Accidental meetings
Have you ever had a situation where someone happens to you occasionally in your life? As if not a friend, not a close acquaintance, sometimes you do not even know his name, just somehow you cross, from time to time... Here is a little story about one of my such acquaintances...
We met him at the very beginning of the nineties in our old, still, Tyumen "marriage". We then, with Lenka, a lady from our stream, had to submit statements there. This was done in order to obtain coupons for the "loading", by which in the salon for the newlyweds you could bite yourself a ring, foods or even "Salamandra" shoes. The gold, which I usually got, I immediately spit to a familiar jeweller, and the boots to the neighbor who knocked on the trunk. Lenka lived in a shelter, so she took her share of foods - candy, sausage and cheese.
In principle, this whole procedure of pseudo-marriage took no more than half an hour, for which it was necessary to jointly fill out the questionnaire, bring it to the office to a tough Zagsov aunt with a high perhydrole head and get there in return for the most promising talons.
The main thing was to preserve the serious expression of the face itself and to watch Lenka, who, when seen standing on the closet, above the head of her aunt, a pair of encouraged swans with rings (those then clinged to the roof of some "Volga", which carried the newlyweds) immediately began to hick.
There, at one of these events, we met him, going out to smoke and talking together, while our brides filled out the forms of statements.
I remember he looked quite successful for that time: a short haircut, a leather jacket, a thick gold chain, Magna cigarettes, and a new nine, which they then drove us to the institute. Probably he was a businessman. He was under thirty and, apparently, that’s why he approached me somewhat protectively.
The students? Why is it so early, impatient? He obviously wanted to talk to someone.
At that time it was somewhat uncomfortable to tell him that we were marrying fictitiously, and there was no sense of it, especially since he spoke more himself.
- I followed my Dinka from school, she went from home to me, her parents were Jews, they were against, here, tell me, what difference? You are born not to understand who, and then you will be inflated in your ears and a whore - you are already a Jew or a whore there.
He stretched, released smoke and again shrugged his hands:
What if you throw it? Then how! Not sure who you are!
About a month after that time, when I came back in the evening from school, I accidentally met him in our town garden. He was noticeably drunk and walked slightly.
Hello to you, student! Did he recognize me as himself? Wear it?
It was evident that he was in a state of some kind of joyful excitement, and he wanted to talk to someone. We went with him to the bar, and he bought us a bottle of beer, which was just beginning to be sold at us.
- All... I left the portion... and gave the car... to me - the name of the then Tyumen authority sounded - go, he said. You walk like a plague. And the boys understood... I can’t do without her... – his tongue was already intertwined – she immediately said to me: no crime. Did you see how beautiful she is?! to
I cried by agreeing. His bride was actually a very noticeable girl: tall, slim, black-haired. I remember thinking at the time that they definitely had a real love, since for her, he gave up the new "nine". For me in those years, the car was just an unattainable mess.
The next time I saw him was in the late 1990s. Next to my gym, which was in the basement of the old "chrush", someone bought an apartment on the first floor and did a repair in it. There, coming out of the basement, I met him again and he came in on Gazeli with a snowflake painted on the tent. When he saw me, he was delighted:
The student! What kind of destiny? In the hall... and I am - he nodded in the direction of the renovated apartment - I develop slowly, I sell air conditioners, now they are all put, by summer I want to start a store here. The season! He shrugged his hands equally vigorously.
You are how? Hasn’t anyone been slapped yet? Dinka is not still giving birth, but nothing, we are training – he smiled widely.
And again, I did not dare to tell him the truth about my “marriage.” Per because he was quite genuinely interested, and it was somehow uncomfortable for him to report it, it seemed to me somehow that it would upset him.
Then I met him at zero, in a restaurant, where my wife and I (at the time I was really married) celebrated three years of marriage, and he went with his wife. He squeezed a little and broke out, but still looked vibrant and representative. Dina also grew up a bit, but she looked just as impressive, in a beautiful white dress and with a bunch of long black hair, resembling some Greek.
When he saw my real wife with me instead of Lenka, he surprisedly opened his eyes, but said nothing, and acted like a gentleman, sitting his wife with the back to me so that she would not notice anything. And he himself also did not look at us anymore, only once understoodly blinking at me from a distance, say, it happens, this is the case.
I, in spite of all the comic situation, had nothing to do but to thank him in response.
Then, a few more years later, I saw them and my wife on the page of some local brilliant magazine, where they talked about the celebration of Hanukkah in Tyumen. Probably he still reconciled with his mother-in-law, since he had already been to their Jewish holidays.
And last week, I met him again when he was going through the park in the evening, returning from his companion. There in the park he was sitting on a bench, crawling out of a bottle that stood next to him.
Honestly, if he hadn’t called me, I’t have recognized him, so he changed. Thin, with wrinkles, with shoulder cramps, in fact, a real old man was sitting in front of me. I even shaken, before that he was not like himself, always cheerful and temperamental.
The student... How many years...
It seemed to me that his voice also changed, becoming quiet and somewhat broken.
“Don’t be afraid,” he smiled, noticing my confusion, “I’m this, I... sit down, drink with me? He gave me a bottle of Jameson.
For some reason I immediately drank.
How is family life? The children brought?
The daughter...
well... And my Dinki is no longer there, he buried it in September - he cried out again and stretched the bottle to me - Remember.
How is it? I saw you with her in a magazine... at the Jews... at the feast.
- Well, yes... - he extended deafly - the Jews... she wanted to go all the way to Israel, to the roots, to see, pulled, tired of the Maldives of all kinds.... I took a trip last year – a week in Eilat on the sea, a week in Jerusalem. She went all over there. All the holy places. So she liked it, let’s say, we’ll come here again. Even in the Wall of Cry I got a note, I want, say, to come back here in a year...
His voice trembled, and he hurried to swallow the whiskey.
In August we came from there, and in May she found cancer, such only in Israel is treated, here we exactly a year later again there and came. As she ordered... He swallowed and handed the bottle to me – there in the oncology center, in Tel Aviv and died... unoperable said....
We broke up with him when it was already dark in the park.
Well, let’s go, maybe we’ll see you again...
Listen, and how are you at all? Could help what?
He tired his head.
I have money... I’ve sold a lot of business, I’ve got enough for three lives now.
I came home that night quite drunk, surprising this husband, I rarely get so drunk. Somehow explaining to her that I met an old acquaintance, I went to bed.
Truth, despite the drunken, I could not immediately fall asleep, everything was roaring, I thought, I thought.
I don’t know why our world is so unfair. And why not bad, most likely, a man who has loved only one woman all his life is forced to suffer so much. I don’t know, and nobody seems to know. Everything is wrongly arranged. Sorry, but what will you do here?
And I was already asleep, when I suddenly thought that who knows him, maybe better such a fate, than in my whole life so never really in love with anyone.