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.
It was the end, but Nina made another attempt to save the situation. She asked her father if it was all right if she and Dima came to live with him. Her father was all enthusiastic about the idea and offered to move their stuff the same day. However, when she broached the subject to Dima, she knew at once from the lost look on his face that it was no good. Still, Dima promised to raise the question with Tatyana Yurievna. The two of them had a talk in which Nina was not included. The outcome was that, hiding his eyes, Dima declared to Nina that he could not leave his mother. That night, for the first time since their wedding, they did not have sex.
There was no point in staying with Dima any longer, but through inertia, Nina lived with him for another month until they defended their graduation theses. The defense went off perfectly for both of them. When she received her red-cover degree certificate, Nina felt liberated a whole page in her life had been turned, and a new one began. Without even saying goodbye to Dima, she went off to her fathers with a firm intention never to set eyes again on the room with the fateful shabby sofa.
Dima brought down her stuff which fitted in a single bag. He was crushed. The castle in the air that he had built and lived happily in was collapsed now. Made eloquent by his despair, Dima entreated Nina not to leave him. However, he did not even mention the possibility of his moving in with Nina at her fathers. His mothers control over him was absolute he could not challenge her will even if his happiness was at stake. But why? Why? Dima kept asking. Nina only shook her head silently. She was not going to discuss her sexual problems with Dima she realized by then that she would have left him anyway. Sorry, Dima, its not going to work, she said softly but resolutely. How could she explain it all to him? How could she explain why she had married him in the first place? Sorry, Dima. Dont take it to heart too much. Everything will be all right with you, she said as she was turning him out of doors.
They got divorced. As a souvenir from Dima, she now bore his noble surname which she had never changed back. As a souvenir from Tatyana Yurievna, she now had a taste for tidiness and order which she tried to maintain wherever she found herself ever since.
Chapter 3
Nina lived with her father again, and it was not a joyful life. Her father had changed noticeably over the time of her absence. Not at all old not yet forty five he could not find a permanent employment and was getting by doing odd jobs. Worst of all, he had really taken to drink. He sank into self-neglect, was forgetting even to shave, and looked unhealthy, spent. When she saw those changes close up, Nina was appalled. In former times, her father had invariably been a genial person, the soul of every company. Her mother had told Nina once that he had first won her by his amateur hiking songs both of them had practiced some serious hiking in their younger days. Nina was sure that her mother would not have let him sag. With her around, he would have remained the same man a hard worker, optimist and epicurean philosopher.
This responsibility to give her father moral support was Ninas now, and she felt keenly her ineptitude. She pleaded with her father to stop drinking, had rows with him over it, tried to get him to see some doctors, but all in vain.
Once, in a sober spell, he said to her, Ninok, stop it, dont try to save me. Do you think I dont realize that I am killing myself by drink? Im doing it consciously. Tell me what else do I have? I dont have anything to live for. What about me? Nina cried out, hurt by his words. She knew that she was the apple of her fathers eye, but apparently his love for her was not enough to fill his existence.
Nina got a job in a large, reputable investment firm and soon was absorbed in her work completely. She dreamed of making a rapid career and then She had a very vague idea of what was to happen then, but she knew one thing for certain she would find a way to help her father. Above all, he must not remain idle. Nina dreamed that she would study the ways of business from A to Z, accumulate the necessary contacts and then help her father open his own construction company. He was such a fine specialist, a bright mind! He was totally up to it, he only needed a start. Sometimes in her dreams, her father and she started a business together and made a huge success of it. Nina realized how naïve it all was and would be surprised to hear that quite soon her father was actually going to run a business of his own, and she was going to give him a hand in his affairs and then rescue his company.
The encounter that changed her fathers life occurred by accident, in the street. Luckily, he was not drunk. He was just on his way to the nearby wine store when a car pulled over beside him. The horn honked, and as he turned round, he saw somebody wave at him from the window of a posh foreign-made automobile. Yevgeniy Borisovich approached and recognized Simonyan, his former assistant in the construction syndicate. At one time, the two men had worked closely together, had got mutually adjusted, and now they were glad to see each other. Simonyan said that he was as busy as a bee at the moment but promised to find time for a proper get-together shortly. Promises like that are almost never kept, but after a few days Simonyan actually called and invited Ninas father to his place to crack a bottle and have a chat about old times.
Simonyan lived in a new building of elite design. In his huge apartment, expensive decoration works had been started but not completed, and there was almost no furniture. Got no time for that. And whats the point, anyway? Simonyan chuckled. One of these days Ill bring home a new missus, and you can trust a woman to change everything to her liking. He had just been through a divorce. According to him, his ex-wife was amply provided for, and his children were studying abroad.
His entire manner and every word he spoke oozed the satisfaction of a man who had achieved success. In the old times already, the two men had been on a first-name basis, and now Simonyan, who had sized up at once the deplorable state Ninas father was in, sounded condescending. Still, he was really friendly and plunged willingly into reminiscences together with Yevgeniy Borisovich.
The main thing was said when they had recalled one by one all their mutual acquaintances and, having finished a bottle of superb Armenian cognac, started another one. Simonyan offered Yevgeniy Borisovich a job. Unlike Ninas father, the man had not got lost after the collapse of their syndicate. In line with the new realities, Simonyan ventured several enterprises, one after another. To start with, he transformed one of the fragments of the syndicate into a small company aimed at doing engineering projects under contract with the city administration. He hustled about in the municipal lobbies day and night, courted the right people and finally managed to get his company written into the city investment program, thus giving his business a good start. His company took off and began to make profit. From that springboard, Simonyan rose and expanded his operations. Now he was edging his way into business of a totally different scale export of precious metals and other stuff of the kind, all very shady and fabulously profitable. Simonyan needed a reliable man to dump his first company on, and most opportunely, Yevgeniy Borisovich turned up.
Ninas father was to become a hired employee of his former assistant, but Simonyan assured him that virtually they were going to be partners, and besides, he was planning to go out of that business in the future so that Ninas father could buy it out and be his own boss. That incredible promise was finally kept, too apparently, it was not Simonyans destiny to deceive Yevgeniy Borisovich.
Long starved for something real to do, Ninas father plunged headlong into his new job. Simonyans company was about ten times smaller than his former syndicate, and feeling confined in it, Yevgeniy Borisovich was digging into every detail with passion. There were many things that could be improved, optimized, both in terms of engineering and in terms of management. Simonyan really gave Ninas father a free hand. Soaring in his new spheres, he only visited his company on rare occasions. When that happened, he listened with half an ear to the numerous suggestions that Ninas father had to make and said yes to all of them, knowing full well that Yevgeniy Borisovich stood much higher than himself as a specialist. It was only in financial matters that Simonyan had his way.
His new work transformed Yevgeniy Borisovich he looked younger, straightened out now. Besides, Simonyan was not mean he paid his manager a decent salary. For the first time in his life, Ninas father became the owner of a foreign-made car, an assortment of good suits and various trinkets such as a Swiss watch and a golden lighter. He was a man again even a classy man, one that women would give a lingering look. Nina felt jealous on her mothers behalf, vexed that the new rise of Yevgeniy Borisovich was not hers to reap. Soon, a real reason for that jealousy cropped up.
The reason was named Lydia Grigorievna. Not a young woman, she was well-groomed and stylish. She worked in some municipal organization, where Ninas father made her acquaintance as he was getting approval for one of his projects. Nina had not suspected that her father was seeing a woman until the very day when he introduced them to each other in some café. Listen, Ninok, you see The thing is, Lydia Grigorievna and I are planning to move in together. What do you think?
Nina was seething with rage. She was about to splash the champagne poured out by her father into the well-groomed face of that bitch. How dared she! To take mamas place! However, it was not for nothing that Ninas parents took pride in her precise mind. Her mind reasoned that her father could not live alone. If not that woman, there would be another, so whats the difference? Lydia Grigorievna was smiling at her ingratiatingly. The woman realized already that Nina meant the world to Yevgeniy Borisovich and could easily wreck her plans. All I want is for you to be happy, said Nina to her father raising her glass of champagne. He squeezed Ninas hand gratefully and kissed her on the cheek.
Lydia Grigorievna settled down in their apartment. A childless widow, alone after her husbands death, she could devote herself entirely to her new marriage. She had the sense not to make any radical changes to the apartment immediately, but she occupied every free minute in the life of Ninas father. Yevgeniy Borisovich, who had always been skeptical about theater, turned into a theatergoer: every weekend he and his wife went to see some première. They made some new acquaintances and exchanged visits with them. Lydia Grigorievna was fond of cooking and almost daily, Ninas father had to taste and praise a new dish of her making.
On the whole, she was not a bad woman and Nina had to admit that she was a good match for her father, but for Nina, it was right impossible to live under the same roof with her. Everything annoyed Nina the womans voice, the odors of her creams in the countless jars with which she crammed the bathroom shelves, her culinary masterpieces The fact alone that a stranger slept in mamas bedroom and managed mamas kitchen infuriated Nina. She made no attempt to break the ice in spite of the eagerness on the part of her fathers new wife. It soon became clear that they had to move apart. By common consent, they sold their apartment and bought two others instead. Nina wound up in a one-roomer in a new, remote built-up area.
It was hard for Nina to say goodbye to the familiar walls that had witnessed almost all her life. She had the feeling that in their old apartment, in spite of the arrival of a new woman, her mother was still present somehow, but now that they had robbed her of her home she had really left them, remaining only in their memories and photos.
They still had their dacha another important locale in their lives. The dacha was a small plank cottage sitting on a few hundred square meters of sandy land some fifty kilometers from the city. The plot had been allotted to Ninas father when he had been no boss yet, and everything there had been made by his and mamas hands. Nina was taken there by her parents every summer all through her school years.
Lydia Grigorievna had no taste for dacha life, so she stayed behind when, one September day, Nina and her father went to visit their plank cottage ostensibly to do some small repair jobs and sort out some old stuff which was kept there, but actually, to have some together time. On the neighboring plots, bonfires of old leaves were being burnt spreading bitter-sweet smoke, and everything was like old times except that mama was not there. On their way back, Ninas father suggested uneasily that it made sense to sell the dacha. Nina gave no response to that, and he dropped the matter.
For a couple of years, things got more or less settled down. Ninas father worked a lot, and the company expanded. When Nina visited him at his place, he would have a couple of drinks and talk enthusiastically about his plans. He looked young and happy. Lydia Grigorievna did not stop them from seeing each other but she was always present at their meetings and took every opportunity to show by some word or gesture that it was her home and her man. Nina detested her as before, but deep inside, she accepted the woman and reconciled herself to the fact that her only family her dear papa had to be shared with someone else.
At work, she was doing fine. Within a short period of time, she distinguished herself from a group of young business school graduates who had been recruited as the company had expanded. At first, they all were attached as trainees to experienced analysts and loaded with routine, technical operations. Ninas mates complained about the work load, resentful at not getting a chance to show their true worth. They all were ambitious and fancied themselves financial geniuses. Nina was ambitious, too, but she never complained. Instead, she kept grinding through heaps of standard computations, polishing her skills to perfection and mastering computer software. In the evenings, she ploughed through specialized financial literature focusing on the construction industry finances. Soon Nina was marked out by her superiors who started charging her with independent tasks.
For a long time after her divorce from Dima, Nina did not have anyone. She did not feel any need for sex Dima had not wakened her to that. The idea of going to bed with a man was neither repugnant nor exciting to her. In her narrow world, there was no room for anything but work. She did not consider herself deprived in any way, neither was she interested in the opinion of her friends whom she was seeing two or three times a year at somebodys birthday. And yet One evening, as she was walking through a park to her house, she saw a kissing couple. It was an incident of no importance, of course, but a hot wave spread suddenly in her breast. Nina quickened her pace, went up to her apartment, took a shower, had some supper and got down to her financial surveys. However, her mind refused to take in the numbers and graphs; instead, it kept picturing two intertwined bodies in the evening dusk. It was at least half an hour before she could get to the meaning of what she was reading. Ever since, she would turn away painstakingly from any couple that she saw in the street or in the underground, be it a couple which were quite innocently holding hands.