A Russian Story Read Online Free PDF

come as well.”
    He didn’t actually know why no doctor would give Lada an abortion at that time, which meant that her pregnancy became a harsh reality, not some vague probability. Grandfather Vasyl was the only one who accepted it positively. Grandmother Nina supported her daughter, saying she too once gave birth to Lada, complicating her life, and she still hadn’t resolved matters. On top of that she is getting lumbered with a grandson, one she isn’t prepared to lovingly embrace.
    Normal life was over. From now on, every day was a nightmare. Madame Nebuvaiko could burst into the bedroom of the future parents to ask whether they had arranged for the move to Eugene’s parents’ house yet. Let them retire and look after the little one. She and Vasyl Tarasovych couldn’t possibly cope with that. They had supported the young couple for some time and now it was the turn of the other side of the family. Eugene couldn’t recognise his mother-in-law, who until recently had been tolerant, who hadn’t ever interfered in Eugene and Lada’s life; the spaciousness and convenient layout of the flat on Pushkin Street had been conducive to that. His parents in their two-room high-rise flat on the outskirts would find it much harder to be tolerant.
    Eugene was beginning to seriously consider the option of escaping to his parents’ place –without Lada and the child, of course. He was fed up of these rows. He needed a marriage like this like a hole in the head. Anyway, he and Lada weren’t officially married, which would actually make life simpler for both of them later on. Meanwhile, a convenient incident occurred. He saw Lada in a café on the Khreshchatik with some man. As it subsequently turned out, it was Thierry. Eugene and Lada did not live in a world where a man raises merry hell if he spots his wife in a café with some bloke. But after living on Pushkin Street for a few months in an atmosphere of daily hell-raising, he crudely expressed doubts about his paternity, slammed the door behind him, dropped the key in and returned to his parents’ house. He subconsciously thanked Lada’s feminist leanings which meant she never wanted them to run the family finances jointly, as he took with him the greenbacks he had brought back from his trips to America.
    His parents were not at all pleased at his return. They enjoyed very much living on their own in their two-room flat. The very first night at home he was awoken by their disgruntled whispering — “Quiet, I don’t think he’s asleep.” The honeymoon was over, so to speak. In the morning they started heaping ignominy on their son:
    “You rat! Running away from your pregnant wife!”
    Then he said he would bring his pregnant wife home. Which immediately calmed his parents down; they were now more understanding of their son’s situation. Unlike him, they took the ‘he isn’t our child’ scenario to be a proven fact rather than something hypothetical.
    “Why should we retire only to give ourselves all that hassle, fussing over your slapper Lada’s child fathered by goodness knows who?”
    “That’s the daughters of party bosses for you! You should have found a less pretentious girl!”
    “Yes, we always told you so!”
    Eugene was informed of the birth of Myroslav. He went round to the house, held the baby in his arms for three minutes — it looked much the same as those that others of his age were gradually starting to have. Then grandmother Nina took the little one away and went out with him. Lada deposited a sack full of books at his feet; they must have been his, because he was disgustingly gratified.
    Grandfather Vasyl named the boy Myroslav, because in Ukrainian this name meant he brought peace (
myr
) and fame (
slava
) to the family. As he and Lada were not legally married, Eugene signed the necessary papers, acknowledging the child as his and giving him his surname, so the new entry in the Ukrainian register of births read: Myroslav Evgenovych