Life Like Other People's

В оформлении обложки использована фотография с https://www.pexels.com/photo/houses-in-farm-against-cloudy-sky-248880/ по лицензии CC0

“Jobs involving risk are available to men with military experience.” Ads like that are usually placed on the web to recruit mercenaries.

Mercenaries trickle down into some quiet corner of Europe where they muster to receive training and instructions as well as weapons and fake IDs. Then, one by one or in small groups, they find their way to some wretched hole in Africa or Latin America where a putsch needs to be staged in order to replace the bastards in power for some other bastards of the same kind.

When the job has been done, generous sums of money are transferred into the mercenaries’ accounts and they return to their comfortable countries to dissolve in some suburbs where they are to everyone just ordinary people. Ordinary people who occasionally go on business trips.

Some never make it back from their tours. The heirs then get insurance money. The mercenaries name their heirs themselves in the contract and they take this business very seriously.

For Kurt, a party leader, there was no question here: his only heir was his dear wife Elena. On the tours, he always carried her photo on him and, when things got hot, he took it out and whispered, “It’s for you, darling.” Along with the photo, he was carrying around a booklet advertising organic farming. A farm exactly like the one in the booklet he was going to build sometime to settle there with Elena. His henchmen saw both the photo and the booklet but nobody ever thought of making jokes about it – the thugs treated sentiments like that with respect. Also, Kurt had heavy fists.

The last tour was different. Kurt did not take out his wife’s photo. Constantly gloomy, he was finding faults with his subordinates, provoking them, and given the slightest reason, beating them up. When they arrived at the spot, the operating company started receiving reports that Kurt was putting his men at too much risk, himself sticking his neck out like crazy.

The company did not care: if a mercenary sought death, that was his problem provided he did his job. And Kurt had always delivered on the contract.

He delivered that time, too, but already after the operation had been completed his whole party got killed. According to the company’s intelligence, the mercenaries ran into a local drug trafficker band. Nothing out of the ordinary, things like that happened.

…He came to in his suburban house. He felt good if a bit strange.

He got up, walked up to the mirror and looked over himself. The mirror showed the mercenary Kurt with a tropical tan and three new scars from bullet wounds.

“It’s a miracle that you made it,” Elena said behind his back.

That was her, the woman he loved more than anything in the world. He was seeing her as if for the first time now, absorbing avidly every curve of her body, every trait of her face, and every hair – and falling in love with her anew.

She was looking at him lovingly, too, but there was something else in her look. Trace of the worries she had experienced, concern for him?

He held her and drew her to the bed. She tensed a little as if her body resisted his touching her, but then she accepted him. In their love-making, there was a happy recognition after separation, passion and tenderness.

“Something’s wrong with my head. Everything’s kind of blurred,” he said as they were having a rest after their love. “What happened to me?” He fingered his scars.

“You were wounded, badly contused, nearly killed,” explained his wife. “You have amnesia now. Don’t try to remember. You’ve forgotten all the bad stuff, but the good stuff is there with you.”

He did not try to remember. Amnesia was a convenient thing, and he only regretted he had not forgotten some more episodes from his old tours.

The days of his leisure dragged on. Kurt was sticking at home. Elena told him that the doctors insisted on a long recovery period and advised against journeys or active amusements, let alone work. Not that he wanted any of it.

He dug up his materials on organic farming and started building a model of a farm, on the scale of 1 to 20, down in the basement. A house, a barn, a shed for machinery, a windmill, a paddock for horses, a lot of minor things…

His wife visited him in the basement and watched him work.

“Why, you’re good with your hands! Just when you think you know someone…”

He smiled happily.

“Listen, why don’t we hang out with anyone?” he asked his wife once. “Don’t get it wrong, I don’t want anyone else but you, but still it’s a bit strange. Did I have any mates?”

“You did…” She told him a couple of names. “But they… They didn’t make it back.”

That was true, he remembered them. Two hardened mercenaries, his right hand and left hand in every bloody mess. He even recalled the tours that had been their last. Damn, he should not be digging into the past…

“How about you? Do you have any friends?”

“I had some but they stayed behind where I grew up.” She named a town in the South. “You took me away from there, remember?”

That was true, he remembered: he had taken her away from her home town in order to snatch her out of her old milieu so that she belonged to nobody but him. He was in love and consumed by jealousy…

“And Margo, your mother? How is she?”

“Mother?… She’s all right, doing well. I spoke with her on the phone just the other day. She sends her love”.

Embarrassed, he did not pursue his questions. He was embarrassed because Elena had lied. Margo could not send her love to him. He remembered clearly: that shrew, his mother-in-law, had always hated his guts, called him a murderer, and even his high earnings could not mollify her.

He started running in the morning trying to regain shape. He did not recognize anyone in the neighborhood, and nobody gave any signs of knowing him.

“We’ve only moved here recently,” Elena explained. “Also, the people here are not very communicative. Anyway, you said you liked it when you didn’t have to spend your time on idle acquaintances.”

That he remembered: he could not stand it when people forced their company on him.

Still, he made the acquaintance of a neighbor. The man lived in a house across the street. One day, as he was running by, Kurt noticed that in the top window of the house was a telescope of the kind that school-age amateur astronomers used to observe the stars. Only the neighbor was no schoolboy, it was daytime, and the telescope was pointed not at the sky but at his and Elena’s house.

He could rightly get mad about such prying, but he did not feel any anger. He halted and waved in a genial way to the observer. The man disappeared and drew the blinds at once.

On another day, Kurt encountered the man in the street.

“Hello. We’re neighbors, I live right across.”

The man was clearly very embarrassed. Averting his eyes, he mumbled something like, “Yes, I know.”

“I see you have a large greenhouse,” Kurt went on. “You know, I take interest in the greenhouse business myself. I’m planning to go into it big time. Could you show me what you’ve got?”

The neighbor was obviously unhappy to hear the request, but there was no dodging it, it would be impolite to refuse.

“It’s an orangery… that is, a flower house,” he muttered. “You’re welcome.”

The orangery was a gorgeous one, with cascades of fantastic flowers and mind-blowing scents. And – roulades sung by birds in hanging cages. A little paradise.

Kurt eyed the middle-aged, nondescript man with respect.

“I envy you,” he said sincerely, shaking the man’s hand. “I hope one day I’ll have a piece of such beauty, too.”

The neighbor thawed a little and invited Kurt to come again, although he was still tense, averting his eyes. “Maybe he knows something about my heroic deeds as a hired gun?” Kurt thought. “No, how can he?”

Meantime, it was not all cloudless in his own conjugal paradise.

Elena was drifting away from him. It all started with minor things. It seemed there was less love in her look, and less joy in her voice. Or could it be just his imagination? Could it be that everything was as it had been, and it was he who was to blame for always expecting a feast which not even the most loving woman could create every day?

Then it was no longer about minor things. Elena hardly spoke with him – spent her whole days tidying their small house, re-doing everything again and again. She would not allow him near her. “Stop hovering, will you? I’m doing the carpet.” “I’m cleaning the windows, don’t you see?”

Then it was worse. She stopped sleeping with him. “Sorry, I’m tired.” “I have a headache.” The common excuses used by all the wives in the world who will not sleep with their husbands.

But why?! Why did he fail to make her happy? Himself, he loved her as before. No, not as before, but more passionately every day. Even her coldness and aloofness filled him with ever greater passion mixed with anguish at her being unhappy and him being unable to do anything about it.

She no longer shared the bedroom with him. “You snore.” That was a lie, he did not snore. There had been a time when the young Kurt – a big guy weighing over two hundred pounds – snored like a Harley Davidson bike, but he had lost that habit in his tours where snoring in an alien territory could cost a mercenary his life.

Elena slept in another room now, and soon she almost stopped leaving her room, hiding there all day long. Her house chores she had given up.

He was desperately groping for answers. Suddenly he was aware that he hardly knew his wife. He adored her, but did not really know her. What were her favorite dishes, wines? Books, movies? Maybe they used to play some table games in the evenings? He did not remember anything.

He was sure he could not have hurt her in any way. He could not – now. But what about before? Maybe their marriage was overcast by a shadow from something bad in their past life which he had clean forgotten?

Dispirited, he gave up his farm model. All day long, he was sitting in the basement, staring at the brick wall, trying to remember something important.

Some recollections started emerging, though it was a hard process, his whole self resisting it.

It was just some pictures, like a silent movie. Now they were having a row, him shouting something and her shouting back. Now she was smashing crockery, and he was grabbing her rudely, giving her a slap. She would ran away and hid in the bathroom. He would break down the door, burst in and take her by force.

He was appalled. “Bastard, swine! How could I?”

He was different now – an understanding, caring man. The thought of raising his hand against the woman he loved was revolting to him. However, it appeared that no amount of understanding and care could make Elena forget their bad past.

The unfinished farm model was an eyesore to him now. “Dream on, idiot! She doesn’t want to see you, and you expect her to go shovel manure with you.” He grabbed a hammer and smashed to pieces the whole farm: house, barn, shed, and all the rest of it.

To heal a wound, one needed to get to it.

What had they been quarreling about? His memory was dumb, as if wadded with cotton wool.

Yet, there was someone who was certain to know all the reasons and details of their quarrels. Margo, his precious mother-in-law.

“Margo?”

He had been prepared for Margo being displeased to hear him but he had not expected her to go screaming right away.

“You scumbag! Murderer! How dare you call me!”

“Margo, I only meant to ask…”

“Bastard! Do you even understand that the poor girl had her jaw put back together from pieces? Do you know how many sutures they placed on her face?

He wanted to ask something else but halted. What jaw? What sutures?

His mother-in-law went on raging. According to her, he was the worst man on Earth, a fiend from hell.

“I hope you’ll get killed off in that jungle!”

“I’m done with that work, Margo. I meant to ask you about Elena…”

“Don’t you dare! Do you hear me? Don’t you dare hound her. She has found herself a decent man and she’s happy with him. And you live with that doll of yours. Society of people is not for you!”

She hung up.

He kept sitting for a while staring at the phone receiver which was emitting short beeps. Then he got up and circled the living room aimlessly several times.

He went down into the basement which was littered with the debris of his former farm model. He said aloud, “What a mess,” and started cleaning. After half an hour all the rubbish had been collected in bags. He took them out to the dustbins.

He stood by the dustbins for a while, his unseeing eyes fixed on nothing. Then he went out onto a foot path and ran.

He was running, circling the neighborhood again and again.

Then he stopped dead. He remembered everything.

Kurt met Elena in a resort town where he was vacationing after a successful tour. He had more than enough cash and no responsibilities, so he was binging big time.

When he was already getting fed up with booze and whores, he saw her. She was singing on the podium of a café chantant. The café was an unpretentious affair, and she sang accordingly. She had neither a powerful voice, nor a particular style, but altogether it came out beautiful.

She was beautiful herself, too. No, she was more than just beautiful. The sight of her knocked the wind out of him – something that had happened to him only once, a long time ago, when he, a rooky marine, was punched in the gut by a beast of a sergeant.

He started pursuing her, wooing her. She would laugh at him, call him “gorilla”, but would not drive him away – she must have somehow fancied him.

He was throwing his money about, showering her with gifts.

Then she suddenly agreed to marry him.

“Don’t you think you’ve bought me,” she said.

Things would have been easier if he had bought her. She was indifferent to money but she could not do without company. She needed to be the center of everyone’s attention and be admired.

She was dragging him to some motley parties where he felt an idiot. Then she was hanging out at some parties without him.

They did not have children – she did not want any.

He suspected her of cheating on him, though he knew for a fact that he satisfied her in bed.

They quarreled – about anything and about nothing. She was mocking him and provoking him, and seemed even to derive pleasure from his slapping her when she went too far.

One day, as he arrived home from a tour, he caught her with a lover – right in their conjugal bed. Not in the least embarrassed, Elena shouted, her naked breasts shining at him:

“Happy now, gorilla? You’ve got what you asked for!

Her lover was some youngster, like a pizza delivery boy. Kurt broke his neck in a single sweep of his iron arm.

Elena – his beautiful, naked Elena – shouted furiously:

“Come on, kill me, too! That’s all you’re capable of!”

Momentarily, he lost control of himself and hit her. That was not a symbolic slap of the kind that she had occasionally contracted before, but a serious hook. He hit her the way he would hit a mercenary that failed him.

He paid a pile of money for her treatment and another pile for the lawyers to keep him out of prison.

When discharged from hospital, Elena did not return to him. He made no attempts to find her – he understood that it was useless. He was not a wise or sensitive man, but it was finally borne in on him that they were not destined to be together.

He could not live with Elena, and he could not live without her.

He drank a lot, seized every available contract, then drank again.

Once, as he was rummaging through the Internet in search of mercenary vacancies, he stumbled on something that was his salvation, or at least, that was what he thought.

It was not quite legal, and it was going to cost him – he would have to throw away almost all of his remaining savings – but he did not think twice about it.

“Doctor, is she going to remember anything?”

“We used the mentogram that was made while she was in hospital, so, in theory, her memory will contain everything up to that moment” explained the doctor. “But the short-term memory is always actualized to a lesser degree than the more distant past.”

“I want her to forget everything that has been going on between us recently.”

“Most likely, that will be the case,” assured the doctor.

Kurt was looking at a woman which was sleeping peacefully but was about to wake up.

“She is perfect,” he said.

“I couldn’t agree more,” responded the doctor who was pleased with his work.

The clone of Elena opened her eyes.

Elena-2 saw Kurt and smiled at him.

“Darling, where am I? What happened to me?… I don’t remember anything.”

He was feasting his eyes on her and could not have enough of her. He brought her home and, unable to resists his desire, led her straight to the bedroom and started undressing her.

She was the same Elena, only younger and fresher. Her shoulder no longer bore the scar, a mark of the time when she worked as a singer in a café where some drunken customers once started a fistfight and she got scratched with a broken bottle.

At first, she acted shy. She lowered her eyes, but eyed him through her lashes.

Then she threw her arms around his neck.

He was not aware that he could desire a woman so much. He had not been so indefatigable even at the age of seventeen.

For a few days, they did not leave their bedroom.

After two weeks, he asked:

“Why are you smiling all the time?”

“I am happy.”

“All the time?”

“Of course. I am with you, so how can I not be happy?”

“And what if… I’m just saying, what if we quarrel?”

A shadow of alarm flitted across her beautiful face.

“How? Why quarrel?”

“What if I bawl you out?”

She was horrified.

“Darling, are you angry with me? Prey, tell me what I’m doing wrong. Maybe, I cook badly or you don’t like the way I am dressed?… How stupid I am! You have such a hard job, you’re all strung up, and here I am annoying you. Forgive me, sweetheart!”

That night he went to the city and got drunk in a bar.

Not only he did not love her now – he had grown to hate her. He hated her perpetual loving gaze, her smile, her endearment.

He loved the other one – that first Elena who had been mocking him, driving him mad and cheating on him with a pizza delivery boy.

In his mail, a few proposals in his line of work had piled up. He picked the most dangerous tour.

He woke out of his trance.

He was standing on a path beside the house of his florist neighbor. His face was wet with raindrops – it must have been drizzling for some time already.

He was overwhelmed by burning shame. How could he treat her so? OK, she was a clone, so what? She was a beautiful woman, a perfection! He loved her and none but her – not the former wayward broad whom he hardly remembered.

She had come to love him, too, and he had failed to appreciate that. He had rejected her and had known no better than to sign a deadly contract and return home an invalid.

“Swine! What a swine I am!”

Could she ever forgive him?

Only then he noticed that the neighbor was watching him from the orangery.

Kurt assumed the most amiable expression and waived to the man.

“Hello! Can I ask you a huge favor? You see, I’ve had a little fight with my wife…”

There was a cab standing beside his house. “Has someone come to visit us? Can it be Margo?” he thought, puzzled.

He entered, carrying a beautiful bouquet of roses.

Elena, dressed for a journey, was standing in the hallway, with a large suitcase in her hand.

“Sorry, I did not mean to make scenes,” she said coldly. “Will you help me with the suitcase?”

Seeing that he was in a complete stupor, she added simply:

“I am leaving you.”

He dropped his bouquet, threw himself down on his knees before her and started kissing her hands, murmuring:

“You’re right, I’ve been a swine, but I love you! Give me another chance, I beg you! I’ll be a different man, I swear! I’ll be the best husband in the world!”

She worked her hands free and pulled away.

“Please, don’t. It’s not going to work for us.”

“But why? Why?!”

“Because you are a clone.”

The mercenary Kurt had not made it back from his last tour.

Having received the insurance money, his wife turned to an underground cloning center.

The clone was a muscular giant, same as the old Kurt. On Elena’s order, the doctor even made cosmetic scars where the old ones had been, and added some new marks. She hoped he would not guess that he was just a replica.

And he did not.

Only she soon discovered that she had no love for her new husband – a peaceful, comfortable, domestic one. She loved her first husband – the mercenary Kurt who had been drinking, using foul language, and giving her slaps.

…He was sitting on the porch of his farmhouse which still smelled of paint and observed with satisfaction the products of his labor. A barn, a shed for machinery, a windmill – lots of big and small things which he had made with his own hands over the past half-year.

From under a glass dome, the sounds of a song were coming. His wife had fallen in love with the orangery at once and was now puttering around in it all day long. She planted some seedlings which their former neighbor had sent them as a Christmas gift. Orchids of a special sort named Gemini were the first to blossom.

Kurt begged her to be careful, but she assured him that her belly was not bothering her at all. She was pregnant, in her seventh month.

They remained together for the sake of the baby, and then, little by little, they started getting on. His feelings blunted a little, and he no longer adored her insanely. However, he was still surrounding her with his care, and finally the woman responded to it, as women will, especially when they are expecting a baby. Also, hard work had coarsened him, and he was more like the old Kurt now.

They had their little fights, and reconciliations, and bed.

Also, they had a hope which so far was growing peacefully in Elena’s belly.

On the whole, they had a life like other people’s.

—–

Please e-mail your comments and proposals to: [e-mail]