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‘Your eyes colour is madly beautiful,’ Gregory said in a lower voice, slowly bending down to her lips.
‘I’m so sorry, my phone’s calling!’ Vic waved her hands hardly didn’t punch the man in the face.
The girl pressed the phone to her ear and started speaking with the emptiness. She clearly understood that probably she looked very stupid, but she didn’t want to kiss with her newly-made boss. Besides she didn’t like him and at that exact moment she had an aversion for him. The closer he moved to her, the more tears she had in her eyes. If he had managed to kiss her Vic wouldn’t have been able to hold her tears.
All the short way while they were driving Victoria was speaking with an invisible man not to let Gregory speak with her. Out of the eye corner she followed him, his reaction and prayed for that nobody would call her indeed.
Hardly had the car stopped Victoria said good-bye to her switched off phone and jumped out of the car like a bat out of the hell. She wanted most of all that terrible lunch to be over soon. She wished she had been a demon to control and distort time. In addition, the always followed for its son ghost of the woman started pretty annoying the girl. But she was glad that the spirit didn’t want Gregory to touch Vic.
They were sitting face to face and waiting for the waiter to bring their meals. If Gregory was under fire pseudo moaning that he was hungry as a hunter, Victoria wasn’t hungry at all. She had a lump in the throat.
‘Victoria, I invited you here to have a rest a bit and communicate about something else not about work… and here should be no subordination. Agree?’
The girl nodded and smiled a bit, sadly looking at her companion.
‘You’re not yourself today. What’s wrong with you?’
‘What are you speaking about?’
‘About frustration in your eyes. Why?’
‘I don’t know. It’s Friday, the end of the working week. I’m really tired. Haven’t you been tired at all for this week?’
‘I’ve been living in non-stop rhythm not for one day and even not for the first year. You know, our body is a machine, a computer. It will work as you program it. This week has no difference from previous ones. May I?’
The man sat at the side chair that was closer to Victoria. She was just thinking why Gregory’s “may I” didn’t sound like a question but an imperative affirmation. Trying to make no sign Vic started being nervous again. Gregory took her hand and started intently looking over her fingers.
‘Your hands create so wonderful masterpieces…’
‘There’re no masterpieces.’
‘Your self-esteem is very low. Who imposed it on you?’
The girl felt giddy and she didn’t know what it meant. While her boss was speaking Vic was seeing through a mist him burying his mother. He was alone at the cemetery. There were no relatives nor friends. Nobody. The weather was warm. It was a daytime. The sun was shining. Two workers were burying the coffin with the ground very fast. Gregory frowned. There were tears in his eyes. There was only one thought in his mind: “she hasn’t come”. He looked at the pit and didn’t want to think of anything. Victoria felt pity for him! She could feel all his grief and how deep he got over his loss. For a moment she felt his life be lost. How was he supposed to live further? He had a feeling of guilt. The deepest guilt. But even money didn’t have a possibility to get life back if it was really about to leave. His heart ached. And the last blade with the ground was thrown on the hill. Then the realizing that this was the end came. You could get back nothing. That was over.
Victoria came back to reality as soon as Gregory took his hands away from hers.
‘Oh my God…’ she whispered, brushing away tears from her cheek, trying to forget what she had seen.
‘Victoria? Are you crying?’ Gregory bended down to her and touched her hand again. ‘Have I insulted you?’
The girl shook her head and asked God not to show her anything from lives of the dead people. She didn’t want to know the pain they had got over. She didn’t want to feel it together with them again and again. She was fed up with the ghost and spirits that endlessly came to her to show their experiences. She didn’t want to see them all. The tears choked her not because she saw Gregory at the cemetery but because she was tired to see it in general. The girl had stopped asking why she could see them. She was preoccupied with another one: “what should she do not to see them at all?”
‘Speak to me, Vic. What’s going on?’
‘I’ve got something in my eye… It hurts… too much.’
‘Let me see!’ without a second the man grabbed the girl and started examining her eyes, carefully looking for a sore. He wiped her tears away, stroked her cheek and kindly stared at her and for a while Victoria felt better.
‘Is it better?’
Vic nodded her head, intently gazing into his eyes.
‘I’m glad.’ He smiled and let the girl. ‘Tell me about yourself, Victoria.’
‘What exactly do you want to know?’
‘What do you like? What don’t you like? What do you expect from your life? What about your family… everything in shorts. I’m interested in everything about you.’
‘You are first.’
‘What does it mean?’
‘It means you answer your questions first.’
‘Are you really interested, or you want to get off?’ Gregory smirked, having had a sip of a tart juice.
‘I’m interested. It’s true.’ Vic smiled.
‘Ok, I’ll give you a head start. I was born in 1979, on the 8
of August. I have a single-parent family… I had. My father left me when we were 2.’
‘We?’
‘I have a sister… I had a sister – Polina. We quarrelled and I decided that she doesn’t exist for me. I’ve heard nothing of her for ten years already. I finished school, graduated Economical Department in MHU with honours. When I was 23, I came to our company as a financial specialist. I’ve been making my career for ten years and as a result I’m a country manager. That’s my story in shorts.’
‘What about your mum?’
‘She died ten years ago.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s ok, it was a long ago. I keep good memories of her. When my sister quarrelled with her, the thrombus tore off and you know what could happen next. Polina still thinks that she was right. She didn’t consider coming to our mum’s funeral. I’m sorry for telling all of that, it’s really boring.’
‘No, it’s not. We’re having hear-to-heart conversation, remember?’ the girl smiled.
‘Yes, you’re right. What’s your story?’
‘My? I have almost the same. My dad left us. But we see each other very rarely. My mum’s alive and kicking, fortunately. We live a cat-and-dog life. She’s impossible.’ Victoria shook her head. ‘I’m telling she’s impossible. I sometimes understand why my dad left. He couldn’t live with her. To get over her contrary disposition is impossible. That’s why he left.’
‘And you left too?’ Gregory regarded her in all seriousness.
‘Yes, I did…’
‘Did you leave her?’
‘No! Oh, dear, no! I left her because I couldn’t stay with her at one territory. It’s very complicated. You will never understand it. Your mum always stroked your head and fussed over you while mine was always looking for imperfections in me.’
‘How do you know that my mum was as exactly the same as you told?’ Gregory smiled mysteriously and squinted. At that moment Victoria understood that she had shot off her mouth. Suddenly she became worrying and felt like a cat on hot bricks.
‘I… Just…. It seems like that.’
‘You’re right! All my life my mum got easy on me. You know how deep it was madding! But she was my mum and I couldn’t afford to be rude and insult her.’
Victoria couldn’t help smiling when she got that Gregory wasn’t a stickler for detail out of the office as she had thought before. It was pleasure and interesting to speak with him.
‘What do you mean by imperfections?’ he asked her.
‘Well… it’s a long story. You know it’s generation gap which can never be solved.’
‘Your mum pushed her weight around and you resisted?’
‘Something like that. It’s like a tug-of-war game.’
‘Where do you live, Victoria? I mean where did you go from your mum?’
‘I live with my man,’ the girl went off with relief, being happy in the depth that her answer would stop any half-formed intentions from him.
Gregory could not think of any reply to what he heard. Having heard about the man he unnoticeably smirked a little bit sadly lowered his look at the plates. Suddenly Victoria understood that the silence problem wasn’t because Gregory had nothing to say but because he was choosing what to say.
‘So, do you manage it? I mean… you work recently…’
Having frowned Vic was listening to her boss without understanding what was happening to him: always self-confident, handsome and having a respectful tone man suddenly looked like a confused school leaver.
‘What’s the matter?’ the girl said.
‘I’m sorry… A sudden headache. Oh, shit, I gotta go… I’ve got a meeting. Victoria, I gotta go. May I drive you?’
‘Thank you but it’ll be faster by the metro and I don’t want make you wait. Don’t worry, Mr. Dogmanov, and you should go, ok? You shouldn’t be late.’
‘Victoria,’ the man rose up, ‘I’ve been glad you had lunch with me. I hope we have lunch again.’
‘As you wish. It’s been really interesting to be with you today.’
‘Just today?’ he winked at her.
‘You made me free from work and yes, it’s been very interesting.’
Gregory came up to her and kindness and warmth were streaming from him that made the girl feel uncomfortable.
‘See you on Monday, Victoria. I’ve paid the bill.’
Her boss went to the exit putting on his coat. Victoria watched him leaving with mysteriously squinty eyes. Hardly had she immersed into after-lunch-thoughts as she remembered to go to Kharon.
With the smile on her lips she ran to Kuznetskiy Most metro station, looking forward to meeting.
Vic left the train and immediately, streamline with the mad crowd, headed to the centre of the station, raving about seeing the demon. She smiled wildly. Nobody was waiting for her.
Victoria convulsively looked around: there was nobody. From one hand someone pushed her, from another – she was called. The step in right and she stepped on a foot, a step in left and someone winged her with a big bag. And the gentle, warm hands covered her eyes and a perfect feeling of defence appeared behind. Nobody more could neither punch nor step on, there was only peacefulness and cosiness. There was like a glass cylinder around her like incubator, constantly protected her from external influence and impact of the environment. It was something unnatural and scaring but so close and romantic.
‘My love…’ Vic said quiet, touching his hands.
She would recognize his warmth and touches out of millions of others.
‘I wanted to surprise you.’ He answered, embracing her with his arm and still covering her eyes with the second hand. ‘You’re so penetrating. I wish you didn’t pretend to have any idea who was standing behind you.’
‘I clearly know that it’s you and no one else. I don’t want anyone else but only you.’
While Kharon was hiding all around with his hand he perfectly could feel her thoughts running through his nerve impulses, eating in his mind and his joy and complacence awaking because of the thoughts content. He almost got used to the girl’s feelings and to the fact that he was like a god for her. With each passing second, he liked it more and more.
He turned the girl to his face and kissed her lips, silently whispering about love. More captivating he liked the taste of kissing that woman.
‘People are looking at us.’ Victoria drew a little away from the squeaky man. ‘It’s not good. You do know it.’
‘I do. But I can do nothing to control myself. I can hear you what you’re thinking. I can see what your lips and body desire for. Do you really think they care about people? This is your head to care about people, but they… your lips… your fingers… your arms and the warmth between your legs none of that know what people mean. They don’t care and I agree with them…’
The demon began kissing her again with fresh fire and wild passion, embracing because of which the ground and the sky got mixed up under her feet into a hydrogenous gruel of unknown consistence. Victoria was pressed against the column. She was slowly losing her mind and morality.
‘Kharon,’ she shushed him fighting against not only him but herself and her desires.
‘I see. I see, dear. At first it was romanticism in your way, now it’s people. Do you always have anything in your way? I know that when people are ok, there’s gonna be something else in your way, isn’t it, dear?’
Kharon looked up at her gravely absolutely with no understanding why people were arranged as they were that if they had nothing in their ways to do what they want then they created some sticking points in their ways. Was it funnier? More interesting?
‘It’s not the problem…’
‘No, it is, and you know it.’ The demon interrupted her. ‘I won’t touch anymore when we’re not at home, will I? Do I understand you right?’
‘No,’ Victoria shook her head anxiously, grabbing his hand.
The demon smiled not hiding the slight mockery in his eyes.
‘No, no, no,’ the girl pressed his hand to his cheek, ‘you can’t deprive me of your arms and touches.’
‘Look, you are the person who deprives you of it by speaking about people who don’t care about our kisses. They just pass by, look at us like an attribute of the station, a piece of exposition. Do you really think these people care about you? Do they think of you? You must be kidding. Just have what you want… I’m speaking not only about hands.’
Kharon carefully not to draw attention, kissed the girl again. This time the kiss was fast, usual and bleak, deprived of passion.
She followed him, held his hand, getting through the crowd, headed to the exit.
Then they were on the moving stair. She liked so much the moments of idyll when she could enjoy them fully.
‘Why are we at Kuznetsky Most?’ Kharon asked, stroking her gentle wrist.
‘I don’t know why, I just wanted to go to a bookshop. Would you mind?’ Victoria looked at him with so much enthusiasm with kindness in the eyes and hope in her voice. She was waiting for him to answer.
‘Hum… A big book. It’s about art. Of course, what else about it could be.’
