Translated by Tatiana Retivov

 

 

***

 

who raised you to behave not to differ not to rebel what else do girls exist for

if not to be liked otherwise what is the point

an acquaintance used to say that’s okay smart men like smart women

though he did not see any other point anyway in principle he wanted a child

he came from the provinces to work as a deputy editor of a glossy zine about floriculture

his wife and he divorced she demanded he give her a fur coat these were the aughts

 

he was supposed to replace the woman editor-in-chief but he said that somehow it

wasn’t fair though I tried to persuade him that it was as then I thought having a career was the most important thing in principle he wanted a child though I don’t know how earnestly a certain

famous poetess would visit him just to stay for a few days and he thought that they would have

an affair and his feelings were hurt he said she deceived him

 

he offered to have a child with me as well but I did not want to have kids plus I had never seen him in person and then we somehow quit socializing

perhaps he quit seeing the point of anything at all though he still keeps writing poetry

another acquaintance suggested that I go to a bar and pick someone up well what’s the problem in going to pick up some guy while that other acquaintance said that this acquaintance was nuts

and that he could go pick up some woman at a bar himself but can’t because it disgusts him

 

now I am older than he was when he wrote me all this in ICQ

but no one thought that a woman had a function other than that of a childbearing shoulder to cry on of an aesthetic object

it’s funny to say how proud I was of my ability to listen

how I tried to convince myself that I need to be convenient

and then the demons rose to the surface and I was inconvenient for myself first of all and now I need to find a new point in life

 

 

now I am older than he was when he wrote me all this in ICQ

but no one thought that a woman had a function other than that of a childbearing shoulder to cry on of an aesthetic object

it’s funny to say how proud I was of my ability to listen

how I tried to convince myself that I need to be convenient

and then the demons rose to the surface and I was inconvenient for myself first of all and now I need to find a new point in life

 

 

***

 

 

I don’t remember exactly when I turned into a robot

probably in school from chronic lack of sleep and algebra that I don’t understand and the ropes that I couldn’t climb

the boys’ toxic jokes that I trained myself not to hear

 

Or the Troyeshchina bazaar where you need to keep your eyes open otherwise your wallet might get stolen the pavement never cleared of iced snow the trolley filled to the brim during rush hour there is no room here for sensitivity

clearly we are not in the Germany of young Werther

in the vastness of the CIS life is different only on television

as I said to my mom, I must have entered a restaurant from the “Kept Woman” series because they carded me at the entrance

then the hostess asked me if someone was waiting for me? I answered no and she said oh you just came to have dinner

 

I don’t remember exactly when I turned into a robot

I got used to sleeping for three hours and working the rest of the time

my free time was only when I was on public transportation of waiting for it in line that is when I read books

life was others as well as hell I don’t remember when

during the endless traffic congestion and the translations in which I saw little sense plus they paid barely a dime

I trained myself not to think about anything because if one begins to think it becomes scary

if one begins to think about the world it too becomes scary

I don’t remember when

 

***

I had a colleague who claimed that he was a polyglot

translated from many languages like Finnish or Hungarian for example though in truth

clients complained that something was not quite right and a safety deposit box was not the same as a honeycomb

he also wished that the Ukrainian language would switch to the Latin alphabet

but actually he believed that his true calling was to become a composer

he believed that our conservatory could not do him any good

my mom said that her nephew had a friend musician who also believed that our

conservatory would only cause harm

in the end he was just taken by drink

 

but my colleague decided to go to Czechia

to find a sponsor and go study in Czechia

in the meantime he rented a place in Vishnevo

my mom asks how is it that he was raised with such faith in

himself with the assurance that he could do anything

I don’t know I answered his mother is an artist and supposedly is somewhere in Hungary

he never knew his father

his grandparents in Mukachevo had total control over him as he said which is why he

went to Kyiv

 

my mom says no matter how you raise them later it will turn out to have been wrong

well in Mukachevo he was alone with the starry sky and so he probably thought he

was the center of the Universe

I replied it’s the other way around as it seems that the starry sky is something unknowable and puts pressure on you while in the city it’s not like that

but whether or not he became a composer is unclear there is nothing in the internet about him and when he came to Kyiv he always asked are you still translating?

we were sitting in a room with another colleague who had actually moved into the office and in the mornings he would wash in the sink

 

I would go to the Passage and other shopping centers to look at expensive clothes

just like that since one needs to walk to stretch one’s legs and plus it’s entertaining

we were told never to go out for lunch in case there is an urgent request as companies

don’t have lunches

our editor said why all of this if one has to skip lunch

plus we had a colleague who had epilepsy and he went out to lunch and had a fight with his boss

and she threw him down the stairs

after that he went to work in a perfume shop and he said that this was his true calling and he had found himself