The Lovers - стр. 10
Nevertheless, in fourth grade, Dina unexpectedly found herself in love with a boy with black curls, called Vova Gladstein, who appeared in their class in the middle of the year, and then disappeared just as suddenly in the middle of the following year.
“The father was transferred” was the reason for such comings and goings of several schoolchildren in Dina’s class, her school, and her town.
Vova went away and a gaping emptiness was left in her soul. Then Dina remembered Sergey and her heart went back to him once more. But not for long…
She fell in love again in eighth grade.
With Valera Revyakin, who was repeating the year, the biggest troublemaker at the school and a headache for all the teachers.
Why did he treat Dina in the same way that Sergey did all those years ago? He cared, and protected her – even though there was not much need for it – and Dina liked his touching solicitude.
It was interesting to hang out with him, as he told her different stories from his life, which made her blood run cold, and half of which, Dina later decided, were either made up or not Valera’s stories at all.
Then he moved away after completing ninth grade.
Dina remembered their farewell: her tears, which she could not hold back, his kiss on the lips, which she treasured for a long time.
“We’re moving really far away, to another country,” said Valera to Dina, making her swear an oath to keep this a secret, “so I won’t be able to write to you.”
Dina started writing to Sergey again.
The correspondence with Sergey somehow faded away on its own, and resumed only when Dina received a wedding invitation from him when she was already at university. She did not come, of course, for it was too far away and too expensive. She did not have the time either, not with all the lectures and exams. Nevertheless, she wrote him a warm letter and they continued to occasionally exchange news and photos.
Since then, Sergey had already gotten divorced and was not planning to marry again – or so he wrote in his letters to Dina. Dina sometimes imagined them meeting somewhere, and their old tender friendship blossoming into love, and then…
So she knew that a family started with love. This meant that someone she loved needed to be at her side. Love was forever. She did not take her mom’s experiences into account. Her mom was just unlucky for some reason.
When Dina was very young, she once asked her mother, “Mom, why don’t we have a dad?”
Her mother answered very calmly. “Our dad died. Never ask me about him again because it upsets me very much.”