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She tapped on the keys, peering intently at the text of the English translation written on a piece of paper. Once she picks up herself, it means she saves, we decided. Most of our clients eventually switched to self-service in order to save a couple of hryvnias and pay only for the translation of letters.

On Vanessa s questionnaire, containing bait that other women do not have (for example, “I like to meet the dawn while riding a horse”), answered at least a dozen of the same romantic admirers. Each of them was ready to meet with her sunrises and sunsets, riding a horse, bison, antelope etc. In addition, the attached photograph of Vanessa with her hair loose, in something translucent, with half-childish, half-sinful eyes could not leave men indifferent.

It is difficult to imagine a more controversial creature. On the one hand, she was incredibly devout, kept all the posts, dressed more than modestly, and once sang in a church choir. On the other hand, the photographs she sent to select respondents were very candid. And the statements that broke from time to time betrayed a rather purposeful and cynical nature.

She signed all her letters “Lady Vanessa”. And we received bundles of enthusiastic responses addressed specifically to “Lady Vanessa.” She treated her popularity with restraint, and she was skeptical about letters, sorting them by country and continent, as well as by the alleged contents of wallets. “I’m not going there, it’s cold there,” she said. – And what am I going to do with this poor teacher? No, I won t answer that. ”

Her letters “there” are worth a separate discussion. She used to bring me a bunch of beaded pages for translation. To translate them into English, you first had to translate them from Russian into Russian, because all of Vanessa s letters were a stream of consciousness. The letters were pretentious, and the thoughts were ragged, and I spent most of my time “combing” them, which was like working with a rake in an autumn garden. Vanessa would not allow me to divide long sentences into short ones “so that her writing style would not be disturbed.” And the poor English speakers were forced to wade through the jungle of constructions that were completely uncharacteristic of the English language.

Having a higher special education (Vanessa graduated from the psychological faculty of the university) and giving out sensible advice from the point of view of psychology, Vanessa was completely helpless when it came to her. Questions like: “What did he mean here?” or “What is the best answer to this?” – Tatiana and I were bewildered. The further, the more we became convinced that the woman does not understand WHAT is written, but tries to find the subtext, WHY it is written. Men, as a rule, have a simpler structure: they write what they mean. “Everyone writes as he hears,” – as the unforgettable Okudzhava sang.

After several months of fruitless search for a partner worthy of all the given parameters, Vanessa despaired of finding her destiny through dating on the Internet. Saying something like Michurin s: “Let s not wait for favors from nature,” she decided to conquer the world herself. Nevertheless, the route laid by her lay through the points of residence of potential suitors – former correspondents. Brussels, Toledo, Parma, Avignon. The names themselves carried the charm of the unknown and breathed history.

She decided to start in Brussels, where one of her most “reliable” fans lived, and Tatiana, as the director of a travel agency, helped open her a Schengen visa. An impassioned letter was sent to Jean from Brussels announcing an imminent meeting, after which he immediately disappeared from the horizon. Vanessa did not know this, as she was already on her way “there”. She did not have a normal postal address for this cowardly Jean. This was the misfortune of many of our women: more often than not, all they knew about a partner was his e-mail and his legend.

So, Vanessa was in the center of Europe, with poor English, almost no money and with very vague ideas about what to do. She left in the summer. Once or twice a month, very messy letters came from her by mail, from which it was difficult to understand whether she decided to get a job as a dishwasher in a bar, or declare herself a former active dissident and await a decision in the European Parliament.

Three months later, her visa expired, and, apparently, Vanessa was offered to live in a camp for displaced persons, a sort of reservation. All the violators of the visa regime, caught by the special services, lived there and waited in the wings, or rather, the decision of government bodies to extend the period of stay or immediate repatriation. Sometimes such a decision has to wait for years.

Apparently, on the reservation they enjoyed all the benefits of the civilized Western world, lived off a special fund and dreamed only that they would not be sent home.

In any case, the last letter from Vanessa sounded optimistic, and she invited her mother to come and share with her the delights of life on the reservation. Probably, it was not so bad there …

To be continued…