Sensei of Shambala. Book III. Anastasia Novykh

Not far from the big table there was a small supplementary cupboard-table, which, as it turned out later, served as a minifridge.

      Both the big and the small tables were covered with dainty viands. We didn’t know where to look first at such an abundance of dishes. That was an excellent spread! Meat dishes, fish, cut vegetables, salads with sea inhabitants, canapйs, several types of caviar. Not only black and red caviar, that recently appeared in shops at a fabulous (for us) price. There also was dark-grey, wine red, orange with red gleams, and even quite an unusual – grey caviar in a gold jar. In the form of a truncated pyramid, there was an entire pile of huge red lobsters in the middle, decorated with rich, fresh greenery and figured lemon slices that wrapped black or green halves of olives. Besides, not only this dish, but everything else was just flawless in terms of decoration: from puffy flowers to entire paintings of nature, fanciful ornaments of vegetables, fruits, greenery, and colored sauces, created by skilful fantasy of the cook. It all looked so appetizing that the sight of this table covered with viands made one’s mouth involuntarily watering.

      A whisper of admiration ran through our company: “Oh my!”, “I haven’t seen anything like that even in my sweetest dream”, “Cool!”. Unlike others, Eugene, who despite being amazed at table appointments and diversity of food, remained quite impassive. Looking at such abundance of caviar, he clicked his tongue in a businesslike manner.

      “Yes, there’s all, but I see no overseas aubergine one,” and mimicking priest-like voice, he pronounced with sympathy: “Impoverished are folks on the top, oh, so impoverished…”

      Veliar, who evidently took his words in earnest, cast an inquiring glance at Ariman, ready to rush to fulfill the guest’s wish. But Ariman stopped him.

      “Don’t worry. It’s a popular joke in this country,” he explained. “They have a perestroika going on now, that’s why shops have only aubergine caviar.”

      The Chinese man flapped his eyes in astonishment, apparently being surprised at such a queer food ration of these people, who, for all their slender well-being, yet were trying to build the radiant future, keeping body and soul together on aubergine caviar. He did not quite seem to understand the joke, smiled a trademark grin, and, making a polite bow, stepped back.

      “That’s not true!” Eugene retorted with laughter. Feeling that his national dignity had been hurt, he stated proudly: “We have a squash one too!”

      Everybody laughed to Eugene’s patriotic humor and, on Ariman’s invitation, started to take their seats around the common table. It happened so that by habit we sat at sides of Sensei, as if taking an all-round defense. Ariman, who lingered, giving some orders to Veliar, was the last to follow the guests and correspondingly taking a vacant chair, sat just across Sensei. When everyone took their seats, Eugene could not make himself comfortable in his arm-chair. Stas grinned at his twisting about and asked: “Why are you wiggling?”

      “That chair’s turned out to be kinda hard,” Eugene replied.

      “Stand up then,” his friend suggested with a smile.

      “Right,” agreed Volodya, sitting at Eugene’s other side, and counseled: “this way you’ll be able to fit in more.”

      Stas looked at the appetizing dishes near them on the table and uttered: “No way. He’d better sit and not wiggle.”

      They laughed quietly. Eugene, finally taking a comfortable position – crossing his legs and leaning his elbow on the right arm, – set at ease and “bared his teeth” in his affected smile in response to the guys’ remarks. That rendered them shaking with laughter even more.

      Like a hospitable host, Ariman started to lavish upon the treats, stirring the guys’ appetite still more. He presented various dishes, answering in passing to the questions of amazed guys.

      “What caviar is this?” Victor inquired at the wine-red caviar near him.

      It was in a small crystal bowl. The bowl itself consisted of four sections: there was sour cream in one of them, dairy butter in another, grated cheese in the third one, and in the fourth one there was the caviar itself.

      “This is trout caviar. It’s saltish to the taste, that’s why it’s better to have it together with cultured milk foods.”

      “How about this one?” Victor motioned at a beautiful bowl of large-grained orange caviar with red gleams that was near trout caviar.

      “That is keta caviar – the most tasty and high quality of all salmon caviars,” Ariman replied. After a pause he added: “But I would most recommend you to taste that sort of caviar.” He motioned at large-grained silver caviar in a small golden jar. “This is very rare and expensive caviar. White sturgeon caviar. In order to get it they catch belugas, whose age approximate to one hundred years. Because of its value the caviar is packed up in small jars of pure 24-carat gold, such as this one. Taste it, it has a very peculiar delicate nut flavor. Gourmets of the modern times assert that this is the tastiest caviar in the world.” Ariman fell silent, glancing with a subtle smile as our entire company fastened their eyes upon the hitherto unseen jar of pure gold, and with such an expensive caviar in it too. Addressing to Sensei, Ariman boasted: “See, I even brought it too! I’ve no idea what else could surprise you. Perhaps you’d agree to taste this treat all the same?”

      Sensei smiled and answered politely: “No, thank you. Everything looks really appetizing…”

      “…And tasty,” Ariman stressed out.

      “I don’t doubt that one bit. But, unfortunately, I can’t… Fasting day… You know me.”

      Ariman gave an affected sigh.

      “Oh, well, and I tried so hard,” and he uttered with a smile either addressing to the guys or speaking to himself. “Such an iron will! He said ‘no’, it means ‘no’… And I brought this caviar all the way from Persia…”

      “What Persia?!” Sensei smiled, as if bringing him to senses.

      Ariman looked at him blank and checked himself.

      “Did I say Persia? What a sclerosis! But, of course, from Iran!” When Sensei and he stopped laughing, Ariman lamented: “Could you believe it, such a beautiful name this country had had for 2’458 years! And there you go – in 1935 they changed this lovely name, Persia, for Iran. Apologies for great reformers indeed! Cyrus the Great would’ve turned in his grave if he’d heard this news.”

      “And who was Cyrus the Great?” Kostya inquired.

      “Well, what have we come to!” Ariman smiled bitterly. “Young people don’t even know who Cyrus the Great was. Once, Cyrus the Great was a great ruler in the East. He founded the first Achaemenid Empire by defeating the Median Empire, conquering most of Southwest Asia, including the mighty Babylonia (Syria and Palestine being its parts) and much of Central Asia. That’s some charisma a man had! By the way, do you recall Balthazar’s feast from the Bible? During Belshazzar's feast (whose biblical name is Balthazar), the son of Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon, there appeared a fire writing on the wall: ‘mene mene tekel upharsin,’ which foretokened the fall of Babylon on the same night. Now, Balthazar died right in 539 BC exactly during the capture of Babylon by the Persians, that is, troops of Cyrus the Great.”

      “How do we know all that?” Victor said with a smile in excuse for everyone. “I wish we could sort out our own history at least.”

      “And this, in a way, is a part of your history,” Ariman pronounced. “Because, you know, where do the Persians as a people originate from? From the tribes of Aryans, who began to migrate from southern regions of the present Russia to those regions starting from 2’000 BC. Come to think of it, you favorite prophet, Zarathustra, who lived in the first half of the 6th century BC, was born in those lands too. So, during its time Persia offered a considerable mite in the order and reorganization of the world. Well, all right then, as Marcus Tullius Cicero used to say, history is merely a life of memory.” Then, with laughter he added: “So, let’s leave our ruins alone and turn to the beautiful present.”

      Everyone laughed again. Ariman made a pause, listening to a new Mozart’s melody coming