Beach novels / Varga V. V. - М.: Varga V. V. , 2019. - 176 p.:[2] pic.
Vassily Varga graduated from Dnepropetrovsk State University in 1964. He taught aesthetics. For twenty years, he worked as a director of vocational school No. 55 in Moscow. Honored teacher of Russia. He engaged in literary activity in his mature years. He has been published in Germany and Canada. But most of the works published in Moscow. These are the novels "Red Plague", "Wasp"s nest", "The morals of new Russians", "Obscurant chords", "Ukraine leaps", "Orange distemper", "Pedagogical metamorphosis", "Soldier of the Soviet Army", "Miss swindler".
The "Beach novels" holds a special place among other works. The eternal dispute that someone is guiding us, no matter what our will and our desires are, that everybody"s destiny is predetermined goes through the pages of the book.
УДК 82-3
ББК 84
љ VARGA V. V., 2019
1
Sonya"s mother, together with the younger sister Nadia left for the country house on Friday after working hours by train from Kursky station. There were lots of people, and the season when every Muscovite got a car, was yet to come, so no one gave the stink eye to those who got to their Moscow suburb dacha by relay.
"By all means, I will have a car, Nadia thought, leaning against a busy bench where Valentina Ivanovna, her mother, sat. - I will marry only someone who already has his own car. Even Moskvich - the most pathetic car." This time, the older sister Sonya stayed in Moscow to arrive in the first half on Saturday, when there are already fewer passengers and it"s easier to travel with bags. Sonya got a things-to-do list and it was quite massive, especially since Sonya was the strongest among the three, taller and more well-built, though moderately plump. Sonya woke up at ten in the morning, visited to the bathroom, washed her face with cool water and did not use a towel to moisturize her face, but returned to the bedroom to tidy herself up. Then there was the mirror, makeup, light breakfast and a TV show. She had to go to the shops in the morning, but she knew that there were tons of people in the morning and decided to postpone shopping until later. The decision was unconscious: she just wanted to see how this episode would end with two sisters in love with the same gentleman, unable to agree with each other. At noon, armed with two capacious bags, Sonya left the house and walked along the familiar street like a queen along the path of her kingdom. Willowy, tall, well-built physique, with a chary but charming smile on her face, many young people thought of her as if she was too high and completely unapproachable. It turned out somehow that her virtues did herself a disservice. That"s why she, poor thing, has always suffered from loneliness. Already twenty-four, and she is all alone, already twenty-four, and she is still innocent.
By the merest accident, I came out of my office to get some fresh air and headed along Chongarsky Boulevard towards the Varshavskaya metro station. Just before the intersection, I saw a slim girl with two full bags, rushing to bypass the intersection under yellow light, but somehow she was confused, hesitated, and the tram was already some thirty steps away. I flew into the intersection, grabbed both bags in one hand, and squeezed her hand tightly with the other, shouting:
"Run! After me!"
She ran, with her right shoe remaining at the crossroads. The tram passed, but did not damage it. I put the bags against a tree on the side of the road, brought the shoe from the intersection, and again grabbed the stranger girl, now by the elbow, to comfort her and give her the chance to put on the lost shoe.
"What"s wrong, can"t you see well?" I asked her. "I forgot my glasses at home," she said guiltily. "What is your name?"
"Sonya. I am endlessly thankful. You saved my life", she said, looking tenderly at me.
"Thanks do not fill a purse. You can"t get off like that", I said mischievously.
"What else should I do to thank you?" "Aleksandr Pavlovich", I introduced myself. "You should have lunch with me. There"s the restaurant Crimea nearby. I"m inviting you. We can go on my car, it"s near. And we can hide your bags in there. What do you think?"
"Some other time. I"m in a hurry. I have to take these bags to the country house... with a train. It"s forty kilometers away from here. I got people waiting for me. And these goddamn bags are heavy." "That"s okay, we"ll grab a bite and I"ll drive you. Forty kilometers is nothing."
"Ok then", Sonya said and made a move to take full, weighty bags.
"Sonya, let me do this. I can"t let a girl walk with heavy bags next to me, light-handed. It"s unnatural. Or better stay here, I"ll start the engine, and then stop here."
Having said these words, I was already running to my foreign-made car and soon we together with Sonya were going up to the second floor of the Crimea restaurant. Waitresses immediately ran up and started asking what to serve, interrupting each other.
"A little bit of everything. Don"t forget the champagne and cognac."
We sat down with Sonya at the window with a tight curtain in the shade, a kind of paradise for two, a place where we could talk in confidence. "She"s made for pleasure," I thought, looking at her strong, wiry hands and dense, sloping shoulders. "I"ve got to win over her, she"s a pretty mare, the bones will crunch if she presses me. I"ll offer her to go deep into the forest. As soon as it happens, I"ll start to please her. If she hasn"t had anyone for a long time, she won"t resist. There is a drop of sweat on her wide white forehead. She"s excited."
Both of us were well dressed and the atmosphere favored a trusting conversation and overcoming the barrier after which people get closer to each other, but I noticed that Sonya was concerned about something: she clearly wanted to ask me, but hesitated, and then she said, "Are you married?"
The champagne was already open, the cognac had been spilled over the glasses, the chaser was arousing appetite and I answered without hesitation:
"Yes."
Sonya turned pale, then grey, a noticeable grimace distorted her pretty face. She got up, well rather jumped, and, without asking where her bags were, jumped out into the street. Stunned, I followed the fugitive without thinking of getting behind the wheel. I had to step up, as she didn"t seem to be going, but rather running towards the subway. I caught up with her, grabbed her hand, and sat her down on the bench.
"Sonya, what happened? I didn"t seem to hurt you with anything. I told you the truth. I could have fooled you. And then, a married man is not a criminal. Things happen in life. I"m not asking you if you"re married or not, it"s not that important to me. What matter is that I like you. And how things are gonna go on, none of us know. And what if... in two years we get married? There"s no seal on my forehead that I am married. Well, I married by stupidity, I was young, and then it turned out that it was a serious mistake, which can still be corrected. "I don"t mess with married men. Let me go home. I know what you want from me."
Sonya tried to get up, but I held her back.
"Sit down for a while, I"ll let you go, okay then. One can"t win love by force. And what I want from you, everyone knows it. Well, I don"t need your shoes or the bags that are left in the car. If I didn"t need what all men need from you, I wouldn"t be chasing you like a wolf chases a chamois. Poor is a girl who isn"t being chased by anyone."
Sonya changed in her face for a little bit. My words convinced her of many things. Moreover, they seemed to hit her mind. Nevertheless, she proudly said:
"Exactly! Goodbye." "And the bags?"
"Bring it in, I"m standing here."
A few minutes passed, and I was already next to Sonya.
"Sit down!"
"I will get there myself."
"I said, sit down. Or I"ll force you and take to the other side. And there I"ll undress you, kiss and make you so sweet that you don"t want to go home. Understand?"
"Exactly! That is what you want."
"Okay, I was kidding. Sit down and tell me where to go."
"Straight ahead, then left." She sat down next to me, stared right at me and then laughed. "Sonya, I"m not such a freak to force you to do something. Remember what I told you."
"Girls are always afraid or pretending to be afraid, but they want it to last."
"And men pretend that nothing happens, but continue to strive for what they want."
"The same awaits me." "I don"t know yet."
"At least, tell me to prepare myself." "And what are you capable of?"
"A painful blow in the most delicate place."
"So, you want to make me disabled? Is it payback for lifting you for free?"
"And you stay away from me."
"It"s not me who"s trying to get you. That"s the bully who"s so sick he"s about to vomit. He"s looking for a place to find shelter. The best place you have is the one you hide so much."
"I didn"t think you were so slutty."
"Okay, Sonya, never mind. You better tell me..." "Here we are. Mom, it"s a taxi. I don"t know how much he will ask for. Ah, my mother"s name is Valentina Ivanovna, and my sister is Nadia."
"No, I won"t come," I said. "First, you pay, and then..."
"And how much do we owe you?" Valentina Ivanovna asked.
"Give me Sonya. And I don"t need anything else." Sonya twisted a three-finger combination, a nonentity sign, and thrust it under my nose, but so that her mother wouldn"t see it.
"Where did you get such a handsome guy?" Nadia asked her sister, but so that no one would hear.
"Take him, I don"t need him. He"s already tried to get under my skirt."
"You"re a fool. That"s a good thing. Introduce me to him."
"And maybe this?" Now the nonentity sign was under the sister"s nose.
I unloaded the bags and went to look at the estate. With the unaided eye, one could see that the dacha had not been repaired for a long time. Most importantly, it lacked a strong man. In many places, the slate split in two apparently under the weight of the winter snow, the crossbars were not in place, and the woodshed barely kept in place.
"Do you have a hammer, nails? Valentina Ivanovna, where are you?"
"Here I am, sweet pea. Feasting my eyes on you. I wish I had such a son-in-law. Cause I just heard what a hammer is."
"Mom, he"s all rusty," Nadia said, taking it off the floor, where it was lying still, trampled with a slightly rotten handle. "I know how to knock with a hammer a little bit. After the third time I will definitely hit the nail."
"The finger," Sonya giggled. "Shut up, lanky girl."
"You know what? You three go take a walk," said Valentina Ivanovna, "I"ll make dinner. There are also ponds here, and a kindergarten, neglected though. Go back in two or even three hours. Okay? That"s good."
I noticed that the three of them all somehow cheered up and there were many reasons for that. Until now, they, the three women, had come to their modest dacha as a women"s group, and had behaved modestly: no one knocked with an axe or a hammer, while the neighbors around them were rattling all day long, even on holidays. In general, any holiday is an opportunity to work in their country house. And now there was a car in the yard, and everyone came to life - not walking, but jumping, chirping like magpies, like something happened that happens rarely, if not for the first time. Well, break a leg!
I took Sonya by the hand, but Nadia was already there on the left side.
"Me too, sister, no offence, I have to enjoy the smell of a man. Hee-hee."
"Let"s make it three-way. Though you"re both young, and I... get white and gray," I said, not reacting to how Nadia pinched me.
"It"s okay, we"ll shake it up, won"t we, Sonya?" "Shot up, magpie. When I was 21, I was a different, more focused, more concentrated, indisposed to talk rubbish," Sonya said to her sister to annoy her as much as possible and make her shut up. "It"s okay," I said. "Your sister"s a big joker, and if you pull her ponytail, she"ll run away immediately, or even kick your ass, won"t you, Nadia?"
"Maybe I will, maybe I won"t, who knows," Nadia said and broke free to spin around a small lake with opaque water.
As we were going deep into the oak forest, Nadia disappeared, giving us a chance to be alone with Sonya. However, Sonya became silent, a bit with drawn and always tended to walk alone pretending she was searching for mushrooms. I tolerated her antics for a long time, but when she confessed that there were no mushrooms in the woods, I firmly pressed her to me with my whole body. She didn"t fight back, but silently bowed her head on my shoulder and said only the words: "I"ll eat you". Then I realized that Sonya was mine. I smelled her body like a bull before mating with a cow to get aroused.
"What are you doing? You"re gonna stab me. You know, I"m still virgin."
"We have to end this," I said, and I bit into her lips. "Let"s do it right now."
"What? You"re such a gentleman! You met me today, disgraced me today, and tomorrow you"re gone."
"Anything can happen. You"re right. Come on, because your mother is waiting."
2
When we got back, Nadia was already home. She seemed to have lost interest in us. She dragged and sorted colorful balls, small pieces of cloth, embroidered colorful images and did not raise her head as I walked by. She showed a loss of interest in me and Sonya, even in her mother.
"Hey, you clumsy girls, get off your asses and help your mother set the table."
"I can replace Nadia," I said, rolling up my sleeves. "I"ll bring plates, pans, and napkins." "No, you are the only man here, and there"s so plenty of womenfolk. How can we let you do that? How? Hey, do you hear what I said?" Valentina Ivanovna said, raising her voice.
I went to the car, opened the trunk, and took out three bottles of champagne and a bottle of cognac. "I should have put it in the fridge, but it"s broken," Valentina Ivanovna lamented.
"The wire has no contact. Let me see. Give me screwdriver and tongs."
"Nadia, look for it," the mother ordered. "It"s you who is in charge of our workshop."
Nadia got up reluctantly, and then found something like a screwdriver and tongs.
"Maybe you can try these."
One end of the wire came off, and there was no current. In addition, the part of the fridge where the wire was attached got rusted and required cleaning. I had to use a kitchen knife. Yet the fridge buzzed, lit up, and the ladies greeted it with cheers. We sat down to dinner at six in the evening. The dinner began with toasts. These toasts came from me as the only man. Then Valentina Ivanovna continued with the toasts. There was some kind of frustration and sorrow about their lonely life in these toasts. Her husband died thirteen years ago, leaving a decent legacy to their two daughters. A three-bedroom apartment almost in the center of Moscow on the second floor, a dacha and a decent land lot, and two kilograms of gold coins of the tsar"s minting. Gold, however, is forbidden, one can get into prison, but after all, once the ban will be lit, she hopes. The girls are modest, hardworking. Sonya has graduated from the Pedagogical Institute, while Nadia still studies. God give them happiness... in a family.
It was the best, smartest toast and I couldn"t help but have a drink to the bottom: cognac with champagne for me, and clear champagne for women.
My future mother-in-law was waiting for a return toast, but I haven"t had a toast like that yet, and I murmured something, and, as a token of my defeat, I drank another glass, and the girls supported me. All in all, by eight o"clock, we all got drunk that much, so that there could be no question of my departure, and Sonya did not know how to hold the wheel.
"It"s okay. We will place Aleksandr Pavlovich in the master bedroom with the girls. The big bed will be taken by Sonya and Nadia, and the guest will take a separate one by the window. I will go up to the second floor. There is excessive ventilation though, but it"s summer, isn"t it?"
"Whatever!" I waved my hand. "We don"t mind", Nadia said.
I faintly remember much what happened next. I remember waking up at about three in the morning, when the walls were already getting white, there were birds" voices somewhere far away out side, and I had to go outside to make water. Like a thief, I opened the door with the key sticking out of my keyhole and went outside. The air seemed cold, but extremely fresh, so I woke up completely.
"Where are Sonya and Nadia? Am I alone or something?"
Back in the room as quietly and carefully stepping, I approached the bed where Sonya was peacefully snoring, lying on her side. Having taken off my shirt, in my underwears, where Mr. Weenie was already raising the devil, I lifted the blanket and slipped down to Sonya"s side. She tried to turn still in her sleep, but I grabbed her shoulders and leaned against her, her hot body with all my height. She opened her eyes, as she felt me leaning against her belly below her belly button, and froze: a hot stream slashed down her back and stuck down below, at the very place I wanted to go, in the very place I was aiming for.
She turned abruptly on her back and said in a patter:
"Do it, do it now! There is no way out, anyway, it"s got to happen someday."
"Good girl," I said, kissing her on her burning cheeks. "But you have to get rid of your clothes." "Oh, yes, right. I"ll do it myself. And you do it yourself."
When I found the black hairy triangle, I was deliriously happy. This treasure belonged to me and I could do with it whatever I wanted. But first, I have to check, what"s there in depth. I remember stroking that triangle with my palm, and then I don"t remember anything. This little cave, which was always closed to the shutter, boiled my whole body pretty fast, and I lay blissfully next to Sonya, with my hands stretched out.
She lifted herself up, leaned over my face and drunk eyes, and asked me with a triumphant smile: "Well, look at him! It died so fast. I wish I could see it."
"Look," I agreed.
She raised the blanket.
"Oops, how small it is. Will it stay that way? Can it be revived?"
"You can."
"How can I do that?"
"You need to put your hand around it and squeeze, then let it go, then squeeze again."
"Hum, the manipulation is quite simple. Here it is, it comes to life. This is what we need. All four subsequent sessions were successful. We only got up at 12 o"clock to get something to eat. Valentina Ivanovna got it all right, she did not ask any questions, but looked at me differently, as a real mother-in-law at her weakly son-in-law. Nadia also lightened up. Striking the right the moment, she approached Sonya and quietly asked:
"How was it?"
"Like this!" Sonya answered by raising a thumb upwards.
"Share him with me for one night."
Sonya scratched her a little bit blinded eyes, already poured with blood and, not giving the opportunity to object, she minted clearly:
"Remember, that small prick that only men have cannot be shared by any blind, lame, stupid, woman with a friend, neighbor, sister, or even mother. Understand? that"s it!"
"Huh, yeah, I"m just prying you on. You don"t understand jokes. I"d never do the way you think, even if I liked him, bear in mind."
* * *
I knew my mother-in-law was expecting from me and I anticipated her demand.
"I tell you what, Valentina Ivanovna, you need something here to be fixed, or rather do some repairs. I don"t have enough time myself, but I can send my workers, five people and they will do everything in three or four days. However, they need to be fed. Well, somewhere to stand a bottle, something to smoke, it is called "oil the hand", so that the work went well. Will you take on such a commitment? Or is it a problem for you?"
"Alright then, Aleksandr Pavlovich! As for the pay... I am not as strong with that regard as you think I am."
"You shouldn"t worry about that. They receive their salaries at the plant and will receive them, no matter where they work, it"s not that important." "Well, this is acceptable."
On Sunday, closer to sunset, I was going to leave and wondered if Sonya would come with me to Moscow or stay at the country house. I left it for Sonya to decide. Sonya hesitated, to go or stay in the country house. After two lyrical nights she was exhausted, her eyelids were closing all the time, and in the end, she expressed a desire to stay. I didn"t insist on travelling together, and Sonya couldn"t guess the reason. We had a 20-year difference in age. It wasn"t that little and it wasn"t that much. But I, a slightly grey-haired lover, was a very experienced and demanding lover, and Sonya, that young mouse, did not suit me. She gave herself as if she were doing some tedious job, and not a single muscle on her face trembled during the intimacy. Not to mention any kind of prelude to pleasure - it was out of the question.
"Sonya, you give yourself as if you were sawing a log," I told her once when I was fed up with her behavior. "Don"t you feel anything when I"m on top of the bliss? I feel like I"m just moving my finger over your knee."
"I"m giving all of me to you, what more do you want?" she asked, frowning her face, already gloomy enough.
3
I went home thinking on the way home that millions of people live in everyday dullness: they guzzle vodka, they swear, mate to make their offspring, scolding sex, because there is a reason to scold not only husbands, but also wives who are prone to love affairs. I"ll say! When mothers leave not only their husbands, but also three children and go with some macho to live in a dorm, in one small room with a shared kitchen, even with an outside toilet. Why? That"s because the night is sweet, like honey. And no one can stand it. And the thing that dimwitted people like to scold and vilify so much, something really means.
"No, Sonya"s future husband will definitely have a bit on the side. What could I do to enlighten her, at least a little? No, I will not succeed. Her sister Nadia could, but who knows how much she is enlightened in the field of juicy life. It"s a pity that we have none teaches it anywhere. Marxism has filled all the gaps in science and the lives of illiterate people."
On Monday afternoon, Sonya appeared in my waiting room with a lot of makeup on her face. Long legs, like sticks were sticking out from under a short skirt, and a smile was past her ears. It was the first time she appeared in our institution, so she did not have any conversations with the secretaries, waiting for a call.
Finally, I pressed the button. She walked in with a majestic gait and without waiting for an invitation, sat down in the visitor"s chair.
"Well, I"m here." "I can see that."
"Kiss here," she said, pointing at her chin with her finger.
"This is not the place to kiss."
"Whatever," she cut it off. "Actually, I came to ask for a job. Take me somewhere so you don"t have to support me. I"m a whimsical bed-warmer."
I got scared. I was kind of ashamed. But it seemed like it was true. Not so old bastard with his my own car, the director of a small factory, but still a factory, rather than a bathhouse, and a young woman, who hadn"t yet had time to spend her energy with different men, and who would now lie under Aleksandr Pavlovich at first call, quite a woman who would have another life from now on. She will give her body and receive all the benefits of life.
I immediately find the right words to say.
"You know, bed-warmer, I"ve been offered to set up a professional development department, and I"m going to propose you as the deputy head of the department. Can you cope with it? You can"t refer to me, you can"t talk too much and you can"t hint at any relations. God forbid."
"The offer is not bad, but I"d like to do something like to show up, hang around, and then make up my face, clean up and wait for you in a very short skirt without panties. Can we do like this?"
"No."
"Then I gotta go. Ciao!"
"Don"t be a fickle, sit down! Of course, if you wait, if we think about it, then in three months, maybe four, something will be available, and then I will invite you, fawn."
"Oh, you"re my overmature yeanling, if I could have foreseen that you would be so intransigent.
Whether you are greedy or not, I will know very soon. Bye... Though, I"m waiting for you today after three, mind you. But my home is as bare as the palm of your hand. Mom says: you are independent now, and if something happens, you will take care of me and Nadia. This goat looks like a generous stud, he brought three bottles of champagne and even cognac, everybody was totally drunk, and suddenly you lost your underwear, as soon as we started to snore with Nadia."
"I went out and gave them a chance to dirty themselves," said the sister. "So, as you can see, there are plenty of witnesses. Tee-hee."
I stood up, kissed her on the cheek, but she turned around and dug into my lips. The front door squeaked. It was the chairman of the local committee breaking through. I pushed her away, quickly sat in the chair, and said too quickly:
"Come in, Fyodor Moiseyevich."
The visit of the chairman of the local committee was trifling, just a small talk, but cunning Fyodor liked to notice something, to learn something, under a mask of a friendly affection to the director, that then there was something for him to reflect on. But this time he overdid it.
"I must say, Aleksandr Pavlovich, that these pancakes don"t do us any good. Of course, you are young and handsome, and any of our ladies would be glad to conquer your heart, and then, immediately drag you into bed, but you hold on. Well done! This is good. However, you should develop the same tactic with respect to any visitor who has nothing to do with our team. Imagine that it wasn"t me who came to the room, but someone else. I come in, and see the director kissing deeply with a young lady. What a shame!"
"Fyodor Moiseyevich, after all you"re a man, not a gossip girl, and you can come in at any time without asking the secretary for permission according to your status. If you want, I will change that status. Next, there is a secular way of behaving. The lady came in, I have to reach out to her, and when she says goodbye, I have to kiss her on the cheek. I did my part, but suddenly she, a slut, as a token of her special affection, dug into my lips. I cannot rule out that in a certain place, under certain circumstances, she could have done something more. So what of it? Where is the moral decay that contradicts the communist morals?"
"It"s true, but you"re a family man and you have a young wife... beautiful and friendly..."
"Fyodor Moiseyevich, do you want to get into my family like threesome: is Fyodor with us?"
"Oh, don"t say that, Aleksandr Pavlovich, dear! I only care about you, about your authority. You have a very high, uhm, authority, and I am with you, God knows."
"In that case, do not go where you are not asked to. That"s it, I wish you to achieve higher results in socialist competition," I said a killer phrase, reaching out to Fyodor Moiseyevich.
* * *
At half-past three, loaded with bags, I was already at Sonya"s, in her huge three-room apartment with a small kitchen, equipped with gas heating. There were no sofas or good chairs in the three rooms, many places had no light bulbs on, and the linoleum on the floor was scratched in many places. One cupboard was empty and the other was sticking out, with a door resting on the floor. I wanted to say it was no good, but I recalled that there were only women living here, fell silent gritting my teeth.
Sonya immediately threw on her robe, covering all her sexy charms, grabbed a knife and started peeling potatoes. As for the potatoes, she was a real craftswoman, and as for other, more refined products and their preparation, she sailed like a sailor with hands and feet tied.
I myself had to get involved, and soon the proletarian dinner was ready, and Sonya could take off her robe.
Remembering our last dinner together, when we got drunk like pigs, I only filled up the bottom with alcohol and Sonya didn"t mind. That was a plus for her. At seven in the evening, I was going to go home.
"Wait, I"ll show you how rich I am."
In a moment she ran to the smallest room, where was a secret closet, took out two old canvas bags weighing three or four kilograms each and threw them on a small shaky table in our love room.
"Here, you can pour it out and enjoy."
I poured out the contents of two bags on the table and gasped from the blow of unprecedented beauty of not only faded ten ruble coins of the tsar"s coinage, but also jewelry items of the inhabitants of the anti-people regime, according to the ideologists of Leninist-Judean communism.
These items used to decorate someone else"s fingers, hands, hairstyles and their shine annoyed poor Russians before the appearance of Ilyich the executioner.
"How do you keep it all in the house? After all, you can be caught, arrested and sent to Lenin"s places for ten years to be reeducated. There are several million Russian roubles here. Wow! And your apartment is... totally naked. It requires a major overhaul and a complete replacement of furniture, so why do you, clumsy women, run your household so badly, huh?"
"Well, what should we do?"
"Sell part of the gold and start tidying up the apartment."
"Buy it, we"ll give it to you at lower price. I will talk to my mother and sister. We will give you at 80 and you will sell at 90 rubles for one coin. There are 600 coins. You benefit and we benefit, because now you are mine!" she said with pride and dignity. "Now I can tell my sarcastic sister Nadia that I am wanted, that I have a loved one, and she has no one, because she is a bugbear."
"Sonya, you"re a real treasure. I am so happy that we met. You were just born for me. Just a little late. Twenty years is too much of a difference, and in twenty years I..."
"Don"t hang with other women, quit smoking, don"t drink and you"ll be still a man at the age of sixty. After all, sex is not everything. You can"t build a family on sex. Minutes ago you were mine, but if that hadn"t happened, I would have loved you anyway. So don"t think about it at all."
Sonya was surprisingly cooperative, generous and unusually kind.
I always seemed hungry and insatiable and after a while she began to admire the reward for her gifts.
We"ve been together for a year and we"ve been hiding together for a year. We didn"t even think that sexual games were given to us not only for the sake of games, but also for the sake of propagation, and perhaps this is the main task, which should be performed by healthy people with honor. And if there is a failure in this regard, it means that a person"s health has been affected, the one that can lead to the collapse of the family. Sonya did not think about it at all, but once realized that something had happened inside her body. Without saying a word to me, she went to a doctor and was immediately admitted to the hospital.
Nothing terrible happened, just a miscarriage. Sonya"s mother figured it was better to keep quiet about it, but insidious Nadia once whispered in my ear that her older sister could not have children, because her body throws away the fetus. And no matter how hard I tried, there would be no heirs. I didn"t pay much attention to the news, but it stuck in my memory and after a while it came to me like a devil before my eyes. What"s next? The time will come, I will be no longer needed in this world and my old age will be brightened up by a little dog and a stick with which I can move around. It"s scary when a man looks for salvation in his death and it turns out that death doesn"t even need you. And no one needs you. No one, no one at all, and there"s no one to hope for. Only for Jesus Christ, whose portrait hangs in my room, in spite of Lenin"s prohibition, who himself intended to become a god. But Jesus is silent and will keep silent even when you cannot get out of bed by yourself.
Sonya, what happened to you, maybe you were dropped when you were little. You are poor as mistress. You go on a mating, like to a plate of soup, and after eating, you wipe your lips and turn away. All sorts of doubts, mixed with discontent, distracted me and then let me go, but I did everything so that Sonya wouldn"t guess about anything. Still, I had no firm decision, because I, the rascal, was still torn between my family and Sonya. In my family, each of us had affairs as much as we wanted and it was considered a Western model of modern family, extremely fashionable and terribly comfortable.
The off-peak season at sea was approaching, and I, disguised as an intellectual, preferred this very season: not too hot, but still too warm at sea, and the sea itself is an emotional warmth. I told Sonya about it, and the next day she hit on me: take Nadia with you. She had never been to the sea before.
"Can"t she go by herself? Nothing could be simpler: take a plane ticket and sail for an hour and a half in the air like a swan, and there you are surrounded by a sea of gentlemen. Take a walk with anyone you like. No, I don"t want to take her with me. I don"t need such a tail."
The next day, Sonya stuck with this question again: take Nadia with you. I shouldn"t have shared the news with Sonya. She didn"t mind me going without her and I wouldn"t know how to behave there, but you can take your little sister anywhere you want. She was still a child, had never been to the sea before, had never seen, had not heard the sound of waves, but only watched it on TV.
"Let her go alone."
"She"s just a child, you don"t get it. She needs a guide, a protector. You will take her with you to the beach, to the dance, to other events. Find her an apartment near your boarding house, take her, please, and our mother also asks you. Didn"t I deserve such gratitude from you?"
"Sonya, dear, if you and mom are both asking, what else should I do. Let her prepare. The plane is the day after tomorrow. Departure from Vnukovo, eight in the morning. Shush!"
4
Ah, this beach season, where all the boys and the girls are still single! Even those who have lots of small children in Moscow. Where you can passionately fall in love, passionately give yourself, and one never know that her husband or his wife come back completely drunk, and some with the soul turned inside out, so that the house where they live seems to be a hell. Such cases are rare, but no one is insured that the wife goes to the sea in the swimming season and leaves home forever.
As soon as I went to the sea once, and plunged not only into his warm waves, but also into the sea of naked human bodies, soaked in longing for another body, and I no longer missed a single swimming season. Until the sun"s rays became harmful, and the women"s sharpened figures, still pleasing to the eyes, did not cause excessive excitement, harmful to health and caused increased blood pressure.
I realized pretty quickly that everybody on the beach was single. There are unusually many of them. Having bored to death, the wife breaks out once a year from her hated home and goes to the sea, spreading her wings, for a week or two, if not a month, and after stepping on the sandy shore she becomes completely transformed. Wrinkles on the face are smoothed, and a smile appears as at seventeen years old on every occasion and for no reason. And of course, she is single, lonely and waiting for a friend who would not only entertain her, but also spoke tender words, because tender words and attention that she was deprived of at home, give a new feeling, unexperienced until now. And with the emergence of this feeling, passion involuntarily arises. And passion is romance, it"s a flight to transcendental distances, which she never felt, even during the honeymoon.
As a representative of the stronger sex, I had the advantage of choosing a beach girlfriend and always strolling along the beach, mowing with one eye over naked bodies of Aphrodites, not knowing which was better to squat next to ask what time it was. If a stranger willingly answers and barely smiles, you can ask: what is your name, if not just sit next to her on the warm sand, to say what a nice weather and warm water today, and then politely invite her to swim in the sea together. The acquaintance is made.
After sunset, I already hold some Valya or Luda by the hand and ask her where she came from, and she smartly replies:
"From Moscow."
I do not specify which district, what street, near what subway she lives, knowing very well that it
will confuse her, because actually she is not from Moscow, but rather from Tula, Ryazan, Tver, or even Siberia.
It took a few years to realize that a beach romance must be one, and not two or three during the season. Any beach girlfriend is first of all a woman, and any woman, if she appreciates herself, will never give herself to the first night. This can take a week. But if she has crossed the threshold of hesitation, she is entirely yours and your expectations and patience are fully paid off.
And then, once, on September 19, I flew a TU-154 from Vnukovo airport to Adler... accompanied by unwanted companion Nadia. We got seats in the rear of the plane, where proletarians like Nadia and I usually fly. I took a seat at the window so as not to lose contact with Mother Earth. But the contact was still lost when the plane gained altitude, and then, when the mountains began, about an hour and a half later, we got so close to the ground that I saw the tops of the trees and waited every second for us to fall into some gorge and no one would take us out. It was especially scary in the air pits when the plane didn"t fall into the pit, but it was shaken up like a steaming aluminum frying pan. Nadia clung to me, as to her father or brother, and even stroked me on the head of hair, which in a treacherous manner began to turn gray. Her silence and stroking were some kind of mysterious, but I was not interested in this at all, and I did not react to her childish pranks.
Adler greeted us with rain. They say it has been raining for three days already.
I went to my boarding house quickly, and then I went to find a place to live for Nadia. She was a backpacker. We have found a place. I left Nadia, and went to see the sights of the future resting place and was immediately disappointed: the airfield was nearby, and planes were buzzing around the clock, also there were no space for walks. So I could only lie on a beach all day and only if the weather is good. I thought, "I"ll escape to Novy Afon", and I rushed to the fourth floor, where I just settled. Frustrated, I turned on a Soviet-made tape recorder the size of a box and weight of twelve kilograms. A divine melody sounded, recorded in moribund countries, raising somewhere high up to heaven.
I was finally disappointed in my rest already at night: a Siberian was settled in our three-seater room, he snored in such a way that the lampshade over the suspended light bulb trembled, and I could not fall asleep all night. Not the least bit.
As soon as I had breakfast and went out to the yard in front of the boarding house, someone pulled my sleeve. I turned around and saw... Nadia.
"Did you have breakfast?" "I drank some tea."
"You came early. Can"t sleep?"
"I don"t sleep well in the new place," Nadia said, smiling tenderly so as not to lose me.
"Nadia, let"s do this way. I will take you to the sea, we will choose a place on the beach, and then I will leave. I have a lot to do here."