Читать книгу The Secrets of the Two-Faced Maiden. Part 2 - - Страница 7

At the beginning of the summer of the following year, a friend whom Natalia had met back in Poland – Valentin – came to visit her. He was a tall and handsome man from Donetsk. Valentin had long been calling Natalia at her parents’ apartment, but they stubbornly refused to say where she lived and did not give out any of her contact information. Back then, hardly anyone even had a mobile phone. Eventually, however, her parents gave him her number. Valentin had courted Natalia in Poland, and this time he came with serious intentions of marrying her.

When Natalia and her sister Elena went to meet Valentin at the train station, Valentin slipped on the train step upon the train’s arrival and fell under the rails. The scene was both tragic and comical at the same time. It took a long time to get the newly minted fiancé out from under the train tracks. When they got home, Valentin told a terrifying story of what had happened to him. After returning from Poland, his ex-wife had thrown him out of the apartment. One day, after returning home from visiting friends, he suddenly felt unwell. He stripped naked in the stairwell and began behaving irrationally for no apparent reason. His parents were extremely frightened and called psychiatric emergency services. He was hospitalized and treated for six months, during which he was practically sedated to the point of being like a vegetable.

Natalia noticed significant changes in Valentin’s behavior – he was sluggish, inattentive, sometimes sleeping for three days straight, and other times extremely agitated and barely able to sleep. Natalia decided to go with Valentin to her dacha. Since she could not walk on her own, she persuaded Elena to come along and help with the household chores. Valentin stayed at the dacha for about two months. He regained his strength, began sleeping normally, and returned to his former self.

Natalia told Valentin that, most likely, someone had laced his food during the visit with a substance that caused hallucinations and irrational behavior. At the time, Natalia thought Valentin’s ex-wife, who did not want to share the apartment with him, might have been involved.

During the same period of time, my mother’s sister, Aunt Lida, who had envied Natalia’s mother all her life, died. On this day, Natalia and Valentin were on the beach. Suddenly a seagull began to circle over them and scream like a madman. All the vacationers could not understand what this seagull wanted. At this time, her sister Elena came to the beach and said that her father had arrived and reported that Aunt Lida had died today at the dacha in the neighboring cooperative and that the funeral would be the day after tomorrow. That evening, another event happened that greatly frightened not only Natalia and her sister, but also Valentin. A heavy thunderstorm began in the evening. Suddenly a bird began to beat against the window with a terrible cry, it simply threw itself at the glass and beat against them. That night Natalia, her sister and Valentin all prayed together until the bird calmed down. Valentin only wondered what kind of aunt we had? The funeral was standard. Valentin did not go to the funeral, he stayed with Diana the dog at the dacha.

A week later, Natalia decided to return to the city and send Valentin home to Donetsk, as she realized that her former feelings for him had disappeared, she was more concerned about the state of her spine, and not about marriage games. Moreover, Valentin had previously committed an act that became the main reason for Natalia’s disappointment in him. When Natalia was carrying watches for sale to Poland, Valentin gave her some of his amount for the purchase, then he himself took the watches for this amount and those watches that Natalia bought for her own funds. In the next such trip, Natalia brought Valentin a watch for a large sum. He refused to take these watches, but demanded that he return his part of the money for which Natalia bought the watches. Natalia returned this amount to him only after she was forced to stay in Poland and sell such a large number of watches herself. Some of the watches had to be sold at cost to wholesalers in order to pay off with Valentin. And some of the watches that she purchased for her own funds remained unsold. On this fateful trip, Natalia and her friends Alla and Irina were robbed, and Natalia was left with practically nothing. After that, she stopped answering Valentin’s calls. 4 years later, when Valentin came, she thought that perhaps he would become the very «pill» that would put her on her feet. But Natalia became the «pill» for Valentin. One autumn day, her sister Elena went to the train station and bought Valentin a ticket in the opposite direction. Natalia put him before the fact. Valentin did not want to leave, said that he had a lot of money, that he wanted to live with Natalia. He cried and begged Natalia to think and break up with him. But Natalia had already made a decision.