the whole that time. She replied that she had a lot of male friends, that she was not able to make friends with women and to chat with them about different rubbish but it was possible to discuss interesting medical cases with her male colleagues or, for example, to discuss works of German psychologist Eric Bern whom she admired. She added that if she regarded men from the point of view of possible future marriage she did not think any more she could be happy in Russia. She said Russian men lost themselves in that disorder, drank much, could not provide the family that’s why she decided to move to the West.
I asked if she thought it could be romantic to have a husband from another country with another language or if she supposed any problems could happen connected with it. She said she did not ever think there could be any problems as the Russians themselves always were the mixture of nationalities, she met her Finnish colleagues and they seemed very sensible and polite.
I asked if she thought she could fall deeply in love with one of her Finnish colleagues for example and maybe it could change all her world-outlook. She said she did not think it was anyhow possible at her age (she was thirty two), the main thing she wished to find was mutual respect and understanding, understanding of the necessity of raising children, mutual help and support.
I wondered if she really did not believe in love in the sense that it was something one could not imagine and predict in advance and she replied that she really did not understand what that concept meant, that what really existed in the world from her point of view was common sense and expediency and it was of course much more reasonable to live not all alone, but with a family, to be supported by someone and to support them to make life easier for both.
I asked what she thought about the deepest grief which a person having lost his beloved spouse could feel till the end. She replied that if people lose each other in a younger age they could comfort themselves very fast having found somebody else. As for old people they really could not be on their own yet, that’s why they grieved so deeply, that was a reasonable medical explanation.
I asked then if she really hoped that such an interview could help her to find some romantic partner. She smiled, stood up, said that I might write what I wished, thanked, parted and left and I stayed in my office alone.
Just that moment my Finnish partner called and I told him about the romantic interview still being absent and being in a hurry to complete the catalog my partner offered to place there more pretty faces instead of the interview then.
And we did so. And a very beautiful picture of this young lady-surgeon that she brought for the interview was placed just on the cover. She did not at all look strict in the picture, on the contrary, there was something very romantic in the expression of her eyes and maybe it awoke lot of romantic aspirations in the men and the quantity of our customers was really increased.
The Island
Natasha lived with her little daughter in a St. Petersburg communal flat together with many other neighbours. The block was situated in one of St. Petersburg’s noisy avenues. Windows of three rooms faced the avenue where trucks and trams rolled day and night. The fourth room faced a green quiet yard but an old woman living there though being lucky to have a good room had a bad character, eavesdropped on conversations, gossiped and grumbled all the time about other neighbours’ kids making noise in the hall or about the family on duty that did not make weekly cleaning satisfactory.
The flat was crowded with so many people. Natasha’s daughter and neighbours’ kids always ran and cried in the hall. Bicycles and wash-basins hung on the walls, sometimes there was a queue to the bathroom or to the cooker to cook. The young couple with two kids felt overcrowded most of all in their single room, Natasha knew these young people hoped only that when sooner or later the grumpy old woman or the old man from another room left for a mercy house or even further their rooms would become free and it would be possible to occupy them as there was the appropriate right according to the law.
The old man was a former sea captain. That neighbour was Natasha’s good friend – he was always glad to see both Natasha and her daughter in his room. They liked to visit him for tea in the evenings. There were pictures of ships and boats on the walls of his room, big tropical shells and overseas souvenirs on the shelves of his old furniture. Natasha’s daughter liked to play with the sea shells, and had already broken some of them accidentally but the old captain did not curse, he used to say that it was for good luck and let the girl continue examining the shells and put them to her ear, listening to the noise of the sea.
The old captain survived a stroke. His legs worked poorly, he moved slowly just about the flat, the noisy avenue below was all that remained from his so broad in former times world. When the sun started to appear in his room in the spring he used to open the window and put his face under the sun rays, closed his eyes and imagined that he was at sea again and the roar of trucks and trams below was the roar of the sea waves. His wife died long ago, he had no children, his niece came once a week, brought him some food. Natasha also helped, bought him bread and milk, washed, cleaned his room. The old man’s niece always convinced him to enter the mercy house but Natasha, being aware what mercy houses in Russia really were, told his niece every time that the old man was quite alright on his own and she was there each moment if something was necessary for him.
Natasha was a biologist, she loved nature, plants, animals, insects – everything that lived its own life in the world. In former times she worked in the Botanical Academy, but after perestroyka the wages there became smaller and smaller till she was working only for bus fare. Natasha started to work as a trade agent of a cosmetic company: visiting offices and different institutions she sold cremes and lipsticks, it was not easy having a child, the old man helped her, watching her girl when she slept, feeding and playing with her after she woke up, giving Natasha the possibility to run about the city with a heavy bag full of products from which she tried to sell as much as she could.
Natasha’s parents lived far away, nobody except the old captain could help her. Looking after her daughter, selling cosmetics for a living she had no time for any personal life outside the flat, all her personal contacts besides casual customers were made of the flat’s inhabitants. The young couple, though close to her by their age, were not close by spirit. They were too economical, bought only wholesale, talked how to spend money for useful things, not in a silly way just for pleasure.
Natasha’s conversations with the old captain were different. The old man often told her about his sea voyages, about exotic archipelagos that his ship used to visit, where it was warm all the time, and there were tropical sunsets, blue birds and beautiful silver fish. Natasha told the captain about her unhappy marriage when her husband left her just before the childbirth; later he neither saw his daughter, nor helped. Natasha guessed for the future and did not expect anything good as there was nothing good in the past. The old captain smiled, clapped her shoulder and used to say that one could never know what would be around the corner, that her young age was happiness itself. As to him, he was already happy just with the walls of his room, with his pictures, with the sun rays from the window, with their quiet conversations, with her daughter’s sleep that he guarded, even with the neighbours’ quarrel in the kitchen. Any trifle belonging to life could be appreciated in his age.
Once, distributing her cosmetics, Natasha found herself in a marriage agency office and while the lady manager was examining Natasha’s lipsticks and perfumes, she, in turn, gave Natasha application forms of Americans wishing to get acquainted with Russian girls. Looking through biographies and pictures Natasha suddenly came across the name of the archipelago the old captain told her about. She saw the picture of a smiling man, it was written there that he was an American engineer working on the island, living there with his little daughter and looking for a loving wife and a kind mother for his child.
