With her unflagging energy and concern, Olga decided to take her friend under her wing. She even asked her mother’s advice. Antonina Naumovna, sympathetic within reason, solved the problem: she arranged for Galya to take an evening course in typing.
“If she learns to type well enough, I’ll hire her at the magazine.” She immediately had second thoughts. “Though Galya’s grammar isn’t very good, is it?”
When she had graduated from the institute, Galya stayed on in the dean’s office. Her position was not a very rewarding one—she was a secretary. Her achievements were paltry, and she had a salary to match. Still, thanks to the evening typing course, she could supplement her earnings. She was a fast typist, and she moonlighted. True, she didn’t own a typewriter, so she had to use the one at work and put in long, very late hours.
When Galya’s affairs had fallen into place, Olga distanced herself again. Her own life was elevated and meaningful. Even the unpleasantness that came her way was exceptional, not like what others had to contend with—she was expelled from the university under scandalous circumstances, then she broke off relations with Vova (Galya saw right away that it was a very stupid mistake, of course); but no sooner had Vova been forced to bow out than a new man appeared. Olga told Galya this and that about herself, cursorily, without going into detail; and what was surprising was that despite all the unpleasantness, her eyes still shone as before, and her hair, her smile, even her dimples were all aglow.
This was when Galya envied her for the first time. She herself had become the poorer for her misfortunes; she shed and wilted, and even started aging prematurely. Poor Galya.
Galya, naturally, knew nothing of the terrible secrets and dangers that filled Olga’s life. In Galya’s view, Olga’s new pseudo-husband couldn’t hold a candle to Vova. This Ilya fellow was also tall, and he had curly hair; but he wasn’t dashing in the way Vova had been. However, Olga’s son, Kostya, was all over him. As a father, Vova was a disciplinarian and treated his son with military severity; but Ilya and Kostya played noisy games together, romped around and turned somersaults, and were always exploring some new interest. Ilya was more like an older best friend. And with Kostya, Ilya was able to experience vicariously all the childhood joys that he couldn’t experience with his own unhappy and constrained son. Kostya simply adored him. His own father, who saw him once a week, understood that Kostya was being “led astray,” resented it, and was more and more reluctant to spend time with him. And the feelings were mutual.
Galya didn’t know any of these details. Nor did she know that Olga and Ilya had quietly gotten married, without going public about it. She was hurt when she found out by chance, six months later. The event of marriage had nearly cosmic significance for her. But they hadn’t even organized the most modest wedding party. She didn’t even dream of ever finding a marriage partner for herself. She was twenty-nine years old, and since her career had collapsed, not a single colleague, or student, or even passerby had given her so much as a glance … meanwhile, in a roundabout way, through Olga, fate was preparing a valuable gift for her that would last her whole life.
* * *
It’s fascinating to trace the trajectories of people destined to meet. Sometimes such encounters happen without any special effort of fate, without elaborate convolutions of plot, following the natural course of events—say, people live in adjacent buildings, or go to the same school; they get to know each other at college or at work. In other cases, something unexpected is called for: train schedules out of whack, a minor misfortune orchestrated on high, like a small fire or a leaky pipe on an upper floor, or a ticket bought from someone else for the last movie show. Or else a chance meeting, when a watcher is standing in one spot, on the lookout for a target, and suddenly a girl glides by out of nowhere, once, twice, a third time. And there’s a weak smile, and then, suddenly, like dawn breaking—she’s your own dear wife …
Isn’t every person deserving of these special efforts of fate? Olga, yes, certainly … But Galya?
Should fate squander its efforts on an insignificant and unprepossessing couple, the daughter of the local plumber, a drunk, and the son of another such plumber from Tver, but already deceased? In fact, Galya’s father, nicknamed Sir Yury Dripsandleaks, would meet a premature end. No sooner were they assigned to a new apartment than he died, to the annoyance and disappointment of the residents of the high-rise on Vosstanie Square, who would never again have such a skilled expert in all things pipes-and-leaks related, someone who knew every valve and plug by sight and by touch. In his presence, pipes seemed to join, and blockages, with a grunt, cleared up of their own volition.
And was a towheaded, suspicious, vengeful boy, the courtyard champion in long-distance pissing—no one else’s stream even came close to his in the length of the arc, either in the courtyard or at school—beneath the notice of fate?
Was it possible that he, like Olga, was a darling of fate, and that it took direct aim at him, weaving its web around him, making sure he was on duty on just those days when a girl, towheaded like himself, would dart into the entrance where he was on the lookout for his target?
It’s incomprehensible, improbable—but the generosity of fate also extends to the likes of these C-list extras.
* * *
Ilya never managed to find out which of his sins—the distribution of books, petty communications between hostile factions, his close connections to Mikha and Edik, by that time both in prison—had attracted the direct attention of the authorities. In the spring of 1971, he realized he was being watched.
For Galya, this was a fateful event.
The first time Galya saw him, they met at the entrance to the building. Small in stature, but handsome and appealing, wearing a gray cap and a long coat, he held the door open for her, and she smiled at him.
The very next day, she ran into him again in the courtyard. This time he was sitting on a bench with a newspaper in his hands, obviously waiting for someone. And Galya smiled at him again. Then, the third time, he was standing in the entrance hall, and they greeted each other. He asked her her name. At that point, Galya realized that he wasn’t standing there just by chance, but was waiting for her, and she was happy. Now she liked him even more. His name was Gennady. A nice name. His appearance wasn’t striking—but neither was it lacking in anything. He and Galya were similar, as they would discover, if you looked closely: their eyes were narrow-set, close to the bridge of their rather long noses, and they had small chins. They had the same coloring—his hair, of which he didn’t have as much, of course, was a bit lighter. It lay smooth on his head. But he was very neat—exceptionally so. He made a very civilized impression. When he disappeared for a week, Galya’s dreams were dashed. Every evening when she returned home from work, she looked for him in the courtyard, but he wasn’t there.
Well, there went love, she thought bitterly, and lived through the entire week with the nagging feeling that nothing would ever happen to her, that her life in the semibasement would never end, although everyone else had been resettled, and her family was the last, and she herself was the last and the least, as her grandmother said.
Indifferent to everything, she was walking down Gorokhovskaya Street (now called Kazakov) from the institute to Kurskaya Station, where she would get on the metro and travel five stations to her home. The whole trip would take about an hour, including the time she would need to get to the metro and then to sprint home once she got off at Krasnopresnenskaya. In spite of the bad weather, and in a bad mood, she was walking along as though her muscles had been trained to do it, her back straight, her head, in a blue beret, held high, in an old raincoat Olga had given her the previous year. Suddenly, from behind, a strong hand grabbed her by the arm. First she thought it was one of her students. She looked around and saw that it was—him!