11/01/2025
She didn't speak for three years, until a man came into the bank branch and knelt down in front of the cleaning lady.
How Aleftina ended up in the office - no one really remembered. She appeared as if she had always been there: a quiet, inconspicuous woman or girl - it was hard to understand. Some thought she was young, some thought she was older, but she hid her appearance under a headscarf tied in a rustic style and a long turtleneck that covered her neck.
She washed the floors, polished toilets, metal door handles, glass partitions - everything that clients' palms and foreheads had soiled - until they shone. All this had been going on for three months, and not a single bank employee had heard a word from her.
No one saw makeup on her, no one noticed the smell of perfume - only the freshness of floor cleaning product and clean air. And indeed, the entire office sparkled and exuded a cozy, almost homely cleanliness after her.
The attitude of the employees towards her varied: some pitied her, some simply ignored her, and some allowed themselves to mock her.
- Hey, mute! There's dust here! - the mocker, a young manager from the credit department, pointed his finger at an absolutely clean corner. He was specifically looking for a reason to upset her, but Alya just silently took a rag and did what she was paid for. No reaction - just work.
- Look how she sweats! - another laughed once, for which he received an elbow poke from more experienced employees who sympathized with the cleaner.
Aleftina sighed, said nothing, carefully avoided rudeness, as if she was used to it. And in the evening she returned to her cramped apartment, fed her fish, cooked a modest dinner and sat down to paint. Her paintings were striking in their softness, airiness - watercolor flowed across the paper, creating entire worlds. She did not paint for fame, she did not even show them to anyone. Only for herself. Sometimes she went out into the open air - then her works became even brighter, more mysterious, filled with the light of nature.
But at night the same nightmare came to her. For nine years it repeated itself without changes. And each time she woke up from her own scream.
The outbreak happened on a June night. Somewhere in the entrance screams were heard, shrill and frightened. It smelled of burning. Smoke made its way through the cracks, through the keyhole. So, it was not their place that was burning. Ali's parents and her little brother quickly grabbed their documents and ran out into the street in their pajamas and slippers. The neighbors had already gathered on the landing - all at a loss, each in their own way, but also not in complete order.
The apartment on the second floor was on fire, right across from their door. The window was slightly open, and smoke was already pouring out.
“Did you call the Ministry of Emergency Situations?” the woman from the first floor asked, yawning. But as soon as she realized that they could flood her renovation while putting out the fire, she quickly sobered up and began to regret her words.
“I think you did,” someone from the crowd answered, asking everyone to shut up and not add to the panic.
Alya hardly knew the family living across the street. They had recently moved in — a middle-aged husband and wife, a boy named Lyosha, about six years old. There was almost no communication, but they somehow became close with the child. Alya knew how to find an approach to children — she had once worked as a school teacher, and so much so that her students loved her and her colleagues respected her.
She was about to go down to the street to the others, when she suddenly heard coughing inside the apartment. I listened - the cough was childish. It was clear that it was there, inside. It couldn't be put off.
Alya went to the neighbors' door and checked - it was locked. What to do?
"Tools... where are the tools?" she thought feverishly. Thank God, her father's toolbox was at home, under the shoe rack. She took out the crowbar.
"If only it works... If only I can make it in time!" she thought, inserting the crowbar between the door and the jamb.
If the neighbors had changed the front door in time, if they had installed an iron one, there would have been no chance. But the old plywood, double-leaf, was still held by a lock from the time of Soviet builders.
The crowbar went deep, the door gave in. Behind it - a thick wave of smoke. The room was burning inside, the fire was already engulfing the curtains and some of the furniture. In the living room on the couch lay a woman - most likely suffocated by smoke. And where is the boy?
Alya reached out and felt a small body. Lyosha was barely breathing. She carefully picked him up, but she couldn't get out the other way - the flames had gotten stronger.
"We need to get to the window!" flashed through her mind. From the room into the hallway, through the fire, through the heat. The curtains were already catching fire, the frames were cracking from the temperature. She grabbed the red-hot window handle - the skin on her palm instantly swelled. Pain pierced her body, but Alya still opened the window.
There was a gasp from below. The firefighters were already nearby, unrolling their sleeves, hearing the screams of the crowd. Seeing the window, they quickly unrolled the rescue sheet.
- Lyoshka! Son! - a man who had just returned from a business trip screamed. He tried to run into the entrance, but they held him back.
Alya, losing her strength, picked up the boy and passed him through the window. She did not see how he was caught. She did not hear the screams of the parents. She didn't feel herself losing consciousness, crawling out after...
The fresh air that rushed in through the open window became fuel for the fire. The flames instantly engulfed the entire apartment.
She was only 22 years old. The fact that she survived seemed like a miracle - doctors did not believe that a person with such burns could cope even with the first day. But the biggest luck - her face remained unharmed.
Lyoshka was also saved, unlike his mother. As it turned out later, she suffocated from smoke. But where the man went with his son after his wife's funeral - no one knew. They disappeared without a trace.
Experts named old electrical wiring as the cause of the fire - the same one that had long needed to be replaced.
The recovery was long and painful. Alya was literally put back together piece by piece. The hardest thing was to survive the loss of her mother: the woman's heart gave out when she saw her daughter in the fire.
Scars covered her arms, shoulders, and back. She wanted to see a plastic surgeon, but she had no money, so she had to wear long-sleeved, high-necked clothes to hide the painful memories on her skin.
- Alechka, maybe we should sell the apartment? - her father worried. - We'll buy something smaller, we'll treat you until the end...
She just shook her head. She couldn't speak anymore. After the fire and her mother's death, she simply fell silent. The doctors shrugged their shoulders - her vocal cords were fine, but her body seemed to have switched off this function itself. "A nervous condition," they assumed. "We'll wait."
They did exchange the apartment. Her brother got married and took out a mortgage - they didn't expect any help from him. Her father took a corner of the apartment for himself - in case they suddenly dropped in for a visit.
She couldn't continue teaching.
- Aleftina Tarasovna, I understand your condition... But how will you teach the children? — The school principal signed the dismissal letter with a heavy heart.
Alya nodded silently. Yes, she was definitely not a teacher now.
She found the job by chance - in an office that needed a cleaner. She was coming from another plein air, saw an ad on a glass door and, without thinking, walked in. Why they hired her is still unknown. But the manager never pitied her.
All the employees were happy - move the refrigerator, lift the cabinet, wash the stairs. No one guessed how much effort it cost her.
When the office moved to another area, the manager called his friend:
- Mikhalych, hi! I have one recommendation for you. The girl is just a godsend. Just take good care of her.
So Alya found herself in the bank. Of course, there were also some cheeky young people and indifferent bosses here... But work was work, and she did it conscientiously.
- Hey, why are you silent all the time? - the manager provoked. - Can't or don't want to? Or is the salary small?
She didn't answer. She just patiently polished the glass, which was already sparkling.
And then one day, whispers began to spread throughout the room. All the clients, all the employees turned to the entrance. An expensive car drove up to the bank. A man got out and confidently walked inside.
- Boss! Sergei Mikhailovich! He's here!
Alya continued to polish the window - yellow gloves flashed across the glass.
- Hello, Sergei Mikhailovich! - the chief accountant greeted him.
Alya shuddered. She turned around.👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻
