A thief from the UK. Alla Krasnova

near a large three-story huge house, surrounded by a large and beautiful fence.

      “You gave me exactly this address,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

      “Well, yeah, it’s time,” I sighed. “Then goodbye,” I said, putting all my pain of separation into the last word.

      I lightly touched his tanned hand with my pale hand, and then abruptly pulled it away, as if I had burned myself. It was nervous.

      “Actually, I’m from Great Britain, and this is how we say goodbye,” I giggled, trying to justify my actions.

      “Great,” he said emotionlessly, “and you speak without an accent at all.”

      “I studied for a long time. Okay, bye,” I looked at him again to keep his image as a keepsake.

      I got out of the car. And he came out after me. It seemed to me that he wanted to get the suitcase out of the trunk, and he actually took it out and gave it to me. And then I went to the fence of the house, and he followed me.

      “I’ll go ahead on my own,” I said, turning around and looking at him.

      He smiled.

      “Actually, I live here,” he said, and I was immediately covered by a wave of emotional excitement, in which it was not clear what was more – fear or joy.

      ***

      The house was simply gorgeous, it was even better than I could have imagined. I originally came here to live at least a little like a human being, but in such a house it was only possible to live like a king.

      I didn’t have to call Ondine to have the door opened for me, because Arkhip dialed a code of several numbers, which I did not fill out out of excitement, and then the huge, heavy door opened by itself, and we entered the territory of this estate.

      There were a lot of flowers and trees around the house, the whole house was literally buried in flowers, and everything looked like something out of a fairy tale. A woman was working in the garden; she was wearing a blue work suit, large orange gloves and a shock of red-red curly hair on her head. She looked to be about fifty years old, of fairly heavy build and short stature. The sun was playing in her hair, so it seemed as if there was fire on her head. Seeing us from a distance, she looked questioningly, first at me, and then at Arkhip.

      I froze, not understanding who she was and what would happen now.

      ***

      Next to Arkhip, I could only think about him, he created interference with my thinking, because I was trying to understand his thoughts about me. I was confused and close to failure. I even forgot my new name due to stress. If this woman asked now what my name is, I would, like a zombie woken up in the middle of the night, say my real name and answer the first three tickets in biology. But I was lucky, she herself called me by name.

      – Melissa? – she asked me, thereby returning me to the sinful earth.

      “Yes,” I smiled. – Melissa Abran.

      “My dear,” the woman said, taking off her gloves to shake my hand. “Your mother and I are already like sisters, although we met quite recently at the fashion show at Clementine’s.” She told me so much about you, you could say that she only talked about you. I’m sorry, I can’t hug you, I’m working in the garden, my apron is dirty. But this strange work in the garden makes me closer to nature,” she took my hand and shook me a little.

      “Wow, gardening is a release for her,” I thought. “How much money do you need to have to consider such work as exotic entertainment?” And of course, I was frightened by the words that “she talked a lot about me,” because I had doubts about whether I could live up to it, but I didn’t know anything “about myself.”

      – Oh, mom says so many different things, she’s such an inventor! – I was on the safe side. “I’m very glad to meet you,” I said politely, carefully removing my hand from hers.“I have already prepared the best room for you on the first floor,” Ondine continued, “but you can choose any one yourself, we have free rooms on all floors.” Son,” she turned to Arkhip, “show Melissa our house, let her choose the room she likes best.” And I’ll come to you soon.

      ***

      When we entered the house, I gasped: one room followed another, and everything was so beautiful! They even had an elevator so you don’t have to take the stairs, and I was especially impressed by the small fountain on the first floor, decorated with marble and small multi-colored stones. I felt like I was in an art museum. I didn’t even understand how they lived here, because it’s so scary to break a vase in case it’s worth a billion. I could touch and take whatever I wanted, but I didn’t do it so as not to look like a savage in Arkhip’s eyes.

      “What do your parents do?” – I wanted to ask, but I was afraid. I was afraid to give myself away, to incur suspicion, because I was supposed to know this from “my mother.” So at first I just silently walked around the house, and then, feeling that I needed to say something, I said something sacramental:

      – Well, not bad. Not bad.

      This magnificence made me dizzy, I felt like I was about to faint from the awareness of myself in this space. In order not to choke from excitement, I chose a pink room on the first floor simply because I was afraid to look at what they had on the second and third.

      Arkhip was very polite to me, but nothing more, he kept his distance. He simply walked around and showed, like a guide, that they had these kinds of rooms, and at the end of the corridor there was a restroom; if you turned right, there would be a dining room, where you could go at any time and order whatever you wanted. Five-star hotel? I would give ten stars, and only because you can’t give a hundred. Plus, they had a pool on the other side of the house that I hadn’t gotten to yet, and a jacuzzi upstairs.

      I was sad that, as a girl, I didn’t attract Arkhip. But I hoped to melt the heart of this handsome man, because Ilse Dalma could not count on anything, but Melissa could, she is from the UK, so everything is according to the Hamburg account.