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L U S T R E
M A R I A I S T
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First Original Copyright @ 1992 by Maria Istoc
Second Original Copyright @ 1999 by Maria Istoc
First published in Bulgaria
Form and Picture by Boris Battalov
First Printed in Bulgaria
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY TOP SI – Anastacia and Simeon Iankov
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To my brother;
Al;
His Holiness - The Pope -
For Jesus
In acknowledgement to God;
My family, especially my father, my brother and my uncle, Apostol – the founder of the Bulgarian Women Football;
To Anastacia;
And to Maria Martin, Professor Ted and Evgenii Mossinov for teaching me, and you, Ibi, with love
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P R O L O G U E
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1
Once upon a time there was there the last Prince in the world – Al. Al lived in the Kingdom of Rain
No longer shone the stars radiant at night, hidden beneath a thick gloss of tears. The sun rose red-raged at dawn, the earth shiver-pulsed in sickness.
Descending down through the forest that surrounded the castle of Prince Al the valley of Temptations
- The third miracle is in the second, and the second – in the first, and is hidden in his heart.
- Oh!
- The Golden Witch had said one of the twelve will hurt his heart and destroy the last of kingships sun ever created.
- Wait! There is not the end yet. Just before executed, The Silver Witch saw there had been there the fourth of miracles – in the heart of some princess unknown. If only would Al find and spot her!
- Would he?
- Who are the twelve?
- Oh, Father Sun, please help save our King – The Prince.
- Hush!!!
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- Ann! Ann!
- Ann has disappeared!
- Father Sun!
- I smell gasoline!
- No!
Made of wood, the only house in the valley of Temptations
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- Who are you, gorgeous! How come you here in that state?
- Oh, my beautiful Prince, help me!
In torn clothes, bleeding, Ann fell down unconscious – in the feet of Prince Al who had reached to answer the rushed knocks at the gate, late that night.
“Evil! Evil!” - in agony and nightmare, Ann sobbed for days in the bed of the Prince. Al had understood – by some miracle, the little creature should have escaped from the most terrifying of fires that land ever saw. Escaped. By miracle.
- I shall always look after you, beauty, always – Prince Al prayed for the wonderful thing he had put to protect in his own bed.
Always. Always. Until she married Evil.
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- I will crown you, - the Golden voice sang to Ann’s mind in her dream – I will crown you the only queen in the world, if you trust me.
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- You are a voice obsessing me, how should I trust you? – read Ann’s thoughts.
- I am Ei, I am your heart, I am your power, you belong to me, Ann.
- Evil!
- Ei! Ei! See me!
Ann lifted her head up to see the invisible beyond the darkness closing her eyes. As cut out of crystal, vapour-white, there stood he – icy – Evil, no doubt.
- Why did I love you, Evil, why? Why do I love you yet?
- You don’t love me, Ann, but what I can make you have.
- Make me have?
- All what you can’t have.
- Make me?
- Ha! Ha! Ha!
- Evil!
- Now, come here, give me your hand, and see.
- No! Too good to be true!
- It’s true. That is you. The Queen. The only one. Beside me, the King, the only one – make love to me, Ann!
- Let me out, Ei!
- Late. You killed you sisters.
- No!
You are so beautiful, Evil – do you kiss?
Ann completely stopped breathing. Desperate of weeping, Prince Al all lost himself in contemplation of his own end.
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At the mere end of earth, near The White Sea, in the farthest corner of the world, there spread a lonely garden there
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– as beautiful as remote in time, as lively as forgotten, with a sun too sharp for the eye to see.
Tia grew hidden in the miraculous of a place the small garden of Sun
Like every morning now, after she had cried for her fathers and their sons, Tia turned to look up at the silver statue from bellow, lifted her soft hands up in a prayer and spoke tenderly:
“I see you are not of stone, I know you can hear me, please, Silver-Silver, talk to me!”
This time it did – Silver-Silver, the stone, did speak.
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- Where am I?
- Ann!
- Ooh!
- Ann, gorgeous, you are all right, here am I the Prince – beside you.
- Prince Al?
- Yes, my lady!
- How come I here?
- It’s all right, dear, I am here, I am here.
Al all dived into her tears, kissing.
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6
Tia was the only creature Roy Roy Roy
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Al felt so hurt to realize Ann had strangely disappeared the night she gave birth – the body his dogs found was not hers. As hurt, however, as only he could be, Al stayed yet there – as touched as by a sun-ray – as Tia as from the Heavens came.
So, he also knew. Al knew Tia.
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8
- - Do not fear my words, Tia, but listen to me carefully: you will find yourself in a strange place among people to love you. You belong to them, Tia. Do not fear the fear when the time comes, dear – the silver statue spoke at the end.
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Those diaphanous folds from behind off the trees there had always so fascinated him that he decided to go penetrate into beyond them – and disappear. And he did. Roy
Al ran furious. He had to talk to Tia – Tia knew Roy
…Evil!
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“Stop or you get consumed!” – ordered the golden glassy leaves of the glassy trees to Al. Was this the forest that always surrounded his home?
“I do not matter!” – Al almost replied to himself when he dropped down in time and space.
“A-a-a-a-a-h… Evil! Come out and face me, Evil! Come out!” – Al commanded.
“Not before I take your heart… Ha-ha-ha-ha!”
“What do you want, Evil!”
“The truth, Al, perceive the truth.”
“You can never be me, Evil!”
“Scared?”
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“You can never hurt me!”
“Fair enough… But then Ann will!”
“What have you done to my Queen!”
“Your Queen! married you to marry me, silly!”
Ice pierced his body when half of him stopped dead. There was he there, Evil, up straight into his heart, Al felt.
“You forgot of the most important, Evil” – space as though pronounced.
“S-I-L-V-E-R!!” – burst out Evil.
The Universe rocked to and fro; the skies gathered to break open; the earth split apart through all.
Al found him at some unreal or irresistible vision reaching softly toward him.
“I love you.”
“Tia!”
“Now to the end.”
“Did we end, Tia?”
“Neh.”
Having moved as from beneath, the garden of Sun
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“Please, Roy
“I am sorry.”
“You cannot leave me, son!”
“Farewell, Ann.”
“You are Evil, son!”
“Not since Al gifted me half of his heart.”
“Lie! You can have no heart – you can only die!”
“Bye-bye!”
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“E-I!”…
Hand in hand, free, Silver and Roy
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Prince Al was saved when love was, too. On the day of rebirth when life turned true, or independent of the evil.
And was there the last real world – Eternity. And lived there the miracles kept, lived the prince children. On the day of love. When Evil was no significant.
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B O O K O N E
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G O L D
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OR
HOW FAR FROM HERE TO THERE
AND THE OTHER WAY ROUND
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OR
THE SEVERAL YEARS AFTER THE NEW LIFE WAS BORN
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1
Democracy? Democracy! What time is life?! No. Not me! I can’t get lost. Not me. Why now? Why now. When I’ve been wasted. I am wasted.
P A G E 1
APPLICANT’ SECTION
SEX: ?
Peppelanova Maria Nico
02. 12. 64
THE STORY:
No. That couldn’t be true. Could not be.
- What?
- Todor Jivkov!
- Dethroned!
- Who?
- Dethroned! Jivkov is down from the throne!
- A-a-a…No! True!? Seems to be. I don’t believe it. I’ll call mammy. I thought you were going to tell me the President of Balkan Tourist is dethroned. And you are telling me… I…that’s impossible.
- Darling, Jivkov is down. See everybody here? Celebrating? Don’t you see the party around?
How good it is to sit in the sauna. The heat takes your burdens down together with your weight. Takes the sedentary out of you. And teaches you how to stand heat. How to bear heat. Some logic. The sands flood in down so slowly. Thinking. Searching for logic. Finding the logic in the most unbearable of situations. In the heat. I feel light. I feel slow. I am rational. I am not exaggerating things. I breathe. I see. I am not going
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crazy. Mad. I free myself from my fiery energy so sensibly. I don’t throw myself into another temptation. I see nothing that could tempt me. I am relaxed.
Where is he? Where could he be? In Bulgaria England
P A G E 2
Drama – acting, writing
Becoming a professional actress
The Tisch School
Oh, feels sad. Feels so sad. Should I change to see the changes? Who is here what they are? If that would happen a few years ago! If I wouldn’t have to be just a prognosis! How is it going to be now – what’s coming next? All’ve been pressed. Wasted? Pressed. Oh, grandpa, you guessed! This time our freedom came from the west. CIA? Who knows. I don’t. Chaos. Catastrophe. We are rising from. Primitive Privatism. Perversion. Peasantness. Peasantry. What a glory. What a cracy! Tzar Boris – killed. Tzar Simeon – exiled – in Spain , in Madrid
ignorance flourish through and out of the world. To where reached God. Where God became angry.
No, don’t be above them – put a scarf on your face. Follow the rule. And feel good. Don’t you have to survive, man! Why die? To flatter or please whom? Or deny what? No, man, leave your talent in the drawer. You can’t fight an enemy who is beneath your level. Keep on the other end – stay zero. Turn unrecognizable. To protect, and protect
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yourself. And a day may come when God may need you, and need you the way you are. You can only wait now but getting ready, and be – always ready, and God knows, He knows all. Trust in Him. And He is in you. Trust yourself. And you be rewarded. Loved by God. He knows you are an ace. He knows you. Search for Him. Rediscover Him. Be a piece of The Mightiest. Be universal – that is patriotic now. And see the why and the how of things – then, that’s exactly why you came here – to see, to know – rediscover and – discover. Yes. There are always new Americas America
“But, professor Molchova, I am getting drowned in inferiority complexes – I’ll black out someday.”
“Wrong, sweet-heart, wrong. You just displayed conscious of coping with things rather smoothly and easily, and – everyone should pay for what they do.”
Jesus, she said it. I hadn’t realized they had been feeding me that complex all the time; the complex of superiority and presence, I suffered from everywhere with everyone – a complex ruining me, making me feel no one.
P A G E 3
The George Kirkov English Language School in Bulgaria
Martin Maria
TOEFL: 08,1990; 560 points
St. Kliment Ohridsky University – quit in 89 – for a paradox
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And just now that I remember they had been going to arrest me that night! Why? For “Our Lord” – sounding on the TV now? Now, that I had to change then, April, 1989.
“Could you give us your motif?”…
I was a teacher in English in a school in Bulgaria
It hurt. So long. Like never before. Because of the teachers, supervising. Or hating me - a girl till today – a teacher after yesterday. Not even when I lost the stage did it hurt more. Since we could turn the pages back to the model of the English Reconstruction and learn from it – take experience for something… Or since I were sick.
“You see, I can’t make art for people.”
“Why?”
“I can’t.”
“Then make no art.”
“Why not art – for art’s sake!”
“In no way!”
But so – I did – went on , and for an art’s sake – back, to my future – to tourism and business to survive and forget people, and change completely.
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P A G E 4
A Ballet
Stop - from the beginning! How you step, watch your step – toes! On your toes, children! Spring! Strain up. Now – now, don’t hurry – don’t rise sharp – wind in rising, meander – a moment – and you are a corpse – you do not feel, do not breathe either – but lift your heads slowly in the mist. Don’t crawl – but meander – put your whole weight on your arms and push to the front where you find the answer. Now – the face – strain the features aside! Put on the mask! Break through! Call hatred! Call dark! And break through cool. Now! Watch the game, the game with your hands. Your hands are the questions of your souls. Easy! Easy – not sharp forward. Easy the Night comes down. Easy the passion stirs up. Easy the spirit wakes up. Easy the longing moves you, easy your temperature rises - easy you go mad – your triumph comes – the mad dance is danced.
Anguish and exultation, burning and love, ecstasy and frustration are all one – play here, play with yourselves – being out of the net – play with the net yourselves, play with the holes.
Tranquillizes the soul – awakens the mind – tranquillizes the soul – crystallizes the brain – tranquillizes the soul – stirs up the blood – tranquillizes the soul – springs the body up – to go – powerfully forwards – forwards, forwards where transcended the spirit which illuminated the dark.
There, you came! You reached to truth. Show her now, for this is the last chance she gives - either trust her or get consumed. And she would love to watch you – burn in her. While being you now.
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P A G E 5
Peppelanov Nicola Todorov
Appostolova Slava Andonova
A son and daughter in two of the biggest families in pre-revolutionary Cheppelare, they united in the post-revolutionary time, in 1957, to save what was still left out of their once-upon-a-time-father-families.
2
All there my peace went with it. With the changes. When I had just changed. New York – New York
Yes, man, build up a new delusion to shelter in. Make up something to lose – why not. Since having no more to lose, that might be the sense of life – who knows – no one can tell, nor can the English. The English don’t know everything, unfortunately, we are all the same people. Exactly, the English are hypocritical – but all as far as to stick to the most justified state of hypocrisy and yet save the throne, which the French, for example, didn’t. Poor French. To believe they could smash the smashing. Justify the most unjustified. And smash the smashing for smashing’s sake. Could the French be as so intelligent as hypocritical, too. And save the aristocrat – such a threat all around the world.
Kill the aristocrat to become one, or be generous if you are not such, or save the aristocrat being a copy, never
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original, a parvenu yourself! If only could the French turn the clock back and save the States some aristocratism!
Nothing changed with the changes. Nothing. In the spirit of reconstruction, we reconstructed the fascist structure. New York
When all, we’d have created nothing but Miss Post Neo Communism to giggle there at us, for not being our mistress.
P A G E 6
My dear teacher,
I need to be recommended now. By a teacher who knows me better than anyone. I tried to contact Professor Ted to no avail. Please, help me.
Dear Applicant,
I will hold your application in my file until I receive your payment.
If you have questions, please feel free to get in touch with me. Thank you for your cooperation.
Simon,
Please send 45$ on the address above, on my name. Thank you so very much!
Dear Maria,
I just think New York
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Dear Applicant,
In order to audition, you must contact the Department’s Audition Line to schedule an appointment. No one is admitted to the program without having completed an audition and an interview.
Dear Sir,
Could you arrange a video-taped audition for me, please. Thank you.
Dear, dear teacher,
I don’t know if I go there but I know if I can make it fair, I’d make it anywhere – Maria doesn’t buy, doesn’t sell easily.
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I like it slow. I like it discreet. To have time to marvel it. To perceive it. I like luxury. I like it crystal. Nothing to disturb me. I like it blue. I like it bluely.
- What a wonderful time we live in, mammy.
- Wonderful! We died in starvation – as naked as guns!
- But look, what’s happened to them. Such a release, such a change. I don’t believe it.
- We’ll see, we’ll see.
What a wonderful snow. And how it falls, artificially. Who thought of it now? Now. Was I sinful? I don’t know. The sin should be in me, not in the system. I had come here independent of a system or a mechanism. I had come here free. No, I was not. Free. So, I was sinful.
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How? I was searching. For my sin. Finding it nowhere. And I was searching, searching. A totalitarian reign was making me think of strange thoughts. Was I a dragon or a cat? Was I sinful? I was I. Many qualities and many abilities. So many chances in front of me. I was a real child of Communism. Developed in all directions. So many directions. In me. For me. In front of me. Directions. Was difficult to keep in one of them. Feeling the need to follow all of them. I liked them all. I liked the whole of myself. I liked everything. I liked everything in myself. No. No perspective out of so many directions. No perspective in philosophy. No perspective in the taboo. Change. Learn from the Americans. Change. Into a wolf. That’s it. A wolf outside, a cat inside – see, seems so easy. And I was born on the brightest spot on earth. In the darkest place in world. Place that taught us how to have a way out. Of everything. Every time. And we survived. We always did. I survived. I was alive. Alive.
Do I think when I am drunk? Am I drunk when I think? Am I always drunk? Where do I go when I don’t think? In the past? In the future? Is there a future and past? Or is there a future only? Or a past only? Isn’t it the past that we see in the future? If we see the future. What we call future. When I see something that happens in millions of years do I see it because I know it, because I remember it? Is there fantasy at all?
Should I change to see the changes? Why did I change?
Do I die when my heart stops beating?
Saw him I, or Jesus – real, while in the transport of fruition, behind the beneath of some divine paleness, or intuition, saw him I, the man I loved, as Jesus.
- You have always moved me.
- Always?
- Always.
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We kissed gently. Slowly. We felt thorn. Out of rapport. In rapport. In time. Out of time. In our time. The time of our fruition. Our come-true. Would time be fair? Would time be a debtor.
The English came to go back. Never came to stay. Did he go to come back? Time would say.
Men are scared. All around the world. Men are scared. A man is scared of losing his woman. A man is scared of having his woman. A man is scared of both losing and having.
- Are you scared?
- Of what?
- Of being with me?
- Why, should I be?
- All men have been.
- I feel so free with you, Maria.
- So feel I – with you.
- Can I watch you? Is it embarrassing you?
- I only wonder what you see there, I am so ugly.
- You are so special… Can you come with me now!
- Did you think I could ever come… Hm-hm-hmh…
Yes. We went. Into the darkness. To enjoy its smoothness. To enjoy its glamour. Somewhere in the dark. Where the skies had crossed to bear us. And bear us. In Jesus.
- Can I hold you?
- Mark!
- Maria…
- You finish my sentences… you know…
- ...”what I think”
- How’s that!
- I love you!
- You forget!
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- No.
- As soon as you are there!
- Can you hear me – I love you!
- I feel as in a haze – as though I hear you, see you – it’s not fair!
- No.
- It’s such a long way from here to there, and still longer from there to here!
It’s not fair!
- But how could it be longer – from there to here?
- Well, you see, we are so backwarded, we don’t even have the same measures!
- What measures?
- Well, you have miles, we have kilometres.
- But that’s exactly because we are the backwarded, from this point of view – we are.
- Maybe. Sounds so comforting.
- I guess so.
- Maybe that could be it – really comforting – hours! We both have hours, don’t we? Say, it’s three hours from here to there, and exactly the same – from there to here! No difference in time! No difference in measures! I got it, darling, no difference at all!
- I knew you would – get anything in the world.
- I love you.
- I love you, Maria.
In the beginning there was Communism.
Up on their feet, “The International” in their mouth, the disdained marched disdainfully – to civilize the civilized.
Then came Fascism.
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Communism – Dictatorship – Fascism. Totalitarism? No! Communism! Mafia? Co-m-mu-ni-sm! C – O – double M – unism.
When I didn’t get the difference between real and unreal. In spite of, through it all – in petty realism.
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“Three hours… Is the sky there the same? Are the stars above you the same? I am going to bed now. I know you will be there. In bed. With me. And I can’t wait. To get asleep.”
- Three hours?
- Three hours.
“Is it real? Or is it our artistic minds and sharp imagination? What it is. What is it?”
- Out of the haze?
- Out and real.
- Maria!
“I can’t bear it. It hurts. It’s so sharp to bear. Did you come? Did the man I love come? I want to talk to you now, not to phone or letters! It’s not fair. I am here. You are there.”
- I love you.
- I missed you so much.
- Your hair has grown now.
- Well, I thought you liked long hairs! Hm-hm-hm.
“If we are the same thing… If we are the same one… What shall I do?… Are you him? The man I love? I have always been expecting? Is he you? I want you here with me! I hate this paper!”
- You never lose your sense of humour, do you?
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- And you never miss to catch it, Mark, how’s that?
“I go two weeks back in time. The time I was sent the most beautiful words in the world. I am in a bliss. I feel crowned. And the sky is as beautiful there as is here. And is no other but the same sky. The same. Everywhere. One. And for all.
Will you have still been loving me by these week time. I will. So much. How much. From here to heaven.”
- I would catch you, Maria, remember?
- No sweet nothings, no promises, no hesitation either.
Had you already caught me?
“Tell, me, is Easter there this week? Well, you see, it’s here next week”
- I was sure you would stop a day scared, Mark.
- While you were going to bed with a lady Macbeth? I love you, Maria.
“Since it took for the letters two weeks to reach me. And took Easter a week more to come here? Since we didn’t share one moment in time – one and the same time, the same space!
Since the space you inhabit in time is not the space I inhabit in time! Since we are not in the same space of time, really! Where is the earth for me to step on? Tell me! Tell me my world. My planet.
Is the sky there really the same?!”
- And how I can fax myself out through a God-damned-fax is the only thing you cannot tell me?
- The only.
“I am so ignorant. All in haze. Am neither there in me, nor for you – real, in flesh. I am so funny. So far away. A week behind you in time. A whole week. Two weeks! What could I say? Behind you. Away from you. In time. Behind you in time.
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How to believe you were mine? In my time. Behind your time. In a new time? Some new time. Why?”
- A baby?
- A baby!
“Good night, honey, sleep sweet, for thee no longer am I a myth. There again go I in haze – all to my beloved screwing me off my head empty bed. To bed! To bed! As white as a sheet, too sober to need – you’d better believe.”
*
Are the fools living in the past or in the future. Which measure are the fools.
Are the fools fools? Is sugar sugar? Why sugar?
Is happiness Jesus!
. . .
“You know, Maria, the place we live in ENGLAND
“You do?”
“NO exclusion – everyone – always.”
. “Which place exactly you said you came from?” I was told of a place I had never heard of in my life. Later, I would try and locate that place on a map of Britain
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5
Found I a close soul nowhere. In no sphere. In no spirit I ever searched for in to find. Rediscover a close if not my soul there.
Would I still love to be on either of the two ends. Would men always prefer to keep to the middle, would all they depend on their isms.
Found Him I only. So far away. In Heaven. Such a long way from Bethlehem
I wish someone took me to a castle. Took me to a castle. And gave me my freedom. Someone took me to a castle to show me. And showed me. My world. My world one country. The whole world one country. One space. One time. The same country. Bulgaria Bulgaria – the centre on the earth and England
P A G E A
PLACE OF BIRTH – any
DATE OF BIRTH – any
ORIGIN – any
NATIONALITY – any
P A G E B
CITIZENSHIP – Worldian
RELIGION – Christian
Passport, issued in the Centre in the world – London
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All people – Christians – and neither catholic nor orthodox, enchained to a state of law rather than one of interpolation – by means of law rather than means of mixtures of literature, or corruption – a state based on the figure of some real piece of jurisprudence – more similar to that of fidejussio than that of delegation where namely all the accessory actions get gone on who-knows-whose-account – enjoying the new schools in towns as the fourth level of diplomacy, or the fairy lands of unseen brightfulness as typical as standard of a phenomenon; combining realities to see rather than fear the answers the abstract shares with the concrete, deciphering rather than extending the “hole”-procedure, the demagogy.
*
- Jesus!
- Maria. I came.
- Jesus!
- Come, sit down. I came to talk with you.
- Oh, please, Jesus, forgive me! Please!
- I forgive you.
- Oh, I am so happy, Jesus! So happy – I am so happy.
. . .
Oh, I imagine, do you? The cinema of the new century – showing the film of life following different sections of the brain – on different big screens there simultaneously – at an instant. Its spectators – not striving after becoming Mussulmans in their misbelieve. Or Mohamed – not as challenging.
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B O O K T W O
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S I L V E R
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OR HOW FAR HOME
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OR THE YEARS BEFORE THE CHANGE
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1
-Ros!
-Yes?
- How do I look?
- Terrific!
- Sure?
- I want to go to bed right now.
- You!
- What?
- You know what!
- Oh, you are so welcomed!
- Oh, stop it, please. I just wanted to thank you. And you’ve always been so friendly! I really like you. You know I’ve been wondering what you could have been doing here.
- Why, what’s wrong with me?
- Well, they say you are an inventor.
- Do they?
- I didn’t mean to hurt you, I am sorry. Look, I just found it incredible. An inventor – a ski-instructor!
- You are incredible: an actress – a ski-instructress.
- Could you once be serious!?
- Maybe. Could you try again?
- Oh, Ros, Heavens! We start now! Keep your fingers crossed for me, will you?
- Be the top tonight!
- Thank you!
I was always scared. But tonight was different. I was terrified. Tonight was the last night.
The season had gone. The season I had spent as a ski-instructress. The most triumphant season in my life. Among people I had never met before. So open, so frank, so gentle and bright. The ski-instructors. Or the free searchers of life. Young
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men and women who had taken their high degrees to discover one beautiful day high degrees sold them too cheap. High degrees meant an unforgivable loss. A loss of freedom. Free-born people wouldn’t afford such a loss. High degrees in economy, engineering, law or literature meant a waste. A waste of money. A waste of time. A waste of talent. Professional people wouldn’t afford such a waste. And there went they, in the snow, to search for sun. And they were good. And they were free. Born searchers of gold couldn’t lose. They would but prefer the profession of the ski-instructor to that of the waster. And they would love the snow life. And would gladly experience it – in its jubilation as well as frustration – through its short jocund arrivals or sad infinite departures.
Tonight was the last show. The last show on. And it had to be the best. I had to be my top. Shouldn’t the last last longer? I didn’t know. I did know I had to quit it all to find it back home. In a ski-instructor school. Find myself. Find my place. On a ski-instructor stage. In the rustle of snow.
2
“Dad, please, let me apply to the High Drama School
“You never turned rational, Maria, did you!”
“But I’ve never quit the thought of becoming an actress, mammy, and you know that perfectly well!”
“And how many times have we discussed it – you know you would have no chance, were you an actress.”
“But we’ve also discussed there is really something in me, mammy, remember? You told me I make you freeze.”
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“There originally was no chance for you, darling, can’t you understand. Be you the best actress in the world, you had no chance.”
*
So big of a table. It can undershelter hundreds of me. So solid. So grand. Oh, it’s making me feel dizzy. I am an actress. An actress. . .
Listen, why don’t you go and search for the something in the drawer – you may find it today. Which thing? That thing! Which is it? I don’t know. I’ll know when I find it. I know I’ll find it. This. . . and this. . . and – no! – I know these! Take these out. This! Whao! There! What is that? Where has it come from! So mystic. . . Quickly! Put the rest back in the drawer. . . ‘t’s so enchanting . . . marvelous! Oh, my head! Mamma-mia! My head! Mammy, please come home, mammy!
*
“What are you going to tell us?”
“What is The Waltz.”
“Oh!”
That damned “e”. And got repeated. And how proud I pronounce it. Screwed me again. My double-e-family-name. Why did it never sound that difficult to pronounce in English?
- Daddy, I am sorry I disappointed you again. I thought I may never make you happy, daddy, I. . .
- Everything is all right, dear, I love you so much.
- Oh, daddy!
- Don’t, please, we can try again next year, can’t we!
-44-
- Oh, daddy, daddy, how will I thank thee!
- You can do one thing for me. Get into The University, Will you?
- I will. I will.
*
So, this is a ballet!
I see-e!
Ballet. But I love it. I love ballet! A-a-ah! But these are all drawers! How have I missed to see them! Superb! Got work to do again! But it’s so high there. . . On the chair! Quickly! Bravo. Now!? But – this is salt! O, no! Why should you disappoint me! You know I am so bored. Next? No! Hey, listen , drawers, I am getting vary angry! You make me open you to show me nothing inside you! How can you show me nothing inside when you are such a thing outside! Don’t you ever dare tempt to damn me! You hear me well? Don’t you ever dare challenge me again! Or I’ll leave you for always then.
“Mammy, have we been here before?”
“Sorry?”
“Have I played in this street before?”
“Oh, maybe. Maybe you have.”
“So, you think, we may have been here before.”
“Yes, we may have been.”
“Together?”
“I don’t know. There are certain things we can’t know.”
“Does Father God know everything, mammy?”
“Yes, He does.”
“But who would be here in me, mammy, if I were somewhere else? Would I still be your child or would I
-45-
have another mother? Oh, mammy, I don’t want to have another mother, I don’t want another mother!”
“Come, darling, my dearest! Listen. I can’t answer your questions but I can tell you I am your mother now, and you are my child. And now I love you, my most beloved.”
“I love you so much, mammy, so much.”
“Tell me, how much?”
“From here to Heaven!”
“Oh, that much!”
“That, mammy!”
*
What was I looking for in the illumination of the night? When Sofia
“Hush, sweet-heart, hush. You can’t be a ballerina. Your little heart will not bear it, the rehearsing and the dieting. You know a ballerina eats nothing. And she works day and night. And you are such a little thing now. You can’t be away from mammy. Mammy won’t stand it.”
“But, grandma, I want to be a ballerina ‘cause I want to be an actress, and a ballerina is a better than an ordinary actress.”
-46-
“Of course, you can be an actress without necessarily having been a ballerina before.”
“No, grandma, you don’t understand, no.”
“Darling, where are you going? Stay with me, love, Maria!”
“No!”
“Please, child, don’t cry!”
“I want to be a ballerina, I want to be a ball-l-l-l-lerina!”
“Come on, love, come out, you’ll catch a cold under the table there, come I’ll show you something!”
“What thing?”
“The old umbrella you liked so much – I make you that present!”
“O. K. But next time, grandma, please, I want to cry now!”
Bars. Bars turned so enchanting at night. So transactive. Illumed by the stars, they seemed to transcend natural lights. Bars fascinated me. Had cast a spell on me. Among ghosts and antiques I felt a walking dictionary. No one knew me. No one got used to seeing me.
- Who is she?
- Must be a cop.
- A cop! She is a vamp!
- Then, stay away anyway.
At last. Up! At last! Walked up the stairs! These incredible stairs! How will I go down backwards? Let’s check, first. ‘T’s so dimmed here! Dusty! Why have mum and dad deserted this place! It’s just like a big drawer. Heavens! So much work to do. Where from first?
-47-
- Excuse me, do you drive?
- I prefer to be driven, thanks.
- Have you got a boyfriend?
- I don’t have one!
- Ha-ha! I thought so!
- Something else?
- Would you join us, a big party on tonight, half Sofia
- Hm! Sounds interesting! Why not!
Mamma-mia! What’s this! I found it! Come on! Quickly! Down! Easy! Easy! How can it be so heavy! As big as me? Heavens! Quickly! Two more – hop! Now! What is this! But! This is a stage? With curtains? But this is a wolf! Hand – in, quickly – I can walk it, I can move it! O, Father God, thank you1 Thank You so much – I am so happy – so very much.
3
What was I looking for? What? What did I expect would happen – I was searching hard. I was bound to find it. Whatever it turned to be. I had to find it. And I searched and searched. I searched to find myself raped somewhere. Raped by men. Raped by life. My life. Our life. Our system of life.
“Don’t do it, Bobby, please.”
“Listen, try it with me. It’s so beautiful. Makes you cry or laugh. Sets you free. Just try it.”
“But I don’t want to watch how you’re killing yourself, please, quit it, Bobby, please!”
“I am not going to quit it. And, I am not going to do what you want me to. I do what I want. And what’s the odds,
-48-
then, Dostoevsky has said it – I won’t change the world, and the world will die.”
“Won’t you just try and save your art, Bobby? Your blue beautiful art. Why would you trust the artificial blue, Bobby, why? Never see your own art, Bobby"
“Trust me. Take it, and you have your own answer. I can’t answer the answer.”
A-a-ah! But this is a ballerina!? Ma-a-m! Please, mammy, make her dance, mammy. How can she be so beautiful! Luxurious! I want to be a ballerina, mammy, I want to be beautiful.
“What you think you are doing!”
“Don’t move, or I’ll shoot you?!”
How could a woman let a man rape her! How could a man rape a woman? Why did women never get satisfied! Why did men never turn gentle? Were men and women made by God!
- There is no love with no money, believe me.
- I have God to believe in, thank you. And, what you think you do if you really fall in love someday?
- I love my husband.
- You love his money. - As far as his money comes to make me, I love his money, really. Then, isn’t a husband expected to make thee? Present thee? Or is no other man expected to watch or want thee! Isn’t your husband the very partner of thee, or what is he?
- But you disappoint me.
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- How can I disappoint a disappointed thing like you, you perfect fool. What you think will happen! And don’t tell me that prince story again.
- Why not?
- You are a cuckoo, aren’t you. How could you yet believe the prince man is real! A man is a transcendental existence!
- You know I believe in the only one, not in the prince one.
- If you were clever you would have gone far, now.
- So, you are very clever to reject and deny your own self for the benefit of money.
- Money makes veneer.
- But veneer doesn’t make up for lustre.
- And what are you, dear, if not but the very veneer.
- I don’t think I can continue this. And I promise, I speak to no one again. Not any more. And not that I haven’t tried. And, fuck you, fuck you all off.
*
Women, women! What a nausea. What a lie. A delusion that men liked to be in. A fallacy men had got used to, put up with. A fallacy making men regard me as a make-believe, a gas. Poor men. If you could watch them run. Away from me. They turned such a fun. Escape glories. How could I escape? Where to? What from?
“I would like to help you, I can publish this.”
How could he help me, when I slept with him. Impossible. Absurd for me to accept. To want something from someone I slept with! I could want only from someone I worked with. Turn to a professional as to a professional. Used
-50-
he hint the hint, he would find himself left with the tail of a fired dynamite.
Women were men. Men were women. Was I a lesb!
“What’s your hobby, lady?”
“To deal with a snob like your, baby.”
Bars were solid. Men were fragile. Lean on a man! And ignore the bar? Lean on! What on? Since there was nothing in me there – to lean on. I had run away from myself. Or myself had run away from me. Since I was no longer there in me, I was somewhere – away. Where could I be? Where could I find me? From where could I make my body fly with me? My body was a walking corpse. My soul was up out of me. My spirit had disappeared free. Where was I? Was I living? Was I a being? What was I? Was I real? Or was I a dream? The product of some extraterrestrial thinking creating me imagining me. Dividing me into three. Making all thirds disperse out of me all unexpectedly. Catapulting or smashing me. That should be a very unusual thinking if a very unusual brain – creating me destroying me. Crystallizing my me out of me – in something that was not me, was meant but had failed to turn me. Somewhere in the greyishness of the atmosphere. Where came all the answers of the world. Came they taboo.
“You mean, that wasn’t a success I made, do you?”
“No, but I started to like your legs as much as your voice.”
“So, you no longer think my voice can make a success?”
“Yes, …”
“. . . but?”
“Only if you marry me?”
“I beg you pardon!”
-51-
“I would like to marry to you.”
“I bet you never knew me!”
“But, wait, Maria, I’ll work with you, I’ll work with you”
“Only the man who knows me.”
Why should I insist on trying the how of this time. When life was all the same. And I knew it. Should I only try to see I knew it. Was I inclined to experimenting. With me. With the things. With my chances. Or was I on the drift of experimenting. The drift the education I had received was drifting me forcefully on. Why should I always try and see. Check. Never reconcile with what I knew to reconcile with what I had always known.
*
- You’d better leave it for your last year research.
- Are you warning me?
- It may cost you your degree now. What you have come upon is quite original, that is a bit dangerous, too. You’d better leave it for your last year.
- But what would be the difference? And I don’t find other topics interesting. Sir, trust me.
- I guess I’d better do, you must be careful, though.
- After all, Sir, my degree is not that important. And, frankly speaking, I’d rather risk it – now.
-52-
I made it. I got admitted by The English Language School in Bulgaria
I simply wanted to learn the English perfectly. I had loved the tunes of the language beautiful women whispered on the screen. I had loved the men speaking the language. Somehow catting about while speaking. Behaving cat-like. I had found the men and women speaking that language such cats. So easy to go with, so normal. Cats.
Some of my classmates became diplomats. Others became doctors. Still others – lawyers. I finished my school in a bar. Where great men taught me money. And taught me the bar. Where big spenders revered me as a movie star. Where all the world met. All the styles crossed. In my eyes. Behind the bar. Through the crystalness of the alcohol. Where people were all equal. And I was a personality.
“What’s going on with you?”
“I am sick.”
“You don’t look the way.”
“Well, keep it a secret, will you?”
“You are supposed to be at school now.”
“I am not getting there, a week at least.”
-53-
“What’s happened?”
“My self’s happened.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Listen, I came here to rediscover the English.”
“But you could not.”
“Exactly. It’s my own fault. Always has been. My fault. I don’t blame it on anyone. I just need time to perceive it. Can’t bear it, Bobby, help me!”
“What can I do for you, milady!”
“I want to see how it is to get drunk, Bobby.”
“O!”
“Drink with me, please.”
“Two gin, please.”
“Bobby, please, make me a woman, please!”
“No!”
“But why, Bobby, why!”
“I want you a virgin.”
“But – the stage, Bobby, the stage…”
Punished. Punished. Punished. Did we get punished. For being late. Having been to a concert. Not to a sex party. To a concert of Bach.
They had put nets on the windows. Another barrier for the boys closed in the neighbouring boardinghouse. Boys who liked windows more than doors. Unlike doors windows were open at night. Boys who wouldn’t in the temptation of a closed clamorous evening stop scared in front of a window secret on the way to some great sacred prettiness nearing.
-54-
virgin girl cries. Burned terrified in a true Bulgarian night. A night showing the stars that close to the surface – you could just spread a hand and grab the heaven real.
*
- And what did he tell you?
- He told me my paper had turned as original as he had foreseen it.
- So?
- They don’t know yet how to mark it. They can’t base it on any research done before. They don’t have the grounds for comparison to mark me. I haven’t copied my idea from Leech. I have given my own perception of a category. I have defined a new category. Some say the paper should be marked poor two, others – the mark should be exquisite – they won’t share the same opinion until I probably die.
- What are you going to do?
- Go home.
- You quit it.
Quit it? Never. Till I was alive. Till I could battle it again and again. Till I could still wake up to worship the new day. I might simply give myself a two month alcohol white holiday, get brand new born then, and go on searching – in the old fight for gold through, time and space maintained.
*
Daddy, where are you now. Why? I destroyed you with my unfulfillable wishes. Who will buy me a piano now. Who will rail the train for me. Remember. The
-55-
yellow-blue-blue-beau-train. Such a joyful game. A-blue-beau-blue-beau-fame. Why am I, Daddy, so drunk again. Why were you broke then. Where went my blue, daddy, show me my blue again. Why could I do “Lady Macbeth” in original, and could not pass my phonetics of English. Why were my Bulgarian teachers in English so absurd in their profession. Flying and re-flying over the cuckoo hypothesis in the arts of the English and the Americans? Packing and re-packing. Fucking and re-fucking. Us. The extraordinary? Thinking in English students.
Women, women! When will the time come when I’ll discuss lives with you, not lengths or timing. And will you stop shouting leading your V. I. Long Hour Discussions. Imagine, I see you at a bar and stop you with an “hey-baby-how-are-you-I-saw-you-in-my-past-life” exclamation! And you answer me with the “hi-how-are-you-this-life-time” one. Imagine! What a fun?
How long is it to oblivion? Obliteration – obliquity – oblivion. How far to oblivion. From obliteration through obliquity. How long it takes obliteration to transform obliquity into oblivion? Or obliquity to turn obliteration into oblivion.
See – know – realize – view – perceive. Perceive and view, realize and know, and see. Perceive, view, realize and know – verbs of perception. See verbs. Abstract verbs of perception. Know – see – perceive. See – perceive. Know – see. Verbs of the knowledge. Know verbs.
*
I am alive. Alive in a maze. There is it the one exit – the only one I must find. Out of the maze. Out. On a new way. No more sense in retrying the chance of finding other exits – in. In a maze. With two ways out. Out through the exit there is, or
-56-
back into the tunnels, and the gratitude to the chance of re-trying those tunnels give – a no exit out chance, unfortunately.
4
Beautiful and healthy. I want to be. Beautiful.
Night life was restless. Never stopped to take a breath. Simply died with the return of spring. When prostitutes took off their make-up and changed into ordinary style clothes. Clothes matching the simplicity of the day, accentuating the childishness in the little women.
“Hi, I returned.”
Nights mirrored polished in the bars. Reflected the brilliancy of night-gowns and the crystalness of champagne glasses. Exhibited the splendour of hotel lives.
“I’ll give you a chance but you have to show me first. Show me I can trust you, and I will trust you.”
Nights came so welcomed in red triumphant bar lights to splash secretness on illegacy and comfort all dealers under the veil of legacy. Nights returned so beloved for professionals and gamblers, tourists and chancers. Nights came down shining out of some luminant king-blue colour.
*
“The question is not to be or not to be, professor, the question is how to be.”
“Well, then, choose – me and the stage, or thee?”
“In bed with a pig – why don’t you kiss my feet!”
-57-
I definitely returned. In the late 80-ies, when I had just realized what “The Selfsatisfaction Of The Nation”, one of the latest slogans of “Our Party”, meant. In the late 80-ies, when my American contemporaries were full ahead on the way to morality, coming out from where we just straightened, me and my East contemporaries, so determinedly forward to. In the late 80-ies, when the syndrome of the Lost Post War West European Generation just spread around East Europe , while a new syndrome, of a new lost generation appearing just stroke the pages of the West European contemporary history. In the late 80-ies, when I was as free as the whole of the world, and lived in lunacy.
“Why are you leaving, you seemed happy with us?”
“I want to learn the real side of the bar, the behind of it. I see nothing more real here, in the front.”
“Not even me? I thought you liked herring-gulls extraordinarily.”
“Yes, I did. I still do. I really love you. And I am just like you, remember – an actress – a ski-instructress.”
“You were such a show that night? Are you really real?”
“Give me a luck birth, and throw me on shit earth – a proverb!”
They were such types keeping the bars. Never looking professional. Never knowing. Never seeming to learn. In the lust for money they never understood money. While the money law was uncompromising. Stiffness never made money. Generosity did.
“Come, everybody, have a taste. This is my present to the night. Come bring your glasses and taste.”
-58-
Bars weren’t made for everyone. Lust could not survive in a bar. Vanity either.
“Come fill your glasses again! Everybody, your cocktail has no bottom tonight. Come fill your glasses again.”
Could nothing but hard labour and honesty survive.
- Look, it makes a completely different impression now. Speaking style, radiating order now.
- So, first?
Among all, my brother was an emitting different as though colour of blood barman. Transcending sharp to bear as if light off his head, he made all classes or groups of people bow their heads before him. His name was a law. His word was the last. A real pilot, he was as showy as invisible. A knight, he carried a pretence to no one but me. And he taught me flying.
- First, you soap the wood wet, and then – polish it dry.
- Second?
- You watch for the one line of symmetry.
- Then?
- Let the fresh air come in.
- And?
- Switch on the lights.
- And then?
- There is it – the lustre in your bar.
- And in my soul!
- Exactly! Now you can smile. Happy?
- So happy, clean and complete. So shining.
- Saving money?
- Yes, and no.
- You have to be patient. Never put wealth above all, and there comes it – wealth.
-59-
- Hi!
- Hi! How are you?
- Knackered!
- A beer?
- Six, please, the rest are just coming.
- Here you are!
- Is this your brother?
- Yes.
- You have such a sister! She was born a diplomat.
- Thank you, I am happy you like her!
- Like her? We all are in love with her. We speak of nothing but her up on the slopes. . .You are more English than we are, Maria, you should come to England
- Someday.
- You are wasting yourself here.
- Who knows. We’ll see.
- I hope we all see, sooner not later now.
- So do I!
*
Be patient, God said. I can be late, but never forget. Trust in me, and I shall come to you. Have faith in me. I love you. You are my beloved.
-60-
Never hate anyone, I say. And you’ll be loved by all. Like now I am. Find something to do while waiting. And wait patiently. Like me. And you shall see the nothing blossom. Like I did.
And I did. Everything to have the gloss belong to me. Make the gloss the just surface for my feet. An Aquarius baby, so I did. Not that I liked the ice to ski on. But, that I would sincerely prefer the night-gown to the jeans to wear on, I would wear the jeans for so long. On the ice I would keep. Though falling on and on. On the ice I would keep. There came they, my happiness and peace. On the ice. In the risk.
And what were the stage for, since there was life for us to be ourselves.
-61-
B O O K T H R E E
-62-
L A S E R
-63-
OR HE IS REAL
-64-
OR THE INFINITY AND THE ALWAYS, THE ALWAYS AND THE ALL WAYS
-65-
- Ask me my dear, ask me everything now.
- I wanted to ask You so many questions, about so many things…
- Do not hesitate, dear. I am yourself, ask me. Talk to me, just comfort your mind, your soul, I love you, I love you specially.
- I love you, too, Jesus. So much. Did you come really? Is this You, Jesus, or that sharp imagination of mine?
- Come, don’t be scared, take my hand – what do you feel now?
- You are so warm, Jesus, You are so loving me. O, God bless you, Jesus, for coming here to me! So unbelievably! Please, Jesus, forgive me, I am so sinful, so sinful, forgive me, if possible, please!
- I forgive you, Maria, I do. Calm, collect yourself and perceive me true. I am real, I am true, down here next to you, I came to talk with you, you wanted me so much to.
- I did. How much I did. How much I had to ask you. And now that you are here, I don’t remember what to. I seem I forget to. I had so much to ask you…
- What about a walk, dear?
- A walk! Around the world!
- Around the Universe, around the world; on the earth, in Heaven.
- In New York
- In the desert.
- Can we see one actor, Jesus?
- Just hold me stronger, now, take free!
- A-a-a-a! I am so light, Jesus! So bright! Where are we, Jesus?! - This is the sphere between Earth and Heaven. The spirit comes here up off the death level. Admires his or her
-66-
freedom, revels in real arts and wisdom, fills in and fills in with so beloved luminance and love, bathes in brilliancy, furores in ecstasy, consumes all the food he or she badly needed to consume and was deprived of on earth, dives in reason, matures and grows better and refined, then feels
the need to walk born into a body again and terminate what he or she missed to, prematurely.
- What are the figures that we pass by, Jesus? So strange! Miraculous!
- All take the shape they want to be in here, they had always loved to take, and now feel cosy in.
- Oh, see, these colours, we don’t have those colours on earth, Jesus, do we?
- The colours on earth are the darkened copies of the colours we see here. This is the real life here, my child, the real freedom.
- Then, why do we go to earth, Jesus, or want or feel any necessity to, or why is the earth?
- Do you like to be alive, Maria?
- O, I love life, I love my body, I love to perceive life through my body, frankly, Jesus, I would always love to be in a body.
- You see, you cannot value what you do not know. You cannot value a thing before getting to know that thing perfectly. You cannot know a thing before experiencing it, your own self. And you cannot experience a thing before experiencing its very opposite. You cannot really value here before precisely valuing all you must on earth.
- Do you mean, Jesus, I would never dream of going back to earth again, once I valued here?
- I do.
-67-
- That is all what the earth is for, to disappoint me and my fellows?
- Definitely not.
- Then what else for, Jesus?
- Imagine, you are creating something.
- Yes?
- Do you imagine your creation coming out in any particular form or materia completing it, or do you imagine it vanishing, dispersing, no certain figure?
- In a form, of course, as a materia. And how would a creation be fulfilled, or consumed, if obeying no form? And how would it be meaningful, if remaining inconsumable?
- Exactly. You see, you know as much as I do. Now, imagine The Creator, Our Lord, Our Father. Imagine the Earth, His creation, just love and glamour. Imagine the Earth, the mirror of His face and power, ours.
- O, I’d love to! - But there it is, you discovered it, the clue in and for all! There it is, the reason and purpose to all. The reason to your love for life in your subconscious love for God. The reason to your fight with life in the fight for life, in the noble reason to the passion for fighting the evil in life. The reason to the evil in life in the law of development of life, in the transformation of creation.
People are the bravest of warriors God ever created, on the bravest of creations of His. The bravest is always the riskiest, however, the most unpredictable, terrifying with so much challenge and trouble. And there we all are, all the same, battling the same battle – in or up off the world – to complete the world perfect and save it, to resent the Earth a creation in dignity.
- How did you call this sphere here, Jesus?
-68-
- The sphere of Luminance or Enlightenment.
- So, there comes the real creation here, does it?
- Does it.
- But I knew that!
- You must just trust yourself, dear, you really know all. There is not what you call “the unknown”. Simply think more and you’ll know more. Never rush the rush unless the rush rushes you. The more you rush the rush, the worse the rush rushes you. The worse the rush rushes you, the more you forget about you. The more you forget about you, the worse desperate you feel. The worse desperate you feel, the more lost you fall. You disagree?
- Oh, Jesus, I’ve missed you so much! I miss you terribly much! What shall I do when you leave me?
- Trust, strong trust me, dear. Believe in me, I am always with you here. I will never leave you. I have never left you. I am always with you, beside you. The more you trust me, the closer you sense and feel me. I can never leave you. I belong to you. I am you. You are me. We all are the same spirit. The same creature.
- What happens, Jesus, if we fall in what you called rush?
- You lose your peace there, in the rush, in the fallacy. Lead by lust there, you forget what you are, why you are, you forget all. Thus you get born and reborn, again and again, till you remember and rediscover the sense back into the self and become creators yourselves – on the Earth, the sphere of Knowledge.
- Till the world is saved?
- Till the world is saved, till we all know, the same moment, the same level, till we all turn real creators.
-69-
- How will the world look like then, Jesus?
- Life saved, glory, too. God happy and real for you. Coming to you. Talking to you. Comforting you in physical pain. Curing you. In the Kingdom you will have, true to Him creators, completed a Kingdom of Love
- Where will you be, Jesus?
- With you, real. Showing you the Universe real. Feeding you the stars and planets, the immensity and infinity.
- I feel so showered in luminance, Jesus, do you really believe the world will be?
- I believe in you.
- But why is the now then, Jesus?
- There is it, the real arts, in the transformation of creation, no true creation is ever finite; the true creation is in the infinite, in the everturning, the turning for better of the better. The infinite is the very chance for the bad to turn good, for the good to grow better, for the better of the better.
- Till we explode?
- Till all becomes a whole, an absolute whole.
- I never trusted the relativity of things, yet why would God keep the world then, Jesus, if it turned that bad?
- Why would you quit or destroy your own creation, or how? Just like that? When it was not in the least meant to turn bad? Never did but was interpreted bad?
- And how could God bear us yet, Jesus, since we turned that ignorant and rough, that impossible to bear?
- Would you never give another chance to those who hurt you?
- Always. Always. I would always forgive all. Would turn to have forgiven them having yet met them.
- And God would.
- But God is an Aristocrat, Jesus!
-70-
- People all are. As long as there is the Saint Spirit or Holy Ghost in all us, we all are!
- But no one likes an aristocrat on earth, Jesus!
- No one who’s forgotten.
- No one liked you, Jesus, remember! No one. And I feel half and parted without you now! O, Jesus, I love you! I want to stay with you! Jesus! Please! I love you! I want you to love me!
- I love you, Maria! I love you so much! I really love you!
- Can you embrace me, please, Jesus!
- Do you feel better now?
- It’s so white hiding in you, Jesus! So white! So bright! I feel so free with you, Jesus, so free with thee!
- Where were we going to go to?
- Jesus?
- Yes?
- Can I ask you of something personal, please?
-71-
2
Red sky. The sky is red. The earth is brown. The sky will burn! The earth is coming! Such a heat! Such a haze! See nothing. The sky! That red! Camera! A-a-a-a! Why? Where am I! What’s happening! Fire! Run! Why! Fire! Run! We are burning! The sky! Coming down! Run! Run! A-a-a-ah! I am dying… Come, take my hand! Come! Quickly! We are burning! Run! Why! The earth is coming! The earth! Darling!! Here! Here! Darling! A! River! Where did it come from! Quickly! On the boat! A boat?! For two! Where did it come from! A boat! For us? Why? How did we find it? We are saved? Quickly! It comes! Saved? Saved! We-are-ma-a-a-am!
Mammy! I – I dreamt? The same dream? What does it mean! Why does it come to me? What is it? Why again! Now? Why? Why, Jesus? Was I saved? How? Who with? Who was he? Why? Where were we? Who is he?
3
- Please.
- Has it been or will it be?
- You will see. Don’t be scared. Trust me.
- Is he real, Jesus? Will he come and find me?
- You will see. Very soon. You will see. Come, I’ll show thee!
- A-a-a! Where are we?
- Guess!
- I feel as in a fairy tale!
- You are. This is the Fairy Land
- And everything I’ve read in those fairy tales is true!
Everything. The fairy world is real.
-72-
- I thought it should be. I knew it. There is no fantasy, Jesus, is there?
- Only as far as to put what you call irrational, inexplicable, in some order, in a frame. Look!
- Jesus!
- Do you know her?
- Looks so familiar. I don’t know. So queer. What is she, Jesus?
- She is a star.
- A star!
- A sleeping star. Dreaming. Preparing herself for her rise. As soon as her hour comes, a prince will come and kiss her eyes. And there she will rise, beautiful open loving shining eyes, to watch her twin on earth fly.
- Her twin!?
- Her twin, herself, her reflection.
- Is her twin born yet, Jesus?
- As long ago as the star you see was created.
- And the twin has also been sleeping all that time?
- Not really, but getting ready for the very same moment of the very same rise, the twin has been.
- O, I see-e! Has my star risen yet, Jesus?…
I love you so much, Jesus! So much… go back, Jesus,… I am asleep…, Jesus,…
4
- Where am I???
- In your house.
- I never saw this place! Where is it really, Jesus?
-73-
- One day you will wake up and see your house this.
- That would be magic?
- You never believed in magic!
- Always. Always. I wouldn’t be alive if I didn’t. My belief in magic made me, saved me, kept me the same through time, preserved me proud and clean – pride never turned that bad, Jesus, you see, never.
- I know, I know, pride never comes bad with the good, perfect.
- Can we be perfect, Jesus?
- Always. You can always be perfect.
- I feel so normal with you, Jesus, so normal and free. Not propredged. Me like me. Just like me. Normal and free. Just like that. Light and free. Simply me. I just trust thee, and there am I, so strong and free.
You are really real, Jesus! I saw Thee!
-74-
E P I L O G U E
-75-
I am a princess,
-76-
THE BLACK PEARL
The black pearl
In the white ash flickered,
Then spoke:
- I am all ashes.
As white as the milk,
As grey as the twilight,
As black as the night.
And the end of time
Is in the rise of time.
Then the pearl fell into silence
And glowed.
Pearls from ashes yesterday,
Ashes out of pearls today,
She still glitters in the gloom
And does not buy.
- And how does the loneliness buy?
Buying a work of buying vanity?
On the way from insolence
To harmony?
- Yes. – In sorrow the Morning replied.
- And I, will wait for the Flight of the Night! –
Swayed the ash
With the Wind,
Rising insane blue from a sink.
- And how does the Night buy, the world I inquire do not.
-77-
The black pearl in the white ash burned.
Burns
And will
To infinity
Burn.
THE BLACK PRINCE
The lonely prince of the Night
Came down into the Daylight,
Ice pierced his insight.
Death glazed in, evil,
Lunacy ruled over freedom,
Ignorance chained light in prison.
Fell the Prince down thorn, gasping,
Opening eyes wide in a dream everlasting.
-78-
I am an actress,
-79-
LOVE
In the August Light
Of Art
I meditate.
Into the uttermost ends
Of the world
I penetrate.
The diaphanous folds
Of the Stage
Close my eyes –
Here am I, dying for you,
I want to make love to you, Stage!
-80-
I am a woman,
-81-
ME
I don’t want
To make a success,
I don’t want
To make a career,
I want
A circle of two
And
Be always
Maria.
MY SUCCESS
Golden Saxophone,
Luis,
Mandolin.
Thorn throat,
In fantasy ignored,
I claw sharp
The shout out
To throttle
The new “Love you” shut –
Beyond a burst out.
Golden cry breaks out
Into the uttermost up
Of a blue turquoise tune
Of Havana
I am leavin’.
-82-
I am a child,
-83-
A PRAYER FOR MIRACLES
Rain drops,
Rain drops,
Drop,
Drop,
Cover my face
And
Bring me home.
Butterflies, Butterflies,
Come, close my eyes,
Warm in the ice,
Turn into rhyme
All cries.
MIRACLES
Fantastic?
Fantastic!
It is red and white,
And sky-blue,
And blue-beau.
Then,
It is you.
It is a bright someone
And a bright somebody.
And
-84-
As the one gets into the body,
And gets out for a while,
He gets into again,
Then out again –
In-outo-in-outo-in-outo-in-when-finally –
Notes a Marilyn
And makes us
A bothlyn –
Just hav’n’ painted
Fantasticlyn!
-85-
I am ecstasy!
-86-
ECSTASY
The light of the candle
Sparkling in the darkness
Of the bare room.
The robe of the ballerina
Thrown on the floor.
The eyes of the woman
Staring at the light
Of the candle.
Loneliness and art,
Poverty and love.
Play, my piano! Play on!
Make the light of the candle
Illuminate my soul,
Illuminate my mind.
May I be a spirit
And May I burst into a cry.
May I be loved.
Passion out of fashion,
Sickness out of tears.
God! Save my love for You!
Give me my body again.
Unite it with my spirit.
Give me the stage,
And give me my art,
May I be worthy,
May I be Yours.
-87-
Acting, my love,
Dear my acting.
One cigarette
And
One whisky.
Night
And
It’s rather late.
Relaxing
Or
Meditating,
Selftalking
Or
Singing –
Everything
As though
Being lost.
Time passes by
And
Does not stop.
All –
The role remains
And
That piano lot.
Happiness and Peace –
There are they – In the risk.
Love and flames,
Sorrow in the fire.
Kalvero, my darling,
Won’t you come at last!
-88-
Don’t you know
I am real,
I am true,
Thanks to you,
Hear me,
I love you.
Sorrow in flames,
Burn and desire.
Our Lord, Who is in Heaven,
Give me a horse
To fly on to heaven,
Give me the power,
And give me the right.
Bring back my past.
Forgive me my debts.
If I weren’t the one,
Why were you then leading me the way?
Oh, beautiful morning,
Hello!
I thank you for your kiss,
And thank you for your touch,
I thank you for my loneliness,
And thank you for my happiness.
Warm is your cradle,
Soft is your love.
Music and rain,
I feel a woman today.
-89-
Good Morning, Light!
Good Morning, Sun!
You make me
Sad
Down
In the rush of crime.
Praised be your beauty!
Praised be your warmth!
Misery and rhythm,
Poverty and reason.
Don’t ask me questions
Of how many are my possessions,
Or how high is my position.
Don’t search for the slaver in me.
Don’t make me a man.
Love me the way I am,
And I am that same Maria –
I won’t stop denying the evil.
The waves of the sea
Kiss and embrace me passionately.
In the morning
My eyes turn brown
And see things
Brighter and true.
In the night
They turn dark
And see through the sphere
Of that sorrow
-90-
Where out of body
Is our soul
And darkness
Is our cross.
Touches of sadness
Are happiness there,
Pains of love
Are impulse for art,
And everything closes
Into the circle of the spirit
And unfolds
Into immensity.
Endless are my nights.
Shorter my days are.
Exhausted
But persisting
The lonely breathing
Of the insight is.
I sink into the kisses of the sea.
Cold is the night of the darkness.
If I were the winner,
What would be my fate, then?
The stage is longing for a victim,
The woman is longing for her child.
Will you give me, Fate!
All I want to defeat you for,
Giving you my child?
Oh, beautiful rain, Cure me!
Rain and Reign over me!
-91-
Take me Home!
Thy South,
Precede me!
-92-
D I C T I O N A R Y
-93-
1. Primitive Privatism [`primitiv `praiva`tizm]
The nature, or the mechanics, the mechanism, of Primitive Privatism is thoroughly complex. It is realized through the oppositions of primitiveness and perfection; primitiveness being typical of any mechanism that is primary and able to make the wheel go round; and perfection, paradoxically worked out by primitiveness for bringing total destruction to society. So long as Primitive means belonging to the first, or beginning, it comes to determine crudeness here, or a loss of culture, or a civilization to misunderstand. Privatism is really special, as far as it means Private. And is a mechanism – of forbidding and depriving. Derived from Private and Privative, Privatism stands for Taboo itself. Or means “withdrawn from public use”. Indicates loss, negative. Privatism turns to be the instrument for or the way of depriving, as the Ism in the word implies. The causer and the doer of privation, or deprivation. A closed door is the least Primitive Privatism means; a restriction, something that narrows one’s abilities; a limit to rightness on the earth by turning “justice for all” into “justice for several” by, for example, meaning “shame on the public” instead of “withdrawn from public use by force” in the place of “the private property”, while namely restricting it in - to the hands of the several. Totalitarism cannot, does not stand for Primitive Privatism. Totalitarism comes in consequence of the invention of Primitive Privatism. Totalitarism does never consist of but always consists in Primitive Privatism.
As a mechanism, Primitive Privatism displays a totally destructive power that respects no bounds. Being bonds itself, Primitive Privatism resembles Fascism. Yet as a concept, Primitive Privatism comes to mean and define Communism, regarding Totalitarism as the euphemism of Communism.
-94-
Primitive Privatism is a mechanism of dictatorship, created in and creating the reigns of Communism by obsessing totally, and thus concentrating by vehemence, the private property, belonging to the individuals in a society, into the hands of several only, chosen out from among the lowest levels of the very society.
2. PROPREDGED
As the best perfected form of both PROPREJUDED or PROUPREJUDED [pro`predzudid], PROPREDGED [pro`predzd] has its roots in PRIDE and PROUD, PROUD being one of the forms of PRIDE, or its adjective, in fact, and in PREJUDICE.
If the history of the word is to be traced back over a definite period of time, a rather spontaneous conclusion may occur, according to which PROPREDGED may be referred to as one of all those forms and synonyms of PRIDE and mean PROUD, HAUGHTY or VAIN, interpreted as a manner, attitude or appearance according to the circumstances, in spite of it being typical of the so-called “eccentric individual word-formation or invention” as a phenomenon.
Indeed, PROPREDGED is comparable with PRIDE and PROUD when they mean the feeling of a person who is keenly aware of his or her own excellence or superiority. The other root of the word, PREJUDICE, gives a base for such a comparison, too, meaning BIAS and PARTIALITY, a peculiar individual’s inclination. Here comes one of the main differences, though, bringing a more profound and
-95-
basic conclusion. If PRIDE is a sin or vice in its “UNJUSTIFIED” interpretation and is the antithesis of HUMILITY, and if it is a virtue or at least highly pardonable feeling, the antithesis of SHAME, and in its “JUSTIFIED” interpretation gives one rightful gratification, PROPREDGED acquires an “unjustified” interpretation in its “justified” state, because it comes to mean the quality of a person who is excessively aware of his or her past, which does not manifest the proper person’s self-respect, but the person’s inability to forget his or her autobiography and consider things equal – a wide-spread phenomenon nowadays, which is more likely to define ALIENATION and ISOLATION, and mean them.
THE END: In the end, I stayed and finished law. In the year 1999 I saw Him. And I saw Him twice. He stood there in front of me in flesh – the most beautiful man I ever knew or one could imagine. His head was bowed as if shy. Yet as tired as if angry as defined. To help all, unrestfulnesslly – having as though just arranged miracles after miracles – for you, still you – as though having had wetted of unceasing work in stopping everyone’s evil and yet came to protect me too – there in flesh, right at the corner of my bed – a man some, one real human person. And I knew him then – as though of 40 million years of age, and yet as young as a man. I stayed and did not move and I stayed, and I stayed still. I knew I had to go where there awaited the last battle there for me. And I knew we beat evil even though it would be hard. And in the end, there would he follow me there - the man I love - stay with me, and you shall see as I see it all - now, and will wright it NEXT.
