In the second week, a taxi pulled up at the house one lunchtime and disgorged a whole crowd of people: first a driver, who extracted an iron contrivance of uncertain purpose from the boot; then a large handsome woman with a lion's mane of red hair; then a lopsided old lady who was promptly installed in the contraption erected from the flat contrivance; then a boy a bit older than Sasha; and, finally, the landlady of the house herself, Dora Surenovna, her face carefully made-up for the occasion and fussing about even more than usual.
The house stood on a hillside. It was slewed relative to everything else; the main road ran below it and another pitted, earthen road ran above the homestead; and a footpath ran close to one side, which was the shortest route to the sea. Against that, the plot itself was delightfully laid out. At the centre of everything stood a large table flanked on all sides by fruit trees; two houses, one opposite the other, a shower, a toilet and a shed enclosed it like a theatre set. Zhenya and Sasha were sitting at one side of the table eating macaroni, but when the whole contingent flooded into the enclosed courtyard they immediately lost their appetite.
«Hello, hello!» The redhead dropped her suitcase and bag and plonked herselfdown on the bench. «I haven't seen you here before!»
Everything fell into place. The redhead belonged here. She was the leading lady. Zhenya and Sasha were newcomers, supporting cast.
«It's our first time here,» Zhenya said apologetically.
«There has to be a first time for everything,» the redhead replied philosophically, and proceeded to the large room with a verandah, which Zhenya had aspired to until being categorically turned down by the landlady.
The driver hauled the old lady down in her cage; she was twittering in what sounded to Zhenya like a foreign language.
Sasha rose from the table and moved away with an air of gravitas and independence. Zhenya collected the plates and took them off to the kitchen. They would have to accept that there was no way of avoiding these people. The redhead's arrival had completely changed the prospect for the summer.
The boy, pallid, with a markedly snub nose and unbelievably narrow skull, addressed the redhead in what was by now unmistakably English, although Zhenya could not make out what he said. His redheaded mater, however, silenced him with a clearly discernible, «Be quiet, Donald».
Until that day Zhenya had never set eyes on English people, and English the redhead and her family turned out incontrovertibly to be.
They became properly acquainted in what, by southern criteria, was late evening, after the children had been put to bed and the dinner dishes washed. Zhenya had thrown a shawl over the table lamp to stop it shining on the sleeping Sasha. She was re-reading Anna Karenina in order to compare certain events in her own disintegrating private life with the real drama of a real woman, a woman with ringlets on her white neck, with feminine shoulders, frills on her peignoir, and who clasped a handmade red bag in her piano-player's fingers.
Zhenya would never have ventured to intrude on the lighted terrace of her new neighbour, but the latter herself tapped with large, varnished fingernails at her window and Zhenya came out, already in her pyjamas and with a sweater on top. It was cold at night.
«I was driving past the Party Foodstore. What do you think I did?» the redhead asked her severely.
As no witty response suggested itself, Zhenya rather unenterprisingly said nothing.
«I bought two bottles of Crimean port, that's what I did. But perhaps you don't care for port? Perhaps you prefer sherry? Let's go!»
And Zhenya, abandoning Anna Karenina, followed as if entranced by this sumptuous lady cossetted in a shaggy green and red check garment, half poncho, half tartan blanket.
Everything was upside down on the verandah. The suitcase and the bag had been unpacked, and it was amazing to see how much they had managed to contain in the way of bright, cheerful clothes. All three chairs, the folding bed and half a table were piled high. Mother was sitting in a collapsible chair, and her pale, twisted little face wore an ingratiating smile she had evidently forgotten some considerable time previously.
The redhead, without taking the cigarette from her mouth, poured port into two glasses, and rather less into a third which she pushed into her mother's hands.
«Call my mother Susan Yakovlevna, if you like. Or don't call her anything. She doesn't understand a word of Russian anyway. She did know a little before her stroke, but after it she forgot everything. English too. All she remembers is Dutch. The language she spoke as a child. She is a perfect angel, but completely witless. Drink up, Granny Susie. Chin-chin!»
The redhead again pressed the glass upon her and she took it in both hands with evident interest. It seemed there were some things she had not forgotten.
That first evening was dedicated to a biographical account of the redhead's family — which was dazzling. The witless angel of Dutch origin had been a Communist in her young days, had linked her destiny to that of a British subject of Irish origins, an officer in His Majesty's army and a Soviet spy who had been caught and sentenced to death, bartered for an item of equivalent value, and exported to the motherland of the world proletariat.
Zhenya listened agog, and quite failed to notice how drunk she was getting. The old lady snored quietly in her chair, then emitted a little stream.
Irene Leary — what a name! — threw up her hands.
«I let my mind wander. I forgot to put her on the pot. Oh well, no point in worrying about it now.»
She carried on relating her enviable family history for a further hour while Zhenya got more and more drunk, but by now not from the port, which they had drunk to the last drop, but from admiration and delight at her new acquaintance.
It was after two in the morning when they parted, having changed Susie and given her a quick wash. She woke with a start and had absolutely no idea what was going on.
The following day was full of noise and bustle. In the morning Zhenya cooked the breakfast, making porridge for everyone before taking the two boys for a walk. The English boy, Donald, despite having been born in Russia, had an equally breathtaking pedigree. His paternal grandfather was an even more famous spy, and had been caught and exchanged for an item of even greater value than his maternal grandfather. He proved to be an exceptionally pleasant little boy, courteous, well brought up and, something that disposed Zhenya towards him no less warmly than towards his redheaded mother, he immediately behaved magnanimously and considerately towards the highly strung and nervous Sasha, as an elder towards a junior. He actually was a bit older, already five, and immediately demonstrated a quite adult nobility of spirit by unhesitatingly giving Sasha an ingenious little tip truck, showing him how to raise its body, and when they finally made it to the fizzy drinks kiosk, where Sasha usually started grizzling until Zhenya bought him some carbonated water in an opaque tumbler, the five-year-old declined the proffered tumbler with a wave of his hand and said, «You drink it. I can wait.»
He was a perfect little Lord Fauntleroy. When Zhenya got back home, Irene was sitting at the table in the courtyard with the landlady, and from the way that self-important Dora was fawning on her new lodger it was plain to see how highly Irene was rated in these parts. They were all treated to the landlady's mutton soup, hot and too peppery. The English boy drank it slowly and with faultless table manners. A bowl was placed in front of Sasha, and Zhenya was preparing to negotiate discreetly with him, because he was very particular about what he would eat, and that was restricted to mashed potato and rissoles, macaroni, and porridge with sweetened condensed milk. And nothing else. Ever.