The She-Lion

The Russians!, says the poet. The Russians! He's glad I asked him about them. He's glad, and he's not glad, the poet says.

There's Mandelstam, of course, eternal Mandelstam, and there's Tsvetayeva, fierce, fierce Tsvetayeva, a she-lion, the poet says. A vixen. She makes him shudder, the poet says. Her life. Her terrible fate.

No, there are some things of which it would be indecent to speak, the poet says. I shouldn't torment him with my questions about the Russians. The Russians, the Russians, he says.

He photocopied Russian poetry in the university library, he says. You didn't need a security pass in those days, he says. You could just sneak into the library, he says. No one cared. No one was looking. But nowadays …, he says, and shudders.

He has them in a folder somewhere, his photocopied Russian poetry, he says. He can't even remember their names, those poets, and after he went to such trouble to photocopy them. Fet – that was one name. But there were others, he says. He loved them fiercely, he says. He loved them like a she-lion, he says. As Tsvetayeva must have loved: terribly, fiercely.

What a fate, what a fate, he sighs. Her letters. Her letters are the best of all, he says. You can't get them in a complete edition, alas, he says. Not in English. You have to make do with seeing parts of the letters quoted, he says. By Cixous. By Feinstein, in her biography of Tsvetayeva.

For a time, the poet says, he had a job teaching English to Russians, the university employed him, he says. He taught a Russian Professor, Vladimir and his wife, Ludmilla. He pronounces these names very carefully, the poet. Vladimir sounds more like Vludimir, when he says it. Vladimir and Ludmilla, he says.

Of course, Russians value their poetry, says the poet. All Russians. They can quote it by heart. It lives in their heart, just as it did Mandelstam. The Russians are a soulful people, he says. They had no Enlightenment, he says, not really. And they had Orthodox Christianity, nor Catholic Christianity, which makes a difference, he says. The theologians of the Russian Orthodox church were poets, not philosophers, as they were in the west. The Russians think differently to us, he says. They're a poetic people.

He would ask Vladimir – he pronounces it Vludimir – and Ludmilla simply to pronounce the word Tsvetayva. Simply to pronounce it! Svetayev, they would say – that's what it sounded like. Svetayev, he would say to himself on the bus on the way home. Svetayev, and he would add a very quite – a on the end of the name as they did. Not Svetayeva, he says, emphasising the last syllable, but Svetayev …