There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister's Husband, and He Hanged Himself by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya Read Free Book Online

Finally Genya herself appeared with a nurse.
    Dima received the baby from the nurse’s arms and presented it to his family. Grandmas took a long look and proclaimed, “Dima’s!” The uncle produced a bottle and plastic cups from his sack, and everyone drank to the baby’s health. Then Genya took the child, waved everyone good-bye, and departed in a cab with a girlfriend. Genya’s colleagues and Dima’s confused relatives began to walk to the subway. Dima was beaming; he told Svetlana his college exams had gone well.
    A year passed. Genya returned to work. Times were hard. The nanny consumed Genya’s entire salary, while Genya subsisted on bread and potatoes and dressed in hand-me-downs. Like many impoverished women she gained a lot of weight. At work she no longer smiled and always tried to leave early. Dima, skinny as a stick, was still on the floor below, working full-time and studying at night. Despite being overworked, he visited little Egor every Saturday, sitting by his crib and watching over him. He slept in the kitchen. His family was dirt-poor, it turned out, and both brother and uncle drank heavily. The uncle soon died. Before Dima finished his six-year college marathon, his brother died, too, also from moonshine poisoning. Only a single aunt was left, and Dima stayed with her in her two-room apartment in Moscow. He was a full editor now, with a college degree. Genya, who had long given up the unaffordable nanny, sent the boy to a boarding preschool, where he stayed Monday through Friday. Every Friday night Dima picked him up and brought him home to Genya. He stayed with them on weekends. On Mondays he took the boy back to his school.
    Little Egor called Dima
Papa.
He had both papa and mama, like other children. When the boy was to go to first grade, Dima moved his family to the apartment bequeathed to him by his aunt, whose crutches were still standing in a corner. In spite of the smell of frugal poverty, the apartment was clean, with freshly washed floors, homespun runners, and a white cloth on the kitchen table. Little Egor fell in love with his new home, where he had his own little room and a real desk, which papa had found and fixed for him. Genya quit her old job and began selling potted plants at an outdoor market. Dima was admitted to graduate school and picked up some teaching there; in addition, he tutored high school students. They had a small house in the country, Dima’s old family nest, where they spent summer weekends and where Genya grew her plants. She rented out her studio apartment.
    They never fought. Occasionally Dima drank himself unconscious—the legacy of generations of alcoholics—but Genya knew how to end his binges. In a brilliant move she saved some money and bought him a secondhand car. Dima spent all his free time under that car, fixing and tuning. Now they could travel to the country in comfort, in their own vehicle, instead of a packed commuter train with a sweaty crowd and their luggage.
    Is that it? Not quite. First: Genya never married Dima. Second: Although life had hardened Dima and Genya to the strength of steel, little Egor grew into a softhearted boy without will or ambition. One could see in him the ghosts of Dima’s male ancestors—useless, sweet-natured drunks—while on his mother’s side the story of his conception foretold frivolity and random liaisons.
    Sobered and grim, mother and father looked back on their few minutes of half-naked passion on the cramped kitchen sofa, that sinful, impure moment when their child was conceived. What will become of him? the poor parents asked themselves as they disciplined little Egor, who always smiled and gave away his possessions and longed for friendship and kisses and hugs. After punishments he often cried in his little room and then threw himself on the necks of his only family, his only loved ones, his two grave deities—Papa and Mama. He’d weep and forgive, while they froze in a grim foreboding.

Father and