Vasya`s Story

"These."

"You always know how to make the right choice, Vasily Ivanovich!"- a smiling woman in the sales hall held out a box from her strong young hands to the knotted, worn hands of Vasily Ivanovich. He bought new shoes every year, almost always on the shift of the smiling saleswoman.

He was returning to the small house that his father had built on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, and now surrounded on all sides by hordes of identical and multi-colored high-rise buildings in the dark.

A couple was walking towards him, a girl and a guy who were having fun, slightly drunk, and had run away from the school disco. They paused every moment to kiss, and the girl's eyes, in the empty, incipient face, quivered with every approach to the object of her love. The guy didn't seem to see anything except her small eyes, which were black, deep dots. Light from hundreds of windows and shops streamed down on their small, fragile figures, and colored garlands hung from the windows of illegal brothels and ordinary apartments, were making their looks and laughter distant, as if in a movie.

The girl tripped over a rock and stepped into a muddy puddle. She almost fell to the ground, laughing. The guy, jokingly cursing, picked her up like an armful of hay and put her back on the ground. He tried to yell at her strictly that it is necessary to look under feet and not to ruin new shoes in water and mud. The girl stared fearfully down, saying nothing, but still holding his hand.

Vasily Ivanovich shivered with a sudden chill, wrapped himself up more warmly, and, meeting no one else but two or three women with strollers, returned to his small, clean house.

When he turned on the light, he saw an elderly lady sitting upright at the kitchen table. She didn't move when Vassily turned on the light.

«Hello. I went to get my shoes."

The lady glanced at the white luxury package in his hands and said nothing.

"I'm here to ask you a favour." She nervously smoothed a strand of hair over her temple. "We need money for Rita."

Vasily Ivanovich threw a disgusted grimace, all the folds of his face darkening. The lady's words did not arouse his enthusiasm.

"I gave money for the hospital last year. I gave a lot."

"Vasya ... have pity on us! The child is suffering, and medicines... They must be bought every month! Help us, for Christ's sake!»

Vasya waved his hand.

"I can't! You see, I've already bought new shoes. And it seems that you have a husband, she has a husband... and everyone is picking in my pocket. I'm against it."

The lady at the table began to shake.

"Go on sending money to your scum! You've never even seen him! You're a fool! You`re dead to me!"

The lady spat on the kitchen table, stood up, straightened her wide skirt, and rustled away.

This elegant and angry lady, Vasya's sister, tried in vain to get money from him for the treatment of Rita, her daughter. Rita had mental problems. Once a year she had to go to the hospital and buy several types of medications every month. Previously, Vasya felt sorry for Rita, but when he retired, he realized that he had some more important expenses. He didn`t feel any connection to his sister and Rita.

Carefully putting the old shoes on the shelf, Vasya sighed, looking at the new crocodile skin. Vasya took his smartphone out of his pocket, transferred the money to an unnamed account, and with a familiar movement deleted the notification. He turned on the kettle and took a box of chocolates from the refrigerator. He went into the room with a cold cardboard box under his arm. A round coffee table covered with white openwork oilcloth held a tall crystal vase with maroon carnations. Heavy, dusty curtains obscured the large, wide window that also opened onto the terrace. Vasya's father liked to smoke there after dinner. 

Vasya gently lowered the shiny, glossy box on the tablecloth and parted the curtains. There was only a blue, blackish night, devoid of any colors; the only sounds were footsteps and the monotonous chatter of strollers coming from the neighboring forest.

Without opening the window, Vasya took a pipe from the dresser, an old one, of amazing workmanship, large, lacquered, and pot-bellied. He ran his index finger lovingly over its body, as if absorbing a happy, ecstatic memory. Vasya smiled, feeling a thick crease at his mouth. Lighting a pipe, he ran his free hand over his rough cheek and smiled again. When he had finished smoking, he took out two small candlesticks and two long red candles from the same drawer, placed them on the table, and lit them. Then Vasya, being in awe of anticipation, went to the kitchen and, having poured tea into his best service, hastily returned. Over one of the chairs at the coffee table, in the dark, he saw a red curly head. His heart sank with fear and excitement every time he saw her.

Clumsily, with trembling fingers, Vasya put the round tray with the cups next to the sweets, dropped himself randomly into the chair opposite, closed his eyes, and opened them again.

In front of him sat a young red-haired girl with red skin and cheeks, in a very bold dress that almost completely revealed her breast. The young cat jumped on the arm of the chair and ran her tail over the golden skin. This girl, Diane, was well known to him.

Wide-open transparent eyes, quivering from the flames, as if looped in a single, endlessly repeating frame. Diane smiled quietly, looking through Vasya, smoothing the folds of her dress on her knee.

There was the same silent conversation between them every day.

Vasya had a few relics. The first one, we've already seen, is the pipe that Diane gave him for his eighteenth birthday. That day Vasya arranged a noisy celebration in the very room where he was drinking tea. There were a lot of friends, all singing, all the girls came in dresses and elegant pumps. Around midnight, Dina arrived with a gift box in her hand. Celebratory and a little disheveled. She was wearing something very simple, it seems, white or beige, but all of Vasya's companions immediately turned first to her, and then to Vasya, with envious eyes. It was not Dina's beauty that aroused the envy of her companions, but her ability to amuse and, above all, her almost otherworldly command of the piano and her various high-profile prizes.

Vasya looked at Diane again. She shifted her feet to the chair, glaring at him defiantly. Vasya smoked. He turned to throw the match away and hit the tip of his elbow on the piano cover. He thought he heard laughter. Hastily turning, he saw Diane with the same defiant calm face.

Yes, she played well, and everyone was waiting for her to sit down at the instrument and play something beautiful and special. Dina played something new, experimental. Thin, white hands flew over the keys like birds, and stirred the soul-gave the splash of water, the howling of the wind, the whisper of lovers. Just someone else's expression of detachment that adorned her game and her face made Vasya experience inexplicable horror. After the play, she disappeared, and Vasya never saw her alive again.

Vasya lifted the lid of the instrument. There was an envelope on the music stand. This was his second relic. The crumpled, yellow sheet had carried the following words for fifty years:

"Dear Vasya!

Bel Ami!

Perhaps you expect me to question you or reproach you. But I don't care what it was – your new infatuation and the suppression of your constant, barely explicable sadness. As lovers, we have two options: either continue or break up. I like both of them.

I know what I mean to you.

If you think you could hurt me with your infidelity, you are mistaken. I know your heart and hold it in my hands. (On these two lines, the ink floated from two drops). You will pay for everything with your conscience. Because I've never been guilty of anything.

I forgive you,

Goodbye,

Diane».

On top of the piano, under a bowl with artificial fruits, he found an A4 sheets and a pen. One sheet was covered with writing, and the other was completely blank.

Vasya took the written sheet.

"Dear Diane!

I never meant you any harm, and I wicked. I did this for several reasons, the main one is that I was drunk. The second reason is that I was spoiled and, as a nasty kid, I was not worthy of you. It was also because you stopped talking to me and avoided me, to the point where I didn't even know if you were coming to my birthday party.

I hate to think about that night, and I hate to think that it could have caused your disappearance and years of uncertainty.

I was ready to give my life, and I still am…»

Here Vasya's letter, written yesterday, was interrupted, and he did not know what exactly he was ready to give his life for. And his life, already quite old, lonely and ill, was no longer good for much.

He felt a sharp pain in his ankle. It was the hungry cat came down from the chair and demanded dinner. Vasya kicked the animal away with his foot and the cat, licking its sides, went through the window into the yard.

Vasya read it aloud. Diane shook her head in agreement. When he finished, she broke the silence.

 - No, let's go back to that night. We're not done.

- 50 years... Every day. I'm writing you a note…

- Not-e-nough! You see only a ghost in front of you! And do you remember what happened to me!

 - I don't know…

- Fuck you! Fuck your skinner's remorse! Why did you fix the cracks in the barn yesterday? So it doesn't stink like that?

Vasya looked at the candle.

- Just tell me what you live for. What for? Why don't you kill yourself if you don't want to pay for a crazy relative? Saving on cat food? Too much effort to find out where I am? Vasya!! I don't want to see you again!

Vasya felt that he had opened a long, painful growth.

- Vasya, why don't you smoke?

Diane was sitting across, covered in blood. Vasya rushed to her, and, stumbling, lit a candle on the edge of his jacket. He put out the fire with his fingers, lit his pipe, and saw that the room was empty.

Vasya was amused. His chest heaved with a wave of bubbling, biting laughter. He went out into the yard, opened the shed,and swallowed. 50 boxes, emitting a crushing stench, filled the shed from floor to ceiling. 

"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

Vasya spread his hands to the sides, revealing a sunken chest and terrible rib bones. – Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

The gate creaked behind him. Two women in black tents screamed, calling him.

- No! U-ha-ha-ha!

- Vasya! A rough, low voice called out to him.

He turned and saw two dry old women with oriental features, their hair completely hidden by handkerchiefs. He blinked and couldn't figure it out. He struck a match and threw it into the shed behind him. The match went out. Then he threw more and more, finally gutting the entire pack, and stared at the flames.

He heard a whimper. The old woman in the shawl was writhing in suffering.

- Vasya, what are you... What are you doing?

Vasya stopped, looking at her, and for a moment his face brightened. In the next moment, his mouth twisted into an angular black grimace and he burst out laughing, a monstrous, rending laugh, coughed and continued to laugh hoarsely. When the woman took a small step toward him, he turned on his crocodile boots, went into his burning shed, and, still laughing, closed the door.