Categories: Holidays and traditions, Antonina Melne

Story-teller: “In Rogovka. You know, I finished the pharmacists’ school, my mother was a strict, old-fashioned person, she did not let me go anywhere. There were no parties in Rogovka, but there were evening gatherings here in the village, she did not allow me to go to those gatherings. You know those old people!”

Interviewer: “Yes!”

Story-teller: “I finished the pharmacists’ school, I didn’t know how to dance! I was already twenty-one, but I couldn’t dance. But, but my cousin, who had graduated from Daugavpils Pedagogical, she’s now in Sigulda, she has already retired. It is Stasja, she says, Toņa, you should go, Antoņina, the neighbours named me Toņa; Toņa, you should go, should start going to parties. No, I won’t go, where they were – five kilometres away. There were balls at school from time to time, but here a grown-up person cannot dance at the age of twenty-one, only shifts from one foot to the other.”

Interviewer: “Have you been married?”

Story-teller: “What did you say?”

Interviewer: “Have you been married?”

Story-teller: “I have, I have a daughter, my daughter is a doctor, she works at Gaiļezers.”

Interviewer: “O-o-oh! How did you meet your husband? At some party?”

Story-teller: “Not at a party! A neighbour! I was running away from him in the beginning! He had noticed that Antoņina was all right. And he started.. I was my mother’s only child. Not far from the school. The school was close by, here in this village. He observed me, observed, decided that the girl was nice, and then he began to come to my father to arrange, but the mother had passed away. But he was a simple man, he had finished four forms, and then entered a technical school, a man – potboiler! He simply laid bricks. So, he worked hard in Rēzekne, he was a builder in the dairy processing plant, where else they built. Once he started to pay attention to me. But I, who cannot dance, I’d go to a dancing party! But Stasa started to teach me dance steps. And my mother did not want that either, that I’d go to dancing parties, you know, people of old times. So, Stasis only left, and she was brought home, so that she did not become undisciplined. You see, such the discipline was. And my mother passed away early. I was twenty-three. I had worked at the Chemist’s for a year, and the drugs did not help, she had cardiac insufficiency, and she couldn’t, something happened with the lungs, pneumonia, she had problems with the lungs, and we couldn’t get the car, only with the father … those were the first years of the kolkhoz. The father had a horse. We put hey into a great sledge, I sat there, I went along, we took the mother to Kārsava to do X-ray tests. Then they examined her. And she lived for another year, then she died, I was twenty-three. At that time, I lived alone with my father, and my uncle was ill. He was lame, single, he was lame from birth. So I lived with my father, and I milked cows, ran to the Chemist’s, at midday. The Chemist’s was near, my house could be seen from there, but as soon the strangers were let in, they destroyed everything, only one room on a chicken’s leg was left. They were such drunkards, such bar-goers.

            And so, I started somehow, Edvards said, why couldn’t you go with Stase to a party. I was ashamed, I couldn’t dance. They taught and taught me those dance steps, and I was afraid that I’d start shifting from one foot to the other when everybody saw that, they saw everything, I thought I was shifting, you see. And I couldn’t dance. So they taught me a bit and asked their relatives, the cousins – that they should ask Toņa for a dance. And there they were, go, go! I went, I thought that everybody was looking at me, but why should they! Nobody was looking, I think. I thought that everybody was looking that I couldn’t dance. Once I went dancing – my ears were burning, and my cheeks were burning, I thought I would never go again. And so the neighbour started, began to come to me.”

Interviewer: “What was your husband’s name?”

Story-teller: “What?”

Interviewer: “What was your husband’s name?”

Story-teller: “Edvards.” And he started to dangle after me. He hadn’t, as I said, finished the technical school. We had a year’s difference. He was one year older. But when we were children here .. we played hide-and-seek, and, and, we were called the last couple, I played with him. He had travelled around the world, just had a look, he had no experience, maybe, he thought that he had no chance to get me. My cheeks were red, the hair was curly. I wasn’t the one. I’m rather sharp.”

Interviewer: “Did you use makeup in your youth?”

Story-teller: “I have never used any makeup!”

Interviewer: “Was that your natural beauty?”

Story-teller: “My cheeks were red. Now they are not anymore, sometimes they are, but not anymore. So he kept coming, arranged, arranged, he brought me sweets, and I, stupid girl, wasted time with him. He came, came, came, and came every evening, and once – Antoņina, let’s go to the cinema. All right, I said, let’s go, if Stasa joins. And thus, together with my cousin, who had graduated from Daugavpils Pedagogical, she works as a teacher in Sigulda. And I went, once or twice. You know, I got used, used, thus two years passed and he started to propose to me. But I didn’t engage in anything with him, since I wasn’t, wasn’t married, God’s blessing was given. The mother died, if she had been alive she wouldn’t have allowed me to marry such a simple man, who hasn’t finished school. I mean, the technical school. But that was all right. He studied and became a driver, he worked on a milk truck, that basic school. But then he started to drink when he got to repairs shops. He was a drunkard. To live with a drunkard...”

Interviewer: “Couldn’t he be chastened?”

Story-teller: “What?”

Interviewer: “Did you manage to chasten him?”

Story-teller: “He promised, I won’t drink, I won’t drink. The next time he drove when drunk, the driving licence was taken away three times but he passed the exams and got the licence back. We bought a big motorbike. Here, lately, the day before yesterday. He died of cancer.

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Researcher: Dr. philol. Gatis Ozoliņš, Daugavpils Universitāte