A few years ago Jana got a call from Petr, a man who had
been my student for a couple of years in some night classes(2006-2008, I
believe).
Petr worked in the pharmaceutical industry as a salesman. He was a handsome man of about forty with a strong-boned face, a thick shock of black hair and glasses—he sort of looked like Clark Kent. He had a strong sense of humor and a quick laugh. He also was the brother of Jana’s cousin’s ex-wife.
Petr basically was asking if he could come over and have me talk into the phone to some people in America. His English was pretty good, but he had visited this place(rural Wyoming, it turned out) and had had a real problém understanding the local accent, although he said they had understood him just fine.
I was working until 6.30 on the appointed day, so we told them to come over at 7.30 or so. I must say I wasn’t too happy about doing this—I really wanted to just go for my walk and go to bed and the idea of spending some time being social did not appeal to me.
Anyway Petr arrived with a seventy-something elder lady who I believe was his elderly mother. I’ll call her Ludmila. They explained the situation to us. IN the years after the Second World War she had been a young student student when she met Vlad, a strapping handsome young man from the Ukraine. I suppose that he was part of the Soviet army that would have occupied Czechoslovakia for a time after the war.
Things went their course and they fell in love; of course, being from different countries, however, time and tide swept them apart. Ludmila married and had children and a life in Czechoslovakia, which eventually became the Czech Republic; Vlad ended up immigrating to America where he also married, settled in Wyoming and had three children of his own. And life went on.
Years later he returned to what was now the Czech Republic and, both their spouses dead and their children long flown, Ludmila and Vlad reunited. After catching up, they realized that their young love was still there and they pledged themselves again to each other. He visited Vsetin. Before retuning to Wyoming, they pledged their love.
Ludmila too visited America and Wyoming and Vlad, with Petr to help her with translation issues. There she found him another old man, living alone in an apartment complex, lonely and at the end of his life. In her words, interpreted to me by my girlfriend, he had ‘given up’ after his life and was basically waiting to die. Well, Ludmila revived his spirits, I suppose and once again they pledged their love to each other before Ludmila returned to the Czech Republic.
But now, she said,, she hadn’t heard from him since. She had tried calling several times but he never answered his phone. She was worried that he hadn’t paid his phone bill because he was quite poor. And she was worried about him being in a general depression that afflicts older people who are alone.
She had the number of a neighbor that she wanted to call but she didn’t speak English. Petr, her grandson, did speak English, but he was very unconfident about understanding the man at the other end of the line.
That was where I came in.
First we tried calling Vlad himself. The phone rang and rang but there was no answer.
At that point we called his neighbor, Jim. WE got an answer from his wife and Jim was there, working in his yard. He came in and talked to him. He told us that Vlad was still around but hadn’t been out much lately. From the sound of things, it seemed that Vlad was in a deep state of depression. His life almost over, his children grown and gone, his wife dead, the brief love he’d had in his youth half a world away in a country he had no legal way to move to.
I communicated this to Jana and Petr who interpreted to the old lady.
I then asked in the most polite, self-effacing way possible you know, if-it-would-be-possible-and-not-too-much-trouble-you-know, if Jim could actually fetch Vlad from next door. Jim told us he had no problem with doing that. The only problem was that Vlad had gone to the supermarket. He told us to try back in about an hour.
At this point it was after nine our time. But we sat and made small talk, had cups of tea and snacks and things.
When the hour was up, we called Jim again. Vlad had already returned and was at Jim’s house. After a brief set of niceties, Jim and I handed our phones over to Vlad and Ludmila. I remember Ludmila talking very loudly to Vlad, asking him if everything was all right and that she was worried about him and so on. They talked for about 15 minutes.
Afterwards, she was quite upset, saying that he had said that he was still all right and still loved her. But she said she thought that he was basically putting on a brave face and really telling her how he felt. She thought that she was going to have to go back to Wyoming to try to get him to move here.
That was about two years ago. And that was the last we heard about it.
Until Wednesday. When Jana, a court-appointed translator, was asked to translate a marriage certificate from Wyoming.
Vlad, naturalized US citizen and native of Ukraine, aged 83. And Ludmila, native of Czechoslovakia.
Petr worked in the pharmaceutical industry as a salesman. He was a handsome man of about forty with a strong-boned face, a thick shock of black hair and glasses—he sort of looked like Clark Kent. He had a strong sense of humor and a quick laugh. He also was the brother of Jana’s cousin’s ex-wife.
Petr basically was asking if he could come over and have me talk into the phone to some people in America. His English was pretty good, but he had visited this place(rural Wyoming, it turned out) and had had a real problém understanding the local accent, although he said they had understood him just fine.
I was working until 6.30 on the appointed day, so we told them to come over at 7.30 or so. I must say I wasn’t too happy about doing this—I really wanted to just go for my walk and go to bed and the idea of spending some time being social did not appeal to me.
Anyway Petr arrived with a seventy-something elder lady who I believe was his elderly mother. I’ll call her Ludmila. They explained the situation to us. IN the years after the Second World War she had been a young student student when she met Vlad, a strapping handsome young man from the Ukraine. I suppose that he was part of the Soviet army that would have occupied Czechoslovakia for a time after the war.
Things went their course and they fell in love; of course, being from different countries, however, time and tide swept them apart. Ludmila married and had children and a life in Czechoslovakia, which eventually became the Czech Republic; Vlad ended up immigrating to America where he also married, settled in Wyoming and had three children of his own. And life went on.
Years later he returned to what was now the Czech Republic and, both their spouses dead and their children long flown, Ludmila and Vlad reunited. After catching up, they realized that their young love was still there and they pledged themselves again to each other. He visited Vsetin. Before retuning to Wyoming, they pledged their love.
Ludmila too visited America and Wyoming and Vlad, with Petr to help her with translation issues. There she found him another old man, living alone in an apartment complex, lonely and at the end of his life. In her words, interpreted to me by my girlfriend, he had ‘given up’ after his life and was basically waiting to die. Well, Ludmila revived his spirits, I suppose and once again they pledged their love to each other before Ludmila returned to the Czech Republic.
But now, she said,, she hadn’t heard from him since. She had tried calling several times but he never answered his phone. She was worried that he hadn’t paid his phone bill because he was quite poor. And she was worried about him being in a general depression that afflicts older people who are alone.
She had the number of a neighbor that she wanted to call but she didn’t speak English. Petr, her grandson, did speak English, but he was very unconfident about understanding the man at the other end of the line.
That was where I came in.
First we tried calling Vlad himself. The phone rang and rang but there was no answer.
At that point we called his neighbor, Jim. WE got an answer from his wife and Jim was there, working in his yard. He came in and talked to him. He told us that Vlad was still around but hadn’t been out much lately. From the sound of things, it seemed that Vlad was in a deep state of depression. His life almost over, his children grown and gone, his wife dead, the brief love he’d had in his youth half a world away in a country he had no legal way to move to.
I communicated this to Jana and Petr who interpreted to the old lady.
I then asked in the most polite, self-effacing way possible you know, if-it-would-be-possible-and-not-too-much-trouble-you-know, if Jim could actually fetch Vlad from next door. Jim told us he had no problem with doing that. The only problem was that Vlad had gone to the supermarket. He told us to try back in about an hour.
At this point it was after nine our time. But we sat and made small talk, had cups of tea and snacks and things.
When the hour was up, we called Jim again. Vlad had already returned and was at Jim’s house. After a brief set of niceties, Jim and I handed our phones over to Vlad and Ludmila. I remember Ludmila talking very loudly to Vlad, asking him if everything was all right and that she was worried about him and so on. They talked for about 15 minutes.
Afterwards, she was quite upset, saying that he had said that he was still all right and still loved her. But she said she thought that he was basically putting on a brave face and really telling her how he felt. She thought that she was going to have to go back to Wyoming to try to get him to move here.
That was about two years ago. And that was the last we heard about it.
Until Wednesday. When Jana, a court-appointed translator, was asked to translate a marriage certificate from Wyoming.
Vlad, naturalized US citizen and native of Ukraine, aged 83. And Ludmila, native of Czechoslovakia.
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