One day he brought a friend with him. I felt awkward because we were going to see a stranger and didn’t know how to act. Instinctively, I reached out for a blanket like someone or other reaches out for a towel after taking a shower.
“We brought some treats for you,” Yura kindly cooed. “I believe you don’t have lots of visitors today.”
“I believe today is not a visiting day,” I retorted, smiling, “unless you have an appointment.”
“Of course we have.” He was amazed by our diffidence. “My colleague and I have compelling reasons.”
“It is a bad case, I see. However, my colleague,” I pointed at you, “and I are deeply interested in it.” I cheerfully winked at you. “So, what have you got?”
Yura lowered his gaze to the ground and answered:
“A kind of gingerbready gift for high-muck-a-muck’s obedience and good behavior.”
“Oh, so you’re trying to bribe the official?” I could hardly help but burst out laughing.
“No, no, not at all. It’s the samples.”
“So why didn’t you put them in a container?” you asked with genuine reproach.
After that question all of us fell about laughing.
“All right, let’s go and prepare some reagents for clinical tests,” I offered you.
“You mean some tea?” you asked with astonishment.
“No, tea is totally out of fashion now.” I was genuinely amazed that anyone would dare to call things by their improper names. “In respectable houses, especially in white ones, they offer only reagents.”
Awkwardness that had been brought about by the stranger’s visit vanished like a mist. We all sat down at the “dining” table made from a set of empty buckets with a sheet of plywood on the top – our guests had providently brought cups and spoons with them – and had tea with gingerbread, talking and joking. Although, if the truth be told, the conversation was mostly led by Yura and his friend, a person with no name, no profession, no plans for the future and no face, as he described himself. In reality, he appeared to be a writer who hadn’t published a single book. This strange man sank deep into my heart at once. He looked at everybody with fatherly feeling but at the same time estranged eyes. For the first time I saw a mix of childishness and senility in human eyes, nearly alien eyes. He told us mostly the same things as Yury did, but in absolutely different, simplified ways, reducing them to statements such as that one should always stay in one’s own self, appreciate both bad and good things and take one’s life easy as if it were a pleasantry. His thoughts poured out of him freely like water from a cloud, without any doubts or barriers.
“And what are your books about?” you interrupted him inappropriately.
“What they are not about, that is the question,” the writer answered calmly and simply, and then suddenly added: “They don’t narrate about delusions – that people with unusual or forbidding looks should be treated as if they were not human beings; that life finds its sense only in the midst of great suffering and tribulation; that it is difficult to smile to people who hate or despise you; that people’s desires are primitive and life is complicated; that writing a book is equal to lounging; that being human is rather easy but seems to be quite superfluous to the average person. Perhaps my books are about worthwhile things that don’t seem to exist but are encountered every day.”
His speech was straightforward and decisive as if he took his last chance to speak out before his death. And while he shared his thoughts, I couldn’t stop wondering why he took an interest in two conjoined girls rejected by everybody else and mostly unnoticed even in the most crowded places? However, that moment convinced me that our life – mine and yours – consists of trivial events and ludicrous losses; and if some writer decided to write a book about us, he would be absolutely puzzled as to where to begin and especially how to continue. Why did he come? The answer always hovered nearby, but I didn’t dare grasp it.
“Why did you stop writing?” I inquired instead.
“I don’t want to,” he smiled gently. “I changed my mind.”
“But there must be a reason.”
“There is always a reason. I’ve been asked not to write, so I don’t write.”
“Just like that!” you couldn’t help but wonder. “You stopped just because you were asked?”
“If someone, for whatever reason, doesn’t want me to be a writer, well, probably I shouldn’t write. I always try to respect what I’m requested to do,” he answered calmly and confidently. “The main thing is to do no harm to others.”
“He’s such a nice guy!” Yura put in a word. “He is a yes-man. By the way, I asked him to come here with me, and, as you can see, he said yes and came.”
“Life is very simple,” the writer went on, explaining such wonderful and formerly inexplicable things. “The more you help someone, the more you get in return. I advise you to try, and then you’ll see yourselves as you are and the world as it…”
“Nobody has ever helped us!” we exclaimed unanimously. “So why should we help anyone?”
“Are you sure about that? Maybe you just spare yourself the effort to notice?”
And at that moment my eyes met Yura’s. Sure, I had been convincing myself that I was unworthy for so long that I ceased to recognize other people’s help. Furthermore, because life had robbed us of luck and justice so casually, the number of our perpetual debtors owing us happiness had been growing every day.
“Yes, that’s just how it goes,” following our gaze, the writer continued, “no miracle; you change your point of view in the blink of an eye.”
Still, I was reluctant to give up and tried to find some argument, just for spite’s sake. For so many years we had been cultivating resentment towards the whole world that throwing it away now seemed not only impossible but fatal. We could only exchange it for something valid and reliable.
“It is hard to be fond of those who hate you,” I expressed our common opinion.
“Are you sure they hate you?”
“You should’ve seen their faces!” you blurted out.
“Their faces are a reflection of yours. Try smiling in a mirror and it will smile in return. But someone has to be the first, so why don’t you be the first?”
He said it with such a sincere smile that we involuntarily started smiling back.
“I dare say, my fellow, you are right; it really works,” Yura said and started pulling funny faces, making us laugh until we cried.
Yeah, he was right, perfectly right. I always thought that people hate us for our dissimilarity, while in fact – only now I start to realize – they don’t really care about us; everything we do in life is by our own and of our own free will and choice. We played les misérables hoping to squeeze out of people as much pity and money as possible, or, on the contrary, pretended to be like everybody else, hiding our differences behind our blanket, while all the while life had so much more to offer us. All our life had been filled with lies, deceit, play, dodging, trying to justify all our wrongdoings by believing in a regrettable necessity. Without meaning it, we chose isolation and somewhere halfway to this day, we killed the real us, leaving the entire world in a state of shock and fear. In other words, it appears that allowing grief and indignation to control our life, we merged with the crowd, as we have always dreamt it to be… but despite this, we are dissatisfied.