Lily Alex - The Russians are Coming!, 14 Months in the Life of the Town

She sniffed. Oleg hugged her, and the girl cried on his shoulder.

«Sweetheart.» Oleg carefully kissed her hair. «I know a much more horrible story of how the greediness of parents made the life of their child a misery. She was our neighbor and this is why I know this story is true. Her name was Olga, and her parents were not poor, but they called themselves ’practical’. Olga told me her first memory was of a birthday present given to her by her mother. A plastic teddy bear. It was ugly, scary, hard and had a disgusting smell, but her mother smiled and told her father, „Look, what a practical toy. She can chew it or drop it in a puddle. No matter. It will still be good.“ All the following toys were the same. Very, very practical. And, imagine! Olga started to steal toys from other kids.»

«Really?» Lana Limpson looked at Oleg with surprise. «I very much wanted to have this toy bird, but to steal it? That’s going too far.»

«Well.» Oleg breathed out a sigh. «You’re a powerful girl, and have a strong personality, but the poor Olga couldn’t resist her wish to have nice toys. Her parents caught her, and her father gave her such a belting that the girl couldn’t sit for almost a week.»

«She should’ve reported it to the police!»

«Honey,» said Oleg ruefully. «It was Russia. Police would do nothing about it. How many times my own father beat me.»

Full of compassion, the heart of the girl was beating like a bird in the net of a hunter. Lana looked at his sorrowful face, and lovingly stroked his cheek. She felt his bristle, and this barely sensed pricking stirred her abysmal instinct up, excited her as never had happened to her, and the following kiss only increased her desire.

«Drive to my house,» she whispered intimately, and a surprised Oleg obeyed.

* * * * *

They were lying side by side in the bed in her room. Happily smiling, Lana searched him, and could not admire enough his beautiful face and his strong athletic body.

Oleg wanted to smoke, but he did not know yet how she would react to this.

«Do you always have unprotected sex?» Oleg asked, as thoughts about the chance of getting AIDS from such an emotional girl made him really worried.

«Honestly,» she murmured, quietly kissing him. «This was the first time. You made me crazy. But I trust you.»

« I don’t trust you, girl ,» Oleg thought, praying for himself. « God, take mercy on me! Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained .»

He saw her take a pack of cigarettes, and, sighing with relief, Oleg smoked his own.

«So, what about that girl?» asked Lana.

Oleg bewilderedly gazed at her. «Which girl?»

«The Russian girl, who had penny pincher parents.»

«Oh dear,» uttered Oleg sensually. «You made me forget about everything. Where did I stop?»

«Her parents punished her.»

«Ah, correct. You have a wonderful bright head, my love,» he drawled, massaging Lana’s arm. He saw she liked it. «So, Olga had been punished, but it didn’t change her mind. She only became more careful, and never brought stolen toys home anymore. Olga hid them and played when she had time. Her hobby became her job when she met Sergey. They had been dating about two years. Olga was just fifteen, but her boyfriend got a fake ID for her, and the girl left her home. She was ready to do anything for Sergey.»

«Mmmmmm,» Lana moaned, losing herself in this fantastically pleasant feeling. «I can understand her.»

«Sergey didn’t limit their ’work’ to burglaries,» Oleg continued, still rubbing her skin. His erotic massage became real caressing, and Lana stretched, enjoying it.

«Olga loved him very much,» said Oleg, attentively watching how Lana responded to his touch. «She never refused when he asked her to deliver ’stuff’ for his clients, and usually she did that without any problems. Minute, like a mouse, Olga was not ugly, yet so plain that even for the police it was a difficult task to remember her face. But one day their luck ran out. While the police chased her, Olga dumped the bags with the powder. Then the policemen arrested her and searched her carefully. They found nothing and had to let her go.

«Olga went back to her boyfriend, mad,» continued Oleg. «She didn’t notice she’d been shadowed. Olga was humiliated. She was trembling after such stress, and she needed support, but that fool Sergey started shouting at her. He got angry that she’d failed, and they lost a lot of money. He talked to her the same way as her parents had and that made Olga insane. When she took his gun Sergey didn’t turn a hair. He knew how that girl loved him.»

Oleg paused for effect, then finished. «It was an automatic pistol, honey, and Olga kept firing until the police burst into the apartment and shot her down.»

Oleg did not tell Lana that this guy, Sergey, was one of his closest friends, that they even «worked» together, and this was a real reason he knew all the details of this story.

«Awful.» Lana embraced her lover. «Poor girl. Damn all the money in the world. Long live Love.»

«You bet, my miracle!» exclaimed Oleg, trying to show off all the enthusiasm that he could demonstrate, and they fell onto the bed again.

* * * * *

Oleg impressed Lana as no one had before, and next day she decided to meet Vera Grach.

« I have to talk to her ’, she was thinking. « Interesting, did he tell me the truth? I have to find out. »

She parked her car near the apartment building, and knocked on the door. Vera opened it, and smiled. «Did you come to buy a picture?»

Surprised, Lana nodded. « Phew, I don’t have to explain my visit .» She silently went in.

Lana did not understand art. So she just pointed to two pictures, and Vera started packing them. Lana glanced around. « What should I ask? »

«Strange,» she said surprisingly. «Why didn’t you paint your husband?»

«I draw only things that impress me,» Vera answered calmly.

«I thought if you loved someone it means he impresses you.»

«Girl,» Vera shrugged her shoulders. «It’s very difficult to love a man who doesn’t care about the family budget.»

«Money doesn’t make happiness,» Lana said with irritation in her voice. «When dad passes away I’ll give all his money to some charity organization.»

«I’m sorry, Miss…?» Vera looked questionably at Lana.

«Limpson.»

«I’m sorry, Miss Limpson, but you’re too young for such discourses. Your father spent all his life to make this money, and you want to waste it? It would be a stupid and dishonest act.»

« Oleg is right ,» Lana thought, feeling angry. « She’s just a miser .»

«As I know,» she addressed Vera. «Your husband is making good money in Russia. You have to love him very much, don’t you?»

«I think it’s too personal to discuss.» Vera looked at Lana with surprise, but she thought the girl needed some advice, and she relented. «Life is not as easy as we wish,» she tried to explain.

It was the same phrase that Oleg had said to Lana when she had asked him why he did not divorce Vera if they did not love each other. « Life is not so easy .» He sighed, and a tender compassion for this Russian man rising in her heart.

«Once Oleg came home with his coat so dirty that I was amazed,» Vera continued. «I’m sure he got plastered and fell into some puddle. Like a pig. And I have to love such a man?»

Lana recalled the episode with the wolf-skin coat, and her feelings for Oleg became much stronger. But this phrase made her worry.

«Does he drink a lot?» she asked, trying not to show her concern.

«Honestly, I’ve never seen Oleg drunk,» Vera confessed, sighing. «But that evening he was so strange, I have no other explanation.»

« Oleg loves me! » thought Lana, melting with that feeling. « He loves me! He surely loves me! Stupid woman, how could she not appreciate him? »

Lana took the pictures and gave the money to Vera.

«If you don’t love him,» asked Lana carefully, «why don’t you rent another apartment?»

«It’s okay with me,» Vera answered calmly. «But to rent a separate apartment would be a pointless waste of money.»

Lana shuddered and left without saying goodbye.

Lana did not have school today, so she drove home. Not to the house that she rented on campus, but to the Limpsons’ mansion. It was a rare day that her father was home, and she planned to show him those pictures and ask him about an idea that had come to her.

At home she told a servant to call her father, and, while waiting for him, she placed the pictures in a special hall, where she usually kept her new things before she decided which place was best for them.

Lana heard her father come in, and, smiling, she turned toward him. Stubby, but imposing and dignified, he was in great shape for a man in his mid-fifties, and Lana looked at her father with delight and pride.

«How do you like them?» she pointed to the pictures.

Her father went close and gazed at the paintings.

«Where did you get them?» he asked, surprised. «I’m not an expert, but they seem to have been made by a gifted person.»

«Really?» She was obviously ashamed, and her father became immediately worried.

«Honey?» he said tenderly. «What’s on your mind? Why did you buy them? Last time, as I remember, you bought a picture when you were a teenager, and it was some stupid hero from some stupid cartoon. But those works are masterpieces. Where did you get them?»

Suddenly Lana cried and hugged her father.

«It is a student here, Dad. She’s Russian. As her husband…» She did not know how to explain, and could only weep, but her father guessed what was going on, and a storm of feelings raged into his soul.

«Just be careful, my heart,» he whispered, kissing her hair, and Lana felt unlimited gratitude to her father who understood and supported her.

She looked at his face. «You were in the same situation, weren’t you?»

«Yes, honey.» He did not shift his eyes at all. «It’s awful to love a married person. Your mother will never leave her husband. This is why I’m pretending that I am a widower. I don’t want to be a laughing stock.» He sighed. «She doesn’t love me, and she never did.»

«I hate her,» Lana said sniffing.

«You shouldn’t,» retorted her father. «She gave life to you. She gave you to me. After her ’affair’ with me, she could have had an abortion, or she could have pretended you were her husband’s. But, risking her reputation, she gave you to me. Well, a quarter of a century ago it was much easier than it is now. But anyway, I have you. I love you, kitten, and I’ll do anything to make you happy. So, what do you want to ask?»

«Can you organize a party… Darn, Thanksgiving would be better. Okay, Christmas is coming. Can you? I want all the Russians to be invited, and all who work with them. Could you do it?»

«I’m not sure,» he replied, hesitating. «I have a tight schedule. Ah, I know. I’ll do it, sweetheart. I’ll rent a hall downtown and ask the VanSteins to be the hosts. Anything else?»

«Yes.» She timidly smiled. «Don’t be angry at me.»

«I’m not angry,» he answered sadly. «But I’m worried sick about you, and I can do nothing about this feeling.»

«Oh, Daddy.» She embraced him again, and for a long time they just stood there hugging each other, enjoying their closeness and mutual understanding.

* * * * *

The Lapins and Ruslan Grafinsky were the first persons to arrive at the Christmas party, and they were confused seeing the empty hall.