Dreams of Cannibals and Volcanoes
I held a folded tissue paper in my left hand and a fountain pen in my right. A pile of second grade school books, with lined up edges, sat on the corner of the desk next to perfectly sharpened pencils. In front of me was an open notebook with clear and exact handwriting. I wiped the excess ink off of the nib and with a straight back, carefully continued to write.
From behind me came the clank and the hiss of the iron; my mom working out every single wrinkle of the dark blue school uniform. The room smelled of steam and clean laundry. I glanced again at the clock on the wall that loudly and slowly announced the passing seconds. 11.00 o’clock.
Suddenly a blast of horns came from the living room and the sound of an orchestra followed. I closed the notebook mid sentence and took five long leaps to land in the living room.
I dropped down on the floor in front of a small black and white television. It had a plastic dial so stiff and large it needed two hands to change a channel. On top of it sat two long rabbit-ear antennae. My father had spent more time beside the TV adjusting the rabbit ears than on the sofa.
It was Sunday morning and time for the weeks’ Russian children’s movie. These movies always had soldiers and tanks in it. Old ladies in headscarfs cried into their handkerchiefs and waved goodbye to their husbands and sons, who jumped on a slow moving train to go off to war. The men drove tanks through fields and forests, blowing up enemies and drinking vodka.
But this show was different.
It was a movie based on the Jules Verne book, “The Children of Captain Grant;” a story about adventure, mystery and a quest. For the next hour I stayed glued to the floor, eyes locked on the screen.
The Captain’s two children sailed around the world searching for him, after he had mysteriously disappeared during a sailing trip. Their travels brought them to snow-topped alps, bursting volcanos and deserted islands of the Pacific. On one of the islands the kids were captured and almost eaten by cannibals. I gasped and covered my eyes, peeking at the screen from between my fingers. I was fascinated. The people were of different colors and cultures, and the landscapes were exotic. I had never known such things existed or were possible.
I didn’t get around much. My family did not own a car. The only time we went anywhere was when my uncle and his family showed up. All of us; four adults and four kids squeezed into his red Zaporozhets, the tiniest of Soviet vehicles. The back of the car dragged across the road as we drove for hours to get to the beach. I sat in the back on my mother’s lap, sandwiched between my sister, aunt and her two kids. My head was pressed against the low ceiling as we bounced up and down from one pothole to the next. The windows remained closed against the dusty gravel roads. My family took turns to shout at me to settle down as I fidgeted, chasing the thin stream of air coming from the tiny window vent. I longed for the occasional leg-stretching stop when everyone could breathe fresh air and I could vomit. Those trips were the closest I had ever come to an adventure.
I was a nine year old without a passport, living under the strict rules of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Estonia. The curtain was firmly closed, blocking out the rest of the world. “The Children of Captain Grant,” represented what I did not have; freedom to travel and to have an adventure.
The movie ended and the last note of the last song played. The clocked ticked 12:01. My mother walked in with the vacuum cleaner and said, “Finish your homework!”
Back at my desk, I opened the notebook and wiped off the tip of the pen. Mysterious clouded islands and fearsome cannibals wandered through my mind as I listened to the rain bounce off of the metal windowsill. Outside of our white-brick apartment building, the usual thick gray clouds hung low over nine bare apple trees. I had climbed every one of them hundreds of times.
That Estonian Girl 