Koshchei

  

We nicknamed him Koshchei. Why? Because he actually looked like Koschei, the fairytale hero and character from Pushkin's Ruslan and Lyudmila who "pined away over his gold." He was skinny, with no meat on his bones. He had a long nose and unkempt hair. He looked like the picture of Koshchei in a book I used to have that showed him hunched over an open chest, guarding a magical egg. 

Koshchei somehow came to be a manager in a cinema called the Zarya (Dawn). He might even have been its director. The Zarya was surrounded by five-story apartment buildings that had been constructed during Khrushchev's time. They were like beehives crammed full of Soviet families: that's where we grew up…

The Zarya was a place where magic happened. They showed movies there. It would be packed with hundreds of people gazing breathlessly at the screen. Things happened on the screen unlike anything we ever saw or could even imagine. Women with bedroom eyes and manly men flashed before our eyes. The things we felt! The passions we experienced! Sometimes, they even kissed. And then we boys whooped and hollered. We roared with the film broke, especially when it happened in the most interesting places. We whistled and shouted at the projectionists: "You bunglers!!!

 

And the cars they drove! Luxurious, with lots of shiny chrome! How snazzy America seemed! And the only cars running on our streets were Moskviches and Pobedas and, sometimes, a captured German Opel Kapitän.

Every foreign movie was an event for us, especially if it was an American film. We thought it an unforgivable sin to miss one.

Movies about cowboys were the best. We didn't even have the words to describe them. The men in them were free, strong and noble... They lacked all tolerance for evil and injustice. They wouldn't let themselves be humiliated. If somebody in a bar threw beer in a cowboy's face, he always had his Colt revolver on his belt.

 

We watched "The Magnificent Seven" over and over again. We couldn't get enough of it. How could 10-kopeck movies they showed at the children's matinee come close to a movie like that? Ilya Muromets was a dashing fellow, but he stood no chance against Lemonade Joe. However, the cheapest ticket for an adult showing was 25 kopecks. Where could boys like us, eight or nine year olds, get that amount of money? But the dark interior of the Zarya was an irresistible temptation...

That's when we did what we called "Penetrating Enemy Lines." That meant getting into the theater anyway you could, no matter what it took.

We had several ways of doing it. The safest (and doomed to failure) involved waiting at the exits. It occasionally happened that somebody in the audience didn't like the movie or desperately needed a smoke and would leave through one of the exits. Then we would dash into the theater. But people rarely left. So we would try to open an exit door ourselves. To do that we had to find a wire that was stiff enough to stick between the doors and lift the latch. That worked sometimes. But the employees eventually noticed that the gap between the doors was getting scratched up and nailed on thick iron plates.

We had another method we called "The Cossack Scout." But it only worked when a lot of people went to see a movie. A bunch of guys would gather at the entrance to the lobby and crowd against the people going in (ignoring cries of "Stop pushing?").They would cause a ruckus and start arguments, and the ticket taker would attempt to calm things down. In the commotion, one of the nimbler boys (Igor Yurchenko was one) would slip into the lobby behind the entering patrons. It would be the sacred duty of the "Cossack" to get into the theater and open the door for his friends who were waiting out on the street. The boy who could do that was well respected. However, on the steps leading into the lobby or further on, at the entrance to the theater itself, there frequently stood ... Koshchei. He would hover there, gray-haired, frowning and terrible, like a bird of prey on the lookout for a mouse. No one could ever slip past Koshchei when he was on duty. His very visage struck terror into our hearts.

Sometimes he would descend the stairs and say something to the ticket taker — probably telling her to be more vigilant.

 

Then there was another method. But it only worked in summer and early fall when second-storey windows on the side of the building were opened. They did that on a hot and stuffy day so that the audience wouldn't sweat up in the lobby too much.

Those open windows drew us like a magnet. But how could we reach them? There was only one way — up the drain pipe. You had to be careful and climb it like a cat. The pipe was old and rusty. If it didn't hold up, you would end up hugging the tarmac. The windows were on the second floor of the theater, or about the same height as the third floor of an apartment building. You would have to squeeze up against the window and do something heart stopping — ease several meters along a galvanized windowsill with nothing to hold onto. Thank God the windows were kept shut in rainy weather so we didn't have to walk on slippery wet metal. It was scary, of course. But hadn't Sheriff Johnson walked along a tight rope and then shot the leader of a band of robbers? He was our role model.

 

One day I saw an open window. Unable to resist the temptation, I scrambled up the drain pipe... I made my way safely along the windowsill. I jumped down into the lobby, took a few steps and ... there was Koshchei right in front of me... 

 

"Soooo...," Koshchei hissed ominously. "We got in, eh?"

"Yes," I mumbled, at a loss for what to do. Should I dart through the lobby and dash into the toilet? But surely he would find me there! Could I jump back onto the windowsill? It was too high... I was frozen with fear.

 

"Come with me! Koshchei ordered and, turning his back, strode off across the lobby. I followed meekly behind. On the other side of the lobby he turned into a narrow corridor that ended in a door covered with black oilcloth. He opened the door and motioned me inside.

I entered. It was apparently his office. On the walls were portraits of Soviet movie stars. Up against the wall there was a filing cabinet stuffed with papers. In front of the cabinet sat a large desk covered with green cloth. In the corner hung a large red banner with gold embroidered letters — "Winner of Socialist Competition."

Koshchei sat down behind the desk. I stood opposite him.

"What's your name," he asked, his eyes boring me from under the lowered eyebrows.

"Sergei," I squeaked in a trembling voice.

"And what have you snuck into, Sergei?"

The cinema. I wanted to see a movie."

“What movie?

"I dunno. Whatever's on."

"Tell me, do you go to the children's matinees?"

"Un-huh. But they aren't very interesting."

"And what do you find interesting?"

"The Magnificent Seven."

"Sooo..." Koschei drawled. You like cowboys?"

"Un-huh, I do."

"Did you think about that drainpipe before climbing it? What if it broke? You would have fallen to your death. Or you would have been crippled for life."

"I wouldn’t fall. I'm a good climber."

"Sure you are," Koshchei grumbled. I've seen what happens to clever boys like you. What am I to do with you?"

"I dunno..."

He scratched his head and looked at me in silence for a while. Then he came out from behind the desk and said, "Come with me."

He walked out of his office, and I followed him. Where was he taking me? To the police, probably. After all, I had broken the law! I'd done something I wasn't supposed to. What would happen to me now?

Koshchei led me up to the door leading into the theater, which was closed off by a heavy velvet curtain. He pulled back the curtain and cracked open the door.

"Go on," he said.

"Where?"

“Inside. From now on, if you want to watch a movie ask the ticket taker to call Vasily Ivanovich. We'll think of something. But don't climb through any more windows. Agreed?”

"Agreed," I replied and went into the dark theater…

 

I never did ask the ticket taker to call Vasily Ivanovich. But in the years that followed I never climbed through any more windows, and I never forgot the lesson I learned from that sad, scary-looking man.

Translated by J. McVay