Trafika Europe 7 - Ukrainian Prayer

Tanya Maliarchuk

Because I’ve never loved anyone deeply. Perhaps I still might. I don’t know. But my ownstoriesaren’tparticularly striking. I don’t know why. It certainly depends on the way they’re told. Because you can tell them in one way that makes everyone begin to cry, and in another way that makes everyone laugh. The very same story. My grandmother always told me stories in a way that made me cry. She cried too. Both of us cried. That’s when I understood for the first time how nice it is to cry from hearing stories. My grandmother had a real talent for story telling. She certainlymust haveespecially suffered something so awful in her own skin that later she had something to tell. She remembered details very well. In fact I would cry from

the details. Grandmother once asked me: “Do you know what birch kasha is?” “No I don’t. What is it?” “It’s when you’re beaten with thin birch switches. They whipped me one time, but I remembered the taste of birch kasha my entire life.” “And what does it taste like?” “Salty. And slightly bitter. Because the birch itself has a bitter taste when you lick it.” Grandmother had to take care of her step-mother’s small child, and that child fell from the shelf atop the stove to the floor. Grandmother ran away into the woods because she feared that her step-mother would beat her. Her step- mother would always give an extremely painful whupping. Grandmother left the child lying on the floor and ran

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