Читать книгу: «Lonely Place America. Novel-in-Stories», страница 2
Children and Parents
Members of families take an active part arranging their close people’s good fortune. They often come to my marriage agency or send letters.
Once I have received a letter from a mother of a seventeen year old school-girl. «Dear Madam,» was written in the letter. «My daughter graduates from school this year. She is a very good girl and has only good marks for all ten years of her studying. I tried my best raising her, put a lot into her education, and now I think it’s time to find her a husband abroad. I have a favour to ask you. I would prefer to view all the candidates myself and to have the possibility to decide to what extent this or that one is suitable for my daughter.» A picture of her daughter was enclosed, and there was also an amplification that men should send their letters firstly to the mother for her preliminary decision. Nobody took the risk of such a way of acquaintance. The girl did not receive any letters and the mother called me afterwards and blamed my bad work.
Another mother rushed into my office and looking at her watch told very fast that she had to visit two more agencies that day. She added that her daughter herself was in Italy that time but the man she visited was boring and greedy, worked much, did not entertain the girl enough and did not buy her enough presents and that’s why her daughter did not wish to accept his proposal. «What for?» the mother agreed, «We ourselves have a grey life here, what for to change for the same?» When I asked if she really thought that men in the West could care only of entertainments and presents the mother said that there was no reason then to leave for abroad, it was too boring for girls to live there without even presents as a compensation.
The third mother came to me and told a sad story about her thirty year old, very shy and lonely daughter to whom she could not even hint at such a place as a marriage agency. The girl would be astonished and would certainly refuse and her mother came in secret promising to settle it somehow if there was somebody interested. She brought a picture of her daughter in a national Caucasian suit taken ten years ago where only a third of the girl’s face was seen out of an extremely high cap. When I asked to bring another picture the mother promised to take it somehow secretly also as if for another purpose. She thanked me, wished my agency good luck and never came back.
Once a little girl with a school bag appeared from behind my door. I asked her if she confused my office with something else but she shaked her head negatively and said she knew where she had come. The girl came in, sat at the couch as an adult and told that her Mom had cut my advert from a newspaper, that Mom would dream to get acquainted with somebody but was shy to come herself, that she was always such, I should know. The girl took a picture out of her bag and showed to me saying: «This is all our family.» A lot of people were presented at a group photograph. Three looking-very-similar ladies, as the girl explained, her Mom, Granny and Great grandmother, the girl herself, and two wonderful baby twins being held each by Granny and Great grandmother. The girl’s Mom was in the very center looking into the camera as the group leader. «Our family is very amicable,» said the girl confidently. «We need only Dad. And please write there that we can go abroad only all together.» I nodded, wrote everything she wished and the girl left very satisfied finally asking me just to delay a little displaying of the picture as she had to finish the school term before their departure.
I remember also two ladies in large fur-coats, the mother and the aunt, furiously blaming their daughter’s and niece’s ex-husband, enumerating his crimes from which I understood only unsuccessful selling of a good apartment somewhere in the North. And an old man looking for a ready-made husband for his pregnant great granddaughter just to her childbirth.
They were all very different but similar in their sincere wish to arrange their close people’s happiness. And leaving me after filling in the forms they all seemed quite sure that indeed only a few steps separated their relatives that moment from their happy future.
Dreams
She was a shy gentle Russian girl, she dreamed just about a quiet family life in a cozy home, about nice beautiful children, strong confident husband who would take care of all of them. She did not hope to find all that in her large Russian city where dark windy streets were full of sad worried people, where one could guess only for the next day, where life was full of uncertainty and fear, where young men preferred to remain alone than to have someone else to take care of.
He was a skilled programmer, a young Russian immigrant living in California. He had a good job in the US, his life style was not comparable with what he could afford having stayed in Russia, but it was not the only reason he loved America. He loved America for its energy, for its respect for business and order, he loved it for its hospitality, he felt tears in his eyes when he saw American flag and when he heard the American national anthem because he was so grateful to that generous country thanks to which so many people’s desires could be fulfilled. Most of all he wished maybe even not him himself but at least his future children to become a pure part of America and though he did not expect to marry an American girl he decided that the Russian girl he would like to marry should also love America the same way as he did and should try her best together with him to approach as close as possible to original American image.
They both met through a marriage agency. He arranged a business visa for her and invited her to visit California. He found her nice but too shy and reserved, too «Russian’ as he thought, and he would prefer her to look more American and aggressive. He bought some how-to books for her, explaining her that while living in a new country she had also to accept its main traits.
The girl was intelligent, she understood what he wished. She liked him himself, his cozy home and sunny California with smiling people in the streets. She studied the books and tried to do all they advised. She tried to smile and shake people’s hands energetically, to look always happy with herself but as she really remained shy and close it looked rather tense in spite of all her effort. She learnt to drive but being too much afraid of traffic once collided his car with the pavement barrier. She looked for job to start her own career but as her English was not good enough employers did not want to accept her.
She was too upset with all her failures, her boyfriend was also becoming more and more disappointed and once they talked and decided that she would better return back home to Russia. But she already could not forget the wonderful country she visited. It was like a dream that did not come true which she still would like to embody. She thought she had time yet to change to a real American style. She entered some marriage agencies more and spent all her evenings writing personal letters.
And there was an American businessman, living in a large noisy American city, too tired of his permanent rush for success and money, tired of friendly handshakes and victorious smiles of independent American ladies who were too strong to need anybody. Sitting in front of his computer he looked through the personals web-sites, guessing if all these men and women might be really serious. But once he saw that unbrave girl’s face on one of the pages and thought that maybe there really existed someone in Russia who could really need his care, who could in turn sympathize him when he was tired and unlucky, with whom he might not pretend to look always happy and successful, with whom he could be either strong or weak and not to worry.
And he arrived to Russia to meet the girl. But she remembered her sad experience too well, she again looked most thoroughly through all her American «how-to» books before the meeting, she tried her best to look just American style, she managed to hide her real personality as if it never existed and her handshake was so strong and her smile was so triumphant that it seemed to him he did not even leave America. And all the three of them are still lonely and still dream. A Russian programmer loving America most of all dreams to become a part of it together with an energetic independent lady whom he has not yet met. An American businessman dreams about someone shy and dependent to take care of, whom he also would like to find sometime. Shy and dependent Russian girl still writing letters, dreams about sunny California, trying to display herself in her letters pure American style, sometimes forgetting, writing just the opposite and mixing up all she wrote previously.
They met in Internet by chance, she advertised the product of her company, he inquired, she replied. He was curious about Russia and Russians, asked a couple of questions, then asked more. Little by little their weekly exchange of messages became habitual, she liked that habit to retell him many things well-known in Russia but quite strange in America, his amazement was often funny. He also told her many things unknown for her, it was also interesting to be in touch with a person from another part of Earth, from another world. Firstly she was amazed by his openness and ability to share. Very soon she knew both the romantic story of his acquaintance with his wife and the sad story of their separation. People in Russia usually do not share so easily unless they consider someone to be their close friend. He also told much about his religious aspirations, he was very religious, she was not at all.
Then she started to get accustomed. She started to begin her day with switching on the computer, looking into the mailbox if there was any email or not. More often there was. She liked to read those small white letters on the blue screen. Reading them she felt a shadow of far life just there, so close to her. It was quite unknown life with unknown pleasures – black tie dinners and parties, unknown advantages – security, comfort, they did not have in Russia.
Her Russian reality was busy, uncertain, unstable. Every day she had to take often illegal decisions for her company’s survival. She could never be sure her business would be still working next day and she would remain safe.
Her private life was also rich. She had complicated relationship with her boyfriend who wished her give up her business and share his interests and life on the whole. He did not take her business seriously, worried that she was so tired, demanded that she would give it up and rely completely on himself. But she already had a sad experience relying upon men in her previous marriage, she preferred to be independent and she did not give any promises to her boyfriend for the future.
She had a daughter for whom she always had lack of time. Her old parents reproached her that she was working too much, they also tried to remain independent, not burdening her with any requests. She was helping them financially but she also felt she was not giving them enough time and affection while they were so much missing her.
Her friends also told her that she had forgotten them. But to pay more attention to all her dear people meant to take away time from her business which she considered quite impossible.
However, email from a strange American entered somehow her busy life and managed to take an important there.
Late in the evening when her daughter already slept and no telephone calls could occur she sat at the computer taking away time from her even so short sleep and composed email messages. She used to write about the events of her day, about all the fears, about everything that came to her mind. On one hand she wrote a diary, on the other hand, realizing that someone quite unknown, a person from a stable and secure – as she thought – world would read it, she felt as if a thin thread connected her with that world and she also got from there her own small part of protection.
She understood that it was surely a pure illusion but very soon she really began to feel that imagined protection. When after a strange telephone call she suspected if it was racket investigating the financial position of her company or when her bank suddenly appeared bankrupt she did not already feel desperate as she would do in former times. Remembering that she could write about it in the evening in her email message she felt as if the real danger receded. She as if built another parallel life in which only those things existed which she described in her messages, but things described seemed already not so awful as theatre scenery which could not frighten anybody. Very often when she had to solve real problems she sat with her thoughts far away deciding how to describe those problems better. She preferred to move into an invented email reality resisting every time when she had to return into the hard actual one.
Sometimes she wondered how it could happen, wondering if it was a subconscious wish of self-defense because the tension of all those real and imagined fears became sometimes too strong and any kind of relaxation was necessary. Very soon however she started to worry and think that although that habit to write email became so beloved and strong, something should be done about it.
As to the person she corresponded with he did not seem less alien to her after several months of correspondence than on the first day of email acquaintance. Very soon she understood that his openness and frankness did not mean what they would mean in Russia, that warm sincere words of real sympathy that she maybe awaited would not be said, not because he was hard and silly, but just because he was not capable of understanding the feeling of everyday uncertainty, the feeling of life at the railway station before the train departure, that they all constantly had in Russia. He was a successful businessman appreciating luxury, good restaurants and hotels, acquaintance with famous people, traveling – he was so much excited telling about his and his wife’s voyage to Venice in Orient Express in costumes of twenties. She could not know if she liked all that or not – she never experienced anything of the kind – but it seemed to her if even she had she would not take it all so seriously. Every time receiving his messages she felt a slight prick of dissatisfaction because what she wrote was not understood as she would like, more and more she made certain that she wrote mostly for herself, she thought that she had become very foolishly addicted and had to quit.
However, she felt that her day was empty, though it was full of events, when she did not receive an email message and had no opportunity to reply. She was thinking how to manage to get rid of that delusion when her American informed her unexpectedly that he had to visit Russia on business and that they would meet.
And he turned out to be a person with a friendly, easy-appearing smile, he curiously looked around out of the taxi, their meeting was taken up with fussing but when they at last sat in front of each other and talked they had pauses in the conversation remembering if they already wrote about this or that in their email. Then they familiarized themselves with each other and their personal acquaintance it seemed had nothing to do with their correspondence. She showed him theatres and restaurants, they talked and again he listened attentively when she described her reality but he was much more excited sharing his own cherished thoughts about perfecting himself for God’s approval, his concern that the world was overpopulated, plans and projects for future business. And she also listened to all that, thinking that she was taking away time from her most necessary affairs, feeling a kind of irritation, counting days till his departure, missing something important, being unable to understand what it was.
But when she saw him off to the airport she understood what she was missing. It was the absence of the possibility to write email during all the time of his visit. Having seen him off she was happy to think that he would be back home soon, would sit at his computer and it would be possible to write email again.
Having realized it she knew what she should do next. At home she resolutely switched off her modem, took a taxi to her boyfriend’s, and having entered his apartment immediately proffered her modem to him and asked him to hide it as far as he could, not to give it back to her keeping it away as long as possible, whatever she would say and however ask him.
Frank
His name was Frank, I translated his letters. He wrote them to a petite girl with a low voice. Though he could not know what really her voice was as he could not phone her because she did not speak English at all and he did not wish to use an interpreter considering that such a conversation of the three would be awkward.
His letters were honest, sincere and nice. His letters quite came up to his name. He carefully chose a girl to write to but, having chosen, unconditionally decided that she would be the only person to whom he would tell the story of his life. But there was also someone else, me, who had a possibility to learn it.
I was thrilled by his letters. I read how lost he felt gardening in the yard of his house alone on weekends. I knew that he had the only friend far away. I learned the story of his previous marriage, of his ex-wife, who did not wish to have children in her younger age as she had a very evil step-mother herself, then understood how wrong she was and presented all her not-called-for tenderness to her nephews. He wrote also that he himself would be happy to have children in his new marriage, or could do without them, he let decide that question to the person who should become the most important for him, the girl he wrote to.
The letters of his girl were rather featureless. Though modest and respectable, they were descriptive but poor for feelings. But a lot of room in her letters was devoted to the descriptions of St. Petersburg’s beauties. Some places in her letters were written in such a magnificent language that I even thought that she attended a literary studio and was happy to exercise while corresponding with Frank. It was difficult to say what a person she was according to her letters.
Frank, however, seemed happy to entrust his destiny at least to someone. He wrote about his problems with work, he decided to leave his job and to take another, he described why that previous job did not satisfy him any more. To read about work in the US was certainly interesting for me. Having translated what he wrote I usually told about it to my family during our meals. I also told my friends what was the situation with work in America, and we all were amazed to find common traits in it with ours in socialist times. And of course both my family and friends knew that all I told them was happening with a person called Frank.
At last Frank abandoned his old work but very soon understood that the new one did not match him either. Frank remained without any work after all.
Letters of his girl of that time did not have any peculiarities. As earlier she did not write much about herself though she shared such an important feature of herself that her favourite meal was poultry. It was as if she lacked imagination to understand what really was going on in Frank’s life. She unhurriedly began her each letter with invariable «Dear Frank» and finished it with a splendid description of the season’s beauty or the beauty of a city landscape. Meanwhile Frank experienced hard times. Little by little he started to share with me writing about unlucky interviews and about times of complete silence, complete absence of any offers. I encouraged him as I could. Both my family and friends knew already that Frank was without work.
Once, when I visited my mother overnight, my son called me from home to tell that there was a desperate email from Frank in my computer at home where Frank asked to write him back as fast as I could. My son told me also that Frank was preparing himself for an interview, very important for him, and being a little superstitious wished to hear a few encouraging words.
Spending night at my mother’s I could not email Frank right away. But having arrived home next morning I threw the bag from the groserie in the lobby and immediately emailed Frank that I wished him good luck before putting food into the fridge.
The first thing my son asked having come home from school that day was how Frank’s interview passed. My lady-friend called in the evening and in the end of the conversation asked: «By the way, has that your American, Frank, got a new job or not yet?» My husband, having returned from his business trip, also asked: «What about Frank? If I was at his place I would prefer to become an independent entrepreneur!»
Frank’s interview passed unlucky but he got another job very soon. His girl, it seemed, did not notice what happened with Frank, she sent him a long letter with the description of St. Petersburg’s beautiful bridges copied, it seemed, from a local lore book. She also promised to describe St. Petersburg monumental sculpture in her next letter.
There is much more splendour to describe in St. Petersburg and a lot of books where from to take descriptions in its libraries too, so Frank’s girl has much more ahead. Frank continues to write to her about his lonely life, I continue to translate. It seems Frank and me are already good friends. My family and friends are also aware of Frank’s existence and often ask me how Frank is. And even though his girl currently passed to describe all scientific discoveries ever done in St. Petersburg, Frank – it seems – is already not so much lonely in this world.
