“Grandmother’s Pedagogy”
I remember an incident that happened to me about ten years ago. At that time, I practiced piano tuning a lot. I had to work hard to feed myself and my elderly parents. Although, when I arrived for an order, I immediately asked the owners not to make a big fuss about the upcoming lunch, but to be honest, Kazakhs and Russians always ignore these requirements, especially if they are women. Well, it’s our tradition!
So, when I arrived at the address and met with the grandmother and her 8–9-year-old grandson, who was a pianist, I started working. My intuition wasn’t wrong; after a while, a pleasant smell of fresh baking began to tickle my nostrils. The boy watched me work for a while, but then he got bored and wanted to retire. However, he told me to “play my music quietly” because his sister was sleeping. So, I found out that we were not alone in the room; there was another sister sleeping.
Through the boy, the grandmother invited me to the lunch table, waking up the little girl beforehand. As it turned out, she was about 4 years old. She didn’t want to wake up, wash, and go eat right away. The grandmother was adamant, and we all sat at the table. Honestly, I don’t remember all the dishes and details of the meal, and it’s not about the buns anymore. The following circumstances stuck in my memory: the grandmother poured us soup, and we ate. However, after everyone finished, it turned out that the girl, having emptied her plate, had arranged rings of carrots all around it. She probably didn’t like boiled carrots in the morning. With a sulky, dissatisfied look, the girl waited for the grandmother’s reaction: would she scold her or not in front of a stranger? And, here, the grandmother surprised me!
“It’s okay, you don’t have to eat this carrot if you don’t want to. It’s such a pity. It’s just a small thing, nothing to worry about. ‘You can’t drink water from a face.’”
If you could see the emotional state of our “future bride” at that moment, it was EVERYTHING: tears, anger towards her beloved grandmother, sadness, and a “future scruffy husband.” Oh…
Her brother, unable to contain his emotions, threw a sharp look my way, as if asking me if I understood the “joke.” He was ready to burst into laughter, but held back. Meanwhile, the grandmother continued to talk to me calmly, with a slight smile, and looked in the direction of her granddaughter, who was slowly and reluctantly putting the hated carrots in her mouth, hating EVERYTHING and EVERYONE in the world at that moment!
After all these years, it is impossible to know what kind of husband our heroine’s “scruffy” fiancé turned out to be. But one would like to believe that he was not “scruffy” after all…