* * *
Varya was right as always. After a few babyish light, carefree and peaceful days of pre-departure comes the hustle and bustle.
The car was ordered on August 30. Varya had to prepare children for school, something urgently dug, salted and canned.
Being exhausted in the pursuit of unattainable Favor Ignatius threw the brush and then slept, then despaired. He was angry and exploded at the slightest provocation, and went completely unbearable, suffering only a society of Joan. The benefit of their work is safely passed.
Now they are practically not separated, escaping from an unusual mess around, all these boxes, baskets, jars, lids, stupefying odors, running and shouting.
They went into the wood or the lake, taking with them the bread, apples and books, and everything seemed to be still, but no.
THIS dark and sweltering hot, as ominous breathing closing in on them, waited, and they both felt it all the more acute.
Walking they no longer weaved hands in a childish way, trying not to touch each other, hidden views. But the more they are relegated, the irrepressible them attracted to each other.
And it threw them into the fever, every cell quivering seemed accidental sight or touch.
As plus and minus. Closer and closer...
Anticipation of fire, like lightning, and the deadly compound, blissfully precipitous fall into the abyss.
Both of them understood that it is absolutely impossible. They were afraid of each other and themselves and in their hearts rejoice that we are approaching thirtieth, when everyone but the grandfather would go away.
And after Joanna and will take her and Ignatius' belongings to Moscow: pictures to the apartment of Zlatovs. And Ignatius himself would go to the Monastery, where classes began.
And they would see each other rarely, and their relationship would find again the unearthly purity and disembodied.
And it would be possible with the word 'Ignatius' do not die in deadly sweet languor sliding into the abyss, but as before, though the two wings of a bird, soaring weightlessly over this precipice.
There was another one third, noticed a change in their relationship. The last few days of Joanna often caught on his obscenely persistent gloomy view of Gleb.
Gleb also did not participate in the pre-departure troubles, which are noticeably irritated him, defiantly sitting on a bench in the garden at the gate.
Joanna and Ignatius had any time to pass by. He barely responded to the greeting, boring look.
On the eve of departure, catching Joanna alone, he motioned her to sit down.
'Would you go alone, Joanna. And Ignatius will go with us by car.'
'There's an open box because...'
'Nothing happened to the pictures, promise good weather, we will cover them with lamina. Go, Joanna.
She understood it all was silent in confusion.
'Do not be offended, you're a good girl, she know everything.'
'Give him freedom, will you? Ignatius belongs to the Lord.
'I understand it better than you. And in general... Maybe you'll let us ourselves...'
'I will not allow it!' snapped Gleb, 'I know you agree to all: to abandon your husband and become a mother, and herself a nun... But no, never! Let it will break even!'
No, you wait, listen ...
You know, I love Varya's children, but the Lord alone knows how I envy Ignatius... That it is free and belongs to the Heaven only...
The chosen and royal way� The Lord has ordered otherwise, I have my own cross, sin complain, but...
See, Ignatius will hate you..
Possible Ignatius' hatred to her was so preposterous that Joanna smiled involuntarily.
What does not seem worth doing, because Gleb was finally fury, he wanted to shout something very obscene to her address.
But he restrained himself and rushed to the house.
Poor Gleb in his role of Pygmalion! The student has surpassed the teacher.
About this thirst for freedom and flight... As it is incompatible with the need 'to sweat of the brow to earn thy bread', bring up children in the everyday bustle. It is incompatible with God's curse 'you will surely die'.
To continue your race... and disappear from the face of the earth. Joanna understood perfectly Gleb and did not take offense.
'Matter' entangled his hands and feet.
Many of Luzhino's inhabitants with multiple children beds, jams and pickles, wordy binding, often cold formal prayer and accounting calculation of sins, 'they are crushed to the earth,' thought Joanna.
That's why she was not attracted to them.
Each sentenced by the sweat of bread, in the throes of children, thorns and thistles... Life pleasing to God is patiently bearing the cross.
This obedience to the family needed is their path to salvation for eternity.
Because there, in the world there are games. Whether it is 'pure art' or the political game, where instead of cards and chess figures are fates of people.
Or the primitive pleasures of the flesh, Fair of vanity and possession; all these audacious dangerous game that leads to nowhere.
'And he tore my sinful and evil tongue,. 'And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out'...
Pluck it! If you cannot be a son, be a slave, but not disobedient...
Earthly life with its suffering and inevitable death has meaning only as a kind of prison correctional. Otherwise would have been justified rebellion against Ivan Karamazov evil prison closed, landlocked in the sky.
That's right. 'Who does not in obedience to God, he is the devil,' say the Fathers, 'Whoever is not with us is against us.'
For the human will is the will of the devil's.
There are slaves who have sons, like Ignatius...
And what about her?
Who are you now, Joanna? It is not 'outside' as they called the others, but not even a slave. Lukewarm and wingless, who died when (as it seemed to she herself) for the land, but not born for heaven.
And so Gleb seriously thinks that it can cause harm to Ghana... Surely he does not understand that it is unthinkable that she would rather die?
But the panic communicated itself to her Gleb.
Maybe he's really right and they are at risk? Maybe, in fact, better in a flash to get together to start the car and run away?
Ignatius will understand and be thankful, probably...
But God, what a shame! Had she really is not a control?
And then, this is probably their last hours together, evening, night and tomorrow's trip to Moscow together, which she had dreamed of...
Paintings in the back seat, everything else in the trunk and in front she and Ignatius, shoulder to shoulder.
And the speed was no more than seventy, and it was better to sixty, so that, God forbid, not shaken the picture.
Several Luzhino's landscapes, sketches, portraits, including a remarkable portrait Egor where that she especially someone reminded.
And Ignatius flour - and did not complete 'the Light of Tabor'.
It will go just barely, and time stopped...
And now from all this, to withdraw because of some stupid Gleb's fantasies?
Not for the world!
And she went to help pack our things, which, with all banks bottles was incredibly much.
Then hastily had supper then hauled the bales and boxes into the car.
And everyone helped, and Ignatius helped, and rain began to drizzle 'And you, Gleb, wanted to take pictures, and where would you put them?'
Gleb nodded in agreement, dismissed, he was no longer up to them with Ignatius. He sit in the back of children, who popped a piece of film, who tarp.
Then have forgotten something, and then finally set off, crossing the track, waving cheerfully from the film and canvas.
The door and the cab Slammed... The trap shut.
Trap shut. Joanna realized that somehow just by looking at artificially frozen Ignatius smile after the receding car.
The rain, thank be to God, continued to drip, which ruled out a walk.
Ignatius muttered that is to pack paintings, Joanna and his grandfather went to the house, boring and strangely deserted the gray skies and wet naked robbed the garden.
She went upstairs to her room, mournfully aware that its solid sensible intention now is to go to sleep absolutely impossible.
That a knock shuts the door cab, her hands and little faces from under the tarpaulin, wooden Ignatius smile, bare garden, naked greenhouse, quivering bits of the film in time to the Sorcerer mumbling rain' all this means only one thing: she and Ignatius were only two.
Maybe the last time on earth, on a piece of the universe in 15 acres, fenced-board fence.
They were granted on the thirtieth night August 31, in the last quarter of the twentieth century.
And it was unbearable to spend it apart.
But even impossible to spend it together, because damn memory persistently attracted her in the night between Moscow and Leningrad, and in smelling of tangerines and wine pairs of compartments.
Their once dissected and again after having touched the body eternity in blissful death throes illusory connection.
Her fingers tangled in Ignatius mane, his slate-black pupils in a torn world darkness of passing station.
Clutching her mouth hand, upturned face a whitish halo of a well-worn pillow...
And clanking mercilessly sucking pitching as though she greedily swallows hell, splits, ground his teeth for two to one body, crumbling in the last agony of universal catastrophe.
Beginning of the end and beginning of the end...
She remembered only that, more clearly and brightly. Every moment, every detail.
And the magical murmur of rain inspired her that now everything again and do this does not go away.
That cry of flying into the abyss, reunited for a moment and then tearing in half of the flesh, the meeting of life and death, flour and bliss, with the blessing of a curse.
Again, try it and die.
No, do not die, and death, it's too easy, if by this we mean non-existence.
To the hell...
'As if you know what the hell is! She tried it to mind to hersekf, immediately dismissing the objection.
Because all-consuming and unbearable hell was tearing her right now the fire, from which the body writhed in agony, rushing to Ghana.
She stepped onto the balcony, but the rain has brought relief, he seemed to be hot. Invisible droplets burned the already red-hot body seemed to have transformed into boiling water into steam.
And there was only one salvation: a dim spot of light in the garden, window Ignatius workshop.
The worst thing was knowing that at the same fire now burns Ignatius, looking through witchcraft rain glazed wall on the balcony door.
Or not looking, but still only seeing her upturned face in a halo pillow, in a dance of lights of passing station, smelling of tangerines and hearing her cry only under his palm.
They were one. It is not only straining toward him, but myself and wanted his eyes.
She wanted pristine fullness of life, realizing at once that this is art, deception.
And she was burned, as well as he was, by mutual fire.
It was impossible to overcome the rampant rush to reunification meant 'in the pre-eternal council' to each other once the cut halves of the flesh.
She tried to pray in vain. From the words of the prayer just for a moment the flames subsided, so here again the same cock up to heaven, torturing mad body.
And she knew that, just trying in vain to pray Ignatius.
And just cannot escape from the hellish captivity.
'Come to me, go!' Incessantly calling Ignatius voice, it seems, the charge on the night rain.
She became very clear that it is not humanly possible to survive.
But still it was impossible not to stand.
And then turned up the solution quite extravagant and wild. Actually, not a solution, and the instinct of poisoned animals who find and crawling blindly desired grass.
In one breath she ran down to the kitchen for his wife's uncle coveted cabinet, took out a liter bottle of moonshine made of tormentil root.
She poured in placed on a table unwashed cup of golden liquid, and trying not to look at the front door, swallowed in one gulp, along with pop-up tea leaves.
Then she washed down straight from the kettle brewing and listened to him, poured another.
She finished her tea leaves and plopped down on a stool, biting off of somehow caught in the hand incredibly sour apple.
That was all.
Because of his wife's uncle's room door was heard, thank God, snoring. But he could not sleep with another detective and go on noise...
She imagined that scene yet, but the smile did not work - face stiffened. The walls of the room, all the objects around itself, and Joanna moved from their seats, as if intoxicated disastrously with her.
Now hurry up! Only to keep from falling.
So, well done...
Now the door from the inside with a key.
A key down from a balcony at the track.
She heard how he rang the concrete tiles.
That was all all.
Ignatius' golden window swam slowly into oblivion, rocking on the waves of the universe.
And swung with a balcony room, and bamboozled magical rain in impotent rage spat on the glass balcony door.
'That is all!' said Joanna laughing the third time to unknown whom.
He dress, her face was wet either from tears or from rain.
Oh Lord, how drunk she was, she never had drunk so much...
For some reason the room was no light. Maybe she and turned off, but until now did not get to bed.
Uncle Eugene had wonderful moonshine!
And again, like a beast, she roamed the darkened room, struggling with the nausea until buried her nose in a bunch of dried mint.
Breathe in, more and more...
And retreated nausea, gradually settled down pitching universal. Finally, it stood out in the pitch dark outlines of beds, pier, on which she slept well the night like the dead sleep.
Dressed in an embrace with thorn mint sheaf of Luzhino's forest.
Uncle Eugene had wonderful was the moonshine with, a nice mint in Luzhino...
The next morning she had not had a headache. Only slightly staggered, and his body seemed vulnerable, fragile, as if out of thin glass.
Rain is gone. Glittering drops, soaking up the last summer sun, washed garden. My grandfather was thundering down in buckets, carrying rain water from the barrels full house.
Joanna cried out that she dropped the key.
And he was not surprised, freed the captive, saying he put the kettle on and so she went for Ignatius.
Ignatius was fast asleep on the couch among packaged items, also dressed.
And Joanna thought what a blessing that you can just sit, hold his hand through his hair, his cheek and call for tea, because it went...
And to hear him clear as the sun from the clouds:
'Joanna...'
And she shuddered, that things might be different.
They never tell each other how to overcome their last Luzhino's night. The last one.
They both knew it was the last one.
They won, obsession passed.
She was going to Moscow as she dreamed; she was trying to go as slowly as possible, Ignatius asleep on her shoulder.
And it was a wonderful reward: paradise primordial unity, as if someone's invisible hand carried them to that non-sun setting garden.
Time has stopped, and stopped her Zhiguli car stopped and the clouds above Moscow suburban highway and traffic.
Servile, sinful, heavily weighed down to the ground flesh no longer hung over them.
They overcame it. They were free as the two wings of birds in free flight are connected with each other and with heaven.
And if it is true that marriages are made in heaven, at that perfect moment between Luzhino and Moscow Heaven itself bless them.