The Blueberry Fields of August Machias, Maine
(the lowbush upland blueberry, vaccinium lamarckii, is thinned out every two years by burning to improve the next season’s yield)
Gardeners blister berries of indigo
With terrible measures of fire
Scorching each spine and ridge
Singeing obedience on rows of enveloped sadness
Their cupped hands scooping out swirls of arsoned acreage
As refilled buckets drip kerosene below
Summoning forth flaming fists of metaphor
As gleaners sow garlands of fire
From pails fueling a ritual flame
To fields of August purple madness
Swept away by fiercer embraces hotter than any summer sky’s
While vines wither in a terrible burning roar
Scalding blasts fierce as a prophet’s oratorio
Score purple fields of fire forever
Roots fully plump like nurturing mothers
Withstanding storms of cremating caresses
Summer fire-walkers spread rows of sadness to others
Blazing bracelets of blueberries set aglow
A season and an hour on a hill
Scorched bald and fruitless by ceremonial fire
From which a man of lonely pilgrimage
Atop a rood of cedar waits sinless
From which He might watch and judge
Green leafed innocence charred black and still
As heavy pails empty on dreams below
Gleaners sow terrible measures of fire
Exploding gentle berries of indigo
To spatter the juices of burning ritual madness
Onto bodies stained forever in this summer tableau
Where weary souls set blameless vines aglow.
A contest entry
- SEEKING AP FAMILY by Three Doves.
525 points, ended February 25, 2008, 36 entries
Honorable mention
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
have you ever seen this 'burning season' in MAINE???
Comments
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Absolutely Beautiful
After reading your poem I can honestly say I have seen the "burning season" in Maine. Clinging to your fantastic use of imagery and metaphor I could smell the charred air. Thank you for sharing you fine work. Please if you will place your screen name in the Author's Notes so I may call my new brother by name. Thank you.
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Zyskandar A Jaimot much thanks for your read/too kind comments it is incredible that 'purple burning season' in MAINE regards zaj
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I have never experienced or been to your part of the world, but I have read your poetry this morning and it is without doubt poetry. You take me to these places and show me these things, appeal to all my senses with your words. I am truly impressed with your skill.
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to THE BEAR forgive the imposition and presumption AND thought the following short-story might be of interest regards zaj
Vartiom is no angel
“It is funny how you Amerikans think everyone from further west of Berlin as Russian. I am not Russian,” said Vartiom(pronounced var-tOOM, emphasis on the OOM) to those around him in the art gallery.
The comment was, even though none of us were aware of it at the moment, a way of preparing all of us in attendance for what was to come this Friday evening.
He made this pronouncement only after his female escourt introduced him to a group of opening night regulars as, “…an escaped Russian dissident seeking academic freedom.”
I was in attendance for this show and reception at a certain salon(whose initials are synonymous with avant—garde culture) off Union Square in San Francisco and whose client list and reputation are impeccable.
You meet all kinds of people at “art openings” in the very posh Union Square area. The exclusive galleries, shops, and chilly lobbies of 5—Star Hotels surround the small park from which the section gets its name.
Between these “one—of—a-kind” showrooms and various world famous banks and corporate offices are very fashionable department stores: big mausoleum looking places with expensive chandeliers and good looking sales men and women everywhere wishing to change your scent or your “look”.
At any given time of day besides the early hours of morning, except for those who don’t work or those who submit themselves to the sadomasochistic practices of jogging or the “power—walk” or the trendy gluttony of the “power—breakfast”; you’ll find all sorts of folks at or traversing through the park. Bankers and lawyers, their obligatory dark suits and stern faces making them look funereal like undertakers waiting for the next client to enrich their day as they purposefully stride to important meetings. Left over hippies, outfitted in brightly hallucenogenic tye-dyed colors from the peace and LSD love days of freesex just hanging out. Waiting for the return of Havens or Joplin or another toke passed around from the good herb.
You’ll find Inca percussion bands dressed in ponchos of rainbow colours sharing the same noise space as older women dressed in parancia who serenade flocks of incessant pigeons with show tunes from “The King and I”, “Showboat”, “Carousel”, and other sure crowd pleasers.
Sidewalk artist vendors hawk original oil paintings for as little as $29.99 for a 24inch by 36inch canvas. Guaranteeing all these paintings to be the artists’ best work. Even trough they’ve never met or know anything about the purported painter who created what they are selling. Never meeting the artist just the broker who assigns them what to sell on commission.
But heh, so what if the artist speaks only Chinese, or Korean or one of another dozen or so languages in countries where this art is created. Art is art. And as long as you can convince someone of that — that’s all that matters.
Just like the galleries. It is good art because the salespeople tell you it is. And if it’s good — you’ve got to pay. And the more you pay the better it is. Of course.
You’ll meet all kinds of people in this part of the city.
It’s where the affluent come to be patrons of the arts and to be seen.
It’s where women have always “just come” from Elizabeth Arden or their personal trainers and don’t want to admit they’ve just been there. They’ve been buffed and pampered and want to show off that they can afford it.
It’s where successful men who have settled into their flesh can get away with a paunch and losing their hair because they have money instead of youth.
And the affluent wannabe’s, a.k.a. those wishing to push themselves into this society, (Is yuppies a term still in vogue?) want to be seen with the affluent, or semi—affluent, or artists, or anyone who “looks the part”.
These status seekers want to be seen among just about anyone who could be classified as wealthy or possessing the sangfroid of social acceptability. Notwithstanding a monetary criteria; being seen among “artsy types” or others that could be deemed at least uniquely interesting or a sort described clicheishly as “one of a kind ‘‘ — would suffice.
And Vartiom(pronounced var—tOOM, emphasis on the OOM) as I had been instructed to enunciate his name by Gina during that evening, is certainly one of a kind.
I had heard rumors of him before. And in truth I was curious to see what he was like in person.
It had been a long—time since someone had created such an impression on the tight social scene in this city. Not since Anna Smith; the diminutive pretender who claimed to be the long lost Anastasia, Grand Duchess of all the Russias, had ensconced herself into the lesser receptions here on the bay — had there been such a buzz.
And it really didn’t matter that most knew that this Anastasia; this self-proclaimed survivor of the massacre in the cellar at Ekaterinaburg; this woman who demanded the courtesies of royal treatment — had been certainly identified as the former Rose Polaski of Cleveland, Ohio. It was the foreigness and allure that made people want to see for themselves. Wherever she went the
curious flocked to the event. To get a glimpse. Perhaps more. Perhaps a private audience of innocuous conversation.
Because even knowing she most likely was an imposter — they wanted to believe.
No matter how improbable, all of us, have this compulsion to want to trust not in our logic — but in how we wish things would be .How else can you explain our desire to receive enlightenment or absolution day after television day from Geraldo or Ricky or Oprah.So count me among the gullible. Count me among the curious. Because I had come to this gallery on this night in July
to see this Vartiom person.
I had to see for myself.
And there he was. Beckoning to the chosen around him.
Holding court like an unacknowledged person of nobility and rank due to some dubious parentage straight from the tear drenched pages of a Tolstoy epic.
The various patrons began to cluster around him. They did not want to miss a word of his repartee or colorful discourse.
That voice of his. Melodic. Hypnotic. Evoking whatever he wished. Like Olivier or other great performers. That same feeling and intensity. Elongating all vowels giving a certain style and beguiling lilt to his speech.
Whether it was natural or adopted, this affected dialect, had its desired effect on the crowd.
“My mother was Armenian and my father was a Jew,” he stated. “So, you see I am not Russian. Also to let me clarify grave misrepresentation of Soviet expression a al Russe...”
He paused making sure everyone was with him. As if he were the conductor waiting for the orchestra to follow his cues.
“Originally a la Russe meant that one’s left and one’s right shoes or boot were identical and interchangeable.”
He became more animated as the monologue progressed.
“To borrow phrase from western advertising promotions for Amerikan women’s cigarette commercials to show how far cause and role of women has come in this great country and everywhere else...,” he paused. Tilting his head downward and lowering his gaze. Forcing our eyes to follow his.
He tapped first his right foot then his left on the floor in a
slow—motion dance step. At the same time making sure we would take notice of the expensive pair of half—boots that adorned his feet. Then he said in good humor:”...We Russkis have also come a long way — BeeBee.
His way of pronouncing “baby” was so non—threatening. So entertaining and seemingly unassuming. As if he was new to everything and unspoiled. But always there was a point of seriousness just under the surface. Barely discernible, but nonetheless there. Waiting for Vartiom to bring what he wanted to be brought out into the open and apparent to us all.
The small circle of amused listeners chuckled. Trying not to be obvious as they glanced quickly again at his feet to make sure there was indeed both a left and a right fitting shoe.
I first met Vartiom Vosvaricek at this reception given for suddenly dicovered Russian artists at this high—toned gallery.
When I say suddenly discovered; I mean to say that they were recently discovered by American galleries seeking to make money off the influx of Russian art at what was for the gallery owners, a very agreeable rate of exchange.
The owners pay the artists very little. The artists are thrilled at being free of Communist repression and grateful to be exhibited in a profit—driven democracy.
Consequently the whole theory of capitalistic exploitation gets a new lease on life.
And the owners make out better than blackmarketeers selling designer jeans while stuffing their pockets with hard currency on a Leningrad street.
Eager patrons of the arts become engorged in a feeding frenzy believing that art by these tortured masses must surely be worth more than modern American art of the less than deprived masses.
Besides the galleries have given their assurals and promises of money back guarantees.
The salespeople and owners have even provided letters of authenticity that these works will appreciate quickly in the coming years.
It doesn’t matter that two out of every three nouveau art galleries leave no forwarding address within the space of a year when they go out of business.
Which must prove that anyone will listen to anything given the proper setting and circumstance. Or perhaps the proper accent.
Anything that smacks of Russian culture has been flooding into
America since the fall of “the Wall” and the new policy of glasnost.
It doesn’t matter who is in charge over
there anymore. Gorby. Boris. Vlad, Viktor. Whichever of the rehabilitated and resurrected Marx brothers.
Everything is coming out of the old Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics and landing here. Sometimes inadvertently even old
Soyuz space satellites.
This includes the special talent of one who goes by the name of Vartiom Vosvaricek.
That evening I was to discover that: 1) no one ever addresses Mr. Vosvaricek as anything but Vartiom, 2) that he is not a visual artist and only considers himself Russian when it’s convenient; and 3), he continually speaks of himself in the third person.
There s another thing I was to learn that night. Vartiom was a Russian, no excuse me, an Armenian and Jewish, psycholinguistics ‘expert’ with a PH.D. from Moscow State University.
I do know that psycholinguistics is the study of the mental
states and process as it pertains to language or speech. But I
had never realized its operational value until I encountered
Vartiom. I’m sure there is a Moscow State but whether Vartiom has
a PH.D. in anything is immaterial.
What Vartiom does best is tell a story. He can make people believe whatever he wants them to believe.
Gina 0. was Vartiom’ s escort for that evening. He also is currently her live-in lover. She buys him clothes and whatever else he needs.
I heard this through the gossip grapevine. Because like most cities that appear to be large and cosmopolitan — there are in actuality very few members of the truly knowledgeable social set. The word gets out very quickly on any juicy new tidbit.
Gina is completely mesmerized by him. She dotes on his every word and gesture.
She is constantly by his side. As if she was strapped to him somehow. Buckled together by an imaginary seat belt. Both of them hanging together for the ride.
That evening I saw her replace his empty wine glass and direct him to meet others so he could begin his spell all over again. She guided him to corners of the room when the conversation started to lag.
Which it never did when Vartiom was given the opportunity to ensnare his audience with his sui generis proto—Freudian brambles and thickets of life in the supreme Soviet.
But let me describe Gina for you as she draped herself casually against Vartiom.
Her bare shoulder rubbed against him intimately in this public party where it was now customary to be aloof and standoffish rather than forward and direct.
Is this show of affection usually avoided because we now live in the age of a dreaded virus or because we live in an age of equally dreaded puritanical fundamentalism? Are we all afraid to be drawn in and then captured by someone or something? Are we all afraid besides Gina and her Vartiom to put ourselves at risk and to abandon ourselves in a brief moments hesitation for an adventurous fiction we wish all our lives to be at times. Are we afraid of those stereotypical fantasies which remain unfulfilled and lurking in the backs of all our uptight ids?
But I digress. Back to the gallery and to Gina. She has a disciplined beauty.
Long copper colored hair. Shining. Lustrous. Green eyes the color of pristine southern seas. Gina works out aerobically on a regular basis.
And she certainly looks incredible in the Adolpho Morizetti designer strapless bright blue silk cocktail dress she’s got on for this party. The sheerness of the fabric makes her look more naked than if she wearing nothing at all. The short frock shows off her deliciously tanned body and of course anyone who knows fashion knows that Morizetti’s start at 25hundred and up and as the length and fabric gets less — the cost becomes even more.
Aside from good taste and a streak of playful exhibitionism; Gina has a master’s degree in English specializing in Feminist Writers before 1800.
Gina’s in her late thirties. Independently wealthy from her family’s money in the northwest California timber business. One divorce with a hefty settlement from her ex, a dentist. No children at present but perhaps Vartiom would be obliging. Who knows what will happen in the present or in the future or at any given moment when something extraordinarily will occur?
The obvious issue is — Gina’s completely taken with Vartiom. This woman has everything going for her and she’s not suffering from the rebound syndrome. Vartiom just has this certain appeal. Call it charm. Call it sex—appeal. Call it what you will. He exudes whatever it is.
Let’s look at Vartiom for a second. He’s attractive. Large
lips. Baby soft and pink. Inviting kisses. Strong nose. Flaring nostrils. Full head of hair. Brown, glossy with a few specks of grey. Fixed into a pompadour style, very retro. Very hip. Sparkling brown eyes. Heavy lids. Hinting of secrets and sadness. Like Robert Mitchum. Like Elvis. Like Lenny Bruce, the comedian. Like Bill Clinton, the political ‘schmoozer’. That tragically haunting face which doled out barbed humor of social conscience which always had a vein of sorrow close to the surface.
He’s probably in his early forties. I guess the best way to describe Vartiom is that he has the handsome good-looks of all the political candidates you’d like to trust and have faith in. Thin about 6 foot. His posture is straight. Reserved. Military like. Vartiom looks unapproachable. But something inside us wants to make contact with him.
And then he starts to speak. To tell his tales.
That’s when all of his body comes alive. It moves and his inner-self pulls at you. It tugs at your perceptions. He does it with a nod. The lift of an eyebrow. A gesture. A word. His eyes make contact and never let you go while his body movements and aura he sends out caress you and make you feel he is addressing only you.
His voice is the sea. He can make it wave tossed and threateningly cold and perilous. Or he can make it warmly secure and serene like your favorite bathwater.
As far as anyone knows Vartiom does not work. The rumors are that at lectures he gives on psycholinguistics (he charges up to $10,000 for 45 minutes) all he does is talk. Not much information on psycho—linguistics. No formulas. No great theorems. No diagrams or charts in day—glo snappy pastel colures. No light—laser pointer sticks to trace whatever’s on some screen. Just stories by Vartiom.
It doesn’t matter that someone in the Russian or Jewish or Armenian communities who knows someone who knows someone who knows Vartiom states that he’s got a wife and four children back in the former Soviet Union.
I heard this after the gallery party in the swirls of gossip that followed him.
It does not bother Vartiom. It does not seem to have any effect on Gina.
These unsubstantiated savorys add to his mystery. All of it adds to his mystique.
With Gina at his side, Vartiom goes into what I can only describe as his performance. His ‘shtick’. Like a professional actor or story—teller doing their thing.
Maybe that’s the definition of a psycholinguistics. Someone who just likes to talk in public.
Vartiom is irresistible in that foreign way that makes you feel you are listening to someone worldly. Someone who knows more than you do. Someone to whom you must give attention.
He uses our deep rooted sense of social inferiority. Americans have always sent their eligible sons and daughters to Europe and elsewhere. To attain the respectability of status and place. Ask the Astor’s. Ask the Vanderbilt’s. Foreign equals better. Foreign equates to greater experience. Foreign means their culture is more sophisticated.
“I love this country,” says Vartiom staring directly into Gina’s eyes.
“This is great country and women in Moscow are not so very beautiful as here.”
Gina glows. Her pulse races as the lit blue veins around the cleavage of her breasts spread a luster over her that increases the bronzed effect of her dark tan.
“In Russian, the word krasnya means both red and beautiful. But not all Red women are beautiful. But here many beautiful women.” He looks at Gina and his eyes then move from woman to woman around him. They are lingering on his every word.
Vartiom is outfitted in a white—on-white Otto Bass double breasted suit. He looks like a prophet in purest Semite which contrasts dramatically with most of the artwork on display.
Giant canvases of harsh colors adorn the walls. More like streaks of anger. Everything heavy and overblown. Distorted figures in unfriendly tones. Yellows that become muddy with jaundice and blot out all hope of life. Greens that are not vibrant forests of growth but impending putrefactions of the soul. And everywhere slashes of the deepest red and most ominous black.
All on sale for the buying public. Because we have been told this is where art is going at the end of our century. The sufferings of personality are now viewed as an excuse for art. We have been manipulated and trained to acknowledge the opinions of experts.
But what exactly is an expert?
Where do we find them? And how would we know one if we met them? Or are they, these so—called experts, with impressive degrees and titles from prestigious universities and boasting the best resumes of influential connections — just salespeople. Telling us what we want to hear?
Vartiom would be great at selling anything. Refrigerators, used cars, you name it. He knows he is always in control. He uses not only his voice — but his body to produce telepathic language.
No. I am not an ESP cultist or a “new wave” adherent of out-of-body experience. But I saw the images he wanted me to see.
Vartiom slowly opened his eyes wider. They brightened as if you could see all 200 rooms of the Catherine Palace ablaze in pre-Revolutionary splendor and vitality. All those rooms filled with treasures and memories. Polished floors of checkerboard marble where great games of life and pretense had been played. The brightness reflected off the lapis and gold leaf from the last roaring flames of laughter before the end of the Czars.
But there is in his eyes a darkness also. The brooding shadows which stereotypes the Russian character.
Always an element of tragedy even in humor.
Vartiom uses the audience as if he were the ringmaster at the circus.
First bringing on the clowns to delight and entertain. Then summoning the danger as if he were a sorcerer like Prospero able to magically produce the threatening storm and chords of thunderous drama.
All the practiced movements setting up the grand finale. Then ending with the man out of the cannon act.
Leaving the spectators a little awed. Wondering how the man is shot from the gun only to land safely in the net.
Or is it all sham and illusion?
“I am in New Haven at Yale. Giving lecture to, how you say..., he waits a brief second to reduce the moment to one of supple effect. He runs his right hand along the top of his head as if in thought. “...Ah, yes,” he continues, “big—shots. You know Kissinger, Bruzinski , and yes I see Solzhenitsyn sneak in at the end.”
No matter that Alexander Solzhenitsyn supposedly hadn’t left his refuge in Vermont for fifteen years until he recently returned to the new Russia. No matter that there is no record of any of these being together at Yale or anywhere else at one time. The way Vartiom pronounces all those names with their s’s and z’s; he makes it sound so right. So believable.
All of us want to be near greatness and power and authority.
Rock stars have their groupies. Politicians have their hangers-
on. Sports heroes have their fans. It is inbred in our psyche to trust and admire. Ever since childhood.
He is a famous émigré, or at least an educated one. So why shouldn’t he have given a speech to all these important leaders? All foreigners probably know each other. Doesn’t that make sense?
“They all here for my lecture about psycholinguistics so I tell them about my experiences with Black peoples in this country where you have problem with oppressed minorities.”
At first because of the way Vartiom pronounced “peoples” as “pee—bels”; I thought Vartiom was speaking of the talented Black actor Melvin van Peebles and several progeny who were also in the motion picture business.
Somehow, I knew this homophonic use was intentional. But I didn’t know where Vartiom was going to take us. In the back of my mind there was a trap here. A piece of cheese designed to get the mouse lured into the box. And we were the mice.
A middle—age gentleman in the crowd, bored with abstract paintings hanging on the walls, and stuffed with his own intelligence and success, had overheard Vartiom’s comment. Taking a moment to clear his mouth of salt—free cracker spread generously with Caspian grey caviar; he stepped slightly toward Vartiom and politely challenged Vartiom to tell all those assembled what he knew about the problems of race in this country.
Or had Vartiom purposely arranged this scenario in the same way that the great Red Army led the Wehrmacht into the disasters at Stalingrad and Kursk.
The trap had been set.
“I know first hand,” Vartiom stated unequivocally with a sly smile. “When I am staying in New Haven I decide to take trip to New York City. It is late at night and I do not want to wake my friend. So I just take her car and since I have no key.. .I. ..what is the Amerikan term.. .Yes. . .I hot—wire the car and take to New York — the Big Apple.”
Grins from most of the crowd at Vartiom’s cute colloquialisms. And a not so subtle hint that Vartiom likes American women and they like him on both coasts.
“I go to New York along highway. I see polizei with lights on and he chase me for a while. I think I must be in big trouble. When In Moscva when polizei come for you it is not so little problem as not having license.” It is said almost as an aside. A throw away line. But no lines are ever wasted by Vartiom. “Besides I drive same way here as drive there so should be no problem. So Vartiom has to think fast. I am with someone else’s automobile and have no reason to be there. So when I pull over this big-city
Americanski state polizei has hand on gun come over to me and say - Hey buddy what gives? What’s da rush? Did’ja know how fast you were going? Dis ain’t no Indy 500 course ya know. Hey buddy are you crazy or sum thin’ weavin’ in and outa traffic like dat?”
He has changed his pronunciation, grammar, and tone to sound like someone with a New York accent. Or at least what is credible to us as a typical New Yorker speaking to us.
Effortlessly he is back in his voice and character.
“So Vartiom think quick and say...I not crazy I am Russian.”
The group of listeners laughs. Vartiom times his delay perfectly once again as he waits for the laughter to subside.
“He ask me I knew how fast car is going? I tell him I do what sign says.
Then Vartiom told us the policeman asked him what did he mean by “doing” what the sign said?
Vartiom is back in his own persona once again, “I say I drive
95. I not want to disobey posted speed limit.”
Then the voice of the cop was back. “That’s interstate highway number not da’speed limit.”
So Vartiom continues the Abbott and Costello meanderings of language, “I say I am Russian. How should I know what speed limit
is.
The crowd is laughing.
Back and forth the voices come and go. Vartiom. The policeman. Vartiom again. In and out. Like the tapestry of an intricate design being woven before us in this climate controlled enclave of art.
“So 1 ask him oshkee pannomeye? Which mean in mother—tongue if he speak or understand Russian. Then I ask him if he speak Armenian, Lithuanian, or Polish. He speak none of them. Then I ask if he know someone who come and help me speak with him. He say he had cousin once by marriage who spoke Polish - but he divorced. He finally say for me to get outta here and go away.”
Vartiom tells us how the policeman waved to him after telling him to be careful and have a good time in America. “I wave back,” he says raising his hand and exaggerating the motion as if he were wiping the windshield of some car. “I keep waving and yell to him das vidanya and get out of there real quick.”
Which has no bearing on the original question of Vartiom’ s experiences with race in this country.
But no one reminds him of this as he continues to be the focus of every ones attention. Even the gallery salespeople have come over to listen to this Russian. They are tired of examining the latest somber painted wave of suffering that graces the meticulously white walls.
This is a real live Russian. And an amusing one at that. It softens the stereotype somewhat of severity and melancholia so cultivated by the Technicolor heartbreak of Doctor Zhivago.
“Is very confusing your highway system,” says Vartiom. “It late at night and easy to get lost. In New York FDR drive not go where Vartiom want and Harlem River and East River Drives confuse Vartiom.”
My mind reacts to the stimulus and I find myself blaming the highway system no matter where it is with its ineffective signage and thousands of turnoffs to nowhere. He has made me not only concur but feel a comradeship with his dilemma.
“So Vartiom get to New York off Cross-Bornx which look a lot like memorial outside Moscva for old war relics and tanks and guns of great patriotic war. Maybe look more like junkyard with cars and tires and batteries and mufflers all over the road.”
There are small chuckles from the audience. We have all seen pictures of what we imagine decrepit New York to look like.
We are tuning to his wavelength. He is broadcasting and we are receiving.
Vartiom is mimicking driving by holding his arms out in front of him at the 10—2 position as if he is gripping the steering wheel of an automobile.
As he speaks the words, he pulls down hard with his right and up on his left as if he is sharply turning. “Vartiom take exit and get off instead of going to Radio City to see Rockettes and get world’s famous foot—long hot dog at Nathan’s and see Times Square.. .I wind up in place called Harlem.”
The story skids to a halt. Amid the smell of lacquer and expensive perfume and moneyed excess — a scene of another sort is materializing. Vartiom has made the word sound as if it had a dozen syllables. He lets it reverberate around the
room. “H—a—a—a—R—R—R—R—R—L—e—e—em.
It was as if he was his own echo. All we kept hearing was “Harl em———Harl em———Harl em”.
I almost thought he’d said “harm them”.
Vartiom is directing our minds as surely and masterfully as with a VCR cassette. His words about to press all the correct buttons
of our imaginations. Ready to bring up the correct scene on our digitally sensitized tapes.
“Vartiom drive around it three o’clock and no one out. Vartiom wonder where everybody go. Where all the clubs. Where all the life. Not even MacDonald’s. Even Moscva have MacDonald’s. Not open at night but we have golden arches. Vartiom stop for traffic light because I no want trouble with polizei again.”
And then Vartiom sprung and closed the metal hinges of the trap.
His voice changed and got breathier. Scared. I could see beads of moisture beginning to form on his brow and upper lip. He pulled his head back into his shoulders as if the fear had forced him to draw into himself.
He told how suddenly three men came from out of nowhere. Three men from out of the darkness suddenly jumped in the car. One was on the passenger seat next to him and the other two were in the backseat. The intruder in the front seat pushed a sharpened screwdriver at him. The pointed metal tip reflected crazily from the interior green glow of instrument lights.
“Yo bro we be stealing this here car.” Vartiom has changed again. He lowered his voice pouring out hate and menace. A voice imitating the sound and speech of what surely must be a Black male.
This Russian psycholinguistics has tapped into our prejudices. Our fears. Our supposed upper middle class snobbishness. Our aristocratic caste system.
After all who among us would want this to happen to them? And all of us picture Harlem as a fearsome place as well as the lawless people who we are sure live there.
Vartiom is a consummate story—teller. Like a puppeteer knowing exactly which string to pull and when to achieve the desired motion.
Vartiom’s eyes took on the panicked white scalars of an ambushed animal. He rubbed his hands together to emphasize his anxiety and the predicament he’d created with his words.
“Vartiom in pretty bad spot,” he said shaking his head quickly and hunching his shoulders up. Each gesture adding to his supposed quandary as to what he would do to extricate himself from this predicament.
He explained to us how he thought he was about to meet his end on that dark Harlem street. The fear of not knowing what his fate would be. The terror of what could happen to any of us.
It didn’t matter that it was Harlem in New York anymore. Any wrong turn into an unknown neighborhood could mean death these days. It could happen. We had all seen it on the television news and in the newspapers.
Finally, Vartiom smacked a clenched right fist into the palm of his other hand.
The sound snapped us to attention. It was an overture to the physical violence we are sure must come.
His face contorted in a grimace of what could be pain or anger; Vartiom’s arms appeared to shoot from his crisp white sleeve cuffs He reached out and closed his fingers as if grabbing something and then pulling it up and over his head.
He described to us that what he had done was to reach underneath the steering wheel and tear apart the same wires he had “hot—wired”.
“Vartiom show disconnected wires to my brothers in struggle for economic and social equality and tell them that I, Vartiom have already stolen this imperialist symbol of class warfare.” He emphasized this by slapping one hand on his chest when he spoke the word “I”. “And yes,” he continued, “I then ask them ——— how can they steal car I have already stolen?”
His audience ate it up. As if they couldn’t get enough of this wonderfully improbable stroganoff where everything was so mixed up together. Pathos. Drama. Comedy.
Vartiom concocted a marvelous stew of improbable happenstance and had been spoon feeding this delicious compote to his guests.
And we enjoyed each delicious scene.
“So we sit there. They look at each other for long time. And then I know Vartiom have them,” he said and snapped his
fingers. Another bit of dramaturgy that is effective and exclamatory. Vartiom allowed his perfectly white teeth to show.
Even Gina’s ex the dentist would have fallen in love with Vartiom’s mouth. No sign of Soviet dentistry here. No gutta percha patchwork job. No blackened spots oozing neglect. A full set of teeth without blemish. As sparkly as a movie star’s.
Fitting for a character such as Vartiom in his leading role. The center of attention. Glittering bright like melting ice crystals under the warm sun as it beams over frozen Siberian steppes.
All eyes were on him as he slowly took a sip of wine. Timing the gesture.
Licking the intensity off his lips.
“Then I say to my brothers in our fight against capitalistic exploitation — What for you want to take car. You should be in Moscva.” Vartiom made a fist and raised his arm in a “Black Power ‘‘ salute.
He moved his face closer to us and we could feel the energy exploding into us as a torrent of words poured out.
“Yes I say in Moscva three Black men like you would be treated as gods. You no have to steal automobile. You no have to rob to live. I tell them I, Vartiom, have seen it myself when African men, descendants of kings and princes, come to Soviet to study.”
We were caught in the claustrophobic closeness of a car. Alone with three Black men in the middle of a Harlem night.
As spell struck as they must have been. Listening to Vartiom as he continued to speak in staccato bursts of words that. He was molding our thoughts as if we had been raw magma waiting for the steelworker to hammer us into some shape.
Vartiom told us just as he told the three would-be car thieves how women in the Soviet Union would throw themselves at the feet of these men. How women there would adore them. How they would worship them. Vartiom slowly pointed to the audience as he had pointed to them. “Men just like you. Young. Strong. You go to Moscva,” he said. “Vartiom know you go there and you live like kings. Those women there will support you. They take care of you. They wash your bodies with their long blonde hair. You never have to do anything again. And that exactly what Vartiom say to them.”
That is when a woman standing off to the side near one of the walls asked what finally happened.
As if she was a part of the snake oil pitchman and his traveling show.
As if she were a paid claque at the opera in the early days of the great Caruso. A shill who was told to applaud and cheer not knowing if the singing was good or bad. Hoping to incite the audience with feigned enthusiasm.
As if Vartiom expected she would help him deliver the punch—line.
Back in the dialect and accent of an American Black male, Vartiom carefully rubs his chin and grins telling us that one of those men in the backseat asked; “Yo bro...where be this place called Moscva and how does we get there?”
The Black male voice he had imitated had adopted Vartiom’ s way of saying “MosK-Va” instead of Moscow.
Vartiom still held his chin. Grinning. Waiting for the reaction.
Everyone laughed. And they continued to laugh. At the absurdity of the situation. At the difference in class or race. At how seemingly easily Vartiom had triumphed. Of his appeal to our prejudices and fears.
There is no mention of the ultimate outcome of the confrontation, if it happened at all.
He had played with us. Toyed with us. Teased us.
Now it was time to bring on the tears. While we were still off balance and vulnerable.
“Back in Soviet always were people who listen. At parties like we have here. Nice parties. Good food. Plenty to drink. Not so good wine but still plenty to drink. All the time we drink to feel good. We drink too much. We say things people should not say. Words some do not want to hear.”
He stopped talking. Distracted by memories. Slowly he deliberately circled the rim of a wine glass with his index finger. As if the smoothness of the fragile surface was bringing back an image to him.
His eyes were far away. His voice melancholy. Subdued.
“Next day in university class some seats empty. Eventually fill with other students,” he specified. “We learn when to speak.” He let the final sentence hang in the air like storm clouds. His eyebrows closed together in unbroken horizon line as the painful darkness gathered.
The dread of unspoken terrors. Prison cells without light. No one else to hear your words.
Erased from the world without a trace as easily as touching the delete key on a computer.
Then Vartiom was back with us. Smiling. Those perfect white movie star teeth acknowledging everything was aright.
Come out of your brief trance.
No reason to let your eyes cloud over with tears or sentiment.
He took Gina’s hand, kissing it in the continental manner. His lips gently tracing over the skin. Than he began to sing what probably was a love song in Russian. Not just to Gina but to the entire crowd. Willing us to hear the accompanying strings of the balalaika. The lovely bittersweet tones.
I can still feel whatever Vartiom’s testimony produced in me that night.
I still don’t know what psycholinguistics do. No one that has come in contact with Vartiom can figure out what he does either.
But I did approach him after his story and the song, asking him if he was familiar with an old Russian proverb that I had heard which translates to something like, “...when you meet an angel that touches you, never let that angel go.”
I don’t know why I thought of that phrase or why I even asked Vartiom about it. Something compelled me to say those words and to this day I have no idea why.
Vartiom nodded. Smiled. Took another sip of wine.
“I am not angel ,“ he said placing his left hand on my shoulder, “I am Russian.”
-
to 'THE BEAR'
forgive the imposition AND thought the following short-story might be of interest to you - regards zaj
Vartiom is no angel
“It is funny how you Amerikans think everyone from further west of Berlin as Russian. I am not Russian,” said Vartiom(pronounced var-tOOM, emphasis on the OOM) to those around him in the art gallery.
The comment was, even though none of us were aware of it at the moment, a way of preparing all of us in attendance for what was to come this Friday evening.
He made this pronouncement only after his female escourt introduced him to a group of opening night regulars as, “…an escaped Russian dissident seeking academic freedom.”
I was in attendance for this show and reception at a certain salon(whose initials are synonymous with avant—garde culture) off Union Square in San Francisco and whose client list and reputation are impeccable.
You meet all kinds of people at “art openings” in the very posh Union Square area. The exclusive galleries, shops, and chilly lobbies of 5—Star Hotels surround the small park from which the section gets its name.
Between these “one—of—a-kind” showrooms and various world famous banks and corporate offices are very fashionable department stores: big mausoleum looking places with expensive chandeliers and good looking sales men and women everywhere wishing to change your scent or your “look”.
At any given time of day besides the early hours of morning, except for those who don’t work or those who submit themselves to the sadomasochistic practices of jogging or the “power—walk” or the trendy gluttony of the “power—breakfast”; you’ll find all sorts of folks at or traversing through the park. Bankers and lawyers, their obligatory dark suits and stern faces making them look funereal like undertakers waiting for the next client to enrich their day as they purposefully stride to important meetings. Left over hippies, outfitted in brightly hallucenogenic tye-dyed colors from the peace and LSD love days of freesex just hanging out. Waiting for the return of Havens or Joplin or another toke passed around from the good herb.
You’ll find Inca percussion bands dressed in ponchos of rainbow colours sharing the same noise space as older women dressed in parancia who serenade flocks of incessant pigeons with show tunes from “The King and I”, “Showboat”, “Carousel”, and other sure crowd pleasers.
Sidewalk artist vendors hawk original oil paintings for as little as $29.99 for a 24inch by 36inch canvas. Guaranteeing all these paintings to be the artists’ best work. Even trough they’ve never met or know anything about the purported painter who created what they are selling. Never meeting the artist just the broker who assigns them what to sell on commission.
But heh, so what if the artist speaks only Chinese, or Korean or one of another dozen or so languages in countries where this art is created. Art is art. And as long as you can convince someone of that — that’s all that matters.
Just like the galleries. It is good art because the salespeople tell you it is. And if it’s good — you’ve got to pay. And the more you pay the better it is. Of course.
You’ll meet all kinds of people in this part of the city.
It’s where the affluent come to be patrons of the arts and to be seen.
It’s where women have always “just come” from Elizabeth Arden or their personal trainers and don’t want to admit they’ve just been there. They’ve been buffed and pampered and want to show off that they can afford it.
It’s where successful men who have settled into their flesh can get away with a paunch and losing their hair because they have money instead of youth.
And the affluent wannabe’s, a.k.a. those wishing to push themselves into this society, (Is yuppies a term still in vogue?) want to be seen with the affluent, or semi—affluent, or artists, or anyone who “looks the part”.
These status seekers want to be seen among just about anyone who could be classified as wealthy or possessing the sangfroid of social acceptability. Notwithstanding a monetary criteria; being seen among “artsy types” or others that could be deemed at least uniquely interesting or a sort described clicheishly as “one of a kind ‘‘ — would suffice.
And Vartiom(pronounced var—tOOM, emphasis on the OOM) as I had been instructed to enunciate his name by Gina during that evening, is certainly one of a kind.
I had heard rumors of him before. And in truth I was curious to see what he was like in person.
It had been a long—time since someone had created such an impression on the tight social scene in this city. Not since Anna Smith; the diminutive pretender who claimed to be the long lost Anastasia, Grand Duchess of all the Russias, had ensconced herself into the lesser receptions here on the bay — had there been such a buzz.
And it really didn’t matter that most knew that this Anastasia; this self-proclaimed survivor of the massacre in the cellar at Ekaterinaburg; this woman who demanded the courtesies of royal treatment — had been certainly identified as the former Rose Polaski of Cleveland, Ohio. It was the foreigness and allure that made people want to see for themselves. Wherever she went the
curious flocked to the event. To get a glimpse. Perhaps more. Perhaps a private audience of innocuous conversation.
Because even knowing she most likely was an imposter — they wanted to believe.
No matter how improbable, all of us, have this compulsion to want to trust not in our logic — but in how we wish things would be .How else can you explain our desire to receive enlightenment or absolution day after television day from Geraldo or Ricky or Oprah.So count me among the gullible. Count me among the curious. Because I had come to this gallery on this night in July
to see this Vartiom person.
I had to see for myself.
And there he was. Beckoning to the chosen around him.
Holding court like an unacknowledged person of nobility and rank due to some dubious parentage straight from the tear drenched pages of a Tolstoy epic.
The various patrons began to cluster around him. They did not want to miss a word of his repartee or colorful discourse.
That voice of his. Melodic. Hypnotic. Evoking whatever he wished. Like Olivier or other great performers. That same feeling and intensity. Elongating all vowels giving a certain style and beguiling lilt to his speech.
Whether it was natural or adopted, this affected dialect, had its desired effect on the crowd.
“My mother was Armenian and my father was a Jew,” he stated. “So, you see I am not Russian. Also to let me clarify grave misrepresentation of Soviet expression a al Russe...”
He paused making sure everyone was with him. As if he were the conductor waiting for the orchestra to follow his cues.
“Originally a la Russe meant that one’s left and one’s right shoes or boot were identical and interchangeable.”
He became more animated as the monologue progressed.
“To borrow phrase from western advertising promotions for Amerikan women’s cigarette commercials to show how far cause and role of women has come in this great country and everywhere else...,” he paused. Tilting his head downward and lowering his gaze. Forcing our eyes to follow his.
He tapped first his right foot then his left on the floor in a
slow—motion dance step. At the same time making sure we would take notice of the expensive pair of half—boots that adorned his feet. Then he said in good humor:”...We Russkis have also come a long way — BeeBee.
His way of pronouncing “baby” was so non—threatening. So entertaining and seemingly unassuming. As if he was new to everything and unspoiled. But always there was a point of seriousness just under the surface. Barely discernible, but nonetheless there. Waiting for Vartiom to bring what he wanted to be brought out into the open and apparent to us all.
The small circle of amused listeners chuckled. Trying not to be obvious as they glanced quickly again at his feet to make sure there was indeed both a left and a right fitting shoe.
I first met Vartiom Vosvaricek at this reception given for suddenly dicovered Russian artists at this high—toned gallery.
When I say suddenly discovered; I mean to say that they were recently discovered by American galleries seeking to make money off the influx of Russian art at what was for the gallery owners, a very agreeable rate of exchange.
The owners pay the artists very little. The artists are thrilled at being free of Communist repression and grateful to be exhibited in a profit—driven democracy.
Consequently the whole theory of capitalistic exploitation gets a new lease on life.
And the owners make out better than blackmarketeers selling designer jeans while stuffing their pockets with hard currency on a Leningrad street.
Eager patrons of the arts become engorged in a feeding frenzy believing that art by these tortured masses must surely be worth more than modern American art of the less than deprived masses.
Besides the galleries have given their assurals and promises of money back guarantees.
The salespeople and owners have even provided letters of authenticity that these works will appreciate quickly in the coming years.
It doesn’t matter that two out of every three nouveau art galleries leave no forwarding address within the space of a year when they go out of business.
Which must prove that anyone will listen to anything given the proper setting and circumstance. Or perhaps the proper accent.
Anything that smacks of Russian culture has been flooding into
America since the fall of “the Wall” and the new policy of glasnost.
It doesn’t matter who is in charge over
there anymore. Gorby. Boris. Vlad, Viktor. Whichever of the rehabilitated and resurrected Marx brothers.
Everything is coming out of the old Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics and landing here. Sometimes inadvertently even old
Soyuz space satellites.
This includes the special talent of one who goes by the name of Vartiom Vosvaricek.
That evening I was to discover that: 1) no one ever addresses Mr. Vosvaricek as anything but Vartiom, 2) that he is not a visual artist and only considers himself Russian when it’s convenient; and 3), he continually speaks of himself in the third person.
There s another thing I was to learn that night. Vartiom was a Russian, no excuse me, an Armenian and Jewish, psycholinguistics ‘expert’ with a PH.D. from Moscow State University.
I do know that psycholinguistics is the study of the mental
states and process as it pertains to language or speech. But I
had never realized its operational value until I encountered
Vartiom. I’m sure there is a Moscow State but whether Vartiom has
a PH.D. in anything is immaterial.
What Vartiom does best is tell a story. He can make people believe whatever he wants them to believe.
Gina 0. was Vartiom’ s escort for that evening. He also is currently her live-in lover. She buys him clothes and whatever else he needs.
I heard this through the gossip grapevine. Because like most cities that appear to be large and cosmopolitan — there are in actuality very few members of the truly knowledgeable social set. The word gets out very quickly on any juicy new tidbit.
Gina is completely mesmerized by him. She dotes on his every word and gesture.
She is constantly by his side. As if she was strapped to him somehow. Buckled together by an imaginary seat belt. Both of them hanging together for the ride.
That evening I saw her replace his empty wine glass and direct him to meet others so he could begin his spell all over again. She guided him to corners of the room when the conversation started to lag.
Which it never did when Vartiom was given the opportunity to ensnare his audience with his sui generis proto—Freudian brambles and thickets of life in the supreme Soviet.
But let me describe Gina for you as she draped herself casually against Vartiom.
Her bare shoulder rubbed against him intimately in this public party where it was now customary to be aloof and standoffish rather than forward and direct.
Is this show of affection usually avoided because we now live in the age of a dreaded virus or because we live in an age of equally dreaded puritanical fundamentalism? Are we all afraid to be drawn in and then captured by someone or something? Are we all afraid besides Gina and her Vartiom to put ourselves at risk and to abandon ourselves in a brief moments hesitation for an adventurous fiction we wish all our lives to be at times. Are we afraid of those stereotypical fantasies which remain unfulfilled and lurking in the backs of all our uptight ids?
But I digress. Back to the gallery and to Gina. She has a disciplined beauty.
Long copper colored hair. Shining. Lustrous. Green eyes the color of pristine southern seas. Gina works out aerobically on a regular basis.
And she certainly looks incredible in the Adolpho Morizetti designer strapless bright blue silk cocktail dress she’s got on for this party. The sheerness of the fabric makes her look more naked than if she wearing nothing at all. The short frock shows off her deliciously tanned body and of course anyone who knows fashion knows that Morizetti’s start at 25hundred and up and as the length and fabric gets less — the cost becomes even more.
Aside from good taste and a streak of playful exhibitionism; Gina has a master’s degree in English specializing in Feminist Writers before 1800.
Gina’s in her late thirties. Independently wealthy from her family’s money in the northwest California timber business. One divorce with a hefty settlement from her ex, a dentist. No children at present but perhaps Vartiom would be obliging. Who knows what will happen in the present or in the future or at any given moment when something extraordinarily will occur?
The obvious issue is — Gina’s completely taken with Vartiom. This woman has everything going for her and she’s not suffering from the rebound syndrome. Vartiom just has this certain appeal. Call it charm. Call it sex—appeal. Call it what you will. He exudes whatever it is.
Let’s look at Vartiom for a second. He’s attractive. Large
lips. Baby soft and pink. Inviting kisses. Strong nose. Flaring nostrils. Full head of hair. Brown, glossy with a few specks of grey. Fixed into a pompadour style, very retro. Very hip. Sparkling brown eyes. Heavy lids. Hinting of secrets and sadness. Like Robert Mitchum. Like Elvis. Like Lenny Bruce, the comedian. Like Bill Clinton, the political ‘schmoozer’. That tragically haunting face which doled out barbed humor of social conscience which always had a vein of sorrow close to the surface.
He’s probably in his early forties. I guess the best way to describe Vartiom is that he has the handsome good-looks of all the political candidates you’d like to trust and have faith in. Thin about 6 foot. His posture is straight. Reserved. Military like. Vartiom looks unapproachable. But something inside us wants to make contact with him.
And then he starts to speak. To tell his tales.
That’s when all of his body comes alive. It moves and his inner-self pulls at you. It tugs at your perceptions. He does it with a nod. The lift of an eyebrow. A gesture. A word. His eyes make contact and never let you go while his body movements and aura he sends out caress you and make you feel he is addressing only you.
His voice is the sea. He can make it wave tossed and threateningly cold and perilous. Or he can make it warmly secure and serene like your favorite bathwater.
As far as anyone knows Vartiom does not work. The rumors are that at lectures he gives on psycholinguistics (he charges up to $10,000 for 45 minutes) all he does is talk. Not much information on psycho—linguistics. No formulas. No great theorems. No diagrams or charts in day—glo snappy pastel colures. No light—laser pointer sticks to trace whatever’s on some screen. Just stories by Vartiom.
It doesn’t matter that someone in the Russian or Jewish or Armenian communities who knows someone who knows someone who knows Vartiom states that he’s got a wife and four children back in the former Soviet Union.
I heard this after the gallery party in the swirls of gossip that followed him.
It does not bother Vartiom. It does not seem to have any effect on Gina.
These unsubstantiated savorys add to his mystery. All of it adds to his mystique.
With Gina at his side, Vartiom goes into what I can only describe as his performance. His ‘shtick’. Like a professional actor or story—teller doing their thing.
Maybe that’s the definition of a psycholinguistics. Someone who just likes to talk in public.
Vartiom is irresistible in that foreign way that makes you feel you are listening to someone worldly. Someone who knows more than you do. Someone to whom you must give attention.
He uses our deep rooted sense of social inferiority. Americans have always sent their eligible sons and daughters to Europe and elsewhere. To attain the respectability of status and place. Ask the Astor’s. Ask the Vanderbilt’s. Foreign equals better. Foreign equates to greater experience. Foreign means their culture is more sophisticated.
“I love this country,” says Vartiom staring directly into Gina’s eyes.
“This is great country and women in Moscow are not so very beautiful as here.”
Gina glows. Her pulse races as the lit blue veins around the cleavage of her breasts spread a luster over her that increases the bronzed effect of her dark tan.
“In Russian, the word krasnya means both red and beautiful. But not all Red women are beautiful. But here many beautiful women.” He looks at Gina and his eyes then move from woman to woman around him. They are lingering on his every word.
Vartiom is outfitted in a white—on-white Otto Bass double breasted suit. He looks like a prophet in purest Semite which contrasts dramatically with most of the artwork on display.
Giant canvases of harsh colors adorn the walls. More like streaks of anger. Everything heavy and overblown. Distorted figures in unfriendly tones. Yellows that become muddy with jaundice and blot out all hope of life. Greens that are not vibrant forests of growth but impending putrefactions of the soul. And everywhere slashes of the deepest red and most ominous black.
All on sale for the buying public. Because we have been told this is where art is going at the end of our century. The sufferings of personality are now viewed as an excuse for art. We have been manipulated and trained to acknowledge the opinions of experts.
But what exactly is an expert?
Where do we find them? And how would we know one if we met them? Or are they, these so—called experts, with impressive degrees and titles from prestigious universities and boasting the best resumes of influential connections — just salespeople. Telling us what we want to hear?
Vartiom would be great at selling anything. Refrigerators, used cars, you name it. He knows he is always in control. He uses not only his voice — but his body to produce telepathic language.
No. I am not an ESP cultist or a “new wave” adherent of out-of-body experience. But I saw the images he wanted me to see.
Vartiom slowly opened his eyes wider. They brightened as if you could see all 200 rooms of the Catherine Palace ablaze in pre-Revolutionary splendor and vitality. All those rooms filled with treasures and memories. Polished floors of checkerboard marble where great games of life and pretense had been played. The brightness reflected off the lapis and gold leaf from the last roaring flames of laughter before the end of the Czars.
But there is in his eyes a darkness also. The brooding shadows which stereotypes the Russian character.
Always an element of tragedy even in humor.
Vartiom uses the audience as if he were the ringmaster at the circus.
First bringing on the clowns to delight and entertain. Then summoning the danger as if he were a sorcerer like Prospero able to magically produce the threatening storm and chords of thunderous drama.
All the practiced movements setting up the grand finale. Then ending with the man out of the cannon act.
Leaving the spectators a little awed. Wondering how the man is shot from the gun only to land safely in the net.
Or is it all sham and illusion?
“I am in New Haven at Yale. Giving lecture to, how you say..., he waits a brief second to reduce the moment to one of supple effect. He runs his right hand along the top of his head as if in thought. “...Ah, yes,” he continues, “big—shots. You know Kissinger, Bruzinski , and yes I see Solzhenitsyn sneak in at the end.”
No matter that Alexander Solzhenitsyn supposedly hadn’t left his refuge in Vermont for fifteen years until he recently returned to the new Russia. No matter that there is no record of any of these being together at Yale or anywhere else at one time. The way Vartiom pronounces all those names with their s’s and z’s; he makes it sound so right. So believable.
All of us want to be near greatness and power and authority.
Rock stars have their groupies. Politicians have their hangers-
on. Sports heroes have their fans. It is inbred in our psyche to trust and admire. Ever since childhood.
He is a famous émigré, or at least an educated one. So why shouldn’t he have given a speech to all these important leaders? All foreigners probably know each other. Doesn’t that make sense?
“They all here for my lecture about psycholinguistics so I tell them about my experiences with Black peoples in this country where you have problem with oppressed minorities.”
At first because of the way Vartiom pronounced “peoples” as “pee—bels”; I thought Vartiom was speaking of the talented Black actor Melvin van Peebles and several progeny who were also in the motion picture business.
Somehow, I knew this homophonic use was intentional. But I didn’t know where Vartiom was going to take us. In the back of my mind there was a trap here. A piece of cheese designed to get the mouse lured into the box. And we were the mice.
A middle—age gentleman in the crowd, bored with abstract paintings hanging on the walls, and stuffed with his own intelligence and success, had overheard Vartiom’s comment. Taking a moment to clear his mouth of salt—free cracker spread generously with Caspian grey caviar; he stepped slightly toward Vartiom and politely challenged Vartiom to tell all those assembled what he knew about the problems of race in this country.
Or had Vartiom purposely arranged this scenario in the same way that the great Red Army led the Wehrmacht into the disasters at Stalingrad and Kursk.
The trap had been set.
“I know first hand,” Vartiom stated unequivocally with a sly smile. “When I am staying in New Haven I decide to take trip to New York City. It is late at night and I do not want to wake my friend. So I just take her car and since I have no key.. .I. ..what is the Amerikan term.. .Yes. . .I hot—wire the car and take to New York — the Big Apple.”
Grins from most of the crowd at Vartiom’s cute colloquialisms. And a not so subtle hint that Vartiom likes American women and they like him on both coasts.
“I go to New York along highway. I see polizei with lights on and he chase me for a while. I think I must be in big trouble. When In Moscva when polizei come for you it is not so little problem as not having license.” It is said almost as an aside. A throw away line. But no lines are ever wasted by Vartiom. “Besides I drive same way here as drive there so should be no problem. So Vartiom has to think fast. I am with someone else’s automobile and have no reason to be there. So when I pull over this big-city
Americanski state polizei has hand on gun come over to me and say - Hey buddy what gives? What’s da rush? Did’ja know how fast you were going? Dis ain’t no Indy 500 course ya know. Hey buddy are you crazy or sum thin’ weavin’ in and outa traffic like dat?”
He has changed his pronunciation, grammar, and tone to sound like someone with a New York accent. Or at least what is credible to us as a typical New Yorker speaking to us.
Effortlessly he is back in his voice and character.
“So Vartiom think quick and say...I not crazy I am Russian.”
The group of listeners laughs. Vartiom times his delay perfectly once again as he waits for the laughter to subside.
“He ask me I knew how fast car is going? I tell him I do what sign says.
Then Vartiom told us the policeman asked him what did he mean by “doing” what the sign said?
Vartiom is back in his own persona once again, “I say I drive
95. I not want to disobey posted speed limit.”
Then the voice of the cop was back. “That’s interstate highway number not da’speed limit.”
So Vartiom continues the Abbott and Costello meanderings of language, “I say I am Russian. How should I know what speed limit
is.
The crowd is laughing.
Back and forth the voices come and go. Vartiom. The policeman. Vartiom again. In and out. Like the tapestry of an intricate design being woven before us in this climate controlled enclave of art.
“So 1 ask him oshkee pannomeye? Which mean in mother—tongue if he speak or understand Russian. Then I ask him if he speak Armenian, Lithuanian, or Polish. He speak none of them. Then I ask if he know someone who come and help me speak with him. He say he had cousin once by marriage who spoke Polish - but he divorced. He finally say for me to get outta here and go away.”
Vartiom tells us how the policeman waved to him after telling him to be careful and have a good time in America. “I wave back,” he says raising his hand and exaggerating the motion as if he were wiping the windshield of some car. “I keep waving and yell to him das vidanya and get out of there real quick.”
Which has no bearing on the original question of Vartiom’ s experiences with race in this country.
But no one reminds him of this as he continues to be the focus of every ones attention. Even the gallery salespeople have come over to listen to this Russian. They are tired of examining the latest somber painted wave of suffering that graces the meticulously white walls.
This is a real live Russian. And an amusing one at that. It softens the stereotype somewhat of severity and melancholia so cultivated by the Technicolor heartbreak of Doctor Zhivago.
“Is very confusing your highway system,” says Vartiom. “It late at night and easy to get lost. In New York FDR drive not go where Vartiom want and Harlem River and East River Drives confuse Vartiom.”
My mind reacts to the stimulus and I find myself blaming the highway system no matter where it is with its ineffective signage and thousands of turnoffs to nowhere. He has made me not only concur but feel a comradeship with his dilemma.
“So Vartiom get to New York off Cross-Bornx which look a lot like memorial outside Moscva for old war relics and tanks and guns of great patriotic war. Maybe look more like junkyard with cars and tires and batteries and mufflers all over the road.”
There are small chuckles from the audience. We have all seen pictures of what we imagine decrepit New York to look like.
We are tuning to his wavelength. He is broadcasting and we are receiving.
Vartiom is mimicking driving by holding his arms out in front of him at the 10—2 position as if he is gripping the steering wheel of an automobile.
As he speaks the words, he pulls down hard with his right and up on his left as if he is sharply turning. “Vartiom take exit and get off instead of going to Radio City to see Rockettes and get world’s famous foot—long hot dog at Nathan’s and see Times Square.. .I wind up in place called Harlem.”
The story skids to a halt. Amid the smell of lacquer and expensive perfume and moneyed excess — a scene of another sort is materializing. Vartiom has made the word sound as if it had a dozen syllables. He lets it reverberate around the
room. “H—a—a—a—R—R—R—R—R—L—e—e—em.
It was as if he was his own echo. All we kept hearing was “Harl em———Harl em———Harl em”.
I almost thought he’d said “harm them”.
Vartiom is directing our minds as surely and masterfully as with a VCR cassette. His words about to press all the correct buttons
of our imaginations. Ready to bring up the correct scene on our digitally sensitized tapes.
“Vartiom drive around it three o’clock and no one out. Vartiom wonder where everybody go. Where all the clubs. Where all the life. Not even MacDonald’s. Even Moscva have MacDonald’s. Not open at night but we have golden arches. Vartiom stop for traffic light because I no want trouble with polizei again.”
And then Vartiom sprung and closed the metal hinges of the trap.
His voice changed and got breathier. Scared. I could see beads of moisture beginning to form on his brow and upper lip. He pulled his head back into his shoulders as if the fear had forced him to draw into himself.
He told how suddenly three men came from out of nowhere. Three men from out of the darkness suddenly jumped in the car. One was on the passenger seat next to him and the other two were in the backseat. The intruder in the front seat pushed a sharpened screwdriver at him. The pointed metal tip reflected crazily from the interior green glow of instrument lights.
“Yo bro we be stealing this here car.” Vartiom has changed again. He lowered his voice pouring out hate and menace. A voice imitating the sound and speech of what surely must be a Black male.
This Russian psycholinguistics has tapped into our prejudices. Our fears. Our supposed upper middle class snobbishness. Our aristocratic caste system.
After all who among us would want this to happen to them? And all of us picture Harlem as a fearsome place as well as the lawless people who we are sure live there.
Vartiom is a consummate story—teller. Like a puppeteer knowing exactly which string to pull and when to achieve the desired motion.
Vartiom’s eyes took on the panicked white scalars of an ambushed animal. He rubbed his hands together to emphasize his anxiety and the predicament he’d created with his words.
“Vartiom in pretty bad spot,” he said shaking his head quickly and hunching his shoulders up. Each gesture adding to his supposed quandary as to what he would do to extricate himself from this predicament.
He explained to us how he thought he was about to meet his end on that dark Harlem street. The fear of not knowing what his fate would be. The terror of what could happen to any of us.
It didn’t matter that it was Harlem in New York anymore. Any wrong turn into an unknown neighborhood could mean death these days. It could happen. We had all seen it on the television news and in the newspapers.
Finally, Vartiom smacked a clenched right fist into the palm of his other hand.
The sound snapped us to attention. It was an overture to the physical violence we are sure must come.
His face contorted in a grimace of what could be pain or anger; Vartiom’s arms appeared to shoot from his crisp white sleeve cuffs He reached out and closed his fingers as if grabbing something and then pulling it up and over his head.
He described to us that what he had done was to reach underneath the steering wheel and tear apart the same wires he had “hot—wired”.
“Vartiom show disconnected wires to my brothers in struggle for economic and social equality and tell them that I, Vartiom have already stolen this imperialist symbol of class warfare.” He emphasized this by slapping one hand on his chest when he spoke the word “I”. “And yes,” he continued, “I then ask them ——— how can they steal car I have already stolen?”
His audience ate it up. As if they couldn’t get enough of this wonderfully improbable stroganoff where everything was so mixed up together. Pathos. Drama. Comedy.
Vartiom concocted a marvelous stew of improbable happenstance and had been spoon feeding this delicious compote to his guests.
And we enjoyed each delicious scene.
“So we sit there. They look at each other for long time. And then I know Vartiom have them,” he said and snapped his
fingers. Another bit of dramaturgy that is effective and exclamatory. Vartiom allowed his perfectly white teeth to show.
Even Gina’s ex the dentist would have fallen in love with Vartiom’s mouth. No sign of Soviet dentistry here. No gutta percha patchwork job. No blackened spots oozing neglect. A full set of teeth without blemish. As sparkly as a movie star’s.
Fitting for a character such as Vartiom in his leading role. The center of attention. Glittering bright like melting ice crystals under the warm sun as it beams over frozen Siberian steppes.
All eyes were on him as he slowly took a sip of wine. Timing the gesture.
Licking the intensity off his lips.
“Then I say to my brothers in our fight against capitalistic exploitation — What for you want to take car. You should be in Moscva.” Vartiom made a fist and raised his arm in a “Black Power ‘‘ salute.
He moved his face closer to us and we could feel the energy exploding into us as a torrent of words poured out.
“Yes I say in Moscva three Black men like you would be treated as gods. You no have to steal automobile. You no have to rob to live. I tell them I, Vartiom, have seen it myself when African men, descendants of kings and princes, come to Soviet to study.”
We were caught in the claustrophobic closeness of a car. Alone with three Black men in the middle of a Harlem night.
As spell struck as they must have been. Listening to Vartiom as he continued to speak in staccato bursts of words that. He was molding our thoughts as if we had been raw magma waiting for the steelworker to hammer us into some shape.
Vartiom told us just as he told the three would-be car thieves how women in the Soviet Union would throw themselves at the feet of these men. How women there would adore them. How they would worship them. Vartiom slowly pointed to the audience as he had pointed to them. “Men just like you. Young. Strong. You go to Moscva,” he said. “Vartiom know you go there and you live like kings. Those women there will support you. They take care of you. They wash your bodies with their long blonde hair. You never have to do anything again. And that exactly what Vartiom say to them.”
That is when a woman standing off to the side near one of the walls asked what finally happened.
As if she was a part of the snake oil pitchman and his traveling show.
As if she were a paid claque at the opera in the early days of the great Caruso. A shill who was told to applaud and cheer not knowing if the singing was good or bad. Hoping to incite the audience with feigned enthusiasm.
As if Vartiom expected she would help him deliver the punch—line.
Back in the dialect and accent of an American Black male, Vartiom carefully rubs his chin and grins telling us that one of those men in the backseat asked; “Yo bro...where be this place called Moscva and how does we get there?”
The Black male voice he had imitated had adopted Vartiom’ s way of saying “MosK-Va” instead of Moscow.
Vartiom still held his chin. Grinning. Waiting for the reaction.
Everyone laughed. And they continued to laugh. At the absurdity of the situation. At the difference in class or race. At how seemingly easily Vartiom had triumphed. Of his appeal to our prejudices and fears.
There is no mention of the ultimate outcome of the confrontation, if it happened at all.
He had played with us. Toyed with us. Teased us.
Now it was time to bring on the tears. While we were still off balance and vulnerable.
“Back in Soviet always were people who listen. At parties like we have here. Nice parties. Good food. Plenty to drink. Not so good wine but still plenty to drink. All the time we drink to feel good. We drink too much. We say things people should not say. Words some do not want to hear.”
He stopped talking. Distracted by memories. Slowly he deliberately circled the rim of a wine glass with his index finger. As if the smoothness of the fragile surface was bringing back an image to him.
His eyes were far away. His voice melancholy. Subdued.
“Next day in university class some seats empty. Eventually fill with other students,” he specified. “We learn when to speak.” He let the final sentence hang in the air like storm clouds. His eyebrows closed together in unbroken horizon line as the painful darkness gathered.
The dread of unspoken terrors. Prison cells without light. No one else to hear your words.
Erased from the world without a trace as easily as touching the delete key on a computer.
Then Vartiom was back with us. Smiling. Those perfect white movie star teeth acknowledging everything was aright.
Come out of your brief trance.
No reason to let your eyes cloud over with tears or sentiment.
He took Gina’s hand, kissing it in the continental manner. His lips gently tracing over the skin. Than he began to sing what probably was a love song in Russian. Not just to Gina but to the entire crowd. Willing us to hear the accompanying strings of the balalaika. The lovely bittersweet tones.
I can still feel whatever Vartiom’s testimony produced in me that night.
I still don’t know what psycholinguistics do. No one that has come in contact with Vartiom can figure out what he does either.
But I did approach him after his story and the song, asking him if he was familiar with an old Russian proverb that I had heard which translates to something like, “...when you meet an angel that touches you, never let that angel go.”
I don’t know why I thought of that phrase or why I even asked Vartiom about it. Something compelled me to say those words and to this day I have no idea why.
Vartiom nodded. Smiled. Took another sip of wine.
“I am not angel ,“ he said placing his left hand on my shoulder, “I am Russian.”
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