The women helped me cut the flowers, as many as I was able to carry, and helped me get on the bus.
The bus came to the bus station, and as soon as I got off, I was surrounded by a crowd of people who made a line immediately. I pressed myself against the bus holding an armful of flowers, and the bus driver laughed from above, ‘Sell them quickly, while I am here, or the people will tear you into shreds…’
I sold the flowers out in no time and went back. I kept selling them, and the village women kept waiting for me to bring more. I even raised the price to 10 rubles (that’s how much a bottle of vodka cost). The line grew and the people were waiting patiently for me to get back and bring another batch.
After selling the last flower, I had a lot of money, so much that I couldn’t even squeeze it in a plastic bag. There were no flowers left, but the people kept waiting, looking at me quietly. ‘That’s all’ I said. ‘See you next summer.’
I went home, breathless with joy and the scent my hands still had! I was pressing my fragrant fingers to my mouth… Tears were running down my cheeks. Money had never brought me so much joy!
And it was so good!
There were more bulbs. I wiped them gently with a cloth soaked in potassium permanganate, just as my grandfather Ivan advised in a letter, then dried and put them in sand. We stored the boxes with the bulbs in my mother’s-in-law shed. We insulated the shed for the wintertime. And what horror I felt when, the next spring, I found no bulbs there!
‘They got frozen, so I threw them out’, my mother-in-law said, her lips pressed.
‘Frozen? What do you mean? Why didn’t you tell me? Why do you think they got frozen?
I could not believe that and kept asking. I searched the shed several times and found the bulbs in a puddle behind the fence, absolutely and hopelessly dead. Their glossy yellow color was gone.
I still have no idea why my mother-in-law did that. I don’t know what feelings possessed her and why she was not able to handle them…
I opened the windows
‘I opened the windows and saw a huge Planet hanging over the Earth.
It bumped against the Globe slightly again and again, bouncing off like a little ball.
‘Oleg!’ I shouted, terrified. ‘Wake up!
We are facing a disaster!’
Oleg replied, his eyes still closed, ‘This Planet has been hanging over the Earth for centuries, and it’s harmless…’
I didn’t believe him and rushed into another sleep, an older one…
… I was seeing you off to the war. The horse’s hoof was beating impatiently on the stones, and the tenderness was like the Planet, beating against the Globe, larger than the Earth and the Universe and threatening to hurt the Universe… In order to prevent a catastrophe, not looking up, I prayed, ‘Do go away so that I could kneel down and kiss the heavenly grass that bears the blue of your breath…’
What if I can really… feel this tenderness?..
Alyonka fell ill…
Alyonka fell ill. She was scared when she watched a movie about Fred Krueger who killed children in their sleep. The little one cried at night, being afraid of staying at home alone… Even the doctors advised us to find a good old woman to heal her. I started looking for one.
And then my friend Julia told me that she knew how to help my daughter. Her husband has a friend. His name is Oleg. The guy has supposedly developed extraordinary abilities: he is able to see human internal organs and cure any disease. As to Alyonka’s fears, it is quite easy.
I was happy. ‘Julia, please talk to your husband, let him introduce us to Oleg as soon as possible.’
But it wasn’t easy to do that quickly as Oleg had hundreds of patients, so all his working days were quite busy. I felt extremely curious. Such a young person looking through you! Well, even Julia could not help us no matter how much I begged her. ‘You have to wait’, she would say. ‘When he comes over, I will call you and you will come around as if by chance.’
There was no chance for a long time. Sometimes, I was at work when the uncatchable Oleg came to their place, sometimes I would rush to see him after Julia’s call but he was already gone. Alyonka recovered from her sickness and stopped crying at night. All of a sudden, Julia called me and yelled like crazy, ‘Hurry up! Catch a taxi and come over, Oleg is here!’
I was in the bathroom. Besides, I felt like weeping on that day, I don’t remember why, but it doesn’t matter. However, rushing out without any makeup, with a swollen red face, and even dressed up in haste, that was very, very bad. Nothing to be done though. I came to Julia’s place looking much worse than I was supposed to. In a stretched white sweater and faded jeans, one size larger.
A young guy, around 25 years old, was sitting in the living-room. He was lean and tall, with a laid-back look. His eyes were light green. He didn’t even look at me as if I were a fly rather not a human being. Although the fly said ‘Hi’ to him.
‘A smug’, I thought and sat down on the sofa, far from him.
Julia was in the kitchen, cooking. The smell of fried potatoes was coming from there. Her husband Maxim was talking enthusiastically to the ‘star’. I was staring at the wedding picture on the bookshelf: the awfully happy and young Maxim and Julia were looking at me; she was wearing a white silk hat.
Julia looked out and, on some pretext, lured her husband into the kitchen. She came up to Oleg, whispered something in his ear and nodded in my direction. Then she went out waving her fingers furtively. Oleg got up, took a chair and sat in front of me…
As any real great magician and healer, he closed his eyes. The room was quiet. The curtain rustled in the wind. The smell of melted water burst into the room, something stirred my heart, some vague uneasiness and anxiety.
‘I wonder what kind of organs I have… What if he can read other people’s thoughts?… He may be reading them right now. What will he think? He looks OK. Very serious… I am wondering if he is a great kisser… He has a strong neck, I don’t understand why Julia said he is just a boy. He is certainly more than a boy. He is a man, he has such hands… And shoulders… And lips.’
Oleg looked up. His eyes were full of… amazement. ‘Can it be that he has read what I was thinking of him?’ My cheeks flushed with shame. He looked me straight in the heart. There was no trace of recent detachment in his eyes. It seemed that he had just recognized something. Something he hadn’t seen for many years… and met. And I… too.
But we had never met before. Besides, I was ten years older.
‘You have an unusual glow around your head. I have never, never seen anything like that. Nobody but saints have this kind of golden light. I was amazed that, physically, you don’t correspond to this light. For all the data, you were supposed to be born beautiful…’
Wow! What a cad! I expected anything but this! To be called ugly, in broad daylight, for no reason at all!
Because of anger and resentment, I could not utter a word. I just kept sitting there, with downcast eyes, like a guilty schoolgirl in front of a class teacher. Julia helped me out. ‘Oleg’, she twittered, ‘Tamara wanted you to see her daughter. When can we come to their place?’
He promised to come in 3 days. I said goodbye coldly and left.
I bought a pink silk robe. It was so thin that if you put it on naked, you will remain naked. It also had a swing in the chest that used to open at any movement. Then I curled my hair. It took me 3 hours to grow my eyelashes. I put some nacre crimson lipstick on my lips. Relying on French toilet water, I got a bottle in exchange for a pearly jacket. I sprayed it on my hair as if I had fallen into a purple lilac bush. I had never been so well prepared. I was crazy about driving Oleg crazy. He had touched my woman’s dignity. Being a woman, I could not challenge him to a duel, so I decided to get even with him in a woman’s way.
‘I will seduce him, see his admiration… and that’s it.’
My husband was away on business. Julia and Oleg came over late at night, the children were already asleep. I saw him looking at me with admiration as soon as I opened the door. I shook my curls playfully and invited the guests to the kitchen. Julia was chattering incessantly. Oleg and I were looking at each other quietly. The victory was so complete and fast that it I even felt hurt. I had tried so hard, I had even bought a gown and curled my hair. And what was the result? He came in and everything was done so frustratingly quickly as if I had shot him with a gun.
But in my heart I was celebrating. The woman inside me rejoiced! A young, strong man stared at me with admiration! And he had a violent springtime smell, with all its green rivers and drunken rooks! I was very jealous of the girl who would have him!
The guests left. Oleg didn’t ask me about my daughter, and I also forgot about her. It was dark inside. I went over to the window, pushed the curtain aside and pressed my forehead against the cold glass. ‘Lord, all I want is love’, I said and my words amazed me.
I was ashamed. It was impossible. I was a married woman with two children. I made a bun of my curly hair like an old woman, sighed… and went to bed. I did it, my dignity remained with me. But his bright lips, slightly weathered… His lips … ‘That’s impossible’, the last thought flashed…
On the next day, Julia rushed in and screamed, ‘Can you believe it?! Oleg! Is in love! With you! I have never seen him like that! He’s gone crazy!’
My heart skipped a beat! And it felt so sweet! But I tried to control myself. ‘What’s so special about it?’ I replied airily. ‘Don’t I have my own eyes?’
‘You don’t understand!’ Julia yelled still louder like absolutely crazy. ‘He said… Do you know what he said?’
Julia was so overwhelmed with emotions that she was running around the kitchen, panting. Feeling fascinated, I was unable to take my eyes off her and kept chewing bread mechanically. After having swallowed the last piece, I slowly picked up another one. Julia finally took a deep breath and blurted out gleefully,
‘He says that he won’t sleep with you, no matter how much he loves you. Do you understand?’
‘What do you mean he won’t?!’ I failed to swallow a piece of bread. ‘How come?’
My indignation was so great that I even forgot about my intention not to deal with Oleg.
‘What I mean is that he just will not! That’s a pledge, and it’s something religious, I don’t know the details. But you just listen to what he said, ‘This will never happen.’ Isn’t that terrific? What a will power!’
I broke out in anger! How did he dare to say that?! Does he mean that I am always ready and it’s only up to his Majesty to make the final decision? OK, you will see! You are going to burn with passion! You’ll forget all your pledges! You are just a stupid little boy!
I didn’t remember being married and having two children and…
Like boiling milk not turned off in time, I broke free from my rationality shell.
‘Julia’, I shouted impatiently, ‘when can I see that strong-willed person?’
‘Tomorrow’, the similarly crazy Julia replied readily, and her eyes flashed happily. ‘Tomorrow is my husband’s birthday.’
I felt… overwhelmed with springtime, although spring wasn’t round the corner yet. I was amazed to see the unusually bright snow… The exuberant sky! As if I had flown up to that sky from a long dusty corridor! And I opened my arms eagerly.
Oleg and I rolled in the snowbanks, kissing… And the church was rolling somersault close by, its golden domes shining brightly in the sunshine. We stopped, it stopped too, the domes were beneath, and the high steps went up. ‘Be attentive’, Oleg would say seriously, ‘someone is going to descend from the sky.’ And he would cover my eyes with his hot hands…
We were sitting in a tall tree chewing crystal icicles. The tree branches looked crystalline, as well as the gazebo roof, the ground and the shining sun, although I think that crystalline means shining inside and shimmering with transparent and blue…
I have no idea who seduced whom… First I… slowly unbuttoned his chest, then took his hand. Pressed my lips to it, carried it slowly, and put it on my breast. It was like a dream. Like an ancient ritual on a strange planet…
‘How is it possible?..’
‘Can it really be like this?’
‘Yes…’
I tried to reach out with my lips to the curls on his neck but failed…
How beautiful you are, my beloved, oh how beautiful you are. Your hands look like golden fish splashing on the sea floor, you smell of wild raspberry mashed between one’s fingers. Breaking away from you is like stopping a flying swan…
I got into another world where the air shimmers in different colors. As if a huge, fine, shining jewel having a thousand faces were dancing in the sky, pouring down molten cascades of silver and gold…
Is it possible to stay unchanged in this world?
My husband used to go away on numerous business trips, coming back home when the children were already asleep. Lying on the sofa, I was listening to the elevator. The elevator often tapped on our floor. Every time, in awe, my heart would stop beating. Then it began beating fast under my nighty like a tied chicken. I did my best to make my face look the way it was supposed to. I would stretch my lips to make them smile, and I ‘painted’ joy on my face. But when I heard his real, heavy steps on the staircase, everything I had painted would disappear as if erased. The key turned slowly in the keyhole. Oh, Lord, please help me…
I would go to meet him in the entrance hall, smiling… I would keep talking incessantly like crazy, jumping convulsively from one topic to another, trying to mention everything he would be interested in. The children, work, his mother, the children again and again…
My husband listened in silence, then went heavily into the kitchen, ate a lot, his head down, and went to sleep.
‘Why is he silent? He knows everything. Why then does he torture me so cruelly? There is no doubt that someone has told him everything… Well, Oleg and I often walk around the city. He knows everything. But why is he silent? He knows everything, just everything…’
But my husband new nothing yet. He was just very tired. He was not doing well at work. He got into huge debts. The interest was growing. He had no money to cover the debts. So he had to hide the truth from me.
I didn’t know anything though… I interpreted his heavy look in my own way. His intense, constant silence was worse than the worst torture…
He spent hours sitting on the floor and stroking our cat named Bandit. ‘You are the only one who loves me’, my husband would say to the cat, feeling infinite pity for himself…
The feeling of guilt was growing and soon became as large as a monster never yet seen. It was impossible to get rid of it …
At work, I became part of the Santa Barbara TV series. My personal life was the subject of scrutiny.
‘So you, nice nelly, appear to be weak on the front!’ the female colleagues would meet me in the staffroom. At the same time, they often talked easily about their own lovers.
Even Olga, the head teacher, whose daughter had worked up on the shelf and was a teacher at our day-care center despite her huge belly, tried to humiliate me at every opportunity.
No reason to take offence. It was an ordinary female team… There are thousands like that in this country. The problem was inside me: guilt was choking me, and I grew weaker by the day, feeling a big villainess…
My husband learnt everything. He made no secret of his malevolence. If I had not cheated him, he would have to confess to a huge debt that he had managed to make, but the situation was just a gift for him!
‘When I! Straining my belly! Tearing! My tendons! In torn sneakers! For a piece of bread! You! Frigging around under all the bushes! Because of you, I am sunk up to my ears! That’s your fault, your fault!’
Although I was working in two shifts and fed the children myself. I even used to give money to my husband to support his ‘business’ of selling sugar or yeast to the villagers, or something else… It’s only now that I know for sure that if a grown man wears tattered sneakers, it’s a huge shame. But then…
Once my husband lost control and hit me. I flew into the corner. He went to live with the mother because, for him, it was just crazy. When leaving, he called out to me from the corridor,
‘Who needs you? With two children! You’ll be played with like a doll and thrown away! You’ll then crawl back to me on your knees!’
But everything was different now. In the past, when he wanted to leave me, I was so terrified that almost knelt down and begged him to forgive me for something I was not guilty of.
A man loved me now. And no matter how young he was, he would not let anyone hurt me. And when he saw the bruises on my face, he immediately dragged me to court to file for divorce. And then one of those amazing stories happened to me that only happen in real life and that are almost impossible to invent.
I wasn’t ready to get divorced and begin a new life with a young husband. It was Oleg who made me get divorced. Here is what I thought, ‘It usually takes one ages to get divorced. The more so that we have two children. Much can change while it’s going on…’
The judge was a young guy with a completely haggard face. It was obvious that he came to work today right after a big bender. The hair on the back of his head matted in and unkempt bunch. The guy felt very, very badly. He was looking through me with quite dull eyes. On his face, just like on my own, there was a huge fresh bruise. From time to time he touched it with his fingers and wondered. It seemed to me that he only came back to life when he heard me saying, ‘And then… He hit me. Here’s the bruise.’
The judge jumped up with indignation. His face was red. Only God knows who appeared before his vengeful eyes at that moment.
‘What?!’ he roared. ‘You mean that someone hit you?’
‘Yes, my husband did’, I said sadly. ‘My husband did.’
‘And he will keep beating her’, Oleg added, ‘if you don’t divorce them.’
‘Then submit the documents immediately!’ the judge pounded his fist on the table with impatience. The documents were handed to him.
Then ‘small though easily removable snags’ arose, using the angry judge’s wording. The husband was supposed to provide his consent to be divorced. But the judge didn’t think more than a moment. He gripped a pen and a sheet of paper… and wrote boldly my husband’s consent to the divorce in my husband’s name. It said something like this, ‘I am often on the road and hate my wife so fiercely that I am ready to kill her at the first opportunity, so I implore the judge to save me from prison by divorcing us as soon as possible.’
He put a full-stop and said spitefully, ‘Let him now try… to sue a judge…’ And he told me to come on the next day.
I came without suspecting anything. The judge solemnly issued the divorce papers and asked me warmly,
‘What family name do you want to take? I advise you to keep your former husband’s name. You will have a lot of husband, so you’ll get tired of changing your surnames. But think of your children…’
The streets were slushy. I was a single, divorced woman. The future was dime. But the present day was quite clear. My husband knew nothing.
I hated Oleg for breaking into my life and destroying it. I didn’t remember how it all began…
I hated my husband for letting a stranger take his wife away and doing nothing to rescue his den like wild animals do. He was going to lose the children, not only me. They will be brought up by another father who will be fully responsible for them. That’s what kind of person my Oleg was.
I hated myself for not being able to stop when I was supposed to… I could neither part with Oleg nor leave my husband. So I kept floating like a chip on waves, weak and will-less…
I had nothing to do. My husband was not coming back. Sometimes, I came across him on the street, but he would turn away proudly. I had nightmares at night: I was looking and looking for something in a forest, all in vain. I tried to find something that used to be important. But was it?
I was losing the sense of reality. I became insensible. The children irritated me because they were always hungry. I remember that Oleg would feed us. He brought geese, apples and potatoes from the village. And he also cooked cabbage soup.
I thought, looking at him with empty eyes, ‘Did we really have a crazy spring?’ He kept proposing to me. I always found excuses to cay ‘no’.
The previous life, which was dear to me in a certain way, was destroyed. It consisted in baking cheese pancakes with raisins and cooking cabbage soup, singing songs and sewing huge shorts and shirts for my husband. And I still could not build up a new one…
But somewhere in the depth of my soul, where I didn’t want to look, under a pile of the rubbish of fears, guilt and despair, delight was shaping under a quiet light. It was delight caused by the new life. I was standing on its doorstep… and feared to take a step. I had to step into the unknown… I was stuck on the bar, clinging desperately to the old door, rotten planks were cracking under my hands, trash poured between my fingers… I was afraid of coming out into the daylight… I didn’t believe anyone.
My husband came back unexpectedly. I had no feelings towards him any longer. But I was unpleasantly surprised with his new life: he dated a young woman with big breasts, and he often took her out to a restaurant. I didn’t wish him good luck because I myself was not happy yet.
My husband didn’t know that we were divorced, he thought it was just another quarrel. I was afraid of telling him the truth. He brought me a gift, a new winter coat. And he was proud of having forgiven his sluttish wife. It even seemed to me, for a second, that something could be improved…
I will never, for the rest of my life, forget the night when I tried to stitch the wholes on the rags of the past time… My husband was stroking my legs gratefully, crying, making plans for the future… For some reason, we exercised with our children twice a day…
The apartment was so dark that it looked awfully scary. Uncontrollable shadows sneaked about the walls. I was afraid of people. Stopped dating Oleg. My husband brought me wine by large boxes. It was called Amaretto. It was rosé and tasted of a cherry pit. When sipping it, I would forget everything. Wasn’t Oleg just one of my dreams? One of those tenacious dreams that can break through into reality? I always had vivid dreams, and there was no way to get rid of them. Filled with ringing emptiness, I used to pile the empty bottles in a corner. The children built houses out of the bottles. I was a school holiday time.
…I saw my husband’s face through the half-opened bathroom door; his face was blurred and swaying in front of me… He was sitting on the little children’s stool repairing a broken shoe, tears rolling down his cheeks. My photo was on the washing machine right in front of him. He caressed it from time to time with his wet fingers…
…I was in bed while my husband stood on his knees saying, ‘Toma, let’s die together, please, when we are old. Don’t leave me. I don’t want to live in a basement…’
…My husband comes in the kitchen. His shirt pocket bulges very much because of numerous plates with pills. I refuse stubbornly to ask him about them. After walking around me, unable to bear that, he throws them fiercely on the floor. Released from captivity, the pills of different colors jump and roll under the chairs with a cheerful clatter.
‘I am seriously ill. Feel free to go to your Oleg, I will die soon anyway…’
… I dreamed and dreamed endlessly seeing a man walking under the windows of our house, in winter, without a hat. The blizzard cocks frozen lumps of snow and throws them in his face. His frostbitten toes peek out from his tattered shoes. He is shouting quietly and hoarsely, ‘Where are my children, Toma? Where are my children, Toma?’
…Then we rush into the kindergarten yard, empty at night, and he, looking around, whispers to me anxiously, ‘I’m going to be arrested… Here is the knife. I always have it with me now. Bye…’ And he melted in the thick shrubs where I soon heard loud footsteps and voices… and my husband’s long, sobbing moan…
And then God rushed quickly to my aid.
My cousins came from the village. The women rented an apartment nearby and did their best to help me. Incredibly, the school where I worked helped me buy a 2-bedroom condo at a very low price.
I had been waiting in the queue since when I was not married yet. The teachers’ house had been built for many years, and I had been paying regularly. Then the city took the building away, but the teachers got it back thanks to the court decision. The building was hit by inflation, which was very good for the teachers. So we were going to get the keys soon.
The housing issue was almost solved. Oleg lived with his mother in a studio, so he had no place for taking me and my kids.
But all in vain… Or too late. Neither my cousins, nor the apartment, nor Oleg, nor the children were able to save me… My soul was as dry as a desert.
… I didn’t know and didn’t understand what exactly I wanted and who I was…
The tired, exhausted God picked me up and carried…
I had one more, last remedy to release myself from the web of mistakes. I had to catch the healing breath… of death.
…Without going out, I developed dysentery and infectious pneumonia. And found myself in a hospital.
They rushed at me…
Huge fiery red circles were rushing at me. They were penetrating my skin enveloping it with dry heat, got together again, and flew to me inevitably, tipping me down, throwing their greedy rings around me. My heart was hissing like a wet sponge you clench strongly with your hands. Night was pressing on the windows, flowing into the room, approaching from everywhere, making everything unreal, fantastic.
His Majesty Fear stretched out his hand imperiously and opened the door without a scratch. It lingered in the doorway for a moment, grinning mischievously, and walked into the room as the master. And I, like a small spider, stood on a huge Devil’s palm, his face was right in front of me. His palm with long fingers and graceful nails was squeezed in such a way that it was impossible to get out. The devil was looking right at me and smiling with one corner of his mouth. His eyes, large and bulging, resembled winter puddles. His eyebrows were oddly bent and looked like a raven’s wings.
Behind the devil’s back, the domes of toppled churches were glittering like copper pots in the dim light, red birds were shouting and tossing wildly above them. It seemed that the maddened birds got suddenly struck blind. From time to time, they bumped against the overthrown domes, their heavy feathers falling down on the ground like a bloody leaf-fall, and viscous drops flew on the rusty, flaked paint.
All of a sudden the devil said in a human voice,
‘I am your doctor. My name is Alexander Ivanovich. Everything will be all right.’
It was dark in the corridor. I often wanted the washroom. But I was afraid of going there in the daytime because other patients could see that I had three heads. It was embarrassing.
I was dying, fighting desperately. Sometimes, I stood on a chair in the middle of the hospital room and sang a song. Alexander Ivanovich would help me down. ‘What a bother you are’, he used to say.
I don’t know why both Oleg and my husband were allowed to visit me. Sometimes, they came at the same time. My husband brought a chicken, while Oleg gave me all kinds of fruit. (Alexander Ivanovich was sure that I would not survive as my temperature was above 40 during three weeks. The doctors could do nothing. They did their best to save me though.)
Here is what Valentina, an elderly woman, my ward neighbor, told me after I got better, ‘Strange you were, girl. Strange and funny. Lying there like dead, and they kept injecting you with no result. You didn’t even move or react when your name was called. When you wanted the washroom (that’s dysentery, girl), you would jump up, your face as white as chalk, and walk slowly holding by the wall. Thank God it’s next door. Well, you would go in and rush to the washstand like crazy. You would drink more than you could put in yourself, then pour perfumes on yourself and come back to your bed. Look how much perfume you lover brought and put on the windowsill! It repeated a hundred times every day. You didn’t eat or drink, and you didn’t answer questions, just the washroom, the washstand, and the perfumes.
‘Then you felt worse, I think, because you took your gown off and began walking there and back, naked. The patients went out of the wards to look at you, but you didn’t care. Then Alexander Ivanovich, what a smart guy he is, moved the patients from those two wards to another place and warned the others that he would sign off those who would peep out of their ward. Why did he care about you so much, I wonder?..
‘And that young guy, your lover. He did more than his best. Combing your hair for you, giving you tea with cranberries or strawberries, putting pieces of melon in your mouth.’
‘Well, girl’, Valentina summed up frowning, ‘you are a bitch.’
My husband went away. Oleg was the only one to visit me.
I used to go out at night. Once I saw an incredibly tall woman in the corridor, almost reaching the ceiling. She stood near my ward, her arms folded on her chest. I could not see her face as she was wrapped up in white cloth. ‘Death has come to me’, I understood. I came up and asked her,
‘Are you here for me?’
She stood as if lost in thought, but I felt through this terrible white cloth that she was looking at me very intently. I was not scared, I was just dead tired. And I didn’t requested anything from her.
Finally she sighed and walked quietly to the ward across the corridor. I also sighed and… kept living. I got a delay.
