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Феликс Рахлин Владимир Малеев Виталий Пустовалов Нина Никипелова Виктор Конторович Вадим Левин Татьяна Лифшиц Элла Слуцкая Сурен Готенов Галина Заходер Вадим Ткаченко Ольга Андреева Нина Маслова David Allott R. and C. Thornton Александр Адамский Игорь Ильин Татьяна Никитина Лилия Левитина Наталья Раппопорт Аркадий Коган Дина Рубина Марк Галесник Феликс Кривин
Ruth Thornton
AN INCONVENIENT INJURY
Renata was always keen for me to experience classical Russian culture and she had bought tickets to a performance by the Lithuanian State Chorus of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana.
I had arranged to meet Renata outside the venue, theTchaikovsy Hall on Ulitsa Gerzena. For some minutes I stood in the spring twilight waiting for Renata to appear. Just when I thought she’d forgotten about me or the concert (or both) I saw a figure walking with a pronounced limp, hobbling along the pavement towards me. Renata arrived in a cloud of apologies and we made our way as quickly as we could into the concert hall.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t walk any faster’ Renata simpered as we hurried along the concourse, ‘I think I must have pulled a muscle in my leg, or perhaps my foot’.
The concert was long, punctuated as was customary by a long interval. Renata managed to fight through the pain of her injury and, heroically, made her way through the throng to the bar and tables of refreshments.
An hour or so later and the concert was over. Renata and I spilled out into the street with the rest of the audience. We stood by the exit talking about the concert and by the time we said our farewells the street was nearly deserted. Renata set off limping down the street and after a short distance stopped, turned and waved to me. I waved back, but something was troubling me. Suddenly I realised the problem. ‘Renata’ I shouted after her fast disappearing figure, ‘You’re limping on the wrong foot’……..
Chris Thornton
ЧТО-ТО К ЧАЮ!
‘Would you like tea?’
‘Milk or lemon?’
‘Would you like to come for tea?’ Chris asked.
‘Yes, I’d love to’ came the reply.
Knock on the door of room 604.
She enters, broad smile, petite and round, brown twinkly eyes – she looks up at him.
‘Renata, come in.’ He leads the way into the living-room room of the two rooms. The furniture – original 1920s: lamp, table, chairs, and shelving unit stacked with ‘bits’ from the UK. All arranged in a higgledy-piggeldy fashion, there were all those things they had thought indispensable – tea, marmite…
Her eyes took them all in, flitting left right, up down. Some products familiar, many not.
‘Oh yes,’ broader smile, ‘yes please’. He boiled the kettle, made the tea and poured it.
‘Lemon, please’
‘…and sugar?’
‘…oh yes, please’ eyes widening, smile too.
But the smile is slipping… and he has no idea why. They part – a polite handshake. The first of many meetings, but this one had no squeals during, only afterwards.
She’s told the story a thousand times (they say it’s her favourite – we hope so!).
‘Tea! Tea? That’s not “tea” – tea has something with it.
‘Что то к чаю! – there it all was: biscuits, cakes, jam, chocolate… Бог знает что!... and he offered only tea…
