" Каменное дно - фундамент, на котором я построил свой успех"
Дж.К. Роулинг
Я просыпаюсь утром, и, слава Богу, я - русский. Как и все, (нет, я говорю о большинстве россиян, живущих за границей), когда я живу на Родине, то не могу дождаться отъезда, а как только уезжаю, жду своего возращения.
Каждое утро похоже на предыдущее: я встаю, я иду к святой иконе и благодарю Бога за то, что я жив. Как и многие современные россияне, я благодарю моего собственного Бога, как метросексуалный мужчина, мужчина мира. Будучи русским, чувствую себя самим собой, горжусь своей верой, своей душой, своей жизнью. Я думаю, что так было всегда.
Я встаю с постели. «Борис», - говорю, (потому что Борис – это я), «Смотри на этот прекрасный мир снаружи, холмистую африканскую саванну. «Борис», - говорю я, большинство россиян всегда обещают себе, что они уедут из России навсегда в поисках лучшей жизни, и никогда этого не делают. Может быть, это говорит что-то об этой великой стране, которую я люблю. Или, может быть, это говорит что-то о русской душе. Оба ответа приемлемы.
Встаю в моем жилете и трусах, стою на веранде. Я смотрю на Божьи творения: холмы, пение попугаев, тропических животных, кружащих высоко надо мной. Это далеко от России: высокие бетонные здания, города, лишенные своей истории. Здесь история идет прямо к вашим ногам.
Я делаю глоток кофе и потягиваюсь в лучах утреннего солнца. Моя кожа, белая, как сибирский снег, до сих пор горит от вчерашнего приключения в джунглях. Моя кожа никогда не приспособится к такой жаре здесь, в самом сердце Африки. Здесь в стране третьего мира.
Я прислонился к белому дверному косяку, облезшему от жары. Я наклоняюсь и играю несколько тактов Бетховена на пианино. Мои пальцы бегут по клавишам. Здесь все устали, все здесь утрачено. Все, что здесь живет - в прошлом. О, как я скучаю по русской душе!
Но как ни странно, это все, о чем я скучаю. Я не чувствую, как чувствовал когда-то, когда я, побывав в Киеве, скучал по матушке России. Это не то же самое. Вот это новая жизнь. Я - русский мужчина, живущая в Африке. Я с тоской думаю о разнице между русской и африканской душой. Я выхожу на улицу, чтобы накормить жирафов и попугайчиков, я выхожу, чтобы оставить несколько крошек для обезьяны, которая всегда появляется у моей двери. Когда существует столь много различий между нашими душами, одно остается неизменным: лелеять небогатую, но драгоценную еду.
Тем не менее, это не рассказ о былых днях. Золотой век. Сегодня Золотой век, как золотое солнце, которое заходит. Я, наконец, взял прыжок - прыжок веры; в отличие от многих передо мной. Я чувствую себя хорошо. Я заканчиваю играть Бетховена, и я позволил звенящим нотам исчезнуть в четырех коричневых стенах; стены из грязи - не стали и бетона.
Бонголэнд, как и любая другая африканская страна, страдала от бедности и деспотизма. Это продолжалось до тех пор, пока в один прекрасный день все африканские люди, уставшие от нищеты и убожества, не пришли в себя и убежали. Они бежали куда угодно - в море, в джунгли; как персонажи из стихотворения Маяковского. Это оставило верховного правителя наедине со своим богатством. Он владел своим богатством, но вернулся к вечной проблеме: у него не было над кем властвовать и впечатлить таким богатством. Таким образом, он стал действовать рационально. Он продал с аукциона освободившиеся земли и острова, и пусть белые европейцы и евразийцы живут здесь. И вот я здесь. Белый и русский, насколько это возможно.
Я живу на моем собственном острове, первые цены "для продажи" были очень разумными. Так, ухватившись за возможность, я использовал свои финансы, чтобы купить этот остров и уехать из России. Я не совсем один. Я живу здесь с верховным правителем. Он живет на острове Черепа. Мы живем в гармонии до тех пор, пока я белый и имею столько денег, сколько и он; у него нет надо мной власти.
Да, и как у всех русских, у меня есть таинственный кот, который приходит ко мне в гости. Его зовут Гоголь.
Я беру газету с имперских времен, когда Британия управляла колониями и этими водами. Вижу черно-белый комикс на центральной странице. "Кот в шляпе". Я смеюсь над ее простотой и откровенной «английскостью». Ниже картинки эта надпись:
"Иногда вопросы сложны и ответы легки".
Доктор Сьюз.
Совершенно верно. Простота очень важна. Я считаю, что мы усложняем жизнь слишком много. Моя комната, например, четыре неукрашенные стены. Есть журнальный столик со старой газетой и книгой Воннегута, голая кровать, фото моей бывшей жены и видом на джунгли. Вот и все. Это очень монашеская жизнь. Но я люблю это. Я думаю о том, как моя жена ушла от меня. В те дни, простота была бы очень полезна, как понятие. Например, я должен был знать, когда замолчать и когда уйти. Мне также следовало знать, что когда женщина уходит - она редко возвращается.
«Что сделано, то сделано», - писал Шекспир. Я умываюсь в раковине. Я позволяю холодной воде струиться по моим щекам. Дорогая… ты не выключила воду, когда оставила меня. Он идет из моих глаз. Я вытираю лицо и выхожу на веранду и делаю растяжку.
Юлия. Что за девушка! Я никогда не забуду тот день. когда ушла с другим парнем. Затем началась паника. Вы отключаете телефон. Я не могу контролировать слезы, которые бегут из моих глаз. Я закрываю глаза и впитываю солнечный свет.
Я снова открыл глаза и сделал глубокий вдох. Дорогая ... Ты заперла дверь и оставила меня на улице, и выбросила ключ прочь. Я выпил стакан сока и потер живот. Вздох. Воспоминания.
Я беру саксофон в углу комнаты, и играю на нем. Я был полумузыкантом еще в России. Я научился играть на саксофоне, и получил хорошую оценку за фортепиано. Почему нет? Творчество является ключом к жизни. Каждый из нас должен найти свой собственный в ней путь.
Nov 18, 2017
Nov 18, 2017 at 9:29 AM UTC
60,3913 N, 5,3221 E, Bergen, 22.05.17
The Germans wear you down spiritually. They look through you with eyes of ice. It hurts when you see your friends turn their back on you. When you see the girl you loved, kissed in the canteen by a Spick. Your heart burns. What has he got that I haven’t? Apart from the muscle that pads out his boiler suit. No-one wants an intelligent man. I sit here sipping coffee in a fishing village café in Bergen. The coffee is hot and my heart aches. Soon we will be making our way up through the fjords to Geiranger. The beautiful fjords that embrace you. There is not so much to bear witness to here. The Gravlax is poor and overrated. Everything is shut. The dreary rain comes down on *** A colleague drove me all the way to Hardanger Bridge. The bridge that connects Oslo and Bergen is truly breath-taking. I have seen the Milau Bridge in the South of France, the Somerset Bridge, Clifton Suspension Bridge. However, this is really the highlight of Bergen; unless you are drunk.
17.00 - we leave for G.
62,1008 N, 72059, E, Geiranger, 23.05.17
I wrote to Nan last night. I asked for her guidance. I want everything to be okay with Aline. 05.00 hours I got up to see the Geiranger fjords. They were breathtaking; we passed the Rock God in the cliff face. Or rather; he let us pass. Norway is really a paradise. I think how people only think with their bellies. Helen the nurse abandons us half way up the waterfall. I turn back. The Germans have an acute interest only in themselves. One wonders where love lies. I have found Ole’s café – at the base camp of the waterfall. It is here I feel at home. At this coffee shop I must remember everything properly. I must also forget Helen and how angry she makes me feel. Mr. Edin said: “It’s the system that makes them so. Everyone is born the same.”
62,0861, N, 6,8687 E, Hellesylt, 23.05.17
I hate my life. I hate my inability to fall in love with anyone and anyone to fall in love with me. These days I can’t stand to look at the face that I see in the mirror. Parts of me crumble away to dust. I feel more and more bitterness, in port, towards couples that have found love – to the point of absurdity. Ice-skating; I drift slowly around the rink. It is the only real time I feel complete when I am alone. I see a couple kissing and happy in love. I feel anger and a bitterness burning up within me. Why can’t I find someone that loves me simply? Why do I have to do all this **** – the garbage of personal relationships. Hellesylt is truly beautiful. At least I feel at one with nature; even if I don’t fit in anywhere else.
59,4136 N, 5,2680, E, Haugesund, 24.05.17
The war against fat, like finding love, is ongoing. I always feel I am the loser. I am a loser. I am sat in a coffee shop overlooking the red and yellow houses. I try and chat up the waitress; a beautiful Norwegian blonde. I try and embody the image of a sailor. It works to some extent, but actually only reflects back on myself as a person. The aching has grown less. The coffee helps to balm the dissatisfaction I feel with life; as does the view across the river. There is an English couple opposite. How can you complain with that view out across the river? Twenty-five degrees, surely we must be able to leave our pain behind? I feel myself become more and more alive; back to life. The wounds are healing again. The pain passes.
5,89700 N, 57331, E, Stavanger, 25.05.17
We are going to sit and hammer this out. This book, this journal, bears witness to life. That is its meaning. Why is it so hard to find love and to be loved? I am only an anatomical structure – corruptible, breakable flesh. Stavanger is quite simply a boring town. You can walk from one end to the other in thirty minutes. There is a church; a freedom monument and slated, wooden houses. Yuliana the Belarusian pushes her body onto mine, beneath the Northern Lights like a teddy bear; she hugs me again and again, never letting me go. I kiss her delicately on the ear. She giggles. I can still hear her voice now and the smell of her sweet perfume. Oh, how I burn inside. How many thoughts and feelings wheel in an instant. How capricious this heart is. I must drink another coffee.
59,9139 N, 10,7522,E, Oslo, 26.05.17
I am on the hunt for a Durian fruit in Oslo. My hunt for Hardanger Beer with the appropriate label also continues. We dock right in the centre of Oslo. The sun warms me. Trust me to fall in love with the only lesbian on board. In Oslo’s most popular café, Kaffebereint, I think how I get myself into such situations. Maybe it’s because I love long nails on a woman. She has forgotten her scarf. I should really do more sit up and visit the gym. My feet are too busy wandering. Sauna Night takes place onboard – a reward for all those who helped out at the party below the mooring deck. I serve punch and party the night away. For a while I forget the disappointment of people and the strangeness of my body. Oslo is beautifully serene. I walk in the footsteps of Ibsen. I try and make my writing smaller and smaller so that it is almost like Chinese ideograms. I close the gap. I try to be neater; to be better. I walk along the boulevards of coffee shops, wondering how I can be better.
53,35 N, 8,35 E, Bremerhaven, 28.05.17
I am back home (in home port) from the Nordic Voyage. I need to rest up in Hamburg before embarking on the next adventure to the Northern Cape. 21.06.17 at 1700 hours – Bergen. What else is there to report on as we approach the quaint fishing port of Bremerhaven? Home. Only that my ex-girlfriend from Algiers has given birth to a baby girl; she wrote to me. Two years old. Name: Eline. Letters are wonderful. The waves lap gently at the boat. If you ever thinking about writing a letter, you should; we haven’t spoken for two years and she writes to me, out of the blue, because of a Christmas card she picked up in Dar Es Salaam. That is life; life on a boat; life at sea; life on the breadline. A sailor’s life is a funny thing; full of unpredictability. Even as an enthusiastic merchant sailor I can see the draw of this life. – as tough as I am, what else is there to say? Only that another adventure waits me in Hamburg –
The rest of this transcript, as subsequent potential voyages is lost.
Oct 31, 2017
Oct 31, 2017 at 11:17 AM UTC
I
I thought that it would last my time –
That children would always read books
There would always be fields and farms
Where whippersnappers would climb
Where they would run and play in brooks
I knew there would be false alarms
II
But I never thought the malaise would spread this far
Kids not knowing what it is to be out in the air
What it means to use their mind and creativity
Just plugged in to their DSs and their Ipads in the car
Kids rooted to sofas, couch potatoes in the chair
Somehow I always thought their innocence would be free
III
There is always another day, just
As there will always be another excuse
Why we cannot go outside to play
Just sit glued to the idiot-box if you must
Passively watch this world of abuse
As our generation becomes stupider day by day
IV
Don’t write a poem or read a new book
Don’t go and sit out in the sun
The malaise is spreading and infecting us all
The crowd is young and beauty, but rooked
Rooked of their youth, it’s done
As they sit and stare at a screen in a stall
V
This really is what Orwell said, 1984
A world of computers and screens
Before I ***** it, the whole boiling will be bricked in
Nobody wants to play chess any more
A logged on generation, logging up through their teens
First cyber slum of Europe, a role it won’t be so hard to win
VI
Facebook, VK, Kikitalk, Instagram – a world that doesn’t exist
Just a world of fast past insubstantiability
Cock-eyed spelling and refute of grammar
And yet we let these kids get on with their imaginary bliss
We buy them the latest gizmos just for pacivity
And when we ask what’s to be done? You stammer
VII
We, the older generation, who knew a world better than this
A world of trees, and parks and streams
A world of old values, an idyllic pastoral
But with all pastoral, a world that can no longer exist
A world that can only reside in our dreams
Today’s world is ‘fast or nothing at all’
VIII
And I feel sorry for those kids, really
They never got to run around with a stick as a gun
They’re just getting angrier, as the malaise takes hold
Manifesting itself through boredom so easily
And then they go out and buy an AK-471
Oh well, most things are never meant, we’re told
IX
It seems, just now,
To be happening all so very fast,
For the first time, somehow
I feel that good values aren’t going to last.
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 7:55 AM UTC
I’m a country boy, girl
And I don’t usually act this way
But what have you gone and done
To make me hope you’re crying today
What have you forced me to?
Now I got nothing left to say
I’m locked and loaded baby,
So you best get out the way
I’m armed to the hilt
I’ve got lead up till the teeth
Guns cocked on the table
Rhinestone boots with high-riding heels beneath
I got my aviators on, stubbly
I tug at my neckerchief against the dust
Of that love that we destroyed
Now point-scoring replaces where once was trust
You’ve got me to the point where
I just want to see what can **** you off
How did this all get so ugly between us?
Call somebody who cares, enough is enough.
I hope you’re lying awake tonight
I pray that you’re scared to sleep
Because that’s how you made me feel
Leaving me feeling so shallow when I got so deep
I hope you don’t know where you are
I hope you don’t know how far you have to fall
I never want you back again, he can have you
You never saw this coming? It was writing on the wall
Baby, one day you’re gonna realise
It doesn’t matter who was right
Because at the end of it all
Nobody ever wins a fight.
Jun 9, 2012
Jun 9, 2012 at 8:24 PM UTC
Understanding – for the first time-
Call it a willingness to grow
A case of trying to matter
And now I really know
That you were there for me all the time
You were really on my side
You let me be who I was
I knew I had nothing to hide
You could accept I was crazy
You made me fit when I was out of place
Or so it seemed to me
You managed to keep the pace
And what’s more you loved me
You gave me more than you ever had to do
You were there when I was alone
Sometimes it was just me and you
And you understood what others didn’t
You knew when I needed to be alone
And when I rang you at midnight
You knew just what to say on the phone
You gave me the pride I needed
When I was lost you showed me where to go
And when I was worn down by life
You gave me tough love, the only love you know
And now I’m understanding
Everything suddenly looks oh so new
Call it trying to matter
You really took the time when you really didn’t have to
I see everything so much clearer
You’ve really helped me see
Thank you so much Hannah
It’s meant so much to me.
Jun 9, 2012
Jun 9, 2012 at 7:16 PM UTC
...And they’re ******* playing the song
Lucinda would sing to
Right outside my window
After she failed to return my calls
Two days ago
I laugh
It’s all that stops me from crying.
I have decided one thing,
Me and fate don’t like each other.
Perhaps cos I told him I never needed him.
I know this much
If fate was a person
I’d be punching him in the fucking face
Right about now.
Jun 9, 2012
Jun 9, 2012 at 1:38 PM UTC
That one song
You hear with loved ones
That one moment of bliss
Of the infinite
And you never meet again
That moment you will never live again
Seconds of bliss
Before the **** hits the fan.
Hey I’ve just met you
And this maybe be crazy
But I think I love you <3
It’s like I’ve know you for years
So let’s meet up again one day
Friends
Lovers
Reconcilers
And sing this loud and carefree again
Let’s do it. Maybe?
Jun 9, 2012
Jun 9, 2012 at 12:25 PM UTC
There’s all these people singing today
“Bless me, what a wonderful life”
But I’ve been around enough
To know that isn’t right.
I’ve felt loss and I’ve seen death
I’ve stared the gun in the face
I can see the smoke coming off the barrel
Just another casualty in the rat race.
My mama and my papa
Worked hard every day of their life
Laying down to save this land
Through turmoil, blood and strife.
I know about the struggle
How it’s best to take what you can get
But just live life being happy so
That’s something I’ll never forget
Suddenly it’s not about the
Price tag on your clothes or what you wear
Who even gives a ****
Who the hell even cares?
Because when you’re out here
Any relevance to that is gone
You’re just another average Joe
The best you can hope for is to die with your boots on
It don’t matter about a grave
You’ll be too far gone to care
Just chuck me in a ditch
Please don’t cry, please don’t despair
Cos you work every day of your life
And when it’s gone it’s gone
And if you’re a good boy then maybe
You’ll be lucky enough to die with your boots on.
Jun 6, 2012
Jun 6, 2012 at 9:21 PM UTC
To Lucinda
There you stand in the door
And after all the fights we’ve been through
When the-you-know-what hit the you-know-where
You still can bear to look at me
I see the tears twinkle in your eyes
I see the hands on your hip
And I dread to think what you’ve got to face
They way you’re working over your top kip
You never shout, you just look disappointed
Your eyes say: ‘back down that stony road’
And now even though I hurt you
You helped pick your girlfriend up out of the road
Because there was a ****** old truck coming
She just broke down to bawl
And yet after all that
You’re a proud woman standing tall
You sit down on the bed next to me
And you speak ever so slightly
I feel your warm breath on me
In the cool of the Texas night
You say, ‘Oh Dan here we are again,
I thought we talked about this.’
She’s out there crying in the other room
You should know nothing goes amiss
And if I get caught in here you know
I’m going to be dead meat too’.
I apologise profusely, counting my blessings
You just look at me like you always do.
‘Now, you know I got to go console her
You know I’ve got to go and get supplies
Of tissues and Kleenex and toilet rolls
But please just give it time
Let everyone cool down, storms always blow over
It’s the only way a friendship can be saved
With that she left, back to the toilet a girl bereft
And as I heard the sobbing I know I’d take that to my grave.
Jun 6, 2012
Jun 6, 2012 at 9:10 PM UTC
I sit here alone with my drink at the bar
Listening to what my senses say
My heart’s telling me
You ain’t no kid at 23
If you play around
You’ll lose your friends
Play too long
And you’ll lose your life.
Mothers, oh mothers
They’ll try and protect you
But there’s a time that they gotta let go
Because it’s a cross they can’t bear
And for all your father will want to tell you
It’s a bridge he can’t cross
Not again, you have to walk it alone.
And I realise now all the things
That my father couldn’t tell me
The boundaries you just don’t cross
The rules you just don’t break
Not at any cost;
But then, I had to find out on my own.
I had to do things the hard way
To learn what friendship meant to me
I was working on a mystery without any clues
About women and about their intricacies
Sometimes it’s worth a few false starts
A few nights of whiskey on the rocks
Trying to understand Jack
So that you realise a step in the right direction
Is worth a wasted mile behind.
Jun 6, 2012
Jun 6, 2012 at 2:50 PM UTC