I brought Masha to kindergarten in the middle of the day. She began to undress. The whole group was here. The teacher said something to me, gave me some kind of notebook and left. Then I saw that Masha approached one girl and quickly hit her on the head.

- What are you doing?! — I ran up to her and turned her around. “How can you?!” For what?! Don't you dare do this!

She looked at me and didn't say anything. I was just surprised for the umpteenth time at what, Lord, bottomless despair can suddenly appear in children’s eyes. I wanted to write “out of the blue,” but I know, I know that in fact this despair always has some all too real reason.

She went to her locker drawer, opened it, and hid behind its door. I closed the door and saw that she was crying. There was no sound. Tears just rolled down from her eyes.

“Anya hit her first,” the boy standing next to me came up to me.

Well, I thought, there is one more professional fighter for justice in the world.

- Did you see everything? - I asked.

“We saw everything,” he said.

- And what?

“Anka hit her first.” Masha is the first to not hit anyone.

I looked back. There was quite a large group of people standing around me. They had all just returned from a walk, undressed and now froze halfway. One boy stood without a hat and in one boot, while another had the straps of his overalls dangling on his stomach. The two girls were unbuttoning each other’s jackets and now stood holding hands. Another boy sat cross-legged on a chair and looked at me intensely.

To be honest, for the first time in more than thirty years I found myself in such a team. The last time I was in such a team was an equal among equals.

They all expected something from me. But so do I from them.

Actually, Masha talked about problems in kindergarten. The other day she said that she is now only friends with boys, because girls are unreliable, and she has no problems with boys. Now I saw that not only did she not have problems with boys, but boys also had no problems with her.

- Why did you freeze? “Undress,” I said. “They are waiting for you.” It's time for you. And it's time to sleep.

They didn't react. I hugged Masha. She didn't push me away, but she didn't hug me back either. She just stood there the same way she stood and still cried.

- Why do you even beat each other?! - I asked them.

It was very stupid. To get an answer to this question, you had to start, so to speak, with yourself.

“We’re settling scores,” the same boy who was talking to me shrugged.

It sounded so funny that I couldn’t resist and smiled. The other children did not understand this smile and nodded their heads, making it clear that the boy was not joking and that they were, in fact, just settling scores with each other. And this was no longer funny. I felt that I did not belong among these people. Or among people in general. That is, I felt like just an animal.

I approached the girl who was hit by Masha. Everything I did here was so wrong and out of place that I had nothing to lose anyway.

“Did you really hit Masha first?” - I asked.

“Yes,” she said, looking at me cheerfully. “First she hit me, then I hit her!”

It was as if she sang these words. She even shook her head to the beat of her words.

- And for what? - I asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said.

Approaching Masha, I quietly asked her forgiveness. So that this guy, if possible, does not hear. I saw that he was listening. I think he finally heard.

Masha nodded. But in fact, my words did not make any impression on her.

I thought what should I do now. Should I go deal with this girl? Kind of stupid. Anything else I should say to Masha? Yes, I think I’ve already said everything. And I was already very late, besides.

“Childhood,” I told them, “don’t touch each other, okay?”

They remained silent.

Masha looked at me with some kind of pleading in her eyes. She didn't want me to leave. A huge injustice happened before her eyes. She probably thought that I could still fix her somehow. But I've already done everything I could.

She wiped tears from her cheeks and remained silent. Damn it, I should have been somewhere else a long time ago.

At the door I turned around. This boy approached Masha, took a bunch of her long hair in his hand and waved the resulting tail, first in front of her nose, and then ran it over her face. She couldn't help but smile, even though she didn't even look at him.

She looked at me.

Then, it seems to me, I figured it all out. This guy, who took it upon himself to talk to me, actually just wanted me to stand up for Masha. He could do it himself. He could easily deal with everyone here. Here, in my opinion, he was generally such a policeman, as in NHL hockey, a tough guy. But he saw that Masha’s father was there, and gave me a chance to prove myself with dignity. It was an act of true generosity.

It’s a pity that I didn’t understand any of this when I should have.

It's terrible that nothing can be done about it. Now we just have to live with it.

And I think that children, of course, forget everything very quickly at that age, but some things that happened to them at six years old, and at five, and at three years old, are never forgotten. I know this from myself.

And I think with horror that this could be just such a story.

Magazine "Kommersant Weekend" No. 32 dated 04/06/2007, p. 65

Authors:

Andrey Kolesnikov

FATHERS with Andrei Kolesnikov