Evgeny Russ - Fall of Matilda

Matilda once again thanked, said goodbye and left. She ran down the stairs, came out from the entrance, and, trying not to meet with neighbors, headed towards the street.

After several hours of walking around the city and looking for work, she stopped at the building with the inscription "Business Center Lingua." The lesson of English at school was Matilda's favorite lesson. Her teacher – Fonarina Darya Antonovna, was delighted with Matilda's successes and always gave her extra assignments and books in English. Matilda's pronunciation was perfect. Sometimes after the lessons, Matilda stayed at school and came to the English class room. There she could talk with Darya Antonovna in English. They discussed Matilda's books, sometimes Matilda retold them. Matilda felt confident in English and entered the building. In the front entrance hall towards Matilda came a guard. He was wearing a black suit and tie. An antique chair with bent legs stood behind him.

"Do you want something?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm translator and come to ask about job."

The guard examined Matilda. She wore a cheap dress and a tied scarf around her waist. The dress did not hide the wide hips and her feminine figure. Proper facial features and too white skin gave out her aristocratic origin and young age. The guard noticed cheap shoes with low heels, and a cheap school backpack behind her back. Matilda looked around for some reason and looked up. The video surveillance camera was staring at her.

"Well, wait here, I'll find out right now," the guard said and left. After a while he returned and invited her to go into the office. Passing Matilda into the office of chief, the guard returned to the front entrance hall. A middle-aged man was sitting at the table. "35-40," thought Matilda. At Matilda's entrance, he stood up and greeted her in pure English, "hello! How do you do?"

"Fine, thanks!" answered Matilda, and smiled.

Then they acquaintance, and all their conversation continued in English. The head of the company was Arthur Khananovich. Convinced that Matilda speaks English fluently and competently, Arthur Khananovich suggested that she translate into Russian the text the contract that lies on his table. Matilda read the English text with ease and translated it into Russian aloud. Arthur Khananovich liked it very much.

"Now let's try the synchronous translation," he said, and turned on the television set in his office. On TV screen from the rostrum spoke Vladimir Wolfowicz, well-known for many, and he scolded the Communists.

"Begin please, we need a synchronous translation," said Arthur Khananovich to Matilda.

Five minutes later Arthur Khananovich turned off the TV. He was amazed at the ease with which Matilda synchronously translated what she heard and with accuracy passed all the expressions of the speaker's not normative vocabulary. Matilda's thin voice did not drown out of speech Vladimir Wolfowicz. It was easy to listen to her and listen to the speaker's speech at the same time.

"Well. We will formalize you to work. Do you have a passport?"

"Yes, certainly," said Matilda, took off her backpack and handed the passport to Arthur Khananovich.

"But you're not eighteen yet!" exclaimed Arthur Khananovich.

"Yes, but it will be soon."

"You know what… I can take you to work, but not officially. Do you agree?"

"I think yes," Matilda answered.

"Will it suit you $ 700 a month?"

Matilda thought about it. She had counting this sum in her mind for rubles.

"Perhaps," she answered.

"Well, that's just for starters," said Arthur Khananovich, looking at Matilda's registration. She was registered in a prestigious area in the center of the city.

"It's strange, why she dresses so simply, as if from a poor family! Probably, this is such a newfangled enthusiasm for children of wealthy parents," Arthur Khananovich thought.

"I think, soon you will raise your salary to a thousand, and a thousand and a half is not the limit too. Everything will depend on you," added Arthur Khananovich.

"Well, do we wait you tomorrow at work?" he asked.

"What time I need to come?"

"It is desirable by nine in the morning, but not later than ten. Usually our customers do not arrive until ten. We have a special hall for negotiations. Here meets businessmen from different countries, including our directors of factories and large enterprises with their foreign colleagues. We provide them with simultaneous interpretation during the negotiations, and also we help to draft contracts in accordance with our laws. We also have the lawyers for this in our staff."

"It is interesting! Such work, I hope, I like it," said Matilda, not hiding her joy.

"All right, I'll see you at nine tomorrow."

"I forgot to say, my parents left, they rest in Cuba now. They will not arrive soon. I stayed at home alone. In general, it so happened that I needed money. I do not want to talk about this, how it all happened. So I decided to look for a job. Prepayment now would not prevent for me."

"Ah, of course," Arthur Khananovich suddenly remembered, and reached with his hand into his pocket for the purse, but then decided that paying an advance from a purse would be highly indecent. "So, where's the key?" he said.

Then Arthur Khananovich opened the drawer of the table, took the key and went to the safe. He was ready to pay Matilda two and three thousand dollars a month, but was afraid that she might not go to work. It was impossible to miss such luck as Matilda, but also to give a large sum at once Arthur Khananovich could not by virtue of his worldview. He opened the safe, took out three banknotes of one hundred dollars each and handed them to Matilda.

"I think this is enough to begin with, because you have not started working yet," he said.

"Yes, thank you, you helped me out."

"Now, do not forget your passport."

"Yes thank you. Can I go?"

"Yes, of course," said Arthur Khananovich and smiled goodbye. It was a kind smile of a man who looks at a cute baby.

On the same day Matilda went shopping, she chose a black business suit and a white blouse. The long narrowed skirt to the ankles with a slit and a short jacket well emphasized the figure and hid its white legs from unnecessary looks. Matilda's stockings were also black. To go with such a skirt Matilda could only take small steps. Selected her high-heeled shoes and brooch Matilda left her bloody dress in the store. Before leaving the store, she still for a while turned around the big mirror, and tried to walk in small steps with the gait of the model. She liked it. The costume was sewed by the factory 'Bolshevichka' and Matilda still had a lot of money. She had already chosen a handbag for her dress, but then changed her mind and bought a briefcase of black leather. But most importantly, she decided to go to the hairdresser.

"Make me the same hairstyle as has Mireille Mathieu," Matilda told the hairdresser and pointed to the photo of her favorite singer, who was hanging on the wall.

Toward evening Matilda already settled in the student dormitory as a university entrant. Despite her St. Petersburg registration and the availability of an apartment according her passport, nobody had the right to refuse her provide the student dormitory. In the column, Matilda wrote the workplace her father – the director of the state farm "Kommuner". The institute decided that the girl wanted to live separately from her parents. Looking at her registration and the position of father, the workers of the institute decided not to violate the law and provide the girl with a student dormitory. Matilda chose this institution not from her personal interests, but from the proximity of the institute's hostel to hers first place of work. Matilda passed the school certificate to the institute. There were assessments only 'excellent', but only one assessment by astronomy was 'good'. Why she was rated 'good' in the fourth quarter, and brought out assessment 'good' for the year, she did not know. Her classmate and daughter of the head of the City Department of Public Education received a gold medal. Matilda did not get the gold medal. Until early September, Matilda lived in a student dormitory and went to work every day. She asked several times for Arthur Khananovich to leave a job and took the entrance examinations. From the beginning of September she lived in a hostel already in the company of two girls. In late November, Matilda was expelled from the Institute by reason of her absence. However, by that time the building of the institute had already been privatized by the dormitory administrator and by the beginning of the next year it was intended to use it completely as a hotel. Already empty rooms were being rented and at very low prices. In comparison with hotels in the city, the price of a room in a student dormitory was five times cheaper. Initially, the rooms were designed for three peoples, and each room had a shower and toilet. Matilda took advantage of this and began to rent a separate room. The salary of Matilda was enough to afford live in a posh hotel, but she had not a habit for squander and continued to live in a student dormitory for a small fee. For her it was already a paid hostel, but most importantly, it was not far from her place of work. Now Matilda's salary was already three thousand dollars at month, and Arthur Khananovich told her that from next month her salary would be five thousand dollars. First, Arthur Khananovich was afraid that Matilda could be taken away by some new millionaire and owner of the plant. Such high-class specialists were needed by many. Privatization was in full swing. There were appeared more and more nouveaux riches. Secondly, Arthur Khananovich realized that Matilda with this level of knowledge could work as an interpreter at the UN and receive twenty thousand dollars a month for such work. This calmed himself. She had the all personal traits for work in the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs or in the government, but Matilda did not have an interpreter diploma. Who her parents were, Arthur Khananovich did not know and did not dare to ask her tactless questions. In any case, he was glad that Matilda was the pearl of his Business Center. There were a lot of clients, and they gave positive recommendations to their friends. Clients were all from the government, there were also former communist and Komsomol leaders, the first and second secretaries of city and district committees. There were absent only the third secretaries of the city and district committees of the Komsomol. Earlier, the Communists – the mind, honor and conscience of this era, used the thirds secretaries of the Komsomol, usually for serve tea and perform small tasks. However, among the former third secretaries of the Komsomol there were also many privatizers of small state property – small poultry farms or pig farms. Of course, director of a pig farm did not need to conduct any negotiations with foreign partners. Having shares of pig farm, it was difficult to find a foreign buyer of these shares. All foreign investors stood in queue for shares of the largest metallurgical enterprises and enterprises of the mining complex. Arthur Khananovich and his 'Business Center Lingua' earned a lot of money, providing a conference room for negotiations and accompanying them with simultaneous interpretation. Customers trusted the 'Business Center Lingua' for confidentiality in the negotiations. However, before the talks began, security personnel at the enterprises always checked the lack of listening devices in the conference room with special equipment. During all the negotiations, only Matilda was present. She knew a lot of secrets, but she did not intend to share it with anyone. In the hostel, Matilda's night table kept countless business cards of heads of the largest enterprises from all over the Union. One day, in the middle of February, the surprise was waiting for Matilda at the 'Business Center Lingua'. It was the middle of February 1991 year. More precisely, it was on February 14, 1991. Matilda came to work, as always, by nine o'clock in the morning. She went to her office, not finding a single employee in her workplace. All were absent. At the beginning of the ten o clock, she got up from the table, put down the documents and went to the office to Arthur Khananovich. Arthur Khananovich dryly said, "Hello Matilda, I have news, and one of them is good. What news should I start with? I do not know what news is better."