Paperia - Illustrations for a fairy tale

In some measured inspired by the amount of wasted, squandered and scorned  scraps of paper involved in EFL teaching; especially to young learners this fairy-tale is about a world made of paper.

Smoke your Hearts Out - a free-writing fragment

In the outside corridor of the Galeria, there is a flurry of life. The workers and consumers and loungers and students from the nearby college stand under here. As I walk along it  there is a symphony of cigarettes, as they are raised in the air like the violin bows. Smoke is ubiquitous here, Much cheaper than such unwholesome pursuits as swimming. Clubs drown  in smoke and menus have a whole page dedicated to tobacco products . They are smoking their hearts out.

Smoke your Hearts Out

Here you'll find a closer sort of cafe

There are bar stools and fags across the way

Here amongst mahogany we proffer hearts

And sanguine delicacies such as strawberry tarts.

Hearts constructed of plastic or ebony

Decorated like mobile phones from last century

In the Bar of Vaporised Hearts, it was smoky and dark like any other bar but here the punters dipped long tubes into their own heart or the heart of others.

I sat  in the bar, smoking my own heart. I pulled the pipe our slowly , drawing the melancholy out and then took it into my mouth and let the remainder drift listlessly into the air. It was a limpid smoke, with only the slightest hint of blue. A man to the left, with the most exrcruciatingly beautiful shadows on his cheekbones  was blowing coal black smoke and it made me shiver. I looked at him. It wasn't the shadows that were beautiful but the bones that formed them. He caught me looking at him but continued to smoke and read a journal. From here, I couldn't see what it was. About rocket advances, I assumed, as that's what most men on London  tend to read if they read anything.

It wasn't. I looked closer. It was a Dickens.  I'd heard about that myself, and people say London wasn't so very different then. I showed him my own book of Robert Browning, a fancifuller sort of Victorian nostalgia. 'Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly,

May gaze thro' these faint smokes curling whitely ..' I read huskily, distractedly, as if to myself. He looked up through his black smoke.

Writing in Russian - Poem to a chewing gum wrapper

In a bistro, I  restlessly began chain writing poems on pepper packets.  Upon  reading them  to some Russian boys the next day, they handed me some 'good' chewing gum(Wrigleys cyclone) for their further amusement. This is what I wrote on the packet:

Я выпотрошила твое еластичное сердце
У тебя будет просто угрюмая некрасивая кожа.
Жила была жевачка моя
Сияла как капитализм
Потом лишенный как феодолизм

To my chewing gum wrapper

I  tore out your elastic heart

Now you have only morose  skin, not quite red.

Once upon a time you lived dear chewing gum;

Now that Capitalist shine

Is dulled to lack, Feudalism.

Proletariat bay or Champanskoe and Pets in the Fontanka

There was no need for a heavy winter coat this Satuday weekend and I strolled along in a  Soviet summer dress - with thick tights and fleeced lined boots admittedly - admiring the waters of the Fontanka, newly unveiled from snow and ice and shimmering with  the beautiful sunshine which scarcely appeared for the whole of winter.  Spotting a bay, I layed my coat down not far from a group of  quiet revellers  and prepared to enjoy my victuals of smoked trout, rye and parsley ( easy food to grab from a corner store). As I rustled my plastic bags a lady from the revellers  asked , 'Debushka, Shampanskoe?' I hesitated just a little ; cheap soviet champagne has more ethanol than grape but it's sweet enough to be pleasant. It was mostly a case of accepting a social contract so I said, 'Yes, thankyou..'

'You will?' I think they were surprised I agreed to the  alcoholic fare.

'Just a little.'

'Beer or Champagne?'

'Champagne.' They poured me a plastic cup and asked if I was alone; well, I suppose it was more of a statement as I clearly was on my own, not being availed of any invisible friends at this minor stage of alcohol consumption.

Now I noticed the composition of  the group; two middle aged ladies and two young men in their twenties, all in indistinct mud coloured clothes, of the sports-wear type(that would be from Walmart or ASDA in America or England), the sort of people who are more concentrated on the metro as you head towards the poorer outskirts.

Of course, they were curious about what I was doing in St Petersburg and asked why I would teach in Russia when the salaries must be much better in the Uk. I explained that it was interesting and I wanted to learn Russian and the salary -rent differential made it more or less the same in both countries anyway. 'She's here for the interest.' They repeated to the boys who were further away. Clearly it was a little bit of  a puzzle to understand my bad Russian. They tried to give me a chocolate cake roll in that babushka-ish manner which is almost aggressive, when you making sure have everything you apparently need is like fighting for a point in a game.





As I quietly ate, two women plodded along to the bay with  a german shepard cross and threw it into the river. The poor thing looked sligthly stunned and automatically waded through the water in self-preservation from the freezing water  moving towards the other side and unsure what to do. My champagne companions reprimanded the dog owners and for a while they were all beckoning the dog back and had to heave him out of the water after moving the little picnic aside. As he grateful leapt from his owners arms onto the bay he spilt the beer and spread water.  There was a lot ot tut-tutting  about how cruel this was to the poor pet. 'Petersburg! In April.'

The sun went behind the ever-near clouds and with it the temporary warmth. They were worried I would be ill and a middle-aged man who introduced himself asDima put his  big rain coat around my shoulders. I tried to protest that I was sitting on my coat but clearly I needed to be helped by this gentlemen of the gutters.

Then a questions I often get asked at market stalls, 'How old are you?'; 'Are you married?.' They were sure I looked nineteen and assured me that there were plenty of good men in St Petersburg ,' but not Dima here, he's too old.'

I left to go to an exhibition . They insisted on pouring me some more champagne and it splashed against my dress as I walked. I wanted to pour it in the Fontanki water as a beautiful symbol to extend symbol because the name Champagne carries a certain glamour to it which can't be dispelled by its ethanolic reality..  It would be dirt into dirt, chemicalised substance with little relation to grapes into the polluted river, and glory into glory, the royal drink tippled at Operas and Birthdays and New Years with the name pronounced as if it really was champagne and then the river which had its role in so many murders and  love affairs.

I met a teetotal  Belorussian friend  for the exhibition and told her how pleased I was to experience this display of the warm Russian hospitality - out there in a the temporary home of a bay - which travel guides are always chattering about. She couldn't empathise, as she  would never accept cake or champagne from people because she doesn't want either. 

Two Cafes along Nevskiy

Two Cafes

Firstly not far from Gostiny Dvor I stop into a Konditerskoe, Sever. Something along the line of a tea-room without the doilies and pots of milk. If  only I wasn't sensitive to cream. This place is very sweet and cremeux and extremely Nevskiy; pearly white walls and ceilings  are asunctous as the condiments around. My pink dress harmonises perfectly and especially my pink hand-bag with nine pink flowers blooming from it.

Opposite my table, a mother and daughter share  cakes, a cup of desert and a pot of tea quietly and seriously, as if this  was a ritual or a chore. Not an excuse for conversation. An old couple sit at my table and again they are very calm and quiet. I 'm quite lost in the banter of War and Peace.

I walk down Nevskiy and make a small  but most significant left to Pirozhee where's there's a selection of pies and dairy based food. The sign is red and yellow rather than polar white, marking it as a cheap and cheerful place; although in Russia that is rare. In fact, it's more cheap and mildly sour-faced.(Incidentally, I learnt from my English text book that these colours induce hunger whcih is why they are used my so many places encouraging the super-size meal rather than degustation. This is just one of the many incidental facts that cling to the consciousness of ESL teachers).

Opposite, what a hauty little lady admist the down at the heel muddy brown and beige and grey faux marble decor  of the Pie cafe, sittting below a chinese vase full of lilies(the only beautiful thing in the room) which seem to emerge from her hair like an ornament.Adolescent and shining with long blond hair and a florally embroidered coat. Her babushka sits matt next to her in a raincoat almost the same non-red as the tables.

A contrast from the beauty of Sever. There was the perfect place to read Tolstoy; every surface and conversational lilt was cremeux and amiable. The drawing rooms and carriages fitted perfectly well into those enamelled surfaces. The cinnamon and pumpkin soup I was supping was the perfect dish to sample from the menu of a society dinner.

Here, with my sirniki(curd cheese pattacakes), the yellowed pages of the book look dirtied  and disparaged by the tasteless table. Perhaps the faux-marble is supposed to be luxurious or mayorial. Are the walls purposefully the same colour as the metro building?

Just now the babushka has started selling yellow flowers outside the lily window so that now there are three layers of flowers, with the coquettish embroidered coat at the forefront. The layers of a nineteenth century painting.

To the right are cows buttocks. Images of farms where all this curd cheese and cream and condensed milk are supposed to come from in a wholesome and  rurally photogenic way. A boldly printed poster of a cow being milked in no way convinces that these products are hearty and honest and whole. The inherit poverty of the processed white flour negates such a possibility.

Walking along Nevskiy; a fantasy

I want to get horribly intoxicated on a cocktail of Soviet Champagne, a big cuban cigar and Shostakovich and then walk out on Nevskiy and blame everything. I'll blame the collapsed marble seat outside Gostiny Dvor for it's laziness; I'll blame the snow for not sticking to it's convinctions but giving in and melting into water;  I'll blame the beer cans for lying there on the road; I'll chide the crumbling dirty facades for  not taking proper care of themselves; I'll blame the paving stones for holding me down here on this one urban street with not much happening instead of lifting  me up and taking me some-where sublime. How beautiful the sky  and the network of rivers below would be.

 I'll sit on the metro and  I'll blame the reflections in the dark windows  for showing me only the masked faces of people and not revealing their soul or translating their conversation.  My elation will well up into melancholy so I will blame all the people for  sitting so indifferently and not sharing  my emotion and the metro for taking me some-where too slowly.

After this magnificent shedding of responsibility I'll want to feel in control again and I'll make my sincere apologies to all. I'll explain to the marble seat that it was I who kicked the support from under it; I was jealous of it's solidity and the way it conspired with all the lovers holding hands. So I'll kiss it's marble surreptitiously when I think no one's looking. I'll gently lift the beer cans and bury them  reverentially in their tomb and then I'll lay on the road to better understand their  degradation; thrown down they lie helpless against kicks and scornful steps to avoid them.  To the snow I'll admit that I joined the universal chant against the Snow Queen  telling her to go away, come again another day. I beat it with my hunting shoes and called it malicious and avoided it. I'll empathise with it's tears (it is transforming into whole canals and lakes of tears across the town) and cry into it. I'll know that it is only myself holding me down and pinning the paving stone under me. To make amends I'll draw the towers and fortresses and parks it will never see in chalk across it's granite.

Out-furrification

Without furs;synthetic fabrics and
 big hairstlyes

With the advent of spring, hats and furs have vanished from all but the occasional babushka. They are safely stored away for the  next season. I am now outfurring the Russians with my 40s style furr hat from a charity shop. It is clearly from an era before the invention of affordable synthetic thermal clothesn so I don't feel an English twinge of guilt at wearing a small fluffy animal on my head. If some-one pats me on the heat I feel like a wood-land creature or a cat. From the way it moves on my head it really feels like my own skin and I feel tempted to purr. When the hat is not on my head - my real hair wants to capture the rare and glorious sunbeams -  it is my little pet and I occasionally stroke the tactile furr. Then I carelessly stuff it in my bag for convenience because for is not something I have ever aspired to own or adore. It needs restictching anyway.

Despite all moral considerations, aesthetically and experientally it is a dissapointment to no longer see the furrs.. They were glistening, shocking, sensual ornamentation; from an illustrated Snow Queen fairytale, inveterately Russian, nostalgic; significant, massive, ideal;savage, luxurious; flocculent. They were so evcoative as to give me  nightmare flashes, imagining the animals still alive and biting viciously, imagining them being skinned, imagining wearing one and the lynxs or other sharp-teethed creatures writing into life and savaging my hair in revenge.. However, so temptingly feminine as to make me want one.

Standing on the metro

Standing on the metro writing, one hand on the safety rail when the train jerks. Some standing freestyle, some half leaning against the door. A babuska  in front of me reads with a studied stance, the feet almost in the en garde position of a fencer.  Adebtly keeping her balance without the handrail as she must have kept it during more buffeted times. I nearly go flying when there's an an unpredicted jolt. Perhaps that spot tucked in the corner of the door and seats is the ideal one.  Her thumb and forefinger are so tensely paused over the page that I wonder if she is reading at all. Perhaps she feels that I'm observing her of perhaps she always feels discomfort in public. I remember moments like that, where my hands were gripping the book but I was scanning the same page again and again without registering anything, too aware of things around me. The page moved and now she has the book completely, gripped against her body like a teddy bear or a seatbelt. A Canon printing paper package covers the book: protection or to hide what is being read. I've often seen the babushka generations with newspaper or magazine covers to their books.

In the other corner, a girl leaning against the seats and holding her grey cloth hat in one hand. Extremely run and slightly grey. I thought there was something bizarre about her eyes, a disease which gave them a white plastic film, but then I realised she is wearing white eyeliner within black just under her eyes. Her style  hasa lightness of fabric and flair which is Europeanesque.; fishnets;long cordoruy coat; wan and pale;fishnet tights; governess boots. I think she was cut and pasted here from a Russian translation of Gormenghast.

When a seat is vacated, this girls sits down and sleeps. The 'ethic minority/scapegoat' next to her (the disaffected immigrant herds from Kazakhstan, Uzbekhistan etc that are mercilessly castigated by Russians distinguishable generally by their shortness and darker, Asian skin) turns flagrantly to smile at her. The whole thing gives the affect of a puppet nor automation turning it's wooden head with a n unsettling clockwork smile(unheimlich). Then he smiles at me when he notices me watching him. Contravening the no-smiling-without-a-very-good-reason rule, especially not in public at strangers.

Soviet Twins

Two men with identical black berets sat next to each other on the metro. They had the same shadowed face, the same muted clothing. The same way of looking deferentially at the floor as if they were peasants and the feodal lord was some-where or the factory master. One got off without speaking to each other and I realised they didn't even know each other. They couldn't have looked more like painted workers from a Soviet poster.