Overcoming the weakness in his legs, Louis lifted his back from the pine tree, where he had been sitting for five hours. All this time his mind against his own will listened to the drunken voices coming from the damned bar, filled with dozens of brainless drunks. They were not interested in anything other than drinking. They all drank themselves to such an extent that soon there would be nothing left in their appearance, as well as in their behavior, that could in any way resemble a person.

Louis reluctantly returned to… His steps stopped at the approaches to the terrace. The lady was still standing there, from whom Louis heard a bold answer to his question. He approached her again, but this time he had completely different questions in his head.

– Excuse me.

– Yes?

After a long pause, Louis said what he thought was most needed to ensure that this middle-aged woman did not refuse to communicate with him:

– I want to ask for forgiveness if I offended you in some way. I… I…

– No. It is I who should ask your forgiveness.

Louis was greatly surprised by this answer.

The stranger continued:

– I should have guessed right away that this was your first day here.

– By the way, my name is Louis.

The lady extended her hand, on which was a pearl bracelet.

– Justine.

Louis kissed her hand.

– Justine, do you mind if I talk to you about what’s going on here?

– I don’t mind. It is very rare to find a sober interlocutor here. So I will only be glad to have your company.

Louis thought for a long time where to start. Leaning against the railing, like Justine, he began to ask:

– Who’s the bartender?

– He serves visitors – Justine answered with a grin.

– No, no. Who is he…

Stuttering, Louis continued after a few seconds:

– …just, out of anger, I threw a glass at him, which went through him. Honestly. I saw it with my own eyes.

– I believe. You’re not the first to throw a glass at Albert. But everyone who tries to do this immediately gets scared when he sees all these mystical tricks.

– Fine. Where is he from?

– Nobody knows this. However, like where this bar is located.

– What do you mean? – Louis was surprised. -Aren’t we in France?

– Well, we are French. I guess Albert is also, well, somewhat French, and speaks the same language to all the clients so that over time all the visitors begin to understand each other. And in this sense, you and I are lucky. But there are many here who are from other lands. And they have never been to France. They also stumbled upon this establishment in some deserted place late in the evening, and the next morning they had already become guests of this establishment, which does not stand in one place. There are Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, Greeks, Dutch, Flemings, Germans, Scandinavians, Persians. Guests from all over the world gathered here.

Immediately, Louis asked the following question:

– I noticed that no one orders food. Everyone drinks, but no one eats. What is the reason?

– This is another feature of the bar. Albert’s establishment is quite mysterious. There is something here that saves a person from hunger and disease. You can drink as much as you like and you won’t experience any problems. No one here even experiences a hangover in the morning.

Now Louis asked questions indiscriminately, one after another.

– Here all drinks are paid and increase… um…

– Credit – Justine suggested.

– Yes, credit. This is true?

– Yes.

– But if this deprives them of the opportunity to leave here, why do they drink more? Don’t they really want to see their home as soon as possible?

– You will soon learn something about this place. And then you might also want to increase your debt to the establishment.

– But I don’t need to.

– Well, at least because for some this place eventually turns into a real paradise. You drink as much as you want and you can stay here forever. No one will judge you for drinking from morning to evening.

– And you? You obviously don’t intend to stay here, do you? And that’s why you don’t drink. Isn’t that right?

– Maybe. However, I still don’t know what I want,” Justine answered, sighing heavily.

– And how did you get here?

– That day, my husband and I went to our estate near Paris. A few years earlier we had lost our only child. – With a trembling voice, Justine continued: – My boy was only eight. I couldn’t decide to have another one because I was afraid that we would lose him too. For this, my husband hated me and began to cheat on me. He walked to the fullest, dragging first one and then the other into bed. – Justine said these words with some anger. – In a word, he behaved like a male dog who, as soon as he sees a bitch, immediately rushes to mate. And on the day we arrived at our estate, I went to the stables. I didn’t even have time to step over the threshold. He fucked the servant right in the hay, who moaned like a street whore. – Then she looked at Louis. – He despised me so much that he didn’t even disdain to have sex with the servant. This was the last straw. Hatred was eating me up from the inside. I walked wherever my eyes led me. It probably took two hours, no less. I came out onto some hill where I had never been before. There was the bar there. Albert turned out to be very polite.

– And how much did you owe when you found out about everything?

This was followed by an unhealthy laugh from Justine.

– The funny thing is that I have never drank anything other than wine aged for many years. All evening I drank one of the most expensive wines and thought about how I would return, pack my things and leave this scumbag. The wine was so expensive that in a couple of hours my credit grew to 52 days. And when I realized that there was nowhere to go, I began to drink in order to indulge in oblivion and not think about it. But it only made things worse. The credit grew with every glass. I owed the establishment 632 days.

– And how many days are left? – Louis asked carefully.

– I haven’t checked with Albert for a long time, but somewhere around a couple of hundred or so.

After a short pause, Justine asked:

– And you, dear Louis?

He spoke in detail about his bitter loss that preceded his arrival at the bar. Having told about everything, he seemed to feel some kind of lightness and serenity filling his chest. As soon as he poured out his soul, the feeling of grief noticeably subsided.

– O-o-o. Louis, I’m so sorry. My condolences.

This is how he met a very pleasant and sociable French woman, who had been a guest of the bar for a year and a half.

Louis was depressed. He didn’t want to talk to anyone and sat in his room. Just like that, waiting until the third day comes to an end, the sun disappears below the horizon and he can leave the walls of the mysterious establishment.

As time went. When a person is waiting for something, not a second escapes his attention. Occasionally time mocks a person, and patience amazes with its cruelty, not wanting to part with its prisoner and sarcastically waits for a specific moment to come.

Louis stood in front of the window, counting down the moments until the small orange speck in the distance disappeared from view. Gradually the waiting became too tedious for him. It becomes so hard to wait and feel how every second evaporates, and every moment passes like a hopeless eternity.

The solar disk was in no hurry to go beyond the horizon. Louis lay down on the soft bed and fell asleep, and when he woke up, it was already completely dark outside the window and the bar was deserted. He went downstairs and headed towards the exit, passing the bar counter.

Albert wiped the glasses, peering at their transparency every couple of seconds. He called out to Louis, who was passing in front of him:

– Louis.

He timidly turned around to face the bartender.

– Let me talk to you about something before you go. It won’t take long.

– Yes, of course – Louis said quietly.

– Sit down – Albert pointed to a chair in front of the counter.

He threw a snow-white towel over his shoulder, placed his hands on the edges of the counter and turned to Louis:

– Before you want to leave, I would like you to know what you may need most right now. I’m sure Justine has told you a lot about what’s going on here. But I want you to know the main thing. Those three days that you spent here – no one took them away from you. There, in the outside world, these three days really passed. But here life comes to a standstill. During this time you have not aged at all. Time in my establishment has no power over people and it stops for those who want to spend a day, a month, a year here. Nothing could be worse than losing your wife and children. Don’t ask me how I know everything. Just listen. Now you will return home, you will wake up with chest pain, and you will fall asleep with it. And the days allotted to you will melt away. Your soul is filled with grief, there is complete sorrow in it. But this grief is too strong. And this feeling will not allow you to return to the world in which you lived before tragedy engulfed your home. Don’t get me wrong, Louis…

Albert continued to speak, filling a glass with the contents of some bottle:

– …this establishment is not a prison, but a place where time stands still. Here among the visitors there are rich and poor, believers and atheists, lucky and unlucky, daredevils and cowards, pacifists and militarists, generous and greedy. Everyone has gathered here. If you stay here for a while, you can get to know this crowd and maybe they can change your attitude towards life. Believe me, all this rabble has such life experience that your idea of the world will seem meager to you, and life will seem like time that you wasted. In addition, you will have nowhere to rush, and therefore you will be able to carefully think through all the pressing issues.

Albert put the full glass in front of Louis and said:

– I want to give you time so that you can properly process your loss.

Louis looked at the glass in disbelief.

– What is this?

– This is a 392-year-old rum. The price of a glass is 100 days. During this period, you can drink whatever you want and your debt to the establishment will not increase by a day.

Louis thought about it.

– So it turns out that you are helping your clients. They stay here and drink endlessly. What do you get from this? What benefit does the establishment have if customers don’t give anything in return?

– Not all people in this world are necessarily greedy or selfish, and not everyone should necessarily seek profit.

– How should I know? Maybe your generosity is a disguise. Maybe all visitors really give their souls for a glass of alcohol.

– Maybe. Only I give you a choice, and do not force you to submit to my will. You can leave and no one will stop you, or you can stay and get an opportunity that no one will give you. It’s up to you.

Louis peered into the conical glass for a long time.

The rum didn’t taste bad at all.

4. NEW HAVEN

Another noisy day in the bar crowded with visitors. A man in his fifties sat at a table away from the bar counter. He was wearing an old dark brown cassock. He was below average height, had thick black hair of medium length and the same beard. In front of him stood an almost full bottle of wine, and next to it was a wooden glass. He was reading some book that looked very old, shabby and worn out. The pages are very yellowed and frayed at the edges.

Louis timidly approached the table.

– Excuse me?

The stranger looked up from the book.

– Yes?

– Can I sit down?

– Oh, I’ll be glad to have company.

Before Louis sat down on a chair, the man in the cassock stood up and identified himself, holding out his palm:

– Robert of Athens.

– Louis Morel.

– I’m very glad to meet you – Robert said, smiling, and then closed the book. He lifted the bottle from the table and tilted the neck towards Louis.

– Thank you. But only half – Louis said, holding up someone’s glass on the table.

– Will you tell your story? – said Robert.

In a nutshell, Louis described the last three weeks of his biography.

– This is very bitter. Sometimes life seems too cruel.

– Seems? – Louis clarified.

– Yes, my friend. I’m saying that it doesn’t BE, but it SEEMS cruel. Tell me Louis, do you believe in God?

Confusion began to appear on his face.

Robert continued:

– Yes, people in cases like yours are forced to test their faith to the limit.

– And you, Robert? Do you believe in God?

– I have seen a lot of cruelty in this world. But my faith will always remain unshakable. Many are confident that if God really existed, then good people would not die as early as they often do.

– Do you have a different opinion?

– Quite. Tell me, Louis, have you ever built anything out of wooden logs?

– Yes, of course – Louis’ answer sounded as if he was asked about what everyone should be able to do in their life.

– Great. Now tell me, how did you select the material?

– I went to a forest on a cart. There I looked for straight and long trunks.

– And what else? What kind of trees must be in order for them to make a good house or pen for livestock?

– Well – Louis thought about it, “it should be as smooth as possible so that it doesn’t have to be sharpened for a long time. It also shouldn’t be an old tree. Old logs rot quickly and are difficult to grind.

– That is, they must be young, strong, even and tall trees.

– Yes. This is the ideal material for construction.

– Now think carefully, and then you will find the answer. Just as you need the best trees, in the same way the Almighty there – said Robert, pointing his index finger upward – needs good people.

Louis thought carefully and continued to discuss:

– Well, OK. How would you explain if it suddenly turns out that people die by random choice and there is no one who would determine the fate of each person individually?

– Do you want to know my opinion about whether God exists?

– I’m interested to know how you will prove that God really exists.

Puzzled, Robert tapped his fingers on the table. A few seconds later a thought crossed his mind. He took a flabby piece of paper from his pocket and drew Louis’s attention to it.

– The main question of philosophy is devoted to the dispute about what appeared in the beginning – consciousness or matter. For example, a chicken gives birth to an egg, and from an egg a chicken is born. An endless circle, and no one knows where it begins. Look, Louis. This piece of paper is nothing more than matter, which does not have consciousness and is not capable of influencing the world around it. So, there is matter on the table, and in front of it is consciousness,” said Robert, pointing to himself. – Look. This piece of paper lies in one position and its shape does not change in any way. And now consciousness appears – Robert began to slowly move the piece of paper – and changes the location of matter in space. Matter has moved from one place to another. The real situation changed only after consciousness appeared and began to influence matter. So, matter has changed its place. And now I’ll take it and put in a little more effort, – Robert began to bend the piece of paper in half, – and the matter will change its shape.

– Robert, what is all this for? – Louis asked.

– Patience, my friend. – Robert again drew Louis’s attention to the object in the middle of the table. – What we have? Matter remains in the same place and in the same form, provided that consciousness is absent. BUT! As soon as consciousness appears, matter begins to change its place and form. Now the person acts as consciousness – said Robert, again pointing to himself. – And the person should be considered as a primitive consciousness. Now, think Louis, what if there is such a consciousness, a certain mind that is capable of not only changing matter, but also creating it from the void? After all, matter itself cannot just appear out of nowhere. Matter is not even capable of moving in space without the help of the most primitive consciousness, let alone appearing in this world on its own. Therefore, I am convinced that there is a higher intelligence that is capable of more than just changing the world around us.

– And this higher mind is God.

– Exactly, my friend.

Robert took a sip from his glass as Louis’ face disappeared into a puzzled grimace.

– But let’s put these eternal questions aside. It’s better to talk about something simpler.

The grimace disappeared from Louis’s face, who happily moved on to another topic:

– Tell me where you are from and how long you have been here.

Robert pursed his lips, wiping away traces of red wine.

– Well, I’m originally from Athens. I spent most of my life in Constantinople. There I was the keeper of manuscripts in the imperial library. In 1453 the Turks invaded the city. Many fled to the west. Me and eight other people climbed onto the ship and sailed to the northeast. Our ship landed on the shores of the Western Caucasus. There we found shelter in one of the villages. My soul was not at ease because I had left my home, and while walking along a forest path in the evening, I met… at that time it was, rather, just a drinking establishment, and only then it acquired a respectable appearance and turned into the bar with overnight accommodation on the second floor.

– Wait – Louis said sharply, as soon as Robert finished his story. – Did you live in Constantinople? It turns out…

Observing the shocked look of his interlocutor, Robert said:

– Yes. I’ve been here for more than four centuries.

– So about time…

– The bartender wasn’t joking. It’s really true.

Louis asked Robert for a long time about what Byzantium looked like. Before him sat a living witness to the events that took place four centuries ago. Then he spoke again about Robert himself.

– So it turns out that you are of Greek blood.

– No. I was born in Athens. But by nationality I am Armenian. And my last name sounds Armenian – Garabedian. But I rarely say it when meeting people. In our lands it was customary to introduce ourselves somewhat differently when meeting someone. People were more interested in where you came from than what kind of family you were from.

During the entire conversation Louis left his glass untouched until Robert reminded him about it.

A small but quite noticeable crowd gathered in the center of the bar, watching a competition, which looked funny and very painful.

Robert could not see anything on Louis’s face other than grief and melancholy. Therefore, a brilliant idea came to him.

– Hey Louis, want to join in some local fun?

– What do you mean?

– Let’s go.

He took Louis to the table where battle-bottle was being held. That was the name of the game here. Its meaning was as follows: two rivals sit opposite each other and alternately slap an opponent as hard as possible; whose blow turns out to be weaker is eliminated from the game and undertakes to drink a glass of the cheapest drink that is available in the bar and which make a player to puke, which, in fact, always happened.

They approached at the moment when the winner of the previous round shouted: “ARE THERE ANY MEN STILL LEFT!?”

Robert pressed Louis’s shoulder and forced him down onto the chair. Louis was still in a state of complete weakness and fear, and therefore he did not resist at all. Gradually, his emotions diluted with confusion. He wondered unsuccessfully what his new acquaintance had come up with.

– Here is your opponent – Miguel – Robert said boldly and loudly.

The big Spaniard Miguel Cortes, one of the best players in the bar, was waiting for his opponent. Battle-bottle was his element. He was forty-two years old. He was wearing tight leather pants and a loose, long-sleeved, hanging shirt, which he rolled up before delivering his debut slap, which caught the hapless Scandinavian butcher on the cheek. Before the start of the tournament, Miguel increased his credit by a couple of dozen days, when he decided to pour a significant amount of absinthe into himself in order to finally become bolder and reduce the sensitivity of his pain receptors.

Louis was unlucky in this regard. He limited himself to only a couple of sips of wine, which turned out to be much less strong than the anesthesia that the Spaniard took. But Robert didn’t do anything just like that without planning everything in advance. He leaned towards Louis’ ear and explained the rules of the game in a whisper. Just as Louis was about to rise from his chair, Robert immediately returned him to his place.

– Do everything as I say and we will definitely win.

– We? – Louis asked indignantly. – It’s not you who will be beaten in a couple of seconds.

Robert raised his index finger to his lips, demanding that Louis stop talking. He then asked the crowd for a bottle of terribly strong rum and forced his racehorse to drink almost half a liter. Robert then began to knead Louis’ shoulders.

– WELL, GET STARTED! OKAY, I’LL GIVE UP THE FIRST MOVE TO THE ROOKIE! – the Spaniard said loudly, slamming his palms hard on the wooden table. His gaze seemed mad and furious, as if he was thirsting for someone’s blood.

– Thank you – Robert replied. – But we are counter-attacking.

– Well…

Miguel brought his wide-open palm to his mouth, spat into it, and rubbed his palms. Robert asked Louis to grab the edges of the table with his hands as tightly as possible. The Frenchman’s hands were shaking quite a bit.

Miguel pulled his right hand back, gaining an excellent swing. After a couple of seconds, he brought his palm to Louis’s cheek, adjusting his aim. Then he again moved his hand back and again to the opponent’s cheek. And so on several times. Louis’s knees began to shake, his eyes opened wide, his heart began to pound.

WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING HERE!? – Louis thought. He had already imagined his head literally flying off.

Miguel’s shoulders began to turn, and his palm rushed forward.

Monstrous fear hit Louis’s head and he jerked sharply to the side. Robert, who assumed that his ward would most likely become cowardly and want to dodge the blow, stood to his right in advance and pushed him in the shoulder as soon as Louis’s instinct kicked in and he wanted to get up from his chair.

The slap sounded so loud that the front legs of the chair lifted off the floor for a moment.

The small audience of a dozen spectators was amused by wild laughter.

Now the only thing Louis thought about was the fire that burned his left cheek. He felt how, at the moment of the blow, all his teeth on his left side were momentarily attached to his cheek, which was dented by the hard and stern Spanish palm.

Louis had the hands of a real blacksmith. He forged metal and his hands became stronger and wider every day.

Given the rum he had drunk, the size of Louis’s hands and muscle mass, and his mind cleared of depressing thoughts, Robert began to prepare him to strike back, leaning slightly towards him. While the audience was amused and rejoicing, Robert quietly spoke into the Frenchman’s ear:

– Tell me, if your family was taken away not by a plague, but by a man, would you want to get even with him?

Louis nodded affirmatively with twitching movements, without taking his frightened gaze away from the Spaniard.

– Then he is in front of you. It wasn’t the disease that took your family, it was this bastard. He had the audacity to show up after what he did. Look at his grinning face… that mug. He is as pleased as if he had accomplished a feat when he took the life of the woman and two children. Not only did he make you suffer, but now he also hit you, and not with his fist, like a man, but with his palm. Yes, he doesn’t consider you a man. He slapped you like you were some naughty woman needed to be restrained…

Louis’s chest visibly heaved and contracted. Imagining himself to be the real woman Robert was talking about, in a violent fit of anger, Louis pushed Robert so that he landed on the floor. He lifted himself slightly from his chair and screamed with all his might, almost tearing his vocal cords. Miguel opened his eyelids, like a wild animal, revealing his fangs, growling half a meter from his face. Louis swung and smacked as much as his strength and anger allowed.