Something happened that morning. What – I didn’t understand.

6

The same evening, not yet having had time to change after going out into the city, rosy and out of breath, Elena Nikolaevna entered the room where I was sleepily leafing through the book, and said vividly: «They agree! Though, Oksana in Sochi and will return at the end of the month. Her parents will talk to her. Well, let’s wait, sweet boy!»

I have stared at Kurushina by sleepily-nightingale glance.

«Ah, these! What should I do for a whole month? Should I look for tsarina’s slippers for Oksana?»

Kurushina, offended by sarcasm, shrugged her shoulders and answered dryly: «Take a rest, look the city,» she pulled off her gas scarf and went to her room.

Mechanically caught the eye over her figure, I imagined squeamishly, touching with the lips to her flabby skin, to light yellow used the flesh, smelling sour stuffiness of old body, hugging, probably, bony, dry shoulders under a green synthetic blouse and snuggle to sluggish breast…

And here the imagination began to beat like a bird in a snare and froze.

So, obviously, a pathologist at the morgue with routine discontent washes corpse fat, accidentally caught under a burst rubber glove.

7

With enviable patience, checking my unexpected discovery, I was installing in a woman a taste for explicit nature. I was sleeping until lunch, or so. To do this I methodically «swallowed» the volumes in their ordinal numbers on spines. If Elena Nikolaevna happened to come to me, the woman invariably found a blanket perfectly crumpled at the feet of a sleepy lodger, on the floor near the sofa a wide pillow for four of my heads and a two-meter baby doll, shamelessly spread out in his sleep. A long, lazy awakening accompanied the negotiations through the all apartment. Finally, hunger has always defeated the basic instinct, I would jump up and dress in front of the open door. A cunning strategist of bed battles! Blithely chatting, I kept a sharp eye on the murky shadow of the hostess on the floor of the corridor from the kitchen. As soon as the shadow ceased to loom from the stove to the table and from the table to the sink, and quickly thickened, I usually dived into swimming trunks, and turning to the door sideways, innocently pulling them on my knees, as if I did not suspect that the woman, looking down, hurriedly slides into her room. (Where she, probably, was fainting from the grandiose tricks of the tomboy: cruel joke!) Young sclerosmatic specially was forgetting in the room on a chair towel, and after a shower, as Apollo Belvedere, for decency hiding behind the door, was asking bring, was holding out the hand and accidentally blinding a woman with nudity. I promoted shamelessness as the worldview of the modern generation, about which Kurushina knew almost nothing. Diligently teased in her a woman.

My impunity was encouraged by the almost absolute isolation of our coexistence and the age difference of almost thirty years. Of course, I was afraid to be in a stupid position. Who knows what she thought of me? But naked children we’re not suspect in bad!

I scolded myself as a nutcase. In the dark, clasping my head, I was remembering my performances the day before, and burned with shame. Every time, I swore to myself, that tomorrow I’d stop getting into mischief. But in the morning, I used to forget my vows and come up with new nudist tricks of launching a major charm attack of granny. Kurushina was accepting my tricks as I presented them: carelessness and nothing more.

In the evenings we yawned at the TV or played chess. I was messing around, clowning, amusing her with stories about my uncle’s family, street observations about passers-by. She was nodding reproachfully and repeated: «Is it possible talk about people like that?» But she liked my openness.

I always went to the grocery store myself. Kurushina flatly refused (to my secret relief) to take money from me for accommodation. Sometimes we walked in the near park by the pond.

In one of such evenings she told me how her mother was dying. Somewhere lonely cracked the cicada. Croaked the frogs. From under unkempt decorative bushes and shaggy chestnuts by muddy-light asphalt track was spreading evening gloom. And I thought: the youth of this woman ended, in essence, not so long ago. If I’d known her before, may be – on my memory. She was loved, kissed. As well leisurely, she was wandering along by the drowsy alley with someone, and they had a good, simply and sweetly-anxiously. I so clearly imagined its living, clean eyes, lush, thick brown hair, smile of her freshly lips, her light, flying gait, crumpled white flowers, flexible, young body, the happiness of her youth, that unwittingly turned around to her clear dark silhouette on the bluish-matte background of the pond. And I have not seen Kurushina’s stoop and signs of decrepitude, in which I convinced himself. At that moment, something furry tickled my eyes and chest inside, and I barely overcame desire to hug her. «Folly»! – muttered me, and the vision crumbled. The woman didn’t get suspicious of anything. Waving away at haunt mosquitoes, she turned home: «They’ll gobble us, sweet buddy!»

But memories of the evening still long were worried about memory, like music, the motive of which is forgotten, but a lonely chord sounds.

In the morning the rain still did not dare to sprinkle the city, dried by the heat. I was sitting in bed lowering in the flip flops of the legs, and pondered how to kill the day.

«Are you up, fireman?» jokingly asked Kurushina, floating into the room door with a plastic watering pot. She squinted at me – am I dressed? – and, accustomed to my frivolous appearance, she peeled back the tulle curtain to water the flowers on the windowsill. Inventive attaboy stretched herself luxuriously, slowly extricated himself from the blankets and strode to the chair behind things, just as the woman turned. Kurushina petrified, caught herself and impulsively walked up to the flowers on the balcony window.

«Are you dressed up?» asked she dryly over her shoulder.

«Mm-hmm…»

Then she went out without looking at me.

The chills that accompanied the extravagant act replaced shame and self-loathing. I was cleaning the bed, things, for a long time splashing in the shower: I was preparing to play out the scene to the end. I came up with a dozen excuses…

But I blushed after the first its phrase.

«Arthur, I’m a woman,» reproachfully uttered Kurushina and dragged on a cigarette. From the windowsill, her arms crossed over her chest, she looked at the shame of the guest: I’m timely sat on the stool. «You’re not being nice. You’re not a boy anymore!» I almost fell on the ground floor in shame, but I held on with all my strength. «Don’t look at me with innocent eyes, sweet boy. You know exactly what I mean!» Her mouth twitched into a smirk. «I noticed it the first day! (What she noticed – it was obvious to the donkey!) Is that how you act in front of your mother? I don’t know, maybe it’s customary for you…»

«No, not in front of my mother!» I muttered.

«There is such a disease…»

«No-no!» I buried my flaming face in my hands and exhaled noisily through my nose. And here – epiphany! In me has awakened the actor. «That’s a first time with me. From the first day, as I saw you, I wanted to touch you. I’m talking nonsense, right? But, but…» I swallowed, and rubbing my closed eyelids (what a passage!) quieted the trembling in my voice, «I can’t get rid of the obsession.»

Kurushina turned pale and squinted from a trickle of cigarette smoke.

«Yes,» she coughed. «Let’s forget this conversation, Arthur!»

She understood my desperate shame and paused speaking so I can calm down. But I could not nohow to calm down and spelled insinuatingly: «If you didn’t like my behavior right away, why didn’t you say so on the first day?»

Kurushina frowned, and her cheeks turned pink. But suddenly she silently laughed and embraced her chin by her palm. The lace edge of her nightgown floated out of her sleeve. Just as quickly the woman calmed down, and with the same irony in her eyes looked at the lodger.

«Ladies «man, you’re a real ladies’ man!» she nodded reproachfully. «Eat, the potatoes are cold!» She put out her cigarette and gently shoved my head.

I had a feeling that I was trying to fool myself.

8

Shameful exposé broke in me a mainspring of evil. From schoolboy unwillingness to acknowledge the superiority of the experience and mind Kurasini on pathetic childish stratagems I continued the farce. Through the force. With a sticky feeling inside. And she kept quiet. And her silence was infuriating me.

I hated everything about her: as she smokes, a cigarette between two fingers of the hand, a palm props up the elbow – such a kind of secular lady from the third entrance; as carefully and slowly she straightens jabot of old-fashioned blouse, made of green silk; paints lips with bright lipstick at the mirror; mannerly tidies up by studs lush hair, wound around the head; was infuriating her somnambulistic gait in a moment of reflections; delicate the paper rustling in the outhouse, at my approach; her cleanliness; the mysterious smile of Mona Lisa; miniature Slippers with POM-poms, that made her walk inaudible; fragile shoulders. I wanted screamed into her powdered face, into her eyes, tinted with cheap pencil: «Old broad! Funny comedic old broad»! I wanted to enjoy the helplessness of a well-bred man in front of the boor. But her femininity, her majestic bearing – seemed to me amazing! Can’t remember my girlfriends of the same age having such effortless grace: without any violence to themselves. My imagination was carrying her back thirty years, was enlivening the image of a young girl, the daughter of a major head, careless, easy, unaware of the existence of tens of millions of my kind. Her education was amazing me, an ignoramus. She was reading in the original Stendhal, Goethe and Steinbeck. Somewhere in the depths of her heart smoldered unfulfilled hopes, experiences. But she was simple and sociable. Where did the stupid, cruel evil of my original conception go! Now every morning I waited for her to Wake up. I forgot the funny tricks of the strip, forgot the city, my ambitions. And hopelessly watched in myself symptoms of sickness, severe, prolonged, poorly treatable.

9

I was meeting with Nelia, because nobody, except the Rayevskys and two or three people in the city didn’t know. We with the girl were whiled away the time and that’s enough!

Our cultural program is usually was ended in uncrowded bars over coffee with cognac, or we left away to sunbathe in Strogino, where even on weekdays the idle people consoled themselves with warm water of a big muddy puddle.

We were roasting in the sun in the red dust from the energetic trampling of beach volleyball players, among the burnt thighs, assholes, noses, which were pasted scraps of newspapers, colorful exhibition of blankets, bedding and air mattresses. On the beach I was resting from the voracious thoughts.

«Where are you living in Moscow?» asked Nelya.

She propped herself up on her elbow and looked at me over the dark glasses from under the Panama painted like a fly agaric. Her axillary hollow has deepened, and the shoulder straps of her bathing suit sagged down, and weak chest in the freckles, with swollen pink nipple looked out of her bra shyly. I buried my face in my fingers.

«So… At an acquaintance’s house.»

The girl, obviously, also laid down prone. Her voice sounded muffled:

«Dad said you are living at some woman.»

I pricked up my ears.

«He also said she was retired…»

«She doesn’t need handouts. Uncle reported?»

«Probably…»

We listened to the maiden squeal for a while: three jokers dragged her to the water.

«Katya told me why you had a fight with your uncle.»

«And what do you think?»

She shrugged and sighed. I felt like I was being x-rayed, and with professional curiosity poked their fingers at the dark spots of black and white picture. It is easy to guess how my relatives found out about my shelter. I grimaced at the thought, as if the dentist’s drill had dug into the fabric of my tooth: whether mistress said anything unwanted?

«Isn’t it hard for your mother to support you for the third month?» was pestering Nelia to me.

«May be!» I shrugged. I was too lazy to remind about the work in the seaside boarding house.

«My cousin is the third year was not working and not studying nowhere, and his mother can’t inhaled on him…»

«This is a common thing for Moscow. My sisters don’t work anywhere either. Thanks for the analogy.»

«Please don’t be angry. Just… I don’t think you’re what they say. And what kind of man you are, I don’t know.»

«And I don’t know either!» Imagination drew a confidential meeting of old friends, their participation in the boy. I bit my lip. «Why for she did that?»

For the rest of the day, I answered beside the point, and Nelia seemed to regret the beach conversation. At the bar I had too much and trudged behind the girl. I was annoyed by her manner to slow pace on high heels («Yes still with her stilts!» – thought I with drunk angry.), causing the hair on the back of her head were swaying like the mane of a horse, which is slowly climbing up the hill, revealing a thin neck and sharp vertebrae. In addition to pettiness, this evening I found inside me a huge store of spite to Kurashina. I also remember the crimson sunset with storm clouds over the flat roofs and the floating target of the keyhole.

The hostess opened the door, and the tenant tumbled into the hallway. The image was jumping to the right and to the starting point with the frequency of the pulse in the ears.

«Are you drunk?» Kurushina was stunned.

«A little bit!» answered I modestly and staggering hobbled past on the move discarding clothes. «Greetings from uncle»!

«Did you say something?» asked stunned Elena Nikolaevna.

«Did you call uncle?»

Kurushina talked to me like I’m sober. For this reason, she nervously wrapped herself up in a shawl, and replied somewhat arrogantly: «Yeah, I talked to him…»

«Then everything is clear!»

«Clear what?»

«And the fact that he is talking bosh! That I live at your expense and…» I gave a small sob: probably, I really fairly slurped of vodka.

«What a bullshit!» Kurushina perplexedly walked into the room. «Who told you that? Arkady got a call from your mother saying you were in Moscow. You haven’t written to her in a month. Arkady was very surprised and called back. I confirmed that you at me».

She was so upset she didn’t notice my nudity. I collapsed on the couch naked. I took deep breath: the woman became a silent accomplice of my naturist performances. All the spite and insulting words to her, like a pile of rubble spilled out the window. I was carrying tearful nonsense, was confessing to her in love, try to embrace and stumbling hobbled to the bathroom. She nursed with me, allowed me to molest and laid me on her sofa upon which I collapsed. I was laughing. And she was repeating with joking astonishment: «How awfully you’re drunk!»

But alcohol has little effect on my memory. In excitement, I tried to touch her hip, hands, belly as if playing little rough with a girlfriend, and was distracting her by chatter. I was drunk enough to overcome my shame, but sober enough to enjoy the forced touch of a woman’s clothing, sliding palm. I was hugging and pressing her hips (surprisingly firm) to my stomach. At one point the woman did not pull away and for a moment her hand froze on my shoulder, her head drooped, and it seemed to me, Elena Nikolaevna shuddered. But, guessing my tension, almost of ecstasy as she quickly pushed the admirer to the bed. I collapsed on the couch and pulled her along. She rested her fist to my pubic hair, jerked away, looked intently into my eyes. But I pretended to laugh and tried to stretch my lips to her cheek. She was not leaving, she fixing the pillow, padded the blanket, and when I was trying to grab her palm or to hug her waist, sliding by hand over the bottom of her belly, the woman firmly, but not abruptly was pulling away. It seemed that we both play and write off the game on a drunken night out, which tomorrow will forget. And this bliss continued until I fell into a motley starfall.

I lay in the predawn gloom with my eyes open, looking at the flowers on the Wallpaper, protruding in the transparent light of dawn, and timidly remembered the previous fun day. Imagination in vain drew a decrepit old woman, her wrinkled, dry hands, sluggish body. The obsession drove me crazy, but I did not resist the terrible lustful desire – it seemed shameful – to repeat…

In the kitchen, I was asking embarrassedly about yesterday’s riot, apologized and eagerly caught her gestures, facial expressions, with which she will betray herself. I wanted to kiss those hands that caressed my body without caressing. Kurushina was slowly stirring the spoon in the pot and ironically repeated: «Has amused himself, has amused!» And both of us were silent about my pranks which perfectly remembered.

10

One of those August evenings in Moscow, when the cramped apartment seemed to turn into a matchbox, and you feel like a caught bug, you want to go free, was fading away.

We were walking in the Park next to the house. Trees carefully hidden the scarlet sunset behind thick crowns, and in crystal silence, on the mirror surface of the pond clearly, the voices of people rolled to every word.

Kurushina asked if I had a girlfriend. I told her about Nelia.

«In vain I’m fooling her head…»

«You mean a fake marriage?» I nodded. «Invite her to us!»

I estimated: on the one hand Nelia will satisfy curiosity, with another – snorted – Elena Nikolaevna will see my «love».

«Good. When?»

«Yes, even tomorrow!»

«Goes. I’ll call her.»

Morning was busy: shop, kitchen, cleaning the apartment. Kurushina was preparing in earnest.

«Try to be easier!» I advised. «The girl without complexes, will indulge tea with crackers…»

«So and offer her a choice!» Kurushina joked.

She’s transformed! It gave me pleasure to spin in the kitchen, to beat egg yolks with a mixer in an iron bowl, to perform simple culinary tasks.

«When the father was alive,» Elena Nikolaevna was talking, «we even didn’t close doors. We had guests all the time. There was someone in the kitchen, either me or mom. Our housekeeper is aunt Ira… What are you grinning? Bourgeois manners?» she spread her hands, stained with flour, as saying – what can I do – we are like that! – and it amused me. «She taught me many delicious things!»

Where did her languor and measured movements, which I learned by heart, disappear? I suddenly realized: she was always sociable and cheerful, and only Arthur gloomy awarded her in his imagination the affectation, imprisoned her in this apartment. What did I know about her, her surroundings? The tenderness to the hostess did not leave me all the hours that I interfered with her.

We set up a meeting with Nellie After work at the subway entrance.

Kurushina even the night before made elaborate hairstyle using curlers —she did not have time to the hairdresser – and now bustled in the gas kerchief. Before leaving I looked into Elena Nikolaevna’s room. The woman was going through some dresses in the wardrobe. This ancient monster was exhaling from the open door, the thick odor of naphthalene.

«What will you wear?» I asked.

«This!» she answered boldly, straightening one of the antediluvian blouses with a frill and the hem of the mourning skirt. «Or, this!» catching the expression of the pretentious costumier, she showed me a dress-hoodie. I twisted my mouth skeptically.