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Two Tales
years she told me the stories
with the smallest details
and particulars. I know her
life by heart. Perhaps that’s
why I don’t pay attention to
my own. At times it seems
I’m not living for myself, but
just for my grandmother –
so she’d have someone to
tell everything to, and so
that that someone would tell
those stories to other people.
Grandmother is quite at fault
in my eyes. She deprived me
of any desire to live my own
stories, she didn’t give me
the opportunity to become
an independent individual,
or anybody.
And the worst of it was, that
grandmother never loved
anyone. Perhaps because
she was hungry her entire
life. But no one. At all. Not
men, not her own children,
not even me, though I always
listened to her politely. No
one. Not even herself. Now
in retrospect I think that
during her childhood days
the demon of hunger settled
in her. I don’t know if such
things exist at all, but that’s
what I think.
When
suddenly
there
wasn’t anything at home
to eat, grandmother would
become enraged. She might
even hit me. Her eyes
became enraged – cruel and
estranged. She could chew
through someone’s neck
for a piece of bread. She
fastidiously brushed up the
crumbs from the table and
then forced me to eat them.
She always cooked a great
amount and with a lot of fat.
The fat would float in the pot
in a thick ball, so I couldn’t
even look at the soup. Lard
was her favorite food. She
kept the lard in a cupboard in
half-liter jars. There seemed
to be an endless number of
those jars in the cupboard.