One of the good and bad things about my job is having friends spread out across the world. The bad part is that you hardly ever see them, but on those times when you walk into a green room in some far flung country, put your suitcase down and look up to see you’ve been booked on the same gig as an old friend? That’s pretty great.
I’ve got a few friends in the Ukraine, and I’ve been thinking about them a lot lately, of course.
I talked to one of them this morning.
A decade and a half ago, we were both on a long contract working in a variety theatre in Germany. The shows were good, the audiences were good, the pay was fine, and there was free cake on Sundays.
Back then, I wrote a little about what her life was like, so I thought I’d repost it here.
So, this is from 2007.
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She speaks very little English, but has learned the word "Employees" from the script of my act (I shout it at the climax of a gag towards the end). She clearly enjoys saying this word, and now uses it to mean everything. I walk through the door and she hugs me hello with a happy "Employees!". She catches me going out for a run wearing shorts and lets out a lecherous "Employees!". We have a drink after the show and toast each other with a clink of glasses and an "Employees!". It's very funny, and linguistically seems to completely work.
She comes to me in my dressing room clutching a school type exercise book, sits down next to me and opens it flat on the table. It is full of carefully handwritten words in Ukrainian together with their English translations. She wants me to help her with her pronunciation. Of course. No problem. We go through her list and she's mainly a lot better than she thinks, and is clearly working very hard on it. The more we go through her book the more it hits me. These words are her life distilled. The list is a collection of haiku that describe her life. Her day to day existence boiled down to bare essentials.
hairbrush
bag
door
I go
write me please
stockings
spoon
cup
pants
run
bra
switch on
switch off
adjust
low
high
loud
silently
I find it profoundly moving, but , of course, am completely unable to communicate this to her, although I think she understands as she lets me copy the above words into my laptop.
Later on that evening she finds me backstage, grabs me urgently and says - in perfect and careful English - "I like vegetables". I smile broadly and reply that I, too, like vegetables. remembering that the word "Macaroni" was in her book, I ask "Do you like macaroni?", a happy grin spreads across her face, "Yes! I very like macaroni!"
We go bowling. Not having bowled before, her chosen tactic is to cradle the ball like a handbag, run at the lane as fast as she can, before letting it fall in the general direction of the pins. Her first attempt always - always - finds the left gutter. But her second, due to the strange laws of physics and luck that seem only to apply to drunken ball games, usually finds it's target. This is, though, of little interest to her. She seems only to concern herself with the increasingly complex series of celebratory or consolatory dance routines delivered with gusto after she has released her ball. These include, but are not limited to: Kissing her biceps, moonwalking, and dropping into a splits, before realising that her pants are too tight and yelling "Trousers! Employees!"
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Like I said, I spoke to her this morning. She said she was safe for now. I said I was glad.
Then she posted “Россия агресор расскажи там всем у себя в стране”, which translates as
RUSSIAN AGGRESSOR TELL EVERYONE THERE IN YOUR COUNTRY
So, this is, I guess, me doing that.