Mission 777 Possible

Foreword by the Author

Author Marina Sprouz

The novel was translated by the author into English from the Russian language.

Love Must Save the World

Lead to Life Through the Journey

The Legend of Marianne

The woman in white

Two girls were playing in the backyard. One had fiery red hair and was arranging toy figures on a set of scales made from a wooden fence plank. The other girl, with expressive big eyes, was playing with a small jug.

“Tell me, what do you want to be when you grow up?” said the Red-haired girl.

“I don’t know yet…”

“I want to be a shopkeeper,” said the Red-haired girl, placing a child’s sand shoe on one side of the scales.

“I don’t know yet…,” said the other girl.

“What do you have in your jugs?” asked the Red-haired girl.

“It’s water. Did you know that in the future, there will be very little water, so you have to stock up…” said the big-eyed girl.

“Impossible!” said the Red-haired girl, surprised.

“But what will happen in the future?”

“I know that people will be led by a woman in white.”

“In white?”

“How interesting…”

The girls spoke, their voices getting quieter, like in fog…

Boy or Girl

A boy was probably supposed to be born, but a girl was born… Marianna.

A private house, a yard. Grandfather is fixing the fence, holding a hammer. Grandma Klavdiya appears on the porch.

“Anton, they called from the maternity hospital, a girl was born!”

Grandfather put down the hammer, frowned, paused.

“Go call again, there must be some mistake.”

A minute later, Grandma Klavdiya returns.

“A girl! They said it’s a girl!”

“Oh my… call again later…”

Fear of God

A room in my grandfather’s house. White walls, low ceilings. A little five-year-old girl sits on the bed with her legs tucked up and stares into the corner – it’s Marianne. Half darkness. The girl looks at a large icon in the corner. From the icon Jesus Christ is looking sternly. Marianne looks frightened, she stares intently at the image, Jesus seems to threaten with finger.

Girl

Rural road. Grandfather is carrying Marianne on the frame of his bicycle. She is about five years old.

“When you grow up, will you feed Grandpa?” – Grandpa asks as he walks along.

Little Marianne replies: “I will take you to Moscow.”

“To Moscow?”

“Yes! And I’ll feed you porridge!”

Grandpa laughs.

A grey-haired old man

“She has a fever,” Marianna’s mom said, touching the child’s forehead. “We need to call the doctor tomorrow.”

The girl shivered, her face red.

“Lie down, lie down,” Grandma tucks Marianna in.

The girl drank a sweet mixture and drifted off to sleep.

In the next room, the light was still on, and in her half-dream, Marianna could see it.

It seemed she had already fallen asleep…

Everything was foggy… Marianna felt very bad, she didn’t know why, she just felt it. The girl opened her eyes. An old man with a long gray beard stood by her bedside and looked at her. Marianna could see the old man, but very hazily. Closing her eyes, she drifted back to sleep.

Morning came, and the girl woke up completely healthy.

Later, Grandma said it was Saint Nicholas who had visited. Who knows… maybe it was another old man.

Deaf

Marianne was eight years old. Hospital. Ear, nose and throat doctor’s office. Grandfather brought Marianna to the doctor’s office.

The doctor: “The girl does not hear at all, this is nervous deafness, a complication after rubella. Give her to a school for the deaf-mute. There is no cure, you know…”

Grandpa: “What school? Are you crazy? She has to be cured.”

“We can’t do anything, this happens sometimes, all these children are in schools for the deaf,” said the doctor.

Grandfather stood puzzled for a long time, then took Marianne’s hand and walked towards the exit. He sat Marianna on the back seat of an old Zaporozhts and thought. His hands gripped the steering wheel with anger and despair.

“No! This will not do!” said the grandfather and pressed on the gas.

Marianne spent a fortnight in the Ear, Nose, Throat ward. Her arms were pricked all over, bruises appeared on her wrists, and antibiotics were painfully injected into her veins. Marianne couldn’t hear, but she could see, walk, but she couldn’t hear anything.

Probably, really – a school for deaf-mutes and that’s all…

But a miracle happened, which always comes when you least expect it.

In the afternoon, Marianne stood in the hospital ward, looked out the window and thought that now everything is fine, it does not hurt, doctors do not stick needles in her hands. It had become warm. Around her head, her whole body was enveloped by an unknown force, her head seemed to expand in the glow of invisible ions, and her eyes were like a big screen through which she felt and saw. Marianne began to hear. There were loud noises coming from the corridor. At first she caught the sounds with her nose, other parts of her body, felt with her whole body what the interlocutor was saying, but most importantly she looked at his lips when he spoke. A miracle happened, Marianne was healed by an unknown force.

A Part of That Force

Beach. Little Marianna on the shore of the sea. She splashes her feet in the water by the shore. She sees people swimming. The weather is sunny outside, just a little wind stirs the waves. Marianna enters the sea. She can’t swim and goes into the water up to her waist, splashing, then further and further…

A wave engulfs Marianna, swirling her around, she ends up completely in the water. She starts to drown and choke. An unknown wave lifts her body, vibrating and pushing her upwards. This is a part of that force that cured her deafness. Marianna paddles desperately with her arms. She swims… She swims on her own. She learned to swim.

Little Marianna

“Go to the reeds, to the swamps, where people don’t go, where God’s word doesn’t reach; there you will have visions, nourishment, forever and ever amen,” rasped the old woman’s voice over Marianna’s head. Then the old woman read prayers, and Marianna smelled the wax nearby: the old woman poured wax into a bowl of water.

Then holding the wax in her hand, she said, "– Look, look what’s here…”

Marianna had been going to the old woman for the tenth time already.

“You should come for the young moon,” the toothless old woman said. Little Marianna didn’t know that “young moon” meant the new moon.

But she had to come, her grandmother said she had to go to stop wetting the bed, to keep bed sheets from hanging and drying in the garden; she had to come for twenty readings.

They said there was fear, but what caused it wasn’t clear: maybe she was just scared of the dog, or maybe of the old lady, a neighbor. Granny, the neighbor, stepped outside wearing her terrible rags, she stood by the gate and watched. Marianna went along the road with her little feet, and she said in fear, “Grandma Aga.”

She heard and saw the frightened look of Marianna. Now the wet sheets…

The witch, the neighbor, came close to Marianna and whispered into her face, “Not enough? Not enough?”

Marianna didn’t understand what she meant by “not enough” back then. One day, she left her gate and found a crow that had been killed, its blood visible and horrifying…

She didn’t think about the witch, the neighbor, just the crow. At night, the granny stepped out, holding a book in her hands and whispered strange words as she walked around the garden fence. Granny Klavdiya constantly made finds: sometimes a buried piece of bread in her garden, sometimes a pot of feces thrown over the fence by someone.

One dream often haunted Marianna: she runs away, and a witch in rags chases her. In her dream, Marianna is in fear as she tries to run quickly from the gate to the porch; the monster chases her. The witch is about to grab her by her clothes.

The dream was repeated again and again.

Everything passes… time heals, and Marianna was healed of wet sheets.

Field of Bluebells

A little girl stands. Before her, an immense field stretches out, composed of countless purple bluebells. For the little girl, it’s enormous, a wave of joy and freedom surrounds her – Marianna. She runs across the vast field, happy and carefree. The field smells incredibly, probably the scent of bluebells, merging into a vast purple sea.

Marianna wakes up, someone is patting her cheeks, she hears sounds. It’s her grandmother, who found Marianna unconscious, snoring, with foam at her mouth.

Little Marianna lay in the corner near the yard’s barn, by the wooden fence. The cause of such a condition is still unclear, maybe it’s the aftermath of a vaccination she received today at the hospital. Marianna came to her senses, and it’s so sad… she wanted to get back to that field, smelling of freshness and the aroma of bluebells.

Star

The girl’s hand draws a star on notebook pages. She does it mechanically, just wanting to draw with a pen. The star is ordinary, like many five-pointed stars, with a sharp top at the top. Then she draws other shapes on the sheet.

As Marianna woke up, she saw that she had filled her school notebook. What have I done…

Amina

“Born…” whispered little Marianna, looking sadly at her baby sister Amina, who had just been brought from the maternity ward and placed on the pillow. Amina fit perfectly on the pillow. Marianna couldn’t imagine that Amina would grow up so quickly and cause so much trouble. From all of Marianna’s childhood photos, Amina cut out Marianna’s eyes and scratched them with scissors. She also took Marianna’s toys and pretty things for herself and hid them away. When Marianna asked her about the toys, Amina grabbed Marianna by the hair and pulled painfully. Once, a fight between the sisters went too far. Older now, Amina was stronger than Marianna: she hit Marianna hard on the edge of the bath, grabbed her by the hair, and started to drown her in a basin. Marianna was so angry that when it was all over, not feeling any more rage, and seeing Amina’s face gleefully triumphant, she shouted, “Curse you!”

Injustice

Grandpa sat behind the wheel of his old Zaporozhets. Marianna sat next to him. She was already a teenager. They had to stop because of a funeral procession. They were burying a young woman who left behind a child. Grandpa looked at the funeral procession and couldn’t calm down: “Where is the justice… They took away the mother… The child is an orphan… Is this right…” Marianna looked at her thoughtful grandpa. She didn’t understand what injustice was; she didn’t understand anything.

After school

Marianna didn’t know where to go after school.

But it seems fate decided everything for her.

Zinulya – Marianna’s favorite friend – dreamed of studying medicine, but to apply, she needed work experience as a hospital orderly, so she immediately took action. As luck would have it, there was a spot at the clinic, and we both started working there even during school. And so, I finally put on a white coat for the first time, although there was still a silly white cap. That’s how my journey in medicine began, as if someone invisible was guiding me. After working for a year, Zinka inexplicably changed her mind about applying, or more precisely, didn’t apply anywhere, but got married and started a household.

I corresponded with my mom; the letters took a long time because she and Dad were living in the Far North, having gone there to work. In one letter, I asked my mom: where should I apply, what should I do… And in her letter, Mom replied: “You need to live, choose…”

Honestly, I didn’t know myself and tried to figure out my path. One day after school, I sat thoughtfully at my desk, did my homework as usual, books lay before me, and I just stared into emptiness. Slightly in a daze, a picture appeared before me: I was sitting in a white coat in an office, with shelves of pills and tablets in the background. So, to begin my path in medicine, I needed to enroll in medical school.

Misfortune

It happened one May evening; I went out with a friend and, like a good girl, called my grandparents from a payphone from time to time.

“Marianna… Marianna… hurry home!” I heard a strange hoarse voice from Grandpa on the phone, it seemed he was crying.

At home, I saw two of our relatives from the neighboring village, everyone sitting around the table. Grandma informed me of my mother’s death, Grandpa couldn’t say anything, just wheezed and sobbed, having drunk Corvalol. Of course, I didn’t fully realize it at first, and I didn’t feel the pain right away; there was Mom, and now no Mom, it couldn’t be true. And I cried a lot in the bathroom, my eyes turned into two swollen bags. I remember Mom… she was like an angel, with extraordinary eyes. Then they said she was killed. One memory remains in my mind: I was sitting next to Mom when she was still alive, and my soul was incredibly warm, perhaps this feeling a fetus feels in the womb. Her eyes were especially memorable, large unusual upper eyelids, her face reminded me of an angel and Leonardo da Vinci’s painting “Head of an Angel,” and her hands were very delicate. Like some virgin maiden hides Leonardo’s painting, and in the picture – my mom, my mommy:

You’re tender, like something fragile and delicate,

What are you like… as if something is in a daze.

Vulnerable, like a virgin flower,

Grown-up and spring stem.

You look like a girl from a painting:

Semi-transparent face and canopies;

The mouth is slightly open sensually,

As if getting ready for a trip;

And a tired look aimed,

Olive eyes – without falsehood.

Vulnerable, invisible, barefoot,

She came down from the picture – you, heavenly – such…

I will look at the lips and eyes,

As if they can tell you,

About the secret of the eternal tender maiden;

And listen to the first tunes,

When the morning dew rings…

The funeral of my mother was terrible. Grandpa no longer cried but wheezed, and the nurse injected him with injections right through his clothes. Grandma’s face was without tears, and Marianna’s eyes swelled and puffed up from crying. We said our last words of farewell. A stranger woman standing by the grave threw a handful of dirt over Marianna’s collar and said, “So she wouldn’t be afraid of the dead.”

Orphan

So, Marianna became an orphan.

Why is it that often the main character is necessarily an orphan, or becomes one? Let’s remember: Harry Potter, poor Cinderella without a mother, the heroine of the tale “12 Months”. But like all heroes, Marianna became an orphan too.

Amina’s Abilities

Train. Ukraine.

Marianna and her sister Amina sit on the wooden benches of the train, the train quietly clatters along. Amina twirls a matchbox in her hand. She places it on the bench, moves her hand, and the box slides away.

“Wow! Show me again,” and she places an iron can on the bench.

Amina flashes her eyes and stares intently at the can. The can moves forward, shifts.

“Let me try.”

Marianna tries to move the can – no luck.

Intellectual

I knew I would apply to medical school, but which faculty I would choose was decided by a chance encounter. It happened in the metro. My grandmother Claudia and I were on our way to submit documents to the Kharkiv Medical Institute; we were completely unfamiliar with the city. The metro train hummed, and my gaze fell on a striking man. He stood opposite, leaning slightly, with his arm on the train door. Perhaps it was his hat that caught my attention: he wore a black hat and a strict black coat, and his narrow eyes revealed a penetrating intellect and focus.

“Intellectual,” I thought to myself, “probably a professor.” When we exited the train, he was next to us and also getting off. When my grandmother felt dizzy at the metro escalator, the intellectual kindly supported her elbow.

“Oh, thank you so much!” my grandmother exclaimed.

“Excuse me, could you tell us how to get to the medical institute?” she dared to ask the stranger.

He explained in detail: we needed to exit, pass through the square, and in general, head in that direction.

“And what’s your purpose going there? By the way, I work there,” the stranger said.

“Yes, I’m taking my granddaughter to apply; she has no parents, and she got emotional…”

“And which faculty?” he inquired.

“I don’t know,” I replied, “maybe sanitary and hygienic.”

“Apply to pediatrics, it’s a good faculty.”

We thanked him and bid farewell to the stranger.

Decision made! Only pediatrics!

Exams

It was a significant day, the day of my entrance exam to the institute. I had already grown fond of this huge city to me, the giant – Kharkiv. Today I got up early, quickly got to the institute, and just by the door, I realized I forgot my documents.

“Where are you rushing to?” the driver of the gray “Volga” shouted.

I literally threw myself under the car’s wheels.

“All is lost,” I thought, as I had forgotten my passport, and the exam was in half an hour, and I still had to get to Alexeevka.