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

9. A Canary

Svetlana hadn’t been there for ten years, but she went to her old friend’s party with a light heart and absolute peace of mind. It was only out of simple female curiosity that she wanted to have a look at Artyom, what if he still lived there and was at home.

He worked for a commercial company then. At first, everything was great, they had clothes and food exclusively from luxury supermarkets, the most prestigious car, and not a dacha, but a palace. However, soon a bottomless void appeared in Svetlana’s soul, and she felt lonely. She loved her husband, who used to leave early in the morning and return at night, because of meetings, negotiations, friends, partners, clients and business trips, and she missed his attention, care and, probably, love. Repeatedly and in vain, Svetlana asked to devote more time to her.

“You don’t understand anything, money rules the world!” Artyom used to say, and nothing changed.

One day Svetlana left him for nowhere, but quickly enough she got a good job, began to earn decent money and to live no worse than before. She stopped being sad, soon got married again and gave birth to charming twins. However, at some point, she caught herself thinking that she no longer cared what time her second husband came home, whether he devoted free time to her or not. Negotiations? Okay. Business trip? Okay as well.

They had money, that really managed everything.

“Just think about it! I became an ideal woman for Artyom,” Svetlana came to the conclusion, passing by his doorway, and noticed light in the familiar window…

Artyom opened the door.

“Wow! What way?!” he said in surprise. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. Come in!”

Svetlana entered the room and looked around appraising. Everything was the same: luxury brand furniture, paintings by cool artists … Although… in a cage on the table by the window she noticed a small bird.

“I bought the canary not to feel lonely,” Artyom admitted.

“Aren’t you married?”

“Can’t married people feel lonely? My wife with kids enjoy the Canary Islands every summer. And how are you? I hope your new husband spends more time with you than I did.”

“No, imagine. I don’t need that anymore. I don’t ask him to come home early so that we spend our free time together … I became what you wanted me to be ten years ago.”

“What time makes of us! Back then, I thought you were too demanding. I wanted freedom. I suppose I didn’t know to love true yet. My second wife is ready to live without me for her own comfort. Now I wish she asked me, like you, to come home early, to walk with her in the park and go to the theater, but money is the only thing she is interested in… So life made me understand how much I had been mistaken… I would pay much to return to the past and bring you back.”

“One can’t return to the past because one doesn’t have to return.”

“So, you couldn’t fall in love with me again, could you?!”

“I have to go.”

They said goodbye and disappeared from each other’s lives again.

***

Six months later Svetlana found herself in those places once more, already for business.

Having parked the car, she went straight to the office building for a business meeting, not knowing yet that it would end suddenly and simultaneously with the breath of her life, according to the decision of the Judges to transfer Svetlana’s soul in Heaven by thromboembolism. Chances to change destiny in order to remain on Earth are not always given to people in unlimited quantities, sometimes it even seems unfair that, for example, a worthless drunkard lives to a ripe old age, while an admirable business woman is recalled prematurely.

Passing by a liquor store, crowded with not quite sober people, Svetlana noticed the gaze of an unattractive man.

“Hello,” said Artyom, approaching her staggeringly.

“I didn’t expect to see you… here! What’s happened?”

“My canary’s damn dead,” he muttered.

“Who is dead?” Svetlana asked to clarify the unheard.

“My last friend… He used to wait for my returns home from work… He tweeted something in his own language … And … he died, unable to live in our damn family! Now my friend visits me at night. As a ghost … Do you believe in ghosts?”

“Do you mean your canary?” Svetlana asked again, and Artyom nodded.

“Run away from money!” he whispered in her ear. “I’m going to spend all I have not to spoil my children!”

“What are you talking about?!” Svetlana exclaimed, recoiling from him in horror and thinking, “What a blessing our paths diverged!”

“Yes, our paths diverged,” said Artyom as if reading her thoughts. “One can’t return to the past because one doesn’t have to return… However, who knows, if you hadn’t left me then, perhaps it would have been you walking in my shoes now…”

September 21, 1995

10. A Cats’ name

She had a cats’ name that no dog could pronounce, but she never smelt like a cat, so I didn’t mean her any harm. I remember her as pretty: kind dog eyes and dark fur … sorry, I mean, hair! If you count, as people do, she was young, but dogs don’t live that long. I can’t say she looked so beautiful for a dog like me to fall in love with her, but for my master it was a completely different matter! When she was calling, his face suddenly changed, his hands began to fiddle with the telephone cable, and if my master had got a tail, he would have definitely wagged it! It always happens to me involuntarily when I communicate with those I like …

They didn’t talk for long by phone – they made appointments. I don’t know why he took me with him, but I was glad! I found it nice to have a company of good people, and I wagged my tail at her for both of us, me and my master.

I remember every meeting of them. We used to wait for her under the trees in the courtyard. She always smiled approaching us, seemed to be so happy… We walked along the road leading to the park. They talked about things that, in my opinion, were not worth talking about. In fact, dogs are silent, because there is really nothing to talk about. Everything was already said a long time ago. You have to either howl when you are sad, or bark when you are nervous, angry, annoyed, if you want to attract attention or rejoice, it’s your intonation that matters… However, people still talk, they just don’t understand yet a lot of things in life, unlike dogs…

I didn’t know where and when they had got acquainted, however, a long time before my birth. They used to remember the days they had been together. Despite the fact that all conversations of these strange people were limited exclusively to their Past, there was something that connected them in the Present.

At first, I could not understand why they were not together. Imagine my surprise when, during our walk one evening, she took off her gloves, and I noticed a gold ring on her hand! You know what that means, don’t you?! And who on earth would think of such a nonsense as getting married? Dogs never get married, because it’s not serious at all! What does a ring change? A few extra grams on your finger! Rings mean nothing in life, as well as a lot of other things. That’s why dogs don’t wear rings. No kind at all. By the way, not dogs only, mind you…

My master told me the strangest love story I’ve ever heard, that would never happen to a dog, that’s for sure!

He loved her, as you see… secretly! And he never told her about it… Well, they used to call and meet, they wandered here and there, walking around and… walking around! But there are a lot of men among people, and not all of them prefer to love secretly! Someone can call, meet, take a walk and… move on!

One day that someone appeared in her life, met her, went for a walk and offered her an ill-fated ring! Of course, she told my master about it. He was stunned naturally, but he didn’t even lift a finger to stop her! How do you like it? It was obviously not a ‘wow-wow!’ but a ‘woof-woof’! In brief, she never knew he loved her, and I never understood why he didn’t tell her anything. Was he so greedy not to buy her the ring?

The last time I saw her, was late in autumn. We met in the courtyard, as usual, and went to the park. She looked even more beautiful, but quite sad. In the park, suddenly citing tiredness, she sat down on a bench. I watched her carefully. She was about to say something very important. For her and for both of them. There was an excruciating pause. She was silent. And he was silent. I tried my best to make her talk. I was twirling at her feet, wagging my tail, hypnotizing her with my eyes, and then I couldn’t stand it anymore, and, as a result, I even barked! However, she didn’t understand me! She sighed heavily, got up abruptly and said she had to go…

We stood outside her house, saying goodbye. She left us… forever… At first, I thought he would call to say he loved her, because he really loved her! Yes, he did. You should have seen at what speed he jumped up from the sofa every time the phone rang, and how hopefully he said “Hello!”, and how dark he grew immediately, having realized it wasn’t SHE.

Now, tell me, do dogs behave like that? Once I became so brutalized that I walked up to my master and bit him. He didn’t understand why, apparently, and got offended…

I tried to do my best to reconcile them. When my master took me for a walk, I dragged him to her house, and we were wandering under the trees of the courtyard where she had used to come out smiling. I tried to find her by smell, but remember the winds blowing that autumn! Soon the snow started falling, sweeping away the traces of the Past, and winter came. She left us forever. And mind you, without ‘woof-woof’…

I have never understood human nature, and probably I will never do. But why people, who, unlike dogs, have the gift of speech, are not able to understand themselves and each other just to be happy?

August 1996

11. Come on!

I worked at a luxury college as an elementary school teacher. I was twenty-five years old, full of hopes and plans for the future. Life pampered me. I never denied myself anything and got all I wanted. Troubles bypassed me, and I felt happy.

That college was located not far from the city, at the edge of a beautiful small lake in a pine forest. We accepted children whose parents could pay a substantial tuition fee for a year, carried out according to the usual school curriculum, apart from optional courses and extra-activities, and the children lived there for the whole school year, although parents could, of course, take them home for weekends and holidays. We had very tasty food. The dormitories were furnished as well as luxury rooms of the five-stars hotels, just in various fairy tales design. The pupils used to pass their free time playing, going for walks and generally doing whatever they wanted, since almost nothing was forbidden to them.

That year I was recruiting the first class, afraid of being unable to communicate with the kids ‘in the same language’. However, I adapted quickly enough, and everything went perfectly. The class turned out to be friendly, the children were talented.

***

Before Christmas, I announced the PTA meeting, after which the parents could take their children home for the holidays. Returning to the teachers’ building in the evening, I noticed a little girl in a squirrel coat who seemed to be waiting for someone. It was Christina from my class.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Is my dad coming?”

“Of course, he is! Go to your room, it’s getting late!”

“Come on, Alice… Talk to me!” Christina said almost in a whisper, averting her gaze to the side.

I didn’t know how to react to her words. None of the pupils addressed me like that, and I was about to reprimand the girl, but then, looking into her sad eyes, I changed my mind. Besides, the Christmas atmosphere was already in the air: the blizzard had turned the edge of the forest into a fairy tale, it was still snowing, and the lanterns were winking mysteriously…

“Go back to your place, Chris!” I repeated, but the girl didn’t move and remained silent, forcing me to add categorically, “I have to go, see you tomorrow!”

I told a lie, there was no need for me to rush, I just didn’t want to stay alone with her. After walking about ten meters towards the staff building, I heard her voice calling me,

“Alice! You look like…”

However, I didn’t turn around…

***

On the eve of the PTA meeting, I planned to take a walk along the lake with my friend, a seventh grade teacher, but she was suddenly called by our chief, and I had to wander alone. As I sat down on the bench, Christina materialized next to me, as if out of nowhere.

“Why are you alone, Chris?” I asked.

“I like it this way.”

“Don’t you like to play with other children?”

“I don’t.”

“Why?”

“I’m not like them.”

I wanted to ask ‘why’ again, but I said nothing.

“Come on, Alice… let’s talk,” Christina added quietly.

“Well-bred girls don’t talk like that to those who are older!”

“I will talk like that only to you!”

I saw tears in her eyes, however, I’d been sickened by crybabies since childhood.

“That’s no way to behave! Join your friends!” I said in a semi-commanding voice.

Christina got up silently and walked away.

***

I held the PTA meeting successfully enough. When everyone had gone and left me alone in the office, Christina appeared at the door.

“Haven’t you gone yet?” I asked.

“Dad hasn’t arrived,” she said sadly.

“And your mother?”

The girl shrugged.

“Will you call home?” I suggested.

“Come on, Alice…”

“Oh, these familiarities again!” I thought.

Christina dialed some phone number and was answered, but she remained silent and hung up.

“Wrong number?” I supposed.

Christina silently left the room. I made her come back and called to their house myself. Her grandma answered me. She said that Christina’s dad would definitely come to college in a fortnight, after his business trip. I passed that information on to the girl, but got no response.

“Why did you hang up?” I asked again.

Christina got up and silently walked away.

“Chris!” I shouted, and she didn’t even turn around.

I got angry and decided to complain about the girl to her father.

***

Two weeks of vacation flew by in a flash, and the kids were back to studies. I must admit, my class was excellent! Only Christina made me feel uncomfortable. Willy-nilly, I saw that strange girl every day. She pierced me with her gaze, I lost my temper and nagged her about little things. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t help it.

Finally, Christina’s father arrived. He brought her many toys and sweets. The girl didn’t want to let him go.

“I’ll come back for you in the summer, when your classes are over, and we’ll go to the sea. You love the sea, don’t you?”

Christina nodded in agreement, and I suddenly imagined her as an adult – she would turn into a beauty and drive a lot of men crazy!

After the meeting with her father, Christina behaved much better and didn’t approached me during her free time. However, the girl seemed to become even more withdrawn.

***

One day, when we were singing a cheerful (although, to be honest, a very stupid) song at a music lesson, I suddenly noticed that Christina wasn’t singing. As usual, she sat at the last desk alone, but with headphones on…

“Is she listening to some music?! What a spoiled girl! What does she allow herself! She can do everything she wants, being only eight years old!”

“Chris!” I yelled in anger, approaching her.

The girl convulsively clutched something with her small hands.

“Give it to me now!”

“No!” she said firmly.

“If you don’t give me your toy, I’ll call your parents today, and you won’t be here anymore!”

Christina unclenched her fingers in helplessness, stood up and ran out of the classroom in tears. When the lesson was over, I turned on her player, but instead of music I heard a pleasant female voice. I realized it was the girl’s mother. For some reason, she had to move to another country for a few years, and before leaving, she had prepared that audiobook with instructions for Christina.

***

The academic year was over. Parents were taking their children home. I sat on the veranda of the summer building, reading a love story. The next day I was leaving for the sea, not yet knowing that I would no longer teach there, because I would get married and move to another country.

Someone silently approached me from behind and gently touched my shoulder. I turned around and saw Christina. She held out to me a bouquet of flowers she had picked. I hesitated to take them.

“Come on, Alice!” she said.

“Again?”

She didn’t answer and sat down next to me.

“Do you miss your parents?” I asked, trying not to get angry. “Do they often go on business trips?”

“That’s what they say…”

“Anyway, business trips end sooner or later!”

The girl silently shrugged her shoulders and sighed.

Another car drove up, Christina’s father got out of it. The girl threw herself at his neck.

When he came up to me and started thanking me for something, I couldn’t hear anything anymore. I remembered his daughter ugly behavior: she addressed me like a girl, hung up phone, listened to the player, and did whatever she wanted. I don’t remember what exactly I said to her father then, but he listened to me calmly.

“I’m sorry… Don’t take offense, miss Flitch!” he said sadly, when I cooled down.

He left us alone, inviting his daughter to ask my forgiveness.

“Forgive me, Alice! Come on!” the girl said defiantly coldly, clearly feeling no remorse.

I abruptly got up from the bench. Christina even asked for forgiveness, addressing me like that! I took a few steps and heard her voice.

“You look like…”

I didn’t even turn around. Along the way, I remembered that I had left on the bench the flowers, Christina’s gift to me.

***

I got married and went back to college on the first day of the new academic year to pick up some papers. My kids had grown up, but had hardly changed much. Among them, I didn’t see Christina only. My friend, the teacher, said the girl was present on the pupils list.

My friend and I went to the chief office. I didn’t really care about Christina. I needed the chief’s signature on my documents. However, my friend asked him why the girl was absent.

“Her father is a school friend of mine,” said the chief. “When Cristina’s mother died last year…”

“Oh, did her mother die?” I exclaimed in surprise.

“Yes. The girl was told that her mother had gone on a business trip abroad. Christina’s grandmother, my friend’s mother, liked neither her daughter-in-law nor Christina. So I advised my friend to bring the girl here.”

“And why didn’t she come this year?”

“Christina and her father… disappeared…”

“Disappeared?!” I was stunned.

“They went to the sea and never came back. The police are still looking for them… By the way, Alice, she was in your class, wasn’t she?”

Many years had passed since then, and I disappeared on Earth myself. However, burning various stories of my earthly life in the bonfire of memories, I still can’t let go of this one, because every time my fate gave me a sad lesson, I heard a voice, whispering, “Come on, Alice!”

July 2003

12. On the banks of the Thames

London had been a childhood dream of mine ever since we were told about its sights in English classes at school. I studied the same sights at the preparatory courses of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and then at the University. It seemed that even before visiting London, I already knew it better than any other city in the world. I had little chance of getting the UK visa, so I put off a trip to London to the last page of perhaps my last foreign passport. Nobody knows what turn of fate has already got the very brick that will suddenly fall on your head, or what else would happen to prevent your vacation abroad.

Everywhere I traveled alone. Vitaly threw up his hands, as he always had some reasons not to join me. However, on Christmas Eve, he vowed that we would definitely go somewhere together within the coming year.

I worked as the head of purchasing department, free of job for traveling three times a year: on May holidays, August and Christmas time; and there were just three pages left for visas in my passport.

Vitaly traditionally spent May and Christmas holidays with his wife (whom, like many husbands, he vowed to leave, but would have never done so, because he felt “pity for her”, since “she won’t survive, and you are strong!”), therefore, for our joint trip only August remained.

Knowing my cherished childhood dream, Vitaly told me to go first to London, for May holidays, and suggested having a rest with him in August somewhere on paradise islands. Well, it made sense, didn’t it?

I really enjoyed London! I walked it up and down and returned home with a feeling of complete satisfaction. By the way, the British had released me a multi-entry visa for six months, but I didn’t see much point in going back with limited funds, it was much more pleasant to visit something yet unexplored!

There were clearly more wonders on Earth than the seven encyclopedic ones, and I was already dreaming of where I would go for Christmas after August in Paradise with Vitaly, as the boss urgently demanded to get me a German visa for our business trip to Munich. So, my travel bag got one wonder of the world less! And more, I had already traveled all over Germany, including Munich, in vacation and not during a business trip. Anyhow, my negativity reached the ears of the Universe: as soon as the Germans granted me a single-entry visa for five days in July, the business trip was immediately canceled by the very same boss! However, since the stamp in the passport couldn’t be canceled, the penultimate page turned out to be irretrievably damaged and wasted for nothing! My inner indignation from my own helplessness went off scale, but in the end, it never came out, because… every day brought me closer to the cherished islands with Vitaly in August!

I scoured the Internet, called all the travel agencies that dealt with islands to choose the best Paradise for us, and mentally I was already rather there than in my homeland. Having prepared a bunch of beautiful dresses and bought a couple of charming swimsuits, I signed an application for my vacation, which became more and more problematic every year, because the boss was mutating into a slave owner…

And so, a couple of days before departure, Vitaly called for me, beaming with anticipation of Paradise, to discuss our plans in a restaurant. He listened carefully to all my dreams and wishes for the main course, and ‘for dessert’ he suddenly said,

“Lara, I’m leaving… for London.”

“What do you mean… London?!” I asked, still understanding nothing. “And when are you leaving?!”

“It’s a business trip to London for the whole of August.”

“Yesterday you said you had agreed your vacation! in August! with me! on the islands in Paradise!”

“Yes, but today… everything has changed… Maybe in September…”

“My boss won’t let me go in September!” I was about to die. “As well as in October and in November!!!”

“Go alone to Paradise in August.”

“What’s to do alone in Paradise?! It’s only for couples!”

“Then go somewhere else,” Vitaly suggested calmly, which made me furious.

“Somewhere else, where is that? I have no time to apply for a visa!”

“Go to visa-free Turkey.”

Oh, I wished he hadn’t even mentioned Turkey to me! I turned white with anger!

“Turkey? Where you have been relaxing with your wife for so many years? So that, lying alone on the beach, I couldn’t help imagining how sweet it was for you both there?!”

“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