Читать книгу Lonely Place America. Novel-in-Stories - Ирина Борисова - Страница 8

They met in Internet by chance, she advertised the product of her company, he inquired, she replied. He was curious about Russia and Russians, asked a couple of questions, then asked more. Little by little their weekly exchange of messages became habitual, she liked that habit to retell him many things well-known in Russia but quite strange in America, his amazement was often funny. He also told her many things unknown for her, it was also interesting to be in touch with a person from another part of Earth, from another world. Firstly she was amazed by his openness and ability to share. Very soon she knew both the romantic story of his acquaintance with his wife and the sad story of their separation. People in Russia usually do not share so easily unless they consider someone to be their close friend. He also told much about his religious aspirations, he was very religious, she was not at all.

Then she started to get accustomed. She started to begin her day with switching on the computer, looking into the mailbox if there was any email or not. More often there was. She liked to read those small white letters on the blue screen. Reading them she felt a shadow of far life just there, so close to her. It was quite unknown life with unknown pleasures – black tie dinners and parties, unknown advantages – security, comfort, they did not have in Russia.

Her Russian reality was busy, uncertain, unstable. Every day she had to take often illegal decisions for her company’s survival. She could never be sure her business would be still working next day and she would remain safe.

Her private life was also rich. She had complicated relationship with her boyfriend who wished her give up her business and share his interests and life on the whole. He did not take her business seriously, worried that she was so tired, demanded that she would give it up and rely completely on himself. But she already had a sad experience relying upon men in her previous marriage, she preferred to be independent and she did not give any promises to her boyfriend for the future.

She had a daughter for whom she always had lack of time. Her old parents reproached her that she was working too much, they also tried to remain independent, not burdening her with any requests. She was helping them financially but she also felt she was not giving them enough time and affection while they were so much missing her.

Her friends also told her that she had forgotten them. But to pay more attention to all her dear people meant to take away time from her business which she considered quite impossible.

However, email from a strange American entered somehow her busy life and managed to take an important there.

Late in the evening when her daughter already slept and no telephone calls could occur she sat at the computer taking away time from her even so short sleep and composed email messages. She used to write about the events of her day, about all the fears, about everything that came to her mind. On one hand she wrote a diary, on the other hand, realizing that someone quite unknown, a person from a stable and secure – as she thought – world would read it, she felt as if a thin thread connected her with that world and she also got from there her own small part of protection.

She understood that it was surely a pure illusion but very soon she really began to feel that imagined protection. When after a strange telephone call she suspected if it was racket investigating the financial position of her company or when her bank suddenly appeared bankrupt she did not already feel desperate as she would do in former times. Remembering that she could write about it in the evening in her email message she felt as if the real danger receded. She as if built another parallel life in which only those things existed which she described in her messages, but things described seemed already not so awful as theatre scenery which could not frighten anybody. Very often when she had to solve real problems she sat with her thoughts far away deciding how to describe those problems better. She preferred to move into an invented email reality resisting every time when she had to return into the hard actual one.

Sometimes she wondered how it could happen, wondering if it was a subconscious wish of self-defense because the tension of all those real and imagined fears became sometimes too strong and any kind of relaxation was necessary. Very soon however she started to worry and think that although that habit to write email became so beloved and strong, something should be done about it.

As to the person she corresponded with he did not seem less alien to her after several months of correspondence than on the first day of email acquaintance. Very soon she understood that his openness and frankness did not mean what they would mean in Russia, that warm sincere words of real sympathy that she maybe awaited would not be said, not because he was hard and silly, but just because he was not capable of understanding the feeling of everyday uncertainty, the feeling of life at the railway station before the train departure, that they all constantly had in Russia. He was a successful businessman appreciating luxury, good restaurants and hotels, acquaintance with famous people, traveling – he was so much excited telling about his and his wife’s voyage to Venice in Orient Express in costumes of twenties. She could not know if she liked all that or not – she never experienced anything of the kind – but it seemed to her if even she had she would not take it all so seriously. Every time receiving his messages she felt a slight prick of dissatisfaction because what she wrote was not understood as she would like, more and more she made certain that she wrote mostly for herself, she thought that she had become very foolishly addicted and had to quit.

However, she felt that her day was empty, though it was full of events, when she did not receive an email message and had no opportunity to reply. She was thinking how to manage to get rid of that delusion when her American informed her unexpectedly that he had to visit Russia on business and that they would meet.

And he turned out to be a person with a friendly, easy-appearing smile, he curiously looked around out of the taxi, their meeting was taken up with fussing but when they at last sat in front of each other and talked they had pauses in the conversation remembering if they already wrote about this or that in their email. Then they familiarized themselves with each other and their personal acquaintance it seemed had nothing to do with their correspondence. She showed him theatres and restaurants, they talked and again he listened attentively when she described her reality but he was much more excited sharing his own cherished thoughts about perfecting himself for God’s approval, his concern that the world was overpopulated, plans and projects for future business. And she also listened to all that, thinking that she was taking away time from her most necessary affairs, feeling a kind of irritation, counting days till his departure, missing something important, being unable to understand what it was.

But when she saw him off to the airport she understood what she was missing. It was the absence of the possibility to write email during all the time of his visit. Having seen him off she was happy to think that he would be back home soon, would sit at his computer and it would be possible to write email again.

Having realized it she knew what she should do next. At home she resolutely switched off her modem, took a taxi to her boyfriend’s, and having entered his apartment immediately proffered her modem to him and asked him to hide it as far as he could, not to give it back to her keeping it away as long as possible, whatever she would say and however ask him.