Evgeny Russ
Fall of Matilda

Do you speak English?

Matilda woke from the cold, she was trembling violently. It was already six in the morning. She got out of the hut and went back to her house. Usually at seven in the morning the neighbors were already awake. Matilda went into her porch, and without taking off her backpack, she began doing squats to keep warm. After a while, the chill went away. She no longer shook, but Matilda needed to keep warm.

"Yes," she thought, "a cup of hot coffee would not hurt." Continuing to do sit-ups, Matilda waited seven in the morning. She had no hours, and from time to time she left the entrance and looked at the neighbors' windows. The light caught fire in the window of the old woman Zina. Matilda went up to her apartment and rang the doorbell.

"Oh!" exclaimed the old woman Zina, "Matilda, what's the matter with you? Come on, come inn. My old man is still sleeping. Come into the kitchen, I'll make you tea," said Zina and led Matilda to the kitchen.

"You did not spend the night at home! Neighbors said you were taken by cops to the orphanage. Poor little soul! Did you escape? What happened with your arm?"

At tea Matilda told how she managed to escape from the orphanage and that there was only a small cut on her hand.

"Now I'll prepare for you another sandwich. Do you want me to warm up the soup?"

"Thank you, Zina! I'm already full. And can I have some hot tea?"

"Tea is not food. Now I'll warm up the soup on gas quickly. Hot bouillon is very salutary," said Zina, took out of fridge the pan with soup and put it on the stove. "My old man still sleeping, yesterday watched football to midnight. If you want, stay with us. Only don't show yourself to neighbors. Evil tongues can inform cops. You'd better not see cops. And my old man does not like these cops, he calls them garbage!"

The old woman Zina fed Matilda by hot soup. She spoke without stopping. It was her professional quality – in her younger years she worked as a teacher.

"Let me bring you a dressing gown, and I'll wash the dress. The blood just can’t be washed."

"Thank you, Zina, but I have to go."

"Where will you go, my dear?"

"I'll go look for work."

"Where will you sleep? Come to us."

"Thank you, Zina, but really I shouldn't appearance here. Okay, shall I go? Is good?" said Matilda, got up and headed for the door, "thank you for not allowed me to freeze."

"Wait, do not go away, I'm right now," said Zina, and went out into the room. Matilda stood and waited for her at the front door.

"Here, take some money, you'll need it. We're old, and no need money," said Zina, and slipped several bank notes into Matilda's hand.

"But there are many, I would have enough only to travel around the city."

"Take it, take it."

"Thank you, Zina. I will refund the money when I will can. But when – I do not know."

"Don’t worry. We have money with my old man. We wait for you in this evening, come to sleep here. Wait, I'll bring a shawl now."

"Why should I have a shawl?" Matilda asked, but Zina went out to the room again.

Returning, she brought a thin woolen beige scarf. He was with a fringe. Then Zina tied a scarf around Matilda's waist. "So, the blood on dress will not be visible," she said.

Matilda once again thanked, said goodbye and left. She ran down the stairs, came out from the entrance, and, trying not to meet with neighbors, headed towards the street.

After several hours of walking around the city and looking for work, she stopped at the building with the inscription "Business Center Lingua." The lesson of English at school was Matilda's favorite lesson. Her teacher – Fonarina Darya Antonovna, was delighted with Matilda's successes and always gave her extra assignments and books in English. Matilda's pronunciation was perfect. Sometimes after the lessons, Matilda stayed at school and came to the English class room. There she could talk with Darya Antonovna in English. They discussed Matilda's books, sometimes Matilda retold them. Matilda felt confident in English and entered the building. In the front entrance hall towards Matilda came a guard. He was wearing a black suit and tie. An antique chair with bent legs stood behind him.

"Do you want something?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm translator and come to ask about job."

The guard examined Matilda. She wore a cheap dress and a tied scarf around her waist. The dress did not hide the wide hips and her feminine figure. Proper facial features and too white skin gave out her aristocratic origin and young age. The guard noticed cheap shoes with low heels, and a cheap school backpack behind her back. Matilda looked around for some reason and looked up. The video surveillance camera was staring at her.

"Well, wait here, I'll find out right now," the guard said and left. After a while he returned and invited her to go into the office. Passing Matilda into the office of chief, the guard returned to the front entrance hall. A middle-aged man was sitting at the table. "35-40," thought Matilda. At Matilda's entrance, he stood up and greeted her in pure English, "hello! How do you do?"

"Fine, thanks!" answered Matilda, and smiled.

Then they acquaintance, and all their conversation continued in English. The head of the company was Arthur Khananovich. Convinced that Matilda speaks English fluently and competently, Arthur Khananovich suggested that she translate into Russian the text the contract that lies on his table. Matilda read the English text with ease and translated it into Russian aloud. Arthur Khananovich liked it very much.

"Now let's try the synchronous translation," he said, and turned on the television set in his office. On TV screen from the rostrum spoke Vladimir Wolfowicz, well-known for many, and he scolded the Communists.

"Begin please, we need a synchronous translation," said Arthur Khananovich to Matilda.

Five minutes later Arthur Khananovich turned off the TV. He was amazed at the ease with which Matilda synchronously translated what she heard and with accuracy passed all the expressions of the speaker's not normative vocabulary. Matilda's thin voice did not drown out of speech Vladimir Wolfowicz. It was easy to listen to her and listen to the speaker's speech at the same time.

"Well. We will formalize you to work. Do you have a passport?"

"Yes, certainly," said Matilda, took off her backpack and handed the passport to Arthur Khananovich.

"But you're not eighteen yet!" exclaimed Arthur Khananovich.

"Yes, but it will be soon."

"You know what… I can take you to work, but not officially. Do you agree?"

"I think yes," Matilda answered.

"Will it suit you $ 700 a month?"

Matilda thought about it. She had counting this sum in her mind for rubles.

"Perhaps," she answered.

"Well, that's just for starters," said Arthur Khananovich, looking at Matilda's registration. She was registered in a prestigious area in the center of the city.

"It's strange, why she dresses so simply, as if from a poor family! Probably, this is such a newfangled enthusiasm for children of wealthy parents," Arthur Khananovich thought.

"I think, soon you will raise your salary to a thousand, and a thousand and a half is not the limit too. Everything will depend on you," added Arthur Khananovich.

"Well, do we wait you tomorrow at work?" he asked.

"What time I need to come?"

"It is desirable by nine in the morning, but not later than ten. Usually our customers do not arrive until ten. We have a special hall for negotiations. Here meets businessmen from different countries, including our directors of factories and large enterprises with their foreign colleagues. We provide them with simultaneous interpretation during the negotiations, and also we help to draft contracts in accordance with our laws. We also have the lawyers for this in our staff."

"It is interesting! Such work, I hope, I like it," said Matilda, not hiding her joy.

"All right, I'll see you at nine tomorrow."

"I forgot to say, my parents left, they rest in Cuba now. They will not arrive soon. I stayed at home alone. In general, it so happened that I needed money. I do not want to talk about this, how it all happened. So I decided to look for a job. Prepayment now would not prevent for me."

"Ah, of course," Arthur Khananovich suddenly remembered, and reached with his hand into his pocket for the purse, but then decided that paying an advance from a purse would be highly indecent. "So, where's the key?" he said.

Then Arthur Khananovich opened the drawer of the table, took the key and went to the safe. He was ready to pay Matilda two and three thousand dollars a month, but was afraid that she might not go to work. It was impossible to miss such luck as Matilda, but also to give a large sum at once Arthur Khananovich could not by virtue of his worldview. He opened the safe, took out three banknotes of one hundred dollars each and handed them to Matilda.

"I think this is enough to begin with, because you have not started working yet," he said.

"Yes, thank you, you helped me out."

"Now, do not forget your passport."

"Yes thank you. Can I go?"

"Yes, of course," said Arthur Khananovich and smiled goodbye. It was a kind smile of a man who looks at a cute baby.

Severe labor weekdays.

On the same day Matilda went shopping, she chose a black business suit and a white blouse. The long narrowed skirt to the ankles with a slit and a short jacket well emphasized the figure and hid its white legs from unnecessary looks. Matilda's stockings were also black. To go with such a skirt Matilda could only take small steps. Selected her high-heeled shoes and brooch Matilda left her bloody dress in the store. Before leaving the store, she still for a while turned around the big mirror, and tried to walk in small steps with the gait of the model. She liked it. The costume was sewed by the factory 'Bolshevichka' and Matilda still had a lot of money. She had already chosen a handbag for her dress, but then changed her mind and bought a briefcase of black leather. But most importantly, she decided to go to the hairdresser.

"Make me the same hairstyle as has Mireille Mathieu," Matilda told the hairdresser and pointed to the photo of her favorite singer, who was hanging on the wall.

Toward evening Matilda already settled in the student dormitory as a university entrant. Despite her St. Petersburg registration and the availability of an apartment according her passport, nobody had the right to refuse her provide the student dormitory. In the column, Matilda wrote the workplace her father – the director of the state farm "Kommuner". The institute decided that the girl wanted to live separately from her parents. Looking at her registration and the position of father, the workers of the institute decided not to violate the law and provide the girl with a student dormitory. Matilda chose this institution not from her personal interests, but from the proximity of the institute's hostel to hers first place of work. Matilda passed the school certificate to the institute. There were assessments only 'excellent', but only one assessment by astronomy was 'good'. Why she was rated 'good' in the fourth quarter, and brought out assessment 'good' for the year, she did not know. Her classmate and daughter of the head of the City Department of Public Education received a gold medal. Matilda did not get the gold medal. Until early September, Matilda lived in a student dormitory and went to work every day. She asked several times for Arthur Khananovich to leave a job and took the entrance examinations. From the beginning of September she lived in a hostel already in the company of two girls. In late November, Matilda was expelled from the Institute by reason of her absence. However, by that time the building of the institute had already been privatized by the dormitory administrator and by the beginning of the next year it was intended to use it completely as a hotel. Already empty rooms were being rented and at very low prices. In comparison with hotels in the city, the price of a room in a student dormitory was five times cheaper. Initially, the rooms were designed for three peoples, and each room had a shower and toilet. Matilda took advantage of this and began to rent a separate room. The salary of Matilda was enough to afford live in a posh hotel, but she had not a habit for squander and continued to live in a student dormitory for a small fee. For her it was already a paid hostel, but most importantly, it was not far from her place of work. Now Matilda's salary was already three thousand dollars at month, and Arthur Khananovich told her that from next month her salary would be five thousand dollars. First, Arthur Khananovich was afraid that Matilda could be taken away by some new millionaire and owner of the plant. Such high-class specialists were needed by many. Privatization was in full swing. There were appeared more and more nouveaux riches. Secondly, Arthur Khananovich realized that Matilda with this level of knowledge could work as an interpreter at the UN and receive twenty thousand dollars a month for such work. This calmed himself. She had the all personal traits for work in the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs or in the government, but Matilda did not have an interpreter diploma. Who her parents were, Arthur Khananovich did not know and did not dare to ask her tactless questions. In any case, he was glad that Matilda was the pearl of his Business Center. There were a lot of clients, and they gave positive recommendations to their friends. Clients were all from the government, there were also former communist and Komsomol leaders, the first and second secretaries of city and district committees. There were absent only the third secretaries of the city and district committees of the Komsomol. Earlier, the Communists – the mind, honor and conscience of this era, used the thirds secretaries of the Komsomol, usually for serve tea and perform small tasks. However, among the former third secretaries of the Komsomol there were also many privatizers of small state property – small poultry farms or pig farms. Of course, director of a pig farm did not need to conduct any negotiations with foreign partners. Having shares of pig farm, it was difficult to find a foreign buyer of these shares. All foreign investors stood in queue for shares of the largest metallurgical enterprises and enterprises of the mining complex. Arthur Khananovich and his 'Business Center Lingua' earned a lot of money, providing a conference room for negotiations and accompanying them with simultaneous interpretation. Customers trusted the 'Business Center Lingua' for confidentiality in the negotiations. However, before the talks began, security personnel at the enterprises always checked the lack of listening devices in the conference room with special equipment. During all the negotiations, only Matilda was present. She knew a lot of secrets, but she did not intend to share it with anyone. In the hostel, Matilda's night table kept countless business cards of heads of the largest enterprises from all over the Union. One day, in the middle of February, the surprise was waiting for Matilda at the 'Business Center Lingua'. It was the middle of February 1991 year. More precisely, it was on February 14, 1991. Matilda came to work, as always, by nine o'clock in the morning. She went to her office, not finding a single employee in her workplace. All were absent. At the beginning of the ten o clock, she got up from the table, put down the documents and went to the office to Arthur Khananovich. Arthur Khananovich dryly said, "Hello Matilda, I have news, and one of them is good. What news should I start with? I do not know what news is better."

"Start with a good one."

"The good news is that our 'Lingua Business Center' is grateful to you for your work for eight months".

"And what is bad news?"

"Well, go to the conference room," said Arthur Khananovich and followed Matilda. Having overtaken her at the door of the conference hall, Arthur Khananovich opened the door and gestured to Matilda to enter first. It was dark in the hall. The windows in this room were missing, and the light could only be from a few crystal chandeliers located high above the ceiling. Arthur Khananovich entered and closed the door. There was complete darkness.

"I'll tell you the bad news, Matilda," Arthur Khananovich said aloud, "you've add to old age a one year!"

At that moment the chandeliers were lit, claps of firecrackers. Matilda was showered with paper beads. Everyone clapped their hands and sang a song in English 'Happy Birthday to You'. Then everyone gave Matilda gifts and congratulated. On table were a large cake, a tea set, and a large porcelain teapot with tea. It was a nice tea-party. Matilda completely forgot about her birthday, but in the 'Business Center Lingua' she was reminded of this. Remembered Matilda and about her Petersburg apartment. Now she was of age, and not a single cop could take her to the orphanage. By eleven o'clock, the tea-party was over. The staff prepared premises for meeting guests from Norway and guests from the marble open pit of Karelia. Matilda returned to her office. Today after work, she was intending to visit her apartment, call a locksmith, change the lock and settle on legal grounds. The money for hire a lawyer, if it was necessary, Matilda had more than enough. She kept the money in the St. Petersburg branch of 'Inkombank' and in January she already started using a plastic Visa card. After receiving permission to finish the work earlier than usual, at four o'clock in the afternoon she was already standing at the door of her apartment. The lock and door were the other. Not the same as before. The door was made of oak and encrusted with mahogany veneer. Matilda rang the doorbell. The door was opened by a tall, elderly man with glasses and a Chekhov beard. He wore light pants and slippers. From under the dark terry dressing gown, a light knitted shirt was peeking out. In his left hand he held a steaming smoking pipe, which was made from the briar.

"You must have been mistaken," he said to Matilda, without inviting her to enter. The aroma from the briar smoking pipe, spread everywhere on the entrance hall.

"No, I was not mistaken. This is my apartment and I'm registered here!" answered Matilda.

"Dearie, you do not look like a crook. What brings you here? Couldn't you show your passport?"

"Here, please, look," said Matilda, flipped through her passport, and showed the stranger a seal with a registration at this address.

"Dearie, I bought this apartment legally. I bought from the captain of the police. I do not intend to inform you of his position and name. At least, I do not have to. Previously, I studied all the documents for the apartment. It apartment was privatized by captain of police. Yes, indeed, before him was registered a minor girl, but then she was deprived of registration for this apartment by the guardianship authorities and then was registered in the Children's Shelter. Probably, it was you. It seems that registration in your passport is now not valid, and you can’t reproach me with anything. I am a conscientious home buyer. Encumbrances to the apartment at the time of purchase were not, I have all the relevant documents. In court, you can only rely on the payment of compensation from the state. I hope I will not see you again. Otherwise, I'll have to call a police squad."

During a conversation with a stranger, Matilda noticed through an open door that there was nothing left of her former life in the apartment. The floors were now parquet, on the ceiling appeared an elaborate stucco and expensive furniture in the hallway.

"I understood everything," said dumbfounded Matilda, and retreated. She wanted to cry. She stood for a while in the stairwell and looked at the railing, familiar to her tears, the staircase that she went down to school every day. Matilda wanted to see old lady Zina, and she called her door. The door was also different, it was metal and with a door peephole. Matilda just now paid attention to this. A minute later the door opened and a vulgar woman of about thirty appeared on the threshold.

"Hello! And where is the old lady Zina?" Matilda asked.

"There's no Zina here. We bought them an apartment in new buildings and exchanged it with surcharge."

"And can you tell me their new address?"

"I don’t remember the address," the woman said and slammed the door.

Matilda had no choice but to leave the entrance and return to her dormitory. On the way, she went to the law firm. Having told the situation to the lawyer, Matilda showed her passport and registration on the address.

"Yes, indeed, the situation is complicated. So do you say the captain of the police privatized your apartment?" the lady lawyer asked.

"It turns out that yes. This is true."

"As much as we can do for you, it's a small compensation from the state. You will not get too expensive outlay. If you want to get an apartment back, I can give you an attorney's address. He has connections in tribunal, and he will solve your question positively. This is an expensive lawyer and its services will be worth as much as your elite apartment. The court will not find the error of the guardianship authorities or the police, because they could consider you missing. It will be even harder to get compensation from them and pay for the lawyer's work on the return of your apartment. In this case, this affair will take only a novice lawyer."

"I understood. How much do I owe you?"

"Not at all. In fact, I did not render any services to you."

"Thank you. It was nice to talk with you," said Matilda, and said goodbye.

This year was a year of upheaval not only for Matilda, but for all the inhabitants of her vast country. There was a deliberate disintegration of the Soviet Union. Despite the fact that at the March referendum on the fate of the country, almost the entire population voted for the integrity of the USSR, the collapse could not be avoided. Was defeated and the Emergency Committee. From the hostel Matilda moved to a rented apartment in the same area and continued to go to work. These were hard working days. Not having an own apartment, Matilda often visited the city Tver and always bought a real estates. Literally from one salary she could buy a two-room apartment in Tver. The average price of an apartment was 5 thousand dollars. Already in the 93rd year the flow of customers to the "Business Center Lingua" has significantly decreased. For all this time Arthur Khananovich got necessary connections, good acquaintances and even friends. He was going to do some other business with his new partners. In August, Arthur Khananovich announced to employees about the company's imminent closure. It was planned to close the company 'Business Center Lingua' by mid-December. Matilda during her time has gained a lot of experience with the owners of large and medium-sized businesses. She had many job offers. Matilda kept all the business cards of the nouveaux riches. She remembered everyone with whom she had to communicate and the topic of negotiations. Business cards were not only from her immense homeland, but also from many parts of the world. Matilda did not attach much importance to these acquaintances. Now she did not like being an employee. She wanted and could start her own business. Early next year, Matilda moved to Tver in one of her apartments. This, perhaps, was one of her best apartments. She was on the embankment of Stepan Razin. From the windows there was a view of the Volga River, and Tvertsa River, flowing into it, a view of the river station, to which large multi decked ships and pleasure boats with hydrofoils were approaching. The berth for private yachts was also located near the river station, but already at the mouth of river Tvertsa. Years of work in the company 'Business Center Lingua' did not pass for Matilda in vain. These were hard working days. In the New Year, Matilda began a new life.