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one who helped the whole Barrack. Not vice versa. Because
she had cards.
“Crush my soul, destroy it! Wreck my soul, wreck it, you
viper’s offspring! Destroy the purity of my heart, destroy it,
you dog-faced monsters!” Madalina whispered and crossed
herself several times, after she had lied like a horse. It’s no
honor for a horse, nor for a human being, and the cards
have to be asked for forgiveness for the lies, not for the sake
of the sack of flour, the bag of sugar, and bread but for the
sake of the people of the Barrack. Ciganka Moldovanka was
ready to sin a hundred times more and to be boiled in hell’s
deepest kettle. That’s what she said, when Laura was
allowed to look on, but when fortunes were told for real,
then she couldn’t be there.
Back at Lejasupītes farmhouse Manya has tired of the game,
and besides – she has to go and check out where her old
man has gone. Maybe again dragged himself off to Fredis to
get rid of his hangover. Can’t hear him sharpening a scythe
any more, nor mowing the grass.
Vot
, the bastard, she says.
Manya knows quite well how to speak in Latvian.
Dusya doesn’t have an old man and she doesn’t know
Latvian, the
semushkas
– sunflower seeds are finished and
along with them, finished is her interest in life. The
semushkas
are a passion with her, an obsession, and
because of them Dusya will have to go to the kolkhoz’s
granary to show her tits. For this the White Negro will give