Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
OVERTURE
THE SONG OF THE VOLGA BOATMEN
(Russian Folk Song)
Yo, heave ho!
Yo, heave ho!
Once more, once again, still once more
Yo, heave ho!
Yo, heave ho!
Once more, once again, still once more
Now we fell the stout birch tree,
Now we pull hard: one, two, three.
Ay-da, da, ay-da!
Ay-da, da, ay-da!
Now we pull hard: one, two, three.
Now we pull hard: one, two, three.
Yo, heave ho!
Yo, heave ho!
Once more, once again, still once more
As the barges float along,
To the sun we sing our song.
Ay-da, da, ay-da!
Ay-da, da, ay-da!
To the sun we sing our song.
Hey, hey, let's heave along the way To the sun we sing our song
Yo, heave ho!
Yo, heave ho!
Once more, once again, still once more
Oh, you, Volga, mother river,
Mighty stream so deep and wide.
Ay-da, da, ay-da!
Ay-da, da, ay-da!
Volga, Volga, mother river.
Yo, heave ho!
Yo, heave ho!
Once more, once again, still once more
Yo, heave ho!
Yo, heave ho!
CHAPTER 2
TO AUNT SHURA
PART ONE
RED ARMY MEN'S CHORUS:
Yo, heave ho!
yo, heave ho!
once more, once again, still once more —
trees shake and the grass bows down obedient to the blowing wind —
we pull hard: one, two, three,
to tell the story, witness to the past —
Aunt Shura's story:
ay-da, da, ay-da!
ay-da, da, ay-da!
MYSELF TO MYSELF:
Aunt Shura is my last aunt in Moscow and she is also Aunt Sasha or Alexandra or Andrevna (her patronymic —
Andrey is my grandfather).
I hadn't seen her for more than a decade and I'd almost forgotten how she looks and her voice —
her bird-like squeak,
her small-town-near-Moscow talk,
the town of Tula,
the hard Russian "r" and her smooth long Moscow "a" — like a song taking its time as she hurries toward me, still erect, still confident in her step!
She sounds like she sings:
AUNT SHURA:
"O-o-oh my loving ne-e-ephew!
You come to me bearing our family's old name.
My true relative, my living blood.
At last I see you, dear child.
Let me hug you."
MYSELF TO MYSELF:
I had not seen her for more than a decade:
a salad on the white tablecloth herring oiled and onioned, a hot potato thinly sliced, smoked pork sausage,
no caviar, not on my aunt's pension.
We are sitting around the table —
her granddaughter,
a middle-aged computer woman,
me, her nephew, the biblical "Prodigal Son,"
and an aunt's great-granddaughter,
a Moscow Juniors champion in the SHOT PUT, which is, for me,
huge news.
RED ARMY MEN'S CHOIR:
Yo, heave ho!
yo, heave ho!
once more, once again, still once more,
now we pull hard: one, two, three —
a young female in the middle of a military family —
(the aunt's husband and her son both were Russian warriors).
AUNT SHURA:
"To our unexpected long-expected meeting!"
RED ARMY MEN'S CHORUS:
Yo, heave ho!
yo, heave ho!
once more, once again, still once more —
Russian birches, oaks, firs!
wormwood and feather-grass.
Aunt Shura clinks her vodka's crystal shot glass.
She's 93.
PART TWO
AUNT SHURA:
Metal shavings swirl in the plant's heavy air.
My unprotected hands hold a shining metal detail.
I am a happy girl of 30
a small but important screw in the cogs of industry.
I am working a machine in a plant in the city of Tula,
cradle of the Russian military.
We must save our young country.
RED ARMY MEN'S CHORUS:
Yo, heave ho!
yo, heave ho!
once more, once again, still once more,
now we pull hard: one, two, three!
ay-da, da, ay-da!
ay-da, da, ay-da!
AUNT SHURA:
So many voracious enemies.
Imperialists! Capitalists! Fascists!
Our plant's Comrade Party Leader said:
"We live in the industrial epoch."
Now industry is my passion although I am a girl!
I knew a name, Demidov.
He lived in Tula back in the 18th century.
The same idea.
INDUSTRIALIZATION!
Hey, nephew!
Remember? This Russian name? You,
my apolitical paper-shuffling little artist.
Three hundred years ago a talented Tulan smithy,
Nikita Demidov, was visited by Great Peter who said: "Hey! Tulan Smithy.
See this, my Dutch gun? Make me the same.
But not right now. Tomorrow. And I will come for this new Russian gun."
I'd always liked this Demidov story, about the beginning of Russia's weapons superiority.
PART THREE
RED ARMY MEN'S CHOIR:
Yo, heave ho!
yo, heave ho!
once more, once again, still once more.
"We cannot make a revolution wearing silk gloves." Who says?
Ah-h-h, forget it. Remember — Stalin.
Now we pull hard: one, two, three ay-da, da, ay-da!
ay-da, da, ay-da!
AUNT SHURA:
Metal shavings swirl in the heavy air.
I remember our leader's words:
I was working without gloves in a row of young Soviet girls!
Free girls. Freedom. Freedom, I made it myself.
I ran off from my unhappy home.
I hope you, my nephew, know our family history:
Grandpa in hiding, fearing arrest because he'd become rich through hard work before the Revolution, being the builder of several Moscow landmarks including the Hotel Metropol near Red Square, raised by his hand, his brain. Not its great mosaic or ceramic façade,
but the walls, the roof.
Grandfather's triumph,
Remember —
I just saw, in passing, his (our) two expropriated Moscow houses equipped at the end of the 19th century with a talking Ericsson,
like Lenin's cabinet.
PART FOUR
RED ARMY MEN'S CHORUS:
Yo, heave ho!
yo, heave ho!
once more, once again, still once more.
Oh Volga, Volga, our pride.
Of the Volga River and the sun we sing but our air reeks of WWII.
Ay-da, da, ay-da!
Ay-da, da, ay-da!
AUNT SHURA:
Metal shavings swirl in the heavy air and unexpectedly he stopped me,
a military student,
my future pilot, Alex.
"Stop playing the blonde manly fool,"
he told me.
"You are a girl, a future woman.
Mother of my future children."
He, my Alex,
shivers from a slight fever in a hospital for Red military pilots.
RED ARMY MEN'S CHORUS:
Yo, heave ho!
Yo, heave ho!
Ay-da, da, ay-da!
Ay-da, da, ay-da!
AUNT SHURA:
But still no WWII.
Alex lies down, he can't walk.
The Red Army's flying soldier is ill, his temperature high.
The end of June, the day is Sunday,
the Red-starred soldier-nurse brings shots of vodka to the ward.
The roar of airplanes.
Still peaceful military craft but a constant noise around the airfield,
above the hospital for pilots.
Still, it is not WWII.
Alex lay down, he couldn't walk.
PART FIVE
MYSELF TO MYSELF:
I admire my aunt's energy.
She wipes her dry eyes,
she is 93,
she smiles.
June of '41
is quite clear in her memory.
She remembers it like yesterday, that sunny Sunday without Alex,
yet close enough to her in the military hospital near Moscow!
AUNT SHURA:
"Guys. Bad news. Hey, listen!"
RED ARMY MEN'S CHOIR:
Yo, heave ho!
yo, heave ho!
once more, once again, still once more —
Oh, despite the loud noise of military planes we hear your voice, oh mother,
and Father Stalin's voice:
"The whole Soviet people must fight for every inch of Soviet soil."
We pull hard: one, two, three,
ay-da, da, ay-da!
ay-da, da, ay-da!
MYSELF TO MYSELF:
My aunt cries along with the Red Army military chorus,
vodka glass in hand.
AUNT SHURA:
"War! War! War with the Germans!
A Real War! Hitler invaded our country.
Hitler, who'd signed a Pact for Peace with us!"
MYSELF TO MYSELF:
My auntie settles in like she's a real movie actress.
She sees Alex circling in his plane through dark streaming clouds.
AUNT SHURA:
No longer bedridden during the war, he is Alex in the sky in his cockpit.
He nibbles on aspirin along with his pilot's portion of sweet-bitter chocolate.
June 26th,
four days of war,
his plane badly shot up,
his ship diving in flames he crash-lands on its aluminum belly in the tall grasses of Ukraine,
captured German territory.
What'll he do? My poor Alex.
RED ARMY MEN'S CHOIR:
Yo, heave ho!
yo, heave ho!
once more, once again, still once more.
"One death is a tragedy,
a million is a statistic," Stalin says.
Alex! you are one in a million.
The fires of war blaze above the earth.
We pull hard: one, two, three,
ay-da, da, ay-da!
ay-da, da, ay-da!
AUNT SHURA:
HE-E-EY! SO-O-OLDIER!
THE LAST CARTRIDGE IS YO-O-OURS!
Alex has heard Great Stalin's merciless order:
"Die! No prisoners!"
PART SIX
AUNT SHURA:
Yes,
my Alex has a bullet for himself,
but he wants to stay alive to fight the war,
to raise our banner over Berlin!
He lunges into the forest blasts of war echo in his ears.
Where are the Germans? And where are our troops?
He meets a Ukrainian,
exchanges his khaki uniform and becomes a local peasant dressed in an embroidered blouse.
He is near a Ukrainian village, no Germans to be seen,
but —
"There's a brave man in our national dress but he's got a Soviet soldier's haircut."
He hears the voice of an unfriendly woman:
"Away! Hey! Away!
We won't die for you. Yet we don't know who is better."
Alex takes off between the blue-white huts, darts into the first open door that invites him in to hide.
RED ARMY MEN'S CHOIR:
Yo, heave ho!
yo, heave ho!
once more, once again, still once more.
"This war is the war of the entire Russian people," and my Red Army pilot meets a different woman who takes hold of his hand to hide him as all Soviet people during the War do their duty.
Pull hard: one, two, three,
ay-da, da, ay-da!
ay-da, da, ay-da!
AUNT SHURA:
She leads him to the barn and whispers, "Lie here between these foul pigs.
Germans hate the stink of Russian (Ukrainian: it's the same!) pigs."
A kind old woman brings hay and spreads it on the damp earthen floor and covers Alex with a blanket.
PART SEVEN
AUNT SHURA:
Hitler is dead! I cried that April day.
And now,
with Eva Braun and their dog named Blonda — Oh! I remember —
but Alex was still flying a couple of days after the May 9th victory,
conquering the last fascist stronghold,
flying over a trapped city,
Budapest. And then we had real Victory!
Real Peace!
Stillness. No vibrating cannonades above my Alex's head,
but never friendly, never warm,
not quiet: only a cold, sub-zero temperature.
Alex taking his family, i.e. me,
to Germany,
to the Russian Zone,
the isolation of foreign life,
no French/American contacts behind the Soviet Iron Curtain.
I live like all members of Russian military families.
I stand in line for food and hear the hissing whisper from some German frau, "Die Russisch Schwein — sh-h-h,"
and listening, I smile.
RED ARMY MEN'S CHOIR:
Yo, heave ho!
yo, heave ho!
once more, once again, still once more.
German ladies! We Red Army men are still marching through your country!
As if you didn't know it,
the pigs belong to Aunt Shura and Alex's friends.
The Russian swine have rescued Alex.
Ay-da, da, ay-da!
Ay-da, da, ay-da!
AUNT SHURA:
Whispering: "S-s-stalingr-r-rad."
Silence in the grocery.
I buy a kilo of a delicious German porkwurst.
PART EIGHT
AUNT SHURA:
"Oh dear nephew.
You cannot eat Moscow pork sausage for fear of your heart.
At my age, 93,
long talk, long talk.
Maybe I will inspire you,
my nephew,
to write poetry about our Army men, our Russian women who were with them?
Here's to our unexpected and long expected meeting!"
RED ARMY MEN'S CHORUS:
Yo, heave ho!
yo, heave ho!
once more, once again, still once more —
Oh Volga, Volga! Our Pride!
To the sun over the Volga we sing the song,
to the fire blazing above the earth,
to those Russian hogs who rescued Alex,
to the trees blowing and grasses bowing,
obedient to the Volga winds,
to an aunt clinking her crystal vodka shot glass,
to her being 93!
ay-da, da, ay-da!
ay-da, da, ay-da!
yo, heave ho!
yo, heave ho!
once more, once again, still once more.
PART NINE
RED ARMY MEN'S CHORUS:
Yo, heave ho!
yo, heave ho!
once more, once again, still once more —
trees blowing and grasses bowing down.
Vladimir wants to tell his own story before flying out to his new home across an ocean,
the story of his other aunt, Valentina,
who came to Leningrad to nurse him when he was born.
Aunt Valya —
Andreevna as a patronymic, just like Aunt Shura.
She was a villager.
She's no longer alive, died recently,
all tribute and peace to her.
Let's listen to all the people at the table and to Aunt Shura who is 93,
ay-da, da, ay-da!
ay-da, da, ay-da!
yo, heave ho!
yo, heave ho!
once more, once again, still once more.
PART TEN
MYSELF:
I called my poem —
DUSK
The teal-blue dusk of August on My grandparents' house bench in a Russian village
I am listening to a herd of cows coming in to sleep In their home stalls after eating
Their day's fill in the meadows, before producing that indecent Milk sound in the aluminum-silver pails in a
Dark space (I listened to it last night).
I am resting for a week after entering an arts
Institution. I am seventeen I had forgotten the herdsman-god Hermes' plaster head
Which I had completed for an exam, a pencil Line-drawing of Greek vases, conjugation with an ink
Mapping pen.
Village crickets chirp louder at night.
My Aunt Valentina comes and sits by me. She is a Livestock doctor, a vet waiting for the cows,
Their heavy steps coming closer. Sometimes A mooing sound.
"Oh! by the way!" —
My aunt mutters, "Your smart grandfather
Healed a dying cow! She'd eaten a poison weed. She lay Absolutely still, just crying quietly and
Your grandfather cut the bottom off of a bottle and Inserted the glass neck into the cow's anus to let loose
A power of wind." I wonder If the herdsman I've sketched knows how to heal this way.
I wish I knew more about the Greek god Hermes.
RED ARMY MEN'S CHORUS:
Yo, heave ho!
yo, heave ho!
once more, once again, still once more —
trees blowing and grasses bowing down.
Aunt Shura thanks Vladimir for his poem,
fey farewell kisses,
we all promise a repeat meeting.
Aunt Shura smiles, she's 93!
her girls behind her shift their feet ay-da, da, ay-da!
ay-da, da, ay-da!
yo, heave ho!
yo, heave ho!
once more, once again, still once more.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Seven Lives"
by .
Copyright © 2014 Vladimir Azarov.
Excerpted by permission of Exile Editions Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
