Imprint of Heart. Illumination with love

4. Visible Windows

Father met Lucy as usual with questions: “How did you get there? How did you rest? Where did you go to Moscow? What was the most memorable? How is your health?”

For a long time she retold the screenplay “Like the gods…” with the participation of folk artists, and herself tensely thought: “What has happened? Whence this cold? Alex was right, why did I go to the south? It would have been better if I stayed in the city to avoid conflict.”

Her father took the excitement with which she talked about the performance she saw, fatigue and overwork of her daughter, but, despite this, he asked:

“Lucy, what happened?” It seems to me that you are ill. You do not say something. Maybe you have complications at work? You’re very worried. Before you left, you had not been so nervous.

After these words, she could not stand it and burst into tears: “Here’s how it always is. My father understands me even more than I do myself.”

The next day she felt unwell. She wanted to call Alex, but he did not say if he wanted to hear her.

“Perhaps during my trip to the south he had another girl. No. So it can not go on. You can go crazy with the unknown. It is necessary to find out the relationship. Does he want to continue meeting or decided that I no longer want to see him? Let it be so, but I will say this first…”

This day Alex was loaded to the limit. It all began in the morning. He did not have time to appear in the shop, as a replacement master came up to him and said in a businesslike manner:

“You know what, Alex, two newcomers will come to our workshop today and we’ll have to debug the machine tools with programmed control. Actually, I already have watched them. They’re fine, but without you I can not let the guys go to work. You, Alex, have ‘golden hands’, ” she patted him on the shoulder. “Check the machines, please. Do not forget safety. In a word, do everything as expected. Young people need to be taught!”

“Young people need to be taught,” the last words of the master sounded in Alex’s mind.

He sat down at the computer. He had to check every machine in all working positions.

While he was working, the cell phone flashed Lucy’s number several times, but he was busy and did not answer. When released, he dialed the number himself, but no one picked up the phone.

After work, Alex went to her house: “Maybe something has happened? I am guilty myself, did not agree to a meeting in a human way.”

Lucy was alone. She met him in a light blue home dressing gown. Her hair was neatly stabbed; she looked very cute at home.

“I want to talk with you seriously,” she began first, when he came and sat down at the table in the kitchen, but Alex felt her voice tremble. “What kind of change? If you decided to part with me, then tell me honestly, and we will stop seeing each other. If you have another woman, tell me, why did you come to me?”

“Do not worry, I like you as before, but I thought that after a trip to the south, you had no desire to meet. I was busy, so I did not answer calls, but I came to you myself. If you want, we’ll go, take a walk or go to the movies, or better to a concert. The ensemble ‘Young Voices’ came on tour.”

“No, I see, you’re tired, sit down, I’ll pour you some tea and, please, do not refuse!”

Lucy set before Alex a plate of soup and a hot dish with meat. He ate everything, because he was really hungry.

“Yes, Lucy, you are an amazing person,” he said. “I love girls with a character.”

“I have adequate feelings for you,” she laughed.

Never did any of the girls with whom Alex was familiar before her liked him so much. The desire to make her an offer to marry him appeared with him when she was in the south, but he decided to wait.

“It is necessary to check the feelings. Lucy is a very nice girl and she will surely find a boyfriend, so if I’ll be in a hurry, can cause antipathy,” Alexey reasoned in a secret.

He stayed with her not for long, they still sat in the hall on the couch, listened to the music, Lucy showed him the albums of painting brought from Moscow.

They kissed and feelings seized Alexey when she offered to show him a red night dressing gown.

“French, look how handsome! Chanel,” she pulled out of the bedroom a coat rack with a nightgown on straps. “Try it on?”

“Let me touch,” Alexey got up and moved towards the bedroom, but then she blocked his way. “Come on… You allow me to smoke with you?”

“As you want.”

He lit a cigarette and went out into the kitchen again. He began to shake the ashes into a metal ashtray in the shape of a snake. Then he came back and pushed the curtains in the bedroom, and she was already dressed in a silk, blood-red shirt and lay on the bed on her side, leaning her elbows on the pillow. All the bends of the fragile body loomed. He imagined a fire in the snow from the sight of such a dazzling and burning picture. They actually froze from the air conditioner, which was switched on at full power. It seemed to him little – plus sixteen, but she forbade increasing degrees, and to smooth the trouble, she said:

“I have Crimean wine. Let’s try?”

“Prepare me something stronger to drink. Vodka can be mixed with this compote.”

“There’s no vodka. Father will be back soon,” she rose from the pillow and pulled him to her with an arm as he sat down beside her. “I’ll bring some glasses, do you mind?”

Defiantly she rose from the bed, and, causing an impression of flaming the fire of the dress, returned with a tray on which stood two tall crystal glasses filled with an amber drink.

They drank a glass of Crimean sherry and felt that they loved each other. Drink gave honey and grapes at the same time, causing secret desires, intoxicating and warming the body to the depths of the soul.

“If you want, I’ll read poetry for you. I have my friend’s notebook. It is called: ‘Illumination with Love’. She let me study.”

Without permission, Lucy began to read, turning the yellow sheets in half:

Trip to Yalta

 
Have long seduced southern beauties and treasure,
Why should we hide it!
How do you want sometimes worldly pleasure?!
But where do we get them quite?
 
 
Here things are tied up and tickets on the hands…
The fresh wind in bands!
Enough of boredom to wander in the clouds
We’ll wait for morning bounds.
 
 
There is the lovely sea, silk surf adventure.
Sailboat in the freedom play with me in venture,
I will run away with a wild path
To the mountains, not to overtake a bus.
 
 
For the new events the forces
I will gather for all five, without losses.
The exotic flavor is so good,
Better place for rest you won’t find with food!
 

“I will listen further, read, and then pour me a little more of your sherry. A fine style, something reminds me of the old fortress and the ruins of Chersonese, where I was with my parents when I was a child.”

She poured him and herself. They drank, and she began to flip through, choosing the most interesting poems in her opinion.

About Love

 
Who among us, trying to be reasonable,
Talked about love too simply and noble,
Denying feelings in a straight as a Wight
That is of spirituality of small height.
 
 
For love the answer is in everyone glance,
Though she recognized it once.
It is brighter than daylight nice,
Of mine, you listen to an advice.
 
 
Loving amateur for nuts and sweet,
Walking with a smoothly gait.
I don’t swear at you, don’t scold you,
Remember myself only sometimes and few.
 
 
The seventeenth spring was beautiful,
Love was not jealous and cool.
Everything was singing, growing, and fragrant;
The bird of happiness didn’t give us to sleep as ant.
 

They became interested in poetry and forgot about time. Alexey was dozing, and sometimes he got up and went to the kitchen to smoke, and she stopped reading and lay relaxed and remembered her mother, their talking of love, the rocking on the waves in the sea, the table covered with a white tablecloth and tea appliances, paintings by Renoir, Monet, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Modigliani, Picasso, Kandinsky. The notebook consisted of several inserts that scattered on the floor.

“Take it, or it will break.” Alexey handed her several sheets. “I’ll hurry. I’m afraid of your father,” he got out of bed, dressed, and, slowly combing himself in the glass of the bookcase stuffed with books, he said:

“I want to explain something to you. My aunt was recently killed near the mail building. She was slaughtered by a nerd. She was on her way from work. He attacked from behind and stabbed her with an ordinary knife. The investigation was entrusted to lieutenant-colonel Kiryanov. Do you have any friends among private detectives? It’s just a perfect murder. There is no evidence, no instrument of crime, no criminal.”

Lucy put scattered sheets of poetry on the table and stood up. She rummaged in her memory and remembered that she had kept the telephone number of the private detective, Tatiana Alexandrovna Ivanova, when she investigated the theft of a large amount of money intended for encashment.

“Yes, I do, but for that, kiss.” She held out her thin hand to him.

He kissed the palm of her hand from the inside to the center. Every nerve of her hand shrank from the warm touch of his lips. With her other hand, she wrote the phone number of the detective on a green sheet with a sticky end and stuck to his arm.

“Call her for sure. A very knowledgeable woman but be careful. She does not like to be flirting with her.”

Lucy turned to Alexey’s face and removed this red glow from the Chanel caprone. The appearance of the girl turned pale and acquired quite real outlines.

Dressing and lightly beating up her forelock, she looked appraisingly at Alexey’s reaction. He was completely intoxicated and counted the number of drink wine glasses on his fingers. It turned out to be only three, but the bottle was full to the middle.

“What I do not like about you is that you are too businesslike,” the newly-made fiancé babbled, barely moving his tongue.

“Leave your comments for the cats and I need a real man with dignity and salary,” she said cheerfully, but her look corrected his perception of reality.

Her father appeared at the door of the apartment, when Alexey was already standing on the landing and looking through the cardholder where he had put the private detective’s phone number. Alexey dialed the number and immediately heard the order, the request for a date. He had nothing to do but go to a meeting with a lover of investigations by taxi, because he put off his dream of buying a car to start a wedding with Lucy, and then give her a beautiful car on wheels from Nissan-Teana.

Tanya appeared at the corner where the meeting should take place, not immediately. First she bought cigarettes, and then drove to her friends in the police, met with the homeless informant Venchik. He advised her to love her neighbor as herself for two hundred dollars an hour. That fact made her very happy and she jerked in the direction of Lucy’s house.

Two blocks later, near the restaurant “Mask”, the publishing house of the local newspaper “Regional News” and the snack-bar stood the victim and waited impatiently for her appearance.

He recognized the woman with the bag over her shoulder with supplies, including a Makarov pistol.

She smiled and invited Alexey to the shady avenues of the park called “Lime trees”, recalling Bunin’s “Dark alleys,” and, shifting her impressions on the shoulders of the classic, asked:

“Have you decided to become a lover again? Oh, I’m sorry; I’m just so simply speaking about life…”

He winced at the sagacity of the detective, but he did not give a look.

Alexey’s blossoming face and somewhat slovenly appearance spoke of the complete absence of female influence and adoration. But he tolerated the attack and immediately went to a business. Tanya listened and, making a few notes in the iPad, said goodbye to Izmailov. Before leaving for work there were only a few days. Lucy calmed down a little bit, because she realized that Alexey was still delighted with her, apparently, he had firm intentions.

Recollecting the frustrated love with Yuri, she was afraid to get used to Alexey and chased herself from all sorts of thoughts about a positive relationship with him. She liked his fatherly care, modesty, and most importantly, what attracted to Alexey the most was simple artlessness, inability to lie and dodge. This is how she imagined her future husband – a principled and honest.

The week went day by day. It was possible to postpone the arrival to the plant for another month, but she was quite well rested. After the holiday, she was impatient to go to work as soon as possible.

“Who would have thought that I would be so eager for the plant,” she told Irena on the phone. “I need money, and I do not want to borrow from my father, so that he does not think that during the holiday I completely lost his head.

“I decided on Monday to go to production, postpone and pull on there is nowhere else to wait.”

At the weekend it was cloudy. It was felt the approach of autumn. Autumn in the middle zone of Russia came quickly and imperceptibly. It seems that yesterday there was an unbearable heat, but today it was drizzling and the cool wind was blowing. Autumn no one expected, it came itself. Slowly, day by day it became cooler, and here the first frosts appeared…

On Monday, Lucy got up early in the morning and went to the plant for the production of electrical and office equipment: kettles, air conditioners, microwave ovens, irons, heaters, electricity meters and other household items.

At the entrance Lucy stopped and dialed Alexey’s number.

“Hi! Perhaps today they will tell me in which shop I will work.”

“Good luck,” he said approvingly.

5. Acquaintance with Plant

The administrative building of glass and concrete, the electronic clock on top of it showed 8.45. At the entrance there was an announcement: “They are looking for a permanent job”. The list was long. On the other side of the turntable and the glass booths with the guards there were the modern corps of the workshops.

Lyudmila went inside. On the left there was the inscription: “Human Resources Department”. She opened her purse, took out a compact powder with a mirror, looked critically at herself again, boldly opened the door and went up to the second floor. In the corridor to the head of the reception there were three more people: a young guy and a woman with a young girl. The guy quickly walked in and left with sheets of paper.

“Probably a sample application and questionnaire,” thought Uvarova. The woman brought her daughter to the factory after a school. The girl was very cute and cleanly dressed. She was worried, and she had a blush on her cheeks. They went into the chief’s office together. The woman was about forty. From the conversation, Lucy realized that one of them has been working in this manufacturing plant for a long time. In the office, the two women stayed long enough. Soon it was Lucy’s turn.

The head of the personnel department – a large middle-aged man was sitting at a massive table at the computer. On the table he had several files with printed characteristics. Lucy said hello.

“On what issue?” he nodded to Uvarova to sit down.

“I got a referral for consultation, review, or further action at your factory.”

She showed the boss the direction given to her at the university, the diploma and the passport. The head carefully studied the direction, opened the passport, looked at whether there was a local residence permit, and then again studied the direction. Here he looked at Lucy for the second time and said:

“So, it means your specialty is electronics. We need specialists in this field. You can contact with people or prefer to deal with calculations and drawings?”

“I’m more interested in working with people.”

“Well, then I can offer the work of a replacement foreman in the sixth shop, the salary is at first twenty thousand rubles plus a premium. The work is serious and interesting. You need to immediately find a common language with the team, otherwise you will break the plan, and if there is a breakdown of the plan, then there can not even be any speech about a prize. How satisfied?

“It is difficult to answer at once, but I think I can manage my work.”

“Good. Here is a sample application and questionnaire. Take a physical examination. When you prepare all the documents and take a picture, we will issue a pass and you can start working. And remember the main thing – you will work with people, everyone has his own character, but we have one plan, so everything depends on you, how you can get the job done.”

She listened attentively to the chief, took the questionnaire and a copy of the statement, said: “Thank you, good-bye,” and left the room in full confidence that the work of the replacement master is exactly what she needed, and her salary suited. A week went by for the medical commission. A week later, with all the documents, she again appeared in the office of the head of the personnel department. Now he met her already not so formal and cold. It was evident that she liked him. And Lucy was already less afraid. She was smiling.

“Here, please, my documents.”

“Very well. Your immediate chief of the workshop, Alexander Dmitrievich Torobov,” the personnel officer dialed the phone number, but it was busy, replaced the receiver, took another minute and invited his colleague to his office. “Now he’s busy with college graduates, wait. Torobov will talk about the main points of work and conduct safety briefings.”

A handsome man of about thirty-six appeared on the threshold.

“Meet – Lyudmila Nikolaevna Uvarova – a replacement master. Please love and respect.”

“Very nice. Now I will tell you about the need to observe safety procedures and specifically in your work.”

Lucy followed him into the shop. He instructed, and then added:

“You’ll work in the sixth shop. First you’ll have to learn. Six months later, you’ll understand everything yourself. Our workshop is very clean. We are fighting for the cleanliness of the workplace. By your specialty – electronics – there will be a wide field of activity. If you get down to business thoroughly, you can achieve success. We have all the conditions for trouble-free work in the shop.”

Lucy listened attentively to the instructions of the commander. He immediately liked her, spoke calmly and clearly, it was hard not to get confidence in him. “It will be easy to work under the guidance of this person,” she thought.

By lunchtime the conversation with Torobov was ended. Uvarova was a little tired. It was necessary once again to go to the head of the personnel department for a pass, but at lunch time all the rooms were empty. Lucy did not want to go home and also decided to have dinner at the nearest cafe. When she walked from the checkpoint with the employees, she felt herself a full member of the production team.

It was an August day. Hot. The weather was dry and sunny. At her heart it was easy and peaceful. Singing a fashionable tune, somewhere accidentally heard, Lucy drew attention to the age of the staff. There were mostly young people.

Lucy ran across the street and walked two blocks in the hope of seeing a cafe. She paid attention to the peasant’s house “Hut” in the Russian style and went inside.

A spacious room with walls painted with bright colors, wooden tables and chairs, where on the windows hung embroidered curtains with cockerels, carved saltcellars in the form of barrels. All the staff was in national clothes. The people were few.

Lucy ordered Russian borscht, cutlets and compote. After substantial lunch, she turned on the music in the phone, inserted a small button-transmitter in her ears, and a melody sounded that resonated with the mood. She turned off the melody and pressed Alexey’s number. He hurriedly responded to hear his beloved voice:

“What if I study a foreign language and then try to enter graduate school,” she sang in a thin voice, waiting for an answer.

“You will begin professional growth; eventually become the chief of the shop, and possibly the chief of production. Dare…”

“If my mother were alive, she certainly approved my plans. You know, I did not meet a more caring and sympathetic person, my dear.”

Lucy sat for a while in the cafe and, it seems, completely relaxed and forgot that she should go to the factory. Then she got up and went to the door.

She received the pass the same day, and from the next day she was to attend the workshop. She wanted to call Alex, but decided to ring Olga:

“How are you? Do you work with Alexey?” asked an eternally busy friend.

“That’s when everything will go back to normal at work, and then I’ll call him,” Lucy categorically answered, “if he himself does not think of calling me.”

“I’m beginning to get used to the fact that your relationship has become cool, as before,” Olga lazily sympathized. “Come in, we’ll chat…”

Suddenly Alexey called, but his voice was sad and tired.

“Tanya started a private investigation and hopes to find the killer of my aunt, oddly enough, next week for a thousand bucks,” he explained.

“That’s great!” Lucy approved and wanted to ask what was on his soul, knowing that Alex would be pleased. “I hope the mood has improved?”

“A wood grouse is a winter bird… See you, for now,” he turned off the iPhone.

The next day Lucy went to work. The first thing Torobov conducted in the shop and showed where the workplace was – a table with a computer in the room with a view from the window to the factory yard.

“The room is clean and bright. There are flowers on the windowsills, a shelf with books at the wall,” Lucy praised the chief. “Very cozy!”

“Do not think that you’ll be sitting here. Now you go everywhere with me first, until you know all the work, and then I trust you to lead the shop on your own. You’ll only turn to me for some insoluble questions,” Torobov said smiling.

She liked this state of affairs. “There will be time for professional growth,” she thought.

The working week passed unnoticed. At the end she called Izmailov:

“The feeling comes, we are an integral part of the debugged mechanism of the plant,” she said. “The industry is progressive and important. The main difficulty: to find contact with people. I kiss and look forward to meeting with you.”

“Encourage trust and understanding, and then respect for your work,” he shared his experience. “Tomorrow I’ll see you, my love!”

“Our collective of the workshop is all youth,” she admired with emotion.

“The most fascinating thing for me is communication with people,” she told Alexey when she met him. “I understood that the formation of the working man was taking place here.”

“Not a single dynasty has brought up and raised a factory within its walls.” Alex took Lucy by the arm and casually hugged her around the waist. “Previously, they came here after a vocational school with professional skills. I love your scent.”

“I understand, let’s have coffee,” she said and felt a hot breath on her shoulder as they sat down at a coffee table.

“The foundation of the working profession is laid, and, most importantly, the consciousness is being brought up that the work is needed not only for everyone individually, but for the whole country as a whole,” he added.

“Me without sugar,” she protested

When Lucy walked through the territory of the company, she repeatedly drew attention to the Board of Honor – photos of people who had devoted more than one year to work at the plant – assemblers of grinders, programmers and computer engineers, crane and electronics operators, doctors, painters and builders, electricians and technologists.

“The working dynasties in the factory were treated in a special way. They are the backbone of the team, they were set as an example, and they were equal to the foremost producers,” Alexey answered when he put two cups of coffee and a pie with dried apricots on a table.

“It is interesting to work at the plant. I’m used to rhythm. You helped me, suggested. Appealed for advice to the chief of the shop, he invariably said: “Get used to, learn, and everything will go back to normal. You will understand how to work. Not all at once is obtained by newcomers,” Lucy has shared painfully, understanding that to study it is necessary to work, to be the person.

“Did not you think about going to postgraduate studies?” Alexey asked simply.

“No, but I am doing my English on my own. I read fiction. By the way, gradually I was loved in the team. I’m sociable and I’m not afraid to help beginners,” her eyes were shining, looking at a friend. “Remember, at first time I worked exclusively during the day, but after two months they instructed the workshop and the second shift…”

“The second shift is more difficult and at the same time easier. More responsibility, since you are for the boss,” said Alexey, reaching out to his girlfriend, kissing her cheek, looking with reverence, and she herself wanted to be better, worthy of respect. “Do not forget to work on yourself, take from the library books on electronics, electrical engineering and physics. The plant continues to grow. A new building is being built, a hostel for singles and from rural areas.”

“I remember earlier they said: “We will fulfill the five-year plan for 4 years,” she answered with enthusiasm and passion. “We are beautiful even at night!”

The sixth assembly workshop, where Lucy worked, was in the yard of the plant and occupied the entire first floor of one of the buildings. Large windows illuminated the room, but despite this, each place has its own electric, energy-saving light bulb so that the worker can turn on the light.

In the evening, in addition, the upper lighting was switched on – “daylight”. The workshop – long and spacious – resembled an operating room, but many times larger. Everywhere cleanliness, the walls are lined with white tiles, the ceiling, the lathes are also white, rather not even the lathes, but, as was customary called, the workplace. The windows here and there are flowers. But it was impossible to set many plants, so as not to block daylight.

There were special relaxation rooms where employees could come and discuss their problems, read the press, relax, and distract themselves. The shop buzzed electric motors, smelled of acetone and rubber. Workers, whose work was associated with harmful colorants, received milk in half a liter a day. When Lucy first got into her shop, she thought that she was in the hall of the palace. Wardrobes for clothes stood separately. At the end of the shift, they were required to wash themselves in the showers. For those wishing someone did a manicure. Before starting work, employees wore white robes and scarves or caps.

“There are twelve brigades in the workshop. Everyone is fighting for the title of the best. Two already wear the honorary title of the foremost percussionist,” Lucy said, stroking the guy’s hand. “I learned all this long ago, after a week of work. Let’s get back together, darling.”

“Who will be against? Have agreed!” Alexey smiled generously.

They met during the break to discuss the progress of the investigation into the murder of his aunt and current affairs, since they worked in one shift.

“The private police officer reported that all suspicions fall on people living in the area where the murder occurred. But the main suspect could be a person who knows her well and who had motives for committing this atrocity. This could be anyone who needed money or gold jewelry. Most importantly, the aunt had a set of emeralds in a ring and earrings of antique value, a chain with a diamond slash of a half carat, which she inherited from her sister. These ornaments in the amount of half a million rubles disappeared from the apartment, and the search for them on the body of the victim gave no results. They examined the scene of the incident, found the scattered things from the bag: a broken case for glasses with fingerprints of the victim, a pack of cigarettes, a notebook with notes and phone numbers of employees, a pen, a pencil for eyebrows and a lipstick of a well-known manufacturer, bought at the Ile de Beaute branch. In the database, fingerprints are of a formal nature. Belonged to any mortal, except for the murderer,” Alexey told, and the detective-Tanya was sent with him sms for more details.

“How is the investigation progressing,” Lucy asked in the foyer when he went out to smoke. “Or should I not ask about this?”

“There are many problems with the evidences, there is not a single witness, and even blood stains are barely perceptible on the victim. Detective Tanya is studying forensic expertise. Her character is too energetic and lively, she all leads with her emotional nature,” Alexis’s face expressed the most tragic mask among all the representatives of the human race. “She wants to make a search herself.”

“Were there any other relatives besides aunt Kate?”

“My parents died when I went to school, I cried for them. I was sent to a boarding school in the sixth grade. And my aunt Kate had come and visited me. She brought gifts: sweets, cookies to children. She had a daughter, Natasha, but she disappeared when she worked on the same post. I already told investigators…” Alexey plunged into a dejected silence.

“I remember such a thing. Natasha disappeared about three years ago. They said they went abroad to be treated. Somewhere in Germany or Switzerland,” Lucy confessed sadly. “Come on, quit smoking, they’ll be looking for us. Come to me today after work, we’ll sit and read the poetry of my old friend Izmailov Alexey.”

“You’re joking, I do not write poetry, but I’ll try to get back what I took to read last time. I liked it very much. Tell your friend, well done! Let her write further.”

“You will return with agreement that you will find for me a private publisher to print this book of poems in a separate volume. Next we will develop the ideal murder of your cousin in the logic of poem-sized iambic or horei, we do not care. But Ivanova will calculate thoroughly every step of the criminal and force him to begin the investigation against himself.”

“I am sure that she will be right, as she hinted at the former roommate – Skripal, when she was looking for Natasha’s remains in his yard. And she found a soil soaked in blood, of the same group as that of my aunt Kate. Probably someone buried the corpse of Natasha. The investigation resumed. It is believed that the owner of the house himself was hacked and buried in the hope of obtaining a hidden amount of money, and then disappears. But his plans failed because of the smallest detail: the headmistress’s child climbed under the table to look for his toy and found a bag of money,” Alexey ascertained and in return took Lucy’s hand and stroked it.