I Can't Wait to Get Married

I was about ten years old when I noticed my dad collecting beer caps everywhere and putting them in a jug like some kind of precious coin.

He had a lot of caps when I decided to ask him what he wanted them for.

- For your wedding," my father replied.

I didn't make any connection, but as it turned out, in Dad's mind, my future wedding looked a little strange, if not exotic. Instead of an austere suit, he was going to wear a gypsy skirt embroidered with beer caps and rattle the hem to ward off evil spirits from me and my fiancé.

I thought he was joking, but Dad was dead serious. He had seen a similar wedding ritual long ago as a child in the country, and it had stuck with him.

I didn't want to upset my father because I knew for sure I wouldn't have a wedding. I would have a husband, but no ceremony with a white dress, veil, guests and wedding rings.

And no children, so Dad's dreams of grandchildren would be in vain.

How did I know? I just knew, that's all. Children often know their future, but no one believes them, they think it's a fantasy. But even at the age of ten, I saw myself as a children's writer. Children's - because I loved reading books for children and teenagers. I liked being a child, communicating with children, and I dreamed that when I grew up I would have a daughter and two twin sons. But I never wanted to have a wedding. I liked other people's ceremonies, but my own? You have to buy a dress, shoes with heels, do your hair, order a restaurant, hire a toastmaster. Wouldn't it be better to just get married in secret and go on a honeymoon?

My mother has been telling my sister and me since we were children:

- Marry rich! Someone with an apartment, a car and a summer house.

When I started dating a guy, my mother's first question was always: Does he have a car?

If he does, he's a good guy; if he doesn't, he's a bad guy. But I fell in love with a man who only had a rich inner world. But in that sense he was a real treasure, so much so that even my strict mother once said to me with envy:

- How lucky you are, Natasha!

To tell the truth, I never thought that I would have a husband like Andrei. I was attracted to other guys, similar to my father. And I myself was the kind of person who "could not wait to get married" - with only boys in my head and the eternal question: who is he, my soul mate?

Mirror, mirror on the wall...

Eastern wisdom says, "Divination removes doubt. If there is no doubt, there is no need for divination. But who has not wished at least once in his life to know what lies ahead? To catch a glimpse of the world beyond, to read the cards, to fantasize about the patterns on the coffee grounds, to take a book off the shelf and, having made a wish, open the page at random.

My grandmother Luda used to say that the night of January 14 was the night of the most truthful fortune-telling.

- On Vasilyevsky nights all evil comes out into the light and roams until the Epiphany.

After our grandmother's stories, my sisters and I would gather in the kitchen in the evening and start telling fortunes for bridegrooms.

But we usually got nothing good out of it - we poured wax on the tablecloth, or ate notes with the names of suitors to get hiccups, or tried to make coffee but instead burned all the coffee beans and smoked the ceiling.

Once we threw a boot off the balcony for our future fiancé to pick up. But when we ran out into the yard, neither the fiancé nor the boot were there. We also went to the intersection of three streets to listen to what passersby were talking about and to learn our future. We spent two hours in the wind, frozen like dogs, but no man appeared!

- What result did you expect? - laughed my grandmother. - It's like going to a field. Who walks in the suburbs at night?

We guessed by randomly dialing phone numbers. You make a wish, and if the person at the other end of the line says "yes" - it will come true, "hello" - no.

You can imagine what people said when they were woken up at three in the morning...

The Queen of Spades

One of the girls suggested summoning the Queen of Spades. She said she appeared at midnight and granted any wish. As soon as we turned off the lights, drew a ladder on the mirror with a marker, and called, "Queen of Spades, come," the doorbell rang.

We hid in fear. Oksana crawled under the bed.

It rang for half an hour. Then an unknown visitor started cursing and kicking the door so hard that plaster fell from the ceiling. It turned out that Oksana's father had left his keys at home.

The next night, we locked Oksana in the bathroom so she could see her future fiancé in the mirror.

According to the belief, the devils were supposed to scare her in there, and we were not supposed to let her out of the bathroom despite her screams and cries. So when there was a scream outside the door, we just laughed: "Be strong!

When Oksana finally ran out, disheveled, scratched, in tears, a "devil" jumped after her - the cat Vaska, who had been dozing peacefully on the mat under the sink.

One night I left a glass of water on the headboard of the bed. A fortune-telling book said that if it was full in the morning, it would mean prosperity.

Imagine my surprise when I woke up in the morning to find that our dog, Lala, was shamelessly drinking water from the glass.

In the nineties, my sister and I and our girlfriends decided to organize a séance of spiritualism, and to make it not so scary, we invited some boys we knew. We said:

- Let's summon the ghost of the poet Pushkin. He was a funny man.

- What the hell with Pushkin! - Oksana's brother Sasha picked up a newspaper from the table. - Our neighbor died the other day, a fun-loving man who drank a lot. Let's summon him!

The spirit of the newly deceased alcoholic turned out to be a merry man indeed. He dropped things on the floor, rattled empty bottles in the corner, scattered salt, and broke two cups. He seemed to enjoy our motley company so much that he did not want to leave. We barely escorted him out the window. But we didn't find out anything about our fiancés.

Fortune Teller

One day my close friend Osya persuaded me to go to a real fortune teller.

At that time I was studying at a culinary school in Nizhny Tagil and had absolutely no idea what I was going to do next.

- Come on! - Osya encouraged me. - I know a woman who will tell the whole truth about you. She charges very little for her fortune-telling.

There were many rumors about the fortune teller on Mendeleev Street in the city. Some considered her clairvoyant and idolized her, others were frankly afraid of her, but all agreed on one thing - the fortune teller was never wrong, all her predictions came true with incredible accuracy.

Even people from neighboring regions came to her for advice.

But the fortune-teller did not accept everyone. She would look at some people sternly, shake her head, and silently close the door in front of them, not even letting them in.

For a long time I was reluctant to go to a fortune teller. I was afraid she would turn me away. I was seventeen years old, and she told fortunes only for adults.

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Besides, my Tagil grandmother was against any kind of fortune-telling, believing that it was a sin to look into the future.

But curiosity won out, and after receiving another scholarship, I went to see her.

It was winter. There was a crackling forty degree frost.

For two hours I wandered through a maze of wooden houses. By the time I found the address I wanted, I was so cold that my stiff fingers could barely reach the doorbell.

The door was opened by a woman who was not old. She looked like a Moldavian.

- What do you want? - she asked.

- A fortune teller.

- Come in.

We entered a small, dark room with thick, heavy carpets on the walls and impenetrable curtains on the windows.

- Wait here, - the woman said, and walked off somewhere.

I looked around. There was a huge desk in the middle of the room, piled high with icons and holy pictures. The candles crackled softly.

For some reason, I felt uncomfortable. I wanted to get out of here.

The fortune teller returned. She was holding a deck of shabby fortune-telling cards.

- Why have you come? - she asked unfriendly. - Nothing to do? You have no problems, what do you want?

- I'd like to know the future, - I muttered.

The fortune teller quickly spread the cards on the table and raised her black, penetrating eyes. And with that half-questioning, half-mocking look, it was as if she had burned through me. Somehow I felt ashamed. She had not read my mind, had she?

- You're a stubborn girl, but you study because you're bored, - the fortune teller said calmly. - You do not need this specialty, you will not work on it. When you get to the institute, you'll find something you like. And leave that guy you're going out with. He's no good for you. Do you understand?

The fortune teller looked into my eyes again:

- Do you understand me?

- What are you talking about? - I protested. - We're getting married this summer!

- What wedding, girl? - The woman grinned. - He's long been married.

I didn't believe her. I thought it was bullshit. So I began to listen to her half-heartedly, and almost every word was met with hostility. But the fortune teller went on and on - about my health, about my studies, about my relatives. She said that in four years I would meet my future husband and get married in July. My husband will be four years older - handsome, educated, rich. We will have a boy and a girl. She also warned me that my grandfather would die soon, so the family should prepare.

Again, I didn't believe her. Grandpa looked quite healthy, he would not die.

Finally, the fortune teller offered to ask her three questions.

I spent two on my parents, and the last question I decided to ask about my little sister.

- How old is your sister?

- Fourteen.

The fortune teller wrinkled her forehead for a long time and looked at the cards.

- No, she's still an angel, I can't see anything, everything is foggy.

Then she told me the price.

It was more than I expected, I didn't have that much money with me.

- Never mind. You'll bring it tomorrow. - The woman looked me carefully in the eyes again, as if she wanted to make sure that I would not cheat her, that I would borrow, but that I would pay back my debt.

I want to say that I really did return the money. But for some reason the fortune teller did not recognize me. She silently listened to who I was and where I came from, took the bill and slammed the door.

I left her with a heavy heart. My head was throbbing, my legs were shaking. By evening I was completely exhausted.

- You have to go to church, - my grandmother advised me.

I've been to the church.

Soon the fortuneteller's prophecies began to come true. My grandfather died. It turned out that he had been sick for a long time.

Only my grandmother knew, but she kept quiet because she didn't want to upset or frighten anyone.

The man I was dating was actually married.

I found out by chance - I saw the stamp in his passport. So I had to forget about the wedding and begin to wait for my true love.

Four years have passed. July is coming.

And then, as if in mockery, life flips a switch and turns everything upside down. I left the institute while my sister went there. She broke up with her boyfriend and immediately married another man. The interesting thing is that her husband is four years older than her, handsome, educated, with money. One year later they have a son...

- Why did you leave your boyfriend? - I asked my sister many years later.

- Because the bastard was married! - Tanya replied.

The stars say

I was sure that sooner or later I would find my husband, but there were things I could not believe in, like traveling abroad.

In the early 90s it seemed like a fantasy. I remember once waking up in the middle of the night to the sounds of the popular lambada - tropics, palm trees, ocean - and crying in self-pity because I would never see that overseas paradise. But I wanted to see it so badly!

1992 was the height of interest in astrology. Offices were opening on every corner, ready to tell you your future.

In St. Petersburg, where I went on an excursion as a schoolgirl, a certain astrologer put a computer with a printer right in the Moscow train station - he printed out predictions for everyone for a hundred rubles. It was convenient: you got off the train and immediately got a piece of paper: what, where, when would happen to you. I couldn't miss it, I didn't spare a hundred rubles and entered my date and time of birth into the computer's memory.

And here was happiness - everything was planned, like in a state plan: in three years I'd go abroad, in five years I'd get married, I didn't have to worry about anything, the stars said so, and they knew better.

Meanwhile, the years passed, but there were no trips abroad, no wedding in sight, and I forgot to think about it. I remembered it when a crumpled sheet of paper fell out of my old notebook. The one with the astrological prediction. I sat down to read it again and couldn't believe my eyes. The unnamed astrologer got the dates wrong, but overall he got nine out of ten events right!

Avoid evil and it will avoid you

If you've ever dealt with representatives of the other world, they won't let you go. I know that for sure. Imagine that you are a locked room with a bright light inside. And the other dimension is space, dark, mysterious, icy.

And so you decide to make contact with it. It's like breaking a lock or breaking the seal of a door.

You break your integrity and tightness and from now on you can be knocked on the door at any moment or even break in without knocking.

Of course, you can prop the door up with something from the inside or put a chain on it, but the gap remains. And through it comes a light, warm, alive, inviting. That is what attracts the inhabitants of the other world to you, they fly like moths to that light.

As a result, some incredible stories always happen to you.

When I was in the sixth grade, my father bought a book at the bookstore called "White and Black Magic", which contained pentagrams, spells, and descriptions of ancient magical rituals.

Some of what I read in the book was familiar to me from my conversations with Grandma Luda. Much of it was frightening, even repulsive, but overall the book seemed interesting and I was intrigued.

Despite the fear, I was tempted to look beyond and, with any luck, make contact with the inhabitants of another reality, to find companions and patrons among them.

It wasn't that I wanted to stroke my ego, to prove to myself that I could do it, although I had such thoughts, but I had long since realized that people are not drawn to magic by a good life. When all is not well at home, when no one understands you and there are no close friends, you want to find something that will make you not feel so lonely, some mystery, a shop of miracles that will fill your worthless existence with meaning. I never didn't think that magical experiences could be harmful, even dangerous.

A couple of times I tried to organize spiritualist sessions at home to summon spirits.

The spirits appeared, but with them came such a sticky fear that I stopped these experiments for my own safety. I decided to protect my house as well - I put needles in the doorjambs and in the ceiling, but I'm not sure I did everything right.

My inner voice warned me not to play with fire, not to do things I don't know anything about for the sake of self-assertion. Practical magic isn't my thing.

So I moved on to chiromancy and astrology.

I was particularly drawn to hypnosis and mind control techniques.

I read somewhere that with a willpower you can stop the inner dialog and go into a trance, consciously leave your physical body, travel through time and space, and even see your past lives. That was what I wanted!

To go into a trance state, I could lie motionless on the couch for hours and try not to think about anything. In my mind, I would imagine my consciousness separating from the physical shell and rising upward.

But I couldn't shut off the inner dialog. It was like a radio playing in my head. My thoughts jumped, confused, crawled over each other like ice floes in a flood. No miracles! Life had proven that everything unusual happens to us when we don't expect it.

Rainbow Glow

But one day, a miracle finally happened.

When I woke up that morning, I opened my eyes and realized that something was wrong with my vision.

I didn't recognize the room I was in. No, the room was mine, but all the objects in it seemed blurred, as if surrounded by a halo of rainbow glow.

Bright multicolored dots swirled in the air, pulsed, formed into intricate patterns, flashed, exploded with countless tiny lights, and flew apart like a kaleidoscope.

This flickering made me dizzy, and the ground began to give way beneath my feet.

I experienced a similar state in my childhood when I held a three-sided Plexiglas prism to my eyes. The prism would amazingly magnify and change the outlines of objects in the room as if I were looking at them through a column of water - they would ripple and shimmer with all the colors of the rainbow. The floor came alive and slowly curled into a cocoon, creating the illusion that I was standing on the edge of an abyss and about to fall.

An unknown force was pulling me down like a magnet. Sometimes I would actually lose my balance and fall, and only then, with my heart pounding, would I remove the prism from my eyes.

But now, no matter how hard I squeezed my eyes shut, no matter how hard I tried to focus my gaze, I couldn't get a clear picture. The world remained dazzling and glowing, like an impressionist painting. But it was alive, constantly changing.

I panicked. What if I went blind?

Tears streamed from my eyes, but it didn't help.

Should I tell my mother? She'd be upset and drag me to the hospital. No, it's better to keep quiet, as usual!

All day long I was not myself, and when I went to bed I prayed to God for only one thing: that everything would be over, that the world would be as it was before, and that I would regain my normal sight.

When I woke up, I was afraid to open my eyes for a long time in case nothing had changed?

But when I realized that the "rainbow" had disappeared, I was overcome with sadness. As with the prism in my childhood, I immediately wanted to recreate that magical feeling, to see that wonderful world again.

Unfortunately, I never saw those rainbow visions again.

To be continued