diary, day 16
Had an interesting day yesterday. It all started like crap, got better, and then got back to normal which means that things are simply not going to happen. In the morning I had a letter from a… benefactor, someone who had invested in the original Belarus idea a year ago. They had lent me several thousand dollars all of which got lost when the Pollack’s kidnapped me. But apparently they took this personally. In the letter I got, they blamed me for all of this mess, telling me how I should have done this or done that. But the basic premise of the letter was that I was to blame for all of the misfortunes of the last year. Very nice.
Well, I had to write back you know, because you simply can’t do nothing. And I tried to explain how they should at least by now be aware of all that had happened. They have read, along with everyone who gets this diary, all of the stories of the trial and all what had happened to me there. But, they thought it was worth their time to write me a letter telling me how stupid I was. Well, fine, we can do this. But the reason for the rancor was that I had asked them for money. Only. So, I got an eyeful of shit for asking for money. And so it goes.
So, the situation then is simply this. The theatre has the entire group of principal actors put together and is ready to sit down and make this play by the end of June. They also have agreed to invite me, and official act that allows an American to stay for a while in the former Soviet Union. And all this is all that I have asked for from Belarus, because it inevitably clarifies my actions from a year ago in Poland and makes even more clear the lies told by that lying worthless thief, Zareba. Or in other words, if the adage is that if the world gives you a lemon, you are supposed to make lemonade, I was getting the best glass of lemonade it was possible to get. I am trying to write a book about this, and I am trying to stay with Tatyana, a woman I have been away from for a year, and to simply do as best I can what I have been trying to do every day for over a year.
But apparently, fighting the corrupt legalists of Poland and the completely worthless American embassy is not enough, now my friends must also verbally abuse me. Thank you.
So what is the situation? Well, I need four copies of Pod Kablukom today for the actors to read. I paired down the pages of the script, minimalizing the amount of paper use, and I can print the whole of the thing for a bit less then $20 for the whole set of scripts for all of the actors of the play. $20. Now, this is Belarus, and the actors have not this money because the actors only get $42 a month for working at the theatre. And the theatre has no money for even advertising any of their plays.
Now, the reason I wanted the play done at the end of June and not October is that I simply must make what I have to make of this book. And if the Play is in production now, NOW, The whole of the issue can be taken care of and all that is happening in Poland can be dealt with in an honest and reasonable fashion. But I simply do not have the $20. Ain’t that that a kick? And, after only two more days, I have to close down the diary and the writing of the book because there is simply no money to pay for the computer time; which is about 50 cents an hour if you do not use the Internet.
So last night, Tatyana came home a little sick. She is getting pretty worn out because I have brought so much stress and strain into her life because of all of the problems that come along with me. Now, she doesn’t blame me per se, and really this is the truth, but I am in fact a bit over scandalized for anybodies taste, and it appears that I am simply not strong enough to overcome the work of this minor petty Pollack thief. I simply have no money. The only possible action without being able to continue, because it is simply illegal for me to even be in Belarus without a pass, is to beg the embassy for airfare to the states, a place I do not want to be at the moment, where there is nothing to look forward to, and where I am some 10,000 miles from someone I have been trying to get with for a year. To do what? For what?
This morning Igor made his usual gripe about eating the soup. Igor gets attention by being bad and not from being good. There is no basis for understanding of responsibility for any of a thousand reasons. I think it is always difficult to look after children. I think back at my own upbringing, as I always do, and I think at what was there for me and what was not. I have based most of my life’s philosophies on what I think is the right way for people to interact with each other. Most of you are pretty clear by now I am sure the general ideas I have. But this morning, I tried again to impart on his little brain the situation as a whole. It started out something like this:
Adam
How much does Igor weigh?
Tatyana
Maybe 20 kilos
Adam
If we have to sell the chickens because we can’t keep the chicken house, how ,much can we get for them at the market?
Tatyana
Maybe 7000 rubles… Maybe eight.
Adam
Do you think we could get the same for Igor?
Tatyana
Just for the weight?
Igor
What are you saying?
Adam
Because a chicken only weighs about a kilogram…
Tatyana
Two…
Adam
Two kilograms. And if two kilograms of chicken meat can sell for about $4 (4000 rubles) Do you think that we can get the same for Igor at the market?
Igor
What are you saying?
Tatyana
I think not, because he can not make eggs.
Adam
I forgot bout that.
Igor
I don’t want to be sold at the market!
Adam
But what if we didn’t sell him for the meat? What if we sold him only as a child? Do you think that we could make some money from him?
Tatyana
Never. Foo! Who would buy him?
Adam
Ah ha… this is the problem? (So we went to the kitchen to have some breakfast. And as usual, Igor made a fuss about not eating the soup, and as usual, it become the whole of the world for us to try and figure out a way to get the little bastard to choke down the soup so that he has something in his belly for the day of school. So we continued:) So, how much money is the kid actually worth?
Tatyana
We have no money.
Adam
No really, I mean as a boy and not as meat, how much money is he worth right now?
Tatyana
I don’t know…
Igor
I am very expensive!
Adam
Why?
Igor
Why?
Adam
Yes, why? Why are you so expensive?
Igor
Nye znayoo (I don’t know)
Adam
No you are not expensive. You only think in your head that you are expensive. Every day you ask how much is this and how much is that, but do you ever listen to what the answers are? Do you ever think about what this has to do for the life? Everyday we ask you what you want to be when you are older, and when we say some job, a zoologist or a cop or a sailor, you only ask how much do they make. Well, listen to this: How much do you think your mama has for working?
Igor
How much?
Adam
Four dollars a day; is this right?
Tatyana
It’s the truth.
Igor
But this is normal.
Adam
Normal!? In America they have a hundred dollars a day for work.
Igor
$100!?
Adam
And this is normal.
Igor
Can I work in America?
Adam
Can you?
Igor
Shto? (What?)
Adam
Can you speak English?
Igor
Why?
Adam
Because they speak English in America: If you don’t speak English, there is nothing for you there.
Tatyana
But he studies English…
Adam
No, he doesn’t. I sit with him, but he doesn’t study because he doesn’t think it is important. He only wants to play with the fishkies and play the fool.
Tatyana
You say the truth! He doesn’t study.
Adam
And not only this; in America, they only want the best! If you are just a fool, they don’t need you. If you are a fool, you are not for the rich, only like the chickens. If you are a fool, you are chicken meat. And how are you worth as chicken meat?
Igor
I don’t know…
Adam
But you do know, don’t you see? It is the same as the math problem we did two days ago! Two days ago we read that if you have 26 mushrooms at the start, and fourteen are one kind and there is an even number of the other two kinds of mushrooms, how many mushrooms of the other kinds are there? It is the same.
Tatyana
It is the trtuh.
Adam
So, if chicken meat is $4 for two kilograms, and Igor weighs twenty Kilograms, how much can we get for him at the bazzar as chicken meat. It is simple: 4 divided by two times 20. and what is the answer? Remember the mushrooms: 26 minus 14 divided by 2. it is just the same.
Igor
Forty dollars…
Tatyana
But you don’t make eggs!
Adam
And this is our money, not your money. We can make sausages from the intestines…
Igor
I want to work in America…
Adam
We can make soup from the bones, there is good meat on the legs and arms and the bottom…the brains are not good for anything, we can mix with rice and garlic for the sausages…
Tatyana
But we pay for the food for the chickens… it is the same, for the eggs and for what we feed them…
Adam
And how much do we pay for feeding this chicken?
Igor
Shto!?
Adam
How much is for the soup that you never eat?
Igor
How much?
Adam
The chickens, the potatoes, the beans, the gas to cook it… baba waking up at five in the morning to cook it for you… maybe half a dollar?
Tatyana
No Adam, less…less…
Adam
Why less? The yogurt he eats because he won’t eat the soup is 330 rubles every time. Every time. A banana costs maybe 500 rubles each. (Rubles trade today at about 2000 for a dollar. Last year when I was here they traded for 1600) When he won’t eat the soup, we must throw it in the toilet because he has developed the habit of coughing without even putting his hand over his mouth. So we can’t even put the soup back in the pot, we must only throw it away. We throw a dollar down the toilet every time he doesn’t eat the soup! (Igor starts to eat the soup) Oh! And what of our time? Every day we must find some new way to get him to eat the soup so that he has something in him to go to school with. What could we talk about if only we didn’t have to spend every minute of every day trying to get Igor to understand that he must simply be a good boy and to do what he needs to do? What could we talk about at the table if only we were free form the time needed to have these conversations every day?
Tatyana
Adam, look at him, he is eating…
Adam
Wonderful, he is eating. God has saved us all; the boy is eating the soup.
Tatyana
Look at him, what do you want?
Adam
We ask him what he wants to be, and only he asks how much will they pay? Well if all of this is what he cares about, he must learn English first, absolutely, because if he does not he is only working here, and if he is only working here, he has five dollars a day and he better love having a bottle of vodka to be his friend, because it will be all he has to look forward to. (Igor unhappily shows the empty bowl to his mama) first you must learn English and second you must learn the math. If you learn the math, you can see everything for what it is, you need only to do the math!
Igor
I did the math yesterday…
Tatyana
But he didn’t remember…
Adam
He didn’t listen to the teacher, and he doesn’t listen to me; only to be chicken meat.
Igor
I must go to school.
Adam
You must first learn perfect English, and then you must learn the math. But, you must first get to the best university, so to get to the university you have to study the Russian and the Belarussian and the biology as well. You must know everything and be the best or you are only chicken meat.
Tatyana
We have no money.
Adam
We have no money to put the soup in the toilet! We have no money for this?
Igor
I go. I have to go to school.
Adam
Wonderful, he goes: Forty dollars in perfectly good meat.
Tatyana
The same as the chickens…
Adam
But no eggs…
Tatyana
But no eggs…
So yesterday I could not work on the book, because writing the letter back to the benefactor took up all of my writing time. And today I could not work on the book because without money, it is pointless. Without money, everything stops and I simply have to go. This morning Tatyana told me that she has saved almost seventy percent of the money I sent her when I was in Poland. Several hundred dollars. She told me she would pay for the copies of the script for the play. I only cried. I am crying right now.
Well, I had to write back you know, because you simply can’t do nothing. And I tried to explain how they should at least by now be aware of all that had happened. They have read, along with everyone who gets this diary, all of the stories of the trial and all what had happened to me there. But, they thought it was worth their time to write me a letter telling me how stupid I was. Well, fine, we can do this. But the reason for the rancor was that I had asked them for money. Only. So, I got an eyeful of shit for asking for money. And so it goes.
So, the situation then is simply this. The theatre has the entire group of principal actors put together and is ready to sit down and make this play by the end of June. They also have agreed to invite me, and official act that allows an American to stay for a while in the former Soviet Union. And all this is all that I have asked for from Belarus, because it inevitably clarifies my actions from a year ago in Poland and makes even more clear the lies told by that lying worthless thief, Zareba. Or in other words, if the adage is that if the world gives you a lemon, you are supposed to make lemonade, I was getting the best glass of lemonade it was possible to get. I am trying to write a book about this, and I am trying to stay with Tatyana, a woman I have been away from for a year, and to simply do as best I can what I have been trying to do every day for over a year.
But apparently, fighting the corrupt legalists of Poland and the completely worthless American embassy is not enough, now my friends must also verbally abuse me. Thank you.
So what is the situation? Well, I need four copies of Pod Kablukom today for the actors to read. I paired down the pages of the script, minimalizing the amount of paper use, and I can print the whole of the thing for a bit less then $20 for the whole set of scripts for all of the actors of the play. $20. Now, this is Belarus, and the actors have not this money because the actors only get $42 a month for working at the theatre. And the theatre has no money for even advertising any of their plays.
Now, the reason I wanted the play done at the end of June and not October is that I simply must make what I have to make of this book. And if the Play is in production now, NOW, The whole of the issue can be taken care of and all that is happening in Poland can be dealt with in an honest and reasonable fashion. But I simply do not have the $20. Ain’t that that a kick? And, after only two more days, I have to close down the diary and the writing of the book because there is simply no money to pay for the computer time; which is about 50 cents an hour if you do not use the Internet.
So last night, Tatyana came home a little sick. She is getting pretty worn out because I have brought so much stress and strain into her life because of all of the problems that come along with me. Now, she doesn’t blame me per se, and really this is the truth, but I am in fact a bit over scandalized for anybodies taste, and it appears that I am simply not strong enough to overcome the work of this minor petty Pollack thief. I simply have no money. The only possible action without being able to continue, because it is simply illegal for me to even be in Belarus without a pass, is to beg the embassy for airfare to the states, a place I do not want to be at the moment, where there is nothing to look forward to, and where I am some 10,000 miles from someone I have been trying to get with for a year. To do what? For what?
This morning Igor made his usual gripe about eating the soup. Igor gets attention by being bad and not from being good. There is no basis for understanding of responsibility for any of a thousand reasons. I think it is always difficult to look after children. I think back at my own upbringing, as I always do, and I think at what was there for me and what was not. I have based most of my life’s philosophies on what I think is the right way for people to interact with each other. Most of you are pretty clear by now I am sure the general ideas I have. But this morning, I tried again to impart on his little brain the situation as a whole. It started out something like this:
Adam
How much does Igor weigh?
Tatyana
Maybe 20 kilos
Adam
If we have to sell the chickens because we can’t keep the chicken house, how ,much can we get for them at the market?
Tatyana
Maybe 7000 rubles… Maybe eight.
Adam
Do you think we could get the same for Igor?
Tatyana
Just for the weight?
Igor
What are you saying?
Adam
Because a chicken only weighs about a kilogram…
Tatyana
Two…
Adam
Two kilograms. And if two kilograms of chicken meat can sell for about $4 (4000 rubles) Do you think that we can get the same for Igor at the market?
Igor
What are you saying?
Tatyana
I think not, because he can not make eggs.
Adam
I forgot bout that.
Igor
I don’t want to be sold at the market!
Adam
But what if we didn’t sell him for the meat? What if we sold him only as a child? Do you think that we could make some money from him?
Tatyana
Never. Foo! Who would buy him?
Adam
Ah ha… this is the problem? (So we went to the kitchen to have some breakfast. And as usual, Igor made a fuss about not eating the soup, and as usual, it become the whole of the world for us to try and figure out a way to get the little bastard to choke down the soup so that he has something in his belly for the day of school. So we continued:) So, how much money is the kid actually worth?
Tatyana
We have no money.
Adam
No really, I mean as a boy and not as meat, how much money is he worth right now?
Tatyana
I don’t know…
Igor
I am very expensive!
Adam
Why?
Igor
Why?
Adam
Yes, why? Why are you so expensive?
Igor
Nye znayoo (I don’t know)
Adam
No you are not expensive. You only think in your head that you are expensive. Every day you ask how much is this and how much is that, but do you ever listen to what the answers are? Do you ever think about what this has to do for the life? Everyday we ask you what you want to be when you are older, and when we say some job, a zoologist or a cop or a sailor, you only ask how much do they make. Well, listen to this: How much do you think your mama has for working?
Igor
How much?
Adam
Four dollars a day; is this right?
Tatyana
It’s the truth.
Igor
But this is normal.
Adam
Normal!? In America they have a hundred dollars a day for work.
Igor
$100!?
Adam
And this is normal.
Igor
Can I work in America?
Adam
Can you?
Igor
Shto? (What?)
Adam
Can you speak English?
Igor
Why?
Adam
Because they speak English in America: If you don’t speak English, there is nothing for you there.
Tatyana
But he studies English…
Adam
No, he doesn’t. I sit with him, but he doesn’t study because he doesn’t think it is important. He only wants to play with the fishkies and play the fool.
Tatyana
You say the truth! He doesn’t study.
Adam
And not only this; in America, they only want the best! If you are just a fool, they don’t need you. If you are a fool, you are not for the rich, only like the chickens. If you are a fool, you are chicken meat. And how are you worth as chicken meat?
Igor
I don’t know…
Adam
But you do know, don’t you see? It is the same as the math problem we did two days ago! Two days ago we read that if you have 26 mushrooms at the start, and fourteen are one kind and there is an even number of the other two kinds of mushrooms, how many mushrooms of the other kinds are there? It is the same.
Tatyana
It is the trtuh.
Adam
So, if chicken meat is $4 for two kilograms, and Igor weighs twenty Kilograms, how much can we get for him at the bazzar as chicken meat. It is simple: 4 divided by two times 20. and what is the answer? Remember the mushrooms: 26 minus 14 divided by 2. it is just the same.
Igor
Forty dollars…
Tatyana
But you don’t make eggs!
Adam
And this is our money, not your money. We can make sausages from the intestines…
Igor
I want to work in America…
Adam
We can make soup from the bones, there is good meat on the legs and arms and the bottom…the brains are not good for anything, we can mix with rice and garlic for the sausages…
Tatyana
But we pay for the food for the chickens… it is the same, for the eggs and for what we feed them…
Adam
And how much do we pay for feeding this chicken?
Igor
Shto!?
Adam
How much is for the soup that you never eat?
Igor
How much?
Adam
The chickens, the potatoes, the beans, the gas to cook it… baba waking up at five in the morning to cook it for you… maybe half a dollar?
Tatyana
No Adam, less…less…
Adam
Why less? The yogurt he eats because he won’t eat the soup is 330 rubles every time. Every time. A banana costs maybe 500 rubles each. (Rubles trade today at about 2000 for a dollar. Last year when I was here they traded for 1600) When he won’t eat the soup, we must throw it in the toilet because he has developed the habit of coughing without even putting his hand over his mouth. So we can’t even put the soup back in the pot, we must only throw it away. We throw a dollar down the toilet every time he doesn’t eat the soup! (Igor starts to eat the soup) Oh! And what of our time? Every day we must find some new way to get him to eat the soup so that he has something in him to go to school with. What could we talk about if only we didn’t have to spend every minute of every day trying to get Igor to understand that he must simply be a good boy and to do what he needs to do? What could we talk about at the table if only we were free form the time needed to have these conversations every day?
Tatyana
Adam, look at him, he is eating…
Adam
Wonderful, he is eating. God has saved us all; the boy is eating the soup.
Tatyana
Look at him, what do you want?
Adam
We ask him what he wants to be, and only he asks how much will they pay? Well if all of this is what he cares about, he must learn English first, absolutely, because if he does not he is only working here, and if he is only working here, he has five dollars a day and he better love having a bottle of vodka to be his friend, because it will be all he has to look forward to. (Igor unhappily shows the empty bowl to his mama) first you must learn English and second you must learn the math. If you learn the math, you can see everything for what it is, you need only to do the math!
Igor
I did the math yesterday…
Tatyana
But he didn’t remember…
Adam
He didn’t listen to the teacher, and he doesn’t listen to me; only to be chicken meat.
Igor
I must go to school.
Adam
You must first learn perfect English, and then you must learn the math. But, you must first get to the best university, so to get to the university you have to study the Russian and the Belarussian and the biology as well. You must know everything and be the best or you are only chicken meat.
Tatyana
We have no money.
Adam
We have no money to put the soup in the toilet! We have no money for this?
Igor
I go. I have to go to school.
Adam
Wonderful, he goes: Forty dollars in perfectly good meat.
Tatyana
The same as the chickens…
Adam
But no eggs…
Tatyana
But no eggs…
So yesterday I could not work on the book, because writing the letter back to the benefactor took up all of my writing time. And today I could not work on the book because without money, it is pointless. Without money, everything stops and I simply have to go. This morning Tatyana told me that she has saved almost seventy percent of the money I sent her when I was in Poland. Several hundred dollars. She told me she would pay for the copies of the script for the play. I only cried. I am crying right now.
posted by BEING HAD at
11:49 PM
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