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The Lovers
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Добровольская Юлия Григорьевна

Шрифт:

It was very bright in the shop from the many hanging metal ceiling lamps, and it always smelled of milk and fresh bread, which was lying on wooden latticed shelves on wheels.

Every section in this shop had its own sound.

The glass sounds lived to the right of the doors: it was the bottles knocking dully against each other in their wooden pallets, while the glasses jingled merrily on their enameled trays. There was also the babbling turning fountain, which the saleswoman Valya used to wash the dirty dishes. One could drink some juice here, tomato, for example, which poured thickly from a large glass container with a lid into a faceted glass, and foamed in its own special way, not like the grape or apple juice. Or soda water, for example, cream soda, which flowed with a hiss from the long-necked green bottle, and one had to quickly bring the glass up to one’s lips so that the nose and lips were sprayed with tiny bursting bubbles and their wonderful sweetly-sour smell of cream soda.

The grocery section resounded with the crunching of newspaper sheets, which were used to make bags for pasta, flour or chocolates, and the rustling of round aluminum scoops, scooping up pasta or sugar from the sliding plywood boxes or directly from the large shaggy gray bags, standing on the floor.

A whole symphony was taking place in the dairy department… First, the people waiting in line for the milk heard a dull grinding of metal against the pitted cement floor – that was the heavy full milk churns being dragged towards the counter using hooks. Then came a jingling and a sucking noise – two churns were opened and immediately came the sound of clanging of the liter or half-liter long-handled aluminum ladles against the customers’ containers, accompanied by the delicious, thick bubbling and then the equally delicious burbling of the milk, as it first filled the ladles and then the customers’ cans. Then jingled the lids of the empty large churns and the full small cans. The empty churns were noisily rolled back to the storeroom, and then the dull grinding of the full churns being dragged to the counter could be heard again…

And above it all came the chiming of coins being thrown into the cash register drawers, or onto the metal money dish, which was screwed to the stand, the lively clicking of buttons with numbers and the juicy chirring of handles, which looked like meat grinder handles, but which produced a blue-gray receipt instead of mince…

* * *

The door opened, and Dina’s mom came into the store. Mom always came into the store after work.

Dina did not tell her about what had happened so that she would not get worried.

In the evening, as she was falling asleep, it struck Dina that what happened today only happened because she hadn’t listened to someone’s wise and sensible advice. She decided not to do this in the future, no matter what.

Konstantin Konstantinovich Kolotozashvili

“Turbina, I can see that you’re ready to answer,” came the soft baritone of the teacher.

“Yes, I am ready, Konstantin Konstantinovich.”

“Please.” He moved the chair beside him slightly, gesturing for Dina to sit down.

Walking towards the teacher’s table, Dina noticed that Konstantin Konstantinovich was watching her legs, as if afraid that she would trip over the scuffed linoleum or slip on it.

Yes, that was how Dina first interpreted her teacher’s intent attention to her clicking heels and her ankles, in no way special from her point of view, and her knees, peeking out from a not-so-short skirt.

In the next second, Dina smiled, almost audibly, at her own naivety.

She stopped abruptly.

Konstantin Konstantinovich, a raven-headed, eye-catching thirty-year-old man, always dressed in a sharp dark suit, white shirt, and fashionable tie, looked up into Dina’s eyes. His face was somewhat puzzled, as if asking, “What is the matter, young lady?”

Dina continued her journey, holding her teacher’s gaze with her own.

She approached the table, pulled out the chair and sat down. Then she crossed one leg over the other. She did it all in her usual leisurely manner, with a dignity that nobody here at the university had any idea about.

With a smile, containing a mixture of surprise, admiration, and the recognition of being beaten by a worthy opponent, the man took Dina’s ticket and put it in a pile with the other used ones, without checking what was on it. Then he moved aside Dina’s draft answer sheet in the same manner. Konstantin Konstantinovich quickly wrote something down on a clean sheet of paper, and pushed it towards Dina, saying loudly, so that the whole auditorium could hear him:

“I do not doubt your knowledge, Dina Aleksandrovna Turbina. I therefore don’t intend to waste your precious time. Your record book, please.”

Dina opened her record book on the required page, with all the subjects there showing only “Excellent,” and read the message on the sheet of paper, written in large, fast handwriting: Today, at 18:45 in front of the Peace Cinema.

The teacher signed Dina’s record book. “Congratulations on an excellent finish of the semester, Dina Aleksandrovna.”

“Thank you, Konstantin Konstantinovich,” replied Dina and reached for her student ID.

Konstantin Konstantinovich held down the corner of the record book with his index finger. Once Dina lifted her eyes to look at him, he released the book and said in the same playful tone, “See you in the next academic year, Dina Aleksandrovna. Have a good internship and enjoy your holidays!”

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