by R. Twine
Another telephone call interrupted my thoughts.
‘Hi, my dear Miriam! How are you doing?’
‘Wow, Jessie! Hi yourself. Glad to hear from you. I was thinking of calling you some time soon.’
‘How are you getting along with Samuel?’ she asked right away.
‘Everything’s fine, he’s going to be back from his latest filming soon. We are together, as before.’ I replied.
‘Seems like you don’t know what’s going on, do you, Miriam?’ Jessie asked cautiously.
It seemed to me she was frustrated.
‘What is that I am supposed to know, Jessie?’ I asked, puzzled.
‘Have a look at today’s newspapers and you’ll see everything for yourself. I’m really sorry, Miriam, but I don’t want to be the first to break the news to you.’
‘Jessie, I can look through the newspapers, but you’d better tell it right now because it’s not going to make any difference.’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ she agreed and continued after a small pause. ‘Samuel had a baby; a girl.’
I couldn’t grasp the meaning of what she was saying. My mind refused to accept this news.
‘Which baby are you talking about, Jessie?’
‘Samuel had an affair with a woman, and this affair resulted in a newborn baby,’ Jessie explained patiently. ‘I’m very sorry, Miriam… What an arrogant bastard! And he’s flying over to see you as if nothing has happened! But here’s the question: he knew all along that this secret would get out; why didn’t he tell you about it himself then?’
‘Yes, you’re right, Jessie. He should have told me. And I can’t see why he didn’t. Maybe he didn’t know about the pregnancy. Or kept it under wraps not to draw unnecessary attention to the new film?’ I mused aloud, taken aback.
‘Maybe it was intentional. This unsavory story won’t do him any good, while at the same time you two make a wonderful couple. Or can it be that all this fuss was something he’s been planning all along? Look, this story is making headlines in almost all the papers … Sam knows full well that this juicy tidbit is going to be good publicity for him and the new film you both are starring in. And for his upcoming film - currently in production – just as well, for that matter!’ Jessie fumed. ‘Reporters will be following him wherever he goes, giving him loads of free advertizing. Samuel used you, Miriam. I warned you about his being a womanizer. He’ll never stop jumping into bed with the first hot girl that comes along. I was right: the likes of him never change,’ said Jessie in a malicious tone of voice.
‘If what you say is true, he did a good job of keeping it secret. I said; a feeling of disgust came over me. ‘Why has he done that? For everyone to see! It was so stupid of him, Jessie…’
‘You’ll have to ask him,’ she said.
‘By the way, Jessie, he even proposed to me,’ I said, sharing the news with her.
‘What a hypocritical jerk! He’s really a piece of work,’ said Jessie, outraged, ‘He knew all along that other woman was pregnant with his child but still kept cheating on you! Did he think you would never find out about it? I can hardly believe that, though. Don’t be upset, Miriam, he’s doesn’t deserve you,’ she concluded.
‘Thanks, Jessie. So long,’ I said and hung up.
Come to think of it, I had nothing to blame Samuel for. I wasn’t any better with regards to my affair with Michael. I’d been hiding this relationship of mine, just like he had been hiding his. True, it was unpleasant news, but I might have deserved it anyway, who knows…I recollected the Archangel saying that no one could be trusted. Could it be that Satanail had possessed Samuel even before I met him? This I wasn't supposed to know.
The ruby – the color of blood – was magnificent. I marveled at it for the last time, then put it in the box and hid it as far out of sight as possible.
Chapter 36
‘Miriam,’ I heard Natalie’s quiet voice.
Her body was transparent, with barely visible glistening threads in it. Nat’s eyes looked kind of glassy, the only prominent thing about them being their dark pupils.
‘Is it really you, Natalie?’ I asked her, astonished.
‘Yes, it’s me,’ she said wearily. ‘Unable to endure the shock any longer, my physical body left me.’ There was a strange detached expression in her eyes, and I realized that her soul had left her body. I suddenly felt a squeezing pain in my heart, my vision blurred. ‘Thanks to you, Miriam, I will be able to exist in this material world, though in a slightly transformed state. In the one that’s before your eyes now. I will always remain so…’
‘Thanks to me? What are you talking about, Natalie?’ I asked in a broken voice.
‘You’ve shared your Threads of Light with me. They are now woven into my body, making it invincible. They left me here to help you, Miriam. I’ll be the pillar of strength on your path…’
‘Who left you here, Natalie? Who exactly are ‘they’?
‘The entities from the giant planet Enza,’ she replied. ‘It was there that you had your Threads of Light woven into you. Miriam, these threads protect man and make him immortal. If man’s vital organs are critically damaged, his body will die but still remain intact, resisting decomposition! Glittering angels then come to collect it; they take it away to the Heavenly Abode where it will find eternal rest while its soul stays awake. But if your body remains intact, you will live in your present form forever like the first-ever people; the way you had lived before your coming to Earth,’ said Natalie in a quiet weary voice.
‘So it means that you are dead, Natalie, and now I’m all alone!’
‘You are not alone! Please, don’t torment yourself – I’ll stand by you through thick and thin!’
‘It will never be the same. I’ll no longer feel your physical presence by my side…’ I said, and started crying. I wanted to be the same as her. ‘Natalie!’ I exclaimed, rushing to embrace her, but all I did was penetrate her transparent shell. ‘Your parents will not be able to endure your passing. They’ll never recover from such a devastating blow. It was my fault that you died,’ I said through the sobs, hugging the empty air.
‘I was given a choice,’ Natalie said. ‘I could have stayed alive, spending the rest of my life in a hospital bed. Or I could have given my consent to the idea of leaving the material world so that my body had the opportunity of helping you. When you came to me, I was still at the crossroads as to what choice to make. But the moment you took my hand I gave my consent. After I’d made my decision, your Threads of Light came into me and reinforced my outer shell. You will definitely need my help,’ said Natalie in a quiet rustling voice. I was trembling all over, feeling unbearably feverish; my burning face became wet with tears which fell silently on the floor. ‘After all, it is better this way, because a life of constant torment isn’t worth living. After life abandoned my body, I could leave it, too, but already in a newly-acquired form. There’s one more thing I know: the Threads of Light not only require the consent of a human being, they are also free to choose the people they consider theirs.’
She made a pause, then put out her hand and said.
‘Look!’
A long and transparent arrow-like thread touched my skin and shot me through with a weak discharge of current that sent bluish white sparks flying in different directions.
‘Only angels are capable of generating such sparks!’ I exclaimed in astonishment, wiping the tears off my face.
‘Exactly,’ Natalie said. ‘The Angel of Death disappeared as soon as he saw me in my new state. Only someone in white garments stayed by my side; he told me I wouldn’t live the life of the dead and that the planet Enza would become my new abode. Everything that happened to me had clearly been predetermined…’
Natalie disappeared but the pain and bitterness caused by her death remained. It took a lot of my inner strength to live through this loss. Even the Threads of Light couldn’t alleviate the suffering that was tearing my heart apart.
Several hours later there w
as a phone call from the hospital and they told me that Natalie had died… My legs felt weak and shaky, and I sat on the sofa, gasping for air, my mouth dry. This was a heavy personal loss but I had to carry on…
Many people attended Natalie’s funeral. There was a look of endless sorrow on the faces of those attending. I expressed my condolences to Natalie’s parents and stepped aside. I didn’t want to live anymore, Nat’s death had devastated me.
‘It’s so awful, Miriam, so very, very awful!’ exclaimed Elian and threw herself in my arms, sobbing loudly.
‘Oh, Elian,’ I said hugging my friend.
‘This tragedy has broken me apart; we were close friends of hers! Natalie loved you so very much, Miriam! She missed you greatly when you were in the US! She’d been counting the days, waiting for you to arrive. Nat didn’t go to visit you only because she thought her presence would be a hindrance to your work. Now you’re here, but she’s left us…for good! Our world is such a cruel place! I simply cannot believe that she’s gone… that I will never see her again…’
I was choked by a big lump in my throat. The only thing I could do was to curse myself in my thoughts.
‘I feel so bad, too, Elian,’ I said, barely able to move my lips.
‘The last months were tough going for Nat: she had a miscarriage; then there was that break-up with her boyfriend,’ said Elian with a gulp. ‘She told me once she’d had a feeling she wouldn’t live long. Natalie seemed to sense that death was lurking somewhere not far away. I thought at the time that it was a case of depression and advised her to consult a doctor. But that wasn’t quite the way it turned out…’
‘It’s a great pity for me that I was unable to stand by her when she needed me most. Now that she’s gone I feel bad because she was always so attentive and caring with me, and I wasn’t there for her in the same way,’ I said quietly.
I remembered the little angel’s sad eyes and the bunch of black roses lying on my pillow. I recollected the ring that had begun squeezing my finger like a vice clamp. I remembered the emerald inside which ominous red blots had suddenly appeared – and disappeared the following day. I realized that my jewel had been trying to warn me of the impending danger. But I had tried not to notice these signs. Natalie had been jittery lately: in her eyes I often saw a fleeting fear: she had been afraid something bad might happen to her and to me. But I’d been thinking only about myself, about my worlds and my life, heedless of the sufferings of those who sincerely loved me. What a selfish person I was!
‘Miriam, she didn’t want to go to the US only because she knew a man had appeared in your life. Nat didn’t feel like imposing herself on you and Sam,’ said Elian with a sob, giving vent to her emotions and wiping the tears off with her handkerchief.
‘These were her exact words, right?’
‘Yes. She said she didn’t want to bother you two. She wanted you to be happy…’
‘But she told me she’d been having a passionate affair and she’d had a lot of work to do. Her death’s going to plague my soul forever…’
‘It happened through no fault of yours, Miriam.’
‘No, it was my fault. If I hadn’t asked her to come to me on that fateful evening she would have surely been alive.’
Natalie’s death was a heavy and terrible loss both for me and Elian. Now that she was no more, I was trying to reestablish my close friendship with Elian who was also very dear to me. She’d had no friends at all but me and Nat. And now I was all she had left.
Chapter 37
It was only a week later that I was able to go to Paris. Michael told me over the phone the hotel address and the name under which he’d checked in. I went from the train station straight to the hotel…
The door was ajar; I knocked on it for decency’s sake and walked in without stopping. Michael was lying on the sofa, hands under his head. Having seen me, he jumped up and hurried to meet me. We hugged each other.
‘My sincere condolences, Miriam,’ he said compassionately. ‘It seems like we two are experiencing the beginning of a streak of bad luck in our lives. Sometimes I’m even afraid of staying alone.’
‘This streak’s been going on since the day we were born, Michael,’ I said.
Michael looked very exhausted, but I felt he had enough inner strength to resist: he was clearly struggling with himself in order not to break down completely.
‘These are not just coincidences,’ I went on. ‘If we just sit doing nothing, it’ll get even worse. You have two daughters and you must think about their safety.’
‘I hope you’re joking,’ he said with a convulsive gulp.
‘I’m not joking, Michael. What I’m saying is the sheer truth,’ I said solemnly.
‘I’m all ears.’
‘All people born on our planet have different destinies. Some of them can be categorized as good guys: they do good things which can turn out to be good for some and evil for others. The other ones can be categorized as bad guys: these people do evil things which remain evil things for some but turn out to be good for others. This is why it is sometimes very difficult to tell real evil from real good, that can easily turn out to be evil in disguise. Everything’s relative in our world. And everything’s interconnected. Without knowing evil, man faces great difficulties understanding what is good. And without being aware of what good is, it’s impossible to understand what is evil. Only by having a clear-cut notion about these opposing categories in his head, man becomes capable of clearly understanding the true nature of things.’ Then I refreshed in Michael’s memory a rather well-known theory. ‘From the day they are born, all people have the following basic qualities: the gene of holiness and the gene of destruction. But sometimes some genes dominate, thus dooming man to a perpetual struggle with himself; sometimes he doesn’t even understand what’s happening to him. But when man begins thinking of why some of the events in his life tend to repeat themselves, he starts looking for those who are behind them. And behind them are the two worlds: the Dark and the Light…’
‘Miriam, what does it have to do with me? I see no connection whatsoever… Some genes… Do you really think this has something to do with me?’ Michael asked in bewilderment. ‘These banalities about Good and Evil don’t interest me at all.’
‘Michael, your father was an excellent psychiatrist,’ I said, starting in a roundabout way. ‘He brilliantly defended his PhD thesis on the problems of people with mental disorders. Phil came to realize that not all mentally challenged persons and people suffering from schizophrenia are really ill. He observed split personalities in many of them: when a seizure was over, a man would return to his previous state either remembering or completely forgetting what he was doing during the paroxysm. Phil conducted several experiments on those who suffered mainly from suchlike illnesses and came to the following conclusion: some of his patients who underwent experiments were not sick but possessed. Those people were in direct contact with the Dark World.’
‘Miriam, I still cannot quite grasp what it has to do with me,’ Michael insisted.
‘Now then,’ I went on, ‘there are people born of the representatives of Satanail’s Kingdom. The gates of the dark world are always open for these alleged human beings. Some of them are regarded as kind of ‘sick’ but there are those who lead a seemingly normal life. Under the guise of charity, they lead a double life and commit wrongdoings. Coming under the devil’s influence, they are capable of killing and destroying – and completely forgetting about it afterwards. These people can be cruel while sincerely denying they are cruel. The gene of holiness prevents them from confessing that they are capable of committing crimes. But then again the time comes when the gene of destruction awakes within them, and these people sink into sins – yet again. Then they wake up afterwards remembering nothing of what happened the previous day. Michael, I’m worried about you. I love you and I can see you suffer. I’m very afraid that you might be capable of leading a double life without even remembering what you did during the paroxysm.
I’m afraid you’re connected to someone who manipulates you. Or it may be that you yourself are engaged in skillfully manipulating someone. Michael, I want to save you from the flaming abyss. Michael, you were born of Satanail, you have his genes inside you…’
‘Are you nuts, Miriam? What has come over you?’ Michael shot to his feet and started walking about the room, gesticulating angrily. ‘Is this the result of your poring excessively over my fathers’ books? I already warned you that they make people crazy. I’ve never had anything to do with the dark world you’re talking so much about! I’ve always been a normal man. Do you really think that I could have masterminded all these murders? Do you suspect me?’
‘Michael, I love you. Please, have the patience to hear me out,’ I said imploringly.
‘All right,’ Michael agreed, as if doing me a big favor, and then sat down again.
His entire appearance expressed impatience but I had to carry out in full what I’d planned to do, otherwise all my efforts would be in vain.
‘It seems your life path had taken a wrong turn at some point in time,’ I continued, ‘because instead of following in your father’s footsteps and being like your kin, you act quite differently, you strive for the Light while being indifferent to what you have been created for or even rejecting it. You have rejected taking part in the secret initiation rites – perhaps this is why Satanail’s attitude toward you is so vengeful. He thinks you should be different from what you are now. Perhaps, the divine particle the Creator has given to all of us (including Satanail himself) is so strong in you that it takes the upper hand over the dark essence. This is why you’re under the protection of powerful angels who don’t allow Satanail to overwhelm you. Deaths happens all around because you reject someone you belong to. The Prince of Darkness isn’t going to let you get away with this. Satanail is one of the smartest entities ever created in the Universe; he’s capable of doing a lot of things. Had he suddenly disappeared, the overall equilibrium might have been quickly disrupted. He shouldn’t be underestimated. Besides, as I’ve already said, the Forces of Light and Darkness are intertwined so tightly that sometimes it’s actually impossible to tell Good from Evil. The highest forces help you accomplish your concrete mission. For the first time, the world is witness to an event that never should have happened! Satanail’s son rejects his father! This means that after you leave this Earth Satanail will never be able to take away your soul. Provided you’re not Satanail in disguise!’