Бесплатный фрагмент - Italian Love&Amarity

Chapter 1.

Sex as an impossible dream.

I was a virgin until I was 32. Was I frigid, ugly, insecure, and ugly? Definitely not. Why did the life of a beautiful, young, sociable, and sensitive girl turn out so that until she was 32, she didn’t like anyone enough to agree to sleep with them? A question I know the answer to. I didn’t like anyone enough to run after them and ask them to take my annoying virginity. And there simply wasn’t anyone who would run after me and be pleasant to me, so that I would agree to play sex games with them.

You’ll say I worked as a librarian? Ha!

I had to work as a paramedic at a factory among men. I saw so many naked male asses when I was a virgin, so many male dicks during my internship at the medical school, that not every girl of easy virtue saw them in such quantities as I did. The first aid station was located on the territory of the coke and chemical production of the metallurgical plant. The total number of employees of the plant was about 2500 people. Every day from 100 to 200 patients came to the first aid station, 90% of whom were young men. I hated medicine. The choice of profession was accidental. I ended up as a paramedic by a twist of fate. I did not get into the Polytechnic Institute, which I did not particularly want to get into, and in order not to go to a vocational school, at the insistent request of my mother, I tried to get into a medical school. To my surprise, I got in without any problems. But studying was hard labor for me, because I was not interested in medicine. My passion and calling were foreign languages, access to which was blocked at that time. Anyone who worked in a hated job, to which the soul does not lie, will understand me.

The work of a paramedic is boring and monotonous. Nothing happens for years. Exhausting daily shifts in a hazardous industry quickly deprive you of youth, beauty, attractiveness.

You can’t earn money in this profession. Changing professions is very expensive, and my soul lay only in languages. Gritting my teeth, I gave injections, vaccinations, provided first aid, conducted pre-shift alcohol testing, and my soul suffered and bled. It wanted foreign culture, literature and foreign languages. There is reason to develop depression.

And also with my personal life a complete failure. The workers perceived me as not of this world. Or rather, as a berry not of their field. We were from different stuff, we had different interests, different goals and different origins. As one American movie says:

«Different species of animals do not interbreed, even if they are threatened with extinction.»

The men among whom I was forced to work did not attract me at all as men. I did not perceive them as men. And they did not perceive me as a woman. The problem is not in them and not in me. It is all an insurmountable species barrier, with which nothing can be done. The only way out is to change the environment, and this was a big problem. There was no money to change education. It turned out to be a vicious circle, the way out of which I did not see. So I had to live for years by inertia, hoping for a miracle.

I was not distinguished by a low libido. With a low libido, it would have been easier for me to lead the life of algae on coke. I experienced my first orgasm before my period. It was precisely because I knew what sexual satisfaction was like that I was in no hurry to let just anyone into my bed. I could satisfy myself when I felt like it. I wanted feelings, love, passions and wings on my back from a man.

I would not settle for anything less.

At that time, I had no idea that an orgasm achieved through masturbation was much brighter than an orgasm with a man. But it would never come close to the orgasm I was lucky enough to experience with my beloved man.

Sexual satisfaction with a beloved man cannot be compared to any drug in the world. It cannot be achieved with substances, suggestion and other psychedelics. For this mind-blowing sensation, you need an object of love and nothing else. Mutual. Unreciprocated love is pain that cannot be compared in terms of pain.

That was the whole problem with my prolonged virginity. I could have an orgasm myself every day, but I was not going to have sex of unknown quality with a man who was disgusting to me, and, in addition, be exposed to the risk of an unplanned pregnancy or STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) for any amount of money. Many thanks to my education as a paramedic-obstetrician and many months of practice in maternity hospitals and hospitals in my hometown. I saw enough of the consequences of sexual intercourse. Thank you. You have never seen so many abortions and removed uteruses as I have seen, even in your nightmares.

By the way, about money. Paramedics were paid little. Insignificantly little. Because it was the 90s. The money was only enough to pay for utilities and for meager food. It was good that the family had a garden plot. My mother and I were engaged in agricultural work 7 months a year. We gathered a noble harvest. The garden is my mother’s favorite hobby.

In winter we took a break from summer work.

And youth and young adulthood passed us by… I felt like a robbery every aimlessly lived day. My wonderful life, my hopes, my dreams flowed away with the sun beyond the horizon, never to return. I didn’t want to live. At all.

Depression… Do you know what depression is like in a young girl with a sexy appearance that makes men go crazy and a high libido? It’s better for you not to know.

The result of depression is the study of almost all methods of suicide. Especially since an epidemic of suicides was raging around the plant. A bad example is contagious.

Some committed suicide right at the plant. They did it, mainly, in the showers. They hanged themselves. Such cases were rare and thundered throughout the plant. Some voluntarily took their own lives at home.

One girl, 27 years old. She worked as a paramedic. One day she asked for a vacation, but she was refused. Soon she jumped out of the window.

Another girl, 35, worked as a worker. After her shift, she hanged herself in the shower with a rope she brought from home.

There was another guy, 20, who also hanged himself in the shower because of unrequited love several years earlier.

One of our heads of the medical center had a husband who suspected her of infidelity. He took out a hunting rifle and blew his brains out. The head was very angry that he had damaged her wall and she had to spend money on repairs.

Another man decided that retirement was not for him. He came to the dacha, made a noose and hanged himself in the basement.

One of my colleagues had an affair with a married man named Nikolai. He had three children.

I had just started working. I was 20 years old. When I came to work, I saw a colleague swollen from tears and crying bitterly. To my question: «What happened?»

She answered with a question:

— Do you know Kolya?

— Yes.

— So Kolya is gone! — the colleague burst into tears and went home.

Her lover was found hanged in a sitting position. They say that the father of three children suddenly decided to take his own life without explanation.

About 10 years later, another colleague of mine was also mourning her lover. He was 7 years younger than her. He did not marry her, and a month after the wedding he was found suffocated by exhaust fumes in his own car. During his life, he told his colleague that his father had passed away in the same way and at the same age…

There are many such sad stories.

I often thought about death in those years. Well, why did a young and beautiful girl have to live in the 90s? To lie down with a bandit who is disgusting with his brutal insides?

To lie down (well, okay, to get married, damn it) with a simple and primitive factory guy who will hate my delicate mental organization and will shorten me according to his inner world? What profit do I get from this? Just don’t say this: «I should have had a child for myself!»

There was no one to give birth to — that’s one.

Two — a child is shackles on your legs and three — you just need money for it. A child needs a lot of money. And he also needs a happy, fulfilled mother, happy with herself and her life. I’m not even talking about a loving dad for the child. A loving dad, a beloved and loving husband in my picture of the world is a strictly obligatory value. Because that’s exactly the kind of dad I had. And in general, besides my dad, I have many brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts with sons-in-law.

I didn’t grow up in a same-sex family, you know. And I never wanted to suffer in a mono-female brew. After all, a woman is a potential competitor to a woman. It’s rare to meet a bosom friend, chum, acquaintance. Girlfriends are bosom friends in order to adopt each other’s life experience, to share their own. It is especially good to complain to your girlfriends about unrequited love and a broken heart. They will listen, support, sympathize. Well, happiness, mutual love, prosperity, achievements are no longer of interest to them. Moreover, it is advisable to hide or downplay all the good things from your girlfriends and acquaintances. People do not like other people’s happiness. And sometimes they take offense at it. Therefore, they make friends either by inertia or with their fellow sufferers. This makes it easier to come to terms with your own dissatisfaction.

In those few years when I was especially zealously studying different methods of suicide, there was nowhere to go. Wherever you look, there is a wedge. It was impossible to change jobs. No profession. To leave the paramedics for a commercial kiosk? To even worse conditions? What’s the point? To leave as a worker at a factory to kill yourself with backbreaking physical labor among coal and chemicals? I did not even consider this perverted and protracted form of suicide.

If you go to a disco, bandits will catch you and rape you. At that time, the Internet had not yet appeared and porn was only on video cassettes or in photos. The terrible porn of those times made me, a virgin, gag. The guys of my youth were sexually active testosterone-fueled and at every opportunity tried to drag a girl into bed. They offered wild sex. According to the scheme: stick it in, pull it out and go, not caring about the feelings of the partner.

Some of my friends managed to achieve orgasm with this form of sexual contact. But they paid too high a price for it. Abortions. Rejection. Contempt. Depression. It wasn’t worth it.

Of course, I could have gotten married. But who? The guys I knew and liked couldn’t offer me a human relationship.

Either they irritated me with their shyness and shaking hands when talking to me. (Well, it’s clear that they wanted me so much that they were shaking). Or they were pushy boors, trying to force me into sex.

I didn’t know then that it could be any different. That a man can freely tell a woman how beautiful she is and how much he likes her. But the most important thing is that the look of a man in love speaks for itself. A man in love doesn’t need any compliments. All the admiration in the world is written on his face. Even if he scolds his woman, his look will give away his feelings completely.

For the sake of a man in love’s look, you can sacrifice a lot. Just to see that look again and again.

Chapter 2.

Underlover #1. Sasha the Entrepreneur.

Sasha was a small shopkeeper. And he had a goal to become a big shopkeeper. Or a store director. Or a chain owner. As it goes. The bigger, the better, as they say.

He had his own outlet in the store. He sold electronics and spare parts for household appliances. A profitable business. It had to be. But the rent for the outlet in the store ate up the lion’s share of his earnings. Sasha lived in a dormitory. He climbed to prosperity with all his might. On his own, without the support of his rich parents.

When the profit was not enough to pay the rent for the store, Sasha went to sell on the street. He would spread out a rug, as was the custom at the time, and display his wares on it near the checkpoint in front of passing metalworkers.

I would feel awkward when I saw him selling from a rug on the street.

At that time, I considered trading something shameful, low-prestige, close to begging. I had no idea about the profitability of business. It seemed to me that selling like that from a rug on the street was terribly humiliating.

Many people got rich this way, selling whatever they could from a rug or from their hands. Then they got some money and bought apartments on the first floors of Khrushchev-era buildings for stores. Some got really high.

To do this, you need to go against the flow and learn to pick up money from the floor, like Sasha did.

He was a good guy. He had few opportunities, but chose the path to prosperity through trading. Others his age chose the bottle, crime, drugs. It is better to sell from a rug than to drive yourself to the grave with substances and booze. Having saved up some money, I bought myself a tape recorder, which I had long dreamed of. All my friends had one, but I didn’t. A Japanese Panasonic tape recorder. A real one. Made in China. The radio on it only picked up short waves. To listen to Russian radio, I needed to buy an adapter, and I asked my friend to go to the store with me.

I was unsure of myself and was afraid to interact with strangers. In those days, people were rude to each other, and I was afraid of rudeness and boorishness.

My friend was married, had a daughter, and could talk to anyone. She didn’t have my complexes.

We bought an adapter from Sasha and Olya noticed how he looked at me. I noticed it too, but I was afraid to talk to him. Because I didn’t know how to behave with a man who liked me and whom I didn’t know at all. At 21, I had no such experience.

Sasha started talking to Olya. And I stood aside and waited for them to finish. When we left the store, Olya said:

— Didn’t you see how he looked at you?

I was surprised. — Olya, he was talking to you, what does that have to do with me?

— You don’t understand! He was looking at you so-o-o-o… You need to be friends. He’s like Syutkin!

— Olya, he’s short! — I clarified.

— So what? Albano and Ramino Power are also different heights.

— I can’t walk in heels with him. — I inserted my trump card.

— You’ll be like an Italian couple! — Olya admired.

It seems she’s already decided everything for us.

One April evening, I was returning from Olya’s on the bus.

As I was walking along the alley to my house, a guy suddenly ran into me.

— Girl, I’ll walk you home! You can’t go home alone late!

I recognized Sasha right away and thought that he had been following me and had arranged our meeting.

That’s why I wasn’t scared by his impudent behavior.

— Take me there. — I said.

It turned out that it was easy for me with Sasha. Because I could be cheeky to him and he wouldn’t get offended. It encouraged him.

We sat down on a bench near my entrance. Sasha in his expensive raincoat reminded me of Darkwing Duck from the Disney cartoon.

— And what would you say if I said that I like your eyes, your nose and your hair?!

After that, Sasha hugged me around the neck with his thin hand with a small palm and short fingers and slobberingly kissed me on the ear. Because I dodged a kiss on the lips in time.

— Take your hands away. — I broke free.

Sasha obeyed. Sasha’s drunken confession about the extraordinary beauty of my eyes and nose did not impress me.

Sasha understood this from my skeptical look and decided to make a knight’s move.

— Do you want all the money in my pockets to be yours? All 300 dollars will be yours?!

300 dollars is my salary as a paramedic for 3 months.

Is he offering to sleep with me, I thought?

— I don’t need your money. I know you and you know me. I’m Tanya, who bought the adapter from you and you know my friend Olya well. Your zodiac sign is Capricorn and your name is Sasha.

Sasha was stunned. Or pretended to be stunned. He walked in circles in front of the bench and periodically exclaimed: — My mother is a woman!

I still didn’t understand whether he was joking or was genuinely surprised by such a coincidence.

We chatted a little more and I got ready to go home. Sasha almost followed me up the floor, but I didn’t invite him. I was ashamed. My mother and I lived poorly.

How silly I was then. When you are 21, all your wealth is you, not a luxurious setting. Youth and beauty are the biggest capital that many do not value and throw away. In vain.

A few days later, Sasha called me at the first aid station. He asked Olya for my phone number and she gave it to him without informing me.

— Hi! — Sasha said. — I want to see you.

— To give me 300 dollars? — I quipped.

— Sorry. I didn’t behave very well then.

— You treated me like a prostitute then.

— Let’s see each other? I promise I’ll behave decently.

— I don’t want to see you. — I insisted.

Actually, I wasn’t refusing him, I was being coy. I wanted to understand how interested he was in me. If he was persistent, then we would see each other. That meant he really liked me. If I agree right away, I thought, then he will think that I like him and will be impudent with me.

— But why? — Sasha was surprised. — I will behave well.

— No. — I stuck to my guns. And I was smiling.

In fact, I was afraid of the date. If Sasha pounced on me with kisses on our first meeting, then what would he allow himself to do if I agreed to a second?

— Do you understand that the phone in my hand is red-hot? — Sasha was furious.

— And what does it matter to me? — I laughed. And I thought that he was also unsure of himself, just like me. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have tried to influence me with some phone. What does it matter to me that it’s red-hot? I myself feel uncomfortable in this conversation.

— Fine. — Sasha was seething. — I like it when a girl doesn’t agree with me! Let’s see each other!

Sasha’s persistence and desire to get his way began to tire me.

— No. Bye. — I said and hung up. I smiled, pleased with myself.

Sasha never called back. Not that day, nor the next.

But he continued to communicate with Olya.

At first, Olya was sincerely happy when I told her how Sasha and I met.

— How great it turned out!

Then, when I told Olya that I refused to meet Sasha, she scolded me:

— Why didn’t you agree to go on a date with Sasha? He likes you so much!

— He’s short. — I reminded him.

— Well, he’s like Syutkin, the lead singer of the group «Bravo»! — Olya advertised Sasha.

Sasha really did have similar features to Valery Syutkin. Valery Syutkin was at the peak of his popularity then and everyone loved him.

Unfortunately, my unlucky suitor didn’t have Syutkin’s charm. Sasha didn’t know how to approach obstinate virgins. Or even if he had. I wasn’t attracted to him as a man. But for some reason Olya wanted to set us up.

— I told him not to be offended by you because you’re a virgin. — Olya beamed with kindness.

I thought that, in fact, I hadn’t given Olya permission to discuss my virginity with Sasha.

— You know, Sasha is so nice, but he’s very unlucky with girls. He told me that he’s constantly getting dumped. For example, the last one was with a child. He said that he spent a lot of money on her, but she dumped him anyway. And when he asked if I was married, I said yes. And he told me that all the cool girls are married. And I told him about you. He really likes you!

When Olya poured out all these revelations on me, I felt irritated. Why do they communicate with Sasha like close friends, but Sasha can’t put two words together with me, except for orders to meet? It seems like we communicate with different Sashas.

I also felt like a consolation prize with which Olya wants to thank Sasha for his admission that all good girls are married. Like, here’s Tanya! She’s not married and still a virgin. Take her. I’m giving her to you.

— No, Olya. I don’t want to meet Sasha.

— Well, that’s a shame! By the way, he got mad at you. For turning him down on the phone.

Do you know what he said? — Olya happily anticipated.

— What? — I asked out of politeness, not knowing how to finish forcing Sasha on me.

— He said that since you’re a virgin, you need to be drunk and fucked and you’ll be like a broken-in horse! — Olya laughed tenderly, like a ringing bell. Olya has an unusually ringing girlish laugh.

— If he said so, then I won’t date him at all! — I got angry.

What’s going on? Sasha complains to Olya about me and announces a brutal reprisal against my virginity and my human dignity, promises to rape me, and she laughingly relays his words to me and persuades me to meet him? I don’t think girlfriends behave like that? Why is she doing this to me?

Olya got married at 18 for love. Seryozha started drinking after the birth of a child. More accurately, not drinking, but drinking until he passed out. The young family lived with Olya’s parents. Seryozha worked periodically. He could play the console around the clock. He also stuttered a little and therefore was embarrassed to talk to strangers.

He began to stutter in childhood because of scandals between his parents. Their subsequent divorce only made his stuttering worse.

Seryozha’s younger brother was sent to his grandmother after his parents’ divorce. The teenage boy and the elderly grandmother could not find a common language. They often sorted out their relationship. One day, Volodya came home in a bad mood. Grandma was at work. Volodya took an axe and chopped all the furniture in the house into pieces, leaving not a single whole plate, not a single whole cup, not a single whole glass. He tore all the clothes.

This was how he expressed his protest against his grandmother, his parents with their divorce and the circumstances that he could not change.

Grandma and parents forgave Volodya. They loved and pitied him. Teenagers should be pitied when they are feeling bad.

A few years later, Volodya got involved with a gang of hooligans. They tore hats off passersby and beat them. Volodya ended up in prison. His parents were already divorced, but they went to see Volodya in prison together. Finally, Volodya was able to get the family back together. He succeeded.

Seryozha and Volodya did not forgive their mother for the divorce. The brothers had no doubt that she had destroyed their family. Who else? The brothers loved their father. Their father did not blame himself for the divorce either. All the men were unanimous in the fact that their mother and wife had single-handedly destroyed the family to please her whims. She was unfaithful and a womanizer.

For several years before the divorce, the brothers’ father drank heavily. Due to constant drunkenness, he lost his male potency.

Once, he tried to fulfill his marital duty with the help of a candle. Holding the candle in his hand, he ran after his wife around the apartment. He barely remembered what he did in a drunken stupor. He did not remember the candle, nor his frightened wife running away from a drunken idiot, he did not remember the frightened boys, shocked by what their father wanted to do and did with their mother in front of them.

By the time of the divorce, my wife had turned completely gray. She was 35 years old.

I was not offended by Olya. She has a problematic husband and his relatives. She does not understand everything. And I simply forgot about Sasha. I didn’t notice his face, which quickly turned red when he met me. He was shorter than me and therefore never came into my field of vision again.

Chapter 3.

Will Abroad Help Us?

Because of my tightness with guys and my complexes, I liked to be friends with uninhibited girls with broad views on life. I was not interested in the same crazy virgins like me. And there were no such adherents of sexual inviolability like me in my circle. Of course, I wanted sex, but not in a hurry and not with just anyone who got an erection for me. And many got an erection. Their eyes lit up, their hands started shaking, and some even stuttered.

That was the level of sex appeal of the untouchable me. And unkissed. That’s it. Knowing what an orgasm is.

I liked to chat with men, laugh, talk. But as soon as I felt their desire, I started to feel sick of them. What kind of reaction was that? It’s simple. I thought that it was not the time and not the place and not the right person. I wasn’t interested in married, poorly educated, low-resource and other illiquid assets. Mercantile? Of course!

Show me a girl who would just give it to the first guy she meets in the back seat of a car or in the entryway and I’ll say she’s sick. I had a friend like that. Is it cool? I’m a hardcore virgin and my friend is a nymphomaniac, that is, with a rabid uterus. A good couple? All my friend needed was for a neat freak like me to listen to her adventures and not judge her. I had more than enough understanding. Mixed with interest in a life that was closed off from me. Closed off, sealed and tabooed by me personally.

Of course, it couldn’t have happened without parental upbringing. My mother always told me that sex without marriage is impossible. You should only get married when you’re a virgin.

Now I don’t judge her because her mother told her so. Our ancestor, born in 1903. That’s how it was in those days. A girl was a commodity that was given away in marriage, that is, into the care of her husband from the age of 16. In Russia, peasants lived poorly and their daughters had to be placed with their husbands as early as possible. Even when the financial situation of women in the country changed, the attitudes remained. In the USSR, mothers instructed their daughters exactly like this — only get married when you’re a virgin! And no-no in your hem! Otherwise, get out of the house!

How many women’s and children’s lives have been ruined because of this patriarchal nonsense.

I wonder if any of the guardians of morality in the USSR realize that the gender hole in which the country has found itself now has its roots in Soviet pseudo-morality?

In the 90s, many young people died. Some from drugs, some from alcohol, some in the war, and some from a gangster’s bullet. Who was there to give birth to back then? And what world should I bring this unfortunate child into? To a world of gangster showdowns and drugs? To a world where there is no work and no hope? I beg you.

That is why in the 90s it was mainly the wealthy who gave birth. I was not one of them. Maybe I would have also contributed to increasing the birth rate of the country in those years, but I had no one to give birth to. And I considered giving birth «for myself» before the age of 30 to be a perversion.

And how did they solve the problem of well-being and finding a husband at that time?

If at home there is nothing, then «abroad will help us»!

Marriage emigration in the 90s reached its apogee. The most sought-after and unclaimed girls left the country at full speed. The song «American Boy» was both a hit and a song of hope.

To accuse of wanting to get out of the bandit-impoverished Russia is inhumane. In Russia in those days it was not bad, but very bad. Clumsy boys and girls who were trained for one life, but had to survive in another. The embittered older generation, who in their old age were thrown into poverty. Lost old people and children. Ubiquitous bandits and drug addicts who kill workers in order to take away their wages for a fix, and many other evil spirits that they now try not to remember. But this happened and we survived it.

For a long time or a short time, I suffered at the first-aid station, but in the end I decided to change my life. I somehow lost the desire to commit suicide. Especially after I barely crawled out of one psycho-neurological illness. This illness disturbed my serene sleep once and for all. I stopped getting enough sleep as before.

24-hour shifts, the chemical stench of the coke-chemical plant undermined my health and I fell ill. The illness was very strange. Not only did I not get enough sleep, I kept hearing voices in my half-sleep. No, reader, this is not schizophrenia. Don’t gloat. This phenomenon is called sleep paralysis, or in common parlance, a brownie. When I was sick, it visited me even at work. It would allegedly pull the blanket off me, then pounce on me and strangle me, then laugh and run around the chairs, then wave towels and laugh. The brownies were acting up from the heart or something else. But these persecutions of evil spirits did not let me get any sleep at all. It seemed like I was half asleep, but I couldn’t sleep. And then my extended family came to my aid. They prayed for me in church. You may not believe it. But after the first prayer for health, I managed to get a good night’s sleep without any frolicking evil spirits in the background of my sleep. We are pioneers — the children of workers, damn it. We were taught that nothing otherworldly exists! And whoever believes in all this, put your party card and pioneer badge on the table!

And it turns out that 1000 years of the Baptism of Rus’ were not just for nothing. We don’t believe in the other world, but it really does believe in us. In general, the visits from the brownies stopped, and along with them, my suicidal thoughts went away. Coincidence? As they say, «I don’t think so»… The salary of a paramedic was humiliatingly beggarly. It was impossible to even live on that money, let alone live and pay for utilities. Either you live under a bridge and eat what you find, or you pay only for utilities and eat what grows in the garden, if you have one. The diet in those days was simple. Seasonal fruits, vegetables, cereals, poultry, meat. But, you could only eat seasonal vegetables and fruits to your heart’s content. Apples were stored in the cellar along with carrots and potatoes. Cabbage was salted. There were no steaks, no delicacies in those days. Perhaps the capital had everything, but at brutal prices and for the elite. Paramedics and pensioners were not considered elite, so they did not live in luxury. Olive oil, coffee, mango, cheese, good wine and other products that everyone can afford now were unavailable to mere mortals in those days. And almost the entire country was mere mortals.

From a lack of vitamins and from working in a gas-polluted enterprise, I developed eczema. The skin on my fingers crumbled, cracked and bled. I hid my hands and almost always wore gloves.

Fulfillment of a childhood dream. Or the incredible Miracle of entering the coveted faculty of foreign languages.

The building of the State Pedagogical University stands on a hill. The architectural style is not distinguished by beauty and originality. This is an ordinary typical Soviet building of a nondescript gray color. An alley of blue spruce trees leads to the main entrance, bordered by shrubs, trimmed in a rectangular shape and with a rectangular flower bed in the center. In summer, the flower bed pleases the eye with marigolds, petunias, hydrangeas and other flowers, beloved by Soviet landscape designers.

The building is four stories high, rising above the porch with a roof covered with burgundy siding. During the summer session, the steps of the porch are strewn with groups of students with cigarettes in their hands. This is how students reboot their brains during breaks. Most smokers are temporary. Having successfully passed the exams, many of them forget about cigarettes and do not remember them until the next brainstorming session.

Inside the building, the walls are painted with nondescript paint. Regular and flow-through classrooms are filled with standard desks and chairs. A little shabby. Some desks are covered with inscriptions and drawings in the style of student subculture. For example, you can see a circle filled with a ballpoint pen with the caption:

«Sleep point. Press with your forehead and hold until the end of the class.»

For an outside observer, the university building looks gray and ordinary. But not for me. As a little girl, I looked at this palace of knowledge with bated breath. For me, this gray building looked like a white-stone portal with a white, marble staircase leading to a fabulous, magical world that gives its owner the power to open any door in life, to fulfill any dreams.

The blue spruces seemed to me like fairy-tale sentries-guards letting only the chosen ones into the magic palace.

Even now, looking at this gray four-story building, delight and awe are born in my soul. The Department of Foreign Languages is located under the very sky, under the floating white clouds. On the last, fourth floor.

For me, the gray university building is a fantastic Hogwarts, the magical power of which is not available to everyone. I still remember the smell of books, the corridors, the classrooms, the stairs, the sound of students’ and teachers’ footsteps.

Stream auditoriums, majestic as the reception halls of kings. Libraries with books available only to students. You will never find the information stored in them on the Internet. This is closed knowledge, protected from prying eyes. You will never find lectures that teachers read to their students in the public domain. This is exclusive, authorial knowledge, which is an extract of the invaluable practical experience of teachers, open only to students of a particular faculty. Libraries store rare folios and specialized publications. They are available only to students.

For me, this gray building is associated with a fairy-tale castle, which can be entered by anyone who has the desire and means to get a diploma. But the magical power of knowledge that changes reality is given only to those who passionately want to receive it.

Our world is populated by people with different inclinations. Someone strives for a calm, measured life, with an established routine, where events are scheduled according to a plan for years to come. Such people do not like it when something new changes their usual way of life. They like predictability and regularity more than novelty and breakthrough. Such people are the majority.

And there are people who cannot imagine their life without the cognitive process, without learning something new, without trying to penetrate the essence of things. They devote their entire lives to studying how everything in the world works. From themselves, to human relationships and the origin of life on Earth.

Take away from these people the opportunity to learn new things and they will perish. Force these people to live measuredly, according to a plan scheduled for years in advance, and they will wither away. They will start «lathering a rope,» as our teachers told us. Very often, such auto-aggression can be observed in rich heirs. They have everything. All their material needs are closed. They don’t need to strive for anything, they don’t need to fight for anything. Live, rejoice, enjoy life! And many of them begin to kill themselves with substances, alcohol, extreme sports and other forms of delayed self-destruction.

Man is the most mysterious creature in the world and his needs cannot be controlled or predicted.

One day, I was visiting a friend and we were drinking tea. We were talking about life and the meaning of being.

My friend was five years older than me and was a happy student of the psychology department of the state pedagogical university.

Secretly, I was very envious of her. I envied her for having a higher education and the opportunity to try herself in a field other than medicine. Her first diploma was the same as mine: Paramedic. Specialty: medical care.

That is, an eternal average health worker without the right to rise above, without the right to go beyond the medical environment. Without the right to earn more than the salary of an average health worker.

— Tanechka, tell me. Are you going to live without a higher education? You are already 25 years old. Are you going to work at your factory with your workers all your life? Aren’t you tired of it?

Lyuda was married and always gave me the right advice. Such friendship happens extremely rarely. I am very lucky with Lyuda. She is my savior, mentor and support throughout my entire life. We met when I was 11 years old and we were both in an infectious diseases hospital. There I looked up to her. She seemed to me to be an advanced inhabitant of heaven. And in medical school we ended up at the same desk. Since then we have been inseparable. — Lyuda, I’m so tired of it! Don’t you know?

— Well, then why are you sitting and waiting? Waiting for your pension? It will be a beggar’s pension.

— What do you suggest?

— I suggest you study, study and study, as the great Lenin bequeathed. — Lyuda joked.

— Which faculty do you like more? — she asked.

— Honestly? I’ve dreamed of the Institute of Foreign Languages since childhood. But, after all, you have to study full-time there. And who will support me? My mother, a pensioner, can’t afford it.

— You’re behind the times! Now the Pedagogical University has opened a full-time and part-time department at the Institute of Foreign Languages. And if you make a move, you can enroll in your cherished Institute of Foreign Languages and get the education of your dreams. What do you say?

— Lyuda, are you serious? I don’t know English well. I’ll need a tutor. They didn’t teach us English at school. I don’t even really know the alphabet.

— Found a problem! There is a woman in my class. She works part-time at the English department as a secretary and knows the dean. I will ask her to talk to him so that he can see you and give you a teacher from the department.

— Lyud, the lessons will probably be expensive?

— How did you want to change your life? You have to pay for everything. You will have to fork out. Or accept the fact that you will remain a paramedic at the plant for the rest of your life. It is up to you to decide what is more important to you.

— Lyud, talk to your classmate. I will at least check the price.

No sooner said than done. Everything turned out to be simpler than I thought. Literally a few days later, my friend called and told me the date and time the dean had set for the conversation. That day, I walked to the dean’s office on stiff legs. I was wearing an emerald-colored autumn-winter coat that I had sewn. I couldn’t afford ready-made, good clothes, so I sewed clothes for myself using patterns from the magazine «Burda Moden». The clothes turned out to be good, high-quality and exclusive. I wasn’t ashamed of my appearance.

But I was very scared and uncomfortable to admit to the dean that I was going to enter university at such a sad age. At the age of 26. What did I do for 10 years after school? Can there be any excuse for my idleness? I really did it! Retirement is in 25 years, and I was already busy studying. What a shame!

In those years, doctors and teachers retired at 50. According to the then-current USSR legislation. There were 18 years left before the law on increasing the retirement age came into force. When the retirement age for doctors and teachers was raised to 55. But that was a matter of the distant future.

In those days, people started thinking about retirement early, only after they turned 25. Those who considered themselves young at that age were considered freaks by those around them, unwilling to accept their respectable age.

I silently resigned myself to the condemnation of those around me. Let them write me off as a 25-year-old freak trying to get younger than I would voluntarily deprive myself of a chance to change my unbearable way of life. Come what may. If only I had at least a tiny chance to escape from the hated metallurgical plant and the beggarly salary of a paramedic.

The dean received me as if nothing had happened. He was a solid, tall, imposing man with glasses, a small bald spot and the appearance of the General Secretary of the Regional Party Committee or a count of royal blood.

His manner of holding himself and speaking was aristocratic and caused me to tremble and admire him.

He did not mock my ridiculous desire to storm the granite of science at such a «sorrowful» age. In a businesslike manner, he told me about the prospects awaiting me.

True, he clarified whether I wanted to become a student myself or was interested in the possibilities of admission for my son. This assumption caused a wave of burning shame in me. Did I really look so old at 25 that the dean decided that I had an adult son in high school?? Oh, what a shame! I panicked.

There was nowhere to retreat and I said that I wanted to apply myself.

— Okay. Then I will tell you a little about the prospects that open up for graduates of the full-time and part-time department of foreign languages of the English department. English is the language of international communication and, after graduating from our university, you will be able to work as an English translator, an English teacher at school. You will also be able to continue your education abroad. Our university provides a strong educational base and many of our former graduates live and work all over the world. In Europe, in the USA, in Canada, etc.

The prospects listed by the dean made the floor disappear from under my feet. My God! Is he really telling the truth? Is it possible that I, who did not even know the English alphabet in the 11th grade, will be able to learn the unattainable English language, accessible only to the chosen few? Only those who are approved by school teachers? After all, they instilled in us that a foreign language is given only to those who study it from kindergarten with a tutor. English is given only to special people, with exceptional abilities given at birth, and everyone who wants to learn it from scratch after finishing school should get a lip-rolling machine and not fill their heads with unrealistic dreams! Those who are not given, are not given! And it is better to come to terms with this, and not make a laughing stock of yourself! When I listened to the dean’s confidence in speaking about the prospects available to everyone who wants to learn English, the authority of school teachers paled in comparison. The dean of the faculty of foreign languages stands on the hierarchical ladder of life much higher than any high school teacher. What if he is right? What if their faculty turns out to be a place where dreams come true? I definitely have to try! I have been working towards this for so long! And even if I reach the respectable age of 32 when I receive my diploma, I cannot give up on the dream that is already asking to be put into my hands!

The dean added:

— We have admission open to both the state-funded and fee-paying departments. It is much more difficult to get into the state-funded department. Yes, and they mostly accept graduates of teacher training colleges. They have a good base of English. Those who are not very confident in their knowledge can try to get into the fee-paying department. The competition there is less and the passing score is minimal. But don’t flatter yourself. We have a strict teaching system. You will still have to catch up on your knowledge during your studies. Otherwise, there is a chance of being expelled.

I was willing to study without raising my head from my textbooks. If only I could get into the Foreign Languages Department!

— Maybe you need a tutor? — the dean anticipated my question.

— Yes! Of course! — I confirmed. — Can you help me find a good teacher? My preparation leaves much to be desired.

— What language did you study at school? — the dean asked.

— English.

— Now I will introduce you to your future tutor.

The dean called on the phone:

— Alina, come to see me.

A few minutes later, a slender brunette with long hair and an intellectual expression entered the office.

— Alina. Here is your potential student. Will you undertake to help her? — asked the dean.

— Yes. We just need to agree on the cost. — said Alina.

— Then go and negotiate. — the dean sent us off.

My cheeks were burning and my armpits were sweating. «Oh my God! Was it really that simple? Will I really be able to get in? This is incredible!»

Meanwhile, Alina Konstantinovna took me to a free classroom. She tested my English. She did not mock my meager knowledge, but told me the cost of lessons for 2 academic hours — 90 minutes. That is how long our lesson would last. We were supposed to study 2 times a week.

In my head, I calculated that the cost of training would cost me almost a full monthly salary of a paramedic. I would also have to add the cost of textbooks. And there was a chance that I would not get in. What if I turned out to be incapable of foreign languages? After all, this was instilled in me for all 10 years at school! I don’t even really know the English alphabet!

I agreed. Mom approved of my consent. She was tired of my shifts, my whining, my incessant eczema, the constant arrogance of our relatives, who at every opportunity emphasized that:

— All of Grandma Alenka’s granddaughters have higher education. Except Tanya. Only Tanya was unable to get it. What a pity!

Mom agreed to drag out a beggarly existence for all 7 years. That’s how long I had to study. 1 year of preparation and 6 years of study, if I got in.

My mother and I were in such a desperate and hopeless situation that we rushed headlong to enroll in the Foreign Languages Department. After all, if we don’t decide now, we will spend the rest of our lives kicking ourselves that we missed our only chance to escape to another life. Who knows? Maybe we will somehow be able to cope with the high cost of education? Maybe help will come from somewhere?

Six months later, I became a full-time and part-time student of the Foreign Languages Department. Despite my fears of being the oldest among my classmates and enduring ridicule for my «stupid» desire to study at such a «sorrowful» age, I was not the oldest student in the group.

A girl 2 years older than me entered the same school with me. She was an elementary school teacher and, like me, dreamed of changing her profession to a more interesting and promising one. She was married and had a son. Her mother-in-law categorically did not approve of her desire to study. She contemptuously called her future honors diploma «a certificate». Another of our classmates was 5 years older than me. She lived in Moscow and worked as an English teacher at a school. The school administration required her to get a diploma from a state university. Because all she had under her belt was a construction technical school and the Mary Poppins English courses. In those years, there was such a shortage of English teachers in Moscow schools that anyone could become one. All you had to do was get a «crust». The cost of studying at our university was much cheaper than in Moscow. Natasha eventually got her «crust». When I looked at my classmates, among whom were those who were older than me and those who were 11—8 years younger than me, I thought:

— What a fool I was to be afraid of my classmates’ ridicule! Why did I wind myself up with some imaginary fears to the point of stomach cramps? I wish I hadn’t been afraid and had applied earlier!

It’s good that I decided to enroll that year. It was the last year for students to be admitted to the full-time and part-time English department with a school certificate. From the following year, it was only possible to enroll in the English department through a special recruitment. That is, only with a diploma from a pedagogical college in the specialty: English teacher.

I jumped on the last train. If I had held out for another year, the road to my dream would have been closed to me forever. I would not have been able to afford the cost of studying in another city financially. The window of opportunity was open for only a couple of years and the following year it slammed shut forever…

My faithful competitor and inseparable friend Larisa also ended up with me. We were the same age. She also worked at the coke plant. A worker. Larisa studied German at school and even gave a bribe to enroll. Which she openly told us all. Larisa had the self-confidence of an armored personnel carrier, in her abilities, in her better future, in her upcoming successes in the field of the English language that she had not yet studied. She emanated such a love of life and vitality that I also believed in our better life. Despite the fact that upon graduation we will both be 32 years old.

As my mother encouraged me:

— Life does not end at 32! There are still 23 years of work before retirement!

When I entered the Institute of Foreign Languages, my happiness knew no bounds. The problem with money began to resolve itself.

It turned out that when receiving the first paid higher education, a tax deduction is due for each year of study. The total amount of deductions received for all 6 years of study allowed me to study for a whole year for free. In addition, I learned that after 8 years of working as a paramedic at the enterprise, I can get the first, and then the highest category, by passing professional exams at the City Health Department. The category I received added enough money to my salary to pay for annual tuition. My highest category now paid for my annual tuition at the university.

In the third year of study, I had students. Parents of schoolchildren constantly hired students from the English department to improve their children’s academic performance in English. Without English, modern education is not considered complete.

My mother and I were shocked that, studying in a fee-paying department at a university, I was now earning much more than before I entered the Foreign Languages Department! How we would have regretted it if we had not decided to sacrifice comfort for higher education. It turned out that we had not sacrificed anything, lost nothing, but on the contrary, gained! And if we had chickened out, we would have remained vegetating in harsh poverty. In addition, my sister’s husband needed a part-time employee for the archive. In two organizations. I was the most suitable candidate, since I worked in shifts and was one of them. This job was temporary, for several years. Which was just enough for me until the end of my studies.

Some miracles just started happening after I entered the coveted Institute of Foreign Languages!

But, these were not all the miracles. All the most interesting things were waiting for me ahead.

I had a feeling that I had irreversibly risen to a higher level. And so it turned out later.

My second cousin, seeing my face glowing with happiness at the health center after enrolling in a university, asked:

— What are you all glowing about? Are you married or something?

— No! I still have time to get married. I entered the Institute of Foreign Languages!

— How long do you have to study?

— 6 years.

— You still have to finish university. Are you going to school?

— Why? You can also become a translator.

— Don’t make me laugh! Is it possible to learn English in correspondence courses so that you can work as a translator? Yes, and translators are only hired through connections. I thought I could congratulate you, but you still have 6 years to go as a student. What are you thinking about?

One of my colleagues, a paramedic, was so outraged by my admission to the Institute of Foreign Languages that she could not hold back her emotions. Without being embarrassed by my presence, she was telling someone off on the phone:

— What a good and sought-after profession we have — a paramedic. We can work in hospitals, and in clinics, and in ambulances, and in a factory! And these teachers, and psychologists? Who needs them? They just mess around for money. They have no brains on their shoulders!

Another colleague of mine said to me:

— Well, how do you learn English in your correspondence course? I was told that in correspondence courses they only write tests. Do you write? Is it possible to learn English through writing? You have to talk, and you have no one to talk to. You can’t learn the language that way.

How could my fellow paramedics and my second cousin, who worked as a tractor driver at the factory, know how we were taught English at the foreign language institute?

Firstly, the training was not by correspondence with writing mythical tests, but in person and by correspondence.

Full-time and part-time education meant full-time education in sessions twice a year.

The winter session lasted 10 days, when our brains exploded from the need to pass tests and exams in the morning, and in the afternoon to discuss in English four pairs in a row (the duration of one pair is 1 hour 20 minutes) topics prepared at home, strictly according to the program.

In English pairs, we covered topics on jurisprudence, ecology, politics, music, journalism, political news, culture, literature, history of England, the USA, etc.

The teachers kept a close eye on our vocabulary. In the topic on ecology, it was impossible to use words from the topic on jurisprudence. Legal and environmental terminology differ from each other and do not replace each other.

In addition, the teachers did not approve of the primitive presentation of the topic. They required the use of stylistic devices, rich, not hackneyed vocabulary. Anyone can retell in simple words, but speaking beautiful classical English requires learning.

High-level English opens the doors of the most prestigious companies. Primitive English is a sign of nobodies origin and with it you will not be accepted into decent society. Many books have been written about this. And I have been convinced of this more than once from personal experience. Just as clear, correct Russian speech opens more doors than illiterate speech teeming with parasitic words.

The ability to speak in the correct, beautiful language is a guaranteed pass to a better life. Tongue-tied, illiterate speech is not accepted in any decent society, in any country. Be it England, the USA, Russia, Italy or any other country in the world. I do not know of any exceptions to this rule. It is worldwide.

Once, I did not have enough time to prepare a retelling in my characteristic authorial, pompous style. The teacher listened to my report, winced and said with displeasure:

— The level of a 7th-grade student of a secondary school. Tatyana, what’s wrong with you? You can do better. What kind of primitive presentation is this? I didn’t expect that from you.

She gave me a 4. And I had a feeling that I was lowered below the baseboard and given a 2 minus. Since then, I have prepared much more thoroughly. Even then, I was going to get a red diploma and was afraid of missing it. Getting a red diploma for me was a matter of principle. Not only is it a part-time department, but also a blue diploma, like everyone else? A red diploma, even from a part-time department, will say much more about my ambition and perseverance than a blue one. The ineradicable inferiority complex of a part-time student was my main motivator in gaining knowledge. I was ready to bend over backwards to absorb as much as possible.

During the sessions, we had a very busy student life. During the summer session, our brains boiled 4 times longer — 40 days. By the end of the winter and summer sessions, we were feeling sluggish like squeezed lemons. After exams, to reboot our brains, we had fun at clubs, discos, and cafes. The English language was so ingrained in our brains that by the end of the sessions, we weren’t just speaking it fluently, we were thinking in it!

In addition, at the end of each session, we had to take a dictation, write a report, or write an essay in English. Only those who didn’t make a single spelling or grammar mistake got A’s. We knew the complicated spelling of English words by heart.

In addition to English classes, where we honed our pronunciation, speed, smoothness, beauty of oral and written speech, we studied lexicology, stylistics, theoretical grammar, theoretical phonetics, linguistic and regional studies and other subjects. Only in English. We took notes in English of lectures that teachers read to us exclusively in English. And then we took exams in English using the written notes. Preparation using textbooks was not recognized by teachers.

We took Russian-language subjects, such as foreign literature, history of language, linguistics, psychology, pedagogy, methods of teaching language and others in Russian as a joke.

Now I can say for sure that I could have worked as an interpreter already in my second year of university.

But my second cousin, my colleagues, and most of my numerous relatives did not approve of my studies at the Foreign Languages Institute. They were 150% sure that I was throwing money away, I didn’t know the language and would never be able to use my diploma.

The university provided us with such a knowledge base that our heads were spinning from it and we wanted to use it immediately to conquer the world. Larisa and I had no doubt that the world would be at our feet with such knowledge. And we didn’t give a damn about the opinions of people far removed from the institute of foreign languages.

The era of globalization and the World Wide Web was already coming into its own. The world was changing before our eyes. Borders were erased, communication with residents of distant countries became available to anyone with the Internet. Countries, peoples, cultures came closer to each other at the distance of a switched-on computer. The world lay in the palm of your hand.

English became the key that opened the door to any country, to any culture. Those who spoke English knew no boundaries, could make acquaintances all over the world, make friends with any foreigner, discover any knowledge.

I definitely rode the most powerful wave. Which carried me where I wanted, where my soul was striving. The whole world opened up to me and all I had to do was make and fulfill my wishes. I was limited only by my imagination. No skeptics, colleagues, relatives could have predicted the onset of this fantastic reality. Even science fiction writers couldn’t!

In their wildest dreams, no one could have imagined the opportunities that were already on the threshold. I realized my dream just in time. I know that for sure.

Larisa and I were obsessed with learning. We competed with each other and greedily grabbed all the information that our teachers generously shared with us. We had a common love for the beauty of language. Reading a novel or poem, we would write out the phrases that impressed us and share them with each other. We admired them like precious stones.

— Listen to how Oscar Wilde wrote. — I shared with Larisa the masterpiece phrases of the English writer.

— Look how powerfully it is said in the English folk epic Beowulf! But compared to the Elder Edda, this is a banal newspaper style!

(The Elder Edda is a collection of ancient Icelandic songs about the gods and heroes of Scandinavian mythology and history. Author’s note).

Larisa was a treasure trove of juicy expressions. For example, her signature phrase: «The people applauded standing up!» was pronounced when she wanted to emphasize the impression she made on a group of people.

When Larisa wanted to emphasize the insignificant, in her opinion, mental abilities of someone, she declared with the hopeless look of a professor wise with life experience:

— She is so stupid that…

Then followed the degree of stupidity on Larisa’s scale:

1 degree — She is so stupid that she does not know the meaning of the word «metaphor»!

2nd degree — She is so stupid that she has never tasted anything sweeter than a carrot!

3rd degree — hopeless stupidity — He/she is so stupid that they throw a pitchfork at the computer!

In terms of intellect and mental abilities, Larisa surpassed her fellow workers in the shop. Instead of behaving modestly and not flaunting her successes at the university, Larisa advertised them. Or rather, she reported to every listener at every convenient opportunity.

Larisa’s colleagues, «who have never tasted anything sweeter than a carrot» were sentenced to listen to the literary differences between English, Old Icelandic epics and the peculiarities of English pronunciation.

When Larisa declared that she was too smart to marry a representative of the proletarian environment, her colleagues gnashed their teeth. They considered her bragging to be an attempt to inflate her price. Moreover, despite her statements, Larisa periodically met for sexual pleasures with one of the married workers from her workshop. But we must give her credit. Larisa absorbed knowledge like a vacuum cleaner and was a virtuoso and witty storyteller. Studying with such a friend was a real pleasure and I was very lucky to have her.

After graduating from university, she was not afraid to start a career as a translator. Larisa left her workshop forever, changed her profession to the one she aspired to, found a husband among the management of the enterprise where she began her career as a translator, gave birth to two sons and settled in life the way she dreamed of. She always believed in her lucky star and achieved everything she wanted. Larisa is great! Teachers were often surprised:

— Who motivated you so much? — They were amazed at our success in school.

The plant. We were motivated by the plant and the life we were familiar with thanks to it. We did not want to stay with a crust at the plant until a bloody veil appeared before our eyes. We strove to learn the language so that no one would dare to reproach us for having graduated from the full-time and part-time department. And there were those who wanted to.

Some teachers and full-time students predicted failure for us. Although we already spoke English fluently and discussed all possible topics, they tried to convince us that our English was not real. Our pronunciation was somehow different, although it was no different from the pronunciation of full-time students and teachers. They tried to label us as second-rate, counterfeit and cheap fake. Their assessment was biased. Because the same teachers taught us and the full-time students. The teachers’ requirements for the full-time students and for us were equally strict.

Someone just wanted to seem special and unattainable. In fact, my level of knowledge was even higher than that of some full-time students. The inferiority complex of full-time and part-time students is a powerful driving force! Full-time students, without embarrassment, flocked to our group from the full-time department. They liked the full-time and part-time form of study in the last years of the university the most.

After graduating from the university, most of the full-time students did not dare to go out into the world, so to speak. Some did not dare to go beyond comprehensive school. Some went to work in a field unrelated to foreign languages. Some got a second higher education related to economics. For the vast majority of full-time and part-time students, foreigners remained heroes of topics and fiction.

Only the most ambitious went abroad or found work related to regular communication with foreigners.

Proving to all the skeptics that I know English and can use it was a matter of honor and principle for me. To achieve this goal, I decided to do nothing more and nothing less than marry an Englishman! Let everyone know how wrong they are and how I have outdone them all!

Chapter 4.

Underlover 2.

He is also a subject of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain.

It was the distant year of 2003. I moved on to the third year. For me, this was the year of breaking the template and forming a new reflex arc in the brain.

Patrick. Dear Patrick. How are things with you in Foggy Albion? Are you alive? I hope that no coronavirus has touched you and you are alive, healthy, and happy.

Patrick Foley. But in fact Fulham. Patrick did not like his last name and therefore changed it to a more euphonious one. In his opinion. In fact, Patrick has Irish roots. But he lived in Cheshire. He has three older sisters and one younger, half-sister, born from Patrick’s stepfather. When his father left their mother with four children on her hands, Patrick’s mother did not lose heart, but found herself a man, married him and gave birth to another girl. That’s how mothers with many children solved their problems in Cheshire. A divorcee with four children arranged her personal life in a jiffy. Patrick said that he treated his stepfather like his own father. The man treated him well, and he barely remembered his own father, because he was little when he left them.

Patrick gave me an album with views of Cheshire. I still have it in my cupboard. I admire it and remember Patrick. How did I meet him? Through an ad in the newspaper. In 2003, dating sites already existed, but I heard from my cousin that it was better to meet through ads in the newspaper. As was customary in the pre-Internet era. So what? An effective way to meet. I experienced it myself.

They say that dating sites are full of men who are completely worthless. They sit there for years and can’t find a woman. In Russia, they can’t find a woman? Hmm. It’s like not finding snow in a snowstorm. Are they really men? Or is it just a name that’s left of them?

At that time, marrying a foreigner and moving abroad was a common trend among girls who spoke foreign languages. And not only that. It was poor in Russia. Everyone was trying to leave Russia. Well, how am I any worse? I’ve already completed two years of a foreign language course, after all!

Once I bought a newspaper «From Hand to Hand». It had a lot of ads from foreigners. I wrote to many of them, but with Patrick, not only correspondence began, but also phone conversations. Every Wednesday, Patrick called me at home from England itself! Strictly at 9 p.m. We talked for several hours. We had a lot to talk about. On any topic. As a virgin, I imagined that Patrick looked like Colin Firth. Unfortunately, there were no high-speed messengers back then. Photos were sent via email.

Since Patrick and I really liked each other as conversationalists, we decided to meet in Moscow. We agreed to meet in the summer. Patrick was busy with the visa, and I bragged to my friends and classmates about the upcoming meeting with the Englishman himself!

Patrick sent me parcels from England from time to time. Candies and chocolates from the Cadbury brand. And real letters with a royal stamp! The stamp featured Queen Elizabeth II of England. The envelopes smelled of the attractive aroma of men’s perfume. Perhaps Patrick was getting me used to him this way.

I was delighted as I opened the envelope, unfolded the lined paper and tried to decipher Patrick’s ornate handwriting. Real letters from a subject of Her Majesty! This is fucking amazing! Life is getting better!

And then Patrick expressed a desire to meet in Moscow. Just think about it! Her Majesty’s own subject is going to Moscow to propose to me! My happiness knew no bounds…

When I saw Patrick’s photo, I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was bald, with big brown eyes. Thin and angular. He was wearing a black suit. Probably for the sake of respectability. Oh yeah, he worked as an accountant. At least that’s what he told me. An accountant at Shell with an annual income of 20,000 British pounds sterling. He had his own house in good repair.

And he called me poor. He called me right. And that’s what I was. He wanted to marry me and was going to Moscow to see me. I was 28 years old.

My classmate Larisa had a computer and the Internet at home. She worked as a worker at a factory, lived with her parents and had a little more money than me. She loved to brag. When she had nothing to brag about, she was not shy about inventing reasons to brag. For example, that her dad was a shop foreman. Although, her dad is an ordinary carpenter who did repairs at our medical center. Larisa could also lie that all her windows were plastic.

At that time, not everyone could afford plastic windows. Only wealthy people could replace wooden Soviet windows with plastic ones. Later, I replaced the wooden windows with plastic ones in my apartment with my mother. But I did not feel any superiority over Larisa from this. By the way, she could not replace the windows. She did not earn enough money. What is the point of fussing over some windows, when some people had mansions, houses, luxurious repairs, and I only had plastic windows? I did not consider them an achievement.

So, Larisa downloaded Patrick’s photo from my mailbox and showed it to all our classmates and her relatives behind my back. Gloating. She did not ask my permission. And the very fact of Patrick’s viewing hid from me. I learned that they had been making fun of Patrick and me behind my back a year after meeting Patrick.

Larisa could joke, looking me in the eye:

— How tired I am of poverty! You’d marry Quasimodo, just so you don’t have to live in poverty!

Consider me a fool, but I couldn’t believe that Larisa had me in mind. I would never reproach her for poverty or her intended marriage. And even more so, I wouldn’t mock her fiancé from England behind her back.

I perceived Larisa’s barbs as burning envy of my success with my English fiancé. Not every girl manages to entice him like that…

And finally, the epic evening of our meeting with Patrick at Sheremetyevo Airport arrived. I arrived in Moscow early. To my other classmate. She is from the Donetsk region. She studied in our city, but worked in Moscow. At the market. As a seller of leather jackets and sheepskin coats. She lived with an Azerbaijani. He and his friend rented a two-room apartment. I stayed with them for one night.

Vita’s cohabitant treated me well. I behaved quietly, politely and unobtrusively. Vita later told me that he was very judgmental of me.

— I couldn’t find a Russian for myself! — the Azerbaijani was angry. He had a legal wife and a child, but he lived with Vita. He owned a point at the Cherkizovsky market and felt like the master of his life.

Mentally, I felt bitterness from his accusation. Was it my fault that Russian boys preferred a bottle and a syringe to creating families with their compatriots? There were also gang showdowns, mass suicides and other mechanisms for regulating the population in the 90s. Well, they did not prepare our classmates for such tough competition and struggle for survival!

Our class teacher, for example, really liked to let the boys go home with OPT. OPT is socially useful work. It consisted of cleaning the school grounds and nearby streets. In the fall, we were given rakes and we collected dry leaves with them. In the winter, we were given snow shovels made from the handle and seat of a school chair. We cleared the snow with these heavy and uncomfortable shovels. And what about the boys? They were let home. Almost always. I don’t know why this was done. The class teacher said:

— Girls — shovel snow, and boys go home!

We were seething with anger, humiliation and impotence. The boys grinned maliciously and did not go home, but followed us to shovel snow, to throw snowballs at us, to mock and laugh. Not all of them, of course. But the most impudent ones. Those who especially mocked our socially useful work became alcoholics in the 90s and died first.

Our class teacher could have patented a method for introducing gender hatred and raising weaklings who grab for a bottle at the first difficulty. She could have a monument erected in Dulles’ name for her contribution to the decline in the population of Russia. And yet she considered herself a convinced communist. A communist who would have been awarded an order by Hitler himself. Or Goebbels. Or Himmler. For raising gender hatred between potential grooms and brides. For raising weak-willed boys who break at the first difficulty. From the point of view of those who hate Russia, Ada Arkadyevna is a good girl!

In fairness, it must be said that by the 9th grade, the girls and boys realized that our class teacher was pitting girls and boys against each other. In revenge for all her antics, we gave her the nickname Kadushka. A derivative of her name Adushka. Our class teacher was very similar to Kadushka in her build (Kadushka in Russian means «barrel»). Strongly built, round, without a waist and terribly totalitarian.

Oh, and she had a hard time for 2 years before retirement… What we didn’t do. We disrupted lessons. We threw a broom into the classroom in the middle of lessons, hid the class register, mocked, were cheeky and hooligan… It’s scary to remember. Because it was not a good idea to mock us when we were defenseless and vulnerable. Teenagers are a terrible, uncontrollable, destructive force. Especially when they are obsessed with revenge for justice.

Although, an honored teacher could have known about this psychological feature instead of taking revenge on girls for their youth and beauty. Kadushka deserved it. Oh, she deserved it…

So what about Patrick? I booked a hotel in Moscow with breakfast for Patrick and me. The breakfast was royal. Three days of the hotel cost my monthly salary, which I, without thinking, exchanged for dollars at the exchange office and paid for the hotel. I was going to lose my virginity. And I was going to do it not with just any guy, but with the Englishman himself! I was not going to skimp on the conditions for this process. Especially since Patrick promised to return the money to me. For him, it was mere pennies.

Before meeting Patrick, I was very nervous. So much so that my insides were cramping. Back at home, I had sewn myself some seductive lace underwear. Three sets. And a silk robe. I wasn’t going to lose my virginity in a Chinese T-shirt!

Patrick suddenly appeared at the entrance to the waiting room with a huge smile on his lips, because he recognized me. I also recognized him right away and was speechless. Apart from hello, I couldn’t squeeze anything out of myself. I was in shock. Even knocked out.

Patrick was even uglier than in the photo. I smiled at him with all my might and understood that I would not be able to go to bed with him or even kiss him. And he smelled very repulsive. It wasn’t the smell of unwashed skin or unwashed laundry. Patrick was a clean man. His male scent was so repulsive that I almost felt sick. I felt sad, but tried not to show it. Although I immediately remembered the words of my friend Vita:

— What will you do if you don’t like him?

It’s easy for her to say. Her Azerbaijani was officially married to her and was very attractive as a man. And the girl was a sexy blonde. It was easy for them to talk, being married and loved. And what was I supposed to do, who couldn’t find a man? And if I looked worse than this blonde…