The Unmade World. Steve Yarbrough

      I have been so dislanguaged by what happened

      I cannot speak the words that somewhere you

      Maybe were speaking to others where you went.

      Maybe they walk together where they are,

      Restlessly wandering, along the shore

      Waiting for a way to cross the river.

       David Ferry

      CHRISTMAS IN KRAKOW - 2006

      “You’re lucky I love Ella Fitzgerald,” his daughter says. She’s standing on the chair he brought in from the kitchen, and she’s just positioned the angel atop the tree. They bought that ornament this morning at a stall in the enormous Cloth Hall, which dominates the market square, and they bought the tree yesterday outside Galeria Krakowska, and then he dragged it ten blocks through the snow and up five flights of stairs. He was still jet-lagged, and though he goes to the gym twice a week and is in decent shape, he had to pause on each landing. Somewhere between the third and fourth floors, in the offhanded manner in which the most contented among us entertain such notions, he realized that his wife, who’d grown up here with her brother, had been right a few years back, warning that one day he’d wish they’d swapped it for a flat in a building with an elevator. He doesn’t have that many regrets, but the lack of a lift may become one.

      Anna cocks her head, looks hard at the angel, then reaches out and makes an adjustment. “We’ve listened to this same CD three times since we started decorating. Did you realize that?”

      “It’s a short disc.”

      “Not that short.”

      “And it’s the greatest ballad album ever recorded.”

      She tosses her blonde bangs. “One could argue.”

      “If one did, what might one propose as an alternative?”

      “Dexter Gordon’s Ballads. Clifford Brown with Strings. The Intimate Ellington. Alternatives do exist.”

      He’s having fun. He always looks forward to decorating the tree with her, but never more so than this year. They flew six thousand miles for the pleasure. “We started with Ella,” he says, “so we’re staying with her. It’s important to maintain continuity when doing something as momentous as decorating your first Polish Christmas tree.”

      “This tree came from Norway.”

      “How do you know?”

      “The sign above the booth where you paid for it said, ‘Norwegian Wood.’”

      “I didn’t see that.”

      “You weren’t looking.” She puts out her hand, sticky from sap. “I’m finished,” she says. “Help me down. I’m too mature now to jump.”

      He opens his arms. She steps into them, and as he lowers her to the floor, he gets a whiff of the scent she started wearing back in October after developing a crush on a kid who sits beside her in the string ensemble. She’s no longer a child. She has breasts, for Christ’s sake. “What do you weigh these days?” he wonders aloud.

      “I would’ve hoped that by now you’d know not to ask a person of the feminine persuasion such a question. But I’ll answer it anyway: a hundred and eight pounds, give or take an ounce.” Gently, she pokes his stomach. “What do you weigh?”

      “About a hundred and five kilos.”

      Like many musicians, she’s also a proficient mathematician. “In other words, two hundred and thirty freaking pounds? Truly?”

      “It sounds a lot better in kilos.”

      “You need to take it easy on the pierogi, Dad. Not to mention the goose-liver pâté.”

      A shade over six three, he’s got broad shoulders that suggest he might have made a good linebacker in his youth, though the only competitive sport he ever played was baseball. He can carry a good bit of weight. Yet he can’t deny that not long ago he had to let his belt out. He’s been eating and drinking a little more than he should. The last few months have not exactly been stress-free.

      He covers Central California for the Los Angeles Times. He’s held that job for more than two decades, the only break coming seventeen years ago, when his Polish fluency brought him here to report on the revolutions sweeping Eastern Europe. Back in September, the Times’s publisher was ousted after protesting cuts proposed by the parent company. Then just last month, his editor-in-chief, a close personal friend, had also been forced out. What do you do if you can no longer do what you’ve done your entire adult life? Until recently, he hadn’t thought he’d ever have to ask himself that question. Even now, he’s not overly concerned. Still, when they return to Fresno in January, he’ll send out a few feelers, just to stay on the safe side.

      Julia Mirecka Brennan: she’s forty-six, a year younger than he is in December of 2006, her hair as dark as their daughter’s is light. Her eyes are large, brown,

Скачать книгу