Pathetic! Hey, pathetic!”
Sasha doesn’t turn around; he knows it’s Volodka from the fifth floor. It’s better not to respond. Maybe he’ll leave him alone.
“Alexander!” Volodka persists. “Look how hardworking he is. It’s New Year’s Eve, and he’s still working. Right! Fools love work.”
“Leave Sashenka alone! Why are you picking on him?” And that’s Lenochka, Volodka’s girlfriend.
She’s much kinder than Volodka. She doesn’t hurt Sasha. Doesn’t call him a fool or pathetic, always greets him.
Well, they seem to have left. Sasha leans his shovel against the bench and turns around—indeed, they’ve gone. Time for a break, to dream a little.
Sasha is already thirty-five, but he still believes that miracles sometimes happen, especially around New Year’s. Even small ones. Like yesterday…
His mother was so upset that they didn’t have a Christmas tree:
“It’s sad, Sashka. It used to be different, remember? Kinder, somehow. And we used to decorate a tree almost every year. You remember, right?”
Sasha remembers. He would have bought a tree for his mother this year too. But he can’t. She would scold, get nervous. She clearly said: “Don’t even think about it! It’s unjustifiably expensive! We’ll manage!”
And just today: he was asked to clear snow at the Christmas tree market. Sasha cleared the muddy slush trampled by hundreds of feet, threw out the pine debris, and sprinkled sand on the path leading to the fenced area with trees.
“Well done, thank you!” said the plump, rosy-faced Christmas tree seller. “How should I pay you? Want, take a tree. There’s my defective stock.”
Of course, Sasha agreed. He picked a suitable tree from the pile. Let it be bald on one side. But that’s not scary: Sasha will place it in the corner with the bare side hidden, and all the beauty will be visible from the outside. His mother will be so happy, and the festive smell will fill the room… Now the tree stands in the hallway, in a corner, so as not to obstruct the residents. Sasha anticipates carrying it home. Just after he finishes clearing the paths to the entrances.
“Sash, be a friend!” It’s a neighbor from the second floor, Leha.
He’s good, even though he’s a “bourgeois,” as his mother calls him. Leha never hurts Sasha. Instead, he often asks for something. Sasha usually doesn’t refuse. He likes to help. And he loves his job.
“Sashka, the snow plow buried me, help out!” Leha asks.
Sasha takes up the shovel and follows Leha to his car. Big, beautiful, expensive… Today only one roof sticks out from the snowdrift.
“Is this how they clean?” Leha complains. “Eh, if not to swear, then there’s nothing to say! Will you help?”
Sasha nods and starts digging. There’s a lot of snow, and the shovel seems heavier with each swing, but he quickly manages. Leha is pleased. Dives into the cabin.
“Thank you, Sashka! Here, happy holidays to you!” He hands Sasha a shiny, glittering bag decorated with snowflakes.
Sasha looks inside and freezes: inside is a whole treasure. A jar of red caviar, champagne, a chocolate bar, a cute pink ball for the tree… He looks up at Leha, thanks him.
“Oh, don’t mention it!” smiles Leha and reaches into his pocket, pulls out some bills, and stuffs them into the pocket of Sasha’s work jacket. “And this is for the work!”
Sasha feels awkward: both the gift and this… He wants to say something, but Leha is no longer listening, starts the car, and drives away.
Sasha hurries home. He needs to bring the tree and Leha’s gift, and then finish clearing the paths. The snow keeps falling…
“Where from?” asks his mother when proud Sasha sets up his tree in the corner and hands his mother the shiny bag.
She is so surprised. Sasha hurriedly explains that he was given the tree for work and the bag, and even some money. His mother smiles, and he is happy: he has fulfilled at least one of her wishes, made her happy. She even sits on the bed, reaches for her flannel, warm robe. She’s feeling unwell today. Often feels unwell lately.
The doorbell rings. Sasha opens it: it’s their neighbor, Olya. She visits his mother. Sometimes gives her injections. Olya likes Sasha: kind, beautiful, works in the hospital. And his mother likes her too:
“Ah, Sashka, if only you had such a wife!”
Sasha usually just shrugs. He has resigned himself to the fact that he probably won’t have a wife. He knows women love handsome, rich, and smart men. And he’s neither this nor that, especially not the third.
“But you’re hardworking and kind,” his mother objects but then admits Sasha’s point. “Yes, that’s not valued nowadays. A pity.”
Olya would hardly become his wife either. Even if she were free… But she’s married. Her Pasha is a decent man, but they somehow often argue. Sasha hears their quarrels through the thin walls.
“Tired of it, I’m spinning like a cursed one. Just want some peace at home! But no! You again got drunk,” Olya shouts.
“I didn’t get drunk,” Pasha is heard worse, he doesn’t shout, just raises his voice a bit. “Drank a little bit, I’ll heat up dinner for you now. Don’t scold, Olenka.”
But she can’t stop. She shouts, then cries, and only after that does she quiet down. From their scandals, Sasha knows why Olya is so dissatisfied. Her father was a drinker. Broke her mother’s life. Olya fears the same fate might befall her. They usually reconcile quickly. But sometimes Pasha leaves the house and sits on a bench for a long time…
“How’s mom?” Olya asks, Sasha shrugs and escorts her into the room.
Then he gets ready and goes to finish the work.
He shovels snow and thinks to himself: “Need to stop by the store, buy something for the festive table. Leha’s money came in handy.” They’ve been tight this month. Medicines are expensive, and his mother’s gotten sick. She has some benefits as a retiree, and Sasha works, but still, there’s hardly any money left before the holiday.
Finally, Sasha assesses his work with a satisfied look: he’s pleased. Time for the store. He shops wisely. Maybe he’s no professor, but he knows how to count money. Bought everything he wanted, and even a pack of cheap sausages on sale.
Sausages for the dog that followed him as soon as he left the yard. It followed Sasha to the store doors, and he promised it a treat. Let it have a holiday too.
Exiting through the glass doors, Sasha squats down, tears the package with his teeth, pulls a sausage from the pink polyethylene, and hands it to the dog. It stretches its gray nose to Sasha’s hand, grabs the sausage, chews, purrs with pleasure. Sasha feels sorry for the dog. It seems old… No collar, really nobody’s?
He stands up, slaps his thigh: let’s go. The dog wags its tail and follows Sasha. They approach the entrance together.
Olya’s husband, Pavel, sits slumped on a bench. Sasha greets him. Pavel lifts his head, nods, pats the bench:
“Sit with me, Sanek. I feel nauseous. It’s almost the holiday, and we’ve fought again. So badly! I don’t blame her. She’s at her wit’s end. She asked me not to drink until the New Year’s chimes, but I had a shot. That set her off. ‘Go,’ she says, ‘celebrate somewhere else if you can’t hear my pleas!’ So I left… Wanted her to calm down. Now I don’t know how to return. And whether I should. She was very angry today.”
Sasha listens, the dog circles at his feet. He feels sorry for Pavel, sorry for Olya, but he doesn’t know what to say. He’s not good at relationships between men and women. And anyway, it’s time to go home, the dog’s completely frozen: trembling all over its small body. And the tree needs decorating… So he suggests Pavel come to their place.
“Why would you need me?” Pavel dismisses it, but hope glimmers in his eyes.
Sasha says he’s needed, that he’ll be a guest, that it’s indecent for a man to freeze alone on a festive evening outside. Pavel nods. They walk up the stairs.
Sasha doesn’t get to open the door. A neighbor, grandma Masha, looks out from the neighboring apartment.
“Ah, it’s you…” she says disappointedly. “I was hoping.”
Sasha congratulates the neighbor on the upcoming New Year and asks: why her eyes are red, did she cry? Grandma Masha sobs. Sasha is surprised. Just yesterday, she, rushing to the store, radiated happiness: “My daughter’s supposed to come, bring my grandson! Need to make some salads, bake a pie! I’ll run, lots to do!” And now, please—tears.
“They didn’t come,” grandma Masha sighs. “Some business… Everyone’s busy nowadays, no time for a mother!”
Pavel awkwardly comforts her. But Sasha has a wonderful idea. He invites grandma Masha over. Why should she sit alone… She hesitates, uncertainly refuses, but eventually nods:
“I’ll come right now, just grab my cooking from home, otherwise who will eat it?”
Pavel offers to help her. Sasha and the dog enter their apartment.
“Who’s this?” his mother is surprised.
She looks better. Sasha tells her how he met the dog, then Pavel, and then grandma Masha. How he invited them all over. He hopes his mother doesn’t mind. She doesn’t need to do anything. He’ll set the table himself, decorate the tree, and clean up everything later.
“Can’t I help with anything?” his mother smiles. “Like, name the dog.”
Sasha happily nods.
“Mushka? Nochka? Soot? Mystery!”
Sasha likes the name. The dog is also pleased, wags its tail, looks affectionately into his mother’s eyes.
The front door bangs: probably Pavel with grandma Masha. Time to prepare for the New Year’s Eve.
They sit at the table. Pavel fidgets, gets nervous, finally can’t stand it:
“I’ll go home after all, apologize to Olya. I can’t like this.”
Sasha nods: probably, it’s the right thing. Pavel stands up, apologizes, congratulates. He’s interrupted by a knock on the door.
“Unbelievable,” says his mother. “We haven’t had this many guests all year.”
Sasha hurries to the doors, lets Olya into the hallway.
“Seen my husband? He left and vanished… I yelled at him today. I’m ashamed.”
Sasha smiles, invites Olya in. Pavel hugs his wife, kisses her cheek, asks for her forgiveness.
“Just make up already and stay. It’s time to see off the Old Year!”
Olya agrees, settles next to her husband. In the corner, the tree twinkles with lights. In his mother’s favorite chair, a sated Mystery dozes. Olya stands up, raises a glass:
“Thank you for everything! Especially you, Sasha! You’re a good man! I wish you meet a worthy woman.”
Sasha blushes, thanks. He really wants to believe that Olya’s wish will come true. Maybe, indeed, somewhere in the world there’s someone who will love Sasha just as he is. He understands everything about himself… Yes, he’s not too smart. But he knows how to love and care.
Maybe… But even if nothing happens this year, like in all the previous years, Sasha won’t be discouraged. After all, he has a job, his mother, good people around. And now a dog. And he’s quite happy.