That was months ago. Now it is very late at night, and I am sitting in the middle of an extremely gloomy hotel room, surrounded with a hundred and ninety million Russians, four cameras, a few dozen exposed and many more unexposed films, and one sleeping Steinbeck, and I am not happy at all. The hundred and ninety million Russians are against me. They are not holding wild meetings on street corners, do not practice spectacular free love, do not have any kind of new look, they are very righteous, moral, hard-working people, for a photographer as dull as apple pie. Also they seem to like the Russian way of living, and dislike being photographed. My four cameras, used to wars and revolutions, are disgusted, and every time I click them something goes wrong. Also I have three Stein-becks instead of one.
My days are long, and I begin with the morning Steinbeck. When I wake up, I open my eyes carefully, and I see him sitting before the desk. His big notebook is open, and he is imitating work. In reality he is just waiting and watching for my first move. He is terribly hungry. But the morning Steinbeck is a very shy man, absolutely unable to pick up the telephone and make the smallest attempt toward articulate conversation with Russian waitresses. So I give up and get up, pick up the phone, and order breakfast in English, French, and Russian. This revives his spirits and makes him rather cocky. He puts an expression of an overpaid village philosopher on his face and says, "I have a few questions for you this morning." He has obviously spent his three hours of hunger figuring out the damn things, which range from the old Greek table habits to the sex life of the fishes. I behave like a good American, and although I could answer these questions simply and clearly, I stand on my civil rights, refuse to answer, and let the thing go to the Supreme Court. He doesn't give up easily, keeps on bragging about his universal knowledge, tries to provoke me with help and education, and I have to go into exile. I take refuge in the bathroom, which place I simply detest, and I force myself to stay in the sandpaper-lined bathtub filled with cold water till breakfast arrives. This sometimes takes considerable time. After breakfast I get help. Chmarsky arrives. There are no morning and evening phases in Chmarsky's character, he is pretty bad all the time.
During our day, I have to fight with the hundred and ninety millions who don't want their pictures taken, with Mr. Chmarsky who snobs photography, and with the morning Steinbeck who is so goddam innocent that all questions posed by the curious and hero-worshiping Russian population are answered by a friendly grunt, "This I do not know." After this momentous statement he is exhausted, shuts up like a clam, and big drops of perspiration break out on his fair-sized Cyrano face. Instead of taking pictures, I have to translate Mr. Steinbeck's strange silence into intelligent and evasive sentences, and somehow we finish the day, get rid of Chmarsky, and get home again.
After a short mental strip-tease the evening Steinbeck begins. This new character is perfectly able to pick up the telephone and pronounce words like vodka or beer, understandable to the dumbest waiter. After a certain amount of fluid, he is articulate, fluent, and has many and definite opinions about everything. This goes on till we find a few Americans who have acceptable wives, cigarettes, and native drinks, and still don't refuse to see us. By now he could be described as a rather gay character. If there is any pretty girl in a party, he is definitely ready to protect me and chooses his place right between the girl and me. Around this time he is already able to talk to other people, and if I try to save the innocent girl by inviting her to dance, no broken leg will stop him from cutting in almost immediately.
After midnight his innocence gets coupled with strength. This he demonstrates with one finger. He asks innocent husbands if they know anything about the finger game. The two gentlemen sit down, facing each other across a table, put their elbows firmly on the tablecloth, and clinch their middle fingers. After a certain amount of twisting, Mr. Steinbeck usually gets the husband's fingers down on the table-cloth, and excuses himself volubly. Sometimes, late at night, he tries the game on anybody. Once even on a Russian gent who looked obviously like a general to everybody else but him.
After a certain amount of gentle coaxing, and a long dissertation about dignity, we get home. Now it is past three in the morning. The evening Steinbeck is metamorphosed into his late night version. He is on his bed, holding firmly a thick volume of poetry from two thousand years ago, called The Knight in the Tiger Skin. His face is fully relaxed, his mouth is open, and the man with the quiet low voice snores without restraint or inhibitions.
I fortunately borrowed a mystery story from Ed Gilmore, just because I knew that I would be unable to sleep, and would have to read till the morning.
I leave you, gentle American readers, and have to assure your Russian counterparts that everything that Mr. Chmarsky will write about us in Pravda is absolutely true.
END OF COMPLAINT
CHAPTER 7
WHEREVER WE HAD BEEN in Russia, in Moscow, in the Ukraine, in Stalingrad, the magical name of Georgia came up constantly. People who had never been there, and who possibly never could go there, spoke of Georgia with a kind of longing and a great admiration. They spoke of Georgians as supermen, as great drinkers, great dancers, great musicians, great workers and lovers. And they spoke of the country in the Caucasus and around the Black Sea as a kind of second heaven. Indeed, we began to believe that most Russians hope that if they live very good and virtuous lives, they will go not to heaven, but to Georgia, when they die. It is a country favored in climate, very rich in soil, and it has its own little ocean. Great service to the state is rewarded by a trip to Georgia. It is a place of recuperation for people who have been long ill. And even during the war it was a favored place, for the Germans never got there, neither with planes nor with troops. It is one of the places that was not hurt at all.
Inevitably we went in the early morning to the Moscow airport and sat an hour and a half in the V.I.P. room, under the portrait of Stalin, drinking tea. As usual there had been a party the night before, and we had had practically no sleep. We got on our plane and slept until we landed at Rostov. This airfield had been badly broken up, and a great number of prisoners were rebuilding the facilities. In the distance we could see the shattered city which had taken such a pounding during the war.
Then we flew on over the unending plain until at last, in the distance we saw mountains, and it had been very long since we had seen any mountains at all. These were terrific mountains. We picked up altitude and flew very high over the Caucasus. There were high peaks and sharp ridges, and in between there were streams where we could see ancient villages. Some of the peaks were snow-capped even in summer. After so much flat land there was a fine feeling of friendliness about mountains again.
We climbed very high, and in the distance we saw the Black Sea. And our plane came down to it and flew along the edge of the land. It is a beautiful land. The hills come down to the edge of the sea, and on the sides of the slopes there are lovely trees, black cypresses, and a great deal of foliage. And among the hills are villages, and big houses, and hospitals. It might have been the coast of California, except that the Black Sea is not turbulent and violent like the Pacific, and the coast is not rocky. The sea is very blue, and very tranquil, and the beaches are very white.