A former colleague told me this strange mystical story, knowing that I was extremely interested in these kinds of stories.
And she heard about what happened from her distant relative, who, in turn, was told by someone else. It seems that while it reached my ears, it, of course, has to some extent overgrown with fiction, perhaps each narrator added something of his own. So I can't vouch for the reliability. However, as always, when it comes to the unknown.
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It happened in the distant now 50-60s of the last century with one young woman. She was brought up by adoptive parents, people who were very wealthy at that time. My father held some kind of managerial position in one of the ministries, often went on business trips. The mother did not work, raised her daughter, although an elderly woman housekeeper lived in the family, who was the head of the family, either a distant relative, or just a fellow villager of his parents. She did all the housework: washing the plank floors, preparing food, washing, ironing linen, going to the market and to the store. Their large private house was located near the Green Market near the city bath. The mother, on the other hand, took care of flowers, which she bred in large quantities, and sometimes she sewed something for herself or her daughter on a Singer sewing machine. The house was perfectly clean, the painted floors sparkledthe crisp white tulle curtains were starched.
A girl in the fifth or sixth grade did not know that she was a foster child. I found out by chance, after overhearing a conversation between my mother and one of her friends. The women sat in the kitchen and drank tea, while she was sitting on the heap, basking in the first rays of spring. She was sitting quietly, when she suddenly heard in the open window the words of her mother, who at first complained that the girl did not study well, there were no talents, they wanted to enroll in a music school, but did not take it and, in general, some kind of completely worthless is growing. And then, after a heavy sigh: "In vain, in vain they took, it was necessary to hand over to an orphanage!" What the aunt who often came to visit them from Saysar answered her, the girl did not hear. She crawled off the embankment and went to the other end of the yard and hid there among the bushes, which had just begun to blossom …
She has changed a lot since then. Her ugly, sharp little face, reminiscent of the muzzle of a fox, took on a kind of wary, frightened expression: the girl was afraid that she would be sent to an orphanage. She stopped being capricious, she herself, without reminders, sat down to her lessons and began to voluntarily help the old nanny. Perhaps instinctively feeling their equality. I went with her to the market or to the store, sometimes asked the old woman about her life. She also became attached to the girl and often in the evenings, when they were alone in the house, told her different stories. Mother and father often went to visit some of their father's colleagues, then to the theater, then to the cinema.
Several years have passed. The old nanny fell ill and was hospitalized for a long time. The father began to be absent more and more often, and this, judging by the dissatisfaction of the mother, was no longer business trips, but something else. Mother sometimes lay in bed all day with a cold compress on her forehead. Soon, all the homework fell on the shoulders of the teenage girl. In the morning she kindled the stoves - a Dutch woman in the common room and a stove in the kitchen. I cooked food, cleaned, washed … Then I went to the second shift to school. Physical housework did not oppress the girl as much as the mother's eternal bad mood, her discontent with everything, constant grumble. Sometimes the girl caught the woman's frankly hostile look on herself and squeezed her slender shoulders. Alienation was growing between them. But while my father was still at home, it was still bearable. It got bad when one day he packed his suitcase and left home for good. It turned outthat the father had already long ago had another woman who had recently had a son, his own son, and he, of course, made his choice. Neither his wife's tantrums, nor the fact that she went to complain about him to the ministry, helped. The father took the old nanny to himself, in his new family they just needed help.
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The girl, left with her foster mother, who could not stand her and, perhaps, even considered her the culprit of her misfortune, endured a lot of grief. Now she was every hour reproached with a piece of bread (money was sorely lacking, her mother still did not work, sewed a little at home for women she knew), scolded her, threw tantrums at her and even beat her on the head with anything that came to hand. There was no time left for lessons, and at night it was strictly forbidden to burn light. I don’t know why, but at school none of the teachers paid attention to the fact that the girl had become very bad at school, was not friends with anyone, did not take part in the social life of the class and school, and most importantly, she had a hunted look. Then, most likely, they would have learned that the poor girl was left alone with a sick woman on her head. The old nanny would come at least once,and he could tell a lot of interesting things about her mistress. At least how she, who graduated from a pedagogical school and taught geography at school, was dismissed from her job with a bang when she, in anger, attacked a child with a hefty pointer and almost broke the boy's head. It was later that she became an important lady, moved to the city and married successfully. According to rumors, she came from the family of a former rich man, who, being an ulus kuluba *, out of stupidity over some trifle quarreled with a local shaman and, having summoned a police officer from the city, ordered the shaman to be imprisoned in a jail. He, returning from there, publicly cursed the kuluba right up to the seventh generation. Since then, they say, the sons of this bai began to die out at a young age, without putting down roots, and along the female line, in addition to infertility, a shameful disease - madness - was inherited. At least how she, who graduated from a pedagogical school and taught geography at school, was dismissed from her job with a bang when she, in anger, attacked a child with a hefty pointer and almost broke the boy's head. It was later that she became an important lady, moved to the city and married successfully. According to rumors, she came from the family of a former rich man, who, being an ulus kuluba *, out of stupidity over some trifle quarreled with a local shaman and, having summoned a police officer from the city, ordered the shaman to be imprisoned in a jail. He, returning from there, publicly cursed the kuluba right up to the seventh generation. Since then, they say, the sons of this bai began to die out at a young age, without putting down roots, and along the female line, in addition to infertility, a shameful disease - madness - was inherited. At least how she, who graduated from a pedagogical school and taught geography at school, was dismissed from her job with a bang when she, in anger, attacked a child with a hefty pointer and almost broke the boy's head. It was later that she became an important lady, moved to the city and married successfully. According to rumors, she came from the family of a former rich man, who, being an ulus kuluba *, out of stupidity over some trifle quarreled with a local shaman and, having summoned a police officer from the city, ordered the shaman to be imprisoned in a jail. He, returning from there, publicly cursed the kuluba right up to the seventh generation. Since then, they say, the sons of this bai began to die out at a young age, without putting down roots, and along the female line, in addition to infertility, a shameful disease - madness - was inherited.she was miserably dismissed from her job when, in anger, she attacked the child with a hefty pointer and nearly smashed the boy's head. It was later that she became an important lady, moved to the city and married successfully. According to rumors, she came from the family of a former rich man, who, being an ulus kuluba *, out of stupidity over some trifle quarreled with a local shaman and, having summoned a police officer from the city, ordered the shaman to be imprisoned in a jail. He, returning from there, publicly cursed the kuluba right up to the seventh generation. Since then, they say, the sons of this bai began to die out at a young age, without taking root, and along the female line, in addition to infertility, a shameful disease - madness - was inherited.she was miserably dismissed from her job when, in anger, she attacked the child with a hefty pointer and nearly smashed the boy's head. It was later that she became an important lady, moved to the city and married successfully. According to rumors, she came from the family of a former rich man, who, being an ulus kuluba *, out of stupidity over some trifle quarreled with a local shaman and, having summoned a police officer from the city, ordered the shaman to be imprisoned in a jail. He, returning from there, publicly cursed the kuluba right up to the seventh generation. Since then, they say, the sons of this bai began to die out at a young age, without taking root, and along the female line, in addition to infertility, a shameful disease - madness - was inherited.she came from the family of a former rich man who, being an ulus kulub *, out of stupidity over some trifle quarreled with a local shaman and, having summoned a police officer from the city, ordered the shaman to be imprisoned in a jail. He, returning from there, publicly cursed the kuluba right up to the seventh generation. Since then, they say, the sons of this bai began to die out at a young age, without taking root, and along the female line, in addition to infertility, a shameful disease - madness - was inherited.she came from the family of a former rich man, who, being an ulus kulub *, out of stupidity over some trifle quarreled with a local shaman and, having summoned a police officer from the city, ordered the shaman to be imprisoned in a jail. He, returning from there, publicly cursed the kuluba right up to the seventh generation. Since then, they say, the sons of this bai began to die out at a young age, without taking root, and along the female line, in addition to infertility, a shameful disease - madness - was inherited.inherited a shameful disease - madness.inherited a shameful disease - madness.
The disease, meanwhile, progressed, although outwardly not everyone noticed. The woman slept during the day, and at night she rushed about the house, muttering terrible curses under her breath, her eyes shone feverishly and seemed to be about to crawl out of her sockets. Once, at the end of August, she, very strangely, topsy-turvy, dressed, showed up at school and took her daughter's documents: they say, she needs to go to a sanatorium, and she sends the girl to the village to her relatives. And without hesitation, they gave the documents and did not even ask which district the girl was going to and whether she would return to school later. The girl then turned exactly fifteen years old.
One day the girl was ordered to get dressed, as if for a trip to the country house to some acquaintances. She, not suspecting anything, went with her foster mother to the forest. First, we rode on some kind of crowded bus, at the final stop we got off and walked for a long, long time. The girl was very tired, but she was afraid to ask: when, they say, will we come? Then they sat down to rest, and the woman gave her from a bottle to drink some herbal tea with a rather nasty taste. After a while, she became ill, she felt dizzy, and she fell, painfully hitting her head on a tree stump.
I woke up from the terrible cold (after all, it was at the end of August, when the frost had already begun). It was dark, though my eyes were gouged out, and there was not a soul around. She was still nauseated, thirsty, she began to call for help, but only a pitiful hissing came from her throat. She sat down with her back against a tree and began to cry in silence. For some reason, it immediately became clear: the adoptive mother, this woman, who had terrified her for the third year already, wanted to kill her and deliberately led her into the wilderness. It's like a fairytale. And, like there, she gave the poison to drink. And she really will soon die - from the cold, from fright, maybe the wolves will eat her …
She seems to have taken a nap or lost consciousness again. And the second time I woke up from being touched on the shoulder. With difficulty she opened her eyelids and saw a female figure beside her. It was a woman she had never known before. She silently looked at her and, waiting for the girl to stand on her stiff legs, with a nod of her head ordered her to follow her. They walked for a long time through the woods, finally the woman led her to the forest edge, from where the dark houses of the city outskirts could be seen. The savior, who had come from nowhere, never opened her mouth, her face was somehow very sad and, as it seemed to the girl, guilty. At a large extreme larch, the woman stopped and said goodbye to her with the same nod: they say, go on yourself. And silently disappeared into the forest, as if melted.
The girl somehow reached a house and, when the owner of the house opened the gate for her, she lost consciousness again. An ambulance called by the frightened owners took her to the hospital. Then she went to a boarding school, graduated from it, went to study (helped by her former adoptive father). She never met her adoptive mother again: she was sent to a mental hospital. And that forest woman, she once saw in a dream, and she confessed that she was her own mother. When asked where she is now, the woman did not answer, but only smiled sadly …
Yana PROTODYAKONOV