The Lovers. Юлия Добровольская
classmate, Arthur Davlatyan, who came from Armenia, also lived alone in a two-person room. Dina didn’t wonder why he was so lucky – he just was.
Arthur was a generous guy and often had a group of classmates over, to celebrate a completed group project or an exam with tea. He always brought out a bottle of cognac with the tea. Not the usual cognac bottle with the factory cork and the regulation labels, but a large milky-white plastic flask, probably a liter in size. He always had incredibly beautiful and incomparably delicious dried fruits and nuts. Having once tried Arthur’s delicacies, Dina could look with nothing but pity at their pathetic copies, displayed on the shelves of stores like Nature’s Gifts.
Sometimes Arthur invited Dina to his room, to ask for her advice regarding a test or a term paper. Dina conscientiously explained all the hard parts to him, although she knew that it was hopeless since Arthur would never write the paper or project himself, so it was easier to simply write it for him. Which is what she did.
She did not like it one bit. If it had been first year, that would have been one thing, but they were in fourth year, and Arthur still had not completed a single exercise without someone else’s help… How was he going to write his thesis? How was he going to work in this field? If he had to answer at the blackboard or during an oral exam, he muttered something unintelligible, plus his accent made his answer completely incomprehensible. But his record book didn’t have any threes… not that he had any fives either, just fours. Dina was really surprised, as she knew plenty of smarter and more talented guys who the teachers were not so generous with.
“Arthur,” Dina would say emphatically, “Why don’t you study? At least memorize something, even if you don’t understand anything! Fine, I’ll write the paper and the project for you… But you’ll have to get a job in the future, and you don’t know anything, you can’t even tell an acid from a salt by its formula!”
Arthur would only smile with his beautiful Eastern lips and drop his lush eyelashes over his velvet gaze. Then he would take a large packet of mandarins or dried fruit from the cupboard, place it on the table next to Dina and say, “I will not work. I only need diploma. And you will not work. You will live like a queen!”
No, Dina simply could not comprehend that – to go to university but not to study, to get the diploma but not work in the field!
It seemed that Konstantin Kolotozashvili also could not comprehend this – Dina heard rumors that Arthur had to try five times to pass every exam, and that Konstantin Konstantinovich was tortured every semester in the Chancellor’s office, who made him change Arthur’s mark from “Satis.” or “Unsatis.” to “Good.” Then they would send Davlatyan to another teacher to retake the exam, who would then give him a four.
Dina occasionally considered Arthur as a possible partner. Especially as he had paid her special attention since first year, and even invited her to Armenia with him every summer. He told Dina that she would not have pay anything for the trip, that he would buy her the tickets and food, and even new clothes, and that he would take her to sea, whichever one she prefers, the Black Sea or the Caspian Sea…
When Dina told her mother about this, her mom started to actively persuade her daughter to go with Arthur to his homeland. But the Inner Voice, although brief, persistently told her not to go. “Don’t… don’t…” it repeated quietly but very firmly.
Dina never told her mom about Arthur again, and in response to questions about him, said that he had a long-term girlfriend. What if Dina told her mother that Arthur was proposing to marry her in the last year of university, and for her to go to Armenia, where she could live like a queen?
Dina did like Arthur. He was courteous, well-mannered and generous. She liked his appearance too. He was tall, slender, with slightly darker skin, beautiful hands and dark, kind eyes. Once, not so long ago, just before this spring term, Arthur had almost kissed Dina…
She had written him a rough draft of a term paper, and as usual, he had taken something tasty out of the cupboard, placed it on the table, and hugged Dina. Dina stood up from the chair and looked at him in surprise. He took her by the shoulders and brought his face close to hers. He was looking into her eyes, as if asking: May I? If he had not asked, Dina would have been all for it. She had never kissed anyone as an adult. She even got nervous as she waited for the kiss. But he was waiting for her permission, which she did not like. She said, “Don’t, Arthur.”
Arthur dropped his thick eyelashes over his eyes, smiled slightly, and let Dina go.
And Dina had left his room without taking the packet of dried fruit, back to the three-person room where four girls lived.
If Dina became the wife of Arthur Davlatyan, she would live with him in his very non-student-like room with carpets on the floor and the wall, the KVN television set and the Comet tape player. But she was not sure that she loved Arthur. It was one thing to like someone, but love… love was something else completely, Dina was sure of it, so she continued to live in the cramped room with one table for four people.
Neighbors
“Did you pass?” Vera and Valya asked almost in unison when Dina appeared in the doorway.
They sat on either side of the rectangular table, which served as both a desk and a kitchen table, with their books and notebooks spread out. Dina’s artisanal cheat sheets lay in two piles at the edge of the table.
Vera and Valya were studying in a parallel group, so their exam with Konstantin Konstantinovich Kolotozashvili was tomorrow.
“Did you have any doubts?” replied Dina, and started changing.
“About what?” asked Valya.
“Ask something more interesting!” said Vera and threw a curious glance at Dina. “You got a five, I bet.”
“Really?” asked Valya incredulously.
Dina did not reply, taking off the whispering weightless cloak and changing into her fur-trimmed home slippers, which were slightly worn out but still quite neat.
She approached the table, looked over Vera’s shoulder into her notebook, then at the book, turned a few pages and said:
“You should memorize this. Kokon always fails people on the additional questions.”
“Kokon fails everyone on everything,” Valya said quietly.
Valya came from a village in the Vologda Oblast and could not get used to the big city even after four years. She spoke quietly, either because of her strict domestic upbringing, or because she was embarrassed by her country accent and provincial appearance, or maybe because of all of the above.
Once, Valya had asked Dina to work with her on grammar and pronunciation, flushing with embarrassment. Dina had written out a long list of Valya’s mistakes, which she had successfully fixed during the academic year. It was only the characteristic okanye1 that seemed incurable.
“Yes. Everything,” said Dina. “But this is his favorite this term.”
Vera rushed over to the larger pile of cheat sheets and started rustling through it, looking for the right one.
“What did you get?” she asked.
Dina replied calmly:
“That’s what I got.” She added after a pause, “But he gave me five points automatically.”
Both girls stared at Dina in amazement. “Kokon?! Automatically?!”
Dina sat down on her bed and leaned back against the pillow. “Well, not quite, not automatically… semi-automatically.”
Vera and Valya again exclaimed almost at the same time, “Semi-automatically? What does that mean?”
“I took a question sheet, prepared my answer, approached the table and sat down, and then he said to me: ‘I don’t doubt your knowledge and won’t waste time asking you.’ He didn’t even look at my draft.”
Vera tsked. “What a beast! Why couldn’t
Okanye – A particular way of pronouncing the vowels ‘a’ and ‘o’, characteristic of certain Russian dialects