1.  A friendship reconnected

Recently Heather was in her local Belmont post office having been asked by husband, Geoff, to post a parcel. Whilst going about her business in the store, her concentration was abruptly interrupted by someone calling, “H!”.

It was Bill who was, in turn, collecting mail for his wife, Jan.

“Wow! What a coincidence,” thought Bill.

Not having spoken for quite some time, Heather and Bill had a lot to catch up on. Finally, just before taking leave of each other, Heather asked if Bill had any news of “Flatty” (a.k.a. me). “No,” he replied, “not since his near-death experience.” They said their good-buys and went their separate ways. Next morning Bill embarked on his regular three-times-a-week bike ride; never really knowing what route he would be taking. As it turned out, he followed the bike-path around the Barwon River, turned off at Fyansford and headed up the big hill. En-route he felt the urge to detour through the new estate laid-out beside the Moorabool River. As Bill cycled the roads enjoying the sunshine, John (me), who after working on his PC for a couple of hours and having breakfast with his wife, Mary, decided to check the mailbox. “Flatty!” someone called. It was Bill.

“Wow! That’s synchronicity,” thought Flatty.

After warm handshakes and enthusiastic updates, Bill proceeded on his way; taking note of John’s address and determining to share the information with Heather on his return home. With this detail Heather now had enough information to identify John’s Facebook page and, as a consequence, retrieve his phone-number and email and, therefore, re-stablish contact.

"Now, that's serendipity," thought Heather.

​

The two ex-teachers, writing collaborators and friends had reconnected with so many disparate links unexpectedly coming together to generate a warm positive outcome for each of the parties.

Now, That's lucky!  

​

"Lucky! Not at all. No such thing as luck," thought Flatty.

2.  Lassetar's gold mine

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Lassetar, a 1930s Russian emigrant who came to Australia in search of his fortune, claimed to have discovered a reef of gold in outback Queensland; one bearing nuggets the size of duck’s eggs. Because Lassetar was a rogue, ladies-man and tall-story teller, it was no surprise his claim was dismissed. Subsequently, he disappeared leaving Nona, his wife, and son, Das, with the barely viable Black Stump general store. “Good riddance!” thought Nona.

It was thirty-five years later that Das, while searching for the store title as a prelude to selling the shop, found by coincidence an old barely-legible map in a long-discarded box of miscellanea. Das, being too old to go off on what he thought would possibly be a wild goose chase, decided fortuitously as it turned out to pass the map on to his two sons. Thus, he subsequently had two copies printed; one for each of his boys, Jerry and Harry.

​

However, nothing seemed to come from the finding as like many other country lads Jerry and Harry in due course drifting to the big smoke (Sydney) where, over time, they lost contact with each other.

Unbeknownst to their sibling, however, each boy was busy hatching plans; plans to see if he, in fact, had been given a copy of Lassatar’s long-lost gold-map. Thus, each had independently determined to undertake a 5-day search (the then life of detector batteries).  Harry began in the rugged hills, SE of the search-zone, while Jerry focussed on the centre of the map working his way outward.

Both marked grids on their maps which they had decided to use

(planning to cover 500m per day.

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It was on February 17, 1984, the anniversary of Lassetar’s birthday, that both excited ‘treasure hunters’ set off, aiming to retrace their grand father’s

footsteps. Armed with state-of-the-art gold detectors (with 5-day batteries), backpacks filled with gear for one week and shovels, they each separately headed back to Black Stump.

​

Imagine their surprise when towards the end of their fifth day of

solitary searching they came across each other, detectors and maps

in hand. Harry exclaimed, “What the hell!” Jerry, declared,

“What are the odds of meeting you here!” Within thirty minutes their

counters began screeching. They spent their final day together digging in order to confirm they had indeed hit the motherload.

"What good luck!" both Harry and Jerry thought.

3.  An Appointment with the barber

“The fellow took another step toward the barber and wrested one of the scissors from his hand. Then with the deftness of a much slighter man, he turned, took the Count by the collar, and severed the right wing of his moustaches with a single snip….” (p. 68 of 815 on my tablet).

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And so this all-too-brief but totally impacting incident slips by as the pages of

The Gentleman in Moscow follow the adventures that occur within the Metropol. Had it not been for this totally unanticipated, highly unlikely incident the rest of the book would not have fallen into place as links in the chain.

Follow the links and you will be rewarded.