“That’s no way to behave! Join your friends!” I said in a semi-commanding voice.
Christina got up silently and walked away.
***
I held the PTA meeting successfully enough. When everyone had gone and left me alone in the office, Christina appeared at the door.
“Haven’t you gone yet?” I asked.
“Dad hasn’t arrived,” she said sadly.
“And your mother?”
The girl shrugged.
“Will you call home?” I suggested.
“Come on, Alice…”
“Oh, these familiarities again!” I thought.
Christina dialed some phone number and was answered, but she remained silent and hung up.
“Wrong number?” I supposed.
Christina silently left the room. I made her come back and called to their house myself. Her grandma answered me. She said that Christina’s dad would definitely come to college in a fortnight, after his business trip. I passed that information on to the girl, but got no response.
“Why did you hang up?” I asked again.
Christina got up and silently walked away.
“Chris!” I shouted, and she didn’t even turn around.
I got angry and decided to complain about the girl to her father.
***
Two weeks of vacation flew by in a flash, and the kids were back to studies. I must admit, my class was excellent! Only Christina made me feel uncomfortable. Willy-nilly, I saw that strange girl every day. She pierced me with her gaze, I lost my temper and nagged her about little things. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t help it.
Finally, Christina’s father arrived. He brought her many toys and sweets. The girl didn’t want to let him go.
“I’ll come back for you in the summer, when your classes are over, and we’ll go to the sea. You love the sea, don’t you?”
Christina nodded in agreement, and I suddenly imagined her as an adult – she would turn into a beauty and drive a lot of men crazy!
After the meeting with her father, Christina behaved much better and didn’t approached me during her free time. However, the girl seemed to become even more withdrawn.
***
One day, when we were singing a cheerful (although, to be honest, a very stupid) song at a music lesson, I suddenly noticed that Christina wasn’t singing. As usual, she sat at the last desk alone, but with headphones on…
“Is she listening to some music?! What a spoiled girl! What does she allow herself! She can do everything she wants, being only eight years old!”
“Chris!” I yelled in anger, approaching her.
The girl convulsively clutched something with her small hands.
“Give it to me now!”
“No!” she said firmly.
“If you don’t give me your toy, I’ll call your parents today, and you won’t be here anymore!”
Christina unclenched her fingers in helplessness, stood up and ran out of the classroom in tears. When the lesson was over, I turned on her player, but instead of music I heard a pleasant female voice. I realized it was the girl’s mother. For some reason, she had to move to another country for a few years, and before leaving, she had prepared that audiobook with instructions for Christina.
***
The academic year was over. Parents were taking their children home. I sat on the veranda of the summer building, reading a love story. The next day I was leaving for the sea, not yet knowing that I would no longer teach there, because I would get married and move to another country.
Someone silently approached me from behind and gently touched my shoulder. I turned around and saw Christina. She held out to me a bouquet of flowers she had picked. I hesitated to take them.
“Come on, Alice!” she said.
“Again?”
She didn’t answer and sat down next to me.
“Do you miss your parents?” I asked, trying not to get angry. “Do they often go on business trips?”
“That’s what they say…”
“Anyway, business trips end sooner or later!”
The girl silently shrugged her shoulders and sighed.
Another car drove up, Christina’s father got out of it. The girl threw herself at his neck.
When he came up to me and started thanking me for something, I couldn’t hear anything anymore. I remembered his daughter ugly behavior: she addressed me like a girl, hung up phone, listened to the player, and did whatever she wanted. I don’t remember what exactly I said to her father then, but he listened to me calmly.
“I’m sorry… Don’t take offense, miss Flitch!” he said sadly, when I cooled down.
He left us alone, inviting his daughter to ask my forgiveness.
“Forgive me, Alice! Come on!” the girl said defiantly coldly, clearly feeling no remorse.
I abruptly got up from the bench. Christina even asked for forgiveness, addressing me like that! I took a few steps and heard her voice.
“You look like…”
I didn’t even turn around. Along the way, I remembered that I had left on the bench the flowers, Christina’s gift to me.
***
I got married and went back to college on the first day of the new academic year to pick up some papers. My kids had grown up, but had hardly changed much. Among them, I didn’t see Christina only. My friend, the teacher, said the girl was present on the pupils list.
My friend and I went to the chief office. I didn’t really care about Christina. I needed the chief’s signature on my documents. However, my friend asked him why the girl was absent.
“Her father is a school friend of mine,” said the chief. “When Cristina’s mother died last year…”
“Oh, did her mother die?” I exclaimed in surprise.
“Yes. The girl was told that her mother had gone on a business trip abroad. Christina’s grandmother, my friend’s mother, liked neither her daughter-in-law nor Christina. So I advised my friend to bring the girl here.”
“And why didn’t she come this year?”
“Christina and her father… disappeared…”
“Disappeared?!” I was stunned.
“They went to the sea and never came back. The police are still looking for them… By the way, Alice, she was in your class, wasn’t she?”
Many years had passed since then, and I disappeared on Earth myself. However, burning various stories of my earthly life in the bonfire of memories, I still can’t let go of this one, because every time my fate gave me a sad lesson, I heard a voice, whispering, “Come on, Alice!”
July 2003
12. On the banks of the Thames
London had been a childhood dream of mine ever since we were told about its sights in English classes at school. I studied the same sights at the preparatory courses of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and then at the University. It seemed that even before visiting London, I already knew it better than any other city in the world. I had little chance of getting the UK visa, so I put off a trip to London to the last page of perhaps my last foreign passport. Nobody knows what turn of fate has already got the very brick that will suddenly fall on your head, or what else would happen to prevent your vacation abroad.
Everywhere I traveled alone. Vitaly threw up his hands, as he always had some reasons not to join me. However, on Christmas Eve, he vowed that we would definitely go somewhere together within the coming year.
I worked as the head of purchasing department, free of job for traveling three times a year: on May holidays, August and Christmas time; and there were just three pages left for visas in my passport.
Vitaly traditionally spent May and Christmas holidays with his wife (whom, like many husbands, he vowed to leave, but would have never done so, because he felt “pity for her”, since “she won’t survive, and you are strong!”), therefore, for our joint trip only August remained.
Knowing my cherished childhood dream, Vitaly told me to go first to London, for May holidays, and suggested having a rest with him in August somewhere on paradise islands. Well, it made sense, didn’t it?
I really enjoyed London! I walked it up and down and returned home with a feeling of complete satisfaction. By the way, the British had released me a multi-entry visa for six months, but I didn’t see much point in going back with limited funds, it was much more pleasant to visit something yet unexplored!
There were clearly more wonders on Earth than the seven encyclopedic ones, and I was already dreaming of where I would go for Christmas after August in Paradise with Vitaly, as the boss urgently demanded to get me a German visa for our business trip to Munich. So, my travel bag got one wonder of the world less! And more, I had already traveled all over Germany, including Munich, in vacation and not during a business trip. Anyhow, my negativity reached the ears of the Universe: as soon as the Germans granted me a single-entry visa for five days in July, the business trip was immediately canceled by the very same boss! However, since the stamp in the passport couldn’t be canceled, the penultimate page turned out to be irretrievably damaged and wasted for nothing! My inner indignation from my own helplessness went off scale, but in the end, it never came out, because… every day brought me closer to the cherished islands with Vitaly in August!
I scoured the Internet, called all the travel agencies that dealt with islands to choose the best Paradise for us, and mentally I was already rather there than in my homeland. Having prepared a bunch of beautiful dresses and bought a couple of charming swimsuits, I signed an application for my vacation, which became more and more problematic every year, because the boss was mutating into a slave owner…
And so, a couple of days before departure, Vitaly called for me, beaming with anticipation of Paradise, to discuss our plans in a restaurant. He listened carefully to all my dreams and wishes for the main course, and ‘for dessert’ he suddenly said,
“Lara, I’m leaving… for London.”
“What do you mean… London?!” I asked, still understanding nothing. “And when are you leaving?!”
“It’s a business trip to London for the whole of August.”
“Yesterday you said you had agreed your vacation! in August! with me! on the islands in Paradise!”
“Yes, but today… everything has changed… Maybe in September…”
“My boss won’t let me go in September!” I was about to die. “As well as in October and in November!!!”
“Go alone to Paradise in August.”
“What’s to do alone in Paradise?! It’s only for couples!”
“Then go somewhere else,” Vitaly suggested calmly, which made me furious.
“Somewhere else, where is that? I have no time to apply for a visa!”
“Go to visa-free Turkey.”
Oh, I wished he hadn’t even mentioned Turkey to me! I turned white with anger!
“Turkey? Where you have been relaxing with your wife for so many years? So that, lying alone on the beach, I couldn’t help imagining how sweet it was for you both there?!”
“Lara, darling! I could tell you to come and stay with me in London, but I will work from morning to night, and you’ll get bored. You’ve just returned from London! Besides, I will live not in London, but in a town about forty minutes away from London by train. In a single room at a local hotel with English breakfasts included only. I figured out how much your visit will cost. It’s very expensive for you to travel to London every day instead of waiting for me in a bare field, to have lunch and dinner, plus the extra charge for a double room. You know how small are rooms in Britain, and the flight is not a penny! I can neither pay for you, nor let you pay yourself, because it’s a throwing money away! By the way, there’s an abnormal heat in London now. People are bathing in fountains! You say you can’t stand the heat. To come to London for a week just to stay with me for a weekend, bathing in fountains?! Remember, it’s bad luck to come back!”
Despair overwhelmed me, and tears were ready to come out from my eyes. I jumped up from the table, threw my napkin into the bowl of my favorite fruit salad.
“I hate London! I hate it! HATE!!!” I shouted.
Deathly silence reigned around. Everyone froze, including the waiter with a cup of espresso, he was about to put on our table.
I grabbed my bag and, noticing nobody on the way, headed for the exit.
***
I traded a fortnight vacation in Paradise for a weekend with Vitaly in London, landing at Heathrow airport on Friday night.
As soon as I switched on the phone, the bell rang.
“Lara…” Vitaly said as doomed, “I’ve been called away to their office on the weekend… I’ll come in London to see you tomorrow night, okay?”
I traded a fortnight vacation in Paradise for one night with him in London.
***
On Saturday, around lunchtime, I sadly looked at myself, collapsed into the fountain of Trafalgar Square at +40C.
People didn’t even realize that I felt sick from the heat… and that I was no longer there… I thought, “Truly, it’s bad luck to come back!”
What did I trade my life for?
Can we say that it was Vitaly who killed me?
***
Vitaly died in a car crash at midnight between that damn Saturday and Sunday, almost reaching London. He fell asleep driving…
Did he trade his life for a night with me?
No, it was me who killed him…
***
On Sunday… we sat for a long time on the banks of the Thames, making a plan to which countries we would fly without any visa before disappearing forever…
July 2003
13. A Guest
It was raining cats and dogs outside. A girl in a dark cloak with a huge hood was standing at the door to my neighbor’s flat. Her long black curls hid her profile from me.
“He won’t open the door for you,” I said.
The girl shuddered and turned around. She was beautiful. In particular, I remembered the black-night eyes that stood out against her snow-white skin.
“My neighbor died yesterday,” I continued. “Poor old man… You must be his granddaughter! He said he had been waiting for his granddaughter. What a pity you’re late! He loved you very much, he was proud of and constantly talking about you. You know, it’s important for old people to feel that someone needs them…”
The girl sighed, but said nothing in response.
“Come to my place, you’ve got wet,” I suggested, and she followed me into the kitchen.
“No, thank you,” the girl refused my tea, “I’ll just warm up a bit and then I’ll go…”
“What’s your name? Do you have someone else here, besides grandfather?”
“No, I don’t have anyone,” she sighed sadly, “even friends.”
“You are so young and beautiful! You still have a lot ahead of you! The main thing is not to make enemies!”
“Enemies…” my interlocutor said thoughtfully. “I’m not as young as you think. You can’t imagine how tired I am of my life! I work seven days a week, not a minute to rest. Here, for once, I allowed myself to come to you, but then… People make up stories about me, they try in every possible way to avoid me, bypassing, while I’m not at all what they think of me…”
“What do you do?”
“I help people. However, Good in this world is often mistaken for Evil, so I am doomed to human hatred. If they only knew how much I envy them!”
“Why?”
“At least because their life is varied and interesting, it’s tasty, you know! They can feel it with every fiber of their souls and enjoy earthly pleasures to the fullest! I can’t do that. I’m not fit… There’s no person on Earth who is so lonely! I’m tired of life. I feel like a restless ghost who can’t die.”
“Listen to me, my dear! We often curse life and wish we were dead. But when Death suddenly appears on our doorstep, we realize that life is short, and it must be appreciated, because sooner or later Death will surely come for you too…”
“For me?” the girl asked thoughtfully.
The dog began howling in the flat of the deceased neighbor.
“Poor dog!” I sighed. “His devoted friend!”
“I have to go!” my guest exclaimed and got up. “I’m already late!”
“Where are you going now?” I wondered, following her to the corridor.
The girl looked at the door of the neighbor’s flat.
“I was there yesterday,” she whispered, “but I forgot to take with me his devoted friend…”
September 30, 1997
Part II.The MASTER of FATES
0. Exceptions
Suddenly I felt someone’s gaze on me. I turned around and saw an Angel.
“Hello,” I whispered. “Have you come for me?”
“Yes,” he nodded.
“The bonfire stories are still going on,” I tried to protest, as I felt cozy in the fog that hid the faces of the storytellers, and I was about to share my own.
“Don’t be upset!” the Angel smiled as he read my mind. “The bonfire won’t go out for a long time, and stories will follow each other until the last soul leaves the Earth. Now you have to go.”
I looked at the Man. For some reason, I didn’t want to say goodbye to him.
“Well, go,” he patted my shoulder. “I’ll find you later…”
“In the City of the Sun or in the Land of Dreams?”
“Wherever it is written in the Tablets,” the Man sighed.
The Angel held out his hand to me, and we walked away from the bonfire.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To the Chancellery.”
“What about the queue? Or…”
“No… however, there are exceptions to every rule.”
We stepped abruptly out of the fog and found ourselves on the outskirts of the City, flooded with the Sun, at the entrance to a skyscraper. I noticed several angels bypassing the queue to lead inside the souls guarded by them. We followed them in. The Angel asked me to wait for him on a bench at the ajar door to the Courtroom, next to others like me waiting something out of turn.
“What a pity,” sighed the Boy sitting to my right.
“Pity? For what?” I decided to clarify.
“We are here and not there,” he answered sadly.
“Why?” I asked, not understanding what he meant. “And where is ‘there’?”
“I want to be an angel,” the Boy sighed again. “‘There’ means in the general queue. And we are here… There is almost no chance to become angels from here.”
“Why not?” I wondered, still understanding nothing.
“My grandma used to say that all children leaving the Earth become angels. Outside the queue, only exceptions are served.”
A devil’s head popped out of the Courtroom.
“Shit! What the Hell are you talking about?! Shut up you both, exceptions! In this Hall, the most interesting begins! And I can’t hear a damn thing because of your chatter!”
“I’m awfully sorry,” I whispered apologetically and involuntarily walked over to the ajar door.
The Moonlight Sonata was playing there, the lights were dimmed. Frozen in anticipation, the judges were ready to listen. The left bowl of Libra tilted almost to the limit, although it contained only one scroll of jubilant demons. Images from the earthly life of yet another soul started projecting on the screen …
1. The Master of Fates
The world collapsed…
Elena decided to make coffee, but found the coffee jar empty. She helplessly sank into a chair and was automatically flipping through a fresh newspaper, when suddenly a strange announcement caught her eye, “Everyone who decides to commit suicide gets a cup of coffee / tea before death at the expense of our house!”
The door of the mansion, placed on the edge of the city, was opened by an old woman in black.
“I’m on the ad,” Elena said wearily.
“Yes, come in, please!” the Hostess invited the girl in.
In the center of the small hall, in the armchairs by the fireplace, Elena noticed two men. In the corner, curled up in a ball, a black cat was dozing. They must have been drinking tea really, since the cups hadn’t been taken away yet, and the box of chocolates was half empty.
Elena looked around. The furnishings were not rich, but not a speck of dust to be noticed anywhere, and everything was tasteful: embroideries on the walls, curtains on the windows, antique candlesticks and parquet…
“And for you … tea or coffee?” the man in blue jumper asked.
“Coffee … I ran out of coffee at home … Thank you …”
He was about fifty. “Handsome. Obviously not poor. Why is he looking for death?” thought Elena, and the Handsome retired to the kitchen.
The second man, in gray trousers and gray sweater, with a huge green scarf wrapped around his thin neck, looked pale and coughed frequently.
“Sit down at the table, honey!” the Hostess smiled, returning from the kitchen with pies. “Or take a seat on the sofa! It’s up to you. You see, we mean no harm to you. Despite your great desire to leave the world forever, stay for a while in our gloomy but kind company!”
Elena, however, had long been unafraid of anything, and it didn’t matter to her what to drink, tea or coffee. Trying to understand where she’d got to, the girl sat down at the table.
“We are all a step away from death. However, nobody forbids us to allow ourselves something pleasant before losing everything at once. What way did you decide to go to the Other World?” the Hostess asked.
“And what’s your name?” the Handsome added.
“Elena,” the girl answered, gripping a warm cup with her fingers.
“Ernest,” the Handsome introduced himself.
The man with the scarf wanted to say his name, but coughed.
“And Robert is our painter!” the Hostess introduced him. “He is pondering about his scarf. And Ernest planned to…”
“I haven’t decided yet… the way…” Elena said in confusion, without listening to the end.
“Well, that’s not a problem!” the Hostess encouraged her smiling. “Where are you in a hurry now? An hour earlier or later…”
The Hostess gently asked the guests to share their stories about the sudden collapse of the world. Everything, in fact, came down to a few reasons: feeling of uselessness, loss of loved ones, incurable disease and lack of money. Each story they had told really touched a nerve, however, each of them believed that their own reason was much more significant, and what had happened to the others was possible to survive.
“Listen, Elena,” Ernest said calmly. “I have a bag of money. I’ll give it to you. Free of charge. I don’t need it anymore. And you will solve all your problems! You are too young to jump off a bridge into the water!”
“Give her the money, that’s right,” Robert agreed. “But why should you die? You are the only one who’s been saved – out of how many there? – obviously to live! Is that a coincidence? I’m really dying, and I don’t have much time left anyway. I just don’t want to torture anyone.”
“You still have time to paint us!” Elena exclaimed. “And not only us! Create a lot of beautiful pictures! Why are you in a hurry?”
“Elena is right, Robert,” the Hostess agreed. “There is no need to hurry. You can live here. I will take care of you like of a son. It doesn’t bother me at all. My son is dead, and I would give a lot to have someone to relieve my loneliness.”
Word by word, and by the evening they became friends and stopped rushing into Eternity, although it was not voiced out loud.
Suddenly the doorbell rang again. A tall man of strong build in black robes with a huge backpack appeared on the threshold.
“Is it here the suicidal are gathering?” the stranger chuckled darkly.
The Hostess nodded and smiled, but a feeling of anxiety pinched her heart.
