Who Is Martha? by Marjana Gaponenko Page A

town?”
    “I know,” Levadski said and felt his heart pounding at the portals of his brain.
    “How long are you staying there?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You can speak our language very well!” This praise coming from the mouth of a pitch-black man made Levadski laugh. “Where are you from?” he asked Levadski with a heavy accent.
    “I’m from the East.” Levadski paused. “From Ukraine.” He noticed he was lying. He was lying, even though he was telling the truth. In the political sense Levadski really was from Ukraine, it was written in black and white in his passport, but from a historical perspective he was from two utopias: Austro-Hungary and the Soviet Union. The one and only thing that smacked of a lie was the realization that Levadski had survived two systems of government.
    “I know Ukraine,” said the taxi driver, “I studied telecommunications in Germany, my roommate was from Kiev. His name was Petro and he always ate sour pickles in the morning to get his hangover under control. He liked to joke. For example, when I scratched my head, he would say: ‘Don’t scratch – wash!’” Levadski broke into a dirty laugh and immediately apologized. “Yes, Petro was funny …”
    “Are you still in touch with him?”
    The taxi driver shook his head. His black face had a purple sheen to it in the red of the traffic light. “He’s dead. Froze to death on a park bench in winter.”
    “Oh,” said Levadski.
    “Yes,” said the taxi driver. “That wouldn’t have happened to him in the Ivory Coast. That’s where I’m from.”
    With every new traffic light, Levadski warmed a little more to the taxi driver. He would have liked to examine him by daylight. “What do you think of our language?” the taxi driver asked him.
    “Which language?”
    “The German language,” the taxi driver laughed. Beautiful. Levadski thought it was a very beautiful language, and romantic. The taxi driver cautiously turned round, his leather jacket scrunching madly. “You know, this is the first time I am hearing someone say that German is a beautiful language. I am pleased, because I think it is too.”
    “I am pleased to hear it,” Levadski said. He would have liked to continue talking about the beauty of the German language but didn’t say anything. He remained silent and took pleasure in the rising bubbles of joy, savored the experience of sitting beneath the roof of a car with a special person, a black taxi driver, Ivorian by birth, someone who had studied telecommunications, who had borrowed the German language. Levadski smiled in the darkness of the taxi.
    “What do you think of the EU?” the man from the Ivory Coast wanted to know.
    “The EU is a blessing. Migratory birds, for example, have always been real Europeans.”
    “That’s terrific,” said the taxi driver. “Terrific,” he repeated softly, as if a state secret had just been entrusted to him and he had understood its meaning.
    Levadski’s drinking cane exited the taxi like a gentle hoof, followed by a slightly clumsier Levadski. A liveried bellhop disappeared through a side door with his suitcase. “Goodbye!” Levadski waved to the taxi driver. A chain of fireflies lit up the darkness of the car’s interior.
    “Take care!” the taxi driver shouted, “Long live the birds!” Smiling, Levadski stepped from the revolving door into the hotel lobby.
    “A reservation has been made for me. Levadski is my name. Luka Levadski.”
    Shortly after the liveried bellhop deposited Levadski’s suitcase with a dull thud on the luggage rack and took his leave with the intimation of a bow, there was a soft and melodious ringing at the door. Before Levadski could even say “Come in,” a petite chambermaid wearing a white cap, whom Levadski guessed might have been Spanish or Portuguese, entered. She approached Levadski, whose attempt to get up out of the deep rococo armchair remained fruitless. When she noticed his arduous swinging back and forth, she