That's where I'm gonna start. Sergei, when I die, you remember one thing - do not buy anything expensive, everything should be modest. And don't do expensive rituals. It won't save me from my sins anyway," my grandmother wrote with her mean medical handwriting in a green notebook.
I have never seen my grandfather. His father doesn't remember him. And his family always kept silent about him. Children have an oddity that upset adults - to turn everything upside down in boxes, chests, to go through the cabinets. I think it's just an attempt to explore the world, or maybe find something wonderful, unprecedented in it. But then I wasn't moved by curiosity, I was just, even automatically, digging through the black and white pictures. And on one of them was my grandmother with some man - his face was cut out, and his body was pierced with a needle with black thread. I ran to my grandmother and asked: "What is it? She was waiting for her musicians, obviously nervous, so she probably yelled: "He's a bastard, a bastard, a bastard! I woke up, stunned, struck by her grimace. When she turned her back, she calmed down and left to place the pianists in a large room, I didn't really see them, but I thought I heard quiet conversations and music. I stopped asking about my grandfather, and no one knew if he was alive or dead. I saw other pictures with his face. He was standing in the middle of a field in a pot and smoking. He was a cinematic man. After all, he and his grandmother had some kind of love, since his father was born.
My father does not communicate with us. But he also once had love with his children's mother - me and Sophia. Marriages, pierced with a needle and sewn with a black thread, have been sitting in my head since childhood and kill the idea of love. But I love music. All my childhood I went with my grandmother to meet musicians. I cleaned as much as I could in the oval room. I heard conversations and music. I stroked the cello strings and heard Sophia's concentrated, intense silence.
- Well, I'm calm for you," my mother's gaze at Sophia was heard. - But Alexander...
Grandma died a month after her 90th birthday. Of course, I agreed that my grandmother was strange, with some special view of the world and hearing of its secret sounds.
- That's the most harmless thing," her father said. - If she loved anything, it was death.
As soon as she left, they found that notebook in her room, which was written in a crawling medical handwriting. On the cover it was written:
"Sergei's memo when I die. "Serezha, when I die, do not open the corpse. My card is in the polyclinic, there are all the data. According to Christian custom, the corpse should be alone for an hour, that is, no one should approach it. Everything is quiet, calm. I have to have a cross around my neck and I have to make a ritual in the church according to the Christian custom. To receive a communion, to answer (well, that's how I write it, I think that my father knows what to do with the deceased). All mirrors should be closed in the room with the deceased. I've been preparing myself to die all my life. Cross, prayer, icon - I wrapped everything in a white handkerchief. A photo in a frame. Headscarves and handkerchiefs are in a bag. Skirt and jacket. It's easier to put them on a dead man than a dress, so I didn't sew the dress. The circles are white. There are a lot of them. They are for the coffin. 2 sheets. Slippers. Stockings. A handkerchief on the head with green stripes, white, thin. Carnations to nail the upholstery on the coffin and lace. Remember me in the church. And it is necessary for me and my parents. They say it is best to remember bread products - rolls, pies, pancakes, pancakes. Be sure to take a loaf of bread to the church, put it on a table (there is a special one). Serezha, put a candle for the rest of your soul on everyone and read it in front of the icon and candle in the church - remember the Lord in the reign of your soul of the deceased slaves Trofim, Mary, Anatoly and all the Orthodox Christians, forgive them all their sins, free and involuntary, and grant them the kingdom of heaven. Dig a shallow pit, put a Christian cross, make a tombstone very light - of iron, not granite. For the work done in the burial is expensive not to pay, expensive rites do not do anything but to help you at a loss, but be sure to remember me at home - the distribution of cookies or something baked, and in the church to put a candle for the rest of the soul and order at least once a year, but better often, the rite of rest. Pay for this ritual at low prices and immediately order a prosphora for rest, it is desirable for you to eat it, and if you order a few prosphora, then give them to people in the church and say: "Remember the servant of God's Love. It is necessary to perform the ritual in the church, it is called "Seal", that is, to take the earth in the temple and scatter it on the grave (you know, on whose ...) in the form of a cross. Remember me. There is such a memorial day. You need to know when it happens.
P. S. That's all the special tools we talked about. And the money for Alexander is in the Tatar locker, the key to which I am sure he will never forget. It's my will, only to him and only to the music.
Unbelieving parents did everything but a small grave - it is forbidden by health standards, strangely enough, Grandma is a doctor, she should have known it. And I was waiting for the musicians to come and play at my grandmother's funeral. There was music everywhere, I heard it. I heard it until my mother told me:
- There are no musicians! - nervously throwing her hands, she exclaimed. - No! And there was never, ever, there was schizophrenia...
How could she not? After all, I was theirs...
I've never really seen them before.
Then it came to me. She always wanted to sing, just how she could serve - the only one, the highest listener. And it was as if the musicians were behind her, just cut them out. Scissors of fate.
A surprisingly short coffin. Her face with broken cheeks in mourning circles. It was strange, as if a pretended expression had struck me. I looked closely and heard the music.
And the key was easy to find. She and I were the only ones who knew the secret place.