And finally Granny Olya knew what she would do with her life.
She put paid to the rules.
Her chief purpose now, Granny Olya believed, was not to issue insurance policies and collect payments due, but to instil in her clients, submerged as they were in earthly cares — to instil in them the thought that there was another life, a different, heavenly, superior life, now showing — for instance — at 7 and 9 pm at the cinema on Karetny Street.
Her eyes would shine through her thick-lensed glasses.
Why exactly she did this Granny Olya did not know, but it had become essential to her to bring people happiness, a new happiness, and to recruit yet more and more fans for «Robbie»; and towards these occasional new recruits (all female) she felt a maternal tenderness, while at the same time displaying a mother's strictness, for she was their guide to that other world, and the guardian of its rules and traditions. She already possessed a thick notebook of quotations from newspaper articles concerning Robert Taylor and Vivien Leigh.
There too were pasted portraits of the actors and stills from the film; and here the son-in-law, for whom no use had ever previously been found, was put to work beneath the red lamp of that dubious darkroom — even the black sheep can come in handy!
The down-side was the hordes of old dears and grannies who now flocked to the holy rites; it was a virtual Sodom and Gomorrah these days, with sobbing, raptures, and poems circulating from hand to hand.
«Robbie's» date of birth was found, and this jubilee of theirs was duly celebrated in cinema foyers with sweet wine and vodka, and there was uproar before the film; but Granny Olya, like a strict high priestess, celebrated alone in her kitchen at home.
When they met, they would tell one another how it had been for them. Granny Olya did not allow herself to share in this nonsense; she kept her secret to herself, but in the still of the night she herself composed verses and then, unable to restrain herself, would choose an appropriate moment to confide them to her clients.
She couldn't read them to the other old ladies: if you read something to them, they're apt immediately to take revenge with home-made nonsense of their own: «And many girls did thrill to his sweet touch» — ugh! — or something of that ilk.
Granny Olya murmured her lofty verses to specially selected clients. She read hurriedly, snuffling, and her glasses filled with tears.
The clients suffered and looked away, as they used to do when, deeply moved, she would sing at full throttle; and Granny Olya understood full well the awkwardness of her situation, but was quite unable to take herself in hand.
A person isn't usually aware of where, when, or how he's been overtaken by passion, but when passion strikes, he's incapable of controlling himself, of making judgements, of going into the consequences; he'll submit joyfully, finding at last his true path in life, no matter what that may be.
«It's all quite harmless,» Granny Olya reassured herself, happily falling asleep, «I'm an intelligent woman, and this concerns no one else but me; it's my business and no one else's, when all's said and done».
And she drifted off into dream, on one occasion even finding herself driving along with Robert Taylor in an open convertible; both of them were sitting in the back, and there was no one else in the LANDAU — not even a driver — and HE, seated devotedly beside Granny Olya, had got his arm half-way around her shoulders.
That wasn't the sort of thing one told other people.
Once she experienced a moment of shame, for — as the geographer-daughter remarked — night's not the time to go gadding about.
On her way home after an evening show in the godforsaken outskirts (where there's a will there's always a way), Granny Olya was walking with a swinging step when she was overtaken by a young man, tall, heavy, in a hat with earflaps (Granny Olya herself was walking about la jeune, her hat at a jaunty angle, all but singing out loud the words she was crooning: «I opened the window…») and this young man, catching up with Granny Olya, remarked in passing:
«What little feet you have!»
«I beg your pardon?»
He stopped in his tracks and asked outright:
«What size do you take?»
«Thirty-nine,» the astonished Granny Olya replied.
«Little feet,» the young man responded sadly, and at this Granny Olya darted past him — home, home, to the tram, her briefcase bumping.
But at night, when she had time for sober reflection, the pitiful, sick appearance of the young man, his shuffling gait, his unshaven, neglected face and above all his dark moustache disturbed poor Granny Olya. Who was he?
She tried to weave some familiar story about him: his mother had died, he'd suffered a nervous breakdown, lost his job, his married sister couldn't be bothered with him, chased him away, and so on, but something just didn't quite fit.
The following evening, disregarding the warning cries from her daughter, Granny Olya set off once again to the film — to the same cinema, and the very same show.
Now it dawned on her, as she looked once more at Robert Taylor, who it was that had met her on the dark street after the film. Who it was that had walked there, ill and neglected, yearning, unshaven, but still with his moustache.
And indeed, when you come to think of it, who else could have dragged himself there, in search of his beloved, when the whole world had forgotten all about her? Who else could have been wandering in those godforsaken outskirts in 1954? What other poor, sick shade in a tatty coat, abandoned by everyone, could have wandered there, in time to present himself, on Waterloo Bridge, to the last soul of all, herself forgotten by everyone, rejected, abused, a mere rag, a doormat — to present himself, moreover, at literally her last step in life, when she was just about to fly away…
THE HOUSE WITH A FOUNTAIN
Translated by Ellen Pinchuk.
A girl was killed in an explosion, but then brought back to life. [t was like this: the relatives were told she was dead, but they couldn't claim the body right away (they were all together in the bus, but she had been standing in front and they'd been in the back when the explosion happened). She was a young girl — just 15 — and she was thrown back by the blast.
While waiting for the ambulances and for all the wounded and dead to be carried away, her father held the girl in his arms, although it was clear she was dead, and the doctor had pronounced her so. But they had to take her to the hospital anyway, and her father and mother got into the ambulance and rode with their child to the morgue.
She was lying on the stretcher as though alive, but there was no pulse or breathing. The parents were sent home, though they didn't want to go, but it wasn't yet time to claim the body. Not until the autopsy was done and cause of death determined as required by law and medical practice.
But her father, driven mad by grief and also being a devout Christian, decided to kidnap his daughter. He took his wife home — she was practically unconscious — survived a conversation with his mother-in-law, woke their paramedic neighbor and took her white coat. Then, taking all the money in the house, he went to the nearest hospital, found an empty ambulance (it was already two in the morning) with a gurney and a young male nurse. Dressed in the white coat, he penetrated the hospital where his daughter was being held, passed the security guard, descended the staircase into the basement, and easily entered the morgue with no one around. He found his child and, with the help of the male nurse, laid her on a stretcher and carried his load into the cargo elevator up to the third floor, to post-op intensive care. He had carefully studied the layout of the hospital while keeping vigil in the waiting room.