The Projectionist

By B. D. Benedict

When a mysterious and visually striking young man arrives in a small Russian town, he causes a great stir among the local movers and shakers ... and reveals their grisly secrets.

B. D. BENEDIKT is an award winning film maker and the author of 36 international bestsellers. His books have sold more than 2 million copies worldwide!

Benedikt's work focuses on a main theme: betterment of the human soul. He chooses settings and characters that illustrate the best and worst of humanity in order to better explore the purpose of life. As a result, his books aren't subject to a specific genre, but range from historical fiction to sci-fi.

• Language: English
• Publisher: B. D. Benedict
• Release date: Feb 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005708092

B. D. Benedict

B. D. BENEDICT is an award winning film maker and the author of 36 international bestsellers. His books have sold more than 2 million copies worldwide!Benedict's work focuses on a main theme: betterment of the human soul. He chooses settings and characters that illustrate the best and worst of humanity in order to better explore the purpose of life. As a result, his books aren't subject to a specific genre, but range from historical fiction to sci-fi.

Book preview

THE PROJECTIONIST

BY B. D. BENEDIKT

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

SMASHWORDS EDITION

The Projectionist

Copyright © Bozidar Benedikt 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

www.BDBenedikt.com

CHAPTER 1

It was a misty September morning 1994.

A thick blanket of fog lazily rolled into Zitomir: a once proud Moscow suburb, now nothing but a wasteland. Old cardboard and stretched out pieces of plastic formed make-shift windowpanes: a common sight in a degenerate area after years of neglect. There were no trees to enhance the deteriorating landscape, no green lawns to brighten either side of the boulevards. Only dehydrated, muddy fields remained. Traffic signs were illegible many spray-painted with gang logos or littered with bullet holes. The new Russian State simply had no budget for maintenance.

With the disappearance of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, so, too, vanished the false socialist values of communism. Economically, the new ruble wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on. Western governments rushed to help the newly formed democratic country by corrupting its infrastructure with millions of dollars and deutsche marks in an artificial flow of capital. The black market flourished like an epidemic, leaving millions of suffering victims in its wake. Criminals were ecstatic with the disastrous fall of the state control. Illegal transactions, once carried out in secrecy, were now committed in full public view of the shocked and terrified crowds. Those who’d once yearned for the death of communism now reconsidered their position. It was clear to the Russian people that they had killed the king before his heir was born!

Huddled at the foot of the stairs of building number 16 was a group of young street vagrants. Two were attractive teenage girls. The third, a pimply-faced man, had a thin beard symbolizing his forthcoming manhood. He smoked his last cigarette as he indifferently stared at the morning grayness drifting before him. His girlfriend Lara and friend, seventeen-year-old Tanya, sat behind him.

All three were destitute. Wishing to partly alleviate their suffering, the building’s superintendent, a former Red Army officer, allowed the trio to sleep in the building’s basement. In return for the accommodations, the teens had to wash all the staircases up to the twelfth floor once every week. They also had an evening curfew: ten o’clock. It was at that time that the superintendent locked the massive, bullet-proof entrance. But the previous night, all three had been late. Boris dropped his butt and crushed it with his heel. Vegetating and impatiently awaiting the sun’s warm rays to break, he caught sight of a silhouette emerging from the mist like an apparition.

The stranger headed straight for them. No more than thirty, exceedingly tall and extremely handsome, the man was athletically built though not overly muscular. His dark blond hair was long and neatly tied back into a ponytail. He wore a blue jeans jacket and pants and a black snug fitting T-shirt. Boris immediately noticed his highly decorative cowboy boots, the kind that could only be bought in one of those special, hard currency department stores.

The mysterious man’s eyes were the deepest shade of cobalt blue, and he reflected in them an unusual inner peace and powerful sense of dignity.

I’m looking for Ms. Ana Semyonovich, he said in a deep, rumbling voice.

Inexplicably having lost their voices for a moment, the three teens were speechless. Tanya was the first to compose.

Miss Ana lives on the tenth floor, she replied in a soft, velvety voice. But I’m afraid you’ll have to wait with us until the superintendent unlocks the door. We were late last night, so he left us outside as a punishment, she added for no real reason.

The mysterious man listened to her without a word and then glanced at his watch. It was just after six o’clock. He stepped towards the stairs, and the kids scooted to the side in order to let him pass.

With a brief look at the lock, he grabbed the doorknob and jingled it. There was a click, and the door obediently flung open.

Bewildered, the teens slowly stood up.

The door was unlocked, the man explained casually and entered the premises. He set off towards the stairs.

Wait! Tanya dashed after him. There are two elevators around the corner.

They’re both out of order, he shot over his shoulder and continued to climb the steps.

Out of order? Tanya muttered, and set off to inspect the elevators. She pressed the buttons. They were out of order.

I don’t understand any of this, she said in confusion, directing an astounded glance at Lara and Boris. I could have sworn the front door was locked last night. We tried to open it ourselves. And how did he know the elevators don’t work.

I don’t know, Boris mumbled, scratching behind his neck. There’s something weird about this guy.

Tanya’s consternation turned to horror.

You don’t think he’ll hurt Miss Ana, do you?

Boris shrugged his shoulders.

How should I know?

As usual, Ana Semyonovich was already up. She was standing by the kitchen stove, holding a kettle, when the doorbell rang. Surprised, she swiftly glanced at the clock mounted on her wall as she headed for the door. She never had visitors this early in the morning. Come to think of it, she hardly ever had any visitors at all!

Miss Ana Semyonovich? an unfamiliar voice called from the hall.

Who wants to know? Ana asked anxiously, peering through the tiny peephole.

"My name is Oleg Yegorov. We spoke on the phone last

night. I was a close friend of your late son, Victor."

At the mention of her son’s name, she suddenly felt a weight compressing in her chest. With slightly trembling fingers, Ana carefully unlocked the double bolted latches and stuck her head inside the hall.

W... what do you want? she stammered.

May I come in? Oleg inquired. I need to talk to you.

There was a pause, but she eventually moved away from the door and allowed the stranger passage.

Oleg strode by her and entered the small hall. They regarded one another in brief silence. At the realization that this young man had once known her son, had once been his friend, her heartbeats intensified.

Come into the living room, please. She stretched out her hand and gestured towards a seat. Would you like some tea? she asked, wringing her hands.

I’d love a cup. Oleg offered her a friendly smile.

Abandoning her unexpected guest, she hurried back into the kitchen and poured the water into the kettle. Her hands were still shaking. She wasn’t quite aware of what she was doing. Finally, she helplessly lowered herself into a chair beside the window and completely surrendered to the flood of sudden emotions.

Another knock diverted her attention. Ana, who raised her head, knew the rhythmic beats. Young Tanya came up every morning to help her with chores or to go shopping for her. The woman came to the door and opened it without bothering to check through the hole.

Good morning, Miss Ana, greeted the girl, her voice slightly strained.

She scanned the apartment, her eyes coming to rest on the stranger in the living room.

We’ve come to ask if you needed anything.

So early in the morning? Ana wondered.

The three stood silently in front of the door, Lara shuffling her feet, Boris leaning a shoulder against the opposite wall.

Ana dismissed her own question.

As a matter of fact, I have an unexpected guest. Will you go to the supermarket and buy us all two packets of frozen piroshki and a jar of pickles? I think I need a kilo of sugar, too.

She reached behind the door for her coat and rummaged for her wallet. Removing the last large bill from her miserable pension, Ana handed it to Tanya. But a hand rested gently over hers, halting her efforts.

Allow me to treat all of you.

A startled Ana looked up at Oleg, who’d reached into his back pocket and removed his own wallet. He handed Tanya a one-hundred-dollar bill.

When Boris and Lara saw the money, their eyes shone greedily.

They will exchange this for rubles in any super-market, Oleg explained to the amazed young girl, who’d probably never held so much money in her entire life.

Mr. Yegorov! Ana exclaimed. Please don’t send them down there with so much money!

Nothing will happen to them, he assured his host.

Tanya placed the bill in the pocket of her dirty and rather worn out blue jeans. Without another word, the stunned teens walked back down the corridor. Ana closed the door behind them.

That money was more than my monthly pension, she commented sadly.

Roused from her despondency by the whistle of the boiling water, she hurried back into the small kitchen.

When she returned with the tea, she found her guest examining a framed black and white photo of a young man, no older than twenty-five. He wore glasses, and a smile was forever frozen across his thin face. Sitting on a chair, he was leaning against a large, empty movie reel. In the background was an old movie projector in full operation.

My poor son, she said in a quivering voice.

Oleg set the picture on the lace-embroidered tablecloth.

Ana served him a big cup of tea from a silver tray and then took the seat at the other end of the table.

He sent it to me from Novozagorsk three years ago. She cast a loving look at the black and white portrait. "Victor was so happy there. After wandering a long time as an assistant projectionist, he finally got his own cinema. He wrote to me about the town, a small place isolated in the hills, but very romantic. The people there were good and loved him."

As she caressed the shining frame of the photo with her eyes, Oleg gazed at her thoughtfully. Though fifty-six years old, Ana’s small frame was lean. Her once blonde hair, now flecked with gray, still encased the remnants of a once beautiful face.

Her hazel brown eyes, sad but lucid, noticed his probing stare.

What you see is the end result of a long ballet career, she explained the preservation of her body.

Victor mentioned that you danced at one time.

Did he also mention that he was my only son, conceived while I was a dancer, and then abandoned by his father before he was born?

Oleg shook his head. Victor never mentioned his father. And I didn’t ask.

How did you meet my son?

Whenever he had to hide the truth about his true identity, Oleg felt a bit uncomfortable. So he quickly invented a story.

We met six years ago at the faculty and became good friends, he made up a quick story. We both studied electrical engineering and were crazy about movies. We became close friends during film history class, where he confessed that his mother was forcing him to complete university because one cannot live by art. I understood him well since my mother had said the exact same thing to me. Shortly before the end of our studies, Victor and I joined the Moscow Cine Club and completed their projectionist course.

In fond reminiscence, Ana smiled.

Victor’s love of films caused me many sleepless nights. Now I see that you knew him well. I was really opposed to his exceptional love for film. I didn’t want him to be disappointed in art as I was. In spite of my artistic qualities, I had to be satisfied with second and third-rate roles. A friend of mine once said I never slept with the right men, that talent had nothing to do with the role one received but with whom one went to bed, she unleashed her frustration on her sympathetic guest. Today I can’t even buy silver polish for this tarnished tray. My miserable pension barely covers my rent and a single meal a day. But I guess I shouldn’t complain. Millions of Russians are still dreaming of living in the luxury that I live in. Two rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom, and any meal at all, are considered wealthy living these days.

She sipped her tea, then asked: When did you learn of my son’s death?

When I recently required about available cinemas to buy one, people at the Chamber of Commerce told me that Novozagorsk had been looking for both an investor and a projectionist, for the last one had drowned in the local river. When I heard Victor’s name, I wanted to see you and ask if you needed anything before I go to Novozagorsk. I’d also like to visit Victor’s grave.

Grave? Ana shook her head sardonically. My son doesn’t have a grave yet.

He drew his brows together.

Why not?

Because he’s still lying in the refrigerated mortuary of the Novozagorsk hospital.

Although he knew every detail, Oleg waited for further explanation. Ana rose from her seat, set her porcelain cup on the tray, and proceeded towards the wall cabinet. She removed a black folder from the drawer and singled out a document for Oleg’s examination. It was the ‘third and last’ warning in which the township of Novozagorsk asked the woman in question to retrieve the body of the deceased Victor Semyonovich at her own expense. If she failed to do so in the allowed time, the township would cremate his remains and mail her the ashes.

Where will I find three thousand new rubles in order to pay them? she asked, her eyes filling with tears of desperation. I hardly have enough for food. Can you imagine the pain of a mother who can’t even visit the grave of her only child?

I’d like to offer you help, he said, his tone low, comforting. Since I’m going to Novozagorsk tonight, I will complete these formalities concerning Victor’s body and send his remains back to Moscow. At my own expense, of course, he emphasized.

Surprised, the woman looked at him.

Why would you do that?

In friendship to Victor. We shared the same dreams and planned similar futures. I am convinced that Victor would do the same thing for me.

Yes, he would. Ana nodded despondently. Victor was always very sensitive, very quiet and shy, too. Film was his first and only love. He dreamed of becoming a film director. He had a rich imagination, and he liked to write scripts. His stories were original but perhaps too liberal for old Soviet ideas still filtering through the art industry. Victor considered film to be one of the most important inventions of our century. He used to say that every movie was a new experience that could enrich the viewer’s life. When he packed up the film reels no longer in demand, it appeared to him as though he was forever burying those characters who’d lived on the big screen just a short time ago.

Ana took Victor’s picture from the table once again.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have a stroke of good luck, she continued in the same vein of bereavement. Who knows what kind of life he would have had if he hadn’t died so suddenly and tragically!

It is said that those who failed to complete their purpose on earth will be allowed to finish it in the afterlife, Oleg consoled her.

You believe in God and such things?

Don’t you?

Ana smiled sadly.

Since I lost Victor, I’ve begun to believe in everything. Like any desperate mother, I’m waving my arms in the darkness searching for any straw to clutch at. I suppose that people who have lost everything in life behave this way. I must be going mad because I’m beginning to believe that I will see my son again once I die. The communists claimed only the mentally disturbed believe in such nonsense as the existence of God and afterlife.

God is the only reality! he declared adamantly. Everything else is actually a passing illusion created by Him.

Ana had gazed into the calming, deep blue depths of Oleg’s eyes and had sensed his inner peace. And for one brief moment that very same peace had washed over her in a soothing wave. Tanya’s familiar knock jolted a mesmerized woman from her pensiveness.

Excuse me, she said, slightly flustered, and headed for the door.

Dear God! Ana cried when she saw the tear-stained girl. What happened?

Boris and Lara grabbed the money from me and ran away, Tanya sobbed.

Embracing the distraught girl, Ana led her into the kitchen. Calm down, sweetheart. Sit down. She stroked the girl’s long locks. I have only a cup of tea and these stale biscuits for you now, she said, her tone openly apologetic for she’d wanted to feed her company, young Tanya included.

When the girl had composed herself and set out to eat

her meager breakfast, Ana returned to the living room.

I warned you not to give them so much money. She sighed, then: I had wished to serve you something, she excused her poverty with embarrassment.

Your hospitality is all I could have asked for. Poverty is not a sin. I admire your fortitude for living such a hard life.

Ana offered him a tender look.

Thank you.

Oleg stood up.

Before I leave, will you write a letter to the Novozagorsk Township authorizing me to take over Victor’s body? And will you add a request for a detailed autopsy to be performed?

An autopsy? Ana raised a surprised brow. It’s clearly written in the death certificate that Victor drowned. The local coroner examined the body and found that his lungs were full of water.

She pulled another document from the black folder and handed it to him.

Read for yourself.

He scanned the page.

It is also written that the deceased fell from a bridge for an ‘unknown reason’. Don’t you want to know why? Did he lose consciousness, or did he commit suicide, or did somebody deliberately push him over the bridge? Only a detailed autopsy will explain what might have happened to Victor.

Ana listened with disbelief. Sickness? Suicide? Murder? Who would kill her Victor and why? She was completely flabbergasted at the foreign concept. Unsteadily, she took a piece of clean paper from the file folder and picked a ballpoint pen out of the glass holder on the table. In a few minutes, she had jotted down the required statements and handed the letter over to Oleg.

He glanced at the written lines, then folded and tucked the paper into his back pocket.

Where would you like me to send the body?

The woman searched through the file with her trembling fingers.

Where? she repeated in disorientation. I don’t know. I think I have the address and phone number of a private funeral home. They gave me their card when I inquired about the cost for the transportation of my son’s body and the funeral arrangements. Here it is.

Oleg looked at the elegantly printed business card. He placed the card in his pocket, as well.

You’ll be informed when the body arrives.

Her lips quivering, Ana was obviously on the edge of a nervous breakdown. With the edge of her finger, she wiped her wet eyes a few times. As a final gesture, Oleg pulled out his wallet, removed some dollar bills, and spread them like cards over the table.

Please take this money in the name of my friendship with Victor.

Ana spread the dollars into an even wider fan.

But there is more than three thousand dollars here! she cried in a subdued voice.

I must be on my way. Oleg said heading for the door.

At the kitchen door he paused briefly to gaze at Tanya, who was dipping her biscuit in the hot tea.

Noticing the stranger was about to depart, Tanya rose to her feet out of some inexplicable urge. Everything around her seemed to indicate she had no future. And no child was destined to grow up in the world without a future.

Sensing the soft squeeze on his upper arm, Oleg turned his head in Ana’s direction.

Thank you for everything. The woman’s eyes shone gratefully. Your visit has meant so much to me. But are you sure you can afford to part with all this money?

You don’t worry. There is enough left for me. I recently inherited some money.

For a few moments she looked at him tenderly and then asked him in a low voice: May I at least give you a kiss?

Oleg, almost taller by a head, bent down without a word and offered her his cheek. The woman closed her eyes and pressed a gentle, motherly kiss on his skin.

For Victor, she elaborated in a tearful voice. I used to kiss him good-bye whenever he’d leave.

God bless, said Oleg, and then turned and walked out into the corridor.

Sobbing painfully, Ana slowly closed the door after him.

A silent Tanya stood by the table. When Ana finally separated from the door and went into the living room, the young girl carefully stole out of the flat.

CHAPTER 2

Absorbed in her miserable thoughts, Tanya headed down into the basement. That cup of tea and biscuit would be her only meal for the day. She didn’t feel safe anywhere except in Miss Ana’s flat. If only that fine lady would adopt her. Tanya could help her around the apartment and keep her company. She’d even continue to wash the complex’s stairwells, and perhaps the superintendent would pay her a little pocket money in exchange.

Tanya terribly missed her own home and parents. She desperately needed someone to offer her a hand and lead her safely through the many winding roads of life. She didn’t consider herself to be like Lara or Boris, aggressive or bold, and able to resort to any means necessary in order to survive. For instance, just last night, the trio had been wandering in the park and had come across a drunken foreigner, who’d offered them a bottle of whisky. In return, he’d likely hoped that one of the girls would repay him for his kindness right there on the bench. It was Lara who’d sat in his lap giggling while Boris had successfully managed to empty the inebriated man’s wallet. The trio had then bolted and abandoned the penniless drunk to his frustrated desire. Tanya just didn’t think she could ever do what Lara and Boris did, even if she were desperate.

The further into the basement she descended, the more it seemed to her that she was being engulfed into her own personal hell. It was so dark. She spent the last year in this horrid dwelling. Only a small shaft of light broke through a tiny ground floor window.

She glanced at the rags on the floor - her bed, composed of old coats, military blankets, and the torn vinyl canopy of a truck. And yet, it was better than living on the street, she reflected.

The girl lowered herself onto the rags, leaned against the concrete wall, and embraced her bent legs. The room reeked of dirt and sweaty clothes. Looking down at the torn knees of her old blue jeans, she recalled that it had been two months since her last bath in the park’s public fountain.

Whenever faced with uncertainty, Tanya