Lesbian

Русский вариант - http://proza.ru/2006/02/15-05

- Well, okay, don’t cry, it happens...
- I had a dream, as if I was walking alone at night, and then I wanted to pee so much, I sat down in the bushes and peed. Well, it turned out to be in bed.
- Why are you crying?
- What, I’m already fourteen, how will anyone know, the whole camp will laugh?
- Let’s say that I peed myself, I’m twelve, and they’ll start laughing and get hit in the face.
- From you? Yes, you are the smallest in the building.
- So I’m breaking noses, like a little girl, they don’t expect what they’ll get from me. When I'm angry, do you know how strong I am? I had it in the winter too, and in bed. I dreamed that I felt like I was swimming in the Irtysh, and then I wanted to pee, I thought: it’s still water, let’s go... It happens... While no one is there, let’s turn your mattress over and replace the sheet at the wardrobe maid’s.
- What if someone sees it? Will you meet along the way?
- And we will use bushes, workarounds, roll up the sheet into a tube, and put a towel on top. Let's turn the mattress over.
“I’ve already turned it over, and here’s the sheet.” Went…

Katya was a head taller than me, she had brown eyes, brown hair and straight hair, just below her shoulders. She had a normal build, and I was very thin, I had green eyes, and short hair, also dark brown hair. We ran in dashes from building to building, from tree to tree, from bush to bush to the wardrobe maid's closet. She heated the Russian bathhouse at the end of the camp, she changed the linen, and transported the dirty clothes on a truck somewhere to the city. The castellan silently replaced the sheet for us, didn’t even ask, which one of us was the one who was wetting?

We returned to the building, now we need to quietly lay a clean sheet on Katya’s bed, but the girls were already there. Since the season had just begun at the pioneer camp, and this was the first shift, so neither Katya nor I had girlfriends yet. She and I were everywhere and always, only on the line; she was almost the first in line, and I was the last. Although Katya was already fourteen years old, and I was about thirteen, we were not bored. Katya persuaded the girl with whom I had beds next to her to lie on Katina’s bed, and she immediately agreed, since Katya had a bed by the window, and I and that girl’s bed were in the middle of the bedroom.

Once Katya gave me a bouquet of flowers, pink rose hips.
- To me?
- You…
- Why?
- So…
- For what?
- Put it on the nightstand, don’t you think it’s nice?
- Nice, but why don’t you bet on yours?
- I want to please you.
- Okay, I’ll pick you some daisies too, okay? May it be pleasant for you too.

Katya stroked my back with a feather for so long, in a quiet hour, that I fell asleep, and in the evening, after lights out, she so tenderly, looking into my eyes, stroked and stroked my back with a feather until I fell asleep. Sometimes she told me something about herself, that her dad died, and she and her mother lived in a temporary apartment, about relatives, about what she knew but I didn’t yet. She told stories from books that she had already read and what we would go through at school in a whisper, and again I did not notice how I fell asleep. Once, during a quiet hour, the counselor looked into our ward and found us lying on my stomach, and Katya stroking my back with a feather. He immediately punished us: he forced us to sweep the terrace of the building.

Sweep, he came, said that it was bad and washed again, then he appeared again and again it was bad, shallow, shallow... Then, Katya said that he was mocking us and we should just sit down and sit on the terrace, he won’t do anything to us, we are children . He saw us, smiled and walked past. The photographer arrived, I had to stand in the first row, since I was the smallest, and Katya was in the last, she did not agree to anything and squatted down at my feet. Who would have thought then that even then Katya fell in love and fell in love with me, a girl? Who would have imagined then that a year later this love would turn into disaster for Katya?

One day they brought a movie to the camp. When it got dark, they pulled up a large white screen made of white sheets on a wooden stage that stood right on the street, and in front of them there were long benches, about forty in rows. We arrived in groups and sat down, the little ones in the first rows, the older ones further back. They brought a film, color, American: “Generals of the Sand Quarries.” It was shown last year on club screens, and now it could be shown in pioneer camps. Katya, apparently, had already seen this film, looked at me so strangely all the time, then moved very close to me and put her hand on mine.

- What are you doing?
- Nothing, just like that. You like it?
- What? Now, if Afanasyev had put Sashka down, he would have died with joy.
Katya removed her hand and carefully, looking into my eyes, asked:
- What kind of Sashka?
- My neighbor, you still study at another school, you live far away, I can trust: I’ve loved him since I was five years old, as soon as I saw him, I immediately went crazy about him.
- And he?
- Who knows? When we get older, we'll find out. For now, we play together, ride a bike, I steer, and he turns the pedals. Oh look, she died or what? She died right on the beach, did he kill her?
We stared at the screen.

“She was very sick, so she died.”
- Wow, I’m sick, yesterday I was running around the beach like crazy, but today, hello? If I was sick, I wouldn’t be able to move, right?
- Is it true, Tanya, it turns out that you really notice life?
- Why not notice her, her mother works as a nurse in a children's hospital, so you see enough of the patients there. You know how often they die, the therapeutic department, the organs, it didn’t rip your knee off. Oh, why did they throw it into the sea and not take it to the cemetery?

Katya squeezed my palm again:
- They are poor, they don’t have money for a coffin and a place in the cemetery, but is it possible that people are buried this way near the sea? When I saw this film at the club, I cried so much...
- Fi, what if Afanasyev cried so much for me when she left for this camp? You know, he was even happy, he was going to visit his grandmother in Zyryanovsk for the whole summer. Didn’t even think that we’d be separated for the whole summer? They are some kind of stone, boys.
Katya removed her hand:
- How old is he?
- Half a year younger than me, he’s still eleven.

On September 1st, I saw Katya among the eighth-graders. Everything inside me froze: how, she lives so far away, now, if I don’t want to be friends with her, she will tell everything to Afanasyev? Or maybe not? But still, can he tell me? Stupid, what a fool I am, to suddenly trust her about him? I didn’t think we’d see each other again after camp, did I? She’s from school sixty-four, and I can’t even imagine where that is? What a fool am I?! Katya was looking for someone with her eyes, and she was looking, of course, for me, because Katya didn’t know anyone else here. When she fixed her gaze on me, I looked at my friend standing next to me and started some conversation, I don’t remember what. Katya’s gaze simply bored into me, she did not take her eyes off me. I didn’t look in her direction, although Katya gave me signs. Out of the corner of my eye I saw how she was waving her hand at me, how she was trying to shout out, how she was smiling, and my gaze slid anywhere, but did not stop at her. Stupid, why, why did I tell her about Afanasyev?!

As soon as the command to disperse sounded, Katya jumped up to me happy:
- Tanya, Tanya, now we will study in the same school!
How she looked at me, how Katya’s face lit up!
- Great, now we will see each other often! What, have you moved?
- No, I’ll take the bus home, I persuaded my mother to transfer me to this school!
- For what?
- To see you?!
- Didn't understand?
- Well, now we can be friends together during breaks and return home after classes?
- Stop on the other side?
- Shall I accompany you and go further to the far one?
- For what?
- Tanya, aren’t you happy?
- Katya, yes, I’m very glad, but you’ll be returning home so late, and early in the morning, it will still be so dark, and you’ll have to wait for the bus? Think about it?
- I’ve decided everything, I’m studying here, are you happy?
- I'm glad, very glad...

Katya came up to me very rarely, watched from the side as I ran during recess with Raika to races, along the corridor, from one end to the other, and the people on duty along the corridor tried to stop us. How she played hopscotch with the girls, pushing me forward in the cafeteria for donuts. She often treated them to her donuts; she would ask to leave class early two minutes before the bell rang, and even buy them for two. She rarely came up to me, because she saw that I was more interested in Raika, Lidka, and my peers. She usually walked behind me after school, sometimes next to me if I was walking alone. They walked and chatted about nothing.

In winter, she simply forced her New Year’s gift on me, a bag of sweets and a tangerine, which her mother received for Katya at her work. And also, she gave me a doll that a pen pal from Czechoslovakia had sent her, there was such a trend, pioneers corresponded with pioneers from other countries, so Katya corresponded with some Katie. Katie wrote to her that she already had a friend, and Katie was only thirteen years old. I sent a photo of Katie and her friend hugging each other. In the photo there is an adult aunt in her twenties and a friend in his twenties. There, Katie wrote that she and her friend were already living, and asked if Katya had a friend and if she lived with a friend, at what age did Katya have sex for the first time?

- Here they give it, such aunts at thirteen, already living with such uncles? Maybe she's lying about being thirteen?
- No, he’s not lying, the pioneer leader gave me her address.
It was spring, Katya and I were sitting on a bench near my house and looking at postcards from Czechoslovakia.
- How clean!
- This is Europe, it’s clean there. This is not Kazakhstan, it’s beautiful there Tanya. When I grow up and start working, I will buy two tickets to Hungary, or Romania, or the GDR and we will go there as tourists. Fine?
- Let's!
- Tanya, my mother’s brother died in the village, I’m scared to spend the night alone, could you ask your mother for time off now? And tomorrow is Sunday, the Irtysh is nearby, we’ll lie on the stones, the water is still cold, but the sun is already heating the stones. Shall we take a walk around the city? Spend two nights with us, and on Monday morning we’ll go to school together from me?
- I don’t know, I’ll have to ask my mom, I’ve never spent the night with anyone before. Come on, shall we go in? Maybe mom is home? Yes, Katya, why are you afraid, because your mother
conductor? You often spend the night alone, don't you?
- This is different, you know, a dead person in the family, this is a different feeling...

Mom was at home, she allowed me to spend the night with Katya for two nights, and she remembers Katya when she came to the camp to visit me, I introduced her to Katya. Mom ordered me to run right away and pick up Igor from kindergarten and she would take him with her to the hospital, on duty that night. Katya and I brought Igorka from kindergarten and went to see her.

We rode the bus for a long time, then got off in the center and walked for a long time along an unpaved street, sand and ash under our feet. What people poured right into the holes left by the wheels of cars, as if leveling out these potholes. It seemed that we would never come.
- Lord, Katya, how far away do you live? Why did you change schools, this is a test every day? I'm already falling off my feet!
- Yes, it’s the end of the city, it’s a bit long, but I’m used to it. Now, two more blocks and houses. The apartments in the center are expensive, but here, for almost nothing, mom in the center can’t afford it. There, there is a fence of different sizes, you see, we live there, in the fence of a temporary building. You’re not used to it, and you’re only twelve years old. - I’m already thirteen...
- Like, when it was your birthday and I didn’t give you anything?
- Katya, they never celebrate my birthday, it’s for New Year, but my mother remembers only a month later: oh, you’re already twelve! You gave me a bag of candy and a Czechoslovakian doll, was that back then? I didn’t want to tell you not to give even more gifts...

- Come on, come on in...
Katya opened the door in the fence, which was almost no different from the fence.
- Oh, the dog is huge!
- Don’t be afraid, this is Dick, he’s kind, he just looks evil, he was once a mongrel, his owners picked him up as a puppy on the street.
Dick was huge, black, shaggy, and ran on a large chain tied to a long wire that stretched along the ground along the entire fence. We walked alongside the owners’ large house and went into the depths of the garden, where there was an asphalt path leading to a temporary house. Once upon a time, the owners built this house and lived in a temporary building. Where do Aunt Nina, Katya’s mother and Katya live now- Katya bent down, took the key from under the rug and opened the door. The ceiling is low, there is a table and two chairs in the corner, a stove in the other corner, and behind a curtain there is a large bed where Katya and mom sleep. The bed took up almost half the room, there was one old wardrobe, right next to the door and on the wardrobe there were boxes, apparently also with things. In the summer, these boxes contained winter items, and in the winter, summer items.

- If you’re very tired, lie down on the bed, and I’ll heat up the borscht.
Katya lit a small gas stove on the table, with two burners, and began from a large saucepan that was on the floor, pouring borscht into a smaller saucepan with a ladle.
- Do you like it thick or liquid?
- Average.
- Yeah... what about bread or crackers?
I sat on a chair at the table and watched the burner fire.
- It’s better to have crackers and garlic to bite into, and salt.
- Yeah...
Katya turned on the radio, there was music, someone was playing the dombra and singing diligently, either a male voice or a female one.
- Katya, is this what the Kazakhs call ditties?
- Looks like... Eat, do you want some sour cream?

Katya put a plate in front of me, I was so tired from the trip and trek through the whole city that I didn’t even want to eat, but the borscht turned out to be so tasty, it’s not like sick leave and salt-free for kidney patients that my mother drags from duty. Then we drank tea, looked at photographs, her modest jewelry: beads and brooches that were left to her from both of her grandmothers. It started to get dark, and we kept sitting and chatting, chatting... Then we drank tea again with buns and butter and began to go to bed. Katya gave me her nightgown when I was changing, she watched me so carefully.
- What are you doing?
- Nothing, it’s just interesting to watch you.
- Don't look, I'm shy.
- Why, we’re both girls?
- Katya, you look like a boy, you know, I’m embarrassed when people look at you like that, you know?
- Sorry...

Katya closed the door on the hook, put on her nightgown and lay down against the wall, covering herself with a blanket.
- Tanya, do you want to sleep?
- Not yet.
- Come on, I’ll stroke your back with a feather, like in the camp, okay?
- Let's.
I lay down on my stomach and lifted my shirt. Katya began stroking her back and told her something.
- Come on, let me stroke your breasts now?
- Okay, isn’t your arm tired?
- No.
- It would have fallen off long ago.
I turned on my back and then Katya leaned on me and simply pressed her lips into mine, she held my hands and moved her tongue back and forth in her mouth. Weak words escaped from my mouth: gu-gu-gu... She let go of one hand and quickly put her palm between my crotch. My mouth at some point became free, and what came out of me was:
- A-a-a, a-a-a...
I threw it away with my free hand and jumped out of bed, in an instant I found myself at the door and tried to throw the hook off the door, it did not give in, just like I had to pull the handle towards myself, and I was pressing on the door.

- Tanya-ya-ya, Tanya-ya-ya, forgive me, forgive me, I love you!!!
Katya was sitting on the bed, all red, screaming after me. I ran through the fence to the fence door. The dog was sleeping peacefully in the booth, only the chain clinked slightly behind my back.
- Tanya-ya-ya, Tanya-ya-ya...
I could already hear it on the street behind me. I ran. She just ran into the distance, to the first corner, there were no lights, the sky was in clouds, the night was pitch black, and her heart was about to jump out of the fear of the survivor.

One thing was beating in my mind: Katya is a boy and I was almost raped by a boy. Katya dressed and acted like a girl, and in the camp, when we were washing, she had a girl’s pussy, didn’t she? I don't understand anything. Katya's voice could be heard moving away, yes, she was running in the other direction, towards the center. She didn’t know that I was generally poorly oriented in the area. If we had left the same fence with her in the morning, I would have started to wonder: where to go?

I was already walking, I began to feel pebbles under my bare feet, pieces of glass, and my step became slower, along with my breathing. That's it, she me, that is, he, but what about the squeak? Or maybe it happens like this: a boy for a month, and then everything changes and it’s a girl? I need to ask my mother if this happens? Well, now I’ll go to the center and follow the bus route home. I stopped, looked around, I was standing in a cemetery. Just around the bend of this street there was a cemetery, like this...

Calm, calm, nothing happened, and so turn one hundred and eighty and take small steps backwards from here, don’t look around, then I won’t be scared... But it wasn’t like that at all, my eyes just rummaged around, at the photos, at the graves, at fences, as if they were looking for something, and found it... Literally sitting next to him was a guy, he seemed like a man to me then, because he was a child, at that time the soldiers seemed like grown men to me. He looked at me, I looked at him. I immediately remembered the words of my father, he told me this back when he didn’t leave us, when I was getting ready to go to first grade: Tanya, never show anyone that you’re scared...

I raised my hands up, spread my fingers and walked towards this guy in small steps:
- Oooh, I’m a ghost, I’ll strangle you...
He sat motionless and looked into my eyes, I came very close:
- Uncle, are you dead, did I scare you so much? Uncle, you're dead, right?
- Where did you come from, and in this form, are you sick or something?
- I was sick, five years ago, when I died... Why aren’t you afraid of me?
- You should be afraid of the living. Come on, I'll take you home, lunatic.
He stood next to me and took my hand in his.
- Let’s go, I’ll take you home, where are your parents looking? At least they tied bells, or laid a wet rag by the bed... In the Irtysh you will fall from the bridge, or someone will kill you here.
- I’m strong, and in general, I’m lucky to have good people.
- Where is your home?
- I don’t know, I spent the night with a friend. And she turned out to be a boy, she started kissing me. I jumped out and ran away, I needed to go to the center, and I went in the other direction. I live on Komsomol Avenue, near the railway station.

- Sit on my shoulders and tell me.
- Why on the shoulders?
- Because barefoot, you and I will only reach the avenue on tiptoe in the morning, how will you flaunt through the whole city in a shirt in the morning? Yes, and I can’t shine. They are looking for me, I escaped from prison.
- Oh, and we have a photo of you on Pestel hanging in our store.
- Tomorrow you’ll go and take a picture.
- And at the Voskhod store, it hangs right on the door.
- And go to Sunrise and take pictures.
- Does it say there that you are a murderer?
- The killer, he killed, he wanted to kill me, but it turned out that I killed. Here. If someone attacked you to kill you, how would you not defend yourself? My name is Vovka.
- And I’m Tanya. I wish I could defend myself.
Vovka leaned over and said:
- Get off, you crushed your neck, but in general you’re easy. So, what happened to your friend?
- She rushed to kiss me on the mouth.

Vovka laughed:
- Lesbian...
- No, her name is Katya.
He turned to me and took me by the shoulders:
- Tanya, promise me that everything that happened now with Katya, you won’t tell anyone, do you hear, to anyone, even in a dream, under hypnosis?
- No, I won’t tell you, I promise.
- If you tell, it will probably be the worst mistake you have ever made in your life, and you will regret it all your life. The whole school will start laughing at your friend, and she might commit suicide. Her life, her death will be on your conscience, understand? Do you promise me?
- Yes, Vov, why did she behave like that, is she a girl - a boy?
- She’s a lesbian, she loves you, girl, and there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s not her fault. Do you love someone very much?
- Yes…
- It’s not your fault that you love him, right?
- No.
- And you can’t help yourself, right?
- So…
- Keep your word, Tanya, this is very important both for your conscience and for the life of your girlfriend, behave with her as if nothing happened, okay?

- I promise. Vova, why do you live in a cemetery, let’s go to our attic, I’ll bring you water and food, your mother brings porridge and soups, borscht in cans from work, you can salt them and eat them very well.
- Okay, I’ll just stay there for about two weeks, sit during the day and hunt at night, then I’ll go to the North of the country, where you can get lost without a passport. Wherever to pump oil, cut down timber.
- And home, to mom?
- To my mother.., there the cops are waiting for me with open arms. It seems to me that you are not to blame, but they don’t think so. Prospect, where to now?
- Straight and straight...
- We will go along parallel streets, there are no lanterns there, sit on your neck, queen of the night...
After a couple of blocks, Vovka invited me to put on his socks, while he walked in his boots. I brought him an old mattress from the barn, brought him a bucket of water and food that I found in the house, put everything near the stairs, and he took everything up to the attic.
- Mother is home, why did she allow you to take everything out?
- She is sleeping.
I lied, mom and Igor were in the hospital on duty that night.
- Vova, here are your socks, well, I’m off to bed?
- Come on, good night... yes, Tan, remember the promise?
- I’ll pick it from both stores, tomorrow...
- No, about lesbians?
- Oh, no, I won’t tell anyone, it’s a grave...

Mom came with Igor after nine, I was still sleeping. She opened the door and, seeing me, asked:
- You, why not at Katya’s? When did you arrive?
- In the evening, I wanted to go home.
- Why?
- Mom, I’ve never spent the night with strangers, right?
- Well?
- I wanted to go home, I wanted it so bad...
- You promised, Katya is afraid to spend the night?
- She agreed, she understood me, she said that she would go to bed with the light.
- Okay, since you’re at home, then you can wash the floor and sweep the fence.

I didn’t know how to go to school on Monday, what to tell my mom? The uniform, shoes and briefcase were left at Katya’s house? We were supposed to leave her for school on Monday, right? On Monday morning I pretended to be sick, and when my mother started waking me up:
- Ma, I’m sick, my head hurts terribly, I can’t lift it.
She put her palm to her forehead, silently went into the kitchen, returned with a rolled up towel and tore the blanket off me, started hitting with the towel wherever she could, I tried to pull the blanket back, already stretched out my hand to him. Mom grabbed me by the hand and threw me off the bed onto the floor, when I fell to my knees on the floor, she suddenly screamed:
- Tanya, what are you doing? You shouldn’t be shy, it’s normal, other girls have had it since they were eleven. Your stomach hurts, right?
- What is this?
- Menstruation.
I jumped to my feet and twisted the hem of my shirt forward, there was blood.
- My stomach hurts, it still hurts, I have no strength, it hurts, I can’t take a step, it hurts!
The mother began to fuss:
- Now. Now, I’ll bring a basin of water, everything you need, and go to bed, you won’t go to school today. But if you don’t walk today, you’ll walk in the next months, it’s not a disease, it’s normal, understand?

Then Aunt Nina, Katya’s mother, came, she brought me a uniform and my briefcase. Aunt Nina never visited us; she got my address from school. Aunt Nina entered the room and, seeing me in bed, sat down on a chair:
- Tanya, what happened, what happened, who scared you so much?! You ran away, you’re lying in bed, Katya with a fever, doesn’t say anything, but just cries and is silent, raving something in her sleep. What happened, Tanya, tell me? Why did you run away, and when you ran away, why undressed?

I was silent, I promised Vovka, and I was afraid that now if I told Katya, Aunt Nina would beat her, and maybe kill her. Doesn't my mother beat me? And Katya’s death, at the hands of her own mother, will be on my conscience. After all, Katya, she’s lesbian and it’s not her fault, but what if Aunt Nina doesn’t think so? What if she doesn’t have such smart and kind ideas as Vova? Yes, I need to run to the shops, tear off the leaflets with Vovkin’s photos, as soon as the shops close, I’ll run. Yes, and don’t forget about Vovka, he will die without food and water. At the cemetery, people even put vodka, eggs, bread...

Katya didn’t come to school again, and it was the month of May. Exams began, then holidays. I somehow got distracted from her and didn’t even realize that she hadn’t taken any exams, and Aunt Nina took her documents from school.

In the summer, when Sashka Afanasyev went to visit his grandmother in Zyryanovsk, I had nowhere to go. One day I walked and walked, and finally reached the central store in the center, there I walked and looked at everything, reached the chandeliers and thought: when I become an adult, I will have an apartment and I will buy myself a lot of new, good things. I’ll come here and start choosing chandeliers, which one will I buy then? Someone leaned close to my ear and whispered:
- When you grow up, Tanya, you will have an apartment, you will come here and buy a lot of new, beautiful things. You go to this department and start choosing a chandelier, which one will you buy then?

I shuddered:
- Oh, hello, Aunt Nina! That’s exactly what I thought now, can you imagine?
- I imagine I always think that way when I stand here. Tanya, I know what happened then, here, why did you run away?
- Did Katya tell you everything?
- No, Katya became very ill, mentally, her brain and soul could not stand the strong love for you. You know, this happens, and there is nothing to be done about it, such girls are called lesbians, this is not a disease, this is life. I found Katya’s diary, and in it I read all her feelings for you, she wrote in the diary that she would definitely kiss you that night, and love for her would certainly be kindled in you. Katya, in her naivety, believed in this. Forgive her?
- I have nothing to forgive Katya for, everything is fine, it’s not her fault, it’s love. And it’s no longer possible to cope with it, especially for a child. I, too, love one boy, but he doesn’t understand it. Like a fool, instead of holding my hand or kissing me, he asks me to ride a bike, and we ride: I steer, and he turns the pedals.
- Tanya, let’s come to us, check on Katya, what if it’s a miracle, what if she remembers you and everything will be normal, everything will be the same with her before, let’s go, Tanya?

We again walked along that street, around the bend of which stands a huge city building.
cemetery, the same fence, the same black and shaggy dog, a vegetable garden already planted, the same temporary hut where Katya and Aunt Nina live.
- I no longer work, I sit with Katya as a guardian, I receive benefits for her and myself. Do you want some candy? Just one, first we’ll eat, and then we’ll drink tea. Lord, if only Katya would remember you? Just a miracle?
We went into the house, Katya was sitting at the table with her back and drawing some scribbles on paper with a pencil.
- Katya, I brought you a girlfriend. This is Tanechka, your friend.
Katya turned around, her eyes were no longer the same, joyful, sincere, but not the same, there was no love or love for me in them. Katya didn’t recognize me, she no longer looked at me the way she always looked at me. We ate cutlets, then drank tea, then Katya and I sat on the bed and closed the curtain from her mother. Katya was glad to see me, since no one was friends with her, and I had one task: to return her consciousness back.

- Katya, I know where your box is, over there, can we take a look?
- Oh, come on, I have so much here?!
- Oh, these are beads and brooches, your grandmothers gave you, family heirlooms, do you remember your grandmothers?
- Which grandmothers?
- And the postcards and photos, isn’t this your pen pal, Katie? Is this her friend? And remember, you gave me a doll from Czechoslovakia, this Katie sent you?
- Which Katie?
- Katya, here’s your photo album. You see, it’s me standing in the front row, and this is you, squatting? You and I have become such friends, have you peed yourself yet? A? Remember? In the camp? Kate?!
- In which camp, who peed himself?
I moved closer to Katya.
“Here, you see, the feather, you stroked my back with it, after all, you stroked it, and your hand didn’t fall off, you stroked it for hours until I fell asleep, Katya?”
- What feather?
There was also her diary, where Katya wrote everything about me: and her feelings for me, what kind words she called me, how jealous she was of everyone, how beautiful she thought I was and admired everything I touched, what I did , said….
I threw her onto the bed and with all my strength, as she then pressed me with her hands, and my lips pressed into hers, my tongue began to do the same thing that she had done in my mouth. Let me, let me imagine that she is Afanasiev, that I am kissing Sasha, the main thing is that Katya will remember me. Katya lay there and didn’t resist, she just lay there and then calmly sat down on the bed next to her again.
- Well, Katyukha, now you remember me?!
- Mom, let her come to us again? I like her…

2006