excerpt
off a stool lightly for one of her advanced years, and beckoned them. She opened the cage door, then the elevator door, and ushered them in. She waited patiently while Jen, Lona and Maria assembled their baggage. Three persons plus operator appeared to be the elevator’s capacity. Then she closed the doors carefully and pulled a brass lever. Grunting with effort, the box lifted. “Three into seventeen,” Maria calculated as the box jerked upward. “How many trips will this thing make, do you suppose, before we’re all upstairs?”
Ordinarily, I would find this hotel an intriguing anecdote, thought Jennifer, something to tell the folks back home. Right now, I just find it all an intolerable delay. She was becoming quite adept at all the procedures. As she exited at the fifth floor, she went immediately to the dezhurnaya’s desk and rapped smartly on the table. The clerk, another septagenarian, was nodding off in an easy chair. “Key to room 503,” she said briskly in Russian, and proffered her card. This woman could be someone’s grandmother, she thought, and though it’s difficult to view her as the enemy, a nosy floor clerk who noticed that Volodya was Soviet, not Canadian, would be a nuisance or even fatal.
Jennifer opened the door to her room. It was dark and close but not what she would have picked for a briefing session. There was a private bathroom, she discovered with relief, and opened the door thankfully. It held a square, chipped, pedestal basin, a small bath, and gigantic toilet that sat lordly on a dais. Its tank was secured onto the wall above the bowl and there was a chain to pull that worked the flush. Either the last guest had pulled too enthusiastically or the fixture’s age had rendered it incontinent. It had overflowed onto the floor.
“I’d better start working on getting this cleaned up right away,” she muttered. “I don’t want staff in the room while Volodya’s here—that is, if I could even get staff to clean it up.” Once again she was talking to herself—problems, delays. And underneath it all—fear.
Consequently, it was nearly six o’clock by the time Jennifer finally left the hotel, walked briskly along the riverbank, and turned onto the same bridge they had driven across on her way to Red Square. Possibly there was another telegraph office than the one she had already discovered near the east wing of the Hotel Rossiya, but it would save time to head directly toward the familiar one. As she walked, she thought how to word the telegram: “Returned to Moscow. Hotel Bucharest.” That part was easy. Then what? “Jazz with Ella” and maybe she’d better add…
excerpt
Group Tour
Give the little bugger something, Harold said. He won’t leave us
alone ’til you do.
They had just exited the market across from the hotel. Both
wanted to stretch their legs before dinner, which according to the
itinerary was to be served aboard a boat cruise to a pagoda of apparent
significance. The frenzied pace of the market left Winnie feeling
dizzy. Unfamiliar scents always caused her to gag.
Her eyes hadn’t adjusted to the afternoon glare when the boy
touched her on the shoulder. He thrust forward an unwashed
palm.
– Haroo, ’Merican, he said. Straw adhered to his unruly thatch
like dust to a mop.
– Ca-na-di-an! she corrected, hoping louder would somehow
improve the youth’s linguistic skills. It hadn’t worked anywhere else.
– How much should I give him? she asked, but her husband had
wandered ahead.
The boy tugged at her sleeve.
– Hold your horses, sonny, she said.
Coins pooled at the bottom of the handbag she’d purchased in
whatever country they were visiting the previous Tuesday. All she
could recall was that it had been Day 10, halfway through their holiday.
And that Harold had kept her awake most of the night with
gastrointestinal difficulties.
Their tour leader Karen told them not to worry if they forgot how
to convert the currency. Monopoly money, she’d called it.
Winnie handed the boy a coin bearing the profile of an erstwhile
emperor. The youngster appeared disappointed, so she poured the
works into his excited hands. All the countries mixed in together…
To Stay
It must have been one in the morning,
or one thirty.
In one corner of the tavern,
behind the wooden partition.
Except for us two, the place was empty.
Barely lit by a kerosene lamp.
A sleep-deprived waiter was dozing by the door.
No one would see us. And we had
excited ourselves so much,
we were unwilling to be cautious.
Our clothes were half open, and there were not many,
since that divine July was very hot.
Enjoyment of the flesh between
half-open clothes,
a quick glimpse of the memory which
has lasted twenty-six years, and has now come
to stay in this poetry.
THE LIFT OPERATOR
However, the lift operator isn’t surprised; he had seen the same
cloud, though a little darker and deep red in colour, in the mirror
of the elevator, when tiredness and sleep overtake him, pressing
the floor buttons, taking familiar faces of the high-rise offices
or their clients, con-artists, crafty, imaginative or simple-minded
villagers, lawyers with briefcases, tailors, book sellers, cigarette
sellers, unfortunate people who have slowly lost their last virtue
of loneliness, their last dignity of silence, ready to kneel, to beg,
to lie, to flatter, for a little more bread, for half a cigarette, for
a quarter of a kiss, for a thousandth of glory — always unready
for the whole of Eros, for the whole death, for the whole
sacrifice and glory.
And the café man is always there with his tray full of empty or
full cups and glasses
always minding his tray, not seeing the faces and the lift
operator observing nothing, though seen everything
responsible for the ascent or descent
responsible for every stop
responsible for the floor numbers
even the office numbers along the hallways
where the internal telephones are located…
excerpt
important areas of support for the regime, along with the rest of the surrounding
region called “The Sunni Triangle”. Many inhabitants were Sunni and were
employees and supporters of Saddam’s government. During the same era,
Falluza became an industrial center with many large factories. About half the
houses were destroyed in the war, and most of them have still not been rebuilt.
Indeed, this city still looks like a war zone. A lot of the houses are only
half-standing. Others are leaning against one another as if supporting one other,
yet people sit around in the coffee bars drinking their special tea or coffee, and
one can see they take life in stride. It seems they know this is the way things work
out when you stand up and try to claim who you are, against people who think
they know who you are and insist on telling you so.
So, the inhabitants of this forsaken place sit stoically, with a perseverance that
defies even the strongest of wills, knowing deep in their hearts that what goes
around comes around. They know deep in their hearts that what you throw out
there in the balance of the cosmos comes back and hits you on the head at
another time or place without exceptions. People sit with all the anguish of the
world on their shoulders, a world that has gone wrong, a world that defies their
right to be alive, to be with their flesh and blood, with their wants and dreams
and expectations of life. They sit and don’t care that their homes have been
destroyed, since they know they will rebuild sooner or later. They will deploy all
their efforts again to rebuild what human madness has destroyed.
Rassan goes around and asks for Talal’s family and is told they need to go a
few blocks down the road and turn to the right to find Talal’s grandparents.’
house. Two minutes later they are outside what they expect is the house. Rassan
gets out and yells from the top of the yard door to the inside of the yard; a young
man about fifteen comes to see who is calling. Talal gets out of the car and sees
his younger brother, Abdul Aziz, coming through the gate to the road.
“Abdul, my little brother,” Talal approaches him with open arms. Abdul
looks at him and realizes this man is his brother.
“Talal, what a surprise this is!” he says, and his eyes fill with tears.
Talal is crying as well and among the sobs asks, “Where’s everybody?
Where are Aesha and our grandfather?”
“Grandfather is at the coffee bar for a while; our grandmother died four
months ago. Aesha is here; come in, come inside.” He urges all of them to come
in and leads the way.
Emily and Talal walk together through the gate and Rassan follows; they find
Aesha working in the kitchen. She is so surprised to see Talal after being away for
seven years that she hugs and kisses him, throws herself in his arms sobbing with joy.
Talal introduces Emily.
excerpt
‘Right, Joe. And even with the tractors and the rest, Michael and Danny Boylan are still finding it difficult to cope. They’re working long, hard hours every day.’
‘They could bring in a couple of land girls,’ Joe suggested teasingly.
‘They’re not that desperate,’ Caitlin retorted. ‘A lot of farmers don’t want city girls in the fields. I don’t know of any around these parts.’ Then Caitlin leaned forward in her chair with a serious look on her face. ‘Joe, I’m glad you’re here and Michael isn’t. I want to talk to you about something important.’
‘What would that be?’
‘Nora. She’s not happy, is she?’
Joe felt uneasy. ‘Oh she seems content enough.’
‘Joe, you’re not being honest with me,’ Caitlin interrupted. ‘You and I both know she should never have married Liam Dooley. Oh he’s been a good husband. I’m not complaining on that score. He worships her. He’ll do anything for her. Maybe he does be out a lot, but he’s a teacher and he’s involved in a lot of out-of-school activities. Local history societies, the WEA, and all that. But he’s not the man for Nora. He’s twenty-two years older than she is. He’s set in his ways, and they’re not Nora’s ways. He’s stuffy and fussy and a creature of habit. Nora needs someone who’ll … who’ll open doors and windows and let her fly. If you see what I mean.’
‘I do, Mrs Carrick.’
Caitlin got up to pour tea into two cups on the kitchen table and added milk and sugar. ‘I’ll be glad when the war’s over and rationing ends,’ she said. ‘Will you have a scone, Joe? Or a slice of treacle bread and butter? Home-made country butter.’
‘No thanks, Mrs Carrick.’ Joe accepted the proffered cup of tea.
‘Joe, why did Nora marry Liam Dooley?’ Caitlin asked unexpectedly.
Joe was taken by surprise. ‘I suppose she discovered that she loved him. They were working together at …’
‘Blethers, Joe. I want an honest answer. And I know she would have told you. You above all people.’
Joe, put on the spot, tried drinking tea to cover his discomfiture. ‘Haven’t you asked Nora herself? You’re her mother.’
‘But not a good mother,’ Caitlin declared with commendable honesty. ‘She’d be more likely to confide in Michael than in me, but she hasn’t. Not in this case. Nora and I have never been all that close. Not as close as a mother and an only daughter ought to be. We get on badly, she and I.
What Can I Say to You
What can I say to you, oh autumn, when you rise
from the lights of the city up to the clouds?
Hymns, symbols, poetry all familiar frosty
flowers of the mind flow onto your hair.
A giant, you appear like an emperor’s spectrum
on the road of bitterness and recollection;
with your golden greatcoat’s fringe you scatter
leaves and faces of stars upon the soil
you, the angel of decay, master of death
the shadow which in a few imaginary steps
occasionally you slowly flap your wings
to write question-marks on the horizon.
I yearn, oh shivering autumn, for the hours
for this forest’s trees, the lonely bust
and as the branches fall onto the soil at autumn
I’ve come to let myself into your holy ardor
Beta
I baptized my life in the holy
loneliness of memory
that kept me
on the margins of logic
what’s the difference, you said,
from one step to another
when Hades, experienced,
exclusive and beyond the flesh,
holds a sickle in one hand and
a smiling ladybug on the other
and I said,
my only concern is the noise
of the heliotrope
during the sundown and
I baptized my life
in the holy shallowness
of the ephemeral and
in the depths of strange ideals
bloodied by the essence of man
thud of a shield on the daily axe
that balanced the echo of a bird’s
chirp with the resistance
of the tree branch that stirred too
I, the mortal, held up my destiny
in my two moistened palms
eleven
The Black Myth
and the White
of generations
and races
became history
Hysteria became Myth
half of them forgot their origin
the rest of their destination
Manolis Aligizakis 