excerpt
Ivan Nikolaevich, the second rate agent. Still, she wanted the director to know that she had been correct in her suspicions.
“Da, da, yes, of course,” nodded the functionary, pawing through his desk drawer searching for something. The man’s an idiot, she thought. This is the quality of worker who stands guard over the country! Saints preserve us, as my old grandmother used to say. Finally, the man produced another form, this one on blue paper. “In order to use the official phone line, you must fill in this form.”
“Phone him now!” Natasha raised her voice in hopes that the supervisor would hear her and look out his door. “I’m not filling in one more form!”
The man’s expression did not change but this time he abandoned the new form, picked up the receiver and asked her for the number. After some dialling, waiting and dialling again, he announced that he could not get through. He replaced the receiver quietly. “The supervisor will attend to your complaint tomorrow,” he told her.
Natasha struggled to control her breathing. “Tomorrow WILL BE TOO LATE. She’s passing through the line now; I can see her from here.” Indeed, Lona had already slipped through the passport control while they had been on the phone. The young man’s face creased in a troubled frown. “Very well, comrade. I will take the name of the tourist and her flight number and pass it on to the customs officials myself.”
Now we’re getting somewhere, Natasha thought. “I’ll go with you,” she said aloud. She took a certain perverse pleasure in being in on the moment of discovery. Of course the poor fool Chopyk would be angry with her…
“I’m sorry, comrade, that will not be possible,” the guard replied. “It is not permitted to pass through that door into the airport again. You must leave by the fire exit.” He gestured at a door on the far side of the room. “It is a regulation. Thank you and good day.”
Natasha drew herself up to her full five feet, four inches, cast one more withering glare at the man, and stalked toward the fire exit and out of the lives of the tour group from Canada.
“Documents, please.” Jennifer watched as Lona, standing in front of her, tensed at the command. She could feel her own apprehensiveness growing as she waited, her toes behind the yellow line. This first barrier marked Passport Control was a preview to the inspection room.
excerpt
His scaffold was built, ladders leaned against the walls, tubes of paint –
by the carton – were stacked in the studio, and alarm clocks ticked beside
his narrow cot. He was ready to begin painting.
I felt very, very much that things had now solidified. This was now a fact,
and for the first time in this entire campaign, I actually knew that I was going
to make it – not only the painting, but also my fight for Nunavut. This
was it. It was now only a matter of physical labour to complete the vision.
There was a different feeling now. The desperation was gone, and there was
only a huge engine driving me. Now, there was only confidence. Now, I had
access to politicians, business people, media – an infrastructure so massive
and on such a personal level that I would be able to get this story through
and by hook or by crook it would come into being.
It occurred to him is his newfound euphoria – “We need to celebrate!”
He announced the “First Brushstroke” party and invitations went out in
the shape of artist’s palettes that hit the desk of every media contact in the
city. Every couple of days a new invitation in a different colour, embossed
with an Inukshuk, went into the mail. He called Keith and told him to
fill a plane with choice Arctic food. Bob Engels, the North’s most famous
bush pilot, volunteered to fly the northern contingent to Toronto. On
an evening in early September 1986, Ken climbed up on a ladder, from
which he made a speech to a roomful of people, and then splashed a giant
brushstroke across the towering, white canvas.
Then he settled into a routine that was to last for almost a year. He
painted the sky for several hours, slept for two hours, went back to work,
and then slept for two hours. As he painted he had a sense that this was
what he was meant to do – to paint on this scale. Every other painting
seemed too small – even the giant canvas that hung at First Canadian
Place was undersized. How could he ever go back to painting something
on a lesser scale? What he really wanted to do was buy Saskatchewan and
paint it from helicopters.
One day a woman, wrapped in a fur coat, swished in on stiletto heels.
She glanced around the studio and waved her arm at some paintings leaning
against the far wall. “I’ll have that one, and that one, and that one.”
“Madam,” Ken said from his perch on the scaffold. “I don’t know who
you are. I suspect you know who I am or you think you do. I would invite
you to go outside, take a walk around, come back in, and say – ‘Good
morning!’”
She took a step back. “Well! I have never been spoken to that way before!”
Ken waved his hand. “Go on! Go. Shoo… Shoo.”
She stalked out, and returned ten minutes later. “Good morning,” she said.
excerpt
THE PRESIDENT AND Poodie sat in
rocking chairs on the porch of Mr.
Truman’s house in Independence. Mr.
Truman waved and called to people
passing by. “Afternoon, Herb,” ”Nice
hat, Mrs. Gordon,” “Watch that no-hands stuff, Billy. You could
fall off.”Mrs. Truman brought big glasses of lemonade, took a chair
and reached under it for her knitting. Poodie heard birds singing,
the laughter and cries of children playing in the big yard of the house
next door, dogs barking.He and the Trumans conversed in French.
Mrs. Truman told Poodie that his mother was about the prettiest
little girl she ever saw, as pretty as Margaret. Margaret would be
coming for dinner, she said. The President wanted to show Poodie
his new car in the shed behind the house. Poodie helped Mr. Truman
into the wagon and pulled him around to the back yard. Mayor
Torgerson was standing by the shed. He took a pistol out of his coat
pocket. Bullets whizzed by, hit the ground near their running feet,
ricocheted off trees. Now Poodie was running alone through an
orchard, running, running, running under the blossoms. A figure
darted among the trees and into his path.The mayor smiled, raised a
shotgun to his shoulder and fired. Heat infused Poodie’s face. Pete
Torgerson and the shotgun faded. The blossoms dissolved in white
radiance as the seven o’clock sunlight streamed through Poodie’s
window and across his pillow. He wondered whether he would have
died if the sun hadn’t warmed him awake.
excerpt
It seemed that the dean had learned this
speech by heart and repeated it like a parrot, irrelevant what was the
country’s current situation.
Hermes sat next to Eleni, feeling bored and angry: under the
junta, things were not good at all, and they wouldn’t get any better
any time soon; and the graduates were not going to do better than
the previous ones. If nothing was done, things were only going to
get worse. Hermes tried very hard to be attentive, and when his name
was called, he got up and walked slowly to the dean, who smiled and
shook his hand before handing him the “holy” paper.
Hermes nodded his head and smiled politely at the dean and
the rest of the officials, as well as his professors. Deep inside him,
Hermes felt the urge to stand up in front of them and give them a
real piece of his mind, but he knew it was not his time yet, so he went
back to his seat. His head throbbed from the tension, which Eleni
sensed as she also sensed that he was absorbed in his own world, so
she asked,
“Are you okay? You look like you don’t like being here.”
“I have this bad headache. My head is really hurting.”
“This thing is just about over. We’ll go soon.”
He nodded, and indeed the ceremony was quickly over, and
the people started to disperse. He and Eleni rose from their seats and
walked toward the exit.
At the door, George, a clerk from the secretary’s office, stopped
them.
“Again, congratulations, young man,” he said to Hermes.
“Oh, thank you, George.”
“The dean would like to see you before you go.”
Surprised, Hermes left Eleni and followed the secretary in the
long hallway to the dean’s office. He knocked at the door and entered.
The head of the university welcomed him and praised him for all the
good work he had done. After all, Hermes was the student with the
highest marks in his class.
Hermes waited for the dean to get to the point.
ORESTES
And when the others will feel triumphant over my deed
you and I will cry in front of this gleaming, bloodied
sword, the saintly of glory, we will cry for this ash,
for this dead man, who is succeeded by someone else
covering all his scratched face with a golden, suitable,
reverent mask, useful perhaps for its rough design, to be
used as an example, advice, the people’s enjoyment,
fear of the tyrant, exercise that slowly, seriously
continues history with deaths and triumphs, not with
amazing knowledge (unachievable for the crowd), yet
with the difficult act, the easy belief, thousands
of times annulled and as many times retained,
with tooth and nail, in the soul of man — ignorant
belief that secretly becomes greatness, ant after ant
in the darkness.
Virgo
The breath of the sea floor
fogged the good weather of the halcyon days
on the moonlit shell of the clam
the might of the speechless time writhes
embarrassed memory
hidden by future glens
spreads like the gleam of a broken moon
shivering roe-deer runs into the vertigo of the forest
searching for a way out
Eves
No one recognizes me in the dispersing crowd:
the accountant, the postman, bands of blind people,
no one sees that my hands, in the pocket of the coat,
hold a worn out caress.
The store owners lower the rollers
the guy next to me combs his hair
in front of the display window and
this night digs pits for the dead.
The paths of the body are so long that
you can’t refuse the warmth of a cinema;
the fertilizer of kisses isn’t enough
for the moon of your enamoured self
that springs out of the mirror.
First Speech
As we had almost learned the meaning of a bird’s chirp,
and the secret of the lion’s calling, we chose to reach
the heights of our primeval gods, innocent blood that
drenched the virgin’s lips we kissed, lips that we once
loved to the point of grief, serious teachings upheld by
Herculean shoulders, guideposts we selected before
we reached our first goal: the first village. Übermensch
stood on top of the hovel when the canopy of the sky
was encircled by pitch black clouds then His thunderous
voice bounced onto our ears, as if God sent, as re-enacted
Apocalypse, ‘the longer you dwell in fear,’ He said,
‘the longer you’re slaves.’ His head was raised, as if
to address someone equal to Himself, the blood was boiling
in our veins as we got prepared for the new path of our clan
and we had just started to understand the meaning of this music.
Shower Feels
I’m in the shower
Touch me, water
Rays of power
Throw me over
It’s ecstatic
It’s so wild
Bathtub, back it
Up, rewind
Release the tension
Down it rains
I know this pleasure,
In my veins
My mind now asks
What did I do?
The feel, so vast
Has come from you
Manolis Aligizakis 