don’t have to run and look for something to bury your mom. Buried well and so on.

Tonight I’m dancing at Abdulrahman’s Raymond. In the first act, I climb onto the stage in a gorgeous suit, in gold, in chalme. Raymond plays the luth. We meet with our eyes. We look at each other fascinated. The curtain comes. I didn’t actually dance yet, I just jumped up on the stage. After the first act, the administrator gives me a luxurious bouquet. The flowers were handed over to the administrator and told whom to deliver. After the second act, I get a bouquet again. After the third, too. I realized that it was all my mom. The show was in four acts. After the fourth, there will be flowers. I gave the administrator all three bouquets and asked in the final to give me four at once. He did so. In the theater they said: think, Esambayev was thrown with flowers.

The next day, my mother removed the flowers, and there were three bouquets, then two, and then one. Then she bought flowers again.

My mother was sick and lying down. They give me flowers. I bring flowers home and say:

“Mom, why did you get up? You have to lie. Moshe, she said. I did not get up. I cannot get up. Where are the flowers from? People know you deserve flowers. Now they wear them on their own. I became the leading artist of the Kyrgyz Theatre, received all the awards there. I love Kyrgyzstan as my homeland. I was treated like a native man.

Shortly before Stalin's death, the mother of his friend Esther Markovna learned that the expulsion of all Jews was being prepared. She came home and said to me:

“Well, Moshe, like Chechens we were sent here, like Jews we are expelled even further. Barracks are already being built. “Mom,” I said, “you and I have already learned to ride. Wherever they go, we go, the main thing is to be together. I will not leave you.

When Stalin died, she said, “Now it will be better.” She wanted me to marry a Jewish woman, the daughter of the Odessa Pakhman. I took care of the Armenian. My mother said, “Say, Moses, is she feeding you?”

“No,” I said, “is not feeding. “But if you were to take care of Pakhman’s daughter... – Mom, she has thin legs. His face is beautiful, and his hair... you think he needs his legs.

When I married Nina, I can’t say that there was a friendship between her and her mother.

I started teaching dances at the school of the IMD, there was money. I bought my mom gold watches with a chain, and Nina bought white metal watches. The wife says:

“Mommy, you bought them with a gold chain instead of buying them for me, I’m young and my mom could wear simple ones. “Nina,” I said, “you are not ashamed. What good mother has seen in this life? It would be nice to have such a watch. They stopped talking, but never quarreled with each other. Only once, when Nina went out with the garbage, she said, “Out of the way, Moshe, you could have married better.” That was the only thing she said to her. I have a daughter. Mother took her on her arms, put her between her large breasts, licked. My daughter loved my grandmother very much. Then Nina and her mother did it themselves. And my mom says to me, “Moshe, I’m looking at Nina, she’s not bad. And the fact that you didn’t marry Pakhman’s daughter is also good, she’s outraged. She’t be able to do all that for you.” Nina and I became friends.

During this time, he changed several wives. He lived near us. Mother says, “Moses, your father brought a new Nikewa. Go and see.” I went.

“Mom,” I said, “she’s so terrible! He needs it.

She died when she was 91. It happened so. She had a sister of peace. She lived in Vilnius. She came to us in Frunze. She began to invite her mother to host her: “Sofa, come. Misha is a family man. He will not disappear. A month without you. As I replied, “There’s a different climate. At your age, you can’t!” she says, “Moses, I’ll stay a little and come back.” She went and did not come again.

She was a very good man. We had a wonderful life with her. I never needed my father. She replaced my mother. If they were both alive now, I’t know whom to approach first and embrace.

Literary recording of Efim Zakharov