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Authors: Ian Frazier
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and the place lacked any redeeming higher qualities. But one afternoon I came into the dining hall to get some boiled water for drinking, and the VCR was playing
V. I. Warshawski
, a detective movie starring Kathleen Turner, on the extra-large-screen TV. The movie had just ended and the credits were scrolling on a background of bright blue. As the movie’s theme musicrose, a girl of about ten who was standing in front of the screen and staring at it began to dance to the theme music. The few people in the dining room drinking tea paid no attention, but I watched as she stepped and pirouetted in the blue light of the TV screen. The smells from the kitchen, the Russian voices, the American music, all hung suspended for a moment around the dancing of the girl. Another perhaps overgeneralized fact about Russians is this: Russians can really dance.
The whole time at that resort and at the one before it, I barely noticed Lake Baikal. I had heard that it was beautiful; I looked at it once or twice and said, “Yes, beautiful,” and that was it. Luckily I would see Baikal again. But now, as it happened, I was due to teach a workshop in Montana in a few days, so I had to go. One morning I left a lot of my fishing stuff with Katya, said goodbye and many thanks to her and to Alex, and rode back to Ulan-Ude with the same young couple who had brought Alex from there. For some reason the drive down to the city was no problem compared to the bumpy and dusty journey the other way. My plane would leave the next evening. I spent my final night in Ulan-Ude at Sasha’s apartment. For dinner, his wife, Tania, again made
pozhe
, and this time, eating without the distractions of cultural confusion and jet lag, I understood that it is one of the great dishes of the world.
Before and after dinner, Sasha and I had a conversation about literature that went surprisingly far, considering my complete lack of Russian and the limitations of his spoken English. Like many educated Russians, he had read most of his country’s literature and a lot of ours. One by one, he showed me his collection of American writers, taking the volumes down carefully from his shelves: Frost, Kerouac, Hemingway, Melville, Thomas Wolfe. He said Wolfe was his favorite because he gave much more the flavor of being American. Sasha had translated many poems of Frost’s. He said that his favorite writer in any language was an early twentieth-century poet named Velimir Khlebnikov. When I admitted I had never heard of Khlebnikov, he fell into sadness and almost began to grieve, shaking his head and saying what a pity that was.
I could see that Sasha would have been a good friend to have in school; he understood what was going on even without words, he laughed to himself about the ridiculousness of life, and he had no desire to push anybody around. The only time I saw him in a coercive frame of mind was for a few minutes the next day, before he took me to the airport,when we stopped at the post office to buy postcards. I found one I liked—it showed a red bus and a yellow bus going by Ulan-Ude’s central square—because it reminded me exactly of Cleveland, Ohio, when I was a boy. I tried to buy every copy the post office had, and Sasha, perhaps thinking my interest in the card campy and ironical (as I guess it sort of was), hustled me from the post office before I’d bought more than a dozen or so.
My ignorance of Khlebnikov seemed to shake his view of the world. How could such a great Russian poet be unknown in the United States? After our first conversation about Khlebnikov, he mentioned his disappointment and puzzlement a few times more. I felt bad about this, so when I returned I looked up the works of Khlebnikov in the New York Public Library. Most of its books by him were in Russian, and I sat down with a small volume of his verse from the early 1900s to see what I could make of it using a Russian-English dictionary. The success of my attempt can be imagined. Today I can
V. I. Warshawski
, a detective movie starring Kathleen Turner, on the extra-large-screen TV. The movie had just ended and the credits were scrolling on a background of bright blue. As the movie’s theme musicrose, a girl of about ten who was standing in front of the screen and staring at it began to dance to the theme music. The few people in the dining room drinking tea paid no attention, but I watched as she stepped and pirouetted in the blue light of the TV screen. The smells from the kitchen, the Russian voices, the American music, all hung suspended for a moment around the dancing of the girl. Another perhaps overgeneralized fact about Russians is this: Russians can really dance.
The whole time at that resort and at the one before it, I barely noticed Lake Baikal. I had heard that it was beautiful; I looked at it once or twice and said, “Yes, beautiful,” and that was it. Luckily I would see Baikal again. But now, as it happened, I was due to teach a workshop in Montana in a few days, so I had to go. One morning I left a lot of my fishing stuff with Katya, said goodbye and many thanks to her and to Alex, and rode back to Ulan-Ude with the same young couple who had brought Alex from there. For some reason the drive down to the city was no problem compared to the bumpy and dusty journey the other way. My plane would leave the next evening. I spent my final night in Ulan-Ude at Sasha’s apartment. For dinner, his wife, Tania, again made
pozhe
, and this time, eating without the distractions of cultural confusion and jet lag, I understood that it is one of the great dishes of the world.
Before and after dinner, Sasha and I had a conversation about literature that went surprisingly far, considering my complete lack of Russian and the limitations of his spoken English. Like many educated Russians, he had read most of his country’s literature and a lot of ours. One by one, he showed me his collection of American writers, taking the volumes down carefully from his shelves: Frost, Kerouac, Hemingway, Melville, Thomas Wolfe. He said Wolfe was his favorite because he gave much more the flavor of being American. Sasha had translated many poems of Frost’s. He said that his favorite writer in any language was an early twentieth-century poet named Velimir Khlebnikov. When I admitted I had never heard of Khlebnikov, he fell into sadness and almost began to grieve, shaking his head and saying what a pity that was.
I could see that Sasha would have been a good friend to have in school; he understood what was going on even without words, he laughed to himself about the ridiculousness of life, and he had no desire to push anybody around. The only time I saw him in a coercive frame of mind was for a few minutes the next day, before he took me to the airport,when we stopped at the post office to buy postcards. I found one I liked—it showed a red bus and a yellow bus going by Ulan-Ude’s central square—because it reminded me exactly of Cleveland, Ohio, when I was a boy. I tried to buy every copy the post office had, and Sasha, perhaps thinking my interest in the card campy and ironical (as I guess it sort of was), hustled me from the post office before I’d bought more than a dozen or so.
My ignorance of Khlebnikov seemed to shake his view of the world. How could such a great Russian poet be unknown in the United States? After our first conversation about Khlebnikov, he mentioned his disappointment and puzzlement a few times more. I felt bad about this, so when I returned I looked up the works of Khlebnikov in the New York Public Library. Most of its books by him were in Russian, and I sat down with a small volume of his verse from the early 1900s to see what I could make of it using a Russian-English dictionary. The success of my attempt can be imagined. Today I can
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