Semblance of a Bird’s Chirp A bitter bird chirps inside the wood. Semblance of a bird semblance of a chirp. Perhaps a blackbird strike the wood with its beak. It rains, bird has no other refuge, chick-chick on the window, the sound of the rain only louder. However, there is no rain nor window in the wood, only darkness in its viscera and dry pus. Other times, other birds on leaves and branches. The blackbird: look at it, it has found a way to wedge itself intact (From its beak down as a boat in a Lilliputian bottle) and always chick-chick and chick hard to decipher sounds from the invisible bird, like when you hear that God appeared, as in a miracle, to His chosen people.
It was delicious and she washed it down with a sip from a tumbler full of what appeared to be neat spirit. She was sitting in the family’s combination living and dining room where the ornate, antique table was laden with small plates of food. Wise in the ways of Russian dining from having partied with Ukrainians and Polish, she knew that these were only the zakuski, the appetizers, and that a more substantial meal would follow. “No, really, now I’m full up.” At least the food is dampening the effects of the vodka, she thought. “How about you, Paul?” The man referred to as Paul looked up from a plate of bread and sausage and smiled shyly. “Thank you. You are good hosts,” he murmured. “Your Russian is so good. Did you study long in university?” asked Marta of Paul while Misha seemed distracted and regarded Jennifer solemnly. Paul-Volodya did not reply right away and Marta was interrupted by the sound of something bubbling on the stove. The afternoon so far had been wonderful, full of affectionate hugs and cheerful toasts toward Jennifer, friendship in which she reciprocated and in which Paul had been generously included. Their daughter, Nadya, was at school but the couple promised that she would return home very soon. After refreshment, the cousins had spoken of their own hopes to leave the Soviet Union and live in Canada. The nervousness with which they raised the topic and the intensity with which they spoke made Jennifer realize how important this move was to them. They would need help and support in Canada. She didn’t know much about Canadian immigration laws, but wouldn’t they need a sponsor? Someone from within the country—a relative who would vouch for them, promise to provide for them? She thought at first of her mother as the closest relative but had an uneasy feeling these two were grooming their newfound cousin for the role. Yet nagging questions persisted. Were they truly related to her? She wondered at their eagerness. They seemed to have everything here: a private apartment of their own, not too big but with a balcony that gave a view of the playground opposite. Their daughter enjoyed school and Young Pioneers, they said, and they were both working, he as a technician and she as a bus driver. This last gave Jennifer pause as she tried to envision the dainty, polite Marta in the driver’s seat of a soot-black, fume-spewing bus, but she knew that the Soviet Union was ahead of the west in ensuring women joined the work force in many non-traditional jobs. Marta worked shifts so was off-duty right now…
If, one day, I manage to escape, I’ll open a small store in a side street to sell bitter things: tiny taxidermy animals, biographies of poor people, eyelids that never closed and of course, unthoughtful spirit lamps; on the entrance I’ll write, “pay the blind man on the opposite side, he’s the only one who knows”. During the evening I’ll sit by the door with my black hat and a patisserie tray on hand for whoever can understand. And perhaps that funny old woman may return with her faint smile held with pins “I’ve brought it to you” she will say, “she has her own house” and perhaps she means uncertainty or the dead woman or as the Lord may have ordered since the preacher kept on crying out “brothers” and untie Eudokia “silence” she says to me “what’s this and put the wall back to where it belongs”. Now I’m sad that you won’t be able to write to me, my good friend, the envelopes and writing paper are expensive indeed for a dead person (who they unthoughtfully bury in the dampness) yet when I usually think of you it’s as if I get dressed in all the black ashtrays and your mother, let them call her crazy because she always holds an umbrella, since it always rains in the world now, as an old poet would have said, the real stories are very rare. God help us.
Hierodules Past midnight in the cloyed atmosphere of the casino’s underbelly things were not as they seemed I sat at a slot machine trying to synchronize my mind to the machine’s rhythm brain balancing precariously between mild intoxication and growing inebriation alcohol consumption evident on limbs and a loose mind chasing the elusive hit as I heard an alluring, sultry voice. “Hi, baby, how are you?” Young blonde hooker passed by me brushing her voluptuousness languidly against my back voice as sweet as honey dripping with innocence and I, in my mid-sixties took this as a compliment even though it came from the promiscuous and cunning lips of the young blonde hooker my brain reeled in the clutches of alcohol philosophical thoughts and unexpected comparisons The young hierodule for a few dollars could provide my sexual release the casino for a fistful of dollars sold me the ephemeral joy of machine combinations the luck of the draw and hope and the other hierodule the greatest which for a few dollars more sells to its innumerable Johns the safety of Heaven.
Manolis Aligizakis 