Part II. Watson’s investigation Evening. September 22. Russian “picnics”
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Part II. Watson’s investigation Evening. September 22. Russian “picnics”
In the afternoon Holmes left for Heathrow, and after dinner I occupied myself with his papers. Comforting myself in my old armchair, I took a leather file from the table and started to rummage through its content curiously. Notes - for the beginning. Some of them, the most brief, I will cite here.
Note №1. May 15, 1976. “Weekly news” reported that an obstetrician named Triplett had delivered triplets three times already.
Note №2. December 5, 1664, an English ship “Maney” drown in Pas de Calais; only one crewmember was saved, and his name was Hugo Williams. 121 years later on that very date, December 5, 1785, another ship has drowned in Irish Sea near Man Island. And only one sailor has survived, and his name was Hugo Williams.
Note №3. In 1883 some Texas scoundrel named Henry Siegland left his beloved; she couldn’t get through this and laid hands on herself. Her brother decided to take revenge on the offender. But the bullet he fired only rubbed Siegland’s face against and got stuck in the trunk of the tree. Siegland has fallen down on the ground, and the brother thinking that the revenge was complete shot himself immediately… 30 years later, in 1913, Siegland, still alive, was going to saw down the tree where the bullet has stuck. The tree was rather tough, and Siegland tried to explode it with dynamite. When he did so, the bullet fired out from the trunk and struck him in the head. The girl was revenged at last!
Note №4. 1975, a little child fell down from the window on 14th (!) storey in Detroit and landed right on the head of someone named Mr. Joseph Figlock… The next year on the same date Mr. Figlock was strolling by the same place, and surely the same child dived on his head. And though little fidget became rather heavier than a year ago, this time all was OK too.
Note №5. In XVII century all Japan was talking about an evil fate dominating on some child kimono. Each of three girls which had it as a present or a simply purchase has died before putting it on for the first time. February 1657, a Japan priest decided that it would be better to burn the “unhappy” kimono. But hardly had he burnt it, suddenly the strong gust of the wind fanned the fire, and soon it was entirely uncontrolled… And that’s the result: three quarters of Tokyo were burnt, there were destroyed: 300 churches, 500 palaces, 9000 stores and 61 bridges, 100 thousands of people were killed…
About dozen of more lengthy, but not less interesting notes proved rather convincingly the rightness of Pushkin’s statement: “the chance” indeed is mighty and immediate instrument of Providence. Having finished reading, I pondered about that “above”-world reality of which existence common western people think only while visiting a church under the pressure of circumstances. And curious coincidences attracting my friend’s Holmes attention do make us remember about lots of “chances” in human history, when plans of acting, thoroughly organized and well equipped with all necessary things, just couldn’t come true. Sometimes, due to them, the current of events changed its tend or got a new quality entirely by accident.
So, thinking about the role of a chance as an instrument of Providence, which every man has ever encountered this way or that in his short life, I looked at last at the page with the first “picnic”. It was copy from the last page of the newspaper of Leningrad union of journalists, named “Chas Pick”, dated by 24.06.1991, and its loud title claimed: “Historical Picnic”. I knew that many cities in Russia have changed their names after 1991, as well as after 1917. Then Petersburg was called Leningrad, and now Leningrad is Petersburg again. The pictures of “picnic” resembled cartoon drawings, and there were five of them. It was the theme of ancient Egypt that caught the eye firstly, and it seemed to me for my first impression that it was artificially summoned to events in Russia.
At the beginning I was trying to translate the text of the pictures, basing on the lexicon, which I obtained during three years in Afghanistan. But I understood very soon, that I wouldn’t cope without special Russian-English dictionary. Text of the first picture was as following:
“Political passions of ancient Egypt still strike the imagination of common electors. The struggle for the throne between Amenkhotep IV (Ehnaton) and young Tutanhamon is a struggle of two great party religions of Amen and Aten. These unforgettable 40-centuries-ago events of fight for the power in the epoch of XVIII dynasty of Egypt Pharaohs we tried to recover in our memory, for there were no historical sources at hand. If something isn’t correct enough, we’re not to blame, so many years passed, it’s impossible to recollect everything…”
The last, and the lowest, picture was added with text strange as well:
“For reaching the top of hierarchic pyramid, it’s necessary to capture someone, to eliminate someone, to blackmail, to buy, to provoke, to exile, to betray, to compromise, to deceive, to isolate, to assure, to frighten, to discredit, to distract, to take out, to delete, to bury, to strike, to make to do, to sell, and etc. Or to be intelligent, to have an authority and always tell the truth, but in this case you get to category of “someone”…
If you suddenly felt a desire to achieve the peak and you had proper stones at hand (they’re drawn) for building the stairs of social carrier staircase, then in what succession would you pile them one on another? May be, you know the other ways for reaching the top of power, where you can see far and spit from on high?”
Under this text there were the figures of five young and five old men, standing with their backs to each other. Between them was printed some strange word (its meaning in Russian isn’t clear) - “churiki” [22]. On every picture, on the first ground there were two palm trees (on the first, the upper, one of the palms was covered by some other drawing). The picnic was strangely called “in a name of Artemis”, and on the second upper picture - with the delta of Nile, to the channel of the river there was added a branch called “Nilovna” [23]. On the third - central - picture in big letters it was printed “CAMEL” - a well-known in England mark of cigarettes; to the right of this inscription the figure in ancient Egypt Pharaoh attire was crawling out of the TV screen, and under him there were eight figures with the inscription - “zhretses of OMON”. Some other inscriptions, such as: “Barracks leading to Rome ”, collective farm “The lighthouse of Alexandria ”, “Sarcophagus with the former Pharaoh”, “Colossus of Rhodes ”. To cut the long story short, both pictures and inscriptions for them were full of nonsense, which didn’t belong to history, as well as geography, if
trying to understand them directly. But how many times did I try to complete some coherent mosaic out of these strange “stones”, which could reveal the concealed sense of the “picnic”! It all was for nothing. I was lacking of some keys to this rebus - the most probable, information about Russian and Egyptian history.
There was also an application to the “Historical Picnic”: the list of films which apparently might be on the screens of some Leningrad cinemas during the period of 24-26 of June, 1991, but I had no ideas what should I do with it.
Moving away the first “picnic”, I put the second - “Defence Picnic” - next to me, and started researching.
The pictures were not so numerous here, and all of them were devoted to military theme (that’s why, perhaps, it was called the “Defence Picnic”). However, texts were strange as well:
“Reminder for the soldier and sailor, present and future”
“The song about marshals. Verses by Michel Bezrodny [24]. Music by Alfred Karasinov [25]”. And after that notes and verses of the song with such strange words followed:
One, two, one, two,
Tremble and quiver
One, two, one, two,
Pisa and Toulouse.
“Three sons. ‘Contemporary Russian fairy-tale’. Library of «Ogonyek». Moscow, 1940”.
The second “picnic” was applied with the list of films too which opened by such declaration: “Film demonstration goes on”. This time there were thirteen of them, and the first was “Boom II”. I returned to the application of the first “picnic” and founded out, that film “Boom” was present there too, but… it was third in the list, and the first was “Rebus”.
And still “rebus”, - I thought, - but where are keys for it?
The third “picnic” waited for me - the “Post Historical Picnic” which I saw at breakfast with Holmes. This time I put it beside two others and started to examine it attentively. It represented the schematic plan of some city, along which, as it seemed to me at the beginning, about two dozens of little pictures were scattered in disorder. These pictures seemed not to be interlinked in any way. Having searched through tourist guidebooks, advertising voyages to Russia, soon I identified the outlines of Leningrad-Petersburg, represented to Britain tourists as the most European city of Russia. However, the Neva river on the map was somehow called “the river of Moscow”, and at the top and the bottom of this rebus there were located the famous, by CNN advertising clips, symbols of Russian capital - Spasskaya tower of Moscow Kremlin and the silhouette of St. Basil’s Cathedral, between them sat bearded Marx, clutching his head in despair. Below - there was a laughing baby in a washbasin full of water.
From the pictures disorderly scattered along the field of “picnic”, scrutinizing them more thoroughly, I was able to set apart two diagonals, on the crossing of which, almost at the exact centre of the picture, the battle scene happened to be, with fighting elephant of either Alexander Macedonian time, or Carthage and Rome; the inscription by its side said - “the place for most important meetings”.
Above “the place for most important meetings” on the left diagonal the silhouette of Pisa Tower stood out distinctly, and above it, slightly to the right, there was a figure of Egyptian zhrets, with the name of ugOMON [26]. Under “the place of the most important meetings” and a bit to the left there was contour of world-known Rome Coliseum on which - from the left side too - fell a pair of palm-trees from the first “picnic”; a bit lower and to the left of Coliseum a plan-scheme of some unknown building, titled as “White house”, was drawn; and below, at the extreme left corner of “picnic”, stood a smiling guy saluting with his left hand and holding the poleaxe for tree cutting on his right shoulder. Above him there was a strange inscription, which I couldn’t translate without dictionary for long: “Isn’t it Muscovite behind us?” Thus, the pictures on the left diagonal of the “picnic” formed something resembling the staircase, with Eros or Cupid (god of love in the mythology of ancient Greeks and Romans) on its upper step. The bowstring of his bow was drawn, and an arrow was aimed right to the zhrets’s head.
The first step of right diagonal-staircase began with calendar report that attracted my attention when I saw the third “picnic” for the first time. To the right of it there was a tower with star on its top (smaller than Spasskaya Tower) and an inscription under it: “Hearing aid of CC”. The next step - two inscriptions: “Breeding ground of Communists” and “Grand Circus Shapiro”; one more step above by the right diagonal - the familiar figure of a military man from the “Defence Picnic”, with mask-respirator. On the next step - two sculpture groups representing wrestlers (they seemed familiar to me), with the inscription “Exchange of points of view”. This way, “The place of most important meetings” became indeed the place of crossing of diagonals-staircases, and above it along the left diagonal there sat an ape with its right hand stretched, and above it, on the background of “Swan Lake” (thus was here called the Gulf of Finland on whose shore St-Petersburg is situated) - face staring wide-eyed (either because of being startled, or for frightening), and text after it: “Bolshevist’s tricks”.
Strange associations awoke in me the pictures of the third “picnic”: I had a feeling, that some of them I had seen before, - and especially sculpture groups on the left bank on the Neva river, the channel of which ended with the word “trace”, written by hand. The “hand” itself leading this “trace” was nearby too, and below - an enigmatic phrase: “The water of the Moscow flows so, as Bolsheviks tell to it flow”. I remembered Holmes’s commentaries on the history of interrelations between Bolsheviks and Trotskyites in Russia, all the more because the most large and bright slogan of “picnic” hanging above Marx’s head, said: “Come to the abundance of Communism!” The lesser slogan, located on the right field of the rebus, seemed to sum up the result of some operation dangerous for Moscow:” People, army, Stalin - saved you, Moscow!”
So I was trying to render for myself the “Post Historical Picnic”, for imparting some order to its miscellaneous pictures, but, having re-read all I’ve written, I understood, that I’ve missed some numerous details, may be, very important, which I couldn’t find a place in the mosaic I was trying to construct in my mind.
For example, I couldn’t understand the role of Euripides dressed by the author of “picnic” in Jewish skullcap and called “Eurey-Pid” [27]; the meaning of two fir-trees, old and young, falling to the right, situating in front of two palms falling to the left towards Coliseum; why against the Pisa Tower there was “Yellow House” [28], resembling “Smolny palace”(the headquarters of Trotskyites in 1917) by architecture and location, and why all fish in the “Swan Lake” was dead. And the more I peered into the pictures of three “picnics”, the more I was seized with the feeling of their interrelation, hidden from me still.
For developing this interconnection I needed to remember where I could see any of these pictures and, seizing it as a link, to pull out the whole chain. For a key picture I take the figure of a nude woman from the third “picnic”, with a slogan “Free Russia - free love!” and looking through the visual images of the recent years of my life in my memory, like watching the film, I reached at last the Naples, where I’ve been before leaving for Sicily autumn 1998. Then, on bright sunny day, September 11, waiting for a ferry to the island, I’ve wandered into the National Museum and have seen there the same statue, whose name has stroked me then by its frankness - “beautifully-rumped”. Now I wasn’t able to remember her name in Greek. It took me some time to work with Greek dictionary, and then the forgotten name appeared - “Callipyga”. Further everything was simpler. I took from the bookshelf the German “Lexicon der Antike” by Johannes Irmscher and Renata Johne, Leipzig, 1987, and found the familiar figure at once.
Yes, it was the statue of Aphrodite Callipyga, which means indeed - “beautifully-rumped”. In the lexicon I read about “her marble statue was kept in the National Museum of Naples (the copy of Greek original of III cent. B.C.), it represents the female figure, which, turning elegantly, uncovers her buttocks. It considers to be worshipped in Syracuse especially”. Syracuse?! - But this is from the “Defence Picnic”; it is mentioned in the second stanza of “Song about Marshals”:
And trembles Syracuse,
And quivers The Hague,
And Pisa, and Toulouse,
Santiago and Prague.
Santiago? Santiago!…Well, of course! This very morning Holmes, talking about Trotskyites, mentioned junta in Chile and told that its most important events took place in Santiago. So, this is the first link in the chain of enigmatic pictures, and it seems to be correct. Some articles in the “Lexicon of Antiquity” were illustrated, and I decided to list it through in order to identify some other pictures. The result was beyond my expectations. More then one half of pictures from the third “picnic” could be found in this lexicon. I marked the pages and started scrutinizing them, willing to find associative interconnections between them.
The left bank of the Neva River turned out to be occupied by very famous sculpture group “Theseus and Minotaur”. In the article it was said, that Minotaur is a monster - bull-man - in ancient Greek mythology. Apparently, his mother, Pacifae, decided to cuckold her husband, Minos, who ordered to imprison the fruit of forbidden love between “shining” courtesan (Pacifae in Latin means “shining”) and “Cnossus ladies’ man” (fire-breathing bull - Pacifae’s lover from Cnossus) to the maze, built especially for him; there Minotaur was killed by Theseus, because he endeavoured annually seven most beautiful Athenian girls and youths given him as a tribute. Theseus, who put the end to this tyranny, might be the first democrat thus.
On the right bank of the Neva River there was a sculpture group by Athenian sculptor Antenor “Tyrannicides” (Harmodius and Aristogiton). I wondered whom did they struggle with? The Lexicon said, that “Tyranny” as a form of state power appeared in Greece by the end of VII century B.C., while struggle between deteriorating aristocracy and increasing people mass went on; it appeared mostly in cities with highly-developed economy; legislature was almost always formally kept, although polis was actually under individual ruling. Tyrants lead policy of improving conditions of demos; they were supporting crafts and trade, arts and poetry. Naturally, it was for the first time estimated negatively during the period of democratic ruling, rejecting the fundamental principle of tyranny - individual governing. Among Greek tyrants the two of Syracuse (again Syracuse!) were noticed especially in the “Lexicon”: Hieron I and Hieron II. Do the «murderers of tyrant» mean very bellicose democrats?
Beside the “Tyrannicides” in the Lexicon there appeared a plan of a very strange building from the third “picnic”, where it was called the “White House”. In fact it was the plan of ancient Greek city Tirinth with a fortress, in Argolide, built in the second half of II millennium B.C., to the south from Mycenae. The first edifice was dated by III millennium B.C., the last - by XIII century A.D., as the lexicon said. Every edifice on the plan had its number, and by number 11 was marked… the public bath.
If “Tirinth” for the author of the “Post Historical Picnic” was a symbol of New York, then he was very precious in indicating the place of “blood bath” - towers of WTC. It’s interesting, that hardly noticeable number 11, indicating the bath, presents on the picture of “picnic”, and, on the contrary, well-seen number 17, marking the Western Gates on the plan of Tirinth, is absent in “picnic”. But in the final scene of “Queen of Picks” by Pushkin, Hermann goes mad, and sitting in the room №17 in the hospital, doesn’t answer any questions and mutters very swiftly: ”Three, seven, ace! Three, seven, queen!…” May be, Pushkin wanted to show this way that number 17 holds sway over Western world? And authors of “picnic” don’t like it?
The picture representing the “fighting elephant”, with the inscription “place of the most important meetings”, was as well found in the lexicon, with the explanation, when and how the fighting elephants were used. It was explained, that they were appreciated for their strong force, cleverness and psychological effect they made on enemy’s infantry and cavalry. It was noticed, that elephants were used by Alexander Macedonian in his battles, and that he was somehow stopped in Afghanistan, and at that moment I suddenly remembered that “elephant” is the symbol of Republican Party in USA. Today Republicans rule in the country and strive to penetrate into the “place of the most important meetings”.
There was no picture of Coliseum in the lexicon, but I’ve learnt from the article that this ancient building was called after colossus of Nero standing beside the amphitheatre. Naturally, I remembered about “Colossus of Rhodes” from the first “picnic” and learnt that being considered one of Seven Wonders of the World it represented the bronze statue of Helios, 37 m high, which stood above the entrance to the harbour with his legs pulled apart. Haret from Lind created it in 285 B.C. 58 years later, in 227 B.C. (the sum of numbers is again the fatal 11) it was completely ruined by the earthquake, because its frame was made of iron and stone. The colossus of Nero, made in 58 A.D. by Zenodor, was two meters higher than the “ Colossus of Rhodes ”. The Emperor Vespasian ordered to turn this colossus into the statue of Helios, and the Emperor Adrian moved it to the Flavius amphitheatre, which since those times has been called Coliseum. But, frankly speaking, after all these researches the aim of strange inscription under “Coliseum” - “Toilets, occupied by putschists” - didn’t become clearer for me.
It was well past midnight when I decided to stop my investigation. All the more, I had to confess, that although the trip along “Lexicon of Antiquity” has enriched my knowledge of history and even helped to maintain some important informational interlinks between “picnics”, it hasn’t made the solution of the rebus closer.
The night was uneasy. I couldn’t fall asleep for long, and when at last dozed off heavily, shortly before dawn, the pictures from “picnics” were winding in my half-dreams, like in kaleidoscope, reflecting some “struggle of ideas” in the depth of my sub-consciousness. And gigantic towers of WTC turned into the legs of Rhodes Colossus, each standing on its bank of harbour mouth before the ancient port, or into Spasskaya Tower and some church in Petersburg, unknown to me; and appeared strange name from somewhere - “Church on the blood”. May be, it was the dome of St. Basil’s Cathedral? All the next day I must resemble Hermann from Pushkin’s “Queen of Picks”, for I answered not in the point and added numbers, expecting to get the fatal 11 in result. It might be telephone numbers, car numbers or house numbers.