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Sweet Darusya
“Eh-h-h, my dear friend…
It’d be nothing if a boy had
been born. But it’s a girl…
and during the day no less, in
the afternoon… No one has
seen that child, maybe she’s
a cripple… have you heard
of such a thing that a man
chops off a child’s umbilical
cord, when half the village
here can chop one off? He
didn’t call Fulyachka… or the
neighbor Marika, and Maria
herself recently for the first
time has had a child delivered,
and knows all that business
well… A woman birthing the
first time – is no heifer that’s
calving for the first time… and
gazdas really need to watch,
and here you have a tiny bit
of a woman….
“As long as it’s for the good,
sweetie, everything… for the
good… otherwise the child
can possibly be mute.”
“May your tongue break
out in boils, Stefka, you’re
prophesizing such poppycock!
Why would the child have to
be mute when the mother
and father speak?!”
“That’s because a married
woman can’t conceal her
bigness with seed. Pregnancy
for a married gazda woman,
that’s not a disgrace. But
Matronka hid her pregnancy
right up to the birthing.”
“You’re saying stupid things,
Paraska! Stupid! What, in
front of the village she needed
to bare her womb, so that a
dumb shithead would know
that they’ve finally made a
child?!”
“Stupid – or not, but that’s
how my dead mother taught
me, God grant her the
heavenly kingdom.”
*
…Did someone really cast