😉 Greetings to the regular readers and guests of the site “Ladies-Gentlemen”. Here are two stories from life, the heroes of which are my neighbors in a communal apartment. Hope you find it interesting.
I knew one unhappy family. Why did you know? Because none of them are already dead. Only the old cat remained, which we took for ourselves after the death of the last of the Murin family.
Alena and Sasha moved to our house when I was 5 or 6 years old. It was a long time ago, a very long time ago. But I remember everything perfectly. They lived on the floor below, they always behaved in an exemplary manner, which was strange: the rest of the tenants sometimes made a row, scandalized, complained about each other in the housing office, the district office, in the party committee and the trade union committee of the plant.
In general, the ordinary life of the workers’ suburbs. Although, of course, there were unusual specimens in our yard. To be honest, outlandish. Like my neighbors – Valery Evgenievich and his wife Angelina Iosifovna. How they got to our disadvantaged area is unknown. However, it is very well known. The reason for this was their love of drinking.
Bacchus talents and admirers
Bacchus was worshiped vehemently by my neighbors, though not without a certain grace. There were reasons for that: I mean grace. Valery Evgenievich in the old days served as an administrator at the regional conservatory, his wife was also a singer there.
Even at a time of deaf drunkenness, she did not lose her amazing contralto, which she often read in the courtyard in the mornings.
She screamed out the open window that her husband wanted to kill her. Sometimes she would jump out, barefoot, in one dressing gown, on a broken playground, on which, as on a stage, a family drama was played out.
Valery Evgenievich was jealous. Previously, when his wife shone on stage, this jealousy had at least some basis under it, but now – being directed at a miserable, disheveled, untidy, swollen creature – did not cause anything except the cackle of local men and bitter smirks of aunts.
Valery Evgenievich once went to work in a bow tie: he loved to show his old photos. Now, due to drunkenness, he lost not only his job, but also a luxurious office apartment in the center.
He lost his human appearance, every night he drank himself to such devils that he began to look everywhere for his wife’s lovers, with whom, in his opinion, she sinned every minute.
He grabbed an ax: not a normal ax for firewood, but a small, elegant hatchet for cutting and beating meat. And even aimed at his wife.
She screamed out the window or, as I said, ran around the yard. Valery Evgenievich did not chase after the faithful, and he would never have caught up with her with his shortness of breath. He stood in the sandpit on a hill of caked mud sand and shook his hatchet like an elderly Indian chief with a dug tomahawk of war.
An hour and a half later the action ended. The couple departed, and after another twenty minutes they – slightly dressed up – could already be seen near the local liquor store. Angelina Iosifovna gave Olga Larina or Konchakovna, waving an unfinished glass of port.
Valery Evgenievich looked at his wife with all eyes with genuine love, at the same time rubbing an impromptu cork from a scrap of newspaper to the neck of the bottle.
Late sobering up
Valery Evgenievich died at night. The heart refused. When in the morning we did not hear the screams of Angelina Iosifovna fleeing from the meat-cutting hatchet, we realized that something had happened. The poor fellow was buried with the whole yard. The conservatory sent the bus, paid for the coffin.
Angelina was not herself. I did not speak to anyone, did not sing or drank. Not a drop. At all. Neither at the commemoration organized by the neighbors, nor for 9 or 40 days. I went sober. Alas, not because she decided to quit, but because she was crazy. Angelina Iosifovna survived her husband for three months.
When she was buried, I paid attention to the dates of birth and death on a tin plate. Valery Evgenievich was only 45, Angelina Iosifovna – 42. And they looked old in my childhood understanding then. Here’s a sad story. But back to Alena and Sasha.
Deadly love
My neighbors Murins were bright, kind, quiet people. They helped everyone, never conflicted with anyone. Moreover, they were treated to pies for the holidays! I think when they appeared in our house, Alena and Sasha were about 30 years old, and they had no children.
Once, in a conversation with my mother, Alena mentioned some of her health problems, probably in this area. I was in school when Alena gave birth. We have never seen such a strong and sweet child in our house!
Mom once said that Matronushka helped them, to whom the childless couple went to Moscow in the Intercession Monastery, which is not far from the Proletarskaya metro station. At that time I had no idea who Matronushka was ?! For a long time I thought that this was some famous doctor with such a strange name …
In the rosy-cheeked frisky late son, the parents doted. The child grew up healthy and strong, knew how to stand up for himself. Like all boys, he fought in the yard, sometimes he hooliganed, angered the old ladies of the neighbors. True, he settled down a little at school: his parents wisely decided to find a way out of his energy and sent him to the football section.
I cannot part with him
Nikita studied mediocre, but in sports everything was excellent. He was promised a football career, the coach looked at him as the future Pele. The boy disappeared in training to the detriment of his studies, and his parents indulged the child’s hobbies in every possible way.
We spent our last money on uniforms and fees. Ranged in turns in different cities of the country with the team. Alena even quit her job to make life easier for her son. At that time, Sasha’s career finally went up the hill. He was made some kind of boss, and the mother painlessly devoted herself to household chores.
I remember I ran into Alena near the entrance. He and Nikita had just returned from some kind of tournament for children’s teams. They walked tired, but happy.
– Hey! – Alena rushed to me happily. – And we are going from the competition. Nikita will be taken to the children’s team!
I congratulated them, but expressed my sympathy to my mother, in the sense that I get tired of running around the cities and villages.
– Well, what are you? It’s better for me, – said Alena. – I cannot part with him. I miss and worry so much! I’m going to turn gray here from experiences! I can’t imagine how I’ll live a week without him … I probably won’t be able to die in old age because I have to part with him. No, really. I will live forever! How am I in the next world without him ?!
She laughed, and I shuddered at her joke. Nikita looked at his mother with tenderness. It was amazed that there was no adolescent indulgence in his face. Only love…
I was suddenly struck by the thought: “If something happens to her, the boy will not survive!” I began to cover myself with all sorts of words: they say, do not croak!
And six months later, a terrible thing happened: Alena, sick with the flu, went with her son to the competition, not wanting to miss the game somewhere in the suburbs. Loaded with a ton of drugs and, despite the objections of her husband, went on the road. When I returned, I was hospitalized with advanced pneumonia: the flu gave a complication. And a couple of days later she died.
Father and son
Nikita and his father were inconsolable. The boy stopped eating and sleeping. A month later, Sasha dragged him to the doctor, who threw up his hands, saying that he was grieving. Nothing will pass. Here are the sedatives … But it didn’t go away.
Thinner, with black circles under his eyes, I saw him for the last time a day before the terrible news: Nikita committed suicide. Jumped out of the sixth floor! Heartbroken Sasha lived a little after that.
Every weekend he went to the cemetery to see his wife and son, and a year later, having barely arranged a commemoration for the anniversary, he hanged himself on a horizontal bar in his son’s room.
They did not find him right away. Grabbed at work: they say, it does not come out for a week. Having broken open the door with the precinct, we found a blackened body. And a cat. He was starving, although before his death the owner poured a full bowl of food and poured a bowl of water …
I immediately took the red-haired man for myself, and Sasha was buried by the whole entrance, like his relatives. Of course, there were people from his work … Such a sad picture in the cemetery: three graves of young people! My neighbours …
I hope that souls in this world who doted on each other, they found themselves together on that one. Maybe Angelina Iosifovna sings to them from time to time. Something kind and affectionate.
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