2005 - A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka Page B

him.”
    “Exactly so.”
    There are quick footsteps on the stairs and Valentina bursts into the bedroom. She chides Stanislav for talking to me. “Stop talk this bad-news peeping no-tits crow.” She has forgotten that I speak Ukrainian, or she doesn’t care.
    “No matter, Valentina,” I say. “It’s you I want to talk to. Shall we go downstairs?”
    She follows me down into the kitchen. Stanislav comes down too, but Valentina sends him into the next room where Pappa is explaining at length to Mike about the comparative safety features of different braking systems, stubbornly avoiding reference to the specific problems of the Rover, while Mike is striving against the odds to steer the conversation in this direction.
    “Why you want for talk?” Valentina positions herself opposite me and a little too dose. Her lipstick is an angry red smudge around the edges of her mouth.
    “I think you know why, Valentina.”
    “Know? Why I know?”
    I had planned a rational discussion, a cool unfolding of logical arguments which would end up in a gracious admission of guilt on her part, a smiling, rueful acceptance that things would have to change. But all I feel is a burning, blinding rage and my arguments desert me. Blood beats in my head.
    “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” I have slipped into the mongrel language, half-English half-Ukrainian, fluent and snappy.
    “Ah-shamed! Ah-shamed!” she snorts. “You shame. No me shame. Why you no visit you mamma grave? Why you no crying, bringing flower? Why you making trouble here?”
    The thought of my mother lying neglected in the cold ground while this usurper lords it in her kitchen drives me to a new pitch of fury.
    “Don’t dare to talk about my mother. Don’t even say her name with your filthy-talking boil-in-the-baggage mouth!”
    “You mother die. Now you father marry me. You no like. You make trouble. I understand. I no stupid.”
    She speaks the mongrel language too. We snarl at each other like mongrels.
    “Valentina, why are you driving around in two cars, when my father doesn’t have enough money to pay for the repairs on one car? Why are you talking on the telephone to Ukraina while he’s asking me for money to pay the bills? You tell me!”
    “He give you money. Now you give him money,” the big red mouth taunts.
    “Why should my father pay for your cars? For your telephone bills? You have work. You earn money. You should contribute something to the household.” I have worked myself up into a lather of righteous anger, and the words come pouring out, some English, some Ukrainian, mixed up any old how.
    “You father buy me nothing!” She leans forward and shouts into my face so close that I can feel a fine shower of saliva on my skin. I can smell armpits and hair lacquer. “No car! No jewel! No clothes!” (She pronounces it in two syllables—cloth-es.) “No cosmetic! No undercloth-es!” She yanks up her t-shirt top to display those ferocious breasts bursting like twin warheads out of an underwired, ribbon-strapped, lycra-panelled, lace-trimmed green satin rocket-launcher of a bra.
    “I buy all! I work! I buy!”
    When it comes to bosoms, I have to admit defeat. I am lost for words. In the silence that fells, I hear my father’s voice in the next room, droning on. He is telling Mike the story about pencils in space. I have heard it many times before. So has Mike.
    “In early days of space travel, one interesting problem emerged from experiments with weightlessness. Americans found that for writing notes and keeping records, normal ink pen would not work without gravity feed. Scientists undertook intensive research, finally developed high-technology pen to work in conditions of no gravity. In Russia, scientists faced with same problem found different solution. Instead of pen, they used pencil. That is how Russians put pencils into space.”
    How can my father be so blind to what is happening to him?
    I turn on Valentina.
    “My father is an