Swan lake

Тигрис

– Listen, Svana! This is a song in Armenian in my honor.

Svana listened and smiled.

– What is this funny melody about?

– About spring, about May and about love.

I noticed that the taxi driver sat there with a stone face and remained, despite the fact that his passengers were in excellent mood from the melody sounding in the taxi.

Well, this is the Estonian mentality – a minimum of emotions and feelings. I shared these impressions with Svana.

– This is a northern cold country. People here do not see the sun's rays for a long time. This is not sunny Armenia with an abundance of sunny days for you. How many of them do you have per year?

– Three hundred thirty.

– Bliss! You are just lucky!

In the meantime, we entered some cozy bar, where slow jazz music was playing and couples whirled languidly in the center of the hall.

We sat down at a table and already in normal lighting I was finally able to fully see my new girlfriend. She took off her glasses, and I saw an abundance of freckles on the face of the pretty fox. In addition to her red hair, dazzling like fire, she had a chiseled figure with a thin waist, and a full-fledged breast loomed under a tight sweater.

– You shouldn't have taken it off. The glasses suit you very much, – I said, looking into the abyss of her blue eyes, – and in general, I really like your appearance.

From these words, Svana blushed, and her face lit up with a charming smile.

– Well, you are a burning brown-haired man. I immediately noticed this when I saw it in the "Fox hole".

I took her small palms with lovely purple marigolds and began to gently warm in mine.

– What are we going to drink?

– Armenian brandy, of course, if of course they have it?

Svana asked the waiter about this and he nodded in the affirmative.

– I never drank your brandy.

– Today you will try.

Svana twirled the glass she had brought and inhaled the aroma of the drink.

– Is this the Armenian brandy? It has a heady scent.

– This is a piece of the Armenian sun.

– Which shines 333 days a year?

– Quite right.

Svana slowly, savoring every sip, emptied her glass. A pleasant burning liquid poured inside, warming our hearts and souls.

– How lovely. I wouldn't mind repeating it.

The waiter brought us two more glasses, and then another.

– So you are half Norwegian.

– Yes, and my mother gave me the name. The ancestors of modern Norwegians believed that if you give a child a nickname in honor of an animal and worship him, then it will serve as a talisman for life: a mystical connection will arise between the animal and the bearer of the name. Some of the most common female variants of such totem names were: Hrevna – "crow", Svana – "swan". So it turns out that you hit the very spot when you said about Grieg's melody and Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.

Svana gracefully stretched her delicate neck, imitating a swan and turning the swan pendant on her chest.

– And your parents were not mistaken. You are truly graceful, like a swan.

We were both pleasantly drunk and looked at each other with enthusiastic eyes and each was able to read the innermost desires in them.

– Where you stopped?

– In a student hostel.

– Poor men! Would you like to spend an amazing night at the Viru Hotel?

I immediately understood the meaning of her words. We were both drawn to each other uncontrollably. Well, I knew about the hotel "Viru", famous throughout the Soviet Union, from the enthusiastic stories of those lucky ones who had a chance to live there for at least a couple of days.

Still not sure that Svana wanted to spend the night with me, I asked carefully:

– And your parents won't worry if you are very late?

– And now I will call them and tell them that I am staying overnight with a friend. We actually live outside the city, in a private house. So they will understand me. Can you show me where you can call from?

The last words were addressed in Estonian to the waiter, who escorted Svana to the machine.

I was sitting drunk from the cognac and the sudden happiness that had piled on me. Until recently, I was bored with of insipid Komsomol classmates, but now suddenly a wonderful night was planned with a young charming girl with fiery red hair.

– Well, everything is all right. Parents have been warned, we are free, dear Ara. Do you mind if I call you that? Until I can pronounce your name properly.

– Actually, Ara, as far as I remember, is a kind of Brazilian speaking parrot.

Svana burst into a ringing laugh, from which I came into indescribable delight, and soon we were in a good mood rushed by taxi to the Viru hotel.

– Who do your parents work for?

– My dad is marine mechanical engineer. Works on the ferry "Estonia". There they met when my mother went to Tallinn as a tourist. Now my father is on vacation, but soon he will set sail, and my mother and I will sail with him. In Stockholm we get off, and from there we go straight to Oslo. My mother's parents, my grandparents live there.

– So you can speak Norwegian too?

– I can, but not very well. But I hope to finish my studies in Norway.

– What do you intend to stay there? Where are you studying now?

– I recently graduated from school and have not yet decided where to enter. Either artistic or musical.

– So you're still very young!

– Yes, I recently turned 19 years old.

In the meantime, we entered the lobby of the Viru hotel and approached the reception.

– Your passports, please.

We handed over our documents.

– How many days do you intend to stay?

We looked at each other inquiringly.

“Let's just one night,” Svana decided.

I paid and we went to the elevators.

– How well everything turned out. The places, oddly enough, were not a word about the fact that we were not registered as spouses.

– After all, we have Europe and no one cares about the presence of a stamp in the passport from the marriage office. And there are places, because today is Thursday and the influx of Finnish tourists is not expected until the weekend. So they took us to a free settlement.