It was a fine autumn day. Kaško was just flying over Košice and doing what he liked to do on such days. He was looking into people's windows and waiting to see if anyone needed help. Once he rescued a kitten from little Anna that had almost fallen out of the window, another time he brought a little car to little Peter on the windowsill and once.... Well, it was quite a few things. He even didn't notice when and how he got to the window where Maxík and Majka lived. He only noticed it when he heard Majka's screams.
"No, no, no," cried Majka, "music can only exist on the Earth!"
"Come on! Angels surely know how to play musical instruments," Maxík did not give in.
"Sure? What instruments?!
"Well, for example, the harmonica," said Maxík, playing a beautiful, angelic melody on his mouth harmonica.
Majka stopped screaming and listened. She closed her eyes for a moment. But she immediately opened them. Maxík swapped the mouth harmonica for an accordion and started:
„Heeeeey, Maaaceeejko, Macejko, ko ko ko, zahraj mi na tenkooooooo, ko ko ko, na tú tenkú...“
"What are you doing?" Majka asked, surprised.
MAX: "I'm showing you what heaven might sound like," Maxík laughed and kept playing, just a bit quieter.
MAJKA: "Would those angels mind if they hung the accordion on their wings?"
Kaško was already sitting on the windowsill plate. No one noticed him. For a moment he even thought that Maxík and Majka had lost the ability to see him. He watched Maxík, who had stopped playing and was contemplating about something.
"Well, maybe a little," he said after a moment of silence. "But a piano..."
"Oh, so the piano. And can you imagine a piano standing on some kind of small cloud? It would fall on our heads!" Majka got angry again.
"But this might help some people," she said, glancing at Maxík mockingly and tapping his forehead with her finger.
Maxík pulled away, sat down in the corner, and started playing his harmonica.
"I read in a book on celestial music. I am telling you this; I remember it!"
"And wasn't that an article about heavenly boredom? About how everyone in heaven is bored?"
"Oh, please," Maxík sighed, "but listen!"
Maxík started to play a joyful tune. Kaško started dancing on the windowsill and Majka stamped her foot to the rhythm.
"You're right, this makes me want to dance and not heavenly rest."
"And what do you know about heaven or paradise?" Maxík asked the essential question.
"If you both don't know it, I know for sure."
The children looked around and saw Kaško standing in a strange pose on the windowsill.
"What?" They both opened their mouths after shaking off the shock that Kaško was in their room.
"You've been to paradise?"
"Of course. Several times."
"Then tell us more about it!" The children sat down on the carpet and Maxík took the forgotten biscuits out of his backpack.
"Well, paradise, it's such a place where...." Kaško paused, suddenly grew silent, and made a strange face. As if he was looking at something beautiful.
"Where there is silence?" Maxík asked, a little frightened.
"Exactly, and that's why there's no music," Majka finished and took a bite out of Maxík's biscuit.
"But stop it now!" Kaško grounded both. "Pack your things!"
"Excuse me?"
"We're going to paradise. It's just around the corner!!
A biscuit almost fell out of Majka's mouth. "Around the corner?"
"All right, around a few corners and mountains and streams - but very close. You'll be there in an hour by train, even sooner by car."
"Can you get to paradise by car?" Maxík shook his head in disbelief, packing all the instruments he could play with the angels.
"Also, by train."
"Also, by bus?"
"Sure, also by bicycle, roller skates, skateboard and even on skis. But we'll fly there so you can get a nice view of paradise from above."
"I believe there is silence in paradise and angels are forbidden to play on anything. That's why they go to help the artists here on earth. I'm going to do my hair and pick out my light blue comb," Majka decided
"Let’s go, you twaddlers," Kaško laughed, put on his old air cap, grabbed them, and they were off. They looked at the beautiful mountains, the fields, the highway. Majka was fixing her hair and Maxík was playing a song about flying he had just made up.
"It flies, it flies, everything flies, time probably flies the fastest. Yesterday I was just a little kid, today I'm big as hell."
While singing, they were flying over Košice, the capital of Haravara. Then over four hills, thirty-five villages, and two towns, and suddenly a beautiful picture appeared to them. Hills of different shapes, rocks that stuck out of the ground as if they had been thrown there by giants, streams with footbridges, bridges, and even ladders leading over them. People were climbing them. Suddenly they saw the sign Slovenský Raj - Slovak Paradise.
"We have our paradise?" Majka wondered. She touched her hair and put one more hairpin on it.
"Look, there are some people climbing ladders up the hill from the creek. That would be the mythical River Styx - the river of the dead. I've read about it. These ones have probably been rescued and are climbing into paradise," Maxík mused.
"And look what they're doing on that big rock over there!" Majka horrified, covering her eyes.
"Hey, watch it, buddy, or you'll fall down!" Maxík shouted. "There's the river of the dead, I wouldn't want to fall down from there!"
Kaško laughed so hard that frightened squirrels, gophers, and bears started to climb the hills.
"This is the Tomášovský Výhľad view. One of the most beautiful sites in our Paradise."
"Just enjoy yourselves too, twaddlers," Kaško patted them on the head with a breeze.
"And those people are just out there enjoying themselves?"
They were still flying over beautiful places that they will surely return to with Dad and Mom, but they were getting more and more thoughtful.
"What's the matter with you? Don't you like it?" Kaško asked, surprised.
"Well, it's beautiful here. But this isn't the paradise we were talking about."
"Is this paradise?" Kaško raised his eyebrows and landed on one of the rocks.
"It is," the siblings answered at once.
"Did you want to see how things work in paradise?"
"We did," they groaned at once.
"Then what’s the problem?" Kaško didn't understand.
MAJKA: "But there are no angels here, their wings are not rustling, there is no heavenly wind blowing here...", Majka threw her arms around on the hill, until she almost fell.
"And there's no paradise music playing," Maxík said sadly.
"But it is playing," murmured Kaško, exchanging his aviator's cap for a smart black hat.
The children listened, but all they could hear was the whistling of a marmot, the guns firing at the Spiš Castle, which was not far away, the nailing of a staple on a nearby rock, the banging of chains on ladders climbed by people, and the gurgling of water.
Kaško was staring at them and suddenly blurted out:
"Yeah. Can't you hear that? Because I have ghostly ears."
"What?" the children exclaimed in incomprehension.
"Well, the ears that hear everything a normal person can't hear."
Kaško took out of his pocket small plants with large calyxes that looked like trumpets on old record players.
"But I have a solution for this as well. Put this in your ear," he said, handing them the plants of the herald of the extraordinary.
The children carefully put the flower to their ear and looked as if a carnivorous plant was growing out of their ear.
"Can you hear that now?"
Majka and Maxík suddenly heard fish swimming in the water. They heard flies cleaning their wings, a snail slowly crawling under a big leaf, a lycophagus eating another tree in the forest.... And suddenly they heard it too. Paradise music.
"That's beautiful music," whispered Maxík.
"I can hear it, too." Majka whispered in her brother's ear and took him by the hand.
"Where do they play so beautifully?" Maxík looked at Kaško.
"A few kilometres in that direction," Kaško said, playing the conductor of nature.
He looked around to see his friends staring at him in disbelief. "In a mansion. In the Markušovce."
"Can we look in there?" Maxík asked.
"But it's daytime. We can't fly. I don't know if we can make it!"
Suddenly they saw a young boy with an even smaller sister and a very small brother. Maxík ran up to them.
"Please, do you happen to know how we can get to Markušovce as quickly as possible?"
"And why are you going there?" the oldest boy looked at them in surprise.
"They say there's a concert," Maxík answered quietly.
"How did you learn about it?" He looked at the siblings in surprise.
"Well, we heard about it somewhere," Maxík, Majka, and Kaško winked at each other.
"The gig is set up for my brother."
"What?"
"And it was supposed to be completely covert," says the unknown boy. He leans over to Maxík and Majka: "Nobody else knows about it. It's a surprise on his birthday. That's why we're surprised you know about it."
"Well, you spoiled the game!" Kaško whispered to Maxík, quickly took a primordial visualiser from his pocket and took three tickets out of it. After using it, the ghost could be seen by anyone for three long hours.
"They got that from me. I helped with the decorations and the cakes," Kaško stammered a bit.
"Oh, okay," the boy's sister calmed down a little.
"And who are you? You don't look like tourists," Maxík said timidly.
"I am Baron Andrej Mariássy, these are Lenka and Leuško. Also Mariássys. We, along with Xavier and Maxíkm, are the youngest descendants of the family that has owned this manor for several centuries. But call us Ajko, Lenka, and Lejko."
Kaško's eyes lit up.
"Wow. You really are the Mariassys. I knew your great-great-great-grandfather, who came to where your mansion now stands. He was a sailor. Mareus. That's how your name Mariássy came to be."
"Wow. You really are the Mariassys. I knew your great-great-great-grandfather, who came to where your mansion now stands. He was a sailor. Mareus. That's how your name Mariássy came to be."
"I am Maxík, this is Majka and here is our friend Kaško," Maxík introduced everyone.
"Well, now that you know about our concert, come along. At least we will be happier," Lenka invited everyone.
"How do we get there?"
"Daddy and Mummy will collect us here," replied Ajko
They didn't even finish saying that, and a large van appeared. "Ajko, Lenička, Lejko, we're leaving. Uncle Pet'o is already waiting for us in the castle!", a voice came from the car.
"Mom, can our new friends come with us?" Ajko and Lenička pleaded with insistent eyes. Mom looked at Dad.
"And won't their parents be looking for them?" Dad asked.
"No, they're here with me. I am their guide," said Kaško.
"I see. Come on then, get in," Mum urged everyone.
They came to a beautiful little manor house. It was gorgeous, all curves everywhere, water and beautiful turrets all around. It was quiet everywhere. Suddenly Kaško burst into silence: "I've been thinking about it all the way. I already know what I was doing here. I was here to meet Jan Amos Komenský. The greatest teacher. There on that staircase...."
"You mean you met with him?" Ajko opened wide his big, curious eyes.
There was a brief but utterly sepulchral, incomprehensible silence. Kaško laughed. Maxík and Majka understood and laughed too.
"But then I'd have to be at least 500 years old. And I don't look that old, do I?" Kaško tried to play the mistake. The Mariassys seemed to accept the joke and walked in.
"Phew, I almost got found out. Look, I bought this button about... a few hundred years ago because of this summer mansion."
"Why?"
"Emperor Joseph II was supposed to pay visit here. So, I sewed a new suit and found these beautiful buttons. I traded them for one sheep."
"And...?" Maxík and Majka waited for the end of the story.
"And the emperor did not arrive."
Lenka and Ajko appeared in the doorway: "Be my guests." They were led inside the mansion. This was great. Beautiful furniture everywhere, from different periods.
"One of these days we need to have a big furniture party and try out every single chair and armchair you have here."
They all found something comfortable. Maxík sat down in a huge, beautiful armchair, Majka lay down on a lounger and combed her hair, which had gotten messy during the flight. Kaško - as usual - like a proper ghost - lay down on the windowsill and opened the window. Suddenly from outside came that beautiful music they had been listening to on the hill.
"Where's it coming from?" Majka asked in surprise.
"From the Dardanelles," Lenka pointed to the beautiful park outside the window.
"There is a summer palace. It is called the Dardanelles. That's where the musicians are. Let's go and see them, perhaps the party is ready," Ajko encouraged them.
They all walked through the beautiful garden up the small hill to the summer house, where the mysterious music was coming from.
"So many pianos," Maxík sighed as he walked in.
"It's not just pianos, but a lot of keyboards. They're on display here and concerts are performed here."
Kaško sat down behind one of them and started playing. A beautiful, heavenly melody. Maxík reached into his backpack and took out a harmonica, a small shaker, a sounding sticka, and a triangle. They each reached for an instrument and began playing.
"Play the way you know how and don't be afraid. You know this, Ajko, don't you?"
Maxík and Majka looked at Ajko.
"I had an ancestor, Sigismund, who wrote on his tombstone - you who live, live as you know."
They all fell silent and just kept playing that beautiful heavenly melody. Suddenly the musicians who had been invited to the party joined them. Majka closed her eyes:
"This is heaven. This is the heavenly, paradisal music."
The children played and played until the lights went out. The candles were lit, and the celebration began. But by then Maxík, Majka, and Kaško had to leave. As they were flying back home, Majka grabbed Maxík's hand.
"You were right. I can't imagine heaven without music and angels without instruments anymore."
Maxík just smiled and squeezed his sister's hand. They felt like two angels. Anyone who can take the other person's hand, smile at them, and sometimes admit a mistake, is such an angel on earth. And if s/he can play an instrument, even more so.
