«What’s this?» I burst out involuntarily.
«I paint,» the composer said, embarrassed.
There were paintings on the shelves by the window. A lot of them. There was a black city on all of them, with black houses, small blind windows, gray Mist and Full Moon, on every picture. It was the city too familiar to me, my favorite city, the City-on-the-Water. But in those pictures it looked completely cardboard, like the scenery on the stage – artificial, frightening, sinister.
«Have you been to Venice?»
«Never.»
«Why is it black?»
«Maybe it’s… crying…21»
In fact, both the poems and the central part of the novel «A Guardian Angel», «A Dreams Trap», are connected with the writer’s mysterious dream about her own funeral in Venice, which is described both in the novel and in the poem «Chimera».
«I had a strange dream about a year ago. I was being buried in Venice. I completely forgot about it, but remembered recently, during my last business trip, while I walking around San Marco. I went to the pier and saw a boat sailing away from the shore. Just like in that dream…»
«So will you be buried in Venice?»
«I don’t know. It was early morning. It looked like spring. A misty haze. There were only two people in the boat, the boatman and the Man in Black with gray, almost white hair. They were carrying my body or ashes. I don’t know, I was scared to look inside the boat. They were going to the opposite island. I don’t even know what island it is. I’ve never been to it.»
«So who is he, your Black Man?»
«I don’t know…22»
And so the waxing Moon, the symbol of the Subconscious, reaches its «cardboard» culmination in Venice, «We docked at San Marco at night. The Man in Black brought me to my favorite City-on-the-Water. But stepping on the square, I saw it differently, as a black, sinister city, completely drowned in pitch darkness, and cardboard, like scenery on a theater stage! The whole earthly world is a huge theatrical stage on which people play performances for ghosts. Dressed in costumes of earthly bodies, they live on the stage surrounded by cardboard scenery, which can be instantly destroyed by the One who keeps prescribing in the Astral Tablets the plot threads of the plays of their destinies. These strange creatures – people – are so enchanted by the magical illusion of changing scenery that only Death is able to rip off the Venetian masks fused with their faces. I stood on San Marco in pitch darkness, trying in vain to find at least a lantern. The city was de-energized. I didn’t see any light in it. There were only black dead houses around me. Everything there was unreal. Cardboard! Frightening!! Sinister!!! So I ran away in a long dress woven by the Mist, into the distance, along the bridges, trying to find the River that took souls into the sky. I ran, suffocating, along the scenery of black cardboard houses, with no light in the windows <…>. Finally, I found the transition point! I got to the place where there was no bridge, but steps going right into the water, and similar steps coming out of the water on the opposite side. One wouldn’t be able to jump there. It was the Looking Glass, reflecting everything there. It was a pity that no one could see what I saw, and how I saw the earthly world then. It had become cardboard, black, an ominous monster! I sat down on the steps leading into the water, waiting for my parents, who were about to come for me. I looked at the black sky, where the huge Moon was hanging. But it was also… cardboard! I turned my gaze down to its reflection – wow! – someone had cut out a cardboard copy of the Moon and put it on the same cardboard (!!!) water <…>. My parents appeared out of the Looking Glass. They came up to the steps on the other side of the River. But suddenly, booming footsteps were heard behind my back. The Man in Black gently took me in his hands, like a little girl, and carried me away.»
«San Marco. Morning. The sunshine. The square gradually came to life, flooded with people. I was standing by the column not far from the Cathedral, so I could see the sea and the island of St. George opposite. I was in a white dress. Cheerful music was playing. And gradually, I began to see Venice the same as I had seen it before. But… how had I got there? What was I doing there? There were ghosts around me, my friends from the Library of the Universe and my parents. The Man in Black smiled and invited me to dance with him right on the square. The ghosts surrounded us. Nobody saw them but me. It was a pity. I began to see ghosts even during the daytime and much clearer than whatever ordinary people saw. The ghosts whispered, „Alice, come on, smile! Dance, please! That’s what you wanted so much! You need him!“ And I realized that it was my wedding, that was why I was in a white dress. But only my ghosts would be among the guests. So I was dancing on San Marco with the Man in Black. The ghosts picked up pigeons throwing them at us and making me smile. Suddenly, my memory restored completely. I remembered my world collapsing <…>, and despair overwhelmed me <…>. And again, everything became cardboard, fake, sinister! That city was like a prison! And I decided to get outside…23»
The conflict between Love and Death, inherent in Kryuchkova’s prose, also manifests itself in her poetry cycle about Venice, and its magical attraction not only captivates the writer but also enchants the reader.
On the one hand, Venice, to quote Alexandra Kryuchkova, is a trap, a labyrinth, a poet’s apocrypha, a dream, a chimera, a bad omen, a house of tragedies, a last refuge, the music of the rains, it serves an ominous star, and its bridges lead to disaster.
The city’s name itself is polysemantic, though, besides its association with the Veneti tribe, after which the Romans named the region as Venice (Latin: Venetia), there are no other official meanings. But the poet’s imagination is boundless. Venice evokes various associations: Ophelia’s wreath from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, with its ambiguous flowers symbolizing unhappy love; and Venus, the planet of love, with its two images: Lucifer, the Morning Star, and Hesperus, the Evening Star. Perhaps for some, Venice evokes other associations.
And yet, «…Murano glass has poured in me a symphony of delicate nuances…»
«my bridges haven’t seen us yet together!»
«Would you paint me…
A café, a tail-coat for lanterns,
which are sparkling through years with hope,
that the happiness surely happens
prior to hearts are drowned in darkness.»
Love wins – the writer is confident of her return.
«Let’s go back to the touch to that city,
where songs are still sung to the water,
just to laugh at the ringing gold coin,
dancing there, among masks and faces,
and to glow in sunshine with bridges,
self-aligning with spirits and pigeons.»
«Let’s fly into the portal, let’s escape!
Still lulling Life, the waves await us there!
I’ll pass to you my Venice as a gift, —
keep it forever like a thread between us.»
«Mark sleeps, still unaware,
through the dreams
I will return,
an earthly hostage
of his spring…»
Despite the melancholy permeating Alexandra’s «Venice» cycle, the main leitmotif remains life-affirming, «Let Venice separate us, but like a ghost at dawn, still smiling, my hello will silently flash up…»
But it’s better to read the novel yourself. So, Venice by Alexandra Kryuchkova…
Larisa KUZMINSKAYA,
poet, member of the Union of Russian Writers, head of cooperation with Russian regions and foreign countries of the «POETS OF MOSCOW»
«Literary News» newspaper24, No. 1 (211), 202325
АНГЕЛ-ХРАНИТЕЛЬ
Посвящается
Марине Цветаевой,
Анне Ахматовой и
Александру Блоку
Благодарности
Автор выражает сердечную благодарность
всем персонажам и прототипам романа,
в том числе:
Евгению Борисовичу Рейну
и его жене Надежде,
Владимиру Георгиевичу Бояринову,
Евгению Викторовичу Степанову,
Сергею Михайловичу Макаренкову,
Юрию Владимировичу Мышонкову,
Вадиму Геннадьевичу Шильцыну,
Наталье Юрьевне Смирновой,
Наталье Павловне Савкиной,
Елене Геннадьевне Лисичкиной, 
