Trafika Europe 7 - Ukrainian Prayer

Yuri Vynnychuk

strong. It was superfluous for him to demonstrate his strength; it was enough for him to come up when he saw that a fight was beginning and to gently snort and squint, then everything settled down immediately and everyone took off. Even older guys were cautious with him, but in his heart he was good-natured and wouldn’t even hurt a fly. It happened that he would pick up a little sparrow at which rowdies had aimed a catapult, puff at him, stroke him, and even bring himhome to be nursed. We repeatedly kept making fun of him, interested in asking whether he sobs when he sips chicken broth, because a chicken is no worse than a little sparrow, in response to which Wolf laughed and patted himself on the stomach, repeating that they are all here, all the chickens that he consumed, all here in his stomach, and there they are cozy, warm,

pharmacist and was in charge of medications for the army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, that’s why the neighbors called Mrs. Golda “Mrs. Doctor Lady,” and she was very proud of that fact, and when we wanted to cozy up to her, we also used to say, “Mrs. Doctor Lady,” and she didn’t rebuke us for our antics, but instead brought us the most delicious onion flat cake or salty ladyfingers with caraway seeds; even when we got into her washtub filled with clean sheets that she had just taken off the clothesline, and we were pretending we were sailing on a pirate ship, so she had to wash those sheets again. Wolfwasaheftyguy, twoyears older than me, too little that he was tall, but also fat, with such jowls that his ears were not visible, ruddiness played on them as on apples, but on the other hand he was really

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