Приложение 8

ОТРЫВКИ ИЗ БУДУЩЕЙ КНИГИ

Dear Audrey!

I got your parcel and the letter. The pictures are just awesome. They really knocked my socks off, especially the color of the water and David’s tan, to say nothing of those exotic flowers and plants! I wish I could feel the warmth, the heat of the Southern sun. It’s rather cold here now (15^o С i.e. 57^o F). I’m wearing jeans, a sweater and a jacket. The summer was expected to be hot though. Thank you that you approved of my idea to write a book together. Yes, both of us should write from our view point. It’s just what I want. The most interesting perspective for the reader would be “America at my sight” & “Russia at your sight”, written in the 1-st person. It should switch back and forth. Yes, we must be brutally honest. Otherwise it wouldn’t be interesting at all. I like your idea to experiment by writing some pages about the same events and see how they differ. I guess it will take a considerable amount of time. I agree to give ourselves the summer to see what comes of it.

I am still working at school. My working day lasts 4 hours: from 9 a.m. till 1 p.m. then I come back home, have lunch and start working again. I have fewer students now, so I have some time to have a pause for breath. I have an eight-year-old student from Moscow. She has come to her granny to Likhoslavl. Her name is Irene. Irene has a private Negro teacher of English in Moscow. I like her pronunciation but her grammar leaves much to be desired. There is one more very talented student in 8-th grade. His parents have no money to pay for his private lessons but the boy has great desire to learn so I teach him for free. I just enjoy talking to him and think it a great sin not to develop his abilities and his talent. He is reading Harry Potter in the original. I’m going on my vacation on June 21. I’m waiting for my vacation with fear: as I had only 18 hours according to the tariff scale my vacation pay-check will be rather small, just enough to pay off my ipotheque. Mike is sure to look for some job as soon as he passes his exams. My mom feels very bad and she wants to go and see her sister in St Petersburg. “Maybe for the last time”, she says. I think I must help them meet and see each other.

Mike has dismantled my mom’s old wardrobe to make bookshelves. Do you remember Victor’s study with bookshelves all around it? He said he had made them out of an old wardrobe and he promised to do such shelves for me.

Now I’m going through the throes of creation trying to experiment with our bus ride to St Petersburg.

A COACH TOUR TO ST PETERSBURG

Nobody can resist the beauty and magnificence of St Petersburg and I was looking forward to showing my American friend this pearl of Russia.

So one morning a brand-new coach arrived. We took the best seats and drove off. The weather was fine and we were talking leisurely all the way anticipating our meeting with St Petersburg. There was a nice meeting and staying with my university mates behind and a long-awaited meeting with St Petersburg ahead. The guide told us it would take us about 10 hours to get there, so we prepared to while away the time in a pleasant chat.

Suddenly the coach stopped. It was somewhere half way, near Valdai. Everybody started getting out. It turned out that the bus had broken down. “What the dickens! I thought’ Damn it all! I used to go on bus tours with my students a hundred times but it’s just now that this damned bus has broken down!” We were in a nice pickle. I felt so ashamed! Getting ahead of the story I must tell you we had to wait for a new coach for 8 hours! I had dealt with “Giraffe” tour agency a lot of times and they had never let me down. Just think of this failure right now, when I’m traveling with my foreign friend! What should she think!

Meanwhile we left the coach and went for a walk along the highway. Trying to justify myself, I said, “Audrey it’s the first time I’ve been in such a situation”. Quite unexpectedly my American friend said, “Everything is OK. But for this incident I shouldn’t have had a chance to make one important conclusion”.

• What is it? – I wondered.

• I have a chance to make sure that Russian people are tolerant. They are as cool as cucumbers.

• Yes . – I said, – They really are.

• Americans would make a lot of fuss over the matter. They would probably threaten to bring a suit against the agency or something like that.

• There is no use making noise. Nothing would come of it. Russian people are considered to be the most tolerant people in the world.

Instead of bothering about the broken bus everybody was trying to take advantage of the situation. Some people went to the nearest village to get some beer and some food. Young couples just scattered in the nearest wood. Some men surrounded the drivers trying to make repairs, giving their advice.

We took our seats in the coach and decided to have a snack. It was then that Audrey felt an urgent need to study Russian.

- What is the Russian for, I am hungry? – She asked. I started teaching my American friend some necessary expressions that could help her survive in severe Russian reality.

Tatyana Antonenko, a preacher at Tver Methodist Church, had come to see us off to St Petersburg and brought a bag full of pies. Thanks to them we didn’t die of hunger on that highway. By the way, I remembered my American experience. I don’t know why but famous American traffic jams came to my mind. I wish I had gotten into some traffic jam while in the USA but I never did. Audrey said I was lucky but I think I wasn’t. If I had gotten into traffic jam and spent 8 hours or so there, perhaps I wouldn’t have made some very important conclusion about the American national character. I could have witnessed (seen with my own eyes) their impatience, hastiness, fuss and what not! I still think them to be very reserved, polite and well mannered. Only once in 6 weeks I had a chance to see one American go bananas… So a new coach arrived in 8 hours and we were on our way to our cherished dream. Now and then Audrey startled, screw up her eyes and cried: “Oh, my gosh! It’s impossible! They mustn’t do this! They mustn’t outrun like this! Oh, my God! It’s very dangerous and it’s forbidden in the USA”, – she explained to me. “Yes it’s forbidden here too. But there are no laws for the Russian drivers until they are at the cemetery”, – I reply.

All in all it took us about 18 hours to get to our dream. It’s more than it takes from Atlanta to Moscow!!!

St Petersburg amazed Audrey with its magnificence and beauty as I had expected. The museums and the excursions were quite good but the accommodation left much to be desired. Before traveling to Russia Audrey had told me that she would like to be in my shoes (skin), to live the Russian way of life, not the way usual American tourists are offered. That’s why I decided to take her on a coach tour middle-class Russian people of average income can afford. That’s why it was not the Astoria Hotel we stayed at. It was The Hotel of Humanitarian University. Our section consisted of a two-seater and three-seater rooms with a bathroom in between. There were two small beds (Not those king-size beds I had seen in the USA!) with a small table sandwiched in between, two chairs and a built-in wardrobe. No telephone, no TV-set, not even an iron. All this was nothing compared to what followed. Late at night we saw bugs crawling around on the walls. Audrey screamed and started killing them with her slipper. A crumb of comfort for me was that she had had one more piece of damned Russian experience. Why, she wouldn’t have seen such a thing in the Astoria! But the most Russian and the most terrible experience was still ahead! At the end of our stay at the hotel a chambermaid came in and demanded to take off our bedclothes while Audrey was still lying on her pillow waiting for the coach to come. The woman started to count each piece of our bed clothes and the towels as if we could have stolen their damned ragged towels! Audrey was shocked. I could guess it by the expression of her face. There was anger, annoyance and disdain there. I guess she could hardly reserve her feelings. As for me I was burning with shame. I sugared the pill by soothing myself with one more piece of bitter Russian experience for my American friend. It’s not the way an American chambermaid would have behaved. She would have come in as sweet as honey and said hello and smiled and asked if we enjoyed staying at their place and if they could do something to improve their service to make our stay more comfortable and pleasant. I hadn’t seen any chambermaids in our rooms at the hotels in the USA. The only thing I can tell you for sure: I felt at home there! But it didn’t happen here in Russia. Maybe it’s the other way round somewhere in the Astoria where the New Russian people stay and pay much for the politeness and good-manners of the chambermaids. Still the fact remains and I’m very ashamed of it. It was too much Russian experience for only one American woman. I wished the earth would open beneath my feet.

The only place where I felt very-very proud of my country was the museums and the places of interest. It goes without saying no other place in the world can beat it. Audrey was mesmerized with the splendor of St Petersburg. Later my American friend said it was worth waiting for that damned coach on that highway for ages just to see this city (I would add: It was worth having all that damned Russian experience…) I was moved…

Every cloud has a silver lining. The difference between the splendor of St Petersburg and the Russian reality is so striking that Audrey asked me: “How can the richest country in the world let it’s people live like this?” Most Americans take everything they have for granted. They have their bread buttered on both sides, while there is no middle-class in Russia now. There are two extremes: the very rich and the very poor, like in Dostoevsky’s lifetime. I think my American friend got much more than the Russian experience here. She learned to appreciate the things she has in her own country. There is no doubt she began to love her motherland more. I bet she looked at America with different eyes when she came back.

I thought it would be a rough copy, but I have no time to rewrite it. Dear Audrey, correct the mistakes and send your review. Write back soon. (Остальное в бумажном варианте, Фотогалерея «Заочное путешествие в США» в бум. Варианте).