"Winds, Angels, and Men" by Max Fry, summary

Max Fry’s collection of short fiction was published in 2014. The book brings together urban tales, autobiographical essays, parables, and short stories that blur the lines between the everyday reality of European cities and the mystical manifestations of existence. It is part of the author’s cycle "Tales of Old Vilnius" and thematically related collections of urban fiction, continuing the traditions of "The Big Cart" and "Tales of Old Vilnius."

The good life

This parable-novella tells the story of a blind, orphaned basilisk who dwells in the underground darkness and feeds on precious stones. The monster considers its cave to be the entire world, until a convict descends into the dungeon with a mirror. Seeing its own reflection, the basilisk dies from its own gaze, but this death turns into a true birth in the form of pure light, laughter, and love.

From scraps, from rags

The action takes place on December 20th in Helsinki. A hero named Yuri receives a fatal diagnosis from a doctor he knows. In despair, he trudges through a snowstorm and ends up at a Christmas market on the Esplanade. There, he meets the unusual giantess Tuuli and her assistant Anna from Petrozavodsk. Tuuli sews whimsical patchwork dolls. Calling Yuri by his childhood name, Sorka, the craftswoman offers to sew a doll in exchange for his life, to cheat death.

Tuuli instructs the hero to find his death on a green tram. Yuri follows his instructions, boards the car, and recognizes Death as a figure in a blue jacket with a deep hood — an image that had frightened him since early childhood. Yuri tosses the doll to the stranger, saying, "Take it instead of me," to which the creature with fiery eyes cheerfully agrees to accept the Christmas gift. The hero falls asleep at the bus stop and wakes up on December 23rd in his bed at home, next to his girlfriend Masha and their cat Kasha. It turns out that his test results came back normal, and Yuri himself was brought in by a passing couple in a truck, with the giantess Tuuli’s magical patchwork robe draped over his shoulders.

Innuendo

Kat, a Moscow magazine employee, and her companion, Bo, discuss their colleagues and everyday life. Kat possesses a rare gift: the happy versions of reality she imagines begin to come true. She tells her friends that their elderly landlady, Anna Petrovna, is saving up for a round-the-world trip, and that their sullen editor-in-chief, Lev Evgenievich Kramskoy, is a hidden genius. Soon, the boss actually thaws out and catches snowflakes in his mouth, Anna Petrovna decides to spend the winter in India and asks her tenants to pay the rent in advance, and Kat’s artist brother, Vitka, is overcoming a creative block near Odessa. Kat explains that the universe simply needs a subtle hint of a better scenario.

A partial list of unnamed creatures

The text is composed in the form of a bestiary describing mysterious creatures:

• a creature with the sun instead of a tail on the morning seashore;
• a creature indistinguishable from a black cow that eats shadows;
• the offspring of darkness and two lamps, granting fearlessness to the one who strokes it;
• an invisible man leaving a changing chain of footprints on the sand;
• an entity stretching over the city instead of the night sky with too bright stars;
• a disembodied being that appears to people in the form of inexplicable sounds and ghostly music.

Don’t say anything

The action shifts to St. Petersburg just before New Year’s. A young woman named Tanya is spending the winter in a cold apartment on the Petrogradskaya side, caring for her mother’s aquarium fish, who has left for Thailand. A friend from her youth, Bobka, unexpectedly arrives. He tidies up the apartment perfectly, bringing garlands, a Christmas tree, and large glowing balls, restoring Tanya’s zest for life. They celebrate the New Year together. Soon, Tanya notices that her guest isn’t reflected in mirrors or windows. On January 1st, a mutual friend named Lyokha drops by and informs her that Bobka died back in November. The balls his late friend left hanging on the ceiling remain as tangible evidence of his care.

Everyone would like that

Curly-haired Stella, wearing a silk dress and sneakers, strolls lightly through sun-drenched Venice, enjoying coffee and the morning city. Meanwhile, the narrator strolls along the embankments with his friend Tony. Tony claims that Venice attracts the materialized images of people who passionately dream of it. Stella turns out to be a happy projection of forty-year-old math teacher Valentina Evgenievna, who at that very moment faints in the cold entryway of a remote provincial town.

If you sit on the river bank for a long time

A hero named Stanislav arrives in Nida, Lithuania, on the Curonian Spit in October. Along the way, he picks up an elegant red-haired fellow traveler, also named Stanislav. It turns out they’re staying in adjoining rooms. The red-haired man takes the hero to a secret bar owned by an American named Ron. A former musician, Stanislav, who lost the use of two fingers on his left hand after a car accident, sits down at a green piano under the influence of cocktails and plays. The red-haired man turns out to be an experienced rehabilitation specialist. He teaches the hero specialized exercises to restore his hand, and then helps him overcome his childhood fears and learn to ride a bicycle. It turns out that it was the red-haired man who, as a child, accidentally stole Stanislav’s bicycle and wrecked it, causing long-term psychological trauma that he has now healed.

On the diversity of the world

The chapter contains seventy-eight poetic miniatures about the fairy-tale features of European cities: in Krakow, demons entertain children, in Prague, people send wooden puppets to work in their place, in Minsk, they save winter at the train station, and in Vilnius, the townspeople have been dreaming of their dead prince for many centuries.

The lake flows into the sea

German tourist Dietrich strays from a tour in Trakai. At a café, he encounters a fellow German, a writer, making a strange bet. Walking along Lake Galvė, Dietrich tells his companion of a long-ago dream about a golden boat and a stranger rowing it. Meanwhile, brother and sister, Igor and Ida, are secretly painting an old, rotten boat with gold acrylic paint for Aunt Vitya’s birthday. Dietrich lies down in the gilded boat and falls asleep. Waking up on the waves, he sees a rejuvenated Aunt Vitya before him, repeating a magical, dreamlike chant.

House for a cat and a dragon

A girl named Niyole finds a tabby kitten on the street, but her parents won’t let her take it home. So, the girl and her father build a fantastical house for the kitten out of an old stool, scraps of cloth, a chessboard, and her father’s hat. Meanwhile, the young demon Toy Lori Kaar Tsu Malyan Tai helps his younger brother rescue a lost baby dragon. The demons weave the little dragon into the fabric of human dreams, and it finds peace in the house they’ve built next to a sleeping cat.

One coat for two

This autobiographical monologue is dedicated to a long-standing friendship with the wind and its invisible companion. The protagonist recalls childhood escapes to the vacant lot, youthful treasure hunts on rooftops, a friend’s service in the navy, and the naval pea jacket he gave her, which served as a single coat for both of them. In the final scene, the author stands on Asparuhov Bridge in Varna, accepting knitted woolen socks from the wind.

Ideal clothes for different seasons

An essayistic meditation on a person’s wardrobe as a means of dialogue with the elements. The author analyzes the perception of spring through bright scarves, summer through lightweight natural fabrics, autumn through the accustomed idea of the finiteness of all life, and winter through festive color accents against the backdrop of urban grayness.

The most handsome consul in the world

Artist Misha flies to Riga to give Maryana, the widow of his friend Marik, who tragically drowned in India, part of the funeral money. At a café, he admires an extraordinarily beautiful androgynous woman in a white coat, whom Maryana identifies as the consul of a country with a green checkered flag. While strolling through the city, Misha constantly encounters this mysterious figure. He is joined by his childhood friend, Mei. They reminisce about how, in their youth, in Karolino-Bugaz, they, together with Marik, created a map of the magical city of Leina, with a similar checkered flag. Following signs and inscriptions in their invented language, Yokki, the friends find the fence of the Leina consulate on Martas Street and wait for dusk to reunite with their living fairy tale.

Variations on the Theme of Paradise

Short sketches about experiencing moments of absolute happiness and peace: through the morning drizzle on the plain, on a trip along a mountain serpentine, at dusk on a sea pier, or in the cabin of an old cable car above the city of childhood.