Читать книгу Provence Forever - Massimo Cereso - Страница 13

5

Anushka

In the meantime, I had reached my twenty-eighth year and was married for the second time. Anushka, with whom I was to share my life in the following twenty-nine years, corresponded to my ideas in every respect. Still far from my expectations in those days, however, was my professional success, which still had not materialized to my satisfaction. At that time, I had proven myself through diligence and had been promoted to sales manager in a pharmaceutical company. This meant that I could look forward to an orderly future with a secure pension, but this was anything but my fulfillment. Living a life like millions of other people live and have to live every day was not my life. Something had to happen, my inner restlessness could no longer be endured, I wanted to carry out an independent activity under all circumstances. So, in addition to my daily work as an employee, I began to visit some industrial fairs at home and abroad in order to find suitable industrial goods that I could sell independently. Anushka, who had very modest demands on life and put inner values above financial prosperity, agreed with my desire to work out my own company.

We had a beautiful home and were very happy, my previous marriage to Sabrina now no longer burdened me. With the additional savings that Anushka had brought into our marriage, every foundation was laid for a fulfilling life together. My parents thanked God that a woman like Anushka was with me, and Anushka was welcomed into my family like my own child and respected in every way.

Anushka was the daughter of a large landowner and was allowed to spend a beautiful youth in the circle of her family. But as a result of political power shifts and military conflicts, the family had lost their beautiful estate in what was then Czechoslovakia, a blow that her father did not survive. The family had to leave their ancestral home and start a new life in a foreign land. These challenges welded this family into an inseparable unit, and their surroundings at that time, surrounded by nature and animals, shaped Anushka's character. Anushka's mother was always a lady to her father and for these reasons Anushka also became a lady. Her upbringing was perfect, ethics and morals were always a matter of course and never during our twenty-nine years of being together did I hear a word of cursing or a lie. Anushka is truly the only lady I have met in my life so far. Anushka's consummate beauty was not so much external as ascertainable within her soul. Her outer appearance corresponded to a rough and fascinating landscape, her eyes were blue cornflowers, her body was slender and flexible like an ear of corn. I cannot imagine that Anushka could have endured life with me for so long without her youthful experiences. In addition, however, there was our daughter Katja, who in any case also had a right to orderly family circumstances in a beautiful home.