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That night when we listened to Bach we were all cuddled up to each other, and not only because the cathedral was cold. We kept 'warm' gazing at one-another, interrupted by kisses, while high above from the organ lofts poured forth a dance of intertwining melodies that erupted like fountains of starlight slowly descended onto us below with all the precision of a mathematical structure. Each note was in its place, delineated only by what it was. Each note fulfilled its role in the larger context of the composition, and never more than that or less. Each note was vital and of equal value. The music reflected to some degree our own daring in our loving and our joy, and in that intertwining union it sparkled with a light that was ever new. There too, every tone was vital and of equal value and never more or less than what was needed. At least so I convinced myself. We were uplifting our self-love in this manner, by enriching it culturally.
That night, which was our second night together and our sixth in Moscow, right after the Bach recital was over, we came upon a restaurant that seemed ideal for a nightcap. The place was a high-society restaurant so it seemed, although it was that on the lower end on the scale. It pretended to be posh, but it really wasn't. Of course we didn't care. The people that we found there also pretended to be what they obviously were no longer, members of a high society. That society no longer really existed either. It didn't bother us, of course. To the contrary, we found it amusing.
"I wish there was an easy way to help Anton to stop that war that she is fighting against herself, that she has become trapped in," I said to Ushi after we had ordered a salmon sandwich. "None of my efforts have met with any success so far. It seems that once the bridges have been burned to the ground, which happens all too often carelessly, it is hard to rebuild them. What must we do to help her to rebuild her bridges to the world?"
Ushi looked at me with a sad smile. "No Peter, how often must I repeat this, you must first stop your own war against yourself, your war of self-denial. You are not dancing as fully and freely with yourself as you would if you didn't keep on falling back into the trap of your war of self-denial."
"What war? What self-denial?" I said astonished.
"Peter, you just said that you don't know how to help her. That's self-denial, Peter. You are a human being, aren't you? Your excuse that you don't know how to help her is untruthful. You proved to yourself and to me in Cozumel that you are well able to relate to a human being that is also a woman, and this profoundly so. Your self-denial is a lie. It doesn't stand up to reality. You know this as well as I do. So I won't answer you. I won't feed into your self-denial and let it steal your life."
I waved her off as if I knew this.
"Yes, Peter. Every form of self-denial steals a bit of our life. That's why people say that life is too short. They waste it and then complain. That's why it seems short. They are living too 'small' lives and thus accomplish nothing. But time isn't a factor in life, is it, because nobody knows how long it ill be? The determining factor is how rich we make our lives with of the riches that we have as human beings. Our self-denial steals those riches from us that we could have. I won't play into this tragedy for you."
"So, you won't help me then?" I said astonished.
"Of course I'll help, I always will, but not in the way you expect it. I help you in my own way, with my own dancing. Of course you know what that involves when the goal is to explore our honesty. I think this is what you are asking me to help you with, unless you think you are a lesser human being than a slave boy is? In that case there would be no hope for you."
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