ARTUR ARISTAKIS YAN
PRESENTS
PALMS
Rome. Year 28
after the Crucifixion of Jesus
Emperor Nero outlaws Christians
Kishinev. Year 1990
after the birth of Christ
He said he was not going
to move from this place
until the coming
of the Kingdom of God.
"But to make it happen
I should fulfil the following -
"I should make the inside
like the outside
"and the left arm
like the right arm,
"and the left cheek
like the right cheek.
"And when I make a hand
instead of the hand,
"and eyes instead of the eye,
"and a face instead of the face...
"And when I make legs
instead of the leg,
"and a back instead of the back,
"and a head instead of the head...
"And when I make a man
and a woman into one,
"so that a man is not a man
"and a woman is not a woman,
"then the Kingdom of God will come."
My little son, it's me,
your father talking to you.
You haven't yet been born.
You've been living in darkness
for a month now.
My little son, you see,
your mother is not my wife.
And it's not in my power
to promise you'll stay alive.
But I still want you
to know everything.
Only a short time ago
everything was so good.
Whatever I set about
would work out splendidly!
People were falling in love with me.
And I was using their kindness.
Money seemed to stick to me.
And my mother and father
waited for me in vain
so many a night.
Everything seemed perfect to me.
And today it has all changed.
My cards show total darkness.
My little son,
I'm closing my eyes
to see you.
Chapter I
BED AND CLOTHING
Your mother is not my wife.
And it's possible that very soon
you'll be scraped out of her womb.
Piece by piece.
Never mind. Can you hear me?
Nothing will ever change the fact
that today you exist.
And I, your father,
can talk to you.
Because there are things
nobody else will tell you about.
I'll take you to the city.
You shouldn't be sad.
Everything is divine in nature,
and I do regret
it took me so long to grasp it.
Soon, this will be razed
to the ground.
This district will be destroyed.
And these people
will be forcefully taken
to shelters, prisons
and lunatic asylums.
When it's not raining,
this woman is lying on the ground.
She's been lying here
for as long as 40 years.
40 years ago, on this spot,
she was waiting for her groom.
He never came.
Then she made a bed
for two and lay down.
She said,
"I've been fighting on my own
"for 40 years
against the whole system.
"I'm lying down
and collecting chances.
"I deliberately
don't undertake anything.
"It's better if I collect my chances
"until the chances reach
their critical mass
"which will lead to an explosion,
"to the second coming of Jesus."
Those who didn't
have a place on Earth
would come to live here.
And those who were destined to die,
but survived and had children.
My little son,
can you hear me?
Can you hear me?
It is very important for me
to know that you exist.
If only you knew
how much I want
to take you to people.
I will show you how humans dress,
and how their bodies work.
We'll move along,
step by step,
as we have no idea when we are going
to see each other again.
Indeed,
you and I need the same thing.
We need salvation.
And if your life is spared,
then you will have to live
in the system.
Years will pass, and you will
start thinking of how to leave it.
The first way to reach salvation
is to go mad.
Simply, to go mad.
I'm offering you this way to
salvation, sincerely, as your father.
To go mad.
Not out of hopelessness, no.
It's a chance. But you can
only use it in a physical sense.
Or you can do as this woman,
make a bed on the ground,
and lie down
and make love to Jesus Christ.
Literally ten steps away
from the woman lying on the ground
an old man is working.
He walks around town,
and people throw old clothes at him.
He also has a girl with him.
He found her in the street
when she was pregnant
and didn't have a place to live.
They put the old clothes
into a press,
and sell them
to the state for a pittance.
This is not the only type of clothes
they have.
There are also those left
from the dead.
After a funeral, people give him
the clothes of the dead.
They store these clothes,
but never sell them.
They arrange these clothes
from the dead
like a wall around their house.
Some of the clothes are hospital
pyjamas with numbers on them.
They are from people who
died in a psychiatric institution,
from Ioneliness and injections.
Their pyjamas were to be burned,
but he took them
and brought them to his place.
He said,
"I learn from these clothes."
And in return, he whispers
something to them about his own love.
He's even become able to tell
when someone is about to die,
and their clothes are brought here,
to become part of this wall.
Once he gave a dress from a dead girl
to his apprentice as a present.
It was the first time
a man had given her a present.
That's why she doesn't feel
any jealousy towards the dead.
More so, the girl believes him,
her teacher,
that these clothes belong
to those who are already in Heaven.
Not long ago, he admitted to her
that both his legs
were soon to be amputated.
First the left one,
then the right one.
The girl with the flute said
that when she was still healthy,
she didn't want to study.
She cried.
She cried because she was a girl
and could not become a priest.
She said, "If I were a priest,
I would have grown my hair.
"It would be long and wavy and
as beautiful as the priests' hair."
My little son, in childhood
I also wanted to become a priest,
to be allowed to have long hair,
as long as a girl's hair.
Chapter II
LIFE ON THE SWAMP
I don't want us to leave this place.
If you decide to go around
the woman on the floor,
you will see a door,
a door in the ground.
A young man lives there.
He escaped from a mad house,
and came to live here,
with these people.
In the hospital they called him
a Pithecanthropus,
a prehistoric man.
Until one day
he gnawed through his veins.
And when blood was flowing
from his body
and he was already asleep,
a naked boy appeared to him and said,
"Get up, calm down,
go and live with these people.
"You will get up with them
every morning and see how they live.
"You should watch.
Let it be of no concern to you
"that you can't speak or work.
"You don't need to do either.
"You will start to speak later
"when people have exhausted
all combinations of words,
"and eaten up their own language.
"That will be the time
for you to speak.
"And while you are on this earth,
just watch.
"Watch and don't be afraid.
"Don't be afraid
that you can't change anything
"as you don't know your silence
and what it is like.
"And you can't see the body
of your silence.
"You are looking at a girl.
You like her.
"But even her body is not comparable
"with the body of your silence.
"Your silence has a body
"and everyone needs it.
"You will start to speak later
"when people have lost
the gift of speech
"because of shame and fear.
"Meanwhile, looking at people
"will submerge them in your silence.
"The time will come
"when people will extract
new words from your silence.
Completely new."
Old people bring him food right here
because he comes out of the cellar
only on Sundays.
He is afraid that on weekdays
he could be caught,
and taken back to hospital.
The other day
the ragman lost one leg.
Half of what he told his apprentice
has come true.
Soon he'll lose his second leg.
Life on the swamp starts
from the moment a child wakes up,
gets up from bed
and steps on the water.
I won't tell you why I brought you
to this place, or give you a reason.
Because you don't have
to have any reasons.
You can simply understand me better
when next to these children.
And I will probably feel
like being closer to you.
There are two doors in the cellar
where the runaway lives.
One door faces the south side
where the children live.
And the other faces the north side
where the old people live.
Apart from old people
and children,
there should be
ordinary adult people here.
But some had to leave
and earn money.
Others are in prison,
or have been sectioned.
That's why today there are
only children and old people here.
One of the boys and his sister
have turned 13.
Every week he asks his sister
to cut his hair.
The boy said that at night he feels
his legs are being torn away.
"It happens at night, in the dark
"when you stop feeling
your own body,
"and when you can clearly see
"that these legs are not yours."
The boy told me
that when his mother was arrested,
the investigator asked her,
"How long have you been sleeping
with your son?"
She asked the investigator,
"Tell me how many legs
your child has."
The investigator said, "Two legs."
"Well," said the mother,
"Can you believe
that my son also has two legs?"
The boy told me that when his mother
was ill and was screaming,
he and his sister started
to scream together with her.
"We were distracting her
from her fit.
"And when I was ill,
Mummy kissed me all night.
"And when my sister was ill,
I also kissed her all night.
"I kissed her 1,050 times.
"I was counting - 1,050 times,
"and I understood that anyone,
"however sick, would get better...
"...would get better,
if kissed 1,050 times."
The boy told me
that actually he was older than me
and that he would die before me.
He said he was going to be crucified,
and before that he'd be tortured.
I asked him,
"Who is going to crucify you?
"Who is going to torture you?"
He replied, "It doesn't matter
who will crucify me
"as long as I am tortured."
From the clothes of that ragman
the children made this doll
and named it Jesus Christ.
These children also know something
very important about Jesus...
...that one day he came to people
who lived near water.
He told them,
"Follow me, come with me...
"...and I will make
you catchers of human souls...
"Catchers of human souls."
Those people left everything
behind and followed him.
These children also leave this place
and go to the city.
They go to one college,
then to another.
Then they go to university.
They find lodgers
amongst the students,
and bring them here.
They catch human souls in the city.
They bring men and women
and put them up
in the other house.
My little son,
don't attempt to understand
where power goes,
and from where it returns.
Power began to ferment like wine,
but they are scared
to fill the old wineskins
with their new wine.
They won't fill the old wineskins
with wine.
The old wineskins
are being thrown out these days.
The system needs new wineskins.
New wineskins. What are they?
It is from the lamb
that grazes freely...
...the Lamb of God.
Then they take him,
slaughter and eat him,
tan his skin
and make wineskins out of it.
It's all the same -
the basics are the same everywhere.
Some children found this woman
in the city in winter.
She was lying on the ground,
drunk and frozen to the pavement.
She was no longer a woman,
but a bundle of a frozen soul.
They peeled her off the pavement
and brought her here.
She likes telling the children
about her man.
Sometimes she extends her arms
and calls to him.
She asks the children
to call him too,
so that he'll come back to her.
And the children do
whatever she asks.
My little son, say goodbye to her,
and I'll take you further.
While you're still not born,
you are young and have a future.
Chapter III
YAZUNDOKTA
GEORGE THE VICTOR
MAN IN THE BROKEN TROUGH
My little son,
by now the old ragman
has already lost his second leg.
That's it.
My little son,
I really want you
to be popular with women...
...to be loved
and happily married.
However, I'm begging you,
if only you can,
stay a virgin
and never become a man.
Don't become a man.
I know, it's hard.
Just listen to me. Another body
goes through your heart.
With this body
you can lead a sexual life.
With this body
you'll be able to protect a woman,
even after her death,
when she doesn't have her husband,
or father or brother next to her.
My little son,
through your heart
goes the body of a pauper.
It's the finest of all bodies.
And with this body
you'll be able to embrace any woman.
This body is always naked.
It's naked to the point
of being invisible.
It doesn't belong in the system.
My little son, I want to take you
to the man in the broken trough.
Do you know what he said?
He said that once he tried
and managed to kiss his own chest.
He said he hadn't seen
a naked arm,
or even a naked shoulder
for a long time.
The man in the broken trough
says that sometimes
it seems to him that his mother
used to bathe him in this trough.
He said, "This trough
is all that's left of my home."
I know that very soon
they will convince you
that you are a consumer.
You consume electricity,
buy clothes and use hot water.
You'll be told
that society provides everything,
it's society that trains
teachers and priests.
And if you don't need either,
there's yet more.
Society provides doctors
and prostitutes for you.
And if you don't need prostitutes,
they'll convince you that
you're doomed to have a sexual life
requiring at least a towel and soap -
both produced by society.
In a nutshell,
they won't leave you alone.
They'll convince you that
a person is born in a social body,
and dies in a social body.
And you'll agree
with this accusation.
But while you're still unborn,
there is something
you can say for yourself.
You know better than me
that as you are doomed to live,
it doesn't matter to you
whether you live or die.
You don't need time.
It's those who are doomed to die
who need time.
It's the system that needs time.
That's why your social body
will haunt you,
even after your death.
My little one, my social body also
isn't letting me get close to you.
His trough is damaged
because he tried to commit suicide.
For money, he was taken to the roof
of an eight-story building.
He fell down. But after the fall
only the trough was damaged,
and he was unhurt.
Once, in a street,
I touched a blind beggar.
He was wandering round the city
looking for his wife.
You are on your own.
Imagine, you are on your own.
There is no one else...
not even God.
You are on your own.
If you ever imagine
that you are on your own,
then a multitude of lives
will appear in your single body.
Because when a person realises
he is on his own,
Jesus appears before him.
Jesus, because he was also
utterly on his own in this world.
And if you ever get married
and have children...
...you will not be able
to move further,
unless you are full of compassion
and realise
that your wife is also Ionely,
and that your child
is also utterly alone,
and that your father and your mother
are also Ionely people.
He too once had a woman.
When he remembers her,
he begins to embrace himself
with both arms.
That's how he remembers her.
The man hasn't left his
broken trough for 40 years.
He said that there is enough room
in the trough for another person...
...and that once, in winter,
one woman took him in,
but only for one night.
He said that that night he left
his trough and lay down with her.
She put her leg up against his legs,
and that's how they slept
until the morning,
when he left.
My little son,
beware of learned books,
beware of laws, any laws.
Because for the system
we are not people.
It has established an order of things
in which neither you nor I exist.
There is no one.
There's only the law
which exists for us,
the law of blood,
the law of fine matter.
Our blood, yours and mine,
is the sacred axis
of the whole system.
The laws of dialectics deal with it.
The laws of dialectics
are the laws of the system.
They work only within the system.
They are tested,
logical and, of course, false.
According to these laws,
the system is a great biomass,
and a human being
is the number of its chances.
It's possible to take these chances
away, or to leave them.
This is the foundation
of everything.
These are
the laws of dialectics,
for this reason
they are immune from morality...
...immune from good and evil.
With all this in mind,
it is getting ever harder
to discuss whether
we are human at all, or not.
He was nicknamed
"George the Victor".
Beggars call his hands "candles",
two "candles".
At the moment
he is smoking his last cigarette.
And you, my little son,
should live your life
like a cigarette...
...and like a candle.
Like a cigarette, you'll smoulder
and leave your ashes behind.
Like a candle,
you'll melt and turn into light.
And your light
will transform your body.
You'll see...
It wasn't that long ago
that he worked in the fields.
Once,
because of the girl he loved,
he was caught,
and thrown into millstones.
The millstones were in motion.
Since that time,
he roams the city on his knees.
He never gets up.
He does fortune telling,
about the girl
who was stolen from him.
He wants to know
if she still loves him, or not.
She loves me, she loves me not,
she loves me, she loves me not.
She loves me, she loves me not,
she loves me, she loves me not.
With his knees,
he practises fortune-telling,
fortune-telling about the girl.
The system by now has acquired
the rhythmic basis of death.
It has learnt
how to counteract itself.
That's why it's pointless
to resist the system.
In reality,
the system doesn't want to kill us.
It wants to be.
To be.
It doesn't want
the end of the world.
That's why the system needs light,
which it doesn't have.
Particles of such light
are the flesh of the soul.
They can only be taken
from human life.
With each day that passes,
I feel that the system crystallises
the light in my body.
The light grows solid
and leads to a headache.
I don't have any proof.
I just know that my head aches.
That's why, my little son,
before it's too late,
you should start working
for your salvation.
You see,
you have your own light.
Follow it,
and you'll come out of the system.
For now, do not think
about any kind of nonsense.
Don't think about travelling abroad.
After death, you'll have
enough time to travel around.
Our next baptism will be by fire.
Then it will be too late
to decide whose side you are on.
Grigory said that he is happy.
Happy because he can't cross himself
either in the Orthodox way,
with three fingers,
or in the Catholic way,
with an open hand.
For him, the Great Schism
of the churches never happened.
In his hands,
they are reunited.
"God knew that what he conceived
was worth the risk.
"He has already prepared
a body for me.
"It will be made
of imagination and light.
"The smell has already reached me
from the kitchen,
"where my body is being prepared.
"You can't even imagine
who I'm going to be."
This man is a king -
King Oswald.
He says his civilisation
doesn't leave any trace.
His civilisation is on small wheels.
Every morning
this woman appears in the market.
She doesn't live anywhere.
She just keeps walking and walking,
pulling a trunk behind her.
Her name is Yazundokta.
The man in the broken trough said
that once, when she wasn't even 20,
he saw her posing
for a photographer
who was taking pictures
of her bare back.
He said that when he saw her back
and her shoulder blades...
...he wondered why little wings
were not growing there.
The man in the broken trough said
that her back is still as gorgeous
as in those days.
"She has the most beautiful
back in the world!"
When Yazundokta's estate,
all her property, was taken away,
and she needed food, she would allow
her back to be kissed for money.
Only kissed and only her back.
Yazundokta told me
she had become a woman in prison.
Her first man was her jailer.
Yes, a jailer.
She told me that in the war,
before the evacuation,
grenades were thrown at inmates,
and shot dead
in the most cold-blooded way.
Women were shot in the genitals.
She said that man, that bastard...
...pulled her legs apart,
and shoved his revolver right inside.
"He shoved the barrel
of his revolver right there.
"But the revolver misfired...
"...and he pulled
the barrel out of me.
"I saw his face, I saw
how exhausted he suddenly was.
"He was terrified,
and ashamed
"that he had failed so dramatically.
"I hugged his head
and I comforted him."
That same day,
he took Yazundokta out of prison.
Soon after bombing started,
the man was blown to pieces.
Only his head
was left for Yazundokta.
People say, she took his head,
and as she has no home,
she keeps his head in this trunk.
There is a compartment in the trunk
where that man's head is still kept.
He could have become her first man,
but he completely failed.
Chapter IV
KING OSWALD
SAINT-SAENS (CHANCE)
FIRST DAY OF FREEDOM
There is something humiliating
about people hurrying to work.
You should try not to go to work.
Don't do work useful for society.
It's better to be a beggar.
You see, people need guarantees.
That's why they go to work.
They are paid not for their work,
but for having rejected
the path of destitution.
My little boy, like any father,
I only wish you happiness.
I don't want you to be in poverty,
amongst the destitute,
against your will.
However,
I believe only those who beg
earn their daily bread
through their own labour.
Follow the poor.
Become poor.
People who are poor in spirit
can renounce even the spirit.
You can't even imagine
how free are those poor in spirit.
They are so free
they don't even need freedom.
They may not know who Jesus Christ
is and whether he ever existed.
Blessedness is not a feat.
Blessedness is neither a talent,
nor a chore.
It's just blessedness.
These people leave nothing
to the system, but their ashes.
I can't say what's happening to me.
That means I can't understand
what's being done to me,
and what's being done
to other people.
To understand
what's being done to everyone,
one should think differently
to everyone else.
But how can one do that
if no words are left?
If there were words,
then there would be thoughts.
What's left is to learn
the language of birds,
and become a social outcast,
because the writers
have used up all the words.
The system set a trap for them -
it pretended it was afraid
of their words.
And they fell for it.
They shouldn't have spoken
to this system in its language,
but they kept doing so,
and their native language
turned into a pillar of salt.
That's it. The system has created
a body made of language.
I don't have
my language any more.
There are no words
and therefore no thoughts.
As much as I want to think otherwise,
I just can't.
The situation
is under total control.
Dissent will mean hiding
one's thoughts.
That's why you shouldn't listen
to anyone, my little boy.
Don't listen to your teachers.
Don't even listen to me.
I'm stretching out my arms to you
while you're not here.
I don't want us
to talk in the language I use.
You've seen what it leads to.
My little one, you know...
...I'm afraid of your birth. Afraid.
I live in fear.
The fear is already here.
Here, in my stomach.
Because there is no fear
in the mind.
If the mind is capable
of seeing anything at all,
it can't be gripped by fear.
Those who step over their fear
cannot comprehend what lies ahead.
My little son,
I'm scared to come to you.
I'm scared to see your face.
The most frightening thing of all
is to come out of the fear.
I want to see you and experience fear
because of that.
On the same day I saw a young guy
who had been released
from a prison infirmary.
He was in prison,
along with his father.
His father lost his sight in prison,
and his movement coordination.
When his father was in prison,
the son gathered together
medicinal and narcotic herbs,
and threw them to him
through the barbed wire,
until he was put in prison
along with his father.
If only you knew how he was shaking.
You, little one,
have your own body.
Nobody knows about it yet.
This body is Easter.
It's called Easter.
The system doesn't own this body.
The paradox is that the death
of the system lies within itself.
Its life is its death.
My little one,
I've just had a feeling
that I'm talking to you
after your death,
that ten minutes ago
you were still here,
and now you are not.
That means
I've become younger than you,
because I've been left alive,
and you have not.
If that's so,
one shouldn't believe it.
One simply
shouldn't believe information
that comes from the system.
It's my fault.
It's me who believed
that you are no longer here.
Don't believe information
from the system,
especially if it's true.
Chapter V
HEALING OF THE BORN BLIND
These people
were ordinary epileptics...
until an abominable experiment
was conducted on them.
They were lobotomised,
their memories were erased.
Now they can't remember anything.
They can't even remember themselves,
who they are.
When a crowd fills the square...
...this blind boy hurries to work.
He begs.
Though he was born blind,
his stride is confident and fast.
He thinks all people are blind.
He really thinks
all people are blind.
His father and mother
are also blind.
They told their son
that everyone is blind,
and that no one
can see oneself.
But the blind boy
made his own discovery.
He figured out
that all people are women.
Every person is a woman,
and all voices
are the voices of women.
That's what he thinks.
Women give birth to children
who are also women.
And his fate was to be born a man.
That's why he is a cripple.
And his father is a cripple
because he was also born a man.
He believes that the only other man
is his father.
The blind boy knows that
female humans feel sorry for him.
They feel sorry for him
because he is a man,
and throw coins to him
to make his life better.
His blind mother knows that her son
is constantly drawn to women.
She keeps reminding him
that he shouldn't be
because he is a man.
"The thing you want to do,
you should do with your eyes."
My little son,
if only I could see,
I would make love with my eyes.
What a shame
I can't make love with my eyes.
If a female human
doesn't wish to notice him
she turns away, but he keeps
waiting and doesn't leave.
He knows that the woman
is also blind
and can't see he is a man,
a cripple, and needs help.
By midday, all the members
of the family meet up.
The blind man finds his wife.
And the boy,
the bread-winner, comes last.
He comes to his parents.
About 20 years ago,
the father and the mother
were in a psychiatric institution.
She was 20 then,
he was even younger.
When they fell in love
with each other in that institution,
as usual, they were supposed
to be sterilised to be made barren.
But they managed to escape.
By touch, they found a tree with
branches stretching beyond the fence.
They climbed that tree
and found their freedom.
And they had a son.
The blind boy has a secret though -
a secret place where
he stashes away a bit of money.
Before giving money to his mother,
he hides here in this corner,
and transfers some coins
from the full box to his secret box.
He keeps it
deep under his clothes.
Neither his father nor mother
know about it.
My little son,
I really want you to become poor.
I, your father,
wish that you become poor...
...because I love you.
My little son...
...I want you to decide
to keep your virginity.
You will start seeing it
as a living person,
and realise there is nothing
more important for you.
You should unite your poverty
and your virginity.
This is the only advice
I can give you.
Unite your poverty
and your virginity...
...and you'll begin
to learn love from love itself.
Poverty and virginity
will be your companions,
and you'll become more refined,
and your love will begin to take on
the most incredible shapes.
Try and unite
virginity and poverty,
and you won't need
any civil rights,
which will not be of any use
to you anyway.
Poverty will protect you
from the system,
and virginity from the fornications
of the system.
But I don't want your development
to take the path of acquisition.
I want your development
to take the path of renunciation.
Renunciation and loss.
And you'll become one
who isn't part of the system.
That's why, if you haven't
yet slept with a woman,
stay as you are.
End of part one
I can't help the feeling
that the sky doesn't exist...
...that it has disappeared
from above us.
Time has come into its final shape.
That's it, time has taken a shape.
It's no longer possible to dissent,
there is no point,
because the system will absorb
everything that has a meaning.
That's why, little one,
you should arm yourself with poverty,
and strike the system first.
Part 2
I'm scared for you, my little one.
You see, the sky used to be
our protective ceiling,
which protected me from the cosmos,
and the rubbish found there.
The sky used to be
our protective ceiling.
When I was still living
under the sky,
it was possible for some
of my thoughts not to materialise.
Now all my thoughts materialise.
It's like a growing cancer
spreading everywhere,
but it's a special type of cancer -
it doesn't let the body die,
so the corpse can constantly
conduct energy and power.
Today the system needs
more fine matter.
It wants society
to have superconductivity.
Now the system needs churches
and prayer houses...
...which means that all religions
are effectively disappearing.
Everybody before us
was afraid of this situation,
which is worse than any war,
and we have entered it.
We've entered the zone
of the objective laws of the system.
Do you remember those epileptics?
They found themselves cast out
because they didn't need
to go anywhere.
They were on the border of worlds,
and could see
into the nature of things.
Why see into the nature of things?
It's all been seen into already.
My little son, I'm closing my eyes
so that I can see you better.
I'm going to close my eyes.
Perhaps it used to be land...
...perhaps then it was possible
to feel the spirit. The spirit.
It was possible to touch it,
to talk to it, to live with it.
Or perhaps I'm just depressed?
I used to think, "Never mind
if I don't have anyone.
"I'll live with this land.
It's already sufficient."
I didn't mind sliding into poverty
because I knew
the land would support me.
And now,
with every passing day,
I clearly see
my utter uselessness,
here, where I'm standing.
My mother doesn't understand
what I'm talking about.
I tried to talk
to my girlfriend about this,
and terror engulfed me,
thinking what would happen to her,
staying with me.
The nightmare, soon to affect
everyone, is unfolding here.
And, if earlier, I wanted
to become a dissident,
to burn at the stake or to go mad,
now it's becoming clear
that to become a dissident,
one has to go mad first.
One has to go mad first.
Or die.
Chapter VI
SRULIK
HUNGER
NIGHTLIFE OF THE DESTITUTE
I wanted you
to come to this man.
But it's too late,
he's no longer on Earth.
He died, and birds
sang prayers at his funeral.
His name was Srulik.
He lived here, in the attic.
Doves would fly into his window,
eat from his plate.
When he was in bed,
doves would sleep on his face,
between his legs.
Srulik didn't use money
and never received a pension.
He sheltered women who escaped
from prison and being sectioned.
The women would bring him grain,
bread and wine.
Srulik told them stories
in which Earth was inhabited
by birds, not people.
Jacob was a bird, Sarah was a bird,
and David was a fledgling.
I'm increasingly getting this heavy
feeling that is difficult to explain.
As the situation is getting worse...
as the situation is getting worse.
The spirit is rapidly deserting
the land and the cities.
It's no longer possible to stop it.
People are losing their protection.
The system has entered the phase
of shaping itself,
of total survival by all means
possible so as to manifest itself.
It takes any shape.
It turns whatever threatens
its existence into its advantage.
It's possible now to build
and open new churches
because the spirit itself is leaving,
because any attempts
to keep the spirit in the system
will lead to another tragedy.
So, either a person lives
in the spirit and leaves the system,
and lives together with it...
...or identifies oneself with
the system and becomes its follower,
its slave, forever.
The spirit is leaving.
The spirit is leaving!
And the energy which stays...
...will have a quality
not acceptable to everyone,
only to the followers of the system.
Decent, intelligent people
simply won't find
enough concentrated energy,
that light and that piece of bread
which could help them
to revive their own world.
That person will look like
an alcoholic who needs a drink...
...while there is no drink
to be found.
This will lead to intellectual death.
A person in such a lost state can
easily be pushed in any direction.
It's not essential whether
I'm going to be persecuted, or not...
It will be more or less
the same thing.
What's important is that the forces
at work will control everyone,
everyone who is moving
against the flow.
Once Srulik developed a fever
he said,
"I know,
soon the other world will come.
"In childhood I heard there is a book
"which tells how to re-consecrate
arms, legs, sexual organs."
He called the doves "poor beggars".
Srulik said,
"To touch a pauper, I don't
have to go out and touch them.
"I've learnt to exchange warmth."
Srulik taught the bird language
to the women.
Adam knew the bird language.
When, after the death of Srulik,
the police broke in
to arrest the women...
...one of them
hid a dove under her clothes
and jumped out of the window.
The woman fell five storeys
to her death.
When her body was turned over
a white dove,
with wings tinged red,
flew out and disappeared.
One beggar said
people don't give coins -
but unbutton themselves.
"They unbutton themselves for me.
"They get undressed.
"Unbuttoning one,
then another, then another.
"Men and women unbutton themselves
from me. They undress and pass by.
"It only lasts a few seconds,
"but that's enough
for me to see them totally naked."
The moment you leave society,
you are confronted by eternal fear.
One can't immediately
leave society.
You eat and drink, you live,
and you're already a part of society.
Don't eat, don't drink, then you'll
be able to live outside society.
Otherwise, whatever you say,
whatever your spiritual capacity,
your ability to see through things,
if you are moving with society,
you don't truly see through things -
instead you are doing work.
You work for society,
even when you see through things.
My little son, you don't see me,
and I don't see you.
In this society, you and I represent
a union of two blind people.
It is the condition
of our contact.
I want to see you so much
that I'm ready to believe
that one of these people is you.
My grown-up child,
I'm trying to hide you,
so that nobody can find out
who you really are.
I don't want to scare you,
but you should understand this,
even if the system
says it is based on law,
there is one thing in this world
outside the jurisdiction of law...
...doom.
Doom.
If the system manages,
in the nick of time,
to separate people
into those who are functional,
and those who are doomed,
then a crime...
...will not be any different
from a legality.
Individuals will lose the ability
to analyse the state
of the society in which they live.
My little son, don't become
a human rights activist.
Don't be swayed
by how they risk their lives.
Risking their lives is one thing,
but what life becomes
is completely different.
In 1945, this man was
in a German concentration camp.
He was still a small child.
A German doctor freed him.
He received the certificate
confirming he had been freed,
and went to the officials
for a flat to live.
But the 40 year old certificate
wasn't recognised
because Himmler's signature
was not there.
He was told that people
could only be freed
if Himmler personally signed
the document,
and they refused
to give him a flat.
This man developed
a headache.
He didn't know where to get
Himmler's signature,
as Himmler
had committed suicide.
He is no longer alive.
Then this man's wounds
began to bleed,
and he began to drink.
And so did his wife.
Even she no longer believed
that her husband had ever been
in a concentration camp.
Their son started
taking them to town
and they all begged -
the son, the father
and the mother...
...each on their own.
The son would protect his father.
Only he believed his father's
concentration camp story.
My little one,
you have your own light.
It's pure, a sacred light.
You should try
to preserve it in poverty.
Only this light can lead you
out of the system.
And if you ever hear about
the Apocalypse, don't be afraid.
For us, the end of the world
is the only salvation.
It will be our only chance
to leave the system.
It's not enough to be resurrected
to break out of it.
It's also necessary to ascend.
This woman's name is Maria.
She told me she is ready
to give me her flesh and blood.
She meant her son.
When in a psychiatric hospital,
a nurse told her
that she had a Mona Lisa smile
and that her hair
would be shaved off.
She kept her hair.
It's in her bag right now.
In hospital
she was given injections
which would make her infertile.
But she escaped
from the hospital, pregnant -
to the joy of all mothers.
A long time ago
the Christians knew
that one shouldn't
use contraception,
that the womb should be free.
There, in the womb,
is a place with the same name
as that spot in the Universe
which was the origin of life.
If you look at people
through the eyes of a pauper,
you'll see that
their unhappiness
comes from their fear of poverty,
their fear of being excluded
from society,
while their salvation
can only happen
if they are excluded.
Jesus came here, to society,
as the King of Judea.
He came as a King, that's why
he could lead the life of the poor.
He gathered his followers
from among the semi-destitute -
poor fishermen,
beggars, prostitutes,
who, nevertheless,
had regular incomes from their work.
They had already
gone through earning a living,
and were now ready to give it up
in order to become destitute.
"There is no hair under the hat."
Maria said that...
...there isn't a single hair
under her hat.
I thought I would fulfil
all her wishes, yet she left me.
I was copying her movements,
copying her movements,
adopting her poses,
killing the man in me.
I thought I would fulfil
all her wishes, yet she left me.
I was copying her movements,
adopting her poses,
killing the man in me.
Once a woman brought
Romany Gypsies to Srulik.
Srulik used to live with Gypsies -
when he was in
a concentration camp.
Those Gypsies,
just like these Gypsies,
were from this city.
And those Gypsies
sang and danced
and danced naked
in gas chambers.
Those Gypsies
helped young Srulik escape.
And these Gypsies
came to give him a funeral.
For several nights before his death,
Srulik hadn't slept,
and kept stroking a black pigeon.
Every morning
a girl would come to him.
She worked at night,
and every morning.
Srulik would tell her
about the language of the birds
and the pigeons he slept with.
He said these pigeons
conceived from him.
He called them "my dear pigeons".
"Their eggs are my eggs...
"...and there are many baby birds
"now in the city, fathered by me.
"It seems someone
grassed on me
"and they started
taking the eggs from me."
Srulik said, "As soon as
one of my birds sits on the eggs,
"a police officer usually accompanied
by lab workers storms in.
"They confiscate all my eggs,
"put them in a special box
"and take them away.
"Bandits! It happens every month.
"Those eggs have baby birds
conceived by me - little Sruliks!"
Night time for the destitute
is equally full of fear
and of the unexpected.
Every evening,
when the sun is setting,
this woman starts getting ready
for her night time hallucinations.
Her hallucinations
are her world
in which
she meets her husband.
Her husband died of starvation
many years ago.
During the day,
she begs for money and buys food.
But she is unable to eat it.
She puts it on the table at night
for her husband.
And by about midnight
he eats it.
But she can't see him.
In her hallucinations
she sees her neighbours,
but not him.
Then the most
difficult minutes come.
It all starts with the appearance
of a huge red spot in the sky.
It looks like the sun,
but it's not the sun.
"This spot doesn't let me
see my husband."
Then her childhood
girlfriend comes.
She is coming right now.
During the day
she roams canteens,
and collects bread
left by people.
"My girlfriend also lost her brother
to starvation.
"But she keeps blaming me,
"saying that my parents ate him
during the famine.
"Parents were giving
their children anything,
"so that they could survive
during the famine.
"Sometimes they wouldn't tell
children what they were eating.
"But we didn't eat her brother!
"Yet she comes every night
and tells me, 'It was you.'
"But I didn't eat him.
"What they once put
in my mouth when I was ill...
"...wasn't meat."
Chapter VII
MAGIC FLUTE
The further you move away
from the system,
the stronger its pulling power.
You think you are going mad.
You realise that the system
has no boundaries.
At the transitional levels
the system is no longer
of material nature.
It has given up
annexation of territory
because it doesn't
secure its future.
The future of the system
is in the system itself.
What is truly terrifying
is not what is happening,
but where things come from
and where they go.
Generational succession
has become invisible and sudden.
One generation succeeds another
at a lightening speed -
in a week,
even in an hour.
If you don't keep up
with your generation,
you fall and execute yourself.
Execute yourself.
And there is no need
for you to be arrested.
If at the moment
of a generational succession,
you were asleep, you jump up
in the middle of the night,
look at the door
and jump out of the window.
That's why, my little son,
if you are left to live,
and you hear about someone
that has committed suicide,
you should know,
he didn't kill himself.
Don't believe that those who
commit suicide don't want to live.
They do want to live.
The thing is, they're not aware
they're committing suicide.
One can only be aware
of committing a murder.
I'm saying this to you now,
while I'm still quite young
and before I get old,
so that we can understand
each other.
I beg you, do not try
to improve this system.
It would be better if you could
learn to pass through it.
But it's also important for
the system to pass through itself...
...in order to enter the future.
That's why the system
destroyed half of its population,
and entered itself
to create a passage way.
And by now, the system
has learnt to pass through people
without taking their lives.
My little son, I don't want
to test your patience.
I forgive you
for everything in advance,
for everything you'll do
if you stay alive.
And you, forgive me too,
forgive me for your mother,
and for our incest.
I want to see so badly
how you first look at me.
My little son,
as you can see...
...I can't find my place in life.
It's possible
it has never existed here.
I believe in our connection.
And the best confirmation
that we are father and son
is that we can't see each other.
Take a step backwards...
...and the system
will start threatening you.
Take another step backwards...
...and the system
may offer you a place.
You should take
another step backwards...
...and the system will offer you
religions to choose from.
You should take
another step backwards.
It's these steps backwards
that lead one to Golgotha.
It seems that the time allocated
to people has passed,
and time has acquired
its own form.
It's likely that the system
knows the days
of your birth and death.
The sky remained the last
hidden truth about the Earth.
Now the sky is disappearing,
and leaving the stars
to be included in the system.
Now the system
has also got hold of the stars.
The stars
are also working for it.
The sky and the earth are dying
in order to leave the system.
We are now almost living
on a different planet.
My little one,
your heart has its own body.
It's so transparent
that it is invisible.
Its poverty is profound.
This is the eye of Jesus Christ.
That's why it's impossible
to deceive it.
It even sees your parents
as destitute...
...so that you can also
see them as destitute,
as well as yourself as destitute,
and your girlfriend.
Chapter VIII
THE BORDERS
OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL
Once a man lived on Earth.
His name was Abraham.
He was no longer young when he
heard a voice say, "Get up and go."
So this man left everything
behind and went.
The route he took became
the border of the state of Israel.
There is no such state
as Israel,
yet the border of this state
cuts through everything on Earth.
That beggar said that
the border of the state of Israel
lies across his face.
The system covers
an ever increasing area.
It's always possible
to recall a person from any place.
One day, in a canteen,
in front of a bowl of soup,
you'll suddenly realise
how tired and how ill you are.
Nobody will seem
to be doing any harm to you.
Yet the state of things
will lead you
to an almost unbearable condition.
It will be enough for you
not to find a place
to wash your underwear or a shirt.
In a week
you'll turn into a pauper.
What will happen then?
A very peculiar thing will happen:
Outsiders will seek protection
with the authorities.
What's really terrible
is that the authorities will protect
and take care of them
and will give them jobs.
This mute old man believes
that the state of Israel
lies within the borders
of his house.
He's reinforced the border
of the state of Israel with a fence,
and one day every year
he measures its length with a stick.
He finds new planks
and reinforces the border,
so that the pile of rubbish
doesn't overwhelm it.
There, inside the fence, is a pile,
a pile of rubbish.
This pile of rubbish
is his house.
It's one huge dust-heap.
At times this dust-heap
doesn't let him in.
It presses on the door...
...and makes it hard for the old man
to enter his house.
The doors don't open due to
the rubbish he has collected.
Sometimes passers-by help him
and push him inside,
to the dust-heap.
He can only make money
by selling paper to the state...
...but the heap keeps growing.
Several times, people tried
to wean the old man off his heap...
...and burnt it,
but it would grow again and again.
Imagine this:
There are a certain number
of young people within the system.
To find out how they differ
from each other
they should be dissected.
Then their full potential
will become known.
Constant pressure will force
your psyche to move ahead of you.
It will adopt
the mode of behaviour
to accommodate that pressure,
and not to accommodate you.
If you can't catch up
with your own psychic development,
you'll find yourself impotent
in this system.
That's why, just as
you would take a medicine,
take on the image of a pauper.
Remember,
the image of a pauper
is always ahead of the system.
Adopt it.
Otherwise, people are
going to be brought out
out of their usual state of being,
to become different people.
Any human potential will be used,
first of all, as a means.
Any human potential
will be turned into a means.
And those gifted
will unwillingly persecute
and kill those who are talentless
with their life energy.
If you're unable to carry out
focused psychological work,
then you'll find yourself
among the socially ill.
This is the basic secret
of the system.
Imagine such
a blood-chilling allegory.
Only strong people
will retain the ability to work.
They'll become teachers, priests,
scientists, students.
God save you
from becoming one of these!
It's like buying the clothes
of a murder victim
from a second-hand shop
and wearing them.
But you won't be able
to move far in such clothes.
Children will be the first
to get used
to these inhuman conditions,
and I'm afraid for you,
my little one.
I haven't got much time left...
...and I don't know how to help you,
and what advice to give.
I really don't know.
I can't offer
a place of salvation to you.
You'll leave...
...and the one who deserves
salvation more than you,
will stay.
You'll leave him...
...and run away.
Run away? Where to?
The system has
geographic boundaries no longer.
One thing is to run from
a concentration camp, like Osventsim,
from barbed wire,
far from Europe.
Another thing is to run today
from the intellectual fascism.
Where can you run to
to escape intellectual fascism?
Where can you set your foot?
The code of the place
where we are now...
...used to be the code
of the latitude embracing
all that's alive.
But today the code of this place
is not that latitude.
It doesn't embrace
but sieves into all that's alive,
into others' flesh and blood.
That's why the system
will need you at any point,
wherever you may go.
People say that
once this woman was very rich,
and that the mute old man loves her,
and wants to take her in,
up to the mountain.
Every day,
on her way from church,
she travels along the border
of the state of Israel.
She says that she feels
like Natasha Rostov -
her life is passing
and there is no love.
The old man starts calling her,
up to the mountain.
But she,
just as with all his neighbours,
knows that the old man went mad
after his son had left him.
The woman in the wheelchair
is afraid of the old man.
She throws stones at him.
When she passes along the border
of his state, he moans,
calls the neighbours and dances,
holding his certificates.
These certificates show
that he has a son,
and that this woman in
the wheelchair was once his wife.
On the surface, the system
may be in opposition with itself.
It may even fall into pieces.
But it's only
the outward manifestation.
I don't believe the system
maliciously plans anything.
It just wants to be.
The evil which comes
from the system
appears only in my mind.
"Don't do evil in response to evil"
is the first tenet of freedom.
Chapter IX
THE IRON BED
One beggar said that Christians
are creatures mad with love.
They leave their dirty homes
to go into town,
and it's often hard to tell them
apart from ordinary people.
They seem to be the same kind
of people as everyone else.
But they don't want
their sexual life
to take place within the system.
That's why they make love
through death.
Christians are people
who have learnt
how to kiss each other
through death.
It's possible, after all,
to kiss a girl through
her clothes, her dress,
and they do
the same sort of thing.
It's possible to kiss
the death of another person
through one's own death.
My little son,
I would like you to learn
how to kiss
your girlfriend through death,
with your lips.
Kiss the air around her.
As soon as you start kissing
your girlfriend through death,
you'll feel how your death
is turning into her body.
And for this body
you'll give your life.
Chapter X
THE PARLIAMENT OF BIRDS
My little one...
...I had a weird dream.
I was in our city,
yet it was totally different.
It was covered in snow,
and instead of buildings and streets,
there were cemetery paths.
Instead of people, there were
tombstones forming families.
They lent against one another,
holding each other up.
They led their own lives.
These were people
who had changed a lot.
Answers to questions
about life and death
were written across their faces.
They were crying
with these letters.
It seemed to me that the letters
were not letters at all,
but posthumous kisses.
They were all saying something,
but I couldn't understand.
There were people everywhere.
The tombstones surrounded me.
They were wishing me only good.
My little son,
not to kiss your beloved
is the same as to kiss her.
Not to kiss your beloved
is the same as to kiss her.
That's it, my little one.
Do you remember Srulik?
I've just remembered how
he waved his hands and said,
"This is my life..."
My little son...
This is my life.
This is my life.
This is my life.
This is my life.
This is my life.
A film by
Artur Aristakisyan
Music by Giuseppe Verdi
and a poem of Naum Kaplan
have been used in the film
THE END