The teleportation. Chapters from 1 to 7. Part 1

The teleportation.
Part 1.
Chapter 1. The metro.

That's good if it's good in the soul. Always we wait for something more great ignoring such moments, then we remember them, regarding them as a decoration of our life story.
The same thing is with Albert, discouraging the countrymen with his not Russian first name, he walked through life with his sweeping jumping gait, now too, after getting off from a morning electric train, he went along the accustomed route, which in Moscow started with descending into the metro. It doesn't matter that during twenty minutes the sky will disappear, the sky which is so clear, so vernal, so hopeful. Is he glad? What a doubt may be? Now he is going to sell the newspapers along the route according to his choice, it's good there are eleven directions from Moscow, where the electric trains go from the nine main train stations, the passengers will buy his newspapers including "Moskovsky Komsomolets" and "AIDS-info".
Still, it does not matter that he will be not in need of the knowledges he had got at the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of Moscow State University. Selling only the newspapers he is able to support himself and his young wife Nadya whom he had married in three years ago. She was young, beautiful and slender, also she was able to understand that he has chosen a right strategy in the life in the same peak of the perestroika, at the same top of the changes in the 1990 year. He was a rabid anti-abortionist, however, it was no matter this about. He was close with her, adapting to her monthlies to avoid the pregnancy. Also, as all the young people, often they quarrelled with each other, but they had never gone too far with it. They made up quickly the reconciliation finished often by the stormy love exercises.
They hadn't own car. He hadn't own holiday house. However, Albert remembered often, last year paying to driver some generous recompense, they tore in the taxi past awful bread lines, in which the people stood from six o'clock in the morning to buy some foodstuff, but they tore to the Kursky Railway Station and almost missed the train Moscow-Simferopol. And their route finished in Yalta, which is both customary and exotic, and it seems the mountains had stood like a great wall specially to defend this paradisiacal place against the cold and other miseries of the loser country Russia.
And all the failures as if bypassed Albert. As soon as he started to guess about the satanic essence of the soviet state, it had broken up. Yeltsin had come to power and a need to be a dissident was annulled. But one of the human properties, he needs always something more.
His wife had three beautiful friends: Lena was a redhead and freckled, Valya (Valentina) was with large and expressive eyes, Sveta (Svetlana) had eastern countenance. How he wanted to enjoy in love with all four of them! To hold close to himself shy Lena, to pinch Valya's taut buttocks, and she would sparkle because of this with her eyes and rush to him, or to taking Sveta's pigtail and winding it around his hand to take possession of her, bringing her on her knees and making her bend down obediently. And Nadya would participate in all of this actively, all of them would be at peace among themselves and all four of them would drink tea together with him without any jealousy and quarrel.
However, he understood that it would be no good to demand so much from a goldfish of the destiny. It would be no good being so greedy to offend God Whom he has begun to pay attention more recently. He must thank Him, because he himself was alive, healthy and full of the forces. All the changes, which took place recently, they were in his favor, as if magically. Now no one would name him as a parasite, a scalper or an idler. he has become needed by society, which was hungered for information, and his work was paid generously.
Thinking so, he was descending to the most well-known and used by local and by visitants station of the metro. But being bored because of the everyday trips in the veneered with marble dirty corridor something unusual forced him to stop and has changed all his future.
Among the regular traders and beggar who were intermittently kicked out by the cops there was standing a wooden box with an inscription, which was inappropriate at all at the contemporary, spontaneous market in spite of all its barbarism: "Put in from 1 to 100 dollars and be happy!" Such a thing could not be without attracting attention of Albert who was inquisitive and wondered because of everything. Also, he was lucky he has arrived here ten minutes earlier, than usual and had a possibility to observe what was taking place during these ten minutes, but vainly...
Two cops walked past. A lot of people walked. No one paid attention to the box, as if it was not existed. On of the passer-byes whom it would be appropriate a nickname "New Russian", he put in a 100 dollars banknote. A small number of people put in banknotes with George Washington without any doubt and continued walking. One picture with Abraham Lincoln was inserted into this box too. The most surprising thing was a fact that nobody paid attention at the unusualness of the proposition.
-Excuse me, please, - he addressed to an aged woman, which any communication was possible with, how his intuition prompted him. Doesn't it seem you, that this inscription on the wooden box is very strange?
He wasn't mistaken. Aged and honest in appearance, the woman agreed willingly to solve his problem. A long while she looked at the place, where was this strange box, also a long while she looked at Albert and finally pronounced:
-Young man. How many days ago had you drunk?
-I'm teetotaler.
-However, excuse me. If you were in a terrible drinking bout four days ago, I could all explain you without difficulty. Here is no box. You yourself may make a conclusion. I'm a nurse in a mental hospital. My word of honor, I see no box, saying this, she hurried down to the trains.
Well, - thought Albert. - Now I'm going to filch away your junk in a brazen and what will you do, it is interesting to see? Albert came to the box and made an attempt to take it in his hand. Suddenly all has drifted in his field of vision. The last thing he remembered, it was a good, but penetrating look from an old man's who stood on the other side.
Albert has come to himself because of a restrained, but not very gentle touch from the official stick.
-Why have you laid down here? This is not a village! Where you drink, there go to bed. What the fuck have you arrived in Moscow?
-I'm not from a village, I'm from Mytishchi town. Secondly, why not to check this old man's identity, - answered Albert, pointing at the strange old man who stood near the no less unusual box.
It was seen throughout, this old man looking like a wanderer, wearing a navy blue robe and keeping a walking stick in his hand, he had the most direct relation to the box and now he was looking also at Albert with his penetrating look. Here Albert has felt the guilt, because as if he had snitched on this man who he far not looked like a bad character. So he added:
-It' possible, actually here is no a old man, merely I'm feeling bad and it was a hallucination.
-In such case I'll quickly make you sober, - the more aggressive mate said through his teeth threatening with the official stick.
-Wait, Ivan, - the second mate interrupted him, - and turning to a whisper, continued:
-Don't you see, the man is ill, it would better send him to a psychiatrist. Hey, dude! - he made a hand gesture to stop his mate and turned to Albert. - Here is a phone number. To say frankly, I don't like this devilment too, which happens here. If you see, hear or recognize something, I'll be very grateful if you report me it about.
-You are seeking a miracle, however, it is in front of you. Don't you see a wooden box and a glad old man near it?
-But, dear friend, here is only the marble wall, but I need a fact.
-Is that no old man and no a wooden box with the inscription: "Put in from 1 to 100 dollars and be happy!"?
The sergeant major of militia stooped and said to Albert right in the ear:
-Do you think, if such a miracle stands here, we would miss to benefit from it? Really, you need the treatment. If you are younger, I would think you are pretending to be mad not to go to the army. Though, here is the postal address. Write in detail, what took place here and send it please to this post-office box. Write about the old man and the box with a lot of dollars, write, don't be shy. And about yourself, what do you do?
-I sell the newspapers.
-And now you are going by metro to the station "Street of the 1905", isn't right?
-Of course.
-As the saying goes: "you can talk until you're blue in the face". Besides, be good, call us if there is something strange in our station.
-Surely, - answered Albert, mentally being indignant because of the situation.
"At long last I got rid of this representative of the Bolsheviks vermins" - leaving, he thought. Then he tried to remember, what newspapers and how many of them is he going to buy today, at what price will he sell them. It was not difficult to recollect all this, and this day his profit was not less, but ten percent more, than daily average one. It was not ashamed to return at home to the beautiful wife. What about morning fainting in the underground, at first he wanted to forget it and not to remember anymore. It seemed, the morning occasion could not disturb the happy everydayness of the young childless family.

Chapter 2. Telephone.

          During two next week nothing unusual took place. Also four times per week Albert got up early, going to work where he was a boss and a subordinate both. Also his wife met him gladly when he was coming home, and sometimes he could find at home one, more rarely two or three wife's friends who already are known, and the feelings, that they evoked from Albert, also are known. One day they went to his parents' home, which was situated in the village in other region, two hundred kilometers from Moscow. At the very beginning of perestroika, they managed to buy this house for a penny, leaving the two-roomed flat for their son in Mytishchi, near the station Perlovka.
          As for Albert, this case in the metro was not indifferent to him. Being curious whether like a researcher or a seeker of adventures, so he treated the fact that a few days ago he became a witness, even a participant of a real anomalous event, nowadays the newspapers wrote about a lot of them so much. However, in the newspapers it could be fabrications, exaggerations, more often the sensationalism, but this fact is clear. He didn't say to the wife and to the parents about this event, only because he knew well, they would bombard him with questions, which he couldn't answer in spite of all his knowledges. They know him well enough not to doubt in his mental health.
          Recently it was a cooling. The people say that in the May the last tree is blossoming out with leaves in these cold days, this is the oak. All around was very usual, and involuntarily Albert began to forget this strange event in the metro. Only following the way of the logical reasoning without emotions, our protagonist had to agree that this was actually, regardless of his own desires, regardless of his attitude to fact, it was and it is impossible to deny it. Certainly, it can try to forget, to pretend as if nothing took place, but why to deceive himself? If compare the current everyday events to a well known song, then one of the notes of the song as if was false, it had sounded with dissonance irritating the ears, however the song is continuing, like nothing had happened. But it cannot eject away this fake note out of the song.
          No matter how he tried to use all his abilities to solve this riddle, questions stayed without answers, and in the first place there was an interesting fact. All the passer-by in metro not only didn't pay attention at the strange box, but even didn't see the thing he himself saw. Such version as a hallucination just was refused away by him and he was right. If it was starting a mental illness, the hallucinations would repeat all the way more often. His interest in the exercises of Yoga long ago and his aspiration to perfect himself generated a habit to monitor own feeling, own state of mind. No. There was not a change, it meant he had to look for the strange things outside, not inside of himself. It was no any difference in his mind between the periods before the event and after it. It is just possible he would think now about strange events, which are written in the newspapers, but instead he is thinking about a similar event where he was a participant, possibly a key player.
          The phone ring has sounded so suddenly that Albert winced, a thing, which was not before. The first thought: who would be this? It's possible by mistake. He jumped up out of the bed. The clock shoved a few minutes after ten. It's time to start morning tea. While he walked to the phone, the call succeeded to cut the morning silence a few times more.               
          -Hello.
          -Hello, Alik.
          Except the parents and wife's friends no one could call him so. He had got rid of his own friends still a few years ago. Why would need them?
          -Who is saying?
          -My name changes nothing and would tell you nothing, - it was cheerful, assured, but not young voice.
          Sakes alive! The number is right, he calls my name correctly, but I don't know him at all.
          -Yet, who I'm speaking with? - Albert knew the value of information and a golden rule of the clever people: not to give it to everyone, because it would be the same thing, as to give a weapon to the enemy in the war.
          -Don't be afraid. I know you so well, if I want to harm, I had a possibility to do it many times already.
          -Why be afraid? I myself can scare whoever! - The habit to talk decently even with an enemy stopped him to add two words: "old goat".
          -I'll give you good advice. When you are angry, you have better to think, what would you do with Sveta if you have a power above her. Believe me, this is more effective, than to count to ten.
          -What Sveta with, - answered Albert trying to pretend a misunderstanding.
          -With Izmailova, she is a young woman, your wive's friend.
          -By chance, whether you know my home address?
          The unknown pronounced Albert's home address enough clearly.
           -So here. Before recognizing these details, it would better recognize, in spite my good profit, but this is less than a critique amount, what starting from, your people could show some interest in me.
          -Yes, if convert it into dollars, it is near two hundred in a month. I agree with you, son. The mafia doesn't interest such earnings, despite a lot of idlers would envy you. Besides, I know ways, how to earn a ten times more, a hundred times more, and you may use it. But this is not essential.
          -And you should have better to get into my soul deeper to understand that I'm very unfit person for this function. That's familiarly: "the money is not the main thing". It is better waster it to shock the mob around, put on an expensive tastelessness, pretending and showing himself like a tough guy, a rogue guy, but above me there would be a ten of those who are more tough, and I would have to walk a tightrope, fearing for myself and for my loved ones, to crawl, to stoop and something like that, et cetera. Maybe you will give me to profit well for a start, for example, to transport the marijuana from the Chu valley somewhere to Samara. Maybe you think, I will jump for joy and go to a pub to drink fake vodka, you think, as if I will put on the duds "Adidas" from head to toe, which will be found fake too most likely. Doesn't occur to you, that you are going to deal with one of those who besides desires to profit, but who never would exchange his freedom, his independence for some money or for some clothes? Even the soviet power could not make me be in a collective. My final conclusion "the society is a herd of beasts" wasn't in their favor. Is it that you look for specially the unfittest man for your so-called "work"? All over there are a lot of cowardly and greedy people who are dissatisfied, because they don't find someone to humble in front of him after the disappearance of the soviet power. Even for my two hundred bucks they would come to you as faithful dogs. Even selling the newspapers, they build their foolish brigades, introducing the same rotten relationship each with the other, which took place in the soviet production collectives. For example, they limited themselves with the railroad section between Moscow and Mytishchi, but I sell between Mytishchi and Aleksandrov, and they believe in the myth, which is invented by themselves, as if I profit less, than them, while I work in the eleven directions on my own choice, but they are limited like the dogs with their section and they bite off each with the other there like dogs too. How they are afraid of your mafia! Assuming, that I would keep a trade tent or a cooperative. I would pay the tribute, certainly within reasonable limits. Eventually I'm sure, that this system of racketeering was created by the ugly native state and its authorities. However, I wouldn't allow to enslave me, and even if you would destroy me one, I would have time to destroy a few ten of you. It is unprofitable to attack me. It will be more problems, than profit.
          He could feel, that someone listens him attentively on the other end of the telephone.
          -Well, what is it? Are you disappointed after this? Have you understood, that you will profit nothing with me?
          -No. I'm glad! You are the same person, that I need. I didn't mistake. I spent my time not in vain! - It seemed, sincere joy sounds in the voice, as from a child.
          -It's interesting, by what a way are you going to make me work for you?
          -No, dear. You will work for yourself, as before.
          -Then you may be offended or not to be offended, but what can I think more? Are you an adherent of the unisexual love, and my personal nature responds your personal sexual scenario, isn't so?
          -Firstly, I say you sincerely, I'm not offended, because I don't condemn such people. Secondly, no and no. Thirdly, I have a girlfriend in the Krasnoyarsk region, I call her "naughty wench", and if you learn how old she is and how old I'm, you will faint. And my relationship with her is enough strange. So this your version is unfounded too.
          -Could you find a girlfriend closer?
          -What is the trouble to have done a flight there and back?
          -However, what if the weather is bad?
          -It is always good for me.
          -You are already showing off.
          -Eventually you will learn it. Not all at once.
          The voice has fallen silent, but the line continued to be held. Albert still considered. The task was difficult to solve. Following the logic, the only thing, it is as if some intelligenñe agency is going to enlist him. In spite of the popular opinion that such things take place only in the movies, but in fact it can be in the real life too. However, what a date disposes he? Every dog knows all the plants and military units around, which are considered as secret ones and they are known without him. And what about his political preferences, the anticommunism, for example, but now it is fashion and nobody would wonder. Maybe, is this his ability to see something what the others don't see? There in the metro. But maybe, do these bitches want to use him like a guinea pig? Maybe, are they going to test a new psychotronic weapon on him? But why have they contacted with him, calling? They could watch him without any interaction. However, if this is an intelligence agency, Albert knew, the world is divided not into rich and poor, even not into different countries. The world is divided into those who affirms the primacy of the collectivity above a personality and into those who thinks on the contrary, that is the personality is put above society. There are the both supporters in every country. These last would be insiders for him and he wouldn't refuse to help them, and no matter what flag they compete under.
          He felt a breathing behind him and turned back. He tried to smile to Nadia who has snuck up to him suddenly, but she was preoccupied and troubled.
          -I heard, in talking you mentioned Sveta.
          -Is this a jealousy?
          -But you know: her boyfriend keeps the cooperative, and a few days ago the mafia troubled him. Are they who is calling?
          -You said, he has roof and he pays them.
          -This is other people. It is going to be a war between the gangs to divide the territory. And he may have to participate in this fighting. Sveta is in a close relationship with him and she may be made to participate in it too.
          -But aren't you too early troubled?
          -However, maybe they are calling to snoop. Who is calling you?
          He wanted to shout "Spies", but stopped just in time. Nadezhda would consider this as a clumsy attempt to turn it into a joke. What if they are his friends in the future, but he is able to disappoint them, doing so. Yet he didn't understand, what means this phoning, but already he was sure that this is not a mafia. Suddenly he remembered, that the interlocutor still is hearing, waiting for him and doesn't slam the phone.
          -Well. However, what do you seek? What is your goal you are calling to me? --
          -I'm your friend, and it's necessary to meet and talk. You have to know all.
          The voice was so much kind, he no way wanted to suspect its possessor in a hostile intention. And if these people will be found harmful with respect to him, what a scums and hypocrites they are!
          -How many of you?
          -I'm alone, like last time? I'm always alone, but now we will be both.
          -What a last time. There was no any last time!
          -I want to see each other in order to you would know all, but don't stay with your questions.
          -So when?
          -Immediately now, at your home. I'm alone. Come to the door and look into the peephole.
          Albert put on the jacket, hid the axe under it. He hid the gas cartridges and the knife in pockets. This knife instantly may be led in the state of readiness, using a button. It was very unlikely, but they could shoot into the peephole. In the future, he can make a homemade a periscope, using mirrors to watch from the corner, this is simple and cheap, but now one may take a risk one time. To be afraid of the wolves - not to go into the forest.
          But as soon as he looked into the peephole, then instantly understood that he has armed in vain. The solution of the so difficult task itself asked to enter at home. Near the door of the flat the same old man nomad from metro stood, but in his hand instead of the box with a strange inscription he kept the cell phone, which using, just now he spoke with him.

                Chapter 3. Visit.

          Albert wide open the door with a sharp movement. There were no any accomplices. The stranger overstepped into, pronouncing surely and clearly:
          -The peace to your home, - then he bowed slightly, putting the cell phone into the large pocket of his blue robe and setting the walking stick in the corner. - Now I have to introduce myself: old man Paul, you may call me just Paul. I prefer to adhere to simple manners and would be happy if you too. Do you have the custom to change shoes, entering?
          -It's not necessary. Outside it's dry and clean now. Just come in, please, - said Nadya, then smiled and turning to her husband:
          -Alik, don't forget to propose the chair to the guest, however it seems, you are flying somewhere in the clouds.
          The wife was happy, because instead all the things in her mind, she imagined one picture worse than another, the guest was similar to nothing of them. However, Albert was wondering more and here's why: there was no doubt that he spoke on the phone only with this old man, the voice was the same. But it was astonished, that the stranger who looks like so outdated, as if he has appeared from another epoch, it's possible, from an epoch, which is similar to the XIX century, but he so well understood Albert's speaking. Albert's manner to speak was a little intricate, a little with slang, modern also a little intelligent, and the old man, understanding all this, answered him opportunely. Regarding to the level of conversation, old Paul would outdo not only his contemporaries, but also Albert's peers. It was in a large contrast to the most foolish layer population who had survived the Great Terror, being at the conscious age. Still on the phone the old man understood him, but speaking with his peers, Albert would have to simplify, to decipher, to explain, just to rub every sentence, because they would get lost even in such terms as right and left. At the same time even there wasn't any shadow of the communistiñ domineering gloss in the guise of the stranger. He would look compatible and harmonious with a lot of the landscapes of the wild nature; he would look naturally against the background of forests, fields, mountains, spending a night near the campfire, walking along a winding and very very long unpaved road, it's possible, the road as long as all his life, where he would undergo the severe caresses of the terrestrial nature, sometimes praying or meditating. However, in an office of any soviet institution he would look like a polar bear in the Caribbean sea. His movements were sure and young, his look was expressive and animate; if to dye his hair and hide his wrinkles, he would look like a man forty year old, but being without embellishment he looked that he had overstepped the sixty year old mark long ago.
          -Well, sit down, old Paul, be my guest, - pronounced Albert without any irony, coming into the kitchen and extending the chair to him.
          -I came while the presence of the hostess intentionally, - the stranger started, looking at Nadia. Because if I come when you are alone, this would look like we intend to do something suspect thing. A few things I can tell you in her presence, but not all.
          -I don't keep secrets from her.
          Looking at him, the old man has given to understand, that he doesn't believe. Nadezhda failed to remark something, because he has done this quickly and carefully. Right away his face took the previous expression.
          -Something must be kept in secret from her, just for her security.
          -Excuse me, I'm going to interrupt you, - suddenly Nadia started to talk. - Does this relate somehow to my friend Svetlana or to her boyfriend's business?
          -I swear that not at all. This situation, which you are afraid of, it can be overcome lightly, like a bothersome gnat.
          -However, talking with you, Alik said Sveta's name.
          -I'll tell you where is the point. May I tell you all in turn? I've come here not to take, but to give something. I am sick with a fatal and incurable disease, sooner or later everyone of you will be sick with this disease.
          The listeners pricked up their ears.
          -This disease is called the oldness.
          There was a sigh of relief. Albert understood that the old man is right. And he felt a little annoyance against himself, that he never guessed from such a paradoxical point, also from such an accurate point of view to take a look at the being.
          -Let the hostess doesn't think, as if I hide from answers. Sveta's turn will come. But firstly about the life. About the terrestrial life. Certainly, I've learnt many things during my life, but this is not enough for the Buddha's level. Quite possible my view on the terrestrial life differs from your one, but we are similar in one point: THE TERRESTRIAL LIFE CONTINUES TO INTRIGUE US. It was recommended to the most of people by most experienced teachers to adhere that level of the development, where they are, but to take their time and not to pretend Buddha or Christ.
          The terrestrial life intrigues me as the most interesting spectacle. For example, I consider the suicide like throwing the chess pieces off the board at the most interesting instant of the game. And apparently, God considers the same. If the Creator doesn't wish to continue this interesting game, the suicide wouldn't be a sin. And those knowledges, which I gained with such a great effort, if I take them away into the eternity, into the information field, without enabling them to come to light on the Earth, this divine game will lose a few interesting moves. The conclusion is simple: I must share my some secret knowledge with someone.
          The Lord gave us such wonderful intellect, the intuition, not in order to find an invaluable treasure and to give this treasure to the first passerby, but it is able to become a terrible weapon in anybody's hand.
          So, hostess, you may be proud of your husband. He proved to be the most right person from the very large lot of people. He alone from the large lot of people is worthy being my successor, whom I should bequeath this great secret doctrine. To make such conclusion, I had to learn about him very much, it's possible, even more, than he himself knows. To know about him, one has to know about all his entourage, in the first place about you, about his parents, also about your friends. I know dark-haired Sveta, quick-sighted Valia and freckled Lena. I know what takes place Tolik's cooperative, he is Sveta's boyfriend. And I will help to solve this problem. What about the secret doctrine, one may compare it with the nuclear bomb. It brings both: a great power and ability, but if don't treat it carefully, then it would bring the great danger.
          -How did you succeed to check such large quantity of the people? - Albert asked.
          -Also there in the underground. You and a few persons else succeeded to pass quite a simple test: MY HYPNOSIS DID NOT INFLUENCE ON THEM. I inspired people as if I and the box didn't exist. The people who put the money into the box did it mechanically, without thinking, and they put in such a quantity, which afterwards wouldn't be remarked. I know and possess much more effective ways to gain the money, but my principal target was to test a great lot of people during the week. To be able not to succumb to hypnosis, this is the most valuable capability. If all the humanity possesses it, no communism and no fascism would be possible. Even nobody would can crucify Christ, because in that case they would know what they did, and the initiators of the execution would turn out in the minority. But in fact, they didn't know what they did, but instead them someone other knew this. During all such cases the crowds were in a state of the mass psychosis. A distorted perception of the reality was suggested them long ago and is suggested them in our epoch. But to suggest it to you is practically impossible.
          -However, why had I fainted?
          -I switched off your consciousness. This is much more easily, than to suggest some rubbish. I had to stop you, otherwise you could have messed things, and as a result, in the press a few of the publications would appear about anomalies in the metro, and this would be very malapropos.
          -But what is that cop would disable me with his official stick?
          -In such a case he would lose balance and would fall not quite successfully. Not fatal, but he would not can stand up during long time.
          So you possess this great gift: IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO SUGGEST A RUBBISH FOR YOU. And possessing this, you become worthy of possessing other gifts, which give the puissance. You would apply this great force not under anybody's influence, but only on your own initiative. So nobody would can use you in his targets, like a weapon.
          -And what about those, the others who did not succumb to your hypnosis? There were a few persons else.
          -Two of them were unstable. If they have the terrible weapon, then imagine what they are able to do, being in a passion! One of them is not clever enough. But here is the fourth, I took note of him. It may be, somewhen he will become your successor. He is inspiring, but still he is very young and without experience. The life will be teaching him a long time until he will reach your level, then one will may begin to work with him.
          During the conversation, Nadezhda prepared the tea and listened to them with attention and astonishment. Already she has poured the tea into the cups for the three persons and after all she asked:
          -Alik, why didn't you tell me about the metro?
          -What for, is it to leave you in the painful meditation, either am I a crazy or a lucky contactor it is not known whom with?
          -You could even tell me it gradually, in order I could gain an insight into.
          -He himself yet only begins to gain an insight into, - interfered the old man.
          The doorbell rang suddenly.
          -This is Sveta. In the morning she said that will come.
          -For the benefit of causes, in order she not to see me sooner, than in a high time, I'm going to hide in the bathroom. Is there someone who is against this?
          -Nobody.
          The old man grabbed the walking stick and came into the bathroom and turned on the water. But he didn't lock the door.
          -How it's possible to hide by such a way! - Albert whispered with annoyance. 
          Finally the door was opened. This was Sveta really. Her facial expression was anxious.
          -Hi. Oh, just I slid so unfortunately and I've soiled my hands. I'm going to wash them, - saying this, she headed to the bathroom.
          Already it was late to stop her. In a mental manner they reproached themselves already, because they missed the instant and didn't say to Sveta to go to the kitchen, where is a faucet too. As if by inertia, they both rushed to the bathroom. Sveta was washing her hands as if nothing had happened and looked at them with astonishment. Excepting her there was nobody in the bathroom. And in the kitchen there were three incomplete cups of tea on the table. In an unnoticeable manner Nadia poured out the content of one of them and set the cup in the cupboard together with the saucer.

                Chapter 4. Not for the faint.

           Sveta, would you like to drink tea together? - Nadya asks her when she came out from the bathroom. -Thank you. I had breakfast already. I need you very much now. I've decided to buy a tracksuit for the summer, but I would not like to go alone in the shop. It would better go together with you. Also, we have to talk. I hope I may stay home, isn't so? - Albert asked. Yes, even it will be better to stay, answered Nadya and right away turned to Sveta. - He knows, just I told him. Did he invent something?
          -Still no, - Albert interfered. - But in general the scheme is simple, and it's clear what to do, but it's not clear how. Can you wait for tomorrow? I have to rethink all the received information, but recently... one my former familiar has called me and mixed up all my thinking.
          -Tolik will have to pay them in two weeks.
          -Then don't worry, - Albert comforted.
          Meanwhile Nadya was finishing her sandwich, drinking tea. Already before the old man's visit, she has managed to become ready. Soon the both women friends came to the door. Coming out, Sveta has taken look at him. May be she kept her look during a little fraction of a second more than properly, maybe the expression of her eyes was a little another, however, she has given to understand, that she is not indifferent with respect to him, and he has understood this signal clearly.
          If he begins to flirt with Sveta, even at worst, if he is very talkative, and it to be often so, hardly this will lead to a grave breach with his wife. It maybe, a little quarrel, soon after which all will fall into place. Only he didn't want to ruin their friendship. It was pleasant to look at them, that is at all the four. In our epoch such unshadowed relationship between friends forms very rarely, despite the fact that they never sacrificed something considerable for each other and nobody had to to bail someone of them from out a serious trouble, unless only now maybe something is going to be. He felt, that from his point of view necessary prerequisite for the happiness it was keeping of peace between all of them. However, it would be problematically to follow just this condition, just this prevented him to do the first step.
          The door was slammed.
          -Your Alik talks, using such idioms that it's difficult to understand him, Sveta's voice sounded in the staircase.
          -At first I thought too that he shows off, but then I'd learnt that it's difficult for him to speak in a simple manner, - answered Nadya. - Even if he tries pretend in a simple, it will not work out quite smoothly. Every day I hear from him that in our country to be clever is unworthy, but everyone has better to be himself and even if he has to pretend for a cause, then it's harmful to do it long time.
          It was heard how the elevator caused by them has arrived, how its door has closed. Now the elevator moved down again, carrying the women friends away onto the ground floor. Albert moved off the door. Now the annoyance added to everything, because Sveta with her visit has interrupted the conversation what formed so interesting. He opened wide the door of the bathroom. The old man stood there, like nothing happened, and was smiling. Albert rejoiced over him, like over a friend.
          -Well, let's continue our conversation having tea.
          -I'll not refuse. Now nobody will disturb to tell you what I was going.
          -Explain me, why this time the hypnosis worked so that not only my wife succumbed to it, but I did too? Are you disappointed that nevertheless I was influenced with your hypnosis?
          -No, I'm not. Because this time was no any hypnosis. But this was the same main thing, which you have better to hide from all your intimates for their own security.
          The interlocutors sat down at the table.
          -Paul, are you from a circus by any chance, isn't you?
          -No, I'm not a conjurer. The trick is an illusion, but I use the real features of nature, which, thank God, are still unknown to the science. However, I'm an artist. To say more exact, I'm a hereditary actor. My parents were actors in one not great theatre in the town Tobolsk. But since the year 1914 all had gone awry. My father perished in the First World War in France. When the enemy used chemical weapon, he got into a cloud of the phosgene. My mother died because of the typhoid fever after the Civil war. They died being still young, on the other hand, they didn't see that hell, which was established after.
          -However, you don't even look like seventy.
          -It will be better if I show the passport.
          Saying this, he took the passport from his pocket. In fact, there was his face in the photo, really his name was Paul, the year of birth was 1898, and the birthplace was the town of Tobolsk. As you see, - he continued, - I'm well preserved and because of this I have retrieved me even more of health, than the Soviets attempted to deprive from me. Nineteen years I spent in the prison camps. I'm ninety four and in November I'll be ninety five. My signs are the Dog, the Scorpio, already I've overstepped the limit, where one doesn't know how many years else he will be alive, one or fifty. Do you understand, why I hurry to bequeath my knowledge and abilities?
          Albert has nodded without words.
          -Have you thought already, what an unhappy type am I, haven't you? asked he smiling? You are mistaken. I'm one of few happy persons in the world. So, with almost nobody I would want to exchange with my destiny. Not only because I believe when I die, my "I" will be alive eternally. My life took place on the hills: all the way the descents, the steep rises, the sharp turns. Joseph Brodsky was right, writing: "The death, this is a flat plain, but the life is hills and hills..." If I didn't get over all these trials, then I would learn nothing. Then, even if by miracle I survived until this age, I would be a piece of shit now, but not the same like you are seeing me now.
          Albert was admired because of the new friend, but tried to keep his countenance. Finally, he asked:
          -However, when you were in my age, you faced the disasters at each step, nobody came and gave you the knowledge and the power. Does it mean that I'm lucky more?
          -If the Lord allows, in order this force would be brought to you, that's means you will have to fight against a very might enemy. As usual, God leaves you the freedom of choice, and the gift what you will get from me, you will able including for evil too. But I'm an optimist and I feel that such a thing will never occur.
          -I guess, it's much probable that teaching will take many years, wouldn't it?
          -You will possess this gift as soon as will understand its essence. To explain it to you it would be possible during a few minutes, however, this is not like the Pythagorean theorem. But there aren't such words in any language, even in Sanskrit, to explain this phenomenon, using the logic. I will push you to the idea, provoking appropriate vibes in your consciousness, in order, one day you might exclaim "Eureka!", like Archimedes. All this will take a few weeks. If you are lucky, it will take two weeks. Certainly, you have guessed, this thing concerns neither hypnosis, nor telepathy, hasn't you?
          -I'm beginning to understand it. Already you told about the hypnosis in front of my wife and at the same time you mentioned about a knowledge, a might, which the information may be insecure about. That means, there is something else.
          -Here is this "something" I'm going to show you now. I'll comment after. Firstly I'll show. I will try to do it more slowly. Watch it attentively. I hope, you aren't one of the faint.
          Paul stood up from the chair. Firstly, it seemed, as if he would try to remember something. Then his face became concentrated, and this concentration increased all the way. Standing in the same place, as if he would go away, sinking into his inner world, like a student who would be solving a very difficult task at the limit of his abilities. Then he extended his hand forward, as if he would point at the gas stove.
          -Look at the palm, not at the place it points at. Don't be frightened, in spite of a terrible thing you could see now. This is not more terrible, than the X-raying, - Paul's voice sounded now, as through a dream.
          Suddenly the palm started to shorten, like it shortens while the submersion into the water. However, there was no some limit. In the place of the disappearing hand it was the same air, the same smell, there was all the same, however, at the same time there one could see some difference. The hand was immersing somewhere, but it immerged in some non-existence. Albert ran a little quick to see from the other side in front, where the hand was disappearing, near one foot from the invisible plane what was devouring the hand. O God! The old man's limb was as if cut away with filigree precision. Such an amputation could be done only with a laser. All of things were visible: the meat. the bones, the blood vessels. Along some of them the dark-red blood flowed into as if "from here", appearing from a non-existence. Along others vessels the scarlet blood flowed "to here", it didn't flow outward, but disappeared, reaching the plain, where the non-existence was beginning. Overbearing this, difficult to say, but unpleasant feeling, Albert touched the exposed entrails of the hand. There was a feeling, as if would touch a glass. He tried to encompass non strongly the disappearing hand with his palm from one side from it. Here is the plane already. As soon as the fingers, keeping the hand, went further than the plane was, they began to feel the emptiness, and soon the fist closed. He took a look at the hand again, in the enigmatic plane the sleeve of the robe was disappearing in the same manner. Again the voice sound, as through a dream:
          -You have better to see in the room under the bed.
          It was awful! Under the bed, as if out of the wall appeared the hand, however, from the wall to the hand was near one third of a foot. Joking, Albert shook the hand, which appeared from the non-existence.
          -Hello, hello, - sound the voice from the kitchen.
          Now the hand was protruding faster. Albert let go the hand and ran into the kitchen. Now the old man made an impression of a man who is cut in two parts, not with a train, but with a laser and in addition to all this alive and feeling excellent. His head was gone into the non-existence, and now sound the voice from the room:
          -In general, you have understood the mechanism, and now I can  climb over faster, - saying this, he stepped further into the "plane of the disappearance" finally taking with him his leg too.
          When Alfert ran into the room, the old man Paul already got out under the bed.
                Chapter 5. A lecture.
          Albert was shocked and glad. And how! Even the ball lightning, what a trifle it would be in comparing with this! In spite of the all his erudition still he cannot "calculate" quickly, how such a thing works. It was the miracle, not a dream. He knew simple ways to determine, is this a dream or the reality, and they were more  effective than to pinch himself. He has multiplied in the mind both three-digit numbers, which have come in mind, after this he attempted to square these numbers, checked them, using the calculator. If to do so while a dream, one can obtain nothing, even if this is obtained, one will stop sleeping without doubt, because of the great load on the psyche, certainly if he is not a somnambulist or a junkie. He was neither first, nor second. Consequently, it wasn't a dream. His emotions were comparable with child's ones, whose poor parents suddenly have presented him the most interesting computer game with the capability almost without limits. Even if he himself never can do "this", he would give much to watch and to learn this phenomenon, even let only to read about it. When he got over the shock of this, his first question was:
          -Can you do this far?
          -Have you understood now, why it for me doesn't matter at all, whether the weather is appropriate to fly or it isn't, when I'm climbing over or, if you prefer, I'm shifting here from the Krasnoyarsk region and back.
          -However, you can with the same way to travel to America, can't you?
          -And what? I visit it often, especially in New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco. If I have a wish, I can go for a stroll in Europe or I "climb over" to the wild nature starting from Yenisei River and ending to the Amazon River.
          -Can you move into the cosmos?
          -You have asked the question obviously without thinking. There is a vacuum! That envelope of the air what moves together with you, it would evaporate and you would burst instantly like a flounder, which is lifted to the water surface. It would be the death. Secondly, the place you are going to visit, you have to imagine it clearly. Thirdly, regarding the cosmos, possessing these capabilities, it isn't difficult for me to steal a spacesuit, which is intended for this. But I'm not sure about its strength. -
          -However, the body doesn't break down.
          -When you succeed in it in the first time, don't climb over too much, that is more than three times in a day. When I'd learnt to move, using this way, at the instant of moving I felt nothing, but a few hours later there is the ache in the bones. If to do it many times, I guess, it's possible to fall ill. But near one month later the body adapts. The thing is as if flection a very little angle happens to unknown us dimensions. Microdeformation it passes through all the body like a wave, through every its cell. It doesn't matter for the soft tissues, but the bones must adapt. If to do it in the space suit, the metal parts can take fail to pass these deformations. Metal is more solid than bones, but little cracks can provoke the depressurization, then even in the best case it would be as the bends, the psyche would be deranged, because of the oxygen starved, and you couldn't return back.
          -Do these abilities depend only on the mental state? I saw, you didn't need any special equipment.
          -Did Christ need any special equipment to walk on the water? And a simple fisherman Peter, who just started to learn from him, he could repeat this miracle too, but as soon as his psyche began to work in an undesirable direction, he started to sink. Here you will neither sink nor get stuck. Either you wouldn't succeed, but if you have already begun to move and got stuck, a little force will push you either there, where you are going to climb over, or back. The humanity knows since the ancient world that we can not only control the adrenaline level in the blood, imagining terrible things, or the noradrenaline, remembering enemies. This isn't written in the textbooks of physics, but until recently there had been neither your namesake Einstein's theory, nor the quantum mechanics. The last by the way affirms, all who studied it know this, that consuming or emitting a portion of the energy, for example, the electron moves from one level to another one, disappearing in one place and appearing in another one.
          -I well know this. I can tell about the tunnel effect. A little ball rolling on the table most likely it will hop on a razor blade, which protrudes above the table, let's suppose, one millimeter. But if to run it very much time, for example, the number of repeating expressed in unity with twenty seven zero times to do it, one time it will go through the blade without jumping or damaging the blade.
          -I mentioned the quantum mechanics only to show that if one and a half hundreds years ago someone tells about its miracles, nobody would believe and they would consider the scientific facts as the ravings of a crazy. Certainly, in the macro world appropriate laws valid and now I'm going to try to explain, what occurs while such an exchange of the place as far as my amateurish knowledge in the physics gives me the possibility to do it.
          The kettle, forgotten by them, began to belch the boil water on the stove and a little on the flame. Albert jumped up and started to brew strong tea in a mechanical manner. Into the porcelain teapot he poured three teaspoons of tea with slide.
          -Oh, you've just calculated for me! Still in the prison camp, I got used to drink chifir; after the liberation, I drank it more than a year, then I saw that the chifir not better than a hard work: it wears down. I reduced the dose and everything fell into place. I guess even it's good for the health if drink the tea moderately, it removes toxins from the body, the blood ceases to stagnate.
          -I drank the chifir never, however, since the teenage I drink two teaspoons per teapot without diluting, it turns out one teaspoon per glass. Today, in honor our meeting, I've brewed a little stronger, three spoons instead two ones. Caffeine is the only drug I afford.
          -This is one reason more, because of which my choice fell on you.
          -You promised to explain this from the physical point of view.
          -You are right. It would be better to tell all consistently, without jumping from one to another. Now, the modern cosmology guesses, that the Creation consists of enough complicated geometric structure numbering eleven dimensions, that is mutually perpendicular directions. We know only three of them: the length, the width and the high. We don't feel and don't know other dimensions, however, they are amenable to mathematical calculations. As you understand, to mark the third dimension on a plane, which consists of two dimensions, we have to go beyond this plane and to mark the high. But we don't know how "to fly out" of the space, even to mark the fourth dimension. We don't know, how do it physically and whether is possible to do it. We cannot even imagine the world of four dimensions, but it's more, because we haven't such an experience. But in addition, as the scientists guess, this figure of the Creation is coiled very much. Imagine a wire a few miles long and it's coiled on the coil, the winding with turns touching. Along the wire the distance can be several miles, but between the turns only millimeters. And now imagine a very thin "winding" where the distance between turns calculated in angstroms. Also not only the "winding" is coiled, but the same coil. And not only the coil, but the figure, which has formed. Don't require a stretch of your imagination, it would be to trouble yourself in vain. Only two factors: the multidimensionality and the coiling, they both give to transform faraway things into the close ones. A lot of directions give a possibility to transform all or almost all far things into the close ones. If along one of directions still is very far, even between the turns, but thanks to the multiplicity of the choice it's always possible to find a close way. So, objects, even in the galaxies, which are removed from us a lot of millions light years, they can be closer to us than we both each from other sitting here at the table. And even the popular press already wrote about this.
          My ability to climb over hither and thither is a great trump card in favor this hypothesis. It' such a feeling as if would climb in and out through a windows leaf or through any other trapdoor. I need very little energy for this, it's independent of distance. The telekinesis demands much more of the energy. Still, I didn't succeed in it. Using the mind, I cannot move even an empty matchbox. I can move only a match head. To move something more hard, there aren't enough of the forces. But here all occurs easily. The main thing, this is to catch an appropriate state of mind. If a boxer has to improve the blow, you have to improve the psyche.
          -But how to do it?
          -I'm going to give you an example now and it will help to explain if not all, then very much of what you have to know. Imagine that you are sleeping and you see in the dream, as if you are in the Yaroslavsky Railway Station in Moscow, you must go home and the last electric train is departing. What will you do in the dream?
          -Certainly, I'll try to run faster to this train. Wait... It seems, I'm starting to guess where the shoe pinches, - said Albert, rejoicing because of the unexpected conjecture, even standing up from the chair.
          -It would be better if this is me who will explain. People say: "repetition is the mother of learning". If you think in the same manner as you are used to think, you will stay in the same place. In your position, I wouldn't care about this train, and let it go away. But I'll try to imagine clear my flat, my wife, the atmosphere at home, that set of the emotions, thoughts which appears while the returning at home at this late hour. I would imagine, how I'm climbing over through an invisible limit into the kitchen or into the room, even into the toilet of my home and... I'll appear there in the twinkling of an eye.
          -But it's only in the dream.
          -Yes, the astral matter is light and pliant, and you can make of it all that you prefer, create and dissipate images. Its images are vague and undetermined clear. The physical material is more solid and leaden, especially the macro world, but only quantify. The macro world is more exact. This is a world of the hard materials and high energy. It demands high energy. I said already, a fact helps me that really almost all the things are situated very close. Actually, there is not the shortest distance in the Universe, which would be measured even in thousands miles. The resistance of the medium what I climb through, it's insignificant too: even to climb over a fence is harder. We possess the strong material muscles, we can walk, run, climb over a fence, lift the loads and there isn't problem with the energy. The problem is in exactness. I mean an accuracy of the imagination. You have to learn to imagine exactly the process of displacement, also the place where you move to. To climb over the space you have to "hit the ten ring". And if you miss, that's would be only astral images, only dreams, but in the reality you would stay in the same place. So you have to train, to try to remember the form, the color, the quantity and the arrangement of objects after taking a fleeting look.
          However, still this isn't all. When you are shooting, you see the target, you know where to direct the gun. And here you have to "shoot" accurately, but the "target" is not visible, and already I said this about. One can accurately point the direction of the shot and the distance, but it's impossible to describe the appropriate state of mind in meters and in angular degrees. Also, I can't give you a drawing or a photo of the state of my soul when I do it. Only shooting many times in the target, which isn't visible, one day you will hit. Then you will fail many times else, after this you will hit the target again. And you will hit more and more often, till you will succeed failure-free all the way.
          -As well as I've understood, there are three things. The first: one must train new habits while thinking and get rid of the old ones. The second: to train the exact imagination and the capability to interpret seen picture more exact. The third: by the way of the trial and error I have to adjust an appropriate condition of mind to succeed, which still I don't know, haven't I?
          -There is a very good compliment for an apprentice if I say that I'm easy with him. You have understood the theme right, but missed one thing.
          -What a thing?
          -The technology of safety.
 
                Chapter 6. Siberia as a part of the Soviet.

          Albert lost in thought, as if remembered something, then he asked:
          -Paul, was it long ago, when you had learnt this?
          -I was released from a prison camp, being fallen under the wholesale amnesty in the 1953. I liked a place situated not far. I had learnt there was a cheap house selling at the edge of a village. I liked a place situated not far. I had learnt there was a cheap house selling at the edge of a village. It occurred to me to sell my house in Tobolsk and leave for this hinterland to live out my life here. I knew that a hut would be cheaper here, and that time I needed the money very much. To say what I passed through, it could write a second "The Gulag Archipelago". The human being is imperfect and my wish was to revenge. Experiencing such things without hope to stay alive, from the very beginning I was guilty of a nothing. They accused me, like many other people, of espionage, this was the absurd accusation of that time. I was not lucky, because I was arrested in an epoch when the bloody terror still didn't reach such a scale, and I was among a few of the unlucky persons who was also "honoured". Then, as it became clear, in reality I was lucky, even I was lucky very much. If my arrest occurred three-four years after, I would be shot. But, how Mandelshtam's widow said one day, the time was still "vegetarian" one. They still haven't killed Kirov to justify their repression in front of the public. I was given ten years, and in the prison camp, they added me a few of years more. I joined to the thieves in law to survive. Till now, I don't understand, why was I liked by them, and it's possible, I'll never know it. But I guess, as in all the Soviet society, for example, one person can wriggle into the collective without problem, another person may be cleverer, even stronger, tries to enter in the given society with all his might, attempts to imitate them in everything, but all the same all others say: "He's not our". I understood it only in old age. Using the herd traditions of the people, the state-monster watches everyone, by dint of the same people. It would be enough no police, neither a secret police nor apparent one. It wouldn't be enough any money, but this isn't necessary. The people-flock grazes itself, rejecting those who has dared to differ from others with something, even if it wasn't willfully.
          It occurred so that my behavioral stereotype, my habits, such external manifestations as the gait, facial expression didn't go beyond their standards. It occurred that those whom I was afraid the most, they became my protectors in spite that they rare favoured people not out of their caste, and before I didn't expect anything good from them. But after this, the state decided to make some adjustments in its system of the slavery. Did you hear anything about the bitches' war?
          -Where is anyone who wouldn't hear about it now?
          -The permanent malnutrition, the hard work, the cold, the danger intrigues, the nostalgia for freedom, all this continued during a lot of years. All this impacted negatively the state of mind of everyone in a different manner, depending on the heredity. I started to note the changes too: clear dreams, presentiments, which often came true, the others' mind reading, an inadequate internal reaction to current events, a sense of force and power, which I didn't possess as it seemed, however I felt that I possess a treasure, as if I would forget where is its place.
          Autumn of the 1949. This day was to become a last day in my life. At night the turnkeys gave agreement in order the "bitches" would murder everyone in our hut of the thieves in law. That day the atmospheric pressure dropped sharply. I knew this by the improvement of health, as if in my body some channels had opened, which were locked before, and some vital juices, up to this point being locked, now they started to flow through these channels, correcting unknown disorders in the organism. Usually, I avoided confiding to others about my condition, but that time suddenly, I had burst into babbling and proclaimed that today something awful is going to take place and only I will be in security, and I advised to others to arm and not sleep at night. "Hey, you, Artist, whether you are going crazy?", - something like this I was answered, verbatim I don't remember. Artist - was my nickname in the prison camp. Remembering suddenly, that I had better don't confide, I shifted of subject: "Maybe the weather is going to change". "Here this seems less like a bullshit already. I feel it's going to rain", - said a knower of the folk omens. Towards evening all the sky was clouded. I prayed, at first as usual, after in other languages, how one pentecostal taught me. I finished with the pray "Our Father".
          After supper, a thought occurred to me, like a fixed idea, I don't know, where it appeared from: "Your salvation is near the wash-hand basin, your salvation is near the wash-hand basin..."
          The "bitches" with long knives had broken into near at one o'clock in the night, exceeding us by quantity and arming. Also, the suddenness a great role played. All took place like at the cinema or like in a dream: the brutal faces of the murderers, pattering, the swearing, howling, the blood, hits, flashing of blades. One of those who preferred to spit into the face of the death, when it is looking his eyes, he had hacked one of the "bitches" with an axe. I don't know how, but he was killed too, because except me nobody stayed alive in this hut. I guess, that time I petrified like a pillar. I came to myself because of a voice: "Look at him! Artist! Fucken crud! He is laying down like a dog, as if watching a movie. Kill him! Someone answered: he is not a thief, but only their cleaner. But the first voice insisted swearing: "He is in concert with them. He will canary to other thieves about us. Cut this scum!"
          Suddenly I've jumped up, as if I would be electric and switched on. And in the same time I felt the force and easiness, and I've rushed to the wash-hand basin. I don't know till now, whether I saw it or imagined very much clear, this nook near two hundred meters from our hut, which was situated not far from the industrial premises, where we drank the chifir often. And this well studied place, which I was every day in, that instant, it had seemed to me, as it's in a greenish rectangle as tall as a man. Running I jumped into this rectangle and disappearing here... I appeared there.
          The rain with a fury fell on me from above. Also, with a fury the storm thundered, but in spite of this, the sounds were heard of the swearing, of the death cry and breaking glass. It was nowhere to hide from the rain. As well as I remember, the air temperature was near plus ten. While I ran to the wash-hand basin, someone succeeded to sting me with a knife, but slightly, and now I felt the injury, to say truth, a scratch on the side, already it bled not heavily, but obstinately. After ending the rain, it continued bleeding near two hour else, and this gave to my clothes an awesome bloodstained look. I was lying a few of hours, shivering because of the cold, and although it rained only near one hour, I got soaked to the skin. It was impossible to return. I could become a victim of everyone, also, how to sleep together with thirty deads, whom death was violent! Towards morning I dozed off.
          I woke because of the dog's teeth and turnkeys' calls, however looking at my bloodstained clothes, they understood that I was wounded and threw me in the prison hospital situated in the same camp. A lot of the prisoners got off here from the hard labor, in addition working was considered as a shame for the thieves, also a lot of them saved themselves from the prison intrigues and quarrels, the end of which would be the death with a high probability. They reached here, sometimes after eating nails or cutting their veins, or using a lot of other ways. The extreme conditions provoked people's ingenuity.
          Although the blood loss was noticeable, the wound healed fast, and the people thought that some of these days I'd be discharged. However, when during a few of days I had a lot of sleep and got over the trauma, the wound began to fester. In spite of the fact that the wound wasn't very dangerous, the dangers came at all from another side: the pneumonia.
          During a few of months I was between the life and death. Sometimes the disease receded, sometimes it led me down to a line, if to cross it, it would be impossible to return into this world. Just as they are going to discharge me from, a new wave of the illness knocked me down. The illness as if didn't want to let me go. This continued till the spring. I was discharged from the hospital in the end of April. I don't know why, but I believed that the end of all this will be good, and this faith gave to my body to withstand and even to strengthen.
          I tried to analyze the events. But there wasn't anyone to tell. At once I understood, that I could escape out of the camp prison in this manner, but whether is possible to do the same over long distances? Abroad? Had that occurred accidentally? Is that such a thing may occur only in an extreme situation, while the probability of this is one millionth? Will repeat this once more?
          By way of the trial and error, thinking many years, remembering, analyzing, comparing, collecting in crumbs information, which wasn't published, but only the gossip, the whispering, thus a coherent theory became formed gradually. Being in your age, I didn't understand at all these sciences as the physics and mathematics, but in the given case I had to connect including with them.
          This wasn't a coercion. The cognition, seeking of the truth, this became for me as the most interesting game. What a happiness took place! As if I all my life I would be at home between four walls without knowledge that something exists on the outside, but here as if I would come out and set foot on the wonderful and immense Earth and new and new views of the horizon would be opening in front of me.
          By coming out the prison camp to freedom, I had to be distracted in favor of the everyday problems. As I was going to do, I had sold the house in Tobolsk, where I lived before, and had bought one here, not far from the place I was jailed, near fifty miles.
          So, still I didn't tell you this. I wanted to revenge, after gaining such awful and exotic experience, I'd noted that the best revenge would be to go aside and to watch how the enemies will to destroy each other. I liked the house at the edge, this wasn't accidental. I thought to use it only for a while. More and more I studied to live in the taiga. More and more often I went away and more and more rare I returned back. More and more far I receded into the taiga.
          However, nobody knew where I went and why. In such villages often a person may be eaten, certainly, in a figurative sense, that is they are making him go away or to prison. Howsoever I fawned over them, howsoever I flattered them, sooner or later the end will be bad. But I immediately let them know, this is not their business, how I live, breathe, who I get laid with and what I think about.
          Of course, I would be an object of the persecution number one for them. A lot of the hooligans, cops, turnkeys' sons and the soviet barrators (such a type of people exists too) lived there. This top of people was diluted by ordinary persons, who kept the tail between their legs and trimmed the sails to the wind. One could understand them. Only so one had to keep himself to survive. There was impossible to understand who whom is a friend and who whom is an enemy. Being drunk, he could swear to you by the friendship and fidelity, but a half hour after to tell to another drinking companion what a goat you are. They could break a rib or a jaw each other, but the next day drink vodka together. More than once, such an event took place that one neighbor contributed to imprison another. After being a few years in prison, he came out to the freedom, and they kindly greeted each with other in spite of the fact that such a thing could repeat. While the public holiday, there the drunkenness and scuffles with neighbor villages took place all the way. In the best case it ended in a hospital, in worst in a prison camp. If I lived there constantly, they would be happy to tear me. But every time when they intended to catch me, they caught the air. I escaped. I didn't stay there even for a single holiday. I put the money what I had acquired by selling the house in Tobolsk on a savings account in Krasnoyarsk. It was enough of it to take trips in Krim a few times, to improve my health after the prison camps. It's possible, you would like to ask me, why I didn't use my new talent to escape away from the camp. At the second time I had succeeded to do it only in the 1955 year, and that time I already governed the process consciously, and since the spring of the 1957 year I have been doing it constantly, and my ability works trouble-free, it's more reliable than a car.
          -Did you try to count, - Albert asked, - how many times in a day you climbed, as you say, over the space as over a fence? On average?
          -I've understood what are you saying about. On average, the number is a two - digit and it's closer to 10 than to 99. I cannot say more exactly. I didn't guess from the very beginning to keep records of this.
          -That means, you climbed over at least 130000 times.
          -And nothing of bad occurred, did you want to ask this about? We still didn't reach the technology of safety, however, I'm going to say this. And talking, it would be convenient for us don't climb, like over the space, but to move consistently and continuously. And If I have begun to tell about Siberia, let me tell the essential until the end, skipping the details.
          So, the situation in the large village became strained. In the Khrushchev thaw the brawlers let go a little their instincts, and the fights between habitants of the village became more fierce. A lot of them left for the cities: Krasnoyarsk, Achinsk, Abakan. Among the rest of the men in the quarrels the knives, axes, even the hunting rifles were used. All this occurred during the boozes. Being sober, they were cowardly like the hares. If before, the criminal proceedings initiated because of the hooliganism, now they went to prison for the grievous bodily harm or for murder. The congregation of the worst stinkers thinned more and more.

               Chapter 7. The secret weapon is in action.

          To the 1960 year, they rallied behind a physically strong and outrageous scoundrel nicknamed Balda, twenty five years old. Thanks to my constant escaping to the taiga, a habit to persecute me didn't be formed among the local scoundrels, except that they considered me like a strange and laughable person. However, this type payed special attention to me. Maybe the same devil pointed him at me, but as it seemed me, he himself couldn't give an articulate explanation of his actions, even under torture, why he needed so much to destroy me.
          He had connections with turnkeys øò åðó surrounding prison camps, also with local cops and with the patrolman. Despite the fact that he not only looked like a retard, but he was like that in fact, however, this didn't preclude his ability to flatter those who one may get a protection from, but to humiliate and subjugate the rest of the inhabitants.
          Balda had a sidekick nicknamed Black. He was nicknamed so for the color of his hair. Balda was a blond. Balda it was a nickname of the village, but Black was a nickname of the prison camp. He was ten years older than Balda and already was in the prison camp a few times. To say about his ability to fight, he was a little weaker than Balda, but it was compensated by his influence in prisons, in spite of the fact that still he wasn't a thief in law, but only a "muzhik". It was the most probably, because one day he was suspected as if he could be a rat, that is as if he had stolen something from his sidekicks in prison camp. Unlike Balda, Black despised the cops and in the best case he pretended as if he wouldn't note them. It couldn't be by another way. The difference between them in many respects gradually turned them from friends into rivals, from rivals into secret enemies, from secret enemies into explicit ones. The power struggle between them may compared with Shakespeare's tragedies by the intensity if subtract from them all remainders of the nobleness. The local inhabitants much suffered because of them, not only because of their fists. It would be a long time to tell, a few of persons became crippled, a few of other persons spoiled their lives in other ways, in the main because of the imprisonment. There were cases of the family destruction, of the disappointments in life and even one suicide.
          Balda's father, my peer, was an NKVD's snitch in Stalin's epoch. It's probable, his son stayed unchallenged for his tricks many times, thanks to memory about father's past connections. And he also had one passion: to save up money. The result of this circumstance was so, while Black spent on drink all what he had stolen, Balda spent on drink a part of the stolen things too, but another part was hidden in the chest or spent to get dressed better. Because of their stupidity Balda and his father didn't keep the savings account. Their stupidity was in the fact that they were sure as if nobody from local would dare to do something against them, even Black. Black, understanding if something occurs, he would be the first suspected, because of his dubious honour, even when he was a Balda's friend, so he tried to keep out of Balda's home. It's quite possible, being afraid, he cherished a seductive idea, but didn't dare. Also, this would be a foolish, because as well as I know his character, he couldn't spend money secretly and it's unlikely he would find an application of money, excluding to spend it on drinking.
          The relationship between Balda and Black looked like a mature abscess, which was about to erupt. Not only myself, but also other inhabitants of the village anticipated that something is going to occur. I decided to speed up the course of events, to incite these scoundrels, each against another, and at the same time to get some benefit for myself. The money from selling house already ran out long ago, and I lived by accidental earnings. Before that I never stole, however, I didn't consider stealing from scoundrels like a shame thing. Such a character like Robin Hood was very much cute to me, long ago I played this role in the theatre.
          In May 1960, using last money, I had rented a dacha near Moscow in Kratovo. You understand, no transport is needed if one can move in the twinkling of an eye from the Krasnoyarsk taiga, not far from that village, in Moscow or near it and back in the same manner. To undertake operation I had chosen the payday. Two weeks before I showed to all as if I left relatively for a long time, a few of months.
          Before this, I started to dump bottles with the vodka to Balda. In the first time they were afraid, whether is it poisoned. They had sipped, then ran into the shop to buy one, then they ran for the second bottle, after this they had drunk the mine to the end. When I dumped a bottle them in the third time, they had lost their vigilance. But to get drunk Black in the necessary place and time was even easier, because he disdained this concept of the caution.
          That day, using such way of dumping of the bottles, from the morning I started to lead them both to the necessary condition. As well as you know, the distances don't exist for me. Until six o'clock in the evening, while in Moscow only two o'clock in the afternoon, Balda and his father were drunk with loss of consciousness. Even they didn't try to put in different places their large sum of money. The banknotes were kept so: together in the chest among old things, being wrapped up in a newspaper. However, in any case I would find them. Near the do I as if accidentally dropped on the floor Black's union card prepared in advance, which was kept since his workstation, where he was fired for the drunkenness, also there was a letter from his cousin who lives in Krasnoyarsk.
          -What a fucken bitch there without permission! - drunk Balda's voice had sounded. - I'll kill you! - after saying this he rushed into the corridor, where I was standing.
          I rushed in a closet, a door, which gave on the corridor, but from another side. Thank God, there was a bolt, to which I locked myself at once, however, he saw and recognized me.
          -Could not you disappear as soon as he had begun to move into his room, could you?
          -I said already, that time this ability still wasn't developed with automatism. I had to prepare and to turn my mind to this, to imagine very clear the place, where I was going to move to, however, if a big and a furious guy with his fists rushed to me, it would be not easy to concentrate on something quite fast. Then I succeeded to collect my thoughts and to do a throw. Have you thought that in Moscow? No, at Black's home.
          Black slept on the floor. Near him a bottle with some moonshine stood not being drunk until the end. I put into a pocket of the jacket, which he wore all the time, bundle of huge hundred-ruble banknotes with Lenin. After this I unscrewed the clamp, which the hook clasped for. This hook locked the door from the inside. Suddenly it dawned upon me. I remembered that sometimes I was in the garret of Balda's house. It would be difficult to invent a place better to collect information. Of course, I penetrated there always, using the same unusual way. Imagining clearly this place, I had appeared there.
          -...meaner than death, I saw him as well as I see you now! He is in concert with Black! His nickname is an Artist. He with the thieves in law kept company in the prison camp. They don't steal from their dudes not to be considered as rats. But we are dupes from their point of view. I'll break ribs them!
          -Ah, fool. Do you think that I don't feel sorry? I gained it during all my life. I see you want to fritter. But I have connections with the militia. They will beat them both so, as you can't. And they will return all the money, like sweet boys. And this Artist is not our person at all. He was seen in the taiga. He sat like dead on the grass, crossing his legs like a Turk. He will be imprisoned and will not return alive, but instead, you are going to get your hands dirty.
          -You still live like in the 1937. Who will imprison him? The bald pederast - Khrushchev - bastard. He has relaxed all of them. And Black in prison feels like at home. For him all the same! But I'll do so, he will be spitting blood. I'll give him such cunts! I'll give him such cunts! Two times will be quite! Two times will be quite!
          -Don't go, fool, - cried his father with a hoarse voice. Apparently, he hadn't the forces not only to stop his distraught child, but even to stand up from the bed.
          I could hardly restrain my laughter. But the circumstances didn't give to watch this spectacle until the end. I concentrated and appeared in a known garret of an old six-story house. Nobody saw me. I quietly descended the stairs, came out in the yard, got around the house. There was a savings bank situated in the facade. I saw this bank long ago. The lunch break already was finished. After standing in line about a half hour, I opened an account, putting almost all the money for a deposit.
          Now I had the iron alibi. That's natural, in the account the date was written that amply proved the impossibility of my appearance on the same day so far, that is in the Krasnoyarsk region. However, it seemed me insufficient. Balda saw me. But who would believe him? What a way by in his very much distant house could be the same man who at the same time was opening an account in Moscow saving bank? However...
          The solving of the problem occurred to me immediately. In a shop of the same house I bought a bottle quarter litre of vodka in order all would look like natural. After fifteen minutes I was rolling by ream of the metro in a very cheerful mood. All the timidity flew away and I started to sing loudly a bawdy ditty:
          I fell in love with Khrushchev,
          I'll get married with him,
          But I'm afraid instead this thing,
          There is the only corn and nothing more.
          Someone began to pull my sleeve, calling to order, but I started to dance and continued to sing loudly all sorts of the obscenities. Someone laughed out loudly, someone only smiled, shaking a head, barely holding back laughter.
          -How an old man has got drunk!
          -Shut up his mouth finally!
          -Don't you see? The man is ill, mentally.
          This finished so, a few men took me under arms, leading me to the militia, the same what I needed. They let me go in fifteen days. After this nobody could make to doubt in my alibi. I told by the homeowner, as if I got a telegram on demand and left for Sankt-Petersbourg to visit my sick sister. However, I made a good impression on this old woman who was an owner of the dacha. If she saw the concert I did in the underground, then as well as I guess, she would faint because of the surprise. But like a decent person, I continued to rest in the dacha, walked into the forest to pick mushrooms and on fine days to the beach to swim. I returned at home only in September by train.
          -How ended that trouble? - Albert asked.
          -This already the local old women told me. As well as I expected, Balda broke into Black's home and began to beat him. Black suddenly struck back, grabbed a knife, Balda started to run. Black succeeded one time to scratch him, but a little. Balda grabbed the first thing, what fell in the yard in his hand, it was a bayonet shovel, and with it he hit Black's head. Black fell down. The fool had better to go away. But no. He hit Black who already was lying, at the second time. The second blow became fatal. Then he drank a lot of moonshine and the cops carried him into their auto, when he was drunk like a dead.
          -Did they give him many years of prison?
          -He affirmed as if he saw me, insisting so much, and because of this he was declared insane and after this he was sent in Kazan in the special hospital. Do you know, that there are such madhouses with armed guards?
          -Yes, I do.
          -Five years later he came out, but soon his father died. If he died a little before, Balda could stay on the eternal bed, that is for life. After his father's death, he was about to commit suicide. Then the baptists contacted him and since he had changed until unrecognizable. He became a believer, even very much active. He even tried to turn me into his faith. Finally, he had got married to one of the sisters in spirit. Now he is absolutely different person. However, it was the only case in my life when an enemy ceased to be an enemy, when a bad person got better. The only.
          -Didn't you mistake, because you didn't go with him?
          -For him this was a breakthrough to perfection. But for me this would be a step back.
          -Why?
          -Because I'm aware about the reality more than Balda knows. I trust in God. But I don't believe churches and other human crowds, and I have a reason for this. I cannot become a church believer. I can only pretend it, but it means to play the hypocrite, to deceive. It would be a greater sin. The verity is much more beautiful than foolish crowds imagine it.
          -But maybe you sin more. What if consider the church like a restraining factor?
          -Certainly, I'm far from being an angel. Maybe I'm more sinner than all this baptists and others. But there is the only thing I know exactly.
          -What?
          -I would be never in concert with the crowd, which had crucified Christ.
          A long pause set in. Finally the old man has interrupted it:
          -I've digressed from the main our subject, but it would be impossible to disregard it. I remember that you've understood the theory very well, but I've omitted something.
          -They both fell to thinking and soon Albert remembered:
          -You still didn't say about the technology of safety.
          -That's right!