I can't

They have been found several times a year for thirty years. Nine women with very different fates. Former first beauties of the institute, dancing, singers, laughter. Best group of primary school faculty

It is not true that women do not know how to be friends. They can and are more devoted to each other than men. The dean said that in the history of the faculty of such groups there were two. Around them always everything was seething - indefatigable energy, thirst for life, uncompromising. And so, T Ritteen has passed: families, divorces, children, grandchildren, gray hair, wrinkles, excess weight. They supported each other for thirty years. Nine girlfriends-one has a happy marriage, the other has a divorce, the third mother with Alzheimer, the fourth early widowhood, everyone has different, the same thirst for life and unbending are the same.

They have a favorite house from institute, where they are waiting. There is no longer a grandmother who taught them to sing “seven forty” and dance under “Hawa Nagil”, dad died who made students of sandwiches with sausage, but fortunately, a funny, hospitable Jewish mother, the tenth of their girlfriend is alive and well. She knows everything about everyone, bakes pancakes for them and makes berry floods, they burst a Jewish salad and homemade squash caviar, laugh, throwing their heads, and again recall the cakes of the deceased grandmother and dad's sandwiches with sausages.

- Have you already counted a pension?
- Counted. Six thousand, - black -eyed, retaining fragility Nadia laughs, shaking his head. - Do you imagine? Six thousand.

- Nadya, but what do you want, it will turn fifty -five, there will be more. We have a reduction coefficient.

“I have at all six,” a luxurious, full -time Marina with impeccable skin and violent Semitic curls tries to reassure Naduyushka. Nadia is hard to live. She remained a widow with two thoracic twins. Nadia does not give up and rarely asks for help. Strong and proud. He sits with his head lowered, beautiful long fingers with large rectangular nails twist the phone. The skin on the joints is a little darker.

- Girls, I will finalize a year and leave. This is so insulting, I plowed all my life. I have a zero coefficient eight.

“Well, at least for now, you will use it until you learn, at least something.”

- Girls! Well, you give! They are in the architectural. This is not our pedagogical institute - three notebooks and a pen. There are also laptops, design programs, there are such expenses! And two years later, the magistracy, it is paid. Better not to think. Two to Moscow, in Markhi, and pay for two. The main thing for me is to pay for, and there they can already work. Now it is not possible to work in any way, both on the budget, they need good grades to go to the marchs. They sit and draw at night. I wake up, and they draw, - Nadia is always with children, always sees what they are doing - they live in a small one -room apartment.

Illustration: Rita Cherepanova for TD

- What is this coefficient, girls?

- Do you have no service? Well, yes, you're still green.

- Yes, I will not have a pension for the length of service. I left in the ninety -six, I have only thirteen years of pedagte.

- Mmmm ... Well, we have a lowering coefficient. Items have twenty -four hours, and in elementary school there are twenty, so reducing zero eight. Do you know how much I cry for the apartment? Five thousand. The pension is six.

Nadia laughs, throwing his head back, then stops and turns to sitting nearby:

- Do you think I can get a housekeeper? - Everyone is silent from surprise. - Or a governess? Maybe in Moscow it will turn out? What do you think? Danka and Sanka will go to the marchs, what should I do here?

- Nadyah, you can’t work with a governess, not a dope. Make it before retirement, then you will be weird.

-Yes, yes! Start again about tutoring and toamada! I have been the TAMADA for twenty years! How more than three gathered, so I am all to amuse everyone. Twenty years on Saturdays, the dolls swaddling and men are wrapping in toilet paper. "There is no money - go to business!" And I can’t be a tutor - this is almost every day, and the child is not a wedding, you will not refuse him if you are tired.

Beautiful fingers fold the napkin in half, four times, eight times, unfold the napkin, straighten the folds with quick movements and begin their senseless work - half, four times, eight times.

"I have been a swaddling doll for twenty years on Saturdays and I wrap men in toilet paper"

Outdoors are suitable, and everyone forgets about the pension - children, grandchildren, weddings, repairs, luxurious garden of colors of one of the friends:

- Roses .... Bush .....

- Walking. You will build a house - do not buy bush - it’s hard to take care of.

They jump from the topic on the topic:

- No, well, I don't understand, shoot me, I don't understand! What the hell to live with a person who does not need you?! You spend your life on this. Your life! What?! For what?! On it, what did the light come down?!

- No, wait, wait! I do not agree with you! Everyone has their own understanding! -In a rocket, and this is again a Spanish beauty with frantic eyes. She spins in a chair and chop the air with an edge of the palm:

- You are wrong! You hear me, not - right - wa! It’s impossible, ”the front tooth spits out on the sound“ T ”Nadia. Everyone freezes for a second and burst out with a wild neighing. The laughing Nadia rummies on the floor, gropes the tooth under the table, busily looks at the find and sticks into his pocket.

- Calm, girls, I will not laugh in the whole mouth so as not to scare you. Damn, did not live to the dentist. Tomorrow I insert my teeth.

Peacemaker Ninka, entering the laughter, yells through the table:

- Girls, we can’t quarrel, let's stay without teeth.

- We will not quarrel. We do not coincide in opinion!

Marina quickly jumps up from a risky topic:

- You can imagine our Elinka got into the Jeannaponi program. Do you know what is Jeannapoles?! Well, you, mother, give ...! I was completely drunk in my Moscow ... Now we will watch the program about the wedding of Elinka in Tel Aviv.

They say excitedly, interrupt each other, argue, laugh, regret that they did not leave the teachers in the state structure in time - there would be much more pension, they say that they were tired, and rather the pension. Previously, they argued about the techniques, and Nadia with foam at the mouth defended her vision. And now she suddenly lowers her head again, taking her shoulders, and sits a dreary, overwhelmed owl, a thin, tired woman with big black eyes and dark skin:
- I don't want to work at school anymore.

They regret that they did not leave the teachers in the state structure in time - the pension would be much more

-Nadyah, what's the matter? - And everyone is silent again, and then they begin to look for words of support.

- You understand, I have to communicate with people with whom I would never even talk under any conditions .... And I teach their children! And I have to communicate with them. It's horrible. They are terrible. They have no reason. They did not give anything to their children. Their children are not interesting, can you imagine? They want to shove them to school and not think about anything.

“It seems to you that everything that you do is pointless?”

“Yeah,” she pulls the vowel, again drunk and falls silent for a minute. “You understand, no one needs everything that I do.” No need! No-ko! .. Neither parents need, nor the state, nor children ... And I do not understand what is happening to the children. They cannot study. You can imagine, I release the class in May, and they make eighteen mistakes in the dictation. Eighteen! In the fourth grade! Can you imagine this?! Well, three. Well, five. But not eighteen!

- Listen, well, I also had such ... Transfer to the next class, but what to do?

- Where did you have them? In the village, the parents of alcoholics ... And this is a city. And parents are not alcoholics. How will I translate them? I will be ashamed to look in the eyes of subjects. You can imagine, I have been studying with them for four years after lessons. Four years. We teach the rules, and they seem to remember and write everything, and come in the morning, and all, again the same mistakes. Everything is like the first time. Today they remember something, tomorrow no longer. I did not take tutoring, and there are few weddings in the winter, but I can teach two two ... - she shakes her head and, tilting her head, brings her shoulders more and more.

Illustration: Rita Cherepanova for TD

- I postponed tutoring and deal with mine after lessons. I can’t take money from my money, this is a bribe, not tutoring, you understand, this is wrong. And there are a lot of them. And with each you need to do separately. Separately. With each. If you plant together, they interfere with each other, and all in vain.

- A lot of such?

- A lot?! - She grins wryly. - Many - not the right word! Almost a third of the class. How will I translate them? They do not know how to write. I do not understand what is happening ... this was not there before. There were not so many children who could not be taught ....

- Nadya, well, quit, I have the same thing, I transfer them from class to class. It is impossible to leave a third of the class in the second year, and you yourself will be extreme, no one will remember how much you sat with them. Do not take the soul, you still will not do anything.

There was no such thing before - so many children who cannot be taught

Nadia continues without listening to the answers:

“And my parents ... that they just didn’t tell me.” I have been doing it with their children for a month in the summer for free. In summer! And they then rose so much .... You have no idea how. They are boories ... Hama. "Dom-2". I tried to find a common language with them for so long and could not. They rose at parent meetings. And yelling. I say that the children are weak, they need to deal with them at home, they will not master the school curriculum alone. Where are they further, even if they can’t write? And parents shout that I can’t teach them. Girls, well, you know, this is not so. They wrote everything to me. Always. If I could not teach children, my parents would not lead the younger ones to me. They would give them to other classes, right? So I could always. Could. How to teach these?

- Yes, no way! Nadia! No way! If parents do not need it, you will not do anything. You understand this perfectly!

- Tell me how to teach them without additional classes, if they don’t even remember anything with additional ones? But you know what is the worst? I broke. Can you imagine what horror? I recently broke and answered them the same way they talked to me. They told them everything as it is about them and their children. And they immediately quiet down. And now they go after me, they are in the eyes, they look into my eyes: “Nadezhda Valentinovna, Nadezhda Valentinovna ...” This is terrible ... This is such hypocrisy ... I can’t see them.

- Nadyah, what's the problem? At fifty-three, did you find that someone needs to be put in place? Mother, you were late with the opening. Farewell, illusions.

“You really don't understand?!” - Nadia sharply straightens his back. - I never, never allowed myself to talk like that with people! I never screamed at anyone. Understand? Never! I am disgusting for myself. I cannot respect myself. Understand? I got to the same level with them! I am the same boo as them.

It is drunk again, a dark square slips into the cheekbones with a heavy wave, big black eyes are not visible from under the bangs.

- Girls, I'm tired. If you only knew how tired I am. I would have endured for half a year until May. I don't want to teach anyone anymore. I never want to teach anyone else. I'm no more.