Аннотация: A romanticism, a sneakers, a seventh sky. A story.
A romanticism, a sneakers, a seventh sky. A story.
It was an era of currency leaps and of a variety of surprises.
Andrew at some point became a bit of a businessman. He was the owner of a small office (but without a car). He went deeper into a solving business problems.
However, he wasn't stranger to politeness. And he was capable of admiring a young female beauty.
Once he needed to get, to drive a couple of stops by public transport on the central street of the city. He paid for both himself and the girl who came out after him.
The girl gave him her phone number.
It turned out that the girl's name is Mila. She herself is from a province. She lives with (family of) her girlfriend. She arrived to the regional center. She is studying. Or she was studying.
She does not mind starting somewhere to work.
Mila was polite and very beautiful girl.
After some time, she worked in the Andrew's office as a secretary.
The relationship between Andrew and Mila was not only romantic. In the fog of the future, a some prospect of changing of the family status of two (pleasant to each other) people was vaguely felt.
Andrew's age was quite suitable for such an action - for a changing of the family status.
Financial income at that time resembled a sinusoid (a sine wave). Revenues, albeit not large, were on the rise at that time.
Mila found an inexpensive one-room apartment for rent and for living. The costs of the realtor and the payment for the first months of the lease were compensated by Andrew.
It was quite natural that Andrew looked at this apartment as a some kind of additional connecting element between him and Mila. Andrew's visit to this apartment was quite natural.
During this period, Andrew sank deeper and deeper into a business worries. A visit to Mila was a pleasant event, a new, pleasant, (music) note into a troublesome, overloaded with a concerns, life.
Some coldness of Mila at the time of Andrew's arrival, and even a micro-pause at the moment of opening the door (when Mila and Andrew stood against each other for a while - she is in the corridor, and Andrew - in front of the entrance, before the door, looking at each other), did not affect on the mood of Andrew.
He put his shoes in the corridor next to someone's sneakers (did the owners of the flat forgot them?) and went into the room, where coffee and a small pies were waiting for him ...
Time was running and the situation was getting, it was placing on the right rails.
One day Andrew, returning from some event, stopped before the open door to the office to record some urgent thought or information.
Mila just this moment picked up the phone.
The voice of the one who did the phone call, and the voice of Mila, were heard well.
A young male representative tried to start a conversation with Mila.
"No Mila on this phone number!" - Mila replied very firmly - "You wrongly dialed the number." A young applicant for a female attention tried to find out something, to achieve something. But in response he heard Mila 's firm statement that it was a call to the wrong number...
Of course, random, erroneous calls are not uncommon.
A street vendors were common at the time. They sat on a little benches (on a microscopic chairs) on the edge of the sidewalk and sold some sweets, seeds, a something slightly exotic. The concentration of a street vendors. A street mini bazaar. Andrew and Mila periodically visited the cafe, where they drank coffee and ate cakes. On the way from the office to the cafe (and back) they passed by those traders.
The street vendors themselves were of little interest for Andrew, but apparently his peripheral vision caught something like disappointment in their faces and in their looks.
The visitors of Andrew's office were a different persons.
One of the visitors was arriving on an off-road vehicle of a rare brand.
It seems that this off-road vehicle of a rare brand was provided by a firm, by an organization. But if someone wished to consider the car as the driver 's personal property, why not? It was considered an impolite to discuss a car ownership. The driver of a rare-brand off-road vehicle was a very mysterious and romantic man.
The driver of the off-road vehicle was so kind that he even transported Andrew somewhere several times. During a similar trip Andrew had to wait for the driver for five minutes near the mini-hotel "Seventh Sky," where the driver had a some matter (it was necessary to transfer a something for relatives?).
Mila once admitted that the driver of the off-road vehicle made a very pleasant impression on her.
Maybe it was necessary to give her a vacation? Or to change for her the schedule of work? Andrew was getting deeper and deeper into a business worries...
What was behind that confession? In the Middle Ages, a belt of a marital fidelity was invented and applied - but that was the another era. Now what options? Detectives? In any case, a workload of Andrew 's memory and consciousness by a business worries was almost maximum.
A lot of events was sliding by the edge of consciousness.
Andrew saw by a peripheral vision into a glances of a street vendors something like of a tense expectation.
Maybe it was necessary to lower the requests level, the activity level? To change the life? To agree with more elementary, with more simpler principles of existence? For a simple, uncomplicated life, Mila would be, if not perfect, then an acceptable wife. Gradually she would adapt to family life... It would be natural to be proud of wife with a such a beauty.
The prototype of family life did not develop in the relationship of Mila and Andrew.
The term of rent of the one-room apartment ended, and Mila with some her girlfriends rented a three-bedroom apartment - for six renters.
Mila 's move to the new dwelling went almost unnoticed. This move hadn't create obstacles for relationships and work.
One morning, at the beginning of the working day, in a perfect mood, Mila reported that she had visited a seventh sky. In the sense that she had a great time (at a party or at some other event).
On the face of Andrew, apparently, some kind of involuntary, uncontrolled emotion appeared. Mila explained that she had a great time at someone 's birthday. It was a very pleasant event.
A new stage was approaching in Andrew 's life. The office and the staff weren't needed, already.
In the role of his wife Andrew imagined Mila with considerable difficulty.
Andrew and Mila broke up peacefully. Although Mila was not opposed to continuing a business and romantic relationship (and maybe did not even object to the emergence of a family relationship), she did not demonstrate any strong emotions when parting.
It is interesting that after the end of relations with Mila Andrew inadvertently fixed (by a peripheral vision) a some satisfaction into a glances of a street vendors.
If Andrew recalls Mila, then he reflects on the mysteries of the organization of a personal life ...
The opportunity to become a family person was real. Andrew was a step away from the status of a married man.
Of course, Mila had no special inclination to a family life (as Andrew understood a family life), but she was a girl of outstanding beauty, a polite, reasonable, calm woman ...
And what does an ideal life partner, a perfect companion of life, look like?
What might be an ideal version of a personal life? What is an ideal version of a family life?
There are many reasons in a modern human life for philosophical reflection, for a deep thoughts...
May 8, 2020 01:08
Translation from Russian into English: May 8, 2020 08:39.
Владимир Владимирович Залесский 'Романтика, кроссовки, седьмое небо. Рассказ'.