Kismet - Snap Classic

Two women set sail on a tiny boat embarking on a journey to freedom that takes them across the globe. And a Hungarian composer dreams of changing the world… he did. This episode contains strong language, violence, and mentions suicide. Sensitive listeners please be advised. From Russia With Love Two women, a tiny boat, the wide-open ocean… and kismet. Elena has written a book about their adventure, called Talking to the Moon. You can read the story on the couple’s website https://elenameg.com/. Produced by Liz Mak, original score by Leon Morimoto, artwork by Teo Ducot. Gloomy Sunday Hungarian composer Rezső Seress dreamed of changing the world with his music. He did. Produced and scored by Davey Kim. Season 17 Episode 27 Join Snap+ https://snap.supercast.com/if you aren't already a member! Get bonus eps, an ad-free stream and more. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:08Glynn Washington?

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• 1:21Speaker 01

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• 1:57Glynn Washington?

  Okay, so sophomore year, Grand Valley State University. And on the laundry room bulletin board, I see a poster about jobs available in food services. And I write down the number to call. But when I finish my laundry, I can't read my own writing. So I go back to the bulletin board, and the poster's gone. And that isn't making any sense. I'm sure that someone just stapled another poster on top of the poster I'm looking for. So I start excavating the bulletin board, pulling stuff off to see what's underneath. Missing dogs, chess club party, tutoring needed. And I see half a sign.

• 2:41Glynn Washington?

  And it says, "Apply Now: Fellowships to Asia." And I don't know why, but I look at that sign, and I do need to get out of Dodge. The likelihood is less than zero, but so what? I pull a tab from the sign, and I do apply. Later, I'm told to meet at the dean's office. And a man comes out and congratulates me on being chosen for the Asia Fellowship. A year-long trip. Whoa, you will represent our school at a brand-new program in Japan? This is an extremely selective admissions process. You should be very proud. Whoa, extremely selective.

• 3:26Glynn Washington?

  I was chosen, picked? Well, how many people applied? Well, that's not really important right now. What's important? No, no, no, really, how many people did apply? Well, in truth, you were the only applicant. But that doesn't change the fact we are proud to have you represent our university overseas.

• 3:49Glynn Washington?

  No one else plied. No one. Probably because they posted a notice buried three posters deep on a random laundry room bulletin board. And truly, truly, that trip changed my life. Fate? Destiny? Maybe.

• 4:13Glynn Washington?

  But today on Snap Judgment. Kismet. Amazing stories from real people being directed by the fates. My name is Glenn Washington. Always remember, qualifications are for suckers. When you're listening to Snap Judgment.

• 4:42Glynn Washington?

  Now then, on the kismet episode, when Elena first started looking for someone on the internet, she thought that an online romance would stay just that: online. Snap Judgment.

• 5:02Speaker 02

  I remember the first time I saw Max's profile. I think I remember glasses, and I kind of thought she looks geeky. She tried to write her profile in Russian. She just translated the words that she wanted to use, and it came out very, very hilarious.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  But it was stunning. There was so much energy in that letter. We started writing back and forth. It was wonderfully easy. I have never felt, felt that way ever in my life. We didn't play any games, we didn't feel self-conscious, we were so honest to each other. It was just mutual, we were mutually drawn to each other.

• 5:45Speaker 02

  I realized that she was on the other side of the world, that she was Canadian, and I was in Ivanov in Russia. It was the very end of 2005. She said, once, in a letter to me, "That would be a great idea if we met in Kiev." Of course, I got scared. I absolutely couldn't imagine how, me, how could I go to Kiev to see a woman? At the time, I was an architect, working in a small town. I was 25. And I did not know almost anything about the world. I was not out.

• 6:33Speaker 02

  I told her that, simply, my society will not allow me to be with her. She tried to play it cool, and she told me, "Well, whatever, then. If we part, that's fine with me." And you see, the thing is, because she said so, I realized, if I will let her go now, I will lose her. And so, I decided to go to Kiev.

• 6:58Speaker 02

  Of course, I had to do it in secret. If somebody finds out in Russia that you are gay, your life turns upside down. Instantly. Children lose their home. If my mother knew that I was homosexual, I could end up on the street, without documents, without job, without any money. But it didn't matter to me anymore. I knew that I need to see this woman.

• 7:25Speaker 02

  My mother knew that Meg was my pen pal, and she already... she knew that I was writing to her. I think we were... me and her were walking to work. And I told her that I have bought the ticket, and that I'm going to see Meg, and that I was going to practice my English with her.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  She was cranky. She said, "Spend only 2 to 3 days and come back, immediately."

• 8:00Speaker 02

  Oh, how I felt that morning. Wow. The most amazing thing was going to happen in my life. I was going to see Meg, the person that I yearned for so long.

• 8:19Speaker 02

  When I landed in the Borispol Airport, I could barely walk. And I felt like my legs are made of cotton. The first time when I saw her eyes, she wore glasses. I remember the first thought that hit me: She doesn't look anything like her pictures.

• 8:44Speaker 03

  She recognizes me immediately. And she just gets this incredible grin on her face. She puts her arms around me, and I put my arms around her. And she's taller than I expected.

• 8:57Speaker 02

  It's like lightning went through me. I think I was so excited that I was ready to drop unconscious there.

• 9:06Speaker 03

  She's actually kind of shaking. And I just remember holding her. And I think what I said was that it's OK now. It's OK.

• 9:17Speaker 03

  We get to the apartment. And there's Elena and I standing in the hallway. And it was just... And just sort of almost take each other in. That was interesting.

• 9:31Speaker 02

  Awkward. For me, it was very awkward. We didn't even know what to talk about at first. I remember thinking that I am obligated to kiss that woman.

• 9:47Speaker 02

  When we met for the first time, we both felt like there was so much expectations and there was so much pressure.

• 9:55Speaker 03

  It was like one of those moments where you just stand in front of someone and you're just sort of... You paint them with your eyes. You take in every minute. Wow, it's real.

• 10:10Speaker 02

  The day before I left for Kiev, I have written my parents a letter. And I hid it in my desk. In the letter, I said to my parents, "I found the person I love. I am happy now. We are going to meet." I simply was... I wanted them to understand that there was nothing to worry about. And that was it.

• 10:34Speaker 02

  In fact, I remember even crying while typing it.

• 10:42Speaker 02

  It actually felt very invigorating because I think obviously what it was, it was my coming out to my parents.

• 10:53Speaker 02

  I hid the letter in my desk before I left for Kiev. My idea was, when I was going to be in Kiev, I would phone my mother and I would tell her that that's where it is and that I want her to read it.

• 11:09Speaker 03

  Once the letter was out in the open, let's just say the guano hit the fan.

• 11:14Speaker 02

  She phoned pretty much instantly. Yeah, my mother told me that she wants to see me. She wants to come to Kiev to see me and Meg and to see that I'm truly OK. And then I can just live my life the way I want.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  I didn't want to meet with her. I didn't want to expose Meg to her. I knew there will be conflict. But I was trained like a poodle to obey my mother. I thought, I have to.

• 11:47Speaker 02

  I remember it was March 1st. I remember the date well. When we came to the train station...

• 11:54Speaker 03

  It's huge. It's gigantic.

• 11:58Speaker 02

  We couldn't find her anywhere.

• 12:00Speaker 03

  She's not there. We're looking around. The phone is ringing. Where are you? Where are you?

• 12:05Speaker 02

  She was standing so far away from the building of the train station. And so I kind of thought, that's odd. Why would she be standing there?

• 12:17Speaker 03

  She's standing on these platforms like quite a ways away, waving her arms up and down in slow motion. And the only way to get to them is there's these underground access tunnels.

• 12:28Speaker 02

  And so I'm rushing to my mother and pulling Meg after me.

• 12:32Speaker 03

  She's heading toward her mother quite quickly. And it's dark. It's very dark.

• 12:38Speaker 02

  And I realize, oh, oh, this is an ambush.

• 12:41Speaker 03

  She told me something's wrong. And she actually literally pushed me back. Her father jumps out of an adjoining stairway. And her parents grabbed her. Lena kinda sorta turns around and she's desperate. They were yelling at me, "Go away." They were yelling at Lena to shut up.

• 13:00Speaker 02

  I told Meg to go back to apartment and wait for me there because I knew that with Meg around, my parents are gonna be... they simply gonna be nasty.

• 13:09Speaker 03

  She's saying, "It's fine, no, no problem, just, just go, go." And she just wanted me out, so I, you know, "Okay." So I did, I just left.

• 13:19Speaker 02

  They, they brought me to the second floor of the McDonald's restaurant, barricaded me there with the tables to prevent me from leaving, telling me how awful I am, that nobody... young people usually don't do things like that to their parents. And I was asking her, "What exactly am I doing to you? I just want to be with Meg."

• 13:39Speaker 02

  And so my father slapped three train tickets back to Russia in front of me and said, "That's it, you're going with us."

• 13:48Speaker 02

  I just imagined, I imagined me going back with them and I realized I will never see Meg again. I'm not letting these people do this to me. I will be with Meg. And that's what I told them. I told them, "I'm not going with you." I was trying to stand up and leave. They were not letting me go.

• 14:12Speaker 03

  My phone, my phone rings. And it's, I hear kind of muffled and banging and crashing. And then I hear Lena. All she's saying to me is she's just, she's saying, she says McDonald's, train station, McDonald's. And then she says, "I love you." She says it again, "Meg, I love you." And then silence.

• 14:50Speaker 01

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• 15:22Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the kismet episode. When last be left, one couple is desperately trying to communicate. Sensitive listeners should know, this story contains strong language and involves violence. Sensitive listeners, please be advised.

• 15:39Speaker 03

  She says McDonald's, train station, McDonald's. And then she says, Meg, I love you. And then silence.

• 15:49Speaker 03

  It was like I had been slugged in the gut and I couldn't believe that I had left her. So I went back to the train station. I found McDonald's. I went up to the second floor.

• 16:03Speaker 03

  I see half the upstairs eating area is, is, is, is filled with people, literally crammed up against one side of the restaurant. And the other half of the restaurant is almost, is sort of empty, except for Elena.

• 16:21Speaker 03

  Elena's a mess. She's got makeup running all over her face. She's, she's crying and she's jammed against a wall in the corner. She's trying to stand up and, and, and her father shoves the table against her.

• 16:36Speaker 03

  I, I, I didn't know what to do. And all of a sudden, a fist comes out of nowhere and just, and just floors me.

• 16:46Speaker 03

  Her father, um, he was wild. And, and the guy had just slugged me. I looked around at the, at the people dining and everybody is just sitting there munching on their, their, their, their McHappy meals. I just said, you know, like, Malizia, we need, we need the police. Nobody did anything. Her father then pulls out this, this, this photograph that I had sent. I had sent Elena.

• 17:12Speaker 03

  And he's showing it, literally, almost around the restaurant. And saying, "Criminal, criminal, this is a criminal." You know, "Help us, this criminal is after us."

• 17:26Speaker 02

  After the attack, we got taken to the police station nearby. Being a police was a torture. It was so stupid. They held us there for so many hours.

• 17:37Speaker 03

  I believe it was they couldn't find anything to charge us with. And of course, I'd also paid the bribe, which is why I'm sure they let us go.

• 17:46Speaker 02

  A few days later, obviously, I checked the bag. The passport was gone. Of course, I knew that my mother took it. We went to Canadian consulate.

• 17:56Speaker 03

  Got to the embassy and we spoke to one of the staff members. And when she was basically telling us that, you know, "You're cooked in Kiev. You need to get out."

• 18:09Speaker 03

  She said the police were corrupt, that they would know where we were and that we should not go back to the apartment, that her parents would be dangerous.

• 18:20Speaker 03

  Her official position was, "Let us get you on an airplane and get you out of here."

• 18:26Speaker 03

  Canada would officially help evacuate me from Ukraine. Without a passport. They couldn't do anything for Elena.

• 18:34Speaker 04

  You know, why didn't you just leave Elena? You just met, you don't owe her a single thing. You could have just left and been on your way.

• 18:42Speaker 03

  Why didn't I do that? Well, I loved Elena. There was no way I was going to feed her to the jackals. The only way she could make it was with me. I knew what we had to do. First of all, get out of Kiev, where they could find us. And second of all, then get out of Ukraine and find a way to Canada.

• 19:04Speaker 02

  We had to find a way to get me to Canadian soil on our own. And nobody else would help us but ourselves.

• 19:11Speaker 03

  There was only one other option, and that was to go underground. I had no idea what we were doing. We were like the Marx Brothers. We switched clothes, we colored our hair. We hung around the train station. And Lena approached women who looked like her, you know, and said, "Hey, do you want to sell your passport?" We thought about stowing away on a freighter, buying an airplane, hiring people smugglers. The ideas that we were coming up with were, they were simply outrageous. But we were looking for any way out of this mess.

• 19:49Speaker 04

  Why can't you go back to Russia and just get a visa there? You can go to a different city, you can apply for a visa, and then just fly out.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  I think what people don't understand, what it actually takes for a Russian citizen to get a visa. I would say it's about 20 documents you have to provide.

• 20:12Speaker 02

  My parents tried to kidnap me, part me with the love of my life, and why don't I just go back home and collect all those documents for visa? How stupid is this? I mean, you know, I was actually manhandled by these people.

• 20:30Speaker 03

  She's sort of saying, "Well, what are we thinking of doing?" And then it just kind of hit me.

• 20:38Speaker 03

  How about, "Let's buy a boat. We can get a sailboat, and we can sail it down the river and out into the Black Sea." And then she's like, "Okay, yeah, yeah, okay." And I realized she doesn't understand a thing.

• 20:54Speaker 02

  I really had no idea what she was talking about.

• 20:57Speaker 03

  From Kiev, we took a taxi to Odessa. From Odessa, a plane to Turkey. In Turkey, they only let Lena have 60 days in the country, so there was no stopping. We had to go on.

• 21:10Speaker 02

  We went to take a look at potential boats we could use to get to Canada.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  We took the boat out of the marina to see how it sails. So that was the time when I realized, "Uh-oh, I'm gonna be really screwed now."

• 21:31Speaker 02

  I really had no idea what the ocean is like. I realized, so this bathtub is gonna take us all the way, cross all those oceans and seas to Canada. I physically was sick. I was terrified. I couldn't believe I'm gonna end up in this environment. I couldn't believe Meg was so damn happy buying it. And she was standing in the helm, all shiny and happy. And I thought, my god, this woman is crazy.

• 21:58Speaker 03

  Elena's got no money. Everything she's got is tied up by her mother. And she doesn't have two copecks to rub together.

• 22:06Speaker 03

  So there was no other choice. I mortgaged my house. We needed the boat. I think we needed the boat more than we needed the house.

• 22:15Speaker 03

  Our ultimate destination was Victoria, British Columbia, which is where I lived. We thought we were going to go from Marmaris, nonstop, through the Straits of Gibraltar. We would see if we could get into the Panama Canal. We would then come up all the way through the Pacific Ocean to Vancouver. I estimated the trip would take probably eight months or so.

• 22:38Speaker 02

  We knew it was pretty much impossible. We had a small boat. We wouldn't be allowed to ask a coastguard for help. We were not going to be allowed to dog at any country on the way. We absolutely knew that we could die.

• 22:53Speaker 04

  So, like, did Elena understand what a greenhorn you were at this?

• 23:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, interesting question, huh?

• 23:02Speaker 03

  I don't think so. I...

• 23:07Speaker 03

  I put on a pretty good act. I mean, I figured, okay, I had flown over a lot of ocean, and I had looked down at it.

• 23:15Speaker 04

  Did you know how to sail in the open ocean?

• 23:17Speaker 03

  No.

• 23:18Speaker 04

  And what's the longest that you had ever gone sailing at all without landing?

• 23:23Speaker 03

  Few hours.

• 23:25Speaker 04

  And like, what's the extent of all the research that you've done to really see that this is possible?

• 23:31Speaker 03

  I read a book that I found at the Frankfurt Airport. So I read that book.

• 23:35Speaker 04

  Okay, so you read one book?

• 23:37Speaker 03

  Oh, it's a pretty, it's a pretty big book. I mean, it's pretty long.

• 23:45Speaker 02

  We packed everything we could think of.

• 23:48Speaker 03

  We packed over two metric tons of food.

• 23:52Speaker 02

  Tons of milk, tons of juice.

• 23:55Speaker 03

  Over a hundred rolls of toilet paper.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  Canned vegetables.

• 23:58Speaker 03

  Almost a hundred gallons of UHT milk.

• 24:00Speaker 02

  Cookies, rice, pasta.

• 24:03Speaker 03

  I don't know why we had this, but we had literally great big bags of sealed calamata olives.

• 24:14Speaker 02

  There was somehow, there was this strange feeling that we can't do anything. I realized that I can be master of my own life. And the fact that it was going to take just one year to get to Canada, it didn't bother me at all. I was not afraid anymore.

• 24:33Speaker 03

  When we were leaving, we only had one Turkish tradesman come to see us off. And it was because there was some last-minute welding to do. His name was Camille, and he's this great big man. And he was so worried, he was so worried about things. And he didn't speak much English. And he was checking things on the boat and tugging at things and saying, "Good, strong, good." And then he'd pull on something else, "Good, strong."

• 25:00Speaker 03

  The sun was setting, so the sky was all orange. The air was perfectly still. Heat is just starting to sort of settle down. Everything starts to almost refresh at that point. And everything is incredibly quiet, only the sound of the engine. And he gives us hugs and he helps push the boat out. We're disappearing toward the breakwater in the marina. And he's standing there on the dock. He's holding these tools in his hands and he's just standing there.

• 25:34Speaker 03

  And we can see that he has tears in his eyes.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  I remember mostly leaving the harbor. When I remember I was sitting in the cockpit and I was eating cookies with milk. And I was pretty upbeat. And I just couldn't believe. I thought so special, I thought, "Oh my god, I'm just this little Russian girl, you know, who was supposed to be sitting at home raising babies and here I am, having this amazing journey with the woman I love." You see, those two things, the person that I love and amazing journey, I thought would never happen in my life. And I felt so invigorated, I felt so, so happy, that I even forgot to be scared.

• 26:23Speaker 02

  And later, the sun went down, Meg went down below, and then there was nothing but moon.

• 26:33Speaker 02

  I was completely alone, sitting at the helm, looking around me and realizing, "Wow, I'm sailing away from land on this stupid boat." And that was, I think, one of the scariest moments of my life.

• 26:48Speaker 02

  And I hated the world then.

• 26:52Speaker 02

  Because I realized I was saying goodbye to literally my entire life. And I realized that I was losing it all.

• 27:13Speaker 02

  With every single day and even hour that we were spending on the boat, we both were becoming more confident, we were learning how to sail. And I think fear eventually was going away, even for me. The boat is 46 feet. The funny thing is, it actually does not feel that big at all when you have to live in the thing. A small boat with small rooms and a lot of bruises. Did you guys get on each other's nerves? Oh yeah, Meg is the messiest person in the world.

• 27:48Speaker 03

  She goes into the bathroom to wash her face and it's like, it's like a water buffalo blew up in there.

• 28:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, the boat is... It's actually indeed is very boring. Not much to do. I mean, I guess what saved us is having computers. They were entertaining us. I think we had some games. It was Sims. I don't know if you played it, but it's actually quite a nice game. Because it allowed us to have a life among people and on land.

• 28:27Speaker 02

  I guess my favorite thing was to... Just to create a home, you know, like you have to build a house and then choose the furniture. That was wonderful, and I also loved to feed her. You know, that character. And I like to order pizza.

• 28:47Speaker 02

  And I remember, I think we actually had Meg character too, in the same village. And we would meet together and have fun.

• 28:58Speaker 02

  I think mostly what we were doing there in the game is watching television together and cuddling. Yeah, it's hilarious game.

• 29:10Speaker 03

  I would say it could be November. We left at the beginning of July. And you know, by this time we're pretty seasoned sailors. There's not much wind. We're basically drifting along.

• 29:22Speaker 03

  So, we're not used to seeing other boats, except freighters, and they might sort of come and go kind of thing, and it's very light winds. Barely moving, and it's a quiet morning and... This target starts showing up on the radar. And I don't know what it is, because it's not moving like a freighter would, and it's moving fast. And it's coming straight at us.

• 29:48Speaker 03

  I'm scanning the horizon with binoculars. I don't see it, I don't see it. Finally, it's about seven miles out, and I start to see this little thing on the horizon, but what I see more than anything is this big cloud of smoke behind it. And it's not changing course.

• 30:02Speaker 02

  I saw or experienced the boat approaching us so fast.

• 30:07Speaker 03

  Please identify yourself. This is Vessel... You know, whatever, and it was always just silence, silence, silence.

• 30:17Speaker 03

  There's no way we can outrun this thing. Nothing we can do.

• 30:24Speaker 03

  I had a fire extinguisher. That was the only thing I could think of as a defensive weapon. So we both go up and we sit in the cockpit and we wait.

• 30:34Speaker 02

  And I think we were absolutely still, statues frozen on the bench. I don't think we made a sound. I don't think we moved. The only parts of our bodies that moved was head and eyeballs.

• 30:51Speaker 03

  And this vessel comes over the horizon and it's making just this ungodly racket. So it's this big steel patrol boat. It's probably 50 feet long. It's got lots of rust all over the place. And it cuts its engines, it slows down, and it starts circling us.

• 31:10Speaker 03

  On the front of it, it's got a tripod-mounted machine gun with a guy standing behind it. There's other guys standing on the deck with various weapons. And they're not saying a thing. And they're sort of looking down and they bring this boat back to an idle and they circle us slowly, just at idle. Chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, chug.

• 31:31Speaker 03

  And our little boat's bobbing away in the waves that they made. They didn't say anything. We didn't say anything. Everybody just stared. Circle us two or three times. Somebody from the flybridge, I assume it was the captain, he also was carrying a gun. He just snapped something. The engines on that boat revved up and it just tore off. It just went back across the horizon and left us alone.

• 32:00Speaker 03

  We both, we just went below and I think we crawled into bed and held on to each other and just shook.

• 32:16Speaker 03

  We are in the North Pacific. We're almost there. We were two weeks away out of ten months of hell at sea.

• 32:26Speaker 02

  I would say that like water was boiling. It was nothing but black.

• 32:31Speaker 03

  We're basically a thousand miles off San Francisco. We're not supposed to be there. Nobody is supposed to be there. Certainly not in a little boat. And we're climbing north, climbing north. It's one gale after another and they're relentless. They go on for days. We were making ten miles north and five miles back. Ten miles north and five miles back. We know something's going to happen. We know the cold fronts are coming down on us like freight trains. And we know there's a Pacific storm just waiting for us.

• 33:08Speaker 03

  The wind picked up. It got to over fifty-five knots and it overwhelmed Elena.

• 33:14Speaker 03

  She lost control of the boat. The boat goes over on its side.

• 33:19Speaker 03

  So it's basically being dragged sideways through the water. And, and all of this stuff is on top of my books, clothes, tools, whatnot. And I wake up and I sort of hear this muffled screaming through the headphones.

• 33:35Speaker 03

  So I, I make my way to the cockpit. And, and Elena is hanging on to the wheel. There's water coming up against the deck. Uh, the cockpit is full of water. Everything's crashing and falling. She's screaming. Water is coming down through the companionway and we're dragging more of it in. And I know the heavier it gets, the further into the water it's going to sink. Elena was frozen solid on the wheel. She was terrified. She was paralyzed. And she, she sort of comes too.

• 34:06Speaker 02

  I realized that I cannot, I cannot turn the wheel. It does not, my strength is not enough.

• 34:16Speaker 02

  I guess at that point in time I thought, well, this is it. The water is very close.

• 34:22Speaker 02

  And that's probably, that's probably the end.

• 34:30Speaker 02

  And I think I kind of got stuck in this situation, in this thought. And I was just staring at that red compass. There was a compass right there behind the wheel. And I don't know for how long I was staring at it.

• 34:51Speaker 03

  I jumped for the wheel. I grabbed it, wrenched it out of her hands. Basically, once again, started swearing at her to get the sails down. Release the goddamn main sheet. Get the wind out of it now, or we're going to die.

• 35:07Speaker 02

  And I was ripping that cloth. I was pulling it down to me. And I remember my hands, the knuckles hurt so much, I think I actually bled. How I got it down, I don't know, but I did.

• 35:22Speaker 02

  We turned back. I went down below. And I was staring at the blue flames of that heater we had. I think Meg was in the cockpit for a while. And I remember sitting there crying like crazy. And I was completely wet. And god, the boat was in shambles.

• 35:45Speaker 03

  There was a foot of water down below. The floorboards are soaking. And the electrical system is shot. Everything is... I mean, it was literally, we were wrecked at that point. We're just talking, and the decision was, was we're gonna die if we keep going. And yet, we're not gonna make it if we turn around. I told her, I thought we could. And so, over the next few days, we slowly put the boat back together. And we turned back into that wind, and we made it.

• 36:20Speaker 03

  Tell me about the moment you landed. The actual moment we landed was in the middle of the night. It was intensely quiet.

• 36:28Speaker 03

  It was absolutely surreal. I couldn't actually believe it. And your brain is telling you something's wrong. And I'm looking, I'm looking out the windows. And I'm seeing lights, I'm seeing streetlights, and I'm seeing stuff. I'm actually hearing traffic noise.

• 36:49Speaker 03

  We can see the lights of Victoria, they're all spread out. I mean, that's it, that's my hometown. It's just like, wow! I figure, no matter what happens now, we're good.

• 37:00Speaker 02

  Finally, after so many months, I smelled something. It was land, and I think it was dirt. We tied it to a dock. I jumped on it. I made a few steps, and the dock was moving under my feet. Only then I realized, this is it. I indeed got here.

• 37:22Speaker 02

  It's strange. More than anything, what was strange is to see the boat from distance. And so when you actually walk away from it and look back, it stunned me. It looked small in it. I couldn't believe that this thing got us all the way to Canada.

• 37:42Speaker 02

  I feel a lot about this boat. It's my blood, sweat, and tears. And this is really my home.

• 37:50Speaker 03

  And we're still on the same damn boat.

• 38:20Glynn Washington?

  Very special thanks to Elena and Meg, who are still traveling on their boat. Elena has written a book about their adventures called Talking to the Moon. She and Meg also have a website, where they've mapped their journey to the smallest detail. Find out more at snapjudgment.org. The original score on that story was by Leon Morimoto. The piece was produced by Liz Mack.

• 39:00Glynn Washington?

  When Snap Judgment returns, you always hear about the people who are gonna change the world with art, but what if someone actually does? When the Kismet episode continues, stay tuned.

• 39:32Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the Kismet episode. My name is Glenn Washington, and today, we're exploring those remarkable times in life when things seem a little bit too fixed, too planned, too faded. Our next story is about music, but don't put on your dancing shoes quite yet. Hungarian composer, he dreamed of changing the world with music. Please note, this story does allude to some mature content. It contains strong language and involves suicide and violence. Sensitive listeners, please be advised.

• 40:15Speaker 05

  I remember when I was five, my dad was playing the piano in the next room from my bed, and I heard that beautiful melody that just touched me immediately. The next morning, when I go, what was that song that you were playing yesterday? He said, you are still little one, so please don't even think about, forget it. When you will be adult, it will be okay, but now it's not.

• 40:41Speaker 06

  That's Laszlo Marosi, a Hungarian music conductor. He's talking about a song composed by Rezo Szélesz in the early 1930s.

• 40:51Speaker 05

  Rezo Szélesz was growing up in a very poor Jewish family in Hungary, but he didn't go to school to learn the piano. He himself just was sitting from the piano and with right hand started to discover the keyboard, what kind of sound is coming from what note.

• 41:07Speaker 06

  There's not much known about Szélesz's early life, except that he aspired to become a famous songwriter, so he did what other aspiring songwriters did. He moved to Paris.

• 41:18Speaker 05

  Paintings, arts, theatre, everything, Paris was the centre. He had a girlfriend with him, so he thought that the doors of life are opening for him.

• 41:30Speaker 06

  In Paris, Cherish composed many songs, many of them now unheard of. He was trying to live the life of a big-time composer, but there was one problem: He was not a big-time composer.

• 41:43Speaker 05

  Everyone thought, "Who is this amateur?" He didn't really succeed in Paris, he did not succeed at all.

• 41:49Speaker 06

  His girlfriend nagged him constantly, telling him to give up his dream, get a nine-to-five job, but he wouldn't have it. Either he'd become a successful songwriter and change the world, or he'd live out on the streets.

• 42:01Speaker 05

  When she saw that he didn't become famous, he didn't got the money, he didn't succeed the way how they expected, so she just said, "Okay, bye-bye."

• 42:13Speaker 06

  And "bye-bye" went the love of his life.

• 42:17Speaker 06

  The day after their breakup, which happened to be a Sunday, Cherish found himself alone in his apartment. Like the many fruitless times before, he started tapping away at the piano, trying to capture the emotions from the fresh breakup.

• 42:33Speaker 05

  In that moment, in that gloomy afternoon, on that Sunday, a sad and mysterious melody started to appear in the mind of Cherish.

• 42:44Speaker 06

  Inspired by the melody, his poet friend helped him write the lyrics. They would call the song "Somoru Vasharna," or "Gloomy Sunday."

• 42:53Speaker 05

  The beginning of the song, a beautiful, inviting, dark sound with those extending arpeggio of a minor chord.

• 43:20Speaker 05

  Altogether, the melody, the phrasing, the text that he uses there to describe his pain and his sadness is just so lovely. And it's a very sympathetic way stated everything. No complaining, still offering the love. "I know that you left me, I know this all, but please know that I love you forever and my love can't be stopped even if I am dead. Don't close my eyes because my love will still go through my dead eyes." Beautiful.

• 43:59Speaker 06

  Cherish went to many different publishers to try to get his song recorded. They all turned him down, saying that his song was just too emo. But finally, he got his break and it was recorded by the top Hungarian pop singer, Paul Kalmar, and many others. The rest is history.

• 44:21Speaker 05

  Lowest level of society till the top. Everyone loved that song. Everyone was singing it. The radio played it in the 30s almost every day, everywhere where we went. There was no one social gathering, and "The Gloomy Sunday" was not a song.

• 44:44Speaker 06

  "Gloomy Sunday" resonated all around the world. People in England, Germany, France, America, they were all singing it.

• 44:52Speaker 05

  You will forget all your pain and you will be just sad, very sad. But it's a beautiful sadness and you can cry and those tears will clear your mind. It's beautiful, I love that.

• 45:10Speaker 06

  Cherish's dream of becoming famous had finally come true, and perhaps now, he could win back his girlfriend's love. But that's when it started to happen.

• 45:21Speaker 05

  People started committing suicide.

• 45:24Speaker 06

  There's the story of a Hungarian shoemaker who left a note at the scene of his suicide, quoting some of the "Gloomy Sunday" lyrics.

• 45:32Speaker 05

  In Vienna, a teenage girl drowned herself by clutching a piece of the song's sheet music.

• 45:40Speaker 06

  One man shot himself after telling relatives he couldn't get that song out of his head.

• 45:46Speaker 05

  A woman in London overdosed listening to a record of the songs keep over and over and over and over.

• 45:59Speaker 06

  A young shopkeeper in Berlin hung herself in her apartment to sheet music to "Gloomy Sunday" in her bedroom.

• 46:07Speaker 05

  We don't even know the exact number because not everyone was discovered.

• 46:14Speaker 06

  At least nineteen suicides have been linked to this song, although many claim hundreds, we'll never know. Others say the Great Depression had a role in the deaths as well. Soon, the song became widely known as the Hungarian Suicide Song and was banned on BBC Radio. When asked about his infamous song, Cherish said:

• 46:32Speaker 05

  "I stand in the midst of this deadly success as accused man. This faith of fame hurts me. I cried all my disappointments of my heart into this song and it seems that others with feelings like mine have found their own hurts in it."

• 46:53Speaker 06

  So the story goes, Cherish tried finding his ex-lover who had inspired him to write "Gloomy Sunday", but to his horror, she too had taken her own life with poison.

• 47:03Speaker 05

  And she had the music "Gloomy Sunday" with her. Basically, he, the composer, says that "I am ready to die for you because I love you so much, even if you don't love me, I have to tell you that I love you more than you can imagine because I'm ready to die for you." And I think the girl killed herself, she demonstrated that she is the same as he stated in the text. It's a very, very good Shakespearean topic.

• 47:34Speaker 06

  Many years later, after World War II and disappearing from the spotlight, a heartbroken Cherish finally surrendered to the curse of his song, as proclaimed in the climax:

• 47:44Speaker 05

  "My heart and I have decided to end it all."

• 47:49Speaker 05

  He jumped out of his window of his apartment, but he survived.

• 47:57Speaker 05

  But while recovering in the hospital, he choked himself to death.

• 48:06Speaker 06

  Was that really necessary?

• 48:08Speaker 05

  Why do you think, did he have a choice? If he wrote that song, this was the only way how he could demonstrate that he was serious. He wouldn't be faithful to himself if he wouldn't have done that. He needed to do that. And he knew that, and he did.

• 48:28Speaker 06

  Cherish may now be dead, but his song's haunting legacy lives on. "Gloomy Sunday" has been recorded over eighty times, covered by Billie Holiday to Elvis Costello to Bjork.

• 49:00Speaker 06

  Although, they've tacked on an extra verse to make the song PG. Apparently, the death mentioned in its lyrics was just a dream.

• 49:13Speaker 05

  Oh, no, it's cheating. You can't say after "Roma and Juliet", "Oh, sorry, I was just kidding." Wait a second, you are not kidding. It's part of the human life. You can't have everything happy and... He should come back and, and just tear those pages to pieces.

• 49:41Speaker 06

  What about you? I mean, you're, you're a Hungarian musician. What does this song mean for you?

• 49:46Speaker 05

  So, what it meant for me, something beautiful. This is that came to my mind. Not the sadness, not the drama, but beautiful. Beautifully sad. If I would have the chance to die, I would do that. Commit suicide with this song, put it on. And, yeah, I just haven't decided which day, not yet.

• 50:16Glynn Washington?

  Thank you so very much to Laszlo Marosi for telling us that story. That piece was produced by Davy Kemp.

• 50:39Glynn Washington?

  Here's the good news. More amazing Snap Judgment storytelling awaits. If you even missed a moment, get yourself the Snap Judgment Podcast for free. Tune in, iTunes, Google Play, Radio Public, snapjudgment.org. Now, the bad news, there's no bad news. Snap was produced by the team that never says never. Give it up for the Oop producer, Mark Ristich. The man with the plan, Pat Vasidi Miller. Anna, shaken, not stirred Sussman. Liz, stirred and not shaken Mac. Joe to the Rosenberg. Renzo, can't go, yo. Leon says, "Morimoto."

• 51:21Glynn Washington?

  Adisa Egan can only juggle one ball at a time. Eliza, duran Ron Smith. Shayna knows Sheila. Taylor Decott dresses conservatively. And Jasmine Aguilera will see you now. Word on the street is that this, this is not the news. No way is this the news. In fact, you would see a bunch of people running in the same direction, then bravely turn around and face the danger, thereby rendering yourself extinct. And though we would remember you fondly, you would still not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is P R X.