Free as a Bird. Dating story no. 31

Oleg was an absolutely magical man. Lanky, full of energy, vivid, with astonishingly laughing eyes. That laughter seemed to be brewing away inside him and spilling out in generous helpings the moment he opened his mouth and dropped a remark. No, it was not straightforward laughter: it disguised itself as criticism or as admiration, it put on the cloak of alarm or the veil of delight — but however Oleg waved his arms about, however he raised his eyebrows, however he rolled his eyes, Tanya always caught that laughter hiding deep inside him.

And only sometimes, when he sank into something so deeply that he forgot about the people around him, did she catch in his eyes now despair, now a boundless love of life, now the deepest compassion and pain over something. Tanya admired him; she dreamed of being like that herself: brave, decisive, knowing all the answers, vivid and out of the ordinary. She could listen to his monologues for hours, she delighted in his performances and in his work. Of course, he was also a poser, an egotist, a hardened cynic and a windbag; at times he was cruel and uncompromising — but she, to her own surprise, was ready to turn a blind eye to all of it. She could not do otherwise. One look at him and she was ready to forgive him absolutely anything. And to dream, and to pray to every god there is that he might, just once, notice her

One day she overheard him talking to his friends in the canteen — they did not notice her behind the partition. The friends were trying to convince Oleg that it was time he settled down, and he, as always, laughed it off.

- "Lads, on this point I am entirely with Yankovsky: 'living with a woman is heroism in itself, and starting a family with one person for a whole lifetime is an act of valour'. Well, I am no hero, what can you do," Oleg repented theatrically.

- "It is the woman who would have to be the hero — for putting up with you!"

- "Exactly! I cannot expose lovely ladies to such a risk!"

- "Some of them would only be glad. Look at Tanka from Misha's team, she cannot take her eyes off you."

- "The one with the ponytail?"

- "No, the one who brought in home-made pirozhki for everybody on her birthday."

- "Ah, that one..." a note of disappointment slipped into Oleg's voice, "nah..."

- "What do you mean, 'nah'! A wife should be a good housekeeper! And kind, by the way. If there is one person who will never turn into a bitch, it is Tanya."

- "Nah... She is somehow indistinct... You cannot tell whether she is there or not, forever suffering..."

- "That is because she has not got you — that is why she suffers!"

- "Sanya, seriously, who needs a woman who is neither fish nor fowl... By the way, are you coming with us at the weekend?..."

Tanya sat behind the partition, not daring to come out. Better they never knew that she had heard it all. She would live through it, take note, put it right. She would show them “neither fish nor fowl” and “indistinct”! Just wait until she started doing her make-up, and dressing up, and turned into a femme fatale, like the heroines of her favourite films! She would show them...

- "Tanka, where have you got to? Misha is threatening us all with murder!" Lara came running into the canteen, blowing Tanya's “cover” in one go. Tanya jumped up hastily, wiping away her tears, but the tear-stained face would not go so quickly.

- "Have you been crying?" Lara asked, straight out and without beating about the bush, completely ignoring Oleg and his company. Tanya shook her head hastily and flew out of the canteen headlong.

- "That came out badly..." Oleg muttered in embarrassment. He thought about it all weekend and decided that on Monday he would definitely go and apologise.

Strangely enough, although their departments were next door to each other, he had almost never been here and felt almost as if he were on enemy territory. The maximum objective was to find Tanya without drawing too much attention from everybody else, otherwise the gossip would start... He peered cautiously behind each of the partitions until, on an empty desk, he saw a photograph of Tanya with some other young woman. Both of them were infinitely happy in the picture; he could not remember Tanya ever smiling like that at work, and he stood there admiring the photograph.

- "Oleg, are you looking for somebody?" asked a timid, almost frightened little voice behind his back.

- "Tanya!" Oleg was genuinely delighted, "for you!"

He had never paid her much attention, and now for the first time he could take a closer look at her. A pleasant face, very soft and warm, a wary gaze with a light shade of sadness. It was the kind of gaze that made you want to protect her at once from every trouble and hardship. And now, on top of that, genuine amazement and disbelief at the happiness that had fallen on her out of nowhere.

- "I have come to apologise for Friday. I should not have said that. I am very sorry."

- "Oh, please...It is quite all right..." Tanya flushed.

- "I was wrong, and I would like to invite you to the Korablik to make up for it, at any time that suits you."

Thank God, Oleg had no idea what a commotion Tanya caused at home, turning out every wardrobe and scattering the rejected clothes around the flat as she chose an outfit that would make quite sure she did not look “indistinct”. Planning a style purely for work is one thing; planning one for a date with the man of your dreams is quite another. He had not the faintest idea how carefully she matched the jewellery to the clothes and the make-up, how many times she wiped off her eyeliner and drew it again. What came to the date with him, though, was simply a magnificent woman, a Woman with a capital letter. This Woman carried herself into the world with dignity and gave out an absolutely clear message of beauty and kindness. Oleg was quite transfixed, and remembered only belatedly to offer her a seat.

Tanya noticed the delight in his eyes and almost jumped for joy and triumph. Deep down she did not recognise herself: where had this boldness and this confidence come from? She talked about something, laughed brightly at his jokes, flirted, made eyes at him and felt like a goddess. The evening flew by unnoticed and intoxicatingly sweet. And after it came days at work wonderfully full of flirtation and tenderness, stolen glances in the canteen, jokes on the messenger, hands touching in the corridors and even a joint visit to the store cupboard during working hours for a not entirely work-related pastime. And then the marvellous evenings that followed.

Their colleagues noticed the change but did not immediately work out what lay behind it. It was astonishing how Tanya seemed to blossom: she straightened up, became fashionable, began experimenting with make-up, and looked less like a cowed kitten whose whole appearance begs somebody, anybody, to take it in. It was just as astonishing how Oleg calmed down: he became less cynical, less restless, began to treat the people around him more attentively — as if he had only just remembered that yes, they existed too. And all the while neither of them made much of a show of being together.

- "Tanya, where has all this change come from?" the colleagues asked at first.

- "If you do not love yourself, nobody will," Tanya answered coquettishly.

- "Oleg, you are like a different person... You look like a cat that got the cream now."

- "Remember I used to say that a cynic is a disillusioned romantic? Well, from time to time and regardless of the situation, that romantic does wake up after all and takes over the controls. But, omnia transibunt, et id transibit quoque — this too shall pass," Oleg laughed it off.

Both departments refused to believe that they were together. It seemed something impossible, unreal: a thin, plucked, pitifully staring kitten and a scrappy stray dog. Even more unreal was the way they had changed. The kitten had become a graceful cat, smugly licking its fur in the sunshine, and the stray had turned into an almost good-natured, fluffy lump that would only snap at strangers and at those who got too cocky.

And suddenly everything worked out for them “the way it should be”. A model family, an exemplary one. The home wanted for nothing, the man was clean, fed and looked after, and Tanya shone like a polished copper coin, having at last, all of a sudden, accepted herself and stopped trying to earn everybody's favour and be useful to everybody.

It all looked so idyllic that nobody, again, believed such a thing could go on. And soon the colleagues' remarks changed their tone.

- "Tanyukha, well done! You have hit the jackpot!"

- "Come on, girls, I am simply very happy..."

- "Tell us another one! And how exactly did you hook him, eh? Cast a spell on him, I bet!"

Or...

- "They have got you well in hand, Oleg. One look from her and off you run!"

- "For some women it is no sin to do a bit of running!"

- "That is what they all say, and then bang, you are bound hand and foot, hauling the unliftable load of family, children, mortgage and a dog in silence, like the barge haulers on the Volga."

People are usually merciless in their judgements. And they strike at the most vulnerable spot. Tanya was genuinely upset that people thought her such a bitch, one who had taken Oleg in hand. What if he heard it? What if, God forbid, he believed it??? And Tanya tried with all her might to care for him even more, to help him more, to do even more, just so that he would not, God forbid, believe that she had “cast a spell” on him and “taken him in hand”. But he, in spite of all her fears, went on being just as wonderful and marvellous, attentive and loving.

The only thing was that the more she cared for him, the stronger her impression grew that it weighed on him. She asked for nothing in return, and yet Oleg was somehow imperceptibly fading. Imperceptibly even to himself. And she had absolutely no idea how to help him. More and more often he buried himself in his smartphone or his laptop, stayed late at work and seemed to escape from home at the first opportunity. She even began to wonder whether he might have taken a mistress — that was how strange it all looked. It was very hard to believe: he treated her so attentively when he was at home, and when he was away he answered her calls immediately, at any hour. But that is how it always is. From the outside you would never think it: an attentive, caring husband, and then bang, divorce proceedings, because there is a child on the side.

- "Olezhka, is everything all right? Has something happened?"

- "Everything is fine," Oleg smiled wearily.

- "You have seemed rather sad lately..."

- "Yes... I do not even know myself. Just a mood. You remember the joke: a man brings his Christmas decorations back to the shop, and the assistant asks: 'What, do they not sparkle?' — 'They sparkle, but they bring no joy...'," he answered thoughtfully, and immediately noticed how she shrank back in fright, "But you always bring me joy. It is just a mood. But, omnia transibunt, et id transibit quoque — everything will pass, and this too."

It had already cost Tanya incredible effort and courage to raise the subject with him at all, and although he had assured her that everything was fine, the little worm of doubt went on gnawing at her from inside. Her friends vied with one another to calm her down and told her everything would settle, but that is what friends are for. Friends are supposed to say soothing things to us, and we are supposed to believe them — after all, it is not we ourselves who thought it, but clever, independent outside observers who said it. Gradually she reached the stage of having convinced herself that he was cheating on her because she was so “indistinct”. Tanya complained to practically everybody she met that her husband was surely playing around, that there was surely a mistress, and that she herself was bad, ugly, stupid and that every man she had ever had wiped his feet on her. And all the while she never breathed a word of her fears and suspicions to Oleg, being sweet and loving with him and at the same time feverishly scanning for any confirmation of her hypothesis. Until she met an old friend of her mother's, Vera Leonidovna.

- "There is simply no way I can know whether he has a mistress or not," Vera said straight away, "so I can neither convince you nor talk you out of it. But let us assume the best: that there is no mistress."

- "But how...?"

- "You said yourself that you have no proof. And I have even less. So let us respect him and not insult the man with groundless suspicions," Vera Leonidovna watched with an indulgent smile as Tanya gasped for air, looking for something to object with and finding nothing, and then went on, "and what if your man has simply 'gone stale in the stall'?"

- "Meaning?!"

- "Well, you know how horses start to pine in their stalls when they are not taken out often enough?"

- "So he really will go chasing after mistresses?!"

- "Silly girl," Vera giggled, "he is bored by the monotony, that is all. You do everything for his sake, there is nothing to find fault with, you are sweet and wonderful yourself — and he wants to fly."

- "But what... And I... I simply cannot reach his heights... Some sort of hen, that is me..." tears welled up in Tanya's eyes.

- "Some birds are made for solitary flights," Vera Leonidovna went on imperturbably, "But they fly away in order to come back afterwards. And the return is all the sweeter for it."

- "And what am I to do?"

- "The very same thing you did to make him take up with you. Be “distinct” in the sense in which you were doing it before. But let your falcon out to fly, and trust him."

Tanya talked with Vera Leonidovna for a long time yet, and afterwards rang her and asked her advice again. Decisions such as trusting somebody or letting them go are not taken in a single day, and fears do not go anywhere after one-off conversations like that. They lie in ambush, waiting for people to relax and allow themselves a few more emotions, to loosen their control. And at the first opportunity the fears unfold, take up all the space and noisily set about pushing every more or less sensible thought out of your head. But Tanya loved Oleg too much, and so she threw all her ardour and energy into being irresistible for him.

And it worked. He flew away and came back, with new strength and new delight. She supported him in everything: in sickness and in health, in all his quirks and follies, in all his conflicts and all his triumphs. She let him fly and be a star of sorts, arrange whatever came into his head, and her reward was the kind of adoration she could only have dreamed of. He flew, and he carried her on his wings.