Do not part with your loved ones ...

III

Bessonov was released from the psychiatric hospital the following January. He and Sonia got married a few days later. Sergei got a job in his field, and there were no more breakdowns or suicide attempts. Still, he had monthly check-ups. Sonya and Sergei had a happy marriage, but neither was ready to have children.
Bessonov would not let Sonia go for a second, and Sonia would not let him go for a second. They gave each other a boundless sea of love and affection. In the evenings they sat on the sofa, hugged each other, kissed each other on the cheeks, kissed each other in the hair, and said warm words about their love, about the fact that they could not do without each other. Sergei helped Sonya with her modelling work and Sonya helped Sergei with his designing. It was a happy couple who only held on to each other. They really could not exist on their own.
Two happy years passed, living in the same flat in the same cramped conditions, but not in resentment. One cold winter's day, they went out for a walk. As they entered the courtyard, surrounded by other courtyards, Sergei picked up some snow in his hand and threw it lightly on his beloved's back.
- Ah!' cried Sonja, turning round.
She made a snowball and threw it back. They moved closer and further apart, and then they were so close that Sergei put his arms around her and they spun around a few times. Sonya jokingly broke out of the embrace and pushed Sergei into the snowdrift behind him.
Bessonov took Sonechka's hand and pulled her behind him. They were both completely covered in snow. They laughed and rejoiced.
Sonya got up and ran to the wall of the house, hiding behind a high snowdrift. Sergei threw a snowball at her, and she came out and threw it back at him. Sergei slipped and fell back into the snowdrift. Then the caretaker, Nikitich, came out and slammed the back door. There was a faint, incomprehensible cracking sound. Suddenly something shattered loudly, as if several window frames had fallen. Sonia's laughter stopped abruptly. Sergei stood up, smiling, and noticed that several icicles had fallen from the roof.
- So-nya! - he stretched out in reply, - silence, - Sonja! - he repeated and approached the snowdrift, - Sonja, come out! - He stepped behind the snowdrift and his breath was cut off.
His heart pounded, his legs went numb and he fell to his knees. In front of him lay his beloved Sonechka, who had been laughing happily and had been in his arms only half a minute before. She was lying with a bloody, broken head. The blood was splattered all over the snow, and shards of ice - icicles - lay close by. In her open grey-blue eyes was the reflection of Sergei, and on her lips was the reflection of laughter.
- Sonja!' he broke out softly and hoarsely, 'Sonja! - he shouted at the top of his voice, took her bloody warm head, ran his red, wet and viscous hair through it, - SONYA! Help! - he cried across the courtyard.
The caretaker came running, the residents of the ground floors came running, many of them watching from the side or from their windows and balconies.
When the doctors arrived, a terrible verdict was reached: Sonya had died instantly. Sergey was knocked unconscious by the news and woke up in hospital. One day later.
- What... happened? - he asked the nurse in the ward.
- Just a moment, I'll call your doctor... - the nurse went out and the doctor came in.
- Are you awake? That's good!
- What's good here... my wife died today in front of my eyes, because of my stupidity... - Sergey's tears came.
- All right, calm down! You mustn't worry! When you fainted that day, you had a rupture of one of your vital arteries, a kind of local clot rupture, to be clear. You're very lucky that you got to the operating theatre in time, otherwise not only Sofia would have had to be buried, but you too...
- You said that day - wasn't it today?
- No, it was 24 hours ago. You were in a coma.
- Oh my God... it hurts...' he said, referring not only to the throbbing in his heart, but also to the deep, aching pain.
- Please, you can't worry now, or the clot will break off the main clot. Or your heart will rupture. Your heart is weak right now.
- When will I be discharged?
- In three days, if everything goes well.
- Where's Sonia's body?
- It's in the hospital morgue. You can collect it any day.
- Thank you, doctor, - Sergei sighed and closed his eyes.
- Get some sleep. It will be easier both mentally and physically.
Bessonov fell asleep.
Three days later he was discharged. Entering the flat, he was greeted by particles of dust swirling in the air. Dusty furniture and windows. He was not called by Sonya's familiar voice from the kitchen or the study, he was not greeted on the threshold by his beautiful, intelligent and beloved wife, the closest person he had ever had. He could smell the perfume he had given her on their first anniversary, but he could not see her. It seemed to him that something warm was floating in the air of the apartment, flying through him but unable to stop beside him. He felt hot and cold, a feeling of déjà vu followed him at every step, and he could hear Sonechka's soft voice... He fell onto the sofa and lay there sobbing until evening. It was dark when he called the funeral parlour and asked them to bring Sonechka's body from the morgue to his apartment.
An hour later, the van pulled up in front of the house. In an oak coffin lined with white velvet, which Bessonov had immediately paid for, lay a pale girl with red hair that had lost its colour, faded. Sergei wept again when he saw his beloved. The coffin was lifted into the flat and, at Bessonov's direction, placed in the middle of the living room.
Sergei lit candles and placed them beside the coffin. The flat was dark. He sat beside it, leaning on the table, and sobbed.
- Sonechka... how I love you, - he took her cold hand and squeezed it with his. With his other hand he ran his fingers through her hair, revealing the bard's crack in her head, and sobbed again, "Sonechka... how could it be, Lord! Why? - he took one of the candles and began to drip wax on his hands, and then to run his hands slowly over the fire. In a way he was delirious. He repeated her name over and over, never moving from the coffin. He could smell her perfume, the scent of her hair, he wanted to believe that at any moment her eyes would move again and she would rise. But he realised with fear the most terrible thing of all. But he realised with horror the most terrible thing a man in love can realise: his love is gone. No more, and never will be. Tomorrow her body would be thrown into the cold earth.
Sergei put on his coat and ran out of the house. He went to the nearest florist where he bought a large bouquet of seventeen creamy pink large roses. Then he went into one of the shops and bought a bar of white airy chocolate and went back to the flat. Without taking off his coat and shoes, he went into the living room, laid the bouquet at Sonia's feet, sobbed again and fell with his head on the edge of the coffin. He took her hand again and stroked it fervently. Already cold, a little stale, but tender in his memory, her hand. A hand in which the veins no longer pulsed, which could no longer run over his head and face.
He opened the chocolate bar and began to break off two pieces, which he divided into two more, and ate one, chewing slowly and doomedly, and placed the other on the edge of the coffin by Sonia's head. He mumbled something for a long time, saying 'Hallowed be thy name' and 'May the kingdom of heaven come...' after each phrase. It was the only thing I could make out of his words. He spoke after every broken piece of chocolate.
Midnight. Having calmed down a little, Sergei took the candle and went to the corner of the room. He lifted the parquet floor and took out a chest. It still contained a revolver, a dozen cartridges, half a bottle of brandy and a broken gold watch. He did not drink. He took the watch, the revolver and the cartridges. He put the watch on the headboard of the coffin, then rushed to Sonia's coat, which smelled of perfume and roses, found the same watch and put it next to the first one. But it did not move. Only his, and the hand jumped slowly from one division to another, sometimes even twitching in place.
His face was shaking, as were his hands. Slowly he loaded all six holes. The cartridges often fell out of his hands, the candle went out, and this short action lasted half an hour. When the cartridges were still in place, Sergei kissed Sonia's body on the cold, pale lips that had once been scarlet pink, took the candle and the broken clock and went up to the attic. From the attic he went out onto the gentle roof and sat down on its edge.
Snow fell lazily from the milky grey sky, as on the day of Zhenya's death, as on the day of Sonia's death... Sergei's soul was tormented by memories and happy days of life that had ended so quickly. How many deaths this house has suffered....how terrible it is to realise that neither Zhenya nor Sonia are gone....and it's my fault. I could have prevented it all. Oh, God! How good everything was. Damn winter! - Sergei cried, 'Why? Why?! Why? Why? she's gone. - Tears flowed, - Why do we love so much? Love to the point of despair, to the point of madness? Why do we become so attached to those we love? - He touched his icy hands to his flaming forehead and remembered the questions he had asked himself a few years ago, -Is the answer to all these questions so simple? It's because we love people to death, we can't imagine life without them, we're afraid of losing them... and if we lose them, we can't find a place for ourselves... Why do we love and question this love? Because we care, we don't want to lose the ones we love so much... the ones we hold so dear... And I have two choices now - either the hospital or the grave. And it's going to be decided here and now... - He stood up and looked into the thick white of the winter night sky. Snowflakes fell on his face and mingled with his tears. Sergei took a revolver from his pocket and stepped to the edge of the roof. He put the muzzle of the revolver to his temple and pressed it so hard that it hurt, with his other hand he opened the cover of the clock and looked at the photograph of Sonia smiling happily; the hands of the clock stopped at the same moment, "Sonia," he whispered, "I'll see you soon... very soon... I can't live without you...'.
The years of his life, every single moment of joy and happiness with Sonechka flashed through Bessonov's mind. Everything, absolutely everything, was on the film of his life, even the things he had never remembered before. He thought only of her. And now she lay cold in his rose-scented apartment, the apartment under whose windows she had died five days before. ....
Bessonov leaned over the edge of the roof, holding the toes of his feet against the thin edge of the roof. A shot rang out, spreading through the humid air across the city. Only a few passers-by and drivers saw a man fall from the roof of a three-storey building....
The watch shattered into small pieces. The photo on the golden lid fell onto the white, bloody, warm snow...