Staretz paused, becoming aware that he was about to lose the thread of the question in starting to recall all that had happened in his past, about which only he knew, and which probably would be too much for Shootik to take in right now.
Shootik was very precise in his questioning, and he demanded immediate attention, like children do when they want to know one particular thing and no more. Staretz, however, knew that not every question could be answered rapidly and precisely. Because there was a whole web of interconnections to be considered. So how could he answer why did people seem to love each other more when they were apart…? Nevertheless, he would try.
“People love each other more when they’re apart, because the distance between them allows them to see each other as they really are, with the best of their human qualities. The whole being of a person, when seen from a distance, reveals its cosmic origin…Whereas, when people are too close to each other and too much sucked into parental and other roles which their everyday existence demand from them, their vision deteriorates, they become short-sighted, able to see only that which bothers them at the moment…”
Living an earthly existence, Staretz remembered, implies losing to a great extent the awareness of being part of yet another world, the spiritual, where existence is not bound by time as it is on Earth. However, when people lose awareness, they do not lose the longing for that other world…which is, of course, longing for love. Longing to receive as well as to give love.
“Love, you see, is a very wondrous thing.”
Here Staretz paused again, his face showing now a deep expression of sadness.
“A very wonderful and a wondrous thing indeed. It is a treacherous thing too, if you don’t take care, because one can start loving a wrong thing too. Or love something too much, to the exclusion of anything else.”
It was clear that the Old Man was remembering something which caused him pain and Shootik, sensitive as he always was to happenings on the level of the soul, asked a new question:
“Are you human? Have you also loved some…thing or person too much?”
“I was on my way once…to becoming human…and I have loved, yes…but then I fell in love with something which possessed me…and cut my chances of completing my cycle of development and of becoming really human. It was the hunger for knowledge. Even more: wisdom.”
“So here you are where you wanted to be?”
Shootik glanced around the Old Man’s studio. It extended almost ad infinitum the more one looked along its walls lined with bookshelves.
“Yes, here I am…to fulfil the task to which I sentenced myself. I thought that knowledge, wisdom, would give me power. Now I know that wisdom is powerless. Because it is subordinated to love…”
“And you can´t love?”
“I wish I could. Perhaps, I can. Perhaps, I will, one day.”
Shootik asked his last question for the day:
“And I…am I human?”
“You? You, my friend, are in the human! You are that part in them which can make connections between the worlds. You are the best they can have!”
“Then you must also be in them! If I’m part of them, you must be too. Isn’t that so?”
Without waiting for an answer Shootik jumped high into the air and landed after a triple ‘salto mortale’ on top of his vehicle, the blown-up red plastic heart.
Leaving Staretz with a shiny smile on his old face.
Chapter 5
Holding On…
Time had passed. A long time. Where was Solveig? Years ago Jurij had tried to find her. With no success. He had not tried hard, he had to admit. Perhaps he was afraid to find her and to come to know why she had left him. Without a word spoken. That brief note…it said nothing, or maybe quite a lot. It left him alone with himself. The most difficult company, indeed. There was no place to run away from it. Yet he tried, again and again…
Life had been generous to him. Life? He was well provided for. Materially. His benefactors, with A presiding over them, a friend, as he liked to call himself, had been extremely generous, from the material point of view. But something was changing.
Jurij remembered that last holiday Solveig and he had spent on a beach. That was before they were given the yacht and Jurij’s promotion into a higher category of employees, when he was still being trained. At that time their marital life was a sort of a second-hand affair, except for the public-relation purposes, when Solveig and he had to make a happy-couple appearance.
That holiday was an attempt to remake their marriage. But it was too late. There was too much in the backyard, which had never been cleared. Never spoken. And to clear it? It was unthinkable. At least he had thought that it was unthinkable. It had gone too far. All that business she knew nothing about and the uncountable lies he had to produce to hide its true nature from her. Not only from her. He had agreed to keep it secret. Top secret. Keeping things secret did not mean he was being untruthful or fraudulent, did it? But then, the disguises, the pretence, make-believe-strategies, the play-acting…
And before that? Silence. An easy way not to say the truth. Just be silent. Say nothing. Avoid all possible confrontations. There was no way back. Not at that time.
His love for Solveig? But of course, it was there! Well…that dreamy world in which they had dwelt, of course, it was no longer there. It had been penetrated. The serpent seduced him to taste the forbidden fruit, and after that? He could not do as if it had never happened. This was uncomfortable thinking. Eve went to Adam and offered him the apple…seducing him to commit the sin. The original sin. How ridiculous, they had thought! Once upon a time in their youth when they used to discuss this and other myths. The apple was there to be eaten, sooner or later…He too had been offered the apple. From the tree of knowledge of the good and evil. He tasted its sweetness, but then he did not share it with Solveig. For good reasons, he told himself. Not to destroy her dreams or promises, which they had made to each other. In their innocence…once upon a time in their early youth.
How easy it was to deceive oneself, and to take the wrong turning, believing it was the right one! The purity they had shared, all the good intentions and feelings, which his heart was no longer treasuring…It needed just one tiny particle of subversive thought to become obscured. One thinks things into existence and imagines that one also can make them disappear. Dissolve into nothing. Just pretend…Close your eyes and they will be gone.
Once, he decided to make her happy, sincerely believing this was the way to compensate for his…what to call it…little deceit? He was at peace with this intention. They would marry soon, he had decided. They did, going through the legal formalities. For the rest, they did things unconventionally, as they had planned. The words were said, beautiful words, he remembered, and all seemed to be perfect. They loved each other, firmly believing they did.
Or were they just in love with love…the idea of it, and trying to catch a bird which was already flying away?
Their coming to that lonely beach on that holiday and stumbling on that wrecked boat. The picture appeared full-size on the screen of his mind. That wrecked boat was much more than remains of material, a useless amount of metal and other elements. It showed on the metaphorical level the state of their relationship at the time. Things are not what they appear to be and what they really are…is still a mystery. Further back in the past…
“The original sin was not the eating of the apple in the mythical Paradise…the so-called disobedience, as we were, and are still being, told by the church-fathers. It was the deceit, the lie, the betrayal, all that which had spread like a valid practice between men for gaining what they wanted. Gods of antiquity used these practices too, and man can’t be blamed for adopting them. They were already in the world. The origin is not what matters. Sin or no sin, this is not the main issue, least of all who was the first sinner, so to speak. Not being there as conscious individual, man or woman, could not be held responsible. What matters, however, is that by now we, all of us together, a
re nevertheless the carriers of all sins and virtues, inherent properties of human nature.”
This was Gabriel speaking, the village elder. He was the shaman or the wise man, as he was called unofficially. Jurij was sitting in front of him. Between them, the fire, on which they had grilled some fish, was burning low. The old man’s appearance was timeless. Jurij, on the contrary, was clearly showing signs of ageing. He looked burned out and it was Gabriel who, on the verge of his nineties, looked younger. Gabriel was not his real name. Being of African origin, his real name was not pronounceable, he used to say when asked. Besides, it meant more than just a person’s name. “It was a sound and…anyway, what’s wrong with Gabriel?” He used to enquire, putting a stop to people’s curiosity.
Jurij had returned to the village on impulse. Asking for a short leave from his duties on the yacht and taking advantage of it being anchored for a longer stay in its present position, near a larger port, as usual. A readily agreed when Jurij told him that he would be going back to the village where he came from, just for a change of air, he said. What he did not say was that he wanted to see Gabriel in particular, to consult with him as it were…
The village, up there in the high north…that place where it had all started, his dream of more than twenty years ago, a place where his and Solveig’s journey on the river began. The actual river was still there. The village had changed a lot. It was a small town now. The streets were paved and they were illuminated at night. Apartment-blocks all over the place appeared to be squeezing the little old houses in which some of the locals still lived. Who was still there? He wondered. Someone who might recognise him? Did he want to be recognised? Had he anything to tell, if this happened, and anything to bring back to this community?
Gabriel, of course, recognised him immediately.
“How are you, my son?” He greeted him, “I knew you would come back one day.”
This was strange, Jurij thought, and yet it was such a good welcome! One could hide nothing from Gabriel, so he told him the truth. This took a long time and it was midnight by the time he had finished.
“The midnight sun is more than light which shines from outer space upon our terrestrial plane. The midnight sun is power that penetrates the deeper regions of the soul which are left closed…”
Gabriel said this, joining the end of Jurij’s report to its beginning, recalling a midsummer night when a young lad walked into that midnight sun.
“Left closed for what purpose?” Jurij asked.
“You will know in due time. It is your turning point, this night, my son. Relax, all will be well, you have served your time. The river has served you too. You can sleep here,” Gabriel said.
“I think I’d like to stretch my legs before I lie down.”
“You do that, son!”
Jurij stood up and walked out into the night and to the bank of the river, of course. For the first time in all the years since he had left, he felt as though he had been relieved of an enormous weight, a weight of which he had been unaware until now, somewhere inside.
The river is flowing, is flowing, is flowing…they used to sing. How did it go further? He could not remember the words. It was flowing into the sea, that was for sure, and now he felt that it was flowing straight through him, washing him on the inside, and he was now accessible to this cleansing stream.
What did Gabriel once say? "The first part of your lifetime does not really belong to you; it is not in your hand. That’s why you can’t expect your dreams to come true. You are not there yet."
Of course not! That’s why you fall into the hands of others, who take possession of you. That you who is still unstable and not yet anchored to your being; therefore, so easy to be manipulated by all sorts of seductive offers. That was how A could get hold of him. Who was A in reality? Jurij had never revealed his benefactor’s true identity to anybody. As it had been agreed between them, it was left to be just a fancy one-letter-name, though later on he came to know a few other names which A used abroad, with academic and other titles attached to them.
Who his boss after all was, if ever to be revealed, no longer mattered to him. He would leave the enterprise or the industry, now that he knew what it produced…and for what final goal. What to do with this knowledge was another point. Reveal it to the world? No chance, if he had any interest in staying alive. Besides, it would be useless, nobody would give it any credit. How could he have stayed so long with it? All of a sudden, he knew. The river was telling him: You have allowed yourself to be un-powered. Now you have to re-empower yourself. Nobody could do this for him, he understood. All the knowledge he needed was pouring from the sky upon him at this moment.
Gabriel said that he knew he would come back one day. How could he know that?
Gabriel was still awake when Jurij came back to his house. Smoking his pipe, he was sitting on the ground, leaning against the trunk of the chestnut-tree. His figure almost merged with the shape of the tree. Were it not for the glowing of his pipe and the smoke coming out of it, Jurij would not have noticed that the old man was there. Silently, he sat next to him. The night has no darkness…Jurij commented. The old man smiled.
“When you look long enough into the darkness, you can see the light. The night, when you walk fully conscious through the darkness, takes you to the other side of it. Which is light.”
“What about reality?”
“Reality is not what you see and touch and declare to exist.”
“What is it then, Gabriel, tell me!”
“It is not to be told, son.” The old man reached for a piece of coal from the ashes of the fireplace. “If it were as palpable as this…which is still slightly warm from the fire; if it were so easy to say what reality is…” He paused in the middle of the sentence.
“Yes, what then?” Jurij insisted.
“Then, son, you and I would be very poor indeed.”
“How so?” Jurij seemed perplexed. Gabriel was known for speaking in riddles, but this one was different.
“This I can’t understand!”
“Of course not, and that’s the point. You think, as most people think, that only that is real which they can, as you say, understand. All the rest which lies beyond your understanding, all that you can’t get at, cannot exist, you say.”
“I suppose that’s right.”
A long silence fell between them. Then Gabriel spoke again:
“You are a rich man, according to some standards, right?”
“I suppose,” Jurij agreed, “that could be said of me.”
“All right then. It is a reality, isn’t it, a real thing?”
Jurij felt as though something had started crumbling around him, falling to pieces, peeling off him, like layers of dry skin.
“What are you doing to me, Gabriel?” he exclaimed.
“You asked me about reality,” the old man replied. “Now you tell me what it is. For you.”
Honour. The word flashed like lightning into his mind. A had none, and he, after becoming his accomplice, had dishonoured himself by falling into the temptation of deceit. Deceiving others, he had lost sight of himself. A and his fellowship could not be blamed for what he did. As a fallen angel A was perfectly attuned to his task. From now on, Jurij had to deal with him as his opponent. A was his brother…and part of him. It was not a question of just walking out of their business and washing his hands in innocence. He had been tempted to do so, putting an end to the kind of activities he had engaged in so far. But then: To do what instead…? He needed help. What was done had to be put right now. Balanced, yes, but how?
On waking up next morning, with his eyes still closed, Jurij felt a clarity surrounding him which he would not be able to face, he thought, if he opened them. His mind was immersed in its radiation, and in his mind’s eye the ceiling of Gabriel’s little hut appeared to be immensely high, letting that clarity in. Rays or waves, whatever this energy was, the universe was holding him in place and all was well, it suggested. Everything was in its prop
er place. Somewhere was here, and here reached as far as the stars. Or beyond them…
There was no distance between here and there. Like the rhythm of his breath, there was a continuous flow of energy from in to outside and back, and he, Jurij, felt like coming back from a long journey somewhere and everything being put right. This feeling of rightness was beyond all logical combinations of existing facts in the events in his life. Yet it was there, a cosmic rightness of all things occupying their places. He felt this absolute certainty as long as he kept his eyes shut, knowing at the same time that it would be gone the moment he stepped out of this realm to re-enter the physical reality. That reality which contained the undeniable facts of him failing himself and, if he still believed in Him (did he?), his Creator…and the woman he loved.
His intuitive knowing was right. All doubts and uncertainties were there when he joined Gabriel on the veranda where he was drinking his morning tea.
“Gabriel, I made quite a mess of my life…”
The old man looked at him with a distant gaze, as though looking straight through him.
“No, you haven’t. You have only failed a trial. A trial which most people fail the first time, for sure. Because you have to fail it in order to know what it means.”
Having completed his sentence, Gabriel made his way into the kitchen to refill the kettle and put it on the gas-stove. Jurij was left with this astounding statement. One has to fail…? A trial…? His ordinary thinking would not accept this notion. In the depths of his mind, however, or his heart, he knew it was right.
Gabriel came back with the freshly boiled water and poured it onto a new bunch of herbs in a voluminous teapot. These were herbs which he grew in his garden.
“A cup of tea, to open your eyes!” Gabriel seemed to have a tea for everything, Jurij remembered. When they were young, Solveig and he…A painful feeling made his heart sore.
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