s the day drew on, one of the senior guys suggested that we organize an evening of entertainment and comedy. It was
suggested we go and take a look at a medical and curing session of the great magician and wizard who was giving his first session that day. To get there, though, it was necessary to trek eight kilometers on foot. Only a half of our group, including Sensei and Nikolai Andreevich, decided to go. I didn't want to miss anything interesting for myself or for my diary, which was already full of unusual records, even though it was only the second day at the seaside.
By eight o'clock in the evening, we occupied seats in a summer cinema where about seventy people had already gathered. A young woman with a three-yearold boy sat near Nikolai Andreevich. Other children rushed around the rows and noisily chased each other. But this child quietly sat in his mother’s lap. I gave him a piece of candy, but it turned out that the child did not see it. His mother said that her son had congenital blindness. Nikolai Andreevich started talking to her, finding out some professional information. Soon the woman had confessed the whole story of her life. It appeared that this boy also would not talk after a trauma he experienced at the age of two. Other than him, the woman had an older son and a daughter who were quite normal children. Nikolai Andreevich sympathized with her and began to write down the addresses and surnames of the best experts in this area of medicine. The woman was glad and joked that in any case she had not come to the session in vain.
At this time Vitaliy Yakovlevich went out to the stage. We could hardly keep ourselves from laughter, as it really was that magician and wizard with spoons on his belly, with whom we had the ‘great honor’ to get acquainted in autumn. Now he looked much more decent. His face was smoothly shaved, and his hair was accurately cut. He wore a clean summer suit. Despite this significant transformation in his appearance, his haughty look and manners remained the same.
Having come out to the stage, Vitaliy Yakovlevich gazed at the crowd with his ‘magic sight’ and began his lecture. For a good forty minutes, he told almost the same story as the first time in the sports hall, with the only difference that now he did not stick spoons to himself and his speech was full of different obscure esoteric and medical terms. Confirmatively waving his hands, he went about the stage and threw out his chest proudly. At last, having finished talking, he invited to the stage those people who suffered diseases on his list.
It seemed to me that he had listed almost all diseases from the medical encyclopedia we had at home, and even in the same alphabetical order.
About fifteen people came up to the stage. Someone said that he had heart disease, someone said that his stomach hurt, another one complained about high blood pressure, and some old woman said that trophic ulcers on her legs suppurated. Our woman with the child also went up. Nikolai Andreevich commented that people in sorrow are ready to believe any nonsense hoping for something.
When all interested people had gathered on the stage, Vitaliy Yakovlevich began to wave his hands strenuously from above and to talk of some ‘spacefluid’ character. To my great surprise, again I felt my lotus flower begin to strongly vibrate. I looked at the stage and could not believe that all this delirium of Vitaliy Yakovlevich could really cause in me this tidal wave. Having concentrated, I felt that all this vibration proceeded not from the stage but from somewhere behind and to the right. It was even more strange, as Sensei sat behind and to the left of me. I looked back, but Sensei wasn't at his seat. Then I looked back to the other side, where the source was according to my sensations. Far away in the corner, at the very end of the empty rows, I saw Sensei. He was sitting and peering with concentration at people who were near the stage. Every second I felt the stream grow in its force. Waves of pleasant sensations were already spilling about my body. But the stream still grew.
In the verbal outpouring of Vitaliy Yakovlevich came a certain pause. At this moment, the blind kid said “Mum!” – not loudly, but distinctly. The woman broke into tears, tightly embracing her son. She drew general attention. And then complete pandemonium began. A woman said that her headache eased, a man said that his stomach stopped aching. But the old woman with the squeaky voice shouted the most that her trophic ulcers began to dry up before her eyes. Not trusting herself, she tried to show them to anyone who would look. Many people in the hall also got up from their places and ran to the stage. Even Vitaliy Yakovlevich himself was taken aback from gratitude, from requests for help for people and their relatives from all directions. Meanwhile, Sensei came back to his place in the hall.
The young mother pressed the child to her breast and sobbed violently but could not get out of the crowd, as the usual crush began and nobody paid attention to her. Nikolai Andreevich hurried to help her. We got the woman out of the cinema and into the fresh air, sitting her down on a bench. Nikolai Andreevich began to calm her down. The kid sat next to her and, hearing the crying of his mother, began to pull his face with his own impressions. Sensei sat down, squatting opposite him, and tenderly stroked his head, saying something silently to himself. The child calmed down and began listening. Then he began to blink quickly with his long eyelashes. The kid then looked purposefully at the watch that gleamed on Sensei’s arm as he stroked him. The boy, having caught Sensei’s hand, seized the watch, trying to pull it off. He looked into Sensei’s eyes and gave a short but meaningful enough command, “Give!”
The kid's mother fainted from everything she had seen. While Nikolai Andreevich and the guys tried to bring her to normal, Sensei took off his watch and gave it to the kid, saying with a smile, “Here, kid, keep it to remember.”
The kid, smiling happily, began to play with it, examining and shaking it. When the woman came to, she still could not believe that her son had recovered his sight. She gave him everything that was in her handbag, and the kid examined everything with real pleasure, turning the objects into improvised toys. When she was convinced in his newfound sight, the woman grabbed her son in joy, thanked Nikolai Andreevich and all of us for the help, and ran to her building to tell her husband about this piece of news.
On our way back to camp, Nikolai Andreevich was still surprised.
“How could this Vitaliy Yakovlevich, with his chattering, wake in people so much belief that he could achieve such therapeutic effects?! In fact, I saw with my own eyes that the boy was blind. The others could be fake. But it's hard to grasp this case!”
I looked at Sensei. I was curious what he would say. But Sensei only said, half in jest, “You probably listened inattentively to his lecture. Next time, you should take a notebook with you.”
On our way, we gathered dry wood for our evening fire. The senior guys picked up some half rotten wooden column that had once served as a pylon for electric lines. In general, judging by Sensei’s excellent mood and the gathered stock of firewood, the night promised to be long and unforgettable.
