Tales of Ghosts. Playing Another Reality. Edgar Allan Poe award

“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.

“And who are you?” she asked before letting the stranger into the house.

“The one you’re missing here!” the man answered sharply and, throwing the Hostess aside, headed for the room.

A nurse approached the old lady brought at night to the intensive care unit. She lay under a drip, whispering something. The nurse couldn’t hear the words and leaned closer.

“I am a psychotherapist… I wanted to save them, but God punished me! I considered myself to be the Master of Fates! I resurrected them and doomed them to death… He is a maniac… find him! He killed everyone… but me… I must die! It’s unfair if…”

“Everything will be fine, don’t worry! You just don’t have to worry!” the nurse said, understanding nothing of what she had heard.

The woman got silent. Her kind heart stopped, and her light soul left the temporary abode, rushing towards Heaven, to meet her dead son and those whom she so sincerely had tried to save…

January 29, 1995

2. A Sinner

After a small breakfast of scrambled eggs, taking with him a couple of cheese and sausage sandwiches, and only by chance remembering to take also the Gospel and the cross, the parish priest, Father Alexey, slowly went to confess a certain parishioner Pelageya, who was dying of a terminal illness. Father Alexey didn’t know her, as he had served in that church for a week only.

Entering a shabby little room, he saw a woman about forty. She seemed to no longer react to the surrounding sounds, and her gaze was fixed on the window overlooking the garden, where the birds were singing joyfully, and the cheerful wind was rustling.

Father Alexey came closer to Pelageya. Her features seemed too familiar to the priest, but in vain he tried to remember where he might have crossed paths with the dying woman, so, sitting down on a chair by her bed, as usual in such cases, he asked,

“I was told that you want to confess, my dear…”

“Yes,” the dying woman replied in a weak voice.

“Then tell me your sins and transgressions,” the priest made the sign of the cross and prepared to listen attentively.

Pelageya started her life story from the very beginning: as a child she had broken her mother’s favorite vase, too often she had quarreled with her sister and friends, and she hadn’t believed in God. However, left without a livelihood at the age of fifteen, Pelageya went to play the flute in the streets to get money for food, and by the will of the Almighty, for the first time she found herself in a church, where a completely different world opened up for her.

What the dying woman had told him up to that point was not of particular interest to the priest, he even snored a little, and, waking up, only shook his head periodically. Sometimes it seemed to Father Alexey that he had already heard something similar before, but during his life the priest managed to serve in so many churches that thousands of stories confessed to him by parishioners had long been mixed up in his head and safely forgotten, and new ones were not remembered at all.

“Then I met him,” the eyes of the dying woman suddenly sparkled, and she smiled. “He was kind and caring, he courted me as a princess, but said almost nothing about himself, only that he loved me and we would get married after Easter. Once I found out by accident that my groom was a student at the Theological Seminary, however, the prospect of becoming the wife of a priest didn’t frighten me at all! On the contrary, I was even delighted, since I already believed in God! But soon, when I told him we were going to have a baby, he forbade me to give birth to our son.”

“Son?” Father Alexey furrowed his brow and fiddled with the Gospel.

“Yes, thank God, I didn’t take at least that sin upon my soul! After all, we never got married. My groom got scared, exchanged me for the daughter of a rich and influential official. And my son outwardly is a copy of his father, and I named him Alexey as well.”

“How old is the boy?”

“Seventeen.”

“Did you tell him about his father?”

“No, Father. My son sings in a church choir, he is going to the Seminary. I didn’t want him to change his attitude towards God because of such a father. All he knows is that they are too similar in appearance.”

Father Alexey shook his head and touched Pelageya’s hand. He was silent for a while, but then, sharply withdrawing his hand, said menacingly,

“So, my dear, you seduced a priest, then disobeyed him, despite the fact that a woman should always be in obedience to a man, being created out of his rib, and on the top of that you also concealed the truth from him!”

“Father, but…” Pelageya tried to object.

“Sinner! Isn’t it written in the Bible that everything I have listed is a mortal sin?!”

“I sincerely repent of all my sins and ask you to forgive me!”

“Have that man forgiven you?”

“Where can I find him now?” the unfortunate woman whispered already in tears. “Is my soul doomed to wander the world like a restless ghost?”

“My dear, the Great pre-Easter fast is going on, so you must fast! Perhaps God will forgive you, but not I.”

The dying woman wept silently.

Father Alexey was returning to the church, obviously not in a good mood, but only one thought was spinning in his head, “My God, what does time make with a female beauty!”

That same evening, Father Alexey left his cassock at home and went with friends to a pub. Having drunk heavily, the next morning he skipped the mass and spent the entire Holy Week with friends, remembering the Passion of Christ without parting with the bottle.

On Easter, in order to avoid losing his job again, Father Alexey had to sober up. At the festive meal after the mass, he was informed that Pelageya had been buried on Friday. The deceased had not been served by the funeral vigil due to the lack of money from her son, who nevertheless ordered a special 40-days prayer for the dead mother.

Taking church wine with him, Father Alexey went to the grave of the newly departed and bumped into a handsome young man at the cemetery gate. The priest immediately recognized his son, but the son would have never recognized his father, since he looked too bad…

June 28, 1994

3. Two women

I just loved her too much! Haven’t you ever felt like to sacrifice your life for the sake of your beloved?

…I don’t remember where and when I met Jeanne, because we lived in the same house, played in the same yard, studied at the same school. Everyone liked Jeanne, she was surrounded by crowds of suitors, and at first I was even afraid to invite her for a walk. I’ve had problems with women since childhood. I’ve always been afraid of them. And, as it turned out, not for nothing!

We started dating in early spring, when Jeanne was eighteen. We often went to that lake, with an uninhabited island in the middle. Jeanne used to say she would like to get on it! No one was pulling her tongue, mind you!

I always took my favorite, Junga, on my walks. Just in case. I felt much more confident next to her. Many people even believe that such dogs should not be kept at home for being dangerous to life! Yes, I agree, her character, frankly, wasn’t simple, I couldn’t bring home a friend, not to mention the whole company. Junga would attack anyone who was not a member of our family, and, being locked in another room, she would burst into unbearable barking and “breaking down” the door until the stranger left. Junga, by the way, disobeyed even me, but I loved her very much! Isn’t a dog man’s best friend?

Honestly, I sincerely hoped that my girls would become friends, however, Junga – once it became clear to me! – had scanned the future and hated Jeanne in advance, growled at her and tried in every possible way to bite her. I tried to persuade Junga to accept the situation, in vain! She was stubbornly adamant. Then I realized that she was jealous of me! Finally! Anyway, under third parties pressure, I still made a decision to get married. Must means must. No way to avoid! They would think that I was indifferent to the opposite sex, unlike my own!

Junga, of course, couldn’t forgive me for such a turn of events! Her aggression went off the scale, she began to rush at me as well! No matter the way I tried to explain to her the human ‘must’, it was all in vain: dogs don’t forgive betrayal. How would you feel about someone who betrayed you? After the wedding, I left Junga at my mother’s and moved to live at Jeanne’s.

I really missed my Junga very much, I was awfully homesick, I dreamed about her every night, and, God knows, I tried to visit her as often as I could! With every fiber of my soul, I felt her incredible suffering and, as a result, I asked my mother to make Junga get married as well. One-time, of course… Who would have known how much I was worried about her wedding night! However, self-hypnosis is a great thing! So, if I was cheating on her with Jeanne…

That morning my mother called me to tell the amazing news: Junga was going to have puppies! I jumped around the room with happiness, I would take one for myself! A girl, of course! The spitting image of Junga! I even barked with joy. For the first time. And at that very moment, Jeanne appeared in the room and said that we were going to have a baby.

M-yes!

In the evening we decided to celebrate the imminent replenishment of the family at my mother’s flat. Junga, as usual, began to throw herself at the fragile Jeanne. My mother, in spite of my protests, closed Junga in the room to let us have a quiet dinner in the kitchen.

After the meal, my mother and I retired to the balcony to discuss the upcoming changes. Suddenly there was a roar and screams. The door to the room with Junga was blown off its hinges. Having entered the kitchen, we saw Jeanne. Instead of washing the dishes, she was lying unconscious with a bloody knife in her hand! Roaring menacingly, Junga sprawled on her belly…

We called a doctor and a vet. I was depressed! I howled! Yes, I howled at the Moon, not embarrassed by either veterinarians or doctors. Junga could no longer have puppies, and my wife could no longer have kids. God! It seemed to me I couldn’t survive that!

We were walking by the very lake, with an uninhabited island in the middle. It was already too late, and not a soul around. A terrible picture came back to life and froze on the inner screen: my beloved Junga and the knife in Jeanne’s hand… I don’t remember how that very knife ended up in my hands…

I just loved her too much!

December 13, 1996

4. Frozen

“Hey!” Yuri whispered, glancing sadly at her beautiful cold face. “Today I came late, because I took the child to the cottage… I am sorry, Inna!”

She was silent.

“Well, forgive me!”

Inna said nothing.

So, all summer long Yuri came to her every evening to talk about his current life, and he brought her ice cream. Yes, I will always remember, she loved ice cream, and she froze some berries for the winter to defrost them and eat with ice cream… in the winter.

“God told us to forgive everyone. You’ve always believed in God, haven’t you, Inna? Forgive me!”