Gypsy Lily ...

The village considered the black-eyed Lilcu a gypsy. Gypsy and that's it. Although, if you do not take into account the resin braids, it was in everything such, as we, the children of the indigenous people of the Central Russian village. Her gypsy features, except for appearance, were no longer manifested in anything. She was not at all brisk, obedient, well-educated, she had no boldness, no gipsy pressure. Her father-Grigory-was ours, a village one, nobody doubted his origin.

His wife, Tonya, white-faced, stately, apparently, she was older than his years, he brought from Donbass, where he worked in the mine, was injured and returned to his homeland, to his parents' house. They brought with them in their arms a three-year-old black girl, Lilya. It was clear that she could not be the native daughter of these people, but when the women, in her eternal curiosity, began to question Tonya, she abruptly cut them off. No one else dared to start such conversations, but then she and the village, where gossip will not cease under any circumstances. It was rumored that the little girl's parents were killed, their train was knocked down, when they were stuck in the tent at the crossing, and the girl was thrown aside from the blow, now the childless Grigory and Tonya adopted her. This version was not accepted by everyone, say, the gypsies of orphans are not sidetracked. There was another girl left unnoticed from the camp, which stretched in the steppe, where new parents came across her.

Lily, of course, did not remember another life, except for the one that was going on before our eyes and I think her adopted parents did not devote the secret of her birth-she was still small. We, the children, had no need for delicacy, so they asked Lilka without hesitation, saying, "Why do not you like your parents?" Lilechka, obviously, trained by her mother, said that she was a copy of her grandmother, that one was black. But, to us it was by and large anyway, we had new interests by that time, we had already entered the age when, in a briefcase, except for exercise books on subjects, each kept a treasured personal note-book, with rhymes decorated with open roses and naive questions-answers. And more instructions for the right life, "..worry, but do not give a kiss without love ..", or a sour, but touching song, "In Ireland, a foggy guy, your boyfriend, he, like you from school, was walking home with a briefcase ...... »? Morality was respected then. We also had gypsies, we stopped over the river with a camp, offered our usual services: to tell fortunes, sell, barter, and of course, between all this, to deceive. Our neighbor, Pana, sold a ball of downy yarn, the finest goat hair - the down shawl was not just a headdress, but a status. Panya took up knitting in the winter evenings for a shawl, but she did not untangle the fourth part, how elite yarn ended, then she was stretched coarse-wooled, sheep. At us such went on socks. Lida did not show any inclination towards the gypsies, and her parents did not hide from them-the call of blood was not observed.

Lida was reeking at the same time as her peers. Her mother dressed up, Lidochka dressed in nylon dresses and in sharp-pointed shoes on a hairpin, at school evenings was whirling with her friends in a waltz. Homework we, the village girls, were not very busy, well, if we help in the garden, go to the herd to the herd, and the rest of the time we go to the river, then to the club cinema, then to the woods for the par excellence, so the Ukrainian way they called us wild strawberries.

Once we came back again with a herd from our fishing-grove of the Order, when, overtaking us, with a cloud of dust, the shuttle bus stopped. A middle-aged, heavy woman came down from him, barely able to lower her legs to the ground. She was not our resident, it was immediately evident, her clothes, a large bag pulled by a cloth belt, were unaccustomed to our eye. And then, his face: his swarthy, expressive black eyes on him, and his hair, which are knocked out from under the scarf, not tied at all like our women did, just shouted that she came from far away. "Girls-with an accent she turned to us-where do the Rudenkovs live?". RudEnkovy, she said. We were somehow confused and just pushed Lily forward, this is her last name said by the visitor. "Dariko suddenly exclaimed the stranger Dariiko, Leila, she switched to another strange name-my girl," she cried out, embracing nothing that did not understand Lilka. We dismounted, some Dariko, Leila, who is this? And why does she embrace Lilka? The woman was already sobbing, not letting Lily. The village women approached, they began to question the visitor. The woman, crying and wiping her tears, answered reluctantly, only and said that she had come from Georgia to the Rudenkovs. Caressing Lilka with her, she went, stepping heavily, shifting the bag from hand to hand. Lily took one hand and walked two women, old and young, black-haired, thin, but both of them seemed somehow elusively similar, or something was revealed in the gait, or whether our guesses contributed to this. We lost confidence behind us.

It was Lilkin's grandmother, the Georgian Manana. The mystery of adoption with her arrival was revealed. Lily was Grigory's own daughter, and Tonya was her stepmother and her father's second wife. At birth, his first wife, Dariko, died. Lily stayed with her grandmother, in Georgia, but by marrying Tone, the father took the girl with him. The grandmother strongly resisted, did not give the girl, but the law was on the side of the father. Then the family moved, but how did the grandmother of Manana recognize the new address-I do not know. Of course, Lily was like her mother, it's not for nothing that her grandmother saw her features at once, calling her granddaughter her name.

Have grown up and parted, where to? Lily entered the medical school, and then got married and left for Ukraine, in Kharkov. I came to old parents with my husband and a girl, her exact copy as a child. Then, already one came to the graves to my parents-my mother in her expression, "stayed" with Lilya. Visiting Lily and Georgian relatives, my grandmother died, but there were numerous relatives with whom Lily is in touch. This is how Lilya became a Georgian, and for us, village girls, she was just a good girlfriend ..