“CONFESSION of a GHOST”
a novel by Alexandra Kryuchkova
in the “PLAYING ANOTHER REALITY” series
38 BEFORE/3 AFTER. HOUSE No. 1
*****GARDEN of STONES*****
***
Somewhere in the Universe
“Now let’s talk about me,” said Saturn, swaying in his rocking chair by the fireplace. “I’m a heavy planet surrounded by many rings. I bring all sorts of restrictions to the Sphere of Life where I find myself. I deprive of something or create obstacles in achieving results. I force a person to work with maximum dedication, take responsibility, exercise strict discipline. At the same time, I’m a symbol of wisdom, strength of the Spirit, reason, intellect and even calculation. I’m quite lonely and conservative. I mean old people, the elder relatives in the family, grandparents, but, as many magi say, I don’t like children, because wise old age is closer to me. I’m strict with children, I prefer mature personalities. At the moment of your incarnation, I’m guesting in the Moon Sphere, and I feel bad here, I don’t like water, so I often sit by the fireplace warming my bones, and you’ll love fireplaces on Earth too. The Moon and I are too different. She lives with emotions. I live with mind. She is chaotic and changeable, and I’m systemic, oppressed by everything that breaks the rules and violates stability, I love constancy. She is the follower, and I’m the leader, moreover, I rigidly dictate my terms and demand unconditional obedience. She is a humanist, and I have a mathematical mindset. She is vague, and I’m extra-precise. She is the wave. I’m the rock. Saturn in Cancer is called an exile.”
“Am I an exile? Are you both, Moon and Saturn, my major planets?”
“There is a conflict, that will exist in your Self throughout the entire incarnation. It’s difficult for the Moon to express a variety of feelings and emotions, and I incline to clarity and limit the quantity. Your task is to process quantity into quality, structuring chaos, build meaningful systems and give them to the world, for example, in a few words that are worth their weight in gold. You can make a career as an excellent organizer and a bossy person, but outside of work, remain soft and follower as the Moon. You’ll be drawn to elder and wise people in general, and with children … telling them bedtime stories, like the Moon, you’ll show extreme severity in education, while selflessly protecting them as a wall, like Saturn. An increased sense of duty will hang on your shoulders as a heavy burden of responsibility.”
“What about my parents? Will I see them before incarnation?”
“Yes, later,” Saturn sighed.
“My soul, not everything is so bad,” the Guardian encouraged me. “If you become a workaholic, you won’t get sick.”
“You are running ahead again,” Saturn reproached the Guardian. “I don’t like lazybones, but I encourage those who work diligently and laboriously, delving into details, digging deep, pondering over the true meaning, classifying and building logical relationships, systematizing data, organizing processes within the strictly specified framework of the Space of Time, and that requires maximum concentration on the subject and, as a consequence, silence and the absence of crowds. You’ll achieve the best results alone, either by working for yourself or on yourself, the latter is a more appropriate expression, since it’s about your Self. In relationships with people, you are extremely reserved and silent. Initially, you take a defensive stance, just in case no one offends you. The hypersensitive Moon is secretive, cautious and distrustful, like Saturn. Impregnable and cold rock, alienated from reality outwardly, you are full of raging waves of feelings inside. Many people will consider you a difficult person to communicate with, your face bears the stamp of excessive seriousness, it’s hard and even strange for you to smile without cause, and there will really be few reasons for joy, while your simple phrases are difficult for ordinary people to interpret, and certainly, with your honesty and thirst for justice few people will get along. As a consequence, you’ll become increasingly silent, more and more withdrawn, and even in crowds you’ll feel desert loneliness. Here is the strict division into ‘I’ and ‘they’.”
“Work on your Self and grow spiritually,” the Guardian consoled. “The fewer superficial contacts you have, the higher you climb the Stairs of Spirit, and the wiser thoughts in a concise form you give out to the world as a result.”
“Angel, you keep trying, as people say, to run ahead of the train. It’s good and right when guarding yours on Earth,” Saturn chuckled, “but we are still in Heaven, and still in House No. 1. Of course, it’s important for Rukh to establish herself in the eyes of the world. There is a strong need for respect and recognition by others, for love, at least by close ones. Not getting the support and approval you deserve, you shouldn’t give up, but work even harder and better, self-organizing, perfecting your Self and the results of your work. This is the process of Self-improvement and honing the skill in Saturn way. I’m not Jupiter, so I don’t recognize anything easy. My favorite earthly saying, ‘Patience and work will overcome everything.’ Without complaints about troubles and obstacles. No looking for someone to blame. No condemnation. Without allowing yourself to be lazy or idle. Without envying anyone. And then, step by step, overcoming hardships and restrictions, even periodically falling down, but getting up, starting all from the very beginning again and persistently and humbly continuing your Path, clenching your willpower into a fist, you’ll be able to climb a high mountain and receive a deserved reward.”
“There isn’t even a bed to sleep in here,” I said thoughtfully.
“You’ll have rest, don’t worry,” the Guardian encouraged me, “in an ascetic mode. Monks, for example, sleep several hours a day.”
“Now about the fortress,” Saturn continued. “You’ll cling with claws to everything that brings you the feeling of safety and security in the outer and inner worlds, based on the principle that good is not sought beyond good. You need guarantees, being especially concerned about the issue of comfortable old age, to create a reliable family, to have your own, albeit small, house-fortress, any real estate, that is, something material. You’ll carefully and reverently treat everything that you get by hard work, and without it, as you understand, nothing will be obtained. When ties are broken or solid ground under your feet is lost, a deep depression is possible.”
“If I understood correctly,” I suddenly remembered, “Saturn gives difficulties and deprives of something, restricts me in some way. So the breakup is going to happen anyway, House No. 1 in the timeline corresponds to the period of childhood, doesn’t it?”
“You are all like your Guardian, running ahead, although your thought is working in the right direction. The most important emotional traumas happen in childhood. Usually, children with Saturn in Cancer, not receiving care and affection, have certain difficulties with their parents and subsequently in their own families with spouses – due to the difficulties in expressing feelings, and with their children – due to strictness in upbringing, which leads to disappointment in people, withdrawal into oneself, a deep feeling of dissatisfaction with life. If everything is fine in the family, the ties may be forcibly severed, the dissolution of the continuity of generations. In this case, one constantly returns to the Past, as for the life-giving source from which one draws strength, and in general lives more in the Past than in the Future, falling into childhood memories and nostalgic for the lost or unfulfilled, has a painful dependence on the Past or on parents. An eternal child at heart, one tries to preserve the connection disappeared into oblivion at least in one’s own inner world, constantly connecting the thread torn by reality, supporting the continuity of generations with all the fibers of the soul. Even if there was no gap, but childhood was spent in cold alienation as for the level of feelings, one will try to compensate the warmth in one’s own family.”
“So my parents won’t love me!” I felt very sad.
“I didn’t say that,” Saturn stated, not without a note of sadness. “The Creator said, ‘Be like children, and you will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.’ Anyway, traditions, family values and the Past are very important to you. Now a little about personal life, since the Moon and the Sign of Cancer mean the intimate Sphere too. I deprive of earthly temptations by some restrictions on emotional joys. It’s not you who restrain yourself in passions and don’t enjoy life to the fullest, it’s the set up in your passport. Everything that happens in your destiny, according to the Creator’s plan, is exclusively for your benefit. You may become not just a serious, but a very deep and wise person who sees and is able to express in exact words at least part of the truth that you’ll definitely unearth in the process of working on yourself. And now I’ll show you something interesting, let’s go.”
Saturn took a candle, we left the cell and went down to the Dungeon.
“This is the Well from which you’ll draw your strength,” Saturn commented, “you can look inside.”
I hovered over the Well. It seemed bottomless, but suddenly I noticed the Moon in it!
“It’s not the goal of our journey,” Saturn said, and we flew along the corridors, that resembled an intricate labyrinth.
Suddenly we found ourselves in a beautiful cave with a mountain lake and an unusual garden.
“My Garden of Stones. Sometimes I cross trees to get a unique healing effect.”
We wandered slowly between the trees, and Saturn, not without pride, spoke about the energy contained in the stones and its influence on souls.
“As a child, playing in the yard with girls, when choosing one of the four Realms, you’ll take under your control the Underground one. Later you’ll start looking for stones and make jewelry. You’ll feel stones like the Moon and love them like Saturn. Here is Larimar, for example. The magical stone of the lost Atlantis. It awakens the memory of the Past. Delicate, isn’t it?” Saturn asked, and his gaze became softer. “And this is the Moonstone. It’s yours, Rukh. It knows to fulfill wishes and contributes to the disclosure of creativity. The Moon will give it to you.”
“Saturn gives a penchant for collecting,” the Guardian clarified, “an interest in antiques, history and archeology, due to fixation on the Past with a particular focus on its values. You’ll enjoy diving headlong into the information flow, digging out something interesting and hidden, fishing out rare specimens, analyzing and systematizing data, making collections and showing them to friends, sharing knowledge.”
“The Garden of Stones will bring you joy, even if not much. You’ll find also unique alive icons on Earth. You’ve already seen some of them in my cell… Now I need to rest a bit,” Saturn apologized, and the Guardian and I left for the Library.
***
Library of the Universe
“Angel, Saturn said he would limit my earthly passions and temptations, and he doesn’t like children. Will I have children?”
“You’re so funny, Rukh!” the Guardian smiled. “You’ll get children, but your Saturn is a wizard. You’ll become a very pretty creature with magical attraction of the opposite sex beings. In order to prevent you from sinking into the abyss of earthly passions, a heavenly tattoo will appear on your earthly body at the moment of incarnation. I’ve recently sent a little mouse to your mother, she got frightened of it and … Any birthmark is a sign of Heaven. Trying to attract attention, people make something similar on their skin, but their sophistication has an artificial flavor. Given the nature of Cancer, you’ll be very shy of the heavenly sign, minimizing the number of contacts in the Sphere of earthly passions.”
We settled down in the chairs of the Reading Hall, the book flew into my hands and opened at the page with “The Mist” miniature.
“There is nothing scary in this book, believe me,” the Guardian reassured me, instantly scanning my feelings.
“So will I never know the cause? What happened in the Future?”
“You’re too fixated on the cause, Rukh. You should read the story about the broken mirrors in the City, which inhabitants left for the World of Mists, ‘And your last thought is ringing like a bell – life is over, and you haven’t managed to do something very, very important…’ You will write that at the age of 13, Rukh.”
*****GIFTS of the MAGI*****
***
Ouranoupoli
Taking the icons already acquired, I went to the pier at the Tower. The excursion ship used to depart for the foot of the Holy Mountain every morning at 10:30. It ran along the south-western coast, sheltered by neighboring isles and the peninsula Sithonia, only in good weather and only to the foot, since right beyond it, at the cape of the peninsula, there was an abyss with a sharp drop in depth of up to 1,000 meters. The other side of the Athos peninsula was almost always turbulent, so people travelled to pay their respects to the Holy Mountain from Ouranoupoli.
Traveling along the shore, you could admire the natural beauty, but there were many beautiful places on Earth, Mount Athos was unique. According to legend, the mountain was named after the titan Athos, who threw a stone at Poseidon, then the legend ended in two – according to one version, Athos the Titan died, according to another, Poseidon died.
In 48–49 AD, during a storm, the ship with the Virgin Mary and the Apostle John the Theologian came to the shores of Athos in the area of the Iviron monastery. The local pagan temples collapsed instantly, the inhabitants converted to Christianity, and the Virgin Mary asked the Creator to give that place to Her, because She liked it so much. Since then, Athos had been considered the Garden of the Virgin, and one of the most famous Athos icons was called the Athos Virgin Mary, or the Abbess of the Holy Mountain.
There were more than 200 cells, hermitages, as well as caves for ascetics, and 20 large monasteries on Athos. One of them was St. Panteleimon (aka Rossikon, or Russik), the Russian one, one Serbian and one Bulgarian, the rest were Greek. The first monastery, Great Lavra, was founded by St. Athanasius the Athonite in 963 on the south-eastern side of the peninsula, but back in 676, the Emperor Constantine transferred the entire peninsula to the eternal property of the monks, and the oldest temple was considered to be the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin not far from the capital of Athos, built in around 335.
The first monastery to appear from the south-western side of Athos was the Bulgarian Zograf with the unpainted icon of St. George, miraculously manifested on the icon board. After Zograf, there was the Greek monastery of the 10th century Docheiariou with the “Quick to Hear” icon, and immediately after it there was Xenophontos with the relics of the Holy Martyrs Marina and Petka Paraskeva and not only.
Each monastery had its own shrines, as well as a library where printed books, ancient manuscripts and papyrus scrolls were stored. I mentally recalled the most famous Athos wonderworking icons of the Virgin Mary:
“Gatekeeper” (Iverskaya, or Portaitissa), painted by Saint Apostle Luke the Evangelist, in Iviron,
“Pantanassa” and “Sacrifice” in Vatopedi,
“Quick to Hear” in Docheiariou,
“Three-handed” and “Milk-Giver” in Hilandar,
“House-Builder” in Great Lavra,
“The Elder” in Pantokratoros,
“Axion Estin” in Karyes,
“Virgin Mary of Jerusalem” and “Virgin Mary of Athos” in Russik,
“Way-Finder” (Hodegetria) in Xenophontos,
“Virgin Mary of the Akathist” in Dionysiou…
Among the famous relics, kept on Mount Athos, there were the Belt of the Virgin Mary in Vatopedi, the head of St. Panteleimon and the foot of Andrew the First-Called in Russik, the relics of John the Baptist in Dionysiou, particles of the Life-Giving Cross, the Gifts of the Magi, etc.
Orthodox Athos had its own rules. Sunset marked midnight, regardless of the clock time. The monks had to eat twice a day – in the morning and in the evening – after the liturgy. They practically didn’t sleep constantly praying for the whole world. Christmas in Ouranoupoli used to fall on December 25, and 5 kilometers away on Athos it was celebrated on January 7, because Athos lived according to the old (Julian) calendar with a difference of 13 days from the calendar of secular Greece, the fixed holidays were celebrated according to the old style. The Julian calendar, named after Julius Caesar, was created by Alexandrian astrologers based on the astronomical principles of Hellenistic Egypt, and introduced on January 01, 45 BC. In Old Russia, the calendar was called the “Circle making Peace/World”. I would call it the Matrix of the Space of Time. The Gregorian calendar (new style) was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 in Catholic countries on the basis of astronomical recalculations made due to the shift of the vernal equinox, which determined the annual dates of Easter, and the mismatch of Easter full moons with astronomical ones. Then the Gregorian calendar was used almost everywhere. When I thought about the high level of astronomy knowledge back in Ancient Egypt and India, I heard the voice of Eternity, “The time of one’s life is a drop in the ocean, Alice, as is the one’s knowledge, in particular yours.”
We were sailing up to Russik, located almost on the shore. In 2016, the monastery was overflowing with pilgrims, celebrating the 1,000 anniversary of Russian monasticism on Mount Athos, and that time they were preparing for St. Panteleimon Day, on August 9, being temporarily closed for pilgrims. About 70 monks and novices were serving in Russik, and their library contained more than 20,000 books and manuscripts. Once upon a time, the glorified St. Silouan the Athonite, helping people attacked by laziness and idleness, lived there.
The next monastery, Xeropotamou, at a level of 200m above the sea, almost above the port of Dafni (or Daphne), possessed, among other relics, the largest part of the Life-Giving Cross with a hole from a nail.
The main pier of Athos on that side of the peninsula, the port of Dafni, was a small jetty. Buses ran on Mount Athos, but, in my opinion, it was better to travel on foot, although easier to get lost. I heard amazing stories from pilgrims about old monks appearing out of nowhere to show the way, and immediately disappearing. To visit Mount Athos, men must obtain a visa (diamonitirion) in advance, since, and especially on holidays, monasteries might not accept pilgrims. Climbing the Holy Mountain, as a rule, started after the blessing by monks already on the territory of Athos. Janis said that more than once, at the foot of the Mountain, his groups had to linger for several days, because the monks didn’t give their blessing for the ascent. Oh, if I had been a man! I was an ordinary girl, and even the princess, on the way to Vatopedi in 422, heard the voice of the Virgin, stopping her not to embarrass the monks. In 1045, Vladimir Monomakh issued a decree that women were not allowed on the territory of Athos, except for the Virgin Mary. There were no female animals on Athos, although some people specified the exceptions, such as chickens and cats, since chickens gave eggs used for tempera colors making needed for icon painting, and cats caught mice. The Athos locals said that a woman-journalist had decided to explore the Holy Mountain a few years before, but she went swimming and was eaten by a shark, which had never been found in the Athos waters. It was interesting, the area of Ouranoupoli used to be called the Great Guard.
The choir of the cliff monastery Simonopetra, “Simeon’s rock”, considered to be the best by the Athos locals. When St. Simeon decided to found a monastery there, the monks resisted – the place was dangerous, and one of them fell into the abyss. Simeon got upset, prayed, and the monk who had fallen from the cliff suddenly returned alive and healthy. Closer to the Holy Mountain, there were the monasteries of Gregoriou and Dionysiou, in the latter the right hand of John the Baptist was kept.
Finally, I was looking at the Mountain, “Hello! What a blessing that You have allowed me to come back here to You!”
The Holy Mountain had an evident pyramid shape. Facing the boat with its concave side, it seemed to me a mirror — it allowed you to see yourself through its eyes. The Mountain scanned our thoughts and feelings, could change Space, Time and people. It resembled the Tibetan Kailash, although it was lower than Kailash – the height above sea level was 2,033 meters. The Mountain used to be covered with a wreath of clouds, even when the sky was cloudless, as a sign that the Virgin was on Athos. Clouds on the Mountain were unusual. Once I saw a wreath of faces of Saints and angels, and then the image of St. George the Victorious. I even managed to photograph St. George on his horse hitting the Dragon with the spear. After that he turned into an ordinary cloud and sailed away. At the top of the Mountain, the Cross was erected and a small temple of the Transfiguration was built. The mysterious 12 ascetic monks lived in the desert there, being invisible even to most Athonite monks. Or rather, one could see them if they allowed it. When one of the 12 ascetics passed into the Other World, one of the monks living on Athos was summoned and suddenly disappeared from his monastery or cell.
A boat with the shrines from St. Pavlou, the nearest monastery to the Mountain, docked to our ship. The monks placed the casket in the center of the joint tables on the lower deck. A queue lined up. People wondered what it was there.
“The Gifts of the Magi!”
I wrote the names in the memorial note, handed it over with the icons for blessing on the Gifts of the Magi to the monk, touched the shrines and put on them my cross, my ring and the wool rosary, woven by monks from the same monastery and purchased by me right on the ship. People came and went, while I stood next to the relics.
“God loves you,” the monk smiled, gave me his blessing and crossed me goodbye.
The monks returned to the monastery, and I stood on the deck and looked at the Mountain. Repeatedly in the history of the Holy Mountain, the monks faced various problems and wanted to leave the place, but the Virgin Mary appeared to them, providing miraculous help, and they stayed. According to legend, one day She would leave the Mountain forever, Her most famous icon, “Gatekeeper”, would disappear from Athos, the Holy Mountain would go under water, and the Apocalypse would come.
***
“Leah, have you found out the name of that icon?”
“Yes! Janis called to Athos, and the monks said, ‘Seeking for the Perished’.”
I froze for a moment, and then I took out of my bag the Akathist to the same icon. Leah raised her eyebrows in surprise.
“I read it on the border with Athos every evening, Leah! I went to church school and sang in the temple. There was an icon unknown to me, near which I stood during liturgies, when I was not singing on the solea. Many years passed, and a colleague at work said that the icon was called ‘Seeking for the Perished’. A few years later, in a book of an Orthodox priest, I read that it helps in critical situations, on the verge of death, or suicide, at the loss of hope and support, against drug addiction, they pray to Her for the lost people and ones killed and died not by natural death, for children left without parents. Thus, I realized the icon was mine. I’ll take it from you. After all, I felt it at once, not recognizing, since this is not the Greek type, and not the one from my temple, but definitely it is ‘Seeking for the Perished’. There are special features of the image: the fingers of the Virgin are closed in a strange way, as if a wall surrounds you and doesn’t allow you to collapse into the abyss; Her hair is loose, and there is no headscarf on Her head, as if She had been an ordinary woman.”
Janis came up to us. I took out my book “Temple of the Heart” and handed it to him, but had no time to say anything, since his father appeared and, after saying hello, began to talk in Greek quickly.
“Father Gabriel from Athos is here passing through Ouranoupoli, let’s go to him!” Janis summed up to me. “You can take his blessing. We have known him for a long time. He is a very good person.”
In the next door house Janis introduced us to each other and added that Father Gabriel understood English perfectly, knew many foreign languages, including Arabic and Aramaic, and read ancient manuscripts and relicts in the original.
“What kind of book is it?” Father Gabriel asked me.
“I was just about to ask Janis to transfer, I mean to donate it to the Library of the St. Panteleimon Monastery on Athos.”
I handed the book to Father Gabriel, and he began to examine with interest the cover with the image of two elephants, sitting on a bench in the forest with their backs to the reader and admiring the starry sky, one small and one large. Father Gabriel smiled, stroking their tails.
“This is me, and next to me is my mother,” I smiled. “The book is called “Temple of the Heart”, it consists of three parts: 40 verses like a 40-days monks’ pray for my mother, poems of my church school period, and echoes of the church choir. The book is dedicated to my mother, Patriarch Alexey II and the famous Russian poet Alexander Blok, because he once wrote about a girl who sang in the church choir, almost about me.”
“The Patriarch? Why?” Father Gabriel asked with interest, slowly leafing through the book and trying to read the titles of the verses.
“There was no Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow yet then, the Patriarch served in the church where I studied and sang.”
“Sign it to Hegumen Eulogious, the head of Rossikon. In a couple of days, we celebrate the feast of St. Panteleimon, and we’ll give him your gift!”
“Recently, Father Gabriel has been appointed Archimandrite of Vatopedi,” Janis smiled after returning to the shop. “He is young, but God is moving him upward, he has already served at the Exaltation with the Patriarch of Jerusalem, in Jerusalem. He wants to take me with him next year. I’ll send you video of their liturgy.”
“While you were away, the icon with Christ holding the globe, surrounded by the Zodiac Circle with planets, left,” Leah informed us.
“Saturn with rings and the Moon,” I remembered that icon.
“Do you believe that the planets influence our destinies?” Leah asked.
“Destinies are written in Heaven, and the Magi were led to Christ by a star,” I answered. “At the airport of Thessaloniki, they sold expensive hand-painted icons depicting the Signs of the Zodiac, and on the sealed certificate it was written that these were copies of fragments of the ancient wall painting of an Athos monastery. Have you seen them, by chance, Janis?”
“No, but it’s quite possible. Have you visited the Mount today? What Athos’ shrines were brought by monks?”
“The Gifts of the Magi.”
***
Somewhere in the Mist
“Lon-Don, Lon-Don…”
I am very tired. It’s constantly raining there, and the Mist is spreading, swallowing everything and everyone. And me, it will swallow me too.
“Lon-Don, Lon-Don…”
The bell is ringing inside me, and we are sitting on a bench by the Thames with Sergey Dobronravov in silence. He is just as silent as me. He seems to be a writer. I’m very tired and I don’t even remember how we got there. Gloomy clouds are crawling through the bare and jails bars-like branches of trees.
“Lon-Don, Lon-Don…”
A man appears from the Mist. I’m scared to meet him. Why? I fall into the Mist, where we are standing with Sergey on the zero meridian in Greenwich, and I tell him, “Everything will change! Life starts from scratch here!” And we climb the Royal Observatory Tower, but out of the Mist – damn it! – the man reappears –
“Lon-Don, Lon-Don…”
I don’t see his face, but he laughs, maliciously, caustically, and I’m scared again. Signboards, signboards, lots of tables with books. I want to run away from there, away, into the Mist! My consciousness begins to split into atoms. I don’t want to think or to remember anything anymore – away! all these atoms –
“Lon-Don, Lon-Don…” –
I see them from the side, they are losing their interconnections and, like soap bubbles of different diameters, scatter away –
“Lon-Don, Lon-Don…” –
and burst, burst, burst, and with them invisible rays as access to the sector where my earthly memory is stored — fragment by fragment — go out one after another –
“Lon-Don, Lon-Don…”
It sounds quieter and quieter, and I feel calmer, I’ll soon remember nothing – that means I will become free, and nothing will hold me there any longer… nothing…
“Alice!” a sharp voice was suddenly heard. Ray appeared right in front of me, “Where were you at sea? Come on!”
I shook my head negatively, “I don’t remember.”
“Where did you feel good? Remember now! Quickly!”
I couldn’t resist him. He was stronger than me. And all those atoms started coming back to me, like in a movie rewind, and I…
***
Ouranoupoli
…I woke up on Athos. It was night outside the window. I went out onto the balcony, looked at the brightest yellow star and heard the phone ring.
“Ray,” I said in a tired voice, “I don’t understand how you can call me.”
“I don’t understand how you still don’t understand that I don’t call you,” he said calmly, but I was too weak to solve his riddles.
“What is happening to me? You know everything there. I’ve hardly dreamed before. And here, this is the third night in a row…”
“Go to the Tower.”
“In Ouranoupoli? It’s been closed for many years.”
“It’s open. From 9:00 to 16:00. Every day except Monday. Get up in the morning and go to the Tower without visiting any of your acquaintances along the way,” Ray said, and the connection broke off.