Though this journal is dedicated to a totally fictional person who is not connected in any way to the real Amanda L. Sloat, PhD and all, the author has to confess that real Amanda is also beautiful and cool and clever and cultured and blah-blah and patriotic and God Bless America.
In spite of the real Amanda's point of view to politics as a major method of nations’ communication, the fictional one agrees with Fyodor Dostoevsky’s thought that "Beauty will save the world". Please forgive her this unpopular romanticism and her blue stockings which symbolize her nightly skywalks rather than gender solidarity.
The author also asks readers’ forgiveness for not being a native English speaker though some slight lovable accent adds to his writings a charming mixed aroma of iced Vodka, black caviar and a drunken Balalaika band.
- Mood:creative
- Music:FRNK Radio
For me writing about love in English is like kissing through a pillow. No matter how much feeling or energy it involves all you get is the dusty aftertaste of your own stupidity.
But I have to - because she does not read Cyrillic.
So now we are back to Amanda. She was not actually born. They (I mean the Rayburn Office’s janitors Jose and Carmensita) found her in an empty file box somewhere between the Reaganomic era and the Monica’s Nasty Blow period. Though underweight and toothless at that time she could already pronounce one word – “governance”. The janitors were amazed by this fact because neither of them could pronounce “governance” in one go.
“OK”, said Jose, “she looks smart. Perhaps even smarter than our Mr. President. This means that she could be a danger to America”.
So, they wrapped Amanda in a copy of The Declaration of Independence and sent her to Scotland – the hopeless and rocky and faraway land named after scotch on the rocks.
In 1981 I was called up. I wanted to serve my duty in Afghanistan. I had nothing personal against Afghan people but I was so bored by the idiocy of Communism and by my pathetic life as a no-good skid-row youngster that Afghanistan seemed like a very nice time. Islamic fighters at that nice time fought on the American side. In between the battles they were selling marijuana and blue jeans to Soviet soldiers. I dreamt of trying both things on.
But I was sent to Poland. Poles also used to sell Soviets fake Levi’s and good grass but without the killing part. It was really nice of them.
The nearest café in the city I served in was titled “Amanda”. You could easily exchange a cigarette pack for a good glass of local vodka there. The owner favored Russians. That is why some Polish teenagers used to draw swastikas on his shop windows. Strangely enough, “Amanda’s” keeper was Jewish.
Politics is a cocktail of filth, blood and dandruff. Remove the dandruff and you’ll get more blood in the potion. Add some filth – and the dandruff ingredient will prevail. It is as obvious as the fact that armies everywhere are headed by idiots. Sometimes honest and brave but still idiots, because they kill people they’ve never met before on the orders of people they never respected.
God knows how I love Amanda. I see her soul locked in the cage of her ambition. And I cry, regret, and pray for her.
Maybe in 60 years after her successful political career she’ll pass away and the epitaph on her grave will be as follows:
There was a girl called Amanda
Who lies now six feet under
She had a good reason to become Condoleezza
But thank God she died as Amanda!
And so on.
The owner of “Amanda’s”, Yitzhak, once said to me that Jews and Russians are very much alike. “Both cultures are guilt-driven and nobody likes us including ourselves”. I think he was right. After all I have never met anyone cleverer than Yitzhak.
“The European civilization”, Yitzhak continued, “is based on reason and reality. And the principle ‘I sing about what I see’. We Jewish people always stand on the ground but never forget that we live under the sky”. Then he took two long inhales of grass and added, “And as for you Russians, you live as if there is no ground at all”.
All my childhood I adored America. My father was a fan of VOA and Radio Liberty. I worshiped Huckleberry Finn and Elvis. Actually I thought that all Americans were heroes, cowboys and frontier men.
Yitzhak was the first human being I ever met who had visited the US. His son lived in New York. And when I asked Yitzhak how it was in America he put it in a nutshell. All he said was: “Same shit”.
And now I totally agree with my best Polish friend.
The meaning of “sloat” is defined by One Look dictionary as: “rock pool, puddle; cessation (of rain)”. This word is of Gallic origin. As for surnames in America
While Amanda was teaching herself politics in Edinburgh I was picking tomatoes in West Sussex. My newspaper sent me to write an article about how illegal immigrants work in England. The greenhouse firm I worked for was titled “John Hall Nurseries”. I was making ₤200 a week there.
John Hall was a nice guy. He liked drinking and dirty jokes.
I wrote an article about his tomato factory and after that John had his mailbox flooded by letters from Russia. In the end he took part in an All-Russian Agricultural Congress. It was held on a river cruise ship. The organizing committee invited lots of VIP participants and popular singers and journalists and prostitutes to keep foreign visitors entertained. John, as an Englishman, showed a lot of patience. He even danced with some of the Night Butterflies. But on closing day he drank too much and said the following in his farewell speech: “I hate your sluts, your vodka and I don’t give a shit about your hospitality. I don’t like anything I’ve seen in Russia. Your agriculture sucks and your businessmen are bandits. I think your whole country is a crock of shit!” After this speech there was big applause. John was so amazed that he immediately got sober.
It happened because the interpreter was drunk too, and translated John’s philippic as: “Thank you very much; I think Russia is a great place and I love you and your congress!”
Now John is a very wealthy fellow, because he managed to sell his greenhouses to Sainsbury Superstores.
The first six weeks in Specnaz they usually try to beat the shit out of you. In such situations you have two options – to become a speechless and obedient animal or fight back, taking the risk of being beaten to death.
It took three weeks for me to start fighting back. At that time I was already very close to the animal position.
It happened in our division canteen. I was responsible for bread cutting. And that evening instead of bread I cut my sergeant and two other soldiers. Then I opened the veins on my left hand and painted the cook’s face with my blood. The poor fellow fainted.
The division commander visited me in hospital and said, “You know that you have committed a severe crime? An attempt to murder three people gets you at least 5 years. The sergeant has a big scar on his face. Private Gnatyuk has lost his left testicle. Are you, soldier, ready to go to jail?” I said nothing and turned my face to the dirty hospital wallpaper. There were no kitchen knives around and the colonel was so fat that if I stabbed him in his belly he probably wouldn’t notice.
Having no answer from me the colonel coughed couple of times and extruded the following from underneath his bushy mustache: “OK. Let’s say nothing happened. The sergeant told me that you were brave. And all this mess was not your fault”.
In a moment he left. I felt pain in my neatly sewn wrist and for the first time I thought, “Perhaps becoming an animal was the better choice”.
Once I won a gubernatorial election campaign for a client for the price of two vodka bottles and a jar of black caviar. It was in the very far northern region of Russia. We had no chance due to my client’s financial disabilities and because the rivaling figure was an incumbent governor who controlled the local press and had the support of a major oil company.
All of my candidate’s electorate lived in the southern part of the region. But this made up only 40% of the region’s voters. If the northerners voted we would obviously be defeated.
The night before Election Day I bought two Stolis and some black caviar. I was desperate and had the intention to drink until I died. But in the shop I met a very funny local guy, who, as I saw, had in his mind the same silly idea. We decided to drink and die together.
The guy, to my amazement, was a local weather man. We drank for several hours and talked and sang. About four in the morning he said that he was going to the weather station, then to his TV studio. I offered him a game of chess – just one before he went. "If you lose”, I said, “you’ll announce a severe snowstorm in the North. If I lose, I’ll buy us another pair of bottles and more caviar". He lost. And he announced a snowstorm. And in the north nobody came to vote next the morning.
Yitzhak, “Amanda’s” proprietor, told me once that “winners are not people with strong will or immanent immorality. Winners are those who see things which are hiding above their eyebrows”.
Above my eyebrows that morning I saw only a terrible headache. But I was a winner.
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