We rushed to decorate the costumes, danced, then rushed back to the costumes. Even the memories of that time make my heart pound.
In order to understand the way I was at that time, you should simply close your eyes and imagine that you are on the wrong side of 30, you have been working a lot at school, you have a young husband and two adolescent children, piles of unchecked notebooks, and, most importantly, mother’s strict upbringing.
And, suddenly, a restaurant, you are half-naked, in a glittering dress, performing an oriental belly dance..
But maybe it’s bad? What will the friends say? What if mother learns about it? I knew but well what words she had in store for me.
And despite the fears, I was equally sure that I was alive and that there was no way back. I will be dancing!
One dance only lasts 3 minutes. I practiced that Charm dance during 3 weeks, many hours a day, gritting my teeth and sweating profusely, when I used to visit Ivan Nikolayevich; I also practiced it at school breaks; and at the market place, standing behind the counter and maybe looking to the customers that I was having chronic seizures.
I am only telling you about 3 minutes of dancing, but, in fact, I was supposed to dance 90 minutes at the restaurant. Julia and I began learning new dances, but there was very little time left. Besides, we were afraid of a possible failure, and that fear unnerved us, ravaged our bodies and souls, so, very soon, Julia and I entered a state close to hysteria.
In those days, Julia spent the nights at my place. Her husband stayed home with two young children and threatened not to let her back. But stopping Julia was as impossible as stopping me.
We worked so hard and were so tired (we rehearsed at night) that we started calling each other bad rats. In the long run, Julia said firmly,
‘OK, no more drilling! We’ll be improvising! Didn’t you say that the guests would get drunk and see no one and nothing?’
‘Well, Julia’, I said doubtfully. ‘What if the guys are bandits and they won’t let us out?’
‘That’s right!’ happily supported me Galina, Julia’s elder sister, looking at us with obvious envy. ‘They are bandits, for sure! And don’t forget that you will leave your children orphans!’
‘No!’ Julia and I stopped those fears in unison. ‘That’s impossible!’
And then came that day, the day of the performance. In the morning I went to Julia; she had a spacious suburban cottage, where we decided to dress up. The day lasted an awfully long time, the just stood still. We ate or drink nothing, we just fiercely painted ourselves and danced. Danced and painted our faces.
Julia’s son was 2. To keep him quite, we gave him various cereals in pots and jars.
Julia’s husband’s face turned white when he came home from work and saw the floor densely covered with rice and buckwheat. But then he looked at our desperately estranged faces and, without saying a word, swept the floor.
We spent all the day painting our faces in front of the mirror, pushing each other, pasting huge false lashes and tearing them off, terrified, putting sparkling glitter on our eyelids, the unimaginable, extending our eyes incredibly from ear to ear. After prolonged sufferings, we enjoyed ourselves completely. The mirror showed us two unfamiliar oriental beauties. I achieved the Indian eye shape through a creative discovery: I braided thin pigtails on my temples and pulled them tightly with pins on the back of my head so that even my own mother would not recognize me. But I was terribly happy.
Once, when we were on a bus, the other passengers were looking at us with, astonished, asking us what country we were from. Overwhelmed with the spotlight, Julia got overexcited and started laughing loudly and sobbing. In the short breaks between fits of laughter, we invented stage names. I chose Fatima for myself, and Julia decided to be Zulfiya. Finally we arrived.
Here is the restaurant, ‘Bylina’. A very expensive and prestigious restaurant. One should register in advance there.
We walked past to and fro to get ready and almost missed the time. When we came to our senses, we started knocking frantically at the vintage iron door: with a huge padlock and rusty carved hinges. I thought I felt the smell of a royal cellar from the slit at the bottom. This happens when the green sparks of ruby wine glitter mysteriously in the damp twilight and the wine shines even through the thick green glass with convex old letters…
Nobody opened the door. We were quite confused. But we kept knocking, until a the young black-eyed janitor Kostya came out (there was a name tag on his chest). He said calmly we should have simply pulled the large bell hanging just before of our noses. He added that we have been long waited for.
It was just awful! We went down in silence, without getting our eyes off the stairs. Our self-confidence, which engulfed us on the bus, was gone. But the real horror swept us downstairs, when we finally reached the place and saw the guests that came to meet us.
All the guests looked quite sober and frighteningly intelligent! Just an aristocratic party! I still think that some of them were wearing ceremonial dress coats.
We soon understood that the guests had been waiting for us. They saw us to the dressing room and sat down on the chairs along the wall in the first hall. It was awful to see that they were looking forward to the concert.
Oleg Viktorovich, a big smile, came up to us (I didn’t immediately recognize him in a purple suit with sparkles). He reported happily that it was at Galina Malinina’s birthday. Galina was the city mayor’s daughter, so all administration members were present…
The only thing I wanted was running away from that prestigious restaurant packed by public servants dressed in tuxedos, as well as our city and, just to be on the safe side, the Earth as such. That was the only way to avoid attention…
There were just two thoughts bothering me while I was standing close to Oleg Viktorovich, happy and chattering nonstop, although I wasn’t listening to him at all. I was looking at him distractedly, nodding from time to time, and saw the picture of the video showing me dancing so shamefully. Besides, I could not understand how a serious person like Oleg Viktorovich (I knew that he owned numerous grocery stores) take chances with a woman he didn’t even know! How could he know what kind of figure I had when he saw me wearing an incredibly thick coat and felt boots? Did it mean that he just believed me?!
There was absolutely no space in the dressing room because of coats and jackets, boots and handbags. ‘How come they allowed us in?’ evil thoughts were hissing in my head like snakes. ‘They trust us, they do! Why are then our people called bad?..’
I looked at Julia. She looked strange, with her stockings down and an intimidating look in her eyes.
‘Julia’, I whispered. ‘Look at the audience! Any kind of improvising is out of the question here.’
Suddenly the audience began applauding loudly! Both Julia and I shuddered. And here began the worst!
Julia pulled from somewhere from the Christmas tree (New Year’s was approaching) colorful garlands and started putting them on herself from head to toe.
‘I am a snowflake, I am a white snowflake, I will fly away’, she was whispering while looking around and trying to spin, her stockings still down, but every now and then stumbled on the boots and bags. With growing horror, I realized that Julia could not bear the tension and had an or emotional shock, or maybe she really went crazy.
I tried to calm her down, take off her the garlands she had wrapped herself with, screamed and hit her, but it was useless or even worse. I started yawning widely and frequently, everything seemed ridiculous, I wanted to rip the costume off and throw away all the expensive fur coats from the dressing room.
They say that insanity is contagious. It was only due to a huge effort of will that I managed to disconnect from Julia and imagine that she was not with me.
Kostya, the doorman, looked in.
‘Hey, girls, you are being waited for…’
I desperately clutched in his hand. He jerked back in surprise and all his coolness disappeared suddenly.
‘Kostya, please help, we are scared to death…’ I whispered holding his hands and trying to lose Julia and her stockings. ‘What shall we do?’
Compassion flashed in Kostay’s eyes, and I felt a little bit relieved.
‘Girls, don’t worry. You are so beautiful, everything will be all right!’
With that Kostya disappeared as quick as lightning and came back immediately holding a full glass of a dense ruby drink with iridescent greenish flares. He made sure that I drank it to the bottom, and gently but firmly took me by the hand and led me to the hall.
I felt like a cow that was allowed in the springtime to go to an emerald meadow. But a few moments later, I rejected the comparison because it was not strong enough. Instead, I felt a shackled slave who faces a choice: a stunning dance that would mitigate the enemies’ severe hearts, or death.
The intoxicating wine struck me in the head. I waved my skirts and boldly stepped into the room full of serious gentlemen like in a winter ice hole. My necklaces were not ringing as before, they thundered like as huge copper bells…
I don’t know whether I was dancing like a cow in the meadow or like a slave facing a life or death choice, but they started applauding immediately. An elderly man sitting on the edge stared at me with delight and shouted ‘bravo’. Kostya stood in the doorway waving in a brotherly manner, young guys, the waiters, crowded behind. One of them had a broken nose…
I only knew one dance, Back Shafei. That’s why I danced it from beginning to end and from end to beginning, but nobody noticed that. Then Julia came to her senses and took the floor; I was afraid of looking at her, but heard loud applauds. She also danced Back Shafei , the only difference being that my costume was fiery red, and hers was blue.
Before I could catch my breath, there was music to which we had to dance improvisation.
‘Kostya!’, I rushed to my rescuer. ‘When, at last, will they sit at the table?’
‘Meat and potato!’, Kostya reacted at once and waved majestically a snow white rag. The guests went obediently to the other room, where a huge three-sided table was laid, crammed with food. I sighed with relief and instantly fell into a big fluffy chair that stood in the corridor under the mirror.
It was too early to be happy. The guests sat down at the table busily, and all of a sudden, as if on a signal, turned around, making awful noise with the chairs, and began to clap again. Incredible rage swept over me! They are not eating and drinking! How many times do they want me to repeat the same dance! That’s unscrupulous!
‘Ask a guest to dance with you’, Kostya whispered to me. ‘It will be fun.’
I chose the most artless and ruddy face. As it turned out, it was the birthday girl’s husband, his name was Andrei. He was so scared when I tugged at his sleeve that his face and neck turned crimson. Andrei gripped the chair and even shut his eyes as if protecting himself.
‘Help me’, I whispered in his ear. ‘That’s the only dance I know.’
The birthday girl’s husband sighed heavily and stood up. He was huge like a cupboard. The guests started yelling, clapping for joy, and even jumping!’
We went out to the middle of the hall. Andrei looked rooted to the spot standing at ‘attention’: I clearly saw large drops of sweat on his scared face. But I pitied myself more, anyway. I started spinning around him like a whirligig, my skirts with necklaces flew up under the chandelier, the guests started clicking their cameras and squealing joyfully. Andrew made two attempts to run away, but I would quickly outpace him beating him hard with my hip so that the heavy tassels of the beads would lash his powerful chest and he would return obediently to the middle of the hall.
Everything around us was roaring and groaning, the guests were jumping and pushed each other and pressed forward on the table to see better. A few dishes fell to the floor with a crash and shattered. The floor was covered with delicious slippery puddles. Despite Kostya’s desperate attempts to put things in order, all restaurant employees crowded at the open door trying to burst into the room. No one but me noticed that music had stopped long ago. Due to the universal enthusiastic roar, Andrei suddenly took his hair down and started waving his hands in a strange way, like Pinocchio. His wife Galina sat at the center of the table and was laughing happily like a girl, pressing a pink lace handkerchief from time to time to her face.
And I decided that it was time to go home.
I took Julia by the hand and we ran to the dressing room. We got dressed quickly, went out, but the maddened guests surrounded us, undressed us in no time, and led us to the table. I had talked with Julia about that possibility back at home.
‘Mind’, I had told her, ‘we will only sit down at the table if that could not be avoided; otherwise, we wouldn’t do that, OK? All we can do is drinking a glass of champagne to the health of the birthday man, and no food at all!’
I don’t know why I made such a decision, but being a little girl, I had my own fantasies.
We were hungry as two hunters as we ate nothing during the whole say. So, after a little champagne, I was terrified to see the table and the guests started rotating crazily before my eyes. The chandelier was flying and ringing, chased by burning candles; huge dishes and chairs were tumbling; there was a strong smell of grilled meat; drums sounded somewhere in the distance. I looked at Julia with hope, but my friend was telling all those present about her great love for white horses, greedily chewing a huge piece of bread and butter with red caviar on it. I hit her hard with my foot under the table.
All of a sudden, Oleg Viktorovich, merry and happy, looking like a delicious pancake covered with sugar, thanked us warmly for ‘the great pleasure’ and handed us money rolled into a tube. Julia put the sandwich quickly on the table and tried to pick up the money, but Oleg Viktorovich held her hand off politely and gave the money to me. I hid it behind my shiny top, grabbed Julia’s hand, and we made another (this time successful) attempt to break free.
The night was amazing, snowflakes were falling down, the moon was dancing in the sky. I felt a crazy joy of life. We rushed to the booth that cast light and started counting the money. There was a lot, five hundred rubles.
After dividing the money into two equal portions, we started laughing like crazy and jumping into the heaps of soft, divine snow…
Over the years I learned to make money, but it never made me so happy as on that day.
It was special money, quite incomparable and priceless…
Julia and I became celebrities…
So Julia and I became famous.
None of the yogis had ever dared to dance in public, to say nothing of dancing at a restaurant. Which, in the words of our teacher Irina, was a great school of danseuses. Performing in the houses of culture, children’s homes and city gardens were just child’s play compared to the difficulties the restaurant dancers experienced…
We prepared a big concert to celebrate the Master’s arrival. As soon as he heard that the city reacted enthusiastically to his call for mastering oriental dances, he rushed to our city to clarify the situation. The situation was as follows. When he sent that message, we, the female yogis, went absolutely crazy. By his command, in our volition, go dancer Irina Malinkina began visiting us, with the clear intention to make the whole city up to the ears.
Most of the female yogis were school teachers. Apparently, it was the stratum of the population badly in need of immediate changes. Otherwise, they would have spent their whole lives bent over, in black and white suits; but, out of the blue sky, Arab dances just fell down on their heads accompanied with live music, transparent bodices and skirts, naked bodies, drumbeat and spangles.
The wise Master, not known to mass-media, politicians and intelligence, made revolutions in women’s minds. He set free the great Feminine Power.
Women of all ages began violent dancers. Guru Rubin was a women’s conductor who waved a wand not even thinking about the consequences…
Exposing the bellies was a must: how can one perform a belly dance without exposing one’s belly? Besides, it was necessary to hide one’s age. The women did their best and even more to hide their loose tummies. For that purpose, they would knit a mesh from shining threads to tie the bodice with the belt; they would also sew shiny stars on the mesh. There were three women advanced in years who surpassed everyone. They knitted the mesh out of thick woolen threads and sewed pink butterflies above. It was quite impossible to avoid the butterflies as the women threatened to complain to guru Rubin. And so he, gritting his teeth, had to put up with their presence at the concerts. Their heads were decorated with bushy seaweed tails. They helped out especially those whose hair was an awful mess…
We need something like a theory to explain the city administration the idea of that dancing madness. In such cases, Tatiana Petrovna, the best student and the wisest person, director of secondary school No. 56, would take the stage in the city park and announced severely the following nonsense to the numerous audience,
‘These are not just regular dances, dear friends… These dances are extremely helpful. They stimulate not only the uterus, but all of the female genital organs, contributing to their immediate recovery…
The opened-mouthed audience stared at the old women with stimulated uteruses.
Those old gals made us country’s celebrities and caused the Master’s early arrival.
The fact is that people often filmed us in the public parks. And, apparently, one of the cassettes came to Moscow, and appeared in the eyes of team of the ‘Vremechko’ TV show. So the guys rushed to our city immediately to film us for their comedy show. And they got it very well.
The TV team came to our rehearsal. The camera guys were looking at each other pointedly, filming carefully all the middle-aged ladies from beneath, from above and sideways, sometimes even standing on all fours. They interviewed the old ladies. One of them flushed with joy and, her eyes closed shamefacedly with false eyelashes, and said into the microphone in a heartfelt manner,
‘Russian women always loved wagging their tails. But it’s here, at the belly dance classes, that the art has been brought to perfection.’
The ecstatic camera guys almost dropped their cameras.
The whole country, including our Master, saw the vital interview. Importantly, the old women didn’t forget to mention the architect of those pranks, the great guru Rubin.
We had no idea why he was coming, to praise us or to dismiss us. So we decided to create a kind of safety net. That’s why we hurried to learn and rehearse many times not only Arab but also Russian, Spanish, Chinese, and God knows what dances.
‘You know what, girls’, said Larisa Petrovna, who never performed. ‘All you need is African dances.’
So we decided to learn African dances. Julia, Oleg and I were chosen. We tried to resist but failed due to the general onslaught. And began composing a dance.
‘It should be something bestial’, Julia said.
‘Yes, old and primordial’, Oleg added.
‘It should be something extremely joyful’, I summed up. So we began rehearsing an African dance, which was supposed to be bestial, primordial, and joyful. In the long run, after a lot of overheated discussions, we composed it. We chose wild drumming which would wake up the inhabitants of the Vagankovskoye cemetery in the middle of the night.
So it was the day of the concert. The Master, looking quite indifferent, was sitting in the center of the great hall. His imperturbable face didn’t show he was up to. Plump Russian girls dressed in sundresses were floating in front of him tugging their scarlet scarves desperately, their eyelashes lowered humbly. But the Master didn’t even blink.
Brave bullfighters dressed in blood-red suits Went out to fight the bulls and killed the clumsy animals violently. Female teachers of all ages, their eyes shining, jumped out of the ‘dead’ carcasse. Arisen from the dead, banging their heels angrily, hands on hips, they performed a Spanish dance – the Teacher didn’t even move.
Ekaterina, our pride and joy, young and innocent, like a lotus flower, ran down carrying a pitcher full of old wine. She put it on her head and diligently performed a risky belly-dance: the huge jug could fall over directly on the heads of spectators at any moment. Katya was thin and elegant, her white suit with a deep cut on the chest was amazing. With a low bow, the charming Katya ran up to the Master knelt reverently and laid the miraculously preserved treasure at his feet. The Master responded with parting his lips slightly.
Almost all the major means to cajole him were exhausted. Very few of us believed in our African dance. First, it was still badly rehearsed because the idea emerged recently. We all said that we could cancel the performance if we don’t feel confident enough. Secondly, that particular confidence came to me just in the reverse order after my mean friend Julia took our costumes out. The fact is that, busy at the marketplace, Oleg and I had given her full authority over the production of our costumes and supplied her with the most necessary guidelines,
‘Well, Julie, make sure everything is OK…’
We saw with our own eyes how that ‘OK’ had transformed in Julia’s mind.
What we saw were the most vulgar costumes bright red leopard spots I had ever seen. Oleg’s most important place was only covered with a tiny little piece of cloth. Taking into consideration my impressively rounded hips, I also had a thin ribbon on my buttocks, just splitting them into two huge hemispheres. But it was just nothing in comparison with what I saw trying desperately to find something that would cover my breasts. No additional shreds were found.
‘Primitive women didn’t wear bodices as they seriously hampered their brutal fight for survival among the wild animals’, Julia replied quickly in response to my roar, ‘Well, and what do we cover ourselves with?!’
It was too late to do anything about it… I cursed my slutty friend terribly for being hopelessly spoiled by the Arab dance. There was nothing to do about it though. I refused to perform, but nobody except God Almighty could improve that bad girl.
The concert was coming to an end. Suddenly, someone told the Master that the program also included a temperamental African dance, which was not be performed for technical reasons.
– ‘What?!’ the Master exclaimed severely; he momentarily turned into a boa waking up from a long slumber. ‘What do you mean by technical reasons? Who dared? Call them on stage right now!’
His words were passed to us without delay. Nobody would contradict the Master. At the last moment, I pulled myself together and rushed around the school (that’s where we were performing) looking for gouache paints. Of course I found them quickly in the drawing classroom as I was a drawing teacher. We thinned down the black and brown paints and started spreading it over our bodies convulsively. And all of a sudden, an amazing transformation happened. The fact is that as long as our true skin disappeared, our sense of identity vanished, too.
Wild creatures stared at us from the mirror we, but it was not us. So we calmly continued to reincarnate, looking, as they say, in the buff. Men scurried back and forth, but we paid no attention to each other. We were turning gradually into white-toothed, black savages with eyes crazy in fear.
Thank God, I had some glittering beads to cover my naked black breasts. Besides, I made Oleg put on another pair of trunks under the piece of cotton on his hips.
The Master was impatient. Then they turned our drumming on and made it the maximum volume. We rushed into the room…
Oleg was the first one to run. He was supposed to make several large somersaults on the fly. But when we flew into the room, it became clear that there was only a tiny piece of the stage, at the head of which the Master was sitting.
It was too late for Oleg to change anything, so he started making his somersaults directly on the spectators’ heads, throwing the people away. We were running next to him like a crazy wave, with fiery eyes, almost naked, with huge flying tails and fiery feathers sticking out in all directions from everywhere except in the ass. Sparks were flying from under our heels, and burning holes in the spectators. The audience roared, all the people jumped to their feet. We were on the stage already and started performing a passionate wild dance dedicated to the Sun God. The audience, uttering strange, menacing sounds, crept forward. Oleg jumped out and protected me and Julia with his arms.
I saw in front of me a red sun and a wild crowd. The people’s nostrils flared as soon as we appeared, and their primitive blood started boiling. The air was immediately saturated with a pungent smell of animal fur . Oleg’s hip cover miserably ripped and scattered in the air. The women started howling, their scarlet mouths up…
‘Thank God, I persuaded him to put on an additional pair of trunks’, flashed through my mind. ‘Otherwise, we would be torn to pieces.’ Following Oleg’s rags, and our hastily attached tails, pins and colored feathers also went up flying. I thought that our bones were also about to fly up. Blood was banging in my head. I saw Julia askew, her naked breasts were jumping happily. The Master suddenly stood up and opened his arms in front of us in a shamanic manner as if grabbing more land or protecting us with his wings. And we probably were in desperate need of protection, because the crowd, frenzied with delight, was totally unpredictable. The people were waving their hands wildly in time with our movements and howling angrily…
We lay on the sofa in the dressing room… People would run in and say something, then others would run in and say something again and again. I heard nothing. I can’t express my state of mind. Can it be that years will pass and I will forget all about it?
It was amazing to realize one thing in that pristine lightness of being: is it possible to feel the way we always did without feeling deeply flawed? My joyful blood, in which the marvelous sun, fire, and the blue sea were splashing, was raging fiercely in my veins.
If I were elected president, I would introduce African dances for purifying the brains. I would make them compulsory everywhere, including the Ministry of Interior, classical ballet, and school recess.
‘Well, well, well’, I thought blowing hot mental kisses to the Master. People told us that he was extremely happy with our performance and even forgave the old women’s ‘pranks’…
The Master gave a talk after the concert
The concert was followed by the Master’s lecture. He was talking, and his words were running like fire along dry grass. It seemed to me that he made the sun and the moon occupy their natural places. He made the stars appear and disappear. He made the audience stand up like one person, kneel, make deep breaths in and out, raise our hands, and close our eyes…
This great man’s speech was like white fleece my grandmother used to spin, it rocked me like a fairy tale…
His divine immortal breath penetrated me, Oleg, everyone else. The walls expanded, the windows disappeared.
The rough Worn to holes floor in the school gym became elusive and majestic…
Oleg’s eyes flashed with icy cold though dazzling snowy light.
Like transparent butterfly wings reflecting sunlight get a particular color, I lost my name and willpower…
Guru Rubin was in my words, breath and mind; guru Rubin’s image shone in my eyes like a guiding star…
Oleg was sitting on a mat by my side. His eyes were frighteningly alien as if it had not been he standing in front of me just minutes ago in the sunset protecting me from the maddened crowd.
‘My beloved, I am feeling so lonely, so scared… Oh, unfathomable God, I’m drunk of these magical words…’
Taking possession of countless cities and countries, depriving people of their former ranks and titles, Alexander the Great generously gave away new ones. Queens became his concubines, former kings became his servants and soldiers. Taking possession of our souls, guru Rubin also gave us new names and titles. Someone became a sudra, others turned into a free deity, someone was a healer or the manager of the ball… And all those events, momentous for the individuals, were accomplished due to the sign no one but the guru knew…
I still had to find out what kind of role had already been written for me in the sky, and there was only one person who could read it…
Generally speaking, what can you do if you lose your kingdom? Nothing except trusting your own pain. But there was no pain…
Like a crushing ice breaker sleeps in frozen water, an unprecedented desire for self-assertion that had been sleeping inside me finally tore up, a fierce desire to reach the extreme limits of my capabilities, learn to materialize out of thin air the promised gold coins, to discover new laws of happiness and rejuvenation…
I did my best not to fall asleep, I even held my eyelids. But the dancing and many hours of the lecture took their toll and I began falling asleep…
I dreamed of long train. The Master stood at the exit. He didn’t block my way, but I felt kind of… awkward trying to pass by… He looked at me closely, though there was no hidden threat or goodwill in his eyes. He looked right through me. My feelings towards him were so vague and contradictory that, even in a dream, they were not manifested. One thing was clear: despite the seeming insensitivity, he was watching me closely.
He had a small device resembling a cell phone, with a lot of buttons. He would selected the right one carefully and click on it. That activated noise or various animals in the form of bubbles. For me, he chose the image that I was especially afraid of. It was a huge water boa. His wet, white, patterned skin smelled of seaweed. A hit delivered by the open mouth with little teeth could reach the end of the train, where Alexander Vasilyevich stood. I ran over fragile logs over the frozen water. As soon as I reached the opposite side and grabbed Alexander Vasilyevich’s hand to be rescued, voluptuous languor covered me from head to toe… I forgot about and Master as well as about the boa’s hot breathing right in my neck…
I woke up, terrified… The master was talking slowly… Alexander Vasilyevich was sitting in the far end looking tranquilly at the students’ backs…
In the evening, we got together at Larisa Petrovna’s. The table was crammed with bottles and snacks. The air was full of sounds and songs, the soul was in tumult. There was a lot of colorful balloons. Alexander Vasilyevich was eagerly screwing up his eyes and throwing the balloons to no one but me…
Our yoga classes were visited by…
Our yoga classes were visited by Tamara, the famous author of numerous books under the same name, ‘Love and Cosmos’. She had the high title of a Free Deity, so we looked at her with admiration. Alexander Vasilyevich often cited large passages from her books and we had to learn them by heart. It seemed to us that the woman should have no human flesh. And now she stood in front of us.
Short and slim, she looked a very well-groomed woman. Her eyebrows were plucked gently. A short, red crepe de chine dress and white court shoes made her look surprisingly young.
After the lecture, we gathered around her in a tight ring. Many of us asked her whether she was married and had children. She answered with a smile, that no, she didn’t need it. Then she had a long conversation with Alexander Vasilyevich and it seemed to me that they looked at me a few times. My assumption was justified, because Tamara beckoned me with her finger.
‘You know’, she told me, ‘your husband has a very good vision. I have never seen men with such a wonderful spiritual development potential. You should not stop him. Let him go with me to Moscow. He will study at my school and will be able to come home rather often.
