Anatoly Mikhaylenko
And the showers were coming ...
(Option 50)
1
The Kiev sky is covered with clouds
of army uniform. In the chestnut alley, touched by the first rust of autumn,
the foliage rustles, reminding of its rustle the friction of the tin of tin.
Stas Kazhan, a humanitarian, who by virtue of circumstances became a supply
man, sits on a bench, mechanically rolling in his hand two small horse
chestnuts.
- Stas. Stas Kazhan! Someone calls
to him.
He turned his head. Two steps from
him stood a woman of about thirty-five with a sunburnt face and dyed hair as
light as platinum. Her big dark brown eyes, tinted with mascara, radiated
condescending tenderness. So adults look at the child who has committed some
kind of innocent prank.
- Olya! Olya Tkach! - he recognized
his former classmate, and an unexpected spasm squeezed his throat.
- Oh no! - She killed him with her
answer. -Now Olga Polupan!
"Ah ... could ... be ... Olga
Kazhan," Stas said stutteringly.
- God, - exclaimed several naigrano
woman, ringing clapping her hands. - How funny it sounds: Olga Kazhan! Olga the
Bat, is not it?1
"Why am I funny?" He
thought. And he continued:
- And what does Olga Polupan do?
- I work in the Institute of
Literature, Candidate of Science, now I'm writing a doctorate, but I do not
finish it ...
"What's wrong?" Is the
topic difficult? He asked sympathetically.
"It's nothing complicated, but,
you know, family, children," she said.
"Have you got many of
them?"
- One son.
- Yes? And how did the javan jing
pane Polupan? - he was singing on a shouting tone.
"Stas, that is Stanislav,"
said Olga, embarrassed.
"And who does my namesake look
like?"
- Do not flatter yourself! She said
jealously.
While they were talking, looking
closely, as if studying each other, the first heavy drops of rain struck the
leaves of chestnut trees, jumped on the asphalt, raising spouts of spray.
"There's a cafe near here,
we're going faster, there we wait for the rain," Olga said. And she rushed
to start with a thunderstorm, and he followed her. Having run into the cafe,
they flopped down, relaxed, and breathing heavily, at the chairs at the table
by the window overlooking Khreshchatyk.
The rain intensified. Looking out
into the street and hearing the "cannonball" cannonade, Stas thought:
"This is for a long time." And he asked Olga:
- Would you like some coffee?
She nodded her head affirmatively.
"With a cake?"
"I love the custard, if you
remember," she said.
"I still can not believe that I
see you, so many years have passed," he said, taking a sip of coffee and
glancing at the whole of her good figure.
Olga sat half-turned to him and
seemed to be indifferently staring into the misted window. But it did not slip
away from him, like her cheek turned towards him, her neck and even the auricle
turned pink at once.
"Yes, time flies, that your
express train," she said thoughtfully, and turned to him. Embarrassed, he
looked away, drowning his eyes in a cup of coffee. And she began quietly,
singing, reading:
On all the flights summer flew,
We are fascinated with ourselves.
And all that the distance was
carried by the planet,
It was called life and destiny.
And nothing to do
We with this fact could not.
The earth spun and flew,
And the showers were coming, and the
showers were coming ...
It was his, Stas, old, still
student's verses. "Wow, she remembers and recites them by heart!" -
He was surprised.
"Do you still write?" She
asked when she finished reading.
"Sometimes," Stas
squeaked.
"What do you mean, sometimes?
- You understand, poetry, like love,
or it is or is not.
"Are you saying that you are
alone now and free like a Cossack?"
- I'm talking about the fact that
both the first and second are the highest manifestation of the human spirit.
"Do not bother me with
platitudes, Stas.
- You see, you understand everything,
but you ask.
"Have you even tried to publish
a book?"
"I've published it," he
said, either in the affirmative or in an inquiring way.
"And how did you name it?"
"That's what he called:"
And the showers were going ... "- he started all the heavy ones.
"It's in memory of the
Fontanka, right?" Do you remember about that time?
- Infrequently.
- But why?! - in Olga's voice
resentment sounded.
"Because it's been a long
time," he said.
- And it seems to me, more recently!
- she made an accent on the last word. And again she turned to the window.
The downpour stopped. Olga and Stas
went to Khreshchatyk. Showcases of cafes and shops sparkled, washed just passed
the rain. From the wet chestnut trees, hanging for a while on the carved edges
of the tapped leaves, as if reluctantly dropping large drops and, flying a
second or two in free fall, hit with a hollow slap on the wet asphalt.
- Well, it's time for me, - Olga
suddenly said.
"I will lead you," he
responded with youthful readiness.
"Do not, I'm in a hurry,"
she said, as though she was pouring ice water on the tub.
Under the arches of the metro
station, rummaging in her purse, Olga took out a business card, handed it to
him.
- Call me. I'll be free tomorrow
after two, "she said, without explaining anything, and left.
Remaining one, he looked after how
Olga, passing a turnstile, took a step on an escalator and as failed through
earth. Only after it, awakening, he dashed after. Getting down in an
underground, searched her in crowd and hidden after a column. A train, dense
human mass, suited, catching up them, pulled in inside carriage. "Why did
you follow after her? - he thought as about someone extraneous. - As impossible
twice to enter the the same river, it is so impossible twice to appear in a the
same bed".
Olga, thoughtful, stood in the
corner of the overcrowded carriage, holding on to the hand-rail, looked through
a window. Стас squeezed
nearer, became for her after a back. On the next turn of train someone leaned
heavily on him and pinned against her. are you!? - looking around, said, being
confused, Olga. And, twisting a head from a side aside, as reprobating him,
pronounced conciliatory-sacramental: - Mad!
Olga lived in Poznyaky - in a new
area of the capital, not unlike new buildings in other major cities.
Maneuvering between the puddles left after a recent rainstorm, Stas and Olga
walked in silence. Both felt uncomfortable: much is said, and most importantly,
it remains unspoken. At last they went out to the Princes Zaton Street.
"Here I live," Olga said,
pointing to the gray concrete parallelepiped with her head. We went a few more
puddles and stopped at the first entrance.
"Thank you for spending it, I
was glad to see you," she said in a casual voice, stretching out her manly
hand for a shake. And, having typed the code on the front door, added:
- So you call me? ..
2
At home, disguised, Olga went to the
kitchen, preparing dinner. "Do I still love him?" - she asked herself
between the case. Everything fell from her hands. Cleaning the onion, cut the
finger, the potatoes, as she did not try, burned, removing the pan from the
stove, burned.
Soon the son returned home,
whistling a melody.
- Stanislav, do not bring in the
house - there will be no money! She said irritably.
"They are not there, why worry
in vain!" - followed the usual response already.
- Do not start! Go, better, eat, I
cooked your favorite fried potatoes, "she said, patting her son on the
curly, unshaveed head, thinking to herself:" It's good that he does not
look like Paramon ... "
Brewing strong coffee, Olga with a
cup went to her room with a firm intention to work. After turning on the
computer, she opened the file with the doctoral thesis "Metaphor, its
variants and functions in the novels of Yuri Ostroverkh".
"The theory of metaphor is
thoroughly developed by the world literary and theoretical science," she
read the academic banality. And she ran her eyes through the paragraph to the
end: "Every metaphor is calculated ..., the ability to see the second plan
of the metaphor ... the detailed metaphor realizes the task ... the metaphor is
a kind of lever ..."
"God, what melancholy!" -
she was angry with herself, at her lack of talent, at an unhappy family life,
and finally at Stas, who did not want to understand her. "Well, at least
it was not so cold - still not strangers. Or are they strangers? So many years
have passed ... "- thought sadly.
Turning off the computer, Olga got
up from the table, extinguished the table lamp and, as was dressed, and rushed
headlong to the bed. Through the noise of the rain, I heard the creaking of the
front door, a fuss in the hallway, unsteady steps - the husband came back home
to Professor Paramon Polupan! He looked into her room with a ghost, filling the
air with the exhaust of wine vapors, and, making sure that she was asleep,
left. Fortunately, the apartment is three-room.
As soon as her husband closed the
door, Olga rolled over on her back, staring at the unseeing glance at the
ceiling. Outside, the monotonous rain was still rustling. The same protracted
rains went even then, in the village of Fontanka, where their course was sent
to clean the tomatoes. The memories of youth warmed the lonely female soul. She
saw herself and Stas - young, in love, not remembering themselves from
happiness. Here they are alone on the fountain beach, here in the sovkhoz hay.
It's raining, somewhere under the slate roof, they cooed about something their
pigeons, smells like a dung and mice. But this does not stop them from loving
each other ...
"What a fool! - grumbling
discontentedly Paramon, pacing up and down the room. - The husband came home,
and she sleeps to herself, as if nothing had happened! And what a lovely,
affable girl when I ripped her from the province, "he continued. - I made
a man out of it, brought up my son as my own, and she twists her nose, she's a
bitch! "
Glancing back at the door, he took a
bottle of liquid that looked like absinthe from the cupboard. "Here would
be Katerina, she would have arranged everything quickly!" He said
dreamily, pouring into the glass of "absinthe". And, overturning the
greenish liquid into himself, he grinned greedily, and went out to smoke on the
balcony.
"And why did not I stay with
her? - shivering with dampness and cold, recalled Paramon, a young graduate
student, with whom gloriously spent tonight. "She's good, but I'm still
nothing!" Taking out a packet of Marlboro from his trouser pocket, he took
out a cigarette, lit it from the lighter, and took a deep puff.
Whether from the bitterness of
cigarette smoke, or from drunk alcohol, he suddenly felt dizzy, nausea came to
his throat. Instinctively, he stepped toward the railing of the balcony, leaned
over them and launched the contents of the stomach into the night. And when the
second urge of vomiting came, he unexpectedly slipped on the wet ceramic tile
of the balcony, lost his balance and found himself on that side of the railing.
"Why did not I hide the bottle?
My wife will be unhappy, "- the last thing he thought about ...
"Strange, I still remember his
caresses!" Olga smiled in the darkness of her room. And almost physically
I felt long kisses on the lips, in the neck, his hot palm sliding along her
waist, down the abdomen. In exhaustion, she threw back her head, bit her lower
lip, so as not to scream ... and heard, as she thought, the insistent trills of
a phone call.
- Stas! This is Stas! I am now, now!
Olga jumped out of bed. And only turning on the light and feeling the cold
floor barefoot, realized that this is not a telephone. This someone unknown
persistently and loudly knocked on the front door of the apartment and did not
release the button of the electric bell ...
3
The firm train
"Chernomorets" carried away Stas Kazhana on a rainy September night.
In the compartment of the sleeping car he was alone. And he will not have to
share his living space with someone today. Maybe already before the morning. He
sat at the window, took out chestnuts from his jacket pocket and, rolling them
habitually in his hand, remembered the meeting with Olga. He, like every man,
had a rather sophisticated mind, to talk about the business and other qualities
of a woman, to lose sight of his participation in her destiny.
"A new apartment in the
capital, a loving husband, an honored son, a prestigious job, a doctoral
dissertation on the way - what else does a woman need for happiness ?! -
sincerely rejoiced for Olga Stas. "She made her choice and seems to be
very pleased with him ..."
He spread out the bed, comfortably
stretched out on the lower shelf, and, with a thin cloth blanket, closed his
eyes peacefully. And as soon as I closed my eyelids, I saw myself and Olya
Tkach. They stand in the office of the dean of the philological faculty,
Professor Ivan Duzia, shifting from foot to foot.
He, turning over some book,
does not pay attention to them. Finally, the dean raised his face, and the look
of his faded sclerotic eyes, as if accidentally stumbled upon the
student-graduates standing at the door. He looked attentively at Holguin's
rounded belly, looked at Stas.
"Stanislav," said Ivan
Mikhailovich in a soft fatherly voice. "Take Olya's hand." Did you
take it? And now lead her to the registry office. And, look, without a marriage
certificate to the faculty, do not come back, - the dean's voice already had
strict, principled notes that do not allow any objections. - So know, without
him you will not get a diploma!
Stas and Olga, holding hands like
guilty students, went down to the hall, went out into the street. There, by the
flowerbed, they were waited by fellow student Vitaly Kahovsky riding a
motorcycle "K-750", which he won in the lottery.
"Sit down," the
motorcyclist said, smiling good-naturedly. "Ivan Mikhailovich instructed
me to take you to wherever."
Olya obediently sat in the stroller,
Stas settled on the back of the saddle. The motorcyclist let go of the clutch,
went to the French Boulevard and headed for Arcadia.
- Well, hold on! - Vitalka shouted,
and added gas. The motorcycle, gaining speed, jumped on a cobblestone roadway.
The oncoming wind blew their faces with an elastic stream, frantically shaking
their hair on their heads. Out of the corner of his eye, Stas saw Olga grasping
her two arms tightly over the side of the carriage, expecting nothing good from
this crazy ride.
Suddenly, a heavy car, accelerating,
jumped, flew over the highway and began to rapidly gain altitude. Far below
there were a cafe "Ogonek", where they went to drink coffee,
university botanical garden, hotel "Youth", sanatorium
"Russia". Above the Arcadian beach they were picked up by the rising
air and carried higher and higher. And here they are three of us - Stas Kazhan,
Olya Tkach and dashing pilot Vitalka are riding on a motorcycle to meet unknown
storm clouds coming from somewhere ...
- And the dream is the same! - burst
out at Stas, when he went to the platform of the Odessa railway station,
flooded with the morning sun. Today I'll call Olga! "He thought. But while
wagons with children's food were unloaded, they left Kiev before him, while the
necessary documents were being made, he forgot about his intention. He did not
call Olga the next day, and in the following days he was somehow in a hurry to
dial the number of her phone in Kiev. A couple of weeks later, he had already
decided finally that it was too late to call, it was awkward, and there was no
need.
1) Kazhan –
Кажан – на украинском языке Летучая мышь – на русском. В данном контексте это
игра слов и понятий
1) Kazhan - Kazhan - in Ukrainian - Bat - in Russian. In this context it is a play of
words and concepts
Рассказ
опубликован в художественно-литературном журнале “Южное сияние”. 2016 г. #
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