The boy loved his mother. And she loved him passionately. But nothing meaningful came of this love.
However, it was generally difficult with his mother, and the boy had already gotten used to the potholes and potholes of her character. She was ruled by her mood, so the general line of their life changed five times a day.
Everything changed, even the names of things. For example, my mother sometimes called the apartment “apartment”, and sometimes sonorously and sublimely - “cooperative”!
“Cooperative” - he liked it, it sounded beautiful and sporty, like “avant-garde” and “record”, it’s just a pity that this usually happened when his mother got started.
– Why are you drawing on the wallpaper?! Are you crazy? – she screamed in an unnaturally pained voice. - Well, tell me: are you a man?! You're not a human! I'm obsessed with this damned cooperative like the last donkey, I sit at night on this fucking leftist work!!!
When the mother got tense, she became uncontrollable, and it was better to remain silent and listen to inarticulate cries. And it was even better to look straight into her angry eyes and put on the same pained expression on her face in time.
The boy looked very much like his mother. She stumbled upon this pained expression, as one stumbles upon a mirror in the dark, and immediately sank. He will only say exhaustedly: “You will someday become a man, huh?” And everything is fine, you can move on with your life.
It was difficult but interesting with my mother. When she was in a good mood, they came up with a lot of things and talked about a lot of things. In general, the mother had so many amazingly interesting things in her head that the boy was ready to listen to her endlessly.
– Marina, what did you dream about today? – he asked, barely opening his eyes.
-Will you drink milk?
- Well, I’ll drink it, but without foam.
“Without foam you’ll have a short nap,” she bargained.
- Okay, let's go with this crappy foam. Well, tell me.
– What did I dream about: about pirate treasures or how the Eskimos found a baby mammoth on an ice floe?
“About treasures...” he chose.
...In those rare moments when his mother was cheerful, he loved her to tears. Then she did not shout out incomprehensible words, but behaved like a normal girl from their group.
- Let's get mad! – he suggested in rapturous delight.
In response, the mother made a ferocious muzzle, approached him with outstretched fingers, growling in her gut:
- Ha-ha! Now I will squeeze this man!! - He froze for a moment in sweet horror, squealed... And then pillows flew around the room, chairs overturned, his mother chased him with terrible screams, and in the end they collapsed on the ottoman, exhausted from laughter, and he writhed from her pinches and pokes , tickling.
- Well, that's it... Let's put things in order. Look, it’s not an apartment, but God knows what...
- Let's squeeze me a little more! - he asked just in case, although he understood that the fun was over, his mother was no longer in the mood to rage.
He sighed and began to pick up pillows and lift chairs.
But most often they argued. There were prepositions - a carriage and a cart, choose which one you like. And when both are in a bad mood, then there is a special scandal. She grabbed the belt, lashed at whatever she hit - it didn’t hurt, her hand was light - but he screamed like a knife. Out of anger. They quarreled seriously: he locked himself in the toilet and from time to time shouted out from there:
– I’ll leave!! To hell with you!
- Come on, come on! – she shouted to him from the kitchen. - Go!
– You don’t care about me! I'll find myself another woman!
- Let's look... Why did you lock yourself in the toilet?..
...This is what stood between them like a wall, what spoiled, distorted, poisoned his life, what took his mother away from him - Left Work.
It is not clear where she came from, this Left Work, she was lying in wait for them like a bandit, from around the corner. She attacked their lives like a one-eyed pirate with a curved knife, and immediately subjugated everything to herself. She cut all her plans with this knife: the zoo on Sunday, reading “Tom Sawyer” in the evenings - everything, everything died, flew to hell, crashed into the damned Left Work. One might say that she was the third member of their family, the most important, because everything depended on her: whether they would go to the sea in July, whether they would buy their mother a coat for the winter, whether they would pay the rent on time on time. The boy hated Left Work and was painfully jealous of his mother.
- Well, why, why is she Left? - he asked with hatred.
- What a fool. Because I do the right one all day at work, in the editorial office. I edit other people's manuscripts. I get paid for this. But today I’ll write a review for a magazine, they’ll pay me thirty rubles for it, and we’ll buy you boots and a fur hat. Winter is coming...
On such days, my mother would sit in the kitchen until nightfall, typing on the typewriter, and it was useless to try to attract her attention - her gaze was absent, her eyes were bloodshot, and she was all nervous and alien. She silently warmed up his dinner, spoke in abrupt commands, and became irritated over trifles.
- Alive! Undress, go to bed, so you can't be seen or heard! I have urgent left work!
“For her to die...” the boy muttered.
He slowly undressed, climbed under the covers and looked out the window.
There was an old tree outside the window. The tree was called thorn. The thorns grew on it, huge and sharp. The boys use slingshots to shoot pigeons with such thorns. The mother once stood at the window, pressed her forehead against the glass and said to the boy:
- Here is a thorn tree. A very ancient tree. Do you see the thorns? These are thorns. People once wove a crown of thorns from such thorns and placed them on the head of one person.
- For what? - he was scared.
- It’s unclear... It’s still unclear...
- It hurt? – he asked, sympathizing with the unknown victim.
“It hurts,” she agreed simply.
- He cried?
“Ah,” the boy guessed. - He was a Soviet partisan...
The mother silently looked out the window at the old thorn tree.
-What was his name? - he asked.
She sighed and said clearly:
- Jesus Christ…
Blackthorn stretched his crooked hand with gnarled fingers towards the very bars of the window, like that beggar at the store to whom he and his mother always give a ten-kopeck piece. If you look closely, you can discern a large, clumsy letter “I” in the tangle of branches; it seems to be walking along the crossbar of a lattice.
The boy lay, looked at the letter “I” and came up with different paths for it. True, he did not do it as interestingly as his mother. The machine in the kitchen either chattered briskly or froze for several minutes. Then he got up and went out to the kitchen. The mother sat hunched over the typewriter, staring intently at the folded sheet. A lock of hair hung over his forehead.
- Well? – she asked briefly, without looking at the boy.
- I'm thirsty.
- Drink and go to bed!
-Are you going to bed soon?
- No. I'm busy…
- Why is he asking for money?
- Who?! – she screamed irritably.
- A beggar near the store.
- Go to sleep! I am busy. After.
-Can't he make money?
– Will you leave me alone today?! – the mother screamed in an exhausted voice. – I have to submit a radio program tomorrow! Go to bed!
The boy silently left and lay down.
But a minute or two would pass, and the chair in the kitchen would move away with a roar, and the mother would run into the room and abruptly, nervously say:
- He can’t make money! Understand?! It happens. Man has no strength. There is no strength either to earn money or to live in the world. Maybe there was great grief, war, maybe something else... I drank myself to death! Broke... No strength...
- Do you have strength? – he asked worriedly.
- Hello, I compared! - she was indignant and ran to the kitchen - knocking and knocking on the damned Left Work.
The mother had strength, a lot of strength. In general, the boy believed that they lived richly. At first, when they left their father, they lived with their mother’s friend, Aunt Tamara. It was good there, but my mother once had a fight with Uncle Seryozha because of some Stalin. The boy thought at first that Stalin was Marin’s acquaintance, who had really annoyed her. But it turned out - no, she didn’t see him. Then why quarrel with friends over a stranger! His mother once started telling him about Stalin, but he turned a deaf ear - it turned out to be a boring story.
...So, the mother thought, made up her mind, and they “got into the cooperative.”
The boy came up with a grandiose spectacle: here he was waiting for them on the runway, sparkling, narrow and light as a bird - a cooperative! Here they are with their mother - in overalls, with helmets in their hands - walking towards him across the field. And now the hatch is opened, they wave to the crowd below, fasten their helmets and finally climb into the newest model supersonic co-op!
In reality, this is not how things happened. Mother sold a lot of unnecessary things - a yellow chain that she had never taken off from her neck even at night, earrings with shiny glass pieces, a ring. Then I stood by the window in the kitchen and cried all evening, because the chain, the earrings, and the ring were my grandmother’s and remained from her as a keepsake. The boy hovered around his mother, her melancholy feeling of loss was conveyed to him, and he felt sorry for his mother, who was crying so bitterly over trivial things, and he absolutely did not understand what was happening.
But soon they moved to a new apartment, and the mother became happier. The apartment turned out to be luxurious: a room, a kitchen and a toilet with a shower. There was also a small corridor in which on the very first day they hung a mirror given by Aunt Tamara. The room is empty, cheerful - take the truck in any direction you want, from wall to wall, and don’t get bored. At first, they slept together on a cot. They hugged closely, it became warm, and before bedtime the mother told a long story, a new one every evening. And as soon as they fit in her head!
And one day he came from kindergarten and saw a new red ottoman in the room. His mother laughed, dragged him, threw him on the ottoman and began to squeeze and pinch him.
- Well, how? – she asked proudly. - Gorgeous? – And she jumped up on the elastic ottoman.
“Great,” he agreed and also jumped a little.
“It’s not good for a person your age to sleep on a cot,” my mother explained, “you’ll be stooped over like an old geezer... I couldn’t get this out of my head all week.” And this morning, when I took you to the garden, I thought - damn it! You have your hands, your head is thinking that I won’t work? I went and borrowed money from Aunt Tamara...
– Will you take the left job? – he was upset.
“Yeah,” the mother said carelessly and again began jumping on the ottoman and squeezing the boy...
Aunt Tamara often came to visit. A regular speculator brought all sorts of things to her work - either a Japanese jumper or a Finnish dress. And Aunt Tamara popped in for a minute and brought me “to try on.” She was very worried that her mother had “taken off everything” and was “not dressed at all.” Well, this, of course, was nonsense. I wonder how my mother would go to work if she were completely undressed. She wore a black sweater, which the boy really liked, and jeans that were gray from the wash. She just got attached with her soul to these favorite things, she didn’t like the others. And recently Aunt Tamara brought earrings, because her mother sold hers, and she was worried that the holes in her ears would close up and “it would all be over.” The earrings turned out to be beautiful, with soft green stones. The mother grinned, put them on, and it immediately became clear how pretty she was - her eyes were the same as the earrings, green and long.
End of introductory fragment.
The boy loved his mother. And she loved him passionately. But nothing meaningful came of this love.
However, it was generally difficult with his mother, and the boy had already gotten used to the potholes and potholes of her character. She was ruled by her mood, so the general line of their life changed five times a day.
Everything changed, even the names of things. For example, my mother sometimes called the apartment “apartment”, and sometimes sonorously and sublimely - “cooperative”!
“Cooperative” - he liked it, it sounded beautiful and sporty, like “avant-garde” and “record”, it’s just a pity that this usually happened when his mother got started.
– Why are you drawing on the wallpaper?! Are you crazy? – she screamed in an unnaturally pained voice. - Well, tell me: are you a man?! You're not a human! I'm obsessed with this damned cooperative like the last donkey, I sit at night on this fucking leftist work!!!
When the mother got tense, she became uncontrollable, and it was better to remain silent and listen to inarticulate cries. And it was even better to look straight into her angry eyes and put on the same pained expression on her face in time.
The boy looked very much like his mother. She stumbled upon this pained expression, as one stumbles upon a mirror in the dark, and immediately sank. He will only say exhaustedly: “You will someday become a man, huh?” And everything is fine, you can move on with your life.
It was difficult but interesting with my mother. When she was in a good mood, they came up with a lot of things and talked about a lot of things. In general, the mother had so many amazingly interesting things in her head that the boy was ready to listen to her endlessly.
– Marina, what did you dream about today? – he asked, barely opening his eyes.
-Will you drink milk?
- Well, I’ll drink it, but without foam.
“Without foam you’ll have a short nap,” she bargained.
- Okay, let's go with this crappy foam. Well, tell me.
– What did I dream about: about pirate treasures or how the Eskimos found a baby mammoth on an ice floe?
“About treasures...” he chose.
...In those rare moments when his mother was cheerful, he loved her to tears. Then she did not shout out incomprehensible words, but behaved like a normal girl from their group.
- Let's get mad! – he suggested in rapturous delight.
In response, the mother made a ferocious muzzle, approached him with outstretched fingers, growling in her gut:
- Ha-ha! Now I will squeeze this man!! - He froze for a moment in sweet horror, squealed... And then pillows flew around the room, chairs overturned, his mother chased him with terrible screams, and in the end they collapsed on the ottoman, exhausted from laughter, and he writhed from her pinches and pokes , tickling.
- Well, that's it... Let's put things in order. Look, it’s not an apartment, but God knows what...
- Let's squeeze me a little more! - he asked just in case, although he understood that the fun was over, his mother was no longer in the mood to rage.
He sighed and began to pick up pillows and lift chairs.
But most often they argued. There were prepositions - a carriage and a cart, choose which one you like. And when both are in a bad mood, then there is a special scandal. She grabbed the belt, lashed at whatever she hit - it didn’t hurt, her hand was light - but he screamed like a knife. Out of anger. They quarreled seriously: he locked himself in the toilet and from time to time shouted out from there:
– I’ll leave!! To hell with you!
- Come on, come on! – she shouted to him from the kitchen. - Go!
– You don’t care about me! I'll find myself another woman!
- Let's look... Why did you lock yourself in the toilet?..
...This is what stood between them like a wall, what spoiled, distorted, poisoned his life, what took his mother away from him - Left Work.
It is not clear where she came from, this Left Work, she was lying in wait for them like a bandit, from around the corner. She attacked their lives like a one-eyed pirate with a curved knife, and immediately subjugated everything to herself. She cut all her plans with this knife: the zoo on Sunday, reading “Tom Sawyer” in the evenings - everything, everything died, flew to hell, crashed into the damned Left Work. One might say that she was the third member of their family, the most important, because everything depended on her: whether they would go to the sea in July, whether they would buy their mother a coat for the winter, whether they would pay the rent on time on time. The boy hated Left Work and was painfully jealous of his mother.
- Well, why, why is she Left? - he asked with hatred.
- What a fool. Because I do the right one all day at work, in the editorial office. I edit other people's manuscripts.
Rubina Dina
Blackthorn
Dina Rubina
BLACKTHORN
The boy loved his mother. And she loved him passionately. But nothing meaningful came of this love.
However, it was generally difficult with his mother, and the boy had already gotten used to the potholes and potholes of her character. She was ruled by her mood, so the general line of their life changed five times a day.
Everything changed, even the names of things. For example, the mother sometimes called the apartment “apartment”, and sometimes sonorously and sublimely - “cooperative!”
“Cooperative” - he liked it, it sounded beautiful and sporty, like “avant-garde” and “record”, it’s just a pity that this usually happened when his mother got started.
Why are you drawing on the wallpaper?! Are you crazy? - she screamed in an unnaturally pained voice. - Well, tell me: are you a man?! You're not a human! I'm obsessed with this damned cooperative like the last donkey, I sit at night on this fucking leftist work!!
When the mother got tense, she became uncontrollable, and it was better to remain silent and listen to inarticulate cries. And it was even better to look straight into her angry eyes and put on the same pained expression on her face in time.
The boy looked very much like his mother. She stumbled upon this pained expression, as one stumbles upon a mirror in the dark, and immediately sank. He will only say exhaustedly: “You will someday become a man, huh?” And everything is fine, you can move on with your life.
It was difficult but interesting with my mother. When she was in a good mood, they came up with a lot of things and talked about a lot of things. In general, the mother had so many amazingly interesting things in her head that the boy was ready to listen to her endlessly.
Marina, what did you dream about today? - he asked, barely opening his eyes.
Will you drink milk?
Well, I'll drink it, but without foam.
Without foam, there will be a short sleep,” she bargained.
Okay, let's go with this crappy foam. Well, tell me.
What did I dream about: about pirate treasures or how the Eskimos found a baby mammoth on an ice floe?
About treasures... - he chose.
In those rare moments when his mother was cheerful, he loved her to the point of tears. Then she did not shout out incomprehensible words, but behaved like a normal girl from their group.
Let's get mad! - he suggested in rapturous delight.
In response, the mother made a ferocious muzzle, approached him with outstretched fingers, growling in her gut:
Ha-ga! Now I will squeeze this man!! - He froze for a moment in sweet horror, squealed... And then pillows flew around the room, chairs overturned, his mother chased after him with terrible screams, and in the end they collapsed on the ottoman, exhausted from laughter, and he writhed from her pinches , poking, tickling.
Well, that's it... Let's put things in order. Look, it's not an apartment, but God knows what...
Let's squeeze me a little more! - he asked just in case, although he understood that the fun was over, his mother was no longer in the mood to rage. He sighed and began to pick up pillows and lift chairs.
But most often they argued. There were prepositions - a carriage and a cart, choose which one you like. And when both are in a bad mood, then there is a special scandal. She grabbed the belt, lashed at whatever she hit - it didn’t hurt, her hand was light - but he screamed like a knife. Out of anger. They quarreled seriously: he locked himself in the toilet and from time to time shouted out from there:
I'll leave!! To hell with you!
Come on, come on! - she shouted to him from the kitchen. - Go!
You don't care about me! I'll find myself another woman!
Let's look... Why did you lock yourself in the toilet?.. ...That's what stood between them, like a wall, what spoiled, distorted, poisoned his life, what took his mother away from him - Left Work.
It’s unclear where she came from, this Left Work, she was lying in wait for them like a bandit around the corner. She attacked their lives like a one-eyed pirate with a curved knife, and immediately subjugated everything to herself. She cut all her plans with this knife: the zoo on Sunday, reading “Tom Sawyer” in the evenings - everything, everything died, went to hell, crashed into the damned Left Work. One could say that she was the third member of their family, the most important, because everything depended on her: whether they would go to the sea in July, whether they would buy their mother a coat for the winter, whether they would pay the rent on time on time. The boy hated Left Work and was painfully jealous of his mother.
Why, why is she Left? - he asked with hatred.
What a fool. Because I do the right one all day at work, in the editorial office. I edit other people's manuscripts. I get paid for this. But today I’ll write a review for a magazine, they’ll pay me thirty rubles for it, and we’ll buy you boots and a fur hat. Winter is coming...
On such days, my mother sat in the kitchen until the night, pounding on the typewriter, and it was useless to try to attract her attention - her gaze was absent, her eyes were bloodshot, and she was all nervous and alien. She silently warmed up his dinner, spoke in abrupt commands, and became irritated over trifles.
Alive! Undress, go to bed, so you can't be seen or heard! I have urgent left work!
So that she dies... - the boy muttered. He slowly undressed, climbed under the covers and looked out the window.
There was an old tree outside the window; The tree was called thorn. The thorns grew on it, huge and sharp. The boys use slingshots to shoot pigeons with such thorns. The mother once stood at the window, pressed her forehead against the glass and said to the boy:
Here is a thorn tree. A very ancient tree. Do you see the thorns? These are thorns. People once wove a crown of thorns from such thorns and placed them on the head of one person...
For what? - he was scared.
But it’s unclear... It’s still unclear...
It hurt? - he asked, sympathizing with the unknown victim.
It hurts,” she agreed simply.
He cried?
“Ah,” the boy guessed. - He was a Soviet partisan...
The mother silently looked out the window at the old thorn tree.
What was his name? - he asked. She sighed and said clearly:
Jesus Christ...
Blackthorn stretched his crooked hand with gnarled fingers towards the very bars of the window, like that beggar at the store to whom he and his mother always give a ten-kopeck piece. If you look closely, you can discern a large, clumsy letter “I” in the tangle of branches; it seems to be walking along the crossbar of a lattice.
The meaning of the story's title
Dina Rubina
"Blackthorn"
Preparing for an essay
Prepared by:
teacher of Russian language and literature
GBPOU "Zhukovsky Technical School"
Barkhatova A.Yu.
Version one:
Shrub outside the window
Thorn, or Blackthorn, or
Prickly plum (Prinus
spinusa)
- small prickly
bush.
“Outside the window there was an old
tree; The tree was called
blackthorn. There are thorns on it
grew up, healthy,
spicy. Guys are like that
thorns on pigeons
slingshots shoot. »
Version two:
Colin McCullough
novel "The Thorn Birds"
"The Thorn Birds"
“The boy loved his mother. And she
loved him passionately. But
nothing meaningful from this
love didn't work out.
However, with the mother in general
it was difficult, and the boy was already
got used to the potholes and
the potholes of her character...”
(D. Rubin “Blackthorn”)
“There is such a legend - about a bird,
that he sings only once in a lifetime
life, but more beautiful than all
in the world... The only one,
an incomparable song, and it goes
it comes at the cost of life. But the whole world
freezes, listening, and himself
God smiles in heaven. For
all the best can only be bought
at the cost of great suffering...
(K. McCullough “The Thorn Birds”)
“Crown of Thorns”, Life as a test.
Version three:
"Crown of Thorns"
“Mother once stood at the window, pressed herself
forehead to the glass and said to the boy:
- Here is a thorn tree. Very ancient
tree. Do you see the thorns? These are thorns. From
people once wove thorns like these
a crown of thorns and placed it on the head of one
person...
- For what? - he was scared.
- It’s not clear... It’s still not clear...
- It hurt? - sympathizing with the unknown
the victim, he asked.
“It hurts,” she agreed simply.
….Mother silently looked out the window at the old
blackthorn.
- What was his name? - he asked. She
sighed and said clearly:
- Jesus Christ..."
For the boy's mother
thorn as a symbol
the "cross" she owes
carry it through life with honor,
having withstood and overcome everything.
Think why for mother
and boy the story is so important
life of Baba Shura?
Version four:
"Through the thorns to the stars"
“The thorns were pulling towards the very lattice
window with your crooked hand
with clumsy fingers like that beggar
at the store they are with
the mother is always given a ten-kopeck piece.
If you look closely, you can
distinguish in a tangle of branches
big clumsy letter "I", she
as if walking on a crossbar
grates. The boy lay and looked
with the letter "I" and came up with for
There are different roads to her. »
Version four:
"Through the thorns to the stars"
..Already falling asleep, he came to the
yard by his father, and his mother met him. He
walked from father to mother, as if floating from
one shore to another. Difficult
swam as if against the current. Boy
I felt that my father was looking at my back,
and the mother looks into the tuft that has escaped
from under the cap. What were these people thinking?
two?..
The darkness thickened outside the window, and
apparently there was a thorn bush, and not
it looked like he was walking in
unknown given independent
and the brave letter "I"...
The hero has no name, he is just a boy. This
not by chance.
The boy grows up, gradually approaching
to the doors of the adult world, and is already trying
understand adult problems, however
understands little: well, for example, how to understand
that people who still love each other
live separately, tormenting themselves and tormenting their
child.
He has yet to learn to live according to
-adult, be independent
person who makes decisions such as
which will not make anyone unhappy, not
will bring disappointment and pain to others.
© Rubina D., 2015
© Eksmo Publishing House LLC, 2015
* * *
The boy loved his mother. And she loved him passionately. But nothing meaningful came of this love.
However, it was generally difficult with his mother, and the boy had already gotten used to the potholes and potholes of her character. She was ruled by her mood, so the general line of their life changed five times a day.
Everything changed, even the names of things. For example, my mother sometimes called the apartment “apartment”, and sometimes sonorously and sublimely - “cooperative”!
“Cooperative” - he liked it, it sounded beautiful and sporty, like “avant-garde” and “record”, it’s just a pity that this usually happened when his mother got started.
– Why are you drawing on the wallpaper?! Are you crazy? – she screamed in an unnaturally pained voice. - Well, tell me: are you a man?! You're not a human! I'm obsessed with this damned cooperative like the last donkey, I sit at night on this fucking leftist work!!!
When the mother got tense, she became uncontrollable, and it was better to remain silent and listen to inarticulate cries. And it was even better to look straight into her angry eyes and put on the same pained expression on her face in time.
The boy looked very much like his mother. She stumbled upon this pained expression, as one stumbles upon a mirror in the dark, and immediately sank. He will only say exhaustedly: “You will someday become a man, huh?” And everything is fine, you can move on with your life.
It was difficult but interesting with my mother. When she was in a good mood, they came up with a lot of things and talked about a lot of things. In general, the mother had so many amazingly interesting things in her head that the boy was ready to listen to her endlessly.
– Marina, what did you dream about today? – he asked, barely opening his eyes.
-Will you drink milk?
- Well, I’ll drink it, but without foam.
“Without foam you’ll have a short nap,” she bargained.
- Okay, let's go with this crappy foam. Well, tell me.
– What did I dream about: about pirate treasures or how the Eskimos found a baby mammoth on an ice floe?
“About treasures...” he chose.
...In those rare moments when his mother was cheerful, he loved her to tears. Then she did not shout out incomprehensible words, but behaved like a normal girl from their group.
- Let's get mad! – he suggested in rapturous delight.
In response, the mother made a ferocious muzzle, approached him with outstretched fingers, growling in her gut:
- Ha-ha! Now I will squeeze this man!!
He froze for a moment in sweet horror, squealed... And then pillows flew around the room, chairs overturned, his mother chased after him with terrible screams, and in the end they collapsed on the ottoman, exhausted from laughter, and he writhed from her pinches, pokes, tickling.
- Well, that's it... Let's put things in order. Look, it’s not an apartment, but God knows what...
- Let's squeeze me a little more! - he asked just in case, although he understood that the fun was over, his mother was no longer in the mood to rage.
He sighed and began to pick up pillows and lift chairs.
But most often they argued. There were prepositions - a carriage and a cart, choose which one you like. And when both are in a bad mood, then there is a special scandal. She grabbed the belt, lashed at whatever she hit - it didn’t hurt, her hand was light - but he screamed like a knife. Out of anger. They quarreled seriously: he locked himself in the toilet and from time to time shouted out from there:
– I’ll leave!! To hell with you!
- Come on, come on! – she shouted to him from the kitchen. - Go!
– You don’t care about me! I'll find myself another woman!
- Let's look... Why did you lock yourself in the toilet?..
...This is what stood between them like a wall, what spoiled, distorted, poisoned his life, what took his mother away from him - Left Work.
It is not clear where she came from, this Left Work, she was lying in wait for them, like a bandit, from around the corner. She attacked their lives like a one-eyed pirate with a curved knife, and immediately subjugated everything to herself. She cut all her plans with this knife: the zoo on Sunday, reading “Tom Sawyer” in the evenings - everything, everything died, flew to hell, crashed into the damned Left Work. One could say that she was the third member of their family, the most important, because everything depended on her: whether they would go to the sea in July, whether they would buy their mother a coat for the winter, whether they would pay the rent on time on time. The boy hated Left Work and was painfully jealous of his mother.
- Well, why, why is she Left? - he asked with hatred.
- What a fool. Because I do the right one all day at work, in the editorial office. I edit other people's manuscripts. I get paid for this. But today I’ll write a review for a magazine, they’ll pay me thirty rubles for it, and we’ll buy you boots and a fur hat. Winter is coming...
On such days, my mother would sit in the kitchen until nightfall, typing on the typewriter, and it was useless to try to attract her attention - her gaze was absent, her eyes were bloodshot, and she was all nervous and alien. She silently warmed up his dinner, spoke in abrupt commands, and became irritated over trifles.
- Alive! Undress, go to bed, so you can't be seen or heard! I have urgent left work!
“For her to die...” the boy muttered.
He slowly undressed, climbed under the covers and looked out the window.
There was an old tree outside the window. The tree was called thorn. The thorns grew on it, huge and sharp. The boys use slingshots to shoot pigeons with such thorns. The mother once stood at the window, pressed her forehead against the glass and said to the boy:
- Here is a thorn tree. A very ancient tree. Do you see the thorns? These are thorns. People once wove a crown of thorns from such thorns and placed them on the head of one person.
- For what? - he was scared.
- It’s unclear... It’s still unclear...
- It hurt? – he asked, sympathizing with the unknown victim.
“It hurts,” she agreed simply.
- He cried?
“Ah,” the boy guessed, “he was a Soviet partisan...
The mother silently looked out the window at the old thorn tree.
-What was his name? - he asked.
She sighed and said clearly:
- Jesus Christ…
Blackthorn stretched his crooked hand with gnarled fingers towards the very bars of the window, like that beggar at the store to whom he and his mother always give a ten-kopeck piece. If you look closely, you can discern a large, clumsy letter Y in the tangle of branches; it seems to be walking along the crossbar of a lattice.
The boy lay, looked at the letter I and came up with different paths for it. True, he did not do it as interestingly as his mother. The machine in the kitchen either chattered briskly or froze for several minutes. Then he got up and went out to the kitchen. The mother sat hunched over the typewriter, staring intently at the folded sheet. A lock of hair hung over his forehead.
- Well? – she asked briefly, without looking at the boy.
- I'm thirsty.
- Drink and go to bed!
-Are you going to bed soon?
- No. I'm busy…
- Why is he asking for money?
- Who?! – she screamed irritably.
- A beggar near the store.
- Go to sleep! I am busy. After.
-Can't he make money?
– Will you leave me alone today?! – the mother screamed in an exhausted voice. – I have to submit a radio program tomorrow! Go to bed!
The boy silently left and lay down.
But a minute or two would pass, and the chair in the kitchen would move away with a roar, and the mother would run into the room and abruptly, nervously say:
- He can’t make money! Understand?! It happens. Man has no strength. There is no strength either to earn money or to live in the world. Maybe there was great grief, war, maybe something else... I drank myself to death! Broke... No strength...
- Do you have strength? – he asked worriedly.
- Hello, I compared! - she was indignant and ran to the kitchen - knocking and knocking on the damned Left Work.
The mother had strength, a lot of strength. In general, the boy believed that they lived richly. At first, when they left their father, they lived with their mother’s friend, Aunt Tamara. It was good there, but my mother once had a fight with Uncle Seryozha because of some Stalin. The boy thought at first that Stalin was Marin’s acquaintance, who had really annoyed her. But it turned out - no, she didn’t see him. Then why quarrel with friends over a stranger! His mother once started telling him about Stalin, but he turned a deaf ear - it turned out to be a boring story.
