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Chapter 9
The Aquarium

The most remarkable thing that, without a doubt, makes the morning good, is a cup of the right black coffee. Thanks to my student mate Olga, I acquired this good habit and stick to it until now, especially on vacation.

There's also another habit which is not that good… After the first meeting with Eve, I started wearing heels. Even in paving stones of an unfamiliar country. It's terribly inconvenient, but I can't do anything about it.

Three years ago, when I was on a 12-hour walking tour of Amsterdam, although with a 2-hour sunset from the tavern, I was almost dead on my feet, but I didn't take off my stiletto ankle boots. However, late at night, waiting for the bus, for the last half hour I was literally clinging to the hand of Dmitry Sokolov, a young guy from Krasnodar, a beginner and a very talented poet, who also arrived in the capital of the Netherlands that day…

Now my heels gave a soft knock at an unfamiliar street of Dubrovnik. I walked and looked for a sign of some decent cafe for locals, not for tourists like me.

I opened the door of a small coffee shop after evaluating the nice smell emanating from it and floating in the air, like a genie escaping from a jug… Like ether. Almost tangible and thick.

Strange thing…

I wonder if anyone except me and psychologists pay attention to the fact that men visit cafes in the morning to have a cup of coffee?

It was pretty early. They were not hurrying anywhere, sitting and watching the news on tablets. Of course there were eccentrics reading newspapers, but they were older.

A kind of testosterone parade.

This is as true as the fact that in the morning it is difficult to notice the same number of women with a cup of coffee in their hands…

As for men, here they are! Calm and self-satisfied. I do not understand why males do not like to drink coffee in the morning at home…

After all, are they all alone?

Or is this because in the morning they are as relaxed as possible and should not show their dignity to anyone or prove their significance…

I don't know.

I just like to watch. They definitely don't understand that this is my favorite part of the morning in another country! I collect impressions. And then I compare it with past observations. It can be very funny.

I ordered a double Americano and a chocolate muffin. Enjoying this morning, coffee and company, I felt an incredible pleasure from life, the fruits of civilization and, anticipating a wonderful tour, smiled at my thoughts, sitting at the last table of a small coffee shop.

Having estimated that Doremi woke up, I sent him a picture on Instagram. Then I looked at my route. It turned out that the Aquarium was a kilometer away. I could do that…

I stood up, finished my coffee and bought a bottle of water so that I could leisurely set off to admire the marine creatures…

Morning had just begun. Cool. Rare passerbys smiled to me. I smiled back at them.

And there was the Aquarium.

In summer it was open from nine to twenty-one, and you could take your time looking at eels, tuna, breams and mullets, maragotas, scorpion fish, lobsters and sea turtles…

I wonder who was the first to think that such a museum can be placed in the medieval fortress of St. John? It turns out to be two in one!

A stone gallery, a fairly wide corridor…

Aquariums were installed in the walls, probably not less than thirty of them. Fish: large and not that large, constantly chatting, opening their mouths wide, and each time sincerely amazed when people for some reason throw coins into the outdoor Aquarium pool. I also could not resist and threw a metal ten cent into the water. It fell next to the puzzled turtle, which flinched, blinked or winked at me with the lower eyelid, and then, as if nothing had happened, slowly rubbed its eye with its front paw…

«Wow!» I thought, «can you do that!»

As soon as I got out to breathe some fresh air, I noticed Doremi sitting on the entrance steps and waiting for someone, constantly looking at his favorite Swiss Mondaine^[5] watch.

Really, Doremi?!

Eva's diary:

May 23, 2004.

Sunday.

Our rector repeats the same thing…

«If you finish your third year, you can consider yourself PhDs!»

In the meantime, no clubs and discos! Nothing but studying…

Easy to say!

Pharma^[6] is the death of fascism!

How can someone remember all this: hybridodemirunatazine, for example.

And this is just a new drug against sclerosis…

Part II
Eva's diary

Chapter 1
Taska… And Epicurus

February 23, 2014.

Sunday.

Lord, why didn't you give me Taska's brains?

Or rather, why didn't you divide our brains equally?

My dear little sister never gets distracted by all the fake stuff and does not even try to please the whole of humanity…

Forget humanity! Does she even love herself?

Well, no. She probably still loves herself, but does not care about how she looks, and what others think of her. As for me, a broken nail is a tragedy of the day! I can cry all evening because of a strange look or a seemingly cold intonation of my husband or boss.

Taska is reasonable.

Moreover, she reasons sensibly. And at some point, she can refuse everything, because she believes that these are not the options. And then she patiently waits for the stars to come together in the correct sequence to promise her something for which, perhaps, it was worth waiting so long… After all, if you think about it, we all feel different.

I've always believed that the expression «Studying the world through senses» belongs to Immanuel Kant…

But no!

It turns out that Epicurus spoke about this in the third century ВС!

For some people, the world is just a decoration for their own game. Or, like Epicurus said:

«Some prepare their livelihoods for their entire lives…»

The pompous and egoistic Narcissus directed all his abilities and skills only toward the achievement of one goal: creating maximum comfort for his own living in this favorable world…

He simply didn't care about what other small characters feel in this performance.

But nature takes revenge on such people, cruelly robbing them of sensations, making them flat and blurry like reflections in the water…

They always lack the volume and colors, and throughout their lives they are haunted by subtle and eluded memories of smells and sensations from childhood, when the soul still remembered something else…

«It is better to endure some suffering in order to enjoy great pleasures; it's useful to refrain from certain pleasures so as not to endure more severe suffering…» This aphorism is also taken from Epicurus philosophy.

But sensitive creatures like Taska see the world differently.

It shines with billions of faces and shades, filled with magical sounds. You can go crazy trying to describe this beauty, each time picking up some exquisite metaphors and comparisons.

Taska manages to do that.

She manages to do that without much anguish and effort. As easy as breathing. I promised her to publish a poetry collection, but she waived my words aside… She does not have the courage to declare herself, or she simply does not attach much importance to what she writes…

But I am delighted!

Let's take a category like pain…

How can you describe in unusual words or, resorting to specific terminology, in a way that it sounds like poetry? Quite difficult.

Pain

 
My temples are throbbing with pain
like poles and like expectation:
it's end or beginning… in vain
don't seek for a justification…
My temples explode, but I
I grab my head with my hands
I feel it now with my skin
This rampant tide that enhance…
 
 
It starts filling entire world
And even the world's reflection.
I can't remember a word…
But I feel it coming in my direction…
 
 
Now my temples seems to freeze
and the pain subsides in an instant…
But the worlds seem to know
that the pain is always persistent…
 

It hurts

 
It hurts so much
To be a captive bird:
Left in cage
Without saying a word;
It's ephemeral
But it leads you astray…
You can fly out
But you never fly away…
 

The Furious Surging Sea…

 
The sea of pain, so furious and surging
Made up of desperate words that turn to emptiness…
I don't know where all this pain's emerging
It burns my lips to tears that I suppress.
 
 
But now I've got companion to guide
The one I met in my own darkest depths…
For all the rains we'll find a place to hide,
My hope's the only thing that I have left…
 

What else can I say?

Taska is an expert!

Chapter 2
The Meeting

January 23, 2015.

Friday.

I suddenly remembered how we met…

Of course, it was not all of a sudden.

After all, tomorrow is your birthday! And we owe this acquaintance to my precious sister, who was returning from another country and decided to pass the time between flights with me.

It was our second meeting with Taska after my mom and I moved to St. Petersburg.

I was in a hurry to the airport, and I had to miss two classes. But when I arrived, it turned out that Taska's flight arrived with a two-hour delay. I just wanted a cup of coffee…

You stood there, waiting for your espresso. I haven't seen your face yet, but for some reason (what a nonsense!) I wanted to snuggle up to your back, hug you and die from the tenderness that suddenly surged over and was completely inexplicable.

Although you can explain everything. It's just instinct worked faster than reason.

It was only later that I put everything in order and decided that at that moment my subconscious mind capitulated to the fact that if there was really something left of animals in us, it was the ability to choose partners by smell.

I came close indecently, and when you turned to me, I realized that I was lost forever. Perhaps you also understood everything and just played along with me…

But all this looked quite plausible: you looked into my eyes, and the cup of coffee, balancing on the saucer, could not resist to fall to my feet. I involuntarily bit my lower lip, so as not to scream.

«Does it hurt?» You asked.

«Not much. But I'm sorry about the shoes!» I answered.

«You won't believe it, but this is the first time with me! I'm so clumsy!» You exclaimed, looking at my red suede pumps. Dark brown splashes have now been absorbed, and turned into ugly stains with small grains of black coffee.

«As far as I understand, there's no use in cleaning them…»

«Probably,» I sighed.

«My name is Igor!»

«Eva,» I answered.

«Eva? Really? Cool! I owe you shoes, at least… And coffee, if you don't mind?»

«I don't. Anyway, I'm here to meet my sister and I have a lot of time…»

How many years have passed since then?… It seems that all this happened yesterday!

And if it weren't for our boys, I could swear it was yesterday!

Tomorrow you will be thirty, Styopa and Daniel are seven! Who could know you were born on the same day! There are three men in the house and all are birthday people!

Mom always sympathizes with me, thinking that on this day I fulfill all your whims…

Of course, I will give you your, no, my favorite perfume, Baldessarini… The very one that I felt in the coffee house when I met you…

Taska is smart.

She has a whole classification of meetings:

1. Fateful meetings…

2. Meetings that do not oblige to anything and leave a kind of bright sadness…

3. Meetings that you remember all your life, but nothing can be changed for a number of reasons…

Meeting number 1.

 
Your each and every touch
Is like an electric discharge.
Your look, relentless and sweet
And a moment that's infinite…
You stopped at the door for a while
And burned my cheek with your tip
Thousand candles of love fire
And the flame of hottest lips…
The lighting pierces my soul
So I can't utter a sound…
My trusting gaze turns to yours:
It's eye to eye, and we're bound.
It's not an electric discharge,
But the gravity of the earth…
Your gentle eyes plead me at large
Surrender without remorse.
And the earth seems to swing…
I sometimes forget to breathe
I love you! I love you more than anything…
I walk on the edge with ease…
 

Meeting number 2.

 
The colors mixed into a filth:
Gray heavy clouds above the earth…
 
 
Beautiful words turn into mist,
We met against all odds…
You're too polite, and very sweet
But my heart remains calm and still…
I had the strength to cool the heat
To stay impregnable and chill…
My goodness! What a rapid change…
The sun has barely touched your glance!
Now I must seem so cruel and strange…
I pray to give me one last chance…
Alas! You'll never look at me…
Though I was just a moment late!
So sorry… Now you cannot see
One touch of love that still awaits…
 
 
Mixed colors make everything gray:
Dull heavy clouds above the ground…
But I'll be happy anyway
I'll be around, I'll be around…
 

Meeting number 3.

 
Big square of an ancient city
Azure silky sky;
You couldn't find a decent reason,
So you freely came by…
 
 
Although you spoke in English,
I understood you without a word,
You seemed to be very near
Coming from recent thoughts…
 
 
Big square of an ancient city,
I'm surrounded by pals
Why do I need a good reason
To send Colosseum to hell?
 
 
I quietly apologized
Came up with stupid excuses
And rushed without ending the talk,
So clumsy and so confusing…
 
 
Columns, arches, ancient city;
Fountain, steps… I see you sit…
I could find another reason
Paris could wait a little bit…
 
 
Then you smiled as we were walking
Putting sunglasses aside
Touched your hair as we were talking
And lights sparkled in your eyes…
 
 
The circle of columns and buildings…
Changed tomorrow to yesterday;
You smiled goodbye to my feelings
And, just like a dream, flew away…
 

Lord, I just don't understand how can she build and systematize such a gamut of human feelings!!!

Taska, I remember my promise.

Chapter 3
A Miracle…

If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine. It's lethal.

(Paulo Coelho)

January 23, 2016.

Monday.

You know, I always envied you. Not just because of the way you feel about life and know how to color gray dull everyday life.

No. I envied your dreams…

How do you do it?

Today… You just came up and told your dream, without resorting to various tricks and metaphors, in casual words.

You only mentioned that the dream was colorful as always.

And then I saw what you dreamed…

My imagination added brightness to its colors and space to its volume.

I even felt the wind play with my hair.

And also the smell. The smell of ripe wheat…

Yes.

But in a dream, all this is absolutely obvious things. Objects that have become significant for some reason become the same height as secondary ones, those that are much higher… Those that are now in front of the eyes or lens. A twenty-story tall wheat.

I see it in every detail, as if looking at it through a magnifying glass.

I remember once Taska and I went to a plein air… Having set a sketchbook somewhere on the high river bank, she began to paint…

Sky. River bend. Steep coast…

And then for some reason she wanted to draw some buttercup in the foreground.

The yellow buttercup seemed to have the same height as the dark tree on a high slope.

The law of perspective.

Unlike wood, the buttercup was more alive…

After all, she wanted to write out every vein on his petals…

And now you told me your dream.

I don't know, maybe you already forgot about it. Maybe you saw it a little different. But my imagination, like a hungry puppy, continues to return to that situation in search of a place where the «bone» was once buried… In this case, the imagination does not let go of the picture that has appeared and is now overgrown with details.

Sounds. Different sounds.

And then there are poems. Either they are born in my head, or this is how air fills the space…

They seem so perfect that remembering and reproducing them is almost impossible. They have a completely different philosophy and categories that seem to be understandable… But they are so unusually simple, concise and pure…

All Horoscopes claim that Aquarius is romantic.

This is true.

You are Aquarius!

You're also a romantic.

I've never met a bigger romantic. You always surprised me. And, as a rule, in moments when I was not ready to be surprised.

What does it mean: not ready?

It's just that the texture of those moments was too flat and not yet containing shoots for a future miracle…

How do you manage to mask something in this reality so that it doesn't give a sign of a holiday?

I cannot explain this parallel world where you, like a magician, take a magical object out of your sleeve, allowing the «northern lights of the holiday» to enter our house, filling it with a sense of happiness and magic… And at first this feeling makes you sit deeper or lean against the wall.

I am always unarmed.

How do you do it?

Miracle

 
What I can still believe and trust in…
 
 
With all regards and skepticism,
Provided that you cannot check it
Or find a proper mechanism
For things called Miracles or Magic,
The one you touch… but do not ask…
And it is not about the public
 
 
It's something you're afraid to bust!
 

Miracles Happen, You Know…

 
Miracles happen, you know
just when you don't expect it
right when you cross off the list
all the efforts the stars invested…
Miracles happen, you know
if you put soil to hearten
fertilize it with ashes and tears,
and not just believe it will happen…
The cynicism of nature is clear:
after all, it could connect
something that is immense
with something that remained intact…
 

I am a bad sister.

Another year has passed. And I'm still there!.. (((

Chapter 4
The Quintessence of Love…

March 23, 2017.

Thursday.

Yesterday, while I was lying in the bath full of sea salt and foam (though, alas, without rose petals or a foggy high glass of red dry wine), I thought:

«This activity is to my liking, as well as lying on a sunny Turkish or Thai beach…»

Well, I'm not a lazy one!

Although I can lie in the bath for 2 or 3 hours!

I'm going down into the water, very carefully: first one leg, then another. I try to sit down and then I go to bed slowly, because the water very hot, but not so as to leave burns…

You quickly get used to the hot bath, and after a couple of hours it only cools to body temperature. Igor scolds and spoils me at the same time:

«Eva, my fish, you know how harmful it is! Stop cooking yourself! Jump out, I've prepared something delicious here!»

«Darling, you know this is my office!» I answered once again.

Exactly, my office! During these two hours I manage to systematize my problems… Think about the things that concern me, and set up plans for the whole week!

Yesterday I thought about why I became a doctor…

Since I was a child my Mom inspired me that the doctor is the first man after God, while a priest or a pope is the second. Of course doctor sounds better, but physician is fine too…

The way people look at you walking in a whitish starched robe! As if you possess secret knowledge that is beyond the reach of mere mortals…

Indeed, it is!!!))

Some of them have awe and fear in their eyes, someone can barely cope with their excitement and constantly blush, others look at you with poorly disguised distrust.

I like to read these emotions in the eyes of my patients and find a key for each of them in order to let love into my heart…

At least to myself.

After all, all illnesses are caused by dislike, dislike of ourselves in particular… You can starve and be an absolute ascetic and at the same time have enviable health, or, conversely, suffer from chronic diseases with an abundance of funds and a set life, and think that this is okay…

But comprehensive love is also akin to disease…

Surpri singly.

What a paradox!

Taska has one interesting poem, a kind of test.

Few pass this test. The whole damn catch (!) is that 99.9 percent of those reading this poem take it literally!

But those who understand what kind of feelings the author is trying to tell find the quintessence of love…

 
Afraid to land when I take off…
Or feel no hands when I'm awake;
Afraid to ever be afraid
Thinking about you all the way…
Afraid to choose and to decide
And disagree against all odds
Afraid to lose the winter time
Afraid of river streams so broad…
Afraid to fear when I'm afraid
Afraid of friends that go back on…
Afraid to frighten, all in vain,
The brightest thoughts that rush upon…
Afraid of good luck to depend
To know the answer right away…
And that the cold gazpacho soup
Is not something you want today…
Afraid to go when looking back,
And see that you're not there even!
To say that everything's on track
But this is not what I believe in!
Afraid to trust to chance or passions
Or be dependent on desire;
Afraid to torture you with questions:
«To whom, by whom, what for and why?»
Afraid to even seem indifferent
Or when the others seem detached…
And shyly wait at the reception,
Although no chances seem to match…
Afraid of an invented fear
Though one day it will fade away…
Afraid that my last shirt I give you
Would never fit you anyway…
Afraid to lose and not recall
The memory of your sweetest arms
And that I give this huge whole world
To the possession of your charms!
Afraid that I might leave unnamed
Or be unable to find out
The names of all the feelings tamed
To know what they are all about…
I'm not afraid of reassurance
But I'm afraid I cannot take
The things I leave without regretting
And leave it for my enemy's sake…
Afraid to miss the very meaning,
Afraid of taking the wrong turn;
That there will be no more pages
Behind the page that has been torn…
Afraid to suffer and dissemble
Afraid to be afraid of heights;
Afraid to part with dreams and tremble
That I will never see them bright…
Afraid to insult by not listening,
Afraid to be afraid to die…
Of the desire close to hatred!
Of seeing when I close my eyes…
Afraid to leave without returning
Afraid to stumble and to blame…
Afraid to fall asleep forever…
Afraid to be completely tame!..
 

I finally agreed with the publisher!!!

I think that the collection will be ready for our 33rd anniversary!

Taska will be surprised!)))