Life Like Other People's

Momentarily, he lost control of himself and hit her. That was not a symbolic slap of the kind that she had occasionally contracted before, but a serious hook. He hit her the way he would hit a mercenary that failed him.

He paid a pile of money for her treatment and another pile for the lawyers to keep him out of prison.

When discharged from hospital, Elena did not return to him. He made no attempts to find her – he understood that it was useless. He was not a wise or sensitive man, but it was finally borne in on him that they were not destined to be together.

He could not live with Elena, and he could not live without her.

He drank a lot, seized every available contract, then drank again.

Once, as he was rummaging through the Internet in search of mercenary vacancies, he stumbled on something that was his salvation, or at least, that was what he thought.

It was not quite legal, and it was going to cost him – he would have to throw away almost all of his remaining savings – but he did not think twice about it.

“Doctor, is she going to remember anything?”

“We used the mentogram that was made while she was in hospital, so, in theory, her memory will contain everything up to that moment” explained the doctor. “But the short-term memory is always actualized to a lesser degree than the more distant past.”

“I want her to forget everything that has been going on between us recently.”

“Most likely, that will be the case,” assured the doctor.

Kurt was looking at a woman which was sleeping peacefully but was about to wake up.

“She is perfect,” he said.

“I couldn’t agree more,” responded the doctor who was pleased with his work.

The clone of Elena opened her eyes.

Elena-2 saw Kurt and smiled at him.

“Darling, where am I? What happened to me?… I don’t remember anything.”

He was feasting his eyes on her and could not have enough of her. He brought her home and, unable to resists his desire, led her straight to the bedroom and started undressing her.

She was the same Elena, only younger and fresher. Her shoulder no longer bore the scar, a mark of the time when she worked as a singer in a cafе where some drunken customers once started a fistfight and she got scratched with a broken bottle.

At first, she acted shy. She lowered her eyes, but eyed him through her lashes.

Then she threw her arms around his neck.

He was not aware that he could desire a woman so much. He had not been so indefatigable even at the age of seventeen.

For a few days, they did not leave their bedroom.

After two weeks, he asked:

“Why are you smiling all the time?”

“I am happy.”

“All the time?”

“Of course. I am with you, so how can I not be happy?”

“And what if… I’m just saying, what if we quarrel?”

A shadow of alarm flitted across her beautiful face.

“How? Why quarrel?”

“What if I bawl you out?”

She was horrified.

“Darling, are you angry with me? Prey, tell me what I’m doing wrong. Maybe, I cook badly or you don’t like the way I am dressed?… How stupid I am! You have such a hard job, you’re all strung up, and here I am annoying you. Forgive me, sweetheart!”

That night he went to the city and got drunk in a bar.

Not only he did not love her now – he had grown to hate her. He hated her perpetual loving gaze, her smile, her endearment.

He loved the other one – that first Elena who had been mocking him, driving him mad and cheating on him with a pizza delivery boy.

In his mail, a few proposals in his line of work had piled up. He picked the most dangerous tour.

He woke out of his trance.

He was standing on a path beside the house of his florist neighbor. His face was wet with raindrops – it must have been drizzling for some time already.

He was overwhelmed by burning shame. How could he treat her so? OK, she was a clone, so what? She was a beautiful woman, a perfection! He loved her and none but her – not the former wayward broad whom he hardly remembered.

She had come to love him, too, and he had failed to appreciate that. He had rejected her and had known no better than to sign a deadly contract and return home an invalid.

“Swine! What a swine I am!”

Could she ever forgive him?

Only then he noticed that the neighbor was watching him from the orangery.

Kurt assumed the most amiable expression and waived to the man.

“Hello! Can I ask you a huge favor? You see, I’ve had a little fight with my wife…”

There was a cab standing beside his house. “Has someone come to visit us? Can it be Margo?” he thought, puzzled.

He entered, carrying a beautiful bouquet of roses.

Elena, dressed for a journey, was standing in the hallway, with a large suitcase in her hand.