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Sweet Darusya
“I’ll go checks with the wife if
she be lettin’ me.”
“Mine fer sure’ll say: ‘I’m not
gonna let you.’ Hows about
yers – will she let you?”
“Mine might even let me, if
it’s not for a long time.”
“Do you hear,
gazda
, how
does yer girl give you a sign
she can get away from her
husband?”
“She hangs a mirror in the
pear tree in the sun.”
“And when there’s no sun?”
“She hangs a scarecrow to
chase away the crows.”
And that’s the way two tipsy
gazdas
call to each other
across the river – so you can
hear it in two villages. But no,
it’s not just two villages – but
two countries apart where
you can hear it.
On both sides the Romanian
gendarmes and the Polish
soldiers scratch themselves
and don’t rush to drive away
the
gazdas
willing to chat with
each other. Maybe they’re
thinking of their own lovers
and girlfriends? But before
they remember that one
of the
gazdas
should speak
in Polish, and the other in
Romanian, the
gazdas
, look,
have already disappeared
among the houses like smoke.
Either to their wives, or their
lovers… all the same to their
women....”
*
Since the time last fall when
the Soviets arrived in Galicia,
a few people fromMykhailo’s
village escaped to the other
side. Why? For what reason?
What came out of that escape
– God only knows. Not a word
was heard from them, not