Novosibirsk, 1954.

Spoiler alert – they found me at the end and I’m here to tell you this story.

I was in first grade and lived with my parents Lisa and Lyonya in the Siberian city  of Novosibirsk. I will tell you more about Novosibirsk another time.

By the way, I always wonder why everybody called my mom Lisa, if her name was Lia, why my dad was called Lyonya if his name was Leonid, and why I was named Alexander, if nobody in our family called me that.

One late winter evening, after dinner, Lisa and Lyonya decided to go to our local Movie Theater ОКТЯБРЬ – (OCTOBER), named in honor of the October Revolution of 1917.   Some Hollywood movie was playing, the name of which I forgot. All I remember is that it was a movie about yellow monkeys that spread a fantastic epidemic disaster in Africa, and a band of brave researchers tried to save the World. It was not the best movie for kids and the showtime was definitely late, but the title sounded like Secret, or Adventure, or Mystery – and I begged Lisa and Lyonya to let me come with them. After a slight hesitation – on one hand it was late in the evening, but on the other hand, it was a Saturday – and they decided to smuggle me in.

Local Movie Theaters, like the one we went to, usually scheduled shows only in the evening – everybody was at work or at school before that. There were special shows during the day when the whole school, for example, would go see a movie together. And we, being schoolkids, saw a lot of movies that way. Official rules did not allow kids at late showings, but the Movie Theater was local, everybody knew each other, and the ushers also understood that  parents did not have many options other than going to the movies together – so that rule was not really enforced if kids were well-behaved.

The October Movie Theater had had a strange history. Originally built in 1907 as the Zakamenskaya Church; then it became a grain warehouse after the October Revolution. All crosses and bell towers were removed, but the Dome stayed. The Dome and the grain attracted pigeons, and later, when the Movie Theater ОКТЯБРЬ moved in, some pigeons still snuck into the dome, especially during winter. Their ‘coo’ and  other pigeons’ “presents” from above made sitting below the dome not very popular. The theater’s house was long and narrow, like an airplane cabin with a high ceiling. Just like in an airplane cabin there was an isle in the middle and several chairs on each side, but instead of  windows there were powerful heaters – do not forget that we are talking about winter in Siberia. Our seats that night were the three farthest from the isle and I had the warmest chair next to the heater. Lyonya sat next to me and Lisa was closest to the isle. My heater was good, but the movie soon became pretty boring to me, and it was late – all components for a future disaster were in place.

It was not a big surprise that I felt sleepy. My chair was not very comfortable to sleep in and I decided to build a bed between my chair and the wall. I put my thick winter coat on the floor, used my big fur hat as a pillow and my mother’s shawl as a blanket. Everything worked well, while all those brave researchers in the movie started looking for a big yellow monkey to solve the mystery of a terrible disease. They were looking for that monkey everywhere, running from one side to another, jumping with the monkeys from tree to tree, then everyone started flying together with the birds above the palm trees, their voices became louder and louder and, finally, the main researcher in a white hat yelled with the booming voice of Tetya-Shura, who was an usher in the theater at night and worked at my school at day time – “Hey, Lisa! There he is!” and then to me – “Wake up, Sashka! It is time to go home”.

To my parents that movie was not boring at all, quite the opposite, and they did not notice the construction of my improvised bed. When the movie was over and the light was on, Lyonya turned to me to help with my coat. He was surprised not to see me in my chair, but Lisa and Lyonya decided that I walked away to talk to the other children who were waiting for their parents at the exit. I was not among those, of course, and that was exactly the moment when my mother Lisa started to panic.

The problem – why they did not find me sooner – was the dark color of my mother’s large shawl that I used as a blanket. That blanket completely covered me up and even from a small distance in the low light of a movie theater, in the narrow gap between the chair and the wall, I was almost invisible – but not for Tetya-Shura! She learned a lot about hidden places in my school, where she used to look for kids that were skipping classes and easily detected even the most unpredictable holes and corners – no one could hide from her.

Following night, when I went to a movie theater with my parents, they always placed me between them – and I had no reasons to object.