Rose  Flashback

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  Rose Skelton 's  west africa Notes   Rose      

 Beth Jakob   Flashback

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  POTASH       KIAMBU; A MOMENT OF REALITY

   Nähili In Turkmenistan     Gönübek

   Tug Pullman   Get The Deposit, Head!

  Miss Carnivorous       Why I love Black people, no really

  Miss Carnivorous      They don't serve my kind, or the tides have turned

  Guyana-Gyal      Pili-pili hoho   pili-pili ho ho

    Rose Skelton 's  west africa Notes   Rose      

  J G Page   I'M STAYING ON IN MOSCOW, IVAN IVANOVIC

  Patty seyun  Page  TO MY DOG

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Monday, April 07, 2008

                                              POTASH           KIAMBU. A MOMENT OF REALITY

 It has been many a month since I was in Kiambu. Kiambu, the land of my people; the motherland. So last week, finding the need to wean myself to reality; to set the pace for my re-engagement with the hoi polloi, I set out for Kiambu.

 Kiambu, being the most affluent of the Kikuyu districts, is without a doubt Kenya's least poverty struck region. But therein lies an irony because Kiambu is easily one of the most unsafe places, in Kenya, to live in. Kiambu is the birthplace of the scum that runs Nairobi nights. Long before robbers graduate into gun-totting killers and take over Nairobi, they are schooled in blood-thirst and impunity; a callous approach to human life, in the dark village paths and muddy cattle tracks of Kiambu.

 Kiambu the land of my birth. Let me take you there...

 Imagine you were a made gangster. It is about mid-day and you are about to rob a bank or a Forex Bureau on Kenyatta Avenue. At this hour, you know that the exit routes towards a westerly direction are your best bet. The traffic is low and the roads are less pot-holed. But most importantly, they all lead towards home: Kiambu.

 So, 12:15hrs. Grab the money and shoot your way out of the banking hall. Saunter towards the white Toyota Corolla, it is your getaway car. (You idiot of course you didn't come here in it, but it is your GETAWAY car now, so shot the driver and get in). You are the one driving and you should concentrate on just that but at the back of your head you should be listening out for a single shot. That is one of your accomplices putting a bullet in the head of a random woman across the street. (Just in case people get the despicable notion that you are packing toy guns like village petty thieves.)

 Step on the clutch and accelerator simultaneously. Good for effect. Then let go of the clutch and push the accelerator to the floor. Take a right at Kenyatta and Uhuru (fuck, isn't that a father and son from Kiambu, lucky bastards who robbed not just one bloody bank but a whole country without firing a single shot?) and brace yourself for aburst of rifle fire close by. It is the accomplice riding shot gun and he is either celebrating or nervous. Ignore him and keep driving.

 This route out of Nairobi is on a dual carriageway and runs through the upmarket shopping centre of Westlands, and its leafy environs, on and on into the most affluent constituency in the country: Kikuyu. Government statistics say that only sixteen per cent of the population here lives below the poverty line. (Fuck, so how come all the people you grew up knowing were poor? But that gun, that posse... will change all that. Well, maybe you will just die trying to change that!)

 'Welcome to Kiambu,' a billboard used to say. Urutaguo Mwiruti (It is taught to the self taught). Such is life.

 As you drive past, your attention is drawn to a clutter of peeling paint and dust streaked shopping centres interspersed with incomplete yet fully occupied apartment blocks sharing the same gated and well manicured compound as posh bungalows, rows of one-roomed rental shacks made of corrugated iron sheets and small holder farms, (a successful one- with four fat cows lolling in a pen and hundreds of chickens fluttering about a storied run- nested against a desolate one with a mangy dog chasing a gangly and featherless-necked hen around a wooden cabin with a massive column of smoke pushing out of a window-shaped hole in the wall). This, as I said, is Kikuyu constituency of Kiambu District in the Central Province of Kenya.

 I was born here. In one of the desolate farms. I was born here, not in an actual sense, but in the way that a Kenyan national ID puts it. I was born here because no one, as I grew up being told, is from Nairobi. I have lived in too many places; too many woe-begotten shacks, but this farm- this has the saddest memories. This place is real, the others are just dream places, spaces that I occupied in other lives that I cannot really return to. But this one, this one there will never be an escaping it. It feels so strange to be back.

 Now if someone could just get that cow to shut up, I could finish this story....

 POTASH A KENYAN URBAN NARRATIVE

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Nähili In Turkmenistan                                 Gönübek

 

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                                                                Get The Deposit, Head!       Tug Pullman          

 from THE Confessions of a Car Dealer  

 

Most new car dealerships have a very similar infrastructure. The Salesperson greets the customers, shows them the vehicles, takes them for a test drive and begins the paperwork. When the time comes to discuss price and payments, the Salesperson must go to the Desk Manager.

The Desk Manager’s sole function is to get as much as possible for the vehicle. Many times it appears as though the Customer and salesperson are combining forces to get a good deal out of the Desk Manager. This is by design; classic “Good cop, Bad cop” rouse.

Unfortunately, for newer Salespeople who don’t know any better, the Desk Manager deceives the Salesperson into thinking it’s the best deal he’s willing to give the customer. They do this to ensure the Salesperson is convincing enough when pitching the deal to the Customer. They call this tactic “loading the Salesperson’s lips.”

To get a price and payment quote from the Desk Manager, at this new car franchise, you needed three things: A properly filled out buyers order with the customer’s information, a written commitment of what the customer will do today, and a deposit.

They teach this from day one in the training. These three things give the saleperson total control over the customer. If the customer says they are not buying today, you still get a written commitment.

As the trainer said, “Any customer will buy today for some price. If it’s a dollar down and a dollar per month, at least that’s a starting point.” The car dealership is just trying to take you out of shopping-mode and into negotiating-mode.

The problem arose for me when a customer saw one of our many “zero-down” commercials. Every one of our ads promised “zero-down.” This customer obviously didn’t want to put any money down - he repeated it several times. I was presented with a conundrum; I had to go to the Desk Manager with a commitment and deposit in order to get a price quote for my customer. How do I ask for a deposit when the customer clearly wants to put zero down as advertised?

I didn’t believe it to be very customer friendly to ask for a cash deposit just to get a price quote. So, I jotted down the customer’s commitment “Customer will take delivery today for zero down and $379 per month”. I trotted back to the Desk Manager with the paperwork and laid it down in front of him.

“Where’s your deposit, Head?” The Desk Manager called everybody Head; this was not a reference to my particular anatomy. “He wants to do the deal on TV, no money down”, I replied. “Still need a deposit to work a deal”, he said gruffly. So I returned to the customer. We had a fairly positive relationship up to his point, but me asking for a cash deposit to get a price quote didn’t go over well. Besides, he didn’t have any cash on him.

I returned to the “tower” (the raised platform in the showroom where the Desk Managers sit). “He doesn’t have any cash, and just wants a payment quote with no money down”. The Desk Manager looked at me for a second, and immediately paged my Manager.

Once my Manager arrived, he said, “This weak sister can’t get me a deposit, will you take a turn and show him how it’s done?” He was half-joking, but obviously trying to make a point.

The floor Manager’s role is what they call, in the car business, a “closer”. They go to the customer to get the deal done. They are trained negotiators and practice this skill constantly. What happened next was one of the most shocking things I witnessed in my short tenure.

The closer came out of the office with my customer’s watch. He actually took his watch as a deposit!

When I asked how he did that, he casually replied he always gets something. Cell phones, wedding rings, even shoes! He entered the tower like a conquering hero as he presented the watch and revised commitment.

They looked at me and said “Now that’s how it’s done, Head!”

I thought to myself…Not in my world it isn’t.
by Eric Miltsch Jul 09, 2007

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Friday, November 18, 2005

                         Miss Carnivorous               Why I love Black people, no really

 
I have lived very few places where I wasn't outnumbered by Blacks. I lived in Oakland California for 30 years. I lived in Maryland before that and was bused to Baltimore to attend school. I lived on Treasure Island Naval base and at that time they were busing kids from Hunter's Point San Francisco to school on the island. So you see, I have had extensive contact with Blacks all my life.

I have had contact with many other races as well. My closest friends have been Chinese American and Native American women. I have to say that the contact with other races has not affected me 1/100 as much as being in day to day contact with Blacks has. I was never a wanna be type in school. Although, my divorced mother was on SSI and I received welfare and food stamps, I knew we were culturally different than the Black kids. For one thing I could read when I was three. Very few of the Black kids I went to school with seemed interested in reading. I hated school and rarely attended Jr. High. Blacks were part of the reason I hated school. They were disruptive. They were cruel and disrespectful of everyone else, while demanding the utmost respect from the kids of other races and the teachers. They would make the White kids tie their shoes. They would steal our money and Bonnie Bell lipgloss. They would dump us in the garbage cans and pour milk on us. I knew that they were mistaking fear for respect. Teachers and students were afraid of the Black students.

The teachers were also terrified of being considered racist. The teachers would not enforce any discipline in the classroom because they would get accused of racism the minute they told a Black student to be quiet or to sit down. The Blacks would say that their parents told them not to take no shit off no white teacher. The teachers always backed down from confrontations with Blacks. This also set up a two tiered system, whereby White and Hispanic students would receive discipline and suspensions for things that Blacks got away with. That's not to say that Blacks were never suspended, they were, but for much worse things than Whites were. I have to say that I don't remember an Asian ever being suspended for anything.

Blacks would never do their homework and they would not participate in class at all. They wouldn't bring their books or writing materials. They would strongarm other students into letting them copy tests. As a consequence they never learned anything. It went on and on. I dropped out in the 8th grade. I received counseling and went back to an alternative school. The rules at the school were very lax and little was expected of us. The students were again mostly Black and troubled, but they managed to go along pretty well as long as nobody interfered with their freedom. I dropped out again and took the High School Equivalency Exam and graduated a year early. The difference between me and the Black kids was that although I had not attended school very often, I had still managed to gain enough knowlege to pass the test and graduate. The consequences for the Black kids were more dire than mine.

I had been a Navy brat in my early years. I had traveled extensively. I had been a lot of places and done a lot of things. Even when I was a teenager, my best friend, a Native American, would drag me all over the place to go to Native American Pow Wows. I got to see and meet a lot of different people. I believe that people are very different regionally as well and I was exposed to that. The Black kids weren't. They never left the inner city. They didn't know that they weren't the majority everywhere else. They didn't know where anyone else came from and they didn't really care about anyone else. I remember once in class a Black student pointed at a blond white girl and said, "I come from Africa, what about her she don't come from nowhere." It seemed as if they had no interest in the wider world at all.

I have to say I thought I hated Black people then
I have to say I thought I hated Black people then. I was also pretty goodlooking. I had Farrah Fawcett hair and was curvy. Once this drug addict walked up to me and said, "Farrah Fawcett, what you doin' standin' here at this bus stop? You should be driving a big ol' Mercedes!" That was funny. I was harassed by Black men every time I had to stand at a bus stop and that was every day. Black men would say horrible things to me and sometimes they would say these things in front of my mother and even my grandmother. Once the Pimp that lived up the street from me showed up in his El Dorado to pick me up from school. It was degrading and humiliating. I am aware that the same thing happened to black women in the South at the hands of White men, but it didn't make it easier to take. I found Black men physically beautiful, but lacking in control and that made them unsexy to me.

So, as I grew up I had no good opinion of Blacks. My mom had gone to the same high school that I was assigned to and her classes had a slight Black majority because many Blacks had come to work in the shipyards. Of course, Blacks were very afraid to act up at the time, so they behaved well in school and if my mom's yearbook is any example, they learned to read and write rather well indeed. They also were well represented in athletics, but even the athletes could read and write. My mom loved school and did not understand my problems. I was becoming very racist. I thought that I would love to live in an all white neighborhood. When I saw blond people I was fascinated and charmed. I began to resent my mother for choosing to move back to the city she grew up in. I felt that my life would have been so much better if we lived among our own people. This is not to say that I did not have Black friends. My first boyfriend was a Black nerd who's mom was a nurse from Jamaica. I hung around at alternative school with the Black students. I seemed to be able to form bonds with individuals, but that didn't change the fact that I wanted to be away from Blacks for the most part. I felt I was just too sensitive and that they were too insensitive and that we could never live together.

On the other hand, I was interested primarily in Black music. I would listen to my mom's Miriam Makeba record over and over again. I loved the blues and motown and above all Bob Marley. I could however, distance myself from Bob's lyrics. I knew that Blacks were still struggling in many parts of the world and I wished them well and well away from me. I did not wish ill on Blacks and I never wanted them to be humiliated or hurt again, I just wished that they could behave like civilized people should. In fact, I knew that Blacks were capable of it and I didn't understand why, when it would have been easier, they wouldn't just go with the flow. I wanted for Blacks what I wanted for my own children. I wanted them to be able to go anywhere, any country. I wanted them to behave in a mannerly fashion that would make them acceptable to anyone. I wanted them to be able to span the classes and the races and speak intelligently on many subjects.

I used to babysit for rich families and the developmental differences between the Black kids I saw regularly on public transit and those rich children were immense. Even the rich kids that had behavioral problems had huge vocabularies and could express curiosity and get feedback from adults. But the little Black kids would be treated like irritating adults by their teen age mothers. the poor kids would get ignored if they asked questions about birds or dogs or anything else. The differences were staggering. I began to lose all hope of anything changing for the better.

Then I got a job in Oakland. I was in the lower job classification due to my lack of job skills and education. I was one of the few whites in this job class. I was surrounded by Black women. These women started out being incredibly kind to me. I had an incident with my mom that made me very angry and I wanted to report her for welfare fraud. A Black girl I worked with talked me out of it. They told me to join the Credit Union so that I could get a car. One of them helped me find my first apartment in downtown Oakland. I remember she asked the manager of one of the apartment buildings if the place had "meeces". When the woman said, "It depends on how clean you are'" my friend dragged me out right then. Every pay day the black girls would go out to the Sizzler and they would invite me. They were naughty about men and it was a lot of fun to be with them. I had always been a fancy dresser for a white girl and I felt more comfortable dressed up with them than with my slovenly white friends.

I also met older, genteel Black ladies from the South
I also met older, genteel Black ladies from the South, that cared very much indeed about education and culture. I worked with them for three years. I moved to Fremont California with a boyfriend. I missed Oakland dearly. I missed the sight and sounds of Black people. I did not know how much a part of me they had become . My boyfriend would bring a gun everytime he came to pick me up in Oakland. I thought this was funny, that he was so scared. I still had scary incidents sometimes with Black men on the street, but it seemed more bearable. I also heard of scary racist incidents from my Black friends. One Black girl's boyfriend was fishing with his dad and some white guys came and forced them to eat their bait at gun point.

The worst incident that happen to me was that my sister and I went to a restaurant that had hired a well known Creole chef from New Orleans, for a special night of Creole food and music. The chef had just written a book. We took our Latino boyfriends. First they seated us in a back room at a makeshift table (reserved especially ior whites and latinos, I guess). We were never served, and neither saw nor heard from a waiter again. We saw an opportunity to move to a table in the main dining room (the only dining room). We moved to a central location and were still ignored. We finally left, starving, but knowing that it was useless to complain. I blame my sister for wearing Braids!! She looked too good in them!! There are two sides to every story and as bad as some of the situations I have been in seem to me, they are nothing compared with eating raw chicken livers at gun point in the dark in Tracy.

I always felt that I was just spending the night in Fremont but my heart was still in Oakland. I eventually moved back. Then I was transferred to another department. There again I made instant friends with the Black people that worked in that department. I felt more at home with them than anyone. I have had many friendships with many Black men and women at work and they have been very supportive of me. One of the guys is from Philly and he is a photographer and he likes to talk to me about art and living on the East coast. We have much in common. I go to Black people's weddings and funerals and crab feeds, where there are about 490 Blacks to 10 whites.

I became pregnant at the age of 42 and one of the Black women, a newer employee, used to take me out to dinner and take me grocery shopping, because I didn't have a car. She didn't even know me that well, but she was an immense help to me.

While all this is happening to me, I am realizing that many things I thought were not true, but many are. These women believe anything the Union and the Democrats tell them. Most of these women have man trouble. They are willing to share men with other women for fear of being alone. They support their children with very little, if any, help from the fathers. They rely too heavily on corporal punishment of their children. Some of the beatings that they tell about seem to border on abuse and also seem to be ineffective in changing their children's behavior. They spend a fortune on clothes for their children. Money I feel could be better spent at finding an apartment in a better neighborhood with better schools. I ride the bus wth a woman that travels on the bus everyday to another city to take her Black daughter to a school in Chinatown where the academic standards are very high. That child is doing great in school. I walked by the school once and she was asking some Chinese girls if she could join a Chinese jump rope game. The Chinese girls shot her down. I felt bad for her, but as long as she does well in school, success is the best revenge.

They are not good with money
Most of these women have troubled family members. They are not good with money. They get pregnant when they know that they shouldn't. They have substance abuse problems. Many of the things that happen to them seem preventable to me, but impossible to avoid for them. One of the reasons that they run out of money is that they are so generous. They are the most loyal people on earth. I know that the Chinese help family, but it is not in an unconditional way like Blacks do. I hear about neices and nephews and grandbabies and all the extended family members getting money, food and support, sometimes at the expense of the person giving the aid. Blacks are loyal and they do it out of love. I sometimes think that they shouldn't help these relatives, that it does more harm than good and that they should think of themselves for a change, but they are most unselfish and they might feel worse if they didn't help.

We once had a worker that was new. She was a secret crack addict. She could not do her work at all. My co-worker and I, (the only two whites) were being driven insane by the mistakes this woman was making. One of the Black women I am very close with was covering up for the drug addict. We ended up not speaking for months because she was angry that we were picking on this Black woman and she had to protect her. She has admitted that she was wrong to do it, but it just is so ingrained she can't help it. So I see the fiercely loyal and protective nature of Black women in particular, nearly every day.

One of my best friends is a Black woman from Panama. She just does not see color and treats everyone the same. I had a mixed race boyfriend and he was a lot of things and unusual looking and everywhere we went people would ask him what he was. My friend from Panama never asked. One time I asked her about it and she said, "You know I don't care about such things," When she brings pictures from her church, you see that it is a multiracial congregation. She also lives in a neighborhood in Vallejo with her African American husband and they are among the very few Blacks that live there and they get along with everybody. She recently went to the Grand Canyon with another Black friend and she did say that although they were the only Blacks at the dude ranch they stayed at, they were treated like royalty. I wish we could all be like my friend. Expect the best, because you deserve it. Treat everyone as you'd like to be treated yourself. Miss Carnivorous  

 

Miss Carnivorous              They don't serve my kind, or the tides have turned

   August 2008

One of my Black co-workers keeps trying to get us to all go out after work for drinks. He named a Black owned dinner club that I have had a little experience with.

"No way would I go there, they don't serve the likes of me," I told him.

"What are you talking about?" he said.

"I went there with my sister and our Hispanic boyfriends and we never were served or even acknowledged, I replied. I am never, ever going there again."

Another Black co-worker said, "If you go with us you will be served."

"No she won't, right-wing co-worker said. Remember when we called in a phone order and I went with you guys (the Blacks) to pick it up and they gave you your food and looked at me and said, "Your food is not ready yet."

"Oh yeah, said Black co-worker, embarrassed. It seems to me I do remember that."Miss Carnivorous  

 

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Tuesday, May 13, 2008
                                                          Guyana-Gyal      Pili-pili hoho

In Kenya, they got a pepper so hot, they does call it pili-pili ho ho. But my mother does use good ole Guyana peppers to make pepper sauce so fiery, it does burn out that ho ho from your mouth and make pili pili taste pale in comparison. According to me brother-in-law, my mother pepper sauce is so hot, it should be illegal. It is wanted by families in several countries, Kenya too.

Last week my mother decide she gon make pepper sauce. “I gon make pili-pili hee hee,” she tell me.

“It name pili-pili ho ho, mummy. And it is a pepper in Kenya, not the name of a pepper sauce.”

“Ahh man, whatever.”

She buy two kinda peppers on Thursday afternoon. On Friday morning, Rehana we cleaning girl don gloves, wash peppers. My mother start to blend.

Was a good day, sun shining, birds singing, domesticity humming all around, fish frying smells wafting in the air. I retire to me throne. That is the place where I does dump all me worries, solve problems, save the world. I am humming too, examining me toes, oh what cute li’l toes, haha, I wonder if I should grow me toenails so long they can cut…chak…any bandit arteries.

“G…?” my mother call in a soft, pleading voice, outside the toilet door.

Uh-oh.

When she use that voice, you’re dead, me sister would say.

“Yes?” I ask with trepidation.

“You can do me a BIG favour please?”

“I’m in the looooo, mummy.”

“When you done. You can go to the supermarket and buy some Secret Ingredient for the pepper sauce?”   

Horror seize me, if I did have constipation, it woulda done right there and then. This is nine a.m. I don’t drive at nine a.m. I hate fighting traffic at nine a.m. I does wait until ten before I venture out, when traffic ease up. Imagine! My mother is willing to sacrifice me, she love-child, for pepper sauce.

I try to fight like a man going down. “Mummy, you need it now? Now, now, now? When you go to see the lawyer later, you can’t get it?”

“No,” the small voice say. “I need it now. I got to blend it in now. Awright, is okay, I gon go meself.”

As me sister would say, I dead. I ain’t got a choice now.

East Indian mothers got a skill that I hear Jewish and Italian mothers got. Chinese mothers too. They can make you do anything you don’t want to do, don’t feel like doing right now, this minute. I ain’t know if is something they develop as mothers…or if they got it in they genes. Whatever, they come armed with a set of sweet talk; harsh commands that don’t brook no arguments; tears - this one they save for dire times; guilt trips. Sometimes they fire all at once. No use fighting.

“Okay, okay, I gon go.”

But the horror of traffic still had me in its grip. I can’t give in so easy, I realise. I pelt out of the loo, towards the kitchen. With one last gasp, I say something about wasting gas.

“Well, YOU said you would go,” mother declare in a firm voice. And whirrrr went the blender.

“Ararararara,” I try to continue the argument but the blender roar more loud than me. Rehana looking on with amused smile twitching she lips. My mother got a sweet, calm look on she face, she smiling lovingly. At the pepper sauce.


(…to be continued, I run outta time and got to go do some craft-planning...place bets on who win...or rather, who get the last laff...)

Guyana-Gyal
 

Pili-pili hoho   part II

                Guyana-Gyal           How to win and get away with it

Governments would do well to employ a certain type of mama to negotiate with the *enemy* for them. It might be a’ unfair battle though. The *enemy* ain’t got a chance. With just a few well-chosen words, these mamas gon make the *enemy* repent, give up in no time at all. Problem done.

Trouble does only happen when these mamas produce daughters just like they selves…daughters who want to wrest sweet victory from they mamas. And to top it all, the daughters want to assert Independence. A daughter can move wayyy across the country.

But no matter how far she go, the mother gon get she.

Don’t get me wrong, it ain’t as if these mamas does order you to do anything. Is just that they know how to make honey drip from they voice; is just that certain way they ask.

If you refuse though, you gon hear the thing you dread.

“Is alright..I gon do it...don’t worry. I can do it myself.”

No university degree in the world does prepare you to deal with this. As Lis say, “Arghtlbggghh! WHY! WHO teach dem to be so??? WHO?! Show me de person. SHOW dem to me.” Lis got two universities degrees.

Now, if you, the daughter, point out this guilt trip behaviour to your mother, she gon look at you, innocence shining all over she face.

But wait.

Look in she eyes.

What you see?

Eh?

Tell me what you see?

Bold shamelessness.

And a li’l smirk.

On Friday when my mother ask me, in that special voice, to drive to the supermarket to buy the Secret Ingredient for she pepper sauce, I couldn’t refuse.

But I had to say no!

I ain’t risking me life, fighting in that 9 a.m. traffic to get one li’l bottle of Secret Ingredient. No way. Not if she can get it later when she go to the lawyer.

But I couldn’t refuse.

Not after listening to that Mighty Sparrow song the day before. A song about a wutliss…good-for-nothing…son who couldn’t pay he mother doctor bill but when she dead, he looking to buy the best coffin. When that song play on the radio last week, I weep like a gyal watching Indian movie. Ow, I gon never be like that bad son, no, no, I vow. To add to me melotrauma, the radio then play a maudlin Sundar Popo song. A mother love will never diiiiiie…

How could I refuse after all o’ this? Plus Sunday would be Mother’s Day. And yes, yes, me is the hypocrite who does say Everyday should be Mother’s Day.

Me and me big mouth.

Suddenly I get a brainwave. The corner shop! Just ten minutes walk! Maybe they have the Secret Ingredient. But suppose I walk all that way and they ain’t have it?

Another brainwave.

I gon phone the shop.

Ow me Lawd, I don’t know the number.

Another brainwave…brainwaves does come fast when I am desperate.

I phone a friend. “Friend, whaz the telephone number of the people you do business with, next door to Mrs. Seeta shop?”

Now, I call the people me friend do business with. “Hello, can you do me a li’l favour, please?” For some reason, the voice I use sound a bit familiar. I can’t imagine where I learn this sweet-talkin’, manipulative tone from.

“Y-y-yes,” the man reply, nervous. He don’t know me from Eve to Jezebel.

“Please, please, can you check out the phone number on the sign on Mrs. Seeta shop, please?”

“Okay, hold on one minute.” I think I hear a heavy sigh, but never mind, you got to block out these things to get what you want. I thank the man very graciously when he return with the number.

Mrs. Seeta the shop-owner say yes, she got the Secret Ingredient.

“Yipeeee!” I holler.

“In five pound containers,” Mrs. Seeta say.

My mother only need a few drops.

Well people, lemme tell you. The secret to winning is to let the other person think they win.

I wasn’t going to drive in no snarly traffic right away, now, this minute. And I wasn’t going to walk with no heavy five pound container in that briling, scorching sun, so hot it can bar-b-cue you, and you can have yourself for lunch.

Phone Cousin Yasmeen; yes, she shop does sell small bottles. I tramp down the road, sun so fiery, you can make leather shoes out of me now. But on the way there, I stop in at The Sour Lady shop where I try not to patronise. Praises be, they sell small bottles.

Triumphant, I bring home a li’l bottle of the Secret Ingredient.

My mother blend it into she pepper sauce, smiling in that pleased way.

Is okay, I can be magnanimous, let she think she win, I don’t mind. She don’t have to know that I win…I didn’t have to drive to the supermarket like she did ask me to.

 

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      J G Page   I'M STAYING ON IN MOSCOW, IVAN IVANOVIC

And just as she was thinking about the examination, she was overtaken by
her friend Ivan Ivanovic in a carriage of four horses. When he came up to
her he recognized her and bowed.

-How are you Marya Goggynovna,- he said to her. You are not going to spend
the Eve of the year alone in Moscow, are you? My dacia is nostalgic for you
and I have cut enough firewood to warm us all winter long.

-Happy to see you, Ivan Ivanovic. I was lost in thought..I believe, they
have caught a government clerk in the town. They have taken him away. The
story is that with some Germans he killed Alexeyev the Mayor , in Moscow .
-Who told you that?-
-They were reading it in the paper, at my school, in the Teachers' Room. A
conspiracy, I believe. I am so shaken my mind has gone blank.

Marya sat in silence in the carriage. For twenty years now she had been a
schoolmistress, and there was no reckoning how many times during all those
years she had been to the school downtown for her salary. And whether it
were winter as now, or a rainy autumn, or a warm spring, it was all the same
to her, and she always, invariably, longed for one thing only: to get to the
end of her day at school.

-The roads leading to the Dacia are dry, Marya and even if the woods are
covered in snow and the stairway to the Dacia are frozen over, there is a
warm April sunshine. Will you join me there, my beloved one?
-Please hear what I have to say. My Uncle Filippov has fallen sick, He needs
to be taken care of. It is futile to try to entice me with your talk of
sunshine gleaming through the transparent ice in the woods.
-"Marya, you are a compassionate soul."

Marya's carriage stopped at the level crossing, on the other side of the
rails a cart laiden down with cucumbers was crossing the road. Marya stared
at this in silence, fascinated by what she saw.

-What does your silence mean, Marya Goggynovna. Possibly you don't love me
anymore? Do you wish for us to part?

While Ivan was talking, Marya suddenly remembered that she had no butter
left at home, and this caused her mood to change.

-You know very well I never loved you, Ivan Ivanovic,so parting from you
would be meaningless.
-The ducks in the pond near the dacia are restless, it is as if they
perceived your absence.

- (There he is going on about his ducks again, with butter at two kopecks
more than last year, how am I supposed to think about his ducks, well,
anything to keep him happy). I am so sorry about your ducks, Ivan Ivanovic.

-And how are things with the pope's wife?

-Pope's wife? How come you are interested in her? Are you thinking of
studying theology?

-Three weeks ago you told me you couldn't come to my dacia, since the
pope's wife had slid on the ice and you had to take care of her. Do you know
what they say? Some love the pope, some others love the pope's wife.

-Our pope's wife is better now, but she could still need me.
-I ask myself how the saintly Mother Russia would manage without you. The
white bear is peering out from the clearing..it looks as if he too needs
your help.
-Back to that old story of the white bear. Cucumbers have almost doubled in
price and here I am thinking about the white bear and his attacks of
melancholy. What am I going to serve up with the tea? My guests are going to
think I have become a miser.

-Hold on, Marya.
The cart lurched violently and was on the point of overturning when
something heavy rolled on to Marya Goggygovna's feet, it was her parcel of
purchases. There was a steep ascent uphill through the argile. Here in the
winding ditches rivulets were gurgling. The water seemed to have gnawed away
at the road how was one supposed to get by! The horses breathed hard. Ivan
Ivanovic got out of his carriage and walked at the side of the road in his
long overcoat. He was hot.

-What a road!- he said, and laughed again. It would soon smash up his
carriage.-
-Nobody obliges you to drive about in such weather,- said Marya in a surly
voice. You should stay at home.-

-I get bored at home, you sweet child. I don't like staying at home." "Hold
on, Marya!" .
Again a sharp ascent uphill. . . . And again she thought of her pupils, of
the examination, of the School Council; and when the wind brought the sound
of the retreating carriage these thoughts were mingled with others. She
longed to think of beautiful eyes, of love, of the happiness which would
never be. . . .
-You are silent, Marya, you are silent and remorseful at having abandoned
me.
-You know, Ivan ivanovic, high quality gherkins are unobtainable, unless you
buy them at the black market. Rumours are that some relatives of the Czar
bought up all the gherkins from the farmers to take advantage of monopoly .

-Your mood has changed so much of late, Marya.
Marya Goggynovna starts to cry, as if all the gherkins in Moskow had
abandoned her house for ever. Now she is a child in a large house on the
other side of the Moskowa river, and all people around her, peasants coming
and going, make a lot of noise but carry in low price fruit and chikens, and
loads of high quality gherkins offered for a few kopecki. She felt as though
she had been living in that part of the country for ages and ages, for a
hundred years, and it seemed to her that she knew every stone, every tree on
the road from the town to her school. Her past was here, her present was
here, and she could imagine no other future than the school, the road to the
town and back again, and again the school and again the road.

- You are crying, Marya Goggynovna, you are sad. You will find me up in the
dacia when the frost thaws? It will take only a few weeks.
- I do not know it, Ivan Ivanovic, perhaps my neighbor will have to go to
Petersburg, and then she will ask me to take care of the cherry-trees garden
.
- -Will you come then?

- We will see, Ivan Ivanovic, we will see.
 (translated by Mary C. Goggin)

 

 

 

  Patty seyun  Page                          TO MY DOG

After I read this letter, yours being the first I read after sitting down at the computer, I raced outside (it was 7:25 p.m.) and looked out into the sky just knowing I was going to see a single star.  At first I didn't see anything and thought perhaps the house was blocking it.  Then I looked straight up and there it was. 

 After my meditation yesterday I decided to try one more time to revive him with serum and cortisone and some other medicines.  Half way through the bottle after 250 cc he became really restless and pulled the needle out (seemingly accidentally).  The doctor had told me 300 cc should be the limit so I was satisfied that I had done all that I could.   I was able to get my first good night's sleep since I got back from the States.

This morning when I woke up I realized that although he had a little more energy he still didn't want to live in his body anymore.  I put him out in the yard in the sun and I tried bottle feeding him small amounts of formula every two hours but he was really trying to tell me he didn't want it while remaining his ever polite self.  (By the way I just now went out and looked up in the sky and the clouds were covering up the star.  But he had made sure I would see it.)  He had a good morning and occasionally held his head up and sniffed the air.  He later found shade under the bamboo next to the fence. Around noon I gave him a bath and then barricaded him in the kitchen so he wouldn't get lost and before I left to go to an appointment with my lawyer I sat beside him and told him he could go ahead and die while I was gone if he wanted to.  I told him my other dogs who have crossed over would be waiting for him and I listed all their names - twice, for good measure.  I told him what a joy he had been and thanked him for everything and asked him to forgive me for the times I was short with him and for not realizing he had probably been sick with kidney disease (at least I think that's what it was). was gone five hours.  I prayed the whole time I was gone that he would die naturally and practiced my breathing exercise to calm myself down.  When we got home he had died and I think just.  His body was still very warm - even the fluid that had escaped from his mouth was warm.  I told my son his spirit was just now leaving the house and we both kissed him and told him how much we loved him.  I now have him wrapped in a satin sheet on a table on the patio with candles lit beside him.  It just so happens the gardener's day is tomorrow._