The girl with the matches gives me a light

Magazine "Ogonyok" №52 of 31.12.2006, page 13

Author: Dmitry Bykov

A neat little girl with matches in a white fur coat, white boots and a blue knitted hat stood at the intersection of two central streets and offered everyone a smoke.

This happened in a large city, maybe a capital city, or maybe just a city with a population of millions - even the one in which you live, dear reader. I will not frighten you with the terrible details that the sentimental sadist Andersen loved so much, who always subjected his young heroes to unheard-of tests. Our girl had neither cracked shoes on feet red from the cold, nor torn mittens on hands blue from the cold, nor plaintive requests on lips white from the cold. She did not collect money for her sick mother, did not ask for donations to feed her little brother, and generally looked at passers-by with deep sympathy, as if it was not her, but they who needed beneficent help.

It must be said that on Christmas or shortly before it, on the streets of any city you can periodically meet a girl with matches. But for this, firstly, you need to have an insoluble problem, and secondly, you must not completely lose the useful ability to look around and notice small, neat girls with golden hair and blue serious eyes.

Quite a lot of people with insoluble problems were walking along the central streets at that time. The little girls with matches know where to stand.

For example, just during her mysterious duty, a pale young man with blue circles under his eyes appeared at the far end of the street. For the third week he was wondering whether to call his girlfriend, whom he suspected of infidelity without any particular reason. The friend was so offended that she did not try to dissuade him. Moreover, she hinted to our student that it was really time to run away from such a fool to the first person he met, and if she did not do this earlier, it was solely out of compassion. Then the young man called his girlfriend the appropriate words and slammed the door, and now he cruelly repented. In addition, he really wanted to smoke, and, as luck would have it, he forgot his lighter yesterday at a party, where he overdid it with alcohol, drowning out his love-sickness. There was not a single tobacco kiosk nearby. The student even remembered a joke about hell, in which there is as much grass and shell casings as you want, but no matches.

“Young man,” the girl with the matches called out to him quietly and seriously. - Don't you need a light?

The student stopped and asked himself if he thought this proposal was timely. No, it didn't seem like it.

“It’s very necessary,” he said honestly.

“Choose a match, please,” said the girl and opened a box in front of him, in which matches with multi-colored heads were visible. There were all kinds of them - pistachio, deep green, white, red, and even shiny, as if made of gold leaf. There was only one black one, it lay in the farthest corner of the box, but the student reached out to it because it matched his mood.

“No, we don’t need this one yet,” the girl said still seriously, and the student thought that she was somehow suspiciously mature for her 10-12 years. Somehow too smart, like even excellent students of this age are not. “Perhaps this one is for you,” and she resolutely struck the box with a match with a pink head. The student managed to see the picture on the box - a huge Christmas tree, all covered in old-fashioned balls and candles; he had seen covers like this in children's magazines of the 1900s—magazines whose employees had no idea what the fate was in store for their readers.

The student bent down to the pink light, inhaled the smoke of the Chesterfield, and his head began to spin slightly. The girl looked at him with curiosity and satisfaction, tilting her head slightly to the side. His beloved looked at him in much the same way after the first date, when he timidly noticed that he had a crush on her since his first year. The next second, the student’s cell phone rang, he looked at the identifier, blushed, turned pale, sweated and said in an indifferent voice: “Yes.”

A stream of complaints, tears, gentle reproaches, threats and repentance fell upon him. His legs gave way, but immediately gained unearthly strength - and the student, without thanking the little girl with the matches, galloped off to where the long-awaited words of forgiveness and sadness were pouring out on him. The girl looked after him and hid the box.

Soon, however, she had to remove it again, because a much heavier patient was approaching her along another, perpendicular, street. A forty-year-old unemployed man who had tried many different professions, knew how to drive a car and a tractor, solder pots, dig up a vegetable garden, repair simple electronics on occasion and guide a small yacht through a storm - in a word, one of those on whom every society ideally rests, walked along the snow-covered street in heavy thoughts about his complete lack of demand. Need I add that our loser was also burdened with a family. The Moscow representative office of a large company, desperate to instill in the local population law-abidingness, commitment and transparency, has just closed. Our hero was thrown out into the street without an apology or severance pay, as happens all the time, despite the growing civility of domestic business. Once upon a time, at the request of the boss, the driver quit smoking, but now the boss was not there, and it would have been a good time to light up.

“Uncle,” said the girl. - Would you like to smoke?

“It’s too early for you to smoke,” the unemployed man said sternly. He had two of his own.

“I don’t smoke, I light a cigarette,” the girl said edifyingly. - Take out your Prima.

“I quit,” said the worker.

“Well, so what,” answered the girl. “You have one in your coat pocket, I know for sure.” Get it, it's on the left.

The uncle obediently reached into his left pocket and was horrified to discover that the child was right.

- Clairvoyant, or what? - he asked suspiciously. Now it seemed to him that everyone wanted to scam him.

“Don’t ask too much, uncle,” the girl smiled, and something in her smile told the uncle that there was really no need to ask. - You pull the match.

The uncle closed his eyes and pulled out a black match.

“As we agreed,” the girl sighed, took away the black match and took out a green one. She struck it on the box and brought a small green flame to her uncle’s Prima. The uncle took a sweet drag and felt the beauty of independence. His head began to spin slightly, he lifted it to let the blood drain, something a hypertensive fisherman he knew had once taught him to do, and then he saw an advertisement right above the girl’s head: “An experienced driver needed for a very good pay, you can smoke.” He reached out to tear down the advertisement so that no one else would get the position, but instead of the advertisement, he suddenly found in his hand a business card of the future employer with two telephone numbers, a business one and a mobile one. The uncle shook his head and trotted off to get hired.

The girl looked after him with the hidden cunning with which some smart girls sometimes look at stupid boys, but the smile immediately left her face, because from the opposite side of the street a woman of about thirty, who had suffered from muscular dystrophy since childhood, was approaching her in an awkward domestic stroller. Recently, this woman’s despair reached the point that she was ready to drink or smoke, just to distract herself from her weakness and complete lack of demand. Despite widespread stability, the disabled person was and remains of no use to anyone except his own family, and the family’s strength is not endless.

“Madam,” said the girl, neglecting the usual address “woman” or “you.” - Would you like to have a smoke?

“I can’t,” said the cripple. - I can’t walk anyway.

“Once a year is fine,” the girl said convincingly, confidently taking out a pack of thin ladies’ cigarettes. - Please choose a match!

Of course, disabled people in such situations for some reason always choose a black one, but the girl looked at the woman with condemnation, struck an orange match - and the stroller melted, and the unfortunate cripple plopped down onto the sidewalk.

“You see,” she said, not missing an opportunity to remind him that she was right. “I can’t smoke, I’m already falling.”

“Get up and go,” the girl said rudely. — I lay down here.

The unfortunate woman unsteadily stood on all fours, then, clinging to the girl, rose to her feet, then straightened up and took the first step.

- What am I? - she asked in a half whisper.

“Go ahead,” the girl encouraged her, hiding the matches. - Smoking is harmful for her, you see... Living is also harmful, do you know what happens from this?!

In the next two hours, the girl with the matches gave a light to a lonely gay man, who immediately sharply felt his naturalness, a sad straight woman who dreamed of enrolling her child in kindergarten, two migrant workers who suffered from skinheads, and one skinhead who suffered from acne; A teacher also passed by, almost crying because he had nothing, and an oligarch, sobbing loudly because he had everything. Having lit a cigarette with the girl with matches, they switched places to mutual satisfaction - and soon the teacher, appointed by the governor of a remote region, decisively brought him to the forefront, and the oligarch taught the children really important things. However, this happened a year later. In the meantime, the girl with matches was discovered at an intersection by a major official of the city hall.

- Girl! - he yelled. - With matches! Where are your parents, girl?!

“Uncle,” the girl said very seriously and looked at him with large transparent eyes. - You will be late for the meeting.

- What a meeting! - the official cried. He was precisely responsible for the fight against homelessness, and he had absolutely nothing to boast about in this field, because in the orphanages of his hometown such conditions were created for children from which they immediately ran back to the streets - it was warmer, more comfortable, and safer. The official was given a unique opportunity to save the situation with personal PR. - What kind of meeting can there be when an ownerless girl with matches is freezing on the street! Yes, I will immediately, with my own hands, take you to the orphanage and make sure that you are shaved, because you probably have lice!

“Please take your hands away,” the girl said quietly.

- No, no, I beg you, don’t remove your hands! — someone’s surprisingly vile voice screeched over the official’s ear. Such a voice could not belong to either a man or a woman, or an old man, or a child, but only to the author and presenter of the “Nuclear Program,” the scandalous reporter Gleb Kosykh. “We’re just preparing a story about child molestation, and when a major official of the city administration strokes a girl, that’s just it!” We beg you, one more stroke! Let me remind you that our program is officially equated to a national project, because no one compromises the idea of ​​investigative journalism as much as we do! “Kosykh’s voice broke into a completely unbearable squeal, and a fat cameraman who had grown up next to him out of nowhere was already aiming at the official with the dull eye of a television camera.

- What the hell is this?! - thundered a representative of the local police department, setting off on another raid (do not forget that the streets were central and government officials appeared on them regularly). - Girl? With matches?! Are we setting fire to the existing order?! Oh, you National Bolshaya! “He pulled handcuffs out of his pocket and shook them cheerfully in front of the girl’s nose. - Make way, everyone, citizens, now they will start detaining a minor extremist here! Look what they came up with - in broad daylight on the street with matches! Are you not satisfied with your growing prosperity? We'll do some interrogation!

“This is how the authorities deal with dissidents!” - the oppositionist who happened to be there immediately squealed joyfully. “Even children become victims of the regime, even young girls go out on their march of dissent!” Immediately, immediately send here a representative of the international foundation “Malicious Observation” and document the suffering of a child who is exhausted from the complete lack of freedom of speech!

- Girl? With matches? - a representative of the movement to combat the illegal movement of migrants, “We Are Here,” barked indignantly. - What are you doing here, huh?! You're not local! Confess, vile migrant worker, where you came from! I haven't seen you here before! It is because of people like you who have come here in large numbers that our natives do not have the opportunity to sell matches! Since childhood, since infancy, I have dreamed of selling matches, but because of people like you, I am forced to starve in the “Painted Hundred” movement! Well, show me your passport with registration, or I’ll arrange a complete Kondopoga for you in twenty-four hours!

- Don’t you dare, don’t dare, this is my girl! - roared in the back rows of the resulting crowd a large local philanthropist, known to most residents under the nickname Syavka in the roaring nineties, and now running a casino in the very center. - I will do charity work now! Let me in, I'll give it to her! Everyone says - send the gambling business to four zones, but the gambling business feeds hungry children! Let me go to the girl, I’m bringing her a gold card from our casino and breakfast of oatmeal!

- Leave the girl alone! - a boy from the youth movement “Slava”, named after his supreme curator, squealed annoyingly, red with indignation. - This is ours, the right girl! She will join the ranks of loyal youth, will go with us to the picket at the American Embassy and will go to Seliger! Let me in, I'm the district commissioner! Gleb Savlovsky shook my hand and cried with real tears, saying: “This is what I have come to!”

For some time, the girl with the matches looked with disgust at the greedy hands reaching out to her and listened to the greedy cries. All these people needed it, even needed it - but not at all for what it was actually intended for. She grinned disgustedly, and everything fell silent. Only a deputy of the local legislative assembly fought from behind in hysterics, calling for the child to be immediately fined for demonstrative smoking on the streets. The deputy himself kept a small stash, but did it secretly, undemonstratively.

The girl opened her box, where there were very few matches left. They, however, were still quite enough to solve the problems of several residents of this city, but judging by the sly smile that lit up her face, she suddenly found a much simpler way to solve these problems and, in addition, save matches.

“Fuck you all,” said the girl with an angelic smile and struck a black match.

At that very moment the crowd around her dispersed. The outlines of the city elite turned pale, wavered and melted into the frosty air. No one even had time to squeak, only the long face of Gleb Kosykh, who reacted very quickly to any changes, stretched out even more, and a fleeting regret flashed across him that he would never have time to tell about this miracle in his “Nuclear Program” And there won’t be any program anymore...

“That’s nice,” said the girl with the matches. She carefully took off her white fur coat, revealing a pair of also very white wings, sparkling in the sun. Flapping her wings, she smoothly separated from the frozen pavement and swam upward. In her hands she tightly clutched a box of matches.

Some, of course, will consider this ending not optimistic enough, because the matches have flown away, and there are still a lot of unresolved problems left. But I dare to assure you that Christmas comes once a year, no more and no less, and you will meet the Little Match Girl more than once. You just need to be able to look