Adelaide Literary Magazine No.7, Volume Two, June 2017

Adelaide Magazine

“This maƩers, for why?” and more streets: food, craŌs, clothes, musicians,
but mostly food. This food market; it shimmers in
This is familiar…too familiar. the sun like a busy mirage, the sheer noise of it
rising all around us, it is color itself, a rainbow
“Did you know my mother in the shtetl?” I try swirling through the streets in a dance of pleas-
another track. ure. The grass is liƩered with people eaƟng ice
cream or lunch or fruit, drinking beer or water or
He looks at me in astonishment then laughs. “My even, hidden a liƩle in a bag for the sake of dis-
dear liƩle girl, Russia is big country, from north to creƟon although nobody cares, vodka or other
south, from east to west. How might I have met spirits, clear and icy. Such noise, such joviality,
your mother, please to tell me?” His eyes are such a feast, such a celebraƟon of life, yes? Such
very humorous, very paƟent, very Ɵred, filled accordion players, so good like you’ve never
with longing. heard anywhere else, such melody.

“You miss Russia, Mr. Palatnik?” “Have a second piorgi, what could it hurt; eat, eat
up.”
“What’s to miss, the kicks, the curses, the stealing
of your property?” He sighs. “Yes, I miss.” And I do, with greed, with gusto, wanƟng more
even as my stomach hurts and why not; this is the
“Where in Russia are these from?” I ask the shop manna of my childhood, this is my inheritance,
keeper. my own liƩle piece of the collecƟve unconscious.
Something is compleƟng itself in me; I’m assum-
“These.” He strokes them, touches them lovingly, ing my mother’s loss; I’m ready to sing Koro-
caressing his children; “Naturally from Serviev beniniki, that old love song about a peddler and
Posad.” girl, except…except, I could never learn the
words; the song always sung so fast, but also with
That is where the most expensive and finest and such feeling, that I could get, yes, the meaning, so
oldest are from. I know instantly he’s lying. His the words are irrelevant. This song is a fairy tale
eyes are without guile, his face empty of deceit, aŌer all; a Russian fairy tale so of course a tragic
his voice sincere, the look of an honest man. ending.

He asks an impossible price, waits for us to bar- “Like fairy tale,” the old, nearly-blind woman in
gain. We surprise him and turn to leave. This is the apartment next door tells me. How long has
what I haven’t inherited and what Kevin never she been living here? How many mountains, how
owned; this love of bargaining. many ships, how many borders, how many lan-
guages to escape to this run-down tenement with
We reach the door and he runs aŌer us, grabs my its smell of decay and desolaƟon, its gangs run-
husband’s hand and puts something into it; a ning rampant on the street like Cossacks.
business card.
I’ve come to leave potato latkes my mother
“Here on this card is my email. Anything you made.
want, anything Russian, you email, I find it; any-
thing. Good price too.” “сидеть, сидеть, sit, sit” she says in Russian.

DesperaƟon, didn’t we escape desperaƟon? I I sit in the old chair with the cracked plasƟc seat.
think. Didn’t we leave the gheƩo, the shtetl, the Her kitchen is a cave, the walls around the stove
pogrom? smudged dark from matches; I see in those
smudges secret Cyrillic dreams from some ancient
He hangs onto to Kevin’s arm unƟl Kevin nods Ɵme.
quietly. “Yes, thank you.”
“The palace outside St. Petersburg, mid-
We leave. We stand outside the store and look at summer’s eve, such a party.” she says.
each other.
She smiles, her blind eyes watching something I’ll
“Let’s get something to eat,” my husband says. never see.

“Potato piorgi from the Russian vendor in the “The palace, so lit up, so many lights, too many to
food market,” I suggest and he nods.

The food market extends for streets and streets

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count, brighter than the stars.” She nods with nomads, admiring the architecture, the curving
pleasure. For one fleeƟng moment I see the child roofs and carved owls and sense of anƟquity. We
enchanted by the lights, the jewels and dresses turn the corner and suddenly there is a quality to
on the women, the uniforms just so, always prop- the air, such a fesƟve blaze of joy; twenty-four
er, such fabric, such tailoring. She watches out hours of sunlight crowding out the darkness.
the kitchen door while her mother, a cook in the Clouds dance in the sky with graƟtude for the
court of the czar, hurriedly piles caviar on plates, light that embraces the city with the promise of a
slices white fish, fills crystal decanters. few weeks more. The fair is flooded with people
so dense we can scarcely move, all going about
“Here, taste,” her mother tells her and puts in her the business of celebraƟon. We are in the thick-
mouth a liƩle white fish, a liƩle caviar on slice ness of crowds and the smell of perfume and per-
bread, even the Ɵniest taste of cognac. “Who’s to spiraƟon and beer, but also the compeƟng scents
know, there’s so much here,” her mother says, all of fresh bread and salmon and roasƟng meat and
the while looking out at a guard who winks at the thick soups and pastries so flakey and sweet with
liƩle girl; who’s to know; eat a liƩle and a liƩle summer fruit you could weep with joy.
more.
Such a giŌ.
“Swans and bears and reindeer carved from ice;
giant ice statues, fire from bonfires shining on I try on enameled necklaces, admire woven
them,” the old blind woman tells me. shawls, run my fingers over silver candlesƟcks, sip
a Ɵny taste of clear spirits so strong I cough as it
I see the hot orange flames rising, casƟng flicker- hits my throat to the delight of the Finn who
ing shadows so the ice sculptures are animated, brews it. Kevin, always the scienƟst, wanders
alive, eyes gliƩering with the joy of being the cen- from stall to stall to count the tree rings in wood-
ter of aƩenƟon, oblivious to the slow melt of their en plaƩers and cups and cuƫng boards sanded to
limbs. I see the plaƩers, endless plaƩers, silver, saƟn perfecƟon, to examine the obvious wound-
only the best please, the laughing, the dancing, ing and infecƟons of the trees that has created
the music thick as fog. The bonfires lighƟng it all such beauƟful paƩerns, to compare it to those at
before that world went up in flames, trampled home, to note the universality of everything. The
under the boots and the promises and the lies. vendors whose stalls we stop at are hopeful, the
economy is bad aŌer all and this is a hard way to
I Ɵptoe out, leave the old woman with her moth- earn a living, but when we shake our heads aŌer
er’s kindness, with the fesƟvity, with the lingering admiring their products, they smile and say,
taste in her mouth of caviar and white fish and “Enjoy the sunlight and the holiday and the city.”
rum cake; leave her trespassing into the country
of the past while the country of today is busy go- And then driŌing over me – Korobeniniki played
ing about its business. on a violin with the nearly too-much passion of a
legendary melodrama; radio waves from a long
But even then, at her door, I hold it open, hand ago Russian staƟon beaming a siren song into this
on the doorknob, wondering if there is a way to Ɵny bit of universe. Will I turn and see my mother
slip through the cracks of her memory and into nodding, eyes filled with desire for what once
her world, bypass the fissures of passing Ɵme that was?
dominate our lives and move beyond them into
the blind woman’s Russia which she keeps alive I’m in a hypnoƟc trance, called home to a com-
even as bits of it vanish with each refugee’s plex layering of conƟnents and countries and
death, flames of memory snuffed out like blowing ciƟes bonded by the dispossessed’s need for once
out candles at the Czar’s party Ɵll it is only a page more please to see my childhood.
in a history book.
It’s a café in a liƩle tent, sun shining through the
But none of us can return to the past, especially white canvas, diffuse light illuminaƟng people
one not ours, except in dreams and memories crowded around liƩle tables filled with borscht
and someƟmes in madness. and sorrel soup, fish and glasses of tea and an
array of deserts so laden with memory I can bare-
The fair is to celebrate Mid-Summer’s Eve. We ly breathe. There is a menu in Russian, but it’s
happen upon it while wandering the streets like

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Adelaide Magazine

not necessary; the food is its own explanaƟon. At About the Author:
the entrance to the tent is an accordion player, a
man with a balalaika, but most lively, a violin play- Michelle Cacho-Negrete is a reƟred therapist
er in his fiŌies, eyes filled with mischief as he who lives in Portland Maine by way of Brooklyn
warms the crowd with a new and lively song. Chil- New York. She’s been published in North Ameri-
dren dance in front of the tent, the swirling and can Review, The Sun, Silk Road, and a variety of
kicking and bending of intuiƟon; the special giŌ of others. Michelle’s essays have been selected four
the young who obey the desire to move and who Ɵmes for Most Notable of the Year and she has
understand that all of it is grace. won Best Non-ficƟon on the net. She’s I five an-
thologies, but is especially proud to be in Tho-
The violin player has closed his eyes, his face reau’s Legacy; Writers speak on Global Climate
wisƞul, his mouth Ɵnged with sorrow, the notes Change. She is currently non-ficƟon editor for
are so sweet, so reminiscent that the world falls SolsƟce Magazine.
away and there is only this liƩle tent, and the
children dancing. I am a matryoshka, my years in
America being liŌed off one by one Ɵll all that
remains is something I experience through in-
sƟnct. The country of the past shimmers like a
mirage I can almost touch and there is the prom-
ise that for a few moments I can reverse the Dias-
pora, I can fulfill my mother’s dream. I under-
stand that my children will never experience what
I feel. I am one of the last descendents of a very
specific group of émigrés, the final bridge, the
vanishing repository for their memories and the
inheritance of this parƟcular yearning.

Standing opposite me is an elegant woman in her
eighƟes; such jewelry, such carefully coiffed hair,
such tailoring of her simple skirt and blouse, and
who please to tell me is your tailor? Her eyes are
closed and she sways, cocooned by the music and
the longing and her face mirrors my own and
when she opens her eyes and sees me she recog-
nizes that. She nods at me before closing her
eyes once again. I want to move closer, to take
her hand, kiss her on both cheeks, so pleased to
make your acquaintance, to exchange muƩered
feelings of condolences and desire, but there is
no need to, we are joined by our mutual love and
loss. The Russia of my mother’s childhood, of the
Lower East Side’s childhood, of this elegant wom-
an’s childhood, have long vanished, and I will
most likely never see what has replaced it, sƟll I
have temporarily come full-circle, crossed back
over the rivers and mountains and the paths and
borders to a wild and beauƟful place leŌ long-
ago. I too will close my eyes and pretend that she
and I have traversed generaƟons and Ɵme and
expulsions to stand together, though only briefly,
in my dream besides the Volga River.

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Revista Adelaide

FALLING FROM GRACE

By Ron McFarland

The liƩle priest came from Ghana and had reƟred teacher, and she blames the NFL for the violent
but remained acƟve at Grace Episcopal in Oak state of American English. She sƟll resents the
Park, an upscale Chicago suburb where the Hem- fact that for the first six years of our marriage I
ingway family had worshipped upon occasion. My refused to give up fantasy football and Monday
wife Georgia and I were aƩending a Hemingway nights at John’s Alley with the guys.
conference there in Papa’s hometown, and we
were visiƟng the church with new acquaintances The morning we visited the church we met a
we had made through Daniel, who owned the Swiss oral surgeon of internaƟonal renown, also
B&B where we’d stayed the past five days. With- tall and well-tanned, but possessed of an impres-
out a car, we found ourselves suspended in a pen- sive silver-grey mane, professionally coifed. He
tad of intense Midwest heat and humidity. We’d said the problem with the U.S. is that we have
both lived in the Midwest over the years, but just the two poliƟcal parƟes. We need to be more
aŌer years of virtually humidity-free summers in like Switzerland, he said, with three or four par-
the Idaho panhandle, we had managed to un- Ɵes, or even five, if we want to have a true de-
remember July ibn that part of the naƟon where mocracy. He said he served very briefly in the
you actually can hear the corn grow. Daniel army, just a few months, as the Swiss have com-
shuƩled us from the B&B to the campus of Do- pulsory universal military service, and he thought
minican University, host school for the confer- that was a good idea. It socializes us, he said. He
ence, when we got too weary or lazy to “take met men from different walks of life—farmers,
shank’s mare,” as my recently deceased father teachers, construcƟon workers. I thought of the
liked to say. guy from SeaƩle. The Switzer sƟll had his rifle, he
said, but only a single package of ammuniƟon
At the B&B the first morning we breakfasted with that was against the law to open except in a de-
a couple from SeaƩle. The man was tall and slen- clared naƟonal emergency. This happened last
der, tan and bald, and he worked construcƟon, he summer before you-know-who became presi-
said, HVAC, mostly on high-rises. The construcƟon dent. Georgia and I wonder what he must think of
business was “booming,” he said. It was going the U.S. now.
“great guns.” He said that twice. His blonde wife,
daughter of an eastern Washington farm family, Then came a gorgeous journalist and Hemingway
looked a good bit younger. Their son was a pro- scholar who had a recent book out that had been
fessional body builder. His boy had “terrific guns,” wonderfully reviewed. She was from L.A. by way
the man said. AŌer breakfast Georgia said the of the Big Apple, and she was running late and
wife had the money. She tends to know these was in such a hurry that she twice refused the
things. Georgia claims the English language, espe- fresh-squeezed orange juice Georgia and I
cially the American vernacular, promulgates vio- thought one of the triumphs of Daniel’s B&B. She
lence, and yes, she does use that word, had pieces in Vanity Fair and Vogue and The Wall
“promulgates.” She’s a reƟred high school English Street Journal, hardly the stock-in-trade of your

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Adelaide Magazine

typical academic. I envied her book; Georgia en- without sin, empowered perhaps to cast the first
vied her beauty. She had a quality a friend of stone, but highly unlikely to do so. He wanted us
mine used to call “swish.” AŌer breakfast Georgia to hear what his instrument could do. It has five
said she’d noƟced how I was not noƟcing this thousand pipes, he said. He explained the stops—
aƩracƟve young woman in her flimsy blue dress. this one for violins, this for trumpets, this for the
clarinet. He instructed us to sit midway so the
On the way to the church we did the architecture music could wrap around us.
of Oak Park, despite the daunƟng heat: Frank
Lloyd Wright’s home and studio, along with the His father took us on a quick tour of the stained
half dozen or so nearby homes he’d designed. glass, focusing on a pair designed by William Mor-
The town features dozens of semi-palaƟal homes ris. He of the Morris Chair fame, I said, in a lame
built in his prairie mode bucked up against Queen effort to sound intelligent. Jake nodded indul-
Anne and Victorian mansions and Georgian man- gently. Georgia shook her head. Daniel mean-
ors. Daniel’s B&B was among the laƩer. Its interi- while performed various tasks appropriate to a
or exemplified the Enlightenment’s rage for sym- member of the vestry, one of the twelve, he told
metry. Periodically Georgia would point out that us, changing hymnal page numbers on the sign
we could not even afford the turret of this place, boards, policing the altar and communion rail,
or the immense front porch of that one, or the which was fronted overhead by an intricately
impressive fence and gate of the other, or the carved wooden screen. To my eyes and in my
porte cochère, or the garage, or the servant’s memory the church resembled Roman Catholic
quarters. By the Ɵme we arrived at Grace, we cathedrals I’d visited over the years. Jake said it
were physically steaming and culturally inƟmidat- had been built for a congregaƟon of about 700;
ed, overwhelmed by heat, humidity, and architec- ten or twenty years ago it was down to just a cou-
ture. Locusts screamed at us all day long it ple of hundred, now, just sixty.
seemed, shrill monophonic taunƟng.
How could they afford insurance on this mulƟ-
Daniel introduced us to Jake and his son Jeremy, million-dollar edifice, a monument to its own
who someƟmes played the organ at the church magnificence?
and had offered to perform for us, as his planned
recital the night before had been cancelled be- “We can’t,” Anna, Jake’s wife, said, joining us
cause of the dreadful heat. The grand church, from the right transept. She was a tall, blue-eyed,
built in 1905 with its wood-Ɵmbered vault and all country-club blonde, dressed in tennis whites.
but priceless stained glass, the church where the She was a member of the local art league of
Hemingways had worshipped when Ernest was a which Grace Hemingway, Ernest’s domineering
young man, could not afford air-condiƟoning. I mother, had been a founder. The docent at Hem-
thought of the HVAC man from SeaƩle more than ingway’s birth home portrayed Grace as some-
once that sweltering early aŌernoon. The vaulted thing of a paragon. The novelist John Dos Passos
ceiling with its dark Ɵmbers offered minimal relief wrote that he’d never known a man to hate his
from the sodden heat. mother as Ernest hated Grace. Anna seemed the
kind of woman Sinclair Lewis would’ve derided in
The boy was brilliant and touchingly solicitous. I his social saƟres, but a good sort, really, and very
say “boy,” but in fact Jeremy was 24 years old, smart. She came and went excusing herself for a
Jake said. He was “special,” severely auƟsƟc but court engagement she regreƩed having made,
something of a savant. At 16 he’d discovered the given the heat.
organ, and to everyone’s amazement he had mas-
tered its manifold intricacies. He played wonder- “We cannot afford it,” Jake added. “We’re going
fully that torrid aŌernoon—Bach’s “O Mensch to lose it sooner or later, probably sooner. Then
Bewein dein Sünde Gross” and a couple of others, we don’t know what’ll become of Jeremy. They’ve
finished off with “Stars and Stripes Forever,” just already demolished a historic church downtown.”
for fun. My parƟcular “Sünde,” sins, probably do He meant Chicago. “Built in the 1890s. It was al-
not weigh on me as heavily as they should, but I most as nice as Grace. For condos, of course.”
try to give them (envy in parƟcular) fair play.
Jeremy, like many who live in his space, seemed Daniel moved across the apse carrying a bronze
vase of wilted roses. He nodded very slightly in

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Revista Adelaide

POEMS

By Osip Mandelstam

translated

by Don Mager

UnƟtled UnƟtled

Accept as gladness from my palms Возьми на радость из моих ладоней
A liƩle sun and a liƩle honey Немного солнца и немного меда,
As the bees of Persephone directed. Как нам велели пчелы Персефоны.

Not to be unƟed is an unmoored boat, Не отвязать неприкрепленной лодки.
Not to be heard is a fur-shod shadow, Не услыхать в меха обутой тени,
Not to be braved is denseness of an anxious life. Не превозмочь в дремучей жизни страха.

Only our kisses remain with us, Нам остаются только поцелуи,
Spreading fluff like Ɵny bees Мохнатые, как маленькие пчелы,
Who die in their flight from the hive. Что умирают, вылетев из улья.

Their whir is in diaphanous thickets of the night, Они шуршат в прозрачных дебрях ночи,
Their homeland—the denseness of Taigetos’ woods, Нх родина—дремучий лес Тайгета,
Their food—Ɵme, lungwort, mint. Их пища—время, медуница, мята.

Accept as gladness, this, my wild giŌ — Возьми ж на радость дикий мой подарок—
A dry and uncouth necklace of dead bees Невзрачное сухое ожерелье
Who once converted honey into sun. Из мертвых пчел, мед превративших в солнце.

November 1920 Ноябрь 1920

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UnƟtled Adelaide Magazine
UnƟtled

To Anna Akhmatova Анне Ахматовой

Bees get used to beekeepers, Прнвыкают к ачеловоду пчелы,
Such is the custom of bees . . . Такова пчелинай порода . . .
I’ve reckoned twenty-three years Только я Ахметовой уколы
Akhmatova’s sƟngs like these. Двадцать трн ужк считмю года.

1934 1934

UnƟtled UnƟtled

What were you hanging, Cassandra, Какая вещая Кассандра
When you prophesied calamiƟes? Тебе пророчила беду?
O, appear, Russia’s Alexander, О, будь, Россия Александра,
A blessing arrived from Hades! Благословенна и в аду!

A fateful handshake Рукопожатье роковое
From a shaky unworthy raŌ. На шатком неманском плоту.
...........................
<End of 1915>
<Конец 1915>

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CASSANDRA Revista Adelaide
КАССАНДРЕ

In an efflorescent moment I’d not looked for Я не искал в цветущие мгновенья
Your, Cassandra, lips, your, Cassandra, eyes. Твоих, Кассандра, губ, твоих, Кассандра, глаз.
But at a solemn vigil in December Но в декабре торжественное бденья
RecollecƟons torment us. Воспоминанья мучит нас.

And in December of the seventeenth year И в декабре семнадцатого года
We have all lost the capacity to love: Все потеряли мы, любя:
One plundered it from the people’s desire, Один ограблен волею народа,
Another plundered it from his own self . . . Другой ограбил сам себя . . .

Once on the Nevá’s banks of the mad capital Когда-нибудь в столице шалой,
A Scythian jubilaƟon was heard— На скифском празднике, на берегу Невы—
But the sounds were like a sickening ball При звуках омерзительного бала
Where they ripped scarves from their fine heads. Сорвут платок с прекрасной головы.

But, what if life’s only—a relentless raving wind Но, если эта жизнь—необходимость бреда
Through a forest of ships—to the high house,— И корабельный лес—высокие дома,—
I’m fond of you, so triumph, you one-armed— Я полюбил тебе, безрукая победа—
You plague-inflicted winter curse. И зачумленная зима.

In the square with armored cars На площади с броневиками
I saw a man—he was Я вижу человека—он
Frightened of wolves with flaming torches: Волков горящими пугает головнями:
Liberty, equality, jusƟce! Свобода, равенство, закон!

Sick, silent Cassandra, no, Больная, тихая Кассандра,
I cannot share your pain—later though, Я больше не могу—зачем
In the sun, will Alexander glow, Сияло солнце Александра,
A century before that did everyone glow? Сто лет тому назад, сияло всем?

<December 1917> <Декабрь 1917>

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Adelaide Magazine

Osip Emil’evish Mandel’shtam (1891-1938) was a Don Mager’s chapbooks and volumes of poetry
Russian poet and essayist. He was a founding are: To Track the Wounded One, Glosses, That
member of the influenƟal Acmeist movement Which is Owed to Death, Borderings, Good Turns
during the Silver Age before the Russian Revolu- and The Elegance of the Ungraspable, Birth Day-
Ɵon. Acmeism opposed the dominant Symbolist book Drive Time and Russian Riffs. He is reƟred
aestheƟc and placed emphasis on clarity of the with degrees from Drake University (BA), Syra-
word and precision of the image. His first volume cuse University (MA) and Wayne State University
Stone (1913) impacted Russian poetry for the (PhD). He was the MoƩ University Professor of
next two decades. In the 1930s he ran afoul of English at Johnson C. Smith University from 1998-
the Soviet authoriƟes and was sent to a gulag in 2004 where he served as Dean of the College of
Siberia with his wife Nadezhda (1890-1970). Her Arts and LeƩers (2005-2011). As well as a number
autobiography Hope Against Hope—one of the of scholarly arƟcles, he has published over 200
great autobiographies of all Ɵme—recounts their poems and translaƟons from German, Czech and
years under Stalinist persecuƟon. He was Russian. He lives in CharloƩe, NC.
brought back and banished from Moscow to
“internal exile” in the city of Voronezh where for
three years he and Nadezhda struggled to survive
while he wrote some of his most astonishing po-
ems collected in Voronezh Notebooks—a manu-
script hidden from the authoriƟes unƟl the
“Khrushchev thaw” in 1956. In 1938 he was re-
sentenced to hard labor and died near Vladivos-
tok in transit to a far-eastern gulag.

248