The lovers. Novel - Julia Dobrovolskaya

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the road and playfully snapping at each other. They were returning from the various city rubbish tips – school, kindergarten and hospital tips – where they could always find plenty of after-dinner leftovers.

      * * *

      Dina had never been afraid of dogs until last summer in Anapa, where she had been bitten by a cute ginger mutt called Bobik.

      Bobik looked really placid and lived chained to a wooden doghouse in the yard of a house where Dina and her mom, as well as her mom’s friend Albina and son Sergey were renting a room. Dina knew that at night the chain was attached to a wire that stretched alongside the fence, and Bobik thus guarded the large fruit garden, the yard, and the house. Dina also knew that she was not to approach Bobik’s kennel as the owners had warned all their guests about this.

      Nevertheless, Dina was tricked by the placid appearance of this fluffy ginger dog with a black muzzle, shiny dark nose, and a tail that curled like a bagel.

      One day, she approached the kennel, squatted down and started talking to Bobik. He sat with his side to Dina, his sweet smiling face turned towards her, his tongue hanging out and his wagging tail raising a cloud of whitish dust. When Dina realized that Bobik had been unfairly slandered and was really very nice, she stretched out her hand to pat him. Bobik suddenly growled and jumped on her, knocking her to the ground and sinking his teeth into her chest.

      She must have screamed, although she did not remember this. She only remembered the owner with the strange name of Nikandr Nikandrovich lashing Bobik with a thick rope that he had folded a few times over.

      After that, Dina’s mom took her to the hospital every day, where she had injections into her stomach. They also stitched together the ragged wound from Bobik’s sharp teeth on her chest, and stuck a plaster over it, so that Dina had a patch of white, untanned skin there.

      * * *

      The dogs were approaching Dina but not paying her any special attention, she was just a girl that they were passing by.

      It was probably the first time that Dina clearly heard her Inner Voice. The voice said, “Keep walking, don’t even think of getting scared and running away!”

      Dina listened to the voice, gathered up all her inner strength and drew level with the pack, neither slowing down nor speeding up.

      The pack flowed around her, without forgetting to utter a few yelps in her direction. Perhaps it was a greeting, or maybe a warning, like, do not even think of provoking us, we won’t care that you are small and helpless.

      “Don’t run, just don’t run,” Dina kept repeating the advice of the Inner Voice. But her back went numb from the thought that a whole pack of semi-wild dogs was ambling behind her right now, and who knew what they might decide to do…

      Something snapped inside her, the fear became impossible to control, it blanketed her eyes and mind, and drowned out the voice. She ran. She did not understand or feel anything. She was vaguely aware of the dogs, who had immediately caught up with her, surrounded her and were running alongside her, barking loudly and snapping at her tights and the edge of her coat.

      They fell back only where the country road became the town pavement.

      Dina ran into a shop on the corner of the nearest building – it was the biggest food store at the time in their small town – and then finally came to her senses.

      She stood in the entryway between the two glass doors, one leading into the shop and the other one leading onto the street, and leaned against the wall.

      The dogs were gone, she was safe, her coat was not torn, so they hadn’t bitten her, only scared her, and her face wasn’t wet, so she hadn’t been crying. It was good that she had not screamed or cried. She did not know why she thought this was good.

      It was very bright in the shop from the many hanging metal ceiling lamps, and it always smelled of milk and fresh bread, which was lying on wooden latticed shelves on wheels.

      Every section in this shop had its own sound.

      The glass sounds lived to the right of the doors: it was the bottles knocking dully against each other in their wooden pallets, while the glasses jingled merrily on their enameled trays. There was also the babbling turning fountain, which the saleswoman Valya used to wash the dirty dishes. One could drink some juice here, tomato, for example, which poured thickly from a large glass container with a lid into a faceted glass, and foamed in its own special way, not like the grape or apple juice. Or soda water, for example, cream soda, which flowed with a hiss from the long-necked green bottle, and one had to quickly bring the glass up to one’s lips so that the nose and lips were sprayed with tiny bursting bubbles and their wonderful sweetly-sour smell of cream soda.

      The grocery section resounded with the crunching of newspaper sheets, which were used to make bags for pasta, flour or chocolates, and the rustling of round aluminum scoops, scooping up pasta or sugar from the sliding plywood boxes or directly from the large shaggy gray bags, standing on the floor.

      A whole symphony was taking place in the dairy department… First, the people waiting in line for the milk heard a dull grinding of metal against the pitted cement floor – that was the heavy full milk churns being dragged towards the counter using hooks. Then came a jingling and a sucking noise – two churns were opened and immediately came the sound of clanging of the liter or half-liter long-handled aluminum ladles against the customers’ containers, accompanied by the delicious, thick bubbling and then the equally delicious burbling of the milk, as it first filled the ladles and then the customers’ cans. Then jingled the lids of the empty large churns and the full small cans. The empty churns were noisily rolled back to the storeroom, and then the dull grinding of the full churns being dragged to the counter could be heard again…

      And above it all came the chiming of coins being thrown into the cash register drawers, or onto the metal money dish, which was screwed to the stand, the lively clicking of buttons with numbers and the juicy chirring of handles, which looked like meat grinder handles, but which produced a blue-gray receipt instead of mince…

      * * *

      The door opened, and Dina’s mom came into the store. Mom always came into the store after work.

      Dina did not tell her about what had happened so that she would not get worried.

      In the evening, as she was falling asleep, it struck Dina that what happened today only happened because she hadn’t listened to someone’s wise and sensible advice. She decided not to do this in the future, no matter what.

      Konstantin Konstantinovich Kolotozashvili

      “Turbina, I can see that you’re ready to answer,” came the soft baritone of the teacher.

      “Yes, I am ready, Konstantin Konstantinovich.”

      “Please.” He moved the chair beside him slightly, gesturing for Dina to sit down.

      Walking towards the teacher’s table, Dina noticed that Konstantin Konstantinovich was watching her legs, as if afraid that she would trip over the scuffed linoleum or slip on it.

      Yes, that was how Dina first interpreted her teacher’s intent attention to her clicking heels and her ankles, in no way special from her point of view, and her knees, peeking out from a not-so-short skirt.

      In the next second, Dina smiled, almost audibly, at her own naivety.

      She stopped abruptly.

      Konstantin Konstantinovich, a raven-headed, eye-catching thirty-year-old man, always dressed in a sharp dark suit, white shirt, and fashionable tie, looked up into Dina’s eyes. His face was somewhat puzzled, as if asking, “What is the matter, young lady?”

      Dina continued her journey, holding her teacher’s gaze with her own.

      She approached the table, pulled out the chair and sat down. Then she crossed one leg

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