Month: November 2013

“Michael’s Gate” picture at Bratislava brought to us memories of the old square of the Slovak capital city in summer 2010.

We were walking peacefully, Gena, my dear brother, was then with us. (Photo of the picture is above, and to the right is the photo of Gena and Janko on the background is seen the Michael’s Gate.)

All of a sudden Gena disappeared. We looked around as if it happened a miracle.

We started worrying and worrying. But he is an adult of 68 y.o. and decided to wait.

Next day he came to the village where we stayed.

“Where have you been, brother?” I asked anxiously.

He was silent for a long time, and then when we remained alone with him, he confessed:

“I met my first love, a Ukrainian girl, at the “Michael’s Gate cafe”, I could not believe my eyes. Oksana was wearing a neat skirt and a blue and white-striped linen blouse, looked extremely beautiful in the cafe shining light, that girl whom I intended to marry but instead married the other one when I was young. She was a waitress here, saw me and asked:”Gena! What is it?”

I tried to tell her but choked over the words.

I was emotionally shocked. Oksana, dear Oksana, how many years had passed!

I put my arms around her, and we clung together like sorrowing schoolgirls.

“Don’t say anything now, Gena”, she said quietly. “My shift is over, let’s go to my room. I live nearby and celebrate our meeting.” She kissed me, put her hands on mine.

For a moment we stayed like that, our faces only inch or two apart. It was impossible to tell her that she represented all the things they’d lost in their lives, wrong partners in marriages, unhappy previous relationships and so on, and so on.

She represented peace, homeland, his youth, his whole life even, in a way nobody else ever had.

My head turned uncertainly as I kissed her throat but she did not resist.

We hurried to her room. We kissed each other all over, and I felt her tense and saw her eyes fill with tears.

Oksana gave a little moan, after all the wasted years, crucified by her longing for me. “Oh,Gena”, she whispered again…

She turned a lost face towards me. Love, I decided, was a sort of self-immolation that left you dizzy,but, with her in my arms, again, I didn’t care.

There had been many times in recent years when there’d been a loneliness it seemed impossible to endure, but suddenly, now I felt I was no longer on my own. We kissed with painful intensity and then she was crying, hard sobs with taut lips, and clenched teeth, small and lost like a child, as if she were putty in my hands…”

“Oh, that was a case”, I said with compassion. “I remember that was Oksana from Ternopol, isn’t she?”

“Yes”, Gena answered.

Listen to:

If You are Today..

Viewing the sketch by Marta Pavelcova which was given to us as a present by Jana Holla (wife of Jan Holly, Tekla’s son, Janko’s father Viktor’s favourite sister) one can feel the poverty-stricken house under the straw roof.

1964. It was the year when Jana and Marta were 15, went to the same school in Bratislava, visited the same class.

The girls were good friends, both inquisitive and adventurous. One of them was after drawing, taking lessons in painting in Germany, the other one was more interested in history and grammar. They were teenagers, Marta and Jana.

The incredibly luminous Bratislava summer was in 1964, unruly in its generosity, brightened the sky, the land, and the river Danube. The bodies of two half-naked little boys, running beside them, were dark like chocolate. The lucky little boys! They did not know yet how difficult to study and help their families to work earning some money for living after school. The boys could run bare-footed and splash in the river.

And then two young girls, walking under one multi-coloured umbrella, rushed toward them, both blond and wearing light flowered dresses.

Marta could not really see the properly. Her impaired eye, affected by the bright sun, already ceased to distinguish the details and was watering. With a furtive, so as not to attract attention, she knocked off the tears. So be it! Some enjoy summer swimming, some need to study and work at the present time. For each is its own.

Marta opened her sketch book and started to draw. Jana was fond of Marta’s aketches. One dat her friend gave her as a gift this one “The Slovak Village” to be presented to us 45 years later during our first visit to Male Levare in 2009.

Memory takes us back that time when we were sitting on the bench as, perhaps, those two girls, Marta and Jana, near the Bratislava fortress castle, watching from above the Danube river flowing calmly and graciously.

The city pigeons were in abundance. We began to search in our empty pockets. I shook out some bread crumbs, onto the palm of my right hand; and then I began to throw them onto the asphalt, tempting pigeons who were strolling on the square.

A bold rock pigeon, with a sparrow’s energy, fluttered over to the bench, and stealing up sideways right up to my legs, began to peck at the crumbs.

The shadow which unexpectedly fell on the bird had frightened it. Madly beating its wings, the rock pigeon went up with a creaking sound, spinning away from us…

The small cute drawing by Marta Pavelcova, Jana’s school mate from Bratislava, found its new dignified home at our Mucha salon.

Listen to: MISTRINANKA, Mamko vam

The new picture of the Mucha’s series of the Slav Epic (all in all: twenty paintings, ten – on Czech subjects, ten – on broader Slavic themes, a free gift from Mucha to the newly independent Czech nation, on September 01, 1928) has arrived to our home.

The picture’s name is “The Singing Teachers’ Choir of Moravia”.

It took the prominent place on one of the walls on the main floor, that is the big re-opening of Mucha salon, moving upstairs from the basement.

For this grand event we invited some dear friends of ours and had a wonderful soiree.

The picture of it is to the right.

We are talking and having fun at the same time.

Val(1): Irene, what do you think about this Mucha’s picture?

Irene(2): Unusual. The girl is sitting on the tree, listening to the birds. The composition is attractive.

1: And what about you? Janko?

Janko(3): As for me, this picture differs from the other ones, for example, Mucha’s pictures of Art Nouveau style.

1: In which way? Art Nouveau, what is it?

3: Nature is the major form of expression in Art Nouveau, trees, flowers, colours which are flowing, it derives from Moravian, Czech, Slovak folklore.

2: I heard that Mucha’s models of women were his wife Marishka and daughter Jaroslava. Is it the truth, Janko?

3: Yes, indeed. By Mucha’s Art Nouveau ideas was inspired the Spanish sculptor Gaudi, when we saw Gaudi’s round-cornered buildings in Barcelona.

1: However, this picture belongs to the Slav Epic, isn’t it? Where did you get it, Janko?

3: I ordered it from Amazon.com.

2: How much is it?

3: Total price with the framing is 250 dollars CAD.

2: It is expensive, isn’t it?

2: Not really. ’cause it is a poster on canvas Number 1411. It is a commercial price.

2: Congratulations on the grand re-opening of Mucha salon in your home, and I am glad to see it.

Listen to the  music:

Moravanka, Pres veselske luky