The Lodger. Valery Osinsky
hands.
To the subway by bus, then on foot, plus real women are always late and back, took an hour and a half. Nelya, as always before going to an unfamiliar place, was keeping silent. She was getting ready for the meeting. The girl was wearing a denim dress with short sleeves, universal for all occasions, and she looked quite solemn-ordinary with a bouquet of tea roses in a transparent cocoon.
Finally, we came.
At the domestic box office were at one time a popular movies about the transfiguration of the homely female-boss, or the matchmaker from the women’s hostel in charming beauties. At the end of the film, they were braughting colleagues, acquaintances and the audience into ecstasy, comparable, perhaps, with the shocks from Izaura or Mexican Marousi (although Latin soap Opera is far from our Russian cinema).The metamorphoses of real life shocked the young cynic (at least, who considered himself such) much more than the reincarnation of Alice Freundlich on the screen.
The door opens, I stumble into the denim back of the companion, a golden-haired lamb obscuring the view, and when the daylight finally painfully breaks narrowed pupils, I’m shocked.
Later, on the street, Nelya remembered not only mistress’s bracelet – a gold snake with diamond eyes – and earrings, but added with unusual swagger:
«She was a gorgeous woman when she was young. It’s awesome!»
Coming out of the grog state, I caught the subtle scent of perfume and fogs. My heart got worried. Before the charmed couple stood a graceful woman of thirty or barely more, in a beige light sweater, favorably outlined her high chest and slender waist. Straight, just below the knees skirt, beautifully outlined the narrow hips of a stranger. Her tiny feet in patent-leather pointed high-heeled shoes, with leather butterflies perched on them, struck with the proportion of all the fine thoroughbred stately beauty. The woman held the flowers presented to her, as they hold a newborn, gently and tenderly. I know, more picky looks immediately would have dug into her neck, to, as by the teeth of the horse to determine its freshness, with a ruler and a magnifying glass in the pupils began to measure millimeters of powder on the face, counting wrinkles. Let them! I was shocked by the identity of my imagination, which depicted the youth of a woman, and the reality, which crushed the myth of the evil omnipotence of years. Unfathomable! And I did not want to comprehend anything and do not want to.
Her face… Her face? How was I supposed to remember her face, in that enchanted distance, where my heart’s memory takes me! The magical glow of her eyes, the light that poured from her soul into mine, blinding every nook and cranny of the magic palace of the fairy. Perhaps from the side solemn view of mistress looked ridiculous in comparison with two gray sparrows-guests from everyday life. But when the queen invited us to the room, I – enchanted, timidly trudged after the young passion.
Elena Nikolaevna, as well as in the morning, remained herself. But this is the uniqueness of this woman: no effort to be yourself at the top, inaccessible to many, even in the moment of highest tension. If I had dared to suspect two women of rivalry, even her youth, which gave odds to the tricks of experience, would not have saved Nelia in my eyes.
How did she do that? Very simply! She showed mother nature her tongue in the mirror, winked, and remained what nature had made her: perfect.
From inattentively read books and cheesy productions I absorbed the strange idea of small talk: revived mannequins with sugary smiles are exchanged word stamps. And the table chatter of guys of my circle usually ended cuddling with the owner «s urinal.
Kurushina was talking absolutely ordinary, in my opinion, things, but, fascinated by her charm, demure Nelya, an hour told her the story of his life from his childhood to the commercial store of her father and half an hour later the women are about something whispered, on a smoke break in the kitchen.
I hung around after them and felt myself like a nothing.
Who did you want to seduce, to whom thought to steal into the soul, evil excellent student yard universities? I looked at Elena Nikolaevna and laughed at myself evil, maliciously, with mockery. That’s when the bastard in me plaintively squeaked, fluttered and subsided, releasing a poisonous slime.
I already saw the only friend at the bottom of the glass, strong alcohol muddied the mind, but kept the memory. I wish I could forget that night, the month. And would not moaned on the inside soul is so sweet and hurts from the toothed memories.
I’ve pretty drunk. Then I put Nelia in a taxi and by some miracle returned to the right entrance. The girl’s voice drummed into the tightly clogged barrel of my mind: «She is lonely, because the people of her circle to have forgotten her. And such as we she does not understand. She loves you like a son. She talked about you a lot!»
Then I climbed the stairs to the fourth floor and, buried in knees, howled, licking sickly-bitter tears from the corners of mouth. I loved her. And was quite soberly measuring the insurmountable distance between the island and the mainland, which will never connect.
11
I was blowing my nose bitterly on the steps in front of my first love’s apartment, crushed by an unnatural feeling: the mother is the same age as my beloved woman. And just a minute ago I saw off a pretty girl. My girlfriend! I saw off the girl indifferent, like yesterday’s rainy day. Who else if not she would have laughed evil at a daffy lover.
I barged into the apartment, as in garden of Gethsemane, and with the courage of the condemned, hobbled upon the kitchen – Calvary.
«I’m leaving!» I turned a cast-iron tongue, and how the bale fell ass-down on a stool.
«Did the girl not like something?» asked woman cautiously, putting down a rag.
How I wanted to hug her waist and with my palms draw a line of her hips! I buried my chin on my chest.
«Сonversely…»
The hostess relieved continued rinsing the dishes.
«Have you quarreled?»
«Yes.»
«Sadly. Touching girl. I hope that everything is not so scary, and you…»
«I told her that I love you!»
Kurushina put the last washed saucer in the dryer. She wrung out the rag and wiped her hands, dragging out an already huge pause by all these manipulations. Then she moved the stool and sat next to me. She adjusted my short forelock to one side and leaned her elbows on her clasped knees, looking into my eyes.
«Thank you, my sweet boy…»
«I love you not the way you think!» suddenly almost shouted me in drunken desperation. «I love you, as a man loves a woman! Scoff! Talk sense! It won’t help! – I jumped up – the stool crashed to the floor. I wanted to kick you out of your apartment, like an old rag by which no longer wipes up shoes! Do you understand? You let a scumbag into your house who holds nothing sacred except his vile desires. Well, what, what I found in you that I have not seen in other women!»
I spoke evilly about the hatred of the early days, about the mockeries with which I had insulted her habits, clothes, appearance, and, finally, of my admiration for her.
«Why did this happen to me?» – I groaned. «Well, if I had not seen women! So no! I’m drunk! Tomorrow I will be bitter, but not ashamed, for this evening. How can I be ashamed of the most precious thing I have? I love you, even if I drunk, even if I dead!»
I sat down on the floor and covered my head with my hands.
Kurushina smoked cigarette after cigarette, the muscles of her face sagging, the corners of her lips Curling down like a horseshoe. She seemed to immediately grow old, hunched over, and her nose with a small hump turned red ugly, her eyes faded, and only the clean, cold stones of gold threads in her ears quivered every time the woman flicked the ash.
«I’m