Mari Saat - The Saviour of Lasnamäe

So she went and talked to the priest – in reality she gabbled, her eyes cast downward: “I want to pray for many people’s sins: Lord, forgive them, forgive them their sins… But I can’t do it properly because there’s only one of them I love and all the while I’m thinking only of that one person – and so there won’t be any point in it for the others, will there?”

But the priest replied to her in a soft, lilting voice: “If there’s nothing else you can do, my good woman, then perhaps pray for just that one person and that one person will sense it and pray for all the others…”

Natalya Filippovna suddenly raised her eyes because the reply surprised her – the fact that she could do that if there was no other option – but even more because that voice was so familiar – although not gasping, but crooning; crooning as Dmitri Dmitrievich’s voice had been that first time when Natalya Filippovna had burst into tears and ruined his evening… The priest wasn’t Dmitri Dmitrievich, he couldn’t be, because the priest had a wonderful dark, bushy beard whereas Dmitri Dmitrievich was clean-shaven… In a rush, Natalya kissed the cross that the priest held out to her and hurried to leave, her eyes cast downward again.

The whole idea was ridiculous, of course. How could she even think of a priest in that way – he was a monk! But they had the same voice, didn’t they? And they had the same eyes, didn’t they? People did have doubles. They also had twins… Perhaps he was Dmitri Dmitrievich’s twin, who knew everything and was asking Natalya to pray for his brother? Not that that was really any business of his!

She would have liked an explanation though. And a completely improper thought entered her head: if she had taken hold of the priest’s beard and given it a tug, everything would have become clear. But the thought was so awful, wild and improper that she quickly rubbed her eyes with her fingers, like after a bad dream… And what was more, Natalya suddenly thought, the priest’s gaze had been strange. His voice had been the same – quiet and soft like Dmitri Dmitrievich’s – but his gaze had been directed past Natalya or through her. Yes, his gaze had been thoroughly strange – would Dmitri Dmitrievich have been able to look at her like that?

Had the priest been of any help this time? What was it he’d said again – that if there’s nothing else you can do then perhaps pray for just that one person and that one person will sense it and pray for all the others? So there was some point to the misplaced praying, at least it was better than nothing at all… Only, if it hadn’t been Dmitri Dmitrievich there hiding behind that beard, if it really had been a priest there then here, right beside her, was an ordinary man. Would he sense that he was being prayed for and could he pray for the others?

She could have asked Dmitri Dmitrievich outright about it of course, but she had been unable to because it would have meant acknowledging how things really stood, and for some reason that kind of a confession was unthinkable to her – unacceptable, improper. Anyhow, she had already told Dmitri Dmitrievich twice that he shouldn’t be wasting his time and money like this, that he should get something in exchange and that she didn’t mind, but it wasn’t as if she could do more to force herself or her services upon him…

She could just ask, of course: Have you got a brother? And is your brother a priest? But it wasn’t right to pry into a client’s life like that…

Instead she listened as Dmitri Dmitrievich spoke. He was talking about the sun. Saying that the sun was probably not the one and only as we see it, but that there might be two suns… Or was it one sun with two faces? Natalya didn’t fully understand. In any case, one of them was an evil sun and the other a good sun; one was in fact black; even though it beams light to us, it is black by nature because it burns, scorches everything black. But the other one, the good sun, enlightens… How this could be true Natalya had no idea, but Dmitri Dmitrievich said that he had a big, thick book at home where it was all written down. Well, not written but illustrated, and the pictures weren’t real pictures, but hieroglyphs. That’s what he said – symbols… Natalya liked that word. So the symbols must be the pictures, lovely colourful pictures, only they had a deeper meaning. Dmitri Dmitrievich had found his tongue and talked about the book and the pictures in it as if they were from another world. He would have liked to show Natalya it, although he couldn’t cart it here to a strange bed – this bed was not the place for looking at picture books. Vova would probably have found it fishy, even if it was what the punter had paid for…

“You could come to mine one evening, when I have an evening off, we could have a cup of tea and look at the book…” said Natalya, finding herself blushing all over at the improper suggestion. “Of course,” she tried to rescue the situation, “if it’s not too much trouble for you to bring it round, and that – I live with my daughter in Lasnamäe, but I suppose it might be tricky for you to find it by yourself…”

“No, no,” said Dmitri Dmitrievich, “it’s not a problem at all, I’ve been to Lasnamäe many a time…”

Dmitri Dmitrievich gazed absent-mindedly through the window. There was nothing at all to see but the dingy greyish-pink, damp-blotched wall of the block opposite the old city’s narrow street. Perhaps the wall wasn’t so damp, just looked that way because of the snow that had fallen overnight, and that now drifted down intermittently in fuzzy specks whose dazzling whiteness cast greyness over even the sky and the occasional pedestrians scurrying by like strays, chins hunched between their shoulders… The building opposite was girded by a chest-high basement ledge that ran in a broken line along the wall. Above it ran rows of windows like soldiers, but tired, sickly soldiers in worn greatcoats, each slightly skewed, tilted, awry… Parallel to the ledge and above it flew a dark butterfly battling the wind, perhaps entirely black…

“A soul butterfly…” thought Dmitri Dmitrievich and flinched – but butterflies weren’t out at this time of the year, were they? There are no butterflies in winter. Perhaps it was a charred piece of paper – perhaps someone had for whatever reason burned some paper and a scrap had fluttered out of the window. But a piece of paper would have floated down; it would not have battled the wind, level with the ledge in the wall of the building… Perhaps the butterfly had slept somewhere between the windows or in a dark staircase and something had woken it… Was it in fact a real butterfly and not a hallucination? But Dmitri Dmitrievich was not inclined to hallucinations… So more likely it was a real butterfly that had broken loose from somewhere – perhaps some soot had found its way into the basement, the butterfly had woken up, flown into the yard in fright, and was now battling its own death…

Dmitri Dmitrievich felt sad – whether for the butterfly or himself he didn’t know. He was confused. He had always regarded women as beings that had been brought into the world only as a temptation. He neither despised nor hated them – perish the thought! On the contrary, he admired them, and that was his greatest weakness. He was otherwise something of a slouch – if he had the opportunity to eat, he ate more than he needed, and was unable to refuse good food, and the same was true of booze. Although he never got properly drunk, there was no question he enjoyed good wine and stronger drink, even vodka in cold weather, and the feeling of his head spinning gently, but no more than that… And it was of no great concern to him if he’d run out of tea at home or had no dry bread somewhere in a cupboard corner. He would simply boil some water, hot water was great, and it dulled hunger. It even lifted his mood. Neither food nor drink were real problems.