About fifteen years ago, the author heard this story, and he himself does not know why, she lives in it and burns her heart. “Maybe the whole thing is in her depressing routine, in her disarming simplicity?” It seems to the author that the heroine was called Lyudochka. She was born in a small dying village Vychugan. Parents are collective farmers. Father from overwhelming work was drunk, he was fussy and dull. Mother was afraid for the unborn child, so she tried to conceive during a break that was rare from husband's drunkenness. But the girl, "hurt by her father’s unhealthy flesh, was born weak, painful, and tearful." She grew sluggish, like roadside grass, rarely laughed and sang, at school she didn’t leave threesomes, although she was silently diligent. The father disappeared from family life a long time ago and unnoticed. Mother and daughter lived freer, better, more lively without him. Men appeared from time to time in their house, “one tractor driver from a neighboring timber industry enterprise, plowing the garden, having a good dinner, stayed for the whole spring, grew into a farm, started debugging, strengthening and multiplying it. He went to work on a motorcycle for seven miles, took a gun with him and often brought either a broken bird or a hare. "The guest had nothing to do with Lyudochka: neither good nor bad." He did not seem to notice her. And she was afraid of him.

When Lyudochka finished school, her mother sent her to the city - to establish her life, she herself was going to move to the timber industry farm. “At first, the mother promised to help Lyuda with money, potatoes and what God sends - in old age, you look, and she will help them.”

Lyudochka arrived in the city by train and spent the first night at the station. In the morning I came to the forecourt hairdresser to do a perm, a manicure, I wanted to dye my hair still, but the old hairdresser advised: the girl already has weak hair. Quiet, but rustic in the deaf, Lyudochka offered to sweep the hairdresser, spread a soap for someone, handed someone a napkin, and in the evening she found out all the local orders, kept an eye on an elderly hairdresser who advised her not to paint, and asked her to be a student.

Gavrilovna carefully examined Lyudochka and her documents, went with her to the city municipal administration, where she registered the girl for work as a hairdresser’s apprentice, and decided to live with her by setting some simple conditions: to help around the house, not to walk longer than eleven, not to drive guys to the house, not to drink wine , do not smoke tobacco, obey the hostess in everything and read her like a mother. Instead of paying for the apartment, let a firewood be brought from a timber industry enterprise. “Pokul you will be a student - live, but as you become a master, go to the dormitory, God will give, and you will arrange life ... If you grow frizzy, I will drive you away. I didn’t have children, I don’t like squeaks ... ”She warned the tenant that she toes and“ howls ”at night at night. In general, for Lyudochka Gavrilovna made an exception: for some time now she did not take tenants, and even less girls. Once, back in Khrushchev’s times, she had two students from a financial technical school: painted, in trousers ... they didn’t grind the floor, they didn’t wash the dishes, they didn’t distinguish between their own and other people's dishes — they ate housekeeping cakes and sugar that grew in the garden. To the remark of Gavrilovna, the girls called her “selfish”, and she, not understanding an unknown word, cursed them at her mother and drove them out. And from that time she let only guys into the house, quickly accustomed them to the household. Two, especially intelligent, even taught how to cook and manage the Russian stove.

Ludochka Gavrilovna started up because she guessed in her a village relative, not yet spoiled by the city, and she began to be burdened with loneliness in old age. “If you fall, there’s no one to give water to.”

Lyuda was an obedient girl, but her teaching was taut, the compulsory business, which seemed so simple, was difficult, and when the appointed term of study passed, she could not pass on to the master. In the hairdressing salon, Lyudochka also earned more money as a cleaner and remained in the state, continuing her practice — she cut the draftees under the typewriter, cursed schoolchildren, and learned to do shaped haircuts “at home”, cutting frightened fashionistas from the village of Vepevera where Gavrilovna’s house stood under the splitters. She built hairstyles on the heads of spinning disco girls, like foreign hit stars, without taking any charge for this.

Gavrilovna sold to Lyudochka all household chores, all household items. The legs of the old woman hurt more and more, and Ludochka's eyes pinched as she rubbed the ointment into the twisted legs of the mistress, who was finalizing the last year before retirement. The smell of the ointment was so fierce, Gavrilovna's screams were so heartbreaking that the cockroaches scattered in the neighbors, the flies died every single one. Gavrilovna complained about her work, which made her disabled, and then comforted Lyudochka that she would not be left without a piece of bread, having learned how to become a master.

For help with housework and care in an old age, Gavrilovna promised Ludochka to make a permanent residence permit, write down a house on her, if the girl will continue to behave so modestly, take care of the hut, yard, bend her back in the garden and look at her, the old woman, when she is completely depleted .

From work Lyudochka rode on a tram, and then walked through the dying Vepävärze park, humanly - a car-train depot park, planted in the 30s and ruined in the 50s. Someone wanted to lay a pipe through the park. They dug a ditch, conducted a pipe, but forgot to bury. A black pipe with bends lay in steamed clay, hissing, steaming, seething with a hot burda. Over time, the pipe clogged, and a hot river flowed on top, circling rainbow-poisonous rings of fuel oil and various rubbish. The trees dried up, the foliage flew around. Only poplars, clumsy, with a bursting bark, with horned branches on top, rested their paws on the earth’s ground, grew, litter the fluff and in autumn dropped leaves scattered around with wood scabies.

A bridge with a railing was thrown across the ditch, which was broken every year and updated again in the spring. When the locomotives were replaced by diesel locomotives, the pipe was completely clogged, and a hot mess of mud and fuel oil still flowed along the ditch. The banks were overgrown with all sorts of nonsense, in some places stood stunted birches, mountain ash and linden. Christmas trees made their way too, but they didn’t go beyond their infancy - they were cut down by the prudent inhabitants of the village by the New Year, and pines plucked goats and any lascivious cattle. The park looked like "after the bombing or invasion of the undaunted enemy cavalry." There was a constant stench all around, puppies, kittens, dead piglets and everything that burdened the inhabitants of the village were thrown into the ditch.

But people cannot exist without nature, therefore reinforced concrete benches stood in the park - wooden ones were instantly broken. Children ran around in the park, there was a punks who had fun playing cards, drinking, fighting, and sometimes "to death." “They got here and girls ...” The ringleader of Artemka soap, with a foamed white head, ruled over. No matter how much she tried to pacify the rags on Artemka’s exuberant head, she didn’t succeed. His “curls from a distance reminiscent of soap suds, getting closer that there were sticky horns from the station canteen - they cooked them, threw them in a lump into an empty plate, so they, stuck together, were heavy and lay. And not for the sake of a hairstyle the guy came to Lyudochka. As soon as her hands became occupied with scissors and a comb, Artemka began to grab her at different places. At first, Lyuda dodged Artemka’s grasping hands, and when it didn’t help, she hit him on the head with a typewriter and punched him for blood, I had to pour iodine on the head of the “caring man”. Artyomka hooted and began to catch air with a whistle. Since then, “he stopped his harassment of harassment,” moreover, the punks ordered Lyudochka not to touch.

Now Lyudochka was not afraid of anyone and anything, she walked from the tram to the house through the park at any hour and any time of the year, responding to the greetings of the punks with “a kind smile”. Once the ataman-soap “moored” Lyudochka in the central city park for dancing in a corral similar to an animal one.

“In the menagerie corral, people behaved like animals ... It was raging, the flock was raging, creating body shame and delirium from dancing ... Music, helping the herd in demonic and savagery, was convulsing, popping, humming, rumbled by drums, moaned, howled. "

Ludochka was frightened of what was happening, hid in a corner, looked through the eyes of Artem to intercede, but "soap was washed in this seething gray foam." The little man grabbed a whip in a circle, began to cheek, she barely strayed from the gentleman and ran home. Gavrilovna edified the "stall" that if Lyudochka "passed on the master, decided on the profession, she would find a suitable working guy for her without any dancing - not just one punks lived in the world ...". Gavrilovna assured - from dancing one disgrace. Lyuda agreed with her in everything, thought she was very lucky with a mentor who had rich life experience.

The girl cooked, washed, scrubbed, whitened, dyed, washed, ironed and it was not a burden to her to keep the house completely clean. But if she gets married, she can do everything, in everything she can be an independent mistress, and her husband will love and appreciate her for this. Lyudochka often slept, felt weak, but nothing, this can be experienced.

That time, a famous person nicknamed Strekach returned from places far from remote to everyone in the district. In appearance, it also resembled a black narrow-eyed bug, though, instead of a tentacle-mustache, Strekach had a dirty platter under his nose, with a smile resembling a grin, his damaged teeth were exposed, as if made from cement chips. Vicious since childhood, he was engaged in robbery at school - he took away “silverfish, gingerbread” from children, chewing gum, especially loved in a “sparkly wrapper”. In the seventh grade, Strekach was already lugging around with a knife, but he didn’t have to take anything from anyone - “the small population of the village brought him, as a khan, a tribute, everything that he ordered and wanted.” Soon, Strekach cut someone up with a knife, he was registered with the police, and after attempting to rape the postman, he received his first term - three years with a suspended sentence. But Strekach did not calm down. He smashed the neighboring cottages, threatened the owners with a fire, so the owners of the cottages began to leave a drink, a snack with the wish: “Dear guest! Drink, eat, rest - only, for God's sake, do not set fire to anything! ” The strekach lived almost all winter, but then they still took him, he sat down for three years. Since then, he found himself “in forced labor camps, from time to time arriving in his native village, as if on a well-deserved vacation. The local fool then went after Strekach, gaining reason and reason ”, revered by him as a thief in law, but he did not disdain, nibbling his team in small ways, playing in cards or thimbles. “Then the living population of the village of Vepervae was always anxious in alarm. That summer evening, Strekach sat on a bench, drinking expensive cognac and toiling idle. Shpana promised: “Don’t freak out. Here the masses from the dances will tumble down, we hire you chickens. As much as you want..."

Suddenly he saw Lyudochka. Artyomka-soap tried to put in a word for her, but Strekach did not listen, he found courage on him. He caught the girl by the belt of his cloak, tried to sit on his knees. She tried to get rid of him, but he threw her through the bench and raped her. Shpana was nearby. The strekach also made the punks get dirty, so that he would not be the only culprit. Seeing the torn Ludochka, Artyomka-soap froze and tried to pull a cloak on her, and she, distraught, ran, shouting: “Soap! Soap!" Having reached the house of Gavrilovna, Lyudochka fell on the steps and lost consciousness. I woke up on an old couch, where the compassionate Gavrilovna, who was sitting next to her and comforting her little house, dragged her. Recovering, Lyudochka decided to go to her mother.

In the village of Vychugan, “there are two whole houses left. In one, the old woman Vychuganikha stubbornly lived out her life, in the other, the mother of Lyudochka and her stepfather. " The whole village, suffocated in the wild, with a barely trodden path, was in boarded up windows, wobbling birdhouses, wildly growing between poplars, bird cherry trees, aspen trees. That summer, when Lyudochka graduated from school, the old apple tree gave an unprecedented crop of red bulk apples. The foolish woman was frightened: “Guys, do not eat these apples. This is not good! ” “And one night a living branch of an apple tree, unable to bear the weight of the fruit, broke off. The bare, flat trunk remained behind the scattered houses, like a cross with a broken cross on a graveyard. Monument to the dying Russian village. One more. “Here it is,” predicted Vychuganikha, “they’ll kill one in the middle of Russia, and there will be nobody to remember her, uncleanly plagued ...” It was terrible to the women to listen to Vychuganikha, they prayed ineptly, believing themselves unworthy of the mercy of God.

Lyudochkin’s mother also began to pray, only for God and hope remained. Lyuda giggled at her mother and got a crack.

Soon the Wyuganikha died. Stepfather Lyudochka clicked the men from the timber industry farm, they brought the old woman to the churchyard on tractor sleighs, and there was nothing to remember. Lyudochkin's mother gathered something on the table. They remembered that Vychuganikha was the last of the kind of pretend, the founders of the village.

Mother washed in the kitchen, having seen her daughter, began to wipe her hands on the apron, put them on her big belly, said that the cat “washed the guests” in the morning, she was still surprised: “Where do we get them from? And then Avon what! " Looking around Lyudochka, the mother immediately realized - trouble happened with her daughter. “A big mind is not needed to realize what a misfortune happened to her. But through this ... inevitability, all the women must go ... How many more, misfortune, are yet to come ... "She found out, her daughter arrived for the weekend. I was glad that I had sour cream dug up to her arrival, my stepfather pumped up honey. The mother said that she soon moved with her husband to the timber industry farm, only "like a mug ...". Embarrassed that at the end of the fourth decade she decided to give birth, she explained: “He wants a child. He’s building a house in the village ... and we’ll sell this one. But he doesn’t mind if we rewrite it on you ... "Lyudochka refused:" Why do I need him. " Mother was delighted, maybe hundreds of five will be given on slate, on glass.

Mother burst into tears, looking out the window: "Who benefits from this breakup?" Then she went to reach, and her daughter sent to milk a cow and bring firewood. "Himself" must come home from work late, they will have time to cook the stew by his arrival. Then they will have a drink with the stepfather, but the daughter replied: "I have not yet learned, mother, neither to drink nor to cut." Mother reassured that she would learn to cut “once-nito”. No gods burn pots.

Lyuda thought about his stepfather. How difficult it is, but recklessly grew into the economy. With machines, motors, a gun it was easily controlled, but in the garden for a long time I could not distinguish one vegetable from another, the haymaking was perceived as pampering and a holiday. When they finished throwing stacks, mother ran away to cook food, and Lyudochka - to the river. Returning home, she heard “animal rumble” behind the rim. Lyuda was very surprised to see how his stepfather - “a man with a shaved head, graying on all sides, with deep furrows on his face, covered in tattoos, a snagging, long-armed man, clapping himself on his stomach, suddenly ran into a shallow jump, and a hoarse roar of joy erupted from a burned-out or rusted inside, a little-known person ”, Lyudochka began to guess that he had no childhood. At home, she told her mother with a laugh how her stepfather frolic in the water. “But where did he learn to bathe? Since childhood, in exile and in camps, under escort and guard espionage in a public bath. He has a life, oh-ho-ho ... - Having realized herself, the mother became agitated and, as if proving to someone, continued: “But he is a decent man, maybe a good one.”

Since that time, Lyudochka has ceased to be afraid of her stepfather, but she has not become closer. The stepfather close to himself did not allow anyone.

Now I suddenly thought: to run to the timber industry farm, for seven miles, find a stepfather, lean against him and cry on his rough chest. Maybe he will pat her on the head, regret it ... Suddenly, she decided to leave with her morning train. Mother was not surprised: "Well ... if necessary, duck ..." Gavrilovna did not wait for the quick return of the town.Lyuda explained that her parents were moving, not up to her. She saw two ropes attached to a bag instead of straps, and cried. Mother said that she tied these ropes to the cradle, put her foot in the noose and swung her foot ... Gavrilovna was afraid that Lyuda was crying? "I feel sorry for mom." The old woman was saddened, and there was no one to feel sorry for her, then she warned: they took Artemka-soap, Lyudochka scratched his face ... sign. He was ordered to remain silent, shache death. Both the Strekach and the old woman were warned that if a little thing popped too much, they would beat her with nails to the post, and the old woman would be burned. Gavrilovna complained that she had all the best - a corner in her old age, she could not lose him. Lyudochka promised to move to the hostel. Gavrilovna reassured: this gangster didn’t wind up for a long time, soon he would sit down again, “and I will call you back.” Lyuda recalled how, living on a state farm, she caught a cold, pneumonia opened up, and she was put in a regional hospital. On an endless, long night, she saw a dying guy, learned from a nurse his simple story. Recruited from some distant places, a lonely boy caught a cold in a cutting area, a boil jumped out at his temple. An inexperienced paramedic scolded him that he was talking about all sorts of trifles, and a day later she accompanied the guy who had fallen unconscious to the regional hospital. The skull was opened in the hospital, but could not do anything - the pus began to do its destructive work. The guy was dying, so he was carried out into the corridor. Lyuda sat for a long time and looked at the tormented man, then put a hand on his face. The guy gradually calmed down, with an effort he opened his eyes, tried to say something, but he heard only "mustache-mustache ... mustache ...". She guessed with a feminine instinct; he is trying to thank her. Lyuda sincerely felt sorry for the guy, so young, lonely, and probably didn’t have time to fall in love with anyone, brought a stool, sat down next to him and took the guy’s hand. He looked hopefully at her, whispered something. Lyudochka thought that he was whispering a prayer, and began to help him, then she got tired and dozed off. She woke up, saw that the guy was crying, shook his hand, but he did not answer her shake. He comprehended the price of compassion - "another habitual betrayal of the dying man has taken place." Betray, “the living betray him! And not his pain, not his life, their suffering is dear to them, and they want his torment to end soon, so that they themselves do not suffer. ” The guy took his hand from Ludochka and turned away - “he did not expect a little comfort from her, he expected a victim from her, consent to be with him to the end, and maybe die with him. Then a miracle would have happened: together they would have become stronger than death, would have risen to life, a mighty impulse would have appeared in it, ”the path to resurrection would open. But there was no person nearby who could sacrifice himself for the sake of a dying man, and alone he did not overcome death. The man sideways, as if caught in a bad deed, stealthily went to her bed. Since then, the feeling of deep guilt before the late lumberjack guy has not ceased in her. Now herself in grief and abandonment, she especially acutely, very tangibly felt the whole rejection of a dying man. She had to drink the cup of loneliness, crafty human sympathy to the end - the space around it narrowed, as near that bunk behind the hospital peeling stove where the dying guy was lying. Ludochka was ashamed: “why did she pretend then, why? After all, if there really was a readiness in her to stay completely with the dying, to accept flour for him, as in the old days, maybe, in fact, unknown forces would have come to light in him. Well, even if a miracle did not happen, a dying person didn’t resurrect, anyway, the knowledge that she was able to ... give him all of herself, to the last breath, would make her strong, confident, ready to fight back evil forces. ” Now she understood the psychological state of solitary prisoners. Lyuda again remembered her stepfather: is he probably one of those strong? But how, from where do you approach him? Lyudochka thought that in distress, in solitude, they were all the same, and there was nothing to shame and despise.

There were no places in the hostel yet, and the girl continued to live with Gavrilovna. The landlady taught the little house "to return in the dark" not through the park, so that the "Saranopaly" did not know that she lives in the village. But Lyudochka continued to walk through the park, where once the guys caught her, they frightened the Strekach, imperceptibly pushing her to the bench. Lyuda understood what they want. She carried a razor in her pocket, wanting to cut off "Strekach's dignity to the very root." It was not herself who thought of this terrible revenge, but once heard of a similar act by a woman in a hairdressing salon. Ludochka told the guys, it’s a pity that there is no Strekach, “such a prominent gentleman”. She said cheekily: Fuck off, boys, I'll go change into a well-worn, not rich man. The guys released her so that she would return as soon as possible, warned not to dare to "joke." At home Lyudochka dressed in an old dress, girded the same rope from her cradle, took off her shoes, took a sheet of paper, but did not find a pen or pencil and jumped out into the street. On the way to the park I read an announcement about recruiting young men and women in the forest industry. A saving thought flashed: "Maybe I should leave?" “Yes, another thought immediately interrupted the first one: there, in the forest, there was a ratman on a rattleman and all with a mustache.” In the park, she found a long-noticed poplar with a clumsy bitch above the path, swept a rope over it, dexterously tied a loop, albeit quiet, but in a village way she knew a lot. Lyudochka climbed onto the poplar bump and put a noose around her neck. She mentally said goodbye to family and friends, asked for forgiveness from God. Like all reserved people, it was pretty decisive. “And here, with a noose around her neck, she, too, as in childhood, clasped her face with her hands and, pushing her feet off, as if from a high bank threw herself into a whirlpool. Boundless and bottomless. "

She managed to feel how the heart in her chest swells, it seems, breaks her ribs and breaks out of her chest. The heart quickly tired, weakened, and then all pain and torment left Lyudochka ...

The guys waiting for her in the park began to scold the girl who had deceived them. One was sent to scout. He shouted to his friends: “We tear our claws! Ko-ogti! She ... "- The Scout raced jumping from poplars, from the light." Later, while sitting in the station restaurant, he laughed with nervous laughter that he saw Lyudochka's trembling and twitching body. The guys decided to warn Strekach and leave somewhere, before they were "scrambled".

Lyudochka was buried not in her native abandoned village, but in the city cemetery. Mother was sometimes forgotten and voted. At home, Gavrilovna burst into tears: she counted Lyudochka as her daughter, and that she did over herself? Stepfather drank a glass of vodka and went out onto the porch to smoke. He went to the park and found on the spot the whole company, led by Strekach. The bandit asked the guy who approached what he needed. “I came to look at you,” replied the stepfather. He tore the cross from the Strekach’s neck and threw it into the bushes. “At least do not trash, sucker! Don’t even touch God, leave it to people! ” The strekach tried to threaten the peasant with a knife. The stepfather grinned and grabbed the Strekach’s hand with an elusive, lightning-fast movement, pulled it out of his pocket along with a piece of cloth. Without letting the bandit come to his senses, he grabbed the shirt collar with his tailcoat, dragged Strekach by the scruff of the neck through the bushes, threw him into the ditch, and a heart-rending scream came in response. Wiping his hands on his pants, his stepfather stepped on the path, the punks stepped in his way. He stared at them. “The guys felt real, thoughtless godfather. This one didn’t stain his pants with dirt; for a long time he had never knelt before anyone, even before the dirtiest convoy. ” Shpana fled: someone from the park, who dragged the half-cooked Strekach from the ditch, someone behind the ambulance and tell the half-sleeping mother of Strekach about the fate that her son suffered, the rough path from the children's labor camp to the maximum security camp ended. Having reached the outskirts of the park, Lyudochka’s stepfather stumbled and suddenly saw a piece of rope on a knot. “Some old force, which he didn’t know by himself, threw him high, he caught the bitch, he creaked and fell off.” Holding the branch in his hands, smelling it for some reason, his stepfather quietly said: “Why didn’t you break off when you need to?” He crumbled it to pieces, scattering it to the sides, and hurried to Gavrilovna’s house. Arriving home and drinking vodka, he got into a timber industry farm. At a respectful distance, his wife hurried and did not keep up with him. He took Ludochka’s belongings from her, helped to climb the high stairs into the train and found a free place. Lyudochka’s mother first whispered, and then loudly asked God to help give birth and keep at least this child full. I asked for Lyudochka, whom I did not save. Then "she restlessly laid her head on his shoulder, leaned weakly against him, and it seemed to her, or in fact it was, he lowered his shoulder so that she was more agile and calm, and even seemed to press her on the side with his elbow, he warmed it."

The local police department did not have the strength and ability to split Artemka soap. With strict warning, he was released home. With a fright, Artyomka entered the communications school, the branch, where he was taught to climb poles, screw glasses and pull wires; with fear, it was not otherwise, Artemka-soap soon married, and he had a curly-haired child, smiling and cheerful, in Stakhanov's style, the fastest in the village, four months after the wedding. Grandfather laughed that "this small one with a flat head, because they took him out with the forceps into the light of God, will not even be able to think with his dad about the end from which he can interfere with a pole”.

At the end of the quarter, a note appeared on the fourth page of a local newspaper about the state of morality in the city, but “Lyudochka and Strekach did not get into this report. The head of the Internal Affairs Directorate had two years to retire, and he did not want to spoil the positive percentage with dubious data. Lyudochka and Strekach, who did not leave behind any notes, property, valuables and witnesses, went through the suicide line in the register of the Internal Affairs Directorate ... foolishly having laid hands on themselves. "