A former teenager’s story. Ch. 17-20
CHAPTER 17
We sat on the roof of a shed near the mentioned above phone booth the villagers used to call the city from. Neither Sue nor I knew where else to go; so we, hiding on that roof, entertained ourselves picking yellow plums and eating them, and throwing the seeds down on the road trying to fling them as far as possible.
“I told you I’d sacrifice anything for our friendship,” Sue convinced me heatedly, “You have no idea how restless I felt all the time while you were away! Then I realized I didn’t really need any Roma… So I just turned him down.”
“I don’t need him either,” I said ostentatiously, “I love Shurik. And Roma was just a passing thing, you know.”
“But you may never see Shurik again” reminded Sue.
“That’s true. Dads say after the May incident I’m never setting foot at Kruglovo again. But nonetheless, I will always love Shurik, for the rest of my life.”
“And you will never marry anyone else, right?”
I shook my head.
“No. No one else but Shurik.”
“What if he rejects you?”
“Then I’ll stay unmarried forever. I love him truly and deeply and I will love him until my last breath.”
Sue giggled up her sleeve.
“What’s so funny?” I snapped out rudely.
“Sorry. You’re just being so naive…”
“Why am I being naive?”
“Because… Shurick the hick… You may never cross paths with him again!”
“Never say never,” I said unexpectedly, “The world doesn’t revolve around dads, after all! There are plenty of ways to get to Kruglovo…”
“What ways?”
“What ways? Going there on our own, for instance! Why not?”
“Do you have any idea where it is located?”
“Not really…” I mumbled, “But we could buy a map and see…”
“Maybe it’s not even charted on the maps! Even if it is – do you know how many Kruglovos there may be in the country? More than you can count, that’s how many!”
“Oh well, we could find all the Kruglovos and travel to all of them… Sooner or later we must get lucky and come to the right place!”
Sue laughed contemptuously.
“Do you know how many years it’s going to take before you’ve been to all your Kruglovos? You’ll make me die, really…” she said doubling over with laughter, “I imagine this picture in sixty years… You are a crooked old woman traveling around on and on in search of Kruglovo… Ha-ha-ha! And when you finally see your beloved Shurik, a bald old man, wrinkly and toothless, all falling apart… Hallo, my luv!.. Oh, you crack me up!! Ha-ha-ha!!!”
“Very funny” I said offended.
But there was no stopping Sue.
“And then he… farts!!!” she squealed like a pig choking on her laughter.
That really took the biscuit. I sprang up and went at her.
“Say one more word and I’ll kick you off the roof. Understand?”
“Okay, okay, I got ya…” she pretended to be scared but couldn’t help laughing out again.
I swung at her with the intention of giving that asshole a good punch and teaching her to watch her mouth when I suddenly saw the fat figure of my grandmother Zoya approaching our booth.
The blood drained from my face. I ducked down to the very edge of the roof and crawled rapidly back.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“Grandmother…” I gasped quietly, “Get down or she’ll see us! I wonder what the heck she’s doing here…”
We laid still up there like two spies. Meanwhile, Gran Zoya went inside the booth and we understood that she had come here to make a phone call.
“She must be going to call my father and complain about me,” I said in a whisper, “What an old cunt! That’s all I needed…”
“Be quiet! Let’s listen to what she’s gonna say”
We got quiet on the roof. And the loud, distinctive voice of Gran Zoya wasn’t long in coming.
“Hello, I need an ambulance! I think, my husband’s having a heart attack! Yes, a heart attack! Please, come quickly to the address…”
A few days later my grandfather passed away.
CHAPTER 18
It was September already and I was back in the city when one evening our phone rang and sobbing Gran Zoya without saying hello or calling my name said briefly:
“Put your dad on”
My father picked up the phone in the big bedroom and, as usual, he shouted to me in the kitchen:
“Hang up!”
However, I wasn’t in a hurry to hang up on them, and I listened with a bated breath. And I turned out to be just in time; for the information I learned was very important to me.
From the abrupt grandmother’s replicas, tearful and incoherent, I concluded that before his death my grandad had bequested to be buried near his native village Kruglovo. Moreover, he had asked for me to be present at the funeral.
“If it weren’t for that little ****, Sasha would still be alive” grandmother said evidently meaning me, “After what she said that day… I can’t stand the sight of her; but his wish is my command…”
At another time such epithets hurled my way would have affected me much worse; but now they didn’t matter. All that mattered was me going to Kruglovo tomorrow! Meaning that tomorrow and not a day later I would finally see Shurik!
I carefully put the receiver back and darted to my room. I was so excited that even being conscious of the impropriety of this excitement in the midst of everybody’s sorrow didn’t diminish my excitement, but, on the contrary, aroused it.
My hands shaking, I opened my wardrobe and swept all my shabby rags down on the floor. I was supposed to be present at the funeral dressed in black; and of all my black clothes I only had two options. The first was my baggy woolen sweater making my whole body look pear-shaped, and black jeans, just as baggy. The second option was my small black cocktail dress – so small that it couldn’t even cover my bum properly. Me wearing it at my grandad’s funeral would definitely be shocking to everyone; besides, it would mean an automatic death sentence for me. The ugly shapeless sweater would be a lot more appropriate for this sad event; but how could I attract Shirik wearing it…
“I’ll wear the dress,” I decided, “I don’t care what it does to me or what people think! The most important thing is that Shurik will be mine; and fuck the future!”
The next morning, at five or six am, my father knocked at my door.
“Are you ready?”
“Just a minute!”
I jumped out of bed and, shrinking from the chill of my bedroom, groped in the dark for my bag prepared beforehand. It contained my cocktail dress, black stockings, high-heeled shoes and my grandmother’s big black shawl. Having dressed myself quickly, I loosened my long hair I had had in cornrows all night to make it look thicker and curlier – and I started hastily to do makeup.
“Hurry up!” my father opened my bedroom door and tapped his finger on his watch, “It’s time!”
Having barely managed to hide my lipstick before he noticed it I covered my head with the shawl and, as I wrapped it around my face and body like a Muslim woman, I followed him downstairs.
CHAPTER 19
I remember that day in perfect detail.
In my diary, the large checkered notebook of A4 format, I mentioned it as the happiest day of my life.
Although, for the sake of justice, I must confess that in thirty years of my life there have been other days, just as happy – but back then, at that time, it was my HAPPIEST day.
The day of my own grandfather’s funeral is the happiest day? Hm… How cynical.
But anyway.
The happiest day of my life was September, 9, 1999. All nines. I wouldn’t have been surprised if at that instant even the clock had showed nine hours, nine minutes and nine seconds.
There was a nasty drizzle outside – one of those penetrating with cold autumn drizzles typical for Russian September. I limped my way along the cemetery wall in my high-heeled shoes and my short dress, and, shrinking with cold, I looked around for Him in the funeral procession. But there were so many people following the coffin that they all merged into one black stream and I couldn’t make out whether or not there was Shurik. It only remained for me to wait for the wake the whole village was invited to, and then I might accidentally on purpose take a seat beside him…
Finally, the procession halted by the open grave. The guys carrying the coffin upholstered in purple baize suddenly tripped on something; the coffin lurched, the body nearly fell out of it and Gran Zoya gave a scream. And it seemed funny to me, too, but, fortunately, nobody was watching me at that instant.
I have observed that I usually burst out the most irrepressible laughter in situations most inappropriate for it. No funny jokes, even excessively amusing ones, no comedies or stuff can make me laugh as much as, for instance, a person with a solemn face announcing that somebody has died. Or a mourning ceremony at church. At exactly such moments when laughing or even smiling is forbidden I just can’t help it.
Grandad’s funeral service that had been held in the ceremonial hall an hour before had nearly killed me too. When everybody holding a thin candle each surrounded the coffin with long faces and the grey-bearded priest in a cassock started waving his thurible and singing ‘Requiem aeternam’ I got just cracked up. Tanya stood opposite me with a very straight face – yet I could see how hard she found it to keep in public. I stared her in the eye and winked at her. She turned away from me covering her mouth with a handkerchief.
“Halleluiah, halleluiah, halleluia-ah!” wailed the priest over the body in the meantime.
This “halleluiah” completely cracked me up. I was literally shaking with laughter. I was shaking so hard that even the candle in my hand blew out. Using this circumstance I sneaked behind the column as subtly as possible so I could hide myself from everyone’s eyes and let myself go. But as soon I became invisible my laughter was all gone.
During the service and on the way to the cemetery I wouldn’t take off my ‘burka’ so nobody could see my war paint and my slutty outfit prematurely. But, when we had already arrived at the cemetery and I figured there was a glimpse of Shurik’s fair hair in the crowd – I appeared before the public in all my beauty.
Meanwhile the coffin was put in the grave; Gran Zoya wailed: “Let me go to him!!!”, everybody rushed to deter her, huddling around the open grave, so no attention was paid to me. Nobody looked at me at that moment – nobody but the two guys of seventeen or eighteen years old who had been carrying the coffin to the grave and had nearly dropped the body out of it.
“Here, put on my jacket, it’s cold” said one of them, the blonde guy that slightly resembled Shurik, and he wrapped his jacket around my shoulders.
“No, put on mine!” the other, black-haired one chimed in.
“Fuck off, I was first!”
“Boys, don’t fight,” I said smiling as I felt their attention rocketing my self-esteem sky-high.
The guys, in the meantime, having wrapped me in their jackets, were treating me to candies. I didn’t mind it, for I had a sweet tooth and so I could eat desserts twenty four hours a day without a break; I was therefore putting away all the lollies offered to me with great pleasure.
“Once you pop you can’t stop, huh?” said one of the guys.
“Yep”
At some point it slightly got out of hand, though. Seeing me enjoying their company and accepting their flirtations, the guys, as is usually the case, went a little overboard. Probably, some of them, emboldened by my favor, grabbed my boob, because I slapped the sassy one on the hand and yelled:
“What the hell?! Hands off, man!”
The wailing and lamentation over the grave stopped at once. And, right on cue, all as one raised their heads and looked at us.
Judging by the way my father glared at me it didn’t take much imagination to figure out that after the funeral I was going to have a good spanking. But at that instant I couldn’t care less. It was MY day. And I intended to spend it exactly the way I wanted to, regardless of the consequences.
CHAPTER 20
The coffin was finally buried into the ground, the flowers put on the grave, and the funeral procession moved to the cars to go to the wake at Kruglovo.
The guys walking beside me persuaded me to share a ride with them in the funeral bus. And I said yes immediately, without thinking twice.
The bus that had delivered the coffin was almost empty. Tanya and I accompanied by my ‘suitors’ got on, and the guys began to fight for the seat taken next to me.
“Tanya, get off here, quick!” said the blonde guy audaciously, “Please! I wanna sit down with her… Come on, be a friend…”
“Here you go. I don’t care,” replied my cousin with a snort and took another seat.
The bus started. The blonde guy intending to take the seat next to me lost his footing and fell down on his knee right by my feet – just like in cheap novels.
“May I?” he asked timidly, looking in my eyes.
“May what?” said I not getting it.
“You’ll understand when you’re older”
“Aren’t I old enough now?”
“Not yet. But in a couple years you’ll have all guys at your feet.”
“Really? Why?”
“Because you are beautiful…”
I couldn’t believe it. Was I – beautiful? Me, the ugly duckling who had constantly been told by every Tom, Dick and Harry that I was “frumpy”, “nerdy”, “chinese”, “cross-eyes”, “a little bugger and nothing more”… The list could indeed go on ad infinitum.
And now, for the first time, the strange young men had told me that I – I! – am beautiful…
Of course, later I guessed that they both had been dead drunk at that moment. It was no wonder – one couldn’t be digging a hole in the rain and cold of a chilly September morning without knocking down a bottle of cheap vodka. I bet the next day both my ‘suitors’ had a terrible hangover and they couldn’t even remember my face, not to mention my name. They would probably have never recognized me had they had a chance to meet me again.
But at that moment, as I sat on the bus surrounded by male attention, there was something making me believe their words that they both were crazy about me and my beauty. And, as I looked through the window at the conveyor belt of the wet asphalt road, I really believed myself beautiful – I believed myself gorgeous, fabulous, like a superstar…