What a Country!

ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN -- George and Helen Papashvily -- Harper ($2).

Forty years ago, in the village of Kobiankari in Russian Georgia, not far from Stalin's birthplace, one George Papashvily was born. His father, being a man of great foresight, taught him two trades (sword-making and ornamental-leather work), and gave him three dogs, a colt and a pet bear. Thus schooled, George Papashvily, penniless and wearing a karakul hat, arrived in New York, having traveled steerage on a Greek freighter. "lit your position, frankly," said a Turkish shipmate, "I would kill myself." "My God," said the man in the employment office. "A swordpointer!" He got George a job as a dishwasher.

At noon, picking his way through a litter of broken dishes, George stopped to eat a jar of caviar. "Please go," said the restaurant owner. "If you could just go away? Quietly? Just disappear, so to speak? I give you five dollars."

What a country! George found that he could not sleep on the grass in the park because of the police, but the park benches were free. Yet there were iron armrests every two feet along the benches. "How could I distribute myself under them? I tried one leg. Then the other. But when I was under, how could I turn around?" To passersby, George said, "How many clock?" They showed him the time. "Rapidly, if one applies oneself," George reflected, "one speaks the English."

"Don't Worry." Anything Can Happen is the record of George's 20 years in America. It is essentially a collection of anecdotes such as an immigrant returned to his homeland might tell to his wondering grandchildren. Few books have ever made the U.S. seem so exotic. The stories were written by Helen Papashvily, George's American-born wife, exactly as he told them, with his florid language and his owlish humor carefully preserved.

Helen now runs the Moby Dick Bookshop in Allentown, Pa. George was shingling the roof of their nearby farmhouse when Helen heard that the Book-of-the-Month Club had taken Anything Can Happen as one of its January choices. (Selection by the Book-of-the-Month Club usually means at least $30,000 for the author.) Helen was afraid to tell him, fearing he would fall off the roof. When they told an immigrant friend that the Book-of-the-Month Club had taken the book: "Don't worry," said the friend, "it's not worth it." '

"Book of the Month, a big club. . . ."

"Never mind, something better will turn up. ..."

Said George and Helen: "They give us money."

"All right, money; how much you need I send you, only don't worry."

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