Funny Children's Stories. Bilingual Edition

I remember asking my dad whether or not he killed anyone. And my dad said that once he had a chance to kill someone. In those days, no one could be certain which buildings were occupied by the Russians and which ones, by the Germans. And it just so happened that looking down through the window Dad spotted some Germans. They were very close to him. Dad grabbed his rifle. But it was full of sand, and Dad could not do anything with it. Then Dad grabbed another rifle, but it was also full of sand.

Once Dad told me that he dragged his wounded commander to the hospital. And as Dad was dragging him, he thought that the commander got shot again. But Dad was not sure about that.

When he finally brought his commander to the hospital, Dad was highly praised and was promised a medal. Because they gave out medals for things like that. But for some reason, he was not given that medal.

Mom says that Dad was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. She says that because we have never heard of anyone coming back from Stalingrad alive. But Dad did come back from Stalingrad. But later he was drafted again.

I once heard Mom telling our guests that before the very end of the war, letters from my dad stopped coming for a few months. Mom did not know what to think. It was already May of forty-five, and still there was nothing from my dad. On the eighth of May, our neighbor told Mom that the war was over. He was angry that the whole world knew about it but we did not. Mom did not know whether to believe him or not and went to sleep.

Early in the morning, she was awoken by three doorbell rings. Three rings meant that someone was coming to see us. Mom did not go to open the door because it was still very early in the morning. At such an early hour, it could only be the milkwoman, who sold us milk.

Then Mom heard that our neighbor went to open the door. And suddenly our neighbor yelled, “Oo-ooh!” And Mom said that at that moment, she understood everything and bolted out into the corridor. That was exactly what she said, “I bolted out into the corridor.” And it was my dad.

There is another story that Mom sometimes tells our guests. She tells about the time she went to the market to sell Dad’s coat.

She went to the market to sell Dad’s coat because there was nothing left for us to eat. It was the first time that my mom went to sell something. She was very nervous. Even though everyone was telling her not to worry, “Everyone does it. It’s not a big deal.”

And so Mom went to sell the coat. She was standing there for a long time, afraid to offer the coat to anyone. And she kept repeating to herself that she should be brave because everyone sold things and no one worried.

Then Mom saw a young man. This young man seemed very nice. So, Mom found the courage to approach this young man and said, “Sir, do you need a coat? I have one for sale.”

Here, this young man reached into his pocket and showed Mom his ID. When he did this, Mom’s knees began to shake and her vision became blurry. Even though she did not understand what kind of ID it was.

The young man asked Mom harshly where she got the coat. And Mom answered that the coat belonged to her husband and that her husband was at the front. The young man said that he was assigned to keep watch on the market in order to catch all bandits and crooks like my mom.

Then he asked my mom what she would tell her husband about his coat when he returns from the front. At this point, Mom could no longer stand it and began to cry. And as she cried, she told the young man that she would somehow figure things out with her husband herself. And the young man finally let my mom go.

Later, Mom was always surprised that just about everybody sold just about everything at the market. But for whatever reason, she was the only one who got caught. After that, she never went to the market to sell anything again.

As for the coat that Mom tried to sell, it hung in our closet unused for a long time. It was only recently that Mom took it out, unpicked and turned it, did something else, and made a very fashionable coat for herself. And everyone kept asking her where she found such good cloth.

Mom also told our guests that during the war she was given two pieces of rye bread per day. She ate one piece and kept the second piece for the next day. At this moment of her story, Mom always paused. Because she knew that someone would definitely ask her why she received two pieces of bread.

And someone would ask her, and she would reply that one piece of bread she received for herself and the other for her child. “But the child did not need it because I (this my mom said about herself) – because I was nursing him (this was about me).”