A Weakling! Dating story no. 38

Like all Cholerics, Lida pretty much despised weakness, and the chief weakness of all was admitting to it. The phrase "we are only human" made her seethe inwardly, because as she understood it, it meant an unconditional surrender to the circumstances of life. She demanded the same of her pupils, though in a milder form: "to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield". And, surprisingly quickly, the children caught the idea, doing every assignment and trying to show off their knowledge in class, to the envy of her colleagues. This was one more confirmation that her approach was the right one.

Alas, not all the teachers were like that. Lida did of course have her own limited circle at work, but most of that staffroom nest of vipers thought her an arrogant know-all and preferred to talk ABOUT her rather than WITH her. This did not trouble Lida in the slightest: if she had spent her time on idiots, she would never have become a teacher in the first place. Far more important to her were the children, in whom there was still a chance of growing something human, pure and lofty, of teaching them to think outside the box, of working out an educational concept of her own... And so on, in the best traditions of the Strugatsky brothers' "Wild Swans", only without the Slimies.

With such thoughts in her head she walked into the staffroom and immediately caught Tolik's eye. Faltering and only just suppressing the urge to shout a cheerful "hello, pervert", she carried on towards her shelf. Anatoly Nikolayevich, the teacher of Russian language and literature, was an entirely separate chapter in the history of that school. He looked normal enough, but nobody ever looked at him. He was domestic, always ready to help, with anything you might start and anything you might carry on — there for the taking, in short, and nobody took. In general, if you asked women to describe the ideal man, most of them would describe exactly this Tolik. They would describe him, and dream about him, and sail straight past without noticing that here he was, sitting like that Hachiko dog, waiting for some soft-hearted mistress to take him home and give him shelter.

There was just one problem: Hachiko-Tolik had already chosen his favourite mistress, and at every opportunity he stared after her and all but drooled. And “the mistress”, Lida, was holding herself back with her last ounce of strength to keep from swearing at him for all she was worth, from kicking him at a run or from tripping him up in the most childish way possible. There was nothing to hold against him, really — but what the hell was he staring for. That is to say, deep down she understood perfectly well that he was a wonderful teacher, that the children adored him and that he was neither a maniac nor a pervert, but... a weakling, after all. And weakness, as we already know, Lida despised.

- "Tamara Semyonovna, I am going to leave this school, honestly, I have had it up to here!" she whined as she marked test papers during a free period she shared with the English teacher.

- "And is there anywhere to go, Lidochka?" The English teacher had successfully passed retirement age and went on working mostly to keep herself in trim. She had sat on the panel for Lida's own school-leaving exam.

- "There must be somewhere! I cannot stay here. No time for a private life and no chance of one, and on top of that there is this one..." Lida glanced round warily, in case “this one” was quietly staring at her from behind her back again, "Tol... Anatoly Nikolayevich, he never takes his eyes off me..."

- "Oh, Lidochka... He loves you! And you hurt him so..."

- "I hurt him? I am holding myself back with all my strength as it is! Now, if I ever fail to hold back, then I will hurt him..."

- "You should take a closer look at Tolik. Not everybody could stand that temper of yours, and he would soften you. And he would keep an eye on the little ones too."

- "And how do you know everything, Tamara Semyonovna?"

- "Do not be sarcastic; my life experience is something to behold. I have seen a great many Toliks like him in my time. They only look like quiet ones, but their hearts are enormous. He will not play around, and he will not stop you doing great things either."

And now, too, she cast a wary sideways glance at Tolik. Maybe she should take him after all? A weakling, of course, but at least he would not be measuring a certain part of his anatomy against hers. And he would not argue for the sake of arguing... What would happen, though, is that with him Lida would feel like the worst despot, tyrant and psychopath there is, because he is such an angel and she, if you please, is bullying him. Her reaction was a wish to say something funny but hurtful, and Lida, suppressing that wish, left the room.

- "Lidia Valeryevna! You have forgotten your exercise books!!!" Tolik came flying out of the staffroom with a stack of exercise books from year seven “V” and, breathing hard with excitement, set off after her down the corridor.

- "Thank you, Tolik..." Lida hissed through her teeth. By the window two girls from the tenth year were watching them and whispering excitedly. How mortifying...

- "Honestly, I will gladly help with anything at all, you only have to ask!"

- "Of course, thank you!" Lida flared up and hurried off to hide in her classroom. A pervert, truly!

Oh, if only that had been the end of the story! At the weekend Lida went off to a furniture shop and managed to pick up a mountain of useful useless things with which she planned to decorate her flat. Naturally, she had not reckoned with the weight of the useless things. In a trolley everything always seems lighter than it really is. That is, she did of course know it would be heavy, but she had made no allowance for how long the journey home would take. In fairy tales a prince on a white horse turns up in situations like this — a heavy draught horse, evidently — and valiantly loads both you and your bags onto the horse and, hooves clopping triumphantly on the cobbles, carries you all off to your home. In real life princes race around the suburbs at high speed in black Mercedes and certainly do not pick up “beasts of burden in a skirt” at bus stops. Horses, on the other hand, you may well meet there. That is, one horse. That is, Tolik — damn him where he stood when he bellowed at the top of his voice: "Lidia Valeryevna!!!"

Lida no longer had the strength to run away, to resist or to swear. She watched entirely passively as Tolik picked up her bags, carried them onto the bus, staked out a seat for her and stoically defended the bags from the crowd at the cost of his own elbows. And then just as stoically lugged those bags from the stop all the way to her flat. At home Lida realised that whatever anybody might say, help like that deserves at least a cup of tea. Having frantically turned out every cupboard in search of biscuits that might have been left over from some celebration or other, Lida seriously considered nipping across to the shop opposite.

- "Lida, let me go and fetch some pirozhki. I baked a batch for my nieces and nephews yesterday and made far too many," said Tolik, as if he had read her mind, "I live close by, I will be quick! Just let me back in!"

And Tolik shot out of Lida's flat like a whirlwind and then went off at a brisk trot across the courtyard, not raising his eyes to the window from which Lida was watching him. She had something to think about. That thing he had done, helping with the bags, had been very manly, very impressive. And in general, why had she taken against him so? Because he was a weakling? Well, yes, he was not like her: not one for conflict, homely, warm. Maybe he was not such a bad option after all?

Tolik came running back twenty minutes later with an enormous bag of food. Besides the pirozhki there was a bowl of salad, rissoles, a packet of gingerbread, several glazed curd bars and even two bottles of wine.

- "Good heavens, have you brought me the entire contents of your fridge?" Lida asked in horror.

- "Not the whole lot, I have got more in there..." Tolik answered proudly.

He laid the table himself, heated the food and heaped Lida's plate. It happened somehow of its own accord, as if he had been doing it all his life. And he did it with unimaginable pleasure and zeal. Over the meal Tolik was carried away talking, as if he had had nobody to talk to. He told her how he had become a teacher, and how he had got his household running, and how every girl had dumped him, because what they wanted were rich, flashy men.

- "You know, there are very few normal girls in this country. Most of them want a David Beckham of their own, and with a huge bank account too, and ideally a foreigner as well, so they can clear out of the country straight away. And here am I, a normal man, with a home, with a job I love, even if it is not wildly well paid, caring, attentive, able to cook, able to do a lot around the house myself — and nobody wants me..."

- "Nobody at all, really..."

- "Well, look, I was at a disco last week..."

- "You, at a disco?!"

- "What of it?"

- "I cannot even picture it!"

- "That is because you were not there!"

- "And how would you know?"

- "Well, I was there..."

The conversation flowed easily, dinner gave way to tea, and the impressions were incredible. Lida was discovering Tolik in an entirely different light, far deeper and far more astonishing. It was a revolution, an enlightenment, a revelation. She realised that she would never again be able to look at him the old way, dismissively, as a weakling. Because he was not a weakling. He was warm, attentive, clever and ironic, incredibly deep and incredibly warm-hearted. And with all that he remained open and vulnerable. The paths he chose were far from the easiest, but on them he cared first and foremost for those close to him. Against that background it was rather she, Lida, who looked like the weakling — the one who preferred to break and destroy everything, to be on the safe side, rather than settle anything peacefully. Or the weakling who had decided that it was easier to have no relationship at all than to try, to search, to stumble and to take the knocks. But Tolik was not afraid of knocks. Tolik tried. And Tolik knew how to wait.

The following week at work was filled with a shared secret that was a secret to nobody. Tolik glowed, floated just below the ceiling and ran after Lida from floor to floor the moment he had a free minute. He walked her home, helped with the shopping, held doors open and in general seemed to have straightened up, to have grown bolder and more sure of himself. He taught his lessons with the same spark, but every now and then he would gaze dreamily out of the window, painting himself pictures of playing on the playground with little ones of his own, born of his marriage to Lida. He sincerely tried to restrain himself so as not to overdo it, not to become a nuisance to Lida. He had found a meaning in life, and he was not about to lose it so easily.

And Lida felt as though she were being thawed out. Adoration like that worked like a bowl of hot, rich soup after a long spell out in the frost. Or like woollen socks warmed on the radiator in advance. She thawed, softened and grew calm. She felt like a real princess raised on a pedestal. Until, at some point, she remembered how she had treated Tolik and felt ashamed.

- "You know, I do not deserve you..." she said gloomily on the way home.

- "Lida, what are you talking about?"

- "Well, you are too good for me. I am not like that."

- "Just do not tell me you have decided to leave me..." Tolik narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

- "No, I have not decided anything, I was simply thinking..."

- "Please do not think things like that about me. I am ready for anything, only do not go!"

To make sure of it, he blocked her way, took her by the forearms and looked intently into her eyes.

- "I mean it, do you hear? For once in my life I have been lucky, and I do not want to lose it."

- "It just seems to me that you have some idealised notion of me... I really am not that good."

- "Then what are you?"

- "Difficult, cynical, and I have regularly wanted to give you a good hard kick."

- "Then there must have been a reason. Go on kicking me now, if you need to, I am used to it. Only please do not leave me. Just remember that I am only human..."

And for once that phrase did not provoke a fit of aggression in Lida. Soon afterwards she moved from their state school to a private college, life began to seethe with a kaleidoscope of prospects, but she somehow managed to give her husband attention too. And most importantly, she always knew that she was expected at home and that, whatever happened, there she would be able to relax and to thaw out.