borders to all the descendants of the Jews, giving them the opportunity to build it and develop it, providing initial financial aid. Jumping ahead a bit, I should say that the majority of indigenous Israelis do not even know about such a region of Russia as Siberia, many times surpassing their country in area. They generally believe that Russia is supposedly situated in a different world, separated by the border, behind which lie poverty, devastation, eternal frost and girls of incredible beauty, that sometimes can be found in the streets of their native country, causing associations with mercenary girls. That is their stereotype.
Coming back to the story about my past life, I would like to mention a period when there was no understanding of myself as a person with a firm life philosophy.
The period when I considered myself inferior compared to others, drowning in a pile of my own complexes. The surrounding seemed gray and dull. The weather in Siberia most of the days of the year is really nasty, especially in fall and spring, when trees are losing their leaves or, on the contrary, when new buds swell on their branches. Dirty muddy streams flow along the curved fractures of asphalt roads, flooding the sidewalks. The sky becomes leaden and severe. People, the majority of them, walk with sullen faces, angrily, jumping over and walking around puddles. Only young girls wearing bright fashionable clothes diluted the whole picture with colors. They were like colored spots on a gray canvas. These young beauties were always cheerful, they were walking arm in arm with their friends or boyfriends. How much I wanted to be one of them at that time. But I was too unattractive, indecisive and miserable.
I was stuck in the routine monotonous pace of life, when I was in high school no one paid any attention to me, I walked along the corridors of secondary school and ballet school, like a ghost, I was there just because I had to. Unalterably, bell-to-bell. I also studied poorly and was not interested in anything, after some time I gave up my ballet classes, although I managed to hold on for seven years.
It seems to me, that I should stop here, there’s no point in focusing upon this good-for-nothing. She fits right in a forgotten and once-existed place.
In the small room of the parent log house, which was considered to be mine, there was a wooden wardrobe with full-length mirror doors. On one of the usual boring days, before going to bed, I (sometimes I will give this letter “I” kind of detached and characteristic meaning), so, “Anna the inconspicuous” put on her pyjamas, sewn by her mother in the due hour. Lingering around the wardrobe, she began to stare intently at her reflection in the mirror, seeing there a humble girl with long skinny arms and legs, a flat body, a shapeless shock of dark hair and flapping eyelashes framing green eyes. There was nothing remarkable in this young person, a sort of faceless “gray mouse”.
– Now what? Aren’t you tired of walking around the streets and mixing with the gray mass of people. Try to make them turn around to look at you, smile at the sight of you, – I distinctly heard an unfamiliar voice, of a young guy. Having turned quickly, I looked around my room. It was empty, not even a fly or a mosquito could be seen, and they usually fly into the open window. But I felt a sharp cold – it ran down my back, transpired small goosebumps along the spine and then spread all over the body. I froze in a daze.
– Believe me, it is not so difficult, – he continued speaking; the voice was already coming from behind. Turning my head slightly, I glanced toward the sound, although it was expected that I would not find anyone there. – Do not be afraid of me, I am here to help you. – I backed away, and with horror fell on the bed. – We have a lot of fun and interesting days ahead. You will realize who you are. You can become whoever you want and what you want, the main thing is that you must trust me.
That’s how I heard it for the first time. In a weird way my fear disappeared quickly and most of the night was spent talking to a new acquaintance, and in remaining hours, when I fell asleep, he came to my dream in the form of a young dark-haired boy, we were riding white horses together. He easily managed to win my confidence and get on my right side. Subsequently, I appropriately called him – “an invisible friend.”
In a couple of months, I was walking down the street with my head held high, my blond-colored hair streamed in the breeze, even the girls paid attention to the harmony of my long legs in tight jeans, and strangers said compliments. It gave me undisguised pleasure to catch the admiring glances of men. Now they turned around to look at me.
At one of the school discos, “Anna the confident” was dancing with the cutest school leaver who looked like a handsome actor Freddie Prince Jr., an idol of early noughties teenagers. And the school leaver had no idea that the girl, that was dancing at the moment next to him and clinging to him in a slow dance is the one who had been passing by – “Anna the gray mouse”, so he did not notice her before.
In fact, I was indifferent to this guy, like all the others who were after him. It was interesting to live in a new way. I was just following the instructions of my “invisible friend,” who miraculously managed to awaken my confidence. He told a lot of interesting things, gave advice. Thanks to him, I was able to become myself, he managed to open that heavy door, where my real emotions were waiting in the wings. “Anna the impressed” was able to enjoy a previously unknown world, boundless and barren of obstacles.
Together with my “invisible friend” every summer morning I went for a run, swept through green fields through the cold wind, feeling free and being able to run without stopping, enjoying the freshness of the forest. Sometimes in the evenings we took my father’s boat, sailed to the middle of the river (I paddled, of course, because my “invisible friend” was all so intangible, bodiless and untouchable with the nature of things) and dived from the bow. I imagined him diving into the water with me, as if he was a dark-haired boy. He scared me by telling about a river monster, lurking at the bottom of the river. There were monsters waiting for the right moment to grab your legs and drag you into their dark underwater dominions. We called him Buddy. “Anna the brave” dived into the depths of the river hoping of finding him, but she found no one except fish in the murky, greenish water.
Sometimes my “invisible friend” and I were sitting motionless on the boat. Lifting the oars, we peered at the surrounding high, gentle banks, shrouded in the evening glow of the sun. We imagined that terrible creatures lived in the shady thickets of the forest in the wilds.
– Listen and you will hear how they are walking there, – my “invisible friend” used to tell me.
Fascinated by the fabulous performance, “Anna the no longer skeptic,” was listening attentively, and when suddenly the crackling of dry branches could be heard from the depths of the forest, and the birds took off above the treetops and tore their throats with the cries, she involuntarily shuddered with fear. And each time she waited for the appearance of at least one of these creatures, with curiosity, imagining how it would come to the shore, but no one came out.
Yes, and what is more: we loved to swim to the island. It was there, behind a sharp curve of the river, all it took was to swim a few meters. Artificially created, to be honest, I don’t know why and by whom, but it had a place to be. On its sandy shore, in the shadow of tall willow bushes, we made figures of sand and imagined that we were surrounded by the sea, the endless salty sea, playing in waves. I quickly mastered the craft of modeling, taking special delight in creating figures of mermaids, because I could stick them breasts of any size I wanted, make them perfectly round. I admit, I myself wanted to have the one like those. A few years later, in Israel, a famous plastic surgeon would provide me with “such” breasts.
In addition to doing all sorts of nonsense with my “invisible friend,”
