dimoncello

Gay Hussar

Thu, 01 Feb 2007 22:51:05 GMT

This happened a long time ago in London on Christmas night. We have been planning to go to Europe for a while and, even though, we did not really discuss the first country we would go to, somehow in our conversations it never turned out to be England. Those were pre-Harry Potter days, of course. Nevertheless, a bunch of our friends decided to spend New Year’s in London and invited us to come along.

So, there we were – walking the ancient city in the middle of a cold and breezy Christmas Eve. This was also before the food became our biggest obsession and the legends began to appear in different parts of the world about our notorious epicurean breakfasts where we would consume vast piles of almond croissants and French toasts with berry sauce and whipped cream. Those were the days of ultimate moderation when we would be satisfied with a simple English food like fried eggs, bacon, toasted bread covered with geometrically proportioned pieces of butter and orange marmalade. We would have been satisfied with just this list and not immediately hungry. We would not even complain about tasteless Americano and not rush to the next door bakery looking for a cup of a stronger non-French roast coffee.

It was that first time in London when we began our long lasting love affair with this magnificent city. Oh, those long strolls along Themes River, elegant looks of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, gloominess of Covent Garden, Italian restaurants of Chelsea. I did not intend to recite the highlights of London by Lonely Planet but I could not help myself. The discovery of the city is similar to the first date. It is exciting, strange, difficult and, in most cases, incredibly rewarding at the end. We felt exhilarated when we continued our first dance with this new creature, circling its narrow mysterious streets covered in the light snow.

Despite the fact that we were not yet the gastronomic maniacs we are now, after a few hours of wondering around the center of the city we began to notice that we can not completely ignore the subject of lunch and dinner. It turned out that we just passed the Tower and were standing in front of a bridge that was vaguely familiar from movies and history books or maybe even our past lives. The Tower Bridge met us with the smile on its wrinkled face. Unfortunately, due to the late awakening this morning we got around to think about food when it was nearly four in the afternoon. It also turned out that not much is open on Christmas Eve in London. We ended up getting a bowl of soup and a pint of bitter in the pub at the end of the Bridge. The pub owner planned to close right after we finished our soup and suggested that if we have nowhere to go tonight, the Soho restaurants should begin opening later this evening and would offer much entertainment to the two stranded tourists.

Utterly depressed with just a bowl of soup in our stomachs that frankly only made our hunger worse and the cold of the wind even fiercer, we began making our way back to the center. By seven or eight having studied a small district of Soho and perused the local bookshops in search of an interesting restaurant description that would cheer us up, we picked an obscure Hungarian bistro located in a narrow Tudor building in one of the darkest corners of Green Street. The place was called Gay Hussar and was mentioned in one of the restaurant guides as a spectacular but quite snobbish small eatery.

We turned up there later that evening because we could only make a reservation at 9 pm. Back in the nineties London had much less to offer to food hunters than it does today and it was hard to find a good place and get there without a reservation. At five minutes after the hour of 9 we knocked on the old massive door of the same creepy building we chose earlier.

It was very cozy inside and, after the cold and snowy weather outside it felt divine. As it often happens the building appeared a little bit more spacious than it seamed from the street. The candles were lit and dazzling white linen table cloths covering the dining tables were winking at us most invitingly. We picked a table near the window and began our Christmas celebration with a traditional bottle of Bull’s Blood. The waiter from Budapest, slowly pronouncing words with a heavy accent, described the goulash and duck pate as the most exquisite dishes on the menu, thus making the ordering much simpler for us.

In the middle of the dinner we were interrupted by solemn baroque music as a small procession walked into the bistro and took a position at the table near us. It was the strangest group of people I have ever seen. The tallest person in the group was a man in his forties with a dark pointy hat and black velvet suit with a couple of golden stars on the chest. He had a very pale long face and a pair of bright smart eyes that were darting around like a set of ping pong balls during the final of a tennis tournament. He immediately looked at me and held my stare for a while. His dark eyes were full of wisdom and trickery and I felt that he sent me a message through his gaze. The message was quite simple – enjoy the show and merry holidays to you! I instantly felt that something was up in the air. Again, these were our pre-Harry Potter days and I did not have enough imagination to see anything beyond a strangely dressed assorted group of characters. Yet, I could not help noticing peculiar features of this gang.

The tall man’s dinner companions were a rather motley crew. An elderly, regal looking woman in red opera style dress with long gray hair was definitely his mother. We could feel it in parental pride and admiration with which she absorbed whatever her son was saying. The other two members of their group were a very well dressed midget with enormous shaved head that reflected the sparkles of candles and a shabby looking hunchback that held on his left side what seamed to be a walking stick with a large round handle.

The whole time they held a conversation in rapid Eastern European language which sounded like Hungarian as neither of us ever heard that language. The tall man was definitely the head of the party as he talked more than others and did so with a force of authority. From time to time probably knowing that they might attract some attention he picked up his eyes and looked at me across the room with a slight smile. The dwarf would giggle with a very high pitched almost female voice and the old hunchback would occasionally take out his stick which turned out to be a magnificent ancient looking silver sword and with an amazing skill juggle it in the air as if it was a small knife, which made it change color from silver to light blue.

I kept thinking about how to gain their trust, talk to them and somehow get introduced to their world. I felt ashamed of my thoughts and simultaneously scared of what might happen to me and us if I acted on my secret desire. It is not news to me that we all have a second personality, a side of us that is longing for an adventure. Most of us would deny it on the spot, but deep inside, sometimes in our dreams, we are planning and plotting for that very special moment when things begin moving against the rules, objects fly and the White Queen begins to scream way before she gets poked by the needle.

When our dinner was almost over I had to go to the bathroom and on my way back I saw the head of the supernatural party talking to a cute waitress with beautiful black hair in the corner of the hall. As I was walking near them I slowed my steps, stopped behind them and tried to listen to their conversation. Apparently the tall stranger was describing the girl some of the tricks he could do with silverware. He took out a spoon from a pocket, put it on his open palm and fixed it with his deep gaze. In a matter of seconds the spoon began to slowly melt and small shining drops of liquid metal began to fall on the floor. The waitress gasped in surprise and rushed away. Then, slowly the man turned to me, smiled and pressed his finger to his lips sealing this magical Christmas night forever in my memory. Today, long after this night when I go back to this story in my mind, I sense that I might have missed something and I would meet the man in black velvet suit again.

Potapych and Christ

Thu, 01 Feb 2007 22:36:25 GMT

I do pick up a book by Chekhov or Ionesku every once in a while to fill the theatrical void inside my head. Sometimes I even dream about acting. One evening I was browsing Ionesku’s annotation to the play “The Killer”. Ionesku was explaining that his play was intended to condemn conformism and totalitarianism. The analogy that he brought up was about a writer that took part in a demonstration in Bavaria in 1936. The pro-fascist crowd was meeting Hitler. It boiled in admiration. There was so much electricity in the air that it was hard to resist. The writer tried to fight back. He felt how his mind protested and fought against following the crowd. He almost felt mad, torn by contradiction in his head. As I was reading those lines an old story popped in my mind.

Many years ago I had a friend among my numerous tennis buddies. He had a real name, but everybody called him Potapych. It would not have been enough to say that he was a good friend. We were very close. Not only we played much tennis together, traveled to different tournaments and did all other sport related activities like soccer and skiing, but also we shared common interest in literature, music and cinema. We exchanged favorite books and discussed movies for hours and sometimes days. For 6 or 7 years we would spend at least a couple of hours together every day either playing tennis or talking. When we grew up and started dating we would bring our dates to hang out together. At some point we even tried to start a business together.

Even after school we continued to be inseparable, though we went to different universities relatively far from each other and it was difficult to keep up with our busy schedules.

It was around the beginning of nineties – a very interesting time in the former USSR, beginning of awakening and changing of old ways. As a popular German rock group of the time sang: “There was the wind of changes.” Indeed, there were so many things in the air after Perestroika: little adjustments to life, alterations to our freedoms, transformation of economy and revolution in everything else. We were constantly a little drunk with all stuff that was happening at the same time. Rock and sex and freedom of speech were rapidly entering our sleepy retarded country. Inevitably our psychology has been mutilated, for some - beyond repair. Many people were seeking alternative approaches to dealing with all madness that was going on. One of the new popular ways to express oneself was religion. Old Russian Orthodox church was resurrected, but it was not enough. New religions and cults were sprouting to life every day. Some of them were smuggled from other places while some were invented locally and sold on the spot. People were running from confusion of this crazy time and trying to hide using every available way. I have to admit that there were plenty of opportunities to be explored in this segment of the market. The White Brotherhood was there, Mun – the mysterious monk from the East, the Mormons and many others were showing surprising resilience and adaptability in young and evolving Ukrainian economy. Of course not all of them were there to squander our precious national resources and steal from naïve natives. There were those who actually emerged with a sole purpose of sending the whole country to the path of righteousness. It turned out Potapych found his refuge in none other than Church of Christ that perceived itself more along the lines of higher path and pure spirit.

This is how I discovered what happened to him. It was around the first semester of my second year at the university in late fall. In Kiev this usually means the end of romantic part of the season when leaves are turning different bright colors, some of them fall, get burnt and the air fills up with the smell of smoke from fires in the parks and a bit of fresh apples always mixed with a faint accent of an old city. My head has always been spinning when my nose caught the traces of this smell and my mind would fill with divine longing for freedom which, frankly speaking, I never refused to myself. I would always escape from classes and go wonder the streets of Pechersk district around the Central Stadium in the vicinity of tennis courts.

Potapych just got to the university himself and apparently was much busier than me. As days began to grow colder we began to see each other less and less often. I think in November I realized that I have not seen him or talked to him for a couple of months, felt a bit ashamed and decided to call him up. The voice that answered me was very much unlike Potapych voice that I knew. He said that he was glad to hear from me, unexpectedly blessed me and asked if I wanted to change my life by serving the Master of the universe. I truly hope those were not his precise words, but this was the essence of his message delivered in what seemed to be a rather mechanical robot like voice. Naturally, I thought that something was a bit wrong with good old Potapych. He offered to meet at the building called the House of Officers in Pecheresk later this week on Friday and I agreed.

Those days House of Officers was a place for rent and various religious organizations would settle their church camps in this building every night. Not all of them had enough funding or a goal for impressing the grandeur of their religion in constructing accordingly inspiring temples which was a habit of Catholic Church. The Church of Christ was one of those “poor man” movements so to speak, that temporarily sheltered itself and its followers in this famous concert hall. Sometimes it still hosted Nikitiny or Rosenbaum performances and the church had to pack and stay away for the night.

Friday evening I arrived to the House of Officers and was immediately shocked by the vastness of the religiously attuned crowd. The halls where they usually had cozy small bard concerts were stuffed with exited and buzzing youth. Yes, it was mostly young people, but surprisingly there were not that many students. I suppose this should have told me something about the intellectual level of this gathering.

Everybody was settling down for a “show”. I picked a seat next to a very pretty girl in the middle of the hall. I was instantly drawn to her beautiful curly black hair and a charming but at bit serious face. She gazed straight at me and offered without an introduction: “Are you in, brother?” I found no reason to refuse her suggestion and nodded in agreement. Neither did I find the reason to keep that somber, almost frowning facial expression and started to ask her about that, but she turned to the stage without another word ending our exchange. I guessed she was taken by the starting presentation or I should have said – the service.

A number of “brothers” came out to the stage and very excitedly began reciting long passages from Bible. The crowd was captivated, immersed in the rapid, somewhat logically disconnected and increasingly loud sequence of life stories of saints, proverbs and sayings from the holy book of everything. Every passage was fallowed by stern, but exited “Amen” that was at once picked up by the raging crowd. I was starting to feel myself being drowned in the sea of madness, but then a small event cheered me up. When the readings reached what seemed to be an emotional climax the participants and spectators began to hug each other. I was not avoided by the process. My sweet looking neighbor with curly hair has hugged and kissed me several times with tears in her eyes. This was way before my time in blissful California were I learned that hugs are a hippie way of greeting a spiritual relative and was taking those as an expression of adoration for my humble persona by an excited girl.

During the break I went outside searching for my friend. Even though, the evening was flying by and I still have not seen Potapych, which was quite hard in this huge crowd anyway. But the fortune turned my way and I found my cute curly haired “Church of Christ” colleague in the theatre café. Imagine my surprise when she did not or pretended that she did not show any sign of recognition. I started greasing her with extra cups of hot chocolate and tried to remind of a semi-sexual act both of us engaged in less than a half an hour ago, but she still refused me. Eventually her face flushed with an odd smile and she told me the fact that we briefly hugged and kissed does not make us any different, than any other brother or sister of this holly community. And then she was off on her way. Away from me! Boy, my contact with this church did not start with the right musical note nor did it go in the righteous direction.

Later this evening I finally stumbled upon my lost friend Potapych was conducting a light conversation, almost a chat, with a very priestly looking young fellow about some obscure part of Old Testament. As I learned later this was one of church’s founding fathers, former child of the street, Mister Valentine. Without expressing a slight surprise or any other feeling with what seemed to be commonly popular stern expression Potapych hugged me and introduced me to the Master. Valentine suggested we spend some time together tomorrow with him and other brothers and sisters getting to know each other and learning about the ways of righteousness. When I asked if Potapych was planning to come over as well to hang out with brothers or simply to play tennis, he bluntly refused by saying he had other church duties that day. He also told me the strangest thing that sounded like an expression from some book that he heard recently: “We are all the same in Christ and one should not single out any individual from the body of the church.” Incidentally, that night was the last time I ever saw Potapych.

The next day still wanting to understand what the fuss was about I spent with Valentine and his gang. We did lots of talking about New and Old Testament, of which, as it turned out neither of us had any real knowledge. Though, Valentine did demonstrate his very impressive memory by citing the entire chapters from the book. We tried to discuss and break apart some of them, but it felt pointless and not very exciting to me. I should give him credit though that he was the first person after my father that made me think about what Bible was actually saying and got me interested in learning about different religions. My main problem during those conversations with Valentine was that I had no understanding of why their church would be attractive to him, Potapych, me or anybody else. I still did not see clearly what has brought my friend into this vacuum of thoughts and feelings, even though I was beginning to feel that it was the possibility to stop thinking and a permission to blindly follow somebody. This was a real value proposition of the Church of Christ.

Of course at various breakpoints during the day Valentine tried to persuade me in joining the clan, but he failed to convey what was so interesting and exiting in his church and their philosophy. At the end of the day I felt pretty spent and frustrated. I also felt like I was beginning to waist my time. It was a feeling very similar to the one I got during my math classes, even though I should admit that my university math professor did manage to get me interested a few more times than Valentine with lectures on theory of probability.

One interesting part of that day was when we hooked up with other “Church of Christ” goers and went to baptize one of the new members. We all got to Valentine’s tiny studio apartment about forty minutes away from the center of Kiev. The new girl was very young, no more than 18 and was placed in the middle of the room wearing nothing but a long white shirt. A big metal bathtub filled with cold water was dragged from somewhere and positioned next to the victim. The church crowd started singing and burning aromatic candles. Do I have to mention the excitement, hugs and kisses? Eventually the victim was thrust in the water and baptized in the name of Holy Father and spirit. I saw the greedy faces of fanatics eyeing my unprotected body with a new interest. They were ready to throw me into the holy water and cleanse me of my identity. Fear and anger made me rush out of the apartment back to freedom and lust of the fresh autumn day, back to the incredible force of life and free will. I was thankful to God for giving me the ability to make my own choices and follow my own road again. This time it was the road back to tennis courts.