* * *
Only Joanna like a faithful shadow or a double waited expectantly behind his backs. And her hair that was bound with an ancient twisted cord was being waved by flying time.
Ignatius stood in front of the barrier.
He still did not have faith.
Only a light sense of belonging to their thirst, their moaning:
'My soul without you is as a barren land...'
Neither socialism, nor capitalism. I do not need any 'isms'.
Nor studio is not necessary, nor wealth, nor rights and freedoms.
Nor exhibitions or this 'Oedipus', nor the talent of mine.
I am equally sick of feasting during the plague by himself and cover tables for future offspring, who will be consumed by the same plague.
What I want is not feasible and insane.
But it's the only thing I want.
I want to have immortality: for themselves and for others.
I want to have perfection: for themselves and for others.
Necessarily both at once, because immortal scum as horrible as mortal perfection.
I do not want and cannot feast, when there are sufferings around me.
I do not want to learn it because it is an abomination.
I want to have different existence, which is eternal, beautiful and combined with love.
I want something that does not exist. But it's the only thing I want.
-'Let there always be sun, May there always be sky, let there always be Mama, let there always be me...'
Yes, both I will be and they will be too: the children who are hungry for the eternal fairy kingdom.
I do not believe it but I long to believe.
I want to have you: Truth, Meaning, Beauty, Immortality...
I do not believe in you, but I cannot live without you...
* * *
Still later, after the departure of Hleb, he would come to father Peter on the same road and by the same machine.
Life and death.
Worthless nut under the brake shoes, begging the wheel.
'Do you believe in God you?'
'I do not know. I want to believe... What Gleb said ... I want to believe it.'
Fr Peter spoke of the sacred symbolism of the cross, the double nature of man, earthly and heavenly one. 'I have said, Ye are gods'.
The intersection in the heart of our vertical and horizontal - our earth's vain flatness and gust up to Heaven.
The fact that a bird takes the form of cross in order to fly up.
The fact that Ignatius was now to completely change his life, ending with the former dissolute one...
Because the sacrament of baptism is a repudiation of the forces of evil and the oath of service to Christ. His signing up as a volunteer for His army.
Henceforth he would be a warrior, and a warrior is always on the march, of food and clothing he had only the most necessary things.
He's always light, and instead of the palace he has a cape.
'All unnecessary, lustful, vain things,' thought Ignatius, 'should be brutally crucified on the cross, because it presses us to the ground, not allowing us to fly up.'
One cannot simultaneously serve two masters: God and wealth, property, the glory of the earth.
The more vain and carnal you have in your life, the fewer spiritual things you have.
'Give me your flesh, take my spirit...'
On the earth there is a universal war between light and darkness, where the victory of Light is inevitable.
But the war is for the souls of men and the field of battle is in people's hearts.
All flesh will perish in this war, crumble into dust, but every soul is immortal.
But souls that bare full of light, things of Heaven, will be able to be reunited with that Light. For 'what communion hath light with darkness?' and 'nothing unclean shall not enter into the kingdom'.
He, Ignatius, fears of nothingness, but much more terrible is the eternal being of warriors of darkness.
When all earthly and familiar things disappeared forever: than your flesh disappeared too, and your empty shell, a monad of your immortal soul, was filled by the eternal darkness or by nothing.
Because there is no light in you, you yourself have chosen darkness by freedom of choice that was given to you.
You yourself signed a verdict by abandoning the Heaven to dwell in the eternal darkness forever.
This is the Day of Judgment.
A treason to God's plan for you, the image of God in you.
The Judgment is not in fact that you did not become, say, Seraphim of Sarov, but in the fact that you did not become Ignatius Darenov, as you were devised by the Lord with all your gifts, that is 'free data'.
Time, health, talents, intelligence, material conditions of life and 'daily bread'.
How did you use it, whom did you served?
And all that does not comply with the plan of Heaven for Ignatius must be cut and burnt.
How much will be left from present Ignatius, or he will completely merge with the darkness?
Therefore, the cross is our salvation.
It is, of course, a burden and a yoke, but an easy burden and good yoke.
The way to cross is the same narrow, bumpy; it is the only leading to the kingdom of light.
After all, even one who is sinking takes the shape of the cross to keep on the water and even a bird floats in the sky as a cross...
But if Ignatius doubt, let him better think about it.
For what is better: to give your heart to the Lord and serve the Light, gradually preparing for the sacrament of baptism, check yourself... Or lightly join the army and then desert?
Or even go to the enemy, the prince of darkness, which often happens.
And into a swept clean house seven demons settles and the war will be bloody, especially with yourself.
With the same Ignatius who was filled with darkness.
Ignatius would answer by words that laid on his heart:
'Lord, I believe, help my unbelief...'
Father Peter nodded happily.
'You can see that you already pray, then you believe at least a little... And well, that you are humble because the power of God made perfect in weakness...'
Ignatius admitted his hatred to the world without God and to himself.
That his visit here was his last chance.
And started to talk about an ampoule.
His father Peter suddenly smiled completely inappropriate.
'Do you think it is funny?' Ignatius blushed.
'What fervent you are! Am I laugh? Devils happens to laugh but we rejoice. For you I rejoice, Ignatius...
Well you go ahead. Here is the cross, here is the Gospel.
Tell me about all your life since your eyes opened...
Where your stumbled or offended someone... Tell me everything that you would like to erase from your life.
Good thing are not necessary to tell about, but you should get rid of the evil. Hide nothing, tell everything as before death,' he said.
This is your first confession in your life...
The Lord himself listens to you, Ignatius.
As a son who was lost and returned...
The long confession would exhaust Ganya completely, and obediently surrendering into the hands of father Peter, he would automatically perform what was required, just listening to his explanation:
... what a deeper meaning in this renunciation of Satan, in waxy bead with rolled-up strand of hair that was thrown into the water... In walking with a candle in the church, the anointing and threefold dive headlong into the shared granite bowl, which outlasted more than a dozen generations of parishioners of that ancient churches.
All would seem painfully confusing and lengthy, and it was like some magic act.
Faintness came over him, and he only wanted that everything should end quickly.
'Be patient, my child, this struggle is spiritual,' whispered father Peter, seeing his condition. 'This is an enemy, he languishes in you. Be patient...'
A nun apparently brought the specially bought new clothes, which was rather big.
Father Peter flatly refused to take money:
And when Ignatius finally dressed and received aommunion for the first time in his life, being with his hair still wet, outrageously hungry, so he had to slow down in the first cafe, sat at a table in anticipation of the omelet with peas among workers from neighboring factories and shop-assistants from a toy store (it was just a lunch break) in identical dresses above knees, designed for success among older children. Ignatius again and again listened to myself, wondering what had changed?
The change really happened; he felt that by each cell of his.
A marvelous and yet terrible feeling of freedom of an abyss inside him was a direct result of the change in him.
No, he was not dead. He felt the mixed smell of ham, chemical stuff and perfumes of girls. He saw dirty snow outside; it was so similar to St. Petersburg's one, a wing of his car, by which after forty minutes he had arrive at a business meeting with an American by the name of Kraft ...
But all this is no longer hung over him. The abyss opened up not on the outside and inside.
In himself.
He crossed the barrier and turned out to be on the other side of the mysterious line.
He got off the train in an unknown small station, and now the train, gathering speed, went past the chewing Hall and past chewing Ignatius.
All past, present, future.
And he seemed habitually played Ignatius, chewing, smoking, uttering certain words, realizing that it had been always so.
They always were two.
Ignatius and one who played Ignatius.
It was a banality. The world is theater; the people in it are actors.
The scene and changing sceneries.
Instead of a suit there was a flesh given at birth; it was also changing.
It was his first stage.
Ignatius was a child, teenager, husband, lover.
He was a modern and disgraced artist, a dissident, a successful Parisian.
He played and played.
But he, true one, what he had seen in inside the abyss?
A few scenes from childhood, entwined by serpentine mysterious words 'DIGID', his paintings, bloody patches patch wounded shell of his soul...
And also the sad and bright face of Joanna; half of them broken up into prehistory in once single Essence.
And also a hellish ampule, a wheel nut, Gleb's pamphlet...
That's all he, Original Ignatius.
And all of that can fit, perhaps, on one canvas.
Void and the abyss... The last act.
Hamlet dies, the curtain falls.
The scenery were taken away; the audience went away, the lights was turned off. The play was over.
But real life outside the theater, did it exist?
Will Hamlet arise to greet, to take off his suit and go home?
Ignatius seemed dead, and now lay on the floor, painfully waiting for, finally, light to be turned on.
But the light was not turned on.
Only limitless abyss of his soul was opened up as a black mourning curtain.
Will he arise, the actor who played Ignatius Darenov?
Paris, the seventies of the twentieth century.
The center of the universe changed.
Ignatius looked like in the depths of his ego suddenly that became bottomless, the film with his own participation.
And this new, mysterious bottomless, ever-abiding Ignatius could accommodate that external Ignatius, picking the cooling omelet with a fork.
And even more interesting is that it always had been so. Two Ignatius.
He was a pitiful passenger of a train; both external Ignatius and inner Ignatius; as well free from what is happening on the train, as free from happening on the screen as a viewer in the audience.
And the rescue was not to change the script, not in the direction of the rails, and certainly not in the car or change the curtains in the compartment...
But in understanding that as the world owns you, and you possess the world.
And he was able to accommodate and embrace the entire universe, and the spirit of travel in space and time.
And change it not by pulling the trigger or by pushing the nuclear button, but the words, music, brush, fervent prayers.
To understand that you are created after the image and likeness. that you are a miracle, son of Heaven.
And most importantly, do not give the world lies in evil overcome you.
Appealing to aid him in whom Ganea so eager to believe.
'These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world'.
(John 16:33)
'For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world'.
(1 John 5:4).
'I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes'.
(Ps. 82:6-7).
* * *
Will Hamlet arise?
Or an actor in the last act is to die with his hero?
He was born and changed a few masks and roles, and then the inevitable bloody finale followed.
Corpse forever was carried from the scene, the action continues.
Viewers are happy, not thinking that there are no vievers in that theater.
Why are they, gods, live as robots or animals?
Why do not they wish to go out by a specified path from death row, or at least write a petition for pardon?
Why do they believe only in death, though they live as if it did nit exist not?
Never before Ignatius experienced such icy alienation from the world, remaining on the other side of the barrier.
Former Ignatius died and stayed there with them. And you cannot go back to the show.
He must rise. But Hamlet continues to lie.
There is no life. No Light.
There is no life...
The action was over, the scenery disappeared, the lights went out.
Such is the inevitable ending of each actor.
Thousands of roles with the inevitable bloody finale. Is there life after the show - a real one?
Wil light be turned on at the end of the show?
Igbatius was over forty, his role was still going on; it was a painful split.
Ignatius, who plays in everyday life sluggishly and without talent lost interest in what happened on the stage.
And Ignatius, who joined the barrier.
Killed and real one, fervently pleading in the darkness to the light.
* * *
In a few days.
The miracle did not happen, everything remained as before.
Ignatius would understand what the hell was.
It is an eternal stay in the dark after the show.
In the painful and hopeless longing of Light.
Ignatius would be properly read in the morning and evening prayers from the presented prayer book, which were highlighted by father Peter but but the strange words would meekly fade into the bottomless darkness of the empty and dead audience chamber.
He again began to think of the ampoule.