Читать книгу Fall of Matilda - Evgeny Russ - Страница 10

Matilda woke up due to a loud phone call. The sun shone brightly through the curtains. Matilda looked at her watch – it was 10am. She stretched and wanted another ten minutes to luxuriate in bed, but the loud sounds of the phone were against her wishes. Matilda got out of bed, put on her robe, and without hurrying went to the bathroom. She looked in the mirror for a long time, then sat down on the edge of the bathroom and cried. It did not last long, in a few seconds Matilda pulled herself together, washed herself and put herself in order. When she returned to the bedroom, the phone was silent. Matilda sat down to the dressing table and looking in the mirror began to think what she could do now in this situation. Matilda was already 26, but in the reflection of the mirror on Matilda looked a pretty young twenty-three-year-old blonde with a swollen upper lip. “Yes,” Matilda thought, “it’s hard to fix something here and three days will not have to leave the house.”

The meditation was interrupted by a loud phone call. Matilda picked up the phone, “hello.”

In response, she heard, “hello, Matilda, dear, what happened?” We have an hour, later in the company meeting with us, deputies, here the TV anchorman. The journalists have already gathered, the press, so to speak.”

“Arnold Veniaminovich, I’m sick. By Monday I will be healthy. Now I feel bad.”

Arnold Veniaminovich realized that something had happened. Matilda could not suddenly fall ill, and never did he see her sick, weak or in a bad mood.

“Well, I will postpone the event for Monday, or even better for Tuesday. If there is no general director of the company, then the meeting with deputies is postponed, this is normal. Now I want to see you. Now I’ll come,” – and Arnold Veniaminovich hung up.

Arnold Veniaminovich Dobronravov was married, had three children and the reputation of a good family man. Arnold Veniaminovich has long wanted to take the chair of the Governor of the region, Mr. Zalepin, but it did not depend on Dobronravov, but only on his connections in Moscow. He did not even put forward his candidacy for the upcoming elections. At first he was to be recommended in the Kremlin as soon as possible. Still he had no this opportunity. Now Dobronravov was just an ordinary deputy of the City Duma, and as a deputy dealing with problems of affordable housing, he visited office of company “Volga-Stroy Invest’. This was exactly the former office of Matilda Real Estate Agency. Everyone knew that Dobronravov personally owns the company, but officially, “Volga-Stroy Invest’ was established by the Cyprus Company DBC Construction Development Inc. The director was Stanislav Sukhorukov – unknown to anyone a young man and nephew of Arnold Dobronravov. DBC Construction Development Inc. had a representative office in Moscow. Sukhorukov appointed on post of executive director of the representative office his comrade and former classmate Viktor Gulyaev.

Matilda hung up the phone, but immediately took it off again and rang the governess, “Olga Nikolaevna, can you come right now? It is very urgent. Come by taxi, please.”

“Yes, my dear,” answered Olga Nikolayevna.

She was an elderly single woman, retired and a former teacher of French. Olga Nikolayevna did not have friends and girlfriends, and she liked to communicate only with Matilda, loved to take care of her, prepare dinner and help with housework. Olga Nikolaevna had an adult daughter, but she lived in Murmansk and was married to a midshipman of a submarine. They were seen each other very rarely. Every week Olga Nikolayevna wrote a letter to her daughter and carried it to the post office. Her daughter wrote rarely, she often called mama by phone. Last year, Olga Nikolayevna with her daughter and son-in-law was resting in Cuba, so the entire sideboard was filled with Havana’s photos and Cuban souvenirs. Near the table where the phone was, two portraits hung – a photograph of her husband, also a military sailor, who died early, and a picture of her father who had not returned from the Great Patriotic War. The French language was not useful to Olga Nikolaevna. She always dreamed that one of her students, after finishing school, will go to the Institute of Foreign Languages, will learn and work as an interpreter in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and benefit the Motherland. Now she did not know where they live and what her graduates are doing. She sincerely believed that French language would be useful to them in life. She was a native inhabitant of Sevastopol, but by will of fate she was in Tver. She lived in the hope of returning to her city, but eventually all her hopes were destroyed. Olga Nikolaevna always tried to live modestly. The life alone without husband, in a large four-room apartment was painful for her. She met Matilda when she wanted to exchange her four-room apartment for a small one-room apartment with an additional payment. Now, as in her youth, Olga Nikolaevna did not experience any problems with money, but she did not have enough pleasant communication, and in Matilda’s face she found an interesting companion.