Letters from Novosibirsk Read online
Page 4
feel this.
There was a resort of sorts there, having been built under the aura of this monument. It was an old socialist building—six square floors with no decoration on its face, no pictures on the walls, but full of the spirits who had visited there over the years (of which I am now one).
We approached it at midnight, when wolves could be heard wailing in the valley below—this place stood at the top of a long, convoluted hill; so convoluted that our bus did nothing but lurch from side to side as we ascended the narrow little road! And after we arrived—well—it seemed that we had been transported to another world: there was barely any light save that of the moon, a thick fog had dug in for the night, and there stood the colorless shadow of a building before us, without any sign of life.
Our bus was one of three vehicles in the wide lot. The monument stood on a knoll several hundred meters behind us. One had to take a set of stairs up and then through a pine grove before the scene opened up; but this night there was nothing but fog—no steps, no pine grove, no Goddess of Victory. Only us.
A friendly but soft-spoken woman (a local) checked us in and distributed our keys. As it turned out, two other groups were expected to join us before sunrise.
I shared a room with Pyotr, my boyhood friend. We sat on the small balcony overlooking the midnight woods and listened to the wolves. I might have turned in for the night if our friends Gregor and Yelena had not come to our door, pleading that we should meet in the lobby for a drink. There was to be music. You can imagine how surprised we were to learn this. Had there been any indication of that kind of life in the dull, empty lobby?
But the band, we found, played in a lounge on the lowest level: a very large room filled with long tables, cafeteria style, and a small stage at front. In fact, patrons took their meals here during the day. At night it turned nightclub.
Even as we entered, we saw that a good number of other guests had already traded their gloomy evening for a night of dancing and song. We recognized the melody immediately: a pre-socialist round from Ural folklore—and felt our hearts keeping time with them before we even ordered a drink.
A good number of our troupe had turned out—there was nothing to celebrate, but there we were celebrating. The fog pressed at the windows and obscured the moon’s light, but we had our own light, the light of drink and song and each other, dancing in circles around the room, as the stone cold monument to the war dead grew even more gray, invisible even, in the fog outside.
I tell you this because—because it is my own little letter from Novosibirsk, even if I haven’t really written it, and you haven’t really read it, but felt in your heart that you have experienced the same thing.
Todd looked down, scratched his head again, cursed, and looked back up to an empty screen.
4.
At certain times—they couldn’t always be predicted—when the moon showed a certain crescent, when the season’s gradual change turned abrupt, after a warm winter rain or strikingly clear August day, the ghosts of Vydrino gathered.
These gatherings would take place on rooftops, in the upper branches of a pine grove, in a favorite living room, or simply suspended above the old town square. They took place mid-day, or mid-night, or just after sundown, or at the anniversary of one’s death-time.
They were called to order quite spontaneously by one or more observant spirits, but the meetings were never orderly, for these ghosts would have nothing to do with order; they considered it human-made, a thing they had left behind. They had passed into a plane where their very existence spoke of an order, and that was the only order they knew.
So their congregation was more of a flittering in and out than a matrix of attentive faces. Of course, their very forms were subject to whim: some showed up with no form at all, merely the smudge in the air. Those who insistently arrived in period costume were considered showy, their character not having changed much since their days of incarnation.
At such a gathering one quiet and snowy midnight, a broad, witchlike ghost named Zofiya, who hadn’t changed a bit since the minute she died, had a few things to offer:
“Storms are the key to our understanding them. We note how they respond to a furious act of nature like this. Or, as is more likely the case, how they don’t respond.”
A humorous feeling passed through those gathered.
“In my day,” Alexei added, “you would think first of the animals in the yard—the chickens, goats, and geese—and then the windows, the leaky spots in the roof, the candles, the food in store, and lastly, your mother-in-law.”
This brought another gust of good humor
“We’re not here to judge,” Zofiya offered, “just to observe.”
“And to have a little fun,” Nura thought, “especially at their expense, the ingrates! Who built this town and maintained it for centuries?”
“Your ancestors came from Smolensk,” Nadezhda put it. “How long do you have to live in a place before it belongs to you?”
“Longer than they have. And only my father’s family came from Smolensk. On my mother’s side we go back generations—right here in Vydrino.”
“It’s a strange lot we have here,” maintained Zofiya, “I haven’t bothered to glean anything from their scribblings but—what’s that Nura? A journal? What could they possibly be writing about Vydrino?”
“Nothing,” Alexei brought up. “That’s it. They write about anything but us. Vydrino’s an insignificant shell for them. It could be anywhere as well. What they want from us is a hideaway. But the history, the beauty, the spirit of the place—it’s all lost on them.”
“Obviously,” Nura hastened, “that’s why it’s our job to remind them of it.”
“What if they don’t want to be reminded?” added little Kolya, who had been taken at age four by the new tuberculosis. But having felt the immense response to this comment, he put in nothing more. Even young ghosts had a lot to learn.
5. THE CARTOGRAPHER
No one ever felt invited to Novosibirsk, as Omar quickly discovered. Newcomers arrived just as all newcomers had: without an address, a phone number, a familiar face, or hotel room. There was simply Novosibirsk: a skeleton of Vydrino, a bare prop for the present, and a feeling that humanity did not inhabit it, but somehow reconstructed its spirit continuously.
And of course, most of its inhabitants were invisible, or so it seemed to Omar on the day he arrived.
He ended up inhabiting one of the colorless wooden cottages that lined Novosibirsk’s half-dozen alleys. It always happened like that with those who came to Novosibirsk: one saw a window that one liked, or a certain slant in the roof, a forgotten doormat, etc.; and then the exploration began, ending in a first night’s stay, then a second, and a third, until the cottage had begun to breathe another life.
Omar was an Egyptian cartographer, one of Novosibirsk’s latest arrivals. At forty-four he had finally thrown in the towel and left his comfortable university job at the Arab Union capital of Tunis and headed for the hills of Lebanon.
But Lebanon was not much better than Egypt or Tunisia—no one was interested in geography there, either. And from his travels and passing acquaintances of people from all corners of the world he finally determined that not another living soul was interested in geography aside from an occasional ten-year-old or two, but these usually succumbed to the pan-globe conspiracy by age twelve.
What could he do but come to Novosibirsk, which he had heard about once or twice, and which was the birthplace of one of his favorite monthlies, Letters from Novosibirsk? He might be able to work in seclusion there; and since he’d felt that he’d been secluded from his contemporary world already, why not see and feel his seclusion more concretely?
Omar’s cottage was a favorite of Kolya’s too, for it was in this house that Kolya had spent his few living years.
At first Kolya, shy young spirit that he was, chose to remain relatively unobtrusive—merely observing this newcomer, and not taunting him in the style of Nura or even Zofiya. This p
eriod of ghostly calm was lengthened by the fact that Omar’s profession had captivated Kolya’s half-felt heart from the start. It was not until several of Omar’s months had passed that Kolya happened to mention this profession to the regular congregation at a ghost gathering:
“I wish I’d been alive long enough to be one of them.”
“One of what?” Zofiya demanded.
“A c-cartofager.”
“You mean, cartographer,” Nura held. But Kolya, couldn’t you have wished for something more exciting? You’re better off dead.”
“No, I’m not!”
“Now departed,” put in Alexei, “maybe the boy has a point. There weren’t many alive in his time who knew where they were going.”
“There still aren’t!” snapped Zofiya. “Nothing but uncharted souls here in Vydrino—excepting ourselves of course.”
“Yes! Yes!” Nura felt loudly. A chorus of others cheered too, already feeling her idea:
“Then why don’t we let Kolya chart them?”
“Please?” Alexei mused.
“Little Nikolai will have his chance after all.” Nura began. “He will be the cartographer, Omar’s silent apprentice, and begin charting the soul of Omar himself. Kolya will report to us and we’ll all have a wonderful time showing the living what spiritual landscapes they possess!”
“How?” a distant ghost glimmered.
“How. HOW. There was never such a word,” Nura went on. “We’ll
There was a resort of sorts there, having been built under the aura of this monument. It was an old socialist building—six square floors with no decoration on its face, no pictures on the walls, but full of the spirits who had visited there over the years (of which I am now one).
We approached it at midnight, when wolves could be heard wailing in the valley below—this place stood at the top of a long, convoluted hill; so convoluted that our bus did nothing but lurch from side to side as we ascended the narrow little road! And after we arrived—well—it seemed that we had been transported to another world: there was barely any light save that of the moon, a thick fog had dug in for the night, and there stood the colorless shadow of a building before us, without any sign of life.
Our bus was one of three vehicles in the wide lot. The monument stood on a knoll several hundred meters behind us. One had to take a set of stairs up and then through a pine grove before the scene opened up; but this night there was nothing but fog—no steps, no pine grove, no Goddess of Victory. Only us.
A friendly but soft-spoken woman (a local) checked us in and distributed our keys. As it turned out, two other groups were expected to join us before sunrise.
I shared a room with Pyotr, my boyhood friend. We sat on the small balcony overlooking the midnight woods and listened to the wolves. I might have turned in for the night if our friends Gregor and Yelena had not come to our door, pleading that we should meet in the lobby for a drink. There was to be music. You can imagine how surprised we were to learn this. Had there been any indication of that kind of life in the dull, empty lobby?
But the band, we found, played in a lounge on the lowest level: a very large room filled with long tables, cafeteria style, and a small stage at front. In fact, patrons took their meals here during the day. At night it turned nightclub.
Even as we entered, we saw that a good number of other guests had already traded their gloomy evening for a night of dancing and song. We recognized the melody immediately: a pre-socialist round from Ural folklore—and felt our hearts keeping time with them before we even ordered a drink.
A good number of our troupe had turned out—there was nothing to celebrate, but there we were celebrating. The fog pressed at the windows and obscured the moon’s light, but we had our own light, the light of drink and song and each other, dancing in circles around the room, as the stone cold monument to the war dead grew even more gray, invisible even, in the fog outside.
I tell you this because—because it is my own little letter from Novosibirsk, even if I haven’t really written it, and you haven’t really read it, but felt in your heart that you have experienced the same thing.
Todd looked down, scratched his head again, cursed, and looked back up to an empty screen.
4.
At certain times—they couldn’t always be predicted—when the moon showed a certain crescent, when the season’s gradual change turned abrupt, after a warm winter rain or strikingly clear August day, the ghosts of Vydrino gathered.
These gatherings would take place on rooftops, in the upper branches of a pine grove, in a favorite living room, or simply suspended above the old town square. They took place mid-day, or mid-night, or just after sundown, or at the anniversary of one’s death-time.
They were called to order quite spontaneously by one or more observant spirits, but the meetings were never orderly, for these ghosts would have nothing to do with order; they considered it human-made, a thing they had left behind. They had passed into a plane where their very existence spoke of an order, and that was the only order they knew.
So their congregation was more of a flittering in and out than a matrix of attentive faces. Of course, their very forms were subject to whim: some showed up with no form at all, merely the smudge in the air. Those who insistently arrived in period costume were considered showy, their character not having changed much since their days of incarnation.
At such a gathering one quiet and snowy midnight, a broad, witchlike ghost named Zofiya, who hadn’t changed a bit since the minute she died, had a few things to offer:
“Storms are the key to our understanding them. We note how they respond to a furious act of nature like this. Or, as is more likely the case, how they don’t respond.”
A humorous feeling passed through those gathered.
“In my day,” Alexei added, “you would think first of the animals in the yard—the chickens, goats, and geese—and then the windows, the leaky spots in the roof, the candles, the food in store, and lastly, your mother-in-law.”
This brought another gust of good humor
“We’re not here to judge,” Zofiya offered, “just to observe.”
“And to have a little fun,” Nura thought, “especially at their expense, the ingrates! Who built this town and maintained it for centuries?”
“Your ancestors came from Smolensk,” Nadezhda put it. “How long do you have to live in a place before it belongs to you?”
“Longer than they have. And only my father’s family came from Smolensk. On my mother’s side we go back generations—right here in Vydrino.”
“It’s a strange lot we have here,” maintained Zofiya, “I haven’t bothered to glean anything from their scribblings but—what’s that Nura? A journal? What could they possibly be writing about Vydrino?”
“Nothing,” Alexei brought up. “That’s it. They write about anything but us. Vydrino’s an insignificant shell for them. It could be anywhere as well. What they want from us is a hideaway. But the history, the beauty, the spirit of the place—it’s all lost on them.”
“Obviously,” Nura hastened, “that’s why it’s our job to remind them of it.”
“What if they don’t want to be reminded?” added little Kolya, who had been taken at age four by the new tuberculosis. But having felt the immense response to this comment, he put in nothing more. Even young ghosts had a lot to learn.
5. THE CARTOGRAPHER
No one ever felt invited to Novosibirsk, as Omar quickly discovered. Newcomers arrived just as all newcomers had: without an address, a phone number, a familiar face, or hotel room. There was simply Novosibirsk: a skeleton of Vydrino, a bare prop for the present, and a feeling that humanity did not inhabit it, but somehow reconstructed its spirit continuously.
And of course, most of its inhabitants were invisible, or so it seemed to Omar on the day he arrived.
He ended up inhabiting one of the colorless wooden cottages that lined Novosibirsk’s half-dozen alleys. It always happened like that with those who came to Novosibirsk: one saw a window that one liked, or a certain slant in the roof, a forgotten doormat, etc.; and then the exploration began, ending in a first night’s stay, then a second, and a third, until the cottage had begun to breathe another life.
Omar was an Egyptian cartographer, one of Novosibirsk’s latest arrivals. At forty-four he had finally thrown in the towel and left his comfortable university job at the Arab Union capital of Tunis and headed for the hills of Lebanon.
But Lebanon was not much better than Egypt or Tunisia—no one was interested in geography there, either. And from his travels and passing acquaintances of people from all corners of the world he finally determined that not another living soul was interested in geography aside from an occasional ten-year-old or two, but these usually succumbed to the pan-globe conspiracy by age twelve.
What could he do but come to Novosibirsk, which he had heard about once or twice, and which was the birthplace of one of his favorite monthlies, Letters from Novosibirsk? He might be able to work in seclusion there; and since he’d felt that he’d been secluded from his contemporary world already, why not see and feel his seclusion more concretely?
Omar’s cottage was a favorite of Kolya’s too, for it was in this house that Kolya had spent his few living years.
At first Kolya, shy young spirit that he was, chose to remain relatively unobtrusive—merely observing this newcomer, and not taunting him in the style of Nura or even Zofiya. This p
eriod of ghostly calm was lengthened by the fact that Omar’s profession had captivated Kolya’s half-felt heart from the start. It was not until several of Omar’s months had passed that Kolya happened to mention this profession to the regular congregation at a ghost gathering:
“I wish I’d been alive long enough to be one of them.”
“One of what?” Zofiya demanded.
“A c-cartofager.”
“You mean, cartographer,” Nura held. But Kolya, couldn’t you have wished for something more exciting? You’re better off dead.”
“No, I’m not!”
“Now departed,” put in Alexei, “maybe the boy has a point. There weren’t many alive in his time who knew where they were going.”
“There still aren’t!” snapped Zofiya. “Nothing but uncharted souls here in Vydrino—excepting ourselves of course.”
“Yes! Yes!” Nura felt loudly. A chorus of others cheered too, already feeling her idea:
“Then why don’t we let Kolya chart them?”
“Please?” Alexei mused.
“Little Nikolai will have his chance after all.” Nura began. “He will be the cartographer, Omar’s silent apprentice, and begin charting the soul of Omar himself. Kolya will report to us and we’ll all have a wonderful time showing the living what spiritual landscapes they possess!”
“How?” a distant ghost glimmered.
“How. HOW. There was never such a word,” Nura went on. “We’ll
Letters from Novosibirsk