Jazz with Ella

excerpt

This sarcasm was wasted on the driver who had already exited the bus and was lighting a cigarette. “I presume it has dining facilities and private bathrooms, but if not, I ask you all to be flexible. These are our last nights in Moscow and I, for one, don’t plan to let this setback ruin it.”
As this last was said through clenched teeth, most of the group doubted its sincerity.
Chopyk trod firmly off the bus, luggage in hand, looked briefly up and down the quiet back street, took in the worn matting at the doorway and a withered plant in a pot, and entered. The others followed. Inside, it was a monument to pre-revolutionary architecture. An ornately patterned Persian carpet, so threadbare their heels tapped on it, wound through the hallway to a high front desk draped in ornamental gilt moulding. Many niches and nooks had been fashioned into the walls of cool grey marble; within the niches stood chipped statuary, their colours dull from years of restaurant grease and traffic fumes. At least there was no doubt that there was a dining room because everything smelled of sour rye bread and fish. At the core of the curved marble staircase a large, gilded cage heaved and groaned. This proved to be the elevator. Chopyk stared at it, curiosity vying with irritation. It took a few moments of distraction by this cultural marvel of a hotel for Jennifer to realize that there was no Natasha there to meet them.
The desk clerk could not have been less interested in the leadership of the tour group. Chopyk engaged in an eloquent but losing battle with a ramrod straight, unsmiling concierge regarding unforeseen scheduling changes, dining arrangements and the possibility of sending a message to the Hotel Rossiya where the unfortunate Natasha must even now be waiting for them. Rudderless, while his captain was engrossed in this exchange, the clerk merely collected their passports listlessly and handed out room keys seemingly at random. He gestured toward the heaving gilded cage. Davai, davai, he waved them away.
“Looks like you got a single room, Jennifer,” Hank said. “Going to be doing some entertaining? Nudge, wink.” She reeled at his loud voice. And when had he started calling her by her first name? It was symptomatic of the changing relationships within the group.
“Let’s not hang around here,” Lona whispered. “Let’s get up to our rooms before Chopyk learns which rooms we’ve been assigned to.” They heaved their suitcases in the direction of the elevator. As if in camouflage, a wrinkled crone materialized out of the marble statuary, slipping

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562892

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763246

In the Quiet After Slaughter

excerpt

– I’m in no mood, Lawrence . . .
– Lenore wants a cheeseburger!And my good friend would like—.
Just then a minor explosion rocks the back seat. Malodorous
fumes fill the vehicle. Mrs. Cameron turns and cuffs Larry across the
mouth. His head jerks back; a welt rises on his cheek. The future
Marine— Special Forces, probably — howls like a baby.
Once home, our gear unpacked, Larry waves me to the side of the
house. He punches me in the head twice.
The noxious discharge signalled the end of our friendship, such
as it was. But what had been gained was worth the beating. It was in
the back seat of the taxi, on Lenore Cameron’s face.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562874

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0980897971

Constantine Cavafy

Afternoon Sun
This room, I know it so well.
Now this one and the one next DOOR are rented
as business offices. The whole house has become
a place for agents, merchants, and Companies.
Ah, this room, how familiar it is.
Here, close to the door, was the couch,
and in front of it a Turkish carpet.
near the couch, a shelf with two yellow vases.
To the right, no, opposite, a closet with a mirror.
In the middle of the table where he wrote,
and the three large wicker chairs.
Next to the window was the bed
where we made love so many times.
These poor things must still be somewhere.
Next to the window was the bed.
The afternoon sun reached halfway across it.
…Afternoon, four o’clock, we separated
for a week only…Alas,
that week lasted forever.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562856

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763823

Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume VI

THE LIFT OPERATOR

And truly,
spring is a good fire, old men warm up on the ledges,
the voices of young merchants are warmed, the voices
of lottery vendors, the chair repairman, the yogurt
seller’s, the window repairman, the patched-up shirts
warm up as if they were ironed recently, and they smell
of tidiness, compassion, soap and sunshine.
And the train rails become longer, shining in the distance,
out in the suburbs, further from the last brick masonry
and the big carpentry underlying the virtue of day with
two lines of steel. Little boys, forgotten by their mothers,
walk on their own, drunk with their steps — have the dead
little boys learned to walk too? — the young girls sink in
their own smiles, and only their fresh hair floats over their
smile, strewn with tiny roses or daisies.
The high-rise lift operator saunters in the sunshine, in
the afternoon between two and four o’clock, when his work
quietens down — he goes out to the street as if he enters
the world for the first time; he reaches the other corner
where the old furniture store is and the workers, in
the sunshine, rebuilt closets, and consoles, and scratched
armchairs. The aroma of varnish and robustness, a juvenile
wind rubs its hairless chin in front of an old closet; the far
away face of a rosy cloud passes lightly through the old
mirrors with the heavy, wood-engraved frames.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763785