Travel Journals by Hilary Hopkins

Part 4 - The Bitterness of Letting Go

Sunday 17 June 1990

This fine Sunday morning the three of us sit on the deck for a leisurely breakfast of coffee, orange juice (Slavko likes juice so I've gotten the great treat of fresh juice from Wilson Farms), and English muffins.  Slavko loves our deck and each morning he takes it upon himself to sweep it and fill the bird feeder as he sees me do. 

The plan today is a visit to the Science Museum and then to Community Boating for some sailing.  We park the car at John's office and walk along the riverfront to the Museum.  It's hot, and we have persuaded Slavko to wear shorts borrowed from John!  He also borrows a pair of comfortable canvas boating shoes, so much better than his stiff cheap leather ones.  It makes me feel good to see him in these casual American clothes, and he is delighted by the feel of the air on his legs as he walks along, expansively, his whole carriage loosened.  That's right, give him as many kinds of memories as I can: the cold Atlantic on his feet, the warm air on his bare legs, the weight of the lawnmower under his hands (at home, he gestures, we use a scythe), the smooth American road passing under his body. 

Our Science Museum, seen through my second pair of eyes, is disappointing.  Later I realize I should have taken him to the Computer Museum, but I've never been there and it didn't occur to me.

John has to keep reassuring me that Slavko thinks his trip to America was perfect and to stop torturing myself with the things I didn't do.  But it's hard.  Nothing seems of particular interest, or presented very well.  I drag the two men to the computer center, but it's all kid stuff, nothing for adults.  We go here and there, but I'm not satisfied with any of it.  The exhibits are just plunked down at random, poorly explicated.  I'm angry and a bit embarrassed.  Finally in desperation I elect to see the large-screen glitzy movie, which is at least impressive if nothing else.  It is impressive, about sailing in various ways, and I have a good time with the sensuousness of it.  When it's over, we go into Friendly's and have lunch, cheeseburgers and french fries and Coke. 

We stroll along the other side of the river to Community Boating, where John has a membership for sailing on the Charles.  Although I'm nervous, even on this hot still day, I've agreed to go out, my first time, with him and Slavko.  John gets a boat and begins to rig up the sail.  Slavko pitches in even though he says that like me, he's never sailed before.  I love how he relishes tackling physical tasks.  Though there's barely a breath of wind, we move out gently and in due course find ourselves in the middle of the river.  I take wonderful pictures of John and Slavko and the dark blue sky and the Boston skyline. 

In the early evening we go next door to the home of our neighbor Helen.  Our neighbor downstairs, Anita, is leaving next week for her annual months in Paris, and Helen has invited us to a little social occasion together.  I baked chocolate chip cookies to bring (no way could I let Slavko leave without having had chocolate chip cookies).  Slavko sits politely as the conversation goes back and forth around him.  I dictionary some information about the ladies to him (he and I enjoying this secret-in-plain-view communicating), and they ask him the usual questions.  It's a pleasant time. 

Then it begins to get a little antic: it turns out that one of Helen's fancy overhead lights in the kitchen has burned out and left a bit of melt-down in the socket.  Since her kitchen, and her whole house, is identical to ours, we take a special interest in this problem.  John takes a look to see what the problem is.  Slavko comes alive.  He takes a look.  And before we know it, he has gestured for tools and is up on the kitchen counter, dealing with the recalcitrant socket.  Within a few minutes he's got it emptied of the blackened mess, and has started on the other one which is also burned out.  Done!  Helen is delighted with Slavko, and I'm delighted with Slavko.

The next problem presents itself: it seems she has a mystery chirp in her smoke detector.  Mystery because when John gets up on a chair to check it out, it turns out it's directly wired and doesn't run on batteries.  So the insistent chirp can't be running down batteries.  All of us participate in trying to solve this problem.  Slavko takes the disabled detector out on the deck, and we all stand around listening for the chirp.  When it comes, it's clearly not from the thing he's holding in his hands.  So we troop back in and station ourselves around to listen.  There it comes again.  There's another detector nearby, but we all agree it's not chirping.  Finally we all decide that somehow it's coming from within the ceiling somewhere.  There's a lot of laughing back and forth about how there must be an abandoned smoke detector, with dying battery, in there somewhere.  Mystery solved, mystery raised.  Fun had.  Helen is delighted with her cleaned-out sockets and gives Slavko a kiss of thanks.

In the evening off he goes to Harvard Square again, and John and I sit quietly at home, watching tv and resting.  It is so hard for me to sleep, my head is full of Ukrainian words and English words and things I want to say but have no words to say. 

  
Monday 18 June 1990

This morning Slavko and I set out for our last round of shopping, to Dorchester for the wool paisley scarves for Mama Natasha.  The translator had told me of a place here which she said would definitely have them; I called yesterday and sure enough. "Paisley," I said firmly, "he wants paisley."  Yes yes, assured the accented voice at the other end, We have paisley.  So into the wilds of Dorchester.

It turns out it's a Polish store, like Surma and Arka, but Polish.  And there are piles of wool paisley scarves.  The elderly proprietor hauls down dozens of them for Slavko to look at, and offers me a Polish chocolate as I sit to wait.  Slavko takes a long time making his choices.  "Three," I tell him.  To me they all look just like the scarves the women already wear over there.  This is the mystery: these stores are full of the goods that we buy over there as tourists.  One would think they would want something distinctively American.  But perhaps it's that same nasty business about the "hard currency" tourist stores that siphon off the best the country produces and leaves the dross for the citizens.  So this is a way of getting back their own.  Terrible. 

Anyhow, our errand is successful, though I can see that he isn't sure he's chosen the right ones.  Probably Mama said, A paisley scarf, wool, and he said, yes yes, but never bothered to ask about colors or anything.  Not much being used to making choices.  They keep them like children over there, with the Big People making the choices for the Little People, just like Mommy and Daddy for a baby.  This stunts the growth, they should know that.

The slick red and black suit for Natalya turned out to have no buttons in the Extra Buttons packet, so another one of our errands is to return to Filene's to get the extra buttons.  The saleswoman is delightfully and sympathetically obliging, and I get a new packet full of buttons.  Slavko says, at home the response to such a request is: "Nyet!"

On the way back to Harvard Square we stop off for a quick visit to John's office.  We had thought it might be useful for Slavko to see what an ordinary office looks like.  As we come up out of the subway and cross the street, Slavko says, hesitantly, in English, "Howdoyoudoladiesandgentlemen."  Practicing.  I'm touched.  We sign in and go up to the 11th floor.  John's small office amazes Slavko, with its computer and printer, nice view, and phone.  John runs the machine a bit.  Slavko is clearly impressed, not only by the computer and so on, but also, strangely, by John's formal and attractive office attire.  He comments several times on the handsome red and blue silk tie.  (His own tie, the one he brought, is best described as grayish and limp.)   Several people come by and are introduced, but even after the rehearsing Slavko isn't quite confident enough to greet them with his long phrase.  Instead he smiles broadly, shakes hands, and gives his name: "Slavko." 

We return to Harvard Square where I hope I'm going to be able to find a dark blue denim jacket for him, and there, happily, we run into  Alyson.  Reinforcements!  two women against one man!  He hasn't got a chance!  I explain to her what I'm trying to do.  We take him arm in arm, one on each side, and trot him over to one store which has lots  of denim stuff.  I'm dying to show her how great he looks in the stone-washed kind.  With some argument I get him to try one on, and to our delight he turns into a great-looking American man.  But no deal, it's gotta be DARK BLUE.  Als suggests the Army/Navy store up the street.  We go in to rummage.  Look!  Here's a whole rack of them, all DARK BLUE.  He tries them on, smiling in spite of himself.  We get some advice from the clerk, who like all those we've encountered, is excited and attentive when he finds out who Slavko is.  We all decide it's too small.  The clerk calls the branch in  Central Square.  Yes, they have one, and yes, they'll hold it for us.

After a cup of tea at Au Bon Pain, Alyson leaves us and we take the subway a stop to the other store.  Not only do we get the jean jacket, but he finds an inexpensive water-repellent jacket for Natalya that he had been looking for.  Turns out the elderly gentleman clerk's father came from Minsk.  Everyone is so pleased to get to lay eyes on a real live person from the Soviet Union.  They'll go home and tell their families about this.  He enters their folklore and they enter his.

As we pass once more through Harvard Square, I dictionary carefully: "Last chance.  Is there anything else you want to buy?"  For I feel so responsible that he should accomplish all the errands he has imagined.

He understands.  What's also in both our minds is the few days that are left.  Over and over since we returned from New York Slavko has counted on his fingers.  I have worded in response: Forget. 

But the hourglass is always before us.

At any rate, he thinks about my question.  Ah yes, some blank video tapes.  I had forgotten.  We buy three of them, and he has ten American dollars and some change left.  The last purchase is in Nini's Corner, he wants cigarettes and gum.  Since he's clearly shopped in there before on his evening visits, I think to leave him on his own to make the purchase, and wait on the sidewalk outside.

But in a minute he comes out, irritated.  Gestures I need to come in and help.  I'm interested in how distressed he is that he can't make himself understood.  After a bit of gesture, wording, and leaps of imagination, I realize what he wants is a selection of different kinds of cigarettes.  With some advice from the bemused clerk, we get five packages and some gum, too. 

OK, that's it, that's it.  Sliding toward the end.

This evening we gather for dinner at Olga P’s.  The food and the place and the company are pleasant enough, but I could not stand it.  Olga, who speaks Ukrainian, is thus able to allow Slavko, finally, to speak fluently, as I cannot.  I try desperately to make sentences for her to translate to him, somehow to make up for the terrible word desert we've been wandering in, but it's no use.   I leave for a bit, overflowing indecently with this sadness and others, walk about the streets a little, return.  But I am beyond frustration into lassitude, and sit saying nothing for the rest of our visit.  I am glad he can talk, though. 

 

Tuesday 19 June 1990

Olga and her friend took Slavko out today, while I was presenting a workshop.  In the afternoon when I returned I did some shopping of my own for him and the family: an elegant and washable blouse for Maria, to go with the suit, and three pairs of beautiful pale colors of pantyhose; a gorgeous blue and green tie-dyed t-shirt for Natalya, with her name on the back of it (ironically, the t-shirt store has shirts with peace messages in Cyrillic! but of course I wanted the opposite effect); two very beautiful, very large slips for Mama, one black, one white (I asked Slavko to show me how big Mama is); and a pair of lovely silk paisley ties for him.  It gave me a tremendous amount of pleasure to pick out these things for each of them. 

At home I wrapped them up, including with Maria's gift a small gold chain I have had for years and hardly ever wear (Slavko looked and looked at gold things, "hard goods" that is, to hoard against--against--against whatever may come).  Since I have made it clear that I'm going to pack up that suitcase for him, I figure I can slip these small things in and he'll not know til he gets home. 

This evening Susannah came up from Providence, and with Alyson and John we had a final family dinner together.  I am impressed by how Zan throws herself recklessly over verbal cliffs, plunging into difficult constructions and concepts heedless of the danger of failure.  Slavko responds delightedly, glad I am sure to get to say something besides the odd noun.  At Zan's invitation I retell the story of our trip to New York.  Slavko follows along with ease, reading sequence, a word here and there, facial expression, and gesture.  He nods in affirmation now and then, as I tell the exciting story of buying the VCR. 

At length Zan must return to Providence, and she and he must say goodbye.  Forever?  Unknown.  There is a long embrace: the body speaks in a way the voice never can. 

Slavko walks Alyson home.  It's agreed he and I shall meet her in the Square tomorrow morning, his last full day in America, for her to give him a gift, and to part.

I have planned that the last flags of time shall be as brave as possible, so as not to focus on their disappearance over the horizon.

Wednesday 20 June 1990

It seemed to me that my responsibility today was to give Slavko a quiet last day, keeping his mind occupied and off the dread of tomorrow.  After our coffee and juice on the deck, we set off on a last walk to Harvard Square.  Slavko holds my arm tightly as we pass by the small landmarks he recognizes from his nightly forays to The Center.  He says, At home they give us propaganda about how terrible capitalism is.  Well, I have seen with my own eyes (he gestures), and I will be a propagandist for capitalism!  “Careful," I dictionary.

We meet Alyson in front of the Harvard Coop.  She has been shopping for a silver St. Christopher medal, like the one I gave her when she began her long journey toward health.  I take pictures as she gives it to him and helps him put it around his neck.  She words to him about St. Christopher, patron saint of travelers of all sorts.  They embrace tenderly.  We all go for a cup of tea at Au Bon Pain, the three of us trying to weave a bearable goodbye for the two of them.  Finally Alyson takes him into the Harvard Yard, where they sit at the stairs of Widener Library.  I wait at a distance with my cooling tea and my thoughts.  Finally they return, the parting is to be now.  They must be rent apart, and it is almost more than I can stand.  For I know what it is to meet one with whom a channel is shared, and to be parted.  Slavko and Alyson share a channel, and have ever since they met when she was only a child, in 1976.

I must protect both of them.  As the last embrace is shared, I hug them both, "OK," I say, "OK," though it is not, and gently part them.  They are both crying freely.  This is what Alyson does to people: my beautiful, radiant, charismatic, powerful witchwoman of a daughter, shaman, medicine-maker, visionary, healer, seer.  Later Slavko tells me that she haunts him.  But what's to be done with all this power?   Alas.

Dry-eyed and deeply angry at the necessity for such violence, I leave Alyson to mend herself and bring Slavko down into the subway.  I hold his hand tightly as we accelerate in the tunnel.  He wipes his eyes again and again, giving in to heartbreak.

We go to the Aquarium.  As I had hoped, the big tank with its teeming drifts of sharks, majestic turtles, bright bannered and gleaming fish gradually claims and calms him.  And me.  We visit every smaller tank, and he marvels and exclaims over it all.  We go to watch the dolphins and sea lions laconically doing their acts.  At the tidal pool where one can handle creatures, I pick up starfish, sea urchins, and horseshoe crabs and hand them over to him.  He is as enchanted as the small children who cluster at the edge of the pool.

At lunchtime we go to Quincy Market.  Twice I take him the length of the food stalls.  Finally, after unsuccessfully begging him to choose, I pick thick market fries and delicious dripping corned beef sandwiches.  For dessert I'm insistent though: he's gotta pick it.  We walk up and down again.  He chooses: Greek pastry.  Delicious.  We sit outside and stuff ourselves happily.  I like his cozy and physical affection with me, holding me tightly.  At home this is how we walk, he tells me as we go tightly arm in arm.  Mother dislikes it, but it's all we lonely humans have!  Although the smell of his body is strong, I like it and find it seems somehow comforting. 

We return to Harvard Square where we are to meet Olga for their goodbyes.  When she and her friend come, I go off to drop off the last roll of film.  Our last picture was taken at Widener Library, Slavko standing atop the great steps, where he and Alyson had said their farewell.  When I get the pictures back, an hour later, he and I are both pleased with them.  We are sending him home with 180 pictures.  In some fleeting way, they will make the time here real for those who stayed at home. 

We walk home with Olga and her friend, to prolong the conversation.  I am nervous though; I am exhausted in every respect and I must face the problems of packing tonight.  Will it really all fit?  Will he be able to carry everything?  What, actually, is the weight limit for returning Soviets?  We really aren't certain and if we go over, there will be trouble. 

In his room, I gesture: everything that goes, in that pile.  Anything else, out.  He understands perfectly.  I haven't been sure, many times, how he actually does understand what I'm saying, but long cascades of conversational exchange seem to have a life of their own and we share ideas and comments in some inexplicable mode. 

Angrily, scornfully, he jettisons things Sovietsky: a cheap shirt, undershirt, soap, toothpaste, toothbrush--out they go, into the trash, along with his new and junky small travel bag. 

Carefully he sorts through the various bits and pieces he has collected.  A few things go, but most of it stays, tiny pieces of America and American life.  At home he will bring them out and try by word and image to breathe life back into them.  But I know it will be fruitless, and he will retreat, lonely, inside to the memories we have given him, which cannot be shared.

Finally I am left with the pile that's to go.  I shoo him out and begin the job.  It is very hard.  I am so terribly tired, I move very slowly as if under water.  In the bottom I lay in the special surprise gifts I have bought.  And then piece by piece, radio, jeans, suits, scarves, jacket, video and audio tapes, batteries, cigarettes, gum, embroidery thread, pictures.  Astoundingly, it actually all fits.  Barely.  He helps me close the suitcase. 

Just as John arrives home, late, from Washington where he's been all day, we discover our weight crisis.  Although our scale is not very accurate, and in pounds of course rather than kilos, it's clear from Slavko's understanding of the sheet of directions he's got that we are many pounds overweight.  He is furious, angry I think not so much at the problem itself as at the source of the problem: rules.  So nothing will do but that we must unpack it all and begin leaving things behind.  I am so tired I can hardly function, and I have no idea how this problem is to be resolved.  John suggests a call to an international carrier.  I give it a try: no help. 

Finally Slavko takes another, very careful look at his sheet.  His face lights up: no problem, it's two fifty pound pieces, not one.  His calm reconsideration of the problem reminds me of his miraculous fixing of my camera at the Statue.  I think he is a very good problem-solver.  I guess that's a survival skill, over there. 

I am greatly relieved.  We all are.  I repack it all, neatly, and with love.  I wrap the VCR as he's asked, in brown paper, carefully taped, then strong string and a carrying handle.  He doesn't want people to see what it is, and he doesn't want to let it out of his sight. 

Very late, we all eat roast beef sandwiches and ice cream.  Slavko shows John the Christopher medal Alyson has given him.  John runs upstairs to get his own medal to show, the one that I gave him so long ago, before we were married.  I am touched that he should remember this and think to share it, across the barrier of language.  It has been hard for him to share much in Slavko's visit, as he finds the challenge of communicating intimidating.  Slavko has his number though: Good man, good husband, good worker, he tells me over and over about John.  Yes, oh yes, I know.

Mother calls, a final goodbye.  I had asked her to be ready to translate for me, but I find there is not much I can say that even needed translating, that we had already said all we needed to say. 

I thought, I don't have much family.  Slavko acts like real family, and I love this.  John suggests, Like a brother?  a little maybe, but somehow more like my dear dead cousin Brian.  I like having a companion, someone who likes being with me, doing things with me. 

Remember, remember always: the terrible enactment Slavko shows me: The worker plods along, thinks to stick his head up to look around, and is struck down brutally by a slamming fist.  With what passionate intensity he shows me this. 

Remember, remember always: how he shows this: Work work work, run to lines and beat 'em out for the goods! run home, collapse in exhaustion, to rise the next morning all the while coughing slightly with the sinister sore throat of Chernobyl!

Here in America, he shows me, I am fully energized, alert, a fully-functioning person.  At home, filled with indeterminate malaise.  It's a chilling, disturbing image.

He lays out his jeans and jean jacket to wear home.

Tomorrow is the first day of summer.

 

Thursday 21 June 1990

I waken very early, and I hear Slavko moving softly around on the deck below our bedroom windows.  I look down: he is sweeping, filling the bird feeders, wiping the chairs as he's seen me do.  Pretending a last wistful time that it is his. 

The three of us share coffee, juice, muffins quietly in the clear light and birds.  Tears stand in Slavko's eyes as he leaves our beautiful home for the last time. 

John drives us to a convenient subway station.  At the car, they embrace tightly.  I cannot begin to imagine Slavko's thoughts. 

We fly to Washington, tightly nestled together the whole way.  I show him how to work the earphones.  As we approach the airport, flying over the city, we are both tuned in to the Pastoral Symphony of Beethoven, and though the approach is turbulent, the glorious music is perfectly timed to the landing and miraculously displaces my fear as always.  I wonder if Slavko knows what that music is. 

In the airport we prepare.  He takes one last wander around the shops, filling his eyes with the sight of goods, tawdry to my eyes but symbolic to him of fulfilled frustration and yearning. 

I leave him sitting on a bench and go outdoors.  There I fill a small plastic bag with pale tan dirt, dug from under a drying bush. When I bring it to him, he understands immediately: American soil, he dictionaries.  He tucks it in his breast pocket.

It's time to line up at Aeroflot.  We walk slowly, heavy with dread.  We stand in line with a small group of Soviets about whose ghastly appearance we joke together in our dictionary; our Slavko looks and acts like an American especially by contrast to these stolid, pale, shabby, grim men.  A big group of cheerful, rosy American kids will be filling the rest of the plane, on their way to an adventure, equipped with those precious passports: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.  Slavko and I make rude gestures with his: CCCP. 

My worst moment comes when he goes to the Aeroflot dragonlady to check his ticket.  I don't want to give you back!  I don't want them to take you! I cry.  He holds me.

We send his 50 pound bag on its way, relieved its weight isn't questioned.  Only a short time left.  Here, let's sit and have a last gin and tonic in the little bar, I gesture.  We share an end to our conversation.  He tells me about health.  Women are over and done with at 60, he tells me, the relentless stress.  Like animals, worn down by ferocious competition for resources.  And Maria?  I ask.  A great sadness comes over his face.  Not so good, not so good.  Various ailments, always the fearful strain of the simplest aspects of daily living.

A group of the Soviet-bound kids spreads out for a snack on the floor outside the bar, laughing and making themselves comfortable.  Slavko smiles, explains how the militia at home would tell them, with a threatening glower, Move on!  Are they in for a surprise, I word.  We hardly need our wonderful dictionary, our dog-eared companion.

Slowly the conversation runs down as the time runs out.

It's time.

The goodbye.  I am dry-eyed, holding back for his sake.  He cries deeply.  We kiss, embrace.  My lips, hair, face, my two hands.  I can hardly bear it.  A last touch.  I separate myself.  He goes to the security table.

There, it seems they must unwrap and open the carton with the VCR in it.  Separated by distance but still connected by sight, we have a last long visual communication, joking, laughing, gesturing--attenuating--attenuating---

Thumbs Up, dear Slavko!  Remember: “they” can do what ”they” want, but you can think, can feel, what you want!  The freedom of the prisoner, the greatest human gift: to imagine what is not present.

Thumbs Up!  Thumbs Up!     

 

Postscriptum

Letters from Slavko

"Good day, my dear John, Hilary, Susannah, and Alyson.  Here I have been home a week, but my spirit and my thoughts are still in America.  Every evening relatives, friends, acquaintances, and neighbors come to our house and I plug in the slide projector and the cassette that I bought in Boston and tell all about my marvelous trip in America and about my family and the people with whom I met.  Everyone is glad that I traveled and saw America.

"John, I am very grateful to you for your wish to show me the beautiful places of your country and state, so that instead of resting you drove me everywhere and photographed me and all of us.  What a beautiful memory of your state I have in those photographs.

"My dear cousin Hilary, memory of you will remain with me all my life.  I cannot tell of even one episode without tears, where we were together, how much time, patience, warmth, and material expense you went to for me.  Such a thing is never forgotten.  I thank you very much for everything you did for me and for the gifts that you obtained and gave to me, my family, and mother.  My family, Maria, Natalia, and mother are very happy with the gifts that you gave them.

"Susannah, thanks to you, Olga, Jeff, and Alyson, I saw young America at play.  I thank you very much for your caring.  Natalia thanks you for the gift of bracelets.  May God grant you happiness, good health, and the best of everything.

"Alyson, thanks to the talisman that you gave me for the journey, I arrived home quickly, safely, and without mishap.  Thank you for your gentleness, your goodness, your sensitive heart, and unusual concern for me.  I wish you the realizations of all your dreams and desires.

 

"Dear Hilary, John, Susannah and Alyson, this is Maria who is now speaking to you, Slavko's wife.  From myself, Natalia, and Mama I want to express my sincere thanks for your warm spirit, your sincere heart, your patience, your care, and the great expense to which you went for us.  Looking at these beautiful photographs, we gain an impression of your beautiful country.  We are very grateful that you made Slavko's journey so memorable.

"Not knowing his language, you communicated with your spirit, glances, signs, and succeeded in conveying to him all of your warmth, goodness, and sincerity.  Therefore all of his stories begin with the words, 'Lord, if you only knew what beautiful people my family are!'

"Dear Hilary, John, Susannah, and Alyson, Once more allow me to thank you sincerely for everything, everything.  Excuse anything that turned out not to be as one would desire. Keep in good health and be happy, all of you.  We kiss you all.

  Slavko, Maria, Natalia
  Lviv, July 1, 1990"

 

"Dear Aunt Olha, Ted, Peri, Edward, and Lisa!  It is Slavko writing to you from Ukraine.  To the depth of my soul I am touched by the sincerity and warm reception that you gave me.  Though it was difficult for us to understand each other the warmth and kindness of your heart remains in my memory for the rest of my life.  Dear family, I sincerely thank you for everything.

"Keep in good health.  I kiss you.

  Slavko
  Lviv, September 2, 1990"