She did not know any prayers.
It was just like a radio transmitter started to operate inside her, sending an SOS signal.
And at that moment it was not important at all who would hear it.
A middle-aged married couple appeared at the other end of the alley. Strolling slowly before going to bed, a man and a woman walked arm in arm, unhurriedly talking about something.
Still caressing the drug addicts head, Anastasia waited till the couple came closer. In a calm but loud enough voice she asked:
Excuse me, could you tell me what time is it now?
She had to attract attention.
And she succeeded.
The passers-by looked at them trying to understand what was going on. It was very unnatural how the drug addict kept her hand raised and pressed against the metal fence. From the outside it might arouse suspicions. The couple walked closer.
Now in a lower but more anxious voice Anastasia asked:
Could you tell me the exact time? She finally caught the eye of the approaching passer-by, nodded in the direction of the knife, and the man looked there and stopped.
He saw a pregnant girl with a knife placed against her belly. At first he got confused. But he composed himself quickly and asked in a stern voice:
And what is going on with you here?
The drug addict did not react to Anastasias voice any more. Even when she addressed the passing couple, he was sort of daydreaming of something of his own. But when the mans question broke into his dreams, he came out of it. He turned around frightened and started to run away, out of the ally.
Anastasia felt how her legs became weak, and the people who ran up to her barely had time to catch her. They walked her to her parents house, and her long-awaited baby was born prematurely, a month earlier than she expected.
Soon Anastasia left her husband. The newly born daughter was just 2 months old. Her parents, as many others, had not been paid their salaries for six months. In order to survive in that crazy mess of the 1990s, where an arbitrariness and criminal chaos reigned, she accepted her neighbors offer, who used to take to Moscow fish eggs priced as a gold bar.
Fish eggs? asked Jean Batist puzzled, what is that?
It is black caviar. The caviar of sturgeon fish such as sturgeon, sevruga and beluga. Your father was a poacher. He hunted for animals. But there are some poachers who hunt for fish.
I used to buy caviar from the fishermen, who were poachers, and then to take it to Moscow to sell it there. It was a very dangerous and punishable criminal business. All of those, whom I worked with at that time, have been jailed.
But they did not manage to catch me.
Because I have found a way out.
The thing was that during a fishing season, when sturgeons used to go to spawn, the trains coming to Moscow were met by police cordons with police dogs. Only dogs could detect a smell of caviar packed in plastic or metal cans in a flow of people with bags.
Of course, those who carried caviar, were warned, for a cash consideration, by conductors while boarding the train. That meant that you should not take this train and should go the next day.
But in that world everyone made a profit from information. And sometimes conductors had been provided with false information. In such case smugglers were caught. For possession of black caviar they were not just put in jail, they would also get criminal sentences with a confiscation of all their property. The Criminal Code article was very serious.
And I was raising a daughter. And my parents had not been paid their salaries for many months. People tried to survive in any way they could. And I had no right to allow myself to be caught.
When I was 4, my parents taught me to read books and to play chess. Music, pictorial art, analytical reading. My school was great and I was a diligent student. And my mind came up with a solution to this problem with caviar. Unlike all the others, I just did not go till the final railway station in Moscow.
I used to make an agreement with the train driver and asked him to apply the so-called slow speed before the train reached the final station. And at a low speed of 20 kilometers per hour I just threw the bags with the cans of caviar on to the platform of the intermediate station that we were passing. And then I jumped myself.
And the train kept moving? Jean Batist was surprised.
Of course, it kept moving! This was the whole point of the trick, Anastasia laughed. Yes, I used to jump from a moving train after throwing my bags. This was the only chance to avoid police cordons at the final railway station. After that I carried this caviar to several Moscow restaurants, with which prior arrangements had been made. I used to work like this.
Six months later, when I turned 19, I bought my first apartment. Only people who had no fear and with a propensity for risky ventures could survive at that time. Of course, I am not an obvious risk taker, but there is more than enough romanticism in me, Anastasia smiled and continued.
And certainly, all this greatly influenced my subsequent choice of profession.
I have survived in the criminal environment, but I have not become the same as them.
I have entered their world, took what I needed and went away without looking back.
Later I began studying the psychology of a criminal, and my diploma at the institute was on this subject. Then it became obvious that I could solve complicated problems and could work with traumas. You know that sometimes this requires softness and sometimes extreme hardness. Over the years some professional pattern has been formed. But I chose an individual style of communicating with every person. Once my client called me a surgeon. He said that I had cut off his soul pain and sewed on a joy of life. I liked this metaphor.
Probably a work with a psychological trauma and its consequences can be acknowledged as a surgery in its essence. The existential manifestation of neurosurgery is a psychosurgery. Psychologist-surgeon opens the door to his office with a firm belief: we will cut off everything which is not necessary and will sew on everything which is needed.
There is an issue of anesthesia.
Sometimes it is contraindicative. And until a person goes through the whole event, which has caused the trauma, right here and right now, with the help of a specialist, they will not be able to get rid of it. But in most cases the anesthesia does work, a person drifts into a trans state and comfortably watches, by means of the inner vision, the images, which are born by unconsciousness through the imagination in response to the properly chosen words of the professional, who knows how and what to say to this particular person.
High quality psychotherapy can only be exclusive.
This is the first principle.
Sometimes, surgery has to be cruel. Because the patient has already learned how to live in pain and suffering after trauma. This has become more interesting for them. They continue to hold onto their negative memories. They feed their Egos. As well as their Alter Egos.
To the fullest.
Although by that moment there is already that stage of fatness, which does not allow them to move actively in the corners of their own consciousness.
And it is important to note that this is not a fast food. This is a special diet. Sufferings are fed with special viands of authors cuisine.
For breakfast they usually prefer powerlessness plentifully seasoned with apathy. For lunch they serve a rare done uselessness and a fricassee out of the feeling of guilt. Dinner as desired and to the ones abilities. If with alcohol anger is ideal as an aperitif and loneliness as a digestive.