Russian Undertakings

© 2013 Marie Guillot

A two-fold language story

Graphic by Marie Guillot

At the other end of the line, Boris's English is tinted with a Russian colour. Of course, mine has an equivalent tinge, due to my French native tongue. Thus, we are more likely to be able to communicate properly.

My problem is simple enough. Having learned the basics of Russian decades ago, I now want to write a short text in that language, in order to read it at my son's wedding: Marina's family is from Ukraine and now lives in the USA. That's where Pierre met her.

I am based in Cork (Ireland) and Boris, a seasoned polyglot translator, lives in Dublin. We agree on this: I'll prepare the English text and a draft of the Russian version, using my old books. Then, I'll email him the English bit and we'll complete the job over the phone.

In the late Sixties, there was a belief in France that the business world would become Russian-oriented. As a consequence, our Engineering College was, for the first time, offering a course in that language.

Professor Yvanovitch was a Russian exile; he was doing research in Strasbourg University and his current project was to develop a device helping students in their pronunciation of foreign languages. 

The principle was to record a sentence spoken in native speech (his, for example) and to display the correlating sound waves on a makeshift 'oscilloscope-cum-microphone'. Then the students repeated the same words, while comparing their own waves to the teacher's pattern. Not an easy exercise, but, with good guidance and many attempts, persevering students could certainly improve their intonation that way.

Starting my first draft, I immediately realise that I had forgotten the order of the Russian alphabet, not an ideal situation when using a dictionary; but this hurdle is only a small one compared to the bulk of the work.

As I move forward, my short text keeps shrinking: from a carefully hand-carved English creation, it becomes two short plain sentences, in the line of 'wishing you happiness all your life'. Almost heart-broken, I email them to Boris and we set up a time for the phone call.

With the receiver in one hand and a pencil in the other, I am ready to start. Boris interrupts me, right there. As a professional editor, his duty is to make suggestions. The first one is a slight modification to my English text. I am able to appreciate the service, because I 'do that to others' on a regular basis.

I get on with my reading, detaching each word for clarity. He listens to the whole text and repeats it slowly, taking one word at a time. I try to follow him, while scribbling a phonetic equivalent, using a code that I am making up as I go. Most words have to be adjusted, because of a declination or a conjugation, or else they are utterly wrong. All my adverbs are correct (ah!). Admittedly, my enthusiasm is a little bit dampened.

The wedding takes place next week: 'To read or not to read, that is now my question'. 

Unwittingly, my brain takes over: two days later, I wake up with the answer. Thanks to all that exercise with my books and Boris, there are simple words and numbers that are now coming back.

Full sentences are dropped altogether: I'll make a list of words and call it a 'poem'. Brilliant! Not only do I feel more comfortable with this version, but I can probably learn it by heart too. It goes something like this:

Ukraine, France, America

Today / Celebration / Together

Three cultures / Two hearts / One love 

Reflecting on all this, I think again of Professor Yvanovitch who, obviously, had not entirely wasted his time with us. I wonder if he was actually a dormant spy. Many of them were discovered after the Cold War, on both sides of the East-West front. It would not have mattered to us anyway, as we were really fond of him. His dedication to the little homemade apparatus was also touching. As apprentice engineers, we were able to appreciate the work behind the curtain, so to speak.

There we are now, two days before the wedding, settling in New Jersey.

A meal is organized, to finalise the acquaintance of both families, seventeen persons in total, including children. Each participant is encouraged to 'say-a-toast'.

I decide that this is my opportunity, not as intimidating as a wedding. Standing up, I recite my poem as well as I can, in Russian first, then in English. A reasonable applause follows, intertwined with some laughs.

I ask the person sitting next to me: "Why the laughs? My accent?"

"No, not really. It does not matter."

  "What does not matter?" I reply, a little worried.

"Well, Marie, you actually said two sisters instead of two hearts. But, believe me, we understood your intention and we are all very touched."

Two days later, the real thing. I feel quite relaxed: no worry about languages anymore! The young couple is about to exchange their vows. Both perfectly composed, eyes in eyes, they recite them: first Pierre, in Russian; then Marina, in French. Next comes English: "…To love you…in sickness…"

The world is vanishing around me.

The Seventieth Party

© 2012 Nuala Ni Loinsigh

On entering Big Dan's lounge in Sliabh Luachra, on Saturday June 9th, the blaze of coloured balloons and various bright candles set the atmosphere for this enjoyable party, when Hannah celebrated her seventieth birthday. Nobody was in any doubt about which birthday it was, as the number was conspicuously placed  on each wall and on the balloons. Her age was no secret. In fact, she was proud to proclaim it to all the sixty people who attended, between family, extended family and good neighbours. There were various plates of food, salads, meats and mouth watering confectionery, all prepared by themselves.

On the night, with her natural curly grey hair framing her face, Hannah was dressed elegantly in a silk-like floral dress. She cut a dash as she entered the room.

Waiting for a Train

An invalid's bedroom overlooked by the railway, so near, so far, so hopeless.

by Victor Sullivan

© Victor Sullivan 1970

The rattle of the approaching bicycle at last; the squeal of that gate-hinge followed by the gate-latch snapping shut again.  Agnes lay helpless in her still-clean bed and mentally followed her aging sister Kitty's progress to the bicycle shed, then the characteristic sounds of the back door opening — closing and finally other faint, familiar sounds from downstairs.  How long to wait before Kitty took it into her head to climb those stairs and deliver her thirty seconds of local news summary or whatever condensed gossip she had picked up in the course of her morning visit to the shops... or was it the Post Office...  Whatever it might be, it was from Outside and that was all that mattered. Were it not for Kitty who else would be there to care for her in her utter helplessness. Kitty had no life of her own other than caring relentlessly for her bed-bound sister and Agnes sensed her sister's resentment of the situation with each grunt as Kitty climbed the stairs. Kitty was her only link with Outside. Ever since poor old Breda Kelly died nobody else from Outside ever came to the house apart from the doctor. Breda, Babbling Breda... how she could spread gossip!  Oh God how she missed Breda... Breda from Outside...  seven years without Babbling Breda from Outside. Seven years without keeping up with everything going on Outside. Oh Kitty brought her the newspapers, but they never reported what went on just down the road. Ever since Breda died any news about Outside was always filtered dry and abbreviated into dust by Kitty. Kitty had a way of never speaking a sentence if a syllable would suffice. 

The house was right beside the metal railway bridge that spanned the main road leading to the town. As each train growled its way to or from the town's train station, its wheels, running past just a little higher than her bedroom window, created a hollow rumble as they crossed over the roadway. Every week-day the driver of the 11:35 goods train, dressed in his coal-smudged pale blue overalls, leaned from the side of his black steam locomotive number 241 and seemed to stare straight towards her window and wave a greasy hand. Could he see her in her bed? Could he really? She hoped he could. Agnes always waved back, even on her bad days. He was Outside. He was her independent connection with Outside. Kitty had said he was only waving at children on the road below the bridge... perhaps he was... But every day? During school-time? The alarm clock on her bedside table was set to go off at 11:30 in case she might fall asleep and miss the morning wave from Outside. 

The stairs creaked once, twice, then the landing floor-board creaked to the accompaniment of one final grunt and the bedroom door opened. Kitty stood just inside the large bedroom, breathing heavily.

     "Any news in town?"

     "None as makes any difference, not to us anyway."

     "Anyone dead?"

     "None that I heard of."

     "The town is quiet so?"

     "Very quiet.  I brought you these. They were new in the shop."

Kitty held up a brown paper bag and took a step towards her invalid sister, Agnes, who managed to find the strength to raise one hand towards the offered surprise.

     "That was nice of you, Kitty. What___KITTY!! What's the matter Kitty?" Agnes's weak voice croaked a scream as her elderly sister suddenly yelped with pain, dropped the bag and seemed to hug herself violently.  Helpless, Agnes watched her sister sway about crazily, her gasping mouth open and eyes staring like those of some demented beast. Then and with a horrible choking gurgle, Kitty crashed onto the floor beside the bed  writhing in her agony, her hideous noises being finally drowned by the rumble of the long, slow, 11:35 freight train passing over the bridge outside the bedroom window.

     "KITTY___KITTY!! Oh my God Kitty! What's happened to you, Kitty.  Oh Kitteeeee!"

     

Then there was silence in the room. Silence, broken only by a few plaintive calls of, "Kitty?" until the next train passed, after which the silence came back and with it came the fear and the increasing awareness of everything horrible until the next train passed and the silence and the fear and the awareness and the tears and the terror began again and continued until the next train, and the next... and the next ... it grew dark, a few trains passed in the night, a night of hunger and no bed-pan no matter how loudly she called Kitty. When it grew light again she thought of tea... and food... and the bed-pan but that didn't matter anymore... then the early morning trains passed... soon it would be time to wave at the 11:35  goods train, her only Outside hope but it would require more than a wave this morning. When the alarm clock on the bedside table indicated 11:30 Agnes reached out a feeble hand and grasped it. She knew she had only five minutes more to wait before HIS train would pass. The knuckles of her scrawny hand whitened as she gripped the ticking alarm clock. It would have to work. Her life, such as it was, depended on it. The rumble of the train...  Agnes drew her arm back... God! She was hungry!

James Manley drove locomotive 241 and its train of goods wagons over the bridge and for once he neglected to wave at the shadowy person in the bed who could always be seen dimly through the window.  He had been waving at whoever it was for many years, never quite certain if the bedridden figure was male or female, not that it mattered. Whenever he waved, the wave was weakly reciprocated. The waving had become a habit, like his shouting at the dog that chased his locomotive at the other side of town. Today, waving had been overlooked as he had much on his mind. Happy thoughts, worrying thoughts, planning, trying to remember things he felt sure might have been overlooked. James was getting married on Saturday and as soon as he reached the terminus old 241 would have to find another driver for two weeks.

Thanks to a round of holiday relief duties on other routes, James Manley was not reunited with 241 for another three weeks in addition to his honeymoon break. When eventually reunited, the locomotive was just the same, same troubles, same noises, same smell, same fireman, same route, same dog chasing 241, same bridge over the main road, same waving hand... or was it? Perhaps not today, he hadn't been really concentrating.

On the following day as 241 approached the bridge he picked up a cleaning rag to wave with but received no response. He could barely make out something white lying at an angle inside the room. Later that day he began to question what he had seen. He would look more carefully.

The next time he approached the bridge his hand reached for the regulator and slowed 241 to a crawl. There was nothing to see. Just the house. No wave, just the faintest shadowy image of something grey inside the window, something lying at an angle. Some instinct told him all was not well. While stopped at the nearby train station he telephoned the local police and persuaded them to investigate.

The policeman cycled to the house by the railway bridge and knocked on the front door. Receiving no reply he peered through the downstairs windows. No sign of life apart from bluebottles swarming against the glass. Wisely, he decided he needed assistance and went to fetch it. 

Two decomposing bodies were found in an upstairs bedroom. One in a foetal position on the floor the other half in and half out of the bed. They had been visited by rats. Also on the floor was a paper bag containing some shriveled plums. Near the window lay hundreds of dead flies and an alarm clock that had stopped at 11:35. Agnes did not have enough strength to smash the window with the clock as 241 passed by.

Over sixty years later that house became the headquarters of an industrial computer enterprise. From the window of my comfortable office I could watch trains rumble over the bridge and sometimes I exchanged a wave with the train-driver. Yes, it really was the same room.

© Victor Sullivan, 2012

Christmas Songs:Bridging Two Continents by E. Alana James

© 2011

As I sit down to write this, I have just downloaded Christmas music, updated with such new names to me as Michael Buble', Harry Connick and Diana Krall.  Heaven only knows where our standard Christmas CD collection is, buried, I am sure, in the piles of boxes that inhabit the small cubbie holes around our house, some so small we have to squeeze to get into them.  My partner has already made her way to the States, it being the in-between year where we go back to spend time with our family on the coast of California.

The holidays in our house span two continents and six decades of memories.  And, just like with the music, some traditions seem old and are tucked away in the closets yet still available, while it is the new in both technology and relationships that have become the mainstay of  our Christmas Holiday Season.  For those who are new to our story, we moved from the United States to Ireland five and a half years ago.  At 50+, what seemed at times like a courageous act, has given us a new lease on life and no where is this more obvious than at the holidays.

As an example, before I walked into our Cork NonFiction Writers Group Christmas meeting in downtown Cork this morning I sauntered up the street to Brown Thomas where, for a small donation, I added a ribbon to the Rememberance Tree.  While no longer a Cork Bishopstown Rotarian, I worked the booth at this tree for too many years not to always want to add our parents names to the many others whose yellow ribbons cover the tree from base to its top three stories above.  The streets were packed with people and I was delighted to look at the variety of decorations in shop windows.  The rain was light, but my mind was on snowflakes.

Christmas is time to mark the changes and to remember the sheer joys that come to us through this blessed life.  For some it is a religious centering as well, as is appropriate for the darkest part of the year, or at least seems apropos for any in the Northern hemisphere.  Yule logs bring light to dark times and our adopted land makes this tradition resonate with our souls as we see the sun come up at around 8am and our world goes dark well before 5pm.  Our dogs remind us that the requisite two walks a day just need to be closer together. As I walked this morning past the graves of the three furry friends who moved with us five years ago "Joie de Vivre,"  especially as it has to do with playing ball, cut through the rain showers.

Life on two continents, virtual communications, daily work relationships with people all over the world, these have become commonplace.  Perhaps it is the strangeness of these new things, or maybe the time of year that makes me nostalgic – not for the perennial white Christmas, as that often was accompanied by cars stuck in drifts and rotten weather – and not for deeper relationships long past as the new people in my life mean as much to me as any others I have enjoyed – but rather nostalgic just because of the joy of memory.  It's fun to recall where we were, and indeed who we were, as we pull out the decorations each year.  Equally wonderful are the old songs done new ways, and old traditions carried out in new places.

And so I take a line from the lyrics that are playing, and "fall asleep counting my blessings."  Old friends and new, golden memories to be brought out, dusted off and appreciated and silver ones to be created.  These are the joys of the holiday season and I know they are joys shared by all who take the time to reflect no matter what this time of year means to them.  As we move from darkness to the light may 2012 bring all the joy and fulfillment you can imagine to all who read this.

The Blackboard by Laurence A. Gea

(Le tableau noir)    ©2011

Anna, still wearing her coat and shoes, drops her flowery backpack in the hallway. She zips it open, pulls out a sheet of paper and waves it in front of my face. 

“Look!” she says, beaming.

I read the first of the questions: 

“What was your favourite toy? Hmm...”

I see myself at her age, playing for countless hours with blond, red or dark-haired dolls; one is missing an arm, another has a funky eye, permanently shut no matter how vigorously you wake her up. But the image that stays with me is that of a three-legged easel at the back of which – on the plywood part - I used to write “secret” messages.

“My favourite toy was a blackboard,” I say. 

Anna lifts her eyebrows. 

 “A blackboard? What is a blackboard?”

In Anna’s school, all classrooms have interactive boards. From her desk, the teacher opens and closes folders on the white screen that faces the pupils. A large “Good morning,” displayed across a bucolic background of cows and green hills finally appears to greet everyone. The shape of the letters will look the same tomorrow. There will be no way to tell if the teacher has had a good night’s sleep.

I have often wondered why I do not feel the expected nostalgia whenever I take Anna to school. I recall a picture taken when I am her age, entitled “Ecole Primaire Arthur Rimbaud, Cours Préparatoire.” I am sitting at a small desk, similar to the ones I see in her classroom. I am wearing a white pullover with a large emerald green shamrock splayed across the front. My mother’s inspired needlework was my uniform for that day. 

Suddenly it dawns on me. The smells. I recall the scent and velvety feel of chalk; the sponge smelling of the past, that feels like a frog, and that you have to squeeze above a bucket with water the colour of a pond. The noises are different too. The clanking sound of the pointing stick dropped on the teacher’s desk, the occasional teeth-jarring screeches of chalk on board, the soft snap of a long piece being broken in two to better fit a small hand... All these sounds have been replaced by modern ones.

Tap, tap, tap, on the keyboard. 

Click, click, click, on the mouse. 

The voice of my godchild draws me out of my reverie.

 “Marraine, what happened to your blackboard?”

 “Well, I was probably too big for it.”

I clearly remember my disappointment the day I found out it had been given away; I suspect my mother wanted to help me let go of the past, so I could grow.

On the way to school the next day, I carry my imaginary tableau noir under my arm. Anna is hopping around me, showing off her Irish dancing steps. Her arms are slightly lifted for balance. 

“Look what I learned yesterday!” she says, beaming above her dicky bow.

Her feet tap, tap, tap the ground. 

My hands tap, tap, tap the keyboard. 

I pause, and decide to save those lines.

Click. 

The Girl We Met by Victor Sullivan

© 2011
My wife and I were on holiday in West Cork, Ireland and it was around lunch-time when we stopped the car and picked up an American hitch-hiker. Her holiday was almost over, her money was spent and she was due to fly home to New York from Shannon Airport on the following day. We let her out in the village of Eyeries as she wished to photograph the colorful buildings as all the tourists do. We drove the two miles to our holiday chalet in Urhan.  

The first radio reports were coming in...  an aircraft had flown into one of New York's Twin Towers...  Then another one... America was under attack! All aircraft were grounded. 

As the enormity of the disaster became clearer the plight of our hitch-hiking American dawned on us and we drove back to Eyeries in search of that girl... but we failed to find her.