Читать книгу Oh my love, my death. Selected short stories - - Страница 4

He had the same dream every time. He was completely healthy, climbing a winding mountain path to the top. Around him was indescribable beauty: bushes with green foliage, scarlet and blue flowers. Suddenly he stopped, enjoying the singing of birds, looked ahead, mentally counting how much was left to the top. It was in this place, halfway, that he always woke up, never having reached the cherished height… Waking up, he heard the singing of birds – in reality, with such joyful, ringing voices, as if they were performing a hymn to the new day.

The old man lay and looked out the window, where the branches of an apricot tree were visible. He thoughtfully returned to his dream, trying to remember every detail, and involuntarily recalled a cartoon about a dog who dreamed of hunting every day.

«We are somewhat similar,» he thought. «We both yearn for the past.»

From the hallway came light footsteps, the sound of water from the tap, the hiss of a boiling kettle. A few minutes later the door opened and the granddaughter entered the room – a dark-skinned girl of about nineteen with large, deer-like eyes. She carefully seated the old man in the stroller and rolled him into the kitchen. After breakfast, she took him out into the garden, covered him with a warm blanket and, having said goodbye, hurried to classes – she was a student.

The old man sat and watched the sun rise. The higher it rose, the more pleasant it became for the body, warming his arms and legs, numb from the morning coolness. The son and daughter-in-law woke up late, around nine, and before that the old man was alone – among the trees and white flowers.

The garden was small: a couple of apricot trees, four apple trees and about ten cherry trees. Everything was repeated day after day, for many years in a row, and he knew in what order and when each tree would bloom.

The first the apricots pleased the eye after a long winter were, then the cherries and apple trees.

When he had just fallen into this difficult trap of illness, became immobile – after a stroke – he complained to friends who came to visit him that he was bored, that there was no one to talk to, that he wanted to communicate with the birds, but, alas, he did not know their language.

Now, after so many years of loneliness and immobility of the body, it seemed to him that he understood them. He mentally talked to them, recognized each one by their voice, by appearance. He lived like this for several years.

But last year everything changed. Next to their house, the construction of multi-story buildings began. At first, only a tower crane was visible, the blows of hammers, the noise of trucks, the crackle of drills, the cries of workers could be heard. Everything was built quickly – day and night.

The concrete boxes gradually turned into houses with windows and balconies. And one day, lights came on in these windows – people appeared everywhere.

And then the hardest part began. There were too many cars and too much noise. Music played day and night, and dozens, hundreds of eyes looked at him from the balconies and windows. There wasn’t a minute when someone wasn’t staring at him. One would leave – another would appear. He had no peace or personal space left.

But the worst thing was that he lost the sun. Now it only appeared closer to midday, around eleven o’clock. Until that time, the garden and the house were in the shadow of a huge twenty-one-story building. And then, when new high-rise buildings of the same kind were built to the south and west, it became really cold – as if permafrost had arrived.

When construction had just begun, company representatives offered to sell them the house. But the son and daughter-in-law refused – they considered the mansion to be elite, and the proposed amount did not suit them. Gradually, all the neighbors moved out, and their house was left alone in the middle of high-rise buildings.

Then the developers no longer asked, knowing that eventually the family would have no choice. The old man became despondent. It seemed to him that enemies surrounded him from all sides, that there was no point in living without the sun.

«It turns out that all this time I lived, endured pain and loneliness only thanks to the sun…» he sighed.

«Don’t worry,» his granddaughter reassured him. «We’ll move soon. We’ll live where there’s a lot of sun.»

Monotonous, dull days passed. The old man almost never left the house, sitting in his room all day and looking out the window. The son and daughter-in-law were in no hurry to sell the house – it was hard for them to come to terms with the fact that their luxurious mansion was going for next to nothing.

Only the granddaughter, seeing how her grandfather was fading away every day, never tired of encouraging him:

«Be patient, Grandpa.» There’s just a little bit left…