Three Days in July

© 2012 by Richard Segal. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/01/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-3455-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-3456-3 (e)

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Contents

Chapter One: Intro To Real Time

Chapter Two: The 7:10 To Vilnius

Chapter Three: Respublika

Chapter Four: Hoops

Chapter Five: Kaunas 106

Previously by Richard Segal

The Russian Economy

Crash, Burn, Hurricane

Trilogy Year

Hitting the Tenspot

Nectar of the Lavender

Cookbook for a New Europe

The Great Art Deco Chase

This one’s for me

Chapter One

INTRO TO REAL TIME

It was a Wednesday afternoon about ten years ago, I think it was, that I was riding on London’s Circle Line and spotted someone reading a Lithuanian newspaper. I really should learn more about my heritage, I resolved that day. At the time, I assumed most of my ancestors were Lithuanian.

Over the next decade, I would travel to three Eastern European countries in search of families, living and departed, seek documents from four additional ones, including my own, call on archives and undertake countless hours of on-line research and otherwise dig where I could. I spoke to relatives, close and not so close, as well as near relatives, and shared what information I could. I obtained birth, marriage and death records, census and military service records, Universität transcripts, passenger ship manifests, naturalization pleas and many papers in between. I was pleased to uncover that on official documents, my ancestors were formally efficient in form filling, but also capable of a wry sense of humor for the benefit of future generations. So that’s where I got it from.

My expedition culminated in three days in July, when I visited Lithuania and Belarus, a journey I could never forget, a journey no one could ever forget. This is the fictionalized account. I think it’s better that way, don’t you? The place names are real, but everything else, e.g. names and dates, have been altered, omitted or invented. Everyone deserves their privacy, those I greatly admire as well as those I’d happily pull the plug on—very happily—and the choice was tell of all and everyone or none.

I consciously opted against bringing much with me, aside from passport, smartphone, four or five computer generated maps which I suspected would be incomplete, and a duffel bag stuffed with a few more clothes than would be necessary for a long weekend. But no umbrella. It doesn’t rain in Central Europe in early summer, does it? I brought a handful of books with me, including The Great Art Deco Chase and Travels with Charley. When I think of the novelists my country produced during the 20th century, who else was there? There were others, but let’s not exaggerate. And I can barely read contemporary literature. Why? Because to paraphrase the immortal Ziggy, there’s a 65% chance a 21st Century book will more than once repeat the phrase I found it odd that . . . followed by Thankfully I was able to . . . and I’ll want to flip out. More than once. Moreover, I think it fitting that I begin my story during the 50th anniversary of Steinbeck’s classic.

I was flying blind, so to speak, without traveling companions or aids, no maps for example, unless one counts these printouts with squiggly lines between pairs of cities, and no cross verification they were accurate. I didn’t count on the smartphone’s map declining to recognize certain Belarusian locations, nor did I think to download a Cyrillic keyboard from Appworld. Much as I prefer Android to other operating systems, no plan of attack is fool proof. Time will have to tell whether this proved problematic.

I bought Travels with Charley several weeks beforehand and left it to gather dust on the magazine rack until it was time to pack. I originally intended to pace myself, completing the final chapter and the hi-hi accompanying notes by an adoring biographer on the return flight, much as I once finished an important textbook as a flight from Tokyo to Paris was touching down. For sure, I read the first three pages on the outward flight. I did later complete the book and all of the preface that I could stomach, but I never got beyond page three during my three days in July. The look and feel of the book wasn’t right, or perhaps it was too right.

Nevertheless, embedded on the passenger seat throughout, along with the printouts, confirmation of car and hotel reservations, empty water bottles and various receipts, his book was my constant companion. Could the real Charley have kept up with me, could anyone have kept up with me? Steinbeck’s narrative is unsettling, perhaps intentionally so, and 50 years later, the typos remain. However, if a novel which was an instant epic in 1962 has remained so, if largely for the title, it’s fitting sidebard. My author’s copy of Art Deco Chase, my most recent novel, was on the rear seat, in case anyone wonders whether I have distinguishing qualities aside from a personal mission and a day job, and I still have plans for Little Ruthie, my favorite character.

I didn’t hold long conversations during my trip, mainly because I wasn’t in the mood for telling people why I was there. I knew I’d miss the dialogue associated with that, and I can welcome informational banter with the locals and other townies. However, I’d also miss word association with traveling friends fond of inventing catchphrases at the instance of a mutually point-worthy moment, but here I am, me, my props, a schedule suited for the very determined and a license to strew at will.

I know of a couple occasions in which Americans of Eastern European descent tracked down relatives after the collapse of the Soviet Union and were saddened and shocked by the reception, treated rudely, constantly nagged or begged for money and in one case robbed by a first cousin under threat of fisticuffs and abandoned in an alley. I can’t excuse such behavior, of course, but it can be rationalized. Even by the mid-1990s, much of Eastern Europe was a socio-economic wasteland, and what little families had once they became free was destroyed by hyperinflation.

They who had nothing—in many cities of the former Soviet Union, hot water was a two or three hour a day luxury—were being graced by those who had everything and in the US we really did have everything. In the circumstance, can you blame them? I suppose the moral of the story is you can go home again, but not too soon. I experienced no such misfortune when I met long separated cousins, just the opposite in fact, but I visited much later, when conditions had calmed down appreciably, although public utilities were still a joke and the roads were shit. However, I hadn’t been to my spiritual homeland, or should I say I’d only been to one of them. I’ve dedicated this account to myself, well it’s my turn, but in reality this is for all who are curious about their family history, or anyone curious for that matter, about religion, traditions, culture, or the old country, the New Europe, or anything. This is a narrative, not a chronicle, it’s a story, rather than an academic study or a how-to guide. I did, however, seek my butter to the fish moment, or, the instance of crowning glory, when the hair stylist asks wax or gel, sir?

I can commence with my depiction of the expedition, soon, but beforehand I must get a few things off my chest. First, I had to complete an essay which had been brewing and stewing for some time. I’m worried about the direction my country is taking and it seems to be getting worse. We don’t know how to prioritize, or at least our leaders, media and opinion formers, and their followers, do not.

We’re too focused on the outliers. It may be true that our income distribution is skewed and steepening. It may be that our CEOs are overpaid and all too often, failure is rewarded more frequently than success. I recently read a statistic suggesting the top 1% enjoy as much as 7% of all income generated in a given year, or it may be wealth, I’m not sure I trust a figure pulled out of thin air anyway. Why? The other day I was reading a column, one I couldn’t help but nod my head with, critiquing the not so sage ‘wisdom’ of a gone-ideological Nobel prize winner for taking vicious pot-shots at a little guy made good through use of match-inspiring data selection techniques, when I concluded: he’s an asshole. Pay no heed to assholes. Case closed.

There’s another certain type, the Isgarths, who believe we should live for today, not merely by cherishing the here and now, but by consuming today at all cost, even if this means stealing from the consumption possibility of our children and children’s children tomorrow. Yea, let’s put the jobless to work by placing smokestack industries in our inner cities. Haven’t we learned from this mistake in the past? I label these individuals the lazy litterer, because they must consume immediately before the next person, and let someone else pick up the wrapper wherever it lands.

It sounds damning, but what does it signify? Are the rules of our society so warped or obsolete that three million are capable of ‘taking’ the wealth that might otherwise belong to so many more? Have they gathered this wealth by cheating, or merely by playing by the rules designed by those to whom we delegated the responsibility?

Moreover, should we make life worse for the top 1%, out of what, spite? But even if we could, would anything we might engineer to harm the well-being of the top 1% make life better for the rest of us, or would they become adept at sidestepping the new rules which would entrap the unintended rest of us even more? Inevitably, what spoils are calculable might end up in the pockets of the leaders’ favored sons. Need I name Muddy and Grubby names again?

At the bottom end of the scale sits an entrenched 20%; they seemingly are desolate. We should feel truly sorry for this group and do whatever we can, helping hands, charity, what have you. However, we also have to recognize there will always be a small percentage of the population that can not be helped, won’t be helped, even with gargantuan outlays, outlays many think are desirable. Think of this, though. Aside from the small subset of the 20%, do we know yesterday’s bottom quintile is the same as today’s, and if not, will today’s be different from tomorrow’s? If we can’t be confident we’re measuring ourselves properly, how can we be confident we understand ourselves properly?

Moreover, we don’t even have in place the policies that will help the poor, the ones that will help elevate the underprivileged and underachieving into the ranks of the middle class, nor do we know what would be effective. Rather than understand the motivations and aspirations of these groups, we’d prefer to brand them with negative epithets and otherwise kick a man when he’s down. We’re all guilty of this, me included. When I think of my own episodes of scorn rather than awareness, when I’ve allowed others to lead my agenda, it pains me.

We have the capacity both to provide the income support for the weaker groups and the incentives to foster self-esteem and self-respect. However, our resources are not unlimited and in a nation no longer with unlimited plenty, we must decide whether to protect and motivate the vulnerable, or to preserve the soft lives of our surplus municipal workers. Regrettably, we seem to prefer the status quo of the latter.

We are among the few countries, twenty perhaps, with the luxury of such positive choice. Let’s choose not to ignore the telling pilot studies any longer. Let’s exercize our choice in the right way! Starting Now!

Second, I was obliged to revisit the settings, scenes and backdrop of an earlier era, in a city called Marseille, to gauge what had changed since I was last there, so many years ago at the start of my first solo flight across the Atlantic for fun. In that era, the concept of Western Europe, any part of Western Europe, possessed a mystique and there was no corner I couldn’t spend a few days. The main purpose of my first visit was to explore on foot an area rendered infamous by new wave film directors with new wave film director glasses, no matter if their eyesight was 20:20 or 20:200. Walking across the sun-baked grape fields was a rush, more of a rush than hanging out in a converted fishing village with pretences of a conspicuous consumer. However, you couldn’t then fly or take a train direct, due to the placement of the Marine Alps and therefore by necessity Marseille was a stopping off point. Almost everyone else would move swiftly from the train to the bus station, and head immediately southeast, but I was young, foolish and fearless.

If there’s a common vein between the new and old Marseille, it’s that you can’t walk far without witnessing people who look like they’re ready to keel over, maybe they’re the same ones.