The Lodger

Editor Mark Bishop

© Valery Osinsky, 2020

ISBN 978-5-4498-7569-3

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

The LODGER

1

When the story opened, my acquaintances hung a new label on my former image of a provincial simpleton: a budding scoundrel. They were struck by the cynicism of a twenty-year-old boy who had swindled an «old woman».

I will begin with the family of my Moscow uncle, mother’s younger brother.

My summer visits usually coincided with holiday pilgrimages to the capital of numerous relatives of the Rayevskys (my uncle’s last name), so this made life difficult for my uncle’s family. I am soft by nature if I am praised. Alas – rarely! And over the years more often irritated uncle with barbed alertness of fatherlessness and straightforwardness of a provincial. The family relationship was confined to amiable: «As a mother»? I remember the midnight arrogant chatter of the Rajevskys, assimilated Muscovites in the first knee, in the kitchen about the cultural and political life of the country, and Aunt Natasha’s unchanging advice, Madame forty years old, with false eyelashes and red chignon on the back of her head: «Read the «Rose of the World’, you may not read the rest!» My aunt taught at a technical university by her own method, without abstracts: she read the textbook impromptu.

Uncle Kadya is an engineer by training, by post someone’s deputy that made his figure odious for his family, considered himself a philosopher. His method of cognition excluded book and other knowledge: they clogged up the firstborn thought. Uncle, in his words, comprehended the truth by an inner sense. Usually he puffed on a cigarette and was barely audible, under the reverence of close, he unbent the monograms of his banal absurdities. Daughters of the Rayevsky, my cousins Fenya and Katya, the round perennial «C» schoolgirls, between the kitchen idle talk and school, respectively, from fourteen and thirteen years, begged in the pubs, gratis cocktails in the elderly impotent, who had money. In general, my relatives are kind and tolerant people. But we lived a different life. And could neither get used to each other.

That summer, on the unfinished veranda of the Rayevsky dacha, in demobilization tunic, hung with shiny trinkets, intoxicating from freedom and kisses accumulated over two years, I am with army straightforwardness stunned uncle – he asked lazily at my plans – «Register me in Moscow!»

What was waiting for me at home? Drinking friends, aging mother (father left us long ago), unemployment. My whole biography: discos, pubs, lustful sixteen-year-old fools, libraries with tedious books on the school curriculum and the boredom of a country town. I did not know yet: people live everywhere, the glitter of the capital is the colorful façade of the tomfoolery, where everyone is for himself, where people getting stupid with fatigue and loneliness. I dreamed of Moscow, good luck, and did not think to retreat.

Uncle carefully asked: «And what will you do here?» «Do not know!» An oppressive panic pause and an unambiguous hint: «Consult with mom. When you decide, let’s talk!» Gray with fright Aunt Natasha hard rubbed her temples. «I have found out at the police station. You won’t be able to register me just like that,» I was finishing off relatives. «To go as a cop by a limit – it’s five years thrown out of life. Besides, I’ll still have to live with you! Not in the dorm same! I spoke with Katya. She is eighteen. We have different surnames. We can marry fictitiously…»

Katya smoked in a rocking chair, independently crossing her legs of horse grace. Her pimply physiognomy of maturing virgin (in the chastity of the sister, however, not sure: the prostitute Oia, girlfriend sisters, lived in the apartment for a long time, and as they say, with whom will lead …) expressed willingness to enter into a fictitious marriage.

The brilliant idea of marrying a cousin shook relatives. To the orphan delicately explained his delusions. First, incest; secondly, Katya was suspected of dementia from early childhood (often she walked naked around the apartment in the presence of strangers men) and could blurt out, anywhere, anything; and thirdly, there is a surplus of living space, but what the hell did I give up here?

The explanation ended with a scandal. With youthful maximalism, I decided to break with my uncle forever.

In those days, the Raevskys were repairing an apartment. In a memorable week of family passions, I was settled in one of the countless Moscow apartment blocks to a good friend of the uncle, a woman of retirement or about that age, to Elena Nikolaevna Kurushina. From her in a sullen mood, not expecting anything good from life, I had driven home, firmly intending to return.

2

Chronic disease of megacities – loneliness – each heals in its own way.

At first, Elena Nikolaevna clung to work, then thought out obligations to her Moscow acquaintances, who still remembered her. Kurushina’s father once held a post in the government of Prime Minister Podgorny. Behind the glass of the sideboard, bureaucratic jackets around the superior in the group photograph dissolved the illegible countenance of Kurushin. Long ago, in her past, there were university orgies of golden youth, a husband, a tinsel of life. Parents left the money, allowing her not to work. In the first week the hostess told about herself. No sadder than the story of life wasted.

And that is how I remember her: a miniature, dryish one, with a constant downy shawl on the shoulders and piercing, tired, green eyes summed up with a black pencil. She called me «sweet boy», went quietly and easily. She was then forty-eight years old.

Wait, how was it? Summer, a day sheltered by a warm Moscow sky. Uncle brought me into her tiny apartment with old-fashioned furniture, the woman spread her arms and said indifferently-amiably: «Here, my sweet boy, if you like, stay!»

She had a chest voice, pleasant and quiet. I also remember the lush brown hair laid around the head. In the kitchen, a radio was mumbling, and in the living room a decorative clock in a patterned glass ticked sonorously. I misspoke and called her Anna Fedotovna. The woman raised an eyebrow mockingly, corrected me and added «dear Herman».

Something in me touched her. For a few evenings, as in a train with a nameless companion, whom time would dissolve tomorrow, we got closer.

On the day of departure, the hostess gathered me presents: products, fragrant soap, terry towel – out of nicety, I was refusing to accept. (But accepted!) On the train, I felt sad, just wanted to cry.

But already then, the poisonous sprout of my intention poisoned her and my life.

3

And here I am again in Moscow.

Kurushina set the table. She was wearing a blue flannel dressing gown, bright Chinese hairpins in her hair. She used them in solemn occasions.

I flopped into a chair under a cape, looked around. Nothing changed. Faience elephants on the sideboard, glass clocks, a sofa under a shaggy cape, flowers in clay pots, books. The woman handled with the plates unhurriedly and deftly. When walking, the hem of her robe revealed her white slender calves. I thought absently: the human body is aging more slowly than the face.

«What are you going to do?»

«I wrote to you…»

«Yes, yes, my friend. Sorry.»

I beautified the letters to her approximately as follows: «…To be Uncle Stepa – for nothing!» and «… it is better to spend the whole life in the Kyrgyz tent than to bow at the construction site for a permanent stamp in the passport.» In a word, I did not suffer from rebellious longing for the parental home. Neither I nor Elena Nikolaevna, we did not meet a man who wanted to break out from Moscow.

Soon I was eagerly eating her «branded» homemade dumplings with broth and black pepper.

«Do you know what I have thought?» suddenly asked Kurushina. She lit a cigarette, leaned on the table and carefully looked at the flame of the dying match in her thin, long fingers, with scarlet, well-groomed nails. «I have acquaintances. They owe my father. One time we were friends. They have a daughter about your age. If you want, I talk to them. Maybe they will agree to arrange your marriage. Live at me for a while. And then we decide…»

Forgetting to chew, I swallowed and scalded the palate. Looked at the woman. Why did she help me? Wanted to keep me next to her? Upon the whole, this is her matter.

«It will take money,» I agreed, thinking. «I have no so much.»

«My father left family jewels, listed in the catalog. I’ll show them to you somehow. Unique collection. You will give the girl something like as your own. When you earn, you will return the money.»

«Are you not afraid that I will deceive you? You do not know me at all!»

«Afraid!» she answered half seriously. «But you want to stay in Moscow? And I hope your uncle will help me deal with you, if anything goes wrong!»

We smiled.

I snuggled up my cheek against Kurushina’s hand and she gently smoothed my hair.

But at twenty, I no longer believed in the selflessness of people. To trust a person, one must possess his soul.

4

Before the army, for my uncle’s birthday, I was introduced to the family of his college mate. And with their daughter, my age and friend of the sisters.

Nelia was a shy, quiet, slender, sharp-nosed, blond, curly hair, anemic, angular face. She was shy about her appearance. But she had her own judgments and, in my opinion, like me, she barely tolerated the Raevsky idle talk. Her father – he seems to have owned a sewing workshop – he didn’t stint on his daughter. Nelia always dressed well. My sisters were jealous of her, and they were angry when someone started talking about a girl.

Before the army I two or three times invited Nelia in the cafe. In her presence on me as if put on a steel corset, in the head poured sawdust, and tongue was sewed to the palate with boot nails. Shyness seems to have brought us closer. From army, I remember, I wrote it several letters.

In almost two and a half years I have changed: not Casanova, but not «dandelion». So far, as they say the army, I «dragged the service», mother, modest head of the kindergarten, saved up some money and dressed her beloved son in fashionable at the time belongings. Expensive denim suit «Levis», Polaroids glasses, sneakers – real Adidas! – and a gold thread around neck. Even as a high school student, in worn, ankle-length trousers, hated to tears, I caught myself curious glances of girls. But was imagining their disappointment with my shirt, faded from washing, and the school jacket, which were wiped on the sleeves, and rather ran away. Army khaki changes the view of fashion. I always cut my hair short and shaved smoothly. Plus I tanned for two months of beach indulgence in between working as a dishwasher in a resort hotel.

The next day after my arrival, I went to the store where Nelia (according to data from two months ago from the sisters) passed the Institute’s practice.

She’s grown up, and let’s just say: took shape in woman. But her summer freckles, her fragile, bird like feet, hands, fuzz on the forearms and shyness resembled the erstwhile Nelia.

In cafe «Space» on the second floor we with the girl sipped champagne from wine glasses and picked tin spoons ice cream in plastic cups on long legs. Barely smoldering conversation seemed again brought us closer. Scurrying waitresses in starched aprons and branded caps, children indulged at the next table, a dozen students pushed the chairs together and were discharging the stuffiness with bursts of laughter.

I didn’t tell Nele about the main thing: about intentions in this city. In those years, the registration in Moscow meant the work to choose, and not on limit, made me «white bone», in my opinion, equal to Muscovites. I was not allowed in the front door of Moscow, forced to Dodge between the hooks of the laws. After the summer trips to my uncle it seemed to me: Muscovites, polite and friendly in the subway or a stone’s throw from the store which visitors need, as border guards were repelling the invasion of extraneous in their world. You can make the right connections here, as in any new place, through friends I don’t have. My gloomy fantasies would be amazed Nelia. But I was afraid to open my ugly world to her.

I walked the girl home. And asked not to tell the Rayevskys, that I was back.

Her heels tapped loudly under the arch of the house. And I, clasping hands behind my back, thought: neither Nelia, nor the other girl that Kurushina spoke of, I will not marry. The landlady is the most suitable victim.

5

The case helped me.

One writer has this: in the catechism of the virtues and dignities of modern man, the ability to acquire money, almost the main point. Compatriots same from century in age, not only do not able to acquire, without stealing, but also spend in vain and ugly. However, everyone wants to settle in life. I am no exception. Like many egoists, I am lazy and impatient. I want to get everything effortlessly. And that would not come up with a poor woman, or anyone else, for my benefit, I already subconsciously rejected benefactor’s efforts. Is it possible to rely on the whim of a man who suddenly will missed his cozy loneliness, will discerned a wretch in me and will recoiled. No, put someone else’s soul at my disposal!

Why do I need Kurasina’s kindness? Why do I need her awakened maternal feeling? I don’t give a damn about him! I have a native mother. I needed everything she owned. I needed to get caught in this town. After all, wild, boundless power – even over a fly – is also a kind of bliss. Man is a despot by nature and loves to be a tormentor. Would you call that cynicism? Shucks! I’m not going to kill anyone or rob anyone for some stupid idea of universal happiness. It doesn’t matter who wants to give themselves to me. Easy success is my idol. In twenty years, I’ve had enough of the miserable life of the mother, relatives, friends and the poor honest fools, a hundred-year succession of work, patience, mind, character, firm calculation, stork on the roof!

You know, I love people: soft, pliable material in capable hands! Master the skill of its processing, and your success will amaze everyone!

In twenty – about women I have were the next views!

To like them, you need to grasp a few general rules: no stereotypes of behavior, ability to navigate by circumstances, bolder fantasize, to be witty, assertive and try to offer bullshit nontrivially. Cunning, invent the most outlandish tricks, grovel before a woman! And wasted! If you don’t understand the innermost of her. And if you understand: say and do platitudes, and you will be forgiven. It is important to consider whether a woman’s heart is busy, a lot depends on the charm, from… There are many wisdoms are known to the person who is looking for! There are no impregnable fortresses, there are untalented warlords. Yes! God forbid you waste your time on dullard. But if you are attracted to women of primitive mind, pander to them: speak easier so that you are understood, not scared of you, and you in fools not remained.

In short, I knew nothing about women.

On word believe me: mentally I’m normal; in any case, I did not turn to a specialist. (Although, this does not mean health!) Those months disgust me and make me feel sorry for the granny. But even my remorse are too lazy to fight the scoundrel inside of me. However to get to the point.

I reasoned so. It is accepted that pornographic films are mostly watched by men, not women. Even in public, a man leafing through a spicy magazine, and a woman – no: from shyness, from shame, disgust… But every observant person will find at least one reverse example in the behavior of those and other. In ten years old on a crowded beach I saw a middle-aged woman, with a slack belly and a «lifeline» on the sides, covered with a wide-brimmed Panama hat and dark glasses, near the men’s locker room, for, as they say, there was no place to fall an apple. She turned to face the bars of the locker room, arranged with half-open blinds, when the cell was occupied by young men. Later I looked at the oblique cut of the boards from her corner and found: the locker room is visible through, which is not noticeable at a distance. In the sauna, an elderly cleaning lady was spying on my friend, a real handsome man with well-developed muscles. He noticed her and laughed: «Let grandma get high!»

And our kindergarten pranks, current aunts and uncles: what were we doing under the covers when the nanny was leaving? Then we matured, civilization varnished our sexual immediacy! Sometimes in bed I asked women: are they shy to look at me? They usually giggled or shrugged their shoulders, and quickly looked under my belly, if I was going up for cigarettes. I think that and in fifteen, and seventy the sex instinct is dormant in a healthy woman. But how deeply it is hidden under morality, conventions, all that makes people think about sex, but not speak openly, only a woman knows. And only she knows about their secret desires.

Nature has worked hard on my appearance. Believe me without evidence: I’m not going to glue my photo here. In the army and after I kept the regime: performed the hated gymnastics under the pressure gauge of orphan songs «boyish» pop groups, drenching with ice water. Good jokers claimed: if only I’d taken care of my body and decided to shoot for glossy magazines, posters depicting Stallone and Schwarzenegger would be depreciated. In short, I was physically developed, and as they say, though not Marcello Mastroiani, but was able to please women.

At first on «citizen» I was waking up at six in the morning, how many did not swear to sleep off for two years of service. By my rise it was possible to check the clock: quarter to six the eyelids were automatically opened, and the brain continued to sleep. Kurushina also was waking up early.

On the eve we sat for a long time for chess, until two o’clock of the night, thoroughly played enough. The woman slept. The clock was ticking with a ringing in the room. The morning coolness oozed through the open window. In the drowsy silence of the house, the chirping of the sparrows on the windowsill seemed deafening. Cringe with cold, I slammed the window leaf and slipped under the blanket. I sleep completely naked for reasons of hygiene.

The sun warmed the bedroom. I threw back the blanket: I decided lying around and get up. I covered my eyes with the back of my hand and dozed off.

It’s been something about an hour. There were footsteps behind the wall. Or I dreamed. Suddenly near the sofa creaked the floor. I cautiously opened my eyelids. The woman stood hesitantly above me. She couldn’t see my eyes under my hand. Out of mischief, I changed my mind about pulling on the blanket. I imagined myself through the eyes of Kurushina: lad in sleepy bliss; the sun gilds faded chest hair; the blanket between the thighs, white stripe tan and soft, pliable in sleep male outlines; a flexible hand covers his forehead, and trembling a little. Maybe she wanted to wrap me in a blanket, like a boy. Or maybe the shameless invasion embarrassed her…

I turned around. The doorway gaped of the dawn gloom.

An hour later, I washed and came out to the kitchen for breakfast of melted in the oven sandwiches with cheese. Elena Nikolaevna was smoking at the window.

«Good morning!» she said amiably, and smiled. She smiled only with her lips. A square ashtray of glass had fresh wrinkled cigarette butts in it…

I was afraid to look at her hands and see the pale brown spots of old age on her flaccid skin. But the hand of a woman with a simple gold ring on her ring finger was graceful and flexible.

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!»