Letters from a Thirty Year Old 13

Some names have been changed. The details of the events do not correspond to reality.

Previous portion

13.

In the evening of the next day, the beginning of which, due to its complete lack of content, was completely erased from my memory, I was supposed to meet with an acquaintance so that he would give me the fee for the article. An acquaintance said that he would be at the Polytechnic Museum in the evening, and after work I went there.

A long and noisy queue stretched from the entrance to the museum, and on the poster it was written that a meeting with Nikita Mikhalkov would now take place. Security guards in black suits searched everyone who entered. They told the girl with a bag of groceries standing right in front of me “you can’t.”

- Why is this? – the girl asked. – Do I pose any danger?

“Only for married people,” the guard joked subtly.

- Then why don’t you let me through?

- Due to the increased terrorist threat in the city of Moscow.

- But I have nothing! You searched me!

“I found food,” said the guard.

When it was my turn, he took lipstick out of my pocket, holding it with two fingers with disgust, and asked:

- Why else do you need this?

I said that I was definitely not going to use it as a bladed weapon and would try not to throw it at anyone. The guard looked at me gloomily, and I nervously assured him that I was heterosexual, my lips cracked in the cold, and this lipstick was medicinal and had been in my pocket since January.

Inside, I undressed, found my friend and went into the hall with him. My friend was a VIP guest and so we sat in VIP seats, right on the stage. The inscription “Large Nano-Hadron Language” was projected onto a large movie screen. Against the background of this inscription there was a black piano, and a fat man was diligently playing it. An hour later he got tired and slipped from Chopin to a dog waltz, but Mikhalkov still didn’t move.

I must say that I didn’t like Mikhalkov in advance. In my circle it was customary not to like Mikhalkov. I had not heard a single kind word about him from my friends - and therefore in absentia I treated him with a feeling of slight contempt. But when Mikhalkov appeared and the meeting with Mikhalkov began, I felt a sudden sympathy and was even ashamed of it, so I constantly looked at my acquaintance in order to understand how does he feel, and should I start feeling ashamed?

By the end of the evening, I completely stopped disliking Mikhalkov.

On the way home, I remembered a story from those times when it was customary in the literary segment of the Internet not to like Kushner. And allegedly Anatoly Naiman told a friend of a friend of one of my friends that at some event in St. Petersburg, after a buffet table, Kushner approached him, buried his nose in his chest and quietly said:

- Don't “don't love” me, please.

14.

Today I decided to take the path of a warrior. This means that I must stop complaining about life. I must act as if every step is the last in my life. This morning I woke up and immediately realized that it was not so simple. First of all, it’s hard for me to imagine that I could die today. To do this, you still need to try. For example, it is impossible to put two fingers into a socket, because the holes in the socket are too narrow. Of course, something unexpected could happen, say, Pasha will go crazy and hit me on the forehead with a hammer. Or something will fall on me on the street. I recently walked past a house that said, “Caution. Fragments of the balcony may fall.”

So, I woke up in the morning and tried to imagine that I would die today, and therefore I urgently needed to do something significant. I thought what could I do that was so important? And I immediately realized that the most important thing at that moment was to get some more sleep. This was the most important thing. I, of course, knew that I was late for work. But a warrior must not allow himself to be misled by such considerations. He has an impeccable will and does what he must. So I curled up and went back to sleep.

In the dream, I had a lot of unfinished business. Firstly, it was necessary to find out what happened to the literary critic Sonechka.

I was at the Forum of Young Writers in Lipki and didn’t think about Sonechka at all. In recent years she has almost disappeared from my life. My dubious feeling for Sonya slowly but surely faded away, because she didn’t need me. Added to this was the fact that Sonya spoke in a very quiet voice: I couldn’t understand anything and kept asking again. This irritated both of us.

For some reason it was summer, although the Forum takes place in the fall. I walked along the seashore and watched the sun, like a dark plum, gradually sink into the distance. In reality there is no sea there, but in a dream there was. A massive wooden boat stuck out of the sand, nose up, and was washed by the surf. A seagull was sitting on top of it, looking at me gloomily, like a crow, with one eye. The songwriter Karakumenko appeared from somewhere, he was in a hurry and was about to pass by without saying hello. He hates me and once hammered into my friend that you can’t deal with me because you won’t be able to wash yourself off later. What I did to annoy him, I have no idea. However, I said hello and asked:

-Where are you running?

He was a little taken aback, because I usually don’t greet him either, and in fright he answered:

- To Sonya: they say she was attacked.

- What? - I was surprised. - Who?

- No one knows. I ran.

For some reason, in a dream I knew that Sonechka was not living in a boarding house, but in some hotel in the city. This was done on purpose so that no one would move in with her, and she could calmly receive one imposing elderly literary figure, whom Sonechka had loved for a long time.

Fearing for Sonya, I ran after Karakumenko, but he disappeared somewhere. Then I moved into the city with one instant effort of will, as happens in a dream. It was getting dark. Cars rushed past with a terrible roar, touching the asphalt glistening with moisture with their green headlights. The lanterns stood motionless, like dead men with scythes, and did not burn. I walked under the bridge and saw a hotel - a white two-story house.

There was only a cleaning lady at the reception. She was washing the floor and gloomily glancing in my direction.

“I’m visiting Sonya Shishkina, she checked in today,” I told the cleaning lady.

“One more,” said the cleaning lady. “They keep coming to her today, and they’re all men.” One will leave, the other will come. What's happened?

“Yes, I am, it’s nothing,” I said. “I need to check on her, they say something happened to her.”

“What happened,” the cleaning lady grumbled. - Men are walking. Go up the stairs.

I climbed up the luxurious grand staircase, covered with a long purple cloth, and walked down the floor. On one of the doors there was a gold plate with the inscription “Sonya Shishkina”. I pushed the door and saw a small closet with a bed and a table in front of it. A completely pale Sonechka was sitting on the bed and pouring mineral water into her glass. It was quiet as in a coffin.

“Hello,” she said.

- Zhenechka? - Sonya perked up. - Fuhhhh... Come in. How did you find me?

- What-what-what? “Ah, how I found it... I don’t know,” I admitted. - Walked, walked... What happened to you.

- What happened to me? – Sonechka asked and began to frantically drink water.

- What-what-what? Ah, what happened... They say they attacked you.

- Who attacked?

- Don't know. Some kind of maniac. Karakumenko told me.

“He’s a big talker...” Sonya muttered.

- Who-who-who? Ahh, yap... Yes, he is yap. Well, in short, I got worried and came.

“Thank you,” Sonya thanked and looked at me with warmth. - No one came except you. For some reason I knew that it was you who would come.

- How? - I was surprised. “And the cleaning lady told me that many people came to see you today.”

- Strange... Nobody came. I'm alone here.

- And Karakumenko?

- And Karakumenko didn't come.

At this time there was a knock on the door, and Karakumenko entered the room. He was very surprised to see me. In his hands he held a completely wet umbrella.

“Lord,” said Karakumenko. - Hello, Sonya. What is this guy doing here?

By “this” he meant me.

“He’s here...” answered Sonya.

- How did you get here before me? – Karakumenko turned to me. He was breathing heavily and angrily, apparently out of breath from running.

“I just moved,” I shrugged.

- What?

- Well, it's a dream. I just moved, that’s what everyone does in their sleep.

Karakumenkov looked puzzled. He looked at me warily.

“Well, it’s simple,” I began to explain. – Look around carefully, do you see that everything you look at immediately changes its shape? This is because we are in a dream. Now raise your hands and look at them.

Karakumenko raised his hands, looked at them and disappeared.

- What's happened? – Sonya shouted with fear.

“He apparently woke up,” I answered.

At that moment my mobile phone rang. I immediately knew it was Gordon Cole.

-Come immediately! - the voice on the phone was simply breaking. I moved the phone away from my ear so as not to go deaf.

- What happened, Gordon?

- Dale is bad! The rest is in place! Lights out!

I turned towards the door, and Sonya jumped out of bed.

- Do not leave me alone!

- What about your lover? – I asked sarcastically. - Where is he?

“I don’t know,” Sonya said confused.

- I have to go, this is very important. Tell me, what happened to you? - I demanded.

An atmosphere of some vague fear hung in the room. Sonya began to explain something, but it was too late: I didn’t hear anymore because I was waking up.

I woke up, of course, with terrible annoyance. Firstly, I was terribly late for work. Secondly, I never found out what happened to Sonechka. And thirdly, I urgently needed to go to Gordon, but for this I had to fall asleep again, and I knew that I would not fall asleep again. It was that same feeling of dissatisfaction and unfulfilled debt that you often wake up with if you haven’t finished your dream.

I got dressed, rinsed my face, grabbed a piece of cheese from the refrigerator and ran to work.

15.

The most amazing thing was that in the afternoon I received a text message from Sonechka Shishkina.

"I dreamed of you".

“Maybe I’ll see you?” - I wrote.

“Come this evening,” answered Sonechka.

“I will,” she said.

Immediately thoughts began to creep into my head . I have to say. that these thoughts were of a very shameful nature.

Actually, I had already been to Sonechka’s house and knew well that I couldn’t count on physical intimacy. The usual program of our meetings included tea and singing songs with a guitar, after which I went home. But hope, as they say, is the last to die.

After that, I went to ICQ and said to my co-author on some stories, Alena Churbanova:

- I dreamed about Sonechka.

“Wow,” Alena answered. “What are you going to do?”

- I’m going to Kney today.

- Cool, cool. Maybe things will work out for you.

- I need to check if I still have any feelings for her.

- What about her patron?

- I have no idea. Maybe he left the race.

- Well, good luck.

- It’s unlikely that anything will work out here. I do not deserve this.

“Don’t be too poor,” said Alena and left ICQ.

The following should be briefly described about my relationships with women.

When I was 23 years old, that is, 7 years ago, I could look back on a long history of romantic loves, but by that time I had never been kissed. No luck.

A series of failures led me to a state of complete apathy. I lived alone, read poetry books borrowed from Pyotr Isaevich, and surfed the Internet. True, this constituted a smaller part of my leisure time, because most of the time I slept.

At that moment, I had already moved from the hostel to an apartment paid for by the state, consisting of a room and a kitchen, and gradually cluttered it. At first I lived in the kitchen in order to keep the room in its original condition. But soon I cluttered the kitchen so much that it became impossible to stay in it. The sink smelled of corpses from unwashed dishes that had been dumped there several months ago. There was no question of cleaning the sink. I was afraid to approach this shell because I noticed a mushroom-like structure of an indeterminate color floating there and would not have been at all surprised if it turned out to be intelligent and hostile to the human species. As for cleaning, I never cleaned.

So one day I moved into a room and tightly locked the kitchen so as not to return there again. I only had one ivilka plate left, I ate from them and washed them all the time. I spent most of my time in front of the computer. I had an electric kettle and a saucepan with sugar. I drank coffee with sugar all the time, so I stocked up on coffee and sugar for months in advance. I also ate pasta.

Thanks to this whole story with Pyotr Isaevich and poetry, I decided to devote myself to literature. I knew that the German state would not let me die of hunger and would not put me on the street, so I did not worry about material things, but gave up on my personal life. I stopped cutting my hair and shaving. I smelled bad because I hadn’t eaten anything other than pasta and coffee. I almost never left home and sat on literary sites, where I posted poems and quarreled with everyone, because I considered myself an unrecognized genius. The songwriter Karakumenko, who I dreamed about the other day, was one of the inhabitants of these sites and, apparently, it was from them that he learned and carried through the years the conviction that I was an unpleasant and quirky person.

It was on one of these sites that I met my future wife, a 5th year student of the Faculty of Philology from Moscow. She invited me to give up everything and go to Russia, promising that my life would change dramatically. I decided to take a chance. What if someone is still capable of loving me? I took with me one bag of things and a guitar. The girl did not deceive me and gave me everything - love, care, family, housing, education.

But seven years later I betrayed her.

16.

After work I went to visit Sonechka.

I bought the standard set: a rose and a bottle of wine. Sometimes I add a piece of good cheese and grapes to this set. A little expensive, but absolutely a win-win. Better than cakes.

Some people always buy cakes or sweets when they go to visit. This is a vicious practice. This means that the person wants to get rid of the problem. I bought a cake - no problem.

But many people don't like sweets at all. And so you came up to such a person with your cake. It's disgusting. It would be better if you came empty-handed, because you will also have to eat the cake. It's much better to come empty-handed. This immediately removes all ritualism. When you arrive with the cake, you enter into a ritual. You begin to communicate very formally. Awkward pauses arise from time to time. You fill them with eating cake. Crunch-crunch-crunch. Most likely, you yourself do not like sweets. A piece of cake gets stuck in the larynx. “Here, eat your cake,” the owner of the house thinks with displeasure, this can be determined by the slight movement of his eyebrows. My mouth is dry. We need something to drink. You drink tea and are embarrassed to ask for sugar. Terrible.

To be honest, I don’t really like the cakes that you can buy in Moscow. For some reason, in Moscow it is customary to eat cakes with a lot of sugary cream and a bunch of fruit on top. It's just a mess of cream. And these fruits! I really don't understand. Why can't you just buy fresh fruit and eat it? It's much tastier. Why put them in cakes?

I know the problem is not with those around me, but with me. Until I was sixteen, I lived with a Jewish family in a Moldavian village. Of course, with us everything was different. Grandma baked nut pies and fluffy, incredible leukkies. Auntie made sour cream cakes: she baked five huge golden brown cakes and spread them with cream based on sour cream, and they had to stand all day and soak in this cream, oh, how delicious it was! Mom learned from my great-grandmother - my father's grandmother - to make an "Oak" cake. This is a chocolate cake in the shape of a tree with two branches, which contains ninety walnuts. My father was able to eat this whole cake by himself. Fruit never went second. We ate the fruits fresh. The grapes grew right on our balcony, you could go out and pick them. We grew watermelons and melons on the plot. Luxurious peaches dripping with juice were bought at the market. The neighbors had a black mulberry growing behind the fence, and the boys and I stole its unique, elegant fruits, which I had never seen anywhere else in my life.

If you go to visit, buy wine and grapes. If you go to a girl, wine and a rose. Grapes and cheese are appropriate in any case.

Shahrazad stops speaking permissibly, and I will continue my story when I have rested.

To be continued…