(*the word "bhash"has been taken from the sanscrite - mystical language, been in used about 2000 years b.c.; later this language has been given, according to the legends, to the gipsies and to all the dark magicians and servants of Satan. "Bhash", translated from sanscrite, has two meanings - "the light" and "the demone". So "the shining demone" could be the concrete translation of this word)
***
"I can"t keep warmth of the sun in my hand -
It"s a dark?! Right.
Winter will find shortest way to this land
Tonight..."
Anna Akhmatova. "Memory about the sun..."
***
PROLOGUE
The 26th of April, 1997:
The small catholic church of the white-goldish color has been built in the very heart of Framnitz, the tiny, squeezed by the heat and the sultriness town in a two hundred kilometres away to the east from Budapest. The central square in the town has been named in the memory of Ference List, and the tall church tower, shining under the red-hot spring sun, could be seen from the any street or field of the Framnitz. But it was the worst place in whole the town to gift such a beautiful luxurious temple to: the List"s square has always been the strange Wall of Tears in the Framnitz, where hundreds of people, dirty, exhausted, endlessly suffering of hunger and hard diseases, spent everyday, helplessly begging for compassion and alms and usually receiving nothing till the very night. When the last of faceless occassional walkers and wanderers left the square, their mourning and crying because of despair neighbours started to disappear, crawling away to all the corners of the town, and most of them could already feel the slow heavy steps of the death behind themselves... and most of them wouldn"t wake up next morning after the long stuffy night. There was just a miserable part, who did really die of hunger or pneumonia, or tuberculosis, or typhus, or intoxication... no, the life of almost each of them has been cut off after the suicide. His or her corpse usually has been just buried in the ground somewhere outside of the graveyard, of the boards of the town, without any funeral ceremonies, gifting the freedom to the every christian soul. It usually has been done by somebody who was spending weeks and months next to the deadman, begging for the alms together with him, and who after this dark tormenting work came back into the old, tiny and often just constructed from the boxes or the thrown away by the builders boards, house... maybe, only for the one night more. And so those who did rise the golden crosses of the church up to the skies exactly at that square, really have made a freaky mistake, as the only view of the luxurious shining temple, surrounded by the dirty half-broken sheds and slowly dying christian children, could force anybody to hate the God.
***
That year the 26th of April was the day of the Easter. It was about the midday, and the huge crowds of the citizens, men, women and children, were walking across the streets to the List"s square, looking, like the hypnotized or the obsessed, at the golden, blidningly sparking, crusifixion at the very top of the church tower. Almost all of them were carrying the colored and decorated by the simple patterns eggs, big easter-cakes and wood or silver crosses. The crowd of the beggars, standing on the knees around the church, seemed to be innumerable, but nobody from the smiling citizens, nobody from those happy and blessed by Jesus Christ men, women and children payed even the smallest drop of attention on them, like if these dirty shivering shadows were invisuable or didn"t exist at all. It happened every single day, no matter, was it the day of the mourn or the religious holiday: everything has always been the same at the List"s square, at the very heart of the Framnitz.
- Why the Satan still hasn"t crack this land into thousand of pieces and let all the bustards, walking along it, fall down, in the very hell?
A beautiful young girl with the bright eyes and two dark long tresses, dressed in the cheap grey schoolform, covered by the dirty spots and the lay of dust, has been sitting right on the roadstones and silently whispering these words, like if she was really waiting when it will come true. There was a strange, almost invisuable and cold, like the ice, light, pulssing out from the corners of her eyes and hands, like if the girl"s heart and blood were both made of the light. She was only ten or eleven years old and looked absolutely exhausted and already sick, but there wasn"t a plate for the alms in front of her: no, she didn"t ask anybody here to help her somehow. She needed nobody and nothing, neither family and God, nor treatment from disease and the satisfaction of the hunger.
- My poor child, - suddenly the silent and nasty sweet voice, seemed to be so strangely and unpleasantly familiar, sounded right above her head, - you should never say such words. Today is the Easter, stand up, kiss your cross and beg the Christ about the peace and...
The woman"s speech got momently broken, like if she lost the gift of the speech exactly when she met with the girl"s sight. The woman, frightingly shivering and squeezing the small silver cross in her hands, tried to make a step back, while the girl, staring like at the inside of her flesh with the unmasked contempt, slowly stood up from the stones and silently said:
- I hate you and you hate me. Fuck all that peace...
The woman swallowed the scream and embraced her little son, who has just come up to her from the crowd. Throwing the cold hatefull sight on his fragile childish figure, almost trying to pierce it, like by the daggers, the girl strangely added:
- Yes. Fuck all that peace... mother. And brother.
- Bertha! - helplessly shouted a woman. - Bertha, wait! Please, stop and come back! Bertha! I was wrong, but I... I...
- What? - with an unplesant wrath asked a girl. - Do you want to say that you love me? But you can not, right?
- Bertha! Bertha, wait, listen to me!...
But it"s been already impossible to stop Bertha. Impossible again, exactly like at the first time, when she took a decision to leave the family house forever.
***
She was leaving the square, walking as fast as she only could, almost running, but soon, tormenting by the dry painfull cough, she needed to stop and normalize the breath. She sat down on the small bench and made three deep breaths; the pain pricked every cell of her body, inside and outside, but Bertha just squeezed the fingers and swallowed her moans. Finally the sick weakness began to leave her, and a girl, coming back to the absolute sences, has been already about to walk away much further from that place, when two little children suddenly appeared in front of her. They were playing with each other, but only one of those children, a boy, had a toy: it was a cheap wood sword. The little girl, who came along with him, had no toys or dolls, but she had a big sweet bakery in the form of the Valentine heart.
- Hey, hey! - screamed a girl, trying to make a naughty funny boy watching her. - Give me your sword, and I will give you my heart!...
- Give me a sword, and I will give you my heart, - strangely conclused Bertha and hurried to leave away. But these words did pierce in her memory, in whole her consciousness, like a burning stamp.
I
The 4th of August, 2001:
It was the fourth year of her lonely wandering around the Framnitz and the nearest towns and villages, the fourth year since her escape from home... no, she"s never had a home. She could never call that place a home, as well as she could never call those people whom she left a family. Her mother"s words she heard on the square at the day of those Easter celebrations were all just a lie: for these four years the woman, crying and begging Bertha to come back home, did nothing to find her daughter even in such a tiny and squeezed in the ring of the dying half-empty villages town, as Framnitz was. Nobody has been looking for Bertha, and nobody did really wish her to come back. Everyone just seemed to be happy that she left and hoped she will never return to the street where she grew up.
- Lie, lie, lie. Everywhere"s just a lie and nothing else but the lie... I hate you, you hate me, fuck the peace... give me your sword, and I will give you my heart...
There were the only thoughts, spinning around in her head for all these time and never giving Bertha even a slight moment of the calmness. She was it"s prisoner, but at the same time she was keeping these thoughts in her prison too. It was a mania, destroying and fullfilling soul and heart with the strength as well. So through all these years of hunger, of pain and going harder and harder diseases, this powerful madness has been the only reason Bertha"s still been alive and her eyes and hands still have been pouring out through the skin a cold mystic light... and many times, almost crossing the lastest line, almost feeling the poisoned breathing of the death and her ice fingers on the shoulders, Bertha strangely stopped only because of this obsession that she still needed to proclaim something and that not any other man in the world could do it instead of her. She couldn"t fight against it: everytime she tried she felt like if she was killing herself, flowing her own blood and burning her own heart...
This day began exactly like the previous one: the sharp painful cough woke her up at the early morning. Losing the breath and feeling like if her throat was fullfilled by the broken glass, Bertha helplessly tried to stand up, but her legs were weak and soft, like the cottonwax. A girl squeezed her neck by the fingers and occassionally made a deep breath; the cough slowly began to stop tormenting her, and soon she took her body freedom back and sat down on the stones of the roof of the high building in the newest district of Framnitz, where she spent the night. A few red blooddrops could be seen on the light stones of the roof, next to Bertha, but a girl just did rub it out by the palm: she has already learned that she"s suffering of a tuberculosis and another proves of it weren"t needed any more. Bertha took her old schoolbag - the only thing she took with herself before the escape from home - and opened it, trying to find something left from the food in it, as she hasn"t been eating for whole the previous day, and hunger has become so strong, that a girl could feel it"s sharp pricks even inspite of disease. She did really find the tough dry piece of a brown bread and a small part of the potato, baked in the red-hot coals, in her schoolbag and started her miserable breakfast. She was watching the morning, flowing the pink sunrays above the sleeping silent Framnitz, and the understanding she is looking at whole the town from top to down, made her feeling almost happy and almost blessed, like the angel before his tragical falling from the skies. Yes, everything was the same, exactly like at the very first day after her escape: the same luxury of shining crosses of the church, surrounded by the same dirty half-broken tiny houses, the same georgious and pure sunlight, the same blue clear sky, the same heat and the same sultriness... the time seemed to be stopped forever.
- You must do though something to make it running again, - ordered Bertha to herself and, puting the schoolbag on the shoulder, walked downstairs from the roof to the ground... but suddenly she movelessly stopped at the same place and, as it seemed like, even forgot about the breathing, all turned into the hearing and trying to realize what has just broken her free from worries and fears mood. In a few seconds the answer achieved her consciousness: there were almost hysterical screams, sounding somewhere closely, behind two or three houses from Bertha. She really couldn"t understand why did she do what she"s done, couldn"t explain to herself, why did she take exactly that decision, but a girl was strangely sure that she HAD TO do it, no matter what for. So Bertha, losing no time anymore, rushed to these sounds, shaking occassional walkers, who threw their contemptible, scared or madly wicked sights in her back. She didn"t pay any attention neither on it, nor on the pain, piercing, like a lightning, all her body, when she fell down on the roadstones: losing the breath and bleeding, Bertha anyway stood up everytime and kept on running forward, like a zombie, moving somewhere under the Master"s order. It took from her about five or six minutes to get to the very small and dirty yard between four rotten wood houses, fullfilled by the terrible smell of the cheap alcohole drinks: a fifteen-years-old girl in a very cheap grey dress, pale, thin and fragile, like the tiny porcelain statue, was lying in the mud, screaming of fear and helplessly trying to protect herself from the tall fat man, who was absolutely drunk and beating her wretched body by his hands, legs, sticks - everything his thick, like the sausages, fingers could squeeze.
- Bitch! - shouted he. - Bitch! Bitch!
And a girl, already bleeding and almost losing the sences, was hardly breathing and repeating hysterically as well:
- Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!...
The last thing Bertha could notice were a few beggars, probably the neighbours, who were sitting on the bench at that dirty stinky yard, drinking something muddy from the glass bottle and watching that nasty scene, like the clown perfomance in the circus. It did absolutely drive Bertha mad, and she, squeezing the fingers so hardly, that did hurt the palms by her own nails, in a second, like the ghost, appeared between the bleeding girl and a drunkman, turned into the shield for his daughter.
- What a... who the hell are you?! - shouted a man, looking at a girl, suddenly grown up in front of him.
- I gave my heart and received a sword, - in strange inner voice proclaimed Bertha, and, before the drunkman could answer her though the only word, made a deep breath and began staring at him, like if she wanted to pierce him through by her ice sight. The drunkman almost at the same second did lose his breath and, starting to hoarse like if his throat got fullfilled by the sand, fell down in the mud, right to Bertha"s feet. He was shivering like in agony, and his eyes became more and more wider opened, like if the drunkman wanted to push it out of the body. Spitting right in his face, Bertha turned around and helped to the girl to stand up from the mud. The girl was looking at her with a huge eyes, full of surprising and admiring: there wasn"t even the smallest drop of the fear in her sight.
- How are you? - asked her Bertha, paying no attention to the drunkman, who was still lying in front of her and suffocating from the pain.
- I"m... I"m all right, - excitingly answered a girl.
- That"s good, - nodded Bertha and slightly smiled. - I think we have something to discuss, but not here. Come with me, we should better get out from this nasty place as soon as possible...
- But I... I can"t...
- What? - it seemed like a girl"s answer shocked and did really hurt Bertha. - Well, sure, sorry, I can"t decide it for you. If you want to stay with your dad, then...
- NO! - nervously shouted a girl and made a several steps back from the father. - What if he"ll soon get up? Please, let"s go away! He will kill me, if he"ll see me once again!
And, squeezing Bertha"s hand, a girl on her own ranaway somewhere, choosing no roads.
***
It was about nine o"clock of the morning, when the girls finally stopped running and stayed in the tiny green park at the eastern board of the town to have some rest. They were very much in a hurry, trying to rushaway, but now it seemed like nobody has been chasing them, so they both had a time to calm each other down after everything happened... but it looked like no one from them had enough of courage or strength to begin this conversation.
- My name is Bertha, - finally said Bertha in a silent soft voice and tried to smile. - And yours?
- Mine is Urma, - answered a girl. - And I"m... I"m so thankful to you, Bertha, dear... if you wouldn"t help, he surely would kill me...
- Don"t thank me, - said Bertha, - I couldn"t just leave you, like those bustards, who were watching it all...
- But why not? So many people act exactly like you described... and they think it"s all right... it"s none of their business...
- I don"t want to hear anything like that! - proudly proclaimed Bertha. - I never wanted to be like those men: they aren"t humen, they are worse than animals... I hate them... they turned my life into the nightmare... yes. I also wished to help you so much, because I"ve already been at your place... I"ve already been lying in the dirt and in the blood, while the father has been kicking me...
- I"m so sorry, Bertha...
- Thank you. But anyway, what has happened this morning? Why did he...
- Wanted to kill me? - Urma easily guessed what she was going to say and sadly smiled. - He ordered me to go to buy something to drink for him...
- At the very morning?!
- Yes, at the very morning: he always acted like that. I couldn"t argue with him, but I couldn"t go and buy anything as well, because I lost the money... so he just learned about it and... you"ve already seen everything that has happened.
- Your father was a damned drunkman!...
- No, - suddenly denied Urma. - My father lives in another country, very far away from Hungary. I"ve never seen him. That bustard was my step-father.
- Your mother must know about it all. Did she try to do though anything?
- She can"t. She became absolutely moveless after the car crash. She"s just lying in her room and waiting for the death. She cares about nothing.
Urma held a head down and tried to swallow the bitter tears.
- I"m very sorry, - said Bertha and gently did stroke brown and soft, like a silk, Urma"s hair; the strange cold light, pulssing out from Bertha"s hand made Urma looking straight at her eyes.
- Bertha, - whispered she. - Can you... tell me... explain... how did you do that? How did you STOP him?...
Bertha was only silently smiling.
- Take my hand, - suddenly asked she. - And you will find the answer for your question. But before it I want you to give a swear you will never tell it anyone.
- Sure, - nodded Urma. - If this is your secret...
So Bertha toughly squeezed her fragile dirty cause of mud and blood hand and looked deep inside her eyes. Urma felt like if a girl was hypnotizing her, but she didn"t want to fight against it: it was her voluntary capitulation and a voluntary agreement to come under Bertha"s power for these moments. Even the strange sharp pain, pricking her eyes and her brain, even the weakness, turning all her body into the cottonwax, couldn"t destroy Urma"s desire to learn the truth about Bertha"s past, or, to say bettet, to receive this true right from her hands. Something strange was going on, something unbelievable... it was a mad feeling that you are standing on the fragile crystal bridge between two different realities: your own and another one, belonged to somebody else, and you can hear there the voices you"ve never heard, see the faces you"ve never seen... you can see everything, you can hear everything, you can feel everything and you can almost realize that you could be seen and heard in this space too, but it will be your mistake: you are nothing but the cool air there, you"re even less than a shadows on the wall. You could and you must be only the silent watcher. This is the only rule: do never try to change something you have no right to change.
It was a dirty tiny hall in someone"s house, the one of the thousands half-broken dark houses, hidden within whole the Framnitz, like the inflammated rash on the sick body; there was a handsome blackhaired man of a middle age - he seemed to be so kind and so calm, almost like the wise magician from the fairy-tale. He was just standing in the middle of that corridor, and his eyes were shining, like two golden stars from the holiday Christmas postcard. But suddenly... suddenly everything changed: it looked exactly like if all the Bible demones rushed into his flesh and poisoned him by the mad obsession. A man started to shiver, like under the electric hits, and his widely opened eyes were movelessly staring forward, at the same point... at the little girl, about only six or seven years old, who appeared in the hall. It surely was Bertha: the same dark long hair in the two thick tresses, the same bright shining eyes and the same, piercing through, pricking by the pain, colder than ice, mystical like the moonshadow, light, pouring out from her body. What was it? What did it come from? This light was Bertha"s mystery. Everything happened next moments looked more like the dream, than like a reality: one powerfull hit, a short occassional scream, dark-red stream of blood, splashed on the walls, on the floor and on the man"s face, disfiguring by the rage and contempt. A girl heavily fell down on the floor and hurt the arm; it looked like if her arm has been already broken or dislocated, and except it, Bertha"s face has been all covered by the scratches, scars and hematomes. Her dark wool schoolform did close all the other parts of the body, but there could be no doubts, that a girl"s hands, legs, stomach and back has been damaged and deformed, and that father"s punishments, coming, probably, just because for Bertha"s existence, achieved a girl every single day or even a several times per day. Yes, Bertha didn"t lie, saying that she realized so well everything that Urma felt, bleeding and crying under the drunk father"s hits. She was exactly at her place, and Urma could feel it so completely, like if Bertha has been at her flesh, in her heart. And so Urma could really wait, that Bertha, helplessly trying to stand up from the dirty floor, will start to cry and to beg her father about compassion and forgiveness - maybe, even for the sins she"s never done... but no, Bertha didn"t follow her step by step: she stood up on her feet easily, she did fly up, like a bird on the huge light wings, that couldn"t feel the pain. It could be almost obviously, that she was madly wicked and furious... but her face, her wonderfully shining eyes, didn"t reflect any emotion, being moveless and indifferent, like if made of stone by the genius master. Without saying a word, Bertha just came as closely as it was possible to her father and suddenly, fast, like a lightning, squeezed his forehead by the both hands. Urma realized that now it will be happening again and guessed everything rightly: the man started to shiver, unnaturally widely opening his eyes and becoming white-and-blue as a deadman; his skin was getting frozen and inflammated at the same time, like in the fever, he was hoarsing and choking by his own saliva and blood, splashing out from his mouth... but then Urma strangely noticed another one feature in his painful image: his black sparking hair, seemed to be so healthy, started to fall down from man"s head, coming out from under the skin on his head, on his arms... it looked like he was damaged by the radioactive wave, coming from nowhere. Then a man breathlessly fell down on the floor, to his daughter"s feet, like a killed beast to the feet of the hunter, celebrating the victory. So it was the last thing Urma could see. The slight mystical connection between present reality and this strange freaky episode from Bertha"s past got broken in the smallest pieces, and Urma, tormenting and suffocating under Bertha"s press, finally did open her eyes and, pulling her hand out of a girl"s palms, made a deep breath and realized she"s been set free. Bertha did let her to make and occassional step back and gently smiled to the answer for Urma"s shocked surprising sight.
II
The 26th of May, 2006:
They were celebrating this strange satanic holiday already for three years; it was a gloom proud acting, often seemed like the luxurious theatre perfomance, and in the very center of it has always been Bertha. She"s never been about to come back home, but, in spite of it, she forgot nothing about her family and mentioned about it every Friday - the day they all had these meetings outside the town, on the burnt, black and lost, like the graveyard, wheat field... and everytime she was speaking about so imposingly, like if she wanted nobody who was listening to her could ever forget it. It seemed like her oath to them, the oath to choose the day and to revenge - by pain for pain - and they all were listening to her, were staring by their dull sights right in here coldly shining, like the pieces of ice, eyes, and promising her to keep this oath at safe deep inside their minds and hearts until the right day.
There usually were about thirteen-fifteen persons, including Bertha and Urma, who were taking the part in those celebrations, but in fact there were hundreds of people, prisoning by those fanatics" nets, every week. Nobody there knew their stories, knew though anything about them, as well as nobody has ever had even the short occassional conversation with them. Nobody except Bertha. She was keeping all these secrets at safe even from Urma, the closest friend or, to say better, the sister, as she often called a girl. Bertha was the only who could, sometimes using the strangest of all the existing ways, find the perfect fellow-traveller... or the perfect victim. Phantastically, but those whom she did choose, always were agree to begin talking to her, no matter, when and where Bertha met them or how were they feeling at that moment: everybody seemed to be ready to open the heart for a girl, and she made everybody agreed to join her strange union. Bertha didn"t seem to be luxurious in her choises: she could make the connection with the richest men of the Framnitz and with the poorest ones as well, she could begin a conversation, sitting next to the sick, already dying of hunger and exhausting, oldmen and crying, begging for alms under the cold rains and burning sun, children - and everyone of them turned into the almost obsessed half-human and half-beast, willing to follow Bertha wherever she would order... especcially after they noticed a blooddrops on her dark blouse and the thick wool scarf on her neck: they learned she was suffering of a tuberculosis and it didn"t let them not to accept her, when all her appearance almost seemed to be begging them about it. The disease did really worn Bertha"s out for all these painfully long years: she was looking deadly pale and all grey, from the hair till the nails and maybe even the blood, like if she was always sleeping in the ash. The only feature in her image the disease couldn"t even slightly touch was that mystical ice light, pulssing out from under her grey dry skin exactly like in all the previous years, like if Bertha has never been sick at all, and so Urma, who sometimes was allowed to follow her "sister", thought that neither tuberculosis, nor Bertha"s words did force the people to serve her, as a slaves: it was all because of that light, it was hypnotizing them, destroying their will and their minds, making them ready to make everything Bertha would order. Most of those people strangely disappeared before the Friday holidays, and their places have been taken by their closest friends and relatives, who were throwing to Bertha"s feet the money, the jewellery, the clothes - everything; and even the only thing they had was the small piece of a brown bread, it didn"t matter anything, and they gave back to Bertha this bread as well, then disappeared too, and probably died of hunger somewhere on the narrow dirty streets of the town. Because of it those ones who always stayed next to Bertha, who were joining each of the celebrations and who were so greedy, listening to each of her words, named her a magician, and the Urma"s voice was the loudest of all their voices.
***
- Let Satan bless us, the children, born in the saint Christ"s house and thrown out of it"s gates!
- Let Satan bless us!
- Let Satan bless us, the homeless wanderers, doomed to die in the freaky sufferings by the kindest of the Gods!
- Let Satan bless us!
- Let darkness bless us!
- Let darkness bless us!
- Let emptiness bless us!
- Let emptiness bless us!
- Let silence bless us!
- Let silence bless us!
- Let that one who"ll scream "Hallelujah" be killed by the lightning!
- Let him!
- Let Satan"s ninety-nine names be blessed!
- Let Satan"s ninety-nine names be blessed!
It was their canonic speech, always pronounsed in a loud voice by Bertha and always repeated by all the other brothers and sisters surrounding her on that heretic holiday. The celebrations could never be started without this gloom triumph prayer, singing the glory to Satan, to Lilith and to each of their sons and daughters, still living or already dead: it was the law. After the last sound of this speech got melted in the silence, Bertha, always dressed in a long black raincoat and looked in that clothes like a huge bat, fell down her knees and, shivering, squeezing the soil between the fingers, began her strange prophecies, and the cold moonlight, becoming alnmost visuable, was pouring out of her destroying from the tuberculosis body. Urma, that fragile helpless girl, wonderfully saved one day by the magical phenomena Bertha, has always been listening to her, like if she"s been deadly sick and the cure from her disease could be only found in Bertha"s half-mad words. It was her own law, and she was living only under it"s power during all those years. But the present night, strangely and so surely, was breaking in the ruins that law. Bertha has been already standing on her knees and stroking the black moist soil by her pale palms, has been already talking about something essential and absolutely important, as always, but Urma didn"t hear any of her words and didn"t even notice her existence. Each drop of her painfully excited attention has been leaded to the opposite from Bertha side, to the tanned blue-eyed boy, hypnotized, who was standing on his knees so closely, just in a few steps. Urma didn"t know too much about him: just that his name was Julian Lamz, that he was twenty one and that he came to Framnitz about a year ago from the tiny nameless village to enter the local institute, but did fail and decided not to return home. He was living in the southern district of Framnitz, in the very small miserable flat, and every week Bertha gave him a few coins to pay for that place, but nobody, even Urma on her own, knew, what was she taking for it from him in exchange. Yes, Urma was wishing so much Julian would once though look at her, occassionally, for the only moment, but his sight was always turned only at Bertha: Julian was looking at her like at the Goddess in the female flesh. Urma was in love with him - it was the love from the very first sight and the painful passion from the very first sight too - but strangely, it"s become her only mystery from Bertha, and she couldn"t explain even to herself, why didn"t she share this happy new with the closest soul in whole the world. But everytime she tried she felt she had to stop immediately.
- Take a look at this saint Christ"s child, the flesh from the flesh of a dirt and a sin!
High loud Bertha"s voice suddenly pricked Urma"s hearing so sharply, that a girl nearly screamed of shock or, to say better, of fear. Strangely, but Urma didn"t really want to take a look at that child and felt like if she was forced to do it - because Julian has already rosen his excited burning sight up, right at Bertha and at the child, who was helplessly trying to set his arm free from a girl"s tough fingers. It was a boy of thirteen-fourteen years old, very small, very thin and painfully pale. He was so weak that a young girl, suffering of turberculosis and exhausted because of endless satanic prayers and prophecies, has been much more stronger than him in this silent fight. The only alive points on his tormented white face were the huge light eyes, shining by the suffocating hate after every fastest sight at Bertha. And there really was something very similar in their faces, in the images of a master and a prisoner, like if... they have been brother and sister. Saying something strange and confused, like if in the foreign language, Bertha did hit a boy once again and he, losing the last strengths, heavily fell down and then began silently moaning of pain: he fell down right on the large wood cross, hidden under the leaves on the ground. Young people, surrounding Bertha and her prisoner, started to read their prayers, proudly, loudly, with the unmasked dark triumph. Urma was the only one who stayed silent among them: she was just watching Bertha, fastening boy"s hands and legs by the sharp strings right to the cross, turning him into the crusifixion.
- You are the last stinky rat, crawling within that dirty stuffy shed, - madly whispered Bertha, hurting boy"s skin by her long and sharp, like a knives, nails. She has already finished her dark ritual and could now enjoy her satanic work: it did really bring her a huge sick pleasure. - So pure, so innocent, so naive... you must have been killed. You must follow two damned miserable bustards, who did give you a life!
She did clap his thin pale face with the real contempt and anger, leaving three long bleeding scars and a huge hematome on it. And so a boy, nearly holding back the tears, has done something nobody could expect from him, that seemed to be almost impossible to do for him: he collected all the hate, all the pain, all the desires to revenge Bertha and did spit right in elder sister"s face. But suddenly, like the flash of the lightning, a tough shield appeared in front of Bertha and took that contemptible shot on it"s own instead of a girl. Urma, standing rather far away from Bertha and a prisoned by her child, momently recognized that figure: it was Julian who decided to become that shield. She couldn"t understand why did he decided to protect Bertha this way... no, she did really understand, she surely knew the reason, but she couldn"t force herself to believe in it - to believe, to realize, to accept that Julian was in love with Bertha, maybe, as strongly and passionly, like she was in love with him. But this fast unexpected, unbelievable move damaged not only Urma"s consciousness: a little boy, exhausting of pain on the cross, like the child-Jesus, has been too shocked as well: so shocked, that he couldn"t make any occassional sound any more. And Julian, wiping away the saliva from his face, held his head down and turned around to Bertha, like a servant, waiting for the punishment, to his master. A total, tearing the hearing apart, silence was movelessly hanging above them, like a heavy curtain. Bertha was attentionly looking right at Julian"s eyes, like if she could and has already been reading each of his secret deep thoughts, then she, gently stroking his skin, loudly pronounced:
- Stand on your knees, Julian. In front of me.
Julian silently, without saying a word, did execute her order. A girl carefully, but fast and toughly, stood on his shoulder. Urma"s heart got painfully squeezed: young man looked so happy, holding her narrow feet and touching her pale dry skin, happier, than a small foolish puppy, bringing the home-shoes and newspapers for his owner. Now, standing on Julian"s shoulder, Bertha could look right at a little boy"s eyes; a child has been already shivering and crying of pain and fear, and his elder sister, throwing a slow proud sight on the crusifixion, silently whispered to her victim:
- I have come to stop your suffering on this Earth, brother. Forever.
The huge light eyes of a boy got widely opened of surprising, but next moment Bertha, moving faster than any wind, faster than the sounds, squeezed a thin sparking dagger, hidden under her raincoat, and did thrust it right in the boy"s forehead, like the sharpest and the largest thorn from the Christ"s wreath. The death, piercing boy"s fragile body, has been momental and too sudden to realize it was the death itself. The crowd, surrounding the colored by blood wood crusifixion, began praying and screaming in the growing extacy, like if the were a miracle, happened right on their eyes and blessed them all. Urma was the only one, who was just silently staying on her knees, not feeling a body anymore because of the shock. It was the very first time when she was really, absolutely and panically scared of Bertha, of her wonderful savior and a new-found sister. When she finally set herself free from this strange destructive feeling, she saw Bertha already standing on the ground next to Julian and holding his hand, like a bride is holding the hand of her fiance in the church. Their eyes were fanatically shining, and they both seemed to be losing their minds because of the furious excitement.
- When the Jews come back to Syone, - madly screamed Bertha, - when the Saint Roman Empire rises up, when the comet tears the sky apart, HE will be ressurected and will come out from the Eternal Sea! HE WILL COME OUT FROM THE ETERNAL SEA WHEN THE COMET TEARS THE SKY APART! Do you hear me, brothers and sisters? When the comet tears the sky apart! We have to follow this comet, if we want to be completed with HIM, with the only real master of the Universe! We must be united with HIM, like flesh and blood! We must let our souls to be set free to fly to HIM with this comet! We must become the part of the Cosmos! This is the only way to solve this eternal puzzle, to find the answer for the only essential question, to do the only destination HE did breath the life inside of our bodies to! And so we all must make this decision right now: are we ready to merge with HIM, with HIS blessed spirit, when the comet tears the sky apart?! WE ARE READY!
- WE ARE READY! WE ARE READY! WEAREREADY WEAREREADY!...
The scream of all those hysterical loud voices nearly made Urma, still silent, like a stone, absolutely deaf. She wasn"t that one, repeating Bertha"s prophecies as passionly as she only could: now this place has been taken by Julian. He seemed to be bursting of the excitement inside and outside of him. His soul completely belonged to Bertha, and all his future destiny was only in her hands: if that comet would appear in the sky right next moment, right now, he would be the first who would tear his heart out of the chest.
- You know the holy sacred date, brothers and sisters, - added Bertha, smiling with the dark triumph. - It will be the day of his birth. The 6th day of a 6th month of a 6th year. Do you understand me? The 6th day of a 6th month of a 6th year!
- THE 6TH DAY OF A 6TH MONTH OF A 6TH YEAR! - madly repeated the crowd.
- The most essential of all the days this world has already survived through! - shouted Bertha. - And let the saint true God bless the dead water I will be drinking as a sacrifice for HIM!
It was another one of their laws, another one canone of their satanic celebration. Bertha took a high glass, fullfilled by crystall shining water and did splash it out right on the bleeding corpse of a little boy. The water, flowing down from his cold thin hands and legs, was filling the huge ritual cup, placed on the ground under the crucifixion. When the last sparking drop fell down into this cup, Bertha took it in her hands and, proclaiming another one, tormently long and unclear satanic prayer, drank all the water on her own, and while she was slowly drinking, the people surrounding her and especcially Julian, who fell down his kness again and kissed the soil under Bertha"s feet, began screaming out the Fallen Angel"s name and the date of his birthday on this Earth. Then Bertha threw the empty cup away, fell down her knees too and joined the praying crowd in it"s mad sick extacy. Urma has been half-dead because of the fear in front of her... and of the fear for Julian"s life... her own destiny hasn"t been important for her anymore: none of the thoughts about her own future, about the tragic end, that has been proclaimed for her, appeared in Urma"s head. She was all into the senceless tryings to invent the way to save Julian, and her own weakness nearly drove her mad. They all seemed to be already doomed, everything would be done in vain, nothing"s possible to change anymore, she has lost, she will die, he will die, everybody will die and nobody would be saved... the comet in the skies will take each of their souls... but Urma has already given to herself the oath to find the key she needed so much - not for herself, but only for Julian. This love to him has made her blind and sick, but she was really enjoying it and was happy, like she never has been next to Bertha.
III
The 2nd of June, 2006:
To do what Urma has finally decided to do was easier than she even could hope it to be, as well as taking of that decision became for her much more easier torment than she thought. For thousands of days, spent next to the Framnitz churches, Urma has understood, why did her savior once choose exactly the dead water for her satanic celebrations: the water from the corpse was considered to be damned by the Jesus Christ and Saint Maria, to be the invincible curse, bringing so much of sorrows and pain in the life of the oerson, who may not even guess about it"s real origin. Bertha couldn"t manage without dead water not even for the only holiday, and the last Friday shouldn"t become the exception too. Pouring the drops of chemical poison into cup with a water hasn"t been the difficult task: Bertha still believed in Urma"s sincerity, exactly like at the very first day of their meeting, and, strangely, it didn"t confuse Urma at all: the only one she could think at those moments was Julian, and in the name of his salvation a girl was absolutely ready to do anything: Bertha"s life seemed to be so miserable, so full of sins and suffering, that a death could become the precious gift for her. Urma did even feel that she was blessing her wonderful savior, like many years ago Bertha blessed her. So everything has been prepared for the last of their fanatic celebrations. They are gonna to sing all these prayers to Satan and Lilith, to the False Prophecy and to the Hell, but they can"t even imagine they will be doing it at the very last time.
- So everyone could see, will your precious idol be with you tonight. Julian must be saved... I will never let you hurt him. He must stay alive even if all the humanity will have to die, - silently whispered Urma above the glass with the poisoned water and left away, like an unnoticable shadow, as always.
***
Everything was the same at that very last Friday, as ceremonius, as fullfilled of tragic gloom beauty, as it always happened earlier, since the first time they met. A blind and shivering in the extacy crowd of young beautiful boys and girls was standing on the knees on the black soil, looking straight at Bertha, holding a cup with a dead water, with a toxic momental poison, who was shining by her mystical moonshadow light and fanatically smiling. They all were reading the prayer in the name of Antichrist, Devil"s son, together.
- When the Jews come back to Syone...
- When the Saint Roman Empire rises up...
- When the comet tears the sky apart...
- HE will come out from the Eternal Sea...
- Saint God, Saint Tough, Saint Immortal, - silently whispered Urma, squeezing her cold and wet of sweat fingers. Her heart was beating so fast that was nearly tearing out of the chest, like a bird from the cell.
- HE will create the armies on the both boards...
- HE will turn the brother against the brother...
- HE will turn the father against the son...
- Me and you will have to die...
- Me and you will have to die...
- ME AND YOU WILL HAVE TO DIE! - loudly ended Bertha and looked at her listeners with a mad senceless smile, and Urma with the newborning heartache realized, that she was staring straight at Julian, and he, so pure, knowing nothing about her and just serving to the sudden burning feeling, pricking him, was answering her with the uncovered, almost physical, pleasure... so Urma closed her eyes and held her head down, wishing so much to watch them no more. She didn"t see, how did Bertha, with a shivering of painful excitement hands, rose the cup up to her mouth and drank all the water inside of it till the very last drop. She didn"t see, how tormently her beautiful pale face became disfigured because of the toxic needles of poison, piercing in her inner organs, in her blood, in her brain, didn"t see, how heavily Bertha fell down on the ground and began suffocating of pain. She only heard, how excitingly, pressing down by the shock, young boys and girls, surrounding her, started to talk between each other, trying to understand, what was happening, and quickly got into panic. And she heard also, how Bertha suddenly stopped being hoarse and became absolutely silent, and how Julian, calling out her name, rushed straight to her already breathless body.
- NO-O-O-O!...
The sound of broken Julian"s voice pierced into Urma"s brain, like a burnt above the fire needle or like the sharp splinter of the ice, and it finally, at the very first time for all the passed days, did really feel the fear. There could be nothing else within this dark place, that would stop her and force her to stay: the only desire, fullfilling Urma"s mind and soul now, was just the desire to leave, and so she, neither turning around, nor trying to recognize a voices, rushed away as fast as she, probably, couldn"t at all. She still hasn"t realized, that she was leaving behind her dying closest friend, blessed savior and new-found sister, and her beloved one, who was mourning about the fallen victim: it"s still stayed outside of her consciousness.
***
The hot stuffy night seemed to be endless because of the painful sleeplessness: Julian hasn"t close his eyes since the very last moment of their Friday celebrations. Long, slow, tormenting Bertha"s death, like another one gloom ceremony, couldn"t be got out of his mind and kept on repeating and repeating in front of his eyes. Julian could almost see her shivering weak body and hear her last helpless tryings to call out the Satan"s name again: the illusion seemed to be even more real than whole the reality itself. Exactly at one of such moments a sudden sharp ring of a door bell made a young boy shivering, like under the painful hit. His body got squeezed, like if Julian was trying to hide himself in the tiny case, and hasn"t left to open the door for a long time, sincerely believing this ring was just his gallucination. But the tough metallic ring filled his flat by the sound once again, and so he, slowly and like in a fear, stood up and walked to the door. Opening it, he with the unmasked true surprising recognized a small fragile girl, standing in the dark-blue twilight in front of his door: it was Urma, deadly pale and nearly losing her sences.
- Hello, - silently whispered she and helplessly tried to smile. - Seems like you didn"t expect me to come...
- Right, - embarassingly answered Julian. - Here in Framnitz the guests don"t visit me too often... no matter. Come in, Urma.
He let her enter the dark, almost empty, hall and offered to follow him to the kitchen. The kitchen has been very small and lighted only by the old greenish lamp, hanging on the wall above the round dining-table. That table was surrounded by three wood chairs, and there were a brown sideboard and a refrigerator behind it - the only furniture of that kitchen. For some minutes, obviously long as an hours, like it happens everytime in the sorrow and mourning, they both were sitting at the table without any word and even didn"t throw at each other any occassional fast sight. Then Julian, like if he suddenly woke up after the long deep sleeping, said that he"s been going to boil a water for a tea and already took the teapot in his hand, but then, forgetting about his own words, just sat down at the table and hid his face behind the white shivering palms.
- Julian, - unsurely whispered Urma, trying to break this tormenting destructive silence. - I want to learn about... about Bertha... is she... dead?...
- Yes, - answered Julian in a deaf inner voice. - She is dead... I just... I can"t understand how could it happen... right in front of our eyes... right after the prayer...
- And maybe... maybe it was exactly the true reason? - suddenly supposed Urma.
- I don"t understand what do you mean...
- We spent together many years... me and Bertha... crawling around the Framnitz churches... and we learned very well a lot of holy christian canones... and antichristian too as well... of course... dead water is considered to be a poison...
Julian looked at her with a real, uncovered contempt and even the evil, like at the deadly lost enemy, and Urma, squeezing under his sharp sight, momently became silent, like if somebody would pull her tongue out of the mouth.
- This is the end, - looking really doomed and broken, whispered Julian. - I felt so united with her... I felt that we were one... like flesh and blood... I can"t explain it. Nothing except it had the matter. Even that I knew almost nothing about her...
- I knew almost nothing about her too, - nodded Urma. - Even though we spent together so many years and we"ve never had a secrets from each other... it seemed like she was the human who you could talk only about something essential to... I didn"t know as much as she knew about me... neither her age, nor surname... but I knew something else...
- What do you mean? - asked Julian, and the blinding flash did light his eyes: his strongest and only desire has always been to learn everything about Bertha, Urma couldn"t force herself not to notice it. - What do you know about her? Tell me!...
- I know why did Bertha leave a home, many years ago, - began a girl. - It happened nine years ago... when she was ten or eleven. She left away because she was too tired of living in the endless hate and fear. Her parents and her younger brother were deadly scared of her... panically scared. Probably since the very first day of her life.
- But why?
- Seemed like there were no reasons. But I think... I"m almost sure... that the true reason was always lying deep inside herself. She was a flesh from the Fallen Angel"s flesh, I know, but she was strange, very strange... haven"t you ever felt that there"s been something... something strange in her? Haven"t you ever felt the cold on your skin, when you were staying next to her? There"s always been a frosty, almost invisuable, moonlight, pouring out of her body... this light was the reason. She was damned from the very birth... or even before it.
- She would say she has been blessed, - strangely answered Julian. It was clear, that Urma"s hateful speech didn"t impress him at all, and he"s been still drowned in that tragic love to the dead prophet.
- Before she ranaway she killed her father... by this light, like by the lazer... I can"t explain it another way! It was... a gloom tragic miracle, - Urma was suffocating of excitement and couldn"t choose the acceptable words to say. - I gave her the oath that I will never share her secret with anybody, but now... now I have to do it... because of you... only because of you... I see you were in love with her... no, you STILL ARE... and if that"s so, then you MUST learn the truth... listen, Julian, she wasn"t just a fanatic prophet... she was somebody else... dark magician... she could force you to believe in anything she wanted you to believe in... it"s so scary... she could... she could just suggest me that I love her, like a sister... or suggest you that you...
- Enough! - suddenly shouted Julian and threw a madly furious sight straight at Urma"s eyes. - You MUST NEVER say such things about Bertha! You must love her, like the Bible Avraam loved his God, because she saved your life, because she gave you a hope, a sence for your life, because she showed you the true destination... you have no right to betray her... you have no right to say even the only dirty word about her, Urma... because you are nobody and nothing without Bertha... now we all are...
- Bertha was a murderer, - declined Urma, still trying to make Julian believe in it. - After her father"s death she could feel calm and safe until she killed her mother as well... and then, just a week ago, she... she crusified her younger brother on the cross! Do you though understand, what does it all mean?! Julian, I can"t believe you are really so blind and dumb!...
- If Satan helped Bertha to killed her family, - calmly, like if they were talking just about the weather, said Julian, - it means they all have deserved the death.
- No... I can"t believe that I hear it from you! Julian, just listen to yourself! You consider each of Bertha"s words to be the true!
- I don"t consider. Each of Bertha"s words has always been the true.
- Even her words about the comet? Even her orders to everyone to make a suicide?!
- Yes. Especcially it.
- This is non-sence, Julian... how could Satan bring her a death then, if everything she proclaimed about Him was true?
- Being so sure in Bertha, Satan and his son Antichrist couldn"t believe in the others. And so this is just an examination for all of us, who stayed alive. An examination about our belief. We must show now, do we really love our Teacher and are we ready to set our souls free out of fleshes in the name of Him. Bertha"s become the first one, who took the closest place to Him. All the other places are still kept for us.
- Are you sure?! - shockingly, understanding almost nothing from his speech, shouted Urma. - ARE YOU SURE?!
- Yes. I am sure, - answered Julian and somehow strangely, very strangely, smiled to her and then added. - Follow me, please. I have something to show you.
And, not waiting for the answer, a young boy stood up, almost painfully squeezed Urma"s hand and did lead her behind himself, to the tiny, dark and dirty room, being a living-room, bedroom and a cabinet at the same time. When he"s just widely opened the door, Urma"s breath got torn apart and her heart stopped, like after the death. She didn"t want to believe to her own eyes and didn"t want to accept the shocking reality, freezing the blood in her veins, but Julian was toughly pulling her behind himself, and Urma, having no strength to fight against him - no, against them both! - just slowly, step by step, did follow him, deeper into the room, until Julian stopped her next to the bed. There was a very young, beautiful as a Goddess, nicely dressed up girl, lying on that bed under the bloodred blanket. She was white, like a snow, and her unnaturally bright heavy make-up only emphasized this dead color of her dry and covered by the corpse spots skin. The innumerable number of the rings, necklaces, chains, bracelets and symbolic medals was creating the impression that a girl has just come back from the strange heretic holiday she took a main role in the celebrations of. This impression was so strong that nothing could destroy it, and nothing could break the maniacal idea, that she"s been just pretending to sleep... this girl was Bertha.
- Look at her, - Julian"s inner silent voice rudely forced Urma to return into reality. A young boy seemed to be absolutely charmed by Bertha"s dead magical beauty. - She is an angel. Immortal angel.
And he, stroking her dark long hair, kissed her cold and tough, like the frozen ground, lips. When Julian rose his hand up again and looked at a shocked moveless Urma, his eyes were shining of pleasure. He was so painfully excited that nearly could breathe, and a girl, throwing her sight to him and to the corpse, lying on the bed, got panically scared.
- Go away, - silently whispered Julian and sencelessly smiled, squeezing white dead hand of breathless Bertha. - Go away right now and don"t ever come back. You are superfluous here, Urma. You have no place next to us.
- Us?! - surprisingly repeated Urma. - Us whom? You are alone here, Julian... you have nobody... nobody but me...
- You, - Julian cut this word off with the unmasked and even especcially emphasized contempt. - You mean nothing for me. You are nothing. I am here with Bertha, we are together... we are closer to each other, than flesh and blood...
- Stop saying such a foolish things! - screamed Urma. Seemed like the sound of her own voice has made her scared, and she kept on speaking already much more lower. - Julian, please, listen to me... you have to understand... Bertha"s dead... do you hear me?! BERTHA"S DEAD!...
- BERTHA"S NOT DEAD! - loudly screamed Julian and pushed a hand of the corpse to his chest, like if he was scared that somebody"s been going to take Bertha away from him. - BERTHA"S IMMORTAL! BERTHA"S ALWAYS HERE WITH ME!...
- Julian...
- Go away! GO AWAY! GOAWAY GOAWAYGOAWAY!...
And Urma, already feeling she was loosing her consciousness because of his screams and a view of the ceremoniously dressed up corpse, forced herself to leave Julian"s gloom, cold and tiny, like a grave, flat.
IV
The 6th of June, 2006:
- Go away! GO AWAY! GOAWAY GOAWAYGOAWAY!...
His loud, like a thunder, and mad because of the blind hate voice has still been sounding in her ears, within her heart, inside her body, and she couldn"t rushed to the freedom from it. It was a sick mania: dead, killed by her own hands, Bertha didn"t leave Urma alone, and a girl saw her beautiful, thin and pale face everywhere, wherever she would go. Urma saw her, like if she has still been alive, did even notice the smile, touching her cold blue lips, the senceless speech of her fast tough gestures and felt, by the skin and by the soul, that ice moonlight, pulssing out from Bertha"s body. This light was the same, and it made Urma scared and destroing by her fear. But it wasn"t the fear for her own destiny, but only for Julian. She couldn"t get his words about the destination, belief and faithfullness to the Teacher out of a head, and the silent panic was painfully squeezing her heart by the frozen and burning chains. Urma was just trying to find the answer, how could she live, if Julian will make Bertha"s mad fanatic oaths come true, tearing his life off by the suicide, and the understanding of her own helplessness was just killing her. It was already midnight, the first seconds of the Satan"s day, 6th day of the 6th month, and there were only 6 hours left in Julian"s life, so Urma finally took her nervous decision and quickly, paying attention to nothing around herself, left away to Julian"s home. She still kept the last slight hope to save his life once again, and that night she felt ready to do absolutely anything in the name of her love to Julian... and even her love to Bertha. Yes. She will beg Julian to gift her corpse to the ground, as every deadman must come back to mother-earth.
***
The realizing of her weakness and of all the hopelessness of the acts did momently leave Urma'" mind straight at the moment when Julian opened the door after her ring. She was calling not for the one minute and, if a young boy wouldn"t finally open the door, her heart would probably got torn apart and broken in small pieces because of the nervous excitement and fear, endless cold fear that everything was happening in vain.
- Julian, - it was the only word she could pronounce at that moment, looking at the indifferent pale face with a shining, like under the effect of drugs, huge and moist eyes.
He didn"t throw even the only rude word in the answer to a girl and, just turning his back on her, left from the hall to the tiny room: it looked like if he would agree with anything, if that would only give him a hope not to see and to hear Urma anymore. She understood it without any another explanations and it painfully pricked her, but, as the door has been left widely opened, Urma just decided to follow Julian and entered his flat. It wasn"t difficult at all to guess, where would Julian lead her: when Urma crossed the slight board between the hall and the room, she saw him already standing on his knees next to the bed and... kissing an ice moveless corpse. But next moment Urma has been shockingly damaged one more time: taking a look from out Julian"s shoulder, she realized that, no matter how strangly it could be, Bertha"s fragile, half-destroyed by the tuberculosis body wasn"t decomposing at all. It seemed to be that a girl hasn"t been dead, but just drowned in the deep healthy sleeping. The pulssing out light has been seen and touching the skin by the cold, exactly like at all the days of her short strange life: now Urma, without any doubts, was considering this light to be the origin of all the pain, all the dirt, all the sins and all the lie of Framnitz.
- Bertha was the curse of this town, - whispered Urma, like if she was applying to herself.
- Bertha IS the bless of this town, - denied Julian. - Look at her: Lucifer is still saving at safe not only her soul, but also her body, like Jesus Christ is saving the bodies of His saints. Bertha is an angel. She never could die. She"s immortal. She"s not like me... and of course, not like you...
- That"s right, - nodded Urma, painfully squeezing the fingers. - She"s not like me, and I"m not like her... I"m not the mur...
She silently broke her own speech on the half of the word and held a head down, trying not to look at Julian, who was absolutely caught by her strange mistake and surely noticed that she was really confused and even scared.
- So? - impatiently asked he. - Say it till the very end, in a loud voice, if you still consider yourself to be anything higher than a dirt under the feet.
His words did hurt her, like an unexpected insult from the closest friend, and she hurried up with the answer:
- I wanted to tell you, that I"m not a murderer... that I"m just a victim... Bertha was trying to lead us all straight to the death. That"s truth, Julian, and you know it...
- It"s not a leading to the death, - indifferently declined Julian; it was absolutely clear that Urma"s words didn"t absolutely affect at him. - It"s a leading to the highest aim of your life. What could be more important than doing your true destination? It"s the only thing worth living for...
- No, - nearly crying, said Urma. - No, Julian, no, it"s not so... death couldn"t be worth living for... it could only be the sence of your life if you still haven"t find another, essential, sence... you haven"t find neither your real love, nor your closest friend... you still have to do so much, and you want to make a suicide, such a freaky sin? No, you"re already making a freaky sin!...
- What are you talking about? - Julian has been already tired because of this short, but seemed to be endless, conversation.
- I"m talking about Bertha"s body. It mustn"t been left here, in your bedroom. It must be buried on the graveyard, according to all the canones of her religion she accepted since the very birth! And if you really love her as much as you say, then you have to gift her a peace. Don"t laugh above the death.
- I never laugh above the death, - strictly answered Julian, stroking dark, like a burnt in the ash grass, hair of a corpse. - And I"m only keeping her body at safe to prepare it to the very last ceremony, as her soul"s already prepared and just exhausting now in the expectation. But there"s only five hours left. And then... no more pain, no more tears... no more hunger, no more disease, no more suffering... nothing but the happiness, nothing but the award we all have to receive for our faithfull serve to our Teacher. And that could be the only thing, gifting her a peace. To be buried in the ground and eaten by the worms - this is humiliation.
Urma became silent and for a very long time she couldn"t pronounce even the only word, just watching her beloved one kissing and gently stroking frozen dead skin and dry hair. It took all her strength and all her will to make a final decision to begin speaking again.
- Julian, - whispered she so silently, that a young boy didn"t hear her at first. - Julian, please... I beg you, listen to me... I must tell you something... it"s very important...
- What could be so important, that I still don"t know, and you"ve already learned? - with a nasty smile asked Julian: he really didn"t consider her to be a serious and important companion in the conversations.
- You"ll see, it really could be, - answered Urma, still collecting her strengths under the heart. - It"s about Bertha. I want to tell you something about her.
His face momently became moveless and strained, and his voice, when he was asking his question, was shivering of a strongest excitement:
- What? What else are you going to say?
- I want to tell you the truth... you... mustn"t finish that damned ritual, you mustn"t make a suicide this morning... you can"t... just have no right... otherwise it would mean that Bertha"s death was a freaky mistake...
- I don"t understand. Say straightly, Urma, what are you hiding from me? Why are you talking about Bertha now?
- Look... it wasn"t a dead water, that killed Bertha... it was... it was my fault...
- WHAT?!
- YES! I put the poison in that cup she drank a water from! Her blood is on my hands! I killed her! I KILLED HER! I did it... just because of you... because when I learned what she"s been going to do at 6th of June... and imagined that you... you"ll be no more, you will die... I just understood that I will never can live without you too... I felt the fear in front of the death, Julian, I wanted to chase it away from myself and especcially from you... I know that killing Bertha could be my last chance to save you... and now I... I can"t believe that I was so wrong... I can"t believe that nothing, even a death, could stop this monster! I love you, Julian! Trust me, I"ve done everything only for you! I killed my beloved found sister, the savior of my life, only to chase a death away from you! Julian... Julian, please... tell me though something! DON"T BE SILENT!
Julian has been still standing on his knees in front of the bed and pushing Bertha"s ice hand with a moveless fingers to his heart; he didn"t pronounce a word and didn"t look at Urma, like if she didn"t exist at all. But next moment he suddenly rose up from the floor and coldly cut off:
- I"m going to do what I swore to. Get away from my home, you, dirty betrayer. I don"t want to see you anymore. You are nothing. You are nothing, if you can doom your sister on a death. Get away.
He made a few tough steps to the opened door, but suddenly, moving like a flash of the lightning, crying of fear, sadness and annoyance Urma appeared right in front of him and closed the exit from the room by her own body, like by the shield.
- No, - whispered she with a broken voice. - No... please... I beg you... I love you... much more than Bertha, but she loved... no, she LOVES you too... we both love you!
- How could you dare to say her name, bitch? Get out of our way!
- NO! - Urma has got under the sick power of uncontrollable hysteria. - NO! I won"t let you! I won"t let you! If you want to come out from this room, then you"ll have to kill me! Do you understand?! YOU"LL HAVE TO KILL ME!
Urma"s eyes and skin have been burning, like above the wildest fire, and it was clear, that a girl hasn"t been understanding at all the sence of her own words. But that strange sharp sight, throw at her by Julian, could easily prove, that a young boy understood the sence of those words very well.
- AS. YOU. WISH, - slowly and loudly, emphasizing every word, pronounced Julian, and Urma finally realized what was she asking him about, but there"s been already too late: something heavy fell down on her head with a destructive, powerfull hit, turning a bones and the blood into the ash, like the hit of the lightning. The very last thing Urma has realized was a heavy itching pain in the head and a strange warmth, flowing down on her face by the slow thick streams... and the fear. How the death could be realized like and what Bertha felt in the very last moments before her soul got separated from the flesh, Urma didn"t understand at all.
***
Holding a corpse on the hands, like the mother is holding her newborn child, Julian left his flat away. When he was crossing the board between room and hall, he noticed Urma, breathlessly lying on the floor, and pushed her dead body out from his way by his boot, throwing at her the very last hateful sight. He didn"t confess in this murder at all. In contrary, he was happy, thinking of the crime he"s done. He was absolutely sure that Urma deserved a cruel and dirty death for her treason and lie, and more happier that at those moments Julian could only feel, when he was looking at Bertha"s white moveless face: it was dead, but it got frozen not in the indifferent, but in the proud and blessed by the learning of holy mystery expression. The mystical moonlight has become brighter and has been pulssing out faster and more impulsive, like if the blood in her veins started to run once again. This light was hypnotizing and driving mad, so Julian was passionly kissing Bertha"s lips, forehead, neck and braist, while was walking with her corpse in the embraces across the silent desert streets of night Framnitz. He was walking further and further, never turning around or paying attention to anything else but the light, pouring outside of Bertha"s skin, and he felt that light was burning and freezing his inner organs, like the radioactive rays. It was exactly 6 o"clock of the morning, 6th of June of 2006th year, when Julian, achieving the low sand bank of the fast crystally-clear river at the Framnitz board, saw a slight silver flash in the dark sky and realized everything that had to be realized. It was the sign to him. It was the blessing of Satan"s Son, gifting to him. It was a calling of Bertha"s soul, dancing there in the skies among the Satan"s angels.
- I love you! - screamed Julian in the sky, trying to see the flash of the comet once again. - I"m coming to you!
And he, pushing Bertha"s corpse to himself, madly smiling and movelessly looking at the sky, kept on walking further, into the warm, stroking him, like a silk, water, to the river depth. It seemed to be endless, just because it was happening too fast. Bertha"s body hasn"t already been seen, covered by the thick water curtain, but Julian just kept on walking and walking, until the waves caught him into it"s cell too, until the water rushed into his body and destoyed it from the inside.
- We"ll be together... whole the eternity, - it was the very last of his thoughts, and, before or already after the death presented him it"s tender kiss, Julian was ready to swear, that he heard Bertha"s answer:
- We will...