"TALES OF GHOSTS"
about Love and Death from the Land of Mists
a collection of short stories
in the “Playing Another Reality” series
"CHRISTMAS on KUZNETSKY BRIDGE"
9. The TEMPLE, or WHEN the FAIRIES DIE
“Strange things happen to us sometimes in life.
And we don’t even notice them happening.”
J. Barry “Peter Pan”
That Temple was Kirill’s childhood dream, which we made a reality together. I was with him almost from the very beginning, I even remember him laying the foundation. Kirill was gushing with ideas, changing them at an amazing speed, so the construction used to be dragged on, constantly adjusting to some new dreams of its creator. As a result, the Temple turned out to be magnificent and completely unlike others in the city, and it seemed that not a single resident missed its grand opening!
However, in every fairy tale, a negative character, a representative of the Forces of Darkness, is sure to appear, and at the same time, the fairy tale turns into reality…
***
“Hi, boys!” I said in a half-asleep voice, flopping into the back seat of Kirill’s cool car.
It was about five in the morning. The plane took off at seven.
After passing through passport control, we sat down at the bar. Evil called someone.
“Let’s get wasted right now!” he said. “Then on the plane, until we reach the point, we’ll be in Paradise!”
“Well, let’s drink for a good trip!” Kirill said cheerfully, clinking cognac with us.
***
Four hours later, we were already in Milan. We took a taxi and went straight ‘home’ to a three-room apartment on the top floor. The landlady spoke with a clear accent, being from Portugal. Yes, everything was the same, I got a room with an almost children’s bed in the attic, with a small window in the sloping roof, a gift for real astrologers and just lovers of the Sky.
After drinking more cognac, we went to the giant specialized exhibition. Evil, as usual, thought that he had come there purely for fun, so after walking for a couple of hours, he began to lag and lazily dragged along behind me and Kirill in thirteen steps.
“Hey, Fairy, does Kirill have speed boots, or what?” Evil asked me, but I didn’t react to his jokes and hummed a song about a star named the Sun.
From time to time, we bumped into some of the familiar Italians, they kissed me on both cheeks and expressed their furious joy.
“Oh! Let’s go back and start with these people this project, with those people that one!” Kirill exclaimed joyfully after each fleeting meeting and negotiations, and periodically added plaintively, “Give me a cigarette, please!”
I knew in advance that he would forget the cigarettes, so I took them for him.
In the evening after the exhibition, we used to go for a walk around the city. It meant for Kirill to go around all the men’s clothing stores of the most famous brands. Evil didn’t mind emptying his pockets full of greens, either.
“Hey, Fairy, write down the name of our street for me, if suddenly I leave you behind!” asked Evil, but he never fell behind, probably, because that was characteristic of Evil.
From time to time we went to cafes to sit and have a drink. Thus the night came. We returned to the apartment and drank cognac.
“Yes, they all are goats!” Evil said with a grin, sprawling on the sofa with a glass of cognac and a cigarette. “That’s why everything sucks in your Temple! The Temple must be blown up to make room! I don’t even see the point of taking it apart brick by brick, then transporting and installing it somewhere in a new place.”
Kirill nodded to Evil in response, being fascinated, while I tried in vain to find another way to get rid of Evil.
“Tomorrow morning we have to buy something to eat, besides cognac,” Kirill said thoughtfully, looking at me and saying goodbye before going to his room.
“Coffee in bed,” I whispered and drifted off to sleep.
I dreamed about some Italian waiting to take me to the airport, though not in Milan, in Venice, but I dissolved into the fog again…
When I woke up early in the morning, I heard a cuckoo and asked as usual, “Tell me, what time is left?” The cuckoo instantly fell silent. I opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. Kirill was already awake too, and Evil was snoring.
“Let’s go to the store, to buy something to eat! To have not only cognac for breakfast,” Kirill suggested.
In the store, he picked up all sorts of different things. When we returned, Evil was still dormant. Kirill and I set the table, Kirill woke up Evil. They sat drinking cognac. I took coffee. Then Kirill and I went to wash the dishes, and Evil lit up a cigarette.
***
In the taxi, I sat next to the driver and could take my breath away by speaking the local dialect.
“Where are you from?” the taxi driver asked.
“The City of Temples,” I replied.
“And who are these people with you?”
“The one, sitting behind you, is almost the Devil himself.”
“Wow! Really?!” the taxi driver exclaimed joyfully, delighted at the ensuing conversation, and looked in the mirror to see Evil.
“A thief and a liar, he wants to destroy the Temple… and kill me,” I said calmly.
“Blimey!!! And the second one? Your big Boss, isn’t he?!”
“The Boss, yes. He is good, but he is bewitched by the Devil and can’t hear anything.”
“But your Boss is not a fool, is he? Would he let the Devil kill you?”
“He listens to those who can sing sweetly.”
“Can’t you sing?”
“I can.”
“So why don’t you sing to him?”
“I work here, in the World of Illusions, under a contract that prohibits singing.”
“Wow! So are you a fairy? Were you sent here by the Higher Forces? To protect the Boss?”
“Well, yes, but not the Boss, to protect the Temple. Although, it turns out, the Boss as well. And what’s there, on the right, in the window, behind the wall? A monastery?”
“No, it’s a cemetery!” the taxi driver said proudly. “You have to be very careful not to get there! But, listen, fairy, doesn’t the Boss count his money? Didn’t he spend it on the Temple?”
“I count his money.”
“It’s dangerous to count other people’s money! Be careful! Blimey! You are really a fairy! I’ve heard that only those who are very nostalgic for corporeality are sent here to serve.”
“Probably,” I replied, based on my own history.
“Anyway, fairies die too! They say they die when one stops believing in them!”
I sighed. We drove up to the entrance of the exhibition. The taxi driver handed me his business card.
“Hold on, fairy! And call me in case!”
***
In the afternoon we had important negotiations with the sharks of imperialism. Kirill put on a suit for the occasion. If one didn’t know that they were sharks, one would never find them out, because, having met them on the street, one would take them for an ordinary small fish. However, that’s how it should be. The same as with Evil.
“Translate well, will you?” Kirill demanded. “I mean, with all the shades of what they have on mind.”
“What they have on mind… that’s exactly my job,” I thought and nodded.
While Kirill and I were walking around the Temple of Imperialism, listening to the lectures of the Italians about who, where, when, how, for what and why, Evil was constantly lost in nooks and crannies, thus expressing the complete absence of any interest in anything due to his omniscience. It got on Kirill’s nerves, and from time to time he shouted to Evil to come up and listen to the sharks, wise by their own experience. I was pleased with the fact that the Temple we had built was not inferior to the masterpieces of Italian architecture.
Once again cutting circles around, the oldest Shark of imperialism nevertheless rode up to me on a bicycle – yes, their Temple was so enormous that the sharks didn’t always swim inside it! – and, taking advantage of the fact that Kirill had gone away for Evil, the Shark pinched me affably.
“Do you think Kirill finally understood something?”
What exactly Kirill was supposed to understand, the Shark didn’t specify, but, being a fairy, I understood without comment.
“I think… you are right,” after having wondered only for a second what to answer so that it would turn out neither so nor that, I replied. “Anyhow, isn’t it possible to know what goes on in the head of another person?”
I lied. I could know what was going on in another person’s head, and even more in Kirill’s.
“You are smart!” said the Shark with deep respect, looking into my eyes. “It’s hard with Kirill, isn’t it? Such a temper! How much does he pay to you?”
“Excuse me, I have a contract with the Higher Forces.”
The Shark immediately apologized for invading someone else’s territory. The sharks of imperialism in general were very courteous to me. When we talked at the round table, they addressed me personally, that didn’t correspond to the etiquette of official negotiations. The sharks were well aware of etiquette, but they did it on purpose, deliberately emphasizing their human attitude towards the fairies. For example, as that day, instead of saying, “Kirill, we are ready to cooperate with you not only in the field of building Temples…”, they said, “Sunny, tell Kirill that we are ready to cooperate with him…”
Sometimes the sharks suddenly switched to the obviously known to me dialect, as if informing that it was not to be translated word for word, but I had the right to listen to them and retell their conversation to Kirill later in my own words.
“What are they talking about? Why are you silent?!” Kirill used to be angry, not realizing that if I had started to retell him the previous fragment of the sharks’ entertaining talk, I wouldn’t have heard the next one.
I used to dive into Kirill’s feline eyes sadly. How much he could have read in me at those moments, if he hadn’t looked away… But Evil, of course, read everything.
***
The train ride from Milan to Venice used to take us about three hours. We flew in to Milan and flew out from Venice. That all had happened before, yes. Evil remembered that, but Kirill didn’t. Round and round. One and the same, or rather, hundreds of variations of the same scenario.
I don’t understand where and what to do differently, I can’t find the Point of No Return, beyond which the Temple is to be destroyed every time. How to resist Evil? How can I help Kirill if I have no right to act by the methods of Evil?
I was sitting by the window, Kirill was next to me, and Evil was opposite, as usual. While they pretended to be asleep, I pretended to write something in a notebook. Evil opened his eyes.
“Are you scribbling the minutes of the meeting with the sharks?” he asked, smiling.
“No, a fairy tale.”
“Have you already written the minutes?” having opened his eyes, Kirill wondered slyly.
Of course, no one needed any minutes, that was such a joke, but I defiantly looked at my watch.
“The working day is already over, boys!”
“Well, write it down there, in your fairy tale,” Kirill asked, “that there is neither restaurant car nor a place to smoke in this train for a human being!”
“What’s the story about?” Evil grinned, offering me for the umpteenth time to retell Kirill our scenario, which still wasn’t played out in the direction of Good.
“About guardian angels, fairies and elves sent to those boys and girls in the World of Illusions for whose souls there is a war between the Forces of Light and Darkness.”
Kirill pressed himself into the chair. Evil, who knew the tale perfectly, covered his face with his palms so as not to betray his malevolent smirk.
“In brief, how does it end?” Kirill asked.
“So far nothing is over yet,” I sighed.
“Why?” Kirill was surprised.
“The fairy turned out to be patient, she doesn’t want to give up. Already dead a thousand times, she stubbornly reincarnates!”
“Dead? Why did the fairy die?” Kirill got even more surprised. “Do fairies die? Give me a cigarette, I’ll go to smoke that.”
Kirill went out into the vestibule. Evil silently looked at me, anticipating his victory.
“Well, where are your miracles? Nothing new! Give up, come on! How long can we travel to Milan? I’m already sick of the exhibition and this script! Let’s play the next one! There so many scenarios, like dirt! What are you stuck to this like a bath leaf for?!”
***
On the eve of departure, as before, Evil left us alone, citing wild fatigue.
“Let’s go out for dinner somewhere!” Kirill suggested.
We sat in a restaurant, across from each other. I listened to his beautiful speeches with a sinking heart, until the same point.
“Listen, today I…” Kirill sighed and, without looking into my eyes, continued, “I gave the order to dismantle our Temple, because… Well, it’s not the place for a Temple there. It doesn’t bring me much money, you know. There are enough temples in the city, without our one! And we will open the Casino! It’s much more profitable than the Temple! And then we will restore our Temple somewhere in the region. Besides, to be honest, all this mouse fuss over trifles has already got me over the top!”
Then Kirill said something about the damn unbalanced schedule of purchases at the candle factory; the problems with the automatic stock accounting of wax rests, incense, oil and lamp oil; the wrong proportions of diluting church wine with water; glitches in accounting for the distribution of prosphora and baptismal water; the complaints of parishioners about the lack of proper control over the absolution of sins; the poor-quality of wiping dust from the icons and a decrease in sales of printed materials…
I listened to him for the umpteenth time, trying my best to restrain my feelings, because under the contract, I had no right to tell Kirill that, as it had been already written in the script, at the grand opening of the Casino, he would be killed.
However, it was already the umpteenth time, and…
“Do you want to know the truth?” I stopped his train of thought.
Kirill was dumbfounded for a moment, and then reluctantly nodded in agreement.
“Fairies die when one stops believing in them!” I remembered the words of the taxi driver as the final warning of my own Guardian.
And… Yes, I violated the terms of the contract and told Kirill everything: about the script and Evil, sent to him as a temptation under the code name ‘Casino’, and about the contract with the Higher Forces, and, well, about the fact that I was a fairy…
Kirill kept silent. However, I felt my wings gradually begin to melt, my earthly vision started floating, my body thinned faster and faster with every second, and then…
…I lost to Evil again!!!
Oh, what a stupid feature of fairies to fall in love with their charges in the World of Illusions!
2005