Armchair

I recently witnessed an unusual scene. Imagine a vestibule in a ground-floor entryway. There are two apartments in this vestibule, numbers one and two. A man in apartment one died suddenly. He died on Friday. His funeral is on Saturday. And in apartment two, they're celebrating a wedding that same Saturday. And nothing can be changed. You can't approach the deceased in apartment one, shake him by the shoulder in a friendly manner, and say, "Comrade, could you please come back to life for a day? The guys next door are having a wedding today. And you, excuse me, with your sad expression and ambiguous pose, are ruining the whole scene." It's just as impossible to say to the guests from apartment two, who've flown in and driven in from God knows where, "Sorry, dear guests, we can't make it today. It's awkward in front of the deceased. You're already flying home, and then back to us in about forty days." "No, well, you can keep the gifts, why bother dragging them back and forth, especially those white envelopes you have hidden in your jackets..."

Yes... And so, in that incomprehensible way, they parted ways. The deceased from the first apartment was carried off slowly and sedately on his final journey, accompanied by the heart-rending cries of his wife and daughter, which merged with the ringing and joyful honks of the cars, vulgarly decorated with ribbons, that had pulled up to the entrance. And only the bride's father, who met his daughter in the entrance hall with a loaf of bread and senselessly kicked a green spruce branch lying on the floor, had a distant and sad look. Although, perhaps I imagined it. I was watching the proceedings, staring out the kitchen window of my parents' apartment. And my mother hadn't yet managed to wash the windows for the winter...

These things happen. Some are jumping, some are crying... Some kind of bacchanalia.

Oh well. So, here's the story.

I know the deceased uncle. He's my friend's father. Incidentally, I also know the couple's family, but again, that's not the point. The deceased was a military man, with a tough, stern personality. He didn't let anyone in the house off easy, not even the dog. Well, either speak well of him or that's enough. Two floors above that ill-fated first apartment lives another friend of mine, her name is Irina.

And so, the night before yesterday, she invited me over. Her daughter's birthday was coming up (well, there we go again, talking about a birthday), and we were discussing various little things (there won't be a birthday party at home). Anyway, time flew by, and I was getting ready to go home. Irka expressed a desire to see me off, and we went outside and lit up. At that very moment, something thudded loudly outside the iron door of the building. Something large and, judging by the sound, quite heavy. And voices. So, assuming it was some late-night drunk, we backed away just in case. The door opened, and imagine our surprise when we saw Anya in the doorway, literally rolling a huge gray-brown chair in front of her. Behind Anya, her mother was fumbling, trying to help but constantly getting in the way.

"Hi."

"Hi."

"Where's the chair going, Anya? It's getting late..."

"To the trash."

The compassionate Ira suggested the ladies simply leave the chair on the corner of the building, hoping someone would pick it up, but the two ladies gave a categorical "no" and rolled it toward the dump.

It was quite a colorful scene, I tell you. Evening, the chair, the ladies in black headscarves, and this chair being rolled, considering it hadn't even been nine days since the funeral.

"Did you start renovating it this late at night?" "I asked when Anya stopped to smoke with us.

"What renovations?" she mumbled, holding a cigarette in her teeth and rummaging through her pockets for a lighter. "He's sick of sitting in that chair! Day and night, whenever you pass by his room, it starts creaking. And at night, he paces back and forth, sitting in it, then standing up, then sighing, and once in the middle of the night, he yelled, 'Anka! Open the door for me!' And the night after the funeral, my mother went to the bathroom. The door to the room was open, my mother turned around, and there he was, in his chair... Sitting there, in tights, a T-shirt, as if he weren't dying, leaning his elbow on his arm, as if he were dozing... I called an ambulance for her—her heart was bad. So we decided—how much longer can we go on? He likes sitting in that chair, so let him follow him and sit there.

 I suppressed the urge to crack a joke, asking what would happen if they opened the front door tomorrow morning and saw that ill-fated chair standing there, and a booming voice out of nowhere suddenly said something like, "Come on, you chickens! Roll it back in the same way you rolled it out!" Because there was enough inappropriate mirth in this building this month.