My friend Eugene

He came into my life as my history teacher, when I was in high school. Eugene had just graduated from Odessa State University and got a job in my school. From first sight, he was very attractive, tall, slim, blond, always smiling. He was very kind and his lessons were like a holiday for every student in the school. Everybody loved Eugene. He was so different from the other teachers. He told us many interesting facts, which we could not read in our text-books. Sometimes he brought his guitar and sang us songs, which were related to particular events in history. Eugene knew many foreign languages, I could not tell exactly how many languages he knew, but the number of languages was over ten. Very often he read some sentences in Hungarian, Polish, Serb, Czech.  After this he translated them into Russian. He never gave students bad grades, he always gave us just “A” and “B”, and every student fond of History and fond of the history teacher. Each girl in the school fell in love with Eugene. I was proud, that Eugene was my teacher, and my mythic hero. During the school  breaks students sat with Eugene on the bench in the school back yard and talked about everything. He knew everything, other teachers did not like him, but Eugene did not pay them any attention. I did not have enough courage to go to Eugene during the school break and talk to him like other students. I thought that I did not deserve to talk to him like a friend. I did not think, at that moment, that our life paths would cross again.
Despite Eugene’s abilities, he had one weakness, alcohol. Several times he was drunk, when he came to our lessons. The students would said that Eugene was so smart, so fair, so honest, so kind that it was very difficult to him to live in our spoiled society. But maybe something else forced Eugene to drink.
I met Eugene five years later, when I had graduated from college and got a job in the Forest Company in our town. My friend, Valentine, who is now an artist, called and invited me to come over. When I arrived Eugene was there, he was  Valentine’s friend as well. Eugene had just come from Poland, where he worked as translator in the Soviet Consulate. He told us many interesting stories about his job in Poland, while Valentine was showing us his canvases, we had a very good time.
My job in Forest Company was interesting, but I decided to leave the company and go far away,  to look for adventures. But it was a coincidence, that Eugene came to visit me exactly on that day. He said: “ Don’t go so far. Stay in our town.  Before I showed him my poems, which I wrote, when I worked and lived in the forest. Eugene admitted , that some of my poems about nature were very good. Eugene continued: “I know, you have good writing skills. I will talk to my friend about you, he works for a local newspaper, you could work  or you can teach reading and writing at school.”  In two weeks, I  had got  two new offers, one from local newspaper and the second one from a small village school.
Recently I have received mail. When I started to review it I saw a thick envelope from my classmate. I opened it and found a book. It was a book of  poems written by Eugene.