скачать книгу бесплатно
Laughter.
“My girl, they’re so cool one of them has forgotten to meet you! As a result, you’re now sitting, crying here, on the bench, with us trying to sooth you!” the man with pigeons looked at me.
I calmed down a bit. My tears wouldn’t help and correct the situation, after all.
“Did you meet before?” the man’s friend asked.
“No,” I lowered my eyes. “We were going to meet for the first time.”
“Do you know what I’ll tell you, Miss? You shouldn’t trust just anybody from the first corner, especially online. Didn’t you realize that?”
I said nothing.
“Where does he live? Do you know anything else about the guy? His surname? Address? Place of work or studies?” the man with pigeons asked.
“LETI![1 - Saint Petersburg Electrotechnical University, bearing the former and the current abbreviation, LETI.]’ I cried again.
“Ah, the very Electrotechnical University,” he chuckled. “Hmm… Is he a smart one?”
“Y-y-y-e-s-s,” I muttered. “He’s very smart.”
“They’re all smart and clever,” the man with pigeons spat left. “Until you, naïve girls, come to see them.”
He burst into laughter.
“Oh, your love stories are so intriguing,” the man’s friend said and looked ay me. “At the same time, they’re all sad. By the way, it’s not the first story I happen to hear so far. There have been many cases like that. Believe me, Miss.”
“Okay,” I sighed, wiping the tears away from my face.
“What’s your name, you beautiful girl?”
“Aziza,” I said.
“And where are you from?”
“Kazan.”
“Yeah,” he chuckled, “I can see now. Well, Aziza, when you come into a big city, you should be careful. You mostly don’t know who’s in front of you, especially if you’ve never seen the person before. Got it?”
“Got it,” I sighed.
“Good,” the second man said. “Now, here’s your ice-cream. It’s kind of hot today, by the way.”
With these words, he took one ice-cream out of the freezer and passed it over to me. A pistachio one. Mmm… One of me favorite flavors.
“One more thing, Miss,” the man with pigeons said. “Once you fall in love with a man, be careful. Extremely careful,” he put an emphasis on the word “extremely’. “Look how you’re suffering now. Because of the man who simply haven’t met you. Because of such nonsense, you feel so much pain. You now understand what I mean?”
“Yes. I agree,” I nodded. Now, it was time to go. I’d got to visit Vasilyevsky Island. But first, I had to go to the Kazan Cathedral. “I feel much better now.”
The man’s friend laughed.
“I hope it’s more because of our words than of the ice-cream!”
“So true!” I smiled.
“If you have nowhere to elapse, LETI is the only place’
I went out of the Kazan Cathedral and said goodbye to both the men. Good fellows they were, the man with pigeons and his friend, the iceman.
I headed towards the Island.
The underground railway in Saint Petersburg isn’t that big. So I found the station needed easily.
“Vasileostrovskaya Station,” the train speaker said.
I got out of the wagon and up to the ground from the railway.
In Vasilyevskiy Island, there was a sacred place – Xenia Peterburgskaya Chapel. The church was named after a woman who is a patron saint of Saint Petersburg. According to the legend, she gave all her possessions to the poor after her husband died.
In the place where the chapel was located one could feel the peace and calm of the atmosphere there. I could perceive the spirit of the cemetery around the chapel. The perfect silence always makes you think the right way.
In the Chapel, I prayed the God and the Holy Blessed Xenia to give me the chance – at least the only one – to come across Emre, to see him.
“If only They heard my prayers,” I thought. “If only They could let me see the man.”
I was constantly repeating the prayer. I loved Emre. And I thought I’d love him… forever.
While I was passing the exit from the Chapel, I saw three beggars there – two middle-aged women and a man, approximately the same age as the women.
I rushed towards them with a few coins and started crying.
“Please, help me!” I sobbed. “Please, help me! I’m helpless! I’ll die without him!”
“What’s happened, my dear girl?” asked the woman that looked older. “What’s the matter with you?”
“I love him!” I was sobbing.
“So, what’s the matter with you?” asked the other woman. “Tell us!”
“I love a man. His name is Emre. I can’t live without him. But…”
“But what?” the man asked thoughtfully. “Has he left you? Has he betrayed you? Has he got a more beautiful, or, let’s say, a richer girl than you?”
“I don’t know anything!” tears streamed down my face. “I just thought Emre would meet me…”
“And he didn’t?” the older woman raised her eyebrow.
“He didn’t!” I sighed.
“Poor you, my girl!” the woman looked sympathetically. “Is he from Saint Petersburg?”
“He’s from Ankara, Turkey.”
“Oh, my God!” exclaimed the younger woman. “A Turk! You love him, don’t you?”
“I do!” I lowered my eyes.
“But it’s quite a good feeling, isn’t it?” the older woman asked.
I said nothing.
“What’s your name, dear girl?”
“Aziza.”
“Do you live here, in Saint Petersburg, Aziza?”
“No. I don’t. I’m from Kazan.”
“Ah,” the woman chuckled, “seems like this city is the your meeting point.”
“Something like that, yeah,” I nodded.
“So, where’s your boy now? Do you know anything about him?”
“He’s studying in LETI.”
“LETI?” the man smiled. “Do you know we all studied there too? It was our former place of studies.”
“Indeed?” I looked at him.
“And she,” he pointed at the younger woman, “helped me write my course paper and then thesis.”
“Wow, it’s quite a friendship,” I thought and then said, “Are all of you qualified engineers?”
“The two of us – yeah,” the man pointed at the younger woman and himself. “And she,” the younger woman went on, nodding at the elder one, “is a musician.”
“A musician? Why are you begging here, then?” I shrugged my shoulders.
“Because we’re disabled, my girl,” the older woman said. “When you’re in suc a state, you can hardly move! Just think!”
“Of course!” I agreed.
“So,” she went on, “is your man, Emre, a would-be engineer?”
“Yes, he is.”
“And you?” the woman asked.
“I’m an English teacher.”
“What a seemingly good match – a teacher and an engineer!” she chuckled.
“Yeah,” I sighed.
“So, do you love him?”
“I do,” I said firmly.
“So, what’re you going to do then, after he didn’t meet you?”
“Err… Let me think…” I said thoughtfully.
“Will you try searching for him?”
It wasn’t a bad idea, though!
After a few minutes, I nodded confidently:
“I will!”
“Oh, my God!” the older woman laughed openly. “She’s a brave one, isn’t she?”
The man said, “When we were students, there was a curious saying among LETI inhabitants. If you have nowhere to elapse, LETI is the only place. That’s what many people did when they were alone or had no one to talk to. Seems like you’ve got to do the same.”
“So,” the older woman asked me, “will you do the same thing?”
“I have no choice,” I shrugged my shoulders. “I love him.”
“We hope everything’ll be fine,” she looked at me. “Good luck to you! And, of course, we’ll pray for you!”
I said goodbye to them and headed… yes, towards my destination point. LETI.
After an hour or so, I reached the University. The outer building looked like a castle. There were several inner buildings located inside the campus. The castle one opened on the street.
I’d say practically every building in Saint Petersburg looked like a castle…
As I came closer and closer, only one thought was running on my mind. To see Emre. At least to catch a glimpse of the man.
Emre! My Emre…
It was so illogical… Actually, the man who sent you off wouldn’t be worth even his name pronounced and thought of. However, love is such a thing that… you never know what you’ll think of a second or a minute later.
That was my situation. Only he was on my mind.
“I need to have a look at the timetable,” I thought. “What’s his group number?”
It wasn’t all that simple, though. Because of something I hadn’t even suggested before. The entry checkpoint.
