1
When the story opened, my acquaintances hung a new label on my former image of a provincial simpleton: a budding scoundrel. They were struck by the cynicism of a twenty-year-old boy who had swindled an «old woman».
I will begin with the family of my Moscow uncle, mother’s younger brother.
My summer visits usually coincided with holiday pilgrimages to the capital of numerous relatives of the Rayevskys (my uncle’s last name), so this made life difficult for my uncle’s family. I am soft by nature if I am praised. Alas – rarely! And over the years more often irritated uncle with barbed alertness of fatherlessness and straightforwardness of a provincial. The family relationship was confined to amiable: «As a mother»? I remember the midnight arrogant chatter of the Rajevskys, assimilated Muscovites in the first knee, in the kitchen about the cultural and political life of the country, and Aunt Natasha’s unchanging advice, Madame forty years old, with false eyelashes and red chignon on the back of her head: «Read the «Rose of the World’, you may not read the rest!» My aunt taught at a technical university by her own method, without abstracts: she read the textbook impromptu.
Uncle Kadya is an engineer by training, by post someone’s deputy that made his figure odious for his family, considered himself a philosopher. His method of cognition excluded book and other knowledge: they clogged up the firstborn thought. Uncle, in his words, comprehended the truth by an inner sense. Usually he puffed on a cigarette and was barely audible, under the reverence of close, he unbent the monograms of his banal absurdities. Daughters of the Rayevsky, my cousins Fenya and Katya, the round perennial «C» schoolgirls, between the kitchen idle talk and school, respectively, from fourteen and thirteen years, begged in the pubs, gratis cocktails in the elderly impotent, who had money. In general, my relatives are kind and tolerant people. But we lived a different life. And could neither get used to each other.
That summer, on the unfinished veranda of the Rayevsky dacha, in demobilization tunic, hung with shiny trinkets, intoxicating from freedom and kisses accumulated over two years, I am with army straightforwardness stunned uncle – he asked lazily at my plans – «Register me in Moscow!»
What was waiting for me at home? Drinking friends, aging mother (father left us long ago), unemployment. My whole biography: discos, pubs, lustful sixteen-year-old fools, libraries with tedious books on the school curriculum and the boredom of a country town. I did not know yet: people live everywhere, the glitter of the capital is the colorful façade of the tomfoolery, where everyone is for himself, where people getting stupid with fatigue and loneliness. I dreamed of Moscow, good luck, and did not think to retreat.
Uncle carefully asked: «And what will you do here?» «Do not know!» An oppressive panic pause and an unambiguous hint: «Consult with mom. When you decide, let’s talk!» Gray with fright Aunt Natasha hard rubbed her temples. «I have found out at the police station. You won’t be able to register me just like that,» I was finishing off relatives. «To go as a cop by a limit – it’s five years thrown out of life. Besides, I’ll still have to live with you! Not in the dorm same! I spoke with Katya. She is eighteen. We have different surnames. We can marry fictitiously…»
Katya smoked in a rocking chair, independently crossing her legs of horse grace. Her pimply physiognomy of maturing virgin (in the chastity of the sister, however, not sure: the prostitute Oia, girlfriend sisters, lived in the apartment for a long time, and as they say, with whom will lead …) expressed willingness to enter into a fictitious marriage.
The brilliant idea of marrying a cousin shook relatives. To the orphan delicately explained his delusions. First, incest; secondly, Katya was suspected of dementia from early childhood (often she walked naked around the apartment in the presence of strangers men) and could blurt out, anywhere, anything; and thirdly, there is a surplus of living space, but what the hell did I give up here?
The explanation ended with a scandal. With youthful maximalism, I decided to break with my uncle forever.
In those days, the Raevskys were repairing an apartment. In a memorable week of family passions, I was settled in one of the countless Moscow apartment blocks to a good friend of the uncle, a woman of retirement or about that age, to Elena Nikolaevna Kurushina. From her in a sullen mood, not expecting anything good from life, I had driven home, firmly intending to return.
2
Chronic disease of megacities – loneliness – each heals in its own way.
At first, Elena Nikolaevna clung to work, then thought out obligations to her Moscow acquaintances, who still remembered her. Kurushina’s father once held a post in the government of Prime Minister Podgorny. Behind the glass of the sideboard, bureaucratic jackets around the superior in the group photograph dissolved the illegible countenance of Kurushin. Long ago, in her past, there were university orgies of golden youth, a husband, a tinsel of life. Parents left the money, allowing her not to work. In the first week the hostess told about herself. No sadder than the story of life wasted.
