only on herself as a teenager.
She had become aware that life was not only honey and sugar at the age of twelve, the personal experience mutated through a psychological trauma into the secret she’d kept to herself in the lowest drawer of her memory.
Plus, at the age of fourteen, she’d witnessed her Dad get himself utterly drunk and bit up her Mum. In a panic, Fringe’d called an ambulance to take her Mum to a hospital where the latter had spent a week. That week Tanya’d spent alone with her beast Dad home. Fringe had been afraid he might perform the same beating act on her, so she’d always kept a pocket knife on her for defense, even though she hadn’t been quite sure she could raise a hand on her own Dad. Surprisingly, she had been relieved to observe his permissive beating had only been directed onto his wife. The attitude toward his daughter hadn’t altered. Nevertheless, she could not forgive him for her Mum’s beating.
When her Mum had been released from the hospital Fringe’d told her she didn’t want to live with her Dad and she would run away if they kept on living together. Mum’d replied she needed time to think.
When Mama Irina had been beaten one more time, she’d filed for a divorce and arranged to stay at her sister’s place where the latter lived with a daughter of hers. Two sisters and cousins had to endure a little inconvenience of being packed like sardines in a one-room apartment during the process of changing the beating husband’s three-room apartment to two one-room apartments. As a matter of fact, Tanya and her cousin, Anya, had become quite close at that time and had been determined to keep their friendship after their inevitable separation. Soon the exchange had been performed. The sisters and their daughters had been back to living apart.
Since then Fringe had been living in a one-room apartment with her Mum. Tanya believed she was deprived of her private room only temporarily. She valued that she and her Mum resided in a safe and non-violent place now.
Maybe because of all the family cataclysms Fringe looked older and wiser than her besties. It was her eyes that could flicker a sullen twinge at times. In reality, she was even a year younger. Besides, her looks were just super womanly as she was shaped like the yummiest donut on earth. Such an appearance was due to her big heavy breasts which she only used to curse when she ran in PE classes – so dangly and heavy they were that they even hurt. But in all other cases, Tanya was extremely proud of them. The pride that was strengthening with each lustful male stare or an envious female glare.
Finally, the girls lost a glimpse of their parents. If they could’ve screamed without frightening the airport staff, they would’ve gladly done it. Instead, Katya began singing as if an opera singer ‘Parents, see you soooooon and freedom, weeee are cooooming!’
Yulya just made a silly-goose dance and jumped forward to the pass control as if she were a ballerina. Pretending to be embarrassed, Tanya said to the security guy, ‘I AM NOT WITH THEM!’ and rolled her eyes up.
Finally, Moscow Duty Free was offering its services to them: Vodka or Tequila would help them celebrate their soon arrival. They chose a huge chocolate bar and Tequila Silver for their dinner in Berlin.
‘Shall we take one or two ciggie cartons?’ Tanya was referring to Yulya with a mocking seriousness.
While Tanya adored the act of smoking in general and treated it as a means of thinking, relaxation, and meditation, Red-haired didn’t much care about inhaling and exhaling the smoke, she just did it to keep a company, because everybody did it, so she never felt real satisfaction in the act. Her elder sister smoked too, but her parents didn’t know Yulya was smoking. They still treated her as their little one. And Red-haired was trying to preserve the corresponding behavior of an ignorant, innocent girl. When they felt the cigarette smell around her, she would always say it was the university girls who had smoked her over, her hair and clothes.
‘I thought you were going to quit, young ladies?’ Katya needed to drop her word in there too.
‘Alright, alright, we’re taking only one carton. One carton should be quite enough for a month. Katya, you should become a damn health coach,’ uttered Tatyana in a fake irritation. And so their trip began.
Berlin. Everything seemed different. Even the air seemed different. The smell of bread and freshly-baked buns greeted them at the airport. In the train from the airport they heard a couple speaking Russian, who appeared to be living in Berlin for a long time already. Katya was holding a note with the address they were to live at and asked if, by any chance, they knew the street.
The couple had a look at the address and uttered, ‘Nope. But we’ll help you to find out when we are at the railway station.’
No one seemed to know where the street was.
‘Look, there’s a city map,’ there came Tanya’s voice.
No such street to be found. The map was enormous. Berlin seemed to be as big as Moscow. Taxi-drivers should know! Beige Mercedes taxis were lining up for their clients. Everyone was asking what district the street was in. But the girls had no idea. No idea the first driver had as well. What about the second one? Alright, at least he managed to find the street on his map. Quite easy to find if one knew that it was in Charlottenburg-Wilmesdorf, West Berlin. And the happy girls put their luggage in the trunk; gave the Russian couple a Russian chocolate bar Alyonka and got into the car with relief. Why it was such a riddle for Berliners to find a street remained a big question.
‘Twenty euros,’ pronounced the taxi-driver. The girls paid and got out. What now?
It took them about twenty minutes to look for the landlady. Not a soul seemed to know where she was. Their first brainstorming idea was to call up all the apartments one by one and ask. They started with the basement.
A tall, brown guy with long arms and fingers, his body wet, wrapped up in a towel, gestured vividly to come in. A broad smile on his face. Yves was his name. He excused his wet appearance as he’d been taking a shower when he’d heard the doorbell ring. He suggested calling the landlady. What a cutie pie! No dangerous crooks so far. He called, told the girls to go to the second building, fourth floor imitating the landlady’s voice melody. The ladies thanked him and left.
Katya volunteered to be a pioneer that day.
‘These walls definitely need some repainting,’ she thought observing the dilapidating walls as she was climbing the stairs with wide steps skipping every second step. She saw an open door, knocked and in she went. The old wizened lady with unkempt grey hair was standing in the middle of the room vacuuming.
‘Hello, are you Frau Wolf?’ yelled Katya to deafen the vacuum cleaner.
The decaying lady turned off the noisy machine, greeted the girl with a fake smile and began telling things about the flat. Katya had to explain that she first needed to call up the other girls and left. The German landlady resumed vacuuming while Katya ran down the stairs in the same hyper mood.
‘Oh my!’ Blondie yelled to the girls. ‘Ancient building with an ancient landlady. The Wolf lady is much more like a Lamb lady, wizened Lamb lady.’
Blondie grabbed her luggage and hauled it to the fourth floor. She went down again to see how little Yulya was handling her luggage, the size of nearly her own height.
‘I’ll help you with your giant stuff. Did you pack your whole wardrobe or what?’ Katya offered a helping hand feeling
