18

It was September now and I was back in the city when one evening our phone rang and sobbing Gran Zoya without saying hello or calling my name said briefly:

“Put your dad on”

My father picked up the phone in the big bedroom and, as usual, he shouted to me in the kitchen:

“Hang up!”

However, I wasn’t in a hurry to hang up on them, and I listened with a bated breath. And I turned out to be just in time; for the information I learned was very important to me.

From the abrupt grandmother’s replics, tearful and incoherent, I concluded that before his death my grandad had bequested to be buried near his native village Kruglovo. Moreover, he had asked for me to be present at the funeral.

“If it weren’t for that little a*****e, Sasha would still be alive” grandmother said evidently meaning me, “After what she said that day… I can’t stand the sight of her; but his wish is my command…”

At another time such epithets hurled my way would have affected me much worse; but now they didn’t matter. All that mattered was me going to Kruglovo tomorrow! Meaning that tomorrow and not a day later I would finally see Shurik!

I carefully put the receiver back and darted to my room. I was so excited that even being conscious of the improptiety of this excitement in the midst of everybody’s sorrow didn’t diminish my joy, but, on the contrary, aroused it.

My hands shaking, I opened my wardrobe and swept all my shabby rags down on the floor. I was supposed to be present at the funeral dressed in black; but of all my black clothes I only had two options. The first was my baggy woolen sweater making my whole body look pear-shaped, and black jeans, just as baggy. The second option was my small black cocktail dress - so small that it couldn’t even cover my bum properly. Me wearing it at my grandad’s funeral would definitely be shocking to everyone; besides, it would mean an authomatic death sentence for me. The ugly shapeless sweater would be a lot more appropriate for this sad event; but how could I attract Shirik wearing it…

“I’ll wear the dress,” I decided, “I don’t care what it does to me or what people think! The most important thing is that Shurik will be mine; and f**k the future!”

The next morning, at five or six am, my father knocked at my door.

“Are you ready?”

“In a minute!”

I jumped out of bed and, shrinking from the chill of my bedroom, groped in the dark for my bag prepared beforehand. It contained my cocktail dress, black stockings, high-heeled shoes and my grandmother’s big black shawl. Having dressed myself quickly, I loosened my long hair I had had in cornrows all night to make it look thicker and curlier - and I started hastily to do makeup.

“Hurry up!” my father opened my bedroom door and tapped his finger on his watch, “It’s time!”

Having barely managed to hide my lipstick before he noticed it I covered my head with the shawl and, as I wrapped it around my face and body like a Muslim woman, I followed him downstairs.