I remember those days, long before the world turned all topsyturvy, when a young woman named Katherinethough we called her Ethel because that was the only proper English name for a girl of her sortwas fixated on marriage. Modern girls, she thought, seemed content with a single sausage rather than dragging a whole pig into the house; after all, today the market was awash with every imaginable sort and size of sausage.
Living together without the sanctity of a wedding was no longer a scandal, and the old virtues of shame, pride and propriety seemed as useless as a broken teacup. Even the idle Mr. Bede, once a figure of contempt, was now praised for the regular stipends that poured in from his landed estatewhat a comfortable rentier! If you handed a smartphone to Ian Ilyich, he would be hailed as a successful blogger who had finally made something of himself.
As for marriage, the new maxim was live as you will. Couples rendezvoused in inns, in rooms rented by the hourwhat a novel invention! There were even guest marriages where the couple never set foot in the registry office, for who knew what might emerge after the vows? Once, a misplaced sock or a botched cabbage soup would have been a tragedy; now, the truly dreadful things were infantile dependence, a mothers overprotective whim, and the chronic nothingtoblamebutme attitude of many a suitor. And, of course, the ladies still prided themselves on their looks while demanding more than just bread and spectacleshopping, for instance, was a must.
Ethel was a pleasant exception: attractive, unadorned by any modern plastic tuning, with a respectable university degree and a decent salary. Yet the men passed her by, marching in tidy ranks toward other prospects, as if she were another rock on the path to their own ruin.
It would be wrong to say she never met a manshe was quite pretty after allbut none of them ever reached the registry office. She was soon to be thirty, an age that, in the old socialist verses, marked the old matriarch and today would be called a young mother. She did not wish to bear a child alone, without a husband.
Ethel trusted horoscopes, or more precisely, the astrological forecasts that clever quacks sold as a simple way to scrape together a few coins. In those trying times, the predictions were everoptimistic: On Tuesday afternoon you shall encounter a fateful meeting with a magnate! Hence the wise advice to carry a toothbrush, for who knew what serious intentions lay in that encounter.
She looked for a partner whose zodiac matched her ownshe was a Sagittarius, a fire sign. Aries and Leo also fell under fire, but Sagittarius was considered the most eventempered of the lot.
Her first great love blossomed in her first year at collegea time now dismissed as toddlerage for those eighteenyearold fledglings. Back then, sex education was a different beast, and she mused, Go on, take your flowers and polleneveryone knows the drill now!
Soon came the creative block. Bills for utilities, transport and food had to be paid, and for the first time she discovered that groceries were not magically taken from a communal fridge. Her parents had supported her financially, but now that she lived alone, two peoples wages were insufficient.
Her boyfriend, Victor, wondered why she expected him to buy food. But the fridge is yours and Im no master of the house! he argued. If its only about that, Ethel replied cleverly, I can hand you the reinsgo on, run the household as you see fit! The next thing she knew, Victor vanished, no longer greeting her in the lecture hall they shared. The flames of her Sagittarius nature seemed to have burned out.
Ethel mournedVictor had been her first love. Yet youth and time did not wait. In her third year she met a new suitor, Samuel, a man well into his thirties who declared, We shall marry, my dear! He was divorced, yet love, she thought, knew no barriers. Unfortunately, Samuel was jobless, a situation that, before the modern ailments and special operations took hold, still plagued many households. His bosses were a nightmare, their demands absurd, the work schedule unbearable. He lived off the charity of his mother, and when Ethel suggested he might take a courier job, he retorted proudly, I am an analyst! She countered, Can an analyst not be a courier? Drive and analyse as you wishmy pantry is empty.
He begged her to ask his mother for help, citing temporary difficulties, a phrase hed repeated for months. Time is a strange thing, he quoted Mayakovsky, flashing a smug grin. What do you think of my erudition? Ethel, ever quickwitted, answered, Then stop asking for food. Times have changedmove your feet faster! Samuel, a Capricorn of the most diligent and reliable signs, took great offence at her suggestion, and their quarrel escalated until he stormed out.
Later she met Leonard, another astrologically inclined fellow who, after meeting her on an astrology forum, felt a genuine affection grow. He constantly called their signs zodiacs, to which Ethel asked, Why that particular distortion? He laughed it off, Its funny! Their exchanges were peppered with invented wordsSnedurka, Strevadesa, Dubina Regovitskayawhich Leonard believed were the height of wit, though they grew tiresome to Ethel as the years passed. Both held respectable jobs, Leonard was a widower with an adult son, and after a brief embarrassment at a family gathering where Leonard, in a fit of jest, misnamed the great Soviet security chief, the old man with Polish roots shrieked, Jesus, Mary! Get out of here, you scoundrel!
The registry office never saw them. Leonard, a Taurus, earthgrounded like a Capricorn, proved to be the most touchyfeely of the zodiac signs. Then Ethel encountered Peter, a divorced, childless gentleman who owned a modest flat, had a good sense of humour, and was as tidy with his money as a Virgo can be. He was practical, thrifty, and, thanks to his earth sign, counted among the most frugal.
They applied to live together; Peter moved in and started letting his old flat to tenants. He asked Ethel to register him at her address. Why? she asked. Youre already registered where you live! He replied, We love each other now, were a familyeverything should be shared! Ethel recalled a joke shed heard: Write your address on my flat, please! Oh, sorry, wrong startdo you believe in God? The moment turned romantic, We love each other, Peter said. Very well, Ethel answered after a pause, Ill register you, and youll register me.
Peter was bewildered. Where? he asked. In my flatour lives are now one. He objected, But you dont live there! Ethel, thinking quickly, suggested, Lets alternate monthsone in my flat, one in yours. She realized the plan left both houses halfempty, like a fish out of water.
Peter fell silent, unable to conjure a clever retort. Ethel pressed, What a sensible solution! He could only mutter, Indeed, while the idea of registering a stranger in ones home loomed like a comedic farce.
The night they were dining, Ethel slipped away to the sittingroom, leaving Peter to mull over his next move. After a while he returned, Shall we go to the pictures? she agreed, and he breathed a sigh of relief, Ive already paid a deposit for the restaurant. She then asked, Will you still register me, Peter? I didnt quite catch that. He stared off, shuffled his feet and left, and she did not stop him. Their wedding never materialised; the talk ended before any official paperwork.
Two of Ethels three closest friends had married in the sense of longterm cohabitationone for six months, another for a yearwhile the third drifted in and out like a joke. Ethel herself, too, had spent over a month with several civil partners, and there was love there, though love, she learned, was more about deeds than fleeting feelings. As the saying went in a certain unfriendly land, There are no bad people.
Ethel, now past her thirtieth birthday, no longer yearned for a wedding. Shed been promoted at work, swapped her late grandmothers tiny flat for a comfortable twobedroom house, bought a sleek foreign car, and taken a short holiday. She concluded that life had turned out well. Childbearing age had been extended to sixty, so she could still have a baby for herself if she wished, and the world was still brimming with sausages of every kind.
