Author: Dane Lowell
Submitted by: redadmin

Chapt. 17 - 1194 words
Columns :: “My God Can Beat Your God”

MOSCOW, Oct. 17, 2003 -- Comments:   Ratings:
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“Be nicer to Vanya than he was to you”
The “Black” thing again



MOSCOW, Oct. 17, 2003 -- World War III could get started this way!


Yegor is still pissed at Vanya, my “Ann Landers” from Nizhny Novgorod, because Vanya advised me to get rid of Yegor. He can cause you trouble, Vanya warned

Vanya’s denunciation of Yegor is enough of a problem in itself, but the real can of worms got opened when Yegor read the letter, which I had accidentally left on the computer screen.

For two days he wouldn’t speak to me. It almost single-handedly precipitated irreconcilable differences after only two months of unwedded bliss.

So when Vanya called last night after Yegor and I were already in bed to tell me he’d arrive in Moscow Saturday morning to stay with us for a couple of days, I could see Yegor doing a slow burn.

“Are you upset because Vanya called?” I asked him after I hung up.

“No,“ Yegor replied with remarkable control. “No, not at all.”

So today when I got home from my morning class and Yegor and I were sitting quietly in the bedroom, I said, “Yegor, I want you to do me a big favor.”

“What’s that?”

“Vanya’s coming Saturday morning.”

“So?” he bristled.

“I’d like for you to pretend that nothing has happened; that you didn’t see that letter and what he said about you.”

“So I shouldn’t be angry if somebody insults me?”

“Just be nicer to him than he was to you.”

“Why should I? He wants to throw me out and you want me to be nice to him!”

Yegor’s mastery of English in moments of self-righteous extremis is remarkable. I wish I could do half as well in Russian.

“I will be nice to people when they are nice to me,” he continued.

“I thought you said you were a Christian,” I said, deftly extracting my secret weapon.

“I was a Christian,” he glared. “I’m not any more.”

“Did you learn anything about Christ when you were a Christian?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Did he ever say, if somebody insults you, you should insult them back only worse? Did he ever say ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth?’

“No,” I continued without giving him a chance – just in case he knew something I didn’t. “He said, ‘Do good unto those who spitefully use you,’” followed by a non-sequitur which sounded equally apropos and authoritative: “And if someone asks you for your cloak, give them your coat also.’”

That quieted him – but only for a second.


“I’m not Christ!” he bellowed.

“Well, you should try to be like him,” I said, exiting the room on cue – ostensibly to get a cup of coffee but really to not have to deal with whatever his next retort was going to be.

“One of the reasons I fell in love with you,” I said charmingly, returning with my coffee, was that you in many ways remind me of Christ: You’re gentle, you’re compassionate, you’re understanding, you’re loving, you’re generous. All I’m asking is that you be a little more like him and be kind to Vanya this weekend – kinder to him than he has been to you.

“When he sees how nice you are, he’ll change his mind about you.”

I wasn’t being hypocritical. While I loathe Christianity for what the Christians have done to it – as I think Christ himself would – I think J.C. was a proper kind of guy who deserves emulation.

“Why should I care if he changes his mind about me?” Yegor demanded. “Why do I care what he thinks of me?”

“Because I don’t want to mediate a war between friends.’

“He’s not my friend.”

“Well, he’s my friend and so are you. And I don’t want my friends fighting each other.”

“So you want me to be a hypocrite! ‘Oh, hello, Vanya, it’s so-o-o-o nice to see you. I’ve missed you so-o-o much.’”

“No, I don’t want you to be a hypocrite. I just want you to be kind. Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you.’ Not because it’s going to get you into heaven, but because it works.”

“All right,” huffed Yegor, who by now was getting tired of my Biblaciousness (I think I just made another new word. Move over, Shakespeare!) “I’ll be nice to him, but only for you!

“Slava bogu,” I said, which is kind of a slavic variation of thank god. It once again demonstrated one of the great historic uses of religion: control of unruly citizens. If you can somehow merge yours and god’s interests, the rest is a piece of cake. It has worked especially well for the Russian Orthodox church.

“Thanks, sweetheart. And I’ll talk to him and find out why he thinks you could cause me trouble.”


“I know why he thinks I could cause you trouble,” Yegor replied, bristling again.

Yegor is convinced that it is because the blond, pale Vanya is an anti-Caucuses, anti-“black” – i.e., dark-skin -- racist. I dismissed the idea. I really don’t think Vanya’s a racist.

“No, you don’t know why,” I replied airily. “You think you know why, but you don’t know why, and I don’t either. I’m going to talk to him and find out.”

So I’ve got one of the “twins” calmed down enough to keep from kindling another Chechen war this weekend.

As for Anton, the other “twin,” I won’t even try. He’s as stubborn as a mule. He’s going to do whatever he’s going to do; and he won’t spend much time around Dima anyway. They had a passionate, tempestuous bout of sex the first time they met; the passion has faded, but the tempest has not.

And in his Ann Landers letter last week, Vanya advised me to get rid of Anton too.

Now all I’m trying to do is get these people whom I love to break the endless cycle of retaliation. The Arabs and the Jews, the Protestants and the Catholics, the Christians and the Muslims have for centuries successfully demonstrated how successful retaliation is at preventing over-population.

Although I’m a devout anti-religionist, I do think J.C., Buddha, and some of the others had the right idea: love, kindness, and compassion. Kindness leads to kindness. It makes both the kind-ee and the kind-or feel better about themselves and each other. But you have to practice it judiciously. Otherwise, if you’re not careful, you just might wind up with a permanent case of peace on your hands!

This is something the great religious leaders of our day -- Billy Graham the Father, Dubya Bush the Son, and Osama bin Laden the holy terror, have to be especially careful to guard against.

But in my apartment, being a simple and uncomplicated ex-pat peasant, I just want quiet peace. I will leave it to the men of God – the Protestants, the Catholics, the Russian Orthodoxy, the Muslims, and the Jews – to fight it out over whose god is the meanest.

I don’t know about you, but in these troubled times, I don’t worry too much about old Satan.

With gods like these, the devil doesn’t stand a chance.