Sin

I sometimes imagined that I was walking with him, and he was holding my little paw in his firm grip, it was dark but I wasn’t scared.

Yes, the goats wandered around, and bleated stupidly, and scratched their horns on the fences. Sometimes they ran towards you, lowering their stupid, wooden heads — at the last moment, hearing the clatter, you would turn around, and clumsily lifting your legs, you would throw back your white boyish head, cast a frightened sideways glance, and run, run run — but still you would get a not very painful, but very insulting butt, and tumble to the ground. After this, the goat would immediately lose interest in the fallen person, and run off, bleating.

The she goats were interested in the boys’ games. When they discovered you in the bushes, they would shudder, shake their heads, and complain to the billy goat: Someone’s ly-y-y-y-ing here! The billy goat pretended not to hear. Then the she goats would come closer. Their nostrils flared and their teeth were bared. E-e-e-i! they cried stupidly in your face.

There’s no wolf to get you… you would think, offended.

The nanny goats also wandered over to us in the empty lot, hearing the racket and the rich boyish laughter. Sometimes the laughter died down — when the boy who was It started to search — and the goats wandered around perplexed, looking for the person who had been making the noise. They found Sashka.

Sashka sat with his back to a tree, sometimes cawing in response to the crow which was startled by our games, and which had its nest not far away. He cawed skillfully and mockingly, which seemed to annoy the crow even more. Sashka’s cawing amused the boys, and they revealed themselves to the boy who was It by their laughter.

A nanny goat also took an interest in the “crow” sitting under the tree, and was immediately mounted and grabbed by the horns.

Sashka emerged from his hiding place on the goat’s back, pushing his heels off the ground, shouting “Keep away!” and whooping merrily.

It was getting dark and cold, and the boys didn’t want to continue the games anymore. They were already tired of hiding and, bored and cold in the dry grass by the gap in the fence, or on the cooling bricks of the new building, they slowly went home, to steamed milk, a tired mother and a slighty drunk father.

One of the Its, tired of looking for older boys, found me — right away, easily, barely after counting to one hundred, he went straight to my hiding place with an easy step.

“Go on,” he nodded casually.

And I started to look for the boys.

I wandered through the bushes, raising my thin legs high as the nettles lashed me, and white nettle welts appeared on my ankles, and the chill sent grainy goose bumps crawling like ants down my back.

I sniveled and noticed someone slowly climbing down a tree and calmly walking away as I approached — home, home… And I didn’t dare to shout.

“Hey, what’s with you, guys…” I whispered bitterly, as if I had been left alone on the frontline. “Hey, what’s with you…”

The crow fell silent, and the nanny goats were driven home.

I walked through the village, past the school with its sad yellow sides, shedding fine flakes of peeling plaster. The janitor was smoking by the school, and the tiny light flickered.

It flickered like a heart that was pumping blood for the last time.

The cigarette butt flew into the grass, flashing bright red.

I returned to the village shop, stumbling over stones on the dark road, already trembling and chattering with my remaining milk teeth. The white square on the door could not be made out.

“Keep away,” I said in a whisper and placed my palm to the place where the square had been.

“I’ve come home, Sasha.”

“I called you.”

“Sasha, I can’t stand this, share it with me.”

“No, Zakharka.”

At home, my mother washed me in a basin with warm, foamy water.

“We played hide and seek, Mama.”

“Did they find you?”

“No. Just once.”

Tea and yellow butter, cold as if it had been cut out of a patch of sunlight on the morning water. I’ll have another sandwich. And more milk in my tea.

“Mama, I want to tell you about the game.”

“Just a second, son.”

And another glass of tea. And three sugar cubes.

“Where are you going, Mama? I want to tell you now…”

But she’s gone.

Then I’ll build a house out of the sugar cubes.

Sashka’s parents thought that he had gone to stay with his grandma. His grandma thought that he had gone home to his parents. There were no telephones in the country back then, no one rang anyone.

He hid in a fridge — an empty freezing chamber that stood by the village shop. A battered cable led from the shop to the fridge.

The fridge didn’t open from the inside.

They looked for Sasha for two days, and his grandma came to me. I didn’t know what to say to her. The Chebryakovs were summoned to the police station.

Early Monday morning, Sashka was found by the school janitor.

The boy had pushed his arms and legs against the door of the fridge. Tears were frozen on his face. His square mouth, showing a bitten-through, icy tongue, was open.

In other words… Poems by Zakharka

* * *

In the treetops the dew
      is beating its wings,
the breathing greenery
      lowers its face,
the blackness of wet
      berries lightly drowses —
rains have rocked them
      to sleep in their cradle.

In the reflection through eyelids
      cracked open, half waking,
there was a mist; and the earth,
      and damp berries,
and the grass underfoot,
      pockmarked from cold,
caressed me, pretending
      to be the Homeland.

* * *

I’ve already lived more than once,
but I dare not live any longer.
Either sensual passion
or a foolish idea
to live it out hindered me
from gathering up the rest of the crumbs.
And sweet snow fondled
the roads of fir.

Forgive me, father, that
I had no desire
to catch with my hot mouth
the last breath.
The gift of fate, alas,
I did not preserve, or show it affection,
and did not hold life
by its slippery wrists.

Without lamentation or rage,
I fell to earth unripe.
The soul yet once more
easily said farewell to the body.
Speech cannot contain
the time and distance
from such short meetings
and frequent partings.

I’ve lived so often, that
I forgot places and dates.
And to recall all that
makes no sense here.
In the world wars
I didn’t manage to age —
I perished in two of them
And I will be there for the third.

* * *

As fingernails grow after death,
so my feeling for you,
with all the undernail dirt
when life’s time span runs out
will not stop its motion.