Helper4

The night for Kalina dragged on endlessly. Despite her fatigue and strained legs, she could not sleep. Compatriots did not want to calm down. Someone shouted, someone cursed, then the clarification began, who respects whom, and the action ended with the choral singing of Russian folk songs. And all this under the windows of the hotel. As if Kalina spent the night not in a Chinese hotel, but in a village where young people, returning from dancing in a club, vigorously discussed the events of the past evening. They finished yelling and sorting things out by about three o'clock in the morning. Kalina had just begun to fall asleep when someone knocked on the door. To the reasonable question of Kalina, who was there, there was silence behind the door, and then a timid girlish voice in broken Russian answered that it was a kunya - “b ...”.

Pushing Tatyana aside, Kalina wanted to go and open the door, but did not dare when she suddenly heard a friendly male neighing in the corridor. Hastily dressing, Tatyana went out into the corridor and found out from the peasants, who had calmed down in an instant, that this was their prank. The peasants decided to joke and ordered a Chinese girl of easy virtue in the next room. The heroine of the story turned out to be small, frail, slightly pockmarked, with bleached, or red, or piebald hair, and in men's underpants. The girl stood and shook, and Kalina wanted to come up and shake one of the peasants. Kalina had a desire, and Tatyana fulfilled it, but in her own way. Seeing that the men, having laughed, were about to return to the room, she grabbed the nearest of them by the scruff of the neck and said:

- Where? And who will pay?

- For what? - the man was surprised, - we were just joking!

- For that! You have to pay for jokes!

Shaking off Tatiana's hand, the man tried to sneak into the room, but it was not there, hastily orienting herself, the woman shouted in a bad voice:

- Good people, help! Yes, what is being done? Insulted, compromised! Help, good people!

Kunya, who was on duty on the floor, heard Tanya's familiar voice, cringed and hid behind the counter. The same one, who called herself a kunya "b ...", only stood and blinked her eyes. The men hid behind the door, and Tanya continued to shout:

- Are the men in the world gone? A poor, lonely, weak woman has been insulted, and no one will stand up and protect her! Good people, what's going on?

The doors of the rooms slammed, displeased voices were heard, disheveled heads began to peep out of the doors.

“Pasha,” a woman suddenly shouted, “wake up the children, pack your things, we’re on fire!”

A male voice murmured to her in response, but the woman did not calm down:

— You only would on lateral! How can we not burn if a woman screamed? I heard!

There was a fuss in neighboring rooms. Finally, a man came out of the room where the pranksters lived. Glancing displeasedly at Tanya, he went up to the frail Chinese girl, thrust a few yuan into her hand and pushed her towards the exit.

But it was not there. Tanya was not happy with this outcome. Stepping in the way of the Chinese woman, she said loudly and distinctly to the man:

— Sorry!

- In front of whom? he was surprised.

- In front of her! The girl, as she can, earns a living, and you're kidding!

“Yes, are you completely crazy?” I will apologize to the Chinese!

“Do you know how hard life is for girls in this country?” Or maybe she is the second or third child in the family? She doesn't have a passport. It doesn't officially exist for anyone! She was hidden in sheds all her life so that the authorities would not see her, and when she grew up, her parents got rid of her by floating her here, to Sunka!

Kalina buried her head in the blanket so as not to hear the thunderous voice of her friend. And she continued her speech, gleaned from long conversations with elevator attendants, salespeople, servants.

“Well, how can a poor girl get a job, here in Sunka?” No education, no passport? And you were going to mock her? Sorry, otherwise I'll tell everyone! Good people,” raising her voice a little, she turned to the assembled half-asleep people, “this man ...

"Okay," the man agreed, fearfully. - I'm sorry! And I won't do it again!

- You understood? - Tanya affectionately turned to the girl, - he apologizes! You didn't make out anything, poor thing! Hey, kunya, - she turned to the duty officer, - don’t hide, you can still see! Translate for her and tell her that if anyone else tries to play a joke on her like that, let her turn to me! Understood? And why are you crowded, - the troublemaker turned to her neighbors on the floor, - go to sleep! Well, the girl mixed up the number, with whom it does not happen! Young at all and does not know the Russian language! Go, go to sleep!

Half an hour later Tatyana was already asleep. It was five o'clock in the morning. The walls trembled from the heroic snoring of the woman, and Kalina lay and cried into her pillow, afraid to wake her friend. But by six o'clock in the morning she fell asleep too. Girlfriends slept and did not hear how early in the morning the men from the next room quietly talked with the kunya and moved to a room on another floor.