You Must Go and Win: Essays

by Alina Simone

  And yet I feared things wouldn’t really turn out that way. More than that, I feared they wouldn’t turn out at all. My plans for meeting up with the Doukhobors had gotten a little sketchy. Before leaving for Vancouver, I’d sent a couple of emails to the members of the Kootenay Men’s Choir, trying to pin down an exact time and place to meet. I’d heard nothing back, so I decided to give Elmer a call. Only I’d caught him at a bad time.

  “Is this Elmer?” I’d asked.

  “Are you calling to inquire about the show units?” came a clipped voice in reply.

  “Um, no, this is Alina Simone calling. I’m interested in the Doukhobors? I wrote to you earlier? About meeting up with some members of the men’s choir?” There was a pause on the other end and suddenly I felt a little ridiculous.

  “I’m in the middle of a business meeting right now,” said Elmer. “Try calling back later.”

  And that was it. Too embarrassed to call again, I’d heard nothing more from the Doukhobors since. And now, here I was in Canada.

  It was nervousness about the fading prospects for my trip to Castlegar that convinced me to let Nate come along. Nate was a graduate student who lived in a trailer park in Spokane, Washington. For the past few years, he’d made a point of driving out to Portland or Seattle to see me play whenever I toured through. Sometimes we would grab a veggie burrito together before the show. Not long before I left for Vancouver, Nate had dropped me a line and I’d written back mentioning my upcoming trip to Castlegar. Spokane wasn’t too far from Castlegar, Nate replied. Maybe he could come along? He would bring a car so I wouldn’t have to rent one, and he could help with taping interviews. Now, some people might question the wisdom of agreeing to a road trip with a person you’ve spent, tops, three hours with. Yet a week before my visit to Castlegar, the prospect of driving through rural Canada alone in search of imaginary Doukhobors suddenly seemed worse.

  I received two messages the night before my flight to Castlegar. The first was from Nate. He was spending the night at his mother’s place in Sandpoint, Idaho, ready to leave for the Canadian border “at first light,” and he wanted to know whether I would like a hand-painted Ukrainian Pysanky egg. The second was from Harold, one of the elusive Doukhobors. He told me that three of them, including Elmer, would meet my flight at the airport tomorrow. I hadn’t given the Doukhobors any flight information, but the Castlegar airport wasn’t exactly JFK. There was only one morning flight from Vancouver.

  Early the next day, I boarded an overwing prop plane that resembled a toy, the kind powered by pulling a string in the back. It was a short flight and before long we were puttering out over the Selkirk Mountains and then down into them. The largest remaining Doukhobor settlements were located in the Kootenays, a rural region that stretched above the Washington-Idaho border. Peter Verigin had named this territory Dolina Ooteshenia, the Valley of Consolation, because it resembled the Doukhobors’ lost homeland in the Caucasus. Nonetheless, from 26,000 feet, the laser-cut mountains edged with snow seemed anything but consoling. I could only imagine how they looked to the initial settlers, when this place was little more than a whistle-stop on the Canadian Pacific Railway. But at least the Doukhobors knew something of the life that awaited them after their hard years of farming untamed land. I knew nothing of what awaited me below, aside from Nate, three Doukhobors, and an egg.

  When I arrived in Castlegar, Nate was at the gate. He waved happily at me through the glass-paned wall as I wheeled my bag across tarmac that was once the communal property of the Doukhobors.

  “Where’s my egg?” I demanded as soon as I’d passed through the doors.

  “Out in the truck,” said Nate, his hand dropping to his side. That’s all we had time for. Over his shoulder I saw them waiting—three men well into middle age with a somewhat weatherbeaten look, anxiously scanning the fast-thinning crowd.

  I went over and introduced myself, Nate in tow. The Doukhobors were Elmer, Harold, and Harold. They suggested we take a seat at the airport café for some coffee, so I wheeled my bag about five paces from the gate and we all settled down at a table. I pulled out my notebook, which after three days in the UBC Doukhobor archives had accumulated a lot of questions. In particular, I was nagged by the discrepancy between the anthropologist Mark Mealing’s claim that Doukhobor psalm-singing was related to Jewish musical traditions, and the ethnomusicologist Kenneth Peacock’s description of Doukhobor psalmistry as “a polyphonic development of the znamenny chant.” Which hypothesis was closer to the truth? I opened my mouth to ask the question, but then the Doukhobors began to talk. They were plain-spoken men with practical trades—an engineer, a factory worker, a machinist at the pulp mill. Elmer had grown up on a farmstead in Saskatchewan. His father spoke only Russian, so Elmer would claim his school report cards were surveys from the Department of Statistics requesting information about how many chickens they had. One of the Harolds had grown up in a village where the Sons of Freedom, the most radical of the Doukhobor sects, had burned schoolhouses and protested against the Canadian government in the nude; the other was the son of a hard-rock miner who had died of silicosis. I quietly shelved my questions about the relationship of Doukhobor folklore to that of the Lusatian Sorbs.

  Here were stories I wouldn’t find in any archive. I hadn’t known that the Doukhobors in Saskatchewan almost sent a Communist member of Parliament to Ottawa, nor that the Soviets had tried to infiltrate the Doukhobor community in the Kootenays, sending covert representatives to their meetings. I had heard nothing about the Doukhobor pacifist efforts to support the Japanese interned by the Canadian government during World War II. Or about the roadblocks police set up along the highway so they could search the cars of anyone whose name ended with “in” or “off.” Elmer told of the night when Sons of Freedom radicals blew up an electrical pylon on the shore of Kootenay Lake to protest government pressure to assimilate, bringing down the region’s power grid. With the nearby mines filling with water and lives in danger, the atmosphere in the nearby city of Nelson turned mutinous. Taverns filled with wild-eyed men threatening to grab their guns, go up to the Freedomite village of Krestova, and start lynching Doukhobors.

  “But you must be hungry after that flight,” one of the Harolds interrupted. “How about some borscht?”

  I looked up from my scribbling and realized that I was a little hungry. Nate looked eager as well.

  “That would be nice, actually,” I said, and started gathering my things, thinking we might hit the legendary Weezy’s Borscht Hut in downtown Castlegar. But Harold simply walked up to the counter at the airport café and returned holding two steaming bowls and some slices of homemade bread.

  “They sell borscht at the airport?” I asked, slack-jawed.

  “Doukhobor borscht,” replied Elmer, matter-of-factly. “See that lady?” he said, pointing to the sandy-haired woman behind the counter.

  “She’s a Doukhobor too. And a hell of a good right-fielder. Used to play on my ball team.”

  I stared down at my soup while Nate dug in. As delightful as all of this was, there was still the fact that I didn’t like to eat things that came out of airports. Not even borscht. Not even from Doukhobor airports. Also, my borscht standards were unreasonably high, having been raised on a Ukrainian version my mother prepared according to an old family recipe. Hers was a mind-bendingly delicious thing that took half a day to prepare. I can still remember Mama sweating in front of her ancient cauldron, a pot that looked as though it had been hammered together by elves in the Carpathian Mountains, turning twenty pounds of soup with a heavy spoon and mumbling something about her aching back while Papa and I breezed in and out of the kitchen for a taste.

  But my fear of flinging an insult into the face of Russian hospitality was even greater than my fear of airport soup. Whenever I brought home a guest who didn’t clean their plate, my mother referred to them forever as Melissa-Who-Did-Not-Like-My-Beef-Stroganoff-with-Mayonnaise.

  “It’s good,” Nate said, nodding.
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  I smiled queasily at the Doukhobors and took a sip. It was good. And not just in a this-won’t-give-you-salmonella kind of way. The soup was truly good. And the bread was even better.

  When we finished, I realized that a couple of hours had somehow gone by. The Doukhobors had to get back to work, but one of the Harolds asked whether tomorrow we’d like to take a tour of the Cultural Centre in Brilliant followed by a trip to Peter “Lordly” Verigin’s tomb. We exchanged phone numbers and stepped outside onto the passenger pickup strip in front of the airport to say our goodbyes. But suddenly the Doukhobors seemed to hesitate. Elmer bent his head and Harold said something too low for me to hear. The other Harold nodded and consulted a crumpled piece of paper pulled from his breast pocket. Then the three of them formed a little line. Elmer cleared his throat.

  “Our counter bass went and passed away on us, so we’re not in top form. But we’d like to sing a song for you.”

  The sun was burning brightly over Castlegar and Brilliant and the Valley of Consolation. It was the kind of squinting light that usually fills me with a desperate longing for a windowless room and a strong cup of coffee, but now I blinked into it joyfully. The Doukhobors were singing—long mournful notes, rising and falling, in three-part harmony. They sang in a language that was neither exactly Russian nor Ukrainian, accented by a flat twang reminiscent of the midwestern plains. It was an unfamiliar cadence, like something from that other world, that place where the Skoptsy sail across the sky in their ark of salvation. When they finished, Nate and I clapped and begged for another song, and then another. The Doukhobors obliged us, not minding the occasional harried passenger wheeling by with a sideways glance.

  After the third song, one of the Harolds jiggled his keys in one hand by way of goodbye. He set off in search of his car just as Elmer turned to me.

  “Now how about you sing us a song?”

  “Yeah, you should sing them something,” said Nate. “You could do that Russian one.”

  “Hey, Harry, come back!” called one Harold to the other. “She’s gonna sing something for us.”

  With the Doukhobors assembled before me I turned to face the airport parking lot. Cars came and went. I could see the heat rising from the tops of Mazdas and Ford pickups. A sedan pulled up behind us and a family began loudly unloading bags from their trunk. Somewhere behind me planes lifted off into the mountains.

  “To ne veter vetku klonit,” I sang in Russian. ’Tis no wind that’s bending the branch. It was an old folk song, the only one I happened to know by heart.

  The first notes sounded uncertain, wobbly—I hoped to do better with the second line. I could see Nate from the corner of my eye, fiddling with his iPhone. And there were Harold, Harold, and Elmer, watching me expectantly from their place under the awning. I found it hard to concentrate, to forget that I happened to be standing in an airport parking lot, hot under the extra sweater that wouldn’t fit into my suitcase, my lungs full of exhaust and asphalt fumes. I closed my eyes for a moment, tried to clear my mind, concentrate. And then, without warning, there it was. The adornment. That feeling of grace the Doukhobors knew well, that can come over you in the most ordinary of places, even as you confront a group of strangers. The thing you are trying to do—to turn air into notes, and notes into song—seems as ridiculous and impossible as an alchemist’s trick. You feel leaden, earthbound. Your audience looks at you, their faces inscrutable. You close your eyes and focus on the melody. You hold it there in your mind, trying to pin it into place. But it is like trying to pin a living butterfly to a board. You steady yourself again. You take another deep breath. This is pointless. You open your mouth and hope for the best.

  And then something catches. And then you soar.

  Mama’s Borscht Recipe

  Ingredients

  2 tablespoons vegetable oil

  1 medium onion, finely minced (about 1 cup)

  1 medium carrot, peeled and finely shredded

  1 small (or ½ medium) beet, peeled and finely shredded

  half of a 6-ounce can tomato paste

  about 3 liters of water

  salt and black pepper

  4–5 large potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes

  2 medium-large green bell peppers, cored, seeded, and cut into ½-inch squares

  1 small (or ½ medium) head green cabbage, finely shredded

  2 cloves garlic, chopped (optional)

  basil or 2 bay leaves (optional)

  juice of 1 lemon (to taste—optional)

  2–3 teaspoons sugar (to taste—optional)

  Directions

  Heat the oil in a large skillet (6 quarts) over medium-high heat until hot. Reduce the heat to medium, add the onion, and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden brown, about 10 minutes. Add carrot and beet, cook just until they start to change color. Add the tomato paste and cook together, stirring, for 5 minutes.

  Meanwhile, simmer water and 1¾ teaspoons salt in a large soup pot. Stir in the fried vegetables with tomato paste, bring to a boil. Add potatoes, green peppers, cabbage, and garlic; simmer over low heat until potatoes are tender (about 20 minutes). Season to taste with salt and pepper.

  Add bay leaves or basil (optional). Bring to a boil again and simmer covered over very low heat for another 35–45 minutes. Add more water if needed. Adjust the taste with lemon juice and sugar according to personal preferences.

  Makes 14 to 16 servings. May be served garnished with sour cream for individual portions.

  Keep in mind: borscht tastes better the next day (and even better the next week).

  TAKE OFF YOUR PANTS AND DRINK WITH US

  Not a single trip that I’ve ever taken to Siberia—and there have been many—has ever gone according to plan. Perhaps that’s why I have such an irrational appreciation for these first crumpled hours. Landing. Luggage. Cab. Hotel. Thank you very much, Siberia. Everything will go to shit soon enough, but at least you’ve eased me into things by way of this boring but reassuringly logical progression of events. And let me just start out by saying that the landing strip at Tolmachevo in Novosibirsk is not a series of rotting planks laid across the snow, and that today, the airport is neither an igloo nor some deteriorating Soviet bunker. It is the same citadel of gleaming steel and polished glass you find in any Western city. Oh, and you will not implode upon first contact with the atmosphere. Your eyeballs will not shatter. Frost will not instantly form on your underpants. To be honest? It’s really not that cold. You will be comforted to find no fewer than five cafés happy to sell you an overpriced cheese sandwich and a cappuccino with almond syrup at seven in the morning. See? Just like everywhere else. Aside from the icicles dangling from the awnings like a row of loaded Kalashnikovs, you’d think you’d just landed in Missoula or Bar Harbor.

  By now, I’ve become something of a scholar when it comes to arriving in Novosibirsk. For example, I can tell you that the cabdrivers greeting arrivals to Tolmachevo can be divided into exactly two groups. The first is represented by a young man with closely cropped hair, a black leather jacket, and a vaguely thuggish air. He has no interest in talking and will spend the whole ride blaring blatnaya muzika from the car stereo while keeping his eyes tethered to the backsides of blondes making their miraculous way over the ice in stiletto heels. The other kind of cabdriver requires far more energy. He is slightly dumpy, with the collective sorrow of the gulag puddled in his drooping eyes. Kind of a Siberian version of Bill Murray. I will enter the cab and automatically reach for the seat belt only to find that the clasp has either been sawed off with great violence or shoved so deep into the anus of the car that, with my mere arm’s-length grasp, I could never hope to retrieve it. Then the cabbie and I will exchange introductions and have a conversation that roughly follows this script:

  CABBIE: So … America. How is it?

  ME: Good, uh, pretty good. How’s life in Siberia?

  CABBIE: Eh—how is life? Life is hard. Life is hard everywhere. Where in America do you live? Virginia?

&nbs
p; ME: I live in New York.

  CABBIE: Ah! My sister-in-law’s nephew is studying at the polytechnic institute in Virginia. Perhaps you know Bulat Antipovich?

  ME: Sorry. New York is pretty far from Virginia.

  CABBIE: What a pity. He is an exemplary young person. Tell me, how much does it cost to rent an apartment in New York?

  ME: That depends.

  CABBIE: But approximately?

  ME: Really, it depends on exactly where you live and what kind of apartment you have.

  CABBIE: Who cares, right? It is all the same now anyway—New York, Moscow, Novosibirsk—everywhere is equally expensive, blyad.

  ME: True.

  (There is a pause punctuated only by the sound of cheesy pop music from a generic radio station.)

  CABBIE: I hate this music. Phoo! Everything on the radio these days is carrot-love.

  (You have no idea that in Russian carrot-love is an idiom for love-shmove. Shmove doesn’t usually mean “carrot” in Russian, except in this case, when it does.)