My Angel Read online

  Olga’s daughter picked up the phone and replied that she would not be able to come today, because her husband was celebrating something with the neighbors, so he couldn’t drive. And she herself was too tired after work and therefore would arrive only the next day, so she asked me to just to say hello to her mother for her. When I told Olga that, she burst out weeping, and said medicine would be of much better use than her daughter’s one word greeting.

  At eleven p.m. that night, Olga Soroka died. Before our very eyes.

  “Her heart gave out” Dr. Savchenco said, “ Poor women. Even her own daughter abundant her. Die alone. How awful”.

  “How awful! That’s it! Olga wasn’t that bad as I was”. Thoughts in my head swarmed like bees. They buzzed and worn in different directions, bumping into one another. “ Her daughter just didn’t realize that her mom was that bad. I’m pretty sure. But my husband! I was almost dead if Dr. Vyacheslav Dmitrievich didn’t go home for several days. How could he abundant me, leave me to die? Or he hoped that I will die? Right. Then he don’t need to get divorce and share the stuff we collected living together. No arguing. No fighting. No Problem. He probably likes the word “no”. Well, no. I am alive. I will get well and will live happily ever after.

  This was the first time I’d ever seen anyone die. It was one of the biggest horrors—to see a person dying right in front of you and not being able to help!

  Next two hours Svetlana and I spent in the ward with the deceased Olga. Such were hospital rules: a dead person had to be left for two hours in the ward. Perhaps to be sure they were well and truly passed on. At one a.m. the doctors finally wheeled Olga out and wished us good night.

  How could we have a good night after watching Olga die, neglected by her own daughter? We were both in shock. We couldn’t even talk at first. I knew that was another lesson. And I had to learn it by heart: Hurry to live, otherwise it may be too late. Tomorrow may not come.

  Hurry up to live; otherwise it may be too late! Go visit the person you want to see. Say a kind word to him or her or you may run out of time to say it. You’ll regret it all your life, blame yourself, but it will be impossible to change anything! Anything at all.

  After a while our senses started coming back. Moreover, the doctor on duty that night was the young, but already highly experienced physician and nice person, Alexander Savchenko.

  “Why aren’t you sleeping, girls?”

  “Well, it’s too hard to accept the recent events.”

  “Yes, I understand. So sorry it happened this way. Anyway, I will not turn off your lights for now. Even better, I have something that will distract your attention. I know it’s been a tough experience.”

  And he brought us a half-full bottle of a wonderful wine called Cahors.

  In a village, everything is always much simpler, I would even say more sincere than in the city. People do not pay attention to the unimportant things, such as the gift being only half a bottle. They just accept with gratitude the fact that people want to help.

  Not every Ukrainian medical institution has doctors who offer wine to their patients! But in this small hospital there was a homelike atmosphere with a lot of kindness and empathy. Along with professionalism and strict rules for following medical procedure, you would meet cordiality and generosity of spirit. Of course, the chief physician might not be completely happy to hear about anything like this, but I’m sure he would understand.

  Dr. Savchenko had even brought clean water glasses.

  “Here, girls, let’s have a glass for the peace of Olga Soroka’s soul. A remedy for your exhausted minds.”

  Svetlana and I couldn’t believe it. But the wine was great, and toasting Maria helped us both to accept her passing. After that, the doctor poured us half of glass of wine each, and advised us to switch to some more optimistic topics. We relaxed a bit but still couldn’t sleep, of course. And then suddenly, thunk-thunk, thunk-thunk, thunk-thunk!

  Svetlana and I froze, in the full sense of the word.

  I wasn’t sure what Svetlana was thinking at that moment, but I suddenly said, “Svetlana, what if Soroka didn’t die? She was taken to the morgue, where she came back to life, and now, now she is coming back for us!”

  “Do you think she’s angry with us?” Svetlana asked.

  “What for?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Maybe because we’re still alive?”

  “She has no reason to be cross with us.” I tried to look brave. “We did call her daughter. Right? It’s not our fault she refused to come to her mother’s side.”

  Fear enchained us. We could not move and just stared at the door. I didn’t know what we expected to see there. The dead Maria Soroka coming, staggering on her gangrenous legs.

  Then the sound of something creaking added fuel to the fire.

  And then we both began to shake with silent hysterical laughter. The only fridge available on our floor was just in front of our ward. Apparently one of the patients wanted to have a drink of cold water or something, and had thumped down the hall. Another lesson to learn. Very often, along with sad, even tragic events, there is something comical or funny. For equilibrium and balance I guess.

  Five-thirty a.m., and still we could not sleep.

  At about seven in the morning, Svetlana and I finally fell asleep, and were woken up at nine by somebody screaming. No, it was not screaming. It was a cry of rage. When I opened my eyes, I saw it was a woman who was raging inside our ward. It took me a moment to realize that she was directing this anger at me.

  “Why in the name of all that’s holy didn’t you tell me my mother was so bad that she might die!”

  And then her language became much worse. At first I was taken aback, just half-awake after a few hours of sleep. I opened my mouth to return her anger, and then I realized what was going on. The doctors were standing next to her with their heads down. I felt, quite unexpectedly, absolutely calm.

  I gave her the time to cry out all the grief. After all, her mother died. And then, very quietly, I said, “Well, as you see, I already got what I deserve. And you, my dear, will someday get yours.”

  Everyone looked at me, completely dumbfounded. And she, Maria’s daughter, stood with her mouth open. Perhaps she also understood something in what I had said.

  Everyone left. Everyone, except me and Svetlana. We couldn’t leave.

  Later the same day Svetlana went home for a week. Then they brought her back only to remove the plaster. Her young body coped perfectly, the bones healed beautifully. I never saw her after, but I hoped that everything was going smoothly in her life. She was young, beautiful, and seemed to be surrounded by caring people and God’s blessings.

  As for me I was just starting my path in a new life. Both literally and figuratively speaking, I was taking my first steps. At the age of forty.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The number forty, in my opinion, has some mysterious meaning. In the Bible, forty days and forty nights of rain removed life from earth. Moses was on Mount Sinai for forty days and forty nights. In fairy tales this number is mentioned a considerable number of times, as in the story “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.”

  Commemoration for the dead is performed on the fortieth day. A woman carries a child for forty weeks. And what about the phrase “forty times forty,” which is so much of something that it can’t be counted?

  Did you think that that number, my age of forty, had no particular significance? Well, I disagree. My second life began at forty. And it was truly one rough, potholed road of a beginning. And it only got worse after I was finally discharged from the hospital and sent home.

  From the first, I noticed that I could not turn on a gas stove and cook anything. There I was, hungry, standing in front of a stove, looking at it, but I couldn’t light it.

  Before I was burnt, I thought I knew what fear was, but I was wrong. Never before had I felt such a horror as standing in front of that stove, the horror growing inside of me until I fainted.

  I beg
an to black out each time I was frightened. And I was scared of everything: a phone call, loud voices, fire, but also terrified even of water. And every time: boom! I would collapse. I would lose consciousness five and six times a day, beaten black and blue by the floor at the end of each day. The doctors called this dystonia, as in vegetative-vascular dystonia and migraine, all a result of the thermal injuries.

  Next, I found out that I had no job anymore. Redundant. Of course, I was paid some severance money, due to the staff reduction, but, first of all, the sum was so ridiculously small that one could burst her sides with laughing at it, and secondly, I was still jobless. There was nothing to help me feed my family. At least what was left of it.

  However, I had no strength to do anything. And no husband to support me. Only my son was happy that I was still alive and back home, and Natasha continued to come and help me out.

  The next surprise was that it was impossible to find a job. Turned out that in our country no one needed you if you were forty. All the interviews ended after the question, “How old are you?” It was difficult to actually understand why retirement was popularly considered to be the most productive time of a person’s life, but those, like me who had never taken so much as maternity leave, had gained experience and life wisdom, suddenly became not needed. But, unfortunately, that’s how everything was.

  My son entered military college. He wanted to follow in the footsteps of his great-grandfather, Vasily, who did military service during World War II. He had been quite unlucky. After being a part of the army that had helped the Soviet Union to hang out its flag of victory in Berlin, he was sent to Japan to fight some more.

  However, he returned home alive and more or less healthy, and able to live the rest of his life with honor and dignity. Vasily Pavlovich lived for eighty-three years, enjoying the world he had won at the cost of his own blood, spending time with his great-grandson Vovochka, whom he loved more than his children and grandchildren. And he even wrote his memoirs.

  After my son left for college I was all alone. On the one hand, it was great to finally have a chance to take care of no one but myself. On the other hand, I felt so lonely, abandoned, and forgotten by everyone.

  But even that was not enough. Aleksei demanded that I sell the house and pay him part of the money from the common property settlement. In addition, he tried to persuade our son to give him his share.

  But he didn’t want Vova to go live with him or even visit him at Marina’s apartment. Aleksei just wanted to see his own son once in a while, when it was convenient.

  It was almost impossible to sell the house, with so many people out of work. I had no income to pay for gas and electricity. An incredible amount of debt had accumulated since my ex-husband stopped getting paid. But Aleksei didn’t care. He was not going to pay for anything.

  “Well, I have no money! Where should I find it?” he shouted at me.

  In short, these became everyday squabbles. Everyday agonies that proved how abandoned I was.

  My neighbors on either side realized that I was alone and there was no one to protect me. Vulnerable. They kept trying to cut off a piece of land on each side. At night they moved the border on my vegetable garden inward each from their own borders, in order to claim three more feet of my yard. I fought for my land as a warrior, but the corrupt land surveyor was not in a hurry to stand up for justice and help me. The court system was also not the best in the world, so the neighbors stole part of my land, despite all the documentation available. Another misfortune in my life at that time, my age of forty. My life was hell.

  Chapter Fourteen

  But hell itself was not all those problems. I didn’t live in hell; hell lived in me. Hatred. I hated so much when I thought about my past life or my ex-husband. Heaven forbid that someone should pronounce the name Aleksei in my vicinity. Each time I felt that tons of bricks were falling onto me. Yes, yes, red and heavy, with sharp angles—bricks. I physically felt the pain when they each “fell” on my head, my shoulders, and my back. I would not be surprised if there could be anything but bruises left on my skin. Automatically I cowered and covered my head and face with my hands. It was hard to breathe. Mostly it ended up with my losing consciousness. My hatred grew and flourished with each passing day. Who allowed him to destroy my life? All I’ve achieved in my life destroyed. So much hard work and so many sleepless nights! How many times I stinted myself to please the one I loved!

  Soon I began to develop a plan of revenge in my head.

  I could neither eat nor sleep, nor live. Hatred settled in my heart, my soul, occupied my entire mind. It seethed and multiplied. It was impossible to think of anything else but how to make Aleksei and Marina go through the hell I was in. But no, that would not be enough! It was necessary to make them suffer more, so that they eventually died.

  The Marina-mouse lived on the ground floor. I could probably throw a grenade or a bomb in their window at night. Or use the same inflammable mixture which had almost killed me. I was even thinking of getting into their apartment at night, tying them up and then slowly torturing the two of them. Make them beg me for their lives.

  My God, I prayed, I am not capable of such things.

  But I could also hire a hit man, said my hatred.

  I had no idea where I was going to get a grenade or a bomb, how I would I tie them up, not to mention actually perform tortures. Where would I even get money for the hit man? But I couldn’t think of anything else. I knew, with certainty, I would never be able to do anything like that, but I kept thinking it and thinking it.

  Young brides called, I did their beautiful hairstyles and applied stunning make-up, but because of this all-consuming hatred I couldn’t remember any of the young faces. I stopped sleeping, lost my appetite. I became skinny, nervous, and angry.

  There were still no buyers for the house. Aleksei regularly called and demanded his money for it. Each time he nagged me it fed my hatred. Furthermore, I missed my son terribly. And I felt sorry for him. I imagined it would feel so good to turn my ex over to the police, and make him pay for everything by sending him to jail. The house issues would be solved automatically. And my vengeance would be accomplished, but how would my son live with the knowledge that his father was in prison thanks to his mother? For trying to murder his mother. It would kill him and make him suffer from hatred toward those who gave him life.

  Believe me, I knew what that was like. Neither my father nor my mother wanted me. I never saw my father. Then my mother left, and then somehow forgot all about me and wiped me out of her life. All my life I was trying to prove to the whole world that I was a good person. Why didn’t they want me? Why didn’t they like me? My complexes multiplied, as the shells on the bottom of an old boat, creating the well-known inferiority complex.

  How could I even dare to think to take vengeance on the father of my son? I myself chose this man to be his father. Maria Vasilievna was absolutely right, “I am afraid you will not want him to be punished.”

  I tried prayer. Oh God, what should I do? How should I live with this? What is the way out?

  So another year passed.

  But one day, it was a wonderful summer’s day. It was the middle of the week. The next Saturday there was supposed to be a wedding of a lovely girl, Zhenia. We agreed that today, this beautiful summer’s day, at seven p.m., to meet at her house to look at the dress and accessories, and to discuss hairstyle and make-up for the ceremony.

  Zhenia was living in one of the most unique residences in our city. The fourteen-story building, built by Yugoslavians using some new architectural techniques, was in the heart of the city. I was there on time, but Zhenia wasn’t home yet.

  I went up to the fourteenth floor balcony to look out over the city in all of its green summer glory, and suddenly realized, “Here it is—the solution! Jump and that’s it. Finished! No more problems. No debts. No house to sell in order to give money to the man I hated. And there would be no need for revenge because my suicide would be the best revenge
. Could anyone live after realizing that someone had killed herself because of you?

  What a relief it would be. No more humiliation, no need to try to convince your potential employer that you were not too old for the job, but, on the contrary, more experienced and better educated than someone in their twenties, as well as intelligent, and only forty-two. No need to light a terrifying fire on the stove to cook the soup, no need to think and fight the urge to kill someone. Nothing. How quiet and calm it would be. And everyone around would feel pity for me, bring flowers to my grave and say what a nice person I was. Had been.

  The desire to end this nightmare of a life was so strong that I looked for a place to land, without bushes or trees, soft grass or sand. Heaven forbid, I didn’t want to stay alive and crippled forever. At that moment, I was not even thinking about any physical pain. My emotional pain was so strong that my brain blocked out every reason that could stop me. I found a place, the perfect place to jump.

  And right then, Zhenia came home. Of course, we discussed all the wedding preparations. And of course, I didn’t remember anything we talked about. My brain was on autopilot. Only one thought was in my head: to end up the conversation ASAP, and get rid of this hell inside. Soon, I told myself, I will hurry to my death.

  Suddenly a thought struck me: Oh, my Lord! Vova! What about my son? I clearly saw the picture: I’m lying in a coffin, quite happy and relaxed, and my son is standing next to it, covering his eyes, for a man cannot cry. His mother taught so. And he is hiding his face for the shame, that his mother was so weak and had betrayed him, forcing him now to stand and bear this shame before all the world.

  At such times, it is hard to expect from yourself even a tiny little bit of logic. My head was a mess and confused. I felt hot. So hot, as if a fire was burning me from the inside.