She knew nothing about me. But she said, putting me out of countenance – me, the fool of seventeen, who had no, shall we say, no personal experience, – she said (in his presence!): “You’re heading to the North, it’s so cold there, dress warmly, do not forget, put on warm leggings, not to catch a cold (otherwise how will you give birth, you idiot?).
She knew nothing about me. But she washed my dirty roll-neck when I was sleeping on a couch in her bedroom, and before that she broke into the place where her son, excited by Southern drinks and Southern music, was dancing with me, excited by what is happening, and was touching me in my pink roll-neck – the same roll-neck which she washed later.
She knew nothing about me. But she sent a package in my name, to our student hostel, there was some jam in a plastic bag and some home-made cookies, the round, sweet, delicious cookies, and later we saw each other, finally, when I was meeting him at Sheremetyevo airport, when I was running and asking everybody: “Has arrived the flight from Kabul?”
She knew nothing about me. But I heard her voice coming out in a hurry from a magnetic tape, a record, a kind of a sound letter, I heard those sobs: “Bacheyam… Bacheyam…”, and then I heard Little Gulalay’s merry voice: “Mamajan, mamajan! Che waqt meyayi? (Well, dear Uncle. when will you come?)”, and the rest is connected to Little Gulalay.
She knew nothing about me. But she was the first and also the last, of whom her son had said: “Do call her Mom!” , he who wanted to buy her a flat in forgiveness, who spoke of his father in jail, of his stepfather and brothers, and she was the first and the last to ask about myself, who are my ancestors, my parents, my uncle, because she was a Kazakh, because she was able to call me her daughter.
She knew nothing about me. But wisely she thought me to be a Kafir, in our words, a Gyaur, but he had showed her our glossy photo with my face so romantic, with her son so close to me, so gentle and solemn, and full of proud hopes, and in a beautiful jacket, and she made it up with his stupid idea: the girl, they say, is quiet and faithful, and that farthest folk, whatever its name is, like ... well, my son says, they are Sunnis.
She knew nothing about me. But she lived with me more than ten years, and we argued about the little things, where should a broom be placed and where a rag, and why so many children and not one, and how can reading a newspaper be considered work, and is one to iron the sheets or not, and how to brew tea and boil eggs, and so on, but it turned out that she is nearer, dearer than her son, and that means: he is not here, but she is, the grandmother of her grandchildren.
She knew nothing about me. But she would call my boy: Sandrino! She would write to him every week, they were very close, the mother and the son, and she was famous by her beauty, and by Gypsy blood, and her Moldovian blood, or perhaps Romanian, and she said, when he was heading to my place, after so many years, she said: “ O Sandrino, Sandrino, what are you doing. Do not confuse the girl, do not bewilder”.
She knew nothing about me. But so sweetly, from the bottom of her heart, she said:
- Fuck you! ...
2000
Ðóññêèé òåêñò: http://www.proza.ru/2011/04/11/980
Translated by my niece Darya Jandossova-Bowlin, in 2015.