real tasks.”
“Can I refuse incarnation?”
“What on earth are you thinking! Would human life exist if souls could refuse to descend into the world full of pain and suffering? Everyone would refuse! To live in Heaven is not to serve on Earth!”
“My great-grandfather, what did he do on Earth according to Heavenly plan?”
“He dedicated his life to music. He played the flute at the Bolshoi Theatre, was a virtuoso, toured extensively, gave solo concerts, taught at musical colleges, including the Gnesins Russian Academy of Music, published several flute books that are still used by teachers. He was personally acquainted with the Italian musician and flutist Leonardo de Lorenzo, was a friend of the famous Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov, and of many representatives of the artistic elite of his time. Separate works and entire symphony concerts were dedicated to him. They wrote about him in different countries. You’ll be given his perfect ear and sense of rhythm, graduate from music school with a piano degree and invited to the Gnesins Russian Academy of Music where he once taught. You’ll be faced with a choice – follow in his footsteps or not.”
The book opened at the page with “The Piano” story. A ghost girl tried to put her best friend, the piano, in good hands, but it couldn’t bear the separation from the mistress.
“Her transparent fingers ran over the keys, and the room was filled with magical sounds. The waves of vibrations, exciting and taking the soul to its Great Primary Source, seemed to have moved Grigory into some Other Reality, and when the silence reigned back, he was in a state of stupor for a long time. What had that music been? Who had played it?”
Awakening
Ouranoupoli
“Oh! I was waiting for you! Let’s go for a walk!” Dimitra exclaimed as she met me returning from the Akathist reading, and her intonation foreshadowed a storm.
A walk for the locals meant to walk three houses up from the Tower towards the border with Athos and come back slowly. In case of a long walk, in addition, to go down from the Tower to the pier and return to the Tower. If the walk was global, plus five houses along the sea street and back to the Tower. When Kiri’s father was insisting on giving me a ride in his car from the sea street to the central one, with a house between, I refused, but I couldn’t refuse Socrates’ offer to ride with a breeze from the sea street to the street following the central one, since the distance had been already doubled.
Dimitra was born in a house with their icon shop opposite the Tower. Her parents still lived there. Dimitra’s own house as cottage next to Nicolette’s house was 5—7 minutes walking from the Tower. For local residents, such distance was subject to travel by bus, car or motorbike, and walking from the Tower to the border with Athos, where I read the Akathist, was almost a feat.
Dimitra resolutely headed upward.
“What’s happened?” I asked.
“Let’s go and look for Vasilios! You have no idea! Evil is not enough for these relatives! I don’t know about Russia, but we celebrate a great holiday on the 1st of May in Greece. We all get together at my place in the fresh air around one big table. We all – me and …” Dimitra went on with her list of cousins, brothers and sisters, she had twenty of them, as well as more distant relatives.
“Yes, we also celebrate the 1st of May,” I said.
“So here it is! Vasilios is my best friend! A decent, honest, good man! He believes in God! Do you understand? Believes, not just baptized! Imagine! No, it’s unbearable! Vasilios has a family! Wife and two kids! They have nothing to eat!”
“So what’s happened?”
“Angel!” exclaimed Dimitra, and I involuntarily shuddered, and she continued, “He started chasing him!”
“I don’t understand,” I said honestly.
“Angel is husband of the cousin of the husband of my husband’s third cousin’s niece! Yes, we all grew up here under my mother’s roof! And he keeps sniffing everything! Oh, can you imagine? Angel ate and drank with Vasilios, and now runs to the police!”
“Why the police?” I couldn’t get it yet.
“Vasilios comes to the village to sell olives! He grows and cooks them himself! Well, he has no other way to feed his family! He lives in the mountains, there is no work but large olive gardens there. We all have olives. Sometimes I pick more than 3,000 kg from one-two-three and not more trees. Who else, but tourists, might need Vasilios’ olives? And Angel is stalking him, running around like a bloodhound, knocking on the police to drive him out of the village! Vasilios has nothing to eat! Olives in stores cost three times more than he sells. Vasilios has the most organic product! We need to find him urgently and warn him!”
“Listen, why does Angel do this?”
“Here you are! That’s what I’m talking about! He’s got crazy! Imagine what I feel! Because of kinship, I have to say hello every day!”
We passed three houses, and then, not finding Vasilios, turned back to the Tower for a long walk, to the pier.
“And some ones,” Dimitra continued, “claimed our house by the Tower! My grandmother lived in a box in the courtyard of the house near the Tower, where we park the car now. So, many years ago, my grandmother sheltered a family out of pity, they had nowhere to live. When we all grew up, my grandmother said, ‘Sorry, my house is for Dimitra’. In fact, it was a doghouse, not a house! And imagine, they sued my grandmother! They were just passing by! I paid 21,000 euros only to the lawyer, and my grandmother’s house couldn’t stand it and collapsed! There is our car parked there now, because nothing else fits in the space! It was such a small house!”
“All the same is everywhere,” I thought, but didn’t burden Dimitra’s sorrows with my memories and shifted my gaze to the islands, behind which the sky was flashing with lightning.
“Well, Vasilios isn’t here either, let’s look further! There’s also a monster in the village! I have one life and one icon shop. One and a small one, mind you. I wash it every day, clean and clean it, polish it to a shine. And he… it’s unbelievable! He sees nothing but money! The rent here is at least 45,000 euro! Well, where are you going? Think of God! No, there are numbers with zeros in his eyes! Socrates is another matter! He has a hotel on the main street, a restaurant, and a shop. A billionaire, but a good man! We both say, ‘they don’t make money on icons!’ Vasilios is not here either! Where the hell is he? I’ve called him, no answer! Okay, let’s go back.”
“Does he have an icon of St. Basil? I visited a cave monastery in Montenegro with the relics of St. Basil of Ostrog. He lived at the beginning of the 17th century, visited Mount Athos, became a bishop at the age of 28 in a Serbian monastery. A kind Saint, helps everyone. In that monastery, in addition to his relics, there is a healing spring, and a magical grape grows out of the mountain, and pilgrims leave their wish notes in crevices.”
We returned to the shop. I happily flopped down into the chair. Dimitra offered coffee, but it was too stuffy, the electronic scoreboard outside the pharmacy showed us +32C at 10:30 pm.
“Family
