Читать книгу Lonely Place America. Novel-in-Stories - Ирина Борисова - Страница 11

That Finnish man saw her picture in our personals catalog. She was a thirty year old Russian girl of an average appearance. She wrote in her application form that most of all she wished to take care of somebody and to have children.

He invited her to visit him to Finland, she agreed. She came by train, he met her at the railway station. She had seen his picture while corresponding, still he turned out to be smaller and thinner and his eyes were frightened though he smiled.

He lived in a small one-bedroom apartment in a little town and worked as a milk-man at a large farm. He offered her his bedroom and he himself settled on the sofa in the living room. Every evening he wished her good night, closed the door and never tried either to open it or even to knock. Every morning he left for work when it was dark yet and she heard how he moved about the room trying not to make any noise and cautiously closed the door.

He was very cautious in everything: it seemed to her that he even cared she would not see how much money was in his purse; he tried to open it a way she could not see it and later she herself looked aside when he took his purse out of the pocket. They usually went shopping together in the evenings after his returning from work and he always repeated that prices in Finland were high and one should be economical.

He talked not much. Sometimes she wondered what for he invited her. On weekends they walked to the lake or visited the city. She tried to talk, asked him about personal things, but he was rather evasive and she desperately chatted about herself and could not understand what really he was thinking about.

Once it seemed to her she noticed a real feeling on his face: having entered the market one evening they encountered a black haired woman with a resolute expression on her face talking to a cashier. The girl noticed that the man became tense having seen the lady and tried to pass her faster, hiding his eyes. The woman also looked at them attentively, her eyes narrowed and a sneer flashed through her face.

The girl asked the man about the lady when they got out, but he muttered something and she understood that he preferred she would not continue her questions.

Staying alone at home while he was at work she used to talk with his cat. The man had an old red cat which he did not let out to the street and which slept most of the time on the window sill or looked outside from behind the window. The girl loved cats, she had her own one in Russia. Very often she sat beside the cat, stroked him behind his ear, looked together with him outside the window and told him that his master did not like her, that soon she would leave for Russia and never come back, that she was always unlucky with men and this time she was unlucky too. The cat purred, sympathizing.

The man also loved his cat. Returning from work he firstly used to come up to him, stroked him and asked the girl if the cat ate well. He often consulted with the girl what food would be better to buy for the cat – the girl’s profession was veterinary surgeon and she should know. It seemed to the girl that the cat was the only subject they could easily discuss and when in the evening they both watched TV and petted the cat lying between them on the couch, the girl sometimes thought that one would feel that way having a real family.

Once before her departure the girl was at home as usual. The weather was fine and the girl slightly opened the window, holding the sleeping cat, breathing the fresh spring air.

A lady-neighbour from the next apartment stopped beside the window and started a conversation about the good weather. The girl spoke Finnish not very well and understood not much. Still she understood when lowering her voice the lady started to speak about the man she visited. The lady whispered something about the man’s ex-wife and the girl understanding not very well asked the lady to come in and to repeat.

And having quickly moved to the door and let the lady come in, the girl learned that the man once had an evil wife to whom he left the house of his parents and all his property while leaving, and he himself rented that miserable apartment and had taken with himself only his red old cat.

When the lady mentioned the cat the girl immediately remembered that the window in the room remained opened. She ran back into the room but, alas, the window had flown open by the draught and the cat was absent. The girl looked under the sofa and the bed, ran out into the street and called the cat there but it did not help – the cat disappeared.

She did not know how to tell the man about it. When, blaming herself, she told him as soon as he came in, he did not say anything bad but told the girl that though the cat was never let outside, he hoped that his pet should return. All the evening both the man and the girl walked under the slight rain about the streets around the house and also far away, they called the cat, everything was vain.

Late in the evening when it started already raining heavily the girl stood at the window looking into the darkness and the man sat on the couch in front of an unswitched TV. The girl thought that she brought there only the misfortune, she thought about the red old cat hiding she had no idea where under that heavy rain; she remembered her own cat in Russia, imagined that the same happened with her cat too, thought that very soon she would leave for her cat which quite safely was with her mother but the man would stay alone without even a cat he could take care of and having thought about it she started crying. The man did not move and said nothing, she wished to stop but she could not, and he stood up, came up to her, stood beside for a while and hugged her indecisively.

They both spent that night in her bedroom. He firstly comforted her saying that the cat would return. Later, hugging her tightly, he whispered into her ear that the woman they saw in the market was his ex-wife, that he understood she never loved him but could not understand why she hated him so severely. All their family life she repeated that he was good for nothing and he himself already started to believe in it. After the divorce he preferred to leave her the house and everything only not to communicate any more. But when she somehow found out that he decided to invite a Russian girl, she laughed and she told everybody that Russian girls could be interested in nothing else but his money until they know how little that money is.

He did not wish to believe in all that but still believed, he wished to find good in life but already did not hope, he wished to become happy and could not even try as that evil woman poisoned everything. And the girl also hugged him tightly as if trying to defend, sobbed yet but already smiled and whispered that since that time everything would be okay and there would be no more reason to worry.