Baba Dunja's Last Love Read Online Free Page B

asks.
    His skin is so translucent that I wonder if perhaps he has become a ghost after all.
    â€œYou need to eat something,” I say. “Otherwise you won’t have any strength.”
    He sniffs the bowl.
    â€œYour fat friend’s old rooster?”
    He sure shoots his mouth off for someone so translucent.
    â€œThat’s why it’s finally quiet,” he says, sniffing the soup again.
    â€œEat.”
    â€œThat stuff will kill you. Salt, fat, animal protein.”
    I’m a peaceful person, but I’m slowly developing an urge to dump the soup down his front.
    He seats himself on the bench in front of the house and polishes my spoon with his shirt.
    â€œI like you, Baba Dunja,” he says. The spoon shakes in his hand. He probably hasn’t eaten in days.
    â€œCome over whenever you are hungry,” I say. “I always cook fresh.”
    â€œI may be an asshole but I’m no freeloader.”
    â€œYou can thank me by repairing my shutters.”
    â€œLook what I found,” he says conspiratorially, reaching behind his back.
    I have to push my glasses up to the top of my head in order to make it out. A pale blue packet of Belomor cigarettes, dented, with the letters on the label running together.
    â€œWhere did you get that?”
    â€œFound it behind the couch.”
    â€œLooks empty.”
    â€œThere are three left.”
    He holds the packet out to me. I pull out a bent stalk. He pulls out another and clamps it between his teeth. Then he gives me a light. The smoke burns in my throat.
    â€œYou’re no freeloader,” I say. “You are a generous man, you share your last cigarette with me.”
    â€œI’m already regretting it.” He sucks on his greedily, the same way he just spooned up the soup. “I’m no gentleman.”
    My cigarette goes out with a fizzle. Either I did something wrong or it is old and damp. Petrow pulls it out of my mouth and lays it carefully on the bench next to him.
    â€œNow I have a bellyache,” he says. “My stomach is full of dead old rooster. That soup will be the death of me.”
    I pluck a large leaf from the fat thistle that is trying to pry Petrow’s house out of the ground with its roots and wipe the bowl with the leaf. I can’t remember the last time I smoked.
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    My sight has deteriorated but I still hear perfectly. Which certainly also has something to do with the fact that there’s little noise in the village. The whir of the electrical transformer hums in my ears as steadily as the buzz of bumblebees or the song of the cicadas. Even here the summer is a rather loud time. In winter it’s stiller than still. When there’s a blanket of snow on everything, even your dreams are muted, and only the bullfinches hopping through the undergrowth provide any color in the white landscape.
    I don’t worry about what could happen if one day we no longer have electricity. I have my kerosene cartridges, and there are candles and matches in every house. We are tolerated, but none of us believes that the government would come to our aid if we used up all the resources. That’s why we think in terms of self-sufficiency. Petrow has taken to using the neighboring house to heat his own during the winter. There’s enough wood.
    The biologist told me that not only do the spiders weave different webs here, the cicadas also make a different sound. I could have told him that, anyone with ears can hear it. The biologist doesn’t know why, though. He recorded their songs with his machines and listened to them with a notepad and a stopwatch. He took more than a dozen cicadas to his university in a see-through box with holes in it. He promised to let me know if he figured it out. I’ve never heard from him.
    We are not easily reached in Tschernowo. Actually completely unreachable, particularly if one doesn’t wish to be reached. We have postboxes in Malyschi. Whenever