Chapter 3

Nina lived with her father again, and it was not a joyful life. Her father had changed noticeably over the time of her absence. Not at all old – not yet forty five – he could not find a permanent employment and was getting by doing odd jobs. Worst of all, he had really taken to drink. He sank into self-neglect, was forgetting even to shave, and looked unhealthy, spent. When she saw those changes close up, Nina was appalled. In former times, her father had invariably been a genial person, the soul of every company. Her mother had told Nina once that he had first won her by his amateur ‘hiking’ songs – both of them had practiced some serious hiking in their younger days. Nina was sure that her mother would not have let him sag. With her around, he would have remained the same man – a hard worker, optimist and epicurean philosopher.

This responsibility – to give her father moral support – was Nina’s now, and she felt keenly her ineptitude. She pleaded with her father to stop drinking, had rows with him over it, tried to get him to see some doctors, but all in vain.

Once, in a sober spell, he said to her, “Ninok, stop it, don’t try to save me. Do you think I don’t realize that I am killing myself by drink? I’m doing it consciously. Tell me – what else do I have? I don’t have anything to live for.” “What about me?” Nina cried out, hurt by his words. She knew that she was the apple of her father’s eye, but apparently his love for her was not enough to fill his existence.

Nina got a job in a large, reputable investment firm and soon was absorbed in her work completely. She dreamed of making a rapid career and then… She had a very vague idea of what was to happen then, but she knew one thing for certain – she would find a way to help her father. Above all, he must not remain idle. Nina dreamed that she would study the ways of business from A to Z, accumulate the necessary contacts and then help her father open his own construction company. He was such a fine specialist, a bright mind! He was totally up to it, he only needed a start. Sometimes in her dreams, her father and she started a business together and made a huge success of it. Nina realized how naïve it all was and would be surprised to hear that quite soon her father was actually going to run a business of his own, and she was going to give him a hand in his affairs and then rescue his company.

The encounter that changed her father’s life occurred by accident, in the street. Luckily, he was not drunk. He was just on his way to the nearby wine store when a car pulled over beside him. The horn honked, and as he turned round, he saw somebody wave at him from the window of a posh foreign-made automobile. Yevgeniy Borisovich approached and recognized Simonyan, his former assistant in the construction syndicate. At one time, the two men had worked closely together, had got mutually adjusted, and now they were glad to see each other. Simonyan said that he was as busy as a bee at the moment but promised to find time for a proper get-together shortly. Promises like that are almost never kept, but after a few days Simonyan actually called and invited Nina’s father to his place to crack a bottle and have a chat about old times.

Simonyan lived in a new building of elite design. In his huge apartment, expensive decoration works had been started but not completed, and there was almost no furniture. “Got no time for that. And what’s the point, anyway?” Simonyan chuckled. One of these days I’ll bring home a new missus, and you can trust a woman to change everything to her liking.” He had just been through a divorce. According to him, his ex-wife was amply provided for, and his children were studying abroad.

His entire manner and every word he spoke oozed the satisfaction of a man who had achieved success. In the old times already, the two men had been on a first-name basis, and now Simonyan, who had sized up at once the deplorable state Nina’s father was in, sounded condescending. Still, he was really friendly and plunged willingly into reminiscences together with Yevgeniy Borisovich.

The main thing was said when they had recalled one by one all their mutual acquaintances and, having finished a bottle of superb Armenian cognac, started another one. Simonyan offered Yevgeniy Borisovich a job. Unlike Nina’s father, the man had not got lost after the collapse of their syndicate. In line with the new realities, Simonyan ventured several enterprises, one after another. To start with, he transformed one of the fragments of the syndicate into a small company aimed at doing engineering projects under contract with the city administration. He hustled about in the municipal lobbies day and night, courted the right people and finally managed to get his company written into the city investment program, thus giving his business a good start. His company took off and began to make profit. From that springboard, Simonyan rose and expanded his operations. Now he was edging his way into business of a totally different scale – export of precious metals and other stuff of the kind, all very shady and fabulously profitable. Simonyan needed a reliable man to dump his first company on, and most opportunely, Yevgeniy Borisovich turned up.

Nina’s father was to become a hired employee of his former assistant, but Simonyan assured him that virtually they were going to be partners, and besides, he was planning to go out of that business in the future so that Nina’s father could buy it out and be his own boss. That incredible promise was finally kept, too – apparently, it was not Simonyan’s destiny to deceive Yevgeniy Borisovich.

Long starved for something real to do, Nina’s father plunged headlong into his new job. Simonyan’s company was about ten times smaller than his former syndicate, and feeling confined in it, Yevgeniy Borisovich was digging into every detail with passion. There were many things that could be improved, optimized, both in terms of engineering and in terms of management. Simonyan really gave Nina’s father a free hand. Soaring in his new spheres, he only visited his company on rare occasions. When that happened, he listened with half an ear to the numerous suggestions that Nina’s father had to make and said ‘yes’ to all of them, knowing full well that Yevgeniy Borisovich stood much higher than himself as a specialist. It was only in financial matters that Simonyan had his way.

His new work transformed Yevgeniy Borisovich – he looked younger, straightened out now. Besides, Simonyan was not mean – he paid his manager a decent salary. For the first time in his life, Nina’s father became the owner of a foreign-made car, an assortment of good suits and various trinkets such as a Swiss watch and a golden lighter. He was a man again – even a classy man, one that women would give a lingering look. Nina felt jealous on her mother’s behalf, vexed that the new rise of Yevgeniy Borisovich was not hers to reap. Soon, a real reason for that jealousy cropped up.

The reason was named Lydia Grigorievna. Not a young woman, she was well-groomed and stylish. She worked in some municipal organization, where Nina’s father made her acquaintance as he was getting approval for one of his projects. Nina had not suspected that her father was seeing a woman until the very day when he introduced them to each other in some café. “Listen, Ninok, you see… The thing is, Lydia Grigorievna and I are planning to move in together. What do you think? …”

Nina was seething with rage. She was about to splash the champagne poured out by her father into the well-groomed face of that bitch. How dared she! To take mama’s place! … However, it was not for nothing that Nina’s parents took pride in her precise mind. Her mind reasoned that her father could not live alone. If not that woman, there would be another, so what’s the difference? Lydia Grigorievna was smiling at her ingratiatingly. The woman realized already that Nina meant the world to Yevgeniy Borisovich and could easily wreck her plans. “All I want is for you to be happy,” said Nina to her father raising her glass of champagne. He squeezed Nina’s hand gratefully and kissed her on the cheek.

Lydia Grigorievna settled down in their apartment. A childless widow, alone after her husband’s death, she could devote herself entirely to her new marriage. She had the sense not to make any radical changes to the apartment immediately, but she occupied every free minute in the life of Nina’s father. Yevgeniy Borisovich, who had always been skeptical about theater, turned into a theatergoer: every weekend he and his wife went to see some première. They made some new acquaintances and exchanged visits with them. Lydia Grigorievna was fond of cooking and almost daily, Nina’s father had to taste and praise a new dish of her making.

On the whole, she was not a bad woman and Nina had to admit that she was a good match for her father, but for Nina, it was right impossible to live under the same roof with her. Everything annoyed Nina – the woman’s voice, the odors of her creams in the countless jars with which she crammed the bathroom shelves, her culinary masterpieces… The fact alone that a stranger slept in mama’s bedroom and managed mama’s kitchen infuriated Nina. She made no attempt to break the ice in spite of the eagerness on the part of her father’s new wife. It soon became clear that they had to move apart. By common consent, they sold their apartment and bought two others instead. Nina wound up in a one-roomer in a new, remote built-up area.

It was hard for Nina to say goodbye to the familiar walls that had witnessed almost all her life. She had the feeling that in their old apartment, in spite of the arrival of a new woman, her mother was still present somehow, but now that they had robbed her of her home she had really left them, remaining only in their memories and photos.

They still had their dacha – another important locale in their lives. The dacha was a small plank cottage sitting on a few hundred square meters of sandy land some fifty kilometers from the city. The plot had been allotted to Nina’s father when he had been no boss yet, and everything there had been made by his and mama’s hands. Nina was taken there by her parents every summer all through her school years.