Priestess Itfut

“Well, what do you know!” said Matilda, surprised. “Okay, let’s go outside. It’s stuffy in here. Let’s go!”

The glamrocks obeyed and flocked behind Matilda who led them outside. But they could not calm down outside either. Overcome with emotion and very excited, they arranged themselves according to their custom in a circle and started stamping their feet, muttering their new gibberish.

“Mana-mia, hir a go egen…”

This time, they confidently uttered the letter, but the cheerful song had turned into a gloomy chant, like soldiers mechanically singing a boring drill song.

“Ma-na, dast ha mach a mist yu…”

Observing the stomping and mumbling, Matilda thought, ‘No, this is just another kind of frenzy. This won’t do. I need to get them going with something more positive.’

“Right, listen up!” commanded Matilda. “Stop where you are. Now we’re going to learn some new gibberish. In fact, it’s not just gibberish, it’s a song-dance. That’s even more! Even better! You will feel wonderful! Grip onto each other and repeat the movements and the words after me.”

The glamrocks were surprised, but obeyed, nonetheless. Matilda stood at the front of the line, placed the hands of the glamrock immediately behind on her waist warning him, ‘Don’t touch my bow!’, and began to sing, beginning the steps of a once fashionable dance.

Once late at night on an empty street,I returned from a romance sad again.Believe it or not, for some reason my feetstarted dancing this dance themselves.Again, the path led to my sweetheart,again, I was at her door,tapped at the window, waited a little.Listen dear, come out quickly.One, two, put on your shoe!Still asleep? Shame on you!Wonderful, sweet, funny jenkaInvites us to dance.’[4]

Awkwardly out of time at first, the glamrocks copied Matilda’s movements, becoming increasingly coordinated and merry as they went along. It turned out that they were even capable of reproducing the melody. Even though it was new to them, it was clear that they loved the song-dance.

Anyone who has ever seen the letkajenkha performed with dancers jumping back and forth making funny movements with their feet can imagine what a spectacle it was to see the same dance performed by the glamrocks. The diva knew how much the good old dance had been made trite by the glamorous divas of today. But she was not quite as trivial as her ‘fellow tradeswomen’. Matilda valued everything that was real, which was why she sang and danced like they did in the good old days, which she loved, just as much as she loved the twist.

The glamrocks quickly mastered the melody and words, and were happily singing along, jumping about enthusiastically and throwing their legs out from under their robes. They were engulfed in an unfamiliar feeling they had never experienced until now – happiness.

‘One, two, put on your shoe!Still asleep? Shame on you!Wonderful, sweet, funny jenkaInvites us to dance.’

Having danced to their heart’s content, they gathered around Matilda, and brimmingover with delight began to praise her in their own fashion.

“Mana-tida-enka! Mana-tida-enka! Invites us to dance!”

They would have gone on shouting for much longer, but Matilda waved her hands at them.

“Stop, that’s enough! I’m tired. I need a rest.”

As if filled with understanding, the glamrocks took her by the hands and walked her in the direction of the buildings shouting all the while.

“Mana-tida! Mana-tida-enka! You are our mana!”

They escorted her into the nearest house, carefully sat her down on something resembling a bed and left, respectfully stepping backwards as they went. The bed area was covered with hay. There was a table and a chair in the room, as well as some kind of toilet. The rest of the premises were empty and extremely austere. Round windows were positioned high up on every wall and there was just one door. Everything was made of the same unfamiliar, smooth material with which all the other buildings were trimmed. Despite being primitive, the construction of the dwelling was quite technically advanced, the only exception being the hay, who knows where that had come from here in the desert.

Matilda sighed with relief. They had left her alone at last. But not for long. Soon the door opened and a glamrock entered the house without knocking of course, (such were their manners), although carrying an offering. Only now did Matilda realize how hungry she was. The glamrock placed a tray on the table on which there was a cup, a spoon and a dish.

“What’s this?” asked Matilda.

“Food!” he answered concisely.

The cup contained water and the bowl, something that looked like beans. It did not smell too bad. Matilda tried the beans cautiously. Oddly enough the dish turned out to be quite tasty.

“Where did you get this?” she asked.

“Hlevjun gives it to us. There is lots of food!”

’Bastards’ thought Matilda. ‘Why did you want to eat me then if you have shit loads of grub?’ But she did not say anything. The glamrock did not say much and she did not have the slightest desire to start interrogating him. He left, walking backwards away from her and closing the door behind him. Finally, it seemed, the ceremonies for today were complete.

Matilda ate quickly, climbed onto the simple bed and covered herself in the hay. The bed was not up to much but in circumstances like these, there was no point in hoping for comfort. The poor thing was so tired from the events and emotions of the day that she could not fall asleep and instead burst into tears. Yes, everything had turned out well in the end. The glamorous diva had become the glamrocks’ goddess. But what next? What could Matilda do here in the city of glamrocks? Why should she stay?

Matilda was overcome with deep sorrow. ‘Was she really not destined to return home? Would life really never be again as it was before? Her old life remained in a carefree past that had not been valued and might now be lost forever. And no-one would ever put her to bed in clean sheets, kiss her little forehead and affectionately call her ‘Tili, darling’. She could remember her mother doing that. How was she now? She must be worried. And what about the others? Were they looking for her?’

With these sad thoughts, now totally exhausted, Matilda fell asleep.

Mannequin City

Priestess Itfut looked around her frantically. She was not easily surprised by anything these days, but recent events and her surrounding reality were simply outrageous. After the sand timer or whatever it was had been turned over and started pouring sand again, reality had calmed down. The sky turned blue and the sand turned yellow but there was still no sun in the sky. ‘Where is that light coming from?’ thought the priestess.

“My shoes flew away, away” said the priestess, who continued talking to herself. “Okay, okay, we’ll assume I have paid for my fear. But if this goes on for much longer, I’ll soon have nothing left to pay with.”

All Itfut had left was her gorgeous dark-blue, velvet dress with the diamond-studded collar, and the crystal ring that she wore on her left hand.

“You won’t get anything more out of me, you, half-wit reality you! Just because you’ve lost the plot, doesn’t mean that I have to. I’m not afraid of you anymore. Give me back my shoes! You hear?”

Meanwhile, after the tilting of the hourglass, the landscape acquired a new detail. In the distance, Matilda began to make out the contours of a city.

“You see, Itfut, priestess, you priestess, now you have somewhere to go. So, let’s go. Let’s get a move on. It is high time we put an end to all this nonsense. I just hope it isn’t a mirage.”

She shook the sand from her dress and strode in the direction of her goal. The sand creaked beneath her bare feet like glass although it was soft to the touch. To the priestess it felt like she was walking on cotton wool. But she was more puzzled by a phenomenon, no less peculiar. It seemed to her as if, rather than her walking ahead, the landscape was coming forwards to meet her, while she had barely placed one foot in front of the other. Moreover, the goal was approaching with unnatural speed.

“What kind of trick is this?” said Matilda indignantly. “Do you want to shock me or frighten me again?” she said, talking to reality. “That’s not possible! And there is no point in being afraid of something that is not possible. I’m not afraid, I’m not afraid! Not at all, at all! Get it?”

Reality meanwhile continued to change ignoring the priestess. Within a few minutes the sky was gray. The waves of sand turned into a rocky wasteland and the outlines of the city grew larger before her eyes. For some reason Itfut could not feel the stones beneath her feet. Strangely, they did not bother her at all despite walking barefoot. It was surprising but she was tired of being surprised by now.

The priestess entered the city, if you could call it that, an abstract conglomeration of cubic structures and niches, and wherever you looked, endlessly interweaving flights of stairs. A sepulchral silence reigned, only occasionally interrupted by the sound of falling drops as if an invisible, giant clepsydra was measuring intervals of time.

“What awful quiet. It’s just a-a-awful quie-e-t-t.” repeated Itfut, lost in a maze of structures and formations. ‘It gets worse by the hour. Surely this isn’t a nightmare that’s only just beginning?’

“Hey, is there anybody there?!” she shouted, and a resonant echo carried her shout into a multiple ‘body-body-body’.

“Ts-s-s,” she hissed, switching to a whisper. “When the awfulness is quiet, you have to quiet, too.”

She gingerly opened the door to one of the houses and peeped inside. There was no one there. The interior consisted solely of a table, a chair and a bed of boards. Nothing more. The same scene was repeated in each of the houses Itfut looked in. She examined them one by one but there was not a soul to be seen.

Itfut plucked up the courage to climb a high stairway from where she could get a better view. It turned out that the stairs did not lead anywhere but just hung in midair after several turns. Itfut did not bother climbing right to the top of the stairs because her head was already spinning from the height. She stopped somewhere halfway up and looked about her in both directions. Between identical roofs, she spotted a black, ominous-looking structure towering close by.

The priestess went back down the flight of stairs and decided to make for the megalith, as far as that was possible wandering through the bizarre maze. She went from one house to another, from stairway to stairway being mindful of where she placed her feet, until she almost collided with a gray figure.

She leapt backwards in surprise, her heart beating furiously. The figure stood motionless but in such a posture that suggested it might be just about to take another step. Clothed in a shapeless, hooded robe that hid the face, it was not clear whether the figure was a human being or a statue. Recovering her breath, Itfut walked to the side of the figure and took a peep under its hood.

Glassy eyes burned in the shadows staring into nowhere. Itfut thought as if the eyes reflected signs of life but the rest of the face was a deathly gray, frozen in an indifferent expression. “Hey!” Itfut called quietly.

The figure did not move an inch. The priestess warily touched the hood which was sewn from a rough material. She ran her fingers up the figure’s arm and touched its cheeks… At that moment, something unnatural happened. The priestess’ fingers passed freely through the skin on the face as if it were a ghost.

Deciding to test her hunch, Itfut tried passing her hand through the figure’s body and sure enough, her hand passed right through. The priestess took a step back in complete amazement, and suddenly found herself falling through the staircase behind her as if it were made of air.

Panicking, the priestess zig-zagged from side to side, falling through walls and stairways like a phantom. She could no longer tell what was ghost-like and immaterial here, herself or everything that surrounded her. This was too much. Reality was continuing to weave an ominous web of illusion in a game that the priestess appeared to be losing.

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Примечания

1

Song “The Best City in the World”, music by A. Babadzhanyan, lyrics, L. Derbenev

2

Song by pop group ’Bravo’ – ’Leningrad Rock-n-Roll’

3

A free transcription of Abba song, ’Mamma Mia’.

4

Song-dance ’Letkajenkha’, author unknown.