Rebecca had been passionate about money all her conscious life. She loved to hold and count the bills, especially if they were brand new, smelling of printing ink and not frayed with other people’s hands.
Her childhood was spent with her stepmother, a grumpy and greedy woman. Her father married the stepmother after the death of his wife, and brought her two sons into the house in addition to the new mistress. The stepmother, now secretly, now explicitly, tried to spend as little as possible on little Rebecca, reproaching her for the necessity of any expenses – for clothes, for food, and when Rebecca grew up and entered the teachers’ college, the stepmother declared that now she would not give a penny, and let her count only on her stipend.
And Rebecca did. First on a stipend, then she began to work part-time as a dishwasher in the evenings, making it her goal to save up more money. She saved on food and on things, saving a certain amount from each stipend and from her earnings. At the end of each week, Rebecca counted her money, giving her the greatest pleasure of all. If her classmates asked her to go to the movies, she always refused: “Oh, you’ll have to eat ice cream later, go on merry-go-rounds, it costs a lot of money! Gradually they stopped inviting her, knowing that an extra penny Rebecca would not spend on herself.
After pedagogical school, Rebecca began working in a school, but she did not change her main aspiration: saving money. She had a savings book, and the woman was delighted when the amount increased by three percent at the end of the year. She considered it the best present for the New Year. Even this holiday Rebecca celebrated very modestly, without gifts or guests, as it was all unnecessary, as she considered expenses.
Strangely enough, despite her stinginess, she still got married and had two children. Her husband at first thought her spouse was collecting money for a purpose, and didn’t mind her managing the family’s finances, giving his salary and settling for little. But in time he realized that his Rebecca was saving just for the sake of knowing there was money. The children saw no gifts or sweets, they walked around in repeatedly re-stitched clothes, embarrassed by their peers, and they ate so modestly that food never gave anyone pleasure.
And her husband couldn’t stand it, left her for another woman, plunging into an entirely different relationship, caring and generous. The children were already in school, and their mother fought tooth and nail to get them free meals, financial aid for the beginning of the school year, explaining her demands by the fact that she was a single mother, and the unscrupulous spouse did not remit child support. This was completely untrue; child support was transferred regularly, but it went where all the money Rebecca had saved went – into her savings accounts.
After school, the children went off to study in other cities, and Rebecca, instead of helping the students, was only happy to be able to save more in her book.
Colleagues asked why she would not find a husband, but Rebecca only resented: “One gone, thank God, I have another squanderer? To feed a man is to go down the drain!”
Trouble struck unexpectedly. The monetary reform of the 90s undermined Rebecca’s psyche, and her children, coming to visit their mother, put her in a psychiatric hospital, from which she was able to come out in three months. She was not interested in her grandchildren or how the children lived. Rebecca now lived on the memories of the money that had so quickly turned into nothing. But the old habit won out again. From her meager pension, Rebecca began saving again, ignoring inflation. No matter how hard the children tried to dissuade her, she did not give in to her entreaties.
Rebecca lived a long life of near poverty. Her children tried to help her, but their help was useless. If groceries were bought, the mother put in her savings the amount that was intended for it. It was the same with medicine and everything else. Neighbors knew about the strangeness, some were sympathetic, some were sympathetic, but all agreed on one idea: their neighbor was just an unhappy woman who had not seen anything good in life…
