«Olga loved him very much,» said Oleg, attentively watching how Lana responded to his touch. «She never refused when he asked her to deliver stuff for his clients, and usually she did that without any problems. Minute, like a mouse, Olga was not ugly, yet so plain that even for the police it was a difficult task to remember her face. But one day their luck ran out. While the police chased her, Olga dumped the bags with the powder. Then the policemen arrested her and searched her carefully. They found nothing and had to let her go.
«Olga went back to her boyfriend, mad,» continued Oleg. «She didnt notice shed been shadowed. Olga was humiliated. She was trembling after such stress, and she needed support, but that fool Sergey started shouting at her. He got angry that shed failed, and they lost a lot of money. He talked to her the same way as her parents had and that made Olga insane. When she took his gun Sergey didnt turn a hair. He knew how that girl loved him.»
Oleg paused for effect, then finished. «It was an automatic pistol, honey, and Olga kept firing until the police burst into the apartment and shot her down.»
Oleg did not tell Lana that this guy, Sergey, was one of his closest friends, that they even «worked» together, and this was a real reason he knew all the details of this story.
«Awful.» Lana embraced her lover. «Poor girl. Damn all the money in the world. Long live Love.»
«You bet, my miracle!» exclaimed Oleg, trying to show off all the enthusiasm that he could demonstrate, and they fell onto the bed again.
***Oleg impressed Lana as no one had before, and next day she decided to meet Vera Grach.
«I have to talk to her, she was thinking. «Interesting, did he tell me the truth? I have to find out.»
She parked her car near the apartment building, and knocked on the door. Vera opened it, and smiled. «Did you come to buy a picture?»
Surprised, Lana nodded. «Phew, I dont have to explain my visit.» She silently went in.
Lana did not understand art. So she just pointed to two pictures, and Vera started packing them. Lana glanced around. «What should I ask?»
«Strange,» she said surprisingly. «Why didnt you paint your husband?»
«I draw only things that impress me,» Vera answered calmly.
«I thought if you loved someone it means he impresses you.»
«Girl,» Vera shrugged her shoulders. «Its very difficult to love a man who doesnt care about the family budget.»
«Money doesnt make happiness,» Lana said with irritation in her voice. «When dad passes away Ill give all his money to some charity organization.»
«Im sorry, Miss?» Vera looked questionably at Lana.
«Limpson.»
«Im sorry, Miss Limpson, but youre too young for such discourses. Your father spent all his life to make this money, and you want to waste it? It would be a stupid and dishonest act.»
«Oleg is right,» Lana thought, feeling angry. «Shes just a miser.»
«As I know,» she addressed Vera. «Your husband is making good money in Russia. You have to love him very much, dont you?»
«I think its too personal to discuss.» Vera looked at Lana with surprise, but she thought the girl needed some advice, and she relented. «Life is not as easy as we wish,» she tried to explain.
It was the same phrase that Oleg had said to Lana when she had asked him why he did not divorce Vera if they did not love each other. «Life is not so easy.» He sighed, and a tender compassion for this Russian man rising in her heart.
«Once Oleg came home with his coat so dirty that I was amazed,» Vera continued. «Im sure he got plastered and fell into some puddle. Like a pig. And I have to love such a man?»
Lana recalled the episode with the wolf-skin coat, and her feelings for Oleg became much stronger. But this phrase made her worry.
«Does he drink a lot?» she asked, trying not to show her concern.
«Honestly, Ive never seen Oleg drunk,» Vera confessed, sighing. «But that evening he was so strange, I have no other explanation.»
«Oleg loves me!» thought Lana, melting with that feeling. «He loves me! He surely loves me! Stupid woman, how could she not appreciate him?»
Lana took the pictures and gave the money to Vera.
«If you dont love him,» asked Lana carefully, «why dont you rent another apartment?»
«Its okay with me,» Vera answered calmly. «But to rent a separate apartment would be a pointless waste of money.»
Lana shuddered and left without saying goodbye.
Chapter 7: In Love with A Married Person
Lana did not have school today, so she drove home. Not to the house that she rented on campus, but to the Limpsons mansion. It was a rare day that her father was home, and she planned to show him those pictures and ask him about an idea that had come to her.
At home she told a servant to call her father, and, while waiting for him, she placed the pictures in a special hall, where she usually kept her new things before she decided which place was best for them.
Lana heard her father come in, and, smiling, she turned toward him. Stubby, but imposing and dignified, he was in great shape for a man in his mid-fifties, and Lana looked at her father with delight and pride.
«How do you like them?» she pointed to the pictures.
Her father went close and gazed at the paintings.
«Where did you get them?» he asked, surprised. «Im not an expert, but they seem to have been made by a gifted person.»
«Really?» She was obviously ashamed, and her father became immediately worried.
«Honey?» he said tenderly. «Whats on your mind? Why did you buy them? Last time, as I remember, you bought a picture when you were a teenager, and it was some stupid hero from some stupid cartoon. But those works are masterpieces. Where did you get them?»
Suddenly Lana cried and hugged her father.
«It is a student here, Dad. Shes Russian. As her husband» She did not know how to explain, and could only weep, but her father guessed what was going on, and a storm of feelings raged into his soul.
«Just be careful, my heart,» he whispered, kissing her hair, and Lana felt unlimited gratitude to her father who understood and supported her.
She looked at his face. «You were in the same situation, werent you?»
«Yes, honey.» He did not shift his eyes at all. «Its awful to love a married person. Your mother will never leave her husband. This is why Im pretending that I am a widower. I dont want to be a laughing stock.» He sighed. «She doesnt love me, and she never did.»
«I hate her,» Lana said sniffing.
«You shouldnt,» retorted her father. «She gave life to you. She gave you to me. After her affair with me, she could have had an abortion, or she could have pretended you were her husbands. But, risking her reputation, she gave you to me. Well, a quarter of a century ago it was much easier than it is now. But anyway, I have you. I love you, kitten, and Ill do anything to make you happy. So, what do you want to ask?»
«Can you organize a party Darn, Thanksgiving would be better. Okay, Christmas is coming. Can you? I want all the Russians to be invited, and all who work with them. Could you do it?»
«Im not sure,» he replied, hesitating. «I have a tight schedule. Ah, I know. Ill do it, sweetheart. Ill rent a hall downtown and ask the VanSteins to be the hosts. Anything else?»