Next to me on the bench sat a little girl of five. She was dangling her feet, telling me about her life:
– I haven’t seen Daddy, because he left Mommy and me when I was very young. Mommy died a year ago. The adults told me at the time that she had passed away.
The little girl looked at me slyly and continued her story:
– After the funeral, Aunt Inna, who was my mother’s sister, came to live with us. I was told at the time that she had done the noble thing of not giving me up to a home with children thrown overboard in life. It was explained to me that now, Aunt Inna had become my guardian and now I would live with her.
The little girl was quiet, looked under the bench, and continued her narration:
– After we moved in, Aunt Inna began to put our house in order: she put all my mother’s things in the corner and wanted to put them in the trash. I started crying and asking her not to do it, then she let me keep it. I sleep in that corner now. In the evening I lie down on Mommy’s things and I feel warm there, as if she were next to me.
Every morning Aunt Inna gives me something to eat. She doesn’t cook very good, my mother did better, but she demands that I eat everything. I don’t want to upset her, so I eat everything she gives me. I understand that she was trying when she cooked. It’s absolutely not her fault that she can’t cook like Mommy can. Afterwards she sends me out for a walk, and I can only come home when it starts to get dark. Aunt Inna is very, very kind!
Noticing that I was wary, she interrupted me:
– She likes to brag to her aunts she knows about me. I don’t know these aunts, but they come to us very often. Aunt Inna sits with them for tea, tells them funny stories and says kind words to me, and she treats both my aunts and me with sweets.
After these words the little girl sighed and continued:
– I can only eat candy all the time. My aunt never scolded me for anything. She treats me well. She even gave me a doll once, of course the doll is a little sick, it has a sick leg and an eye that squints a lot. My mother had never given me a sick doll before.
The girl jumped off the bench and started hopping on one leg:
– I have to go, because Aunt Inna said that the aunts are coming today, and before they come I have to be dressed nicely. She told me that she would feed me a delicious cake afterwards. Bye!
The little girl jumped off the bench and rushed off to do her business. And I followed her for a long time, and all my thoughts revolved around the “good” Aunt Inna and the upside down nobility. I wondered, what purpose did the kind aunt have in mind? Why did she want everyone to think she was noble? Is it possible to look indifferently at a child sleeping on the floor and covering herself with her dead mother’s clothes…
