Guardian Angel. 2. 4. Girl and a Wolf

"A GUARDIAN ANGEL"
a mistical novel
by Alexandra Kryuchkova

PART II. A DREAMS TRAP

2.4. A GIRL and a WOLF

December 1987, Moscow

Mom and I went down the escalator to the subway and turned right. We waited for the train, it arrived, and we entered it. There were a lot of people, but we had only one stop to go. Only one. We got off at an unknown station. I tried to read its name in vain. Everything was shrouded in the Mist. How did it get there, underground, in the subway? The Mist was thickening. We headed to the exit, but there was a whole pandemonium in front of the escalator! Why were there so many people? I didn’t see them because of the Mist, but I felt them. Like my mother and I, they were slowly moving towards the exit. Mom took a step into the Mist and dissolved into it. I tried to follow her, but I bumped into people. They closed me in a tight ring and didn’t let me pass. I tried to push them apart with my hands, but didn’t succeed. Those people turned into a stone wall. I was knocking on it with my childish fists, trying to move it, but the forces were unequal. I realized that with every moment my mother was farther and farther away. She was leaving, and I couldn’t stop her. I was losing her.

«No, mom! Don’t leave me here alone! No!»

The panic fear of hopelessness. The feeling of inevitability of what was about to happen.

«Mommy! Ma-ma-aaa!»

«Alice,» my mother woke up from my scream, «what’s wrong with you?»

«You’re leaving. I don’t want you to leave!»

«I’m here! I’m not leaving anywhere!»

«You are!» I cried. «You are not quite here anymore!»

«Do you have bad dreams?»

«They are not dreams! They are reality! But I don’t want them to come true! I want you to stay!»

I wept, hugging my pillow, the only silent friend who never argued with me.

«Alice, you scare me. After you died in September, you came back different! Look, I’m here. I’m alive! I’m not going to die!»

«You don’t believe me! Go to the doctor!»

«Nothing hurts me! Your fear has no real reason. It’s just a figment of your imagination. You mustn’t believe your dreams, Alice, even if they come true sometimes! Dreams are deceptive. Sooner or later, they’ll deceive you anyway. Not dreams must control you, but you must control your dream!»


***
February 2011, Moscow


I stopped by a bard and composer to pick up the files with the recording of my songs. While he was copying them onto a flash drive, I slowly wandered around his room and suddenly stopped.

«What’s this?» I burst out involuntarily.

«I paint,» the composer said, embarrassed.

There were paintings on the shelves by the window. A lot of them. There was a black city on all of them, with black houses, small blind windows, gray Mist and Full Moon, on every picture. It was the city too familiar to me, my favorite city, the City-on-the-Water. But in those pictures it looked completely cardboard, like the scenery on the stage — artificial, frightening, sinister.

«Have you been to Venice?»

«Never.»

«Why is it black?»

«Maybe it’s… crying.»

«I’ve just come back from a business trip there,» I sighed, still looking at the paintings. «My favorite city. I often go to Venice. On business and on my own. There is something magical about the city that keeps me coming back.»

«You should go to Venice with your loved one!»

«I thought so, too. But an Italian, the CEO of the factory, with whom we communicate at work, said that Venice was considered in Italy to be an unhappy city for lovers, bringing eternal separation. He gave me some examples from his own life and the lives of his friends. Even engagements had been canceled after such trips, and one girl had even died!»

«Maybe that’s why Venice is crying!»

«I had a strange dream about a year ago. I was being buried in Venice. I completely forgot about it, but remembered recently, during my last business trip, while I walking around San Marco. I went to the pier and saw a boat sailing away from the shore. Just like in that dream…»

«So will you be buried in Venice?»

«I don’t know. It was early morning. It looked like spring. A misty haze. There were only two people in the boat, the boatman and the Man in Black with gray, almost white hair. They were carrying my body or ashes. I don’t know, I was scared to look inside the boat. They were going to the opposite island. I don’t even know what island it is. I’ve never been to it.»

«So who is he, your Black Man?»

«I don’t know.»

«Anyhow, he’s definitely not me!» the composer smiled. «Forget the dream! One could dream whatever. You’d better write a book about it! And I’ll paint Venice for you, if you want.»

…I was returning home on the subway, plunging into a slumber. Suddenly, I heard words of a verse about Venice. I took out my phone to write them down. But who was that verse addressed? The Man in Black I hadn’t met yet? Or I had, but not realized as Him? In the last lines, Venice was swallowed up by the Mist of my last lethargy. I often didn’t know what I was writing about. But every mystery was solved sooner or later. It was just a question of time. It was a pity, the Man in White had never called me back. Everything resolved itself. «No» meant «no».

«It’s not Him,» I exhaled not without sadness and…

…already at home, I glanced at the windowsill. There were three books I had signed for him a long time before, but for some reason I hadn’t dared to give him. I didn’t want to meet him. He had already told me everything by his silence. But every unfinished action must be completed. So I decided to take the books on Saturday to his Palace and pass them to him through the guard with my laconic letter, in which there was nothing but an inexplicable feeling of attraction and my subconscious rationalism. Perhaps, being stronger than me, the Man in White would destroy the wall of my fear. If… What would I lose after his silent «no»? Absolutely nothing.

After a good night sleep, I went to his Palace around lunchtime. Approaching the Palace, I felt more and more strongly that he was inside there. I could have turned around and driven back. But I was drawn to him. Inexplicably. Irrationally. Like a wave to the rocks in order to crash…

I climbed the steps, opened the door, greeted the guard and asked to pass my modest present to the addressee.

«He’s just arrived. How should I introduce you?»

«Damn it!» I swore mentally, and a wave of panic fear of something inevitable, imminent, that was about to happen, covered me from the head to toe.

«Alice,» I tried to keep calm.

I opened his door. He was sitting at a table by the window. He looked at me and barely suppressed his devilish laughter.

«I brought you a gift.»

«I’ve just got back. I was flying a bit. Well, what’s your decision?»

He took the plastic bag with my books about Another Reality and the letter, which he certainly shouldn’t read if I said «yes’, and put it on the windowsill. I stood opposite. He was all in white. Damn tall and devilishly handsome. Devilishly…

«I don’t want to tell you «no’, and I can’t say «yes’,» I exhaled with difficulty.

He looked at me, piercing with his gaze and energy. I wanted to be with him. I was drawn to him.

«Because you need free time? Money?»

«Both time and money. What’s the point to lose something that…?»

I knew he had read my poems. They were easy to find on the Internet. But I was talking nonsense. The very one given to me by my rational Subconscious. That part of me didn’t want me to experience pain again. It was protecting me. Why? What could he do to me? Where did the panic come from?

«I get it,» he said with a smile.

We came to the door. I opened it with my left hand as he held out his right hand to me in farewell. I touched his fingers and… He turned me around to face him. My hands reached for his neck, my fingers dug into his gray, almost white hair. I closed my eyes. My Wolfish-Self wanted that earthly love madly. While my other Self, the Girl, frantically tries to find at least some reason to… Suddenly, I remembered a small detail about my underwear, which would have absolutely no meaning in the same situation if it were another man in his place. But he… He was too categorical in his statements… Half a step to the left… Half a step to the right… If I had known that we would meet that day, I would have put on the most beautiful and expensive I had! He would consider me unworthy of him. He won’t ever forgive me. He would kill me…

«No, not now, please, don’t…»

«Isn’t that what you wanted?»

I turned around to face the door. I was torn apart. He sat down at the table behind me.

«What’s wrong?» he asked. «Are you offended?»

I didn’t know what to answer. How could I explain that I was terribly scared of him? Just as much as of losing him! Of the thought that we would never be together again? I really wanted him to stay in my life, to become my man… I wished I had fallen through the earth, disappeared, erased that fragment from the Tablets and rewritten it once and forever! I said goodbye and went away. Who was he?

The portraits flash along the sea.
My solitaire layout says,
bold poets enter in cahoots
with Death, pretending to be brave…

Espresso is so sweet by dreams.
San Marco listens to the surf.
The waves are chatting with the bridge,
that you are looking for my ash…