was married to a university lecturer – the son of a professor. Her husband had an older brother, a Ph. D. student. Lucy remembered that she had heard about this family of physicists, where they all devoted themselves to science. Soon they with Larissa visited a low house without a garden and a courtyard where the newlyweds lived. Acquainted with the youngest of the Skripals, who was very friendly, he invited the girls to the table.
“No, no,” Lucy hurried, and Larissa added modestly: “Natasha loved children very much; maybe she went to work in a nursery or a kindergarten?”
“Who told you about this?” answered Eugene, smiling sweetly. “She had health problems. I sent her to be treated abroad, to Germany, where the Russian tsars were vacationing, to Baden-Baden, and she would be back soon. Then she will go to work. Imagine having paid for this pleasure a thousand dollars plus road and various documents. It turned out almost one and a half bucks.
“Where did you get that kind of money?” Larissa said imperiously, crouching on the edge of the stool at the front door.
They did not meet a more miserable home in life. A cobwebbed ceiling, gray walls, a dirty veil on an old sofa. On the table, eaten by a scrub, there were cans of canned food and bread crumbs. In the corner was a stove used to store things. In the passage between the room and the hallway there was a gas cooker for two hot plates, where there was an empty pan.
“The millionaire was killed,” the host replied glumly. “Try it yourself. I do not have anything to pay for the house and electricity. My parents have died long ago; she and I have no other relatives.”
“Did your father teach at Physics department of the University? I met such a name in the list of teachers,” Lucy became interested in surprise. “He read us lectures on physics at the first course.”
“No, this is a mistake. It is either a namesake, or a distant relative. I have no one and the point.”
Lucy did not like his familiar tone at once, and a scrawny smile resembling a wolfish grin.
The girls went off upset that they did not know the details of the life of their employee. Most likely, she cohabited with this Zheka, as he presented himself to his wife’s friends. Neither the one nor the other from Natasha heard of any husband. So, the boyfriend has appeared recently and at once has entered the rights of the husband and the lover simultaneously.
Soon the police stopped the inquiry. And one day Larissa accidentally informed Lucy that she had met with Skripal, and they were about to sign marriage contract.
“How is Natasha?” Lucy was surprised, worrying when they came back after the shift.
“And she stayed there, in this state forever,” Lara explained. “They have the opportunity to get a job as migrants. And we have already arranged our accommodation and will register soon.”
“Fast!” Lucya rejoiced. “Will not it be disgusting for you to live with this scumbag?”
“Why? He promised me a local residence permit and treated me to wine. It is difficult to imagine that such a person will be my husband.”
“What a man he is. A real beast! And the house is about to collapse.”
“Are you envious of my happiness?”
Larissa laughed and shook the snow off the collar of her sheepskin coat.
“Do whatever you want!”
They broke up. A few days later, Larissa called and told them that their house was on fire, and all her husband’s documents and belongings were burnt. She will spend the night with relatives in the hostel.
Suddenly, Zheka appeared on the post with his girlfriend, and they stayed overnight, where there were no surveillance cameras, that is, in the office of the postmaster, where Larissa had an access, since she managed to become a deputy in a short time.
Tears will not help for sorrow. Everyone sympathized with the young people. The house was going to restore and allocated from the trade union committee money for repairs, like fire victims.
Larissa began an affair with Zheka. They bought a second-hand foreign car, somehow repaired the house for money, allocated by the team. All employees – operators and postmen – accurately handed over two thousand, which amounted to thirty thousand rubles. Zheka did not work and lived well at the expense of the concubine: he got drunk and threatened with reprisal “to all the neighbors who planned to come to visit them.” This story was presented by Lara when investigators came to her home.
On her return from the academic vacation, Lucy got into another social environment.
She became friends with her former fellow students, so she did not feel comfortable in the new group. They seemed like children to her. After a year of work, Lucy understood much, became more serious. Life no longer seemed so cheerful and bright as it was before.
It was not very difficult to pass the “tails” exams over. The girl did a lot and worked hard throughout the year. At the last courses the studies went smoothly. Lucy spent all her scholarship on herself.
Her father bought food, and she cooked. Lucy was able to cook quickly and deliciously. She liked occasionally to pamper her father with some delicacy. He was not cranky and ate everything that Lucy had given him.
After the third year, the study went much easier, since the main foundation of knowledge was already laid. Lucy knew almost all teachers; she was used to the requirements.
The group, with whom Uvarova studied after the forced leave, consisted of ten girls and six boys.
Gradually, she was recognized as “their own mutual like-minded girlfriend” and she was elected the monitor. Discos were rare, it was very difficult to get there, but, as an elder, she could at any time get a ticket.
Several times she and her group mates visited the café “Student”, where dancing took place. She liked the music of modern, fashionable authors, rhythm, and tempo.
It was good to be shaken, distracted from all problems to the sound of the guitar. Many songs pleased Lucy with their melodiousness. But a frequent visit to the disco was tiresome.
Sometimes she visited the café as necessary, as the head of the stream, but this did not happen constantly. The more often she attended discos, the less she wanted to get there again.
In the fifth year, many of the girlfriends got married. Lucy could not yet decide on someone specific. Familiar young men were enough, but she had not wanted to bind herself by bond of marriage yet and so she frequently refused to meet.
One tall, dark-haired guy with blue eyes and a dark mustache – Yuri Preobrazhensky – stayed in Lucy’s memory for a long time, perhaps she remembered him always, even when she did not want to think about him.
They met by chance at a friend’s party on the occasion of May Day. Yuri was a surgeon and taught at the Medical University. He liked all of Lucy’s friends right away, was very modest, always inventing poems, tricks and it was fun with him.
It seemed that in his spare time he only did that he was preparing for admission to the circus school. Although, with all this, he worked well and managed to take the session without the triples. They did not meet often, but enough to get used to each other.
Yuri often invited Lucy to concerts, to the cinema; he was very attentive and helpful. Their meetings continued throughout the year. In the spring he stopped calling Lucy, and it seemed strange to her. From friends, she found out that he had some other sympathy – a brunette older than he for a year.
Lucy severely experienced the gap and, by her youth, decided to fall in love with no one, or at least not to get used to it, since she considered studying and future work to be her main task, and lost all interest in her private life. She represented her future career in black paints.
She often said to herself: “In any case, happiness is not in love,