Trafika Europe 13 - Russian Ballet

Igor Sakhnovsky

extralegal “internal” principle of divine justice, for which not a soul in the world gave a damn. Of his funerary infraction, Schneiderman confessed but to a single person, convulsively stiffening his shoulders and hiding his eyes somewhere in the direction of his chest pocket. That lone person was Lina. Before Lina’s appearance, what we observed was an absolutely unique example of inviolable, unalloyed self-sufficiency. Schneiderman could have served as a visual aid for the demonstration of the basic definition of “the basket of consumer goods”. The puzzling biblical declaration about the poor being rich in spirit seemed to me a puffed-up exaggeration, until I got to know Gena Schneiderman that is. His independence required no special exertion, neither spiritual nor corporeal, regarding the accomplishment of aims with revulsion, as though it were a compulsory labor. For perpetual happiness and the feeding of the belly – for every season under the sun – the current of events, the pure duration of living in the moment, and the obvious charms of the cherished Crimean landscape were sufficient for him, and with surplus. Entrenched as he was in this landscape, he presented to Lina’s emerald gaze (she a vacationer, a purebred snowbird from the capital city) by turn a godlike Odysseus, striding along the shoreline of pulsing surf with ever- dripping oars stowed on his sunbaked shoulders, by

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