In November, Valentina Nikolaevna’s country house burned down. Thankfully, the retired lady herself was not harmed, as by that time she had already closed the country house for the season and was living in her city apartment. It is unknown what caused the fire; it might have been an electrical issue or perhaps homeless people had entered to warm up and overdid it. Either way, everything burned down: the small country house, the simple outbuildings, and even the wooden fence with its gate. Where the plot that brought Valentina Nikolaevna such joy in the summer months once stood, now only a black, grim ash remained.
For the pensioner, this event was a heavy blow.
She dearly loved her country house and was so used to tending to her small, well-kept garden every year that she dreaded the idea of a stuffy, joyless summer in the city apartment.
But with the arrival of spring, Valentina Nikolaevna found solace in the flowerbeds under the windows of her home. The local residents didn’t care much for them, and the flowerbeds looked neglected, overgrown with weeds and couch grass in the summer.
As soon as it warmed up, Valentina Nikolaevna, accustomed to working with soil, eagerly set to work. She diligently weeded the flowerbeds, bought good soil from a gardening store, and generously fertilized the future flower garden. Gradually, Valentina Nikolaevna’s houseplants that could grow outdoors, and then those she specifically purchased, began to populate the lawn soil.
The flowerbeds grew lush with ficuses, nasturtiums, pansies, and even capricious cyclamens and gloxinias thrived thanks to Valentina Nikolaevna’s gardening talents. A magnificent bush of roses, blazing red among the other flowers as if a king among courtiers, was her particular pride.
The flowerbeds improved every day. The flowers were all carefully tied up, trimmed. Neighbors, who had grown used to their wildness, now marveled and admired the pensioner’s efforts, who created and decorated her little garden with warmth and love.
They even started calling it «Valentina Nikolaevna’s little garden,» acknowledging her deserved right to manage the flowerbeds unquestionably.
Now every morning, Valentina Nikolaevna could admire the fruits of her inspired labor from her window and enjoy the scent of flowers wafting through the warm air, almost like at the country house.
One day, Valentina Nikolaevna saw a new neighbor and his wife leaving their building—they had moved in recently, and the pensioner hadn’t had time to get acquainted with them. Honestly, she hadn’t really tried—the young, brash couple made her feel timid and vaguely uneasy.
The husband had a well-fed, groomed face and a predatory glint in his eyes, while the wife always wore sunglasses, and the corner of her mouth was perpetually slightly twisted in a disdainful grimace.
The couple got into their car—a red «sedan» that looked very expensive. The car purred as it started, and jerked forward. However, it didn’t manage to exit the parking on the first try, and, grumbling angrily, the «sedan» backed up.
Its brake lights lit up red, as predatory as the owner’s eyes, and the car, crushing the barrier, backed one of its wheels onto the flowerbed.
The car stopped, roared its engine in farewell, and sped away from the yard.
Valentina Nikolaevna jumped to her feet, clutching her hands to her heart. A sharp pain shot through her chest, but ignoring it, she hurried out onto the street.
Her rose bush, the pride of Valentina Nikolaevna, was irretrievably lost. The car wheel mercilessly crushed it, and now a dark, ugly gap gaped in the carefully planned multicolor array of the flowerbed.
«What kind of disgrace is this?» sympathetically said a neighbor passing by at the time. «Such beauty ruined!»
Several more pensioners, walking their dogs in the courtyard and having witnessed the incident, approached the distraught Valentina Nikolaevna and expressed their sympathy. However, they were all a bit afraid of the rude new resident and clearly weren’t ready for any decisive actions.
There was nothing to be done, and Valentina Nikolaevna, armed with gardening tools, managed to bring the flowerbed back to a somewhat presentable state.
She took the destroyed rose bush to the dump and couldn’t hold back her tears. Despite her timidity and aversion to any kind of scandal, she decided to have a serious talk with the new neighbor and at least get an apology. Explain everything in a humane way, maybe they didn’t notice…
Valentina Nikolaevna didn’t want to start her acquaintance with the new neighbors with a quarrel, but she wanted to point out the inadmissibility of such indifference to someone else’s labor. In the end, this flower garden was extraordinarily dear to her; she had tended it so diligently, and now it felt as if they had trampled all over her care, all over the time she had spent with dirty boots.
Valentina Nikolaevna felt ill all day. She drank some valerian, which made it a bit better, but she was still frightened by the impending conversation with the new neighbor. Nonetheless, she decided not to back down and settled by the window (she lived on the first floor) in the evening to not miss his return. The sweet scent of flowers always poured through her open window, now without the velvety rose notes.
The red «sedan» returned early in the evening, while it was still light outside. Valentina Nikolaevna, not wanting to lose her resolve, hurried out of the house immediately. The neighbor was slightly drunk, smelling of alcohol, his face flushed. His wife was holding a bouquet of beautiful red roses.
Seeing the bouquet, Valentina Nikolaevna couldn’t hold back, and tears sprang from her eyes, all her prepared words flying out of her head. She approached the neighbor and stammered something through her tears.
«What? What do you want from me, old woman?» the man grimaced.
«This morning… Just look, you ruined the flowerbed with your car. And you bent the fence. And you didn’t even stop, didn’t even come out to look… How could you? I did it all myself, with my own hands… And you didn’t even stop… Didn’t even look…» the unfortunate pensioner cried.
«Tfuh, all this fuss over some weeds?» the man replied disdainfully, trying to sidestep Valentina Nikolaevna. «It was hardly worth it! Set up an exhibition of amateur gardeners here!»
«But you have no conscience! To treat someone else’s labor like this!» the pensioner wouldn’t let him pass.
«And who even allowed you to plant anything at our apartment building? By what right, huh? It’s not your land! Sit at home and grow your own flowers in pots, understood?»
«How can you speak to me like that? What is this?» exclaimed Valentina Nikolaevna.
«I’ll talk however I want!» snapped the neighbor. «Get out of the way.»
«What are you puffing yourself up for?» said his wife disdainfully. «You can see she’s some kind of crazy.»
«How are you not ashamed? You won’t even apologize… There was such a beautiful rose bush, and you don’t care. Such roses… I took such good care of them, and you…» the pensioner cried even harder. A pain shot through her chest again.
«Just choke on your roses!» the wife suddenly threw the bouquet in her face. «Here, take this! Happy now? Old hysteric!»
Valentina Nikolaevna gasped, covered her face with her hands, and stumbled back. The roses scattered across the driveway like a blood-red crushed carpet.
«Stop bothering us!» yelled the wife, clicking her heels as she headed to the building.
«Remember what I said. Don’t bother us anymore,» the new resident threw back as a parting shot and left.
The entrance door slammed. Valentina Nikolaevna was left alone on the bench. Her head was spinning, her legs felt like they didn’t belong to her. Everything around her was drowning in a gray fog. The pensioner made an attempt to get up, which she managed on the second try. She was grateful that she lived on the first floor. If only she could make it to her apartment, to the phone.
Overcoming weakness and a chilling feeling of stiffness rising from her legs, Valentina Nikolaevna took cautious, tiny steps toward the building. She managed the heavy door and even conquered a few steps inside the entrance, but she couldn’t make it to her apartment.
It was as if someone had turned off a light bulb in her head, and the pensioner plunged into darkness.
Half an hour later, a neighbor from her floor found Valentina Nikolaevna. The pensioner was lying motionless on the cold floor of the entrance.
«Oh, Lord, what is happening?» wailed the neighbor, rushing to the limp body. «Nikolaevna, what have you thought up? Nikolaevna!»
With the help of neighbors, the pensioner was carried into her apartment and an ambulance was called. Thus, Valentina Nikolaevna ended up in the hospital with the ominous diagnosis of a stroke.
The old lady’s body fought with the same determination with which she had planted flowers, and Valentina Nikolaevna pulled through. When her son rushed from another city, she was already in her right mind, although very weak.
«Mom, what are you scaring me for?» her son sat beside the bed where Valentina Nikolaevna lay and gently adjusted her pillow. «Don’t do this anymore, okay?»
«Okay, Vadim, I promise, it won’t happen again,» the old lady smiled weakly.
«Was there something… well, a reason?» Vadim cautiously asked. «Bad news, or did someone upset you?»
Valentina Nikolaevna didn’t like, nor could she convincingly lie, but she didn’t want to drag her son into the whole nasty situation, so she chose to keep silent.
«Come on, mom, tell me,» her son immediately understood from her face and became serious. «What happened? Who?»
«How can people be so low… so heartless?» sobbed Valentina Nikolaevna, and she told him everything about the quarrel and the subsequent attack. Vadim’s face turned to stone after hearing the story.
«You know what, mom?» he said thoughtfully, after the pensioner had finished. «I think it’s harmful to your health to live next to such people. I think you need to move to a place with a healthier atmosphere.»
«But, son…»
«Shh, rest. We can always discuss this later. But there’s one thing I better not put off for later.»
An hour later, Vadim’s son was already sitting in a car across from the entrance where his mother lived, looking at the bright flower beds. The new resident hadn’t carried out his threat regarding the other flowers, perhaps he forgot about her and the insignificant old lady the very next day. Still, in this blooming splendor, the place where the proud rose bush once blushed looked unpleasant, like a hole left from a pulled tooth.
Soon, the red «sedan» pulled into the parking lot and honked angrily several times. Vadim put on his most friendly smile and got out of the car. The face of his mother’s new neighbor radiated aggression and fierceness.
«What are you doing here?» he barked, approaching Vadim. «This is, you know, my spot, got it? And I’ve never even seen you or your car here before.»
«I came from far away,» Vadim smiled even wider. «Just wanted to look at the flowers. Admire them, so to speak. And my favorite roses are somehow missing. Not right, don’t you think?»
«What? What flowers?» the neighbor frowned, then turned to look at the flowerbeds. «These ones? Who needs them? Are you sick? Get out of here, good and proper, before I…»
Vadim couldn’t resist the pleasure and, with great satisfaction, punched the new resident in the teeth. In the end, Valentina Nikolaevna’s apartment in that building was sold, and Vadim took her to live with him. With the money, they bought a small country house, where the pensioner lives from May to September and happily tends to her new little garden, which, according to her son, turned out even better than the previous one.
As for the former neighbors of Valentina Nikolaevna, life in that building didn’t go too well after that nasty deed: either the car would break down, or a cat would mess under their door, or the upstairs neighbors would flood them, and maladies fell one after another on the relatively young and healthy couple.
Whether it was disorder or, conversely, a pattern—it’s unclear.
Only since then, the woman who had thrown the roses in Valentina Nikolaevna’s face, for some reason, remembers that same pensioner they had insulted and mocked, leaving her alone in the entrance in a helpless state.
She remembers and sighs. Whether out of anger or repentance is unclear.
But her husband reassures her, saying there’s no such thing as karma, don’t worry, it’s just a coincidence…
