The voice of a saxophone over the taiga of Siberia (left) and Richard's father's saxophone (right)
Eldar Akhadov (Russia / Azerbaijan)
Voice of God / Голос бога
Once, in the deep deserted autumn taiga of Siberia, in the ancient country of the Tofalar tribe (*), I was floating along the river on a raft when suddenly I heard the ringing voice of a saxophone sounding from a cliff high above the river. It was like God’s trumpet pouring out of heaven! Like the song of the shofar — the ram’s horn of the ancient Hebrews. The trumpets of Jericho: weren’t they shofars too?
Richard’s parents were Jews. His mother’s and father’s families emigrated to England at the end of the 19th century and the start of the 20th from Eastern Europe. In London, in 1943, Richard Berengarten (aka Burns) was born. In 2022 Richard discovered that in the 1930’s, his father Alex had had his own brand of saxophone made in Paris for his London musical instrument shop. Richard emailed me at the time to tell me he had just acquired one of these instruments by advertising on the Web.
By the way, the sound of the saxophone that I heard in the taiga (around 1993, thirty years ago) was not a hallucination. Among the geologists of the Krasnoyarsk Territory there is a saxophonist — Sergei Lushchikov. A geologist by profession, he plays the saxophone superbly. That day, when I heard him in the taiga, he was playing Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue — just like that, for himself and for the wild forest deer. That day, might Richard Berengarten’s magical “Blue Butterfly” have been flying over the taiga?
VOICE OF GOD
For Richard Berengarten
Not the horn of Oliphant in the Roncesvalles gorge,
Not the voice of the poet Aygi (*) –
The saxophone sounds like a silver blizzard
Above the red desolation of the taiga.
Under the silent sky, flowing with longing,
Like an ancient bottomless shofar,
The saxophone sounds above the ground, unstoppable,
In the endless country of Tofalar (**),
I'm floating down the river on a lonely raft
Through the autumn the ringing silence
And I feel like somewhere in a high expanse
You move my heart.
You touch my weightless soul with your sound,
My God, stay with me...
And Alex returns to Richard again,
Closing in like a forest behind you..
ГОЛОС БОГА
Посвящается Ричарду Беренгартену
Не рог Олифант в Ронсевальском ущелье,
Не голос поэта Айги, -
Звучит саксофон серебристой метелью
Над рыжим безлюдьем тайги.
Под небом безмолвным тоской истекая,
Как древний бездонный шофар,
Звучит саксофон над землёй, не смолкая,
В бескрайней стране тофалар,
Плыву по реке на плоту одиноком
Сквозь осени звонкую тишь
И чую, как где-то в просторе высоком
Ты сердцем моим шевелишь.
Ты звуком души невесомой касаясь,
Мой Бог, пребываешь со мной…
И вновь возвращается к Ричарду Алекс,
Смыкаясь, как лес за спиной.
Author’s Notes
(*) “the poet Aygi”: Gennady Nikolaevich Aygi (Генна́дий Никола́евич Айги́, 1934-2006) is a poet-icon of the Chuvash people. Many of his poems are about the forest. He was honoured with many international awards, including the Andrey Bely Prize (1987), the Pasternak Prize (as its first recipient, 2000), the French Academy Prize (1972), the Petrarch Prize (1993), the Golden Wreath at the Struga Poetry Evenings (North Macedonia, 1994), and the Jan Smrek Prize (Bratislava, Slovakia). (See Wikipedia: Gennady Aygi.)
(**) The Tofalars are a forest people. Short in build, they hunt and ride forest deer. When the Second World War began and Germany attacked our country, all the men of the Tofalar tribe (fifty-four of them) went to defend their homeland. Seventeen wounded hunters returned alive from the war, that is, the entire remaining adult male population! All the rest had died in battle. If the Nazis had killed all fifty-four men, not a single member of this people would have been left on the planet! I consider the feat of this small people equal to the most heroic deeds performed in the name of any homeland. (See Wikipedia: Tofalar.)
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