Hell and paradise. Марина Кужман

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      CONTENTS

      AFTERWORD…221

      PREVIEW

      Why Hell and why Paradise? When you read my book- I think you found answer. But if shortly-inspiration for this book was my life in New York mostly 1995—1999. Even why the cover for this book: Twin Towers the highest buildings in New York in that time. When I see these Two I feel happiness and new building on the same place after 9/11 not evoke It. I don’ t know may be it just my feeling, but all the book is my perception of reality. The story begin from happenstance-casual acquaintance with American musician. Steve was not so famous, but he was amazing beautiful personality and everything was wonderful in him, if remind Anton Chekhov: " … and face and manners and clothes and thoughts and feelings.

      And plus he was divine talented. He was music itself. He was magnetically attractive.

      It was not possible not to fall in love with this irresistible man. How Shakespeare wrote:”. . if love could eat, she would eat music…” But then other meeting with another interesting man- James Bond.

      How Michel Foucault wrote:

      “Power is worthy of love, and when it has a positive effect, progress brings knowledge and pleasure.” It was happiness – to contemplate such compelling understanding generous enough in all his the best kindly exertions and plus it looked that he was not cracked nowhere. New love gave huge motivation for spiritual growing. Love refresh life. Everything is born of love, it is influence on all sides of life.

      There is a lot of poetry in this history, and if you asked only the artistic old side, you could create a beautiful illusion, inspire a golden dream, but I am agree with Dostoyevsky’s observation: “it is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool’s paradise.” But it is really not so easy to follow this advice when one is watching a loved one repeatedly relive the pain of loss

      brought about by well meaning “truthtellers.”

      There is no dignity in living a life of the constant emotional pain. But sadistic people created this atmosphere – humiliation and sadism have much less dignity then to whom they are tortured.

      And in many ways I wrote this book following observation’ Michelle Fuco “..The real political task is to ensure that the political violence that is carried out behind the scenes in them is exposed, so that people can fight against them.”

      We have to know where we live. It is very popular talking about fascism and Stalinism which was 60—70 years ago, but it is hard to see and write about that it is going now here in country in city where in the Centre building UN and Statue of Liberty.

      It is very difficult to talk about the manifestations of terrible sadism, experiments on living people, a gross violation of human rights and you live among people in the center of the world and nobody cares about you and your rights.

      And again paraphrasing Foucault:

      I’m talking about the ability to create, about the technical difficulty of writing this book.

      And not only because English is not your first language, what is happening does not fit into the usual framework, so I chose English and as a child, faced with a new environment for it, I learned how to describe it, respond to it as it should, learn to speak and think about it is completely for itself in a new way. I think that such actions can be defined as creative. The mostly hardly was found definition for everything what it was in that tragic and sad time and then shallow time.

      If we understand democracy, we will not be divided into classes, not ordered hierarchically then it absolutely clear that we are extremely far from it, It is also quite clear that we live under a regime of class dictatorship, a class power that is imposed through violence.

      Hell and Paradise

      STREET

      In January 1995, I rented a place on Seventh Avenue and Fifty-Fifth Street, a big apartment in Manhattan.

      With me in the room was a girl of forty- five from the Philippines. She worked in housekeeping for rich people. I worked in bookkeeping for a seafood company. I started working there when I used to live in Brooklyn, but now it is very far from the place where I live. It is about two hours of traveling on the train and bus, and the owner pays me just $6 an hour. My duty was to accept orders for fish on the phone from restaurants and cafes. My boss, an old Greek, always bought good lunch for me from the restaurant and sat near close, too close, talking about his life – how hard it is, how he’s sorry that he left his own country for the USA, and how much he has to work now to support his family, but his friends and relatives who stayed in Greece have a much more easy and happy life.

      I felt nauseated from the smell of the fish, I was tired from hearing different voices on the phone, and I felt uncomfortable having lunch with my boss.

      I was thinking how to change, how to find something better and easy – more money and less effort. I know all in life takes effort – overcoming aversion and having perseverance and patience just serve it.

      One evening, the girl from the Philippines, with a friendly smile, persuaded me to go with her to a dancing place. It was a big enough space with a hall. The public was very diverse. It was an evening of dancing for adults. Mostly people were over forty. Some women were dressed very pretentious in long dresses with long foxtail and open chest. For me, it looked very funny, and they did their face with a lot of cosmetics. They looked like battered bourgeoisie in the beginning of Soviet movies. There I saw a lot of women who looked simple, came here from a different country, and worked here as babysitters and housekeepers. They helped their family because dollar was very high and they were full of hope to find a good groom mostly even after forty who, later explained by my roommate from the Philippines, were still virgins because they were religious and responsible. I was dressed in a short skirt and blouse. I came with the promise of my friend to acquaint me with men who can help me to find a new job, and she really introduced me to a few men. One was a retired military man. He took me dancing a few times and asked me to meet with him and promised to help me. The other was a German man but born in the USA; he said the same. And then the other was a pharmacist; he just liked me very much and wanted to date me in the future. Need to tell that in that time special, when I moved in the center of Manhattan, I became a success among men. They all were looking for a girlfriend or wife, but I that time again started to miss Boris and my daughter, whom I was missing permanent, and my plan again was to make some money and go back to Russia.

      When I met with Lexington, the German man, he gave me advice to start a massage business and make fast extra money. Lexington helped me to begin by making an ad in one popular Manhattan newspaper and instructed me how I must be – that if I don’t like the voice on the phone, don’t go, and if I hear what I do not like.

      But he observed me and said, “Nothing will happen to you. Nobody will touch you. You look very tough.” Soon, my ad appeared:

      “Russian college girl make massage for tired Americans. 24 hours. In and Out.”

      I made some preparations. I bought phone with answer serves, Canadian black suit, shirt, skirt, and jacket, fitting me very well, emphasizing my slender figure. And one woman for whom one time in a week I worked as a housekeeper gave me two new white silk blouses. Also I bought beautiful black silk shoes with high heels.

      The massage business, staying one on one with different men, taught me not to be afraid of men. Very often, I went to a new address, stayed one on one in the apartment with a new man, but nobody abused me. Thank you, American women. They taught them to be gentle.

      Not just in public, but they are nice and respectful when there are no witnesses. Here, any conflict between a woman and a man, always the police will be on the woman’s side. I remember when I came to the USA, on TV was a longtime ongoing hearing on a case: one Latino woman cut the penis of her American husband, and the court approved her. It shows that even married men can have sex with his wife just when she wishes it. But very soon, one event broke all my business.

      STEVE

      It