She was no longer the plain little thing that she had been at school, but deep inside, she was still a grasshopper with ugly knees. The boys felt it and kept clear of her. Besides, she was smart much smarter than all those immature males and whoever fancied that in a girl?
Everything changed in her life when she was in her fourth year. Her mother died. It was cancer long neglected, inoperable. It all ended in a few months. Trying to protect her, Ninas parents were hiding the truth from her, and her mother would not let Nina visit her in the hospital until the time came for a final parting. When she approached the hospital bed and saw an emaciated woman with a grey, wasted face, Nina did not recognize her at first. Only the eyes were not changed they were her mamas.
Her mother took Ninas hand in her own, waxen, transparent one, and smiled. Her smile was not changed either. Well, how are you, sweetheart?
Nina cried.
Dont cry, sweetheart, her mother said. Be a clever girl, dont cry. But her own cheek was wet with silent tears running onto the pillow.
You see how stupid your mother is, leaving you when youre still so young. There will be no one to help you or give you advice, youll have nobody but yourself to rely on. Forgive me, sweetheart.
Nina burst out sobbing, clinging to her mothers breast.
Dont cry. With her weak hands, her mother detached Nina from herself. Stop it, please Listen to me. Sweetheart, you must promise me two things. Promise you wont leave papa. He needs you. Promise? Nina nodded through her tears. And one more thing Mother stroked Ninas cheek. Ninusya, please, bear me a granddaughter. A grandson is great, too, but Id rather have a granddaughter. You will try, right?
Her mother had never complained of poor health and after she was gone, it took Nina a long time to accept the fact. As she came home from her classes, she would involuntarily prick her ears for mamas voice, expecting any instant to hear her croon some lines from her beloved Joe Dassin while checking her students papers. Et si tu n'existais pas, Dis-moi pourquoi j'existerais What Nina heard instead was her father coughing in the kitchen where he was sitting for days on end smoking and drinking alone. He was jobless at that time. He and Nina did not talk about mama what was there to say? but each felt the others pain and suffered for both.
About half a year passed that way. Then she got married to Dima. Dima was the least impressive of the five boys in her group rather short, pimpled, quiet. The only good thing about him was his surname, Shuvalov. When she first heard it, Nina, who was into Russian history at the time, thought, I wish I had a counts surname like that! Her own surname, far from being count-like, sounded right ridiculous: Kisel. Nina was embarrassed by it. When she asked her father where their surname had come from he said that his great-great-grandfather had been a German immigrant of the name of Kessel, but the clerk that had issued the papers had altered that to his liking. Whether that was true or not, Nina could never understand. Her father appreciated a joke and could have invented it all.
For the first three years, she paid no attention to Dima. Then he started taking a neighboring desk in the library. At the time, they were doing their end-of-course projects and had to spend long hours rummaging in the literature. Finally, Nina took notice of his reddish head, and her memory hinted that he had sat next to her on the last five occasions at least. My God, can he be? she thought. The idea that Dima might be taking interest in her was so stunning to her that she stared at him without blinking. Dima remained motionless, buried in his books, but a deep blush spread all over his cheeks and ears, even neck. Nina was still in shock mentally, but the woman inside her woke up and took the situation under control.
Dima, the woman said amiably. Whats your topic?
Dima started and came to life. He blurted out the title of his project and asked, Whats yours?
Their topics turned out to be very close. She learned afterwards that the coincidence had been arranged by Dima himself who had swopped topics with another student at the cost of an almost new player.
When the proximity of their topics had been established, Dimas red face expressed a happy amazement after which he fell silent again. The woman in Nina was a little upset by his timidity but she was not about to give up. Tell me what youve done so far, she suggested.
Provided with such a safe life buoy, Dima clutched at it and never let go. He began recounting eagerly, in every detail, his plan for the project. As she was listening to him with half an ear, Nina scrutinized him feeling a rising excitement in her breast. She had a boyfriend!
Since then, they spent a lot of time together every day sitting in the library and then going home by the underground luckily, they lived in the same part of the city. After a month, Dima asked her out to the movies. In the theater, when the lights were out, he took her hand in his. Nina did not remove her hand, and that way, hand in hand, they sat through the show. Afterwards, Nina could not remember what the movie had been about.
The next day Dima had the courage to invite her to his place under the pretext of a final discussion of their projects which supposedly was impossible to have in the library. Mother will be out all night, so we wont be disturbed. Nina realized what was going to happen and did not resist the idea although Dima did not at all resemble a man to whom she would lose her virginity in her girlie dreams.
Dima and his mother lived in a small, two-room apartment in a drab, municipal housing unit. Poverty and ideal order reigned there, nothing like the somewhat disorderly home life once created by Ninas warm-hearted, easy mama, let alone the state of neglect into which Nina and her fathers household had slid after her death.
Dima offered her tea. Or, maybe, you want some wine? I have a bottle of he ventured but bit his tongue, scared of his own boldness. Nina agreed to tea. Dima seated her on a cheap, threadbare sofa and, after some fussing around, brought a tray with a teapot, two cups and a small bowl of chocolates. Apparently, he had made his preparations for the date.
However, he clearly did not know how to get down to business. When the tea was finished, he started discussing hotly some mutual acquaintances, then told a long, stale joke and laughed at it nervously himself. Then there was a long, painful silence. At last, unable to bear it any longer, Dima reached into his backpack. With a dejected look on his face, he fished out his project paper and embarked on reading some chapter of it to Nina.
Nina was sitting silently, with her eyes cast down. She was all like a taut string.
Dima, come here. Nina touched the sofa with her fingers inviting him to move closer. Dima sat by her side without letting go of his project paper. His hands were trembling noticeably. Nina took his paper away from him and put it aside. Embrace me, she said softly. Dima put his hands awkwardly round her and kissed her on the cheek. Nina turned her head and held up her lips to him. It was the first kiss in her life.
It turned out that she was Dimas first woman, too. He fumbled with her clothes, not knowing the right way to unfasten them and take them off. At last, with some help from her, he got her undressed. Hectically, he laid some bedclothes on the sofa and undressed himself. At the last moment, he darted aside and turned on some music. Apparently, music was an important item on his plan. Light, Nina asked. Dima turned off the light. They were immersed in a shadow dissipated only by a bulb in the hall that was left on
It hardly lasted more than a minute. Nina felt pain and issued a cry. Almost immediately after that, Dima leaned back and, breathing heavily, sank onto the sofa beside her.
Nina was lying on her back, staring at the dark ceiling in bewilderment. Is that all? she wondered.
As if in response to her mute question, Dima came to life and resumed his activity with a little more confidence and less fever this time.
The tape recorder was blaring. God knows how all that would end if it were not for that fatal music. It was because of it that they failed to hear the entrance door open and stirred only when the light went on. In the room, just a couple of steps from the sofa, stood a coated woman with a bag in her hand. Dimas mother.
With her mouth wide open, the woman was staring at their naked bodies on the sofa. Nina pulled a sheet over herself and uttered, Good evening.
The woman gulped and responded, Good evening.
Then Dima blurted out, Mother, this is my fiancée. Her name is Nina. Nina, please meet my mother, Tatyana Yurievna.
The woman regained her senses. Without a word, she walked to the anteroom to take off her coat, then shifted to the kitchen and from there, she cried to them, Come down here, lets have tea!
They slipped into their clothes and spent half an hour with Tatyana Yurievna in the kitchen. Half dead with shame, Nina kept silent, sitting with her eyes fixed on her cup. Tatyana Yurievna, quite unperturbed outwardly, questioned her son about his university affairs as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
Nina traveled back alone, having rejected flatly Dimas offer to see her home. Luckily, the underground car was almost empty at that late hour and nobody paid attention to a strange girl who laughed and frowned alternately for no apparent reason. In fact, she had a reason she had become a woman. Moreover, she had become a fiancée.
They got married two months later. It so happened that nobody had really asked Nina whether she wanted to marry Dima. Actually, she was not sure herself. It was not that she had some doubts or was weighing rationally pros and cons she just yielded numbly to the flow of events. The woman inside her which previously had taken a big step towards Dimas timid advances was keeping silent now.
When he met Dima, her father was clearly disappointed, but he forced himself to be amiable told jokes, patted Dima on the back, and poured him vodka. Dima was not at all his idea of a guy for Nina, but there was nothing to be done, it was her decision. Uneasily, her father asked whether they were expecting a baby. Nina answered truthfully that they were not but she could see in his face that he was still doubtful. In his view, it was the only reason that could make his brilliant daughter tie herself down to such a colorless little fellow.
In the meantime, the colorless little fellow was bustling about in great excitement, making arrangements for the registration and wedding. He was happy as happy as his timid soul could be. The wedding took place in a students café where their whole year managed to cram in. Everything was very loud and incoherent.
Ninas married life began. It was Tatyana Yurievnas will that the couple live with her. They were afforded the larger of the two rooms the one with the sofa. Dima and Nina were inseparable round the clock now traveling to the university in the morning, sitting through the lectures, going back home, having dinner, doing homework.
Tatyana Yurievna was even and civil with her daughter-in-law, but Nina felt an arctic cold emanating constantly from the woman. Obviously, Nina was not the kind of bride Tatyana Yurievna had wished for her only son. Tatyana Yurievna never mentioned that dreadful episode when she had caught them in flagranti but apparently she considered Nina some kind of adventuress and profligate who had lured the innocent Dimochka into her net. As she pondered over that, Nina admitted to herself that such a view was not completely groundless. Also, Tatyana Yurievnas attitude showed some doubt as if she did not believe in that marriage and expected every day that Nina would disappear into thin air. As it turned out later, she had been right about that, too.
Nina got used to Dima as people get used to their coat or handbag. He did not rouse any feelings in her he just always was around. Willy-nilly, they had everything in common friends, university-related cares, even textbooks and notebooks. Nina helped the not-very-capable Dima to prepare for the exams, and then write his graduation thesis. They were already making plans for their life after university.
Tatyana Yurievna worked in the planning department of some manufacturing company where she was only employed half-time because of the recession. She spent the rest of her day looking after her small household. She did not force her daughter-in-law to do house chores but she did not push Nina away either. At last it was settled between them that for an hour and a half every day, Nina was busy tidying, dusting, washing and scrubbing. Ninas own loving and over-lenient mother had not prepared her for that, and Nina had some hard time at first, but eventually she got used to doing housework and even got to liking it.
Possibly, her marriage to Dima could cement and take root with time, so that they became a family like any other, but there was a disaster zone in Ninas married life. It was the conjugal bed or rather, sofa. Dima performed his duties of a husband with enthusiasm, but for Nina, it was a nightly ordeal. The moment Dima turned off the light and touched her, Ninas mind conjured up Tatyana Yurievna with a coat on and a bag in her hand. In addition, the corporeal, not ghostly, Tatyana Yurievna was close by, separated by a thin wall. The sound insulation was almost non-existent in the building, and Nina could hear her mother-in-law tossing and turning in her bed, then getting up, fumbling for her slippers, and walking past their door to the kitchen to take her gastric pills. That happened almost every time Nina and Dima had their intimacy, causing Nina to clench up inwardly.
Once or twice, Nina had heard some girls whisper about the delightful sex they had had with their boyfriends. For Nina, there was no delight in sex. There were some unpleasant, even hurtful sensations, a growing bewilderment and disappointment.
One of Dimas few good qualities was his cleanliness fostered in him by his mother. He took a shower and changed his underwear every day, and his thin, almost transparent skin always smelled of strawberry soap Tatyana Yurievnas favorite, which she used on all occasions. Nina grew to hate that smell.
At last, it became unbearable. Nina wanted more than once to have it out with Dima but she never had the heart to. Meanwhile, Dima looked perfectly happy. He clearly thought highly of himself as a husband undertones of male complacency could be heard in his voice.
Once, as she was buying a pen in a kiosk, Nina saw a brochure on sex techniques. Ill take that, too burning with shame, she pointed at the eloquent cover. In snatches, locking herself up in the toilet, she read the brochure. About one half of it remained enigma to her, but she was staggered by the other half. A whole new world opened to her.
She did not dare to show the brochure to Dima until one day he stayed at home with a cold. As she was leaving for university, Nina tucked the brochure under the pillow in the hope that Dima would find it and read it himself. But it was Tatyana Yurievna who found the colorful booklet. When Nina came back, her mother-in-law met her in the doorway. I was changing the bedclothes and found this. Apparently, its yours. The woman held out the brochure carefully wrapped up in a newspaper.