Soviet Milk

by Nora Ikstena

He was lying among words that promised five-year growth in a single year and extolled the superior morality of the people who were building Communism.

Thus he lay: one of the many who had surrendered quietly, dying in an obscure corner because he could not adjust and swallow humiliation, shame, dishonour and disillusionment.

Despite these absurdities, my mother continued to raise me as an honourable and faithful young Soviet citizen. Yet within me blossomed a hatred for the duplicity and hypocrisy of this existence. We carried flags in the May and November parades in honour of the Red Army, the Revolution and Communism, while at home we crossed ourselves and waited for the English army to come and free Latvia from the Russian boot.

No one knew her light and dark sides better than I did. No one else stood ready to catch the next moment when she would want to leave her life behind.

Freedom was that tiny glimmer of happiness when, soaked through, we would drag ourselves home and dry out beside a hot

‘They’re raising new slaves,’ my mother used to say.

Lenin had also turned his back on the Orthodox cathedral, which had been converted into a planetarium. It was a civilized gesture, as if he knew nothing of the distant lake in Siberia where, on his orders, hundreds of Orthodox priests had been drowned.

On the streets pretending to be obedient Soviet citizens and here we pretend to be dissidents. There’s no freedom here.’

My school day was divided into pre-milk and post-milk. The pre-milk time just before lunch was unbearable. I had trouble concentrating.

Mother read to me from her books. From Moby-Dick, of course.

chelovechynim obshchezhityem,

even more grateful to Mayakovsky for giving my mother and me such moments of rare happiness.

We were cut off from the world. We were destined for a somnambulant existence and condemned to call it life.