I was left with two children: a daughter in first grade and a son in kindergarten. Somehow I didn't complain, I was used to it. Whether or not I had a man in my life, the children were always my responsibility. Every year I took them to the sea, to Sochi. I never bought myself new clothes, I economized wherever I could, I wanted my children to grow up healthy. I scrimped all year to pay for our vacation. If I took them to the sea, they didn't get sick, if I didn't, they'd be home with colds all winter. And that was that. I met my second husband in Sochi; we're still together. Whether it's love or not is hard to say… I know that the woman has to feel sorry for the man… Or maybe it's just the men I meet? (Laughs). The only strong men I see are in movies… On posters… In the Marlboro ads on TV… (Laughs).
We were lying on the beach. I felt wonderfuclass="underline" the sea, the sun. The children were in heaven. Bronzed, beautiful, my son looked like a little black boy, that's the kind of skin he has, it loves the sun. One day, a second day… A week… Some guy was following us around, if we went on an excursion, he'd go too, if we went into the restaurant, he'd sit opposite us. Every morning we'd look for a new place to try to lose him, but he'd pick us out of the crowd. He always found us. Maybe that's it, um-hum… How can you escape fate? You can't… My son cut his foot on a sharp stone and we stayed home for a few days, didn't go to the beach. We read stories. One evening the landlady of the apartment where we were staying called to me: «Come quick!» I went to the door and there he was.
«Good evening! I found you!!»
«What of it?»
«I was afraid you'd gone away. And I don't have your address.»
«What do you need my address for?»
«I'm going to write you letters…»
«…»
«What are you doing?»
«I'm reading the children a story.»
«May I listen?»
«…»
No one ever courted me the way he did. Like in an American movie. He took me to the most expensive restaurant. We danced a lot. It was raining. We were the only ones there. We danced by ourselves: «See, I reserved the whole restaurant for you.» No one ever kissed my hands the way he did, every finger. Over and over again. He even kissed my footprints by the sea… In the sand… The first night we talked until morning… His young wife had died of cancer two years after they were married. His father, too, was in the military and had always been working. His mother raised him. His mother had wanted a daughter and brought him up like one, he was her only child. He played with dolls until he was ten and he still likes to buy them as presents. But to look at him, he was so manly, so strong. And dashing. My soul began to sing, it never had before, though my soul is easily stirred. Just touch it! Touch it and it starts to ring and sing. But at the end of the vacation I came to my senses: «I have two children. No! No!» And that's how we left it… I went to Perm, he went to Chita. We were hundreds of miles apart. I thought I'd never see him again. It had been a wonderful dream… And now I'd woken up… And didn't remember the dream… I remembered something colorful, sunny, nothing real… Just a dream…
Six months went by… He called me every day… Courted me and courted me! Every day: «I love you.» And I got used to it… I would just be thinking of him and the phone would ring. He also wrote to me. Every day. I have a suitcase full of his letters. Then he came to visit… I went to meet him… I forgot my gloves in the taxi. It was chilly out. October. He got off the train… Smiling for all he was worth… He took my hands and started warming them… Kissing them… That night he confessed: «I saw your hands and I was stunned. Everything inside me stopped.» We passed a flower shop and he bought me a bouquet of lilies. By the time we got home it was lunchtime. We sat down to eat. We laughed. Talked about last summer. Suddenly he stood up: «I feel so well here. So comfortable.» And headed for the door… As if someone were calling him… Then something absolutely incredible happened… He began to fall… Arms flailing in all directions… For a second I thought: what a joker, now he'll try to pull something! But he was already on the floor. «What happened? What's wrong with you?» «With me?» He only half heard me. Then he lost consciousness altogether… Now I was frightened: I didn't have a phone then. By the time I got down from the ninth floor, by the time I found a pay phone… A man I barely know comes to see me, and dies… Dies in my arms… I didn't know where to run? What to do? I shook him by the shoulders and screamed:
«Wake up! Wake up!»
«What's the matter?» he opened his eyes.
«Were you joking?»
«I don't remember anything. I only remember coming here…» He got up and sat down on the couch.
«What's wrong with you?»
«That's it. I'm home.»
He had lived alone for seven years. He was tired of loneliness. Of longing. Again we talked all night. Until dawn.
«What was that all about?» I asked him in the morning.
«I realized that I'd finally found you. And my heart stopped.»
At first I was very afraid of hurting him, he's so… hmm… tender… so vulnerable… The first year he was always giving me flowers, even if it was just one. He confided in me: «I don't think I loved my wife this much. She was the first woman in my life. But this is real love.» Every day some new thoughts… New words… «Now I understand why some people kill themselves because of love. Hang themselves, shoot themselves or find some other way. I didn't understand before.» Maybe that's it, um-hum… You can't remember everything… Just the bits that flash through your mind… As if you were flying along on an express train and could't distinguish anything out the window, except sometimes, like a child: «Mama, there's a car… there's a cow… there's a house…» He loves me, I believe him… We've lived together seven years. Do I love him? Let me think… Sometimes I wonder… I don't know… I don't want to admit to myself that I'm used to him, that I feel sorry for him, but don't love him. I'm spinning the wheel of life… There should be a man in the house… That's life's law, nature's law… I'm spinning that wheel… I get up every morning at six — and stand over the stove. I go to work — everything's under control. I come home — and work one more shift. He loves me, I believe him… (Laughs). He still courts me… He is so touching sometimes… But he's never hammered a single nail, he doesn't know how, if the iron burns out, I'm the one who fixes it. (Laughs). Yesterday I repaired the telephone. My sister has a PhD, she's a feminist: «You have a slave's psychology.» Yes, at home I'm a slave. Whatever my husband wants, I do it; whatever my son wants, I do it. My daughter… But at work I can stand up for myself; at work, men are afraid of me. I'll break their back. What can I do? I've grown a shell. Claws. I have a family to take care of. A home. But at home I'm a slave. That's right! I admit it. I'm an actress. Without that my house would collapse of its own weight. Maybe that's it, um-hum… I have to manage to act like a man in the outside world and like a woman at home. (Laughs). What can I do? My husband isn't a fighter. I've made my peace with that; it's not in his nature to fight. For him, life is a book. Dreams. He loves to philosophize. He was better off in Soviet times, when everything was equal and everyone the same. People didn't stick their necks out. They read a lot of books and sat around each other's kitchen tables discussing world problems. They collected stamps. But now everything's different; every day is a battle. You need to survive. To go on behaving the way we did before would, I think, be odd, absurd and dishonest. We're proud but poor. Our vacuum cleaner is twenty years old, barely turns over, the refrigerator is thirty years old. But I value my husband: he's an honest man, a good man, not an operator, not a dodger. I have a habit of taking the weak person under my wing. Sometimes when he's sad I ask him: «What are you thinking about?» «About death. Some day we'll be gone.» It's typical of a man to think about death. I think about how to economize so we can buy a new car, remodel our little dacha. Where can I earn some extra money? How can I save it? My neighbor's husband, like mine, is a teacher. Both men teach history and are paid practically nothing. Well, at night he paints apartments and hangs wallpaper, before that he sold things at an open-air market. But my husband? Never… He couldn't bear to do that. He'd be ashamed. Besides he doesn't know how. He's taken a back seat. I'm the one who keeps our house together. I've made my peace with that because I feel sorry for him… And he can be so touching… So tender…