I walked around the building, and gawked at the children — there were a lot fewer of them in town compared with my childhood, which seemed to have ended not so long ago. After I counted the corners of the building, I squatted under a slanted roof, smoked the last cigarette in the packet, and decided to give up smoking. Although “decided” isn’t quite the right word: I fully understood that I wouldn’t smoke any more — because cigarettes were not at all in keeping with my mood, smoking was a completely superfluous, unnecessary, time-wasting activity.
Why do I smoke, if I’m so happy? I thought, and again, for the umpteenth time, I caught myself smiling — without realizing it. And this made me smile even more happily, and imagining how foolish I must look, I laughed out loud.
Marysenka returned one and a half hours later. I had almost started smoking again in that time.
“How was he then?” I asked her.
“He was fine,” Marysenka said smiling.
“What did you talk about?”
“I don’t remember…” The smile didn’t leave her face.
“What do you mean, you don’t remember? You just said goodbye, didn’t you?”
“Can you imagine, I lost the piece of paper with your questions on it, and forgot everything immediately.”
“How did you do it then?”
“I don’t even know… We’ll listen to the Dictaphone when we get home… I want an apple. Buy me an apple…”
I bought her an apple, from an old woman with a basket of them.
“It’s worm-eaten,” Marysenska said after taking a few bites.
“Throw it away,” I ordered.
“If it’s worm-eaten, that means it’s real,” she replied.
We walked four stops, holding each other by the arm. We scraped up enough money for a bottle of cheap wine and drank it by the kiosk, like alcoholics. There was a smell of urine. We kissed until we reached a state of indecent exhaustion that threatened to lead to acts of folly — on a street that was still full of cars, though already getting dark. Then we would calm down for a few minutes.
“How are we going to live?” Marysenka asked, smiling.
“Wonderfully.”
“Will there be a plot?”
“A plot? A plot is when everything runs dry. But for us it keeps on flowing and flowing.”
We quietly walked home, but we had to go up a hill, and Marysya started complaining that she was tired. I settled her on my shoulders. Marysenka sang a song, she loved riding horseback. I also liked carrying her, I held Marysya by the ankles and wiggled my head, trying to find a position so that my neck was warm and even a little damp.
A day later Marysya went to Valies to verify the interview. We had made the interview good-natured and calm, and as a result it turned out rather dull. Marysya was satisfied when she came back from Valies: he liked the interview, and he was full of praise for Marysenka, but he suggested several additions to the text, and so asked her to come back again. When exactly he didn’t say, but he promised to call.
“Couldn’t he have made those additions right away?” I said, laughing.
“He’s probably unhappy. He doesn’t have a wife. He lives alone,” Marysenka explained. “He says that he’s very lonely.”
“Does he smoke in your presence?” I asked for some reason.
“No, he doesn’t. He says that he gave it up.”
Fancy that, he ‘gave it up’, I thought with ironic anger. Why doesn’t he smoke? I wonder…. I don’t smoke because I’m happy, what’s his reason?
“Well, how was he with you?” I asked, secretly feeling an affinity with Valies, because he evoked these fine emotions in my darling.
“You know, everyone’s so funny… These old men… Valies… He once also had a mother, after all, he was also a child. Like all of us. And we all behave how we were once taught: mothers… then kindergarten… So everything is very similar, very simple. Do you understand me?”
I thought that I understood very well. Valies had a mother. Marysya had a mother. So did I. What was not to understand about that?
I was sitting with the puppies in the yard, waiting for Marysenka. She arrived and we all cheered up.
“I went to visit Valies,” Marysenka said. “He made me a marriage proposal.”
“To marry whom?”
I laughed myself at my stupid question. Marysenka laughed too.
“Can you imagine?” she related, “He rang me, and sounded so prim. ‘…Might you be able to pay me a visit today…’”
“For the additions to the interview?”
Marysenka laughed again.
“Just imagine, I went to his apartment, and he opened the door — wearing a coat and tails. Like a candelabrum… Black and ceremonial. And he smelt of eau de cologne. I looked into the apartment — and a huge table was laid: candles, wine, dishes. What a nightmare!”
“And then what happened?”
“I didn’t even take my things off. I lied to him…” Marysenka looked at me with happy eyes. “I told him that I had a small child. That he was home alone.”
“Was he stunned?”
“No, he generally behaved very decently. He didn’t make any fuss. He said: ‘Well, never mind, next time…’ Then he said that he was preparing a play… ‘About the love of an old, wise man for a young woman’ — that’s what he said… And he offered the leading role to me.”
“The old, wise man?”
We laughed again. And our laughter did not degrade Valies in any way. If anyone else who was keeping track of all the evil on earth had heard our laughter, he would probably have confirmed this — because we were simply happy that we had met Valies, that he wore a coat and tails, and that he was so nice… “An old, wise man.” And the young women in the leading role was next to me. And I was there..
“And then he proposed to me to marry him,” Marysenka concluded.
I didn’t ask what that was like. I simply looked at Marysenka.
“What could I do?”,she replied, as if in justification, to my questioning look. “I said: ‘Konstantin Lvovich, you are a very good man. Can I ring you again?’ He said: ‘Definitely call…’ And that was all, I ran off. I didn’t even wait for the lift…”
“He’s probably sitting there by himself,” I said, unexpectedly becoming sad. “Marysya… You could have drunk a bottle with him… Aren’t you sorry for him?”
“What? No, I can’t do that. I couldn’t. That would be wrong. What are you saying? He asked me to marry him, and I’m supposed to eat herring salad.”
“He had herring salad?” I asked with interest.
We laughed again, patting the puppies that were hanging around at our feet.
“I’m hungry,” said Marysenka.
“You should have eaten when you were at Valies’ place,” I couldn’t resist joking. “Shall we visit him together? You can say: ‘this is your old acquaintance. He’s come to apologize. And he also wants to act in the play’…”
“The role of a young, stupid man…” Marysenka continued.
“We’ll sit at the table, talk and drink. We’ll discuss the upcoming play. OK? What else did he have on the table? Besides herring…”
“There wasn’t any herring there.
“But you said…”
We were very hungry. Almost weightless from hunger.
“Why don’t we go out? I really do feel like herring. And vodka with tomato juice. Is it terrible that I feel like vodka?”
“What do you mean? It’s glorious.”
Valies started ringing almost every day. Sometimes I answered the phone, and he, not recognizing me and not at all abashed that a man had answered, he asked to speak with her, calling my darling by her first name and patronymic. He even invited her to his birthday party, either his sixty-ninth or his seventy-first , but she didn’t go. Valies wasn’t offended, he rang again, and sometimes they talked for a long time. Marysya listened, and he talked to her. Perhaps he’s saying improper things to her, I thought the first time, but Marysenka was so serious and asked him such questions that I soon forgot these stupid ideas.