Читать книгу REFLECTION - Michael Blekhman - Страница 5

Maria had scores of faithful admirers, which interested her little, since every would-be lover had the gall or the misfortune to have his own opinion about something. This must have been the admirers’ way of asserting their male essence. Maria was more than happy with relying on her own essence, which was female. The only man she allowed to receive and adopt her opinions faithfully and without questioning was Vladimir Fedorovich, and this was what interested her about him. He was older, but she never felt the age difference. Anyways, six years were nothing to speak of.

Vladimir had been born in Warsaw when Poland was still part of the Russian Empire. He was a clerk. His job consisted of auditing the meat-packing and the produce-growing companies. For a while, he worked as an accountant for the Vtorchermet, then transferred to the Southern Railway Bureau, which was located in an imposing old building in the enormous Kharkov Railway Square. His supervisors admired how reliable and punctual he was.

He always knew how to locate the necessary paperwork simply because he never needed to search for any form or document. All paperwork that he wrote in a soft, straight handwriting without a single crossing out (when did Vladimir Petkevich ever make a cross out?) didn't need to be looked for since it was located in the right place at the right time – or, actually, any time one needed it.

When he was young, Vladimir was attracted to ballerinas, who were just as young. In his mature years, he fell in love with Mary, or, rather, he came to love her.

She allowed him to experience this feeling towards her only after making sure that he wasn't going to object to her about anything. He never even considered objecting because he loved Maria and Klara more than people normally know how to love others.

He also loved soccer. He didn't love playing it – that he didn't know how to do, – but he loved watching it. When Vladimir was twenty, Kharkov's team won the all-country championship, and he caught a glimpse of the famous players Privalov, Krotov, Norov, Kazakov, the Fomin brothers.

"In Odessa, in 1921," he would tell Klara, smiling, "Kazakov hit the crossbar, and it fell on the Odessa goalie's head. Can you imagine that?"

Maria didn't even shrug her shoulders because she was simply outraged about what he was teaching the child. Klara, however, wanted to see the crossbar fall, so she got interested in soccer. In the meanwhile, Vladimir Fedorovich got less and less passionate about soccer because after Privalov there was nobody who could play quite as well.

Vladimir couldn't swim, so when he was in the army he served as a coxswain of the launch. His slight frame didn't allow him to row but as a coxswain he was better than any one. He sat at the steer and kept count in a clear, loud voice, "One-two, one-two!"

I kept count to help the rowers set the speed. Once, near Phoros, which is close to Sevastopol, our launch got into the dead swells. Do you know what that means? On the surface, the water looks like glass, but underneath there are horrible swells, as if somebody were mixing the water in a shaker. Dead swells, may the devil take them, will not upset the launch, but it can cause one to fall asleep. One moment I was keeping count and then I was falling deep into sleep. If the rowers hadn't lost their rhythm and looked at me to see what was going on, I wouldn't be here right now. Of course, they lost the rhythm because I'd fallen asleep and stopped keeping count. They saved me from never waking up again.

Klara liked the story. It was even scarier than the one where the crossbar fell on the goalie's head.

After Maria graduated, she spent less time at home than on work-related trips, so Vladimir Fedorovich became Klara's primary caregiver. For him, this meant not intruding upon her growth and development and keeping watch over this process.