fulfilling his marital duties.
âYou should have thought about that,â I say mercilessly. He blinks. He could almost make you feel bad, but old men who seek younger women should consider in advance what they are getting themselves into.
âI wanted it to be you,â spills out of him, but I donât want to talk about it, it seems rude to Marja.
He leaves, his back more hunched than usual. I bet his rabbit heart is galloping wildly.
Next, surprisingly, comes Mrs. Gavrilow. She sits down on my chair and says she has heard something. Her way of beating around the bush gets me worked up.
âYou heard right,â I say. âWe will soon celebrate a wedding here in Tschernowo.â
âBut isnât it somehow immoral?â
âThe engaged parties are both of age.â
âThe question of age is exactly what I wanted to get at.â
âThe law doesnât bar anyone from marrying after they reach a certain age.â
âBut where will they live?â
âWhy are you asking me, Lydia Iljinitschna? Iâm not the mother-in-law. The engaged couple has plenty of square meters of space at their disposal.â
Suddenly Mrs. Gavrilow roars with laughter, and the tension in her face dissipates.
âAch, itâs fine with me. At least sheâll be out of the way.
I look at her. Marjaâs strange words about being raped by Gavrilow come back to me. Marja is not a woman who places any value in being handled delicately. And Mrs. Gavrilow is anything but stupid. Perhaps she can even speak German.
âGod help him,â she says, with schadenfreude in her smile.
A little later Petrow comes by and, before he even enters the house, recites a love poem. And then another. By the third Iâve had enough.
âWhat do you want?â
âWeâre going to celebrate a wedding, and if things keep going like this we will soon hear the patter of tiny feet.â
âThen the sky really would fall.â
âIsnât it all wonderful, Baba Dunja?â
I answer with a look that makes him cringe. Iâm not sure which of his moods bothers me more.
âOkay,â he says. âYou donât think itâs wonderful. Youâre jealous.â
âNot me,â I say. âBut some here in Tschernowo will be able to sleep better as a result.â
Petrow has to sit down as his strength is waning. The skin of his face is waxy and clings to his skull. It looks as if it might rip if Petrow were to smile too broadly.
âYou need to eat something,â I say. âOtherwise youâll lose your strength too quickly.â
âApparently, thereâs someone in India who subsists on sunrays.â
Petrow stands up. He takes a few steps and then falls onto my bed. Iâm actually not thrilled that my bed is now communal property that anyone who happens to stop by feels free to sit on without asking. But if I shoo him off it heâll fall flat on the floor. Theyâve already removed quite a few of his organs; itâs a wonder that heâs still able to be such a bother.
âIâm sure Iâll cry at the wedding,â he calls from my bed as I leave my house. âI get more sentimental every day, have you noticed?â
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What I would never trade for running water and a telephone in Tschernowo is the matter of time. Here there is no time. There are no deadlines and no appointments. In essence, our daily routine is a sort of game. We are reenacting what people normally do. Nobody expects anything of us. We donât have to get up in the morning or go to bed at night. For all anyone cares, we could do it the other way around. We imitate daily life the same way children do with dolls, or when theyâre playing store.
At times we forget that there is another world where the clocks move faster and everyone is plagued by horrible fear of the earth that feeds us. This fear is deeply rooted in the other people, and
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