The Café Boris Writers Group

On 17 July 2011 at approximately 6.13 pm something unusual happened. Boris had an idea.

 

He joined Dmitri at his usual table where he was nursing a vodka, while the vodka nursed him through his life’s woes and worries.

 

“This writing course you give your student, Katya,” he said.

 

Dmitri looked up, hoping his face didn’t reveal his concern. Did Boris somehow know he was having an affair with Katya? Was he about to threaten him? Blackmail him? 

 

“This is more than a café,” Boris continued, “It is a community. I want to offer my customers more, to nurture their souls.”

 

Dmitri said nothing, though all the time he was thinking ‘Who are you, and what have you done with Boris?’  

 

“A writers group would be the perfect activity for a café such as this. There are a number of aspiring poets who come here, plus your ex-students.

 

Dmitri said nothing. He was trying to make sense of Boris’ sudden interest in literature.

 

“We need hardly charge,” Boris continued. “Any fee would be for materials, café-space and of course your time.”

 

Ah, it is Boris, thought Dmitri, ‘this is just another money-making ruse’.

 

“It is noisy in here, Boris, not convivial to writing,” he said.

 

“Noisy? But this place is dead.” It was true, Café Boris was going through its regular early evening lull. The place would pick up as wives returning from work decided that they couldn’t be bothered cooking, or as men decided that they couldn’t be bothered with their wife’s company.

 

“This is the quietest time of day, perfect for a writers group.”

 

“There are no writers in Café Boris,” Dmitri persisted. “Most of the customers are tourists, the rest, well you know your customers. They are not poets, they are drinkers.”

 

“I am always reaching out. I don’t see this as a café, I see this as a part of life. Stories happen here, why shouldn’t they be written here. All life is poetry, here, this spoon,” he picked up a spoon from Dmitri’s table, “this spoon is poetry. The perfection of its shape, the smooth, rounded cup, the straight, functional handle.”

 

“Only you could find poetry in spoons, Boris.”

 

Boris beckoned Dmitri closer, leant over and placed his mouth to Dmitri’s ear, as if the conversation they were about to have was so secret that nobody, not even Olyana, could be trusted to hear it.

 

‘I will pay you Dmitri. Why not, you are a teacher yet you do not teach. Let Café Boris come to your aid as it has for so long.”

 

“You are right I suppose. I don’t teach, except a few lessons for Katya, and those won’t last. When do you want me to start? What do you want me to do?”

 

“Next week. Thursday, this time.  Do one of the lessons you do for Katya, no extra work and we both make a few hvennas.”

 

Dmitri thought about the last ‘lesson’ he had had with Katya, an afternoon of lovemaking so passionate that he forgot he was pressing towards 50 and almost felt young again.

 

“Good. We will shake on it yes. For we are men of business. I will put the word around. For every café has their secret scribblers. That Harry Potter woman, JK Rowling, she wrote all of those books in a café without so much as a thank you to the café owner on the front page. Western ingrate.”

 

Boris clearly hasn’t experienced many writers’ groups, thought Dmitri, if he’s expecting every café to have a JK Rowling. More likely it will be full of frustrated poets who got told to stop writing at school because their poems were too wordy, but simply carried on in secret.

 

Or, there will be no-one there at all.

 

Come the next Thursday evening, there were people there. Not many, but enough for the workshop to go ahead. Katya was there, to show support, and an old student of Dmitri’s from his teaching days, Symon, who now worked as an insurance clerk but was still writing in his spare time. Besides these, there were two English tourists, neither of whom spoke a word of Russian or Ukrainian, and Danya, a sometimes visitor to the café and friend of Sergei’s, who contributed occasional articles to the Dynamo Luhansk football fanzine.

 

“Has everyone brought something to read?” Dmitri asked. There was a nervous shuffling, as nobody wanted to stick there neck out by going first. Eventually Katya agreed to read one of her poems, entitled Stuck in the Dirt. The poem was humorous, about a young woman, a farmer’s daughter, leaving the family farm to start a new life in the west, but getting stuck in the mud halfway down the track.

 

“That is clearly a metaphor,” boomed Boris when the poem concluded, “a metaphor for wanting to leave home but finding the ties bind you.”

 

“I suppose,” Katya agreed reluctantly, “although when I wrote it I was just literally describing the physical experience of being stuck in the mud. It happened when I was out for a country walk. I loved the squelching noise, but was at the same time terrified I’d wandered into a swamp and was about to be swallowed up and eaten by the Earth.”

 

Boris shook his head. “No, no, no, it is a metaphor. Think about it, the girl is trying to leave the country, to go to the city, and she finds the very soil that raised her holding her back. It is a powerful image.”

 

Katya laughed and shrugged agreement. There was no point her offering her opinion, after all she was only the author.

 

“Has anyone else brought anything to read?” Dmitri asked.

 

Boris translated the request to the English couple. “I have some stories on my computer,” the man said to Boris, “but you would have to translate.”

 

“That is no problem,” Boris said, “it is all part of the Café Boris service.”

 

The story was a short piece about a journalist travelling through Eastern Europe, who falls into an argument with a local, in spite of the two of them speaking different languages.

 

“The universal language of disagreement, what a great tale that was,” Boris boomed as the story concluded. “If only I had been there, I could have helped the argument continue. It is one of the services I provide.”

 

Next to read was Danya. He apologised for never having written any poetry and proceeded to read his latest article from the Luhansk fanzine, a piece comparing the Dynamo Luhansk striker Ivan Matyazh to a piece of cheese.

 

“This is metaphor?” Boris asked.

 

The man shrugged. “I don’t know what it is. It’s just every time I see Matyazh play I think of cheese.”

 

“What type of cheese?” Dmitri asked. “It is unclear from your article.”

Again Danya shrugged his shoulders. “How should I know. Cheese is cheese. I’m a football fan, not a chef.”

 

“We should sort this out once and for all,” said Boris. “Olyana,” he bellowed into the kitchen, “bring us a cheese board, a selection of all the cheeses we have in the café.”

 

After a short wait, during which time Dmitri explained the meaning of metaphor and how it’s use can enhance a story or poem, Olyana arrived with a plate of a dozen different cheeses.

 

“Now see how different these cheeses are,” Boris said, “this little thing is squishy and smelly, whereas this, he tapped it with a spoon and it thudded like a drum, “this is hard, solid and has neither smell nor taste. So which cheese reminds you of Matyazh?”

“I don’t know. I shall have to try them. Danya lifted the first cheese to his mouth, licked and smelt it and then took a nibble. “Oh no, not this one, this is more like a midfielder.”

 

“Try this one. It is a goats cheese.”

 

“A goat’s cheese.” Danya sniffed and tasted a mouthful. “That is more like Ivan Tsyupa, small and soft, yet with a fearsome kick on it.”

 

“What about this?” Boris passed him some Red Leicester.

“Yes, yes, this is Matyazh. That’s exactly what I meant. Hard, plain, dull, it looks like cheese, smells like cheese, but tastes of nothing. You were right Boris, I was using a metaphor. Ivan Matyazh is like Red Leicester cheese.”

 

Feeling the evening was drifting away from his original plans, Dmitri insisted that the group try a short writing exercise: everyone had fifteen minutes to write a short piece of poetry or prose about something they had experienced.

 

Everyone wrote about cheese.

 

The session ended with the rendition of a few of Dmitri’s poems, followed by some drinking.

 

The writing group continued the following week. Danya fan was there, but the rest of the group were new, however the overall number had increased and that was without Dmitri having to ask his friends to come along.

 

As before, Boris interjected at various points and translated for those that wrote in another language. Dmitri made particular effort to praise Boris’ translation. “To translate literature is a rare skill,” he said, “to do so spontaneously, seemingly from any language to any other language is a privilege to witness.”

 

Boris said nothing, though was clearly flattered. “I can only work with the material I am given,” he said. “It is lucky for me that the writing people bring here is good. I would hate to have to translate a pile of crap.”

By the third week word had gotten around. Or maybe there was simply nothing else happening that evening. For whatever reason the café was full of aspiring writers. Luckily, most of them were shy and there was time to hear from everyone who had brought something to read.

 

After the last customer had recited her haikus, Boris, who had been slouched on a table listening to the readings, stood up. “And now,” he said, “I think I shall read one of my pieces.

 

‘So there was an alternative motive to Boris wanting me to run a writers’ group,’ Dmitri thought, ‘he wanted an opportunity to read his own work. Maybe he’s not that different to the rest of humanity after all.’

 

A couple in a corner were chattering amongst themselves. Clearly annoyed Boris picked up a spoon and banged it fiercely against the table, until all attention was 100% focused on him and silence was the only sound that dared be heard.

 

Dmitri would later describe Boris’ poem as the greatest piece of writing he had ever experienced. It was a simple piece about facing your own mortality, an area covered so many times, but none quite like this. It was subtle, brutal, subtle, fierce and fragile. Boris repeated the poem in five different languages, such was the make-up of the clientele that evening.  At the end of each recitation the café cheered.

 

The next week nobody turned up for the group. It was as if Boris had set such a high standard that nobody felt fit to belong to the same writers circle. Boris showed no inclination to take part and Dmitri was left alone with his note-book, though unable to write.

 

After another writer-free week the following week the sessions stopped and Café Boris returned to normal, although Dmitri was more aware than ever that Boris was an entity that he would never fully understand.