“To Cry a While in the Wind”: Tamara Andreeva Comes to Los Angeles

Tamara Andreeva in 1930

Nearly a decade ago, writing for the Los Angeles Review of Books, of which I was not yet the editor, I reported on some of the earliest discoveries I made on my long search for the voices of LA’s Russophone past. Among them was the journal The Land of Columbus (Zemlya Columba), which folded after two issues in 1936 and 1937. As I wrote in 2015, the first of these issues

features two poems by a young woman named Tamara Andreeva, who was born in Russia in 1908 and made her way to the West Coast by way of Shanghai and Harbin, settling in Santa Monica. Her Russian verse is nothing much, but I was intrigued. It turned out she’d also published a few lyrics in English, including this piece from the August 1932 issue of Poetry.

You can read that anglophone lyric in my essay. But it’s the Russian poems that called to me again after I posted my translation of Andreeva’s fellow Harbin-reared Californian transplant Mary Custis Vezey. The two Andreeva poems in The Land of Columbus are very much in the vein of the early Anna Akhmatova, and little research turned up confirmation that she was indeed under the sway of the St. Petersburg Acmeists, having been a member of the “Acme” poetry circle in Harbin and even conjured up, in one of her lyrics, the founder of the original Acmeist Guild of Poets, Akhmatova’s husband Nikolay Gumilyov.

Those juvenile poems penned in Harbin are indeed rather slight and imitative, but the more I read them, the more I sense the young woman’s strong, sensitive, tempestuous spirit. I began to wonder how she came to California in the first place, and what happened to her after the The Land of Columbus foundered. The first question was answered by a brief article in the Los Angeles Times, dated August 18, 1930, and headlined “Girl Flees Reds to Come Here”:

Five years of wandering, part of the time in flight from Russian Bolsheviks, and part on journeys through Mongolia and Tibet as a correspondent for American newspapers, have ended, at least temporarily for Miss Tamara Andreeva, a Russian girl originally from Leningrad, who has come to Los Angeles to enter Occidental College.

A brief notice from 1934 told of Andreeva’s successful petition to retain legal residence and seek citizenship in the US.  Her next appearance in the Los Angeles Times is as a contributor. Between 1947 and 1951, the paper published over a dozen of her lively, perfectly idiomatic articles on fashion trends and profiles of Southern Californian artisans. She was by then, according to records, on her second of three marriages, and had worked as a publicist and fashion editor for CBS and other companies. She continued to write articles for a variety of venues over the following decade, but the trail of publications ends some years before her death in Riverside, California, in 1987. As far as I can tell, she had left her life as a poet far behind her. But I imagine the memories lingered.

Lingering memories are the subject of a lyric she wrote in Russian in Los Angeles, in 1931, shortly after enrolling in college. She sent it back to Harbin, where it appeared in an émigré journal. A new American life lay ahead of her, but she could not have been sure of that then.

You know, there are certain evenings
when light can only do harm,
when you sit — in America, Russia —
your head on your folded arms.

The rain weeps and drums on the rooftop,
the print in my book grows small,
the shadows of recollection
lengthen against the wall.

Stern as the Pyrenees,
reaching so very high,
they crowd, tower over me,
telling of days flown by.

The night slips on its black gloves,
its feathery boa of clouds…
How weary I am of my body,
of sitting inside, head bowed…

The raindrops fall from the eaves,
the lamp casts a yellow ring —
I leave without closing the door
to cry a while in the wind…

---

Знаете, есть вечера такие,
Что не следовало-бы зажигать огни,
А сидеть, в Америке, в России-ль,
Голову на руки уронив.

Плачет дождь по крышам барабаня,
В книге шрифт всё мельче и бледней;
Тени от моих воспоминаний
Выросли грознее Пиреней

И беззвучные у стенки встали.
Все имеют запах, вкус и цвет;
Затолпили, заняли сознанье
Датами давно прошедших лет…

Ночь перчатки черные надела,
Облаков пушистое перо…
Скучно как с тобою, тело,
Коротать остатки вечеров!

По одной стекают капли с крыши;
На стене от лампы жёлтый круг.
Выбежала, двери не закрывши,
Плакала и звала на ветру.

“They Pursue Their Fabulous Dream”: A Late Californian Poem by Mary Custis Vezey

Mary Custis Vezey in Harbin, 1920s

A couple of days ago, on Twitter, I broke some splendid news about Vernon Duke. His memoir, Passport to Paris, which has been out of print since 1955, will be republished in 2025 by Paul Dry Books. The new edition will include my brief introduction and my translations of eighteen of Duke’s poems, a number of which I’ve shared here over the years. Encouraged by my success in resurrecting Duke, I immediately shifted my attention to another long-neglected onetime Angeleno deserving of a minor revival.

Like Duke, Vladimir Nabokov, and a very few other Russophone authors of their era, Mary Custis Vezey (1904-1994) was perfectly comfortable in both Russian and English. Indeed, as her name suggests, her English was truly native. She was born in New York to a Russian mother and a father, Henry Custis Vezey, whose family was deeply rooted in American soil. Shortly after Mary’s birth, the Vezey family returned to St. Petersburg, where Henry was attached to the American Embassy. He would eventually become Vice-Consul. After the Revolution, he was transferred to the American Consulate in Harbin, which was as much a Russian as a Chinese town at that point.

There, Mary soaked up the local culture while receiving an education both in Russian (at the Girls’ School of the Harbin Commercial Schools) and in English (at the North China American School established by the American Presbyterian Mission). A precocious and spirited young woman, she wrote remarkably competent and sometimes quite striking poems in both languages, most of which have recently been collected by the scholar Olga Bakich in A Moongate in My Wall: Collected Poetry of Mary Custis Vezey (Peter Lang, 2005).

Vezey’s second American period began in 1925, when she sailed to California to attend Pomona College. As Bakich reports,

Her poetry in English gained recognition, and she was invited to join the Scribblers Society, founded in 1913 by Professor William Sheffield Ament. Membership, limited to twelve, was by invitation only and based on writing ability. The Society’s journal, Scribblers Magazine, renamed Manuscript in 1925, published her article “Chinese Poetry during the T’ang Dynasty” and two poems, one of which, “Chinese Serenade,” was awarded an honourable mention by the journal Inter-Collegiate World and reprinted.

That little poem gives a fair sense of the style of Vezey’s anglophone verse at the time—a style indebted to Edna St. Vincent Millay and Sara Teasdale, both of whom she translated into Russian.

Chinese Serenade

The silver pilgrims of the sky—
the clouds of sunset go,
and sweetly starts her lullaby,
my Goddess Moon, Chang-O.

Dispel thy drowsy dreams, my friend,
as rays of twilight fade,
and with my song thy magic blend
upon thy lute of jade!

Then let me love thee, as a cloud
may love a flashing star,
as ripples on the lake, that crowd
to touch a nenuphar.

She returned to Harbin 1929 and released her first collection, simply titled Poems, which included her original verse in Russian and English as well as her translations into and out of both languages. A second collection, also titled Poems, appeared in 1936. Her place in the vibrant Harbin émigré cultural scene was secure, but that scene was on the verge of disappearing. War was spreading through China and the Far East. Along with many Harbin Russians, the Vezey family sought to escape the conflagration before it engulfed them. In 1939, they made their way to San Francisco, where Mary continued to write and publish her verse, as well as to use her superior English to advocate for lesser-known émigré poets. Her third and final collection, Blue Grass, appeared in 1973.

She spent the last decades of her life working on an anthology of Russophone poets from China. In a letter to Bakich from 1991, she wrote:

I have little time left, and I won’t be able to accomplish much. I am not as strong as I used to be. But I would still like to publish three little books of mine: one of poetry (the last one), one of translations into English, and one more (a special one). But before that—not my poetry, but that of colleagues and friends w’ho can no longer do it. […] I can’t allow myself to publish something of mine; my goal is to preserve the unpublished works of my compatriots and colleagues.

It is Bakich who fulfilled Vezey’s final aspirations, collecting and publishing the work the poet was unable to see into print before her death in 1994. One of those late Russophone poems jumped out at me as I leafed through A Moongate in My Wall. Titled “Smugglers,” this little portrait of comrades from Mexico who perish in their attempt to realize their dreams by crossing the US border was written in 1985. Vezey, who had had to cross so many borders in her life, staying one step ahead of disaster, clearly understood the desperation of the men she was describing. She sees human hope and tragedy where too many—even today—see only a cartoonish threat or a political opportunity.

Smugglers

With a bag slung over each shoulder,
they pursue their fabulous dream,
crossing a foreign border,
fording a raging stream.

They crawl, they sneak, they prowl,
quiet as quiet can be,
to strike not a vein of gold,
but the rock of reality.

Back home, at this very hour,
where the dream first cast its spell,
the bells in the ancient tower
toll a funeral knell.

---

Контрабандисты

У них мешки за плечами.
Их манят чудные сны.
Они проходят ночами
границу чужой страны.

Они крадутся, как воры.
Река—через реку вплавь.
Им снятся золота горы—
их ждет свирепая явь.

А там, в далекой деревне,
где дерзкий рождался сон,
уже с колокольни древней
плывет погребальный звон.

“For Helping a Passerby”: Vladislav Ellis’s Hungry Years

I’ve let two months go by without sharing a single thing here, which is very much unlike me. And there have been things to share, like fresh translations of Vernon Duke in Arc and of Julia Nemirovskaya in The Queens Review, as well as news about other projects, like my completion of Alexander Voloshin’s mock epic, which I’ve decided to title Sidetracked: Exile in Hollywood. What’s my excuse?Well, I’ve been busy teaching, very happily, at the University of Tulsa, and caring for the twins — but I’ve also felt somewhat stifled by the weight of current events. The grinding war in Ukraine and the unfolding catastrophe in Gaza make whatever I have to say seem so inadequate, so thoroughly beside the point.

Although I’ve had trouble finding anything worth sharing publicly, I have been drawing hope from a unique book — one that took an arduous journey to reach me. Live, and You Won’t Have to Die! was printed in Ukraine, gorgeously, in 2016. It contextualizes and reproduces pages from the DeePeeniad, a hand-drawn “journal” that the poet Vladislav Ellis and the artist Vladimir Odinokov “published” for their fellow displaced persons at the Munich camp where they were held from 1945 to 1947. Ellis eventually settled in Los Angeles, as readers of this blog and My Hollywood will know, while Odinokov went on to have a distinguished career as a set designer at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, where he collaborated with Chagall.

During their lean, uncertain years in the camps, Ellis and Odinokov took it upon themselves to find and spread joy through humor. The delightful doggerel and cheerful illustrations below gain enormous poignancy in light of the circumstances under which they were made.

They may take on even greater poignancy when I tell you that the book was sent to me by Vladislav Ellis’s son, who had returned to his father’s native Ukraine decades ago but has now been forced to flee his home in Kharkiv. Life his father, he too is a refugee, now living in Bulgaria.

It was only years after the war, when Ellis was safely in Los Angeles, that he was able to write more directly of his wartime experience. The poem below relates an episode from his time as a hungry prisoner of war in occupied territory, being led, slowly, towards Germany, reduced to begging for scraps. Alas, with just a few words changed, the poem could read as if it were ripped from today’s news stories.

Incomparable

The old woman gave me some bread —
no more than a bit of crust —
then got on her knees and begged
that I leave her hut at once.

“I’m afraid for my son,” she whispered.
“At this age I wouldn’t lie —
the Germans just hanged my neighbor
for helping a passerby.”

Outside all was wet and freezing.
The road was torn up. A wasteland.
I strode through the puddles and drizzle,
took shelter beside a haystack.

---

Неповторимое

В страхе дадена хлеба краюха,
И не хочет от пленного платы.
На коленях рыдая старуха
Умоляла уйти из хаты.

«Сына жалко, помилуй, не можем,
Неспособна на старости врать я,
Немцы нынче за помощь прохожим
У соседки повесили зятя…»

За околицей мокрая стужа,
От обозов в рытвинах дорога.
Зашагал по осенним лужам,
Под покров позабытого стога.

“That Old Life of Ease”: Light Reading with Alexander Voloshin

Cover of “Captain” Mayne Reid’s The Headless Horseman

Reading aimlessly had me feeling like a kid again, and it reminded me of this enchanting passage from Alexander Voloshin’s On the Tracks, in which he compares his fantasies of the American Wild West, derived from adventure stories, with the reality of an immigrant’s life in  California. Swift, Verne, and improbable tales of adventure set in the New World made up the bulk of my childhood reading, too, and I suspect Samson Kolechko, the hero of The Silver Bone, was weaned on them as well. It’s a good thing they’ll always be there for us, and for generations of children to come.

With the arrival of spring break, I’ve managed to find time for a little light reading—purely for the sake of entertainment, no edifying strings attached. This is also my way to celebrate a week of good news, which included the longlisting of my latest translation, Andrey Kurkov’s The Silver Bone, for the International Booker Prize and my receiving a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

You gaze into the past and see
vain seeking, sheer adversity…
And only rarely, in your sleep,
do little fragments of it seep
into your mind — sweet memories
of childhood, that old life of ease…
Distant Crimea… Warm July
in a lush garden… Floating by,
a row of half-remembered faces,
their chatting mingled with the traces
of piano music from the house…
Whispered confessions, solemn vows…

If I had heard of “grief,” “despair,”
they were mere words, as light as air
and utterly devoid of meaning…
Children are selfish, overweening…
Spoiled by my comforts, by routine,
constantly summoned to be seen
by this or that doting relation,
I was the Center of Creation…
I felt I’d never be held back,
proceeding boldly down life’s track!

It often happened, at midday,
when it was just too hot to play,
that I would slip into the study,
where it was quiet, cool. Nobody
ever came in to read with me —
for grown-ups, summers are book-free.

Climbing onto the couch, I’d be
transported by the fantasy
of Swift or Verne to some strange land
with Gulliver or Captain Grant.
Texas, the broad plains, a fierce squall —
I dreamt of weathering it all,
and vowed that someday I’d wage war
against the natives… Hear me roar!
My eyes would blaze, my gaze would stun,
I’d settle matters with my gun…
I would win fame and untold riches!

Well, now I’m here… Alas, the hitch is
the truth behind our childhood dreams
is hardly ever what it seems.
Life bears no hint of heroism;
we fear another cataclysm,
remaining shaken and appalled
after the Bolsheviks’ “fierce squall”…

I’d found true poetry in novels —
but here it’s prose, hard work, drab hovels…
Now I approach the final track,
leaving all joy far back, far back…

---

Посмотришь в прошлое — там годы
Исканий тщетных… Там невзгоды,
Что Жизнь дарила щедро мне,
И только изредка, во сне, —
Отрывками увидишь снова
Моменты детства золотого,
Далёкий Крым… Уютный дом…
Июльский день в саду густом…
Ряд лиц — теперь полузабытых…
Из окон, широко-раскрытых, —
Услышишь музыку… Рояль
В тоске звенит — «кого-то жаль…
К кому-то сердце жадно рвётся…».
И гулким эхом отдаётся
Романс старинный — там, вдали, —
Где проплывают корабли,
Где солнца золото, где море…

В те дни я слышал: «Мука»… «Горе»…
«Тоска»… Но был я очень мал
И смысла слов — не понимал…
Слова легко скользили эти, —
Всегда эгоистичны дети.
Рабы обычаев, уюта, —
То люди к нам, то мы к кому-то…
Ряды визитов отдаём —
И мне казалось — создан мир
Лишь для меня!… И я — кумир!
Я — Центр Вселенной!… Бог Великий
Свет создал пёстрый, многоликий, —
На радость мне!… И жизни путь
Я свой — пройду не «как-нибудь»,
А «гордо», «смело», «в славе яркой»!…

Бывало часто — в полдень жаркий
Я шёл в прохладный кабинет, —
Там — книг ряды, там — взрослых нет, —
Большие летом не читают, —
Никто мне там не помешает…

Взобравшись на большой диван,
Читал я сказку, иль роман, —
О «Гулливере», «великанах»,
О солнечных далёких странах,
О «Детях Гранта»… И мечтал,
Что сам увижу «грозный шквал»,
«Техас», «льяносы», «Аризону»,
И — верный «прерии закону» —
Я буду цель иметь одну, —
«Вести с индейцами войну»!…
Мои «так грозны» будут «взоры»,
«Мой карабин решит все споры»!…
И буду славен я, богат, —
«Великий Бледнолицый Брат!»…

На деле ж — вышло всё иначе…
Из этого совсем не значит,
Что не сбылись мои мечты, —
Они — сбылись… Но красоты
И героизма — нет в помине…
Ну вот — в Америке я ныне,
В стране далёких, детских дум,
Но… стал холодным взрослый ум…
Прошли «расплавленные годы»
И гул Российской Непогоды,
Разбив мечты, как «грозный шквал», —
Изнанку Жизни показал!…

Нет радости и в этих странах…
Поэзия — была в романах,
На деле ж я увидел тут
Лишь прозу и тяжёлый труд…

«Лишь там прекрасно — где нас нету»!…
Невольно поговорку эту —
Частенько повторяю я, —
Мои читатели-друзья…

Короче, — грустные итоги:
Уже кончаются — дороги…
И перепутья… И пути…
А счастья — нет… и — не найти!…

Joys Direct and Vicarious

Photograph by Magdalena Edwards.

This past week has brought me great joy, to put it mildly. The joy has been both direct — Nina, Charlie, and I have spent half the week with my mother, who’s visiting Tulsa for the first time — and vicarious. That vicarious part comes courtesy of my sensationally gifted wife, Jenny, who’s new novel, The Extinction of Irena Rey, has racked up a staggering number of rave reviews. Just today, in The New York Times, Fiona Maazel writes:

The Extinction of Irena Rey is mad with plot and language and gorgeous prose, and the result is a bacchanal, really, which is the opposite of extinction. Such is the irony of art. To quote the novel’s epigraph, which could not be more apt: “And so, they forged their duality into a oneness, thereby making a forest.” This novel’s a forest. Go explore.

Jenny’s triumph comes on the heels of a more humble triumph of my own, a return to LA to read at the Hammer Museum, as part of a UCLA-sponsored poetry series I attended religiously as an undergrad and grad student years ago. As I told the audience, I learned a great deal from the poets who visited us then, but nearly as much as I learned from the man who introduced them, Stephen Yenser, my first teacher in the art of poetry. I would say that having Stephen introduce me was a dream come true, only I hadn’t ever dreamed such a thing would happen. The recording is up on the Hammer site, if you care to suffer through it.

As gratifying as it was to share the stage with Stephen, what made the evening especially sweet was the presence in the audience of a very special guest, Gedda Ilves, who, at the age of 100 (and of course you wouldn’t know it to look at her), is a living link to the Russophone Angeleno poets whose work I’ve been translating for some time now.

Gedda, who was born in 1923 among the Russian émigrés in Harbin, China, and came to Los Angeles, via Brazil, in the 1950s, is herself a poet, whose latest collection, As Butterfly to a River: New & Selected Poems, appeared in 2019. She has also just written a memoir, which she was gracious enough to share with me. It is a riveting tale, reflecting in every sentence the vivacious spirit that has sustained Gedda through all the turmoil she has witnessed. I spent a memorable afternoon at her home before the reading, pursuing her papers and admiring her collection of intricate snuff boxes and other artifacts associated with her international past. I will no doubt have more to say about Gedda and her work in the coming months, but I will end this entry with her own words:

I stand at the place
where my childhood
days passed.

Our garden then
full of flowers.
I chase a butterfly,
watch a caterpillar
my mother tells me
not to touch.

The house is gone.
I stand here for a while,
blinking at the high-rises.

“That Age-Old Spirit Filled the Air”: Alexander Voloshin Conjures Up a Ukrainian Christmas

“Koliada,” tapestry, by Olha Pilyuhina

Just a few weeks ago I began a new semester at the University of Tulsa and also, with much excitement, kicked off my stint as a Tulsa Artist Fellow.  I consider myself extraordinarily lucky to be part of this year’s multi-talented cohort, and I look forward to collaborating with each and every one of my colleagues in the program.

My first year with the Fellowship will be devoted to research into émigré and refugee writing from Oklahoma, the exploration of literary links between my adoptive state and my near-native California, and the completion of my translation of Alexander Voloshin’s On the Tracks and at Crossroads.  I wasted no time in getting back to the last of these projects, and, as usual, the Voloshin passages I happened to be translating resonated poignantly with the dreadful realities of our own time.  For too many people trapped in war zones or struggling to survive in foreign lands, there was no holiday season.  This was the case for Voloshin in 1939.  You can’t blame the man for dwelling on memories of happy holidays past, especially when he’s able to conjure up the sights, sounds, and smells of them with such elan.  In this particular passage, Voloshin writes the diverting Christmas tale he claims he isn’t able to write by drawing on his recollections of Ukrainian koliada celebrations — of the hopak dance, of the sound of a bandura, of Lenten feasts featuring kutia, uzvar, varenets, and palianystia, that Russian-tongue-twisting shibboleth of the current war.  Although Voloshin identifies himself throughout the poem as Russian, his heart was in Ukraine, where he was born and spent most of his life before emigrating.  He knew how to pronounce “palianystia” properly, and I expect he would have said the word proudly now.

Today — no sleep, no pleasant dream…
How can I celebrate the theme
of Christmas when my home is gone?
However much the heart may want
to sing about bouquets of roses,
it simply can’t if it feels frozen…
Where do we get that Christmas spirit?
A carol? We’re too glum to hear it.
Our well of fantasy runs dry.
We’re getting old: joy seems to fly
farther away from us each year,
leaving us steeped in doubt and fear…
A bloody world… Tyrants enthroned…
What lies ahead? Unknown… Unknown…
How could I now wax lyrical
about a “Christmas miracle”
when evil forces roam and pillage?
What Christmas Eve? What “sleepy village”?
The Star of Bethlehem? And snow?
“He made a friend and lost a foe”?

All that is done… Gone in a flash —
the “sleepy village” turned to ash,
both “friend” and “foe” deep underground,
the Star extinguished… What surrounds
us is brute force… Hardly a word
of love or joy is ever heard,
and a small pile of firewood
lies where the Christmas tree had stood…
We’re God-forsaken, left behind…
A happy ending’s hard to find…

Yet life had once been otherwise,
richer by far. We used to prize
loyalty, honor, and compassion;
brotherhood, freedom were in fashion…
On Christmas Eve, that Holy Night,
we helped our neighbors, set things right.
Of malice there was not a trace —
just one big brotherly embrace[…]

Once, in Ukraine, what carols sounded!
In every home, comfort abounded —
each was a warm and tidy realm…
The children sang of Bethlehem,
of Christ, the Magi, and the manger…
Lights burned till morning: welcome, stranger!
Two dozen pages wouldn’t do
if I wished to describe to you
those charming evenings: the bandura,
the tambourine, the wild bravura
of young lads at their hopak dance,
the lasses smiling as they prance,
braids swinging to the tap of heels —
and then, of course, the wondrous meals!
The uzvar punch, big bowls of kutia,
the fish in aspic, strong and fruity
brandies, and horilka too —
and for the youngest, milk, fresh stewed!
Embroidered cloths, pies without meats, and
warm, round loaves of palianytsia…
Roach with translucent caviar…
Voices of praise… The shining Star…
That age-old spirit filled the air,
so that you sensed it everywhere…

---

Сегодня — сон бежит от глаз,
Ну, как «Рождественский Рассказ»
Я напишу — живя в изгнаньи?!…
Нет — не могу!… При всём желаньи
Нельзя воспеть букеты роз,
Когда в душе — царит мороз!…
Где взять «рождественские темы»?!…
Ведь тут — истосковались все мы,
Иссяк фантазии полёт,
Стареем мы, и каждый год
Нам всё трудней развеселиться…
Не знаем — завтра что случится,
Повсюду в мире — «кровь», «вожди»
И — неизвестность впереди!…
Где-ж взять «лирические фразы»,
Как добрые писать рассказы,
Коль всюду торжествует зло?!
«Сочельник»… «Спящее село»…
«Звезда Рождественская»… «Вьюга»…
«Он ждал врага, а встретил — друга»…

Всё это — в прошлом!… Всё — ушло!…
Сгорело «спящее село»,
«Друзья», «враги»… — в одной могиле.
Угасли «звёзды»… Грубой силе
Всё покорилось… На дрова
Срубили «ёлку»… И слова
Любви и радости — не слышны…
Совсем забыл о нас Всевышний, —
Лишь «вьюги воют у крыльца», —
Увы — без «доброго конца»!…

А было некогда — иначе!…
И жили все мы побогаче,
И знали много чудных слов:
«Честь», «верность», «преданность», «любовь»,
«Свобода», «братство», «состраданье»…
Мы шли с любимой на свиданье…
В «Сочельника Святую Ночь» —
Стремились ближнему помочь…
И чужды были нам проклятья,
И были братскими объятья […]

А в Малороссии!… Колядки!…
И в каждом доме, в каждой хатке, —
Уют, теплынь и чистота…
Поют детишки про Христа,
Про Вифлеем, волхвов и ясли…
И — до утра огни не гасли…
Не хватит двадцати страниц,
Чтобы веселье «вечерниц»
Вам описать… Звучит бандура,
На бубне — лопается шкура,
Пошли в присядку «парубки»,
Стучат «дівчаток» каблуки,
Звенят «подковки», косы вьются,
«Дядькі шуткують і сміються»,
«Різдвяна Ніч» — глядит в окно…
А на столах — полным-полно:
«Кутья» в «макітре», «взвар», «горілка»,
«Сливьянкі староі бутилка»,
Из рыбы — постный холодец,
В баклагах толстых «варенец»,
Вишнёвка, запеканка, пиво…
Всё аппетитно… Всё — красиво…
Лежат повсюду «рушники»,
На них — «вишивані квіткі»…
На блюдах — пироги горою,
Тарань с прозрачною икрою,
Пшеничных груда «паляниц»…
У окон — ряд весёлых лиц:
Пришли пославить — со Звездою,
И дышит стариной сeдою
Напев народной «Коляды»…

“A Man Can Dream”: A Tulsan Cold Snap and Vernon Duke’s “Heat Wave”

Our new year got off to a bit of a rocky start, but it has also given us much to celebrate — first and foremost, our new home. The little Tulsan bungalow is a transplanted Angelono’s dream.  It looks to have been airlifted from the San Fernando Valley in the 1950s.  As I wrote to a friend just after we moved, I’m surprised it didn’t come with a poodle skirt and a hula hoop.  The move itself, alas, was a hard one.  Winter has set in here in Oklahoma, and there was snow and ice on the roads.

The sight of snow was a joyous one, of course, but Jenny and I would rather have watched it fall through a window…  It did remind us of the pleasure we took in translating Taras and Marjana Prokhasko’s heartwarming children’s book, Who Will Make the Snow?, from Ukrainian.  This was Jenny’s and my first official co-translation, and we were happy to see it make not one, but two New York Times best-of lists.  Kind reviewers have brought us another couple of presents this holiday season.  Jenny’s novel, The Extinction of Irena Rey, and my translation of Andrey Kurkov’s historical detective yarn, The Silver Bone, got twin stars in Publishers Weekly.  Both are due out in March.

But back to the snow…  When the temperature drops to the single digits, this shivering Californian needs a reminder of the other extreme.  Luckily, Vernon Duke is Johnny-on-the-spot.

Heat Wave

Today the sun is unrelenting,
its rays refusing to recede,
pouring their oil upon the wilted
salad of houses in the street.

The evening couldn’t get much warmer.
While sails hang limp and seamen mope,
a lazy cop sulks on the corner
and nurses an illicit hope:

a glass, a juicy, springy olive,
a whispering ambrosial stream
in a secluded bar — the call of
some tinkling voice… A man can dream…

August 1966

---

Жара

Сегодня солнце не желает гаснуть,
Его лучи уняться не хотят.
И обливают беспощадно маслом
Домов и улиц сохнущий салат.

Под вечер  — полдень. Вянет хлам житейский
И паруса безжизнены в порту,
А на углу ленивый полицейский
Лелеет нелегальную мечту:

Хрусталь, и хруст пружинистой оливы,
В укромном баре шепчущий ручей
Амброзии нездешнего разлива
И чей-то рай… а может быть ничей.

Август 1966

“Come on Down to Arizona”: Vernon Duke Hits Phoenix

The past few months have been difficult for our family. We lost one of our pillars, my father-in-law, Jerry Croft, who was as close to a superhero as real-life affords. You can learn more about Jerry, whose joyous fighting spirit will continue to inspire me for as long as I live, here and here. He was a cultural geographer with a deep knowledge of Oklahoma and a deep love for the American West. We bonded over our mutual addiction to old oaters, like Death Valley Days, and I suppose it was memories of our Western-themed conversations — and of Jerry’s goodnatured yet sly sense of humor — that sent me back to Vernon Duke’s cockeyed sendup of a tourism advertisement for the inhospitably hot state of Arizona. I’m sure it would have brought a smile to Jerry’s face.

Arizona

Are you gaga over ozone?
Does it simply make you swoon?
Come on down to Arizona,
as befits a proper loon.
Cowboys with their copper faces,
Gary Cooperish attire,
loaf around, twanging like oboes,
wet with sweat, smelling of mire.
With their legs encased in leather
boots of an enormous size,
they appear as Gullivers
to our Lilliputian eyes.
They make money in fake gunfights
staged for television screens,
but when those long shoots are ended,
Arizona’s where they spend it —
the calm desert is their scene.
Rich old ladies much admire
all these cowboys, tall and plain —
they expect erotic fire,
but they wait for it in vain.
The main city here is Phoenix —
rather sleepy, rather dull,
all the buildings single-storeyed,
nondescript… “Oh, what a cynic,”
I can hear my readers drawl.
In the evenings, out of bars,
comes the strumming of guitars.
In the mornings, after golf,
stingy gentlemen ride off
in Mercedes, Jaguars…
And at middays, with a groan,
everyone, in unison,
cools off with a bit of gin.
Come to Arizona, campers,
where the palm trees reek of camphor!

June 1963

---

Аризона

Если верите озону
И покорны кислороду,
Поезжайте в Аризону,
Как пристало сумасброду.
Меднорожие ковбои
В Гэри-Куперовых шляпах
Там гнусавят, как гобои,
И от них медвежий запах.
Ноги в сапоги обуты
Исполинского размера.
Визитёры — лилипуты,
А ковбои — Гулливеры.
Зарабатывают бойней
На экранах телевизий,
Но в песчаном парадизе,
В Аризоне им покойней,
В Аризоне — take it easy.
Престарелые богачки,
Эротической подачки
Ожидая тщетно — что им? —
Не выплевывая жвачки,
Восхищаются ковбоем.
Главный город — это Финикс,
Монотонный, сонный; даже
Все дома одноэтажны,
На одно лицо. «Вы циник-с!» —
Мне читатель в скобках скажет.
До-ре-ми иль си-ля-соль-фа —
В кабаках трещат гитары.
По утрам, устав от гольфа,
Сядет люд скупой и старый
В Мерседесы, Ягуары.
В полдень в Финиксе пустынно
Все, как по команде, стонут,
От жары спасаясь джином.
Пальмы пахнут нафталином:
Поезжайте в Аризону.

Июнь 1963

“Give It All, Love Everybody”: Vernon Duke and a Mirage of Yuletide in LA

October was a brutal month, and November shows no signs of improvement. Ethnic and political conflicts continue to flare up around the world. This year many thousands of civilians in Sudan, Ukraine, Israel and Palestine, Nagorno-Karabakh, and elsewhere have been slaughtered and displaced. Having just finished translating the first part of Alexander Voloshin’s mock epic On the Tracks and at Crossroads, which covers the flight of hundreds of thousands of émigrés from the south of Ukraine at the end of the Civil War in the late 1910s and early 1920s, I felt I needed to remind myself that the journey these men, women, and children undertook did not always end in heartbreak. Some of them eventually found peace and even joy, if only temporarily, in their adoptive homes. It seems hardly possible that the people affected by today’s turmoil will one day find peace and joy, but poems like the one below, by Vernon Duke, offer a small shred of hope.

I should add that I write this from Tulsa, where for the past two days I’ve had to scrape ice off our car’s windshield in the morning, so Duke’s description of the incongruously warm holiday season in LA proves especially appealing at the moment.

Christmas in Santa Monica

Heat in December — not the frost
that pokes us with its unseen pins.
The mouths of tykes emit no steam
and paper Christmas trees look out
onto the merry, decked-out scene.
Instead of snow — fluff, cotton wool,
and a glass floor posing as ice.
People gaze up and feast their eyes,
for free, as a fake angel flies
amid the strings of ersatz pearls.
The traffic lights, like cigarettes,
flicker in rhythm down the street,
while a supposed Santa Claus,
sweating right through his fur-trimmed coat, 
explains, in tones so rich and sweet,
the charms of winter at the Pole.
On TV youngsters smile profusely,
sing carols, then, in swimming trunks,
race one another to the waves
(without the beach, we can’t have music).
And farther down, beside the bridge,
on fragrant eucalyptus trees,
a triptych of bright lanterns swings
to glorify the newborn King.
The night descends. A star’s suspended
between the palms; this strange and shoddy
mirage of Yuletide makes no sense.
Still — Merry Christmas, my dear friend!
You’ll give it all, love everybody.

January 1965

---

Рождество в Санта-Монике

Зной в декабре, не холод колкий,
Что жжёт невидимой иголкой.
Из детских ртов не пышет пар,
Бумажные глазеют ёлки
На принаряженный бульвар.
А вместо снега пух и вата
И пол стеклянный, словно лёд;
И лицезреют все бесплатно
Поддельных ангелов полёт,
Поддельных жемчугов мерцанье,
Сигналов уличных мельканье
Подобно вспышкам папирос.
В очках и меховом кафтане
Потеет мнимый Дед Мороз;
Он детям объясняет гладко
Зимы невидимый уют.
По телевизии Колядки
Юнцы зубастые поют,
Потом в трусах купальных липких
(Без пляжа музыка не та)
С разбега в волны. У моста,
На благовонных эвкалиптах
Фонариков подвешен триптих
Для прославления Христа.
Ночь. Над крыльцом звезда повисла
Меж пальмами; в ней мало смысла,
Убог рождественский мираж.
Но все же — друг мой, Merry Christmas!
Ты всех полюбишь, всё отдашь.

Январь 1965

“The Life We Led in Turkey”: Alexander Voloshin in Constantinople

Last week I completed my translation of the second volume of Andrey Kurkov’s Samson Kolechko mysteries, which are set in Kyiv in 1919.  As I confessed in my brief translator’s note to the US edition of the first volume, The Silver Bone, which will appear in March 2024, “submersion in that earlier period of crisis and uncertainty proved cathartic. After all, I had as little control over the fate of Ukraine, which is also my homeland, in 2022 as Samson had over its fate in 1919, when the reins of power seemed to pass from hand to hand every few weeks. It was oddly reassuring to cling to Samson as he did his best to find his way through the fog of war and revolution, and even more reassuring to reflect on how far Ukraine had come since those dark days.”

Samson stayed in Kyiv, refusing to budge, while others had little choice but to flee. After closing his second case, I felt like turning my attention back to those displaced by the catastrophes of the 1910s. And so I set sail again with the buoyant Alexander Voloshin, who dedicated a few brief early chapters of his On the Tracks and at Crossroads to a colorful description of émigré life in Turkey in the early 1920s. One of the Russophone “notices” he cites in the second of these chapters is a want ad for a sight-reading pianist. I can’t help but wonder: did Vernon Duke apply for that position? He would have been a shoo-in.

Chapter Eight

Look how many! Being driven… Where? 
What does their wailing mean?…
— A. S. Pushkin, “Demons”

The wild Black Sea was all aroar —
the Red Devil laughed on shore
as we drifted through the fog…
Left Crimea to the dogs…
The Cheka was on a spree.
You support democracy?
Monarchy? Not Bolshevik?
You’d be done away with, quick.

We escaped that pit of Hell.
Our Armada’s sails did swell
as we journeyed on and on…

The sky brightened towards dawn
and fresh breezes swept it clear.
Suddenly, green cliffs appeared.
All was not yet lost for us!
We drew near the Bosphorus…

Chapter Nine

What isn’t there at that fair!
— N. V. Gogol, “The Fair at Sorochintsy”

Although there is simply no
capturing the whole tableau
of the life we led in Turkey,
I assure you: we were working.
Some of us even revealed
talents theretofore concealed.
This one’s acting, improvising.
That one’s painting? How surprising!
Him — a cook? And croupier?
Lawyers driving cabs all day,
doctors getting paid to sing,
high-born ladies waitressing…

You could hear our Russian cries,
hawking dumplings, little pies
on the corners of each street:
who has time to be discreet?
Diamonds, trousers, icons, furs —
name your price, and all are yours!
Millions of rubles sold
for a pittance — useless, old…

Russian names were all around:
“Sevastopol Meeting Ground” —
entertainment, coffee, tea
(in the courtyard, balcony).
Vodka served at “Russian Fleet,”
borscht and herring — what a treat!
“Café Moscow”? Window dressing:
owner was a true Odesan…
“Lotto Club” for decent wine.
Next door: “Midwife Katzenstein
from Yekaterinoslav” —
always did her job with love.

Notices: “Madame Petrov,
fortuneteller from Rostov”;
“Bloom, assisting your affairs”;
“Cup of Tea — come drown your cares”;
“Can secure a foreign visa”;
“Floor show, opening this season,
needs sight-reading pianist”;
“Zadkine, occult analyst”…
Signs of home on every block —
cockroach races round the clock!

Without wreaking devastation,
heroes of the emigration
had laid siege to Istanbul,
taking charge of it in full.

Chapter Ten

Kindly take yourself off!…
— A. P. Chekhov, The Wedding

We toiled on, without cessation.
Then the Turkish population,
with a most respectful bow,
asked us to get going — now…

They said, “If we had our druthers,
we’d be rid of you, dear brothers.
First you hand us a defeat,
now you worship at our feet?
Since you’re running, run some more.
Hosting you is such a chore —
plainly put, we’re sick and tired…”

Well, that left us quite inspired
to leave Turkey double-quick —
we ourselves were feeling sick.
Now we all had but one dream:
to New York! Put on full steam!

---

Глава восьмая

Сколько их, куда их гонят,
Что так жалобно поют?…
А. С. Пушкин

Море Чёрное грохочет,
Красный Дьявол вслед хохочет,
Мы плывём в туман и тьму…
Там — в оставленном Крыму —
Вакханалия чекистов, —
Демократов, Монархистов,
Беспартийных режут там, —
Режут всех, кто был не хам!

Мы-же вырвались из ада,
И на юг плывёт Армада
Белых Русских кораблей…

К утру — сделалось светлей,
Разогнало ветром тучи,
Берегов зелёных кручи
Показалися вдали,
И — в Босфор суда вошли…

Глава девятая

И чего только нет на этой ярмарке!
Н. В. Гоголь

Описать, едва-ль, сумею
Вам подробно эпопею
Цареградского житья,
Но признаться должен я,
Что России эмигранты
Обнаружили таланты:
Тот — художник, тот — артист,
Тот шоффер, тот куплетист,
Те, вдруг, стали поварами,
Те — крупье… Девицы, дамы, —
В ресторанах подают,
Доктора — в хорах поют…

Всюду русские с лотками:
Кто торгует пирожками.
Кто — пельменями «в разнос»…
Кто-то на угол принёс
«Бывших денег» миллионы…
Продают — меха… иконы…
Бриллианты и… штаны, —
Бедной Родины сыны…

Всюду — русские названья:
«Севастопольцев Свиданье» —
Кофе, чай и кабаре,
(В мезонине, во дворе);
«Русский Флот» — обеды, водка,
Ежедневно — борщ, селёдка,
А внизу — в углу, стоит:
«Содержатель — одессит»…
Ресторан «Москва»… «Полтава»…
«Из Екатеринослава
Акушерка — Каценштуб»…
На углу — «Лото и Клуб»…

Объявленья: «Де-Петрова —
Хиромантка из Ростова»…
«Блюм — ходатай по делам»…
«Чашка Чая» — Русских Дам…
«Достаю в Европу визы»…
«Кабаретной антрепризе
Нужен нотный пианист»…
«Цадкин — психо-окультист»…
«Файф-о-клоки Черной Розы»…
Русский сборник — «Смех сквозь слезы»…
«Конотопская нуга»…
«Таракании Бега»…

Словом — все тогда признали,
Что Царь-Град завоевали,
Без губительной войны, —
Эмиграции Сыны!…

Глава десятая

Позвольте вам выйти вон!…
А. П. Чехов

Дни бегут, сплетаясь в годы,
И турецкие народы,
Сделав вежливый поклон, —
Просят нас — убраться вон…

Говорят: «На самом деле —
Вы нам, братцы, — надоели!…
Коль уж начали бежать —
Потрудитесь продолжать!…
На войне, так вы нас били,
А теперь, вдруг, — полюбили…
Словом — будьте так добры!»…

Из турецкой мы дыры —
Сами вырваться хотели…
Все друг дружке надоели,
Все мечтали, как-нибудь, —
На Нью-Йорк направить путь…