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Travels both intrepid and trepidatious, around the world and around the block |
Lost In TranslationbyKelly MonaghanIn Uzbekistan, sometimes the mot juste is not in the phrase book.It was as if a character from Uzbekistan's Golden Age of Silent Comedy (if there ever was such a thing) had sprung to life before my eyes in the Ferghana airport. He was tiny with sad brown eyes, a pointy nose, and not a tooth in his head although he seemed well under fifty. On his floppy sparrow's frame hung a gray suit a good four sizes too big. He was also very, very drunk. How he made it through airport security was a mystery. As our flight to Tashkent was announced, Ildar (as I had christened him in my mind) arose and bobbed over to an attractive, stylishly-dressed woman to whom he gallantly offered his arm. She reacted with a leap and a yelp. Still single, he joined the rest of us and swayed his sinuous way to the aging Ilyushin turboprop waiting far out on the runway. The plane had seats like lawn chairs and an aisle that sloped sharply upwards toward the cockpit. Ildar climbed all the way to the top and plopped out of sight in the front row; I was seated two rows behind him. During the flight, Ildar amused himself by trying to prop his toothpick legs on the bulkhead, only to see them slide down at each attempt. When not lounging he was trying to chat up the two women across the aisle or requesting one thing or another from the stewardess, who deftly swatted his hand off her thigh. From time to time he disappeared into the space between the passenger compartment and the cockpit. I fervently hoped he wouldn't decide to pop outside for a breath of fresh air and throw open the large cargo door I knew was in there. A fellow sitting across from me may have shared my concern because each time Ildar disappeared, this fellow retrieved him and plopped him back in his seat. Ildar's face would appear over the top of the seat with an impish grin as he surveyed the passenger compartment to locate the Good Samaritan whom he then saluted with an upraised middle finger. All of this occasioned a fair amount of tittering from the passengers. Finally we landed in Tashkent and came to a stop on some far corner of the tarmac. Ildar thought this was the perfect time for a smoke but found himself without matches. His search for a light eventually brought him to the empty seat across the aisle from me. He turned to me and slurred something in Russian, the lingua franca of Central Asia. It was, I realized, a golden opportunity. Like being stopped on the streets of New York by a tourist and asked, "Can you tell me how to get to Carnegie Hall?" (Answer: "Practice, baby. Practice.") I reached into my shoulder bag and produced a Russian phrase book. I held it up conspicuously and thumbed through it with great concentration. Then, in a loud clear voice, I uttered a cherished line from a Monty Python routine about a foreigner and a fraudulent phrase book: "You haff byootiful thighs." To my surprise this got a big laugh from the people behind me. Good lord, do they understand English? I could hardly continue with the Python routine now. The only other line I remembered from the skit was "May I squeeze your buttocks, bouncy, bouncy?" I switched to actual Russian phrases. "May we set up a tent here?" "I am checking out now." At each phrase, Ildar babbled something I couldn't understand and the crowd laughed anew. I was rescued when the door opened and people started to deplane. Later my traveling companions assured me the whole thing was hysterical but I couldn't help feeling a bit guilty. Somewhere in Tashkent, I imagined, was a weary businessman complaining of the rigors of his trip to Ferghana. "And on top of all that," he was saying to his wife, "some foreign lout was mocking this pathetic little drunk." I hope he thought I was British. Didn't find what you were looking for? Try a Google search.
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