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“Aha!” Efrosinia clapped her hands. “There you have it! Did you hear that, old man? Did you hear what he just said?” Pushing Kulik toward her husband, she breathed deeply. “What you say makes perfect sense, young man, and I agree with you totally. If something breaks, then it ought to get fixed. It’s as simple as that. If I say to the old man ‘Fix the sofa, it’s broken,’ he always says, ‘Aha, hm, well, um …’ And then he walks off into another room and shuts the door behind him. A hammer and a nail, a couple of bangs, and the problem would be solved!”

Valentyn, who usually paid little attention to his wife, suddenly pricked up his ears. “A hammer and nail? Hah! Old woman, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Do you think fixing a sofa is as simple as that? To do it properly takes time, you need a chisel, a drill, and some glue — and not just any ordinary glue, but good carpenter’s glue! Hammer and nail, hah!”

Efrosinia glared at him. Choice words were at the tip of her tongue and in another second, she would shower him with abuse. But by a stroke of luck, at that very moment Marusia entered the room, dragging two rather large chairs behind her. She seemed to be bored by the chore. Sergei hurried to help her. Her demeanor was cool and aloof, radiating a sort of frigid insolence. Although she greeted her cousin with real affection and even kissed him on the cheek, she seemed quite indifferent to Kulik. When she started back toward the kitchen, Sergei called out, “Marusia, don’t go! I would like to introduce you to my good friend, Ivan Kulik.”

A strained pause followed, and in an attempt to break the ice, Kulik said, “Marusia, finally I get to meet you. I’ve heard some very nice things about you.”

The girl smiled a little and blushed. “Oh, that Seryoza.” Marusia was always careful to use Sergei’s diminutive. “I don’t really deserve half the credit he gives me.”

“Well, perhaps you’re right, perhaps you don’t.” Kulik could not believe what had just come out of his mouth. Why was he being so rude and to someone he had just met? Shifting uncomfortably, for a brief moment he reproached himself for his insolence, but when he saw the haughty expression on her face, he decided to press on. “I believe the more beautiful a woman is the more dangerous she becomes.”

Marusia, though clearly annoyed at first by his words, burst suddenly into a fit of laughter, and cried, “Now I get it! Oh, now I understand you! I understand you perfectly! This is going to be great fun!”

Kulik raised his brows, puzzled. “I don’t get it. What’s so funny? Maybe you misunderstood what I said. It wasn’t meant as a joke.”

Efrosinia joined in her daughter’s laughter. She hastened to explain. “It’s not what you said, young man, that’s so funny, but how you said it. The truth of the matter is you are an aberration, a true aberration, and it’s all so unexpected. You look like a sophisticated city dweller, but when you open your mouth, you talk like a moujik. We all assumed you would go on in Russian, but what did you go and do? You spoke in Ukrainian.”

Then scrutinizing him more closely, she looked bewildered. “It’s strange, even though you speak in Ukrainian, somehow your words sound unusually smooth, they sound, rather, well, rather nice, even cultured. It’s almost as if you weren’t talking Ukrainian at all. Why, you could have almost been speaking Russian! You’re a very odd young man, and pardon my frankness, but a bit on the stubborn side.”

Kulik took a deep breath. He couldn’t hide his anger. “On the stubborn side?” he burst out. “Why? Because I speak Ukrainian and not Russian? Because I haven’t sold out to the occupiers the way you have? Is that what’s so funny?” Then, deliberately insulting her, “And you, Pani Bohdanovich, with your broken Russian, where do you come from? Moscow, perhaps?”

After he said this, he felt ashamed of himself for having lost his temper. But he did not apologize; he went on being sarcastic. “In what language do you propose I speak? German? Sehr gut, dann können wir deutsch sprechen.”

“You speak German?” Marusia’s eyes widened; she was completely taken aback. She had never before heard a moujik speak anything but Ukrainian. Now she decided this young man was worth further investigation. Who was he? And how strange that he spoke German, and so well! She tried to figure him out, but without much luck. He seemed, at least in a general way, amiable enough and well-disposed, and he wasn’t bad-looking either: she rather liked his deep-set gray eyes and his mop of thick black hair. But still there was an impudence about him that really irritated her. She sat on the edge of the sofa and looked quizzically at him.

“I know some German myself,” she said. “Why, just last year in school we studied German literature, you know, Nietzsche, Goethe, Anzangruber … It was most absorbing and stimulating. Later we studied French. Of course, Russian is absolutely the best …”

“Enough about language already!” Sergei stamped his foot. He had no intention of letting things get out of hand again. Trying to lighten the situation, he said, “About language, I’ve got the perfect solution. Why don’t we just start communicating in sign language?”

Everybody laughed, and the atmosphere became more friendly. They chatted into the late evening hours. Kulik spoke only Ukrainian, while Marusia went on in Russian, though poorly. Efrosinia spoke predominantly Russian, throwing in Ukrainian words and phrases and sometimes even Polish ones; Valentyn for the most part kept to Ukrainian, now and then using odd Russian expressions for added emphasis; Sergei too spoke only Ukrainian, and did not mix it with Russian or Polish, in both of which he was fluent.

When Efrosinia disappeared into the kitchen to put on tea and prepare a snack, Kulik turned to the girl, resolved to set her off again.

“May I call you Marika?”

“Marika?” She leaned back. The sofa let out a screech.

“Yes, Marika is a lovely name, more appealing than Marusia, wouldn’t you agree?”

Marusia stared at him. “I don’t agree with you at all,” she said. “Marika is not a nicer name than Marusia. In fact, I find it rather plain, too commonplace.” Then with her eyes narrowing, “Uh … what did you say your name was again, Ivan was it?”

“Yes, Ivan. Ivan Kulik.”

“Ivan?” The girl rolled her eyes and grimaced.

“Yes, it’s a very ordinary name, I agree, but there’s not much I can do about it.”

Marusia wanted to even the score. “Well, actually there is. Why don’t you use your Russian diminutive? Vanya. There, that sounds much better.”

Kulik gave her a harsh look. He felt like scolding her, but held himself back, and came at her from another angle. “I would say that your newly adopted language has somehow lost its power to form diminutives, Vanya included.”

As he spoke, he found it increasingly difficult to focus on what he was saying. Her mouth had an extraordinary fullness, and there was an unexpected tenderness in her eyes that affected him deeply. Still, he felt compelled to strike back at her. “The Russians take Ivan and make Vanya out of it, that’s the same as taking Maria and forming Marusia. In Ukrainian, which you’ve clearly denounced, everything has a natural order. Maria becomes Marika, Ivan becomes Ivasik, Vasil becomes Vasilik. We don’t take Ivan and transform it into Vanya, or Vladimir into Vova.”

The girl threw back her head and laughed. She found the point he was trying to make exaggerated and unreasonable. In the end it had no effect on her at all.

Busy in the kitchen, Efrosinia strained to listen to what the young people were saying. But her daughter went on too rapidly and excitedly, and Kulik spoke so softly, she had trouble catching even the slightest word. And, save for a few monosyllables here and there, it was as if Sergei wasn’t in the room at all.