My mother's stories (chapter two)

My mother's stories
chapter 2
 A merry-go-round

The everyday reality during that period of my childhood was not too bright. In comparison with multicoloured demonstrations it was dull and gray, because this was the main colour in my surroundings. The air was not good either and it was not surprising. We lived in the factory region near the crossroad, which was overcrowded with cars even then, when not many people could afford to have their own vehicle. Our dwelling was one-storeyed and wet with a tiny front garden. It was situated in a common yard with similar dwellings adjacent to each other and the shell rock wall behind them.  There were one or two exits into the similar yards, and in this tangled maze of yards a big amount of children were playing, fighting and running around. A huge puddle filled almost all our yard after the rains, and people usually crossed it, walking on the separate bricks they had put in there. Once I stepped aside, running after other children, got my feet wet and had a really bad cold after that.

         A small plant, just behind one of the shell rock walls, was rumbling and clanking all day long. At the back of the yard there was a big scrap-heap and an awful common toilet with all its dirt and smell, where my mother forbade me to go. We didn’t have any water pipes inside our apartment, of course – only a common tap under a big willow-tree in the yard.  

         The only attractive thing about the place was that it was not far from the seashore. The sea could not be seen from our yard but it was heard sometimes. On our way to the seashore we had to walk past our own rubbish heap and a lot of others too. Maybe this is the reason why I hate the sight of rubbish among the grass so much.

         I forgot everything about the sea itself except that once the water was so transparent that I was not afraid of it and allowed it to support me. I was sure I was swimming on that day, although my parents said I had a false memory. Maybe they were right and it was only my father’s hands that supported me when I imagined myself swimming.

         My recollections were often different, especially from my mother’s. I could never come to an agreement with her about them. She assured me I had never been in the park where I was swinging, for example. My father and aunt confirmed the fact but it could be my friend’s family who took me there. Or maybe again it was just my imagination that I was swinging in the park as I longed to go there so much. The park was not too far from our dwelling, however all my relatives, even my aunt, refused to go there with me. And, of course, they didn’t want to go to the Central Park where I could ride a real merry-go-round. I went there for the first time with my classmates when I was 17. It was the end of our last year at school, just after “the last bell celebration”, during which our teachers declared how happy they were to have taught us and asked us not to forget our school years. We didn't care much for those sentimental speeches and just waited for the ceremony to end. After that we promised to meet each other at the bus stop and rushed home to have lunch and get some money for entertainment. To my surprise, when I said we were going to the Central Park and asked for money, my mother began to say something so unfair and offensive, that I got angry and ran away without money, forgetting completely, that my friend had to come and pick me up. Bus tickets were very cheap – so it was not a problem, anyone could lend me this sum, but I needed money for a merry-go-round and an ice-cream at least.

         I could never understand why my mother often tried to spoil my pleasure, when I had a real longing for something. And it was not greediness. That day, when I went to the Central Park with my classmates, she gave the money on my entertainment to my friend, when she came to our house. The sum was even twice bigger than I had asked for.

         And it was always like that. If I asked her for something too persistently it was the right way not to get anything or to have my pleasure spoilt – just as it was with a rubber goat when I was four or five. It was a cheap toy but for some reason I wanted it very much. My mother said if I behaved myself for the whole day she would buy it. I remember how difficult it was for me to control myself. And I knew one wrong step and our agreement would be cancelled. When I got my toy in the end I felt it was not worth it.

         It was actually a wise thought for a girl of my age. So maybe there was some truth in my mother’s belief, that I was the best and the most intelligent at the age of five. As a proof of it she used to tell two stories. One – how my aunt was complaining about her boyfriend to my mother. I was listening to their conversation for some time and then asked in surprise: “Why don’t you split up with him?” And another one – how my mother didn’t manage to place me in a kindergarten and I offered to lock myself up when she was at work. I remember as I used to sit alone at home, drawing in my sketch-book some series about a family of mice or looking through the window. It was very nice of me, of course, to be so responsible and brave. However later, as I was growing up, I felt more and more irritated, listening to my mother’s stories how I deteriorated since the age of five. Now, fifty years later, sometimes I think – maybe my mother was not so wrong after all.

To be continued…

(c) Anna Shevchenko

1. Festive demonstrations

My mother's stories (chapter one)

    This is just a short announcement for those who’ve been reading “Five favourite things since my childhood” more or less regularly. I decided to divide my story into two parts. At first it was supposed to be five short stories united under the title “Five favourite things since my childhood”, but when I reached the fifth story “Travelling” I couldn’t start it properly for a long time. Maybe it happened because there was no travelling in my childhood – only dreams about it. So I started to write about trips and walking tours with my husband and children and my story moved forward easily enough. But gradually I noticed that I couldn’t stop writing and the story about my love for travelling turned into an actual travelling through time. After some search I found the place where “Travelling” should be finished. The following story I called “My mother’s stories”. Actually, it’s my stories too – just a mixture of them, an attempt to understand why everything in my family and in my country was going on as if people had a goal to spoil their life as much as they were able to.

My mother's stories
chapter 1 
Festive demonstrations

        I started writing this story unaware that I did it. Actually I had been writing another story, which was supposed to have five short parts united under the common title “Five favourite things since my childhood”. However, when I reached the fifth part “Travelling” I couldn’t begin it for a long time – no beginning satisfied me. No wonder in that as there was no travelling in my childhood except one trip to my grandmother’s village when I was five. My story moved forward easily enough as soon as I started to describe my adult life when I did have trips and walking tours – all these things that I still love so much. Yet, somehow imperceptibly for me the story about my love for traveling turned into an actual travelling through time. So I found the place where this transformation happened and gave the following story a new name.  I called it “My mother’s stories”. Although, it’s my stories too, just a mixture of them – an attempt to understand why I spent my early years listening to my mother’s stories about her travels around the country, but the most distant place that I reached in her company was the center of the city.

And it was not so easy for her to go even there. How often the trip, which we were planning, was cancelled because she couldn’t find her purse or hair-pins or because of several raindrops that fell from the small gray cloud in the sky. Sometimes being especially reluctant to go anywhere she easily provoked me to some rudeness and exclaimed with relief that we were staying at home after that. There was perhaps a note of gloating in her voice too or at least it was how I felt it, being utterly upset after our trip was cancelled.  It was different with my father. We liked to discuss the only trip to the village that I made with him and my aunt. Besides, we loved to dream about different nice places where we could go together. But the time came when I understood it was only talking – nothing more. From time to time I pestered my mother with requests to go to her mother’s village, but her face darkened every time I mentioned it. And every time I asked her to go anywhere else I heard I was just like her mother having an itch in my backside and it was an argument I was never able to defeat.

*  *  *

        It’s a natural desire of any child to explore the outer world. My grandson, for example, always cried if his mother or I left home without him when he was only six months old. This feeling of bitter disappointment that you were left behind – it seems to me I still remember it. Did I have a lot of opportunities for exploration in my childhood? Small shops, the cinema nearby and my aunt’s factory dormitory – these were my usual places to go to. I loved being at my aunt’s and having all those young women and girls’ attention. Most of them had recently left their villages. I reminded them their younger sisters or nieces, I suppose, and who knows, maybe - their own children, whom they left behind in an attempt to find a better life in the city.

      And in November and May we had festive demonstrations at the center of the city. My mother didn’t like them and preferred to stay at home, but I loved going there with my father. The sea of red flags, multicoloured balloons, flowers and cheerful well-dressed people – that was my impression from them. It was much later that I began to find our demonstrations formal and boring, and the huge portraits of communist leaders, which people were carrying – ridiculous. Nevertheless even at the time of my early childhood my father tried to avoid carrying one of the portraits or flags, and we escaped half-way to the tribunes at the main square of the city, where our authorities were waiting to greet us and listen to our shouts of “Hurray!” in response.

      It was much more exciting for me to stand in the crowd on the pavement, staring at the endless column of demonstrators. I liked watching little girls in smart dresses with huge bows on their heads and large decorated trucks, where people in costumes performed different scenes from famous books or films. Some time later we left the crowd and went to roam the streets, decorated with red flags and bright banners, which proclaimed: “Peace, labour, May”, “Freedom, equality and brotherhood”, “For peace in the world” and so on. I used the huge letters of the slogans to sharpen my reading skills, but I don’t think I understood their meaning. The comprehension came later and deeply inside I still can’t accept the fact, that all the nice things, declared on those banners, can not be achieved by human society.

     At the time of those happy strolls with my father through the brightly-coloured city I followed him in high spirits, totally unaware of my future disappointment. In the end, we headed to the city garden, where a local photographer took a photo of us near the fountain, and then Father used to buy two portions of my beloved ice-cream for both of us. It was a really good ending of all the entertainment. When I was in my teens, I still cherished warm feelings about the demonstrations, but it was rather a memory how I used to love them. In reality I was glad not to wake up early and my father also preferred to stay at home on his day off.

         Only once again I had this half-forgotten festive sensation on the first of May. It was my first year at university. On the warm sunny day I was walking with my friends in a column of girls in the gymnastic costumes along the central streets of the city. We had blooming branches in our hands and, as someone invisible commanded, raised them high into the air. It was really exciting walking there, knowing that everybody was looking at our young smooth bodies and legs. We crossed the main square of the city, full of inspiration, raising cheerfully the flowering branches above our heads to the bravura sounds of music, and the announcer proclaimed solemnly: “Long live our Soviet intelligentsia!” But after we passed the platform, where our leaders were standing, waving slightly their hands at us, we discovered that nobody took care to give us some hiding place to change. So we refused to do that just among the square and ran in our costumes to the university along the almost deserted streets, when suddenly someone, the cleverest of us, offered to find a shelter for changing in one of the empty yards, that we met on our way. It was very thrilling, like in films about spies, to go there and change.

        After that last adventure the only entertainment we had during the demonstrations was to giggle when we were supposed to cry “hurray” because one of our student mates, trying to cheer us up, began to shout in a hoarse loud voice long before we reached the tribunes. If my memory doesn’t deceive me at the time of my early childhood even adults’ attitude to such social events was different. “Thaw” – that was the term used for the time just after Stalin’s death and the ending of his bloody regime. It was the time of the first space flights and great hopes – time when people believed in scientific and technological progress and felt optimistic about their own future and the whole mankind in general. Many years later I was talking with Americans about that period in their history and learnt that at that time their people also joyfully believed in the bright future which John Kennedy promised them.

To be continued…

(c) Anna Shevchenko

Five favourite things since my childhood: TRAVELLING (part three)

5.    Travelling.

       

Of course we were eager to have a better look at Gorbachev’s summer cottage. One guy from our company tried to swim along the coast in its direction at night but failed because the searchlights began to look for the cause of disturbance very energetically. So we decided to try again at the day time. We swam one or two hundred meters towards the ships – we didn’t dare to swim towards the villa of course. Our friend’s wife was a bad swimmer so she was in flippers, but I got tired worse than she as I was in my glasses and didn’t want them to be splashed. 

          The distance was too great, and we didn’t discover anything interesting. Only that the roof we had seen belonged to the smaller house, for service staff supposedly, and the villa itself looked the same: an orange roof and white walls. Maybe there were marble stairs leading to the beach, I’m not sure, and a lot of green colour around. I forgot what kind of plants they were but at such a distance we couldn’t really see it properly.

         We were planning to repeat this camping holiday next summer but it never happened. We had some financial difficulties – so we went to the sandbar instead. It was in 1991 actually and I regretted a lot we weren’t in the Crimea in August as we planned. It would have been so exciting – Gorbachev was trapped in his villa with his wife, and I am afraid the same ships stood on their guard in the sea.

         We didn’t know it was the beginning of the end of our world and the new life was about to start. It was already starting but I don’t think anybody could indicate the exact moment when it actually began. Did it start maybe when they stopped to pay our salaries regularly? But this was nothing compared with what was to come.

       Some time later they stopped paying our money at all. Then food disappeared from the shelves in our shops. When it appeared again in more or less noticeable quantity, it was too expensive for us to buy. My husband went to several scientific conferences abroad and tried to find a job there but failed. We got thin because of the lack of food but we were still haughty. My husband was giving private lessons only of English not physics because he wanted to improve his English. I tried to be a tutor and gave up, had some temporary teaching job and refused to continue though I was offered to stay. The new world was ruthless but we still didn’t understand that and continued to pass our beloved sandbar every summer right up to the time when our marriage followed our late country and collapsed too.

         After some period of half-starving existence and still deeply in shock I went to sell newspapers stubbornly refusing to try teaching physics again as I wasn’t good at it. Maybe watching me selling press for 13 hours a day was the last straw that caused my father’s death when he was only 69.

                

So this was the hardest period of my life and my country as I could remember. Nevertheless when we both began our recovery the first thing I did was cycling with my children around the salt lake Kuyalnik. It was about 70 kilometers trip during a day. I was not in a good form and hadn’t ridden a bicycle for several years. This, I think, deteriorated my problems with veins in my legs but I have never regretted it. I remember my first feeling of joyful surprise when I discovered that the world I loved was still there with its wide green fields, bright blue sky and fresh air with sweet and bitterish odour of steppe grass.

 I joined my children only twice after that and then the doctors told me I couldn’t overload my legs like that any more. I tried different treatments: pills, ointments and swimming in the salt water of the lake and the sea as the vascular surgeon recommended. And I bothered my friends with conversations about my plans how to bring my legs to a condition as they were in my youth - everything for the purpose of joining my children in this annual summer trip around the lake. It was for me as a journey around the world in miniature. I pestered my friends with this for 2 or 3 years before I understood that they were smiling behind my back thinking I was slightly touched in the head. I knew they liked me like that – just a weirdo but I didn’t want to be tiresome. So I stopped talking about that.

        

But I couldn’t resign myself – I woke up early on the day of the journey and helped my daughter with cooking but when my children were leaving I was hiding inside the house at first. Some years later I began to go out with them and as they were standing in the street, young and strong, with their friends and their bicycles I took the first photo of the trip, But every time as they were leaving without me I felt a prickle in my heart. 

           

I hadn’t ridden my bicycle for three or four years for doctors said I was not allowed to. But then, with some encouragement from my daughter, I began to cycle again – using compressive breeches and within short distances at first. Some time later I discovered that when I was in an especially good form, usually in the middle of summer, I could even take a journey of about 20 kilometers once in one or two years. And it was definitely better than nothing.

        

Once or twice a year my friend from university phoned and told me about some excursion she was going to have with her colleagues. I refused to join them only twice: once - when the only attraction of the trip was a winery and the second time – when it was too expensive for me. Mostly I was ready to go anywhere only to break the monotonous course of life – just to feel the fresh wind on my face and see pure blue sky with fluffy white clouds above my head. And was not it enough for happiness to watch the winding stripe of the road unrolling in front of my eyes or a narrow path running among the grass, promising new impressions and new adventures?

.

1. THE SNOW  
2. THE NEW-YEAR CELEBRATION
3. THE ICE-CREAM
4. DRESSES    
5. TRAVELLING (part one)
6. TRAVELLING (part two) 

Five favourite things since my childhood: TRAVELLING (part two)

5. TRAVELLING

Especially scared I felt when we were walking along that sandbar for the first time. Our children were only 6 and 8 at that time. We had a limited amount of water and didn’t know how much time it would take to pass this lonely place. And what a relief it was as the first remote lights of people’s dwellings appeared at last shining in the dark. For us those encouragingly twinkling lights meant – water as we almost ran out of it. We really felt like the true pioneers of the past. 
 

The sea was working hard in winter - so the coast looked different every summer. Most of all we loved high clay cliffs with rooms as we called them. They were the big round hollows made by the winter storms huge waves. In the middle of every room there was a heap of different things thrown out by the sea. I liked to investigate this litter with my children. It looked so clean and smooth washed out by the salt water. Once we found a multicoloured beach ball. Children took it to every walking tour since then. It was like our trophy taken from the sea - my daughter even invented a strange name for it – it was called Dzoom.

For several years those walking tours more or less satisfied my passion for change of air and new impressions but then I began to talk about new places to explore. As for my husband and children they liked to discuss this matter but weren’t in a hurry to change their habits. Although once, just a year before we started our walking tours, we were camping with our fellow student and his family in the Crimea. I loved the place we were staying at so much that even my husband’s bad mood and his coolness, which he showed me from time to time with some incomprehensible frequency, didn’t spoil my pleasure. 
 

I remember how after a long journey in a hot stuffy bus and a tiring walk with heavy bags through the pine-tree forest we reached the beach at last and ran into completely transparent emerald warm water. It was a sensation of flight and unreality. Our friend’s wife felt anxious about our first impression because it was them who invited us to their usual place. When she asked if we liked being there I couldn’t find proper words and just said: “Yes, very much”. It would be too sentimental to answer that maybe in paradise people felt like that.

A high wall of mountains protected the coast from the northern winds. Nights were so warm that there was no need to set up our tents. We just spread them out on the ground, put our sleeping bags over and before falling asleep were watching the stars twinkling through the slightly swaying pine tree branches. And not a single mosquito disturbed us. It was so odd not to have these blood thirsty creatures to spoil our summer rest a little. 
 

When we were walking through the forest, or rather a huge park, to the nearest town to buy some food, squirrels were jumping among the branches above our heads. Climate was so mild there that we found some small cactuses growing just near the road. When I was cooking on the camp-fire alone some curious lizard usually came watching me, sometimes one or two squirrels joined it. 
 

Children loved swimming among the rocks which stuck out of incredibly attractive turquoise water like small islands. Our friends told us that the best way to teach kids swimming was to give them flippers. Our daughter borrowed a pair of those from their children and indeed she learnt the skill of swimming very quickly. Her younger brother felt envious and upset but in the end he managed to do that too.

From time to time the policemen or frontier guards came and asked us to leave. We promised but stayed where we were – we felt well protected having six small children in our company. The representatives of authorities tried to persuade us that it was quite easy to get a place in one of the holiday homes on the coast. But we knew it was not true – they were for party elite, not for ordinary people. And as for me - our way was much cheaper and much less boring. 
 

We were very curious about the first and last president of the USSR Michael Gorbachev’s summer cottage. It was rather a villa of course but we called it “summer cottage” in Russian. It was situated not too far from our place – we could see an orange roof and white walls among the trees. Two or three military ships stood on their guard just opposite it one or two kilometers from the coast. Sometimes we heard the sailors' cheerful voices as they jumped into the water from the board.

To be continued…

1. THE SNOW  
2. THE NEW-YEAR CELEBRATION
3. THE ICE-CREAM
4. DRESSES    
5. TRAVELLING (part one)

Five favourite things since my childhood: TRAVELLING (part one)

5. TRAVELLING.

What do you imagine when you hear the word “travelling”? I see an earth road or a narrow path winding among the grass. I understand that nowadays it’s impossible to travel without using cars, trains and asphalt roads. But for me the most interesting part of a journey starts when I reach some remote places almost unspoiled by civilization. This is the world which mankind is losing now and we’ll lose it forever if we don’t stop our reckless expansion. 
 

I began to love the world of wild nature in my early childhood. The wide open space of steppe with bitter-sweet scent of thick grass in the air – it was the place where my parents started to build our house. And, in spite of all my love for woods and mountains, steppe is the place where I always feel most comfortable as if I belong to it. But can it explain my real obsession with travelling? Walking tours in summertime and cycling to the fields in spring – these were my favourite activities. And they still are, actually – only I can’t afford to walk with a heavy backpack as I used to. 
 

When I was in my thirties, my husband, our two children and I spent 7 or 10 days every summer camping near the sea. I loved everything about those holidays. There was something fascinating in the smell of burning wood and the sight of orange flames licking the black cauldron with bubbling porridge in it. And what a pleasure it was swimming in the sea water which was clean and transparent and lying on the white sand, silky and smooth –it was so different from our city beaches. And in the evening we loved sitting near the camp-fire singing or watching the shooting stars in the sky. And swimming at night when we could observe this wonderful phenomenon – bioluminescence. The tiny sea creatures flashed out in the dark water when we disturbed them with our movements, and twisting glowing lines or solitary stars were running from our arms and legs.

Usually, standing near the edge of the sea in the dark and not knowing what miracle was hiding in its depth, you would think that rare flashes of bluish light were just reflection of moonlight. But once the sea luminescence was so strong that even the opposite cliffs were dimly lit. Long, gently-sloping waves were running along the sea surface and every wave was topped with vaguely glowing bluish foam. Our tent was made of white thin parachute fabric. So the foam and the full moon were clearly seen through its walls. I remember our tent full of light and our friend Anya, the owner of the tent, joking: “Switch the moon and the sea off - I can’t fall asleep”.

Of course we could stay near the village where we usually bought milk and potatoes and took straw in the golden field to warm our tent floor. But it would be slightly boring to have the same peaceful impressions every year. So, during the first half of our holiday, we had a real struggle walking with heavy backpacks along the narrow strip of land between the sea shore and three salt lakes. This land was entirely covered with sand. At some distance from the sea, where even the powerful waves of winter storms could hardly ever reach, there were dunes overgrown with grass. Its sharp blades were webbed by spiders of different sizes and colours, but mostly they were sand-coloured of course. I was afraid of spiders and when we had to go to the dunes I always reminded my family to arm themselves with sticks to tear the cobweb sticky threads.

Every morning we woke up before dawn and began to pack our things, shivering under the chilly wind with our eyes squinting at the dark uninviting sea. Even now I can clearly see our little squad walking in single file along the very edge of the water and the lazy waves licking the sand and our bare feet. It was the place where the sand seemed almost solid – we only slightly sank into it. From time to time however we couldn’t find this compact path and our progress forward turned into really hard work. It took much more time to cross these soft patches or places covered with heaps of sharp mussels. And another obstacle was day time heat, when we were hiding in the shadow of our tent, though I never gave up cooking our lunch, sitting near the fire in the midst of the hot blazing sand.

Sometimes, when my husband woke us up at the crack of dawn, playing his flute as the sea looked dark-blue and chilly or struggling with soft sand as the backpack straps, especially painfully, hurt my shoulders, I thought it would be much more comfortable just to stay near the village. Nevertheless, every summer we repeated the same route.

To be continued...

1. THE SNOW
2. THE NEW-YEAR CELEBRATION
3. THE ICE-CREAM
4. DRESSES  

Ассоль.

Ассоль.

Капитан Грэй сидел в старой таверне маленького портового городка, куда они обычно сворачивали, чтобы пополнить запасы провизии и воды. В этот час здесь было немноголюдно, и он мог посидеть наедине со своими мыслями. Грэй сидел, потягивая вино и задумчиво рассматривая трещинки на поверхности стола. Шум на другом конце зала привлек его внимание. Мария, хозяйка кабачка, обслуживала компанию подвыпивших матросов, перебрасываясь с ними незамысловатыми шутками. Она ловко расставила перед ними тяжелые кружки и пошла к стойке, зажав поднос под мышкой и слегка покачивая бедрами. Крепкие загорелые парни провожали умильными взглядами ее ладную фигуру с волной каштановых волос, рассыпанных по плечам. Ее все здесь любили и не позволяли себе ничего лишнего. Впрочем, она умела постоять за себя. "Какая женщина", – подумал Грэй, наблюдая, как она протирает стойку мягкой фланелью, - "заботливая, нежная, все понимающая и все прощающая". Она всегда знала, когда его лучше оставить одного. Вот и сейчас даже не посмотрит в его сторону. И нашелся же такой подонок, который бросил ее одну с малолетним сынишкой.

- Дядя Грэй! - услышал он звонкий голос за своей спиной и вот уже Томми крепко вцепился в его рукав, радостно смеясь и преданно заглядывая ему в глаза. - Ты обещал научить меня ставить паруса.

- Подрасти сначала, - Грэй потрепал мальчика по густым непослушным волосам. - Лучше приходи ко мне вечером – я позанимаюсь с тобой географией и математикой.

- Приду, - мальчик благодарно улыбнулся и снова потянул его за рукав. - А теперь расскажи, как вы попали в шторм под этим как его... Или нет, - перебил он сам себя, - лучше расскажи, как ты построил корабль с алыми парусами и приплыл за своей любимой девушкой. Ну, этой как ее? Ассоль!

Томми заглянул ему в лицо своими блестящими черными глазами и снова засмеялся. Просто так - от полноты жизни. У них с Ассоль тоже мог бы быть такой мальчик. Но лишения, пережитые в детские годы, не прошли для нее даром - она потеряла ребенка. Действительно ли она так хотела малыша или ее угнетало, что и в этом она не такая как все, но эта потеря окончательно отдалила их друг от друга. Ассоль откровенно скучала над учебниками и все чаще убегала от учителей, которых он ей нанял, к морю и бродила там в одиночестве среди скал. Сбрасывала изящные кожаные туфельки, сшитые лучшим мастером города, и шла по берегу, усеянному грудами ракушек, не чувствуя, как они впиваются в ее ступни. Просыпающаяся в ней женщина так и осталась в полудреме и она, по-прежнему, была все той же маленькой девочкой, которая когда-то бежала вдоль ручья за деревянным корабликом с алыми парусами.

Ему часто снится сон, будто он просыпается ночью, а ее нет рядом. Он поспешно одевается, путаясь в одежде, и бросается на поиски. Однажды это произошло наяву. Тогда он долго бродил в предрассветных сумерках. Где-то рядом мягко шумело море, скрытое ажурной листвой деревьев. Он спустился по извилистой тропке к самому берегу и наконец увидел ее. Ассоль сидела, обхватив руками колени, на одном из огромных валунов, в беспорядке разбросанных по берегу. Волны разбивались о подножие камня, обдавая мелкими брызгами ее босые ноги. Грэй подошел совсем близко, но она даже не повернула головы, будто не слышала шороха мелких камешков, вылетающих у него из-под ног.

- Почему ты так поступаешь со мной? - спросил он с горечью. - Я перед тобой ни в чем не виноват.

- Нет, виноват, - она взглянула на него своими огромными черными глазами. - Ты отнял у меня мечту. Мечты ведь тем и хороши, что они не сбываются. - И она снова отвернулась к морю, смутно серевшему в предрассветной мгле, глядя туда, где примерно через час должно было взойти солнце.

На следующий день, прощаясь с ним в порту, Ассоль виновато плакала у него на плече. - Возвращайся - я буду ждать, - просила она, задыхаясь от слез. - Забудь все, что я тебе наговорила вчера.

- Она была красивая? - Томми все еще стоял рядом и серьезно смотрел на него.

- Почему была? - удивился Грэй, - Ассоль и сейчас живет в большом старинном доме у моря. Каждое утро она выходит на берег и ждет своего прекрасного принца на корабле с алыми парусами.

- А как же ты, Грэй? - возмутился Томми. - Ты же лучше любого принца.

- Конечно, малыш, - улыбнулся Грэй и, поднявшись

из-за стола, направился к выходу.

Свежий соленый ветер ударил ему в лицо. Наконец закончился штиль, задержавший их здесь на целую неделю. Завтра они выйдут в море и

через три дня на рассвете пройдут мимо его родных берегов. Как всегда он выйдет на палубу в потрепанном бушлате и будет провожать глазами знакомые очертания, подернутые фиолетовой дымкой, будто надеясь разглядеть стройную девичью фигурку на берегу.

***

Этот рассказ я написала в 2000-м году, когда я работала продавцом газет — «на хозяина», как это тогда называлось. Это было время, когда наша страна уже начинала потихоньку выкарабкиваться из той экономической пропасти, в которой она очутилась, мне до сих пор не понятно почему, несмотря на все объяснения специалистов. Для меня это время ассоциируется с тяжелой изматывающей работой, полуголодным существованием и последней болезнью моего отца. Чтобы как-то отвлечься от безысходной ситуации, в которой я оказалась, я, сидя за прилавком, заваленным желтой прессой, часто выбирала какие-нибудь криминальные ужастики в крикливо-раскрашенных журнальчиках. Полет фантазии журналистов был настолько вопиющим, что это было даже не смешно. Особенно запомнился сюжет про двух маньяков, которые, заманив в свое логово приглянувшегося им человека, угощали его пельменями, приготовленными из предыдущей жертвы. Удивительно, что сюжет моего рассказа приснился мне в то время, когда окружающая меня действительность казалась мне ненамного лучше тех криминальных кошмариков. А рассказ на удивление получился грустным и светлым. Как все-таки непостижима работа человеческого мозга!

Один незначительный эпизод

Один незначительный эпизод

Этот, казалось бы, незначительный эпизод произошел несколько лет назад, когда я работала в книжном магазине, который в то время был расположен в «Литературном музее». Я сидела за низеньким столиком в огромной комнате с высоким потолком, а на полках вдоль стен и на большом столе в центре стояли и лежали книги – множество умных книг по философии, истории, литературоведении и т. п. Книги для образованных людей, так сказать.

            У меня как раз накануне украли со стола одну интересную книгу, которую я сама была бы не прочь прочитать, поэтому я пристально следила за покупателями. Но этот покупатель привлек мое внимание по другой причине. Он вел себя немного странно, с моей точки зрения. Сказал, что приехал с Урала и отправился осматривать наши полки с книгами. У нас в то время проводилась очередная выставка книг. Я точно не помню ее тематики, но это было что-то патриотическое, и многие книги были на украинском языке. И наш выставочный стенд вызвал у странного покупателя непонятное для меня сильное раздражение. Он прошелся мимо стенда несколько раз, отпуская язвительные замечания. Я не запомнила содержание его реплик – только тон. Подозреваю, что они были в основном не по делу. Я объяснила ему, что эти книги мы получили из Киева, но большую часть книг мы заказываем в Москве. При слове «Москва» его лицо неожиданно расплылось в счастливой улыбке. У меня было такое чувство, будто я упомянула о какой-то священной реликвии или месте паломничества в присутствии истово верующего.

            Магазин был пуст и мой странный покупатель начал прохаживаться вдоль полок с видом хозяина, шагая решительно и упруго. Я, наблюдая за ним, пыталась понять, что мне это напоминает. Может быть, какую-то сцену из фильма? Для полноты картины ему не хватало только нагайки в руке или кобуры с пистолетом на поясе. Под конец я решила, что он напоминает посланца Золотой орды, который приехал за данью в подвластный ей город. Тогда это казалось смешным. Могла ли я подумать, что наступит день, когда этот незначительный эпизод приобретет зловещую окраску и, что несколько лет спустя десятки тысяч подобных людей будут выходить на улицы Москвы, приветствуя агрессию России против Украины?

            Я не помню, какую книгу купил этот неприятный покупатель, но он швырнул на мой столик несколько десяток, отпустив по их поводу какое-то презрительное замечание. Я посмотрела на него с недоумением и ответила, что не понимаю, чем ему не нравятся наши деньги.

            Только два или три года спустя я наткнулась на каком-то сайте (в свете нынешних событий думаю, что сайт был российским) на список самых известных предателей и там, в одной компании с Иудой было имя гетмана Мазепы, который, как сообщалось на сайте, предал Петра I. И только тут меня осенило – у нас же на десятках портрет Мазепы. Так вот что раздражало моего покупателя с невидимой нагайкой в руке.

            Я никогда не любила уроков истории в школе и не помню, кто там и кого предал. И если честно, мне не хочется в это вникать. Как по мне так вся история человечества состоит в основном и кровавых распрей и предательства. А что до Петра I, то как не пытались его идеализировать во времена Советского союза, и как не пытается переписывать историю каждое новое поколение, но есть некоторые факты, которые остаются неизменными. Например, что Петр I был жестоким тираном, который погубил собственного сына, и что Петербург, конечно красивый город, но построен он был на костях его строителей. И от этих фактов нам некуда деться.

            И особенно мерзко, когда, пытаясь оправдать нынешние преступления, начитают ссылаться на исторические факты. На факты той самой истории, которую, как известно, пишут победители, а потомки продолжают переписывать помногу раз, приспосабливая ее, по мере надобности, к современным нуждам.