The Ahasfer Game The first novel in the Michael Fridman trilogy By Grigori Gerenstein If the boy is the father of the man and his culture is the mother, the boy should be married to his culture. Otherwise, the man they produce will be an illegitimate bastard. London is a place where destinies and fortunes are made. I arrived there in the dry June of 1989, having spent three years in Israel after a painful emigration from the Soviet Union. My very first encounter on British soil was with a passport control officer, and he made me think hard about the purpose and meaning of my existence; not quite the grilling one is to get at the Pearly Gates, but pretty challenging, still. Indeed, how do you explain to this Bangladeshi-born British official the purpose of your visit? I want to touch my cultural and spiritual roots? Not good enough. I want to steep myself in the values that make my presence on this earth tolerable? Whatever, but are you able to finance your stay in the UK? I don’t know. I haven’t tried yet. Are you? Just give me a chance to find out. I’ll be very happy to come back to your booth in a few years’ time and give you a detailed progress report. Maybe then you and I can together figure out the purpose of my visit. Armageddon According To Mark The second novel in the Michael Fridman trilogy By Grigori Gerenstein Michael Fridman’s mother, who lives in Israel, is a nonsmoking, mature, professional Jewish widow with a sense of humor and a son who never lives up to her expectations. Her new boyfriend, Mark Schtirlitz, is a fat slob of a brandy-guzzling failure of a musician with a secret mission—he is composing a musical with a working title “Armageddon.” Mark waddled the few short steps to the sea, stopping just where the dying waves could lick his toes. He surveyed the golden sea, the blue sky and his noisy buddies, and said, “This is where we make our last stand, our last ditch. When Syrian tanks get here, they’ll find us standing in the sea and making rude gestures at them, all lined up nicely, ready to be shot.” “Well,” I said. “As last ditches go, this one’s pretty luxurious.” “We live here between the Scylla and Haribda of complete peace and total annihilation,” Mark declaimed. “Mark,” I said. “I couldn’t put it better myself.” “God, I’m in a poetic mood this morning,” Mark marvelled. “That means I drank just the right amount of brandy last night. Mixing it with vodka definitely works. I should write a musical about that. Did you happen by any chance to make note of the exact amount I consumed?” “No, sorry,” I apologised. “It all got rather blurred toward the end.” “Don’t worry,” he comforted me. “We’ll have to do some more tests tonight. It’s a science that requires absolute precision.” He made a few slow-motion steps further into the water to where the waves could rise to his navel. Then he stretched his arms up in the air until a pleasant tremor ran down his spine and declaimed, “And I gently plunged my sweaty balls into the cool streams of the Mediterranean.” “Mark, are you working on a sequel to the Iliad by any chance?” I wondered. “No,” he replied earnestly. “I tend to follow the advice of my elders and betters in being wary of the Greeks bearing gifts. However, I am indeed embarked on a creative project.” “Really?” I asked. “Do tell.” “I am composing a musical,” he informed me proudly. “A musical?” I asked. “Do you have a working title?” “I do indeed,” he assured me. “Armageddon.” The Lucrezia Borgia European Marriage Center The third novel in the Michael Fridman trilogy By Grigori Gerenstein San Gimignano in Tuscany is a place where the wandering Jews longing to belong becomes especially acute. Here among the shadows of the past and real descendants of those shadows, he finds his peace. Michael Fridman has given all his money to an orphanage outside Moscow. Alexander Brut is greatly unsettled by the news. Once again Michael has done something he, Brut, is not capable of doing. In fact Brut, who is stopping over in Moscow on his way from Grozny to London, is so upset that he simply has to console himself with a tryst with a call girl. Thus Brut becomes the subject of blackmail, and he has to hide in the orphanage while Michael is dealing with his case. Here Brut meets Mr. Fidget, a teenage Russian orphan. Mr. Fidget’s mother committed suicide, unable to cope with her husband’s infidelity, and his father took to drink and died a year later in a traffic accident, having crashed into a roadside oak tree. In Brut’s own words, “Despite the perturbations of his babyhood Mr. Fidget is a remarkable little whippet-snippet. He reminds me vividly of myself at his age – hungry for life, hungry for knowledge and taking no prisoners when it comes to amusing himself.”
Posted on: Thu, 17 Oct 2013 09:57:41 +0000
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