CHAPTER THIRTEEN

 

 

Vera Mason and I traveled around Europe irregularly. That is, it didn't have any pre-planned schedule. However, as she herself hinted, our travel routes depended on the number of refugees and migrants from Africa living in a given country or city.

We didn't stay long in Berlin until Vera visited most of Germany's major cities, from Munich to Hamburg. In each of these metropolises, she urged Africans, especially males, to return home.

How do you do it, Vera? You walk up to the first African you meet and say, "Come on, man, pack up, let's go home to Africa! To the Congo, to Zanzibar, to Mali, or to the Togolese Republic?" I asked her once.

"No, of course not," Vera replied. "We usually gather in restaurants, cafes, or spaces provided by municipalities. They're happy to do this, by the way, hoping to quickly get rid of the African refugees who have settled in their cities. My assistants or local activists do the preliminary planning for these meetings. At these gatherings, I tell my compatriots that change is brewing in the lives of each of their countries of origin. However, it won't be successful without you, without your European experience. 'Study, learn vocational skills, go to high school, go to university. Everything you learn here will be in demand back home!' That's what I talk about with African refugees. After all, Africa is our common home.

Meanwhile, while Vera was busy returning Africans to their ancestral homeland, I was living a sybaritic lifestyle—that is, I was living for my own pleasure. And this was the happiness that she promised me when she was going to kidnap me. Moreover, I was idle myself and was teaching Brain to live one day. However, he didn't enjoy this kind of pastime. He wanted to act, create, build—in short, to be engaged in something. But then again, is visiting museums and experiencing Berlin's cultural life really "idleness"?

  One day, while Vera and I were relaxing on a boat trip along the Spree River, taking in Berlin's sights and landscapes, Brain seemed to tug at my tongue. So, I said, "Vera, you work so hard, come on, let me help you. If you want, Brain and I can brainstorm and create something that will make your work more enjoyable..."

She snorted indignantly and said that her job was already enjoyable. And she started asking me who this Brain was. She asked me to introduce her to him. But I couldn't even imagine how to do that—that is, how to introduce Vera to Brain? And, most importantly, what would she think of me when she found out who or what this Brain was?

Realizing what I was saying, I backtracked. I tried to convince Vera that everything I'd just said was nonsense, a bad joke. I asked her to forget about the whole conversation. But she insisted. "I think you're hiding something from me. And I don't want you falling in with the wrong crowd, going to prostitutes, or, worse, getting addicted to drugs. So, go ahead, introduce me to this Brain," she declared categorically.

Fortunately, Vera, so preoccupied with her humanitarian mission, soon forgot about that conversation, and everything went on as usual. She dealt with the refugees, while Brain and I wandered around Berlin, visiting museums, and engaging in metaphysical debates. In particular, we discussed the possibility of God's existence as a supreme supernatural being and his influence on human life. In short, we behaved like two high school students discussing a topic we knew nothing about, each trying to prove to the other that one of us was smarter than the other. When our supply of irrational proofs ran low, we resorted to the philosophers of the past. Brain was better at this than I was. And when he quoted Voltaire's apothegm: "If God did not exist, he would have to be invented. But he doesn't need it," I gave in, acknowledging Brain's victory in this debate and accepting my defeat.

One day, we headed to Museum Island, determined to visit the Pergamon Museum. However, it turned out that this Berlin antiquities repository was closed for renovation. Nevertheless, thanks to Brain's unique abilities, we managed to penetrate the museum's inner sanctum and see the crown jewel of its exhibition—the Pergamon Altar of Zeus.

As I stood before this altar, gazing at the relief depicting the battle of the gods with the giants, I was overcome by strange feelings. What was happening to me then resembled, as the medical encyclopedia explains, "symptoms of depersonalization/de - realization." This is when a person experiences a feeling of detachment from their body and the world around them. The same thing happened to me.

Incredibly, the next moment I became an ancient god, fighting for the truth under the banner of Zeus. As the battle with the giants reached its climax, Brain called out to me, "Leo! Leo!" And I, laying aside my double-edged xiphias, returned to the twenty-first century A.D.

In essence, Brain saved me from the pitiful fate that would have awaited me had I remained on that battlefield. The era of antiquity would have ended, and I, like the other ancient gods, would have been transformed into a beautiful, but immobile and silent statue...

"Yes, Brain's intervention was very opportune," I thought. And, brushing the dust from my knees left behind by the battle between the gods and the giants, I approached the museum's next exotic exhibit—the Gate of Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess of fertility, love, and war.

“Amazing!” I said, seeing these gates and piers of a piercing blue color with images of mythical animals on them.

“Yes, German restorers know how to throw dust in people’s eyes, no worse than they did during the time of Tsar Nabucco II,” stated Brain.

"What do you have against Nabukudurriutsur?" I asked.

Brain paused for thought. I felt the ground slipping from beneath my feet. And a second later, I was already under the transparent dome protecting the museum complex from the elements.

"Where are you going, Odysseus?" Someone shouted after me. Reacting to the voice, I turned around and saw Leonid Petrenko — yes, my identical twin brother. We coexist in a single, shared body. And this isn't idle fiction, but a medically proven fact that even the paradoxical Freud wouldn't dare dispute.

After Vera Mason presented me with a Romanian passport, it became easier for my brother and me to identify each other. Out of modesty, I began calling myself by the impostor's name—Leo, Leo Lupo—while my brother remained under our legal name—Leonid Petrenko.

The only difference between him and me is that, due to his utter laziness, he forgot how to fly, so he always remained on the ground. And every time I ventured outside, he would get angry, gloat, and, laughing at me, call me Odysseus, Gagarin, or Neil Armstrong.

However, I never held a grudge against him. And then, seeing my brother's small figure from above, I took pity on him as a human being and, forgiving him for yet another hooligan outburst, I rose even higher.

The Spree River, Museum Island, the cathedral, numerous Muslim minarets, and with them all of Berlin and its suburbs, receded northward, diminishing in size and finally vanished over the horizon. I, without even knowing why, "straddled" one of the Earth's magnetic field lines and headed south.

Ahead, faster than I expected, the hills of Asia Minor loomed in the blue haze. Those same hills over which, during the Crusades, my father, mother, and I flew to the Holy Sepulcher to find our way out…

However, this time I found myself alone in Western Anatolia, and much earlier than before, around 400 BCE by Earth reckoning, which didn't really matter. For in the space-time continuum I inhabited, there were no gradations of hours, days, months, years, centuries, or past, present, and future. There was only one thing, without beginning or end: Time.

Checking the star chart, I determined that I was approximately on the 37th parallel, between the 37th and 42nd meridians east. This was Ionia, the land of one of the four ancient Greek tribes. I landed near the mouth of the deep Maeander River, which flowed into the Gulf of Miletus. It was a beautiful place among vineyards, orange and olive groves. In the distance, herds of horses, flocks of goats, and sheep grazed on lush pastures.

Surveying the historical landscape, I discovered with regret that I had arrived in Asia Minor too early, before the Pergamon Altar of Zeus was erected. This would have occurred sometime between 283 and 133 BCE, during the heyday of the Pergamon Kingdom. Consequently, even I, a time-traveling pilgrim, was not given the privilege of seeing something that does not exist in nature. Something that had not even taken shape as an idea or an artistic image in the minds of architects who, likewise, had not yet been born, and it is unknown whether they will ever be born, in this fragile and violent world, where the birth and death of man depend on such humanists as Nebuchadnezzar, Darius, Xerxes, or Alexander the Great. In short, I was not fortunate enough to see the original Pergamon Altar of Zeus and then compare it with the Berlin "remake."

While I was deciding what to do in this situation, I heard the clatter of hooves; three horsemen were galloping from the sea. Instinctively, I jumped aside and hid behind a grape bush, covering myself with a five-fingered leaf. And when the horsemen had gone, I burst into hysterical laughter, remembering that in my current state, no one could see or hear me.

A barely discernible silhouette appeared on the road running alongside the vineyard. I sinfully thought it was a phantom of my grandfather Stepan, who has been following me everywhere lately. However, upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a living person, probably a local. His face was Caucasian, with inquisitive brown eyes, a straight nose, and medium-full lips. He was dressed in a traditional green Ionian linen chiton, fastened with brooches on his left shoulder. On his feet were lightweight, leather-soled ipodimata sandals. It was hot, and he wore no himantia or chlamys.

An Epirus molosser, a dog capable of holding its own against even a lion, strode proudly beside the Greek. As it passed, the dog glanced sideways at me without even turning its head. It probably didn't so much see me as sense me, as a presence that shouldn't exist but, contrary to common sense, existed. Confused, it stalked on, pressing its side against its master's leg.

But that wasn't what preoccupied me more than the Greek's beard. And while I was trying to remember where and on whom I'd seen such a beard, three barefoot youths, dressed in colorful tunics, passed by, deep in conversation. As I watched them go, I continued to wonder who else had such a distinctive beard, combed toward the center, like that Greek's...

"What are you thinking about, Leo?" Brain asked, having nothing better to do.

"About the beard!” I spoke.

That is the beard of the Greek?" he asked.

"Yeah! I think I've seen someone with a beard like this before!"

"You probably mean the beard of Herodotus from the herm kept in the Roman National Museum of Palazzo Massimo in Terme."

“But I’ve never been to Rome,” I replied.

"Well, you might have seen this artifact on the internet and remembered the structure of the beard on the sculpted head on that Italian herm," Brain suggested further.

“Yes, perhaps,” I said, losing patience.

"So!" Brain continued. "The meticulous Italians, having compared several known sculptural portraits, came to the conclusion that the head carved on that herm is indeed that of Herodotus of Halicarnassus..."

"Are you trying to convince me that the Greek who walked past us is the same Herodotus, the 'Father of History'?" I asked, confused.

"Well, Marcus Tullius Cicero would bestow that title upon him, but that would happen much later. Before that, Herodotus was simply a teacher of history and geography," Brain stated without much reverence.

"Well, then, those three youths who followed him must be his students," I decided. And without thinking twice, I set off in pursuit. Thus, trying to catch up with Herodotus and his students, I found myself in Miletus, a large and wealthy port city, considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

After wandering through the streets drenched in the southern sun, I seemed to be in the northern part of the city. Finally, I spotted a man whom Brain and I identified as Herodotus by the distinctive texture of his beard. He and his students were just passing under the arch of the Miletus Market gate, heading to a grocery store. After haggling with a Persian kapylos, he took two pounds of goat cheese, unleavened barley cakes, dates, and a small clay amphora of wine, paying for everything in ancient Greek “eurodrachmas.”

Leaving the market, the group, led by the teacher, turned down a crooked street lined with filthy one-story shacks, which I guessed housed slaves, and emerged beyond the city fortifications. In the distance, a hill loomed, with a verdant grove on its western slope, and Herodotus and his students headed toward it.

Finally, the group stopped at the edge of the forest, near a century-old oak tree, around which flat stones were scattered in a checkerboard pattern, resembling lounge chairs. When the teacher sat down on one, the young men who had come with him settled around him. "An open-air gymnasium," I thought. Herodotus, meanwhile, picked up a barley cake, broke it into pieces, and distributed it to the students. There was something familiar in the teacher's gesture. And I recalled the biblical legend of "the five loaves of bread and the two fishes..."

I looked at the Greeks sitting in a circle around a century-old oak tree and thought, "How naturally they fit into the milieu of the ancient world..." And immediately a soft, velvety voice rang out, as if coming from far away, perhaps from another place and time. It was the voice of Herodotus. Unrolling a voluminous scroll, he read:

"According to knowledgeable people from the East, the Phoenicians were the ones to blame for the discord between the Greeks and the barbarians. It all began when their merchants abducted Io, the daughter of the Greek king Inachus... Then women were kidnapped one after another. Thus, the Greeks, in revenge for the abduction of Io, abducted the princess Europa from the Phoenicians, and stole the daughter Medea from the king of the Colchians. And already in the next generation, Alexander, the son of the Trojan king Priam, having learned of these abductions, himself desired to abduct a woman from Hellas. And without a second thought, he stole the princess Helen from the Greeks.

And, pausing, Herodotus read the following paragraph: "In any case, he is wise who does not care about abducted women. It is clear that women would not be abducted if they themselves did not want it..."

This ancient Greek's dictum struck me with its depth and frankness. And I thought of Vera Mason, imagining her disappointment at not finding me in our rented Berlin apartment on Hochstrasse; and I immediately cut short my protracted "business trip" to Asia Minor...

I arrived in Berlin on time; Vera hadn't yet returned from her trip to Bonn. Considering the flight time and the taxi ride from Berlin Brandenburg Airport to the city center, she wouldn't be home until 7 or 8 PM.

The wall clock showed a quarter to six, and I had plenty of time to make dinner. Usually, if Vera and I aren't dining out, she cooks herself, usually Togolese dishes. Of course, we eat chicken more often; it's easier to cook. However, after visiting Asia Minor and classes at the Herodotus Gymnasium, inspiration struck. I decided to impress Vera with my culinary talent by preparing gboma-dessi, a dish that, according to Vera, triples male potency.

Opening the refrigerator, I found about a pound of beef and a saddle of goat. In the lower compartment were other necessary ingredients, including ginger, spinach, onions, peppers, and tomato sauce. Everything I needed! And I set about preparing the bomb dish...

It was already around 7:30 p.m. when I finally finished cooking dinner and hurried to the bathroom to draw water for Vera. After adding sea salt and pine extract to the water, I heard the doorbell ring, playing a fragment of the overture to the opera "Nabucco," and dashed into the hallway, threw open the front door, and, to the solemn music of Verdi, let Vera into the apartment. 

"Oh! Divine melody, divine aroma!" Vera exclaimed, listening to the music and catching the scents emanating from the kitchen.

"And the pine bath is ready, Fraulein," I said.

"Thank you, my dear," she replied, and walked regally toward the bathroom.

"In the meantime, I'll set the table," I replied.

About fifteen minutes later, Vera's voice came from the bathroom:

"Leo, my boy, where are you? Come here, let's wash my back..."

"She's already bossing you around like her slave!" "Come here, let's wash my back..." Brain commented on Vera's words, ironically and jealously.

"The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?" I repeated the prophet Jeremiah's revelations to myself and followed Vera's voice, like cicadas following the call of their love partners.