Shootik Read online

  There he was, again in his reminiscences, walking by himself on the banks of that river, enjoying its evening magic, when he saw her: Marusja, the girl who had come recently with her Russian mother to live in the village. Her silhouette appeared, coming from a path in the woods ahead of him. Blond curly hair and soft rounding of her body under a light summer dress. She seemed not to have noticed his being not far behind her. She kept walking into the late sunset. Walking on bare feet, both of them, it took some minutes before they met. It was the magic hour, after all…One should not walk in the woods at that time, it was said. The razor’s edge, he thought now. It was Paradise but this word, he remembered reading somewhere, meant a state which was unchangeable. What happened there and then…he sighed, had it not in fact become unchangeable?

  The jolly voice of the doctor at the foot of his bed brought him swiftly back from that place. Surrounded by medical students, the doctor inquired: “How are we today?” Not waiting for the patient’s answer, he decided for him: “Not bad, not bad, it’s good; in fact,” he added, glancing at the records, “you could be in a much worse condition, under the circumstances!”

  A few medical explanations were given to the students, instructions to the nurse, an older lady. Where was the young male nurse? Jurij wondered; more notes scribbled on the records and off they went. That was it for the time being, and Jurij was about to switch back to his memory trail when the nurse came in, carrying a parcel wrapped in brown paper.

  “This was brought to be given to you,” she said.

  The parcel had the shape of a book. Jurij was surprised. His full name was written on the brown packing paper. Asking the nurse to unwrap the object, it revealed itself as being indeed a book or a thick notepad in an aubergine-coloured cover. A note was attached to it. It read:

  I thought you would like to have it delivered to you personally. I was lucky to find it among things scattered around at the site of the accident.

  There was no signature. Jurij was astonished. He asked the nurse:

  “Can you tell me please who brought this parcel for me?”

  “It was lying on our desk, when I began my shift this afternoon,” she responded. “We had it x-rayed, of course, before bringing it to you. Is something wrong?”

  “No, nothing wrong…just tell me, is your colleague, the young male nurse, who was here this morning, available?”

  “A male nurse?” The lady-nurse looked up surprised. “We have no male nurses on this ward.”

  Remembering quite clearly his brief encounter with the young fellow, Jurij insisted:

  “But he was here this morning to see me! We talked. You don’t think I’m inventing this, do you?”

  “Of course not…I’ll check if someone had been sent from another ward perhaps. I’ll be back soon.”

  She hurried out of the room. A few minutes later she came back to report that it was absolutely certain that no male nurse had been seen on this ward; nor sent from any other.

  Then he must have come from outside, Jurij reasoned. To bring me this…book? Found among my things? Was he part of the ambulance team on the site of the car accident, perhaps? Yes, that was possible. But then…how did this book happen to be there, among my belongings? Unable to find answers to these questions, he put the book aside without opening it. It was not his book after all…or was it?

  Trying to recollect: where was he, before the doctor’s obligatory visit had called him out of his reminiscences? Aha, there he was again, back to the scene of the fault, as it might be called. That night…But it was no fault! Not on that level of invincible physical attraction and allowing it to take him, to take both of them, where it had to. The drives of nature had been stronger than all his reasoning and he did not regret it. Nor did she, as she assured him afterwards. Marusja was older than he and obviously more experienced. In fact, it was she who showed him the way. It was marvellous how she had led him…This was certainly no fault. A transgression, yes, but then…It was, rather, a gift from heaven. In all its brightness!

  The darkness came upon him later that night. When he woke up in his bed, after a short sleep. When it dawned upon him that he could never again look at Solveig with the same eyes. They would go on as planned, he decided, preparing for their journey on the river. Their river! And he would do as though nothing else had happened in between. That must be the decision. The only possible decision. Marusja had no further expectations of him. She was a noble young woman, knowing what she was doing. He had been far from knowing what he was doing at that moment. And not to be blamed. He had been put to the proof…And he had failed. As most people were likely to fail under similar circumstances…

  A little lie, as innocent as it was, and intended for the best…So inoffensive, almost loving, he would say. He did not want to hurt Solveig. Least of all to break down her (now it was her!) romantic dreams. That lie became a particle of poison on the bottom of the chalice from which they would soon drink their ritual wine. As they had envisioned it. And he would do as though everything was still the same. Convincingly, of course. This decision, taken so long ago in his youth, turned out to be the agent which, from that moment onwards, would direct his life. And it did. That first lie was powerful enough to create a nourishing ground for more lies to come.

  When memory starts to flow, it does not follow a logical course. Things, events, emerge at random on the screen of the mind, and it is quite a job to put them together following the schedule of time. Besides, one can never be sure of doing this accurately. Experiences take no account of chronological time. Some occupy more space than others, since they cannot be kept in pigeon-holes, marked with a particular date on the calendar. Some can even become more independent and flood the mind’s capacity to forget, or to repress them. They turn out to be ever-present and as vivid as when they actually took place. And this was exactly what was happening to him now.

  The spell was broken. With bodily integrity disturbed, there was no way of stopping this flood of pictures running on the screen of his mind. Its content had stayed too long imprisoned…like in a bottle…restricted from life. It had become cold, but now it was warming up. His heart was pounding with the emotion which was waking up in him. He felt more alive than he had been for years. But the one who he was before the accident was no longer there. All was clear now. It had always been clear, only he did not want to see. Could not stand the light. He had turned away from the light as if it were an enemy threatening him. Pretending it was not there, he had put a stopper on his life.

  Light is the substance of everything which lives. When Life is no longer sustained, things become dull and brittle. They simply fall apart.

  As though ordered by a higher intelligence, an orderly deconstruction of his life’s affairs was taking place on the screen of his mind. In the reverse order of their happening, he could see in full detail now, how orderly all events fitted together; organised, as it were, by their own logic.

  The notion about light had jumped between the waves of his thoughts, taking him back into his youthful dreams of a blissful happiness at the side of his first and only love, as he saw her at the time…his soulmate, Solveig. They lived in a paradise of a pictorial world, of their own fantasies of course, their best intentions woven into it. But self-made paradises have to be lost…To allow their makers to wake up from their dreams. As uncomfortable as this was.

  Walking up and down the riverbanks, Jurij remembered, in their teens still, making their plans for a secret escape…down the river of life…Escape from what? he asked himself. The tediousness of a prescribed existence, the rules of oughts and shoulds, they thought…and yet, was this not exactly what they were building into their lives? With different words only. It happened subconsciously, creating a film which covered their delusion and set the pace of their systematic destruction of the once so golden gloss of happiness.

  Only the gloss, indeed…Jurij was on the verge of stumbling on more important insights. His questioning now was of a different nature. When they
were teenagers, they had already collected evidence of unhappy relationships. What promised to be full of bliss when people married faded away…What might be the cause? Thirty years later, the answer dawned on him. This calmed and frightened him at the same time, but was not yet expressible in words.

  Somewhere, deep inside, on that level which connects all of man’s creations, he also knew that he had been playing with fire. Fire, which one day would burn his masks away. This fire also kept his life-flame burning. This was his Joker, Jurij knew at once. It worked both ways, for construction and destruction. One single card, to win or to lose. The face on this card, a picture appeared vividly in his mind, had a peculiar look under a green and red cap with a feather. It was a face which challenged him, silently promising him nothing, however. No reward, no punishment, only a chance to reverse a decision taken once upon a time.

  Decision. Immeasurable power affecting the current of man’s life-stream. It was not the expulsion from Paradise that started the history of mankind. It’s evolution as well. In Paradise there was no historic time. Time was not there yet. Therefore, nothing could change.

  Paradise…Jurij thought, it may be still there, somewhere…But there is no way back to it…because of that first human mind waking up from its sleep.

  Through desire! It made time move…Integrity was lost. Soul split in two. With light and darkness forming a pair of opposites, the original world was also split into two halves.

  Lying on the snow-white linen of the hospital bed holding him in place, this was too odd really, to be in a condition in which you could do nothing better than to wonder about Paradise lost…Or review your life!

  Switching that far back: they had left the village, he and Solveig, a bit earlier than they had planned. Less spectacularly than they thought they would. Less romantic too, taking the local bus. Kissing everybody goodbye. Promising to come back. They were going to the city. To live and find jobs there…Maybe to study something. It was a good time to do so. All agreed and wished them well. Everybody waved goodbye. Except for the oldest man, Gabriel. He did not wave. He just followed them with his eyes. They expressed concern. Much concern. He had taken these two young people into his heart and had been a sort of foster father to them, since their arrival in the village…First Solveig, then Jurij, a year later. Gabriel could see what they could not yet see.

  In a strange kind of order, the flashing back was occurring in an accelerated tempo. Pictures, quite a lot, unravelled themselves into meanings which Jurij, at that time, did not take into account, not allowing them to touch the core of the matter. What was this core…? Now it struck him: it was in some kind of alignment with the purpose of all that made part of his history. His and that of his companion.

  And what was that about Paradise that kept him busy? Once the original state of innocence is lost, there is a hunger. Never to be satisfied, it is desire, need, the wish to find something…A certainty in an uncertain world perhaps, where everything is in motion and nothing can be taken for granted. Paradise lost. A state of no-change as it was, while it lasted. A timeless moment in space…The feeling of loss permeates the human condition. It lies like a wild cat alertly watching its prey, ready to jump at any moment to catch it.

  How often had he been caught like that? He looked away from the white wall at which he had been staring as though expecting some answers to his mental questions to appear on it, to catch a glance of the notebook, with the aubergine-coloured cover, on the locker beside his bed. The answers might be there, but was he ready to receive them?

  The truth was that he was really hungry. And had been hungry ever since that early day in his youth. The word betrayal was on his lips. He knew it was there, and had been all the time. Betrayal of himself. A common phenomenon in the modern world. The world of the hungry. No, not those in the slums or the homeless, the poorest, from the material point of view. Their state was disgraceful, disgracing the whole of humanity. But it was on the other side, the side of plenitude, that human integrity had been lost. By those who had lost their dignity…And after that, were trying desperately to compensate for this loss. Through money, power, possessions of all kinds. And sex. He had not tried the latter. At least not in the beginning. In fact, he walked around it as if it were something to fear. Something which would spring at him. Destroy him. Even with Solveig, when they eventually came to it. There was something better, so it seemed. Power. It called him. A calling he could not, did not want to resist. A positive, honourable position of power and influence, quite a worthy desire, he reasoned, would lift him up again. Then he met those people. Of course! As if they had been called.

  Jurij paused to take a deep breath, inhaling his past with it as well. Integrity was lost, his integrity. Soul split in two, his soul. The original world also split in two. This was the state of his time in the world now. Humanity divided between those who had plenty, but were still hungry, and those who had not enough. A state of the world produced artificially. By people like him, as well.

  Second Picture

  Sometimes Shootik appeared out of nowhere, sitting on the arm of the Old Man’s chair or on his desk, creeping out of the sleeves of the Old Man’s cloak without it being noticed how he ever got there. Just now, he jumped up on his knee, demanding immediate attention.

  Something was obviously bothering him. Staretz knew from experience that it must be a question and that Shootik wouldn’t let it go before he got all the answers he wanted.

  “Yes?” The Old Man acknowledged it with a smile.

  “I’ve just come from a house, quite a big one…People appeared to have moved out of it leaving a lot of things scattered all over the place, just lying around, abandoned…and this stuff seemed to be alive somehow, increasing in size as I watched it, and filling the space. What does this mean?”

  This was quite a big question. Indeed. Staretz remembered what he had read in one of the books kept in his library, on this behalf. Might Shootik, be able to take it in?

  When people move house, they don’t realise how much emotional and mental stuff is being moved along with all material things…Or left behind, like rubbish uncollected.

  "What you saw as being material objects of personal use and other stuff refer by analogy to what happens in people’s lives…On levels, of which they’re not aware, yet.

  How to explain this to the young fellow? Staretz was at loss for words. All that, in fact, ‘living material’ which they’d rather forget, throw away or leave behind.

  “You were able to see what ordinary people cannot see, which nevertheless exists as if it were a solid thing, although invisible to the eye. Like a piece of crockery or a garment stained with indelible tincture of some kind…”

  Staretz paused, surprised at his own choice of words.

  “Is this enough for now?”

  Shootik nodded yes and off he was. He never said thank you for his questions answered. With the information received, he dashed away. The people who had just moved into their new house might get the surprise of finding some valuable china broken when they unpacked it…or some expensive garment stained with some tincture of unknown origin, which had leaked. By accident…of course.

  Chapter 2

  There Is a River Running…

  There is a river running through everybody’s life, making its way through countable time, heading for the vastness of the ocean. It is the river of life calling men to navigate it. Its promises…which men fail to understand at that point, are perplexing and magnificent at the same time. Men feel the irresistible urge to plunge into its waters, no matter where they may take them. On a physical level a man needs a companion to start this journey. A female. That’s how relationships start. Two parts, clearly opposite to each other, though this may not be apparent in the beginning, are drawn into a contact. It is the law of attraction of that which is complementary for the working of the energies of the masculine and the feminine. And the river calls…at some times gently whispering, at other times roaring and yelling when peopl
e refuse to hear its calling. It is the call of life to be lived fully. Since time immemorial, people have been afraid of this fullness. Then the river goes underground, to become invisible. Still, it keeps rushing. In the depths of their souls.

  Solveig looked up from her writing. Putting thoughts into pictures was a way, her way, of coming into contact with their deeper levels. The main theme was relationships. Or, breaking this word in two: ‘relation-ships’…In the beginning, a relationship promises to be wonderful, wondrous, and yet it is treacherous. It is a ‘ship’ to be manned and maintained continuously. But who might be born with the ability to do so? One had to fail, or something had to go wrong, to reveal the true purpose of people coming together…

  Switching from her personal memories, Solveig reached for the pile of letters on her desk. Addressed to ‘Anna’, some of them were handwritten and extensive in telling personal stories. ‘Write to Anna’ was an already existing column in the woman’s magazine for which she had been working for some years now, and the columnist was to be called Anna. Solveig thought this to be a perfect pen-name for this purpose. She used it also to sign little essays, which she wrote from time to time, and a short story now and again. Her predecessor in this job, the other Anna, was a psychologist and her kind of counselling was of a problem solving kind. Not so this Anna, who prefaced her answering of the readers’ letters with short poetical or philosophical remarks on the main theme of the questions put to her. Establishing a dialogue in this way, she encouraged her readers to give matters a thought on a different level.