Bouquet of Irises

© Tatiana Gavrilina, 2025

ISBN 978-5-0068-6609-6

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Part 1

The woman didn’t have any trouble, so she bought a pig

The experimental production farm of agricultural products near the village of Tolstopaltsevo stood abandoned for several years, no one had conducted any experiments for a long time, and the Moscow City Hall decided to «donate» this land to veterans of the Great Patriotic War, honored workers of culture, science and art. The land was cut into plots of six acres. Plot 252 on third Street went to the laureate of international competitions, Honored Artist of Russia Valentin Nikolaevich. For the past 40 years, he has faithfully served the Bolshoi Theater and played the flute. Valentin Nikolaevich extracted the sound from the flute masterfully, despite the great complexity. He skillfully blew a single hole per slice, and there were 6 musical holes in the flute. A clear and transparent timbre was born in the middle register, a dull one in the lower register, but a somewhat harsh sound in the upper register. Valentin Nikolaevich brilliantly mastered the technique of performance and his flute was often assigned orchestral solos in symphonic and brass orchestras, in chamber ensembles. Valentin Nikolaevich took apart his «swallow» with great love, as he called his flute to himself, into parts, wiped, cleaned, then assembled and tuned. Valentin Nikolaevich knocked on the common wall with a neighbor and heard an answering knock – three jerky sounds – a conditional signal from the artist Maxim Petrovich that he was not busy and could talk to him. One retaliatory strike meant that the neighbor was doing something and should not be disturbed.

«As a reward for my work, I received a plot of 6 acres, not far from Peredelkino», he shared the news with Maxim Petrovich.

– Congratulations! Why are there such sad notes in your voice? I don’t hear joy, I should be happy, but for some reason you’re not happy, Maxim Petrovich replied.

– You see, my wife and I can’t pull it off, because we are already over 80 years old. My daughter died a year ago from an incurable disease, two grandchildren are adults, one is 25, the other is 27 years old… But here’s what my Jewish son-in-law came up with. He’s taking them to Israel! The grandchildren agree, they rejoice like fools. So my Lida and I are left alone in Moscow. There are small savings for a rainy day. There is no extra money to build even a shed on the site, and for whom to build? The grandchildren will not live here. I decided to sell the land, but I’m afraid I might run into scammers, you’ll be left without land and without money, you’ll be deceived, you’ll be deceived, sighed Valentin Nikolaevich.

– Let me call my ex—wife, maybe she’ll buy it, Maxim Petrovich suggested. Without delay, he called Jeanne, whom they divorced 3 years ago.

– My neighbor is selling a plot of 6 acres in a great location, near Peredelkino. Buy it, you have the money. I don’t even want to hear that you’re not interested in this, that you go to the seaside every summer for a vacation. You’ll thank me later. When you have grandchildren, you complain that you don’t communicate, but otherwise, there is a cottage and the grandchildren will be brought to you, because you need to put the children somewhere in the summer.

This argument was so reasonable and convincing that Jeanne immediately agreed to buy a piece of land. A notary issued a power of attorney for Maxim Petrovich to make the purchase, so as not to bother Valentin Nikolaevich with trips to all sorts of land institutions, and six months later Zhanna held in her hands a completed land purchase agreement and a certificate for the land. On the third street of the Garden Non—Profit Partnership, abbreviated as the SNT, there was only one small house of Larisa Petrovna – the «birdhouse», measuring 5 by 4 meters, with a pointed roof covered with galvanized sheet iron. The walls of the house are painted with green acrylic paint. A low wooden picket fence, about 1 meter high, is painted in the same color, but with oil paint. A compact holiday home of 30 m2 with a kitchen and a living room located on the second floor in a cozy attic is the dream of all summer residents. The house was built quickly, in just 7 days. Larisa Petrovna worked as a film cutter at the Soyuzmultfilm film studio, established in Moscow on June 10, 1936. During its existence, the studio has produced more than one and a half thousand cartoons in various genres and artistic techniques and received more than four hundred international festival prizes and awards. A modest and inconspicuous worker Larisa Petrovna made a small contribution to these awards. Short, stocky, round-faced with a short haircut of thick light brown hair, with large gray-blue eyes, Larisa Petrovna was the kindest person, loved to help not only her loved ones, but also everyone who needed help, getting great pleasure from what she did, sometimes, heartily rejoicing even more than the one to whom It helped. As she grew older, Larisa Petrovna decided for herself that she should respect her neighbors, who are always with her, help, advise, and comfort her, so she should not whine, mope, or annoy them, but deal with troubles and difficulties herself. Larisa Petrovna gave her three-room apartment in a 15-storey building in Moscow to her daughter’s family, who gave birth to three children, and she moved into her son-in-law’s apartment, a one-room apartment in Khrushchev. They lived not far from each other, they often saw each other, and her grandchildren often visited her. Larisa Petrovna said,

«But I’m a bartender in my son—in-law’s apartment and I often receive my girlfriends, bake them pies, and sometimes we have a glass of tea. We have something to remember, we have been friends all our lives, we work on the Cartoon together, we always look forward to our meetings!

In 2 weeks, Zhanna built a beautiful two-storey frame country house with an area of 60 m2 with an attic, bathroom, kitchen and living rooms on the second floor, with a spacious terrace and balcony. Jeanne went out onto the 12-meter terrace to enjoy the surrounding outdoor view. The picture was unpleasant: a lumpy ground covered with weeds and thickly littered cigarette butts from smoker workers. Jeanne began to collect cigarette butts, counting out of habit: one, two, three, ten, twenty, one hundred, two hundred, three hundred and forty-six! It turned out to be a pretty impressive pile.

– Sergey! Jeanne called out to the main builder, who was proficient with a hand saw.

The interior was being finished with euro—grade ashlar lining, which was the name of the lining of the highest quality – smooth, smooth, without defects, without knots and chips. Tall, skinny, sickly—looking Sergei with a gray complexion, gray eyes and a toothless mouth – two front teeth were missing – looked out of the second-floor window and broke into a wide, disarming smile.

– Sergey, do you see this pile of your cigarette butts, 346 pieces?! Burn them and please don’t throw cigarette butts on the ground anymore, Jeanne said sternly.

– Yes, my mistress is strict, Sergei thought, but he did as he was told, and he and his partner Valera began to put the next cigarette butts in an iron stew tin.

Sergey and Valera unconditionally fulfilled all her wishes. We haven’t found a job for a long time. There was no work, not even a penny to my name, and you couldn’t even buy enough bread to get enough. They brought with them a gas stove, a small gas cylinder with leftover gas and two cans of stew to the construction site of Zhanna’s cottage. The cans were untouched for several days. Zhanna immediately understood their deplorable condition and offered to pay for the work in installments as it was completed. On a piece of paper, Zhanna wrote down the amount of work, the deadlines, and at the bottom she put the amount of payment, completed by two signatures – hers and Sergei’s. Sergey and Valera worked quickly and harmoniously. After receiving the money for the first time, they rushed home to pay off their debts. I had to save on food again, both of them lost weight. It was two weeks before the end of the second scheduled work, and they needed to eat… Zhanna offered them to pay fifteen hundred in advance for food each week. A Russian person immediately has a quick wit, how to get the maximum benefit from a successful opportunity. Sergey and Valera began to work hard, to rest more in order to last longer at such a hospitable job. I must say, the work was done conscientiously, carefully and with great love. On the day of payment, Zhanna gave out the designated amount minus the money spent on food.

– What’s that supposed to mean? Sergey ruffled, after all, you fed us.

– I fed you, food costs money, I gave you money in advance for food so that you would not starve to death, otherwise you would eat only bread with mayonnaise and drink water while doing hard physical work.

– No, we didn’t agree on that, Sergei mumbled.

– How did we not agree? I asked you, Should I give you money for food? And you said, «Give». So I gave it to you to eat. Well, since you didn’t understand me and I didn’t understand you, we’ll divide the cost of food in half, and I’ll deduct only half of the money spent on food from your amount. Should I give money for food next week?

Sergey and Valera refused, what was the point of taking money out of their pocket, especially since the money they received was already enough for food. They began to treat Jeanne with great respect, she is fair, nothing can be said against this. Zhanna liked to walk around the territory of the farm, look at other people’s plots through low chain-link fences and look at the growing plants. On fifth Street, in Irina’s garden, she saw for the first time beautiful bright yellow three-petalled flowers. The delicate petals of the flower contrasted with the stiff, pointed leaves of emerald color, resembling a sword. The flowers seemed to whisper in her ear that it was possible to be bold and witty and at the same time soft and delicate. This fabulous flower seemed very harmonious to Jeanne, and she had a desire to create and draw.

«I’ll go to Larisa Petrovna, maybe she can give me some advice on how to arrange the plot». Zhanna decided and opened the gate. Jeanne easily put her hand through the gap between the gate and the wooden fence and closed the inner latch, standing outside.

– And I recently came from the sanatorium. I really like it there. Excellent service and very nice nature. Actually, this is a sanatorium for artists, and I belong to their society. I often remember this trip. I was afraid to go south, but I had already gone to this sanatorium before. The weather was warm, with no rain or wind. Larisa Petrovna approached a bush of perennial aster with blue flowers and dug out almost a third of the bush.

– With this bush aster, you won’t have any worries: it grows on its own, you don’t even need watering. As soon as you plant it, come back, I’ll give you phlox, I have white, purple, ruby ones.

Each summer resident has his own interest: someone likes to grow vegetables, someone likes the process of burying and digging out when breeding annual plants. Zhanna preferred to do long-term studies. Zhanna «fell ill» with the disease of amateur gardeners, she developed a passion for breeding and transplanting plants. I planted a daylily along the right side of the house, I didn’t like it – I dug out and made a round flower bed of only daylilies: they grow in early spring, and the garden does not seem deserted at this time. Her friend Lyuba dug out an offshoot of a Bulgarian tea rose from her garden, Zhanna planted it and a year later a huge bush grew, from which she gradually dug out a sprout and now five bushes with delicate pink fragrant petals appeared in her garden in sufficient quantity to make jam. It turned out to be a beautiful delicate pink color with a unique scent of roses. Zhanna’s backyard was immediately transformed, the eye was pleased with the bright variety of colors of flowers. Irina dug out a piece of yellow iris. Jeanne fell in love with this royal flower. An ancient Greek goddess named Iris traveled between the kingdoms on a rainbow bridge. Therefore, the iris flowers are of such diverse colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, purple. Iris is a symbol of the power of life, beauty, healing of the soul, dreams and creative development. Yellow means creativity. The iris grew and Jeanne transplanted part of it to a rectangular flower bed along the house. Valentina’s neighbor had irises with a mesmerizing rich dark purple color growing across the street along the fence. The purple color of the iris symbolizes intuition. Valentina promised to share, but either she didn’t have time, or she was greedy, and she didn’t give Jeanne a part of the coveted flower.

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