The blanket of snow was falling heavily that it was impossible to spot a path under the feet. My mother and I, at a time, looked out of the window and wondered that two hours ago everything was grey and dull and now – look at it! Toys and untwisted serpentine glittered on the table. Not yet dressed Christmas tree lied in the hall. The tangerines smelled – mother had always bought plenty of them on the holiday’s eve. It was December 24.
The mother was telling something, asking about the job – she swelled with pride that I worked as a journalist on TV. To tell you the truth, I was proud myself on the first year of working but carefully curbed this, trying to talk as indifferent and ordinary as possible.
“Know what?”, my mother suddenly froze and put aside a big green ball without a thread. “I need your help here”…
She told me a sad story.
One time, a cheerful and reckless girl lived in the village. She didn’t have parents and grandmother couldn’t keep an eye on her. So, Tetyana spent her free time as she liked: discos, parties, drunken companies. She gave birth to a boy. The neighbors mostly took care of him – Tetyana wasn’t into her child. One cold autumn evening, she abandoned him on her neighbor’s yard and disappeared. Danylko stayed with strange people who became closer than relatives for him. With the course of the time, those neighbors adopted him. After a while, Tetyana wrote that she lives in Turkey. She didn’t ask about the child.
“And now, after six years, she comes and wants to take him away!”, mother decisively stood up.
I didn’t understand how could I help…
“She brought the case to the court”, the mother sighed lamentably. “If she wins, Natalka won’t come over it.
“What can I do?”
“You’re a journalist! Show it on TV! Let people see! This is a terrible thing! Who knows why she needs this child!”
“Our channel is new. It’s broadcasted only in Poltava. If only…”
The mother looked at me questioningly.
“If only Olga Gerasymyuk found out about it… she would show it in her No Taboo program. There’re such topics recently.”
“But how… how can she find out?”
“Difficult”, I said. “But we can try”. There’re phone numbers of 1+1. Maybe, I’ll try to get in touch.”
In the evening we went to visit grandfather in the village and brought him some patties. We told this story. Shared our hopes for Olga Gerasymyuk. The grandfather curved his lips.
“Why the hell does she need you? She might be swamped with work and you will bother her with your problems.”
Grandfather’s skepticism cooled me a bit. Nevertheless, I was overwhelmed with the idea to find the phone. Falling asleep, I dreamed that I would talk to Olga personally.
“What happened to you?”, she would ask sympathetically and attentively as on the screen.
I would tell her. She would listen to me, sighing sometimes, letting me know that she got interested and would help. And she would. Yeah… In my dreams, I saw Olga Gerasymyuk pacing across the studio with a mobile phone in the hand. The phone is ringing all the time but Olga doesn’t answer. She steps over the wires on the floor and directs the men in waistcoats with powerful gestures – pull that soffit there, to the left, yes, this way. Turn off the half of the upper light. Turn off, I say. Where’s an illuminator? Smoking? As always. No one to rely on this channel. And half-transparent girls with wings bring her incredible drinks and buffet style food on trays but she refuses, paces, steps over the wire, and the phone is ringing, ringing, ringing…
I tried to call Olga Gerasymyuk many times. I didn’t manage to do this. New Year’s Eve. The phone was silent or answered in cold voice something like she’s absent, leave your message, call later. Later, later… There was nowhere to go. The mother called, asked about the results and I couldn’t make her happy.
The mother decided to stake. Grabbed a friend, went to Tetyana and told her what’s well and good. Threatened her with No Taboo program. She said that Olga Gerasymyk already knew everything and maybe at that moment she was leaving for our godforsaken place – to take the law into her hands. I was laughing when she told me this. I laughed and imagined how Olga Gerasymyuk put on a magnificent coat over a brilliant New Year’s dress and leaves her palace, clattering the heels on a glittering parquet, fling opens some kind of reddish velvet canopy, pushing forged doors – so as China is quietly jingling on the bog-wood shelves and half-transparent girls hide in the shadows, giving her way. Then she sits in a jeep, or, maybe, in a carriage harnessed by snow-white deer and hurtles to our village, managing two dozens of people’s life issues on her way.
I’m not sure what happened but the boy didn’t go anywhere with his mother. Whether the court made such decision or Tetyna got scared of Olga Gerasymyuk’s anger and surrendered. Don’t know. A lot of snow had fallen since then. It evenly covered the events, people and memory. My mother who stood near the window, looking at the snowfall and worrying about the boy Danylko, has been long gone. And the boy himself grew up, became a prince and married her princess. They maybe have been still living somewhere and raise their children. Everything should be like this, right? How else could it be?
I didn’t forget about Olga Gerasymyuk immediately. She had been long walking in my dreams surrounded by half-transparent beauties and sad people. She asked through the fog, “What happened to you?”. And the phones rang. The wires snaked. And the illuminators. “No one to rely on this channel. I’ll myself climb on the pinnacle!”, Olga Gerasymyuk threatened someone I couldn’t see. I woke up with sorrow I couldn’t reach the TV star.
* * * *
Two years ago, I told Olga this story. Over dumplings in Poltava. She wondered and regretted that she couldn’t help. I told what happened. Sometimes personal participation isn’t needed, sometimes it happens just like this, especially before the New Year when the carriages and white deer appear out of blue. And she was sitting in front of me – without a sable coat and shining dress. She wore a black sweater. If then, 15 years ago, someone had told me that everything would be so simple, I wouldn’t have believed it. And grandfather wouldn’t have believed me either. He would have looked at me skeptically and said, “Common, don’t lie!”.
Serhiy Osoka