Tamara Ivanovna walked slowly along the aisles of the huge supermarket, studying shelves lined with colorful packages. She came here every day, as if to work. She didn’t need many groceries—she didn’t have a big family to feed. So every evening the elderly woman fled her loneliness into the brightly lit trading hall.
In the warm season it was easier—sitting on the bench with the neighbors saved her. But winter left no choice, and Tamara Ivanovna grew fond of trips to the new supermarket.
There were lots of people here, it smelled pleasantly of coffee, and soft music played. And all those brightly packaged products, like children’s toys, pleased the eye and made her smile.
The old woman turned a little jar of strawberry yogurt in her hands, squinting as she tried to read the name and ingredients, then put it back on the shelf. Such dairy treats weren’t in her budget, but looking cost nothing.
Gazing at the abundance on the shelves, she sank into memories of the past.
Images surfaced of long lines at the counters, where saleswomen, like tigresses, fought over scarce goods. She remembered the thick gray paper bags they wrapped purchases in.
She smiled, remembering how she raised her daughter. To delight the girl, Tamara Ivanovna had been ready to stand through any queue. Thoughts of her daughter made her heart beat harder. The woman stopped at a low freezer with frozen fish and leaned on it heavily.
In her mind she saw her Irina’s laughing face—curls of red hair, huge gray eyes, freckles scattered over her nose, merry dimples in her cheeks.
“How beautiful she was,” the woman thought sadly.
Under the shop assistant’s disapproving gaze, she walked over to the bakery counter.
Irina had been her one joy in life. She grew up to be a smart girl. When she realized that work wouldn’t bring her happiness, she decided to become a surrogate mother. As Tamara Ivanovna had told her, that decision led to no good.
At twenty, who listens to their mothers? If her father had been alive, things would have been different. But how could those scoundrels have involved such an inexperienced girl in all that?
Irina only laughed and stroked her growing belly. Her mother shook her head in grief. How could you give a child away if it was your own—you had carried it under your heart for nine whole months?
But Irina just waved her off: “I already think of it not as a child, but as good money.”
Then there was a difficult labor, and they couldn’t save Irina. They didn’t really try. Three days after the baby girl was born, she died.
The newborn girl was handed over to the parents immediately. Of course, they didn’t pay Tamara Ivanovna a kopeck. They had dealt not with her, but with her daughter.
Tamara Ivanovna buried her daughter and was left alone. No relatives at all, as if she had sunk into a void and didn’t want to surface. It was easier that way.
Now she was heading to the bread section to buy something. She needed to show that she wasn’t just strolling around. She felt the small coins in her pocket and made her way to the checkout. The day’s entertainment was enough; it was time to go home. She counted out the exact amount in advance and handed it to the cashier, hiding the rest in her fist.
Tamara Ivanovna noticed the young beggar on the second day after the supermarket opened, nearly a month ago. That was her first excursion there, and she was carefully taking everything in. What drew the elderly woman’s attention to the beggar? Perhaps her youth, so striking, or the tragic stillness of her posture. Or maybe it was the way she held the infant—so carefully and tightly.
“How can someone sink so low?” the old woman thought as she approached the familiar figure. She dropped the coins she’d prepared into the jar placed nearby and addressed the young woman: “My dear, aren’t you ashamed? Your arms and legs are sound—why don’t you work? You’re young; you can still work.”
The old woman grimaced as she saw a few passersby hurry past, unable to reach the girl because the grandmother had blocked the way.
“Thank you for the coins, but move along. I need to collect as much as I can, or there’ll be trouble.”
The elderly woman shook her head sorrowfully and hurried away, not wanting to be pushy or preach. She decided to help—and she did so deftly. No one cared about it—not the police, not child welfare services. People were so used to beggars that no one paid attention to them.
All the way home the old woman couldn’t get the beggar with the child out of her head. Her gray eyes and young voice seemed oddly familiar; she was sure she’d heard those tones somewhere—but where? Tamara Ivanovna tried to remember, straining her memory.
She closed the front door behind her, took off her short warm boots, switched on the light, and carried the bread to the kitchen. Fifteen minutes later she was drinking hot sweet tea from her favorite cup, nibbling a slice of Borodinsky bread with a thin piece of sausage.
“She must be hungry,” the elderly woman thought. “In such cold! What kind of life is that?”
She looked out the window, trying to make out the figure of the young woman—and froze in fear. Two rough-looking men were shoving the girl into a car rather roughly.
The elderly woman was distraught. She rushed to the phone to call the police, but stopped, afraid she might only make things worse.
She went back to the window and saw that the area in front of the store was empty. Deciding to wait until morning, she returned to the room. She wouldn’t have been able to make out the license plate from that distance anyway.
Tamara Ivanovna spent a restless night thinking about the girl and the baby. Toward morning she had a strange dream. She saw her daughter Irina standing by the supermarket door with a child in her arms. The little girl was blue with cold, and Tamara Ivanovna hugged her tight, trying to warm her. But Irina didn’t react.
“I’m not cold, Mama,” she said.
Tamara Ivanovna took the child from her daughter and folded back the corner of the warm blanket that covered the girl’s face. She saw a large doll with a pendant on its neck.
“With a familiar pendant on its neck,” the elderly woman repeated.
She cried out and woke up. Her gaze landed on the wall clock hanging across from her.
“Why did I sleep so long?” she thought.
It was already nine o’clock. She quickly got up and went to the window.
The girl with the child was in the same place. To the right of the supermarket door, all was in order.
“Thank God,” the old woman exhaled, crossing herself.
It was New Year’s Eve, and the frost was fierce. The girl had already been standing outside for more than an hour, and she could freeze before evening.
Tamara Ivanovna took out some bread, quickly made sausage sandwiches, poured sweet tea into a thermos, and went to get dressed.
Seeing the old woman hurrying toward her, the girl grew nervous and covered a bruise on her temple with a warm kerchief.
“Don’t worry, dear,” said Tamara Ivanovna, handing her the food. “I don’t want you to go hungry.”
The girl smiled only with her eyes and took the sandwiches offered. She settled on a bench a little way off and began to eat greedily. She shoved the bread into her mouth and swallowed almost without chewing, choking and coughing. She looked anxiously at the child, who was crying in someone else’s arms, then hastily stuffed the last piece into her mouth and washed it down with tea. After that she quickly brushed off the crumbs and hurried back to the elderly woman.
“Thank you—this will keep us going till seven, and then they’ll come for us,” she said to the older woman.
For the rest of the day, Tamara Ivanovna kept going to the window to check the thermometer outside. The frost was getting stronger.
By five in the evening she ladled some borscht into a jar and headed to the supermarket for groceries.
Passing the young woman, she set the jar of food beside her and slipped some coins into her pocket. Then she gave her a conspiratorial wink and hurried into the comforting warmth of the store.
This time she didn’t intend to linger. She needed to buy sausage and pickles for the traditional New Year’s Olivier salad. Of course, she couldn’t afford a luxurious holiday table, but she wouldn’t go hungry. When Tamara Ivanovna left the store, she didn’t see the beggar in her usual spot. The jar of borscht was gone too. “She must be eating somewhere,” the old woman thought and smiled. She hurried home.
Now she would slice the snacks, put the carp in the oven, and start setting the table. Perhaps one of the elderly neighbors would decide to pay her a visit.
It was close to ten when Tamara Ivanovna looked out the window again. She wanted to make sure the girl had already been taken somewhere warm.
Her eyes slid over the cheerful lights glowing in front of the shopping center. On the bench under the bright light of a streetlamp sat the familiar figure. Judging by her trembling shoulders, the girl was crying bitterly.
Tamara Ivanovna began to rush about the apartment. In two hours the celebration would begin, and outside someone was freezing. She threw a warm shawl over her shoulders and, still in her house slippers, ran down the stairs. She stopped by the beggar, catching her breath. She tried to calm her pounding heart and plopped down on the bench beside the girl.
“I’ve got nowhere else to go,” the girl said mournfully.
Hope caught in the girl’s eyes as they settled on the grandmother.
“Please take care of him,” she thrust into the old woman’s hands the bundle she had been clutching, and slowly shuffled toward the highway.
Tamara Ivanovna’s head swam. The young woman’s intention was perfectly clear. People do not leave happy lives like that. She heaved herself up and, mustering her strength, hurried after the girl, caught up with her, and turned her around.
“Well now! What are you thinking? Come with me!” cried Tamara Ivanovna, pointing toward the five-story building visible nearby. She grabbed the girl by the hand and tugged her along.
Back in the warm room, Tamara Ivanovna took the baby and unwrapped him near the heater.
“What’s your name?” she asked, then fell silent as she saw, among the clothes, a pendant with a little bear on it.
The girl followed her gaze and said:
“Don’t worry, it’s all I have left from my mother.”
The elderly woman looked at the beggar in alarm and sat down on a chair. She would never mistake that medallion for anything else—she herself had given it to the late Irina. Back then, on her sixteenth birthday, money had been tight, and Tamara Ivanovna had taken a brooch with a beautiful pendant to a jeweler. He had clicked his tongue for a long time, reluctant to break up the antique, and came up with the idea of making a pendant from the dangle. For the brooch itself he gave money, with which they bought a gold chain, and there was even enough left for a small party for her daughter and her friends at a café.
The girl took off her outer clothes and looked questioningly at the elderly woman:
“May I take a shower?”
Receiving a nod, she went off, and Tamara Ivanovna sipped valerian drops.
“So the beggar is her granddaughter—but that can’t be,” she thought.
Then she laid the fed boy down on the couch and seated the guest at the set table.
“Alina!” she called, as if casually.
“How do you know?”
Tamara Ivanovna waved a hand vaguely:
“Must have heard it somewhere. Eat.”
She felt a cold sweat on her forehead. There was no room for doubt—she had taken in her own granddaughter. After all, that was the very name the clients had chosen for the unborn baby girl Irina had carried.
The girl smiled gratefully, looked with admiration at the dishes set out, and began to eat.
Tamara Ivanovna watched her intently, trying to find familiar features.
“Well then, tell me, Alinochka, what happened to you?” she asked.
As if she had been waiting for this question, the girl began to speak quickly and confusedly without stopping chewing, as though freeing her soul from pent-up pain.
According to her, until she was five she lived with her father and mother, and everything was good—even her own pony. Remembering that, Alina closed her eyes dreamily.
But then her parents began to quarrel and soon divorced. The girl stayed with her mother, who one day simply took her to an orphanage and signed a waiver.
Why it happened, Alina didn’t understand. In an instant she was thrown out of a beautiful fairy tale like an unwanted thing. She spent twelve years in the orphanage, and then they were released into adult life.
Alina ended up in an apartment provided to her as an orphan. But she was deceived, placed in a barracks scheduled for demolition. There she met Vaska, a plumber.
When he found out Alina was pregnant, he just disappeared. The barracks were resettled, and she was allowed to stay in the dilapidated housing until she gave birth.
But it turned out her new apartment had already been taken by someone else.
She didn’t know how to fight for her rights. And she couldn’t have anyway, with a child in her arms.
So she began wandering through train stations, begging near the metro. That’s where Igor “Gray” noticed her—he ran the homeless there.
“A pretty beggar with a baby should bring in good money,” he decided, and immediately offered housing in exchange for the take.
So she and her son started living in the big basement of a high-rise, where there were many other beggars like her. There were cripples and sick people too. But there were far more “theatrical” beggars.
They called “theatrical” those who painted bruises and wounds on themselves, wore fake humps and pregnant bellies. Excellent actors brought the boss big money, unlike Alina, who didn’t know how to beg.
Days followed days. In the morning they drove the beggars to their spots. In the evening they collected the day’s haul. The conditions were tolerable, but lately the pressure on her had increased. They said the money was too little, and her baby cried all the time and kept everyone from resting.
And today they didn’t come for her—left her to her fate. The girl stared sadly at her half-empty plate.
“Thank you—I don’t even know how we would have made it through the night.”
She put down her fork and yawned.
“In the morning we’ll go, don’t worry. I just need a little sleep.”
Alina leaned back in her chair and fell asleep almost instantly.
Tamara Ivanovna woke the girl and led her to the bed, settling the baby beside her in a deep armchair.
The elderly woman sat at the New Year’s table and smiled as she listened to the president’s speech. Of course she wouldn’t let her granddaughter and great-grandson leave tomorrow, or the day after, or ever. Let them live with her. That would be right. At the right moment she would certainly tell them who she really was. She would help the girl get on her feet and raise her son. And for now, let her calm down and get used to normal conditions. She had suffered enough.
When the chimes rang, Tamara Ivanovna poured herself a little glass and took a sip of sweet liqueur.
She went to the window and looked out for a long time at the street lit by lamplight. Admiring the falling snowflakes, she thought, “Thank you, Lord, for unexpected happiness. Ah, farewell, loneliness! I have a family again.”