An Englishman in Siberia

Novaya Gazeta ^ | October 18th, 2004 | Elvira GORYUKHINA

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Original Title:

FEARLESS HUMILITY

Englishman Michael in the Siberian village of Dubinka

       

       
       "You journalists are a strange lot! A sick man came here from England. A drunk. Married another drunk and had kids. You need to see this foreigner, drive on over to Bolotnoye. There's a Kurd working there who'll show you the way," said the provincial official.
       After I had left, he followed me outside: "If there was any rain, you'll never make it there. There's really no road there, you won't make it through."
       
       I memorized the Kurd with the Armenian name, but the Englishman stuck in my head like a nail. I saw him on the TV program 'Lately', a dashing character, for sure! An Anglo-Siberian extreme, with a little manure and swear-words thrown in for good measure. I did not know if there was really something to it, but one thing confused me - the Englishman did not run a business, nor did he party or simply hang around like a bum. He worked the land. I thought, there must be something that explained what it was that called him to the land. Not just to his own, English land, but to a foreign one, one that has been forgotten by both God and Man. A land called Dubinka.
       A certain strange drama was surely going on behind the scenes, or perhaps not a drama, but a delusion.
       It was not necessary to persuade my former student, Valentina Gorokhova, to come along. An anglophile, she immediately agreed. One need not be a psychologist to understand that a foreign language does not always allow one to grasp the inner workings of the soul.
       Valentina's husband Sasha came along specifically to ask the Englishman a question: did he feel a responsibility for the lives of the children who were born here, on this foreign land?
       
    
       They told the truth: the road was a mess. Just ridges of earth thown up by tractors.
       The local spaces cast their spell of beauty, but in Dubinka nature has an oppressive feeling of loneliness. As if nature found it difficult to get along without man, without his efforts. Boundless fields, untended and unworked, summon forth melancholy.
       We drove by familiar rural scenes: farms laying fallow, neglected buildings. But then - a miracle! Enormous rows of freshly bundled hay, geometrically arranged, unbelievably high. We called out to a tow-haired boy: where is Michael? He immediately points out a large wooden house. Two people are sitting at the picket fence. One, about ten years of age, was Michael's son Sasha, the other, his face smeared with wild cherries, was a a neighbor's three year-old boy.
       The Little Prince, perhaps, was just like Sasha - bright eyes, curving black eyelashes, and such a smile. Not a local boy; not from these places. At first he seemed to us to be a bit slow, but we were mistaken. In his gestures and behavior one could sense a natural brittleness, fragility. The Platonic expression 'tender of face' describes Sasha. His hand is tied in a dirty bandage, so the boy was excused from farm-work while his father went out into the fields. His stepbrother Kolya and little sister Veronika were with him.

  
       Michael's yard is not quite English, and not quite Russian. An overturned flask, a rumpled child's boot, old pieces of some kind of metal construction.
       We decided to go out into the fields to see Michael. Sasha went to shut up the summer kitchen. A calendar hung over the refrigerator, portraying some baronial estate: a castle, well-cared for lawn, and manicured trees. Everything was a bit theatrical. Beneath the picture, in the blocks of dates, were written the Russian words: 'home-brew'. A few blocks later, again: 'home-brew', and still later: 'good home-brew'. The calendar was sent by Michael's relatives in England. The writing, of course, was done in Dubinka.
       Sasha locked the kitchen door and a trio of desperately barking dogs appeared.
       "What happens if someone comes and robs you?" we asked.
       "They shouldn't..." replied Sasha.
       With this phrase, we became acquainted with typical English sentence structure, which functions extremely well in the Siberian interior, as if born and bred here.
       Valentina explained: "Why did Brodskiy so insult the English language? There are such linguistic niches in English, which are incomplete. They are open and leave open one's choices, such as, 'they may steal' or 'they will steal'. But the language resists: 'they shouldn't...' This is a delicate indication of normalcy. Not by ordering an action, such as 'do not enter', but in the hope that you will nonetheless observe normal behavior."
       Local thieves nonetheless do not observe norms. Michael has had a lot stolen from him. For example: a stallion, and a mare with foal.
       We decided to remain. Sasha listened to distant sounds.
       "There's papa... no-no-no, that's a K-700... a caterpillar, papa's on a wheeled tractor."
       We asked what they call Sasha in school.
       "They call me 'the Englishman'."
       In the later part of the day, a tractor with Michael and other children drove up to unload in the garden. The unloading of bales began. Children tossed them like soccer balls, but in reality each bale weighed 20-30 kilos. Our arrival had no meaning, and no one paid attention to us for the reason that a laboring person likes to maintain a rhythm which allows him to economize his physical efforts. Valya's husband took part in the operation, and was amazed that such work could be carried out by children.
       

   
       Michael resembled a Ukrainian lad. A pure character from some marketplace in Sorochinsk. A shock of curly, light-brown hair, and wheat-colored whiskers that had been growing untouched for sixteen years. We guessed his age at 32. It turned out that he was 47.
       "Are we bothering you?" we asked.
       "To be honest, well, yes..." Michael said, not completing the phrase.
       It was difficult to understand when and where our conversation might bear fruit, when the story of his destiny began with such dramatic stength that it stuck in his throat.
       When he was 30, Michael went through a difficult spiritual crisis. He got divorced and ended up in Russia.
       "Was it easier to go through this crisis in Russia than in England?" I asked.
       "No, it wasn't about Russia or England. Everything is okay in England. The problem was in me."
       That is how it will always be: Michael takes the responsibility on himself, although (as we found out later) there were outside reasons for his adversities.
       "But why Russia?"
       "They don't know much about Russia in England. Well, what is there to know? Red square... parades there... Siberia... cold and snow."
       He chose to come to Russia when the so-called perestroika (reconstruction) began. It matched his internal condition. Perestroika in reality proved to be very strange. Outsiders came to Dubinka, the village held meetings, and voted for new masters who promised to build roads and open a school. These people bought up everything at almost no cost, then disappeared. The village emptied.
       At last, English conversation! Now I will see the true Michael! But I am disappointed, alas.
       "It's surprising, but that's how it is," said Valentina. "In English he's the same as he is in Russian."
       Michael does not speak hurriedly. Not because of problems with the language (it seems he has not quite mastered it). He searches for that form of expression which is not final. As a psychologist might say, Michael is in search of open modality.
       "Do they rob you?" we ask.
       "How can I put this..."
       "Just say it like it is: they stole a mare with foal, a horse..." I explained just how they robbed him.
       "They steal from everyone," Michael said.
       At his farm he has three milk cows, three calves, a bull, some hogs, and two horses - Simka the mare and Prince the stallion.        The children attend the Verkh-Koyon school, and live from Monday to Friday with their mother Tat'yana in Verkh-Koyon. Michael bought them a small cottage there.
       "Did she marry you for love?" we asked.
       We wanted to know that there was some Russian woman who loved Michael because of his generous spirit.
       "She had no choice," said Michael, avoiding the question of love. "She had to get away from a family of drunks."
       It was explained that Tat'yana could care less if she lived with an Englishman or with a Zulu.
       Once Michael's cousin Pamela came to Dubinka, with her young daughter.
       "They were, perhaps, shocked?" we asked.
       "It was the first time that the girl had left England. Therefore everything was a shock to her," noted Michael evasively.
       Pamela works in agriculture. Land in England is expensive, and Pamela's family still lives in a trailer.
       "But I have a house," said Michael.
       He said this like a true Englishman, for whom a home is his castle.
       "Papa, can I shift the gears?" asked Kolya of his stepfather as he climbed on the tractor.
       We asked how Kolya's father feels about an Englishman raising his son.
       "He doesn't have a father. I'm his father. He came to me when he was three months old."
       
       There were difficult times. Every three months, Michael had to return to Engliand for a visa, and take care of bureaucratic red-tape in registering his marriage and children. Michael's English wife refused to let him see their three children.
       We could not leave Michael's Russian wife Tat'yana alone. We blurted out something about the disorderly kitchen and yard, though we knew it was none of our business.
       "No one taught her these things," noted Michael conciliatorially.
       All our nasty observations about the Englishman's spouse ended at once, with one manly phrase.
       "With Tanya, I can talk about anything in the world. She understands me."
       We asked how English and Russians differred.
       "The Englishman must do today what he can put off until tomorrow. A Russian can put tomorrow's work off forever."
       He softened this observation with a smile which said that he too could become like this.
       Michael stood, surrounded by hay bales. Or more accurately, he stood in hay. It was so much like he was poured from the Dubinka soil, with the hay and the air, that it occurred to us: we are such fools, dividing up the earth into countries and governments, nations and religions. It belongs to everyone.
       I said that one could sense Michael's lonliness.
       "When I go to the city, I feel that way. It's good to go into the fields, then it (the lonliness) leaves me. I'm not lonly there."
       In the fields, Michaels soul finds harmony. I wanted to ask: is there some feeling that it is a foreign land? When does the foreign become one's own? But I did not ask.
       It was clear: life had shaken this man. The vector of his destiny had changed abruptly. Between a dream of an imagined Russia near Bristol, and the reality of Dubinka, lay a precipice. But he was already in Dubinka. He had three children, and a wife who understood him.
       Humility, this was what struck me about Michael. Humility before the twists of fate. Was this a manifestation of strength or weakness?
       The answer to this question is found in Brodskiy: life with nature and living on nature, it is the last act of 'desperation, which is the mother of wisdom'. He wrote this about the poet Virgil, but it explains a lot about the destiny of Englishman Michael.
       It seems that desperation has a more complex nature than we could imagine. This is really true: one must look for an exit in the depths of desperation. Humility and fearlessness before fate.
       We said goodbye three times. Kolya silently gave us to understand that it was time to go back into the fields.
       
       We stopped in Verkh-Koyon, and went to the administration building. The working day was over, and the women there were gathering up papers. We carefully asked about Michael, and in a flash everyone was lively.
       Here he was known as 'our Micheal'. They said that when he took his son Sasha out of the country for an operation, that he took with him Kolya, the 'begotten child', just as if he were his own son. A charitable organization paid for the operation. 'Our Michael' took only as much money as he needed for the operation, and wanted to set aside the rest so that the hospital could do an operation for the next child who needed it. Of all the beauties in the village of Dubinka, only one person enticed Michael. The administration women mentioned the name and profession. This person offered to start a joint enterprise with Michael, using the Englishman's money. The result: Michael lost his shirt, and the whore (you cannot call her anything else) started a business in Novosibirsk.
       "Are you leaving? Help our Michael. Help the man. He needs to pay for his children's education, and take care of himself," said the women from city administration in unison.
       
       PS: Robert Chandler is an Englishman, who has translated Andrey Platonov. He loves Russia and the languarge in which 'Chevengur' is written. One can only place it next to Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'. I told him about Michael and showed him the photographs. Robert said: "They have such happy faces. One can but envy them." Robert probably knows that which we were not able to see.
       
       Elvira GORYUKHINA, our special correspondent,
       Verkh-Koyon - Dubinka, Novosibisk district.

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A friend sent me this link, and said: "See? Novaya Gazeta can write about something besides Putin and Chechnya!"

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(Ping)

[Chapita]

How are you doing ?

[struwwelpeter]

Same old same old ;-)

[dennisw]

bttttttttttttt

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I thought that you'd like this part:

"Why did Brodskiy so insult the English language? There are such linguistic niches in English, which are incomplete. They are open and leave open one's choices, such as, 'they may steal' or 'they will steal'. But the language resists: 'they shouldn't...' This is a delicate indication of normalcy. Not by ordering an action, such as 'do not enter', but in the hope that you will nonetheless observe normal behavior."

English is not just a language, but a state of mind ;-)

[struwwelpeter]

Well, as long as you're up ;-)

[nw_arizona_granny]

Thank you for sharing this.

Yes, I do understand.

Working the land and with animals, is the most pleasing of the periods that I have lived thru.

The Michael is to be admired, for finding himself and a world that he belongs in.

[Calpernia]

LOL :)