Читать книгу Lonely Place America. Novel-in-Stories - Ирина Борисова - Страница 9

His name was Frank, I translated his letters. He wrote them to a petite girl with a low voice. Though he could not know what really her voice was as he could not phone her because she did not speak English at all and he did not wish to use an interpreter considering that such a conversation of the three would be awkward.

His letters were honest, sincere and nice. His letters quite came up to his name. He carefully chose a girl to write to but, having chosen, unconditionally decided that she would be the only person to whom he would tell the story of his life. But there was also someone else, me, who had a possibility to learn it.

I was thrilled by his letters. I read how lost he felt gardening in the yard of his house alone on weekends. I knew that he had the only friend far away. I learned the story of his previous marriage, of his ex-wife, who did not wish to have children in her younger age as she had a very evil step-mother herself, then understood how wrong she was and presented all her not-called-for tenderness to her nephews. He wrote also that he himself would be happy to have children in his new marriage, or could do without them, he let decide that question to the person who should become the most important for him, the girl he wrote to.

The letters of his girl were rather featureless. Though modest and respectable, they were descriptive but poor for feelings. But a lot of room in her letters was devoted to the descriptions of St. Petersburg’s beauties. Some places in her letters were written in such a magnificent language that I even thought that she attended a literary studio and was happy to exercise while corresponding with Frank. It was difficult to say what a person she was according to her letters.

Frank, however, seemed happy to entrust his destiny at least to someone. He wrote about his problems with work, he decided to leave his job and to take another, he described why that previous job did not satisfy him any more. To read about work in the US was certainly interesting for me. Having translated what he wrote I usually told about it to my family during our meals. I also told my friends what was the situation with work in America, and we all were amazed to find common traits in it with ours in socialist times. And of course both my family and friends knew that all I told them was happening with a person called Frank.

At last Frank abandoned his old work but very soon understood that the new one did not match him either. Frank remained without any work after all.

Letters of his girl of that time did not have any peculiarities. As earlier she did not write much about herself though she shared such an important feature of herself that her favourite meal was poultry. It was as if she lacked imagination to understand what really was going on in Frank’s life. She unhurriedly began her each letter with invariable «Dear Frank» and finished it with a splendid description of the season’s beauty or the beauty of a city landscape. Meanwhile Frank experienced hard times. Little by little he started to share with me writing about unlucky interviews and about times of complete silence, complete absence of any offers. I encouraged him as I could. Both my family and friends knew already that Frank was without work.

Once, when I visited my mother overnight, my son called me from home to tell that there was a desperate email from Frank in my computer at home where Frank asked to write him back as fast as I could. My son told me also that Frank was preparing himself for an interview, very important for him, and being a little superstitious wished to hear a few encouraging words.

Spending night at my mother’s I could not email Frank right away. But having arrived home next morning I threw the bag from the groserie in the lobby and immediately emailed Frank that I wished him good luck before putting food into the fridge.

The first thing my son asked having come home from school that day was how Frank’s interview passed. My lady-friend called in the evening and in the end of the conversation asked: «By the way, has that your American, Frank, got a new job or not yet?» My husband, having returned from his business trip, also asked: «What about Frank? If I was at his place I would prefer to become an independent entrepreneur!»

Frank’s interview passed unlucky but he got another job very soon. His girl, it seemed, did not notice what happened with Frank, she sent him a long letter with the description of St. Petersburg’s beautiful bridges copied, it seemed, from a local lore book. She also promised to describe St. Petersburg monumental sculpture in her next letter.

There is much more splendour to describe in St. Petersburg and a lot of books where from to take descriptions in its libraries too, so Frank’s girl has much more ahead. Frank continues to write to her about his lonely life, I continue to translate. It seems Frank and me are already good friends. My family and friends are also aware of Frank’s existence and often ask me how Frank is. And even though his girl currently passed to describe all scientific discoveries ever done in St. Petersburg, Frank – it seems – is already not so much lonely in this world.