Monthly Archives: October 2014

Cities and Galleries: Washington, D.C.

 

Reflecting on a quick visit to Washington, D.C.  My wife and I visited a Byzantine Art exhibit at the National Gallery. My favorite items on display included a First Century marble sculpture, “Head of Aphrodite,” with a cross carved into the forehead by later Christians; a tile mosaic entitled “Personification of the Sun,” some late Third Century marble and glass vessels; a Sixth Century Marble funeral stellae, “Athenadora of Attica;” a First Century Macedonian plaster Capital (for a lost column) with acanthus leaves; a First Century silver cross, “The Adrianople Cross;” two marble Screens entitled “Lion Attacking a Deer” and “Lion Climbing a Tree to Munch on Grapes;” a late First Century Greek rust and cream colored plate depicting a bird and two griffins; a Fifth Century icon, “Icon of the Transfiguration;” and a fourth Century Constantinople piece, “Icon of the Archangel Michael,” with the signature golden globe painted behind Michael’s head.

The Byzantine Empire is hard to understand, but covers the collapse of Rome and beginning of the Middle Ages, and was the inheritor of the Roman Empire which collapsed. It was based in the Roman Eastern Empire, in Constantinople, where it held off the Germanic invasions, even regaining part of Italy and the Balkans, and maintained Christianity. Later, it held off the Persians and Arabs from the Eighth Century until 1450.

While in the National Gallery, I made a quick visit to some other old favorites, crisscrossing the hallways and galleries, to glimpse Leonardo di Vinci’s “Ginerva;” Degas’ “Madame Camus” in pink tones; Whistler’s Woman in white, Andrew Wyeth’s 1947 “Wind from the Sea” (lace curtains blowing inside a house); and Willard LeRoy Metcalf’s 1885 American impressionistic view of a French village, “Midsummer Twilight.” I followed up by sitting in the Cezanne room, enjoying his 1896 “House on a Hill, Province,” depicting his Cubist, angular houses under a light blue sky, and his 1890 “At the Water’s Edge,” in teal shades, rather than his usual brown and medium green splotches. You can see how Hemingway learned to write from Cezanne’s paintings, getting down the main idea, the broader impression of the landscape, the colors and green splotches, and the clear division of the canvas.

From the National, I walked across the street to the Newseum. I was impressed with the Berlin Wall section and accompanying film footage from 1961, and the galley of Pulitzer Prize photographs covering world history, including photos of the 1980 execution of the Americo-Liberians in Monrovia on the beach, the victims tied to telephone poles, by Sam Doe in 1980. Seeing these pictures, you wonder how the U.S. could then have supported Sergeant Doe after that. It was a policy based on “realpolitik,” one which I opposed while stationed later in Monrovia. At the entrance to the Newseum, there was an interesting film of the Kennedy Assassination, entitled “Three Shots Were Fired,” based on interviews at the time.

On the last day in town, my sister-in-law, Margaret, countered my arguments over kebab at the Lebanese Taverna restaurant that we need to turn back to earlier values, get control of education and crime, stop youth pregnancies and too many divorces, censor the violence on television, etc. She repeated what my wife has old me, that as we get older, we have trouble accepting change. That all generations have felt that way about new generations coming on. We have to go with the flow. Each generation finds its way. Margaret also said that she would have hard time living in D.C. because she needs to be closer to nature, less population, etc.  She needs to be able to smell the flowers, as in Montana where she lives.  I agree on the need for fresh air and space and a closer view of the surrounding nature.

On the other hand, Washington has so much to offer: Kramer Books at DuPont Circle, then crossing over Connecticut Avenue to Zorba’s Restaurant for Greek souvlaki, with Zorba-type music in the background, and photos of Santorini on the walls.  From there, its down the street, in the direction of my old apartment at Florida and R,  is the Phillips Gallery, with its magical second floor gallery displaying Chaim Soutine’s “After the Rain,” Cezanne’s self portrait, van Gogh’s olive-toned “The Road Menders,” and the Klees and Kandinsky’s. Downstairs are Renoir’s “The Boating Party,” Degas sketches of ballet students, and William Merritt Chase’s “Hide and Seek,” of the gilded age, in chocolate browns and white.  And, beyond DuPont Circle, there are Shakespeare Theater plays followed by tapas, or hamburgers and drafts at my old hangout, the Toombs, at Georgetown, plus symphonies at the Kennedy Center, Whistler paintings at the Freer Gallery, Sabrette “chili cheese” hot dogs from the street vendors, the Kruger courtyard at the Smithsonian Gallery, Luigi’s  pizza, Cafe Mozart wiener schnitzel, and sidewalk cafes downtown, like “Trios” in my wife’s old neighborhood. There are other favorites of mine, like the Spirit of St. Louis at the Air and Space Museum, Antietam’s Danker Church and Cornfield battlefields, Annapolis, Orioles Games, and Bogart films at the Biograph Theater.  What a way to spend twenty-five years of your life.  No complaints.

One of the highlights of the trip was the flight back from Chicago to El Paso on a small regional United Express jet, flying back in the night for three hours over the dark land, with yellow dots and squares representing cities spread over the canvas below, punctuating the black landscape far into the distance. The night was clear and there were no clouds below, just the big dipper above, as I sat, sipping my gin and tonic, admiring Kansas City as we flew directly over it, the street grids very clear down below, like a city map, with dark spaces where the Missouri river ran through town. A while later, we were north of what must have been Oklahoma City, perhaps one hundred miles distant.  We were still passing over small Kansas towns, perhaps Hutchinson, Emporia, ElDorado, McPherson, Newton, Pratt, and larger Wichita, almost directly below at one point. This is my wife’s homeland, her parents and grandparents’ Kansas. This is also the Kansas of my youth, living in Great Bend, Garden City, and Dodge City, traveling through the others as a child. Then, after Oklahoma City, we passed over a dark area of fewer lights as if entering a dark zone, for forty-five minutes until El Paso. Perhaps we flew over my hometown, Roswell, in this dark, desert space. It was magical, riding over the United States heartland at night, soaring, smooth, with the beautiful dotted towns below and others spreading out to the south and east.

 

 

 

Natasha

Sitting in the second floor restaurant of Moscow’s National Hotel, near Red Square, Walt, and I were enjoying late evening tea with Russian pancakes and sour cream. We were talking about the ballet we had just seen at the nearby Bolshoi Theater and our jobs in the Embassy’s political section. It was late October in 1991, and Yeltsin had only been in power three months. The communists were out, but the conservative legislature resisted reform. No one said the words, but “civil war” seemed a possibility. Walt said, no, there was no going back, now that the people have had a taste of freedom.

The street names had just been changed, no longer called after “Lenin” and “Karl Marx,” or “Gorky” like the one out front had been. Statues of Lenin and communist slogans had mainly been taken down. Consumerism was taking hold, but democratic values were still not fully understood.

Images of the ballet we had just seen were floating through my mind, of the “Wilis,” the spirits of young brides left at the altar, suicides, hopping together each on one leg, bouncing in unison across the darkened, eerie set, their trailing legs extending straight out behind, two formations of dancers coming from opposite sides of the stage, passing through each other, with the swirling Alphonse Adam music in the background. It was pure beauty, one of the most beautiful things I know. How odd for ballet, to have the hopping, yet it was somehow graceful and gliding. The hopping maidens apparently touched something pagan in me, something subconscious, going back to archaic Greece.

It occurred to me as we were talking, that I had probably sat at this same table during my earlier tour, ten years before, when this was an Intourist hotel, and I was a junior Foreign Service officer ordering the same blinis and sour cream, coming here after some Soviet lecture, perhaps the one when an inebriated cosmonaut, Titov, the second after Gagarin, recounted his harrowing ride back to earth with no radiation shield, and an old woman in the audience yelling at him to stop, saying there were foreign spies in the audience, pointing up at me. What a society they had created. I said I would never return to Russia after that tour, but here I was.

Looking across the table, it occurred to me that Walt had not served in those days. He was a bit younger, and more open minded about Russia, not the Cold Warrior. But, he was not soft, either.  I admired Walt for his Russia knowledge and language skills, and for being an intellectual. He was a real Russia scholar, and the first in the Embassy to see that we had to give up on Gorbachev and go with Yeltsin.

Over the pancakes he asked: “Do you think Russia will make it?”  He was talking about the rough transition to democracy.  The elites were still divided between hard line conservatives and more moderate reformers.  On one week, Yeltsin would be on top.  The next week, the Duma would be openly challenging him.

“I think the Russian mentality is changing and that freedom can not be put back in the box,” I said..  “Communism will not reappear.  The Communist Party leader, Zyugannov, has little support.  But, Russia may suffer some setbacks over the next twenty years.  It will be a long process.  There may be some walking back from the free market and from Western style democracy, but they will get there.   They have to have time to change the mentality, to appreciate lawyers more and factory directors less. The mentality has to change, not just the institutions.”  I looked out the window at the bundled up pedestrians on the sidewalk below, heading home in the dark.

While Walt was looking at the street out front, I looked down to the alley below, and noticed a young white and gray cat searching for scraps near the street light.  Memories of another cat came to mind. I had a lump in my throat.

Walt said something that I didn’t get.

“I’m sorry, Walt,  what did you say?”

My mind was distracted, remembering Natasha, my cat from my earlier tour in Moscow, in 1980, when the Soviets were expanding into Afghanistan, threatening “Solidarity” in Poland, and shooting down Korean Airlines flight 007.  It was the low point of the Cold War, when American diplomats were being harassed. I had been jostled in Leningrad once.  There were “provocations,” Russian citizens passing us notes on the street.  Apartments would be searched and family photographs would disappear. Cigarette butts would be left behind. Car windshields were smashed. You might get bumped at a stop light by the car behind you. It might happen to your spouse. Sometimes there were physical attacks. The Russians answered our diplomatic protests by saying it was just drunks or “hooligans,” not the KGB.

During that tour, I had picked up a stray cat in my apartment compound, white with gray patches and green eyes.  She was a big talker who followed me around my apartment and slept on the bed.  I named her Natasha.  One day she slipped out of the apartment while workmen were there, and disappeared.  I was heart broken, and feared it was not an accident, but perhaps retaliation for my meeting with Soviet dissidents.  I watched for Natasha for the rest of the tour, for months, but never saw her again.

Seeing the white and gray cat in the alley brought the memory of her suddenly back.

Walt brought me back to the present, paying the check for the pancakes.   As we left the hotel and stepped out front, I could hear sparks from on overhead tram line. A white full moon was silhouetted against a starless black sky, illuminating onion domes across Red Square. I didn’t see any sign of the cat in the alley.