Текст книги "Uninvented Stories of Invented People"
Автор книги: Svetlana Isaenko
Жанр:
Современная проза
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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 5 страниц)
I go to the pharmacy and announce the list of medicines to the pharmacist. She obediently assembles the package and declares: “672 hryvnia, please.” I open up my wallet and there is one single 200-hryvnia bill in it. ‘And nothing on the cards, damn it.’ Then, it has dawned upon me: “Alevtina’s gift! Bingo!” I hesitate … I get into the envelope, take out the sacred five-hundred note, pay and leave.
“Misha’s in need of it more than Alevtina’s in need of a new lip-gloss.”
I go back to the hospital. Ring the door of the 29th department. A nurse opens up. I hold out the package.
“Today it’s Michael’s birthday. That’s his gift.” “What birthday, Miss Clover? We are unaware of…”
“Who cares? Let it be today,” I smile and say goodbye.
The nurse stands puzzled. I arrive at of Alevtina’s feast of life. Everyone is dressed up and in the full play, while I am hardly able to speak. I’m tired.
“Oh, Marie, you are not joyful today,” Alevtina notes disappointedly. “Hon, just after the shift and I am without a gift, will congratulate you
later.”
“No worries, sweety. That’s okay! It’s cool you could make it and you remember, I love useful gifts, preferably in cash equivalent,” she winks at me.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s just I have forgotten your gift at home.”
“It’s fine, yet, in fact I was counting on the one from you. Anyways, on Tuesday, I will go to buy myself a present from all of you, guys. I’ve put an eye on such a purse in Symbol Boutique… It’s Gucci and it’s awesome. You’ll die of envy when you see it.”
“Of course, Al’,” I pronounce wearily and, sincerely, don’t understand what
I was doing there.
There is a great deal of people there, all beautiful, many go in pairs. I’ve greeted everyone. At the end of the table, I see a white shirt and a bald head and a bunch of young chicks in extremely short dresses around…
“Vova!”
I get up, hug him, we haven’t seen each other for three years. “Hi! So good to see you! How are you, my darling?”
“Ohhh,… Marie, hello dear. I’m cool and you don’t seem to be very well.
You’ve grown completely thin.” “I’m fine.”
“Wann’a shot of something?”
“Nope, I’m to drive home today. Can’t.”
“Come on, you are all out of face. You are not going to your Lyubomyrovka, drink one for Alevtina’s health, he leans over to me and adds in whisper: “Frankly, I don’t understand what I am doing here.”
“Vovka, frankly, neither do I,” I laugh.
Vova is a big shot. In his younger years he became the chief of the district police department. Quite a catch for any girl. He’s good-looking, tall, athletic, with blue eyes and money, unshaven, with a fancy car and stuff. Nevertheless, still no lady to be ‘the shape of his heart’. He smells of luxury life.
He pours whiskey into a glass, hands it to me and says: “Drink”. “Happy birthday, Alevtina. Whooha!”
We woke up in one and the same bed in the morning…
Chapter Seven
•Alevtina •
Alevtina came into my life when I was three years old. We were like sisters. She was a bright, eye-catching girl, but a 'victim' in the head. She needed to suffer, to be concerned about and literally needed men “to wipe their feet over her”. Yet, she dreamed of a prince charming, whom she would serve, since, in her opinion, a woman’s sex-role task should have been just like that. Coming over in the middle of the night “to save Oleg, because he was lonely and sad, and needed me” – easy. It didn’t matter that Oleg called her only at such moments, when he was bored of sitting alone in the kitchen, after a three-day alcohol marathon with chicks and drugs, when all the adequate ones had already been fed up with his post-weekend crap. Whereas, she considered it to be her vital necessity and a perseonal fulfillment of her woman’s nature.
In fact, Alevtina had issues with self-esteem. None of the crippled Alpha males was rescued and, as a result, there she was, a 30-year-old savior of married alco-drug twaddlers, anticipating her prince of Wales alone.
Lo and behold, one day he burst into her mortal life. Handsome as God (in her words), however, a bit limped and with one eye skew. Yet, he held all the virtues, the spirit and soul, the charisma, the fortune, with inexhaustible vital energy, which would extinct without a woman of his dream, since all the previous ones made him suffer. “He is the ONE!” stated Alevtina and naively threw herself into the overwhelming affair.
They met at a party of common friends. Our hero’s name was Simon and he was the owner of an advertising agency. He was thirty-eight. He was a tall, a bit askew and lame, curly blond. A spark of light flashed between them at the first glance. There was a restaurant, a night club, a karaoke and a breakfast, then the night club again and so it went on for three days in a row. Alevtina and Simon were a finger and a thumb. A noisy company was replaced by sitting down at his place. That was the way she found Him.
Alevtina lived in Kiev at that time and soon her smart phone reminded of the ticket back home.
“I have never had anything like this, give birth to my children,” muttered he waking up one morning.
Alevtina’s heart pulled back for a second and joyfully fluttered of such long-awaited words. In her mind, she had already quitted the job of an MP assistant and moved to nurse her three future kids into a mansion on the banks of Dnieper Bay in Koncha-Zaspa, acquired two seconds before in Alevtina’s imagination.
“Don’t rush me,” she whispered playfully, removing all the means of contraception from her lover. However, the plan conceived by the both was not destined to work out due to a number of reasons drank. That night he had a “false heart attack” (I quote the ambulance medic) and nightlong she was applying fomentations to his head, smearing his chest with tiger balm, stroking his feet and listening to the story of the tough life of his, where Alevtina “would be the most beautiful thing to happen, if I die.”
He recovered in the morning and took her to the railway station. Thousands of messages per week and then he came to visit her in Kiev. It was Spring. The air was fragrant of chestnut blossom. They were tête-à-tête with Khreshchatyk street downtown.
It was his second cousin’s birthday. She had nothing to wear for that evening introduction to the future relatives. (Which was announced purely for bravado reasons, since Alevtina knew from clever books and close friends’ advice that: ‘a man’s appreciation is directly bound to the amount of money he spends on a woman, which, in turn, equivalently reflects the feminine energy balance of the latter’). They came to the Central Department Store, visited dozens of boutiques, tried dozens of dresses on, but tough was the luck, everything was “not worthy of her.” Even Jimmy Choo’s boots made her ‘look hideously chubby, in fact’, while discounted slippers fit incredibly well ‘the extremely beautiful leg for future vacation”.
What an incredible birthday it was: kisses, holding by hands, lots of wine. Then, there was Alevtina’s tale about her former boyfriends – big shots and sharks of business (well, she decorated the story a bit, but who wouldn’t), with his reaction of: “I’m probably not worthy of you.” Alevtina burst into tears (like I said – lots of wine). Then, were vows of undying love, hugs and a night of passion, when he finally made it to reveal himself as a man…
Railway station was followed up by tears again.
“I love you. We are going to call our first daughter Amelie!” “I love you too…”
They both kissed each other’s hands at parting for a long time…
A persistent call wakes me up early in the morning. Half-awake I hear Alevtina’s wild sobs:
“Marie, he died!”
“What do you mean by ‘died’?” I jumped out of the bed completely unaware of where to call or run and how to be of help.
“What has happened?”
Simon was none of my close acquaintance, yet was close enough to let the emotional numbing and burning into my body. While I was frantically going over our friends in common in my mind, I heard on the other end of the line:
“He doesn’t answer my messages and calls for 24 hours.”
“Alevtina, stop! How did you come to the idea of his death?” confused I began to analyze.
“What do you mean by ‘How’? How in your opinion can it be explained that he doesn’t text me in reply and would not pick up the phone?”
Two days later, a miracle happened. WhatsApp and Viber showed that the owner of the phone was alive and read her dismal messages of ache, sorrow, grief and impossibility of life without her “sweet Simie”.
However, after the first clarifications of the situation and life instructions Alevtina’s anxiety about Simon’s possible death did not vanish.
“These are the morgue attendants. They hacked his phone.” However,
when his animate flash appeared in Instagram, against the backgrounds of Egyptian provinces, yet, at evident absence of Alevtina’s new slippers, the arguments in favor of death were replaced by facts, in favor of the ‘douche bag’ attitude (I shall not quote the direct speech for moral and ethical reasons).
Through my persuasions and psychotherapeutic assistance, we, nevertheless, came to the conclusion “that he had just tragically passed away as a personality.” Yet, she could not take that blow. It took lots of tears, thoughts, hours of talking and scrolling through the plot:
“What if I were like that then … but I had to do the other way, it’s my fault, I frightened him away, I’m not good enough” and tears again.
“We were meant for each other…” tears, tears and tears.
“He could have just told me to fuck off, said at least something. It’s unbearable. What happened?”
Alevtina had a difficult period of “blocking Simon”, when in fact she was
banned everywhere by him. Nevertheless, the time heals.
Three months later
Alevtina got back to Kharkov and smile appeared on her face over and over again. The issue gradually lost its relevance.
Once we were sitting in a restaurant. My longtime acquaintance, a successful business woman, a young, beautiful and erudite person, who had just gone through a divorce process, arrived. It was a summer evening, full of laughter, hearty talks, memories of old happy times along with a delicious dinner.
“I don’t understand men,” says leggy beautiful Christina.
“What do they want? We are young, successful, without a “trailer”, interesting, capable to converse, sexy, well-groomed and good looking, while having a soul mate is still an issue to us. It’s time to have children and we are still unable to find suitable fathers.”
“True, I have recently had a story. I met a young man in the train from Kiev to Kharkov. We talked all night through about Tesla, pace and Dostoyevskiy. He captured me by his erudition and beautiful courtship, brought flowers, sent fruits and medicines when I got ill, showed concern. Then, all of a sudden, he disappeared, just was up and off. Did not answer either calls or messages. Despite the fact that he limped a bit and had one eye askew…”
That sepulchral sound, with admixture of coughing and choking, followed by a creaky lightning-fast question from somewhere in the depths:
“Simon?” I will remember for the rest of my life. “Yeah, Simon, why?” asked Christina with surprise.
That evening, neither I, nor Alevtina or Christina fell asleep. I think Simon stayed awake too, since his ears should have been blushing like hell.
Perhaps, hereon I shall bring down the curtain for this interesting and informative story about Alevtina in this context, in order not to deface her in front of the reader.
To draw the bottom line: the core of our problems dwell in our beHEAVYor patterns.
P.S. And yes! You Simon, burn in Hell too!
Chapter Eight
•Bun •
“Marie, where is my car?” I see Vova’s a frightened look. “What do you mean, ‘where’? It’s at the parking lot.”
“Holy fuck, how did we drive back? Did we sleep together? I don’t remember a shit.”
“Come on, dear. Too many questions, but you drank clearely too much. We didn’t sleep for sure, since I don’t take advantage of drunken men,” I cheerfully wink at him.
“To the point. We were drinking at Alya’s birthday party, then you realized it wasn’t enough, and after yours ‘We’re gonna sort it out,’ we went to your “chicks” at the Pole Dancer. On our way, we were stopped by the police and quickly changed our places so that they didn’t see you being drunk as skunk. When they approached, you showed them your ‘Soldier of Liberty’ ID and I was driving us from that point on. All the chicks at the bar counter in the club were drinking at your account and then you switched off right there at the counter. I laid your unconscious body over my tender shoulders, since hardly was there anyone willing to help, and dragged you home. Somewhere in the middle of the stair case you woke up and started shoving and resisting because of: ‘I haven’t sung my song yet.’ Therefore, I had to call for a sober driver and, after all, by way of tenderness and persuasions, I brought you home. You puked right in the bed, but everything was washed and you were bathed. We had had a lot of fun for sure, but the problem is that it is alcoholism that you suffer , Vova. You could choke and since you hold a certain social position, that kind of behavior is inadmissible.”
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