Old stories about love (collection). Old stories about love Old stories about love

Other people's entrances

Ilya had a house where everyone loved each other very much, but no one respected anyone.

This has been the case since time immemorial. The family had large and noisy personalities, and the apartment was a bit cramped - two rooms and a kitchenette, so it was difficult to turn around and not step on someone’s pride.

A long time ago, one such nature could not stand it, it seemed to her that the others were taking up more space than they should have, and since then Ilya’s mother received transfers by mail every month. Even now, when Ilya himself is already over thirty or, as his mother sometimes says in his hearts, nearing forty, no, no, the translation spine flashed in the mailbox.

“You big guy,” Ilya’s mother said then, “look, unshaven child, the old devil has sent you alimony again.”

“Eh, Semyon, Semyon...” the woman sighed then. My mother hasn’t sighed about this for fifteen years. Another object had long since arrived for her to sigh—Ilya.

Ilya, his mother believed, turned out to be unlucky. He did not live up to what he had to justify, and did not achieve what he should have achieved, judging by the essays he wrote in the tenth grade. My mother treasured her writings and resorted to them in critical situations when Ilya needed to be “finished.” It was not easy to pester him, but sometimes it was possible, and a thin stack of essays would scatter across the room, like a flock of birds that had descended from heaven onto a swamp.

Throwing away his notebooks, Ilya slammed the door and disappeared for three days. For half an hour, the apartment was filled with sorrowful silence and the rustle of notebooks being picked up by the mother.

“He could become a man,” the mother said, looking past the saddened grandmother, “he has a wonderful sense of words, he has style, it’s very rare when a writer can boast of style, he had to work on himself, look, mom, how he wrote in the tenth grade: “In a black, oily pond, a swan with an exclamation neck swam leisurely...”

Babanya had little understanding of swans, but she completely trusted her daughter, who had spent thirty-five years at school.

Babanya loved Ilya with a blind, frantic love, and this frantic love did not allow her to understand why running the “About this and that” column in the “evening” was less prestigious than writing in a good style about swans.

The grandson was called a sonorous word “journalist”, was on first name terms with everyone and did not take anything into his head.

“You, woman, listen,” he confidentially advised her, “let everything get to your bra, but don’t let it go into your heart.” Understood?

The grandson was the core and meaning of her life, she unconditionally accepted his crappy blue pants called “jeans”, and the eternal chaos in his draughty life, and idiotic words, and midnight drunken appearances. Babana passionately wanted only one thing: for Ilya to be healthy and marry a good girl.

So that Ilya can finally forget Natasha...

The grandmother sacredly believed that he loved Natasha even ten years later, and nothing could shake her ineradicable faith in the noble and selfless heart of her grandson.

-Who does he love? - the mother asked mockingly and bitterly, and a cheap cigarette - an ineradicable military habit - walked from the right corner of her mouth to the left. – He doesn’t love anyone!

Mother was wrong. Ilya, of course, liked Natasha. One might even say that she suited him in every way: she was unobtrusive, easy-going, and intelligent. During the three years that they met, none of the friends were closer to Ilya, and no one wanted to tell as much about themselves as Natasha. Perhaps in another year or two, Ilya would have decided to marry her. But Natasha did not wait for this day and married some graduate student.

This happened just in the summer when Ilya went to a youth camp on the Black Sea. At first they thought about going together, but in the last week they quarreled, Natasha became gloomy, thought about it, and gave up her ticket. Ilya left alone.

A month later he burst in, sunny and freckled, with bleached hair and eyebrows. I called the whole city, washed myself in the bath and rushed off to Natasha in the evening...

The grandmother was waiting for her grandson in the kitchen. All day I tried to tell him about Natasha and couldn’t - I was a coward. Now she was sitting in the dark kitchen on a stool and shaking with fear and melancholy. She kept imagining that her grandson would either kill Natasha, or her husband, or jump out of the window himself. The daughter had long since gone to bed in the dining room, and the grandmother was still waiting, anxiously looking out the night window.

Finally they called. She jumped up from the stool, fussed about, wiped her dry hands on her apron and ran to open it. A very cheerful, drunk Ilya stood on the threshold.

- Hello, come in! – he warmly invited the grandmother onto the landing.

- Don't yell, mother is sleeping! – she shouted menacingly, although she got cold feet. She did not yet know how to behave with her drunken grandson.

“It’s blowing here...” Ilya remarked cordially and meekly, “let me go into the hallway, master...”

He hugged the woman and very seriously explained to her in a whistling whisper:

“You see, woman, you can’t argue against the immutable fact: after all, I’m a man, huh?” That's how it is!

“Well done,” the woman said reproachfully. - I got scared. “Then Ilya stood under the icy stinging shower for about twenty minutes, sobered up slightly, and he and his grandmother chatted for a long time in the kitchen, and the grandson talked about all sorts of wonderful things in the world. Here, they say, you live, woman, you cook borscht, you stand in queues, but they are hanging around somewhere nearby at their unidentified objects, looking out for something, scoundrels. And, by the way, it is not clear what they need from us. So, one fine day...

The grandmother was horrified, gasped, and her whole appearance said that she would be glad not to believe, but how could she not believe if Ilyusha was speaking. And suddenly, stopping mid-sentence, she somehow convulsively lifted the greasy apron from her thin knees by the handful and, dipping her face in it, quietly shook in a silent cry.

- Bah, what are you doing?! – Ilya asked dumbfounded.

- Oh, Ilyushenka... how did you miss Natasha?! What grief, grief!.. – For three years, the woman had become firmly attached to affectionate Natasha, and now the thought that Natasha would give birth to great-grandchildren not for her, but for a completely stranger, was unbearable. - Oh, Natasha-Natashenka, what have you done to us... oh, woe!..

- I found grief! – Ilya interrupted rudely and mockingly. “Well, come on, let’s cry, well, come on: uh-uh...” but suddenly something squeezed in his throat, a disgusting ache deep in his chest, he wanted to howl at the woman.

- Why do you feel sorry for him? – in the doorway of the kitchen, disheveled, gray-haired, in a short, knee-length nightgown, stood her mother. The slippers on her sinewy rooster feet looked in different directions. It was funny, and Ilya didn’t want to cry.

- Why do you feel sorry for him?! – the mother repeated furiously. She grabbed a pack of Prima from the refrigerator and frantically lit a cigarette.

- Damned tribe! They don’t believe in anything or anyone, they don’t even believe in themselves! When they finally fall in love, they rush to convince themselves that it only seems so. They are afraid of stress!

- Quiet, Valya, quiet! – the woman begged, blowing her nose into her apron.

- They are afraid of stress! – the mother repeated harshly, poking the cigarette in Ilya’s direction. “They want to live their lives without having anything to do with anything.” It's fashionable now. They are afraid to shoulder a family, they are afraid to give birth to children, they are afraid to put their lives on a serious, worthwhile task! Natasha is right, a hundred times right! Can you really rely on this scoundrel, Mom? Look, he's good for nothing except this! “She grabbed the “evening book” from a stack of old newspapers on the windowsill. - Here you go: “The enamel on my dishes has deteriorated. Where can I restore it and is it possible to salt vegetables in such a container?” They answer... here he answers, mom: “In a bowl with broken enamel...”

“That’s enough,” said Ilya.

“Quiet, Valya, quiet...” the woman repeated pleadingly.

- And if he was mediocrity... And how he wrote in the tenth grade! What an innate sense of words he has, what a musical phrase! I remember by heart: “We entered the entrance, shaking off raindrops. From above, from the attic, a smoky kitten was descending towards us, on whose steep back, like darning in a stocking, sat two tiny leaves..."

- All? – Ilya asked, getting up. - I went to bed.

- Do you know who? – the mother said quietly, looking into her son’s eyes. - You are a snail. You are a mammal.

“Well, just one thing, mother, don’t mix types,” he calmly asked and left the kitchen.

After this day, Ilya was thrown into a crazy whirlwind. The train of his heart's aspirations was rushing at wild speed in an unknown direction, and barely distinguishable female faces flashed through its windows: Irina, Angela, Veronica... And although Natasha's name was often remembered in the house, especially in the evenings, this whole story no longer had anything to do with Ilya the slightest relation and did not touch him at all, just as clouds floating somewhere in the incomprehensible heights do not touch the tops of trees.

* * *

On Saturdays, the woman washed clothes in an old washing machine “Ura...” Many years ago the machine was called “Ural” and regularly grinded the rag contents in its motorized womb. But the years passed, the car became decrepit along with the owner, interruptions began in her heart, and the letter “l” in the name was erased. Because the usual exclamation mark was missing at the end of the word, the car looked very tired, as it actually was.

Ilya exercised his wit on this occasion.

“This brave washing machine,” he said, “this warlike scrap... this jubilant junk...

The car was dying. Her decrepit body needed constant qualified help, and the woman agreed in advance with Ilya about the day of washing. The grandson had to be present and provide backup.

Today was Saturday, and although a strong agreement was reached with Ilya in the morning, the woman, as always, could not sit still. At two o'clock in the afternoon Valya came from school, had lunch, laid out her textbooks on the table, and sat down to write plans.

- I should call Ilyushka! – the grandmother shouted worriedly from the kitchen. “He’ll forget that we’re doing laundry today and run off somewhere.”

“We’ll manage without him...” muttered the daughter, neatly filling out the notebook in girlish handwriting.

The old woman looked out of the kitchen and saw the long gray bangs of her elderly daughter hanging over the table in front of her. The bangs swayed in time with the movement of the writing hand.

“Call me, Val...” the woman asked. “I’m afraid without Ilyusha... he’ll electrocute me.”

Valya, swearing, straightened her tired back and dialed the editorial office.

“Letters department...” they said on the phone in a child’s voice.

“Ilya Semenovich, please,” the mother said dryly.

Valya waited a long time for her son to answer the phone.

“Dear editors,” she said also dryly, “we bought rabbits, and they had husks in their ears.” Please advise in your column “About this and that”...

“Well, in short...” the son interrupted. - What's happened?

– Have you forgotten that Granny is waiting for you at six?

“Dear readers,” Ilya answered affably, “in order to prevent the rabbits’ ears from peeling, you need to refrain from calling the editor for at least one day, even if we are talking about such a sacred act as washing.”

He hung up. The mother quickly dialed the number.

“Grab half a loaf of rye,” she said.

* * *

...At the exit from the editorial office, Semyon Ilyich was sitting on a bench - tall, stooped, in a spacious gray cloak.

- Greetings, Semyon Ilyich! – Ilya came up and sat down next to him.

- Hello, son! - the father exclaimed, hugging Ilya with one arm, with the other he was holding some kind of package. - Well, how are you, how is it at home?

– Yes, still... Listen, you’re wearing some kind of chlamys again.

Invariably freshly shaved, with a neatly trimmed gray head, Semyon Ilyich still always looked unkempt, “untidy.” Perhaps this was explained by the fact that he bought himself too wide shirts, trousers, jumpers - he liked to feel free in clothes, the habits of an old geologist affected him.

“Where is the cloak?” asked the father, looking around himself. – Oh, I bought this at GUM, it’s imported, Polish. Do you think it should be narrowed down? Well, I'll sew it on a typewriter. Ilyusha, here’s the thing, I wanted to make an agreement with you... The local committee promised me a ticket for Valya in May. To Evpatoria. They promise firmly. Our ministry has a wonderful sanatorium there - baths, diet food, chickpeas, you know...

– It is necessary for her liver to undergo treatment once a year. So you tell her that you took it from your editorial office, just like it was with Kislovodsk those times...

- OK then…

- Just don’t let it slip, look!

- And start in advance... Come today and casually... at dinner, they say, they promise... Is there?

- That’s great. What's new at work? Has Katashev quit yet?

Ilya grinned cheerfully and with a snap knocked a dry earring from the tree that had fallen on his father’s shoulder.

- I was always amazed at your memory, you remember all my nonsense...

-Are you crazy? - the father objected. - Why are your affairs nonsense? I only have one son. How can one not remember his deeds?.. Oh! – his face suddenly became haggard, he was dumbfounded and looked at Ilya in fear.

- What's happened?

- Oh, she won’t go in May! – Semyon Ilyich exclaimed upset. - Ugh, old fool, I completely forgot - she’s in tenth grade, graduation, exams in May! What a place Evpatoria is! What an old fool, but...

- Well, don't be upset.

- Ask for June? They are unlikely to give it for June. Then for August... Eh?

“Well, of course...” Ilya nodded at the package, “what do you have?”

“Yes,” the father began to fuss. – Ilyusha, a colleague bought it for her son, it turned out to be too big. I took it for you and I don’t know: by the way, inopportunely?

“Well, let me...” Ilya spread the dark gray turtleneck on his knees and felt the material.

- Well, you hammer, Semyon Ilyich, turtleneck shine!

- You like it, right? – the father was delighted. - Have a good time, Ilyusha.

“Okay,” said Ilya, getting up. - Excuse me, granny is doing laundry today, such a great day...

- Of course, of course! - exclaimed the father. - Why didn’t you say it right away? People are worried at home, go!

Having protected his eyes from the sun, Semyon Ilyich squinted and looked at Ilya. He turned out to be a handsome son, no one will say - the sun plays in his chestnut forelock, his eyes are gray and mocking.

Before turning the corner, Ilya turned around and saluted his father with a bundle.

“Goodbye, goodbye, be healthy,” Semyon Ilyich muttered to himself.

Ilya opened the door with his key, put half a loaf of rye on the bedside table, and listened. The mother’s voice was heard from the kitchen - professionally intelligible, with a teacher’s intonation.

- And if there are eighteen dunces in the class, then in history there will be eighteen twos, I say... You are the head teacher! Are you afraid of your parents? - I say. Bring eighteen parents to me, I will explain to them what History is!

Ilya silently put on his slippers.

“I’m a teacher of the old school,” I say, “and you can’t bring me to my knees in front of the report!” I don't care about your ninety-eight point seven percent.

Without turning on the light, Ilya groped behind the door and found the old treasured purse in which the grandmother kept apples, felt for one, wiped it on his shirt sleeve and took a bite.

“You know, mom,” the mother continued in the kitchen, quieter and more thoughtful. “I’ve probably aged a lot, something happened to me.” Again, as in childhood, I began to give to the poor. Yesterday I was walking through the market...

- We have no beggars!

Mother and grandmother turned around as if on command. Leaning against the doorframe, Ilya juicily chewed an apple, cheerful and pleasantly disposed towards everyone.

“We have no beggars,” he repeated, winking at the woman, “only parasites and drunks remain.”

“You’re a fool, Ilya,” the mother said tiredly.

– But what essays I wrote in the tenth grade! – he walked around the kitchen, gnawing an apple with pleasure. The grandmother began to fuss, put a pot of borscht on the fire and got ready to feed her grandson.

“Don Quixote, smelly, smoky,” said Ilya soulfully, sitting down opposite his mother, “eighteen dummies will have not eighteen, but thirty-six parents, and you won’t explain to all of them what this Is-to-ria of yours is!” By the way, who needs your story? By the time these Gavriks finish school, it will change three times.

- Who will change? - the mother screamed. – What are you talking about, greyhound writer?! When did History change?

“Whenever…” the son answered affectionately and friendly. - Okay, mom, no need to beat with your hooves.

“What an oak you are, Ilya,” exclaimed the mother.

- Valya! – the grandmother threw up her hands in indignation. - Well, roosters!

- Nothing, grandma, my dear, oak is a valuable type of wood! - Ilya lazily got up, went into the hallway and returned with a bundle.

- I brought you three greetings. Do you hear, mother? From your husband, my father and grandma's brother-in-law.

-What does he look like? - Grandma got worried. - Thin?

- As usual. – Ilya unwrapped the package. - Here, I brought it.

- Ay, Semyon, Semyon! – the woman began to smile and shed tears of pleasure. – Nice sweater, dear, eh? Put it on, Ilyusha, is it too small?

The mother lit a cigarette, for some reason put a box of matches into her robe pocket and left the kitchen.

“He’s spoiling me,” she said loudly in the room, as if to herself.

The grandmother was stomping around her hefty grandson, stroking the new thing he was wearing, beautiful, expensive, his father gave him:

- It rang out, rang out...

“It rang out...” the mother said in the room, “it will soon knock out the bottom and come out.”

- Well, I said, women, it’s fine!

– Did he make the bridges for himself? Was going...

- Baban, you know, I haven’t looked into anyone’s mouth since I was fifteen years old.

“It’s in vain,” the mother added sarcastically, “maybe someone would gain some sense.”

Ilya walked up to her and hugged her straight, thin shoulders.

“Mother,” he said tenderly, “let’s finally be friends.” Wave something at me, let everything come to...

“Before the bra, I know...” the mother interrupted and sighed: “It’s amazing how we raised such a pig.”

The two of us did the laundry silently and quickly. Ilya wrung out the laundry—the machine had not had a spinner for seven years—and hung it on the balcony.

“Today, you see, everything will go without incident,” the woman inadvertently said and cast the evil eye. About five minutes later the roar stopped, the chirping of a small alarm clock in the dining room could be heard, and the voices of the neighboring boys burst out in the stairwell.

- Shut up, damn it! – the woman waved her wet, soapy hand in her hearts. - Come on, Ilyusha!

Ilya wiped his hands with his mother’s still unwashed skirt and climbed into the engine.

“When this is over,” he muttered, “it’s time for this old idiot to go to the dump... Even if a person goes out of his mind in old age...

- Why did you nod in my direction? – the old woman became wary.

- “Hurray”... She will start saluting soon. She should go to the parade...

- Don't talk! – the mother responded from the room. Ilya grinned, winked at the grandmother and continued louder:

– Besides everything, there is something seditious in the car. What is "hurray" without an exclamation point? This is a biting irony.

The grandmother angrily pinched her grandson’s hand, saying, don’t get started, don’t get involved. My mother appeared at the bathroom door.

“By the way,” she said calmly, “what is this new rubbish on your cluttered horizon?” In the editorial office. With a squeaky voice.

Ilya slowly squeezed out his grandmother’s jacket and said with a Georgian accent:

- Why do you offend a person, dear? This is an intern, a student, Lenochka. An innocent child... And you’re like, wow! - you speak words!

“Well, I made it,” the mother said bitterly. “And the innocent child is on first name terms with you.”

– Valya, what’s on TV? – the grandmother hastily became interested.

“Okay, mother, I’ll puff out my cheeks.” – Ilya peacefully shook off the ashes from the sleeve of his mother’s robe. – As the father of Russian democracy...

* * *

In the evening Egor called. Ilya lay on the ottoman and watched “The Obvious - the Incredible” on TV. Yegor, Ilya’s university friend, had recently been appointed head of the culture department at a large republican newspaper, and he persistently persuaded his friend to join him.

“Ilya,” Yegor panted (he had recently started the phone), “well, how is she?”

- Oh, I'm pretty tired of this woman.

-What woman? – the woman asked from the kitchen.

“Life, granny, life...” responded the grandson. - Throw an apple.

- What's new?

– I can advise you on what to do so that the bread does not go stale.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Yegor perked up. – Listen, Eremeev left us. Will you take his place? We have some good guys, such cases can be closed.

– You’re still on fire... well done, Goshka! And I’ve only been telling jokes for five years now.

- I see you feel comfortable salting vegetables.

– Yes, I like to tin and solder pots. I bring direct benefit to housewives.

- You are impenetrable! For the last time: will you go instead of Eremeev?

- No, Goshka.

- Why?! How much do you end up with on your pickles?

– You’re an eccentric... What do you have to do with it? You don’t have anything to do with it. I have enough. And then, how much will you put in? Ten more? Do you know that stomach ulcers, by the way, are caused by nervousness?

- You'll get started! - muttered the mother, without raising her head from her notebook.

– Play, boys, serious journalism. I'm not bothering you.

- What a deal!

– I still wanted something for you... Yes! Listen, do you know who I met?

- Guess!

– You won’t believe it – Natasha!

-Which Natasha?

- Hello! – Yegor exclaimed in his hearts. – You’re in your repertoire.

“Oh, well, well...” Ilya chuckled.

– Did you see that the high-rise building on the corner of Kirovskaya and Novomoskovskaya was built for scientists? It was handed in ahead of schedule, we were doing material about the brigade. So, Natasha got an apartment there. They collided at the entrance.

– Is the planning successful?

“You should at least ask how she is!”

- Well, how is she?

- Ilka, I was stunned! The Tale of Scheherazade. Eyes, legs, waist - the devil knows what it is! Magical transformation! Wait, I'll take a cigarette, this damn thing keeps going out.

Ilya put the telephone receiver on his chest, yawned and stretched his legs. The grandmother came out of the kitchen, covered her grandson with a blanket, and placed two apples next to him. Ilya caught her plump, wrinkled hand with its fingers stained with beets from cooking borscht and kissed it.

- Baban, do you love me? – he asked in a lonely whisper. – Is it true that you care about me, grandma?

The grandmother was moved and kissed her grandson on the head. - Bah, is it true that I am a prominent man?

- You either talk or hang up! - the mother shouted. She had already written plans for Monday and was now sitting in a chair, reading newspapers and writing down the main events - after classes she was conducting political information at her tenth graduation.

“Hello,” Ilya chewed an apple, “the obvious and the incredible: waist, legs, chest—what’s next?”

- Ugh! - said the mother.

- Yes? You should have seen her yourself,” Yegor responded. - Married, two boys, it seems, but the main thing is that she defended her dissertation in statistics, a leading specialist at some institute, she said which one, I immediately forgot.

“Baba hammer...” Ilya praised. “This vein has always been beating in her - to aim for the end of the railway track.

– But she’s gotten better – fantastic!

– Don’t choke, Egor! – Ilya chuckled. - What, Ira is at her mother-in-law’s?

“Snake, if I had known that you were so indifferent, I would have taken her away from you ten years ago.” I liked her, you know?

- Well, you have always been strong in hindsight. In fact, I would drop by sometime.

“Call, call,” the woman prompted quietly. - I’ll bake Napoleon...

“Here, the woman promises to make a commander for you,” said Ilya. - Come. With Ira, with the boys, Well, be it...

He hung up the phone, slowly, without taking his eyes off the screen, took a second apple and took a bite.

- What is Gosha saying? - asked the mother. Ilya paused, chewing a piece.

“Matveyka’s teeth are cutting through,” he finally said.

* * *

Lyalya was scheduled for Sunday. And an empty apartment. Or rather, Lyalya is in an empty apartment that belonged to a friend of Yegor’s wife’s cousin. A friend from time to time went on long business trips, the guy was single, friendly and relaxed, and asked only that they not leave behind dirty dishes, empty bottles and an open bed.

“I’ll come late,” Ilya said into the space between his mother and grandmother. – Maybe at night... Or maybe in the morning. Don’t call the morgue, don’t hit with your hooves, don’t laugh in a loud voice.

-Where will you eat? – the old woman got excited.

“Listen, marry her already,” said the mother, “I’m tired of it!”

- On whom, Mutchen?

- On this Jeanne.

- Come to your senses, mother! Which Zhanna? – the son was sincerely amused. – Zhanna ended last quarter. Don’t fuss, let everything go...

“Get out,” the mother said quietly and went into the kitchen, slamming the door.

Ilya dashed the brush over his shoes, straightened up, kicked the slippers with his foot and, blowing his grandmother a kiss, left. The grandmother sighed, groaning, dropped to her knees, fumbled under the bedside table for her beloved grandson’s left slipper and carefully put it in place.

Entering the kitchen, she was taken aback: looking out the window, with her back to her, in the pose of a lonely traveler, hiding from the rain under a tree, Valya stood. Hugging herself with both arms, shuddering as if from the cold, Valya cried. And below, outside the window, with a light dancing gait, in a suede jacket and a gifted gray turtleneck, her damned son was walking around the yard.

* * *

...On the way, Ilya decided to stop at the grocery store and get something light and dry. It so happened in recent years that this was a necessary prelude to everything else. Mentally, he called it “loose up,” and that’s how he got along with himself one day. He had accumulated a lot of mental brief definitions of the motives for many of his actions. It was easier that way.

He stood under the canopy of a vegetable kiosk and wondered which grocery store was closer to him: the one near the Old Market, or the big, new one, on the corner of Kirovskaya and...

“I got an apartment...” he suddenly thought. - Researcher. The house is entirely for leading specialists. Well, let’s see what kind of house this is... Yes, it’s along the way, near the supermarket,” he said casually to himself. - On the thirteenth trolleybus, without transfer..."

* * *

...The house turned out to be a typical sixteen-story tower, the balconies were painted wild pink. It had not yet been completely inhabited, and it looked uninhabited and bare. It was dripping. Ilya stood on the sidewalk and tried to determine which windows could be the windows of Natasha’s apartment. “Didn’t ask Yegor what floor?..” he thought unexpectedly and immediately stopped himself: “Why do you need it?” Sports news - Natalya was needed after seventy years...” He suddenly wanted the curtains on the windows of Natasha’s apartment to also be some kind of wild pink, vulgar, and for everyone to notice it. And then he grinned and, calling himself a strong word, turned towards the large new supermarket, next to the house.

He entered the store, looking for Natasha, and was not even surprised when he saw her in line. Now it was clear to him that he had come here on purpose, in the hope of seeing her. He stood leaning against some display window and looked at Natasha as far as the figures scurrying before his eyes allowed.

"So what? - he thought, - nothing special. Absolutely nothing. Baba is like a woman. Come over, or what? Why not? Oh, are you a scientific lady? Ahah!"

After about five minutes, he finally forced himself to approach her and, looking over her shoulder, asked mockingly, imitating simple women:

- Woman, what are they giving, huh?

The woman turned around. They looked at each other in silence for several seconds, and finally, as it seemed to him, Ilya said at ease:

- Hello…

“Hello, Ilyusha,” she answered simply and calmly. Ilya looked at her without looking away, looked against his will, and wanted not to look, but everything looked. Yes, now up close it was clear that Natasha had changed beyond recognition, something had happened: the girl’s simple face in her youth was completely transformed. The significance of the open forehead, high eyebrows, intent brown eyes and the amazing combination of authority and suffering in the expression of the lips and chin did not allow the gaze to tear itself away from her face. It was an icon, the kind that can still be found in northern Russian villages.

- How's life? – he asked with a convulsive smile, nothing else came to mind.

“Little by little,” she said. - Do you still wear boys?

“Yeah, I like it,” he replied, squinting. He didn’t answer out of annoyance, but out of character.

A guy in a red jacket was hovering nearby.

- Citizens, we give only to veterans! – the saleswoman shouted into the crowd, “the rest of you, don’t stand in your way!”

“The rest of us,” Ilya grinned, “let’s go out, or what?”

They began to make their way to the exit, and all the time the boy in the red jacket got under their feet.

It was drizzling outside, the sidewalk shimmered with generous puddles. And above, in the dirty rags of clouds, overturned puddles of pale blue sky slowly floated. These heavenly puddles moved, changed shape, crowded, spread apart... In general, it was not good at the top.

Ilya and Natasha stopped under the awning of a bus stop.

It was difficult to sit on the wet bench. In general, everything around was not suitable for such unexpected meetings. Natasha silently looked at Ilya, a questioning expression in her eyes was added to the imperious-suffering expression of her lips. She looked as if she wanted to find out why Ilya met her again. For some reason, the annoying boy in the red jacket kept up with them.

“Boy,” said Ilya, “go home, why are you hanging around here?”

“This is mine,” Natasha said, smiling quietly. - This is the eldest, and there is also the youngest, four years old.

- Well done! - Ilya said to someone unknown - either the boy, or Natasha herself. However, he himself did not understand now what he was saying and why. He looked at her incessantly.

-Are you still there? – she asked. – I met Yegor the other day, he was telling me about it.

- Yes! – Ilya confirmed animatedly. – I am faithful to my column “About this, about that.” And if you pickle cucumbers according to a newspaper recipe, then know that...

“I don’t add salt,” Natasha interrupted him with a soft smile, “I don’t have enough time for cucumbers.” My head is swollen from work.

- But I don’t feel swollen! – he said defiantly cheerfully. – You know, I treat my head with tenderness.

She suddenly looked at him without a smile.

“Yes, I know,” and took her son’s hand. - Well, goodbye. All you need...

- Wait! - he exclaimed, for some reason afraid that Natasha was leaving, but when he saw her questioning look, he stopped short:

– I... wanted... Come on, I’ll show you off.

- And we are nearby, over there, in the third entrance. – Natasha nodded towards the house. “Hello to mom and grandma,” and having already walked a few steps away, she quietly said to the boy: “Put on the hood, Ilyusha...”

- What?! – Ilya quietly asked himself, looking after them, although almost immediately he realized that this was the name of her son.

They entered the entrance, and Ilya sat down on a wet bench and sat there for a long time, not feeling the heavy wet jacket on him or the small angry rain running down his face. He sat, indifferently looking at the stopping buses, as if the name of an ordinary boy in an ordinary red jacket could hit an adult so painfully.

Babanya and Valya sewed pillowcases from blue chintz. The TV was showing Sofia Rotaru, so they didn’t hear Ilya enter. When they saw him, wet and dumb as a stump, the grandmother gasped, and the mother, just in case, said:

- Well, directly - namesake Repin, “We didn’t expect it.” – But I was wary.

Ilya silently undressed. The tension was rising.

- What's happened? - the old woman shouted.

“Nothing happened,” said the mother, increasing the tension. – What could happen to him? He probably fell into a puddle.