Lilith Meets a Russian Woman

Lilith and I were walking down Haunani when we saw a woman gardening; I've seen her there for years, trying to tame a large area of land that had been overrun with vegetation. "You've got a lot of work ahead of you," I said. Oh yes, she said in a thick Russian accent (which I wish I could mimic here). She stood underneath a hapu`u fern as we talked. She had a scarf around her head, a faded flowery blouse, black loose trousers and black rubber boots. The shadows of the hapu`u fell on her. "My umbrella," she said. "May I take your photograph?" I asked, mentioning my photography class and our current project, portraiture. Her look was daunting, and she asked why. She didn't have her cup, she noted. Look at her, she demanded rhetorically. She reached down to pet Lilith with her dirt-covered gardening gloves. I decided not to take the photo. I really wanted that photo.

 

Two walkers I'd met a couple weeks ago came toward us. One was the woman with a southern or eastern shore accent and an English husband. The other was a blonde woman who said her parents were Lithuanian and whose dog resembles Lilith, but thicker. The first woman asked my interlocutor where she from, and she said Russia. She stepped forward quickly, saying "don't be angry with me, it's all politics. It's not the people. Those poor kids, 10,000 of them." Dead. Half her family was from Ukraine. "We're all family," she said. The soldiers usually spend their time gardening for higher-ups in the military.

I suggested everyone watch Navalny's documentary on Putin's billion dollar palace. "Oh, Navalny's terrible," she said. Worse than Putin. He's deep state. One of the other walkers asked what deep state was, and I said "Qanon stuff." She recoiled a bit. The Russian woman hates cnn and fox; it's all propaganda! She hurried off, asking that we wait for three minutes. When she came back, she was carrying a nursery catalogue, open to hydrangeas. She wants hydrangeas! But not blue ones. Her name is Marina.

 

The two walkers and I wandered a way, one more slowly than the other of us, as she was locked in conversation with the Russian woman. We walked up Kalani Honua Road together. The first woman wanted to know what was with the lovely piece of land for sale. "I think it sold," I said, and then we all noticed that the realtor's signed had been turned around. It was as blank as a sun-washed sign I'd taken a photo of earlier in the walk, before we ran into the Russian woman.