About love

"At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet" (Plato)

Polina could not foresee that her first true love comes when she was deeply and unhappily married;  being a mom of a cute toddler and a successful mass media manager. Her love came to her in a person of a fair-haired journalist Artyom who worked in the same private television studio, where she managed by thirty creative units. He was three years younger, talented one and spoke only Ukrainian language. She did not speak Ukrainian because everyone talked Russian there. Perhaps, only Artyom and his family were exceptions. His mother was an assistant professor of Ukrainian language at the local teacher’s training university, and his father worked as a radio newscaster. It turned out that with his velvety voice she had  woke up in her childhood when her own dad was turning the kitchen’s radio set at full volume to accelerate the process of awakening.

What did she remember brightly from that time of the joyful heart's failing when nothing had been said and done yet? She longed to touch a hard hedgehog on his head. And she stupidly fought with herself: why "a middle-aged and unhappy woman" should intervene into a life of that nice boy who’s the best moments are ahead. She was then 26 years old already.

Anyway it happened. Her husband was away from their home for months because he was trading in Russia mythically huge batches of local goods that were in a great demand in the neighboring country. She flew on wings and was happy. What did she remember from that time of deep female happiness? Hedgehog turned to be very soft as the hair on the crown of her four-year toddler. And Ukrainian song by Iryna Bilyk who sang her "Francois" from a cassette tape. Artyom lay beside her and wept quietly because it was the first time in her life when she felt what itwas to be a Woman.

Very soon, she began to speak Ukrainian because it was their common language with Artyom. In less then a year later Polina got divorced.

After that everything was casually boring: five years of equanimity, two years of living and working in the capital on TV channels. They were engaged in the same profession, thought and felt the same way. If they were not together, they talked on the phone for hours. One thing always clouded their quiet and peaceful happiness. They were chronically short of money. There was another long crisis in the country. Journalists were paid small. She was already over 30, and she thought with horror that old age wass not far away and she was still poor. They went back to their hometown. Polina was lucky to get two jobs. Artyom did not find a permanent job, closed up and started moving away slowly but surely.

The news that he departs to the United States by the educational program of the Ukrainian diaspora stunned Polina. "It's only for a year" - he calmed down crying Polina hiding his eyes (three months later she learned that the program was designed for two years).

Well, she had unfeminine character. Her mother liked to joke: "You are a real communist, firstly you create difficulties for yourself, then you overcome them successfully". Artyom commented her assertiveness in addressing issues more modern, comparing her with a young and promising woman-politician, a close friend of then-Prime Minister. "You know, I do not like that upstart" - Polina was offended. But she always rushed ahead when she realized that there was no alternative.

In less than a year she was flying to the United States on a three-month internship. The only one from Ukraine she won an educational grant from the US government in support of independent medias in developing countries.
The main thing was not in it. She won two months of study at Howard University in Washington DC. And Artyom, who had settled in Pittsburgh, at that time had a planned summer internship in the US capital on the radio station "The Voice of America".

She immediately felt that her Artyom had changed. She felt, cringed and hid. Outwardly, everything was fine. A beautiful city (the capital of the United States proved to be a home to only 300,000 people, like her native town) with a modern subway, free museums, guys from the diaspora who were constantly visiting one-bedroom apartment that Artyom rented  for a summer in a condominium in a nice area with a beautiful name Arlington.

She liked studying at Howard University, that happened to be an educational institution for African-American students, and she was the only white girl, boldly strode through the deserted streets on campus. Rare black students whistled in her back.  A middle-aged professor Fears taught courses in marketing and advertising in the media and clearly delighted to her, explaining his sympathy by the fact that her birthday coincided with the birthday of his beloved wife.

It was terrible heat that summer. Because of the +40 C outside and powerful air-conditioning in buildings she desperately snuffled and constantly sucked throat lozenges.

Two months passed like one day. She had to spend the last month in another city. It was a practice on a commercial television station in the capital of country music Nashville, Tennessee. Washington was only on the way back. To change a domestic airlines aircraft to an airliner to Europe. She could spend with Artyom only couple of hours at the airport, while waiting for her international flight. However, that situation was not a woman in love.
Saying nothing beforehand to her beloved one Polina in Nashville worked quickly the program, charmed an old woman-curator of her project, and wrote a laudatory review about invaluable knowledges and skills she acquired there. A week before the departure home from Washington, she was sitting in the plane that was flying from Nashville to the capital. She won one more week of happiness from the fate.

On the first night she did not sleep desperately, came out of the tiny bedroom and sat down at the computer desk. Her new laptop that she bought in a computer store at a giant mall was uncovered.  Artyom’s computer was not turned off. Polina moved a mouse by her arm. Screen flickered. The woman reached online: to check out what was going on at home, and to send a couple of e-mail letters. Having finished it she was about to slam the cover of the laptop but then her attention was attracted by alone text file on the desktop. They principally used Word, and that file was in a .txt extension and had a strange name: Hello Mag. txt. Be curiosity she clicked the icon and opened the document.

It was a letter. Some Beth wrote of her roommate about a trip from Pittsburgh to Washington by her, Beth car. Something was broken off in a car. How she missed Artyom, who was too busy along two months with his practice on the radio and could not invite her earlier. How great they spent the weekend: went to the ocean beach to swim and sunbathe. After reading those words Polina remembered that could not get through to Artyom in one weekend. He explained later that he forgot the phone at home and went out of town with friends.

After reading the letter several times, getting a grasp on each letter and comma, she understood everything. Then she found Beth photos on computer. Hmmm, ugly, horse face looks a little after Sarah Jessica Parker. Polina did not clean up the traces of her search and left the computer opened with Beth’s photo on the monitor. A woman slipped quietly out of the apartment and went outside. The night was soft and cool. Huge dark sky came over the sleeping city. Polina stared upward, feeling how childhood panic fear of celestial abyss gradually replaced emptiness in her soul. She waited until her eyes ceased to see anything because of tears and then returned home, stumbling from weakness.

A woman pulled out of a suitcase a sleeping pills packing, which Artyom asked to pass to his mother. Six tiny pills were the not deadly dose according to the instruction. It could cut down for long. Polina swallowed it and lay by peacefully slept man.

She slept soundly for two days. Artyom tried to shake her, told something but she did not understand and did not feel what is happening. She did not care. She continued to sleep, waking up, she was going the toilet or to drink water and sinking again into sleep. Last week of her happiness she spent in a saving half asleep. In a taxi on the way to the airport Artyom passionately argued her something, then began to call someone and speak in English: it was all over, he loves another woman and she is aside. He put  a phone in her hand. "Hello Beth, nice to meet you", she muttered in English into the phone and turned it off. On the plane she fell asleep again.

Somewhere half way back home, above the Atlantic, in her head were born lines. Recent words devoted to her only love:

Спекотне літо в Вашингтоні:
Кохання, зрада, відчай, близкість.
Нічні пригоди в Арлінгтоні:
брехні отрута, вбивча пристрість.

В твоїх обіймах я пульсую,
Твій запах забирає волю.
Хвилини щастя компенсують
Години, дні і  тижні болю…

Літак забрав мене від тебе.
І знов сама і в  смутку тону,
Коли згадаю нічне  небо
І літню спеку Вашингтону.
written in Ukrainian)

Translation:
Hot summer in Washington:
Love and betrayal like in fiction.
Night adventures in Arlington:
Poison of lie and deadly affection.

I was pulsing in your arms,
Your scent took my freedom away.
Happiness moments could compensate
Hours, days and weeks of old pain ...

The airplane took me from you. Bye.
Again I am sad and again I drown
When I remember a deep night sky
And summer heat of Washington.

Instead of an epilogue.
And then everything was fine. Returning home, Polina immediately quit two jobs: a popular city newspaper, where she was well-known journalist and from the local oligarch and Parliament Deputy, for whom she edited a small but surprisingly demanded in his constituency newspaper. Having dealt with journalism, she started her own business. She earned a lot of money. She became known not only in her town but also abroad. She had relations with interesting men. But she did not write poetry any more. For twelve long years.