To Be Who You Are
A. Manvayler
ABU. To Be Who You Are
COMMANDMENT
Editor Maria Felderer
© A. Manvayler, 2019
ISBN 978-5-4496-3401-6
Created with Ridero smart publishing system
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream-and not make dreams your master;
If you can think-and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build “em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings-nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And-which is more-you’ll be a Man, my son!
INDEX
1 Alyona. Return To Moscow
2 Discovery Of India
3 My Goa
4 Abu – The First Meeting
5 The New Life Together
6 The Quartet
7 Heredity Abu
8 Money Reform
9 New Year 2018
10 Abu’s Last Day
11 Pandora’s Box
12 Abu’s Relatives
13 20 Days With Keith
14 Friends End Me
15 Сarnival
16 Excile Zero
17 Palolem. Aggy
18 The Games оf Emotions
1 – ALYONA. RETURN TO MOSCOW
Alyona, a pale, tearful girl of Balzac’s age, who had lost ten kilograms during the last month, did not consciously wish to be anywhere else. She surrendered to the flow of life, and life’s vicissitudes ceased to attract her. She did not have any desire to start afresh as she had no other goals. She needed an urgent transformation, but she could not concentrate on anything. So, shewent along the stream. Life was going by apathetically, and to gain any satisfaction from it was like waiting in vain. All the resources were exhausted. She no longer wanted to listen to herself or look at the world from the outside. All the same, there were no new horizons for her, and the current ones only vexed her more.
She got rid of the prejudices and became disenchanted with the freedom that she had endured. Now she felt like a doll, a robot programmed by an unknown puppeteer.
Not only her black curly braid was dangling lifelessly on her shoulders, but seven happy years were also left dead behind her, and only through sunglasses flashed a memory of a bright, sunny past in which she was really happy. Alyona was in despair: nothing went the way she would have liked, although in her condition, it was pointless to talk about any desires.
The day of departure arrived. February 15. The husband of Abu’s sister insisted to drop Alyona off at the airport in his office car, as just a day ago he had given his own car for repair after the accident on the day of carnival. On the way to the airport the familiar landscape was flashing in front of her eyes. Here she had been happy with her beloved ABU. With his death all seemed lifeless to her. She was in no mood to talk, she was far away with her thoughts, and her eyes relished the last sun and endless brightness of the landscapes of this affable country, which, perhaps, she would not see soon. Will she?…
She was pulled out of her stupor by the screeching of the brakes and the scene of the accident, unfolding in slow motion, as if in a movie, right before their eyes: a huge yellow truck painted under Khokhloma, wildly screeching with brakes, flew into a blue Suzuki subcompact. Thank God, there were no victims. Raj began to get out of this abrupt traffic jam, reversing, cutting through the cacophony of signals of surrounding scooters, subcompacts and rickshaws.
Finally, escaping from the dense stream, they drove up to the airport building. Coming out of the car, as Alyona watched Raj retrieving her things, Alyona suddenly broke down into tears, remembering all her ordeals of the last few weeks: that she had lost Abu, that this was the first time in several years when it was not him, who was coming to see her off to the airport. She tried to stop the flow of these thoughts from her last efforts, coaxing herself and frantically searching for answers to questions she had already asked herself long ago: “What next? Will I return? How will I live?” Just in time, she became aware of the fact that the ability to bear loneliness is a sign of spiritual maturity, that we are at our best when we are alone. If love changes a person quickly, then despair – even faster. And one need not succumb to despair.
She alleviated her imminent return to the cold motherland with the motto phrase, which she had read from Coelho:
“Getting lost – this is the best way to find something interesting”.
Having parked near the terminal, Raj, after unloading things from the car, hugged her heartily and said: “Come back, definitely! We’ll all miss you and wait for you”.
She took out the passport and e-tickets that had to be printed out in advance, or you won’t be allowed inside the airport. She approached the armed guard standing at the entrance, scrutinizing the papers more than the faces, they did it regularly, but very meticulously.
Alyona moved to the check-in counter.. It’s funny, but the surcharge for the excess baggage was more expensive than the ticket itself. But there was nothing she could do, and Alyona had to hand over last of her rupees to the boy handling this