Odesa of My Childhood #4: Umbrella

Odesa is the kind of city where you never know when autumn will come. 

In natural history classes, I was taught that summer ends, accompanied by the mournful whining of school children, on September 1. And if someone would risk blurting out that true autumn comes into its own when it feels the mood, he would at best receive a beautifully written F in the gradebook, and at worst, a note added: “Denies the laws of nature! Parents are requested to come to school immediately!” And for the cherry on top, the added phrase, “What, you think you’re the smartest one here?” delivered with a hefty slap on the back of the head from the teacher as a reward for this rashly expressed personal opinion. 

Rebellious autumn

But, as far as I can remember, autumn in Odesa has been a very willful individual. Do you think she always enjoys painting leaves yellow and red? As if! Sometimes she just throws a fit, and the leaves dry up and shrivel up altogether in the blink of an eye in the cold wind that breaks loose from its chains. For some time they still cling convulsively to the frozen branches, but eventually they accept the inevitable and fall like rain at the feet of the children, sadly trudging to school. And the children can’t think of anything better than to pick them up with the toes of their shoes, causing them to make a rustling sound that is so pleasing to the ear. 

Out of all the boys from our yard, I was the only one without a personal umbrella. My mom simply thought that I could easily share my father’s. And in that case, my father would have been fine to run to the trolleybus stop in the rain. “It’s not like he’s made of sugar,” she’d say, “He won’t melt!” And so I was the proud owner of an adult black umbrella, which from a distance looked like Mary Poppins’ flying device. 

 Test flight hypothesis

Truth be told, this gadget did not remain in service for very long. It was not by accident that I mentioned Mary Poppins, because I really liked this story as a child. I liked it too much to sit back and not try to test out my dad’s umbrella in action. Do you think I tested it in the pouring rain to see how well it protected my precious body from the raging torrent of water? Guess again.

It was a sunny autumn day. I will say, the weather was significantly windy. The wind was not turbulent, but still quite gusty. And it was gusty enough to try and snatch the open umbrella from my hands. I assessed its efforts and with difficulty folded up my potential flying gadget. If only Jules Verne had seen me at that moment, he would have written “Five Weeks Under an Open Umbrella”! But Monsieur Verne had long since passed away, and so I had no one to show off in front of; no one but my buddies from the yard. One of which caught me preparing for the experiment. 

“Flying?” Sashka’s voice reached me from somewhere behind my back. 

“Not yet,” I answered, not turning my head. “But in five minutes–yes.” 

“Is the umbrella secure?” Sashka’s voice sounded very pragmatic.

“Of course!”

“How did you check it?”

“I opened it in the wind. It resisted such a pressure that would have knocked down Uncle Slava.”

“Even a dump truck wouldn’t have moved Mister Slava!” Sashka snorted.

“Even after a bottle of vodka?”

“After a bottle of vodka the wind will knock anyone down,” Sashka giggled, but quickly cut short his mirth and switched back to a concerned, businesslike tone. “We should check it again.” 

“How?”

“Maybe we should tie it to Mister Kolya’s car?” Sashka suggested. “If the headwind doesn’t break it…”

“…then Mister Kolya will break it against my head,” I concluded gloomily for him. 

“So, you’ll have to jump at your own risk. You just need to prepare.”

“Do you have ideas?” I finally turned toward Sashka.

Flight kit – check!

“Does your mom have an old fur coat?”

“She does. But why?”

“Let’s spread it out below to make the fall softer… if suddenly the umbrella doesn’t work.”

“You don’t think I can do this?”

“I do, but I don’t believe this lady with the umbrella gadget.”

“Mary Poppins? What are you talking about?! How can you not believe her?”

“I don’t trust ladies with umbrellas,” Sashka spat contemptuously. “They lie a lot. They talk a lot. Or they start arguments for no reason.”

“If we don’t try, we’ll never know!” I answered. 

“Then we need to secure ourselves again.”

“I remember about the fur coat,” I nodded regally.

“It’s not all just about the fur coat. What if the wind takes you down as far as Dukes park?” 

“Yeah, then I’ll have to take a swim in the pond.”

“And what if it drops you on top of a tree?” Sashka came close and blurted out in a loud whisper: “We need more warm clothes for you. Wrap it all around your elbows and knees, otherwise you’ll break during landing.”

“If I break down, I will get up and crawl to the yard with my last strength, and from there you will drag me home with your last strength.”

Sashka critically studied the umbrella, carefully touched the fabric and nodded approvingly:

“I think it’ll be alright. Bring your stuff over here!”

Luckily, Mom had been standing in line for condensed milk since early morning. Knowing how long these lines take, one could safely count on her not being home until after lunch.

I flew into my parents’ room and immediately flung open the wardrobe.

Explorer Oleg, at your service!

And when after a mere 30 minutes I showed up back in the yard, Sashka’s jaw descended rapidly to his chest: In front of him stood a polar explorer, who, just in case, had pulled on his father’s construction overalls over a dozen sweatpants and trousers. The construction overalls were of course big on me, but a gypsy needle and a spool of nylon thread solved the problem and shortened the legs and sleeves. The demeanor of a stern Arctic explorer was completed by a helmet and sturdy construction boots eleven sizes larger than mine. 

Feeling like a cosmonaut leaving his first steps on Pluto, I lumbered toward Sashka.  I even prepared the phrase “cosmic” just for this occasion. 

“Can I take a jump too? I mean, after you, of course,” Sashka asked timidly.

I measured him with a heavy look: “Only because you’re my friend. You can!” 

Achieving altitude

The roof of the dovecote, which I usually climbed onto in a matter of minutes, turned into an almost impregnable bastion for me. Almost. But persistence and a desire for newly researched horizons did their job. After an hour of torment, trials, falls and climbing over pipes and wooden walls, I proudly waved my umbrella at about the level of the third residential floor.

Sashka was fussing to adjust two fur coats on the asphalt in order to cover the maximum area of ​​the proposed landing strip. Having completed this important task, he stepped back and threw his hands up, imagining himself as a cameraman, filming this great event, naturally, for the descendants weeping with gratitude. 

My heart began to pound wildly in my chest. Perhaps it tried to reach the umbrella handle itself, or maybe it wanted to pose a little for Sashka’s filming – but seven layers of clothing with dozens of fasteners kept it firmly in check.

Attempted sabotage

“What are you doing?!” hysterical trills suddenly broke the solemnity of the moment.

Komsomolka* rushed towards the place of my upcoming triumph, waving a multi-colored umbrella. Why the older kids nicknamed this old lady that way, no one remembered, but the nickname stuck so firmly that even our parents sometimes forgot and called her by this title. Behind her back, of course. Although what can I say – I not only don’t remember her name, I never even knew it. 

“Don’t interrupt him!” Sashka yelled out and moved to block her. “You can’t stop scientific progress!” 

“What progress? He’s going to kill himself!” Komsomolka grabbed her chest and emitted a horrified gasp.

“Don’t worry, we thought of everything!” I proclaimed dramatically from the distance of an umbrella-shaped not yet in flight. 

“Why are your parents not looking after you? Come on, get down from there, or you’ll get a spanking!” threatened the old woman in a weak voice.

“Time is running out!” Sashka yelled toward me. “Jump, my friend! I will hold her back!” And, like a true Musketeer, he threw himself in her path. I didn’t waste time, especially since a new promising gust of wind blew in right at that moment. I opened my umbrella and threw down a pretentious challenge to the Universe: 

“Goodbye, Earth! Carry me, Wind!” Taking a deep breath, I pushed myself off the edge of the roof. 

Curiously, the recalcitrant wind refused to carry me. It preferred to turn my umbrella inside out, break off its spokes and give me a hard slap on the back of the head, which only added further speed in moving towards the ground, to which I had so rashly tried to bid farewell. 

After-action assessment

It is still a mystery to me how I managed to keep my arms and legs from breaking.  But I firmly understood the fact that Mary Poppins did not, in fact, fly on her umbrella. Not even a little bit. Especially when in the evening, according  to Komsomolka’s prediction, my own “Poppins” (bottom, or behind) suffered from my father’s belt. The next day, Sashka and I met at the stadium. His right ear was swollen and stuck out sadly from under his cap. Komsomolka had smacked him hard with her umbrella in a short, fierce fight, which Sashka himself described to me in vivid detail.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry. Once we’re grown, we can take flight! And we will fly!” Sashka said convincingly. “And no Komsomolka can stop us!”

“You really think she was the problem?” I said gloomily. 

“What else could it have been? You thought of everything!” Sashka rubbed his inflamed ear and suddenly burst out in laughter.

“What are you laughing about?” I didn’t understand.

“I told you, you can’t trust ladies with umbrellas!”

*Komsomolka: Typically a young member of the communist party (age 14-28) responsible for community events and activities