A happy family lived in a small provincial town. Mom Larisa is a doctor, dad Alexander is a police captain and Vlad’s beautiful little daughter. A married couple dreamed of having a child, but they could not do it for a long time.
Then financial problems did not allow to have offspring, then health failed. And finally, the young people had a daughter. The mother completely immersed herself in education, all kinds of clubs and sections, developing classes. The woman spared no effort or time for the child. The father spent almost all his time in the service in order to provide for his girls.
Vlada pleased her parents with exemplary behavior and success in development. She was the most gifted girl in her group. The teachers all the time set her as an example, a real pride for mom and dad. Larisa taught her daughter long songs and poems. The girl’s level of development was above average. Mom loved Vlada very much. She sacrificed her desires and needs. Instead of buying herself a new dress, she went to the store with the girl and bought her favorite toys. Dad also gave his daughter everything she wanted. There was peace and quiet in the family.
Harmony remained in the relationship between Larisa and Alexander. The husband treated his family with trepidation, calling them «my princesses». For 10 years of living together, the feelings between a man and a woman have not cooled down, and with the birth of a daughter, on the contrary, they flared up with renewed vigor.
On holidays, the young family went to the village to visit Alexander’s parents. Larisa was left an orphan, so the man’s mother and father became her own people. They took her in as a daughter. The couple planned to increase their family and give birth to Vlad’s brother or sister. Fortunately, Alexander was promoted at work and his salary became higher than before. Moreover, Larisa came out of maternity leave and also began to receive a full salary. Everything was stable in the family. She really looked like an exemplary one. Some friends envied them with white envy and set each other as an example.
The father of the family had a friend Rahim, who went through not only fire and water and copper pipes with Alexander, but also the war. They served in the same unit and immediately found a common language. Once he pulled Alexander’s lifeless body out from under bullets, so he thanked his reliable comrade all his life, calling and considering him his own brother.
Rahim was born and raised in the Caucasus. He held strict views on life and their opinions with Alexander sometimes differed. He was also married to a beautiful woman who gave him three daughters. As a true Caucasian, a man wanted a son — a successor of the family, but a woman gave birth only to girls. Rahim was angry at his wife and even thought about the fact that he was ready to take a second wife, since this is not prohibited in Islam.
He did not treat his family with the same trepidation as Sasha. He was cruel. He could raise his hand against his wife, did not allow her to communicate with her friends, so they only saw Larisa a few times at common family feasts. They couldn’t talk about abstract topics. He also brought up girls in strictness. They hardly communicated with their peers and did not go to school, but studied with Muslim teachers and were home-schooled. Larisa never understood her husband. How can he communicate with such a cruel man as Rahim. Alexander said that if it hadn’t been for Rahim, he would have died, and they wouldn’t even have met Larisa and wouldn’t have built such a wonderful family.
One day at the celebration of Vlad’s birthday, Rahim began to show a cruel attitude towards Zuhra right in front of the guests. Larisa couldn’t stand it and asked Alexander to kick Rahim out of the table. To which he threatened Larisa and advised Alexander to keep his wife in check and keep an eye on her. Alexander did not pay attention to this statement, because it was not the first time he had heard such expressions towards women. Rahim could speak as rudely and disrespectfully as possible, for him it was considered the norm.
One day, when Vlada was four years old, the girl’s mother took her to kindergarten as usual and went to work, only she didn’t show up there, and in the evening she never returned home. 15 years have passed since then. Vlada grew up and became a real beauty. She went to medical university to become a pediatrician just like Mom. Only now the girl has not seen her mother for many years, and she would so like to talk to her and brag about her successes so that she would be proud of her, just like in childhood.
The day after Larisa disappeared, the father showed the girl a note on behalf of her mother that she was going to work in Africa and would save poor sick children there, because they needed help that other specialists could not provide and promised to invite her to visit and wait for a meeting. The girl cried a lot and for a long time, and dad took her to her grandmother because he had too much work.
He took her home two months later. Mom’s things were no longer in the apartment. Dad had lost a lot of weight and looked tired. Now he is a lieutenant colonel of the police and serves for the good of the country, catches criminals and punishes them for what they have done. Vlada is very proud of her father, because he is one of the best workers in his field, he is a real support for her, helps her in everything and copes with his parental duties perfectly, being both father and mother in one person.
Every year Vlada receives postcards from her mother. Sometimes she’s in the Savannah next to a lion, then there’s a bunch of little dark-skinned kids next to her, then she flies by helicopter from one area to another. The girl is proud of her mother, because she does such a useful thing and thinks about others, but for some reason she has never invited her daughter and husband to visit, referring to the fact that she is in a negative epidemic zone, but constantly promises to come or invite them to visit for 15 years.
After the incident of Larisa’s quarrel with Rahim, he left somewhere and they stopped communicating with Alexander. Vlada missed her friends — Rahim’s daughters, who were so kind to her. They told her so much about their culture and showed her all sorts of interesting things. This happened almost simultaneously with the departure of her mother, so Vlada was especially sad that at such an early age many close people left her.
One day an army friend came to visit Alexander and stayed overnight. Vlada on this day just asked her father to go to visit her best friend to solve tasks on a difficult subject. The girl had to return in the morning and it would have been better if it had happened, but late in the evening Vlada realized that she had not brought her textbook with her and decided to go home for it.
Dad and a friend celebrated the meeting and talked in the kitchen. Entering the apartment, the girl heard that her father was crying. She unwittingly overheard the conversation and found out where her mother really disappeared. Vlada walked into the kitchen with a confident step and asked her father to tell the story in full, because the part she heard shocked her.
In fact, Larisa did not go to any Africa. She’s been dead for a long time. Postcards on holidays are sent to the girl by dad, and photos are an ordinary photo montage for the girl’s peace of mind. Alexander decided not to tell her what really happened to his mother, but he still could not move away from the tragedy. He loves his daughter too much and cannot condemn her to the same torments.
Alexander blamed himself for what happened all this time. When he found out the truth, it was already too late, and he could not help his wife in any way.
It all started when Rahim had money problems. His close relatives were in a banned organization and preached radical Muslim customs. Rahim lost his business and acquired a large number of debts to criminal people from such a society. He tried for a long time to repay at least some amount, took out loans, sold property, but could not pay even a tenth of the full debt. He had to join such an organization. He began to follow their laws and his behavior became more and more cruel and categorical. He began to raise his hand against his wife regularly and also showed himself with his daughters for their slightest offenses. The eldest at that time was already 15, so he did not hesitate to give her in marriage. He didn’t need an extra mouth.
This organization began to give Rahim medicines that affected his thinking and consciousness. Even Alexander noticed the oddities in his behavior at that moment, but he thought that all this was due to the stress of losing a large sum of money, so he did not pay much attention to his comment about Rahim joining a banned organization. Alexander did not know the activities of this organization.
It took place in another country and consisted in preaching a radical law and getting rid of non-believers. They considered those who adhered to another religion and faith to be unbelievers. Rahim needed to look for people who would accept the same faith. He had to stop communicating with the infidels, and this was why their family moved to another country and lost contact with Alexander.
He had been searching for his missing wife for a long time, but could not figure out what to cling to. Larisa took her daughter to the garden, then she was seen on her way to work, and then no living person met her anymore. He clung to all the cases, tried to connect them with the loss of his wife, but nothing was possible.
A month later, another young girl disappeared from their city under the same circumstances, and then there were two more such cases that occurred with breaks in a week. In the latter case, passers-by saw a woman getting into a black tinted car with license plates from another country that no one remembered.
