My mind map turns into a cinema screen, memory switch flicks, the projector rolls and young Enright, my father and I are sitting in my father’s Trabant. In the way of old movies the colours are amplified, garish.
‘Anyway, dobro pozhalovat v universitet. Welcome to the university.’
Russian pronunciation flawless as ever, Enright’s English suffering in comparison, as though he is reading from an autocue. Attending with Jonas is Enright’s secretary Judy, who according to Jonas also goes back to my father’s time. She has covered a small table with trimmed sardines, orange and black caviar in fingerbowls, technicolour salads, rye in straw baskets and white bread slathered with butter. Tea is on offer, so too vodka and chilled water. We look out to the lawn and its lounging students.
‘Perhaps we should reconvene there?’ Judy jokes.
‘That would do your spread an injustice, Judy. Pearls to swine. Besides I’ve a speech to make, might be my last, who knows. To an audience of three.’ To whom he turns.
‘This as you know is an auspicious day for the department. I’m very pleased to welcome Vassili Sergeyevich Kurguzikov to the teaching staff. We older folk’ – a rueful grin at Judy – ‘remember his father Sergey’s visit fifteen years ago. Going even further back I was the beneficiary of Sergey and Teresa’s hospitality when on exchange in Moscow. Sergey Vladimirovich did a lot behind the scenes to ensure I had a tremendous experience, for which I am forever indebted. Sergey Vladimirovich was – is – a trailblazer between our two countries in the Cold War era and beyond. That took more courage than most of us can begin to imagine. He did as much as anyone to break down some odious Soviet stereotypes prevalent at the time. So, Vassili Sergeyevich,’ – he looks straight at me, a disconcerting stress on the patronymic – ‘we have every confidence that you’ll further the family tradition and hope that everyone will make full use of the wonderful opportunity your presence provides.’
Enright’s challenging look somewhat belies the assurance. Puts teenage me back in the forest.
Dutiful applause. The professor fills four glasses with water. ‘Za druzey – novykh, starykh i otsutstvuyushich.’ He translates for Judy whose Russian seems scratchy. ‘To friends, new, old and absent,’ and gestures at the table. ‘You have a choice of colourless drinks. Vodka ili voda. I’ll stick to water, and I’m mindful it’s Vassili’s first teaching class tomorrow. As I said, avoiding stereotypes.’ He flicks a meaningful glance Jonas’s way.
I sense unease, antipathy even, between Jonas and Enright. They avoid eye contact. Cross either and I might find myself the unwilling completion of a triangle or a pawn to be played off.
I stay up all night preparing an introduction to Russian verb tenses, recording phrases illustrating the correct use of each on a cassette player Judy lends me. The class is a first-year group of twenty. Jonas speculates that most know the Cyrillic alphabet but some still struggle to read beyond the introductory chapters in the main textbook. A trial exercise – if everyone copes, Enright will offer me two more classes the following month.
I stride into class five minutes before schedule, get out my notes, plug in the tape recorder, uncap the red and black texta pens from my stationery cupboard, place the eraser against the whiteboard, and say a cheery Dobroye utro, ‘Good morning’, to seventeen faces. Further attempts at icebreaking will trigger the tic in my right cheek.
Weaving chalk sentences around a core precept, as nimble minds click and whir into action, is the nearest teaching comes to epiphany. Texta on whiteboard doesn’t strike the same spark. Nevertheless I write the thirty-three letters of the alphabet, and add illustrating sentences below, red for Russian, black for English. We travel to Flinders Street Station every day. Yesterday we travelled to Flinders Street, but on the bus. Tomorrow we will go there on the tram, past the MCG. I am trusting that inserting local landmarks will underline their new teacher’s confidence to engage, meet his students halfway.
One or two copy the first few phrases. The rest rustle notepaper, tap pencils, whisper to one another. Discombobulated, I plough on till the board is full and I have to turn around.
‘Please copy these down and translate them for homework. If you have time please practice their future and past variants.’
Half an hour remains to play the twenty-minute tape. When they troop out five minutes early I try to rub off my work with the eraser. Both textas are indelible. Red-faced, I go to ask Judy for methylated spirits and a rag.
She pats me on the shoulder. ‘Relax. I’ll sort the whiteboard.’
‘Embarrassing for the department,’ she says on returning.
‘Yes. I promise to use the right texta.’
‘No, no,’ she laughs. ‘We’ve all done that. I meant three people turning up to your lunch. Sergey Vladimirovich used to pack the room. Sign of the times, alas.’
I am a rare captive audience and I sense, a living link to better days. For Professor Enright, she confides over tea, retirement at forty-five can’t come soon enough. Once among the largest in the entire arts faculty, his department has dwindled to a backwater. The university is reconfiguring the linguistic map, cannibalising the little languages and pressuring him to accept a hollow sinecure as head of Slavic and Eastern European Studies or some such. I infer that Jonas’s prospects of teaching Lithuanian are more remote than ever, sharpening our rivalry. We will be vying for scraps.
‘Russian’s just not in vogue any more. The Cold War was good for business. The more global we become, the more monolingual we get. Not the way it’s meant to work, is it? You needn’t worry, you’re funded for this year. Your dad’s gone from strength to strength I believe. Once met, never forgotten. Very popular he was.’ Her wistful expression intimates with me among others. A confronting thought.
‘If you say so.’
‘Hmm. A different era. The pendulum’s swung all right. Nowadays a teacher can’t smile at a student without risking a complaint to some busybody ethics committee. Progress? I don’t know. Anyway, you’ll figure all that out. Oh, and Jonas asked me to give you this.’
She hands me an invitation to my first Australian party, to be held the following evening.
Jonas lives twenty minutes away from my flat, via Richmond’s curving back streets. I hear the ghetto blaster three blocks before I arrive. The door of the terrace house is ajar. Inside, people are conducting a chain of inaudible conversations along a corridor. I bend to remove my shoes but see that all the guests have kept theirs on. A sweetish smell permeates the air. Jonas weaves across the room, his eyes red-rimmed and unfocussed, and steers me towards a table laden with chips and dips. I bump the arm of a girl holding a drink. Wine spills down her front. She spins around, lavender and black makeup cracking into a scowl.
‘Wow, perfect. Claret on paisley green.’
I semaphore apology, backpedal.
‘You’re the Russian exchange person. Oh, fuck, I mean sorry. Please don’t hold it against me.’
‘Bit fucking late Kaz. I’d be transferring to Italian.’
The voice isn’t Jonas. I retreat further to the corridor, look around for him. No one introduces themselves and my ears hurt from the music. I pass unnoticed through the front door and hurry homeward.