Magic Words

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

She flew into my office, sat on the edge of a chair, as if she was going to immediately break loose and run on. The eyes burned with that crazy shine, from which the brains curl up into a tube, you lose your common sense and do not understand what the next minute she will throw out.

- So, you have to tell me that I have to tell him to stop drinking.

- Wait a minute! Let's figure it out … Who, what, to whom should I tell?

“Well, teach me what I have to do with him so that he doesn't drink,” the pressure weakened.

- Do you need to do something with him? Or with you?

- I'm fine, - not so confident anymore. - This is with him … I need to know the correct words that I will say to him, and he will stop drinking …

- Let's go in order. Who is he? And who are you? And what do you want?

Marina's life corresponded to the average census data: school, college, marriage, child, divorce, work in one of the offices with a salary, according to the staffing table. It seemed that fate kept her: troubles, meanness, betrayal, deception were bypassed. Whatever Marina did, everything turned out easily and freely.

Marina could not overcome only one difficulty: to marry successfully.

And the point is not that she did not have admirers: a beautiful, smart, needlewoman, looked younger than her forty - she herself could not determine who she needed.

In general, life flowed measuredly, quietly, without going beyond the philistine ideas about the norms of morality. Until he appeared: not his first youth, bald, long-nosed, nondescript, ambitious, with a claim to special significance, stingy with tenderness and money, with the "horse" surname Konovalov. He is as far away from lyrics and romance as the last French revolution, and besides … an alcoholic. But for Marina, Andrei became Kolya Baskov and Tom Cruise in one bottle: she did not see his deformity, either physical or spiritual, endowing him with the highest dignities, justifying the most base deeds.

It seemed to her that behind the facade of arrogance in her beloved was hiding a deeply lonely, timid and vulnerable person. Marina considered him a kind and noble knight, dressed in the impenetrable armor of coldness and inaccessibility. And he drinks because he does not know how to get rid of this very armor.

She ran after him all over the city, unconsciously took him home in a taxi, called doctors to him, did not give him a drink, chatting with different tales, listening to drunken delirium for hours. She cleaned the basins after him and washed the clothes, dragged them into the bathtub, washing away the traces of carbon monoxide from the lifeless body. Marina thought that her love, care, unconditional acceptance of him for who he is, will find their response in Andrey's heart, and he will change his life. But nothing changed: every cell of his poisoned organism required its own dose. His religion was only vodka.

Marina stopped eating, sleeping, thinking and talking about anything other than Konovalov. She wanted to see only him: drunk, sober - it didn't matter. She always found excuses for his rudeness: he behaves this way because he does not want to burden her. He does not call - he is ashamed. And she again ran after him: to give warmth and affection.

I asked Marina:

- What do you live for: for pleasure or for fame?

She looked at me questioningly.

- All people are divided into two categories. Some live for their own pleasure, others - for the sake of glory. What are you living for, Marina?

- Of course, for fun!

- So, from everything that you get in life, you experience pleasure.

- No! Tell me, what pleasure do I have from the fact that there is a constantly drunk man next to me ?!

“Then you live for the glory.

- Nonsense! I don’t need fame! I want to live for my own pleasure!

- You lay in front of the alcoholic, wash his dirty linen, take out the basins, and he wipes his feet about you. It gives you pleasure.

- Delirium, delirium, delirium! How can you get pleasure from this ?! I don't want to live like this!

- Throw it.

- I can't, I need him, he's not really that, he's different, good …

- Marina, why do you need it?

And then she thought for the first time. He didn’t love her, he didn’t give money, he didn’t buy presents, there was no sex with him: he was driving her away when he was sober, and when he was drunk, you understand: born to drink, he cannot love … But she stuck to him like a bath leaf. Like five cents, ebonically glued to the table. Like Sodom to Gomorrah. WHY??? From this clinical connection, she received neurosis and chronic bronchitis, insomnia and a weight of 45 kg, constant torment, suffering, anxiety and fear of being completely rejected. What pleasure is there … So, glory ?!

Shaking off the grave mold, and, like a blind mole, squinting from the sun, she hardly returned to reality.

- Yes, yes, I needed fame. I remembered what delight I felt, telling in detail about my torment to my friend, former lover, friends, sister … They listened to me, shook their heads, sympathized, empathized, admired my selflessness, condemned his goat nature. That's where the theater is! I am a heroine, a star! I am on stage, in the beams of the footlights, and around the auditorium! That's where I got high, swam in the ocean of pleasure. It was not difficult for me to erect the stage even in the absence of admirers of my talent, it was enough to remember my sufferings, and then my fantasy lifted me to a pedestal inaccessible to the inhabitants. I suffered, felt sorry for myself, died hundreds of times - and always remained in the center. Yes, that is so: I arranged a nativity scene for myself and went to the galleys.

For Marina, it suddenly became a discovery that she does not allow herself to be happy JUST SO, mistakenly believing that happiness, pleasure must be earned. That is, GOOD can come only after it has become BAD.

We met with Marina again, and again, and again … She did not ask for a magic code for her beloved again. Yes, and the beloved soon turned into a vague memory, and she came to the fore with her desires and aspirations. She recalled how, as a seven-year-old girl, she went to look for her father and, with a sense of pride, brought him home from a drunken pub. And at 12 she was already ashamed of him. Although, when dad was sober, he was the best. Marina remembered how proud he was when he took her and her friend for a ride in the car. And then he again came drunk, and my mother cried, and she did not know what to do, and felt that she had to do something, and nothing worked …. Marina yelled at him, persuaded him, and put him to bed - dad obeyed, but still did not stop drinking … In short periods of sobriety, he again became the best folder: he taught her to drive a motorcycle, told various interesting stories, they read books together, drove on the sea…

Marina also dreamed of being an actress. She played in the school drama club, staged performances with her friends at home, read Stanislavsky, “Soviet Screen” became her desk magazine. Dad said to forget to think, because all actresses are whores …

This is the kind of life scenario Marina learned until she graduated from school. Then she flew out of her parent's nest, entered the institute, which dad pointed out. I came home for weekends, holidays and vacations. And then she completely stayed in the city where she studied.

From meeting to meeting, Marina learned to realize that her childhood was not over. That she solves the same problem all the time - she wants to fix her father. She wants to prove to him that she is a good girl, not a whore … Although she herself does not believe in this - in her heart she has remained an artist, which means she is a whore … Therefore, she chooses men with whom it is easy to feel at their best - alcoholics and various crooks …

Marina and I unraveled a lot. Rather, she herself. I only asked about something in time, clarified something, focused her attention.

Now Marina attends folk theater and tango classes in her free time. He spends beautiful holidays at work. She forgave her dad, and no longer tries to bring him back and fix him. She has fans, but she herself is in no hurry. And one recently expressed an interesting thought: “You are my only one. I want you to be the last."