Babi Leto, Babi Yar (Part V)

 V.

He had a place to go which, by coincidence, Oleg had never referenced. Strysky Park was quiet and somewhat lonely above the southern skirt of the old city, wooded like so many parts of Kiev. Much was artificial, though, in the groomed swan pond and faux castle ruins. By the middle of his third full day in the city, Yakov had practiced his Tevye voice at a little clearing near the Rapunzel tower: he envisioned a one-man act that would have the milkman pulling a small cart—lost, as it were, on his route and bewildered by the grandeur of the city. “Flogging a dead horse won’t make it run any faster,” he read, then looked up from the book and improvised lines to no one in particular, “and by horse I mean myself, who is (as he speaks) more out of life than the resident robotnik of this very milkcart”—throwing his head back as if jerked by some bridle. “Yes, being lame from his labors is no vacation, but see how cleverly the roles are reversed: he rests in his stable and watches his dear Tevye toil, not even giving me the tips of his trade! And pulling all day with eyes in the mud, I’ve managed to thoroughly lose my way home.” Yakov flipped his book open to an earmarked page and read verbatim,

“You see the tears in my eyes, Pan Sholem Aleichem, and yet must be thinking, how Tevye misses his horse! But what makes you think it’s just my horse? I miss everything, there’s not one thing it doesn’t grieve me to think of. I miss my horse, I miss my village, I miss its elders, I miss its policeman, I miss the dachas of Boiberik, the rich Jews of Yeupetz, I even miss Efrayim the Matchmaker, may the cholera carry him off! When you get right down to it, he’s nothing but a miserably poor Jew himself who’s out to make a living like the rest of us. Don’t ask me what I’ll do in the Land of Israel if I get there safely, God willing, but I do plan to visit Mother Rachel in her grave. I’ll pray there for the daughters I’ll probably never see again, and think of him, too—I mean Efrayim the Matchmaker—and of you, and of Jews everywhere. Here, let’s shake on that! Be well, and have a good trip, and give my very best to any of our friends you may happen to meet on your way.”

He clapped the book shut and burrowed it into his long pants pocket, and mimed a renewed grasp of the cart handles. “As for my journey today, well, it’s only to get food to my noble lame horse, so tomorrow perhaps the rest of us creatures can eat!”

            “So where is your cap to receive your earned alms?” an amused voice came from a bench behind him, and Yakov pivoted in some surprise.

            “Earned?” he tried to temper an oncoming blush. “That was just reading…uh…a rudimentary rehearsal of…”

            “You’re supposed to say: the cap doesn’t come off of Tevye’s head. Tell them to toss what they will into your cart—well, assuming the cart will be there for the catching.”

            “Will you be my manager, then—with due royalties befitting a manager?”

            “I don’t know. Who would have to answer to the passing policeman?”

            “I haven’t gotten that far. At any rate, I’ve lost my way, remember?”

            They talked on the bench for a half hour before she needed to go—back to work, she said, at the Picture Gallery. “On Stefanyk Street. Do you know it?”

            “No. I don’t know much here yet—I’m quite literally off my beaten track.”

            “It’s this way, through Khelnytsky and Citadel parks—a hard trek up but easy down.” She stood and tugged at his sleeve to join. “Don’t forget your horse cart!” They walked leisurely while she explained that she took lunch breaks up here but always got a bad look from the other women who watched the rooms at the museum, as their breaks were finished in a fraction of time. “They’re resentful, most of them, that I’m the director’s daughter, and that I’m only working to fill the summer hours.”

            “You’re a student, then?”

            “At the mathematics faculty—Papa wants art history, but I don’t much care for that. I’m not sure I care much for theorems and postulates, but at least I’m pretty good at all that, or so my professors say. Are you studying here?”

            “Unofficially, yes. Exactly what you see.”

            “Maybe you’d be good at art history.”

            “Well, I could use a job.”

            “You’d probably have to dress up like an old, grim lady!”

            “But you’re not that.”

            “I’m the director’s daughter. If I stayed there forever, I’d look like them.” They strolled slowly down the hill and stopped at the Stefanyk Library. “Across the street is the museum. This place is nice, too, though the ladies here are just as grim.”

            “All grim things have vanished today. Thank you for the walk…”

            “Yulia, I’m called. And You?”

            “I am a stranger in a strange land—”

            “Moses, or is that another piece of Tevye’s narrative?”

            “Both of those, yes, but you can know me as Yakov.”

            “Then I will.”

            Park gates did not open until 6, and sweepers would catch any drunk that the closing guards would, rather unlikely, miss. By hopping the fence, Yakov would have to remain awake and evade detection, and sort play off the sunrise and disappearing stars. The ground was cold and damp, so he wasn’t tempted to lie down. He found the best place to stay was behind the ice cream kiosk, which wouldn’t open until mid-morning at least. There he also found a fifty kopek coin pressed into the soil; he gave a wry smile at the sum total of his present fortunes. The chessboard on his suitcase lent for potential bet-and-wins, but through his fleeting experience around the city, he saw no such enterprises or public interest in the game. The day would unfold in long uncertainties.

            When Yulia did not show up for the lunch hour, Yakov decided to take his chances as well as his life savings to the museum, even though he wished in part not to see her there. He wondered whether his suitcase would be an asset or obstacle to his plan, and decided to lug it along as a safeguard. He practiced what he’d say to get in, and found it rather natural not to lie: “I’ve come from Kiev, a student of the humanities… No, not just off the train, but I haven’t found my long-term lodging yet—if may I check my suitcase in the cloakroom… My name is Jürgen, and I hope my modest budget will permit me the pleasure…” And indeed these lines ushered him past the sympathetic cashier and up the stairs of the gallery.

            The first rooms allowed no place to sit down, so he suffered the need to stand and observe as much as could—he could not afford to rush through the twenty-or-so rooms and be left with nothing to do afterwards. When he came to a broad painting by Johann Baptist Reiter, he smiled at the opportunity to sit at the opposite wall and study the theme at length. ‘Joseph Sold into Egypt’ included all twelve brothers, halved as it were by the central, glowing figure of the title character; there was no Egyptian—the sale, it seemed, had not been made and perhaps this was a final filial moment to consider all angles of their present and future. Benjamin looked older than his full-blooded brother, perhaps because he, too, had come into the world at cost. There was, of course, no hint of Jacob. Because he was now a student—not merely acting as one—Yakov pursued this thought to a smaller painting by Zigmunt Sidorwicz, whose title ‘Object Proof (Corpus Delicte)’ appeared bent to say too much, even though the ‘proof’ of the artist’s theme required some ardent detective work. The eleven-year girl in the painting, dressed as finely as her young mother, wasn’t asking at this point in the scene, and perhaps her mute stare would have been just as frozen a day before, or remain so a week later, or until she too had a palm-sized portrait of a dashing man attired in an officer’s uniform. ‘He existed,’ the voice of the painting seemed to say, ‘and truly is as central as this frame within a frame within a frame…’

            Yakov asked the guard, sitting at the edge of her chair and not so grim, if many visitors looked long at this painting. “Not as long as you,” she said.

            “Do they study ‘Joseph Sold into Egypt’?”

            “That they do. Some of them.”

            “Do they wonder where the father is?”

            “I don’t know.”

            Between these rooms was a statue that commanded Yakov’s attention, even if he had forced his feet to shuffle past it. Now that he had indicated to the guard his interest in Reiter’s painting, he backtracked to that room and gave the statue a further, passing stare. This retracing was not perfunctory—he really wanted to look more deeply at the physiognomies of Reuben, Levi, Dan, Asher… And, satisfying that, he turned to the room of Salvador Albano’s marble sculpture and stopped. A nude figure about Yulia’s size and shape balanced upon a pedestal, pulling at a rope that bound her wrists. She was, by her title, a slave: intensely looking at an area perhaps two body-lengths away (or one, if it hadn’t been for the pedestal). Her hair lay in a rough attempt at a braid—the hempen manacles just enough to tantalize her manipulation of things. Her body looked ready to spring free and defied any frozen, naïve effect of one who might wonder, in luxury, about paternity or loyalty or loss.

            Yakov went past Sidorwicz and the edge-of-chair guard, then into the next room, where he studied the eviction of a peasant family: Our Lady of Kazan above their open door, a broken sack of coins strewn on the floor—as bribe or insufficient funds. Another guard, when asked, said she had heard a university guide’s interpretation that the painter, Zheledowski, had in large championed the communist cause with this work. The icon wouldn’t save the family any more than their capital. Yakov moved on.

            In a rather large room, strangely, there was no guard, but on a far bench sat the only other visitor yet that afternoon. Yakov surmised he was middle-aged, though his back was to the door where Yakov silently entered. His legs were V-d apart, trembling spasmodically as the heels of his shoes spurred the parquet floor. In front of his uplifted head were two tall paintings of similar style: one with a nymph and another with a faceless woman draped against some angled barrier. Thinking fast, Yakov skulked back one room and whispered to the guard that another visitor was in the throes of an ecstasy inappropriate to the environs. The guard swung her head downward and shrugged. Yakov retreated closer to the entrance and whispered the same thing to the first guard, who followed him to the threshold of the larger room. “Can you do something?” she pleaded into Yakov’s ear. He considered the situation and slowly nodded. Just as softly he asked, “May I borrow your badge, please?” She unpinned it and placed it gratefully into his hand. As he attached it to his shirt and walked towards the absorbed man, Yakov cast a sort of prayer, vaguely cognizant of valleys of the shadows of death and such. Laments were rife in life—the psalmist codifying the basic instinct to complain and give over. Let go, if desperately clutching to the semblance of control we know. “Let go,” he heard himself say, in no larger volume than he had just used with the guards. He was now in front of the grimacing man, partially obscuring the view that he had fixed for his licentious foray. “I’ll have to ask you to leave, comrade.”

            “You can’t do—”

            “On behalf of this museum and all things decent, I must… You see, children visit, as well as guests from many cultures. I myself have the right to be free from your intentions. And you have the right to conform to the expectations here.”

            “Who are you, anyway? I’ve come to this place regularly and have never been—”

            “Both of us have said too much under the circumstances. I’ll escort you this way, comrade.”

            Years of setting circus apparatus, wrangling limelit animals, and pushing through some madding crowds provided Yakov a sinewy sense to his comportment. Even his limp, vaguely apparent and far from being a handicap, lent ethos to his present, gentle grasp of the violator’s shoulder as they shuffled past the witnessing guards and the ticket-taker, down the staircase and into the foyer, where the doorman quizzically took the recommendation to “see this comrade out, please.”

            Then Yakov returned to the where the dumbfounded women still stood, handed back the badge, and continued to look at the artwork. He didn’t go back to the tall paintings, but spent some time in front of ‘Jewish Funeral in the Town’ in the same big room, where he tried to determine whether the impressionistic coffin was being shouldered up or down the alley stairs, by equally impressionistic Hasidic men. The largest painting in the room was Josef Brandt’s ‘Prayer in the Steppe’. Were they matins or vespers, Yakov wondered. The garish red glow from the half sun on the horizon seemed to sear into the icon on the side of a stagecoach, and Yakov’s mind went back to the eviction—all art, he realized, could travel in capillary courses. He spent halcyon time in front of a dozen more paintings in the next two rooms, then came to the second sculpture on display, a Polish piece in bronze entitled ‘A Mother’s Kiss’. It was exactly what one would intuit, minus the dug out interior behind their heads. The child was maybe four years old, clasping wholly his mother’s neck and seizing her with wide open eyes; the mother, with eyes closed and more seeing, kissed her boy’s forehead and all essence therein, and Yakov began to cry. Subtly, of course, as there was no reason to; and, if he thought, like Tevye, about how he might be authored, it wasn’t exactly what one might call—

            “Sir?” a gentleman spoke urbanely from the far left of Yakov’s periphery. “Are you okay?”

            Glancing self-consciously, Yakov swallowed and uttered, “quite fine.”

            “I’m glad for it,” the gentleman said, and approached with a practiced savior faire. “I am the director of this museum—Pyotr Nemcenov—and I have been made aware of your citizenship exploits—”

            Yakov thought quickly, as he had done before, and elected not to speak too soon, but also not to let slip the inertia that arguably comes from answered prayer. “I am a student of the humanities,” he began to say, “from Kiev. I haven’t found my long-term… chance to study further… in L’vyiv, but this day—this remarkable museum—has been—”

            “Your visit to us has been remarkable. Simply said, Comrade, uh—”

            “Jürgen.”

            “Yuri, is it?”

            Yakov flit the possibility, then pronounced more clearly: “Jürgen. My father was of German heritage.”

            “Comrade Jürgen—well! Simply said, you have fixed a fault that has occasionally reared its ugly head, challenging the needs of our total operational security. I think you know what I mean, and I thank you for your aplomb.” The director smiled at the sound of his congratulation and waited a moment for Yakov to take it in.

            “Thank you, Director—I really hadn’t expected any kind of recognition, as I was simply acting on instinct—”

            “Exactly, dear Jürgen, which delights me more than if you were acting on orders. My hired guards—don’t get me wrong—relayed by their instinct what they have had difficulty doing in the line of their orders: this indulgent man has been, to say the least, a tricky problem here—he’s rare, he’s of some repute, and he cares not at all about those he deems inferior. Lenin might have qualified him as counter-revolutionary, and (off the record) if we were fully realized as a state, I’d pronounce likewise. But who am I? Merely a lover of art! And some may say he’s likewise! My service to the state is to be director of such art, and his, we may extrapolate, is to take what we provide into his own vortex as director of something else. And by saying this, Jürgen, I mean to exonerate you from any ramifications but also to remind you of how intertwined we all, as servants to the state, really are… Do you understand what I am saying?”

            Yakov, in a practiced sense, thought rapidly and responded, “clearly, Director.”

            Since neither spoke for a half minute, the moment seemed to have suitably passed. But each of them knew, intuitively, that more was at stake. Yakov calculated in silence and newfound prayer; Pyotr kept his level eye and finally broached this prospect: “we could use a guard like you—especially, if I recall you saying, you’re a student of art?”

            “A student of the humanities—”

            “All the better: you mean by that the study of us all!” Pyotr chuckled.

            “More or less. I mean literature first and foremost, but yes, that probably means ‘of us all’.”

            “Could I offer you a job here, as guard to begin with?”

            “I mostly need a place to stay—a job would be welcome, as well.”

            “Then consider it done, Jürgen. I have need for new watchmen as the fall season approaches. This won’t hamper your study commitment in.. did you say,.. Kiev?”

            “Not in the least, as I’m taking leave from that place.”

            “Then come to my office, Jürgen, to settle the details.”

            “Thank you, sir,” and the details were settled.

            The third lunch break into his new job, Yakov trudged up the hill to Strysky Park as he had the days before, hoping to explain things to Yulia. He had barely seen her on her varying shifts, but recognized her disguised scowl when, to her surprise, one of the veteran guards took him on a training tour. She evaded any introduction to Yakov, while her peers—even the grimmer ones—were positively atwitter. Men worked in the floors below, where many thousands of pieces of art were archived or part of a restoration process; to have a man on their floor meant to have more to think about. And Yulia hated sharing that thought. “Why did you go behind my back to impress my father?” she blurted before he knew she was there. “Why did you embarrass me by parading like a peacock?”

            Yakov scratched whatever small beard he had shaved off in these days of employment. He didn’t smile, but felt relieved that she had broken her silence. He waited for her to say something else, and when she didn’t, he slid into the side of the bench that she had turned her back on. “I’ve missed you,” he finally offered. “And I’ve missed what it means to let fate be guided by faith.”

            She listened to the details of the night he had left Oleg’s flat, the morning in this very park, the contemplation that on fifty kopeks and a chess board he’d try to gamble his way back to Samarkand for lack of anywhere else to go. Yulia turned to him in confusion: “Who are you anyway in this homeless condition? What did you do? Why are you pulling me into…”

            Yakov raised his eyebrows. “Into?”

            “Into your life story, because I’m falling for you if you can’t tell!”

            “I can’t. I mean, I am, too—if that is—”

            “O God, Yakov, we’re going to be late, and Daddy will be suspicious and the hags will hate me more and—”

            “You go ahead first—I’ll take the heat for being late.”

            “Be here after 8 tonight, and walk me to your home.”

            “You mean Samarkand?”

            At last she smiled, and kissed him, and rushed down the hill. “Seven-thirty, then,” she called, and he closed his eyes to keep it all in.

            They didn’t exactly elope; they made believe, though, flirtingly close to Pyotr’s knowledge. He rarely visited the exhibition halls of his own museum, so had no real idea how his daughter and newest employee intersected their shifts through the day. Other guards could see their sometime shamelessness—not that they held hands or frolicked to the shadier rooms. They stayed to their posts, mainly, and when visitors were few they gravitated to a certain piece of art and talked. “How does your father justify so many religious themes? How does he get by?” he asked her as they looked over Tadueuz Ajdukiewicz’ ‘Prayer in the Desert’.

            “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him?”

            “And does this one with its Sudanese Muslims serve a sort of ballast for the ‘Prayer in the Steppe’ next door?”

            “Are you still praying about me?”

            “Are you?”

            “I’m learning to. Maybe that’s what these pictures were meant to do.”

            “I mean they’re all over this place if you think about it: there’s Leopolski’s ‘Praying Jew’—granted, not such a remarkable picture but well painted—and that ‘Funeral in the Town’—”

            “Do you think they’re praying in that one?”

            “Someone probably… that the coffin doesn’t drop.”

            “I’ve seen that happen, by the way.”

            “A coffin dropping?”

            “A man slipping at the gravesite as the other pallbearers were negotiating the position—it was raining, the mud was uncooperative…”

            “And so he fell all the way in?”

            “No, but he lingered at the edge as if he had time to think about it. Meanwhile, the pallbearers strained against the weight and their own lack of footing—don’t laugh, it was my mother’s dear uncle!”

            “Not laughing, just musing.”

            “About my great uncle?”

            “About the equipoise one has to keep, even in such circumstances.”

            “You mean the way a person walks a tightrope, like you described last night?”

            “What I described was child’s play. But yes, I suppose there is some of that in the most serious of occasions. That is what art does, I’m starting to think: depict the hardest human scenarios in the strokes of very practiced doodlers.”

            “Shall I tell that to Daddy? He might promote you to a guide! Just in time for the gradeschool visits!”

            “Tell your daddy that I love you.”

            “No. Joking aside, he’d banish you and bind me to this prison of prayer paintings forever. Don’t let him know that.”

            “See, that’s what I meant last night: I’ve spellbound many an audience with tumbles and scares, yet nothing about the acts I performed were honest-to-goodness risks. There was nobody I loved at stake. Well, that sounds rather inhuman—I mean that…”

            “…that you’ll walk through fire but not say anything to Daddy.”

            “That I’ll remain a disciple of this ‘prison of prayer’, as you say.”

            “And I’ll do math problems, right?”

            “We’ll have most interesting kids…”

            “Of course we will—they will be born and bred among the swans at Strysky Park!”

            “I’ve known worse launches in life.” Yakov continued to muse. “But perhaps never better.”

[a projected four more chapters to come]

from Elijah's cave

Celebrating Jon's Amazon spot http://www.amazon.com/Thirty-Birds-Jonathan-Vold/dp/0615664776/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1346510708&sr=1-1&keywords=thirty+birds this poem honors our process, praxis, poiesis. Order the book and spread the Good Word!

            from Elijah's cave

praxis, poiesis, publishing stuff—and

who more than we are such

dreams in the rough,

to work wintry hours in infinite days

with attic contentment

in inchoate

ways. We’re mindful of elders, newborns and  

peers. We sheepishly draft

substance and form,

throw caution to cauldrons and mantras to

wind. We badger our brains,

conjure our bards

and eschew a vision of glory—for

the still small voice of God

in each story—

even in rough-hewn relays. The praxis

remains, beyond writing   

records or facts.

My littlest turtle climbed out of her

tank, fell from the table,

left life above,

waddled and found herself hopelessly lost

(what labors we wage to

feign to be free).

Dried out, days later, venture agroof, ac-

ceeding a heavenly hand,

she put to proof

the abandon of dreams and embrace of

the Fall (the reason we

wander in grace).

So back to that praxis, poiesis and

stuff: it’s not all for naught

that dreams persist

and creatures continue to aimlessly

miss—the mark of our faith,

oblige noblesse.

Babi Leto, Babi Yar (Part IV)

[yes, only Part IV here, but now that this cornerstone story is 'over the hill' in its 7-part projection, I've put the total running draft, with updated revisions on www.staraevropa.blogspot.com where even the fifth installment (Yakov's coming to terms with his coming of age) is begun, freshly informed by our visit to L'vyiv and Karpathian Ukraine]

IV.

“You’re traveling the night through?” asked the other traveler in the cabin assigned to Yakov. There were beds folded into the wall, so another could still join them.

            “Yes, to Lvov.”

            “You’re reading Sholem Aleichem and you’re pronouncing his city like Russians do? It’s ‘L’vyiv’, and he’d give it more a Yiddish accent.”

            “Good to know. Yes, then, L’vyiv.”

            “Why do you want to go there?”

            Yakov turned to look more fully at the middle-sized, middle-aged man. In his hands was not a book but a bottle of vodka he was beginning to unscrew. Yakov thought quickly but didn’t speak too fast. “I’m a student. Of literature, as you can see. I haven’t been to most places I’ve read about—haven’t been to Leningrad, for instance, where so much is set…and so I figured I could use a trip to Lvov—L’vyiv—”

            “You’re a student of literature and haven’t been to Leningrad!” He leaned in to whisper, “you can call it Petersburg for my taste.”

            “No, I haven’t been there.”

            “You’ve been to Moskva, surely.”

            “I have not. I’ve learned what I’ve learned in Kiev.”

            “Mercy! Then this is an adventure for you.”

            “Well, it could be. I’ve been interested in Alexander Kuprin, so Odessa might be bigger in my future—”

            “Kuprin! A dinosaur. You should be reading Bulgakov. Black Snow. Heart of a Dog.”

            “How did you come to literature?”

            “I spent time in prison. You can read there to your heart’s delight. Heart of a dog’s delight.”

            “But not such titles, surely?”

            “At a certain, lower rank, at the grubbier of prisons, no one bothered to check titles. I made good with my guards and didn’t ask for much, so…it was easy to get what I wanted. They wanted this—” he gestured to the bottle—“and I was far-and-away the best in the ward at making it—provided I had the right equipment, which they sometimes provided. If you ever get arrested, young—what’s your name?”

            “Ilya.” He figured it wouldn’t disadvantage his friend to have such tracings to Lvov.

            “I’m Oleg. Or Olesh, if you like.”

            “Pleased to meet you.”

            “If prisons are meant to be hell, Ilya, you might as well embrace it, and that’s the first way toward climbing your way back to earth. Here, drink up!”

            “I don’t really—”

            “Da vai, you don’t really ‘study’ literature. You drink it up.”

            The train pulled into Boyarka, the first stop outside of Kiev, and a beautiful young woman slid open the cabin door. She asked, shyly it seemed, whether the third space was available, and Oleg exclaimed “of course!” She said she only needed to go to Berdychiv—a couple hours away—and that she was very tired and didn’t drink, if it were agreeable just to sleep that stretch. “But of course,” again came the voice of the master of the cabin. Yakov was quite appreciative of this chance just to sleep.

            A half-hour out of Boyarka, the three already bedded down, she slunk out of their cabin and didn’t return until, as Yakov estimated in his sleeplessness, the two hours it took to get past the Kozjatyn junction. Then, rather abruptly, she shook the two men of the cabin awake (Yakov needed no shaking) and asked in a cloying politeness if she could please change her clothes before she was to meet her mother—“I can’t have her seeing me so frumpy”—which wasn’t quite the case, but who was to argue? Yakov left the cabin immediately, while the groggier man nearly tumbled out of the middle bunk and groped his way out the sliding door, which she closed and locked.

            “You know what she’s doing,” Oleg mumbled.

            “Changing clothes, as she said.”

            “She’s going through our luggage. You got anything valuable?”

            “No.”

            “Me neither. She’s going to disembark rather disgusted with us.”

            “How can you be so sure?”

            “I’m not. But I have a hunch. I ride this train an awful lot and anything can happen between the first and penultimate stops. It’s how I was first arrested: I was drawn into an innocent game of cards that turned argumentative, and then into a big brawl; since I held my money—and plenty of it, at the time—I was the one implicated as some sort of gambling bandit. I could have parted with the money, naturally. But at a certain point, you lose your bearings and have no idea how to placate this person or that.” He had fully awakened by now, and rapped on the closed cabin door: “how’s it going in there, sweetie?” No response, but general rustling. He returned his quiet commentary to Yakov. “I’m a Jew, if you hadn’t noticed.”

            “Really? I am, to a certain extent, also Jewish.”

            “Mazel tov to the both of us, then. She may also be a Jew, but my bet would be no.”

            “What does your being a Jew have to do with your story?”

            “Arrests happen for a lot of reasons, and sometimes just the reason of being who you are. I was a ‘political consultant’, shall we say, of Shostokovich’s Thirteenth Symphony, the one called ‘Babi Yar’. Have you heard of it?”

            “I’ve heard of Yevtuschenko’s poem—”

            “Yes, then, that’s it. I was a commissioned reader of his poetry, especially as Dmitri was putting the finishing touches on that opus.”

            “You’re a musician?”

            “I’m a dabbler, but that’s neither here nor there. I worked to ensure the success of the premier in Moskva and tried like hell to get it performed in Kiev—at the massacre site, no less. I had plenty of sponsors but not on the governmental level, so I had to keep that side of things rather veiled. Getting musicians to practice the piece, doubling and tripling their standard fare for the risk they thought they were incurring—albeit, most were aware it was a hands-down success in Moskva… Well, we made some in-roads, but couldn’t pull off the ultimate event. I had money enough but I guess not the charisma, the ‘street smarts’, as they say in America…. It’s a skill we don’t teach our pioneer boys and girls. Except this girl, maybe—” he put his ear to the cabin door and spoke evenly, “I think our ‘train smarts’ compatriot is finished, yes?”

            She opened the door and indeed looked very elegant. She thanked them for their gallant patience and moved down the narrow corridor to wait for the train to enter the Berdychiv station. There wasn’t any disgust in her expression as she bid them good-bye. And neither of them checked their belongings before they climbed back into their bunks and slept their way to L’vyiv.

           

            They woke to the conductor’s knock and a bright dawn. Oleg stepped out to use the loo, then returned and Yakov did the same. The train pulled into the ornate station and the passengers stepped out. Yakov had nothing more to do than look up at the huge trusses and sunray atmosphere through the sky windows. Oleg stood by him and, after a moment, inquired whether he had a place to go.

            “No, not specifically. I took the night train to give myself the fullness of a new day.”

            “That’s how you travel?”

            “Well, not that I’m so experienced—not having been to Leningrad, as you know—”

            “St Petersburg, remember? We’re in context. It’s odd: I’m a Jew—you say you’re somewhat that, too—and I’d far prefer we call a thing for what it is, even if in this case it’s a Christian pretext for a czar’s apotheosis. Which, lo and behold, passes on to Lenin for the same dubious reasons. Anyway, do you have even a direction to go, now that you’re here?”

            “I’m quite natural in city parks and markets, so that’s where I’ll head.”

            “Hmm. Well, I live in the Klepirov village on the nearest trolley line from this station. You’re welcome to stay a night to figure out your plan—I can show you where Sholem Aleichem lived, just blocks away from my house, or what you might expect out of our modest open markets.”

            “Why would you make such an offer?”

            “No reason other than I empathize with your process. No one nowadays reads Aleichem and explores such origins. Just as no one sticks their necks out over Babi Yar.”

            So they walked to the trolleybus and commenced a small tour of L’vyiv, down Prospect Gorodska. “Here’s the only synagogue that survived Nazi annihilation,” Oleg pointed out, at the Brothers Mikhnovs’ki street. “And on the other side is where Olesh Babiy lived—I’ll tell you about him later.” Yakov took mental note, but wondered about Oleg’s zeal and patronage, not to mention the presumption of ‘later’. The mental departure didn’t last long, though, as the familiar and grand prototype of a circus building loomed on the left side of the boulevard.

            “I didn’t tell you that I worked as a clown in one of Kiev’s circuses.”

            “Oh, is that so? Well, we have exactly what you see—no competitors and arguably little interest, though they purportedly pack in an audience, not that I’ve ever been witness to it…. So, here: we’ll get off at the next stop, Leontovich—sometimes referred to nostalgically as the Bryhidky Prison, not that I’m so intimate with the place!”

            “Something sinister in the joke caused Yakov to think twice about his company. He had never attached himself to those who knew the ‘insides and out’ of things—not with Ilya, not with anyone at the Kobzov circus, and certainly not with anyone in Samarkand. Oleg was kind to offer him the lay of the land, but Yakov hadn’t asked for such guidance and this fact weighed heavily on him as he trudged reluctantly up Leontovich street. Still, he went into Oleg’s little flat and accepted the scrambled egg breakfast he cooked up for him.

            “The rest of my day is to look over some manuscripts and musical scores, and of course to rest up—I didn’t say, I suppose, but I’ve been rather back and forth between here and Kiev.”

            “I’ll not be in your way,” promised Yakov. “I’m sure I’ll find a place to stay tomorrow night and beyond—”

            “Worry yourself not, young Ilya. Consider the couch yours and let the days unfold as they will.”

            The very first unfolding set in motion the tenor of the day. Under the fresh shirt Yakov had packed in his checkered suitcase he found a roughly scribbled note that, on the face of it, he had trouble deciphering:

Don’t trust this guy—

I’ve seen him on this train before

And while I’m no ace at this stuff

I’d say he’s a snitch.

So, that said—all well!

(nothing’s taken)

He crumpled it into his pocket and put on that fresh shirt and went out. Oleg, unknowing, bid him also an ‘all well’, and advised him to reconnoiter the Klepiriv market and Rappaport street, toward St Theodore Square, as he pointed out on a tattered map, and the inevitable meanderings folks took toward Rynok Square, at the city’s center. Yakov thanked Oleg as he left, taking only his still unread Tevye, the Milkman, on the tacit prospect that he wouldn’t return.

            And if he wouldn’t return, he knew he’d miss that faithful checkered suitcase, as much a crutch as anything. It was fine and good to see another diverse market, with the mash of humanity and commodities; it was peaceful to walk past the perfunctory, closed synagogue near St Theodore Square and into the vast grounds of the High Castle, decorated overtly with statues of upright lions and Soviet remembrances. Yakov had trouble conceiving a similar role for himself here as he mindlessly assumed in the Volga region, or cities younger in his life, and further east. L’vyiv appeared rather insusceptible to rackets and raconteurs. And in such a mindset, he opened Aleichem’s novel and began to read.

            The history of Yakov would not be worth a fur hat (as Tevye would say) made out of a pig’s tail if there weren’t (as Tevye would know) a consciousness of the narrative relay. “He addresses his author like a compatriot,” Yakov reported to Oleg that evening, “like he himself is the whisper in the writing. Wouldn’t any of us like to be in such strange control of the story that happens to us, and because of us, and, and, in spite of us—”

            “Yes. It’s the tour de force of Shakespeare when he makes Macbeth say that life is a tale told by an idiot—in this case, Pan Sholem Aleikem is Tevye’s idiot!”

            “But it’s all reverse-like: Tevye’s the fool—the idiot, if you like—and there is no way he can be other than what his author makes him.”

            “Tell me more of your day, young Ilya,” Oleg requested, topping off both glasses of wine.

            Yakov thought, feigning the enjoyment of the alcohol; he could begin by addressing the note balled up in his pocket; he could proclaim his rightful name, or rather milk the pseudonym for as long as he wanted to be invisible. “I don’t have much to say,” he shrugged, “that doesn’t stray from Aleichem’s text. I imagined Tevye at every step—when I was at the bazaar and asked around about jobs, for instance, I gravitated to the kafir and cheese tables first!”

            “Any luck?”

            “Only an old butcher gave me an offer. His son is off in the arctic fleet, his own hands are like the cold hams he chops; the flies, he says, are his only company…”

            “An optimist! So you’ll help him out?”

            “I told him that I’ll buy mutton only from him when I find my fortune.”

            “Fortune!”

            “Again, it’s Tevye on my mind. The poor and the rich have one thing in common: a preoccupation with fortune. Of course it’s all relative, wealth and luck and fate and circumstance. His daughters are his treasure and his debt, like he inherited them from some mischievous genie. I was enjoying his dilemmas—so was he, heart of hearts, with the likes of strong-headed Hodl and wayward Chava—until it came to Shprintze—”

            “—this is the daughter who drowns herself?”

            “the very one. Jilted, I guess, but I’m not sure by whom. Ahronchik meets her at Tevye’s Shavous, an ill-conceived invitation if there ever was one. Of course he falls in love with Shprintze, and of course Tevye protests, then relents, then negotiates, then… what does he say, let me find the page… ‘If we had any brains to speak of, we’d realize that things are the way they were meant to be, because if they were different, they wouldn’t be the way they are…. Doesn’t it say, in the book of Psalms, to trust no one but God? Just leave it to Him: He’ll see to it that the worms are eating you like fresh bagels, and you’ll thank Him for it too.’”

            “Hmm. Vintage stuff. The lovers run off?”

            “That he’d be able to handle—it had its precedent with Chava and Fyedka. No, the boy’s uncle intervenes and insists that no cheesemonger’s daughter is going to solicit his family affluence. And humiliated Tevye doesn’t stand up for Shprintze, neither does Ahronchik or anyone else, and all the considerations of love and luck and values and compromise crash out this time. It’s here that Tevye remembers his audience—Pan Sholem Aleichem, whom he hasn’t seen for a year and to whom he’s been telling this whole sad tale. ‘What was it I wanted to ask you? Oh, yes: have you ever seen a drowned man?’”

            “Doesn’t he mean ‘woman’”?

            “He specifies ‘man’. And implies himself, though the next line generalizes and probes further: ‘mostly one dies with one’s eyes shut, but a drowned man’s eyes are always open. I just thought you might know why that was…’”

            “And that’s it?”

            “Tevye apologizes ‘for taking so much of your time’ and begs you—his own author? his reader?—not to think of him too badly.”

            “And do you?”

            Yakov took up the last gulp of his wine. “Not more than for myself,” he eventually said, placing the glass rim-down on the table, “and by that I don’t really know what I mean.”

            Days followed like this: Oleg would cook a big breakfast, supply Yakov a book—poems by Bialik, for instance—suggest an area of the city to get to know, turn to his messy desk and wait for the evening to drink and debrief. There was nothing in his demeanor that suggested the woman on the train was right, but Yakov couldn’t dismiss her from his thoughts and thus talked about Tevye, Bialik, Yevtushenko, Bulgakov—anyone but Ilya, the one he’d left and the one he claimed to be. He was ready for the inevitable query: ‘what is your long-term plan?’ Literature studies would reasonably resume in Kiev in a few weeks, and reasonably he was getting everything and more out of this study abroad. Why talk about himself, he would argue. I’m here to talk about writers and their texts, and Providence has arranged for Oleg’s tutorage. But Oleg never asked the inevitable and waved away his guest’s promise to find a way to pay for things—“I never intended to freeload.”

            “We all do that, young Ilya. And in a sense, I’m leeching off of you. I hadn’t thought much about the Brothers Mikhnovs’ki synagogue until you broached it yesterday. Let’s try, you and me, to see who runs the place, whatever that entails.”

            Plenty, it turned out, minus dozens of shrugs and some suspicious looks, a few professors at the university and some of their apprentices. A man named Harel was someone who could let them in, by appointment only. It would be a dour tour of unkempt premises, they were warned, and indeed the following day it was. Harel stuck to history and gave no hint that Sabbath prayers were uttered here, or anywhere. Nor did his visitors ask, but they were reminded that tours were by appointment—Oleg reached into to his pocket to draw out some coins, which Harel mechanically took—“you have my contact if you desire a return.”

            But such a return was discouraged when, that evening, an assistant dean knocked on Oleg’s door. Oleg greeted him with false warmth, “How good to see you again, Viktor Ivanovich, I had meant to knock on your own office door earlier today—”

            “Yes, well, the pleasure shall have its chance after all. You will let me in for a drink, I trust.”

            “Why not?” Oleg said, and backed in as a lobster.

            Yakov rose and uttered a ‘stvrastvuete’ to the academic, who eyed him with interest.

            “Health also to you,” Viktor Ivanovich returned. “I hope not to steal time from your visit, comrade—”

            “Ilya,” Oleg voiced as an introduction.

            “and patronymic, as I prefer addressing in full?”

            Oleg didn’t have that to provide, and a full six seconds ticked off the clock before Yakov blurted “Rabinovich”, which a self-conscious chuckle, gesturing that he was deferring to Oleg.

            “Ilya Rabinovich,” put together the assistant dean, “a pleasure.”

            “From Kiev,” Oleg supplied, “on holiday.”

            “I see, I see. A student, I presume?”

            “Yes, of literature.”

            “So you must greet Professor Gorsikov from me, as he and I go way back.”

            Yakov nodded and sat down. The next minutes would be rough, he imagined, and he’d have to resort to a gentler kind of shell game, to initiate points of palaver or else stay ahead of Viktor’s routine. He could answer to his interests in literature easily enough, as well as the general flow of student life at Taras Shevschenko; when specific names came up, Yakov smiled and answered that he was only in his first year, still struggling to keep up with all the details, and that his mind often drifted back to Samarkand, where he was more accustomed to professors named Djora Djokayevich and Atamurat Ismanov and Hukberdy Gurdov—perhaps he had heard of these esteemed colleagues? To Yakov’s satisfaction, they were real people who indeed taught him at junior level how to read and solve riddles, and he enjoyed thinking of them now.

            Oleg brought in a new bottle of vodka and a plate with three glasses, plus sliced pickles for ‘bitters’ to follow. “Viktor Ivanovich comes at a good time—I hope, at least, all is well with you.”

            “To health, comrades,” he answered and threw back his hundred grams. The other men did likewise. “All is well with me, thank you, and—” pouring himself another— “will be so. I’m in line for promotion this term.”

            “Congratulations!”

            “Thank you, and I know you will understand what I’ve come here to say.” He filled the other two glasses and waited for Oleg and Yakov to raise them. “Very well. I’m being promoted because I run a sound ship. No leaks, nothing to patch. A scoured clean deck that keeps the vermin out. Now I know you are not that—don’t hear me the wrong way—but the nature of students, wouldn’t you agree, is sometimes to seek knowledge in the wrong places. Today was suspicious, comrades, and not on the up-and-up. Promise to stay clear of my premises, especially if you nose around for counter-revolutionary relics.” He drank this time without losing eye contact, and glared the others to drink to this promise.

            “But Viktor Iv—”

            “I’m less interested in your response, Pan musikant, as you readily know, than that of Ilya…forgive my memory… Radomovich?”

            Yakov gulped and took a pickle, pacing himself deliberately. “I hope you aren’t offended. There is less tradition in my side of the union for this kind of thing”—he held up the pickle and chomped it and gave eyes to both men to follow suit. Oleg jerked and looked at the assistant dean, who was smiling like a crocodile. “My response is not to correct you, for one thing: you have authority that is worth of your protection. The relic you refer to reminds me of the victory over the fascists, which surely inspires a generation like mine, who barely know what your generation sacrificed in such a fight.”

            “Is that what you want me to believe?” Viktor swung his head to Oleg, who tensed up his shoulders and raised his eyebrows. “Ivan Radomovich?”

            “His name is—”

            “Wait,” Yakov said, “I think this needs to come back to good terms. I’ve given my response, which you asked to hear first; Olesh, can you corroborate? What was your interest in what we saw today?”

            Oleg looked at him with annoyance, but took the question with equanimity. “As Viktor Ivanovich knows me well enough, I have served the union loyally in the work of commemorative music and the struggle of the oppressed. Young Ilya here,”

            “Rabinovich,” Yakov mumbled.

            “Ilya Rabinovich came to Lvov reading Sholem Aleichem—that’s not against the law nor against the harmony of our soviet peoples. Have you, Viktor Ivanovich, read anything from our native author?”

            “I have not, and am not so certain he would pass muster at the faculty in Kiev. Worth inquiring about. Regardless, I have made my point clear, yes?”

            Yakov poured a third glass for them all and, with calculation, drifted off to oblivion. He could hear Oleg and Viktor argue on some other topics, evidently about the insides and outs of university powers. He heard talk of ‘tourma’—but renditions of prison quite different than what Oleg recounted on the train. He heard his name spoken in dubious tones, by both men. And then he thought he heard the whispered rush of Irina, but then again, he was by that time slipping into sleep. At a little after 3am, when he came to, he silently gathered his things in his suitcase and tiptoed to the door. He thought of leaving a note—Oleg had been good to him—and though it didn’t make complete sense, he dug out the softened crumble of paper that he hadn’t tossed away, and figured that the woman’s handwriting sufficed for his own farewell.

"Finding a Ring" launch (and invite)

As you may know, the Lamkenovi are heading east this week to Ukraine (to delve into Tevye territory and maybe to deepen "Babi Leto, Babi Yar") and Moldova (to see first-hand 'the poorest country in Europe and, alas, survive!). I wasn't planning to craft a StaraEvropa story yet on this unbeknownst land, but couldn't resist mashing a plot I've had for a while with the seemingly natural circumstances: a bull-fighter displaced, trying to make something out of the nothing of that jury-is-out tradition. Katerina aptly found the name of the protagonist: Bogdan. Now I'd love any thoughts universal / specific on how this Moldavian cowherder will (or won't) make it as an erstwhile, first-time-failed bullfighter. I am mindful, by the way, that Spain is decidedly on the 'new' Europe side of things (as opposed to the 'old' Europe Rumsfeld designated in 2003ish--and no, I won't let the world forget that designation). I have been waiting for such a bridge, and conferences in Brussels and EuroDisney Paris have not (as you can imagine) done the trick. Without further ado, then, here is my pre-Moldovian launch, eager for your comments:

            

              So now, though I understand practically nothing of what we’re giving grace to, we will sit for a moment before the plane takes you off.”

            They sat—the mother, who spoke, the father, who had never left his armchair near the window, the older sister, who stood near her mother, the young sister, who cried silently beside her father. Three neighbors had joined them: the silver-haired couple from the apartment next door, and David, the gymnasium friend who may or may not have had anything to do with Bogdan’s plan. Bogdan also, self-consciously, sat.

            In the minute that passed, anyone could have imagined a bull goring him, or thieves cornering him in an alley. The details of who would meet him and take him for God knows what training were scant; the specter of never returning home loomed large. The sitting was supposed to defray any airplane mishaps, and they were the last demolition on anyone’s mind.

            Bogdan arrived, of course, in one piece—his flight from Chisinau to Bucharest to Milan to Malaga not without the mandatory checks. He had made a rough video about a year ago, with the help of David as gaffer and his disappeared cousin as picador: though it didn’t pay for the flight, it sufficed to invite him into the country and try out for a singular spot as an alien matador. In his video Bogdan toyed with the biggest bull of his emaciated herd, fluttering a pink cape as he had seen in countless more professional videos he had watched, sometimes with his cousin. As for him, the role of picador was solely to goad the bored bull to the center of Bogdan’s designs, to give a semblance of hope to all involved that liveliness was at stake here: the bull’s, Bogdan’s, and the myriad picadors that would vie for blood money.

            They were there, at the airport, to Bogdan’s surprise. He hadn’t more than a notebook of Spanish but instinct was starting to take root: he answered their questions and gave them a few, too. Where would he stay, for example, and how would he get paid. All in good time. Your instincts are right. You will be for us the first from afar to battle our bulls. You will, if your instincts are right, be an international star.

            So went the training, and the promos withal. Bogdan posed for a pastel-drawn poster for the pressing Torremolinos crowds and trained accordingly: he faced much fiercer animals than any he had herded in Moldova, and in fact took on the showdown very unlike the way he contrived it for the wayfaring, quintessentially naïve clip in cyberspace.

            Less than half the crowd that cheered him was Andelusian. Arguably, that was the reason he was enlisted—not that any Moldovan tourists would conceivably tally as part of the gate sales. Americans, Germans, Brits, and Scandinavians desired a palatable massacre of black angus meat: what Bogdan would bring them was less an issue of ethics (which hooked here and there) than of politics (which, bobber and all, hooked where it could). The bull was definitively doomed; the matador definitively heroic, with due circumspection. The crowd was definitively sanguine, some sharing the sanguinary shrift of the picadors, aforementioned. And, waiting in the wings, Bogdan definitively unprepared, notwithstanding his week-and-a-half of simulated gloss.

            His debut was fitting to the bill: the alien fell fast, the local steamed ahead to the delight of the effervescent event, then fell in abetted harmony with the convalescence of the alien, who, with clowns all around, plunged festooned rapiers into the beast’s upper back. The alien staggered this way and that; the black angus bull more local than him fell jauntingly at his unfamiliar feet. The crowd (and the picadors) roared relief, and begged Bogdan to cut off his ear.

            He had no paramour to give it; he cut thinking weirdly of his motherland. There’s no way to detect recidivist thoughts, he thought, so why not pretend this escapade is more mine than the masses here would due claim. The masses were hundreds, and their claim was to usher him into an arena of thousands, which lent basically the same: he fell, as he tried not to, and rose to the dalliance of the overall animalistic milieu. He cut off an ear—this time for a girl he had met mere hours before the show, and enjoyed what would be his last night of pre-marital bliss: the bull that would follow not only cut short the ear offering but gored his Moravian-cum-see-me galore. He knew when it hit that the crowd didn’t matter, the promise of one ear could never make good for the love of another, the complete stupid question of whether and when he’d go home would less than a laugh be politically settled.

            And thus he went home.

America The Beautiful--A Patriot's Prayer

O beautiful for spacious skies,
Your wondrous creation, O Lord, is truly awesome—a taste of heaven on earth!
For amber waves of grain,
In Your beauty and in our bounty, Lord, help us respond to areas struggling with drought…
For purple mountain majesties
Help us, Lord, to take care of our skies and the air we breathe…
Above the fruited plain!
In our surplus, Lord, help us respond to malnutrition and anyone in need of a healthy meal.
America! America!
Thank You, God, for the blessing of the freedom upon which our country was established!
God shed his grace on thee
Help us to be vessels of your grace, O Lord
And crown thy good with brotherhood
Guide us to understand each other as brothers and sisters…
From sea to shining sea!
...across this great country and throughout the world.


O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Fill us with Your Spirit and the courage to tread unfamiliar ground…
Whose stern impassioned stress
…no matter how far it takes us out of our comfort zones…
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
…especially in the name of liberty and justice…
Across the wilderness!
…and especially in places devoid of freedom and human rights.
America! America!
Again, Lord, thank You for the ideals that gave rise to our nation!
God mend thine every flaw,
Forgive us when we fall short of those ideals…
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
…and help us to focus again when we fall short of Your glory—
Thy liberty in law!
–to live according to the love we can only fully know through You!


O beautiful for heroes proved
Thank You, God, for those who step up and respond to Your call…
In liberating strife.
…in Your Spirit of love and liberty, even in the face of hatred and oppression—
Who more than self their country loved
–people who know these ideals to be greater than themselves…
And mercy more than life!
…and who value Your love and grace above life itself!
America! America!
Grant us this focus on the pillars of our country, Lord,…
May God thy gold refine
…both the people and their driving passion, the treasures defining a nation…
Till all success be nobleness
…that we would value these above gold, above monetary gain…
And every gain divine!
…that we may grow closer to You and more intimately aware of Your purpose for us!


O beautiful for patriot dream
Thank You, God, for the gift of a unifying vision…
That sees beyond the years
…that looks ahead—for ourselves, for each other,…for future generations.
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Fill us with patriotism toward Your divinity, Your creation, Your kingdom,…
Undimmed by human tears!
…where there is no oppression, no pain, no suffering—where there is no cause for sorrow…
America! America!
Fill us with Your Spirit to take this unifying vision throughout our land and beyond…
God shed his grace on thee
…that all nations will know Your love, Your mercy…
And crown thy good with brotherhood
…that we may all see one another as brothers and sisters,…Your children…
From sea to shining sea!
… not only in this land You have blessed us with, but all over the world!


Amen, Lord,… LET’S MAKE THIS SO!!!

the need to read

and write and read and...proofread!  I was racing against a virulent lightning storm to press 'publish' on my tenth story of Stara Evropa, and though I had a word document of it saved, the formatting for this blog compelled an hour's worth of editing only in this vulnerable editing box, when Zues could have sent it to smitherines.

Now that the storm is over, I've looked to see that I lapsed four times on Derin's name, making her a Devin at spots. I might have done that also with Berkay, as his name is tougher. I should have named him Memhet.

While I managed it in two days, along with some work with the Cambridge project and the need to replace a leaking aquarium, this was not an easy story to draft. Pace is always half the struggle, and Katerina is my gadfly on feasibilities (I was going to have it a 'Turkish Ecumenical Youth Community' but that, by definition, could not enfranchise non-Christian denominations. And that wouldn't fit Istanbul very well.

Notice also that I'm being meta-symposiastic in presenting a symposium through this very symposium. We needn't read anything into that! But of all Stara Evropa stories, I'd appreciate feedback on this one and "Babi Leto, Babi Yar", which I hope to finish by summer's end.

And now the rain is falling gently, so I shall to sleep.

The Golden Horn

The letter of invitation, times seventy, went out like this:

Dear cleric,

Greetings on behalf of the Turkish Interfaith Youth Community. We are a grassroots movement that strives to make right the misunderstandings between peoples of faith, and we hope you can take part in our first-ever symposium, July 19-21. Our theme is "Seeking a Common Ground" and we'll do so on Istanbul's 'Golden Horn'.

Historically, our city has been at the crossroads of many religious movements, and presently with the highest population of young people in Europe, we feel both an opportunity and an obligation to grant scholarships to those finalists who submit the best personal statement (1000 words max) to this end:

What is your notion of faith that lends to openness?

Submissions must be received by June 30. Scholarships (return air ticket, hotel accommodation and per diem 40 Euro) will be awarded July 7. More information, including our financial sponsors, can be found at www.tiycsymposium as well as the enclosed brochure. Bear in mind we are a young foundation just finding our feet, so forgive our various naivetes.

With great anticipation to receive your personal statement,

Berkay Polat

TIYC president

"Too simple you think?" Derin, the actual drafter, asked Berkay.

"No, simple is good. I think we gotta soup up the website, though—throw in a few more people."

"You mean the people who are supposed to make it happen July 19^th?"

"Don't worry about them," smiled Berkay. "Remember, this is a project of faith."

The first personal statements rolled in within a week, and most of them began something like, "My journey in faith has not been limited to my [Calvinist, Sufi, Benedictine, Hasidic, Orthodox] ordination, but of course that tradition and my own ministry within it has cultured my beliefs. I'm honored that I might share and also partake of other such journeys..." Some of them offered to bring a guitar or some kind of liturgical reading. Some wondered about the young people who'd attend, and whether they could likewise bring youth.

"Nix on that, for sure."

"Finances getting tight?"

"Never," deadpanned Derin, whose family inheritance was bottomless from the hydrafoil business and the thousands upon thousands of contracts across the Marmara.

"Kidding. While there's still time."

Though nearly everyone responded by June 30^th, most did not submit anything that could resemble a 'personal statement', let alone evidence of an open-minded faith. The main complaint was the lack of a phone number or email contact to gather details or question the premise further. "I dread to think this is a scam," wrote a deacon of a brethren community, "especially if it raises the expectations of the well-meaning." Another demanded to know how TIYC obtained his address in the first place, assuming (correctly) that this was not, couldn't possibly be, a mass mail-out to all 'progressive thinking' religious leaders in Europe and the Middle East.

"S'pose we should answer him?"

"Not on your life! Anyway, we have our critical mass."

"Seven? And that's without yet evaluating 'the best'!"

"Seven at the Golden Horn—I like that. Let's book 'em."

They needed passport information to purchase the airline tickets, and they knew this second letter would have to avert those 'scam' instincts that perhaps any of those seven tacitly had, despite the passion of their statements. In this letter they still withheld their personal contact information, but instead included the website of the hotel and the assurance that they would be met at the airport July 18^th. In most cases, there would be a $20 visa to purchase upon arrival—it, as well as the first day's 40 Euro, were enclosed in good faith.

"You know what I'm hoping here,...Are you listening?"

Berkay was nodding off. "What? What are you hoping for?"

"I'm hoping this actually works. I thought of something for the first day—a walk through Sultan Ahmet."

"How original! They'd do that anyway—I thought you wanted to get right to business."

"Oh, to be sure. But last night I began to get excited about the number seven. It's two cabs' worth—you and me—or a chartered dolmus. We could sit in the hotel conference room for three days or...take them someplace."

"You sure it won't diffuse the purpose?"

"Nope. I'm not sure. But I'd like to see them in a crowd, if you know what I mean."

"I do."

Maybe the money helped—passport numbers were sent expediently, accompanied with jotted phrases of anticipation: "This will be my first trip in years!" "My congregation thanks you for this chance to bear witness." "Can't wait for this unique fellowship!" There were a few questions about the agenda and what to pack and whether they'd get an advance look at a participants' list—decidedly, they wouldn't. The final mailing had airline tickets only. Indeed, the return flight was the evening of the 21^st, reassuring, perhaps, in its own way.

Unlike Derin, Berkay was part of a large family who came from a long line of merchants, mostly in the Kapali Carsi. His teen-age brothers Kerem and Burak offered to help out on the 18^th, meeting the guests one by one and escorting them by taxi to the Hotel Daphnis in Balat, one of the many hearts of the city. Kerem's English was not as practiced as Burak's, so he met up with a delegate from Poland and another from Armenia and asked if he might speak to them in Russian. "You know Russian?" exclaimed each in separate arrivals. "Da, nemnyoshka," explaining fluently that his family role in the bazaar was to engage with former Soviets and Slavic tourists. Each priest, impressed, asked many questions and Kerem offered some anecdotes, while remembering to stay on script and point out the various places of interest that would deepen the purpose of the conference. Burak did likewise in English to the individuals who arrived from Birmingham, Mersailles, Cairo, Hanover, and Bucharest.

At Daphnis, each guest checked in and received an envelop from the concierge that held a dinner voucher, a map of Balat and a welcome from Berkay and Derin. "Hos geldiniz! Happy you have made it. Our day tomorrow actually begins outside, at the front gates of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Church of St George within. Find it on the map just blocks away from this hotel. You may also want to visit the nearby Ahrida Synogogue, St Stephan Bulgarian Orthodox Church, the Yevtuz Sultan Selim Camii, and the Church of St Mary of the Mongols, all marked for your convenience. We will reference these on our tour tomorrow, starting 9am sharp at the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Lunch will be at Sultan Ahmet and we'll taxi you back to the hotel by late afternoon, more deeply informed, we hope, for the formal symposium on the following day."

"Will you be here tomorrow?" each guest asked Kerem or Burak.

"I'll be working at the Grand Bazaar, which you'll visit after lunch. But my brother Berkay will be there"--pointing precisely at the the patriarchate circled on the map.

"Ah, yes, Berkay...."

"You think they'll all show up at nine? Perhaps we should have met in lobby after all..."

"We've been over this—I don't want them to be too much in their own context. One look at us, for instance, and they may scamper up to their rooms, claiming some kind of travel nausea and the need to rest up before the 'real event' begins."

"Are you scripting this out, Derin? 'Cuz I'm not so good on my feet."

"I'm scripting this as much as they will. It's a symposium, remember? And that can only really happen organically."

"Enshalah."

Truth be told, Derin had been writing extensive notes for Day 1, especially, and the various prompts that would lead into Day 2. Meeting where they would, for example, Derin would ask the assembled guests to provide a working definition of 'interfaith' and use that as a lens for the various places they would visit today. Maybe they'd adapt it through conversation or factor in the details of each site. How would young people today appreciate this journey—not just the sight-seeing, but the contemplation and enquiry?

Soon enough they'd realize there really wasn't much to TIYC—Derin wouldn't lie, just as the brochure and website didn't exactly dissemble—but, free of charge, no one would be in a position to disparage the effort. And that led back to the impetus of their personal statements, which they could now reify.

All seven were there before 9am, gradually figuring out who was waiting for this very launch of conference. The vicar from Birmingham wore a small white collar, and the varied beards and headcover identified the imam, priests and rabbi. Knowing their assembly was by definition 'liberal', they dressed as they would in their secular interactions; knowing also they represented some cloistered conceptions, they exercised some reserve in their demeanor and small talk. No one was going to outright express what everyone wondered: 'What is this whole thing about?'

The question didn't dissipate when Berkay and Derin walked toward them, precisely at nine. Berkay demonstrated apt protocol by placing his right hand to the chest of his kurta and bowing slightly. Derin, to their surprise, was female, and her gesture followed more modestly. Her habib was fixed to ensure there weren't mixed messages in what she would do or say, for she, Berkay, introduced, would be their guide for the day.

"And you?" the rabbi wanted to know.

"I will remain throughout, of course. We all seem to be here, if we can clarify our names and any title of address you'd—"

"All of us? Is this it?" the German jerked his head.

"You are a group of seven, plus two is nine—it's a good number for our purposes today. Tomorrow our purposes expand," Berkay extemporated, and Derin silently rejoiced that he did not lie.

With those and some other protocols established (like who might go into a holy place, and how), Berkay's role gave over to Derin's, and the group was shepherded by her ethos, especially when she linked a detail to devotion—her own as a Muslim woman, and her sense that God uses many such details to speak to the apprehension and conditions of all creatures, whether they listen or not. As they made their way by tram down Divanyolu Caddesi, she pointed out a new Christian Science Reading Room with its distinct storefront appearance. "Rocks go through its windows sometimes, but it never throws anything back."

"Would you venture inside such a place?"

"I could—I'm free to—but have no need. My reading is well enough provided out in the open."

"...which kind of reminds us of the symposium prompt," Berkay added, on cue.

His voice was just here and there through much of the day, but at certain junctures he took necessary initiative. At the Blue Mosque, for instance, Derin couldn't lead the group beyond a certain area, and, as it happened, she noticed something at distance that required her and other women to avert their eyes. Things like this had happened before, though most knew only by hearsay: a rather large man near the minbar—emptied of an imam, at that—was rapt in an ecstasy that evidently brought on something of an epileptic seizure. His diminutive friend managed to wrest him to the floor and hold his thrashing head, and some volunteers rushed to pin down his arms and legs. In the electricity of the moment, all blood seemed to rush to his remaining appendage, and, giant that he was, his erection could scarcely be obscured. As the minutes passed and all things returned to relative calm, the man heaved and moaned the dying moments of the fit but clearly attempted to control himself. As he rose, all who looked could see the light gray of his pants turning dark, and his diminutive friend leading him out by the crook of his arm.

Outside it became a talking point, and Derin remained apart, slowly aiming for Hagia Sophia, their next stop, but stopping at a bench to let Berkay interpret such spirited possession, if that is what they saw.

They eventually met up with Derin, who had succumbed to an ice cream cone before their scheduled lunch near the Topkapi Palace, an hour away if they were to tour Hagia Sophia first. Most considered an ice cream a very good idea and those with other designs ducked inside a tea shop for a needed break. Berkay couldn't easily confide in Derin at this moment, but his eyes gleamed 'what a god-send' and, warily, she was hard-pressed to disagree.

They were engaging quite well with each other, the merchants around the east and west walls of the enormous sienna basilica, and roundly enjoying the unfolding of the day. Derin continued her modest role as guide, but her voice mattered less and less, to her gratification. "The cats are ubiquitous here," observed one cleric at lunch, and just as Derin would have attended to that fact, the generally quiet coptic chimed in: "yes, they rule this side of the Mediterranean, and no one objects to the lack of rats!" It gave the table a chance to focus on Cairo for awhile, then segue to Bucharest where the dogs were their cats, then Yerevan, and Lublin and all the areas they could represent. The symposium had begun in their minds, and though they silently still weren't sure what merited their scholarships, heart of hearts, they soaked the day in, as did their organizers.

After Topkapi they trekked to the final destination: the Kapali Carsi, where Berkay virtually grew up. "Yes! What I was waiting for! Will your young brother be there? He was so kind to settle me in yesterday."

"Bit of bad news that way: Bulak and Kerem had to make their way to Izmit this morning to purchase some fabrics." It was no lie, but pre-arranged all the same. Berkay had told his brothers that the guests would be coming to the bazaar this afternoon, but not that the merchandise in Izmit would require their presence exactly then.

Instead, the clerics talked with other merchants, mostly young, who knew English or, for two of them, Russian or, for another two, Arabic. The Grand Bazaar was an exhausting and exhilarating place, and it took some doing to usher the group into the waiting dolmus chartered for this cause. They continued to talk and point out the many curiosities that sauntered by them in the thick traffic, and languidly Derin and Berkay just listened and separately, silently strategized the difference that would constitute the next day.

"Here's tomorrow's per diem," Berkay distributed as they disembarked at the Daphnis. "I suppose I should have doled it out at the bazaar," which aroused some laughter. "You all dove right in to our culture and that, I guess, bodes well for tomorrow's more contemplative agenda."

"Which is? Can't you grant us any teasers?"

"Well, your personal statements, for one, and everything the letter said: a focus on faith, and openness, and youth. 9 am again, but this time in the ground floor conference room, as reserved."

"9 am!" "Looking forward to it." "Goodnight!" "—and tesekkur." "Yes! Tesekkur!" "Tesekkur edirum."

"Adieu."

Aleikem Salaam. We're in over our heads. And there's nothing here to go by.

There is, however, some inspiration that can be rummaged in gut feelings and intuition. "Thus we begin. Good morning, gentlemen, and thank you the day that was yesterday." General nods and a few distracted looks. "As Berkay had expressed, we're in for an expanded purpose today—"

"And tomorrow? Will we know of that today?"

Derin smiled congenially. "Tomorrow you go home, and leave us to our grass roots." She expected another question or two about the organization, the conspicuous lack of 'youth' or participants that would, in anyone's natural experience, constitute a symposium. But no question was voiced, so she went on with what she had prepared. "We can vaguely see--but you know from yesterday it's there--the Golden Horn that forms an artery in our complicated city. The Bosphorus is beyond important, but the Golden Horn defines us more. It's wide and active and the most beautiful spectacle at night. But it is also a dead channel, a false river that snakes as far inland as a mosquito bite, with about the same amount of power."

No one grabbed at this analogy, least of all for the ignorance of their setting.

"When you were selected and we knew you were seven, and that we'd be here at this hotel, I turned to Berkay—no lie—and said, 'Seven at the Golden Horn—I like that.'"

"She did, I remember," Berkay chimed, but no one looked at him.

"There's a poem I occasionally spell out to my students—you may have surmised by now I'm a teacher, specifically of teenagers, specifically language arts. It goes—and I'd appreciate if you'd write out in your conference tablets what I'll do on this flipboard:

We Real Cool [that's the title]

Seven at the Golden Shovel [the subtitle, and the connection hereby]"

"Excuse me," the Romanian said, "you want that we would write down what you say, too?"

“Well, it's up to you. What I say isn't so vital. It's a poem by Gwendolyn Brooks, by the way. And like she probably would, I invite your guesses as to where it's going:

We real cool. We [next line]

Left school. We [make stanza space and then next line]

Lurk late. We [guesses? They may be pool players at that 'Golden Shovel'...]

Strike [… how?] straight. We

Sing"

"songs?" the Hasid offered, while others puzzled more in vain.

"sin. [you can almost end things there, but still:] We

Thin gin."

"I don't understand what's going on." the Sufi said "Where are the being verbs?"

"To 'thin' a drink is technically a verb—maybe that is what 'we' are doing..."

"Okay, so what next?"

"We [skip a line for the final stanza]

Jazz June. We [guesses? There's usually many.... rhymes with 'June'?... No?...]

Die […...]" Some wrote it down before the coptic whispered for the group,

"soon."

Berkay, who hadn't heard this poem before, let the moment float or sink, but striking, as it were, straight, announced two things. "Two things," he repeated what his mind flashed into speech."One is that this symposium, despite appearances, is far more reaching than anyone here imagines— "

"I don't understand," piped the Armenian, who held cupped hands to the foolish little poem he, like everyone else, had dutifully written out. "It's like Arcady Dolgoruky, Dostoevsky's 'Adolescent', who has this idee fixe of some profound idea that he can never articulate--and that everyone is supposed to esteem! I mean, what is the nature of this symposium you keep on obfuscating?"

"As a matter of fact, that was the second thing, now that we're there."

"Where!?"

"On the 'common ground' that defines all of you—"

"Oh, for heaven's sake!"

"No, no, now give the man a chance—"

"For more riddles? Where is the thing we came for?"

"Here." Derin stepped in, sensing that Berkay was going to crumble fast. "You came to know more. And the only thing we knew about you, through some painstaking research and cross-checks of stiffled injunctions," gulping some saliva, "in the municipalities of your past and sometime present,

you have common ground."
No one uttered anything for a half minute, and no one was going to refute what Berkay clinically announced: "you know yourselves. You are all pedeophiles."

There weren't any microphones in the room or other ways to record the ensuing hour. Berkay exitted before anyone said a word, then Derin, who thought it necessary to say in parting, “he was one of yours until he left that school. You can scarcely imagine what last month was like."

The seven sat there for an hour at least, and four stayed into the afternoon. Whatever mumbles came to terms was hermitically sealed as they slowly slipped their separate ways, trudging back to the Blue Mosque, vying for an early flight, looking for nothing at Kapali Carsi, staring at a mock brochure, dining with ubiquitous cats, entering a reading room, and sinking headlong to the bottom of the Golden Horn.