One hand and one heart. Sorry for the length, I cut as much as I could. A warning to my friends. If you suddenly find out here your features or fragments of your biography – don’t be afraid, it’s not about you. I deliberately mixed everything in order to hide the real participants.

*** by

My classmate Vanya Pinyagin was in love with the beautiful Adochka Isman. There were 30 percent of Jews in the university, why – discuss with someone else, I was tired, but in our close company Ivan, the son of a rural priest, was almost the only Russian. He told me:
– Daddy asks, “Your Jews don’t at least eat the mate?” and what do I say? They eat and crack behind their ears. And I with them.
We answered lightly that our Maca was dietary, without the impurities of Christian blood.

Youth and freshness make almost any girl attractive, but Adochka was really a miracle as good. A photo from her eighteen years - one-on-one poster to the series "The Queen's Walk", only on the table instead of chess diverse glasses and bands. The card is black and white, but the color would only enhance the resemblance to the actress, highlighting red curls and huge green eyes.

By the village straight and naive Vanya made her an offer for the third month of study. In all form, with witnesses, with a ring and kneeling. Hell turned red to the roots of her red hair and laughed:
Winnie, where are you in a hurry? You’re nice, but we barely know each other, and we’re not even eighteen. I promised my parents that I would study, not fall in love. Wait a few years at least.

Two years Vanya did not wait, by the summer they became a couple, as much as possible in the conditions of the Soviet dormitory. Then somehow they fled. Immediately after the defense, Ada married docent Murvis from the Department of Mathematics.

*** by

In the restructuring, a good third of our course was abroad. I was very delayed and, twenty years after the release, I only printed out that barrel of shit that every emigrant must consume before he reaches the point. He lived alone (the wife left, the daughters grew up), filmed a cone in Brooklyn, the only merit of which was an unlikely low price: a homeowner, a ninety-year-old Romanian Jew, long survived from madness and forgot to raise the quarter fee.

There I was visited by Ivan, who came to New York as a tourist. He was very old, from the thick once hair left a hairstyle of the "internal loan" - a long thread across the baldness. He successfully fit into the new times, started business in the province, built something, carried something. But the family was not lucky: one day, not in time, he returned home and found his wife with the findirector, in combination with his best friend. He did not have any longer relationships, but went with girls for one night. Her daughter has her own life, she only needs money from her father.

I talked about the fate of our guys who left for the United States earlier. There are half a dozen of them in different cities, all successful Aitishniks.
And she? I asked Vanessa. I did not immediately understand who he meant.
In to Chicago. Mervis with his analysis works in an insurance company, considers the risks. She is the manager in IT. sons at the university. A large house in the suburb. The American Dream is growing. I also have photos.

Vanya looked at the photo for a long time, then breathed:
The beautiful...
These cards are small, wrinkles are not visible. She is as old as us.
What is the difference? Do you have that picture from the age of 18? Here is comparison. Is it she? She is. I look at this, and I see that. I will always see. I asked her again at the fifth grade. He said he was late. That loves me, but she already has everything on the mast with Mervis. Not because of the Moscow license or something else, but because he is a Jew. I say, no question, chick-chick and ready. It will remain until the damn. I laughed.
It was as if you weren’t in the bathroom with us. Half of us are not circumcised. Jews in the head, not in the head. He went to America, and you?
I would go. Even to Israel, even to Africa, even to Mars, if only with her.
You are idealizing women. My wife, what is yours. Hell did not do you well.
That’s the grandmother, or she. Do not confuse. Okay, that is now. Don’t wait for Murphy to die.
I have to wait a long time. This is America, they have lived here for a long time. Eighty is nothing to do. Even up to ninety.

*** by

In the subsequent years, my emigrant shit began to fall into a straw, strangely not without the involvement of Hell. From her application, I found a job in Chicago, and after moving, I had a romance with her girlfriend. We were not married, but lived happily together for a few years. We were close friends with Mervis: we visited each other in guests, went to performances, exhibitions, concerts of travelling bars (this is the last of three, Hell could not tolerate self-activity), a couple of times even went four to rest.

One day I came home and found us crying in hell. My friend tried to comfort her, but, judging by the almost empty bottle of liquor, the sorrow was too great. Hell turned to me:
Tell me, am I old?

I looked at her carefully, although the answer did not require consideration. Yes, painted grey, stretches, botox-shmotox, wrinkles on the neck still do not hide. But if you ask yourself Vanin's question: do I see a young Adochka in front of me in that photo? Without the slightest effort.
“No, of course,” I replied. And what happened?
Mervis, the goat, wants to divorce. He said I didn’t excite him anymore. Yes, I’m fifty, but he’s almost seventy! He has not stood up for ten years without a hood. Here, I found a forty-year-old hoodie with the third size. Illegal in the United States for a year without a week. When we have time, we are together all the time.

*** by

In the very north of the United States, at the junction of the lakes Guron and Michigan is the island of Makino. Pure tourist place: nature, hotels and restaurants. All motor transportation is prohibited, only bicycles and horses are used. That’s where my friend and I went on a long weekend and persuaded Hell to go with us to break up after the divorce.

On the first evening of this trip we sat at the table of a street café, among the well-dressed tourists. The sunset was burning, the cycades were ringing. At the end of the street appeared a flower-decorated double-seat lantern - the local Grand-hotel rents it to newlyweds, weddings on the island take place regularly. Ada developed her favorite theme, about the Mervis goats and the male goats in general.
“Look at the beauty around me,” she turned to me. Why don’t you marry a girl? Time and place.
I called ten times. She does not want.
and right. Why marry at my age? The kids have grown up, the house is there, the money is enough. And you need to fuck up - we gathered and split up, and all things.
And the love? My friend asked.
Love was twenty years old. is finished. I was a wise girl at the time, choosing the mind, not the heart. And now, you won’t get back time.
Look around, I stopped.

Spring has come close to us. From it came a tall, thick-headed gentleman and fell on his knees before Hell. The tourists at the neighboring tables were applauded.

It was very interesting to observe the face of Adam at that moment. First she was confused. Then I recognized him, and I saw thirty years fly away from her in an instant. In fact, the face, of course, did not change, only the eyes illuminated him from the inside with green light.
“Vaneta,” she whispered, “where did you come from?
“From there,” Ivan moved his hand uncertainly to the east. Am I finally on time?

Without waiting for a response, he took Hell on his arms, put it in the spring, and the crew rolled up the street, in the direction of the Grand Hotel. There, Ivan had a number for the newlyweds. I know it for sure because the whole show was prepared with my active participation. For several years I corresponded with Vania, keeping him informed of all the peripets of Ada's life, and at the final stage my friend joined. It was she who invented the island, the spring and even worked on Vanin's appearance, forcing him to shave off his "internal loan."

It has been eight years. Vanya has not abandoned his business, lives in two countries, although lately it has become difficult. Judging by the photos regularly appearing in social networks from different exotic places, they don’t waste time, even during the lockdown, tricked somewhere to drive. The golden wedding is unlikely to be celebrated, but the silver wedding is enough. This is America, they live here for a long time.

*** by

In fact, the "Domokrat" Mervis suited me too.When I found out that a casual acquaintance was looking for an old woman with money and citizenship, I advised her to go to the barov concert and showed who to pay attention to. Here he was the victim in this story, lost in old age and an old wife, and a new, and peace, and a considerable amount of money. I do not feel guilty before him. In the end, he could even refuse.