Fragments of a Journey to Agara by Chipka
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Description
The first time I went to Agara, my friend Tómás was wearing yellow flip-flops and talking about Chaka Kahn. Maruška was there, too: trying to sell a washing machine. Tómás introduced me to an acquaintance of his; they spoke—at length—of Maruška’s entrepreneurial stratagems and let me in on countless local secrets
*
“I am beginning to feel erotic affections for you,” Pávól said, three months into our friendship. We were drunk on brandy and beer. We ambled through a narrow maze of, cobblestones, courtyards, and ancient, mold-blackened architecture. He wore yellow flip-flops. He took them off halfway along Znín Street, and walked as quietly as a ghost. We held hands. He smelled of cigarettes and conditioner. In the distance, someone played an accordion.
Seized by a whim—in a language I don’t know—Pávól steered me into an antique shop that smelled of old books, dry-rotted leather, and lilacs. He showed me Communist-Party medals in dull, black-limned pewter with military ribbons as red as any nightmare of Soviet occupation. The ribbons were edged with gold thread; the threads rhymed with Pávól’s flip-flops. He told me that his grandfather had dozens of such honors and that he’d give me a few, if I wanted.
He spoke, at length to the old man behind the counter, and after some haggling (little of which I could follow) purchased an ancient watch, etched with the letters ACCP on the back. There was a diminutive star centered above the letters. A hammer and sickle crossed beneath them. The watch was in perfect working order, but in ancient, local custom, it bore no hands. I looked at it: the black numbers on the white dial beneath a protective circle of glass. I knew exactly what time it was.
“It’s yours,” Pávól said. “So that you will remember me.”
*
Now, I wear a watch with no hands on it, and it keeps perfect time. I will return to Agara and speak with Tómás—in person—and speak, as well, with Pávól. I have not lost contact with him. I have not forgotten him.
END
*
At the end of his short novel, Coming Through Slaughter, Michael Ondaatje declares—in the acknowledgements—that “some facts have been expanded or polished to suit the truth of fiction.” I was struck by the profound, poetic reality of that statement, as fiction does, indeed, contain its own truth. It’s been years since I first read Coming Through Slaughter and nearly all of that book remains firmly with me. That simple declaration on the last printed page of the book, has echoed through my thoughts. Endlessly.
The Truth of Fiction
In terms of this post, I didn’t set out to write fiction, truthful or otherwise, but as I worked on a different story, I came across the opening lines to this tale in my files. I cannot assume that the narrator of this tale is me, though I do know variants of the people mentioned in the text. I have friends named Pavel and Tomas, I know a Ukrainian cleaning lady named Marushka, and she did happen to have a washing machine (and a stove) for sale.
Agara does not exist, and yet there is such a place.
Strange are the truths of fiction.
As for the image accompanying this text: it’s a composite of images taken from my life in Prague, nearly all of them appear early in my gallery. The close up of Tomas’ yellow flip flops were derived from an email I’d sent, chronicling random events in my life in Prague. Or was it my life in Agara? I don’t know. Absinth was involved. I wrote the short snippets above, but I’m not the narrator, despite the truth in those statements in terms of my own experience. Funny how fiction works.
I hope you’ve enjoyed odd little vignette, and thank you for reading, viewing, and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a great week/end.
Comments (11)
kgb224
Wonderful writing my friend. God bless.
giulband
Absolutely a fascinating vision and interpretation, perhaps a place, maybe a situation, perhaps a moment. No matter somehow hit something inside me and fascinates me. !!!!! !!!!!!!
jendellas
Love it all, the image is amazing. X
helanker
WOW! I love this image, Chip. Another magnificent book cover. Love the warm colors and the many details and the texture.
durleybeachbum
Terrific image ! I have admit that I find reading on screen quite trying nowadays, so I didn't do more that speed read your story which does not do it justice!
MrsRatbag
A savoury snapshot of a tale, a tidbit that promises much much more. I love it!
anahata.c
With your fiction, I sometimes neglect to comment on your accompanying image, so let me say upfront that it's a wonderful vision, with such clarity on the building facades, while also being melded and blended into a dream. The verticals are wonderfully clear, yet they all add to this dreamlike set of 'walls'. It reminds me a bit of Nikolay's amazing postworked street shots, though you both have a uniquely different style. But you both tap mysteries in a street through transformations of line and hue and shadow. The lower portion shows those flip-flops; and the two people on top are in a dialogue---which takes place in this city-dream, but doesn't impinge on it or even change it. It's one of many dialogues possible here. A beautiful piece, and the yellow-beige facades in the left half---pointed roofs, scattered windows, right off left-center---are an anchor to the piece (being mostly clear of detail), along with the high building in center-back. Very fine piece, Chip. Now to the tale... Again, you take us in, with a wonderful random combination of images, but not random because they're the stuff of life. Tomas with yellow flip-flops (I'm not using diacriticals so I don't slow up here---mea culpa! don't tell your characters!), Chaka Kahn---the sheer music of that sentence ending in Chaka kahn is terrific. Then Maruska trying to sell a washing machine. From real life, but the combination is terrific. A photograph. A street shot of a paragraph. Then the acquaintance who isn't named in that paragraph, and countless local secrets. That's worth the upload right there. Then nothing more than a reverie by Pavol...and you've painted, in a few phrases, a whole city---and a very Eastern European one too. E.European in spirit, since this isn't E.Europe per se. You have "Znin" street. Now, Znin would thrill writers like Borges---he had a Tlön, I believe, and I remember him telling an interviewer how much he loved that "Tl" combination; and the umlaut helped too...) And---here it is again---"he smelled of cigarettes and conditioner". Small phrase but I love the combination. And an accordion. Then something I assume you've had experience with: Soviet medals and watches. The description is very exact---I've seen both, and owned an old Soviet watch, a real folk piece which I loved even when it stopped working. A fine paragraph on the medals, and the red ("as any nightmare," etc) and the gold which rhymed with Pavol's flip-flops. Another wonderful phrase. The watch I get totally. The Chip element is the no-hands, and that your character kept it and it told perfect time. And being told "you will remember me" with a watch with no hands. And---then the statement that you'll return, and---the end. Beautiful fiction haiku, so to speak. Great little snapshot. And, as for fictional truth, well...anyone who understands the spirit of creation, knows that it has as much truth as the world 'around' it; and that fiction penetrates to truths that 'outer' reality only hints at. Your writing shows that again and again...As for using characters from real life...well I may have told this here before, but there's a famous Hindu tale: A man loses his son (he dies), and the next morning he's plowing the field. His wife shouts, "your son died, and you're plowing???" And the man answers: "Last night, I dreamed I lost 8 daughters. So tell me, which is correct? Did I lose 8 daughters or 1 son?" His wife is silent. "Exactly," he says: "So not knowing the answer, I plow..." But there's another huge tale from ancient sources, which---hugely reduced---tells of a monk to whom Vishnu says: "Fetch me a pail of water". To summarize (and this is so Hindu): He goes to the river, meets a woman, falls in love, gives up his monkhood, lives with her family, they marry, they have children, he becomes a great businessman in the community---and the story goes into great detail---when, years later, a flood comes to town, people are drowning, he tries to save his wife, she drowns, he tries to save his children, they drown, he swims away holding onto a door for dear life while the river rages on destroying town after town, and finally the man lands on a mountaintop and falls in a heap, destroyed because he didn't save his loved ones, and wanting to die. For months, he wanders near death, until one day he collapses under a tree and whispers, "let me die, let me die, let me die"...And a voice comes out of the tree: "My son---where's my water? I've been waiting half an hour..." So, is it that life, in all its massivity, is only "half an hour"? Or is it that, in a mere half hour, all of life unfolds? (Ie, the universe in a grain of sand...) Being Hindu, it's both; but the latter is always the 'lesson' the sages make of it. And as for Vishnu, he's really just a piece of ourselves. Something higher and deeper that sees from the overview, and knows that all these upheavals are mere waves in the immensity of the cosmos...so to him, it's just half an hour. Somehow that relates to what you wrote; and, more importantly, it pertains to ALL that you write, because the inner reality smashes outer time---like that watch without hands---and points to a deeper time, the innermost time(s), where your fiction thrives. And then, to those old tale-tellers, they'd go further and say that the "real life" we think is so real---our anchor---is no more than another fiction anyway...so why not merge them however we wish...which is more real, they asked... Another terrific fragment from you. And I love the image with it. I'll come back for your great clock shot, and your most recent piece soon...this took me forever, not 'reading' the piece (though I read it twice), but writing this damned comment! I'll pat myself on the back, saying, "it was only half a second" (ala that tale), but in the fiction of my living room and the clock oppressing me, it wasn't. Anyway, terrific work once more, Chip. Even this snippet is wonderful creation...
Wolfenshire
After that last wonderful comment there's nothing else to say but, cool.
icerian
Very nice impressive work !
KatesFriend
Even a quick visit to Agara is always welcome. I don't remember but does Agara have trams? Soviet workers used to have a joke, "they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work". Somehow the watch makes good delivery of this piece of eastern sarcasm. In perfect working order but makes no attempt to perform the job it was made to do. Except perhaps in metaphor. The truth of fiction. On the surface it sounds like one of those self contradictory Buddhist riddles (kōan?) - one hand clapping anyone? Yet it is easy to see how, in certain places at certain times, the truth could only be safely approached through fiction. After all, changing the names and the dates and the locations would make history into fiction. Hmmm, now I'm wondering if the watch, were it real in our world (and perhaps there are a few handless Soviet watches - see eBay), would it yet be that sort of fiction for its back handed truth telling.
auntietk
Dr. Julian Bashir: You know, I still have a lot of questions to ask you about your past. Elim Garak: I have given you all the answers I'm capable of. Bashir: You've given me answers all right; but they were all different. What I want to know is, out of all the stories you told me, which ones were true and which ones weren't? Garak: My dear Doctor, they're all true. Bashir: Even the lies? Garak: Especially the lies.