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Tango of Death
to pass through life as a
simple school teacher. This
became a kind of obligatory
ritual to tear him away from
his work and to send him to
the store for bread, carry out
the trash, fill up the water in
a portable cistern when the
water pipes would be turned
off, awaken him before dawn
so he can occupy a place in
line for milk, ringed sausage,
cheese, sugar, and flour – it
made no difference; it was
just he who was made to run
after everything when in the
1980s there was a shortage
of nearly everything, and
people turned into hunters
for goods, scurrying through
the city and saving his place
in several different lines at
the same time so that in each
of them he would manage to
buy a kilo of sugar or a packet
of laundry powder, because
they wouldn’t give each
person more than one, and
he also had to keep vigil over
the bookstores, where once a
week they used to deliver new
books; only a limited circle of
people received information
about that, so for at least an
hour before the bookstore
would open up after the
“delivery of goods,” he would
occupy a place in line, and
then dash into the place at
the head of the crowd and
be the first to grab a Kafka,
Camus, Akutagava, Cortazar,
Marquez, Borges, and their
number was endless. For
the sake of his sacred goal,
Yarosh even started up a
platonic love affair with one
of the bookshop girls; he
wasn’t able to do anything
more because she was one
of those spinsters, who, as
a result of years spent in
loneliness in their everyday
life, they become intolerable,
capricious,
and
boring.
Inviting her out for coffee,
Yarosh was forced to listen
to her expound on her life
motto, an entire heap of
those cunning prescriptions,