Kirill cautiously peered out of the window and saw that a sharp autumn wind had whipped up outside.
«Well, it’s going to pile up leaves and dry branches again… I’ll definitely have to help Uncle Kolya; he can’t manage on his own,» the young man thought, and, turning on the electric stove, he put an old, sooty kettle on it.
Kirill wanted to prepare his elderly friend’s favorite linden tea with honey by the time he arrived. The young man always took care of Nikolai Trofimovich because he owed him a lot. Kirill would replace a broom handle, sharpen a garden pruner, or fix bent rakes. Nikolai Trofimovich had spent his entire life working as a janitor, battling trash and leaves in the courtyards adjacent to his area. Despite his advanced age, the old man took his job seriously and never neglected his duties.
Sometimes, the old man even found items like a wallet, a mobile phone, or just apartment or garage keys under the leaves, lost by absent-minded passers-by. In such cases, although Trofimovich lived very modestly, he would take the found items to the local housing office or the police station. Many of the residents, especially the younger ones, thought the old man foolish, believing that what is found on the street belongs to the finder. But the old man thought differently, tirelessly raking leaves and branches, which were plentiful every year.
«And what, should I just sit on the stove? Movement is life, Kiryusha… I’ll rake these leaves, warm up my joints, and look, maybe my sciatica won’t bother me as much. Remember, water does not flow under a lying stone!» Nikolai Trofimovich would say.
«I get it, Uncle Kolya… But you need to take care… No matter what you say, age is age,» Kirill tried to argue, but the old man was resolute.
The kettle had not yet boiled when the door to the janitor’s storage room opened, and there stood Trofimovich himself.
«So, how are you, Kiryusha? Didn’t freeze today? Because the tenants in the courtyard are gossiping that there were frosts last night… And you’re dressed almost like it’s summer,» the old man asked with concern.
«No, Uncle Kolya… I’m fine… I covered myself with your sheepskin coat and fell right asleep… You know I’m used to Spartan conditions… If anything, I could even spend the night on the heating pipes,» Kirill replied, pouring the old janitor some fragrant tea.
«I know you, you rascal… I look at you and my heart bleeds… So young, yet forced to roam the streets…,» the old man murmured sadly.
«Come on, Uncle Kolya… Don’t be sad! What about my years! You better finish your tea while I go rake the leaves,» Kirill said cheerfully and, opening the door of the storage room, stepped out into the bone-chilling autumn wind.
Nikolai Trofimovich shook his head in reproach, lamenting that the young always hurry somewhere, but seldom make it on time. The old man remembered the day when Kirill, a sixteen-year-old teenager, first asked to warm up in his watchman’s booth. It was bitterly cold then, and the homeless youth simply had nowhere else to stay.
Nikolai Trofimovich would have gladly let the poor fellow stay at his place overnight, but his two-bedroom apartment was already cramped with two families. Therefore, the old man allowed the boy to occasionally stay in his watchman’s booth, which was equipped in the basement with electricity and some heating. Kirill’s story was very sad, and remembering it, Nikolai Trofimovich could not hold back bitter tears. Now, looking out the window at the eighteen-year-old boy skillfully handling the rake and broom, the janitor quietly, silently cried.
He knew that before the fire, Kirill lived with his mother in a rented one-room apartment. Money was always tight, so the small family often struggled and went hungry. His mother worked as a cleaner at a school and was an orphan, and Kirill never knew his father. Of course, Elena Sergeyevna, like any loving mother, tried to hide the bitter truth from her son, saying that his father had disappeared on a geological expedition… But Kirill was not foolish and, not believing a single word, understood that his father had simply abandoned them.
One day, due to a wiring fault, a fire broke out in a rented apartment. Then, as now, it was a bleak autumn, and the heating had not yet been turned on. So, the mother and son warmed themselves with an old heater. Unfortunately, they noticed the fire too late, and a real fiery hell began in the smoke-filled apartment. In an effort to save her son first, Elena Sergeevna neglected her own safety and, having inhaled smoke, lost consciousness…
Despite the firefighters arriving on time and extinguishing the fire, they unfortunately could not save Kirill’s mother. The dose of carbon monoxide she received was very high, and even the ambulance crew that arrived at the scene could not help. Before the fourteen-year-old Kirill’s eyes, his whole world crumbled, and after the funeral, the teenager realized that he was likely facing life in an orphanage. Since almost all his documents were burned in the fire, the boy outright refused to go to a shelter and ran away.
Of course, many found it hard to understand the teenager’s motives, but more than anything in the world, he wanted freedom, which would not be limited by the walls of any educational or institutional establishment. Fortunately, Kirill did not become a vagrant or a criminal, although over the years he got a good taste of street life. The hardworking young man worked part-time as a loader at the market, collected glass bottles and cardboard, taking them to recycling points. The hardest times were in winter when it was very difficult to find a warm shelter for the night.
On one such frosty evening, Kirill met the janitor Nikolai Trofimovich. It’s hard to say exactly what connected the old man and the young lad.
Looking at them, the thought involuntarily arose in the heads of the residents:
—»They found each other»…
Most likely, Kirill was drawn to the old man because he had never had a father to give him real male advice. And Nikolai Trofimovich enjoyed that the boy listened to every word he said, instilling faith that he would no longer make mistakes in life. However, the friendship between the janitor and the boy grew stronger day by day. Together, they cleaned courtyards, drank tea in the watchman’s booth, and chatted about everything under the sun. Of course, Kirill did not live permanently in Nikolai Trofimovich’s booth and came occasionally, especially in the autumn when the old man’s work noticeably increased.
When you are homeless, you understand the phrase that a wolf is fed by its legs better than anyone. Making ends meet with random jobs, Kirill understood the worthlessness of a person’s life who has no family and no corner of his own. One day, returning from the market where the boy helped unload vegetables, he decided to take a shortcut to Nikolai Trofimovich’s booth and went straight through the park.
Passing by neat rows of benches on both sides of the alley, Kirill saw an elderly, well-dressed woman. The stranger, talking loudly on the phone with someone, placed her bag on the bench, and, absorbed in the conversation, moved a few meters away from it. Approaching closer, Kirill hesitated, and then suddenly, he darted behind the trunk of an old maple. The young man’s attention was caught by the purse carelessly left by the woman on the bench. Kirill saw that the stranger was well-dressed, which meant that the purse most likely contained a wallet with money.
Not that the boy was a robber or a pickpocket, but in everyone’s life, there are temptations that are impossible to resist. This was the case with Kirill, who, looking at the leather purse with a zipper, was overwhelmed by an uncontrollable desire to take it. Perhaps at that moment, a part of negativity in his soul overcame the good, which, of course, was much more. So, giving in to this momentary weakness, the boy quietly approached and, grabbing the purse, quickly ran between the rows of trees deeper into the park.
Kirill couldn’t say for sure, but it seemed to him that the elderly woman, absorbed in her phone conversation, didn’t even notice the theft at first. This allowed the boy to leave unnoticed and disappear into the evening twilight. Of course, deep down, Kirill felt very uncomfortable about what he had done. But the success of the easy theft turned his head and stirred his blood, filling it with adrenaline.
The boy ran without choosing his path, trying to get as far away from the scene of the crime as possible. Kirill only came to his senses when he was beyond the park’s limits. Looking around furtively and clutching the bag in his hands, the boy stopped to catch his breath and restore the breathing disrupted by the fast run.
— «Well, now you’ve become a thief, Kiryukha…,» the boy thought sadly, the euphoria from the recent theft having passed.
Honestly speaking, existing in this new status did not appeal to Kirill, who had never broken the law all this time. The boy felt that an ambush awaited him around every corner, and now the whole city knew that he had committed a theft just a few minutes ago. Kirill decided not to go to Nikolai Trofimovich today. The boy didn’t want to implicate his friend by bringing the stolen item to his workplace. Therefore, Kirill headed to the heating main, where he had his own, known only to him, secluded spot.
There, by the light of a pocket flashlight, the boy finally decided to open the purse and see what he had acquired as a trophy. As he expected, inside the stolen purse was a wallet full of various denominations of bills, as well as a passport, a bunch of various business cards, discount cards, and some small change. At the very bottom lay a scarf and women’s demi-season gloves…
Kirill was about to put the purse aside when suddenly, he saw an inconspicuous inner pocket at first glance. It was zipped, which immediately seemed strange to the boy.
— «I wonder what’s in it? Could there be some more valuables?» Kirill thought and with one sharp movement, he opened it.
To his disappointment, the boy saw that instead of a large sum of money, there was just an ordinary photograph with edges curled from time and frequent handling. Carefully taking the photo in his hands, Kirill looked at the person captured in it and, with great difficulty, managed to suppress a surprised exclamation. Somehow managing his initial excitement, the boy aimed the flashlight at the photograph again and realized there was no mistake.
The turbulent reaction in Kirill was caused by the fact that the photograph captured his mother in her younger years. Most likely, judging by his mother’s cheerful eyes and playful hairstyle, this photo was taken right after her prom or shortly thereafter.
«Lord, Mommy… How did your photo end up here?» Kirill whispered, feeling bitter tears streaming down his face on their own.
This unexpected encounter with the past in the form of his mother’s photograph, found in the purse of a completely unknown woman, stirred feelings in the soul of the unlucky thief, who was already repenting of his deed and painfully looking for a way out of the situation. It seemed to the boy that even the mother from the photograph looked at him with eyes full of silent condemnation and reproach for what her son had just done.
«Mommy, please forgive me! I will definitely make everything right…» Kirill whispered, trying to prevent the tears in his eyes from falling on the old photo.
Meanwhile, the boy already knew that he would not spend a penny of what he took from the elderly woman in the park. Nevertheless, Kirill realized that he had made a mistake and was very ashamed of his action. Perhaps if the boy had not found the photograph of his mother in the purse, everything might have turned out differently. But as it was, after spending the night in his hideout, Kirill went to Nikolai Trofimovich and honestly told him everything.
Seeing the boy’s condition and his sincere repentance, the janitor did not condemn the poor fellow, but simply said:
«Indeed, you’ve caused quite a stir, Kiryusha… But it’s okay, the main thing is that you came to your senses in time… Now, we’ll come up with something together… There’s a phone number among those business cards, isn’t there? Here, I’ll call it now and try to sort everything out…»
Kirill looked at the old man and smiled wearily. It took three attempts to reach the owner, and just when the desperate boy was about to give up, Nikolai Trofimovich managed to arrange a meeting in the very park where Kirill had stolen the unfortunate purse, and went there with him at the appointed time to apologize and repent on behalf of his young friend. The elderly woman was already waiting for them at the entrance, and when Kirill looked at her closely, he determined that by age, she could be Trofimovich’s peer.
«Please forgive me… I am very ashamed, and I sincerely repent of my deed! You can be sure of that! I did not take a single penny from you!» Kirill started, feeling his voice tremble with nervousness.
Meanwhile, Nikolai Trofimovich tactfully left them alone and sat on a bench about five meters from the meeting place.
«I hold no grudge against you, young man… Believe me, money has no value to me… Of all the things that were in the purse, the photograph is the most important to me… Is it intact?» the woman asked in a quiet, melodious voice.
«Yes, of course… Please tell me, how did you come to have it? And do you know who is depicted in it?» Kirill asked, looking hopefully into the stranger’s eyes.
In response, the woman sighed sadly and then said:
«I know this girl because she is my daughter, Lenochka…»
For a moment, Kirill thought he had misheard the woman’s last words. But when the boy realized what had been said, he was almost overwhelmed by shock and surprise.
«That simply cannot be, you understand!? Because she’s my mother, do you hear? She always said she grew up in an orphanage! And now, you appear and say that all this time, I had relatives?» Kirill exclaimed, tears welling in his eyes.
It was difficult to put into words the woman’s reaction when she heard these words. Instead of responding, she hugged the boy, who, it turned out a little later, was actually her own grandson. Even the experienced Nikolai Trofimovich could not hold back tears at the sight of this touching scene.
The old man thought he had seen everything in life, but the accidental meeting of a grandmother and grandson, who had not even suspected each other’s existence, touched him deeply. Everything became clear a little later, over a cup of tea in a cafe, where the elderly woman, whose name was Valentina Ivanovna Zhukova, invited Kirill and Nikolai Trofimovich to talk. As it turned out, she was indeed Kirill’s grandmother.
The fact was that her only daughter Lena left home when she was just nineteen. From an early age, the girl had a difficult character and stubbornness. Despite growing up in a wealthy family, Kirill’s mother was never attracted to wealth and life in a «golden cage.»
Her parents always wanted a rich suitor for Lenochka, but she needed freedom and the right to choose. If in her teenage years, the girl could not afford liberties, in her more mature years, she firmly stood her ground. Therefore, when Valentina Ivanovna found a suitor from a decent, wealthy family for her daughter, she rebelled and left home in a fit of anger. To make it harder for her parents to find her, Lena moved to another city and found a job.
Initially, the proud Valentina Ivanovna thought that her daughter would come to her senses and return. But time passed, and Lena did not return. Of course, there was no doubt that the girl regretted what she had done deep down, but her innate pride did not allow her to back down and ask her parents for forgiveness. And when Lena became pregnant by a boyfriend who later abandoned her, there was no turning back for her.
Of course, the proud Valentina Ivanovna would not have forgiven her daughter for such a thing, and the girl did not want to live under constant reproach. Thus, family members harbored resentment towards each other for many years, afraid to reconcile and appear weak in the eyes of others.
True, sincere repentance came to Valentina Ivanovna only in her later years, when her husband passed away, and she was left alone. In addition, doctors diagnosed the woman with symptoms of a severe illness, the chances of recovery from which were very slim. It was then that Valentina Ivanovna realized that she needed to find Lenochka and reconcile.
For about half a year, she searched for her daughter, not knowing that she had been dead for several years. On the day Kirill stole Valentina Ivanovna’s purse, she was trying to gather information about her daughter at an address bureau. Acquaintances had told the woman that they had seen Lena in a neighboring city, and she decided that this was her last chance to find her daughter. Now, sitting with her grandson in a cafe, the unhappy mother learned that her daughter had been dead for several years.
It seemed that at that moment, life lost all meaning for Valentina Ivanovna. Tears streamed from her eyes, and her thin shoulders trembled in sync with her sorrowful sobbing…
«Grandma, dear… Please don’t cry… After all, you have me now… Believe me, I won’t leave you…» Kirill timidly remarked, deeply moved by the encounter.
«You look very much like Lenochka, Kiryusha… The same eyes and an aristocratic nose…» Valentina Ivanovna said, after calming down a bit.
That day, Nikolai Trofimovich took a day off work for the first time in many years, so that together with Valentina Ivanovna and Kirill, they could visit the grave of the boy’s mother… There, at the modest grave mound, the elderly woman knelt down, and without hiding her tears, quietly whispered:
«So we meet again, Lenochka… It’s a pity it’s under these circumstances… Forgive me, dear… My time is short, so soon, we will be together again…»
Nikolai Trofimovich and Kirill stood a little distance away, giving the mother a chance to say goodbye to her daughter, and they felt both sadness and joy at the same time. Joy because Kirill would no longer be homeless and had found a loving grandmother. And sadness because his mother would not be able to see this. But, Nikolai Trofimovich had seen enough in his lifetime to know that the souls of loved ones never truly leave but remain forever in the hearts and memories of those who loved them most.
Now, Valentina Ivanovna had found new meaning and purpose in life. Rushing to give her grandson all the affection he had been deprived of all these years, the old woman believes that she has not yet done everything she wanted in this world and is firmly intent on delaying her cruel illness.
And Kirill, now forever remembered that under no circumstances should one ever break the law, which is the same for everyone, whether you are rich or poor. Following the example of his idol, Nikolai Trofimovich, the boy works as a janitor and studies part-time, increasing his intellectual level every day…
Kirill spends all his free time from work and studies with his grandmother, walking a lot in the very park where their chance encounter occurred, which became fateful for both of them.
