Joseph by Rudolf Nureyev Without Make Up Australia
JOSEPH / http://proza.ru/diary/yuri2008/2008-05-02 / 2008
Lady Katrina Dell entered the Baptist church grounds before sunrise.
She sits on a bench and prays about her loved ones.
Maybe she didn’t sleep that night, like me.
“I’m becoming worse and decrepit.
What will be in store for me tomorrow?
Do I really have a today?” she utters to herself.
I know that she was born with a bright mind as people gossiped around.
She has one more, “God given gift.” That attracted to her always pure and innocent soul.
“Everybody guessed that it’s not possible to learn such intuition,” I gasped.
Yes, she’s lucky. She was able to meet with openhearted people. Already as a child she was found faultless. All her youth she donated her spare time to the local convent. After being one of the first women to graduate an Australian university, she taught children for a long time. She married at the age of fifty. When she was seventy-five she buried her first husband and for the last ten years she’s been living alone.
So here Lady Katrina muses about her life with a smile. She managed to complete everything that she wanted. Yes, she had excellent health. There was only one thing lacking, children of her own. It was already a bit too late for breeding when they had their honeymoon. That’s why the virgin never gave birth, even though her husband was sixty. She accepted that the happiness of motherhood had avoided her.
Yes, it was too late to have her own children.
Now at such an early hour children... are still asleep.
Katrina fed the robins and smiled at her own thoughts…
“Yes, I have had a glorious fate. A wonderful kindhearted path to Jesus-Christ.”
I see how her eyes roamed across the church garden.
Why did she shy away, as if embarrassed over her words!
She breathed noiselessly and lightly.
She took out her embroidered handkerchief.
“Who’s that here so early? Are they going to the church? For my long life I’ve never seen anything here at this time of morning. Did I hear the town clock strike 5.30 am?” she asks me, trying to strike up a chat.
Katrina looks at me cautiously. I felt that I caught her.
“I see that you have a peaceful defined face. No, you’re not British; we don’t have such curly hair. What color are your eyes?” she began to ask. Inside her somehow sparked again into life long forgotten inquisitive lass. Unfamiliar curiosity raised her from the spot and she instantly greeted me.
“There is nothing at my age more dishonorable than to make inquiries to a man,” she smiles at me for my welcoming greeting.
We sat few hands closer together. Her puzzle was confirmed. I wasn’t from the local surrounding of Armidale. Here, nobody stands, especially when a gentleman becomes acquainted with a lady. My warm feelings towards made her blush. She shines all over from delight. “This young man sees me as a real woman, it’s so frightfully amusing. Isn’t there no less than a century between us?” she laughs under he prewar fashioned pink-laced hat, that she bought from Grace Brothers, so long ago.
“You’ve green eyes, the ones that I’ve been keeping an eye out for,” she said with a firm voice and wiped the edge of her lips. The natural dryness in her voice isn’t becoming. She couldn’t even make an accidental gesture, which is able to bring forward my stupid thoughts about her as a flippant, vague widow.
She always remains impregnable and without a doubt a proud Australian Lady, with archaic British roots from far off India. Strange, why did her heart miss a beat?
“His smile and good natured voice are so familiar,” she nearly understood, for herself what was wrong with her again. Simply, I was a copy of one of her forgotten friends, who she remembered since the first or second world wars.
“Oh, how long ago it was,” she whispered to herself.
Yes, of course she recognized such a forgotten lad. Was he a son of her British classmate, John?
“...It’s such a delightful morning... Rudy’s... my name...” I remarked.
She had drifted into thought about her loss and missed my compliment. You see her chosen one, John never returned from Gallipoli in 1915. He didn’t have a chance to fulfill his engagement vows.
We sat in silence. I didn’t strike up a conversation again. She also didn’t know what to say. To tell her ...my famous name would be fooling. No, she didn’t name her position in society.
Everything that I had discovered was that such beautiful lady Katrina Dell is a part of New England.
Yes, she remained a classical Lady from the Victorian age. This strange era lived is her. I breathed into the wrinkles of her chin and powdered cheeks. She sat close by, but couldn’t draw nearer to this traveler. She was silent... with me the by passer.
“I’ve already been here for two days, in Armidale,” I began. “Here... are squabbling magpies, warm skies and multitudes of daisies. This cathedral park has stolen my heart. It’s the most beautiful... the most magnificent, that I’ve seen in Australia,” I couldn’t hold back my tensions any longer.
“I’ve lived and been raised here for nearly a century. I’m eighty two,” she blushed from the feelings of sympathy to me and hoped that the thick layer of make-up would hide from me her secretive two years.
“This place could be loved. I would also have loved to live my life here,” I exhaled thoughtfully as I watch how a bee lands on her dress.
She raised her timid eyes, forgetting about her nervous unsteady hands. She started to recognize me as a friend. In response I began to study her face, eyes and figure. She felt unmistakably my scrupulous glance. She had no need for ridiculous glasses and saw everything without them... including my eyes.
“Do you think that I’m strict?” she asked jealously and unexpectedly unable to trust her boldness.
Lady Katrina checked herself, that she broke monstrously the lady’s etiquette. Such bravery was unknown to her. “Have I really became the same as those old fools around me? Fancy, I’ve gone completely mad!” she whispered again to herself.
“No, no! Simply … that you have abrupt phrases and … long pauses … between words. Yes, your voice is rather firm with a special assertive tone! If you call that strictness, I’m sorry, but I don’t agree with you. No, you have nothing of the kind,” I smile with cunning and impudence.
“Listen, my dear odd lad, come and stay in my house. It’s so quiet there, like this park. I live with my friend Scruffy. We’re at the same age and he... he isn’t human,” she giggled with magical laughter that scattered like glass beads among a rustling larch.
She struck me with her ringing voice and kindness. I didn’t ever ask her about it. More than that, I didn’t even think about living in her home.
“Separately or together? Where will I...”
“Chose one of the six rooms,” she answered and stood to her full height and offered me to follow her.
I thanked her dearly and promised to move in without beating about the bush before sunset. Now, we didn’t say more about it as we wandered silently through the alleys and streets listening to birds and laughed in amazement at a possum that leaped from nowhere.
We were stunned when behind our backs burst a tire from one on those vile sports cars. Later we fed a dilapidated sugar glider. When the church opened at about ten, we soundlessly parted to different saints, I to the Holy Mother Mary and she to the Apostle Peter.
The next morning I took care of the house. The kitchen, trips to the shop and matters of medications and toiletries lay on my shoulder.
One night a visitor came to me. She noticed that there was something a little odd about the visit. To be exact it was alarmingly quiet. We talked in whispers, not wishing to disturb her game of patience. I was pale and extremely in resistance. It was clear that this young man annoyed me.
Lady Katrina decided to go to bed early, seeing that something embarrassed him and me. She never once stood up and came to the patio where we sat talking.
“There’s something wrong in the house,” her heart hinted.
In the morning over a cup of tea I opened my guilt to her as I hugged her shoulders meekly.
“I can’t lie to you my friend. I must confess. I have committed an unfortunate sin, in your house, Lady Dell,” I stuttered and stepped towards the window ledge.
“How?” she asked softly, preparing herself for bad news.
“I slept... I had intercourse with Joseph in your home,” my mournful voice uttered.
She didn’t comprehend what I had said. It couldn’t occur in her head how to react, like a mother had done after the same confession in my teens in Russia.
Her words shot from her mouth like a head splitting migraine.
“Are you still... serious?”
“Yes,” lowering my head as I sobbed.
My shoulders quivered. She didn’t recognize me. I was a gruesomely killed man. It’s not her familiar, Rudy. A sodomite committing …an absolutely … horrid … shameful … act … against the Baptist Church.
“And how long have you had such... sickness?” she asked coolly.
“It’s the first time... yesterday,” I cried from dishonor and covered my face as if from being slapped on the cheek... for a lie that could save me.
I was frightened to sit next to her. I talked to her from one corner of the sitting room to the other. She was raised up in her grandfather’s armchair and patted her silky terrier, Scruffy.
“I’ll pray for you and your Chilean Joseph,” she whispered and opened the Bible that lay on the coffee table beside her. Her crimson face was waxed by shock.
I covered my eyes with my palms and ran into my room. We spoke no more about him ever. Everything stood in their usual place.
Everyday I returned back from my walk at one and the same time. She checked my timetable by her clock. She prayed to all Holy Saints about forgiveness for my lascivious recklessness. My friend escaped to Surfer’s Paradise and never returned or set foot inside her house again.
On Saturdays and Sundays we caught a cab to the Baptist church.
She noticed my change.
I no longer visited Mary, the Holy Mother of Christ.
I worshipped St. David and St. Jonathon...
Lady Katrina understood everything. These sufferers became closer to me after separating with Joseph. Is the Biblical story about these boys believable? She constantly asked herself over and over. Strange thoughts about forbidding love between men in the end exhausted her mentality about the meaning of a family. What of all those fables about Oscar Wilde? Gossip about homosexuality of the single Nobel Prize winner for Literature in Australia... Patrick White?
“How strange it all is! Must I really have to whip, cut and burn them? Not to print their masterpieces? In other means … to refuse … to translate their discoveries … for mankind into different languages. Maybe at last to obey the law what was announced by the socialist in Germany... with the sole purpose to kill, cremate and disintegrate homosexuals throughout W.W.II ?”
Soon after I flew to London.
She never listened to an opera or watched a ballet in her provincial town at the end of the world in Australia.
Yes, Lady Katrina Dell changed before my eyes. Her letters to me proved this. Her open and ardent intellect couldn’t misinterpret Christian honor and human conscience in the most awkward fantasies. In her aged years she is still open for all new experiences, of which she never guessed yesterday.
She began to look more regularly in the mirror …
You see... she began to grow a mustache.
“I’m sure that I start to change my sexuality. Perhaps my face is transformed into the male image? It’s the first time that had to shave my skin. The same happened to my arms and legs. My doctor never gave answer… me …at all. Do I really start to reminisce about those men more and more? Maybe this will make me more attractive for Joseph? What about my St. David and St. Jonathon?” she joked.
Stung by the relationship to herself, for her own egotism... in a letter, which she sent to Joseph... who now, studies at the Brisbane University. He collected such letters for me. Here is one of them ...
“Time ticked on and on. I daydream about something in my antique armchair. No! No! No! I said as I dreamt. God supports all living things! Bless, the Virgin Mary and all breathing creatures on Earth including the tropical butterflies, snakes and birds. Why do we have to evilly bash all that’s unusual and unfamiliar in our Holy Christianity! No, we are then against God’s will, who forbade us to kill our closest ones. Christ protects the enjoyment of life in any form or manifestation. Everyone and everything that we misunderstand isn’t beyond God’s power. Oh, Jonathon and David! Great God our Holy Keeper of life, how is it in Heaven, on Earth or in Outer space. I bless you, Rudy. I’m prepared to take with me to the Holy Judge, your sinful thoughts and business. One day I said such things to myself and with relief kissed the Holy Bible. Immediately after that I laughed as a child and reached out my hands to greet the sky. St. Jonathon and David smiled in reply… “We’re with you, dear Katrina. We love you all. We waited for you to give divine joy!” Is what they told M…e? …“.
Lady Katrina Dell,
my sweetheart …
died on the eleventh of December in the year of nineteen ninety after the birth of Jesus Christ.
She’s buried in the Baptist cemetery in Armidale, New South Wales in Australia.
My friend Yuri Matthew Ryuntyu laid a bunch of black roses on her grave after the funeral service of her corpse in her native town,
where she lived two more years, after our first meeting.
And so, as noticed in “A year with Rudolf Nureyev” by Simen Robinson: “Christmas 1990 Rudolf’s former lovers came to stay with him at St. Barts, but Rudolf was in Paris with old admirer…”
I was busy too… in Australia and didn’t stay in Paris...
and ignored his passionate invitations for Christmas.
2009: ÑÅÐÈß ÈÇ 10 ÊÍÈÃ Þðè Ìýòòüþ Ðþíòþ
Publication Announcement-2009 Australia RU
Charitable Organization “The World Patrick White Intellectual Heritage: Australia” starting publication of the 10-Books of Australian Writer Yuri Ryuntyu in this year of his the 60-th jubilee: 1949-2009 in English, Russian and French:
Book 1
2009 ROCK IDOL & SUPERSTAR: Freddie Mercury and Rudolf Nureyev
ISBN 978-0-9806446-0-9 ART DOCUMENTARY: 1938-1993
Book 2
2009 RUDY NUREYEV: WITHOUT MAKE-UP
ISBN 978-0-9806446-1-6 SHORT STORY
Book 3
2009 ROUDI NOUREEV: Sans Maquillage
ISBN 978-0-9806446-2-3 SHORT STORY
Book 4
ISBN 978-0-9806446-3-0 BALLET DOCUMENTARY: 1910-1997
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Book 5
2009 ÑÓÏÅÐÇÂÅÇÄÀ & ÐÎÊ-ÈÄÎË : ÍÓÐÅÅÂ È ÌÅÐÊÞÐÈ
ISBN 978-0-9806446-4-7 ART DOCUMENTARY: 1938-1993
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ISBN 978-0-9806446-5-4 THEATRE DOCUMENTARY: 1917-1997
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ISBN 978-0-9806446-6-1 SCIENCE FICTION
2009 ÎÄÍÎÒÎÌÍÈÊ ÏÀÐÀËËÅËÜÍÛÅ ÌÈÐÛ: ÀÍÄÐÅÉ ÒÀÐÊÎÂÑÊÈÉ
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Book 9
ISBN 978-0-9806446-8-5 THEATRE DOCUMENTARY: 1936-1996
2009 ÎÄÍÎÒÎÌÍÈÊ ÐÅÖÅÏÒ ÄËß ÃÅÍÈß: ÐÎÌÀÍ ÂÈÊÒÞÊ
Book 10
2009 ÐÓÄÈ ÍÓÐÅÅÂ: ÁÅÇ ÌÀÊÈßÆÀ
ISBN 978-0-9806446-9-2 SHORT STORY
ÑÅÐÈß ÈÇ 35 ÊÍÈÃ Þðè Ìýòòüþ Ðþíòþ: Youri Mathieu Runtu: Yuri Matthew RYUNTYU - ÏÐÎÔÈÍÀÍÑÈÐÎÂÀÍA ÑÓÏÅÐÇÂÅÇÄÀÌÈ ÌÈÐÎÂÎÉ ÈÍÒÅËËÅÊÒÓÀËÜÍÎÉ ÝËÈÒÛ È ÌÓËÜÒÈÌÈËËÈÎÍÅÐÀÌÈ ÍÓÐÅÅÂÛÌ http://rudolfnureyev.com.au/ È ÔÐÝÄÄÈ ÌÅÐÊÜÞÐÈ http://mercuryfreddie.com.au/, ÓÎÐÕÎËÎÌ http://warholandy.com.au/ È ÓÀÉÒÎÌ http://patrickwhite.com.au/ ÄËß ÁÅÇÂÎÇÌÅÇÄÍÎÃÎ ÐÀÑÏÐÎÑÒÐÀÍÅÍÈß Â 200 ÑÒÐÀÍÀÕ ÑÎÄÐÓÆÅÑÒÂÀ ÎÎÍ c 1998-2008.
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ÐÓÑÑÊÎE ÇÀÐÓÁÅÆÜE: ÀÂÑÒÐÀËÈß
Àâñòðàëèàía Ëèòåðàòóðà Póññêîãî 3àðóáåæüÿ
Yuri Matthew Ryuntyu was born in KIZHI, ONEGA LAKE, Russia. Following his studies at the Academy of Science, Yuri Matthew RYUNTYU moved to Sydney (Australia) and worked, most notably, as a medico-biology scientist. A prizewinning scholar and academician, he has published a 45 books of literary and cultural criticism, including <The Recipe for the Genius>, <The Requiem for the Foresee>, <The Grate Surrenders>, <Abreast and Profile of The Imperial Russian Ballet> and <The Apostolic Silver Age of Russian Culture>. He has also written for such publication as the World of News, the Book Review, the Theatre Life, the Pravda, the Moscow Evening, the Moscow Pravda, the Megapolis Express and the Evening Club about Poetry, Literature, Movies, Religion, History, Music, Opera, Ballet, Politics and Australian Arts, where he is a contributing editor. His literary works and articles are available in English, French, Russian, German, Japanese and Kazakh for readers. Ryuntyu was able to dedicate himself entirely to literature following the success of <Rudolf Nureyev: without Make-up> in Russia, a gloomy satire on sexuality published in 1995. Ryuntyu’s ironic and often disillusioned perception of the state of affairs in Russia during and after the Communist occupation produced a body of work that is still at the forefront of twentieth-century Russian and Australian literature. A most famous: <The Temptation: Boris Yeltsin>, <On the Way of the Cross: Alexander Solzhenitsyn>, <Idol Russian Gay Culture: Sergey Paradzhanov> and <The Meditation: Bella Akhmadulina and Joseph Brodsky> http://ryuntyu.com/8o/ Yuri Ryuntyu live in Cairns, Great Barrier Reef, Australia + Ðþíòþ o Êóëüòóðe Ðîññèÿí â ÑØÀ The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum USA http://www.reaganlibrary.com/
+ http://ryuntyu.com/BIBLIOGRAPHY.htm + http://ryuntyu.com/DIPLOMA.htm
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