Olga put the shopping bags down and came up to the mirror. An exhausted thirty-year-old woman looked at her. She tried to change the reflection, raising the chin and lifting the corners of her lips. A stupid winner’s mask appeared: an image of a victory with despair in the eyes. It seemed the joy of the victory went away with it. Where to? A silly question, since Olga realized that day that the victory over somebody did not exist if the fight was not for the most important cause.
That was life, dignity, freedom space with the right of choice, a territory with the roots of the past and the sprouts of the future where your ancestors were happy, and you and your descendants would be happy, too, the right to be yourself and not someone else. Then, when the victory went, the main cause that you stoke your life for and without which it would be impossible, remained. There was also a victory over oneself, one’s “anchors”: imperfections, complexes, grievances, and errors. Then, when the false “Self” was defeated, it was you who remained. There was yet another victory: that over the difficulties, trials, overcoming which a person was also liberated from the superficial and the silly, staying with the most important and feeling stronger.
Olga peered into the reflection again. Her eyes were full only of shame and emptiness. A headache was coming on. She felt that she lost something very important, though outwardly and for all it looked like an unconditional victory. She received congratulations, was looked at with envy and suspicion; even those who used to never notice her began to greet her and smile. She won a reasonable life level, prestige, the right to look down on certain people, job prospects for the next five years, interest of quite a number of men in a lower than hers office position and, of course, got a piece of the power pie. The headache intensified. Olga took a lead, called Caesar, a big black with brown markings rottweiler, and went with him out into the hall.
A box with a fluffy cat and newborn kittens stood at a neighbor's door. Caesar licked the whole of the swarming mass with his big tongue. The Puss only slightly raised her paw, for appearance’s sake. She knew Caesar since long; he was old and very kind. Olga looked at the cat with kittens, and suddenly felt a rabid hatred, she felt like crushing all of them with a heel. “What is happening to me? I must be stressed out,” Olga thought, restraining herself with difficulty. Caesar stopped and looked at her. “What do you want?” Olga yelled and swung the leash at him. In the elevator she told him in an angry tone: “Don’t you dare to look at me like that, you jerk! You totally depend on me. You have no car, no apartment, no education, no youth or health. You're nothing. If I want to, I’ll give you away for experiments on you. You're just a useless old wretch. Soon you will be Dead Caesar,” and she laughed wickedly. The woman standing on the ground floor and expecting the lift started and backed away from her. “What’s up with all of them? Just you wait. I’ll show you. I’ll make you respect me. You'll look at me in a proper way, like I tell you,” Olga was hissing like a snake. Full of hatred, she tugged at the leash several times so hard, that she almost choked Caesar with the breast-band, which made him to lean back and wheeze each time. Finally, having had played with the power, she sat down on a street bank, and let the dog off the leash. She told after him: “Go, do it all quickly, you old, mangy monkey, or you’d better never come back.” “How I understand you, these dogs are such a bother! And, of course, they do not appreciate it,” the voice on the other end of the bench said. Although Olga could have sworn that when she sat down, the bench was empty. The voice belonged to a tall, attractive man over fifty. It was immediately obvious that he enjoyed tremendous success with women. He had long, thick, black hair streaked with gray, he was clean-shaven and dressed with impeccable taste. Expensive shoes, a stick-like umbrella and a gorgeous ring on his little finger completed the look of a very respectable gentleman. Even his steely cold eyes and the long polished nails with a very long one on the little finger, seemed somewhat natural in that gentleman, and excited even further interest in him. Olga was giddy with the anticipation of luck. Such a man, and sitting alone with her on the bench. “To board!” she thought, coyly bowing her head to a side and starting making eyes at him. “I'm so tired of this dog, it has plagued me,” Olga sang sweetly, shaking her hair. “Of course, such a large breed will wear you out. In addition, he is very old and has no prospects. And my aunt has wonderful crested dogs, very fashionable this season. Imagine, one of them has whelped. Would you like assistance? I could you arrange a meeting. Although, I'm sorry, maybe it is your husband’s dog, or it is very dear to you?” “No, not at all. My husband doesn’t care about it, neither about me, actually. It's just old skin and bones.” “Well, then. I’ll leave you my card. We will meet again.” Olga thought that she heard Caesar barking somewhere near, she angrily turned around, wanting to quickly get rid of him. The dog was nowhere in sight. The bench was also empty. A visit card with golden letters reading was derived: “His Highness Prince Apollyon Velialovich Lucifersky. Head of LUKOM Concern. Collector of rarities. Patron of Arts” was lying on it.
Olga’s heart ached, and she had the feeling that she was falling down an abyss. But her head said that the sensation was caused by the happiness and the envy to herself. Wow, she had met a real rich Prince. What a prospect! The headache was gone, the mood was upbeat and reminiscent of euphoria. Olga lost the sense of reality and floated in dreams of wealth and power. Yes, she deserved a better fate. She would have everything. Let the others walk all their life down the same boulevard, and look at the world through the same window. She was an exception…
“Darling, is it not your doggy with the injured paw? It is very hurt, even bleeding,” an old woman with spring-clear eyes wearing a white headscarf that appeared from nowhere uttered gently and with compassion. Olga was startled by the voice. The old woman’s eyes looked straight into her heart. She felt the pain. “I don’t want to feel the pain anymore,” Olga shouted. “What are you looking at? It's not my dog, it’s not, do you get it!” She jumped off the bench and ran away. The old woman shook her head, took her headscarf off and having bandaged Caesar’s paw, took him away. “Do not worry, dear, she’ll be back. Her soul is sick. Just like your paw is bleeding. She has only a day and a night left. Yes, only one attempt. It is not easy to pull one’s soul out as a mortgage to “the Beast.”
Olga ran headlong to her house, flew into the lift, without waiting for a woman with a little girl, and pressed the sixth floor button. The doors closed right in their faces. Inside, she felt at the same time pain and shame mixed with a bright sweet gloating delight. She chose the second sense, and laughed maliciously. Triumphantly looking around, she suddenly shuddered. She saw someone’s reflection in the lift’s mirror. Next to her twisted with pain and hatred face that she could barely recognize there was a man in a black cloak. She turned sharply, but there was nobody standing there. The reflection in the mirror smiled mischievously: “I see you are nervous; there’s no need for that. And, if I am not mistaken, you don’t recognize me. Well, it’s all right. We have plenty of time to get used to each other.” “Open!” Olga banged on the lift doors. “I don’t know you, and I don’t want to know. Let me out!” Having run out onto the landing, she screamed for a long time into the empty space of the lift to someone that he was a maniac, and may he go to hell.
Yura, her husband, who was smoking in the stairwell, touched her shoulder. “What happened? Whom are you talking to? And where is Caesar?” Olga suddenly felt the urge to bury her face in his should, like in old times, and to cry about how unfair all around was, to tell him how it hurt her, that she was confused and did not know what to do. That she felt so bad that she thought she was going crazy, that somebody was driving nails into her heart. That her head was splitting with the headache and that she could not understand where the nightmare, and where the reality was. But then she heard a voice inside herself; it did not belong to her, but it told her what Olga liked very much to hear. “Your feelings are preventing you from being strong and controlling the situation.” Olga looked at Yura, and recalled that she hated him for being different since long. He did not need things that she couldn’t live without. He laughed at the prestige, the money and he needed only enough power so as not to be hindered from living as he pictured it. A long time ago the priorities in his ideas about life coincided with the Olga’s. Then he became her conscience when drunk on material wealth Olga was stepping on the backs of her and his buddies. And now what? “You must get of him,” the voice said. “He's just a useless trash and a loser.” She wished that the words the voice was saying were true. But why did her heart ache so much? She listened to it. “My God! Why do I feel so bad? There was time when we had nothing, and I was so happy. There was happiness, there was love! Where did it all go?” Her heart told her: “You sold them.” “And very favorably, too!” the familiar voice said. “If only you want, you will have twice as much in return for the useless trash. Make your choice: either foolish feelings that bring pain, or the total control, big opportunities, any desires, the possession of other people's feelings and emotions...”
“Caesar has run away, I have looked for him, but haven’t found him. But it is for the better. All the same, he would soon have died. I’m going to get a fashionable crested doggy,”- Olga told Yura defiantly. “You have changed so much, Olya. How could you have abandoned an old sick dog? He would never have gone away. Have you forgotten that he saved our daughter? Incidentally, that was why he became deaf,” Yura was shouting to her already from the corridor, quickly getting dressed. Angela peeped out of the room: “Dad, where are you going to? I'll go with you to look for Caesar.” “You're not going anywhere, snot nose! It’s too late! The dog has served its time!” - Olga pushed Angela back into her room. “You are wicked, wicked, you’re a witch!” Angela screamed. “Do not talk to your mother this way. Indeed, it is too late, I'll find Caesar alone,” Yura sadly said. “Dad, I’m not going to stay with her, I’ll jump out the window. She was watching “Just for Gags” the whole of yesterday. Look at her tapes – she only has “Just for Gags”. She sits for hours and laughs over someone else’s pain, helplessness, mockery of the others, awkward situations. She lost her marbles. I am not staying with her.” Olga began pounding on Angela’s door, threatening to give her a good beating. The voice goaded her: “Show her who the boss is!” Suddenly, she stopped and turned around as the silence behind unpleasantly started her. Yura looked closely at, or, rather, through her. “It seems the child is right! Whom have you been talking in the lift with? And who is now standing on the left of you, in something black?” “Yuri, please, I am already stressed out, and now you are scaring me.” Olga abruptly turned around and sighed with relief when she saw nothing. “It is you that frighten me. You have no idea how far you went. I would not be surprised if the Prince of Darkness himself soon visits you,” Yura said, took his jacket off and went back into the room. “What prince?” Olga slowly slid down the wall. All that Yura kept warning her since long about, which made her only laugh, in a few seconds took a shape in the cold chilling horror. “He knows too much, he’ll stand in our way. Decide,” the voice said sarcastically. Olga rushed to her jacket, slipped her hand in the pocket and pulled the business card out. The gold lettering said: “Pig Carcasses Trader, Businessman, GG Apollo Veniaminovich Cruelsky.”. “I think I'm going mad,” Olga thought, feeling despair sweeping over her. “The only way out is to throw yourself out of a window, and to punish them all,” the voice said. “I still have time, you bastard,” Olga whispered fiercely into the void. Struggling with the weakness and hopeless despair, she stared blankly at the wallpaper for about five minutes. There used to be a spot in that place. It appeared when in her childhood Olga broke a bottle of iodine and spattered with it all she could. She got a good scolding from her parents, who had only recently made repairs. That was long ago, and the wallpaper was changed many times since. Olga tried to understand herself from the beginning, and to assemble the pieces. She went to the bathroom, undressed and stood under a cold shower for forty-five minutes. She tried to start all over again: from the childhood, remembering what love was. How her mother fed her, how her brother protected her from bad boys; her father, taught her to ride a bike; he had a heart problem, and panting, ran after her, holding the seat, while she spun the pedals faster and faster, enjoying the speed. She felt like she was the only one, beloved, necessary and happy, without thinking how they paid for it. She remembered a friend who, with the last of her money, presented her with a gift that she had long dreamed of; Yuri, who was always there when it was difficult, and could protect her from everything but herself. Caesar, who dived into cold water for her daughter. Did she know how to love? “Is it important?” the voice said. “The most important is to get what you deserve.” “I don’t deserve their love! I’m rubbish, rubbish...” Olga shouted. Her heart prompted: “Whom did you feel sorry for?” Olga began to recall: her grandmother, her father, mother, Darling the cat, the birds in winter, Volodya Chernyshev after he was beaten in the stairwell by boys, a girl with heart disease from a neighboring yard. She remembered a young woman on the bed next to in the maternity ward, whose son was born blind. When she reached the last five years of her life, she could remember no one. Olga cried, she felt sorry for herself. What a nothingness she is, and to imagine herself the hub of the universe! The voice said: “There is a razor over there. Slash your veins, and free everybody of such garbage like you.” Yuri knocked at the door: “Olya, enough for soaking, get out, or else I’ll force the door down.” “I’m okay, I’ll come out soon,” Olga replied, and started crying again. “He is worried about the scum of me. And I am not even thinking about him and the daughter. Only when they bother me. My poor, dear girl. Her mother has no heart. I don’t even know anything about her, who her friends are, whether she has any, who her enemy is, what she loves, what she doesn’t… Poor Yuri, how can he stand me?” When her memories reached Caesar, the heart was pierced by a sharp pain. That aching feeling of compassion and guilt almost made her throw up. “My God! Thank you, so I still have something that can ache, my heart is still with me.” She began to recall the terrible conflict situation at work. Olga set up her deputy, an honest and very decent man, who had worked even with her father, and, playing a double game, she went on to promotion, leaving the deputy disgraced and out of work. Water flowed slowly down her hair, lips, shoulders, mixing with salty tears. In the memory her colleagues’ eyes appeared. Olga could clearly distinguish the feelings of fear, contempt and hatred. But there was nothing but pain and pity in the eyes of Ivan Fedorovich. Olga moaned, and crouching on her haunches, began to whine softly. She finally realized what she had lost: her soul in exchange for what she won. It became so obvious. She couldn’t say that she did not understand what game she was playing. But Olga was hoping that it was just fairytales. Everything in life seemed much simpler: the strong and clever won the weak. In general, she wanted to cheat the Devil himself. She recalled the meeting on the bench. Cold and clammy fear crept from her ankles to the roots of her hair.
Olga turned the water off, quickly threw a bathrobe on and went out of the bathroom. Angela locked herself in her room, Yuri, in his. The apartment was filled with the spirit of indifference and alienation. Dear God, how she could allow that to happen. The warmest and the dearest place in her life turned into a lifeless tomb in a few years. How come she did not notice it before? “I want to fix it. I feel I still have time,” Olga thought, wrapping her dressing-gown on the move, and heading to Yuri. He was sitting in an armchair and reading, but his eyes looked past the page. “You were always there when I was in trouble. I could always rely on you and turn my back. You never took advantage of any situation to humiliate or betray me. You’ve always been honest with me, and I know you were faithful. Yuri, you once loved me - the one I used to be. And you're the only person that I can trust, and that for quite a long time have been replacing my own conscience. Please help me, I want to change everything.” “I'm glad that enlightenment came upon you. But what do you want from me?” Yuri replied without any optimism. “Please believe me. Tonight, when sitting on a bench, I met God and the Devil. Please help me to find the old woman wearing a white headscarf. I know Caesar is with her.” “Then he is safe. You took the stone off my heart. But why do you want to seek God? He already hears you. And then, have you already changed something in your life? Yuri said, carefully considering something on the left of her. “He laughs at you. He despises you. How dares he? Show him who you are,”the voice hissed angrily. The hatred and resentment rose up to Olga’s throat. She caught her breath, fending off the vengeful and scary thoughts, and wanted to hear the other, the quiet voice of her heart. The heart said: “He is right, but you still have time.”
Olga did not sleep all night, remembering her life year after year. Early in the morning, she went to work. There she wrote a resignation letter and an explanatory memorandum to the boss. In it she pointed out the main source of information leakage to a competing firm, that was, herself. After a long conversation with him, she removed all suspicions from her deputy, having explained in detail all the mechanisms of interaction. The simplicity and audacity of her combinations worked so subtly setting the others up that Olga almost always remained above suspicion. The boss was furious. He was so angry that he was unable to appreciate her action. When he signed her letter of resignation, he promised Olga that she would never get a job. Olga knew it was true, because in the last five years, she only managed to make envious enemies even in the company that was bound to her by the information. Then she went to see Ivan Fedorovich, as he didn’t come to work that day. Olga asked him to forgive her and was crying for a long time on the shoulder of his wife, Mary Illinichna, who comforted her in the kitchen offering her mint tea. Together they recalled the past that gave her strength during all those years: her mother and father, brother, her shy friend Lena, her teacher and her first love...
By six o’clock Olga finished the main issues that she had planned. She went to the grave of her parents that she had not been in several years to and put it in order. She bought for her friend something that that woman, a teacher of elementary grades, could have never afforded, though she had always dreamed about it: a Mediterranean cruise. Then she called her brother and learned from his wife Natasha that Sasha was in a hospital, and had a leg amputated after an accident. She rushed there and after talking to the doctor, she found that the prosthesis needed for Sasha cost exactly as much as she had left in the bank account. After the evening service in a church, she went to an attendant and said she wanted to confess. She didn’t know how much time she had left, so she was asking for it right then. An old priest came out to her. His eyes shone with humility and wisdom. The priest led Olga into the lateral limits of the church, covered her head with a stole, prayed and after learning the name of the confessor, asked what she wanted to confess before God. Olga took a deep breath, and started her confession.
She said that she had been living for the last five years defying all laws of God, that she grabbed, grabbed and grabbed, that she was manipulating people, animals, raping everything that crossed her way, thinking that she was the mistress of all. And if not, then it was only a matter of time. She betrayed her heart, her feelings, so she was taking revenge on all living things, that continued to love, hope, believe; to serve each other, give, forgive and endure. She hated these feelings and killed them. Then a demon came. He told her what to do, and everything was rolling. She got a good position, money, power, and no unnecessary sentiments. She lost the talent to understand, to feel love, empathy, joy. But other talents appeared: to desire, to elegantly lie, to manipulate time, speed, space, and the feelings of others. She began to enjoy the others’ pain, weakness, humiliating and trampling someone’s hopes, dreams, mocking someone else’s personality. Olga thought that it was only that her personality had worsened. She thought she worked hard, and was stressed out, and when she reached the top, then everything would fall in its place. Although, honestly, she knew that something had happened to her: as if some force helped her to go ahead stepping on the others’ shoulders. Yes, and Yuri, her husband, told her many times about it. Olga did not want to believe it, and mocked the other’s stupidity. But some people and animals started to see the demon. The children began to cry and ran away at the sight of her, hiding behind their mothers. As soon as she appeared, big dogs attacked her, and small ones ran away, tail between the legs and whining. Her good old Caesar several times tried to drive away someone, throwing himself at a void next to Olga. Even her own daughter said that she was a witch. Yesterday the Devil himself sat on the bench next to her. But she, such an idiot, did not even realize who it was and tried to seduce him. Olga said that she knew that he wanted to take her soul, as he warned her about the forthcoming meeting. But she thought that she still had a chance because immediately the Lord sent his angel to that place. Olga told the priest about Caesar and the old lady with the white headscarf. The old woman looked straight into her dying heart. It came to life and recognized God. Olga began to feel the pain of others again. She began to help her heart. In the morning she went into the hall to see Pussy the cat with her kittens to check it out. And although the voice was saying that they were nasty, small, ugly, smelly, Olga already heard her heart. And there was tenderness in it. During that day the voice weakened, and became sort of sluggish. It was silent for the last hour. Then Olga explained what she did that day, at the same time outlining her entire life. Another hour passed by. The priest kept asking questions, praying for forgiveness of sins. “What do I do, father? I do not want to give my soul away!” “All of the sins that you have mentioned are forgiven to you, my daughter. Go in peace. And sin no more.” “But what shall I do with the demon’s voice? And with the Devil?” she asked wearily. “You choose. This is what God sent you to Earth for. Everyone hears two voices: the God’s and the Devil’s. The one you choose will be next to you. The more often you choose, the closer he comes and the louder talks. And the second is going away, and talking softer. But they are always near. It’s never too late to hear and to find God. And you can always lose him again. Remember that. Go and do not fear. No one shall take from you what you value. The soul cannot be taken away. It can be only lost.”
The priest read the releasing prayer and gave his blessing to Olga.
Olga was walking along the evening boulevard. She had nothing of what she so cherished before. No work, not even prospects for it, no money in the bank, nor the relationships that she had destroyed in one day by telling the truth, no car, that she left to her brother. The car was simply necessary for him now. However, Olga felt a great relief, as if she had had a good bath. She was happy for the first time in recent years, despite all logic. Some toddler, about three years old, stuck in ruts, eagerly pedaled a plastic tricycle. When he saw Olga, he shouted to her: “Auntie, push.” Olga helped him to get out of the ruts, sensing the involvement in his every movement to combat it. She understood the feelings of the mother, who was ashamed that she had got carried away by chatting to the neighbor on the bench, and a strange woman had to help her son.
Olga smiled to her encouragingly. Her heart and God were with her. But there was still something like a splinter in her heart. She had long been thinking about Caesar, how to find him, and what happened to him. “If he hurt his paw, then, of course, the old lady would not lead him for a walk in the boulevard. Most likely, he is somewhere in the yard, where that granny lives,” Olga was reasoning. She began to walk around the yards, located in the area close to the bench where it happened. It was getting dark, and the yards were becoming empty. Olga, who had not slept the night and had not eaten all day, was overwhelmed with the fatigue. She sat down on an empty bench in one of the deserted yards, and in desperation began to call loudly, “Caesar, Caesar,” even though she knew that he couldn’t hear anything since a long time ago. Voices could be heard from open windows, the TV program “Good night, kids” started. Olga went through a few yards more, then came to the boulevard again, and sat on the yesterday’s bench. Suddenly, she felt fear: “What if I never find him again? Forgive me, Caesar,” Olga said, and wept. Her heart told her that she had lost something precious. The Prince’s question surfaced in her memory: “Maybe he is dear to you?” She herself had refused him, saying that he was just “skin and bones.” “I am feeling the same pain like yesterday. I loved him; I was only trying to make my heart shut up. Lord, help me,” Olga gasped, and bent. “Whom are you grieving over, dear?" the old lady with the white headscarf was standing before her. “Over your doggy? He’s with me. Do not be sad, he’s alive and healthy. He hurt his paw very badly. But with God’s help it is healing. He even hears better, with God's mercy.” Olga looked at the old lady, and laughed through her tears. From the deep despair her heart moved to the most overwhelming joy. This happens when something that you long dreamed of, and has already ceased to hope for, suddenly happens to you. And it turns out even better than in your dreams. Olga knew that a miracle happened to her and personally for her. “Grandma, but will Caesar go with me? Will he forgive me?” “Ask him. Come, I'll take you to him.” The old lady took her through the yards and led to a rather remote from the boulevard five-story house. She lived on the first floor. Asters and dahlias grew in her small front garden. Caesar was dozing on the grass among them. Olga cautiously approached him and put her hand on his head. Caesar turned his face away without opening his eyes. Tears flowed out of the dog’s closed eyes. Olga sat on the ground and put his face into her lap. She stroked his ears and kissed him on the wet nose, saying that she was ill and did not want to feel her heart that whispered to her, that she loved him and didn’t want to lose him. She told Caesar that he was one of the dearest beings in her life, without whom she wouldn’t live. She told him that was looking for him and she came after him, and that everybody was waiting for him at home. She said she was guilty before him, and he can bite her a hundred times, but she only wanted his forgiveness. She was recovered, and would never hurt him again, and she promised it. The dog opened his eyes and licked Olga in response with the long pink tongue.
While Olga and Maria Danilovna drank tea with bread-rings at last, it seemed Caesar regained all his strength. He happily watched them, wagging his tail, and impatiently moved the forepaws. “He is right, my dear, it’s time to go. Your near and dear are worried about you. Do not forget this day. It is the most important in your life. It will be hard for you, but you won’t lose your happiness. Go, God be with you.”
When Olga with tottering Cesar as he still could barely step on the hind paw and was limping heavily, walked along the boulevard, they saw Yuri with Angela. They had been looking for them, and with joy and relief rushed towards them.
Olga took her jacket off in the hallway and looked into the mirror...
She deserved what she saw in it.
What about you? Do you look in the mirrors and walk along the boulevards?
Marina Luch. ‘06-03. nakovkina @ mail.ru
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