Читать книгу Paris Nights and Other Impressions of Places and People: A Collection of Stories - Bakhtiyar Sakupov - Страница 6

For the most part, I’m a night owl. No, of course, I am able to be a weird hybrid of a night owl and an early bird, waking up at the crack of dawn and falling asleep long after midnight. But in most cases, I prefer to enjoy a normal sleep when there is such an opportunity. Therefore, waking up around ten in the morning, I realized that for me, today is a “lazy day”.

This is a day when everything your heart desires shall be within arm’s reach: a TV remote, a tablet, a phone, a good book, and perhaps a glass of excellent wine and a fragrant cigarette. However, in the morning, a glass of wine can be replaced by a cup of freshly brewed coffee, which is pretty good in a coffee house at the corner near the hostel.

Having come out to get some coffee, I realized that the weather was seriously determined to show a bad temper: the sky was whining, frowning, and occasionally either sobbing or coughing up distant roars of thunder.

The desire to walk through the picturesque places of Paris disappeared by itself, but thanks to my persistent optimism, it became possible to work on a book and a couple of recent stories that I managed to record.

So, after grabbing some coffee and records and promising the Bois de Vincennes that I would surely pay it a visit, I was armed with a pencil and conveniently settled in my favorite armchair by the fireplace in the living room, all alone, enjoying every minute of my time. I confess that I even imagined myself kind of the lord of the medieval castle, waiting for the guests or my beloved mother-in-law to arrive…

As soon as I have plunged into my records, the living room began filling up with people. That has been due partly to the worsened weather; and partly to the aroma of my coffee, which leaked with gamine wisps throughout the hostel, disturbing the inhabitants.

With a smile, I watched the half-asleep guests come into the common room, smiling affably and a bit timidly. Then, desperately gritting their teeth, they ran out in the pouring rain and came back with cups (or thermoses) of coffee. Those who managed to wake up completely turned out to be more thoughtful and cunning, playing “rock-paper-scissors”; whoever lost was to bring coffee for the whole group.

Anyway, after an hour, the living room was full of guests and stunning coffee aromas – Irish coffee, cappuccino, latte, coffee with spices. And despite the increasingly fearsome thunder “coughing” outside, the mood inside was warm and festive.

Honestly, at that moment, I thought that I should probably postpone work on the book, just like my trip to the Bois de Vincennes. What was planned here and now seemed much more interesting to me.

There was some kind of Christmassy atmosphere of warmth, wonder, and mutual understanding… And of holiday expectations. At first, I thought my subjective perception was playing jokes on me, but somehow the rest of the inhabitants began to share their feelings.

So, on an ordinary rainy day, and having gathered at the fireplace, we all headed up to the true wonderland of magical stories from real life. Everyone was in a hurry to share his own wonder, not expecting someone to believe him or something else. Everyone just shared a sense of joy and brought a piece of magic.

To the symphony of the Paris rain, I wrote down several remarkable stories that, probably, could have hardly become separate novels in this book. But they inspire an amazing sense of faith in miracles, and also convey the emotional warmth and mood that we all felt that rainy day.

* * *

Agnes got very sick. It was a disease that was untreatable and indescribable. Being a very wealthy woman, she spent an incredible amount of money and time to receive a diagnosis. As what often happens in expensive clinics, she was diagnosed, then treated, then diagnosed again. This went on for about three years.

Since then, Agnes herself and her fortune have shrunk a lot. A gray shadow with deep gaps in the eyes replaced a blossoming, healthy woman. Only her eyes continued living. Relatives delicately hinted at the testament, and she seriously thought of whom to leave her wealth to.

On some particularly unfortunate day, when she thought that she was standing on the very brink of death, an unexplainable thing happened. She dozed off; and in her dream, she had lived her entire life again: from the moment of birth until her awakening. She remembered everything clearly, with all the details, and looked from the outside. And most surprisingly, she had been dozing for at least fifteen minutes. On the same day, she donated almost everything she had to charity, which triggered a tsunami among her relatives. But, as she said, at that moment, she understood like nobody else that she was completely alone, and money was just money. If her money could help someone, then let it be so.

She had probably paid the best healer ever: the Universe. And the latter accepted the payment. The next day, Agnes woke up and realized that she was all right. By the way, it was Agnes who brought coffee for herself and several guests without taking part in the hand game, simply because she wanted to do a good deed. And she ended up in the hostel not because she could not afford a super-expensive Paris hotel, not at all. But it was because she suddenly realized that to be happy, you can be satisfied with a little. And every day is a small miracle, and the greatest gift from God to her.

I was writing down this short story about miracle healing, and watching the listeners out of the corner of my eye. I implicitly expected one human reaction, a kind of condemnation or even mockery, that another lady obsessed with charity vaguely uses to call on people to give everything to the afflicted. But surprisingly, everyone who listened to this story had no doubt or skepticism. On the contrary, I saw spiritual inspiration, friendly faces, and sincere happiness for the narrator. At that moment, I thought that humanity would survive. By all means.

* * *

Yohan was a typical road loser. The degree of his bad luck was so awful that his acquaintances and friends were already tired of making funny bets on whether Yohan would get stuck in the elevator, or his car would break down, or the subway would suddenly be deenergized when he is en route to his destination. The advantages of this dubious bad luck were that Yohan’s friends had fun and supported the guy. The drawbacks were that none of his acquaintances ever risked going with him anywhere. It reached the point of absurdity: if someone saw him at the bus stop, he preferred to wait for the next bus rather than get on the same bus with the “road loser”. And usually, even if the next bus arrived in half an hour, those who preferred waiting would have come an hour or more before Yohan.

At one party, he met a charming German girl who came to visit her friend. As Gerda was about to leave, she flirtatiously suggested that Yohan accompany her. Yohan blushed crimson and said that it was what he wanted most in the world; but if she really wanted to get home without obstacles, she would be better off without such an escort like him.

At that point, friends surrounded Yohan and Gerda, laughing and talking about what a “terrible” person Yohan was, and how dangerous it can be to go with him somewhere. Gerda listened to them with her gentle smile. When the stream of stories and jokes dried up, she took Yohan’s face into her hands and said: “So, you’re just a little Kai, who was enchanted by a wicked witch! Do you know how to break any powerful evil magic or curse?” As Yohan blinked in confusion, Gerda kissed him. “That’s all. Now you are disenchanted; there’s no bad luck anymore! From now on, you’re on a lucky streak!” she said.

Of course, Yohan walked her to her door, and then he went home. And nothing bad happened to him. Moreover, all the lights were green, as if on cue. When he appeared at the bus stop, the bus immediately got there. By the way, his favorite window seats were vacant.

Yohan and Gerda have been married for five years; and he still thinks that his Gerda is an enchantress, although it seemed to me that they both have magic within. This magic of sweet love that hovered over them and around them, their eyes, touches and smiles… Perhaps love can really save us from the most evil spells.

* * *

Little Charlotte, who came to Paris with her mother, shared that she got what she asked for every day. Her mom thought that this was amazing luck; but Charlotte, as a real magician, decided to show that she could actually get what she wanted!

First, she told a lot of small stories, where her dearest desires came true – from just a cake to a trip to the zoo or cinema. The adults listened to her with a smile, looked at the little “enchantress”, and nodded warmly at her mother who, for various reasons, granted her child’s wishes one way or another. Old mademoiselle Jacqueline smiled and, with her proven expertise, told Charlotte to take care of her mother because she fulfilled almost all the desires of her daughter.

I stopped writing and just watched them: Mother, Charlotte and Mademoiselle Jacqueline. At some point, there was a completely different creature instead of the five-year-old Charlotte, with wise eyes and an unchildish experience. And what the little girl said shocked not just me…

“My mom is the simplest person to fulfill all my desires. But she cannot do everything. For example, she cannot change the weather. I would so like to go to Disneyland! And I would so like not to leave. And now, look – planes do not fly. So, we’ll stay here for a little bit more; and if we’ll stay, why not stay a little longer? Just one day. The weather will be nice tomorrow; we will go to Disneyland and then fly home.”

As if to confirm the baby’s words, there was especially bright lighting outside, and a heavy thunder made the windowpanes vibrate. And Charlotte, smiling cheerfully, went back to being just a baby, comfortably seated on her mother’s lap and completely sinking into the contemplation of the bizarre patterns drawn by raindrops on the windowpanes.

* * *

Bridget, a giggly girl of about twenty years old, told us her magical story. It all began with a craze for esotericism, rituals, etc. It came to a logical stage: the visualization of desires. Well, it’s different for everyone: someone can get everything he wants, and someone just leaves behind his dreams of a “happy life”. There is no doubt that sometimes, well-crafted desire maps produce amazing results; except that there are a lot of recommendations on how to create the desire map, but there are almost no details on how to reach an ideal balance in the desire map. Once, I made small maps of short-term projects, and they always hit the bull’s eye. But Bridget told of a magical incident which only confirmed that the Universe is not just a Reason, but a Reason with a very good sense of humor.

All she could ever dream of was money – namely, money as the end result. And if experienced “wizards” advise to at least understand what that money will be spent on, Bridget was guided by this principle: “First, a bag of money will fall on me, and then I will take good care of it.”

So, on one beautiful evening, in a state of creativity, she started drawing her dream. Using Photoshop, Bridget began to carefully collect the components of her happiness. For starters, she chose as the background a pile of scattered coins. Then, she placed a close-up photo of herself at the center. “What else should I add to that?”, thought Bridget. She added “diamonds” – drawings of small cut stones. Then, after thinking that for happiness, she might need real American dollars, she added to the collage as many dollars as, in her opinion, a million looked like. After that, she was pleased to look at her creation and, having remembered the picture, went to bed.

The next morning, the Universe responded. Having opened the locker, Bridget, as usual, wanted to get a glass of orange fresh. But for some reason, the bottom of the glass was slightly stuck to the glass shelf. We don’t know how this happened, but the shelf fell, incidentally breaking a piggy bank and dropping a photo of the girl. The result was simply amazing! Bridget looked at her “wealth map”: a photograph laid on the pile of coins from the untimely broken piggy bank, a scattering of “diamonds” turned into splinters of the ill-favored shelf, and a million dollars from the same piggy bank. And a million dollars was painted, too! Long ago, Bridget put a dollar bill into the piggy bank, having previously drawn the number of zeros necessary for a million.